A Hundred Thousand Dragons (7 page)

Jack drew to a halt on the road and Ashley climbed out to open the gate.

He paused, a hand on the latch, looking at the grass verge. ‘Haldean,' he called. ‘Come and see this.'

Jack switched off the engine and joined him. In the muddy fringe separating the grass verge and the driveway was a clearly marked tyre-track.

‘It's a diamond-pattern,' said Jack in astonishment. ‘It's just like the one in the Hammer Valley. What the dickens is it doing here?' He stopped, suddenly cautious. ‘I suppose it is the same, is it? After all, there must be lots of cars with those tyres.'

‘I can check that easily enough,' said Ashley. He went back to the Spyker and, bringing the plaster cast he had made in the Hammer Valley, placed it in the tread-mark. It fitted perfectly.

The two men looked at each other. ‘I don't understand this,' said Ashley. ‘That's the car which was in the Hammer Valley, right enough. I wouldn't be surprised to find a tyre track from Mr Vaughan's Roll-Royce, but that's not the Rolls, it's the other car, the car which dropped oil.'

‘And the car with the man and woman in it,' said Jack quietly.

Ashley pushed his hat back. ‘So they weren't casual sightseers, after all. This can't be a coincidence.' He straightened up and looked at the white-walled house. ‘I wonder what Mr Vaughan knows about them?'

‘I wonder if Mr Vaughan will be willing to tell us,' said Jack. ‘Hang on a minute. Let's see if the car came into the driveway, shall we?'

He opened the gate and, hoping they wouldn't be seen by anyone in the house, walked down the drive, examining the ground. ‘There don't seem to be any tracks,' said Jack in a low voice. He stopped and looked at the front of the house. If the car wasn't going into the garage, the obvious place to park was the space between the trees and the wall of the outbuilding. It was where he had intended to leave the Spyker. The gravel was disturbed but there were no clear tracks. They retraced their footsteps to the gate.

Jack paused with his hand on the car door. ‘Let's scout around,' he said. ‘If that car didn't drive up to the house, I wonder where it did go?' They walked back up the road, their eyes fixed on the ground.

‘Here it is!' said Ashley in excitement. There was a muddy tree-sheltered verge with ample space for a car to park away from the road. There, clearly imprinted in the mud, were tracks from a set of diamond-patterned tyres.

Jack crouched down and touched a rainbow smudge on the ground. ‘Oil,' he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘I've struck oil.'

‘And I've found the woman,' said Ashley, pointing to a slender, heeled footprint. He gave a low whistle. ‘By jingo, this needs some explaining. I need to take a cast of these prints.'

While the plaster of Paris was setting, they walked back up to the Spyker and sat in the car. Jack took out his cigarette case and offered it to Ashley. ‘Let's see what we know before we go into the house,' he said, striking a match. ‘In the first place, I'm convinced that the accident wasn't genuine.'

‘Because you didn't hear a car before the explosion,' agreed Ashley.

Jack nodded. ‘Yes, that's it. I was speaking to Vaughan and – bang! There was a terrific explosion and a sheet of flame. So far, so good. Now, earlier in the evening, Vaughan reported his Rolls had been stolen.'

‘And at quarter to six Constable Marsh stopped a Rolls – I'll eat my hat if it's not Vaughan's Rolls with the number plates being so similar – on the Haverly Road. All Marsh could really tell us was that the nearside headlight was damaged and that the motorist had a cheerful manner, a full brown beard and a rug on the back seat.'

‘That's part one, so to speak,' said Jack, drawing on his cigarette. ‘Those are all observed or reported events. What we're meant to think is that some poor beggar swiped Vaughan's Rolls-Royce, piled it into a tree in the Hammer Valley and died in the fire.'

‘And what do you think actually happened?' asked Ashley.

Jack paused to arrange his thoughts. ‘I think there was a murder,' he said eventually. ‘I think the murderer concealed the body under a rug and drove to the Hammer Valley. I think the murderer positioned the car against a tree and subsequently set fire to it.'

‘And do you,' said Ashley, with a deep breath, ‘think Vaughan was the murderer?'

‘You're getting very daring in your assumptions in your old age,' said Jack appreciatively. ‘Let's say it is Vaughan. The fact that Constable Marsh didn't recognize him is neither here or there.'

‘Too right,' agreed Ashley.

‘It could be Vaughan. A cheerful manner, even with a corpse cluttering up the car, is easy enough to assume, and I know Vaughan has a false beard in his possession. You should have seen him at the party last night, Ashley. His chin was like an exploding mattress.' Despite himself, Ashley smiled. ‘And, if you have used your car to transport illicitly acquired mortal remains, it's only common sense to report it as stolen. Let's say that's what happened. After his encounter with Constable Marsh, Vaughan arranges the corpse and the car neatly against a convenient tree and tootles back home.'

Ashley choked on his cigarette. ‘That's where the other car comes in! The diamond-tyred car, I mean. Vaughan abandons the Rolls and gets driven back here by the diamond car.'

Jack's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if you're right.'

Ashley clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘Hang on, it won't work. Vaughan was talking to you when the damn Rolls blew up.'

Jack grinned. ‘It'd work well enough if he had a fuse of some sort. Let me take you back to last night. I was on the terrace, as I said, and I seemed to be completely alone. Then Vaughan popped up like the demon king. Naturally, I assumed that he'd come on to the terrace through the French windows, but he could have come up the steps from the valley just as easily. We had about ten seconds' worth of conversation and then the car blew up.'

‘A fuse?' queried Ashley doubtfully. ‘Where would he get his hands on a fuse?'

Jack shook his head. ‘Don't be so literal. A fuse merely conveys a spark from one place to another. A line of petrol would do it. You'd have to set fire to it right away, otherwise it'd evaporate, but there'd be nothing to stop Vaughan going down to the Rolls from the terrace, taking a can of petrol from the car and laying a trail back to the house. Then, standing on the steps and sheltered by the overhang of the terrace, he simply strikes a match, nips back up top, has a word with any passing guests he happens to see –'

‘Such as your good self.'

‘– such as my good self, and is there to evince surprise, alarm and horror when the sky falls in.' Jack tapped the ash off his cigarette. ‘So yes, Ashley, it looks as if Vaughan could very well have done it.'

‘We're going too fast,' said Ashley, suddenly doubtful. ‘Mr Vaughan didn't say much on the phone when I rang him but he did say that the theft wasn't straightforward. He hummed and hawed a bit and said he'd explain it fully when I arrived. There could be a whole raft of things we don't know.' He glanced at his watch. ‘That plaster should have set by now. I'll lift the casts and open the gate for you.'

‘Right-oh,' agreed Jack. He started the engine as Ashley climbed out. ‘By the way, don't be surprised if I have a sudden lapse of memory about last night. You see, if he says positively he did hear a car engine, I know he's telling bouncers.'

He parked the Spyker in the space in front of the outbuildings and, after stowing the plaster casts in the car, rang the bell.

The door was opened by the butler, a burly, middle-aged man. ‘Mr Vaughan, gentlemen? I'll tell him you've arrived. He asked me to show you into the study. He'll be with you shortly.'

The butler led the way through a hall adorned with various heads of animals mounted on wooden plaques. He paused and coughed deprecatingly before he opened the door, looking at Ashley. ‘Excuse me, sir, I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, but my son's in the force.' Ashley looked at the butler with interest. ‘His name's Oxley, sir. Sergeant Robert Oxley.'

‘Robert Oxley?' said Ashley warmly. ‘He's in London now, isn't he? He's a very able officer. You can be proud of him.'

‘We're very proud of him, both me and my wife,' said the butler, obviously gratified by Ashley's response. ‘My wife's Mr Vaughan's housekeeper. Robert's mentioned you a few times, sir.' He opened the door to the study and showed them in. ‘I'll just tell Mr Vaughan you're here, gentlemen.'

‘That could be useful,' said Ashley, as the door closed behind the butler. ‘That he's Bob Oxley's father, I mean. It can be an uphill struggle at times, getting information out of the servants, but I won't have any trouble.' He looked round the study in appreciation. ‘There are some interesting things in here.'

The study was a spacious and comfortably cluttered room lit by French windows looking out on to the gardens. There were buttoned-down leather chairs, a desk, a large bookcase, shelves of pottery, various silver cups and, in a corner of the room, a substantial safe. An oar, bearing names and the date 1889, was hung on the wall over a framed photograph of a group of fresh-faced young men in boating costume. Photographs of some of the remote and high places of the world bore testament to Vaughan's love of the outdoor life. The tiger-skin rug which lay, its teeth bared, in front of the fireplace, was presumably the same animal that appeared in a large photograph on the back wall. Vaughan stood with one foot negligently on the tiger's shoulder, rifle in his hand.

‘He gets out and about, this chap, doesn't he?' said Ashley, gazing at the photographs with respect. He looked at the far wall, which was completely filled with books. ‘Is he a scholar as well, I wonder?'

‘According to old Lady Stuckley, he digs up dead bodies.' Jack grinned at Ashley's bewildered expression. ‘She said as much last night. Apparently Vaughan's an archaeologist.'

Ashley's face cleared. ‘I see. Tutankhamen, and so on.' He looked at the pottery with interest, picking up a small terracotta dish. ‘It's like a museum in here. Is this a lamp?'

‘It looks like a Roman lamp. It's probably about two thousand years old, maybe more.'

Ashley hastily replaced it on the shelf and continued to look round the room, pausing before the fireplace. A striking coloured print of an ancient temple carved out of red stone bathed in brilliant sunlight hung over the mantelpiece. ‘
Petra – The Treasury by David Roberts,
' he read. ‘Is that the place in the poem? You know,
The rose-red city of Petra, half as old as time?
I like the way the sun brings out the colours in the rock.' Jack seemed oddly reluctant to comment. ‘Haldean?'

‘It's not bad,' he said eventually.

Ashley looked at him in mild surprise. In his experience, Haldean could usually talk the hind leg off a donkey about art. ‘What's the matter?'

Jack made an obvious effort. ‘Nothing.' He took a deep breath. ‘It's a good picture but it's not the most dramatic angle. If I was painting it, I'd show how it looks when you first see it. There's a narrow passage through a cleft in the rocks that must run for a mile or more before opening out in front of the building in the picture. It's a stunning sight.'

Ashley's surprise increased. ‘Have you been there?'

‘I was there in the war,' said Jack. ‘I was stationed at Ismailia on the Suez Canal. Most people know the poem about the rose-red city,' he said, turning away and idly flicking his finger along the spines of the books, ‘but there's just about every shade of red except rose. Rose makes it sound pretty. It's not. It's a harsh, twisted sort of landscape.'

Ashley could virtually hear the full stop at the end of the sentence.

‘D'you know,' continued Jack, ‘Vaughan must have damn nearly everything ever written about the archaeology of Arabia.' He took a book from the shelf. ‘Vaughan wrote this.
An account of the excavations in Petra in 1897-98, with some notes on the origins of the Nabateans
. Published by Wheeler and Street, 1900. I think Mr Vaughan might be a better archaeologist than Lady Stuckley gave him credit for.'

‘Perhaps,' said Ashley. ‘I'm surprised you've never mentioned you've been there.'

‘It was a very brief visit.' Jack replaced the book back on the shelf.

Ashley waited for a moment, shrugged and wandered round the room once more, stopping in front of an unframed, mounted watercolour propped up on a raised reading-stand. It showed an ancient temple, its white stone dazzling in the sun, set against a background of towering red cliffs. On either side of the temple, stretching out in two curved arms, more buildings were carved out of the rock. ‘Is this Petra?'

Jack picked up the picture and frowned. ‘I don't think so,' he said after a little while. ‘I don't recognize it.'

‘It's an original,' said Ashley. ‘Who painted it?'

Jack read the signature on the bottom. ‘Someone signing themselves I.E. Simes, R.A. R.A. means Royal Academy, I suppose.'

The door opened and Vaughan came into the room. He stopped as he saw the painting in Jack's hands. ‘Good morning, gentlemen.'

‘Good morning, sir,' replied Jack. He replaced the picture on the stand. ‘We were trying to place the temple in this picture.'

Vaughan gave a short laugh. ‘I'd like to know, too. I hope to find out shortly. I'm sorry to keep you waiting but I was down at the boathouse. Now that spring's well and truly here, I wanted to get a couple of the boats caulked and varnished, but it's a messy job. I had to change before I came into the house. Do take a seat, gentlemen.'