Depths of Deceit (9 page)

Some minutes later the proceedings came to a close. There was another tremendous round of clapping, and the audience dispersed. Box and Knollys came down from the gallery, and approached the lecture bench, where Professor Ainsworth was busy packing his notes away into a briefcase.

‘Ah! It’s my perceptive friend from upstairs!’ cried Ainsworth. ‘I hope you enjoyed the lecture? It makes such a difference to have an intelligent audience, like the one we had tonight.’

‘Sir,’ said Box, ‘I am Detective Inspector Box of Scotland Yard, the officer who is investigating the murder in the Clerkenwell Mithraeum, and a similar murder in Carshalton. I hoped that I could have a few quiet words with you—’

‘Box! Of course! I thought I recognized you, Inspector. Your picture is often in the public prints. Yes, I’m more than willing to speak to you. I’ve been in Scotland, you know, and I had this lecture to deliver as soon as I returned to London. I’ve felt a bit guilty about that – about not contacting the police, I mean. Do you want me to visit you at Scotland Yard?’

‘Well, sir—’

‘No, better still: why don’t you come down to visit me at Ardleigh Manor, my home in Epsom? You could come out for a morning, or a whole day, if you like, and we can discuss whatever topics you like at our leisure. You’re very welcome to stay to
luncheon. I’m sure you’d prefer that, Inspector, to interviewing me in your office. Is that your sergeant with you? Bring him too. Wait a bit, though – I know you, don’t I, Sergeant? Now, where have I seen you before? Why, yes! You’re Jack Knollys, who played wing three-quarter for the Croydon Ephesians against Oxford at Blackheath last year.’

‘Why, sir, fancy you remembering that!’

‘I’m not likely to forget that match, Sergeant. I’ve never seen such a versatile dropper and punter as you on any field in London. I was a useful Rugby player myself in my youth, you know. Come down, both of you, on Wednesday. Any time will do. Can you manage that? Good. Then I shall look forward to seeing you then. I’m sure there’s a lot that we can tell each other.’

A few minutes later, Box and Knollys had emerged with the crowd from Exeter Hall, and were walking back along the Strand. It was dark, but the great thoroughfare was brilliantly lit by two rows of flaring gas-lamps.

‘What did you think of Professor Roderick Ainsworth, Sergeant?’ asked Box.

‘He’s rather overwhelming, sir,’ said Knollys, ‘and he knows how to flatter his audience – including me. I’d say he was a genuine and generous man. I’d rather not think of him as a brutal murderer.’

‘Neither would I,’ Box replied. ‘He was quite different from what I’d expected. He’s a learned man, right enough, but he wears his learning lightly. And yet….’

‘And yet, sir,’ said Knollys, ‘he could have been the man in the seaman’s jacket, the burly stranger who was seen by decent,
reliable
witnesses in Carshalton and Croydon, and apparently in Catherine Lane, Clerkenwell. Remember that railway line, sir – Epson, Carshalton, Croydon. Perhaps we should check up on the train times to Edinburgh on the day of the murder.’

‘We’ll certainly do that, Jack,’ said Box. ‘Meanwhile, we’d better suspend judgement until we’ve visited Ainsworth at
Epsom. It’s always a danger to jump to premature conclusions. Perhaps we’ll have a more rounded picture of the good professor after we’ve spent a few hours with him at Ardleigh Manor on Wednesday.’

9

Guests at Ardleigh Manor

W
hen Box and Knollys stepped down from the train at Epsom Station they found a coachman waiting for them on the platform. An elegant brougham stood in the station
fore-court
, a smart grey mare between the shafts.

They drove for nearly half a mile through the pleasant streets of the little town, eventually turning into a country lane in sight of the green expanse of Epsom Common. Soon, they passed through a pair of open gates, flanked by brick pillars, and entered a curving drive, bordered by banks of wild roses.

‘There it is, Sergeant,’ said Box. ‘Ardleigh Manor. What a splendid place!’

He had seen a rambling sandstone mansion, cloaked by tall beeches, but with an uninterrupted view of the common. It was a Gothic fantasy of a house, evidently not more than fifty years old, but it had been so contrived to look as though it had been there, on the skirts of Epsom, since time immemorial.

The carriage turned into a formal path, with wide grass verges on either side. Box glimpsed a number of rustic brick cottages behind tall yew hedges, and the exposed rafters of a new house that was being built in the grounds of the manor. The white timbers reminded him of a freshly disinterred skeleton that he had once seen lying on a make-shift stretcher at the scene of the Hoxton murders in ’86.

They came into a semi-circular court in front of the house, and a groom ran out to take the horse’s head. At the same time, a sober-suited butler walked down the steps of the house to greet them. Before either man could get his bearings, the coachman delivered them to the butler, and the butler conducted them into the house.

They had scarcely set foot in the hall when Professor Roderick Ainsworth erupted like a whirlwind from a passage on the left. He seized both men by the hand, and seemed to be welcoming them as though they were long-lost relatives. The butler was given no chance to announce them, and neither man was able to utter as much as a ‘good morning’.

‘Ah! Mr Box! And you, Mr Knollys! Welcome to Ardleigh Manor. Take their hats and coats, will you, Mason? Put them on the— Put them over there, on that Spanish oak chest. Did you have a good journey? They’re quite good trains on this line, I find. Isn’t this a splendid entrance hall? All this panelling was brought from Claygate House after the fire they had there in ’58. I see you’re admiring that great carved stone face of Bacchus. It startles people when they see it there, facing the front door! I found that under an old house in Bow Lane in ’81. The Metropolitan Board of Works let me keep it. It’s very fine of its type. What do you think, Mason?’

‘It’s very nice, sir,’ said the butler, permitting himself a little smile. He was a man of sixty or so, with a good-humoured face and well-tended side-whiskers. ‘Will these gentlemen be staying to luncheon?’

‘It’s very—’

‘Of course they’ll be staying, Mason,’ said Ainsworth, cutting Box short. ‘It can be served to the three of us in the conservatory, thus avoiding the absurdities of social protocol – servants’ entrance, that kind of thing. Now, what was I saying?’

Professor Ainsworth was wearing a well-cut suit of green serge, which he evidently thought more fitting for the country than his
usually sober attire. He was as impressive and overwhelming as he had been on Monday night, when he had lectured to an enthralled audience at Exeter Hall. His eyes, dark and intelligent, seemed animated by genuine pleasure at seeing them.

The professor darted away into the passage to the left of the hall, and they followed him through a glazed door into a cavernous glass conservatory, which housed a collection of exotic plants and ferns. Between the vegetation Box could glimpse intriguing islands of furniture constituting miniature
drawing-rooms
and bijou libraries. The whole vast glass-roofed creation held a mystery and fascination that was all its own.

‘Come and sit down here, gentlemen, where we can talk together in peace.’ Ainsworth threaded his way through a bank of ferns, and they emerged into a pleasant enclave of comfort, where two upholstered settees had been placed on either side of a long glass table.

‘Are you settled comfortably? Excellent. Now, what have you got to tell me? And what do you want to know? Epsom is a splendid place to live, though a base in London would be an
additional
convenience. This place used to be famous for its mineral spring – it’s where the original Epsom salts came from. But I suppose it’s the racecourse that attracts people here today – the Derby and the Oaks, you know. I must confess to a mild flutter myself on those occasions! But to business. What have you to tell me about these appalling murders, and how can I help you?’

For answer, Arnold Box removed from his pocket the glasses case that had been found on the dead body of Gregory Walsh, and handed it to Professor Ainsworth, who opened it. For the first time since they had entered Ardleigh Manor, a deathly silence reigned, and they could hear the quiet splashing of a fountain
situated
somewhere amidst the riot of ferns.

‘Where did you find these?’ asked the professor at last. ‘I’ve missed them for over a week.’

Professor Ainsworth held the open glasses case in his right
hand, looking at it with what Box thought of as an expression of concentrated bewilderment. For a moment the great extrovert was subdued and in some way nonplussed.

‘We found them, sir,’ Box replied, ‘in the left-hand jacket pocket of the late unfortunate Mr Gregory Walsh, when my colleagues and I examined his body in the Clerkenwell Mithraeum. Sergeant Knollys traced them to you through the optician’s records.’

‘How strange…. I never knew this poor young man, Inspector. How could he have acquired my glasses? They’re for reading, you know, and I was very vexed when they went missing.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Box, ‘I can only assume that you must have dropped them in some dark corner of the Mithraeum, and that Gregory Walsh found them. He put them in his pocket, meaning, I suppose, to hand them to one or other of the workmen in those huts on the site. It doesn’t necessarily follow that he knew they were
your
glasses.’

Professor Ainsworth relaxed visibly. He put the spectacle case down on the glass table, and smiled. Box and Knollys could sense his usual ebullience reasserting itself.

‘How simple you make it sound, Inspector! Well, I’m glad to have them back. We’ll celebrate the fact with a pre-prandial drink in a minute – something cool and refreshing. But you haven’t answered my question, Inspector. What’s on your mind?’

‘Those spectacles, sir,’ said Box. ‘I notice that they were supplied by an optician called Reuben Greensands, who died a few months ago. He had premises in Catherine Lane, just behind the Mithraeum. Did you always obtain your glasses from him?’

‘No, no, Inspector. I go to a very good man in Bond Street. But one day last year I was working on the Clerkenwell site, and I found that I’d left my reading glasses here at home. Well, I tried to manage for an hour or so, but it was really quite impossible. Thompson, the site foreman at Clerkenwell, told me about this Greensands, round the corner in Catherine Lane. I called at his shop, and found that he had some very good ready-made reading
glasses. I don’t remember him very well. I thought he was a rather insipid, insignificant kind of man.’

Professor Ainsworth leaned forward, and rang a little brass bell on the table. Presently a footman appeared through the ferns, wheeling a trolley upon which stood a large silver bowl full of melting ice and a number of bottles of Bass’s pale ale, which the footman served to them in tall lager glasses.

Box drank some of his beer, and then dabbed his moustache delicately with his handkerchief.

‘I wonder what Gregory Walsh was doing in the Mithraeum that morning, sir?’ he asked. ‘He was an analytical chemist, and we found traces of pigment on his hands and clothing. Do you think he was exercising one of the mysteries of his trade?’

Professor Ainsworth laughed, and shook his head.

‘I can’t think what he’d find to do there, Inspector! I certainly never hired him to take samples, or scrapings, or whatever it is that analytical chemists do. I understood from the papers that he’d been a member of some kind of esoteric cult, and that he’d been offered as a sacrifice by one or other of its devotees. Do you think that’s possible? Or is it just another fabrication of the Press?’

‘Well, as to that, sir,’ said Box, ‘I was talking yesterday to a lady called Miss Westerham, and she told me all the curious details of the rituals connected with the worship of Mithras—’

‘You saw Mary Westerham?’ exclaimed the professor, his eyes shining. ‘How clever of you to seek her out. She’s very good on the history of Mithraism and similar cults, though by profession she’s actually an epigraphist. What did you think of her?’

‘I thought she was very clever, sir, and she didn’t deny the possibility that some kind of secret cult existed. If that’s the case, sir, then its murderous activities must be curtailed. Miss Westerham certainly regarded both Mr Walsh of Clerkenwell and Mr Barnes of Carshalton as men engaged in sinister rituals culminating in voluntary sacrifice. Did you know either of those men, sir?’

Professor Ainsworth had drunk his beer, and had sunk into a reverie.

‘I preferred not to believe it, you know,’ he said, leaving Box’s question unanswered. ‘About the sacrifices to Mithras, I mean. It seems to negate the validity of the work I do. I want to expose the remains of past civilizations to the scrutiny of modern man: it seems perverse to me that intelligent people should profess belief in the long-buried rituals of discredited faiths. But I’ve spoken to Miss Westerham on a number of occasions, and she’s a woman whose judgement I respect.’

As Ainsworth was speaking, Box saw the figure of a man walking hurriedly along what was evidently a path bordering the glazed wall of the conservatory in front of which the professor’s couch had been placed. Ainsworth followed Box’s glance, and half turned round.

‘Ah!’ he cried, springing up from his seat. ‘Here’s Mr Crale, my academic secretary! I expect he’s bringing something for me to sign. I poached him, you know: spirited him away from under the nose of my dreaded rival, Sir Charles Wayneflete. As well as being a bit of an amateur, Wayneflete’s also a skinflint. Mr Crale’s worth far more than he was paying him.’

Box and Knollys heard a door banging somewhere beyond the conservatory, and in a few moments a tall, thin man entered the secluded island of couches. He was, Box judged, about fifty, with a balding head of brown hair, and thin, prim lips. He was dressed very elegantly in a well-cut suit of sober grey. He was holding a letter. He glanced briefly at the visitors, and then gave his whole attention to his employer.

‘Sir,’ he said in quiet, deferential tones, ‘I am sorry to bother you, but we have received this letter from Mr Trevor, asking whether you will agree to give your talk to his boys on the
twenty-first
of August instead of the twentieth. In other words, the Tuesday rather than the Monday. I think it would be as well to reply at once, either way.’

Professor Ainsworth looked at the rather unprepossessing man with what seemed to be unconditional admiration.

‘What do you think of him, Mr Box?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t he a treasure? I’m having a house built for him, aren’t I, Crale? A man like him shouldn’t be cooped up somewhere in an attic. What do you think I should do about Trevor?’

‘I would be inclined to accede to his request, sir. As well as being Headmaster of Bishop Wilson’s School, he’s also a man of some influence with Mr Asquith. It’s always valuable to have one’s name whispered into the ear of the Home Secretary.’

Mr Crale permitted himself a thin little smile. Professor Ainsworth threw back his head and laughed.

‘Didn’t I tell you he was a treasure? Write the letter, will you, Crale? I’ll sign it after luncheon.’

The secretary bowed, and disappeared among the foliage. Box thought: I don’t much like the look of you, my lad. You’re one of those sneaks who can be either a toady or a bully, as
circumstances
demand. Professor Ainsworth’s welcome to you.

‘Come along, gentlemen,’ said Ainsworth, ‘it’s time you met my wife. She’ll be thrilled to see you here at the manor. Zena!’

Ainsworth disappeared among the foliage, with the two policemen close at his heels. They emerged into a much larger island, hidden by the tall ferns and exotics artfully arranged in their brass tubs. There were more settees, arranged this time around a carved oak table, and a section of brick wall dividing two transepts of the enormous conservatory. On this wall were fixed two great oars, and above them a shield, bearing the arms of Henley Rowing Club. A pair of crossed swords complemented the oars, and hanging beneath them was a pair of boxing gloves. A small wooden shelf held a number of well-polished silver trophies. It was clear to both guests that Ainsworth had been no mean sportsman in his younger days.

‘Zena!’ cried Professor Ainsworth, flinging himself into one of the chairs at the table. In response to the professor’s lusty call a
door banged somewhere to their right, and in a few moments a lady appeared before them. She was a powerful-looking woman with frizzy red hair, and a determined countenance. She was wearing a long canvas smock, and her hands were caked with clay.