Take No Farewell - Retail (60 page)

‘What do you think this powder is?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I do not believe you.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘I think this is poison.
En réalité
, arsenic.’

‘That’s absurd!’

‘You are under arrest,
monsieur. Ce n’est pas absurde
.’

‘Under arrest? On what possible charge?’

‘Murder.’

‘What?’

‘Victor Caswell died five hours ago at the Villa d’Abricot near St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. He had been poisoned. With arsenic, we think.’ He nodded down at the white powder in his hand. ‘
Comme ça. Comme ça exactement
.’

‘This can’t be true.’

‘But it is. Get dressed, please. You are coming with us.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

HOW STRANGE, I
thought, as the hours passed, how ironic and yet how fitting, that I should spend Consuela’s last days in a cell much like her own. A hard bed, bare walls and a barred window were my experience now as well as hers. There were no tables or chairs in the room they placed me in, no wardresses offering cigarettes or games of cards, above all no second, still unused entrance. Yet for all the hundreds of miles I was from Holloway, I felt closer to Consuela than I had ever done. I shared her every moment. I guessed her every thought. I stretched out my hand and seemed to feel the tips of her fingers reaching towards me.

At first, I was asked little and told less. Jospin would say nothing beyond the fact that Victor was dead and that poison was responsible. He was awaiting the results of an autopsy and of laboratory tests on the substance found in my bag. He had witnesses to question and policemen in London to consult by telephone. He had a case against me to assemble. And, until he had done so, all he required of me was a statement of my whereabouts and actions on Sunday 17 February and my presence, under lock and key, at Nice police station.

Denied almost all information, I decided to say as little as possible. In the statement I signed, I admitted visiting the Villa d’Abricot, but made no reference to Angela’s telegram or my appointment with Gleasure. I disclaimed all knowledge of the blue-paper twist and the powder it contained, but
offered
no suggestion as to how it might have found its way into my bag. I knew that, whatever the true circumstances, I would soon have to say more than this, but for the moment I needed to think, long and alone, about what had happened and why.

Victor Caswell was dead. I had no reason to mourn him. Indeed, I could not help hoping he had died in agony. But that was not what mattered. What mattered was why he had died. Somebody really had tried to murder him last September and now they had succeeded. Rosemary Caswell had been killed by accident, not design. And Consuela was innocent beyond a shred of doubt. But only I knew this, because only I knew that I had not killed Victor.

The answer was clear now. Only three people had been at Clouds Frome on 9 September
and
the Villa d’Abricot on 17 February. Of those, Victor was dead and Imogen Roebuck was defeated, for her dreams of a privileged future had died with him. Only Gleasure remained. Only he could be the murderer. His motive was a mystery, but his guilt was certain. His first attempt had claimed Rosemary by mistake. The blame for this he had fastened on Consuela. His second attempt had succeeded. And the blame for this he had fastened on me. Hence the telegram and his insistence on deferring a response to my demands until Monday. Hence the unlocked door and the powder planted in my bag. The tests would show it was arsenic. I had no doubt of that. Gleasure, in his way, had even warned me. ‘
I have to make certain dispositions, sir. Give me until tomorrow morning. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed
.’ Nor was I. But trapped and helpless I certainly was.

It was late on Monday evening when I was taken once more to the interview room. Jospin had an interpreter with him, to resolve linguistic ambiguities, and was prepared for the first time to set all the facts before me. He had read my statement and did not believe it. To judge by his hollow-cheeked face and small, dark, darting eyes, he was not a man to believe very much that a prisoner told him. To convince
him
of anything except my guilt, I would have to penetrate twenty years’ worth of official suspicion and a nature to match.

According to Jospin, Victor began to feel unwell early on Sunday evening. He retired to bed without dinner. Miss Roebuck took him some milk and biscuits at about ten o’clock, but he refused them, insisting he would be better by morning. He was presumed to be suffering from one of the bouts of acute indigestion that had troubled him regularly since the poisoning. Miss Roebuck and the other guests were conversing in the drawing-room shortly before midnight when they heard a loud noise upstairs. When they investigated, they found Victor unconscious on the floor of the bathroom adjoining his bedroom. He had been violently and copiously sick. The distinctive dark colour and foul smell of the vomit reminded Gleasure and Miss Roebuck of the symptoms Victor had exhibited after the poisoning in September. He was carried back to bed and Turnbull’s doctor urgently called. Upon arrival, the doctor pronounced Victor to be comatose, with erratic heartbeat and faltering respiration. He summoned an ambulance from Nice, but, before it could reach Cap Ferrat, Victor Caswell was dead.

Jospin was at the Villa d’Abricot within the hour and a clear picture of what had happened swiftly emerged. The last food or drink consumed by Victor comprised two large glasses of scotch and soda and some green olives in the drawing-room late on Sunday afternoon. Nobody else had drunk any scotch, a decanter of which was stored on the drawing-room sideboard. The only unusual recent event reported to Jospin was my unexpected and unwelcome visit that very afternoon. My pretext – a telegram from Angela – was known by her to be false. I had arrived when only servants were in the house and had been left alone in the morning-room for ten to fifteen minutes. There would have been nothing, during that time, to prevent me entering the drawing-room and mixing a fatal dose of arsenic in the whisky decanter. I knew the lay-out of the house and I knew
of
Victor’s fondness for whisky. I had made it obvious that I blamed him for Consuela’s conviction for murder and I had been heard in the past to threaten him on account of it. The substance found in my possession at the Hotel des Anglais had since been identified as arsenious oxide. Traces of the same chemical had been found in the whisky. And the pathologist’s report, now to hand, showed there was enough arsenic in the intestines of the deceased to have killed him ten times over.

Perhaps I should have responded to this by holding my tongue and demanding the presence of a lawyer. But I did not, for Consuela’s innocence concerned me far more than mine. She was due to hang in less than seventy-two hours. In the face of that fact, I could hardly take the accusations being made against me seriously, let alone the penalties they might carry. If Jospin had only known what I knew, he would have realized at once that Gleasure was guilty and that Consuela’s innocence was therefore proven. But he did not know and my efforts to make him understand only sounded to him like desperate attempts to direct suspicion elsewhere. In his view, my only reason for asking to see Gleasure on my arrival at the Villa d’Abricot was to gain access to the house. It was not surprising that he thought this, since there was nothing whatever to substantiate my explanation of the visit. True, an impostor claiming to be Angela could have sent me a telegram, but the postmaster at Beaulieu was adamant: they had despatched no such message. Enquiries would of course be made in England, but, for the moment, Jospin’s belief was that I had invented the telegram, just as I had invented finding my hotel room unlocked. Besides, such enquiries would take time. And time was what Consuela did not have. Rant or reason as I pleased, I was going nowhere and convincing nobody.

Isolation can be the worst of all privations. Cut off from the world in my narrow cell in Nice, told no more than the police saw fit to tell me, the one freedom I still enjoyed was
the
freedom to imagine, with mounting dread, what was happening in England. Only later, from Imry, was I to learn all that actually occurred during my confinement. From the diary he kept of those days I was to reconstruct events of which, at the time, I knew nothing.

Monday 18 February 1924

I have been sceptical from the first about Geoff’s chances of achieving what he thought he could by going to Cap Ferrat. There was something about his encounter with Spencer Caswell and the telegram he received from Angela that made me think he was being lured there, though why or by whom I cannot imagine. My second night at the North Western Hotel, Liverpool, is overshadowed by this thought, for now it has acquired a basis in fact as well as fancy
.

I had expected to hear from Geoff today and when, by nine o’clock this evening, I had not, I decided to telephone him at his hotel in Beaulieu. It took some time to obtain a line. When I was eventually connected, the fellow who answered told me that Geoff booked out this morning and will not be returning. If that had been his intention when he telephoned me on Sunday, I feel sure he would have said so. Yet he did not and now, uncertain and perturbed as I am, I am at a loss to know what I should do for the best
.

My difficulties are compounded by the presence here of Senhor Francisco Manchaca de Pombalho and his wife, Dona Ilidia. I met them off the
Hildebrand
this afternoon and explained, as convincingly as I could, that I was a friend of Consuela’s and that she had asked me to meet them on her behalf, escort them to Hereford and introduce them to Jacinta. Fortunately, they were too depressed and disorientated to subject my explanation to much scrutiny, but how long they will remain so subdued is debatable. I can only hope I have heard from Geoff by the time they become more curious
.

Francisco Manchaca de Pombalho is a reserved and corpulent man in his early fifties, vain about his appearance and pompous in his manner. Yet he is also courteous and trusting. He speaks
good
if limited English, dresses impeccably and presents a glaring contrast with everything Geoff has told me about his brother. Dona Ilidia exists in her husband’s shadow, a small sad dumpling of a woman perpetually on the brink of tears. It was clear to me today that they both wanted to ask me more – about Consuela’s state of mind, about Rodrigo’s death, about the personality of their future ward – than they felt able to at first acquaintance. I only wish there was something I could do to console them, to make what appears so harsh and senseless understandable, but how can I, when I do not understand it myself?

Tomorrow, we will set off for Hereford. My heart sinks at the thought of what awaits us there: an unpredictable reception from the Caswells and an encounter with Jacinta, who knows and must somehow accept that her mother will die on Thursday
.

Tuesday morning brought me a visitor: Mr Lucas, from the British Consulate in Marseilles. Cold and correct, he said he would be pleased to communicate with my solicitor in England so that he might instruct a lawyer in Nice to handle my defence. He would also be pleased to contact relatives or friends of mine. But I was not interested in my defence. I only wanted him to alert Windrush and Sir Henry to what was happening, to explain to Imry why he had not heard from me, to urge the Home Office to call off Consuela’s execution. As to all of that, however, Lucas was noncommittal. He made notes, he offered advice on French law, he smiled delphically, and then he left.

In the afternoon, I was taken back to the interview room. This time Jospin did not have an interpreter with him. Instead, my heart leapt at the sight of Chief Inspector Wright’s familiar face. At last, it seemed, I was to have a chance to speak to somebody who might appreciate the significance of what I was saying. I poured it all out again, investing the account with every ounce of sincerity at my command. Wright had said he thought he was being lied to and now I told him who the liar was. Gleasure was a murderer twice over. That would be proved beyond question soon. Meanwhile, it was vital to
prevent
a miscarriage of justice that would haunt everyone involved in it to their dying day if they did not intervene before it was too late. He did not have to believe me. I did not ask him to do that. All I asked him to do was concede that I
might
be speaking the truth.

He listened patiently, until I had said all and possibly more than I wanted to say. Then he lit his pipe and offered me a cigarette. ‘I flew here, you know,’ he remarked. ‘From Croydon. In stages, of course. Ever flown, Mr Staddon?’

‘No.’

‘Can’t recommend it. Noisy business. Cramped into the bargain. Only did it because I reckoned I should get to the bottom of this latest poisoning before Mrs Caswell’s execution. Just in case the same poisoner really had struck again.’

‘He has.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘Not a word. It’s not your fault. You’ve told it as plausibly as anybody could. The problem is that I know more about you than you think. You were Mrs Caswell’s lover, weren’t you, before the war?’

‘Was I?’

‘Yes. So that anonymous letter I received said. Before the war and possibly after. A touching story, in its way. You were determined to stand by her, even though you knew she’d tried to kill her husband. I can’t blame you for that. In fact, I admire you. It’s more than most men would do for an old flame. Your wife wasn’t prepared to tolerate it, of course. Suing for divorce, I believe. Name linked with Major Turnbull, Mr Caswell’s oldest friend. That must have grated, it really must. But it didn’t stop you. You tried everything – legal and illegal – to save Mrs Caswell’s neck. And when you realized none of it was going to work, you settled on one last desperate throw. If Victor Caswell died by the same means he’d narrowly escaped last September, we’d be forced to admit the murderer had finished the job they started then and that the murderer couldn’t be Mrs Caswell because
she
had a perfect alibi: the condemned cell at Holloway Prison.’