The Advocate's Wife (27 page)

‘Is that possible, Rupert? After a lifetime as an advocate’s wife?’

‘Baby comes out next year, doesn’t she? I met her, just now, loitering mournfully in the hall like a waif. Well, the waif must do the Season, and she can’t do that with an absentee mother. So, yes. It is possible. Think about Diana. Think about your work for the urban poor. In other words, think about the future! There is a splendid man downstairs who will be a rock of support for you in the years to come.’

‘Lardner,’ said Lady Porteous, softly.

‘Yes. He has a future, too, and it will be spent here, in your service.’

‘Rupert—’

‘Oh, dash it all, Mother-in-law! Let’s stop all this jawing! Get yourself ready for luncheon. The future’s waiting for you.’

Sergeant Isaac Bickerstaffe stood in the walled village
churchyard
of Danesford, and looked down at the new granite gravestone that a firm of masons from Chelmsford had set in place that very morning. It was a fine stone, he thought, with deeply-cut lettering that would do well against the salt sea winds that blew across the marshlands from the estuaries. The sexton had removed the simple wooden cross that had proclaimed this to be the grave of a Drowned Woman, Known to God. The old sergeant stooped down, and read the inscription on the new stone.

Very kind of that London lady, it seemed to him. And after all that fuss and bother, it was Lady Hardington’s brother, the great advocate, who’d done it! She’d brought some flowers for Amelia Garbutt when she’d heard the truth, and so had Mrs Courtney of Bardley Lodge. He stood for a few minutes, thinking over the various wickednesses of the world, then lumbered away towards Field Lane, and his ancient, weather-boarded, cottage.

Sergeant Knollys lifted his eyes from the newspaper for a moment, and said, ‘Mr Gideon Raikes, sir, had bequeathed his house in Grosvenor Square, together with its contents, to the nation. It’s to be called the Gideon Raikes Museum.’

Inspector Box paused in his task of coaxing the dying fire back to life. It was growing very chilly in King James’s Rents, and outside, a thin, powdery rain was coating the cobbles with a sweat of slippery moisture. He attacked the fire again with the poker.

‘The Gideon Raikes Museum? Nothing surprises me, Sergeant. I was saying to George Boyd, only yesterday, that I haven’t exactly covered myself with glory over this business. I haven’t won the victor’s crown, so to speak. He just laughed, and mumbled something about Elba. Or Ste-Helena. I don’t know what he meant. And now you say that Gideon Raikes, my special villain, is to be immortalized with his own museum. Well, somebody got him. We’ll never know who it was. It wasn’t Razor Jim. I think it was something to do with a private vendetta.’

‘Gideon Raikes had some kind of secret hold over Lady Porteous—’

‘You’re not suggesting she shot him, are you?’

Sergeant Knollys laughed.

‘No, sir, of course not. But maybe she had a friend who obliged her.’

Box sat down at the table. Sergeant Knollys was entitled to his little joke.

‘Mounteagle comes up for trial in February,’ said Box. ‘Sir Iain Forbes had mastered the brief. Mounteagle will go down for life, I expect. Poor Sir William Porteous! Even now, Sergeant Knollys,
I can hardly believe it. I was angry at first, but not now. It’s a tragedy, that’s what it is.’

‘You’re right, sir,’ said Knollys, ‘but I’m beginning to see the tragic element in a different light. William Porteous was an ambitious man, who murdered another young man who stood in his way. Then, half a lifetime later, he caused the death of another man who didn’t even know him, prosecuted his own accomplice, and sent him to the gallows. Finally, he murdered a foolish woman who threatened to inconvenience him. Yes, sir, it was a tragedy all right – for Henry Colbourne, James Hungerford, Albert John Davidson, and Amelia Garbutt.’

There came a sudden rumbling from the floor above. The rackety gas-burner shook in the ceiling. They could both trace the heavy limp as it made towards the door. The trick was to get out into the passage before Old Growler reached the landing. Inspector Box reached the vestibule just as his superior officer appeared at the top of the stairs.

‘Box,’ said Superintendent Mackharness, ‘up here, if you please. I won’t keep you more than ten minutes.’

Some fresh villainy was evidently crying for redress. It would always be like that. Among the teeming millions of London’s population, the malignant and the malevolent were toiling ceaselessly against the law-abiding and their protectors. Inspector Box hurried up the stairs towards the superintendent’s mildewed office on the upper floor of Number 2 King James’s Rents.

The Dried-Up Man

The Dark Kingdom

The Devereaux Inheritance

The Haunted Governess