‘What shall we do when we get to the house? It’s probably better not to go up the drive. We need to find out what’s going on without giving the alarm.’
‘Good idea,’ said Bill. ‘Park on the road a little way from the house.’
In the event it took them twenty-two minutes of agonisingly slow, if skilful, driving to get to Saunder’s Green.
Jack drew to a halt in front of the tall hedges that shielded the front of the house. There was no one around.
They walked quickly up to the house. A racing-green, open-topped Bentley was parked in the drive. Jack put his hand on the bonnet. ‘It’s still warm,’ he said quietly.
There was no sign of life from the house, no movement behind those blank windows. Bill reached out to ring the doorbell and hesitated. ‘Did you say there’s an entrance round the back?’ he asked. ‘I’ll try there first.’
‘No, wait,’ said Jack. He pushed the heavy front door. It swung open noiselessly. They stepped into the hall. Silence.
‘There must be somebody here,’ said Betty quietly. ‘That Bentley didn’t come by itself.’
It didn’t take them long to explore the downstairs of the house. Everything was neat and clean but silent.
‘Where the devil is everyone?’ said Bill in a low voice as they came back into the hall.
‘Hold on!’ said Betty. ‘There’s someone upstairs.’
There was a creak on the upper landing.
‘Hello!’ called Jack cautiously.
There was a noise like half a sob in reply.
‘Who’s there?’ called Bill. ‘This is the police!’
Jenny put her head over the bannisters, gave another half-choked sob and came down the stairs. Bill stepped forward and held out his arms to her.
‘Thank God you’re all right,’ he muttered. ‘Miss Langton, you shouldn’t be here.’
She gave a shuddering breath. ‘I had to come. Aunty Gwyn was beside herself. She rang me at work. I don’t know what my father’s got planned, but I had to stop it. I rang you, then snatched up the keys and came straight away.’
‘You opened the door?’ asked Jack.
She nodded.
Bill sighed in exasperation and relief. ‘You should’ve waited for us.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m only glad you didn’t come to any harm.’
‘But there’s no one here,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ve been over the entire house and there’s no one here.’
‘Have you looked in the garden?’ began Jack, when Betty waved him silent. ‘Shush! I heard something.’
There was a very faint noise from along the hallway. Startled, they looked at each other in bewilderment. They had looked in every room that led off the hall.
Jack suddenly slapped his hand against the wall. ‘The sound’s on the other side of this wall! It’s the garage! It’s on the other side of this wall. Come on!’
Leading the way, he raced into the morning room, pulled open the French windows and out onto the veranda. ‘The garage door’s along here,’ he called.
Together, they opened the garage door, and crowded onto the small landing on top of the steps. The steps, thought Jack, with a twist of his stomach, where Caroline Trevelyan was buried.
He reached for the rail surrounding the landing and looked down. Then for a fleeting fraction of a second, he saw a monster.
Its skin was black leather, its face was blank and black, and it had huge, blank, square eyes. It was suspended like a ghastly puppet with a noose around its neck with a rope attached to one of the roof beams of the garage.
Jenny’s terrified scream snapped him back to his senses.
He grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Jenny! It’s not a monster! It’s a man!’ He turned her round, forcing her to look down.
He had worked this out when he’d stood looking at the traffic on the Embankment, the day he had discovered Caroline Trevelyan’s body. He’d seen the drivers, in their motoring coats, helmets and goggles.
He’d thought then what it would look like, looking down as a terrified child from above, to see a man in a motoring coat and helmet with his goggles pushed back, the sunlight dazzling off the glass to make two staring eyes.
He knew what the monster was. ‘It’s a man in a helmet and goggles. It’s a man!’
Jenny’s scream turned to a terrified whimper. ‘It’s a man?’
The man, his hands tied behind his back, tilted his face up towards them. He was standing on a wooden kitchen chair, a noose around his neck. If he stepped off the chair, he would be hanged.
‘Help!’ he croaked. ‘Help!’
‘For God’s sake,’ muttered Bill under his breath and, leading the way, clattered down the stairs to the man on the chair.
‘Jack, hold him up!’ he commanded. ‘We’ve got to get him down.’
Jack wrapped his arms round the man’s thighs as Bill, taking a penknife from his pocket, climbed gingerly up the chair beside him.
Jack felt the weight shift dangerously as Bill sawed through the rope.
Then the last threads were cut. Jack staggered as he took the man’s whole weight. Bill jumped down, his arm supporting the man as he slumped onto the kitchen chair.
Bill cut through the ropes that bound the man’s hands. He gave a little whimper and buried his head in his hands, his breath coming in heaving gasps. Jack reached out and, tilting the man’s head back, ripped open his collar.
‘Mr Laidlaw?’ said Jenny in a terrified whisper, as she saw the man’s face. ‘Mr Laidlaw?’ He turned a terrified face, drained of colour, towards her. ‘What happened?’
‘I was attacked. Attacked by a lunatic,’ he gasped. ‘He got me here with some cock-and-bull story and hit me with something.’ His eyes flicked upwards to where the rope still hung. ‘When I came to, I was up there.’
A shaft of sunlight shot across the garage floor as the door to the garden opened. A man, black against the sunlight, stepped onto the landing.
There was a frozen moment, then the black silhouette raised a gun and fired, the sound deafening in the enclosed space.
Chips of concrete zinged off the floor as they all dived away. Jack, his back to the wooden shelf, closed his hand round the shaft of a hammer.
‘Stand back,’ commanded the man on the landing. ‘Stand back or, by God, I’ll shoot you all.’
‘Trevelyan!’ yelled Jack. ‘Drop the gun!’
Jenny gave a little choking sob. ‘Trevelyan? You’re my father?’ Like someone in a dream, she started forward towards the stairs.
‘No, Jenny!’ yelled Bill, lunging towards her and catching her in his arms.
Another bullet exploded, sending more chips of concrete off the floor. ‘Stay where you are!’ Trevelyan yelled.
Jenny looked up to the landing. ‘You’re my father.’ Her voice broke. ‘You’re my father?’
Trevelyan caught his breath. ‘Jenny?’ he said in bewilderment, staring downwards. ‘Jenny?’ His hand holding the gun dropped to his side. He pushed his hair back and gazed down at her. ‘Jenny?’ His voice cracked. ‘Jenny, sweetheart, you shouldn’t be here.’
With a stifled cry, Jenny broke away from Bill and started up the stairs.
‘No, Jenny!’ called Bill but she ignored him.
She continued up the stairs towards her father. He held out his hand to her, then pulled her close.
Bill took his chance. Taking the stairs two at a time, he leapt up the stairs after Jenny. He stopped short as the muzzle of the gun came up.
‘Stay there.’
Bill stopped warily. ‘Michael Trevelyan, I am a police officer.’ He spared a glance for Andrew Laidlaw. ‘I arrest you on a charge of false imprisonment and attempted murder. Put down the gun, man, and come quietly. There’s a squad of police arriving. You can’t get away.’
Trevelyan’s hand tightened on Jenny’s shoulder, then pushed her gently away. ‘Off you go,’ he said, softly, his gaze fixed on Bill. ‘I’m not running any longer. I came here to do one thing, and that’s to g
et even with Laidlaw. You can’t stop me.’
Even in the dim light, Jack could see Trevelyan’s eyes narrow as the gun came up, pointed at the man in the chair. With all the strength in his arm, he flung the heavy hammer. It caught Trevelyan in the chest as the gun went off, flinging him backwards. The gun skittered out of his hand.
Bill leapt forward and forced Trevelyan to the ground. Jack raced up the stairs, adding his weight to Bill’s struggles with the frantic Trevelyan.
With both Jack and Bill holding onto him, Trevelyan was firmly pinned to the floor. Struggling furiously, he tried to escape as a thunderous knocking sounded at the garage doors.
‘Open up in there!’ shouted a voice from outside. ‘It’s the police!’
‘Betty!’ shouted Jack. ‘Open the doors!’ he gasped, then renewed his strength to contain the struggling man. ‘Give up, man! It’s over!’
Betty fumbled with the catch and then light flooded into the room as the doors swung open and four policemen burst in, a sergeant at their head. Sir Douglas Lynton brought up the rear.
‘What the blazes?’ he exclaimed incredulously. He spun round to the sergeant and pointed up the stairs. ‘Help them, man!’
The sergeant, with the constables behind him, charged up the stairs. With Jack and Bill’s help, he managed to snap a pair of handcuffs onto Trevelyan’s wrists.
Sir Douglas looked at Andrew Laidlaw, still slumped on the chair. ‘What the devil’s been going on here? Who are you, sir?’
Trevelyan levered himself up on his elbow. ‘His name’s Laidlaw,’ he said in a gasp. ‘He murdered my wife.’
‘Absolute nonsense,’ said Laidlaw in a croak. ‘The man’s mad. He got me down here with some crazy story and attacked me.’
‘He murdered my wife,’ said Trevelyan again.
Laidlaw seemed to recognise Jack for the first time. ‘Haldean! Tell them what he did! Tell them the truth.’
‘I know the truth,’ said Jack, his voice steely. He picked up the hammer and walked down the stairs. ‘He’s speaking the truth. You murdered Caroline Trevelyan, Laidlaw.’ He hefted the hammer. ‘And you hid her body here.’
He brought the heavy hammer crashing down on the bricks of the steps. A chunk of brickwork round the loose brick came away, revealing a mass of blue fabric.
Laidlaw gazed in horror at the hole in the bricks. ‘It’s not true,’ he whimpered. ‘I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t really murder. Not really.’
‘Arrest him,’ said Sir Douglas curtly, to his sergeant.
‘On what charge, sir?’ asked the sergeant, walking to stand beside Laidlaw.
‘The murder of Caroline Trevelyan.’
‘And Amelia Rotherwell,’ put in Jack.
Andrew Laidlaw crumpled. ‘You know about that?’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘I know about that.’ He turned to Michael Trevelyan, who was gazing at him, thunderstruck, and dropped a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry I had to hit you, sir, but you don’t have to run any longer. You’re a free man. Or,’ he added, with the beginnings of a smile, ‘you will be once we get the handcuffs off.’
Sir Douglas nodded to one of the constables. ‘Release him.’
Michael Trevelyan stood up slowly as the handcuffs were removed. Staring at Jack, he tried to speak, then buried his face in his hands. Jenny tentatively put her hand on his arm. ‘Father? Dad? It’s over.’
It was early evening. Andrew Laidlaw, without an ounce of fight left in him, was safely behind bars.
Michael Trevelyan had joined Bill, Jenny, Betty and Jack in the house in Chandos Row, in the upstairs sitting room where, Jack thought, as he poured out the whisky, Jenny had first told him about the monster in the garden at Saunder’s Green.
‘Help yourself to cigarettes, sir,’ he said hospitably to the man on the sofa.
‘Thanks.’ Trevelyan smiled. It was a cautious smile, the smile of a man who had had very little to smile about. ‘I can’t believe it’s all over. This morning all I wanted to do was get the truth out of Andrew Laidlaw.’
Jenny reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘Would you have really killed him?’
Trevelyan hesitated. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked at her shyly. ‘I really don’t know. I certainly wanted to. I wanted to hear the truth from his own lips and then …’ He shook his head. ‘It seemed right, in a way. If justice had been done, years ago, he would’ve been hanged. But when it actually came to it? I just don’t know.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘All I can say is that I’m very grateful to you for stopping me.’ He nodded at Bill. ‘And to you. To all of you, in fact.’
‘What happened, Dad?’ asked Jenny.
‘Dad!’ Trevelyan smiled, a genuine smile this time. ‘I can’t tell you the times I’ve wanted to hear you call me that.’ He paused. ‘I can’t believe you’re here with me!’ he broke out. ‘I’ve dreamed of this, Jenny.’ There was a catch in his voice. ‘I never thought it would happen. I used to watch out for you, you know? I think you nearly saw me at least once.’
Jenny gripped his hand tighter. ‘More than once.’
‘Gwyn, my sister, sent me news of you occasionally. Sheila Langton used to write to her. I knew you were well looked after, but sometimes I just had to actually see you. I saw you at school and sometimes I went up to Yorkshire, just to try and catch a glimpse of you, but the last time I saw you, that was pure chance.’
‘Was that in Stowfleet?’ asked Jenny.
‘Yes, that’s right. I knew Saunder’s Green was vacant and I was toying with the idea of renting it, to try and see if, even after all this time, I could find out what happened to poor Caroline. I knew Wilson and Lee were the house agents. I stood on the street, telling myself I was a fool for even thinking of the idea but tempted, all the same.’
He glanced at Jack, Betty and Bill. ‘You can imagine how I felt when Jenny, of all people, came out of the house agents. I was so shocked for a moment I couldn’t budge.’ He turned to Jenny. ‘I didn’t know you worked there. You saw me, didn’t you?’ Jenny nodded. ‘You came marching across the road to me. I hardly got away in time.’
‘That was the morning it all started,’ said Jenny. ‘When I had that horrible experience by the tree, I mean. But Dad, what did happen years ago?’
Trevelyan shrugged. ‘That’s what I wanted to get out of Laidlaw. I always had my suspicions of him, but until this recent business, with poor Amelia Rotherwell, I couldn’t be sure. But after she was killed and I was blamed, I knew I wasn’t guilty. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why, but I knew Laidlaw was the man.’
‘So what happened that day?’ repeated Jenny.
Michael Trevelyan shrugged. ‘As far as I was concerned, I came home from work that day on the 15th of July to find Caroline, your mother, gone. And that really was it. I tried to raise the alarm, but the police inspector obviously thought that your mother would come home in her own good time. Gwyn came to stay, to look after you, because I was beside myself.’
‘Then the forged letter arrived,’ said Jack.
‘Yes, it did,’ agreed Trevelyan. ‘I knew Caroline hadn’t written it. Until then I’d hoped she’d come back, but after I saw that letter, I knew something very sinister was going on.’
He swallowed hard and took a gulp of whisky. ‘I’d been worried to death about Caroline, but that’s when I started to worry for myself. Gwyn thought there had to be an innocent explanation, but I knew there couldn’t be. Someone was trying to cover things up and, if that failed, it was obvious the police inspector, Chartfield, had me in his sights. I wrote to Sheila and John Langton to take care of you, Jenny, because I thought things would turn nasty very soon.’ He took another gulp of whisky. ‘And, as we know, they did.’
‘There was a diary found in your room, sir,’ said Jack, standing up and, taking Trevelyan’s glass, re-filling it.
‘That bloody diary!’ said Trevelyan. ‘Excuse the language, but honestly! I’d always been interested in chemistry at school. Caroline and I both loved dete
ctive stories, but we used to joke about how the poison used in them was always so wildly improbable. It was always a “little known Asiatic poison” and never anything real.’
‘I know that type of story,’ said Jack with a grin.
‘I made a list of real poisons, that’s all. I didn’t add the date, though. Someone else did that and, later on, after I’d made a run for it, I was pretty sure that someone was Andrew Laidlaw. It had to have been done by someone who could get into the house. He could, of course, because of the building work. But,’ he added with a shrug, ‘why he did what he did I don’t know.’
‘I think,’ said Bill, ‘that Jack can probably enlighten us as to that.’
‘Don’t worry, I will, but to go back to your story, Mr Trevelyan. Your sister told us she helped you get away to Australia.’
‘So she did. When the war broke out, I joined the Australian army, calling myself Raglan, my mother’s name. I served first in Gallipoli and then in France. After the war was over, I had a perfectly decent name that was mine, with a war record to prove it. So I came home, and I’ve been here ever since. When I saw the advert in the papers, asking for news of the Trevelyans late of Saunder’s Green House, I was worried. However, Gwyn wrote to me to say you were behind the enquiries, Jenny, so I breathed again. Gwyn was over the moon to have you back as a niece.’
‘I know she was,’ said Jenny. ‘That was the only good thing to come out of it, as far as I could see. I’ve told you what I saw in the garden. I was terrified.’
‘And you thought that was me,’ said Trevelyan softly. ‘A monster.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Why did Laidlaw do it?’
Jack sipped his whisky and lit a cigarette. ‘When Jenny told us what she’d seen, one of my first thoughts was that she’d lived in Saunder’s Green as a child. Although on the face of it, that seemed unlikely, it proved to be true. Once we had the name Trevelyan, I was able to advertise and that led us to Mrs Shilton. Mrs Rotherwell, recently returned from Ceylon, had also seen the advert.’
‘I know,’ agreed Trevelyan. ‘Gwyn told me she’d written to her.’
‘However, another old friend of Mrs Rotherwell’s, a Mrs Jane Davenham, had also seen the advert. And Mrs Jane Davenham, who really had, in all probability, met up with Mrs Rotherwell since her return from Ceylon, realised that if Mrs Rotherwell met me, she and Andrew Laidlaw would be in real danger.’
Forgotten Murder Page 26
