“Oh, I haven’t thought that out. I just feel this is a good time to be suspicious on principle. And they all had information to impart. Perhaps that was what really brought them.”
He told her about the grey Vauxhall with the man in it that Naomi claimed to have seen near the Eckersalls’ gate, and the Eckersalls’ theory about the murder of the child Colin, and Mollie’s possible remarks to Jim Gleeson about roses that had been planted at the wrong time of year.
Constance did not seem much impressed. She dismissed with a slight shake of the head the suggestion that Colin might be buried in the rose bed behind the Gleesons’ house, considered the presence of the Vauxhall in the lane, then shook her head again.
“It couldn’t have had anything to do with Mollie,” she said, “unless the man was someone she knew. If it was and somehow he persuaded her to get into the car and for some reason she let him drive her away to some place where he could murder her, I suppose he might have had something to do with it. But I can’t think of any reason why he should do that unless he’s a maniac, and I can’t think of anyone we know who’s got a grey Vauxhall.”
“The Eckersalls said there was a man called Banks who used to live in the Gleesons’ cottage who had one,” Andrew said.
“I don’t know anything about that. He left before my time. But from what I’ve heard of him, I don’t think Mollie would have got into his car or agreed to go anywhere with him. Though, heaven knows, if he’d had some tale of woe and played on her sympathy, she might have gone. She was incurably kind. But he’d still have to be mad.”
“One idea about this man seems to be that he may have seen someone with Mollie when she came along the lane and could tell the police something useful.”
“I suppose that’s possible. And I think to some extent the Eckersalls may be right. Someone who was scared by some knowledge he thought she had persuaded her to go into his house with him for a quick drink, then when he’d killed her there he realized that he’d got to get rid of her body in a hurry, so he put her into his car and took the risk of driving down to the stream with it. And that points pretty conclusively to Jim Gleeson. He’d have wanted to get rid of Mollie before Leslie got back from Maddingleigh. I suppose she’d gone in by bus and he knew what bus she’d come back on. The only thing is, Mollie didn’t know anything about Colin and I don’t feel at all convinced Jim murdered him, and even if he did, I can’t really think any casual chat about roses would have made Jim think Mollie knew it.”
“Of course, it’s uncertain she came up the lane at all,” Andrew said. “Naomi says she saw her standing at the crossroads, looking uncertain where to go. The nurse says she saw her start up the lane, but she may just have taken for granted Mollie was going to do that and driven on without actually seeing her go.”
“And where do you suppose Mollie went in that case? To Pegler’s?”
“Is it impossible?”
Constance reached for the coffeepot and poured out more coffee for herself. “Impossible? No. And his surgery ends at eleven, and if she knew he was going home after that and she wanted to talk to him without letting me know about it, she might have thought of going to his house and waiting for him.”
“Why should she do that?”
“She may have wanted to talk to him about me.”
“About you? Is there something the matter with you, Constance?”
“Not really. About a couple of months ago I had a mild heart attack and Mollie’s been terribly worried about it, far more worried than I am. She wanted me to go to a consultant in London, when I was quite satisfied with the people in Maddingleigh. And if the surgery was more than usually busy this morning, she may have thought she’d try to see David after it because she wanted to discuss the matter with him. According to him, he didn’t see her. But if, while she was waiting, she saw something that told her something about Carolyn—oh no, I can’t believe it! I’m sure David hasn’t harmed Mollie. I’d sooner believe it was Jim, or even Nicholas.”
“The Eckersalls say it couldn’t have been Nicholas because, like them, he’s got such a big garden which isn’t overlooked by anyone that he could easily have hidden Mollie’s body there instead of risking taking it down to the stream.”
“But if he was being very subtle, and he is a subtle character, you know, he could have counted on our thinking like that and decided to take the risk.”
“The same could apply to the Eckersalls.”
“So it could. Which makes my argument seem rather absurd. Oh—!” She broke off as the front door knocker sounded. “Could you see who that is, Andrew? It may be the police again. I’ll run upstairs and get dressed. I shan’t be a minute.”
She hurried out of the kitchen.
It was not the police, it was Nicholas Ryan. As Andrew opened the door to him he became aware that he had no slippers on and was in his socks. It was a sign, he supposed, of how at home he felt with Constance that he had not noticed it till then, but as he took Nicholas into the sitting room he suddenly felt as if he were half unclothed and in some obscure way at a disadvantage.
Nicholas was in his grey trousers and black sweater, with a scarlet windcheater over them. His dark hair was windblown and the wind had whipped colour into the hollow cheeks under his slanting cheekbones.
“It’s early, I know, but can I see Constance?” he asked. “There’s something I’ve decided I’ve got to talk to her about.”
“She’ll be down in a few minutes,” Andrew replied. “Sit down. Would you like some coffee? We’ve just been drinking it.”
“No, thanks.” But Nicholas sat down. “I suppose she takes this very hard.”
“Mollie’s death? Yes, they were very attached to one another.”
“I know. I suppose the police haven’t found out anything about it yet?”
“Not that I know of.”
“They came round to see me last night, you know.” The young man sounded more earnest than at any other time that Andrew had seen him. “And among other things they asked me if I’d a typewriter. I have, and they wanted me to type a few lines on it and they took the specimen away. I suppose you know why they did that.”
“No,” Andrew lied.
Nicholas looked at him sceptically. “I should have thought you would. It’s that that I want to talk to Constance about. Possibly I ought to have done it before, but it’s too late to worry about that now.” He looked gloomily towards the window, through which the branches of the walnut tree could be seen tossing in the wind. “A foul morning,” he muttered.
“How’s your boil?” Andrew asked, just to keep the conversation going until Constance appeared.
“Oh, a bit better, thanks.”
“Nasty things, boils.”
“Yes, pretty painful.”
“In the old days, before penicillin, they could lead to blood poisoning and kill you.” Somehow it seemed inevitable to return to the subject of death.
“So I believe,” Nicholas said.
The conversation did not seem to be getting anywhere. Whatever it was that had brought Nicholas, he plainly intended to keep it to himself until he could talk to Constance. Andrew gave up the attempt to converse, and happening to look down, noticed that he was waggling his toes in his socks. It was not very dignified. He was glad when he heard Constance coming down the stairs.
She had put on a light brown skirt and a dark-brown pullover and, as always, looked neat and self-contained. Nicholas stood up and gave her a kiss on each cheek.
“I’m sorry I’m so early,” he said again, “but I’ve got people coming to look at the house and I’ve got to get home. They came to see it yesterday afternoon and they’re coming again today with a surveyor. They say they’re looking for a house to turn into a home for handicapped children. If the poor things are sufficiently handicapped, perhaps they won’t realize how awful it is—Oh, Constance, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to talk nonsense like that. You can’t be interested in my affairs at the moment, and anyway, I don’t
suppose the sale will come to anything. But there’s something I’ve got to talk to you about.”
“About a letter?” she inquired calmly.
She sat down and Nicholas sat down again.
“How did you guess?” he asked.
“But is it about a letter?”
“Yes.” He looked dismayed at her foreknowledge of what he had come to say. “But how did you know?”
“It’s about Mollie?”
“Yes. But until this thing happened to her, I didn’t mean to say anything about it. It was rather a horrible letter.”
“Have you brought it with you?”
“No, I destroyed it.”
“But can you remember what was in it?” Her gaze on his face was interested but detached. There was more anxiety in her voice than in her expression.
“More or less,” he answered. “It was odd, it didn’t seem to have been written to me. It said something like ‘I know all about what you did with Mrs. Ryan’s last will and you’d better pay up. A thousand pounds. Cash. Get it ready and keep it till I write again to tell you where to put it.’”
“Ah yes,” Constance said, “that’s more or less what I expected.”
“Do you mean you’ve had other letters like it?” he asked quickly.
“Not exactly like it, but there’s a certain resemblance.” Her tone was dry.
“Of course you know what Mollie did with that will,” he said.
“Yes, I do, but I wasn’t sure whether or not you did.”
“It was only a guess till that letter came. I thought from the first Mollie must have destroyed the will, simply because she had the best opportunity to do it and the best motive. I admit it didn’t seem like what I knew of her, but people are always doing things that strike one as out of character. I didn’t really know her very well.”
“Why didn’t you accuse her of it and try to get the money that ought to have been yours?”
He stirred uneasily in his chair. “I don’t quite know, Constance. I suppose it was because it seemed only fair to me that she should have it after the way she’d looked after my aunt. And what with death duties and income tax, added to what I’ve got already, it wouldn’t have made so much difference to me. And I did get the house, which will sell sooner or later. Perhaps these people who are coming today will buy it. The land alone is worth a good deal. I’ve arranged for a firm of landscape gardeners to come in later today to start getting the place back into order again. But I suppose the real reason I didn’t do anything is that I hate a fuss. There’d have been all sorts of arguments with lawyers, and perhaps it would have meant going to court, and in the end I might not have been able to prove anything. After all, my aunt could have destroyed that last will herself. We know she tore up some papers just before she died. Then that letter put me off altogether. Blackmail’s a horrible thing.”
“When did you get it?” Andrew asked.
“On Tuesday.”
“And who do you think sent it?”
The young man shrugged his shoulders. “My bet is on Lorna Grace, the district nurse. But it could have been Pegler. The two of them say they witnessed a will, but I’m not even absolutely certain they did. They’re the only people who ever saw it.”
“I thought they claimed not to have read it,” Andrew said.
“It would be in the interest of at least one of them to say that, wouldn’t it? I mean, the one who’d seen the possibility of blackmail.”
“I wonder then why they waited so long to try that. Mrs. Ryan’s been dead a good while.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps this person suddenly needed money. And I don’t know why the letter came to me, or how you knew about it, Constance.”
“We won’t go into that,” she said. “Another time, perhaps, but not just now. Thank you for telling me about it, anyway. Have you told the police about it?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know. Do you think I should?”
“I think it might be best.”
“Even though it means I’ll have to explain what I guessed about Mollie and the will?”
“It can’t hurt her now.”
“Would it hurt you?”
She looked surprised for a moment, then she said, “Oh, you mean might it affect my inheriting anything under her will because the money wasn’t really hers? But don’t you know she left everything she’d got to you? Did you really not know that?”
Andrew saw a slow flush spread over the young man’s face. He looked at Constance with what seemed to Andrew to be genuine disbelief.
“No, I didn’t know that,” he said in a low tone. Then all of a sudden his dark eyes flamed with rage. He sprang to his feet. “And that gives me a motive for murdering her! You believe I knew it. And murder’s so much easier than a legal action. And cheaper too. This way I get my money without having to pay a single lawyer. Or are you going to contest the will, Constance? Because if you are, I warn you, I’ll fight you.”
“No, I shan’t contest it,” she said.
Her voice was extremely weary now. Andrew, remembering that she had probably not slept all night, wished that Nicholas would leave.
That seemed to be his intention, for he strode to the door. But there he paused.
“Somehow I’ll get it out of you how you knew about the letter,” he said. “It seems to me bloody strange. You say there have been other letters. All right, sooner or later you’ll tell me about them. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Nicholas. And I hope you manage to sell your house today.”
He went out, letting the front door slam behind him.
She leant back in her chair and closed her eyes. Suddenly Andrew noticed that she was trembling. The interview had shaken her far more than she had allowed herself to show at the time.
He stayed silent for a little while, then he said quietly, “Do you still believe he’s the murderer your letter was meant for?”
He saw that it was an effort for her to open her eyes and let her gaze meet his.
“It’s probable, isn’t it?” she said. “It might even be the real reason he came this morning. Like us, he may have guessed the letters had been muddled up and he wanted to know if I’d seen the one he may have been expecting. From the way it was worded, we know it wasn’t the first the blackmailer sent to his victim.”
“But didn’t we agree Nicholas couldn’t have murdered Mollie, or at least, as the Eckersalls said, that if he had he wouldn’t have taken the awful risk of driving off in broad daylight with her body in his car when he’d a fine big garden in which to bury it safely?”
“Aren’t you forgetting the landscape gardeners, Andrew? He’d arranged for them to come today to get to work on clearing up the place, so he couldn’t bury her in the garden. And he’d got people coming to look over the house in the afternoon, so he’d got to get her out of the way in a hurry. It’s true he could have hidden her in the boot of his car and waited for darkness to get rid of her, but he couldn’t have driven along that lane by the stream without lights, and that would have been as conspicuous as doing it by daylight. And the question remains: whom besides Mollie may he have murdered? Who was our letter really about? At the moment I’m inclined to put my money on Mike Wakeham.”
Chapter Seven
Andrew suddenly became aware that he had still not put on his slippers. Because he did not know how to respond to Constance, it seemed to him a good thing to go upstairs and put them on. Muttering that he would be back in a moment, he went upstairs. But then he changed his mind and, instead of putting on slippers, put on shoes, for he had just had an idea that presently he would go out and talk to Naomi.
Then it occurred to him that he ought to make his bed. Constance was hardly in a state to cope with domestic matters. He made his bed neatly, looked round the room to make sure that it was tidy and with a certain sense of reluctance went downstairs again. He did not really want to go on talking about murder. He thought of his own flat an
d how peaceful it was there, working on his notes of the life of Robert Hooke. He was very fond of Constance, but all the same it would have been very pleasant to be at home.
He found her sitting where he had left her.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said as he came in, “I may be quite wrong about Mike Wakeham. For all I know, Nicholas may not even have been here when he disappeared. I’m not sure of the exact day it happened, of course, only that it was about three weeks ago. The first we knew of it was when Naomi came round and poured it all out to Mollie, how he’d gone off with some woman and she couldn’t stand it any longer and was going to divorce him. But I suppose he’d disappeared at least a day or two before she did that.”
“She’s rather changed her story since then about what she thinks happened to him,” Andrew said. “She seems to favour the idea that he’s been murdered, though certainly not in Lindleham, in the service of MI5 or by drug smugglers. You still believe our murderer here is Nicholas, do you?”
“Don’t you?”
“Because he got the letter meant for Mollie and the letter she got having been meant for him? But if you’ve given up the idea that his victim was Mike Wakeham, who else could it have been? Old Eckersall? He’s probably safe in Fiji. Anyway, what had Nicholas against him? Colin? Had Nicholas anything against Colin? I’d an impression they were on rather good terms.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Constance said. “The victim may not have been anyone from Lindleham. Nicholas might have brought someone down here, possibly someone who for some reason he hated or feared. We don’t really know anything about his life in London. We know he’s got money, but not much about where it comes from. It may be from something fairly disreputable, which he wanted to get out of when he inherited the house—oh, I know I’m being fanciful. All the same, it could be something like that, couldn’t it?”
“Naomi claims to believe her husband may have been murdered by drug smugglers,” Andrew said, “and you’ve changed it round, saying that some drug smuggler may have been murdered by Nicholas.”
The Other Devil's Name Page 14
