Gervase didn't strike me as the hero type. After all, he was now running for cover.
Gervase was asked by the coroner, Dr Timothy Pocklington, how, if he had been submersed in the water, his magician's cloak was largely dry when help arrived. According to the Chronicle's reporter, Gervase looked shamefaced and was unable to reply.
I was right! So the weasel had stood on the riverbank and watched the poor girl drown. Or he'd panicked and fled the scene.
Mr Josh Gorringe, a motor mechanic, said he had examined the Sunbeam after it had been pulled from the river. He found that the steering mechanism was incorrectly adjusted so that the car had a tendency to over-steer. With the car in this potentially dangerous condition, Gorringe was surprised it was being driven by someone who was not its owner. There was a gasp from the public seats when Gorringe named the owner of the car. Gerald Pope. Gervase's brother.
So could this explain why His Holiness had now scarpered? As Pope owned the car in which Harriet died, was Pope also in the assassin's cross-hairs?
Mr Gerald Pope was called to the witness box. He admitted that the car's steering was faulty. He claimed the vehicle was still safe to drive if the driver took care. He said he'd warned his brother about the problem when he handed over the Sunbeam's key. He admitted to the coroner he should never have allowed the car to be driven.
No wonder His Holiness now wanted Gervase's problems tidied away with no official involvement.
There was an outburst on the public benches when the jury delivered a verdict of accidental death. Harriet's brother, Felix Delaunay, leapt to his feet and shouted abuse. Before he could be dragged from the court he'd screamed: "Gervase Pope, I'll kill you. No matter how long it takes - even if it's forty years on. You're dead, Pope. Dead!"
I looked again at the date of the accident: 25th September 1924.
I looked again at today's date on the Clipping Cousin's wall calendar: 25th September 1964.
Today was the last date of the promised execution.
Forty years on.
Chapter 19
I closed the heavy board cover of the bound newspapers and sat back in my chair.
If Felix Delaunay was true to his threat, he would kill Gervase Pope today.
But was it sensible to take seriously a threat uttered in anger forty years ago? I could just imagine what Detective Superintendent Alec Tomkins would say if I called him with the news. Scorn wouldn't even begin to describe his reaction. I couldn't even get my old mate Ted Wilson to abandon his lunchtime pint and pork pie to follow up the lead on the strength of the evidence I had.
But not everyone knew that Gervase had disappeared. Or that he'd received an old Harrovian poem threatening retribution. In fact, it was a song rather than a poem. If Delaunay really did plan to top Gervase, was he going to set it to music?
Tra-la-la-la-li, you're dead.
But I was allowing my mind to wander into flights of fancy.
There was a simple way to discover whether Felix was serious about his threat to kill Gervase. I could ask him. He wouldn't admit it. But I'd know from his reaction what he planned to do. Besides, just asking the question would prove a deterrent. He'd know his name would be in the frame if any mishap befell Gervase.
There was only one problem with that plan. I had no idea where Felix lived. He could be anywhere. The inquest report said the Delaunays lived in the West Country. That was a start, but the West Country covered a huge tract of territory from Gloucestershire to Cornwall. I considered working my way through telephone directories covering the area. But that would take hours. There'd be at least fifteen directories. There could easily be several Delaunays in each. Calling each one in turn would take more time I didn't have.
And, anyway, I couldn't be sure Delaunay still lived in the West Country. Those old families put down roots for centuries but they have to move some time. Generally when the death watch beetle moves in.
Besides, what would I say? "Excuse me. Are you the Felix Delaunay who plans to murder Gervase Pope?"
There had to be another way to discover Delaunay's whereabouts. And, I realised with the customary flash of genius about which I'm normally so modest, there was. I didn't know Delaunay's address, but Gervase must do. After all, if the first letter Gervase received - the one he'd hidden from Estelle - had come from Delaunay, he'd replied to it. Estelle had spotted him sneaking off with the envelope.
I was betting that an organised old gent like Gervase would have Felix Delaunay's whereabouts neatly written out in an address book.
I could look it up. But only if Gervase hadn't taken the book with him.
There was only one way to find out.
To say that Estelle Daventry was pleased to see me would be pushing it a bit.
She stood in the middle of the sitting room at Gervase's apartment with her arms crossed. She had a scowl on her face that could have curdled milk.
She said: "You march in here and expect me to hand over Mr Pope's address book, one of his most private possessions. I won’t do it."
I said: "First, I didn't march in here. I came up in the lift. And, second, if you don't hand it over, I shall have to search the flat and take it anyway."
Estelle advanced towards me. She was shaking with fury. "You'll do no such thing. I shall call the police."
I held up my hand in what I hoped looked like a calming gesture but probably made it look as though I was waving goodbye to someone I didn’t like.
I said: "I wouldn't do that, if I were you. I'm sure Gervase wouldn't want the cops crawling all over his flat. Especially when they came to the display cabinet in his office."
"There's nothing illegal about Mr Pope's collection of memorabilia."
"Perhaps not. But what remains of Gervase's reputation would be shredded if it was generally known he had a soft spot for old Nazis. That's one reason why his brother wants all this investigated discreetly."
Estelle sat down heavily. Her eyes were watery. She sniffled. She pulled a lacy handkerchief out of the arm of her cardigan and blew her nose.
I sat down beside her. Rested my hand gently on her shoulder.
"I know this isn't easy for you. But you need to think of yourself. If Gervase becomes an object of scorn - even hatred - as a result of his, er, unusual hobby, your life would also be more difficult."
Estelle nodded reluctantly. "I suppose so," she whispered.
I said: "Where does Gervase keep his address book?"
"In his study. In the top right-hand drawer of his desk."
I stood up and headed for the study.
The billboard-sized photo of Mussolini still presided over the place.
I stuck out my tongue at him and plonked myself down in the chair behind Gervase's desk.
The desk drawer was still locked. But armed with the brief tutorial Click-Click had provided when he'd opened Potter's van, I went to work.
The desk was old and the wood had warped a little so the drawer sat a little loose on its runners. Gervase had a whippy little paper knife on his desk. I inserted the knife through a gap between the drawer and the desk frame. I pushed down on the lock.
I didn't think it would give. So I pushed down on the drawer handle at the same time as I pressed on the lock. I used force. My fingers holding the paper knife turned white. The drawer wasn't going to open.
Click.
Just one. Not two. Like Click-Click's. But it was enough.
The catch came free and I yanked open the drawer.
I uttered a simple prayer to Tyche, the Greek goddess of good luck, that Gervase had left his address book behind.
And there it was, nestling in the corner of the drawer. I reached in, took it out and put it on the desk. It would have been a handsome item in its day. It was covered in tooled brown leather. The words "Address Book" had been picked out on the front cover in gold leaf. But the book was old. The leather had faded in parts. The spine was cracked. The gold had faded.
But hopefully the information inside was
still intact.
I opened the cover. The book had been bound with marbled endpapers which looked like a psychedelic dream. An old-fashioned bookplate was headed Ex libris Pope. The bookplate had some fancy heraldic stuff I've never been able to follow and a motto: Ducit amor patriae. I applied my schoolboy Latin to the translation: love of country guides me. I wondered how far that applied to Gervase with his cabinet of Nazi junk.
The bookplate had been inscribed in now faded ink: "To Gervase, on your 21st birthday - from Mater and Pater. 4th April 1923."
So it looked as though Gervase's address book might have become over the years something of an heirloom. The book had an alphabetic thumb index cut into the side of the pages. Ever hopeful, I flipped straight to the Ds.
There was a jumble of names, addresses and phone numbers. Here was a forty-one year slice of Gervase's life profiled in the contact details of people he'd known. At least, the people he'd known well enough to record in his book.
But Gervase would have been no great shakes as a filing clerk. Or a librarian. Or a Ministry of Bumf bureaucrat. Anyone, in fact, who had to keep information in alphabetical order.
He'd jotted down entries at random. Sometimes he'd used the person's real name. Sometimes a nickname. Sometimes he'd written the full address. Sometimes just a telephone number.
I ran my finger down the D pages. I guessed the earliest names were at the top of the page, the later further down. Gervase had started by writing them clearly in blue ink using a pen with a thick nib. Later he'd changed to a black pen. Later still to a red Biro. One or two of the entries had been added in pencil. I started at the top and moved through the entries. It was like passing through the geological layers of Gervase's life.
There was a Dickie De Lisle, a Hector Doddington, a Sheldon Doubleday and others with names that spoke of comfort and prestige.
Then there were the women, usually just a given name. There was a Doreen, a Dulcie, a Daphne (with two exclamation marks in brackets after her entry) and a Deborah (not Thursdays, Gervase had noted gnomically).
And then there were the nicknames for people Gervase obviously knew - or had known - well. There was a Dog Biscuit, a Doughnut Face, a Drab Derek, and a Doubting Thomas.
But I didn't find an entry for Felix Delaunay.
Which left three possibilities.
One, Gervase could have entered the name under the Fs - for Felix.
Two, he could have entered it as a nickname anywhere in the book.
Three, he may not have included it at all.
If it was the third possibility I was as sunk as a shipwreck. But if it were possibilities one or two, I might have a chance.
I flicked to the Fs and hunted for Felixes. No dice.
So that left the nickname option. I sat back in Gervase's chair and thought about that for a moment. On the face of it, the idea of guessing the nickname that someone I'd never met had given to someone I didn't know seemed impossible.
But perhaps there was a way to do it. For starters, the nickname would have to be one of those written in the address book. That limited the selection from the millions of pet names people give their friends - and occasionally their enemies. I could go through the book, study each nickname, and decide whether it might be the one.
I flipped back to the As and then had a quick look at the Bs. There were about a dozen nicknames across the two letters. If that average applied through the rest of the alphabet, I'd be looking at more than one hundred and fifty - although I could probably reduce that by twenty or thirty as there'd be fewer for uncommon letters such as K, Q or X. Even so, I didn't fancy my chances of cracking the puzzle that way.
But there might be a way of narrowing the choice even further. For a nickname often relates either to some physical characteristic (Fatface Fred) or a personality feature (Dithering Delia). But as I had no idea what Felix Delaunay looked like that wouldn't be much help.
Sometimes a nickname becomes a variation of a real name. Like when White becomes Chalky White. I didn't think that would apply in Delaunay's case. Unless his name had some posh connotation I'd never heard of. So how the hell was I going to work out whether any of the nicknames belonged to Delaunay?
I sat back in the chair, frowned at Musso, and gave the matter some more thought.
Gervase had known Delaunay since their days at Harrow. Then they'd both been members of the Blunderbuss Club at Cambridge - in the days when they were friends. Gervase had received his address book when he was twenty-one - and still at university. So if Delaunay was in it, he'd be one of the early entries under whichever letter his nickname began with. That could still leave three or four dozen nicknames to check out - and I didn't have time for that.
But, I realised, I also knew something else which could help me reduce the number. Gervase had recently been in touch with Delaunay. He'd written at least one letter to him - the one Estelle saw him sneaking to the post. So the original forty-year-old entry could have been updated recently. I could be looking for an entry originally written with the thick nib in blue ink and then updated with the red Biro. I'd seen several of these through the book, but there weren't more than a handful of them.
The first one was under the As - Apple Chappie. There was an address in Norfolk which had been changed to one in Nottingham. No phone number. I made a note of the name on a pad lying on the desk.
There was no altered name under the Bs, but there were two under the Cs. The first was a cove called Christian Larry. The original address had been a vicarage in Shropshire. It had recently been updated to the Deanery in a northern England cathedral city. I didn't think Larry would be my mark but I made a note anyway.
The second name was Catnap. No address this time but the original phone number - Shepton Beauchamp 27 - had been updated to a Bristol number I didn't recognise. I wrote Catnap on my pad. I sat and stared at it.
It was one of those moments when you think you know something important, but don't know what it is. But, wait a minute. I did know what it was.
I flipped back to the bookplate at the front of the address book. Read the motto again: Ducit amor patriae. Not English, but Latin. I put myself in Gervase's shoes. He came from a family with Latin bookplates. Attended a school where a boy offering round his toffees would shout out "Quis?" (who wants one?) and expect the reply "Ego" (me). Went on to a university which had a public orator who'd spout a mouthful of the dead language before handing over your degree.
For Gervase, Latin would be as familiar and insistent as a ruck in his socks.
And Delaunay had a name - Felix - which in the Latin felis meant cat. True, not the ancient Latin which old Caesar would have spouted round the Forum - Et tu Brute, and all that. This was mediaeval Latin which scientists took over so they could give those long Latin names to animals and plants.
Felis catus - a domestic cat.
Felix Delaunay - Catnap.
And a would-be killer.
I picked up the telephone and dialled the Bristol telephone number, not knowing who would answer.
At the other end of the line a woman's prim and proper voice said: "University of Bristol. Carol Dawlish speaking. How may I help you?"
I said: "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I'm trying to get in touch with Felix Delaunay."
"Hold the line, caller," Carol said primly.
There was a silence, then paper rustled, like a file had been opened.
"I'm afraid Professor Delaunay is currently on leave for two weeks," Carol said.
"I'm sorry to have missed him. Could you tell me which department Professor Delaunay works in?"
"The professor is one of our leading lights in the history department."
"Ten sixty-six and all that."
"There is no 'all that', as you put it." Carol put me in my place. "Professor Delaunay is one of our country's leading experts on the history of witchcraft."
The line went dead.
I sat for a minute in Gervase's chair. I felt cold and goose bumps had risen on m
y arms and back.
Gervase and Harriet had been dressed as a wizard and a witch when they'd been on their way to the fancy dress party. The party Harriet never reached because she died.
And now the professor of witchcraft wanted to kill the wizard who had let her drown.
Chapter 20
I left Gervase's apartment with the distinct feeling that time wasn't on my side.
I'll admit I couldn't figure out why Felix had waited forty years to kill Gervase. I could understand Felix being devastated by Harriet's death. I could understand why he blamed Gervase. But I would've expected Felix's fury to cool as the years passed. Had there been some kind of trigger which had reignited his passion for revenge? I couldn't think of one.
But perhaps it was the symbolism of the forty years on. That would have deep meaning for both Felix and Gervase. They'd both been schoolboys at Harrow. It was as though Felix had set a date for Gervase's execution. The poem I'd seen and the letter which Gervase had received earlier would have been Felix's way of taunting him. A way to make Gervase fearful. To create true terror in his heart. No wonder Gervase had fled.
On the way down in the lift, I glanced at my watch. Four-thirty. If Felix was planning to use the fortieth anniversary of his sister's death to kill Gervase, he had just seven and a half hours to do it.
Unless, of course, Gervase was already dead.
Which raised another question in my mind. Had Felix found Gervase? I'd tried and failed. If Felix had been similarly unsuccessful, Gervase's date with death would be off. At least for today.
The lift doors opened. I stepped into the lobby, and made my way out into the street while I thought about the implications of that. The Forty Years On poem had been delivered to Gervase's apartment in the early hours of the morning. That implied Felix thought Gervase was still holed up in his flat. Or perhaps he didn't know where Gervase was. Perhaps he sent the poem to the flat in the hope it would reach him. Either way, he hadn't been able to kill him yet.
But events were moving fast. Could Felix have found and captured Gervase since he'd sent the poem? If so, Gervase might already be dead. It seemed the forty years stuff was important to Felix. Maybe he planned to kill Gervase to the exact hour when Harriet died. If so, that would be in the evening, because the pair had been on their way to a party.
The Tango School Mystery Page 16
