‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes. I’d always wondered if he ever got out of England and back to Salzburg, though I felt it was more than likely he had, being Kess. One way or another. Legally or illegally, bribes or whatever was needed,’ he added with a wry grin. ‘He spoke near-perfect English, after all, and he had plenty of money, so it was quite possible he could have got across the Channel. And so he did, and straight away joined the Imperial Army – the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger Battalion, to be precise.’
‘Those who fought in the Alps against the Italians?’
‘That’s right. Splendid chaps, weren’t they? For all they were on the other side. Unspeakable conditions during the winter – but Rupert wouldn’t have let that worry him, nor the danger, either. He’d climbed the mountains since he was a boy, with his father, and loved them…We spent several holidays together climbing there. He was killed in the Trentino offensive in 1916. Got a gong for bravery, which won’t surprise anyone – if he had to go, I think that’s the way he would have chosen.’
Reardon realised the laconic statement hid a lot, that it was the way this young fellow, his eyes older than his years, like all of them who’d gone through it, covered his feelings. Reardon liked the cut of his jib, as the sailors said. Young bloke, straight from public school, no doubt, and into the hellfire war, which had made a man of him, as it had done for many who eventually were lucky enough to come out of it. Officer material. The sort of officer Reardon would have been happy to serve under, never mind he was but a lad. Boys grew into men swiftly, over there.
‘Thank you for coming to see us, and so promptly. I appreciate it.’
William hesitated. ‘There’s something else,’ he said, and now he looked embarrassed. His neck reddened above the too loose collar. ‘I seem to have walked right into a family situation which might have some bearing on this wretched case you’re investigating.’
He looked a good deal more uneasy about the prospect of speaking about that than about what he’d had to tell Reardon before. Death, and war, he had learnt to cope with, but family scandals were a different kettle of fish. And then, although Reardon thought he knew what was coming, William surprised him. ‘My father would like to see you, if you can spare the time.’
They were told by the housekeeper that Francis Wentworth could be found in the church when they went along to the rectory an hour later.
The little, grey stone church with its squat tower stood a dozen or so yards from the main path through the churchyard, where ancient, lichened gravestones leant and where thousands of daffodils spread between the tombstones and stood thickly along the edges of the paths, a few already in flower, the swollen buds of the rest waiting to burst into bloom. ‘Must be a rare sight when they’re all out,’ commented Wheelan, a bit of a gardener when he had any spare time.
‘“Continuous as the stars that shine.”’
Reardon received an odd look for that, but merely smiled as he pushed open the grainy, weathered oak door of the ancient church. Inside, a pinafored woman was just getting ready to leave, buttoning up her coat, picking up a basket of cleaning things. ‘The rector? You’ll find him up at the front.’ She pointed down the nave, beyond the rows of bench pews to where several old box pews stood, their high panelling intended in less enlightened times to provide privacy and protect the wealthy occupants from draughts.
Typical church smells assailed them as they walked down the aisle. Damp, ancient stone, dry woodwork, candle wax and brass polish, and a slight smell of burning oil as they neared the front – perhaps from the sanctuary lamp glowing red over the altar.
Francis Wentworth had been sitting in his church, the old Saxon church he had come to love, in the Broughton box pew, alone with his thoughts while Mrs Wright busied herself with cleaning the brasses and polishing the lectern. Before that, he had been on his knees for an hour in front of the altar, and now he felt a kind of peace, of the sort he had not known since he first entered the ministry, a young man full of hope and fervent with the love of God. Odd, how the murder of someone he had scarcely known had brought this about, in this church where Grevilles were laid to rest. He stared at the Greville arms, emblazoned on one of the open doors of this pew, big enough to hold a family, its place prominent near the pulpit, its woodwork elaborately carved. On the wall above was a plaque to Elizabeth Greville, Sybil’s mother, who had died too young. No memorial to Grev: he had borne the name of Foley, the man who had been the best of fathers to him, important in everything that mattered.
He heard a murmur of voices, heavy footsteps ringing on the stones as the two policemen came down the aisle. He rose and extended a hand, invited them to take a seat. He was well enough disposed towards this man who had finally vanquished the bugbear of Marianne’s death, even though the way she died was not something either Francis or any of his family had ever really disputed.
‘It seems, Inspector, that things have moved on since our last conversation a couple of weeks ago, when you spoke to us about my daughter, Marianne. I believe, since you are now looking for reasons for poor Edith Huckaby’s death, you may find this…of some use.’ He spoke without a tremor but his hand shook slightly as he offered Reardon yet another of the marbled-covered exercise books which Nella had passed on to him. ‘I think you will find it is self-explanatory.’
‘Thank you.’ Reardon took the notebook but did not offer to read it now, since he had no doubt what it contained. He had not found the others very readable, though they had demonstrated that the rector’s daughter Marianne had not been discreet – and that Edith had been skilful in taking advantage of this. The relationship between the two young women had evidently been somewhat more intimate than most people had believed. Marianne had seemed to regard Edith as a mentor: ‘Edith thinks this…Edith says that…’ had appeared more than once after some piece of writing, or beside some little secret Marianne had confided to the books.
‘You will realise when you read it how difficult this is for me,’ the rector went on in a low voice. ‘I have given it to you because I feel you should be acquainted with all the facts, and know that in this affair I am not blameless, but I trust you will not jump to conclusions because of that.’
‘It is not up to me to judge, sir.’
‘Certain inferences might seem obvious, but that poor young woman’s death…We live in a lawless society, Inspector. Men have been trained to kill, and learnt that life is cheap.’
The scent of the flowers in a tall vase on the chancel steps, the smell of brass polish, were suddenly sickening. Reardon, who had begun to feel some sympathy for Frances Wentworth, said stiffly, ‘I dare say there may be some who look at it that way, as they’ve always done, but I think most men who fought at the front, in spite of everything, would believe that life is very dear indeed.’
The rector said immediately, ‘I apologise. It is I who am jumping to conclusions now.’ He held out his hand. After a moment, Reardon took it, and for the first time in their acquaintance, saw the rector smile, albeit one that seemed infinitely sad.
Protocol had gone by the board since Oaklands had become a hospital. No pulling the front doorbell and waiting for the butler to answer it. The door stood wide open to a hall as big as the ground floor area of the average home. Reardon was about to step inside when he saw and heard the yellow Martini scrunch up the gravel drive and draw to a halt. Out of it stepped Eunice Foley, and a sturdy young woman in a sensible hat, albeit one that did nothing to conceal the mass of golden hair that tumbled from beneath it. Eunice took her by the elbow and they disappeared around the corner with a wave to William Wentworth, who drove off again in the direction of the main road. No doubt this was the girl Eunice had spoken about, engaged to the patient in the wheelchair. She was very persuasive, Eunice Foley, as he had reason to know. No one else he had encountered since his own disfigurement had ever made him give serious thought to Ellen Calder’s feelings, rather than his own, in the matter of their relationship. It disturbed him more than he like
d to think.
He stepped into the hall. Doors opened off it in every direction, indicating possibilities beyond. As he stood there, orientating himself according to the layout he had earlier tried to fix in his mind, wondering which door led to the small sitting room where Lady Sybil had previously received him, a brisk nurse appeared.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for Lady Sybil.’
‘Sorry, I can’t help you, but here’s someone who will. Elsie!’
Obviously one of the household, rather than the hospital staff, a pert blonde young woman in a housemaid’s cap and apron, armed with dustpan, brush and dusters, was crossing the back of the hall and came forward. The nurse smiled and went on her way and Reardon repeated his request to the maid to see Lady Sybil.
‘Stay here, I’ll get her for you. I think she’s in the music room.’
‘No need to keep you from your duties. Point me in the right direction, and I’ll find her myself.’
‘No!’ she said quickly. ‘No, you can’t do that, not the music room. You stay here.’
‘Wait a moment. First, will you show me where Mr Foley’s study is?’
‘It’s just here.’ She gave him a sharp look, and pointed to a door on the right.
‘I’ll just take a look inside.’
‘Well, sir, I don’t know if—’
‘It’s all right, Elsie, I just want to take a look.’
She obviously didn’t trust policemen, and stayed with him while he opened the door. He didn’t need to take more than a step inside to see all he wanted to see – a corner room, which was a mirror to Lady Sybil’s sitting room on the opposite side of the house, handsomely furnished with a bank of well-stocked bookshelves, a big mahogany desk, comfortable leather club chairs with dark-green velvet cushions and floor-length velvet curtains to match.
‘Thank you, Elsie,’ he said as he stepped back into the hall and she closed the door behind him. ‘I’ll wait here until you find Lady Sybil.’
The inspector with the war-scarred face knew. It was the second time he had looked searchingly at the photograph Arthur had taken that summer day when they, her family, and all the Wentworths had been together, for a tennis party. The first time had been when he’d talked to her and Eunice, just after Edith’s body had been discovered. Something inside her did that sickening, downward plunge again– her heart, in all probability.
‘And how are your enquiries progressing, Inspector?’ she asked as steadily as she could when they were seated.
‘Satisfactorily, I believe. We are not quite there, yet, but not far off…it’s all taking us back a long way, Lady Sybil. As far back as 1914, in fact. I would like to talk to you about a party you held here about then, on the eve of the war.’
‘So long ago? Surely not…’
‘Past events have their repercussions. You do remember that party?’
‘Of course I do. It was Eleanor Villiers’s birthday, and the day her grandson left to join his regiment. So good that he is home again, at last. Dear William, we’re all so fond of him.’ She fumbled a cigarette from the silver box on the same small table that held the photo, inserted it into an ivory holder and lit it with an onyx lighter, trying to avoid looking at the photograph. She held out the box towards him.
‘I don’t, thank you. Lady Sybil, I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you some questions which are bound to be painful and upsetting…That time, the night of the party, was the last time you saw your son, I believe?’
‘Need you remind me of that?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘I am indeed sorry to do so, but the facts must be faced if we are to find the true reason why Miss Huckaby died. I’ll come straight to the point. Your son had fallen in love with Marianne Wentworth and she with him, and he left, did he not, because he learnt the truth?’
Briefly, she closed her eyes. ‘What truth is that, Inspector?’
‘I think you know what I mean,’ he said gently. ‘The truth about his birth. That Mr Foley was not, in fact, his father.’
‘That is…quite unpardonable conjecture.’
‘I am sorry if you find it unpardonable, but it is not conjecture. It has come from the Wentworth family, from the rector himself, the Reverend Mr Wentworth.’
From Francis, thought Sybil. Francis. Her thoughts whirled. So, he had succumbed, after all. Why, when they had by mutual consent – except for that one, disastrous revelation – kept this skeleton concealed in their respective cupboards for so long? But since he had, however, seemingly chosen to admit to a secret that was as much hers as his, might she not at least have expected his support now? An almost hysterical laugh caught in her throat. So typical of Francis, another retreat into self-flagellation.
‘That was what Edith Huckaby was blackmailing you about, was it not? She found out and threatened to make it public.’
She had long since ceased to feel that would matter – except to one person. Her husband, however, was not here, for which she was truly thankful.
She said, through stiff lips, ‘Very well.’ She knew now she had no alternative but to give what explanation she could. Keep calm, she told herself, stop this trembling inside. There is no proof, nothing. Nothing to worry about. Ben Naylor has promised to keep to himself what he saw, and if Ben makes a promise to me, he keeps it. ‘Very well, Inspector…’
All evening, the evening of that party no one would ever forget, she had been uneasily aware that Arthur might not have been feeling well. To anyone else it might not have been apparent: he seemed to be his usual dryly spoken, good-humoured self, but she knew the times were worrying him, and that he was overworking, and she kept an anxious eye on him. She could have wished he had not been witness to that upsetting altercation between Grev and the Austrian in the little sitting-out room, but at least she was able to urge him to his bed as soon as the guests had gone. She and Eunice had seen him comfortably settled, and then she had gone to her room to wait for Grev.
Brushing her hair before the mirror, she heard the murmur of a few words her son exchanged with Edith, who was still tidying her boudoir before retiring to her own bed. When he came through into her bedroom, she was sitting in front of her mirror in a peach silk peignoir trimmed with black lace which she had afterwards thrown away, not able to bear looking at it. He took the silver-backed brush from her and stood behind her and began to brush the long dark hair, smiling at her reflection. It was years since he had done this, as he used to love to do when he was a small boy.
‘What was it you wanted to see me about, Mother? Other than reproaching me with hitting one of our guests.’
‘Well, that was unpardonable, you bad boy, and you know it.’ But she smiled at him, she couldn’t help it.
‘I do know. But he accepted my apologies. We’re friends once more,’ he replied, tongue firmly in his cheek.
She took the brush from him and laid it with a nervous click on the dressing table. ‘Come and sit by the fire, darling. There is something I wish to talk to you about.’
The subsequent half-hour was one she was to remember, and regret, for the rest of her life.
‘Well, of course, Inspector’ she finished, ‘as you have probably guessed, Edith hadn’t gone away when Grev came in. She stayed, and listened and heard everything. Though she never said she had, except by a look or implication.’
‘But she did, however, ask for payment – those jewels, or money, perhaps?’
‘Oh no, she was too clever for that. I suppose she thought if she was too demanding my patience would eventually snap, and I would let her do her worst and face the music. Especially after Grev died. What did it matter to me, then? But I couldn’t do that – not to my husband. He has a weak heart, you know, and he loved Grev so much. To learn that he was not his son would have killed him. No, Edith never actually asked for anything. She would simply pick up a small trinket and admire it, until I got the point and told her to keep it. If I gave her an order she didn’t feel inclined to obey, she would
smile, and simply look at me. But yes, the word was certainly blackmail.’ She took a long, considering look at him. She stood up and walked across to the fireplace, and stood facing him, her arms crossed over her breast, as though she were suddenly cold. ‘And then quite suddenly, the other night, I thought, this tyranny must stop.’
The long nose of Arthur Foley’s Daimler emerged through the factory gates and the motor car picked up a little speed as it left behind the smoke and grime of the Black Country towns and began to bowl smoothly into the countryside and towards Oaklands. He sat back in the crimson leather interior, trying to relax, willing away the sense of doom. He had felt distinctly unwell these last few days, and that business of Edith Huckaby had done nothing to help. He was not unprepared for the eventuality that another heart attack, possibly more severe than the first, would come sooner or later, probably sooner. But, please God, not yet. Not quite yet. There were things to set right before he let go and slipped off this mortal coil.
Oh, Sybil, why did you do it?
Though she had, God only knew, danced to that young woman’s tune long enough. For over four years, he calculated, viewing the affair in retrospect. If only she had seen fit to tell him, when it all began! He had, of course, known something was wrong, but not until recently had he begun to suspect just how bad it was, or what it might be. Although he was not a man to allow anything of that sort to carry on and affect his family for longer than necessary, he had refrained from saying anything as long as possible because he had hoped Sybil herself would eventually tell him.
He closed his eyes, willing himself to relax, let himself drift, and was carried back once more to the hours after that fateful party on the eve of the war, which he had endured for Sybil’s sake until the guests were leaving…
Broken Music Page 28
