Put On By Cunning

by Ruth Rendell

  from the main aisle. It stood up against the cream-washed wall under a window. Prince produced a key and was about to insert it into the the lock on the container door when Rochford put out a hand to restrain him and asked to see the warrant again. Patiently, Wexford handed it to him. They stood there, waiting while he read it once more. Wexford had fancied for minutes now that he could smell something sweetish and foetid but this became marked the nearer he got to Rochford and it was only the stuff the man put on his hair or his underarms. Rochford said:

  'Mrs N. Arno, 27a De Beauvoir Place, London, I'll. We didn't move it from there, did we, George? Somewhere in Sussex, didn't you say?'

  'Kingsmarkham, sir. It was our Kingsmarkham branch done it.'

  'Ah, yes. And it was put into store indefinitely at the rate of 5 pounds 50 penceper week starting from 15 July?'

  Wexford said gently, 'Can we open up now, sir, please?'

  'Oh, certainly, certainly. Get it over, eh?'

  Get it over.... George Prince unlocked the door and Wexford braced himself for the shock of the foul air that must escape. But there was nothing, only a curious staleness. The door swung silently open an oiled hinges. The place might be sinister and evocative of all manner of

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  igreeable things, but it was well-kept and rell-run for all that.

  The inside of the container presented a icrocosm of Sterries, a drop of the essence of Manuel Camargue. His desk was there and ie austere furnishings from the bedroom and itting room in his private wing, the record payer too and the lyre-backed chairs from the msic room and the piano. If you closed your fes you could fancy hearing the first movement )m the Flute and Harp Concerto. You could icll and hear Camargue and nothing else. Oxford turned away to face the furniture from ie spare bedrooms, a green velvet ottoman in a )lland cover, two embroidered footstools, leathed in plastic, a pair of golden Afghan rugs led up in hessian, and under a bag full of |uilts and cushions, the carved teak chest, ided now with two stout leather straps. The four men looked at it. Burden humped te quilt bag off on to the ottoman and knelt >wn to undo the buckles on the straps. There a rattly intake of breath from Rochford. ie straps fell away and Burden tried the iron sps. They were locked. He looked iquiringly at Prince who hesitated and then iUttered something about having to go back to office to check in his book where the keys are.

  | Wexfbrd lost his temper. 'You knew what J'd come for. Couldn't you have checked

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  where the keys were before we came all the way down here? If they can't be found I'll have to have it broken open.'

  'Look here....' Rochford was almost choking. 'Your warrant doesn't say anything about breaking. What's Mrs Arno going to say when she finds her property's been damaged? I can't take the responsibility for that sort of....'

  'Then you'd better find the keys.'

  Prince scratched his head. 'I reckon she said they were in that desk. In one of the pigeonholes in that desk.'

  They opened the desk. It was entirely empty. Burden unrolled both rugs, emptied the quilt bag, pulled out the drawers of the bedside cabinet from Camargue's bedroom.

  'You say you've got a note of where they are in some book of yours?' said Wexford.

  'The note says there in the desk,' said Prince.

  'Right. We break the chest open.'

  'They're down here,' said Burden. He pulled out his hand from the cleft between the ottoman's arm and seat cushion and waved at them a pair of identical keys on a ring.

  Wexford fitted one key into the lock on the right-hand side, turned it, and then unlocked the left-hand side. The clasps opened and he raised the lid. The chest seemed to be full of

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  ;k heavy-duty polythene sheeting. He isped a fold of it and pulled. |The heavy thing that was contained in this Id glossy slippery shroud lurched against the len wall and seemed to roll over. Wexford to unwrap the black stuff and then a rible thing happened. Slowly, languidly, as if ftstill retained life, a yellowish-white waxen arm id thin hand rose from the chest and loomed jjmbling over it. It hung in the air for a >ment before it subsided. Wexford stepped with a grunt. The icy thing had brushed cheek with fingers of marble, f Rochfbrd let out a cry and stumbled out of the itainer. There was a sound of retching. But >rge Prince was made of tougher stuff and he ic nearer to the chest with awe. With rden's help, Wexford lifted the body on to floor and stripped away its covering. Its >at had been cut and the wound wadded with bloody towel, but this had not kept blood off yellow dress, which was splashed and led with red all over like some bizarre map | islands.

  ipWexfbrd looked into the face, knowing he been wrong, feeling as much surprise as the lers, and then he looked at Burden. ^Burden shook his head, appalled and fstified, and together they turned slowly back gaze into the black dead eyes of Natalie Arno.

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  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  'Cui bono? said Kenneth Ames. 'Who benefits?' He made a church steeple of his fingers and looked out at St Peter's spire. 'Well, my dear chap, the same lady who would have benefited had you been right in your preposterous assumption that poor Mrs Arno was not Mrs Arno. Or to cut a tall story short, Sir Manuel's niece in France.'

  'You never did tell me her name,' said Wexford.

  He did not then. 'It's an extraordinary thing. Poor Mrs Arno simply followed in her father's footmarks. It's no more than a week ago she asked me if she should make a will and I naturally advised her to do so. But, as was true in the case of Sir Manuel, she died before a will was drawn up. She too had been going to get married, you know, but she changed her mind.'

  'No, I didn't know.'

  Ames made his doggy face. 'So, as I say, the beneficiary will be this French lady, there being no other living relatives whatsoever. I've got her name somewhere.' He hunted in a drawer full of folders. 'Ah, yes. A Mademoiselle Therese Leremy. Do you want her precise address?'

  if

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  ic transformation of Moidore Lodge was >parent long before the house was reached.

  ic drive was swept, the signboard bearing the ic of the house had been re-painted black id white, and Wexford could have sworn the Ironze wolves (or alsatians) had received a )lish.

  Blaise Cory's Porsche was parked up in front

  the house and it was he, not Muriel Hicks, yho opened the door. They send for him like

  icr people might send for their solicitor, jought Wexford. He stepped into a hall from yhich all dust and clutter had been removed, $iich even seemed lighter and airier. Blaise �Hifided, looking once or twice over his ioulder:

  'Having these good people has made all the

  ference to the dear old dad. I do hope you're here to do anything which might�well, in lort, which might put a spanner in the works.'

  'I hardly think so, Mr Gory. I have a question

  two to ask Mrs Hicks, that's all.'

  'Ah, that's what you people always say.' He ive the short, breathy, fruity laugh with |hich, on his show, he was in the habit of living the more outrageous of the statements

  ide by his interviewees. 'I believe she's about te house, plying her highly useful equipment.'

  The sound of a vacuum cleaner immediately

  ;an overhead as if on cue, and Wexford would

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  have chosen to go straight upstairs but he found himself instead ushered into Philip Cory's living room.

  Ted Hicks was cleaning the huge Victorian french windows, the old man, once more attired in his boy's jeans and guernsey, watching him with fascinated approval. Hicks stopped work the moment Wexford came in and took up his semi-attention stance.

  'Good morning, sir!'

  'Welcome, Chief Inspector, welcome.' Gory spread out his meagre hands expansively. 'A pleasure to see you, I'm sure. It's so delightful for me to have visitors and not be ashamed of the old place, not to mention being able to find things. Now, for instance, if you or Blaise were to require a drink I shouldn't have to poke about looking for bottles. Hicks here would bring them
in a jiffy, wouldn't you, Hicks?'

  'I certainly would, sir.'

  'So you have only to say the word.'

  It being not yet ten in the morning, Wexford was not inclined to utter any drink-summoning word but asked if he might have a talk in private with Mrs Hicks.

  'I saw in the newspaper about poor little Natalie,' said Gory. 'Blaise thought it would upset me. Blaise was always a very sensitive boy. But I said to him, how can I be upset when I don't know if she was Natalie or not?'

  Wexford went upstairs, Hicks leading the

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  Moidore Lodge was a very large house, reral rooms had been set aside to make a pelling for the Hickses without noticeably )leting the Gory living space. Muriel Hicks, 10 had been cleaning Cory's own bedroom ith its vast four-poster, came into her own )ms, drying her newly washed hands on a . She had put on weight since last he saw gr and her pale red hair had grown longer and tshier. But her brusque and taciturn manner

  unchanged.

  'Mrs Arno was going away on her holidays, le says to me to see to the moving when the ten came next day. It wasn't convenient, we are leaving ourselves and I'd got things to do, it that was all the same to her, I daresay.' Her isband flashed her an admonitory look, iplying that respect should be accorded to all iployers, or else perhaps that she must in no iy hint at ill of the dead. Her pink face flushed ly. 'Well, she said that was the only day >rset's could do it, so it was no use arguing, le'd had a chap there staying the Weekend....'

  'A. gentleman,' said Hicks. K 'All right, Ted, a gentleman. I thought he'd >ne by the Sunday, and maybe he had, but he ?as back the Monday afternoon.' 'You saw him?' 'I heard him. I went in about six to check up ith her what was going and what was staying,

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  and I heard them talking upstairs. They heard me come in and they started talking French so I wouldn't understand, and she laughed and said in English, "Oh, your funny Swiss accent!" By the time I got upstairs he'd hid himself.'

  'Did you hear his name, Mrs Hicks?'

  She shook her head. 'Never heard his name and never saw him. She was a funny one, she didn't mind me knowing he was there and what he was to her like, but she never wanted me nor anyone to actually see him. I took it for granted they both went off on their holidays that same evening. She said she was going, she told me, and the car was gone.'

  'What happened next day?'

  'The men came from Dorset's nine in the morning. I let them in and told them what to take and what not to. She'd left everything labelled. When they'd gone I had a good clear up. There was a lot of blood about in the blue bathroom, but I never gave it a thought, reckoned one of them had cut theirselves.' Wexford remembered the deliberate cutting of Natalie's fingertips in the (Jaffifoom) in De Beauvoir Place and he alnost shuddered.

  Muriel Hicks was more stolic 'I had a bit of a job getting it

  said. 'I saw in the paper tiey found her at

  Dorset's warehouse. Was she it in that chest?' He nodded.

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  about it than he. ff the carpet,' she

  ... ? I mean, was

  KiVcVK

 

  V

  K

  ffShe said indifferently, The men did say it is a deadweight.'

  ^Blaise Gory walked out to the car with him. It is warm today, the sky a serene blue, the ives of the plane trees fluttering in a light sky breeze. Blaise said suddenly and without usual affected geniality: 'Do you know Mrs Mountnessing,

  irgue's sister-in-law?' I've seen her once.'

  'There was a bit of a scandal in the family. I is only seventeen or eighteen at the time and latalie and I�well, it wasn't an affair or lything, we were like brother and sister. We ;re close, she used to tell me things. The sOieral made a pass at her and the old girl fright them kissing.' 'The general?' said Wexford. ^Blaise made one of his terrible jokes. 'Must ive been caviare to him.' He gave a yelp of ighter. 'Sorry. I mean old Roo Mountnessing, meral Mountnessing. Mrs M told her sister id made a great fuss, put all the blame on poor le Nat, called her incestuous and a lot of crap ce that. As if everyone didn't know the old boy a satyr. Camargue was away on a tour of lustralia at the time or he'd have intervened. Camargue and her sister tried to lock Nat >, keep her a sort of prisoner. She got out and it her mother. She hit her in the chest, quite rd, I think. I suppose they had a sort of brawl

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  over Natalie trying to get out of the house.'

  'And?'

  'Well, when Mrs Camargue got cancer Mrs Mountnessing said it had been brought on by the blow. I've heard it said that can happen. The doctors said no but Mrs M. wouldn't listen to that and she more or less got Camargue to believe it too. I've always thought that's why Natalie went off with Vernon Arno, she couldn't stand things at home.'

  'So that was the cause of the breach,' said Wexford. 'Carmargue blamed her for her mother's death.'

  Blaise shook his head. 'I don't think he did. He was just confused by Mrs M. and crazy with grief over his wife dying. The dear old dad says Camargue tried over and over again to make things right between himself and Nat, wrote again and again, offered to go out there or pay her fare home. I suppose it wasn't so much him blaming her for her mother's death as her blaming herself. It was guilt kept her away.'

  Wexford looked down at the little stocky man.

  'Did she tell you all this when you had lunch with her, Mr Cory?'

  'Good heavens, no. We didn't talk about that. I'm a present person, Chief Inspector, I live in the moment. And so did she. Curious,' he said reflectively, 'that rumour which went around back in the winter that she was some sort of

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  ipostor. 'Yes,' said Wexford.

  It was not a long drive from Moidore Lodge the village on the borders of St Leonard's fforest. It was called Bayeux Green, between [orsham and Wellridge, and the house fexford was looking for bore the name Bayeux ftlla. Well, it was not all that far from Hastings, lere was another village nearby called misday Green, and very likely the name had Mnething to do with the tapestry. He found the house without having to ask. It las in the centre of the village, a narrow, jtached, late nineteenth-century house, built small pale grey bricks and with only a small liled-in area separating it from the pavement, le front door was newer and inserted in it was | picture in stained glass of a Norman soldier in mail. Wexford rang the bell and got no iswer. He stepped to one side and looked in at ie window. There was no sign of recent ibitation. The occupants, at this time of the were very likely away on holiday. It aned strange that they had made no igements for the care of their houseplants. pradescantias, peperomias, a cissus that ibed to the ceiling on carefully spaced igs, a Joseph's coat, a variegated ivy, all ing down leaves that were limp and parched. He walked around the house, looking in more idows, and he had a sensation of being

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  watched, though he could see no one. The two little lawns looked as if they had not been cut for a month and there were weeds coming up in the rosebed. After he had rung the bell again he went to the nearest neighbour, a cottage separated from Bayeux Villa by a greengrocer's and a pair of garages.

  It was a comfort to be himself once more, to have resumed his old standing. The woman looked at his warrant card.

  'They went off on holiday�oh, it'd be three weeks ago. When I come to think of it, they must be due back today or tomorrow. They've got a caravan down in Devon, they always take three weeks.'

  'Don't they have friends to come in and keep an eye on the place?'

  She said quickly, 'Don't tell me it's been broken into.'

  He reassured her. 'Nobody's watered the plants.'

  'But the sister's there. She said to me on the Saturday, my sister'll be staying while we're away.'

  This time he caught her off guard. He came up to the kitchen window and their eyes met. She had been on the watch for him too, creeping about the house, looking out for him. She was still wearing the red and yellow dress of Indian cotton, she had been shut up in there for three weeks, an
d it hung on her. Her face looked

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  len, though not frightened. She opened the ick door and let him in.

  'Good morning, Mrs Zoffany,' he said. 'It's a

  ief to find you well and unharmed.'

  'Who would harm me?'

  'Suppose you tell me that. Suppose you tell ic all about it.'

  She said nothing. He wondered what she had lone all by herself in this house since 27 July, lot eaten much, that was obvious. Presumably, ic had not been out. Nor even opened a

  idow. It was insufferably hot and stuffy and a

  rong smell of sweat and general unwashedness lated from Jane Zoffany as he followed her ito the room full of dying plants. She sat down id looked at him in wary silence.

  'If you won't tell me,' he said, 'shall I tell

  ?ou? After you left me on that Friday evening

  m went back to Sterries and found the house

  ipty. Mrs Arno had driven your husband to ic station. As a matter of fact, her car passed le as I was driving down the hill.' She continued to eye him uneasily. Her eyes had lore madness in them than when he had last

  ;n her. 'You took your handbag but you left ^our suitcase; didn't want to be lumbered with I daresay. There's a bus goes to Horsham from outside St Peter's. You'd have had time to itch the last one, or else maybe you had a hire tr.'

  She said stonily, 'I haven't money for hire

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  cars. I didn't know about the bus, but it came and I got on.'

  'When you got here you found your sister and her husband were leaving for their summer holiday the next day. No doubt they were glad to have someone here to keep an eye on the place while they were gone. Then a week later you got yourself a birthday card....'