by Clara Benson
Angela glanced at Victorine, but she seemed quite unconscious of what she had just said. If Selina had not been killed before dinner, then it looked as though Godfrey did not have an alibi for at least part of the vital period if he had indeed been working in the study. Had Godfrey been one of those whom Victorine had mentioned as having been charmed by Selina? She had talked of the men of the house. Someone had hated Selina enough to kill her, and what was more likely to engender hatred than thwarted love? It was a theory which certainly bore further investigation, Angela thought. For now, she decided to let the subject drop. Victorine had given away more than Angela had dared hope, and she seemed not to have noticed Angela’s more than usual interest in the case—or her evident prior knowledge of it. It was probably best to stop now before her suspicions were aroused. In any case, it was getting late, and it would be time to leave soon. Angela glanced at her watch and wondered how Freddy was getting on in the dining-room with Godfrey.
Just then a servant came in to deliver a message. Victorine replaced the picture of Valencourt on the escritoire and turned to hear it. As she did so, Angela could not help but notice her hostess’s large, strong hands. It would have taken a great deal of strength to strangle Selina, and they had all assumed, therefore, that she had been murdered by a man. But Victorine’s hands must be easily as strong as a man’s. She had as good as admitted that she hated Selina, and she had spent much of the evening of her sister-in-law’s death alone in her room—or so she said. Had she perhaps seen Selina throw a careless look at Godfrey that day and finally been overcome by a jealous fury that could not be contained? Might hers have been the hands which had pressed against Selina’s neck later that evening, slowly choking the life out of her until at last she went limp and fell to the floor? It was certainly an idea. Angela looked at the unsmiling Victorine as she turned back politely to her guest, suppressed a shiver, and wondered.
AFTER THE WOMEN retired, a subtle change came over Freddy. He drew himself up and became less fatuous, more serious, as he considered how best to approach the coming conversation with his inscrutable host. Now was his opportunity to draw Godfrey de Lisle out and find out more about the dreadful events at Greystone Chase eleven years ago. Why had Godfrey been so seemingly unconcerned at the discovery that his brother was a murderer? Had there been bad blood between the two? And if so, what had caused it? From all that Freddy had heard of the de Lisles it did not seem as though they had been a happy family, but was it all the responsibility of Roger de Lisle, or were there other reasons for it too?
Up to now the conversation had not strayed from general topics, but now Freddy decided to introduce the subject of his own family. He waited until Godfrey made some suitable remark, and then, adopting a wistful air that he considered convincing, said:
‘Of course, Father’s death has been terribly hard on Mother. She was very fond of the old stick, although two more different characters one couldn’t find. Father wanted me to learn the business—couldn’t see the point of my continuing my education when there were factories to run and workers to pay. But Mother was the far-sighted one. She wanted me to go to Oxford and make the right sort of connections. She said that nobody of any importance cares about what happens in the North, and if I wanted to make them care, then I must learn how to influence them, and I couldn’t do that by sitting in a glass office in Manchester. In a way, she was right: in the course of three years I met any number of politicians’ sons; I can name two heirs to earldoms who would dine with me tomorrow night if I asked them; I could snap my fingers now and someone would ask a question in the House on Thursday. But all this mixing with the better sort of company has rather backfired, since it’s spoilt me for going back to the business. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how one looks at it—when Father died we were forced to sell one of the factories to pay the death duties, and since a competitor of ours was showing some interest at the time, Mother and I decided that we might as well sell the other two while we were at it. Other than the disrespect to my father’s memory I can’t say I particularly regret it, since I suspect I didn’t exactly inherit his abilities. And to be perfectly frank with you, I’m not entirely sure which would have horrified the Governor more: my selling the business to his rival, or the mess I’d have made of it if I’d kept it on myself. You’re in the wine business, I understand, sir.’
Godfrey indicated that that was the case, and expressed some sympathy at Freddy’s dilemma. His manner was almost affable, for he had been encouraged by his uncle to try and be more friendly if he wished to sell Greystone Chase, and his efforts in this respect had been assisted by an unaccustomed quantity of Burgundy with the main course, followed by two glasses of Sauternes. He was now completing the process with a generous helping of some excellent port.
‘I imagine you were only too happy to go into the business,’ said Freddy. ‘I mean to say, if Father had been a wine producer I expect I’d have been all for it myself. But steel springs!’ He raised his hands and widened his eyes in a gesture that was intended to be rueful and comical at the same time. ‘What can one do with a steel spring? Other than cause oneself a painful injury, naturally.’ Here he indicated his left ear-lobe, which was ragged and half-missing. ‘I did this as a child, when Father made the mistake of showing me how the production line worked close to—I can only imagine with a view to inspiring me with its poetry and romance. “Father,” I said, as they mopped up the blood and carried off the fainting women, “I now know everything I need to know about the steel spring. I’m sure you won’t mind if I observe the phenomenon from a distance in future.”’
‘Fortunately I have no such injuries,’ said Godfrey, ‘but like you, I was brought up to the trade. My father was in the business and it was always understood that I would take it over after his death.’
‘Did you never wish to do something else?’
‘I was not given the choice,’ said Godfrey dryly. ‘My father was not one to brook opposition. Like you I was sent to study, but as soon as I had finished I returned to France to take up my duties. When the war began we were forced to abandon our vineyards and come to England, but as soon as it was safe to do so we returned and took the reins once again. Or, rather, my father did,’ he corrected himself.
‘Something of a tartar, was he?’ said Freddy sympathetically.
‘He was certainly a taskmaster,’ said Godfrey. ‘We were under the yoke from a younger age than one would normally expect.’
‘We? Do you mean you and your brother? Was he expected to go into the business too?’
‘Yes, he was,’ replied Godfrey.
‘But I expect what happened put paid to all that, eh?’ said Freddy. He held his breath, wondering how Godfrey would take his mentioning of the unmentionable.
Godfrey’s brow lowered and the atmosphere turned distinctly frosty.
‘Not exactly,’ he said stiffly. ‘My brother had already declared his intention not to work for our father. There was some little dispute about it which as far as I know was unresolved at the time of the events in question. However, it is not a period I like to remember.’
Even Freddy was not bare-faced enough to press further when confronted with such evident unwillingness to talk about the matter, and so he was forced to give it up. He begged Godfrey’s pardon and turned the subject, but his host’s mood had changed and he had returned to his usual distantly polite self. There was no use in forcing the point, and in any case it was getting late, so Freddy suggested they join the ladies in the drawing-room. The visit ended soon afterwards with polite nothings on both sides, and Freddy and Angela returned to the Regent Hotel. Each had soon apprised the other of what they had discovered—which, in Freddy’s case was very little.
‘What a pity he clammed up as soon as I tried to introduce the subject,’ he said regretfully, as the Bentley turned on to the main road into Denborough. ‘I was hoping the drink would have loosened his tongue, but no such luck. He turned to ice as soon as I mentioned his brothe
r, and I can’t say I blame him. After all, it’s hardly polite to drag up the dead bodies when one’s drinking a man’s best port under his own roof, is it?’
‘No,’ agreed Angela. ‘I almost ducked out of it myself, but luckily Victorine had plenty to say, as it turned out. I wonder what they’re saying to each other at this moment. Do you think they’re comparing notes? I suppose the best we can hope for is that they think we have the most dreadful manners. At any rate, I hope they don’t suspect what we’re really up to.’
‘Does it matter if they do, now?’ said Freddy. ‘Either way they’re unlikely to invite us back. This was always going to be pretty much our only opportunity to question them, and you got something at least, even if I didn’t. Two possible suspects without alibis, in fact. Which of them do you fancy? I should have thought Godfrey was the more likely.’
‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Angela, and fell silent. She was thinking again of Victorine’s strong hands and the way she had looked—almost glared, in fact—at the photograph of Selina. Would she tell her husband about what she had told Angela? Or would she keep it to herself? There was something about the woman which made Angela uncomfortable, and although it was more logical to suspect Godfrey, she could not help thinking that it would be better not to get on the wrong side of his wife.
She was still thinking about their visit to Greystone Chase the next morning as they walked along the cliff top with Mrs. Hudd and Miss Atkinson. Freddy was exerting himself to be entertaining, and Angela was required to say very little, which allowed her to reflect at leisure. It seemed to her that it was all very well to believe in Valencourt’s innocence (and she was by no means certain she did), but proving it would be quite another matter. What sort of proof could they possibly find after all this time? If somebody else was indeed guilty then he or she was highly unlikely to confess to it, and there were no witnesses to speak up. That being the case, was there any point in continuing?
A loud voice hailed them at that moment and they spied Colonel Dempster approaching them from a little distance away. He had been talking to the two women Angela had met when she first came to Denborough. Jemmy’s sister looked as cheerful as ever as she saluted the little group and turned to push the wheel-chair in the direction of the High Street.
‘Good morning, colonel,’ said Mrs. Hudd. ‘I see you have been talking to the Misses Winkworth, as I suppose we must call them.’ She turned to Freddy. ‘I think we can safely say that society is going downhill when the servant classes are allowed to start booking themselves into expensive nursing-homes.’
‘Oh, come, now,’ said the colonel pleasantly. ‘Miss Winkworth is a pleasant enough woman, and very kind to her sister.’
‘Still, you must admit she is not quite the thing,’ said Mrs. Hudd.
Freddy wanted to know more, and the two ladies told him of the Misses Winkworth and their impudence in daring to have enough money to afford to care for one of them comfortably.
Angela, meanwhile, was still thinking about the question of proof as it related to the murder of Selina de Lisle. It seemed almost hopeless, and not for the first time she toyed with the idea of calling Mr. Gilverson and telling him she wished to withdraw from the case. It did not last long, however, for she knew she would not be justified in doing so until they had spoken to all those who had been there at the time, and they had not yet seen Henry Lacey’s friend Oliver Harrington. It was unlikely that he would have anything useful to tell them, of course, since it appeared he was not a close acquaintance of the de Lisle family and had merely been a casual visitor at the time of the murder. Still, Angela knew she would never be able to rest until she had gone as far as she could, for if it could be said that there remained even the slightest clue, the slimmest lead, the remotest idea that she had failed to pursue, then she would never be able to unburden herself of the debt which had weighed her down all these months, and which she longed more than anything to repay.
AFTER THEIR EVENING at Greystone Chase, Angela sent Charles Gilverson a short message to say that she was still pursuing the investigation and that she would let him know of developments, if any. In the meantime she returned to Mount Street and set Freddy on to discovering the present whereabouts of Oliver Harrington, who had last been heard of in Canterbury.
But Freddy was worried. Since that day on Chancery Lane he had not been able to shake off the idea that Angela was being deceived for some purpose that was unclear to him, and so he was less concerned about looking for Oliver Harrington in Canterbury than he was about finding out exactly what was going on in London. Accordingly, when he returned to his duties on Fleet Street he took every opportunity to escape from the Clarion’s offices and loiter on Chancery Lane, waiting to see whether the man he had followed would return. For four days he had no luck, but on the fifth his efforts were rewarded, for just as he was on the point of leaving his watching-place in the doorway of the tobacconist’s for a society wedding which promised to be particularly dull, he spied the man again, just turning into the street on which the solicitor’s office was situated. He wore a thick scarf which hid the lower part of his face, and his hat was pulled down low over his eyes. Freddy followed at a safe distance and watched as the man entered the office of Gilverson and Gilverson, then abandoned all thoughts of the wedding and set himself to wait. After little more than half an hour the man emerged and set off briskly back the way he had come, still limping slightly. Freddy caught him up and walked alongside him.
‘Look here, what’s all this?’ he said.
Edgar Valencourt started and glanced at Freddy, then made a sound that might have indicated weary impatience or resignation.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, without slowing his pace. ‘What do you want?’
‘Much as I hate to state the obvious, I’d like to know what you’re doing strolling through the middle of London in broad daylight when you’re supposed to be dead,’ said Freddy.
‘Must I explain it to you?’ said Valencourt. ‘I should have thought it was easy enough to understand.’
‘Well, evidently the reports were false,’ said Freddy. ‘But how did you manage it?’
‘It’s rather a long story, and reflects very little credit on any of the people concerned, so if you don’t mind we’ll save it for another time,’ said Valencourt.
‘Then the whole thing was faked?’
Valencourt winced.
‘Hardly. They caught up with me all right, but luckily for me they weren’t quite as handy as they thought they were. I had a near miss, and seized the opportunity to—er—start afresh, let us say.’
‘You call this starting afresh, do you?’ said Freddy. ‘Coming back here, bringing up the past and tricking people into doing your dirty work for you?’
‘I haven’t tricked anyone into anything,’ said Valencourt. ‘I asked nicely.’
‘Under wholly false pretences.’
Valencourt made no reply.
‘But why drag Angela into it at all?’ said Freddy.
‘Who else could I ask? Do you suppose I have an army of private detectives at my command? I’d do it myself if I could, but there are several obstacles in the way of that, as you must be aware. Besides, I didn’t have much success in convincing people of my innocence eleven years ago, so I’m not likely to do any better now, am I?’
‘And you think Angela can succeed where the police failed?’
‘I don’t know, but at this point anything is worth a try.’
‘But why didn’t you just disappear?’ said Freddy. ‘Everybody thinks you’re dead. You’re in the clear as far as that’s concerned. You could vanish abroad and nobody would ever be any the wiser. By staying here you’re putting yourself in danger. Why are you doing this?’
‘Because, oddly enough, I’d like to have one last shot at proving I didn’t kill my wife,’ said Valencourt. ‘I’ve done many bad things in my time, but that wasn’t one of them.’
‘So you thought you’d use Angela to get you out of the mess?’
‘Don’t you think I deserve justice?’ said Valencourt. ‘Do you believe just because I’m a thief I ought to be hanged as a murderer?’
‘No,’ admitted Freddy. ‘But we still haven’t established to our satisfaction that you’re not a murderer. I wish you hadn’t asked her, of all people. I don’t like it, and I’d much rather she hadn’t agreed to it. I’m pretty sure she’s only investigating out of a sense of obligation.’
‘Angela found out, just as I did, that the law doesn’t always get things right,’ said Valencourt. ‘I asked her because I knew if anyone would give me a fair hearing, she would. If she fails this time, then I have nothing more to ask of her.’ He paused. ‘How is she, by the way?’
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but she’s very well,’ said Freddy. ‘In fine form, I’d say.’
‘Splendid,’ said Valencourt. ‘Then we’re all happy.’
‘I don’t like it, though,’ said Freddy.
‘You’ve already made that quite obvious. Look here, I can’t help the deception. Nobody must know I’m alive, or I’ll be arrested. But there’s nothing underhanded going on. I’d like—not unreasonably—to clear my name, receive a pardon, then retire somewhere far away and preferably warm, where I intend to cause offence to nobody. Is that good enough?’
‘It ought to be. It’s just that when shady solicitors start sending mysterious letters to people out of the blue, I begin to smell a rat.’
‘There’s nothing shady about Charles,’ said Valencourt. ‘He’s completely above the board.’
‘Then why is he shielding you?’
‘I expect because he’s fond of me. Is that so hard to believe? He’s the only real family I have left, now. None of the others would be prepared to help me even if I asked them. These days I have to take kindness where I can get it,’ he said pointedly.
‘Then you’re not doing all this to draw Angela in again?’ said Freddy.
