Lessons for Suspicious Minds

by Charlie Cochrane

  Orlando liked the sound of Hayes giving girls sauce; he didn’t want the footman offering Jonty any services other than those a valet should offer. He brought the conversation back to where it should be. “The men who stayed here when Tuffnell died. Were they all members of the same club?”

  “The Ambrosians? Of course.” Alexandra almost snorted. “Is St. Bride’s a sober place? I suppose it must have been, or at least comparatively so, for your father to deign to go there.”

  “It’s as sober as the next college, although that might not be saying much, especially when you consider what the college next door is like.” Orlando did snort. “And we don’t have an equivalent dining society.”

  “Not even a euphemistic one,” Jonty chipped in. “When our lads get drunk they do it openly. And get gated, like any decent Cambridge man.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.” The dowager laughed heartily. “Luckily most of the Ambrosians have grown out of their old ways so they keep to shooting and fishing and a game of backgammon now.”

  Orlando’s ears pricked up. “Would backgammon have been allowed? We were told that gambling was out of the question.”

  “If it had been for money, yes. Derek would never have tried to lead poor Reggie into temptation. Not these days, anyway. He was terribly upset about the change in the man the last few years.”

  “Back to the days when the Ambrosians were at their raucous best—or worst.” Jonty sat forward in his chair, fingering his tie at risk of spoiling the perfect knot. “What on earth did they get up to?”

  “What didn’t they?” Orlando sniffed. “They’d had to tone things down by the time I was up at Gabriel, but the old days are the stuff of legend. How much is true, who knows?”

  “All of it, at a guess,” the dowager said. “Derek used to regale us with many a tale and they’d have made your hair stand on end at times. He minimised his role in them, of course, which I took with a pinch of salt.”

  “I’m sure he did. I’ve done the same. Don’t tell Mama.” Jonty grinned. “But what did they do?”

  “Generally practical jokes that went too far, like managing to get a blacksmith’s anvil on the top of the college chapel, or persuading innocent passersby to do the most ridiculous things. Hold the lead for invisible dogs. Reggie Tuffnell was fond of doing that.” Alexandra cleared a stray wisp of hair from her brow. “It’s escaping again, Mavis. Can you see if you can control it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’d never get women stooping to such nonsense. Still, I suppose nobody was ever hurt. Not that I was aware of, anyway.”

  “And did they get up to those sorts of antics here?” Orlando tried to frame the question in a deliberately casual manner.

  “Oh no, they’re all far too long in the tooth for that sort of stuff.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t make myself plain. I meant when they were still students and congregated at Fyfield.”

  “A bit.” The dowager waved her hand airily. “Tried some of their pranks on the locals, but what works on gullible undergraduates doesn’t have the same effect on decent working people with a bit of common sense. I’m pleased to say the Ambrosians generally came off worse.”

  Jonty asked, “In what way?”

  “Thrown into the pond, given a mouthful of country language, that sort of thing. That’s better.” Alexandra turned her head from side to side. “And when they came home with their tails between their legs, they got precious little sympathy. My husband had no time for pranks. Not after the business with the dancing bear when he was at St. Sebastian’s.”

  “The dancing bear’s passed into fable. I heard about it when I was up at Gabriel.” Orlando tried not to sound too impressed at the antics of a rival college. “Almost like the story in Cambridge about Jonty dragging the goat into the porters’ lodge. And then milking it.”

  “Really?” The dowager looked delighted. “That’s a story I haven’t heard.”

  “I’ll tell it over dinner,” Jonty promised, looking daggers at Orlando. “I don’t want to have to repeat myself. And back to that invisible dog. How do you persuade somebody to hold a lead for it?”

  “Ask Derek. He saw a lot of those tricks done. If we can find some which are fit for mixed company, we’ll get him to expound them. Your mother would appreciate it, her brothers being scallywags themselves.”

  “Are we any the wiser?” Jonty asked, as they made their way downstairs.

  “Perhaps. Not about why everybody’s playing their cards so close to their chest, but we’ve got something else to think about.”

  “The anvil?”

  “The very same.” Orlando paused at the turn of the staircase. “It would take prodigious skill and strength to winch an anvil up onto a chapel roof.”

  “Oh yes. And to do it without being caught would also require both cunning and luck. All four of them might prove useful if you wanted to rig up a device to hang a man.” Jonty ran his finger along the banister. “Strong rope. Strong arms. I can understand the engineering. But why bother to do it, Orlando? Who would benefit from Tuffnell being dead?”

  “I have no idea.”

  While the Stewarts could hardly merit the title of St. Bride’s own version of the Baker Street Irregulars, Mr. Stewart often said they probably possessed as much native cunning and as many intuitive powers as that troop of urchins. They were already enjoying predinner drinks in the great hall, feeling keen as mustard, when their son arrived. Mr. Stewart had assured him they’d rein in their enthusiasm; questioning the company over the dinner table would only lead to backs being put up, shutters coming down, and indigestion breaking out.

  It was like playing an intricate game of bridge. The Stewarts kept the conversation to the matter of mutual friends and their doings, which allowed the lads to edge slowly towards the activities of the Ambrosians, via a discussion of Jonty’s own misdemeanours. As he’d promised, the story of the goat got a proper airing, much to everyone’s delight—although the clever link to the tale of the invisible dog floundered when the arrival of a magnificent cut of beef interrupted the flow.

  When eventually the dowager insisted they take the conversation back to Oxford days, Derek seemed reluctant to discuss either the invisible dog escapade or the anvil one, concentrating instead on a long-winded—although admittedly funny—story involving a rowing boat, a cat, and four swans. He did, however, eventually admit culpability for the anvil, especially under Orlando’s persistent questioning about the mechanics of the thing. He wasn’t bothered why they’d pulled such a prank, he insisted, but the how would plague any mathematician.

  He, Derek, and Mr. Stewart entered into a long discussion about ropes and pulleys, friction, fraying, and some things Jonty said he couldn’t even spell, let alone know the meaning of. Such bluntness on his host’s part, Mr. Stewart had to admit, seemed to put a damper on their nice little theory. If Derek had been party to rigging up some contraption by which Reggie Tuffnell was killed, surely he wouldn’t have deigned to discuss something similar in such detail? Unless it was a classic bit of double bluffing.

  Mr. Stewart was delighted to be first arrow off the bow. The fact that everybody else would have to wait until the next day and a decent hour to be going off visiting made things even better. Once the ladies and the younger gentlemen had retired, the field was free for a bit of bearding the lion in his den. Or, rather, over the billiard table.

  He and Derek had played the game as young men, and were much of a muchness in terms of skill, so the contest would be even and well fought. And create the right atmosphere for questions to be subtly asked. He eased into the topic by way of reminiscences of his time at St. Bride’s, stories of mutual friends and the scrapes they’d got into, notable rescues in the form of parental intervention and douceurs. It seemed natural to turn again to the doings of the Ambrosians, and so to Reggie Tuffnell.

  “The lads have made a good start with their enquiries. They appreciate the help Hayes gave them.” Mr. Stewart p
layed, missed, and stood back from the table. “Can’t be easy for you, this business.”

  “It isn’t. You know what Mother’s like when she gets a bee in her bonnet about something. I just wish she’d let it go. Tuffnell was a good man, but he went off the rails. Damn!” The duke’s shot took a vicious screw. “Excuse me while I change my cue. This one’s useless.”

  “Feel free.” Mr. Stewart lined up his next attempt. “Gambling’s a terrible thing when it gets hold of a man.”

  “What’s that? Oh, yes. Absolutely.” Derek, re-armed, returned to the fray. “I feel a cad saying it, given that we were such friends back at Oxford, but perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “For the best?”

  “Yes. You must have seen it happen, Richard. Fundamentally good men gone to the bad. Somehow they seem to end up worse than those who start out as villains. Maybe it runs in the family, given that his father went doolally. Good shot.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. Stewart lined up his next one. “Is that what your mother meant when she said Reggie had always been a bit odd?”

  Derek nodded. “When we used to play those pranks, he sometimes took them a bit too seriously. Almost an obsession. We thought the merchant marine had knocked it out of him, but recently, with this gambling and all . . .” He shrugged. “The return of his obsessions, I suppose. I can’t deny I’m sorry to have lost him, but as I said, perhaps it’s as well he’s gone before he could get into deeper trouble.”

  “Awful thing for the staff, though. To discover the body.”

  “I’ve never seen Hammond so shaken. For such a thing to happen here at Fyfield . . .” Derek contemplated his cue tip. “That’s why I wish Mother would let it go. The more we keep on about it, the longer it’ll take to get back on an even keel.”

  “But what about justice?” Mr. Stewart positioned himself next to a striking depiction of a naval battle, just the stirring sort of stuff to inspire fair but competitive sporting play. “Surely, if Tuffnell was murdered, then we have a duty to see the murderer brought to book? If only to possibly prevent something similar happening again, elsewhere.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” The duke stared at his cue, but his gaze seemed focussed far away.

  Mr. Stewart pretended to study the ships of the line—which were apparently smashing the living daylights out of the Spanish fleet at Cape St. Vincent—before turning to settle over his own shot and let fly his next broadside. “That lad of mine seems to be a glutton for punishment. He and Orlando have found themselves with two deaths to look into.”

  “Two?” Derek almost dropped his cue.

  “Yes. Had their ears bent when we stopped at Monkey Island. Have you heard of a chap called Livingstone?” Mr. Stewart looked up from his shot just in time to see Derek go a startling shade of white.

  “Livingstone?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Stewart continued, breezily, “supposed to have killed himself by drowning. The lads aren’t convinced.”

  “I think I read about it in the paper. The inquest . . .” The duke seemed to be pulling himself together, so Mr. Stewart pressed on before the moment was lost.

  “The inquest ruled it was suicide but the lads have uncovered evidence to suggest otherwise.” A small lie, hardly bigger than a man’s fingernail. And in the interests of investigation, so easily squared by his conscience.

  “Evidence? Good God, that was quick work.” Derek leaned against the billiard table, unmoving. The game could evidently wait.

  “Oh, yes. When they set their minds to something, they usually get quick results. Jonty swears it’s luck, but Orlando says it’s the application of higher reason.”

  “Most likely.” The duke seemed to snap out of his reveries. “Your shot, I think.”

  “Oh, probably.” Mr. Stewart bent over the table again, wishing he could think of the right question to get at whatever was making his host so pensive. “You didn’t run across Livingstone at all? The name seems familiar to me, and I wondered if that was because you’d mentioned him.”

  “I’ve never met him in my life. That’s not our firm of solicitors.”

  “I didn’t necessarily mean locally. I understand his father was at Oxford.” The shot was played, but not one of Mr. Stewart’s best.

  “Was he? Surprisingly enough, Richard, I didn’t know everybody who was up in those days. As you wouldn’t have known everyone at Cambridge.”

  Touché.

  “That newspaper man told the lads that the Ambrosians had quite a reputation here back when your father was duke and you brought them to visit. Overtrod the line between high spirits and hooliganism once or twice. Made a few enemies.”

  “Oh . . .” Derek waved his hand airily. “It was high spirits, nothing more. Ruffled feathers and a bit of grumbling, but nothing a couple of hefty douceurs couldn’t sweeten if someone overstepped the mark.”

  “And Tuffnell was one of those who went too far?”

  “Reggie? Sometimes, back then, but then the preux chevalier streak would come to the fore. There was one of my jests which went too far at Oxford—accidently spilled some ink on a young girl’s dress. Turned out she was a nursery maid on her afternoon out and that was her best frock. Reggie gave her enough money to buy three to replace it. Then won back what he’d spent from me over cards. He had better luck back in those days,” the duke added ruefully. “And was more of a gentleman than any of us, at one time.”

  “Before the luck ran out, I suppose? It can turn a man’s head.”

  “Oh? Oh, yes. Nasty business, gambling debts.”

  “None of the Ambrosians were in debt in their salad days?” Mr. Stewart’s delight at having come up with a new line of questioning was soon punctured.

  “Nothing like that. No long-standing enemy lurking in the shrubbery, I’m afraid, Richard.”

  “In which case, who prospered?” Mr. Stewart stood back from the table, adopting his most confidential tones. “I have all the time in the world for your mother, but we’re struggling to find any reason why someone should have gone to such trouble to kill Tuffnell. Especially to make it look like suicide.” He had another sudden inspiration. “I’d have faked a shooting accident or something, rather than rig up a hanging.”

  “Do you often plan these murderous escapades?” Derek smiled ruefully. “There are only two people I can think of who’d have cause. Ronnie Tuffnell, to get the money, but he wasn’t here and anyway, he’d never have done the deed. He thought the world of his big brother.”

  “You’d be surprised at how often the lads have found, in their investigating, that affection—fraternal or otherwise—counted for nothing when money or love was in the offing.” Mr. Stewart may have stretched the truth, but not beyond the point of comfort. “You said there were two?”

  “Did I? Oh, yes.” Derek seemed to regret his candour. “There was a chap back in Oxford days. Another one of the Ambrosians. Reggie stole his girlfriend.”

  “That does seem like a thin reason to want to kill somebody. Sort of thing which happens all the time.”

  “Not when the girl ended up dead. Out on a boat and it capsized—and there’s no suspicions on that being anything other than an accident. Several people witnessed it. The poor thing couldn’t swim and was encumbered by her choice of boating dress. Some ridiculous, heavy thing.” Derek looked suddenly serious. “Arch . . . the man in question, struggled to forgive Reggie. They had to Box and Cox for Ambrosian meetings. Couldn’t have the two in the same room.”

  “So I guess he wasn’t here either?”

  “Lord, no. The man died twenty years ago. Still hadn’t forgiven Reggie, as I understand it, although he must have got over it, at least in part. He married another girl not a year after Lucy died. It’s your shot.” Derek pointed to the baize.

  “Sorry.” Mr. Stewart bent to it, disconsolate that a promising lead had been snuffed out. He’d have precious little to report to the lads—the first arrow had clearly missed its mark.

  Mr. Stewart stood in the hal
lway outside his son’s room. Unusually, he felt overcome by a state of dithering, uncertain whether to knock at this late hour. He suffered no qualms about waking up his youngest son to report back on the discussion with Derek, but the disquieting thought that Orlando might be present and things going on stayed his hand.

  The seven-year-old who sometimes whispered in his metaphorical ear suggested he spy through the keyhole, but that prospect was even more alarming. Maybe a loud cough should precede the knock, to send out a warning? He was about to let forth a pertussive volley when Orlando’s door flew open just down the corridor and Jonty emerged—fully dressed, thank the Lord—and hailed him.

  “Papa! Not like you to lurk in the darkness. Something to report to us?”

  “Yes. Orlando want to hear it too?”

  “Undoubtedly. Come along here, save rousing the old bird from his chair.”

  To Mr. Stewart’s relief, he found Orlando also dressed, and sitting in a fireside chair with his notebooks.

  “I told you I heard Papa in the corridor,” Jonty said. “His telepathic powers will have informed him that we were discussing the case and urged him to join us.”

  Mr. Stewart sat on the other chair, while his son leaned against the mantelpiece. “Any theories?”

  “Theories? I’m not sure we have two sensible thoughts to rub together.”

  “He’s talking rubbish, as usual.” Orlando sounded tired. “We’ve got ourselves around to thinking that Livingstone committed suicide and the note was left in his pocket simply because he was a forgetful young chump. Ronnie murdered Reggie to get to the money, being in league with Hammond who’s trying to stop us investigating. They used a similar sort of system to hang him as the one they’d used to get the anvil up on the roof.”

  “How much of that is a serious proposition?” Mr. Stewart wrinkled his brow.

  “Who knows? It feels like a load of rubbish to me.” Orlando shut his eyes.

  “It’s early days, of course. Trouble is there’s nothing yet to get our teeth into.” Jonty sounded as if he were trying his best to be optimistic.