by Ellis Peters
‘You are intact,’ he said. ‘That’s good. I wasn’t much help to you, I’m afraid. Sorry!’
‘Neither was I to you.’ She came hesitantly to the bedside. ‘I’m terribly sorry about your leg.’
‘You can sit on the edge of the bed, my cage is stable enough. Know what they built it out of? Barrel hoops. I call that appropriate.’ He smiled up at her and was silent for a moment. ‘I just wanted to have a look at you, and make sure they were telling me the truth. I shouldn’t have liked it if anything had happened to you, I shouldn’t have liked it at all. And I also want to say thank you.’
‘It wasn’t for you I did it,’ she said, not unkindly, only by way of being absolutely honest about it. ‘I just didn’t see why it should be blown up into a tragedy. Nobody deserved that.’
‘Not even me?’ She expected him to ask how she had known, but he did not. He had always a way of sticking to essentials. ‘Well, I’ve got my wages. I don’t know if the doctor told you – he didn’t tell me, for that matter, but I know – I’ve made a pretty bad mess of this fracture. With what I’ve done to myself this time, I shall probably be grounded for good. There are several able-bodied kids waiting to step into my shoes. It looks as if my wife will be seeing a good deal more of me from now on.’
She looked at him doubtfully, suspicious of the placid tone, but the black eyes were equally calm. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘I asked for it, I’m not complaining. Only one thing, though – you’ll understand I couldn’t ask anyone else. Was there plenty of snow? I can’t remember too well, and I must have left a pretty noticeable trail. It would be a pity to waste it all now.’
She understood. ‘Plenty of snow, don’t worry. Nobody’s ever going to follow your trail. They found you in the main street, where anyone has a right to be.’
‘Thank God!’ he sighed, and closed his eyes for a moment.
‘How far did you draft yourself?’ she asked, with a suspicion of the truth in her already.
‘Right from her gate. I’d barely shut it behind me when I crashed. Me, the master equilibrist – tightropes and thin ice my specialities!’
‘And she didn’t come and help you?’ said Susan incredulously.
‘She didn’t know.’
‘You didn’t call for help?’
‘There? On her doorstep? No, I reckoned I could get to the road without passing out. I owed her that. Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, smiling up at her ruefully. ‘You’re undoing all the good effect of what the beaks call a “short, sharp lesson”. The one bad thing nobody can say about me, Susan, is that I whine about carrying the can.’
‘No,’ she agreed gently, ‘that’s one thing I’ll never say about you.’
‘Then do me one more favour. Tomorrow, when Agathe comes, tell her I’m all right, and not to worry, and that I shan’t be bothering her again. In a few days they’ll be able to get me out of here to hospital, and until then I shall be tucked well out of her way. Say I wish her all the best.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Susan.
She had almost reached the door on her way out when he added: ‘And give her my love.’ She looked back doubtfully; the grin he flashed her still had a reserve of dangerous impudence. ‘My respectful love, of course!’
Susan went down the stairs very thoughtfully. Never again would she be quite so arrogantly certain of her snap judgments of people; McHugh was not the only one who had been treated to a lesson in Oberschwandegg, they were none of them going back unchanged.
They were in the dining room, waiting for her with fresh supplies of hot coffee, and the tray of food she had left untouched in her room. The bruises were beginning to darken and swell on Laurence’s forehead and cheek, and his eyes were feverishly bright after all the spirits Franz had poured into him. They sat opposite each other, flushed now instead of pale, looking curiously alike in spite of all their differences of colouring and feature, each with a scratched left cheek, each with damp hair curling steamily in the warmth of the room, each a little drunk with rum and brandy and the newly appreciated intoxication of being alive. Between them they told the story of the night’s adventure, very lamely. Neither of them wanted to remember too closely or too clearly as yet.
‘Everard!’ said the doctor in a long, incredulous breath. ‘And there’s no doubt of it? He admitted it?’
‘He told me himself. He said: “It was so easy, I didn’t even have to touch him. Only after that there was no turning back.”’ She heard again the aching, hopeless voice, and shivered over her coffee.
‘You had a start on the rest of us,’ said Trevor, ‘knowing as you did, that Laurence was out of it. But I still don’t see how you arrived at Everard. Everard, of all people! Here were all five of us with a solid motive, and Everard with none at all. What put you on to him?’
‘You did, you and the doctor. You were talking while you waited down here, and I was on the stairs, listening. And there were three things you said that stuck in my mind like burrs, and I couldn’t get rid of them. You were agreeing that Richard hadn’t been robbed, because everything in his room was just as we should have expected to find it. And then Trevor said: “But shouldn’t there have been something unexpected in his room? Whatever it was Antonia gave him to remember her by.” And the second thing was when Dr Randall said of course it was nonsense looking for other motives, because a motive as strong as that will couldn’t exist side by side with another utterly different one. And I started thinking, no, not by accident, but could it be by design? Because that would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, for the person who had the other, the unknown motive. And then Dr Randall said: “There’s no ignoring the evidence of your own eyes,” and Trevor said: “Not eyes – ears.” And then I realised that we’d never actually read the provisions of the will, only heard them. Oh, we’d seen the thing itself, signature and all, it was hers, all right, it wasn’t any fake. But we didn’t read it, we had it read to us. So then, you see, there was only one person who could have been responsible.’
‘You mean he made up all that rigmarole he read out to us? But why? What was his motive?’
‘And why didn’t you come down and tell us?’ demanded the doctor indignantly. ‘Why go and take such a risk alone?’
‘Because you’d have argued, and there was no time left. All I wanted to prove my theory was the will. If it was really different from everything he’d told us, we didn’t need any other proof. What motive could he possibly have had for falsifying it, except to provide as many as possible of us with that compelling motive for murdering Richard? So that when he was murdered we should all be looking at one another, and nobody should ever think of suspecting Neil.’
‘But even if Richard did have something valuable enough to make him covet it, why kill him? That wasn’t necessary.’
‘No, but it made things much easier and safer, as long as somebody else was sure to get blamed for it, as he intended they should. If he’d simply stolen what he wanted there’d have been an alarm raised at once, because Richard treasured Mrs Byrne’s gift, and must have looked at it often, and he’d raise hell if it went astray. But if Richard died, and then it vanished, who was to raise the alarm after it? No one else knew anything about it, no one even knew he had it, or rather no one knew what it was he had.’
‘Then how did Everard get to know about it?’ asked Trevor.
‘He told me that. He didn’t mind telling me things, he was sure I was never going to be able to tell anyone else. Do you remember after the crash-landing Richard wouldn’t leave his briefcase behind, and Neil went back to get it for him? He said the case had fallen off the luggage rack and burst open. It was then he saw what was in it. He didn’t take it, because he realised Richard would look or feel if it was safe the minute he got the case in his hands. But he wanted it. And he began to think how to get it. If Richard died he could safely take it, because no one else knew about it. And then, you see, Mrs Quayne insisted on the will being read, and he saw how he could provide everyo
ne but himself with a motive, and himself with a beautiful smoke screen. Here we were, cut off from the world, with no possibility of the police taking charge at once, a lot of people with expectations, and a will he could manipulate to set them at one another’s throats. So he did it. And when it was done he went straight upstairs and took the tablets from Dr Randall’s bag, and later in the evening he used them. I think it must have been when he came down at about ten o’clock, and Dr Randall met him on the stairs. The door of the room was closed, there was no one else about. I think Neil went in to Richard then.’
‘It must have amused him,’ said the doctor sombrely, ‘to find Richard busy making a will. That was something he couldn’t have counted on. It made the motive irresistibly convincing.’
‘Yes, that was a gift to him. It made it easy for him to stay a while, you see, to advise, law being his profession. And if they were both bending over the table, concentrating on the will, it would be easy for him to slip the tablets into the brandy. As Laurence said, he wouldn’t have to touch the glass.’
‘But why destroy the will afterwards? As long as it wasn’t finished it was better evidence where it was, and readable, than the way we found it,’ said Trevor. ‘I suppose, of course, he was trying to simulate the actions of a guilty Laurence, or for that matter you, Randall, or me. But there was no point in trying to hide what Richard had been doing, from that point of view, because McHugh already knew, and was spreading it round the bar. There was no secret about it. And from his own point of view he certainly wouldn’t want it to be hidden. If he wanted to use it directly against one person by planting it in his room, why not just crumple it up and hide it there as it was? That would have been credible enough to pass muster, for a suspect in a hurry, and a much more infallible lead for our amateur detectives. Why this extra subtlety? You see how carefully he left enough to identify it for what it was. Then why make it so difficult? Why burn it at all?’
‘That’s been bothering me, too,’ Susan owned. ‘I still don’t know the answer.’
‘I can think of a possible one,’ said Laurence. ‘You know what Richard said when he heard she’d left him the money. Why did she do it, he said, she knew I didn’t want it, she knew I had enough. It wasn’t like her, he said. Well, it wouldn’t be like Richard to rush to make a will like that, just to prevent us from ever hoping to get back what he’d said himself he didn’t want. And I think – I really do think – maybe he was the only one who had a feeling something dirty was going on, and tried to scotch it. I think he began to make a will leaving Aunt Antonia’s money back where he thought she ought to have left it, to her relatives – to my mother and me.’
‘That was it!’ Susan put down her cup with a crash. ‘That would account for it. If that was what he’d written, the will would have to be destroyed, otherwise it would let out at least two of his suspects at once, and the whole scheme would crash. That will was a weapon for Neil only in the condition he finally left it in – identifiable as Richard’s will, but otherwise totally illegible.’
‘The experts will have ways of making out some of the words on the charred bits,’ said Trevor. ‘They do marvellous reconstructions these days. But one thing’s bothering me. I’m willing to believe all that about McHugh’s well-meant efforts – apparently quite disinterested efforts – singling out Laurence as the handy suspect, and your attitude confirming Neil in his idea of using him, but when did he plant the evidence in Laurence’s room?’
‘When Dr Randall sent him upstairs for his bag, when – when Mrs Quayne was ill.’ It was Susan who flushed at that recollection now. Miranda had no qualms about the correctness of her own behaviour at all times. ‘It was one of those moments that get overlooked, because when there’s an empergency, and a doctor says do so-and-so, you just jump to do it. But if you’ll think for a moment you’ll remember that Neil did go upstairs alone, and he was positively the only person who did.’
‘But to burn the will as carefully as that would take time. He was gone only a matter of seconds.’
‘He’d already burned the will, in his own room, before midnight. Most of the ashtrays in the rooms, including his, as I saw tonight, are the same, those big beer ones the pubs get free from the local brewery. All he had to do was change the ashtrays over and hide the tablets somewhere in Laurence’s room. He had time for that. We were occupied,’ she said somewhat caustically, ‘we weren’t counting seconds.’ She looked up suddenly at Laurence, and said directly: ‘I’m sorry I gave you such a horrible time.’
He looked back at her, flushing, and said: ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ But his eyes said: If it hadn’t been you I wouldn’t have minded so much. And hers replied clearly: If it hadn’t been you he picked on it wouldn’t have made me so determined he should pay for it.
‘And it was my fault he tried to kill you,’ she said, shivering. ‘I told him I could clear you, you see. I needed help, and I thought I could trust him, of all people. It must have given him a terrible shock. He tried to convince me I shouldn’t be believed. And the same night he tried to discredit my evidence in advance by staging a guilty suicide for you. I got you into that.’
‘You got me out of it, too,’ Laurence said. ‘Dr Randall told me.’ All that had blown over in the snowy wind. There was never going to be any need of reconciliations, and whatever there was to forgive, on either side, was forgiven long ago without any words.
‘But there’s still one baffling thing about all this,’ said Trevor. ‘Falsifying the will like that could only have provided Everard with temporary cover at best. He was taking that will back to his firm in England. As soon as it arrived there the cat would be out of the bag. The deception couldn’t be maintained.’
‘No,’ agreed Susan, ‘but you see, he wasn’t going back to England, and neither was the will. He had his passport and a fair amount of money on him. From here on he was going to vanish. I don’t know where to. Somewhere out of Europe. He was abandoning England, his practice, his society, and starting up again in another identity. There’s no other explanation.’
They were all staring at her warily, as if they all saw the same implication, but were unwilling to be the first to mention it.
‘Then this stake of his,’ said the doctor at last, ‘must have been something enormous, something big enough to make all that worth while.’
‘Yes,’ said Susan, ‘it was. It was the Treplenburg-Feldstein diamonds.’
CHAPTER XVII
How the world’s joys cheat and elude us,
How empty all things are that we deem precious.
Act 1
The silence, though brief, was fathoms deep; it seemed to Susan that every person in the room held his breath. Even Laurence hadn’t known about this, even he was caught off balance, and his eyes shared the wonder, the incredulity, the faint, glittering hunger that stared from all the rest of them. But only for a moment, and distantly, as a child might contemplate a fairy-tale treasure, already forewarned that it would crumble into withered leaves when touched. The brilliant spark of greed faded again into the warmth of his gratitude that she and he were both alive, and diamonds wonderfully expendable, and she knew he would have thrown the Crown jewels down the mountain without a qualm to lift the shadow of harm from her.
‘The Treplenburg-Feldstein diamonds!’ breathed Trevor. ‘Is it possible? I’ve been with her all these years, and I’d have sworn they were nothing but a myth. And to turn up now! My God, she could keep a secret, if this is true!’
Miranda asked huskily, as if her life depended on the answer: ‘You’re sure, they do exist? Do you really know? Have you seen them?’
‘I know, because he told me so himself. I haven’t actually seen them, but I saw the case they’re in, when he made me put back the will into his briefcase.’
‘His briefcase?’ Recollection clutched at Miranda’s heart with an awful certainty. Her voice cracked, like a fourteen-year-old choirboy’s in a moment of stress. ‘But the briefcase – you said you threw it—
Oh, no! You’ve thrown away the diamonds! My diamonds! How could you? Suppose they’re never found again?’ She jumped to her feet in a frenzy of agitation, but Laurence took her firmly by the arm and pulled her down again.
‘Mother,’ he said, jutting his chin with a new authority, ‘be quiet! They’re not yours, they never were yours, and they never will be. Aunt Antonia gave them to Richard. And if they hadn’t gone over the edge I should have done, with a bullet or two in me for good measure. So think of that and shut up, unless you want us to think you’d have preferred things that way.’
‘There was no mention of diamonds in the will, in any case,’ said Susan consolingly. ‘That’s one of the things he didn’t have to alter. If they do turn up again I suppose they’ll go with Richard’s estate.’ As a generous gesture to Miranda she added: ‘You won’t have to worry, though, if we do recover the briefcase, because the will’s there, too, and she’s left you well provided for.’
They had forgotten until then that she had read the will, and knew what its true provisions were. They began to ply her with questions now; she even saw in their faces the old jealous eagerness.
‘He didn’t have to improvise so very much, you know. All the minor things at the beginning were true. And me, that was true, she left me a hundred pounds. When it came to you it was more complicated. She linked Trevor and Dr Randall together, and left them five thousand pounds each. She called them “my very dear and very contentious friends of many years”. And besides the money she left some personal things, one of her portraits to Trevor, and the eighteenth-century toy organ – she said you played it beautifully on champagne, Trevor, but best of all on Gewürztraminer – and to Dr Randall the Dresden candlesticks and the Epstein bust. And then she said you could choose whatever you thought reasonable from among her books and records, and your choice was to be undirected and unrestricted except by each other, because that was the only way you would ever be able to settle anything without fighting.’
