The Florian Signet

by John Burke

  Jan sang a melancholy song in German, with such simple refrains that I found little difficulty in picking out the correct harmonies for the piano accompaniment. Mother, dewy-eyed, went to disinter some old albums from the recesses of a cupboard. Jan found several ballads he knew well, and sang in a clear, slightly aggressive tenor, while I concentrated on the piano parts which I had never attempted before. He stood at my shoulder, leaning forward to turn the page when necessary; and at the end of each piece would bow to me and look into my eyes.

  As he had warned, he went off a day or two later to London. Mother was insistent that I should see him to the station, on the grounds that the hotel wagonette was uncomfortable and unreliable, and that such a friend should not be allowed to depart without a farewell committee on the platform – even if the committee consisted of one person only.

  I drove him down the hill in our trap, and up into the station yard.

  A plume of steam writhed in the distance, far across the fen, swirling and puffing nearer.

  We shook hands and he looked yet again into my eyes. That intense gaze was discomfiting. There was something new in our relationship, and I did not understand it. What was he asking of me?

  He said: ‘I shall be with you again soon.’

  It sounded hard and purposeful. But was his main purpose with me, or in London, or in something beyond? I tried not to debate whether what had so far been a half companionable, half fencing relationship would soon become more than a game.

  Our musical evening had one immediate consequence. Mother, grappling with her new duties on the committee of the Mutual Improvement Society, was inspired by our little recital to ask my father to take a number of his choral friends to a meeting of the Wisbech branch and give a lecture and brief concert. Once my mother had taken up the reins she drove hard and unrelentingly. She had decided there would be singing in Wisbech Assembly Rooms, so singing there must be: not too frivolous, for that was not the purpose of the Mutual Improvement Society. My own services as pianist would not be required, since the local branch secretary was anxious to display her talents.

  It was decided that to accommodate all our best local performers, Mr Odger’s fast charabanc should be hired for the occasion.

  I looked forward with mixed feelings to another lonely evening, with Jan away in London and Dominic forever away. This time I would not fret about Count Florian and about Caroline. I swore to myself that I would find some more fruitful occupation.

  The day before the party was due to go to Wisbech, a letter was delivered to me by the hand of a gauche young lad doing an errand for Warrington’s at the maltings. I recognized the sprawling, impetuous handwriting on the envelope. It was from Caroline.

  The note was peremptory in manner.

  Nora, I know Uncle Edgar and Aunt Milada will be attending the self-help and virtue meeting in the town on Thursday evening. You must come with them and visit me at Tempest Fen. I must see you without delay. You can be set down at the house – your driver will need to detour no more than fifty yards off the main road – and when we have finished I shall drive you into town to rejoin your mother and father in the hall. We can be finished well before their meeting is ended. But you must come, there are things I have to talk over with you. Please do not fail me.

  Your devoted Caroline.

  I found it hard to accept the idea of Caroline’s devotion to me. But I was intrigued by this urgent need to see me. Would it turn out to be only her florid way of asking me for advice on her furnishing fabrics? Or was she, for some reason, ready now to acknowledge her marriage to Count Florian?

  The charabanc set off in the middle of the afternoon. A number of hearty souls whiled away the journey with songs of a more secular nature than those selected for the evening performance. Father begged them not to coarsen their voices in the cold wind but to save their energies for the serious music later.

  Mother, wrapped in a heavy coat and with folds of shawl sleeves concealing her gloved hands, hummed to herself – not always the same tune which the others were singing.

  She had raised some half-hearted objections to my visiting Caroline in such an isolated spot just to discuss furniture and house decoration: for I had of course given her no hint of anything else we might talk about. But I felt she would enjoy knowing what I made of the place and of Caroline, and that she hoped for confidences to be imparted at the end of the day.

  The darkness of the peat levels brought heavy dusk to one side of the road even before the sun went down. On the eastern side, the fields were still coldly bright. The line began only slowly to break away from the road itself, and a shadow which was neither hill nor cloud advanced on a wide, sombre front. All that broke the uncompromising line of the horizon was the distant, stabbing finger of a pump-house chimney.

  It was dark by the time we reached the house on Tempest Fen. There was a faint glow in a window above the porch, and a brighter one through the attractively curved fanlight.

  Mother began to have doubts again. ‘Edgar, do you think it’s wise? I don’t care for it out here.’

  ‘Leonora.’ My father, too, sounded dubious. ‘I think it might be advisable for me to come in and have a word with Caroline before –’

  ‘You’ll be late, Papa,’ I said. ‘And I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. We’re going to talk about curtains and cushions and – oh, that kind of thing. We’ll come to little harm on such topics.’

  ‘You’re sure that’s all you’ve got to talk about?’ He spoke in an undertone so that nobody else would hear.

  ‘What else?’

  I was impatient to discover the answer to my own question.

  The charabanc rumbled off. I walked past a twisted mass of bog oak, ploughed up from the fen and set like some guardian monster at the entrance to the short drive. The house itself was on a small knoll above flood level: a shapely, prettily proportioned house in mellow red brick with a walled garden and, against its southern gable, a small conservatory.

  I tugged the bell-pull, and heard the rattle of the wire through the wall within.

  There was no reply. After a pause I tried the bell again. Its rasp and faint tinkle died away. The wind set up a despondent moaning across the back of my neck.

  A faint light glinted down the edge of curtains in the near-by window. I could rap on the glass.

  My hand rested on the large brass door-knob. As I leaned on it, the door opened before me. Muted light from the landing dropped little patches on the staircase, and there was a brighter glow from the open doorway to my left.

  My footsteps resounded on uncarpeted boards as I crossed the hall. Within the room a candle lantern shone from a wall bracket, and there was a larger oil-lamp on a sideboard. The sideboard was one in a line of pieces against the far wall, standing to attention until ordered into a new formation.

  ‘Caroline.’ I said it quietly at first, then called loudly: ‘Caroline?’

  Only the wind groaned a mocking answer.

  I went on into the room. In the centre was a large oak table with one flap down. The lamp cast the squashed shadow of the table on to a rug. A darker hump protruded from beyond the flap. I moved towards it.

  One side of Caroline’s face was in the shadow. From the other, one unblinking eye stared at me without emotion.

  Her head was propped at an unnatural angle against the edge of the flap. I leaned over and saw both eyes now, both staring but seeing nothing. They would never see anything again.

  Then I heard footsteps outside the room.

  They came slowly, very slowly, the steps of someone moving with caution but unable to prevent the creak of a board, the scrape of shoe leather on the bare floor of the hall.

  Chapter Eight

  I put one hand on the table to steady myself. Caroline’s twisted head seemed to be imploring me to listen, to help her to her feet while she explained why she had summoned me, to take her away from here so we could talk.

  The footsteps reached the door.


  Vainly I looked about the room for a poker or anything with which to defend myself. There was nothing. It was too late.

  Dominic stood in the doorway.

  I tried to speak but no words would come.

  My back was to the light. As he stalked slowly in, he peered towards me and his hands came up, shaking. I was sure he proposed to strangle me. I cannot pretend I was not afraid. But what I most strongly felt was outrage.

  ‘What game is it this time?’ There was the passion of desperation in his voice. ‘Who . . .?’

  I stepped away from the table and into the full light of the oil-lamp.

  ‘Nora! How can it be . . . what in heaven’s name are you doing here?’

  I waved mutely towards Caroline. From where he stood he could not see her, huddled on the floor. But perhaps he did not need to: he needed no telling, he already knew.

  ‘Nora.’ He sounded even more ominous. ‘What brought you to this place?’

  ‘I came to see Caroline.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She asked me to.’

  He took a few heavy steps into the room. ‘Why should she do that?’

  ‘You must have heard her talking about it. About my coming to help her, give her advice, and so on.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to me that you would seriously consider it. Helping her – in this house?’

  Crumpled in a pathetic heap, Caroline looked small; diminished. Any hatred and jealousy I had felt was gone utterly. If I could have brought her back to life I would have done so. But Dominic was still alive, and larger and more powerful than ever.

  He was close to me now. I looked away from him, down at that huddle against the table.

  I heard his breath gag in his throat. We seemed motionless for an eternity. Then he turned away and took the candle lantern from its bracket. Light flooding over Caroline’s face dug grooves into the skin about her mouth. She stared; and Dominic stared back at her. If he was acting, he had decided to play the part as stolidly as possible, out-facing her accusation.

  ‘How did this happen?’ He stooped over his wife’s body.

  I heard myself say: ‘Dominic, how long have you been here?’

  ‘Here?’ He was mesmerized by her.

  ‘In this house.’

  ‘Three or four minutes. You must have heard me come in.’

  ‘I heard you come along the corridor and the hall.’

  ‘From the back of the house. I let myself in with the key of the kitchen door.’

  ‘Trying to make as little noise as possible.’

  ‘I wanted to come upon her . . . But Nora, what are these questions? What are we talking about?’

  Slowly he sank to his knees beside the corpse. After a minute or two he reached out to touch her, then drew his hand back.

  ‘She’s gone, then.’

  I wanted momentarily to comfort him, as one instinctively tries to comfort the bereaved with soothing, meaningless phrases. But did he need – or deserve – comfort? He was no heartbroken husband. His silence as he got up again and set the lantern on the table might have meant that he was stunned; or that he was swiftly calculating how best to deal with me, this unexpected arrival.

  If I had not arrived to interrupt him, what would have happened to Caroline’s corpse: would it have finished up in the ditch, as her father’s had done?

  No, I said silently. No, I would believe none of this.

  ‘How did this come about?’ he asked. ‘What were the two of you arguing about before . . . before it happened?’

  I was staggered by his effrontery. ‘Dominic, do you know what you’re saying? You’re not trying to make out –’

  ‘You’ve told me you came here to see Caroline. To help her. But knowing her as I do . . . Nora, what did you really talk about?’

  ‘I set foot in this room only a couple of minutes before you came along the corridor.’

  ‘Oh, Nora.’

  Was it reproach or despair?

  I felt something crack within me. I have only a confused memory of some of the things I thrust at him, but each was meant to hurt. ‘How long have you been here?’ I demanded again. And, ‘What drove you to it, Dominic?’ and ‘However dreadful it may have been, how could you . . .’ If he defended himself I heard none of it. I heard only the tumult of my own fear and anger.

  At some stage I was silenced by Caroline’s dead gaze.

  Dominic said: ‘You mustn’t stay here.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’

  ‘It’s all going to be very painful. You can’t sit here waiting. Least of all with me. One of us must go into Wisbech, and I can’t go and leave you here on your own – alone with . . . with her.’

  I thought of my mother and father coming out of the hall and not finding me. Presumably they would drive back along this route, growing more and more worried as they covered the long stretches of road and still did not meet me. But that would be some two hours from now at the very least. Dominic and I could not sit here together for two hours beside Caroline’s body.

  Yet if we did, he might tell me what had happened.

  Or might not want to tell me; and might decide it was safest not to let me tell any part of the story to anyone else.

  ‘Caroline’s pony and trap are in the stable at the back,’ he said. ‘Drive into town and tell your father what we have found.’

  ‘And the police?’

  ‘We need time to discuss what all this means before –’

  ‘What it means,’ I said, ‘is that Caroline has been murdered.’ I was surprised at my own ability to speak the word so coldly. ‘And for the rest, it is for the borough police to enquire.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. But do go to your father first, I beg you. He will be at your side. I wouldn’t wish you to have to speak of it alone.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ll wait for you to return.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Go!’ His hand cracked down on the table. ‘You must go now.’

  I was glad to escape and glad to be on the chill night road, with the pony trotting towards the town on a route it obviously knew well. But the further away from Tempest Fen we drew, the more insistent the doubts jabbing into my mind. Dominic had said he would wait. I did not think him the kind of man to flee. But it occurred to me that he might well take the opportunity of tidying up any traces of the way in which the crime had been committed.

  Then was I letting myself believe that he had been goaded into murder, that he was the one?

  I told myself I must refuse to believe it. However sorely tried he might have been, I could not accept that the Dominic I had known would be overthrown by such a rage.

  But he might no longer be the Dominic I had known.

  Besides, who else could possibly have had a motive for murdering Caroline?

  *

  ‘Who do you think, Miss Talbot, would have had cause to wish Mrs Warrington dead?’

  The detective-inspector called in from Cambridge by the borough police was a square, stubby-fingered man with receding hair but thick mutton-chop whiskers. He wheezed faintly as he sat down, and again when he moved his head or leaned forward to put a question, as if sighing a world-weary pessimism at each revelation or lack of revelation.

  Mother sat beside me, stiffly upright, on the settee. She had flatly refused to let the inspector interrogate me alone. Each time he addressed me he gave her a sidelong glance, obviously waiting for her to forbid or censor my reply.

  Both of them waited, now, for what I had to say.

  The longer I delayed, the more appalling the probable answer seemed.

  At last I said: ‘Couldn’t it have been a burglar? Or some gang of roaming footpads, breaking in and surprising her?’

  ‘There was no sign of a forced entry. And, so far as we can ascertain, nothing was disturbed or stolen. In fact, a great deal of money on the premises was left untouched.’

  ‘Money on the premises?’ exclaimed my mother.

  ‘A consi
derable amount, ma’am.’

  ‘But the house wasn’t occupied. Surely Caroline – Mrs Warrington – was there only occasionally?’

  ‘So we gather, ma’am. Nevertheless there was two hundred pounds and more in a sideboard drawer. Along with this.’ He held out a sheet of paper printed in a heavy black type. As I tried to read it, he turned it abruptly towards my mother. ‘It’s in some foreign language. Since you’re here, ma’am, you might be able to help us. In view of you being foreign, that is.’

  ‘My being foreign,’ said my mother sharply, ‘does not give me a command of all the non-English languages.’ But when she took the leaflet from his fingers she let out a little gasp. To me she said: ‘It’s in Czech.’

  The inspector’s head came forward. ‘So you know it, then?’

  ‘It is a secondary tongue, in which I am not fluent. But I could hazard a rough translation.’

  ‘If you’d be so kind.’

  Mother’s lips moved silently; she shook her head, wrinkled her nose in distaste; then made a little ‘Pah’ sound. She said:

  ‘This is a seditious publication.’

  ‘Seditious, ma’am?’

  ‘A tirade against the Empire.’

  ‘You mean it’s treason? As one of Her Majesty’s officers of the law, I’ll be bound to take this further. If you’ll just give me some idea of –’

  ‘Not your Empire.’ Mother was carried away through time and space. ‘Ours.’

  The inspector, who had half risen to his feet, sank back in bewilderment. ‘Yours, ma’am?’

  ‘Austria. Only now it’s Austria-Hungary, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the inspector doubtfully.

  ‘Clearly the handiwork of some militant group preaching independence for the Slav minorities. There are many of them, dedicated to stirring up dissatisfaction, Mr . . . er . . .’

  ‘Serpell, ma’am. Detective-Inspector Serpell.’

  ‘Inspector Serpell.’ With the fastidiousness of one anxious to be rid of some tainted object, my mother passed the paper back between the extreme tips of her thumb and index finger.