by Eric Brown
‘Of course, but why?’
‘Would you be able to tell if any individual items were missing?’
‘Well, it’s a long time since I last took much notice of the collection, but I was familiar with the more valuable items. My father had a passion for the work of Varley and Cozens, among others. He kept a spare key to his old study in the small room beneath the stairs.’
‘And the other key?’
‘He kept on him at all times.’
Mallory rose, gesturing Annabelle to lead the way. Langham followed them from the room. In the hallway, Greaves said to Mallory, ‘I have a couple of men searching the guest rooms, sir. I’ll check how they’re getting on.’
‘Good man,’ Mallory said. Annabelle collected the key from the room beneath the staircase and led the way upstairs.
‘Along here,’ Annabelle said, gesturing to a corridor that led to the west wing.
‘Wasn’t it a rather large house for just one person?’ Mallory asked.
‘It’s been in the family for a couple of centuries,’ she said. ‘My father couldn’t bear to sell it. He loved the house, and the coast. And, of course, when he moved back from London with my mother and me … Well, I suppose the intention was to raise a large family here.’
Annabelle switched on a light to illuminate the corridor; dust sheets covered various items placed in alcoves, and the carpet underfoot was threadbare: the west wing had the appearance of somewhere uninhabited for decades.
‘Here we are.’
Annabelle turned the key in the door and led the way into a big, darkened room. She crossed to the damask curtains and tugged them aside, admitting a dazzle of afternoon sunlight.
Langham blinked in the glare, and as his eyes adjusted he made out a room furnished with several chaise longues, heavy early Victorian occasional tables and an ostentatious marble fire-surround, all in keeping with the landscapes that adorned three of the four walls.
Mallory whistled. ‘Reminds me of the time I visited the Royal Academy.’
‘My father built the collection over many years, and he was proud of his acumen. You see, he began buying them when watercolours were considered less than collectable, and he picked up many at bargain prices. Since then the fashion has changed – watercolours have become popular and often sell for many hundreds of pounds.’
Langham counted forty small paintings on the left wall alone, and wondered at the value of the entire collection, which comprised perhaps a hundred paintings. For the most part they were landscapes, meadowland, valleys, and a few Highland scenes.
Experimentally, he lifted a small painting in a heavy gold frame from the wall, revealing a small square of bright flock wallpaper. He replaced it and examined the other walls, but there was no evidence of any paintings having been removed.
Annabelle stood in the middle of the room and regarded the collection. ‘Before the war, my father came in here and sat for an hour or two, just admiring the paintings. I think they were a great consolation, after the death of my mother.’
Mallory asked her if any paintings were missing.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They seem to be all present and correct.’
‘Were you aware,’ Mallory said, ‘that on Saturday morning your father offered Lady Cecelia certain items from his collection?’
Annabelle smiled. ‘No. No, I wasn’t, and Lady Cecelia is not the kind of person to have mentioned his generosity, in the circumstances.’
Mallory looked around the room. ‘Do you intend to sell Connaught House?’
‘After everything that has happened here, Inspector, I couldn’t bring myself to keep it.’
Langham moved to the window and looked out. The room overlooked the kitchen garden, and beside it a cobblestoned area where two policemen in navy blue boilersuits, supervised by Greaves, were sifting through the charred contents of the brazier. The punctured oil drum lay on its side, debris spilling from it like volcanic ash.
Annabelle asked, ‘Just why do you think that items might be missing?’
‘Just a routine inquiry,’ Mallory said. ‘After such an incident, and with such a valuable collection on the premises, it would be remiss not to give it the once-over.’
‘Well, as far as I can tell, nothing is missing. Although …’
‘Yes?’
Langham turned. Annabelle was frowning. She approached the wall beside the fireplace and leaned forward. ‘I wonder if my father had some of these restored.’
‘What makes you think that?’ Mallory asked.
Annabelle shook her head, nipping her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘Some of them – this one for example – seem brighter, almost cleaner, than some of the others. I must admit that I don’t know much about watercolours, and whether they can be restored or cleaned, like oil paintings.’
Langham turned back to the window. Down below, Greaves was crouching down beside the men in boilersuits; the ash had been spread across the cobbles, and one of the men was prodding at something with an iron rod. The object was too far away for Langham to make out.
Greaves stood and hurried into the house.
Langham said, ‘Hello. I think they’ve found something in the brazier.’
Mallory joined him at the window. The men had isolated the object, which lay on the cobbles before them: a dark scrap about the size of a hand.
A knock sounded at the door, and the butler appeared. ‘Detective Sergeant Greaves would like to see you, sir.’
Mallory led the way from the room, along the gloomy corridor and down the staircase. Greaves was pacing the hall. ‘Ah, there you are, sir. We’ve come across something of interest in the brazier.’
They moved through the house, along a stone-flagged corridor to the kitchen and out into the walled yard. Langham held open the door for Annabelle.
Mallory crouched beside the burnt debris. The charred object was the remains of a leather glove, its fingers and thumb burnt to blackened stumps.
‘And look,’ Greaves said, indicating the glove’s seam with the iron rod, ‘the maker’s tag. And that stain, right there, looks suspiciously like blood.’
‘Good work,’ Mallory said.
‘Do you recognize …?’ Langham began, looking up to where Annabelle had been standing; she had left the yard and was hurrying away through the kitchen garden.
Mallory stood. ‘Right, bag it up and we’ll get it to the forensic boys. Might be the break we’ve been looking for.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Mallory stared down at the grey, curled remains of the burnt papers, fluttering in the breeze. ‘And go through the rest of it with a fine-tooth comb.’ He turned to Langham, ‘Right, Don, could you show me the steps in the side of the cliff you mentioned?’
Langham led the way through the kitchen garden and across the lawn.
TWENTY-SIX
Maria sat in an armchair beside the French windows in the library, a copy of Homes and Gardens forgotten on her lap. The windows stood open, admitting a warm afternoon breeze freighted with the scent of the climbing roses which grew along the back of the house.
Charles sat in the armchair opposite her – or rather lay in the chair, his legs crossed at the ankles and his colossal midriff rising between the arms of the chair like a waistcoated barrage balloon. His head was tipped back, topped by peaks of snowy hair, and he was snoring gently. Maria smiled at the sight of him, admiring his ability to drift into slumber at the drop of a hat. She had often caught him, in his office, stretched out on his Chesterfield snoring the afternoon away. When challenged, he would claim that he had not been asleep: ‘I have the peculiar ability to respire noisily while being wide awake, my child!’
Earlier, before the interview when the library resembled a waiting room full of anxious patients dreading the doctor’s summons, Maria had paid particular attention to Annabelle Connaught – or rather to how everyone in the room, in their very different ways, had reacted to the bereaved woman.
Maria herself had limited her c
ondolences to a brief, understanding smile, to which Annabelle had responded in kind. Lady Cecelia had approached her and spoken falteringly, while Colonel Haxby, half-cut, had blurted some garbled commiseration.
It was, surprisingly, Pandora who seemed unfazed at the idea of speaking forthrightly to Annabelle about her loss. She had drawn up a footstool before the young woman’s armchair, taken Annabelle’s hand in hers and spoken earnestly and at length in tones too low for Maria to catch. Annabelle had responded with smiles and nods, and soon the women were engaged in animated conversation. Before Pandora’s summons by Greaves, Maria had heard her say, ‘And the next time you’re in London, my girl, you must call in on me,’ and her estimation of the artist had risen by a degree or two.
She looked through the French windows, her attention attracted by movement across the lawn: Wilson Royce was striding towards the house. For a moment, she assumed he would enter the library, and she prepared herself to greet him. However, he paused outside without seeing her, lit a cigarette and sat down on a wrought-iron seat beneath the bountiful roses.
Across from Maria, Charles opened his eyes suddenly and declared, ‘I have decided!’
‘In your sleep?’ she smiled.
‘I was not sleeping, child. While giving that impression to the world at large, I was in actual fact cogitating upon a matter of deep moral and ethical significance. And I am pleased to announce that I have arrived at a solution both practical and personally satisfying.’
‘I’m all ears, Charles.’
‘For the past day,’ he said, ‘I have been mulling over the probity of accepting Connaught’s offer to represent him and take on his latest – his last – novel. I might say that I spent a sleepless night dwelling upon the matter, and this morning was no nearer a decision.’
‘But now you are?’
‘Indubitably.’
Maria replaced the magazine on a side table. ‘And?’
‘And I have come to the decision that in all conscience I cannot accept his offer. While I would have accepted his apology, and done so to his face had he lived long enough, I cannot see how his desire for atonement would be satisfied, posthumously as it were, by my taking on the book.’ He sat upright, leaned forward over his gargantuan stomach and went on, ‘I will forward the manuscript to Pritchard and Pryce in due course. I hope you understand, my dear?’
‘Of course I do. I would have made the same decision, in your situation.’
‘Oh, I am relieved that we see eye to eye on this matter. As business partners, we have an equal say in the running of the agency, and I would understand if you demurred. I am gladdened that this is not so, my dear.’
‘The fact is, Charles, we’re doing very well without Denbigh Connaught on our list. We don’t need his novel, and all the pain associated with it.’
Charles beamed across at her. ‘When all this terrible business is over, Maria, I shall take you and Donald out for dinner, and we will discuss the practicalities of your purchasing a cottage in Suffolk. That is still your intention, is it not?’
‘Of course. Donald and I cannot wait.’
Charles smiled to himself, settled back in the armchair, laced his pudgy fingers across his stomach and within seconds was respiring noisily.
London and life in the capital, she mused, seemed very far away this afternoon. For the last ten years she had lived in Kensington, shuttling between her apartment and the agency in Pimlico, going out to the West End from time to time and never once entertaining the idea of living anywhere else. Since meeting Donald, however, something had changed: it was as if she was entering a new phase of life in which London would play an ever smaller part. She wanted to settle down, find a quiet place in the country and bring up a family, in combination with working on a part-time basis at the agency. Was she getting old and staid, she wondered? If so, she could not complain. The quiet life was what she craved.
And it cheered her that Donald had not objected to the idea – nor to that of their having children. The thought of having a little Donald running around the garden made something flip wonderfully in her stomach.
She looked up as the door opened.
Annabelle Connaught peered into the room, smiled at Maria and said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Wilson Royce?’
Maria pointed through the French windows and silently mouthed, ‘There.’
Annabelle crossed the room, smiled her thanks at Maria and stepped outside. She stood over Royce, her arms folded, until he edged further along the bench. She sat down and turned to him; Maria could only see her slim back as she leaned forward and spoke to Royce in urgent, lowered tones.
Maria picked up her magazine and flipped through it.
It was obvious that Annabelle and Royce were arguing, although she was unable to make out the gist of the conversation. Then Annabelle, raising her voice, said, ‘You’re more than despicable!’
Royce drawled something in lazy response. Then he said, ‘And anyway, what makes you think …?’
Maria, acting on impulse, set aside the magazine, rose and crossed to the window. She stood with her back to the wall so that she could not be seen from outside.
‘You did!’ Annabelle whispered.
‘You’re insane …’
‘The police have found something, you know? In the brazier. You burnt it, didn’t you? But why would you do that?’
‘Found what?’ Royce affected unconcern.
‘A glove. I recognized it. Your glove. Why on earth would you burn your—’
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’
‘You killed him, didn’t you?’ she hissed.
‘Go to hell!’ Royce responded. ‘I’m taking no more of this.’
Maria hurried back to her seat, crossed her legs and took up the magazine. Through the French windows she saw Annabelle stride off across the lawn, hugging herself, and stop at the edge of the cliff.
Wilson Royce strode into the library and crossed to the door, leaving it ajar as he stormed out. Maria saw him a second later as he climbed the stairs.
She sat very still for the space of half a minute, staring across at Charles who had dozed through the entire encounter. Then she stood and hurried to the door; she must find Donald and tell him what she’d overheard.
She was stepping from the library when Donald himself appeared at the far end of the hall. He hurried to her, smiling. ‘There you are. What say a stroll down to the village and a pint at the Fisherman’s?’ He faltered. ‘I say – what’s wrong?’
She took his hand, almost tugged him into the library, and eased the door shut behind them.
‘I’ve just heard Annabelle and Wilson Royce. They were outside’ – she pointed through the French windows – ‘arguing. I heard her say that a glove has been found in a brazier.’
‘That’s right. I was with Jeff and Greaves—’
‘Well,’ she interrupted, ‘Annabelle recognized it. She said it belonged to him, to Royce. And then she accused him of killing her father.’
‘She said that? Royce’s glove? My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you know where Royce is now?’
‘He stormed through the library and went upstairs – to his room, presumably.’
‘Right,’ Donald said, ‘stay with Charles. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
‘Donald, do be careful.’
‘Don’t worry.’
The door opened and the butler appeared. ‘Mr Langham, a phone call. A Mr Ralph Ryland, from London. He said it’s urgent. In the sitting room, sir.’
Donald thanked him and turned to Maria. ‘I’d better take that, then go and see what Royce has to say for himself.’
She watched him slip from the room, then returned to her chair beside the window and tried to interest herself in an article about how to grow roses in a cottage garden.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Langham settled himself in the armchair beside the telephone table and picked up the receiver. ‘Ralph.’
‘Don, good to
hear you. It’s a clear line – sounds as if you’re in the next room. How’s things in sunny Cornwall?’
‘Barring murder and inscrutable suspects, it’s pleasant … and sunny.’
‘You got your notebook to hand?’
‘Ready and waiting,’ Langham said, opening it on his lap. ‘What have you got?’
‘Shed loads,’ Ryland said. ‘Your man’s been up to mischief and no mistake. Tracked down a few of his contacts up here, and for a toff he certainly knew his way around the backstreets. Long and short of it, he was bringing some valuable watercolours up to the Smoke and doing a deal with a gallery owner called William Harker of Belsize Park.’
‘Well done, Ralph.’
‘That ain’t the end of it. This Harker, he put Royce on to a foreign Johnny in Kent, a nice old geezer called Venturi, a dab hand at copying watercolours at a fiver a go. So Royce filched the originals, some fifty in all, and replaced them with the copies so the owner wouldn’t get wise.’
Langham laughed. ‘And that owner, Ralph, was Denbigh Connaught. He had quite a collection down here. My word, young Royce had a nice little racket going, stealing the watercolours, one by one. He must have made a mint.’
‘There’s more. I had a poke around Royce’s place yesterday, and what did I find? Just his bank book, is what.’
‘Stuffed full of his ill-gotten gains, I’ll wager.’
‘And some. But the odd thing was, every month Wilson Royce deposited a cheque for two hundred quid, regular as clockwork. And tucked into this bank book I found a cheque, ready to be deposited. And guess who it was from?’
‘The gallery owner, right?’
‘Wrong. It was from Denbigh Connaught, is who.’
Langham laughed. ‘Well, blow me down.’
‘Two hundred quid every month?’ Ryland said. ‘That’s a hell of a salary!’
‘That was no salary, Ralph. Young Royce was up to something.’
Ryland chuckled. ‘He was on to a little gold mine when he went to work for Connaught,’ he said. ‘What’s he like in the flesh, this Wilson Royce? I see him as a pathetic little drip, conning people with his sob story.’
