In spite of the pleasant spring weather they were having it was rather cold to stand around in the park. Harriet obligingly chased her nephew- and niece-in-law round a crocus patch, and then Lady Mary said, ‘Come back to Bayswater for a cup of tea, won’t you? Charles is always late, and it does get lonely.’
‘Yes, I’d love to,’ said Harriet. ‘Peter is away, and I find that great house rather overpowering for one. Not that I’m alone, of course!’ she added, her sense of the ridiculous intervening.
‘No, one isn’t,’ said Lady Mary. ‘It isn’t normal life at all. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be done with live-in servants.’
‘I’ve done without them long enough to be ready to enjoy them,’ said Harriet.
‘Oh, I’m not criticising old Peter,’ said Lady Mary. They were walking towards the park gate, in quest of a taxi. ‘And I am glad to have run into you. We black sheep of the family must stick together.’
‘Are we black sheep?’ said Harriet, and finding her hand tugged by the little boy, said ‘Baa!’ at him, and made him laugh.
‘Very unpopular,’ said Lady Mary serenely. ‘Me for marrying out, and you for marrying in.’
‘What about Peter? He has married out as much as you.’
‘Helen is afraid of Peter,’ said Lady Mary simply. ‘And to be perfectly honest with you, so am I.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ said Harriet robustly.
‘Of course not; but then, you’re clever. Oxford, and all that. I got sent to finishing school, where I was bad at everything.’
‘Everyone at Oxford would have been bad at everything at a finishing school,’ said Harriet. She amused herself with a picture of Miss Hillyard learning deportment, or Miss de Vine learning charm.
‘Oh, God, what’s that?’ said Lady Mary.
They were approaching a news-stand. The headline was no longer: ‘Society Beauty Murdered’, nor even ‘Missing Actress’. It was: ‘Hitler’s Troops Reoccupy Rhineland. Versailles Treaty Defied’.
Harriet bought a paper. The two women tried reading it at once, but the smart wind tugged and folded the paper as they stood, and so Harriet rolled it up to wait till they got indoors. The Parkers had a pleasant, chintzy living-room in which one or two obviously Wimsey things – a lovely Dutch seascape over the mantelpiece, an elegant Louis Quinze secretaire – looked like refugees from another world. The two women spread the newspaper out on the sofa table and read it, heads together.
‘Goose-stepping German troops began arriving in the Rhineland at dawn yesterday, seven hours before Hitler announced in the Reichstag that he had ordered the reoccupation of the demilitarised zone, and repudiated the treaties of Versailles and Locarno . . .’
‘There’s going to be another war,’ said Lady Mary. ‘We’ll have to stop him.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Harriet. ‘Half the country is pacifist. And there will be many people saying we were too hard on Germany at Versailles, and he is only taking back his own back yard. Won’t we just leave it to the League of Nations?’
‘Do nothing, you mean?’
‘It will amount to that, won’t it? The League hasn’t stopped Mussolini, or helped Abyssinia.’
‘At least,’ said Lady Mary, surprisingly, ‘it should teach people that it’s the right they have to be afraid of, not the left.’
‘It might be wisest to be afraid of both,’ said Harriet.
‘I worked for the Communists for a bit,’ said Lady Mary. ‘They aren’t anything to be afraid of unless you really are one of the bloated rich. I can’t tell you how disgusted I am when very upper-drawer people carry on about the Bolsheviks, when Hitler and Mussolini are so much worse. They’re only afraid for their own wretched bank accounts. I hate inherited wealth, it makes people stupid.’
‘But it hasn’t rotted Peter’s brain?’ asked Harriet.
‘I don’t mean Peter, I mean Gerald. Peter didn’t inherit most of his – didn’t you know? He had a family portion and he’s doubled and doubled it over and over by his own efforts.’
‘Surely that makes him a wicked capitalist writ large?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Harriet, it’s all so difficult. You think what an outrage to have all those servants when there are people starving and barefoot in northern cities, and then you think, well, at least your servants have boot leather and a job. But as for people running around supporting Falangists and Cagoulards . . . There are even people ready to suck up to Hitler. And he’s such a vulgar little runt!’
‘Who do you mean, Mary?’
‘I mean Oswald Mosley, and that stupid Unity Mitford,’ said Lady Mary.
‘You may be right. I don’t know anything about them. But the truth is the world is going to divide in two and heaven help people on the middle ground,’ said Harriet, sombrely. ‘Are you still a Communist, Mary?’
‘Oh, no. Not really. But it is such a beautiful idea. Just like the apostles in the Acts, when you come to think of it. I mean, it isn’t the Russians I like, it’s the principle.’
‘I once heard Peter say the first thing a principle does is to kill people,’ said Harriet.
A noisy quarrel had broken out between the children while they talked, and Lady Mary pounced on the younger one, and confiscated the disputed toy. ‘It’s certainly going to be share and share alike here,’ she declared. ‘If you won’t share the gun you shan’t either of you have it.’
‘If only that were true, Mary,’ said Harriet.
Just then the front door closed behind Charles.
‘You’re early, Charles!’ cried Lady Mary. ‘Splendid. And look who’s here.’
‘Harriet!’ said Charles, advancing and taking her hand in both of his. ‘I’m very glad to see you here. Are you staying for supper? I tried to raise Peter today and they told me he’s away.’
‘I won’t stay for supper at no notice,’ Harriet said. ‘You might be having chops. But I’d love it properly arranged, some time, and including Peter.’
‘When he gets back,’ said Charles, ‘tell him I’d like a word with him, will you? We’ve found Mr Warren’s blackmailers.’
Basher and Streaker had been immediately recognisable from Warren’s description. The prison authorities had obliged by putting real names to the pseudonyms, and ‘wanted’ notices had been issued. A sharp policeman in Croydon had spotted the two men when called to a public house to deal with an affray. They were old lags, well known to the police, and Charles expected a good deal of surly refusal to co-operate, and an aggressive mastery of their rights, such as usually characterises those who have a long-standing professional relationship with the police.
But in the event his first impression had been that the villains were terrified. Charles had taken one look at Basher’s beefy countenance and vacant stare, and decided to interview the two together. If not quite simple-minded, Basher was obviously not very bright. Streaker, on the other hand, was the sort of sharp little alley-rat who flourishes on petty crime. Stripped of their nicknames they were Brown and Pettifer, respectively.
‘You have been cautioned, I understand?’ Charles began.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You understand this is a very serious matter. A woman has been found murdered and we have reason to believe you had been issuing threats to inflict GBH on her. You are in a lot of trouble, my lads.’
‘We done the blackmail, but we never touched the lady,’ Streaker said. He seemed to be physically shaking, holding on to the table to steady his hands.
‘Now then, let’s take this from the beginning. I understand that you met Mr Warren in prison?’
‘Yes, sir. Poor blighter didn’t ought to have been in there. Couldn’t look after hisself no more than a babe in the wood, Inspector. Got hisself picked on. Cruelty to dumb animals, that’s what it is sending a helpless toff to mix with the riff-raff what’s ’is Majesty’s guests.’
‘Warren was bullied in prison, you mean?’
‘Tormented something terrible,’ said Streaker.
‘ ’Ad his ciggies pinched, and people laughing when he spoke on account of his snobby accent, and messing up his food; you know what goes on, Inspector. So we took pity on him, Basher and me. Well, I took pity on him, and Basher threw a couple of louts against the wall, just in passing like, and so he got left alone.’
‘And so having become his protectors you thought nothing of a little friendly blackmail?’ said Charles.
‘Not at first we didn’t. But he hung around us all the time after that – well, you couldn’t blame him what with certain people trying to catch him when Basher wasn’t looking – and we had to hear how bloody wonderful his daughter was till we was sick of it. He went binding on and on about it till a saint would of throwed up. You haven’t heard him, have you, Inspector? You’d be sorry for us if you had. Gawd, it was a relief when he’d served his time, and we was done with him.’
‘Go on,’ said Charles.
‘Yes, well. A bit after we was out ourselves we seen her in the paper – lovely picture, called Society Beauty, Mrs Laurence Harwell. And I says to Basher, here, ain’t that the bird Mr Warren was on about what was ’is daughter? So we bought the paper, and read all about it.’
‘And decided to blackmail Mr Warren by threatening to harm his daughter?’
‘Don’t hurry us like that, Inspector. We might say somethink as we’d regret. He was always telling us as how she was working as a model, and we wasn’t interested in that. We wouldn’t try to milk a working girl. But the paper said she’d married a rich geezer, so we thought, well, if he’s got a rich son-in-law, he oughter be in a position to pay us what he owed us. For looking after him, see? Well, anyone might of thought so, don’t you think, Inspector?’
‘Did Warren think so?’ asked Charles, grimly.
‘Didn’t seem to mind too much at first,’ said Streaker. ‘Did he, Basher? Coughed up easy. We thought we was on to a nice little earner. Then he got sticky, and there’s where we made our mistake.’
‘You got greedy, did you?’
‘We told him as we’d get his precious daughter. But we wouldn’t have done it. You got to believe me, Inspector, we didn’t mean it, only to frighten the old fool. I’ve seen Basher on the rampage more than once, Inspector, and it isn’t a pretty sight, but I never seen him touch a woman, and I don’t know what he’d do if I asked him to.’
‘And yet, very shortly after your most serious threat against Mrs Harwell, you take yourselves all the way from Croydon to Hampton, and the next day she was found dead.’
‘How did you know we was at Hampton?’ said Streaker, visibly turning white. ‘We deny that. Never been there in our lives.’
‘I shouldn’t deny it if I were you,’ said Charles. ‘We have a very good description from the ticket-collector.’
‘Now see here, Mr Parker, don’t you try pinning murder on us! We didn’t have nothing to do with it. It isn’t us you’re after, it’s the maniac in the woodshed.’
Whatever you say for the death penalty, Charles reflected, it doesn’t always make the gathering of evidence easier.
‘What maniac?’ he asked. ‘Look here, Pettifer, you have nothing to fear from me if you didn’t do it. I might be going to prefer a charge of obtaining money with menaces against the two of you. But as to a charge of murder, if you calmly explain to me what happened, and if your account matches the other evidence we have at hand, it could even be helpful to your defence.’
‘Well, Warren began to say he hadn’t any more dough,’ said Streaker. ‘So we began to turn the heat up a bit, just to see if it was honest truth. And we thought if we gave the daughter a bit of a fright, Daddy might suddenly find he had a sock of money under the bed to share with us. You get the picture.’
‘Only too well.’
‘We snooped round the flats where she lived, and it was no go. Too much security; only one way in, and porters there night and day. But Warren had let slip that he might visit her at Hampton some time, so we went up there and asked around a bit, and found it easy enough.’
‘How did you know Mrs Harwell would be there?’
‘We didn’t. We was going to smash up a few things, and leave a note to say next time it will be you. Only when we got there there were lights, and so we knew there was somebody there. So we hung about a bit in the garden, thinking it might just be a cleaner or someone who kept an eye out when the owners weren’t around. The best place to hang around was a shed, down the side of the garden, under the trees, and we was just going in there when we heard him.’
‘Heard whom?’
‘Dunno who. Someone making a mad sort of gobbling noise.’
‘He was very sad,’ said Basher, suddenly, surprisingly. ‘He was crying, Streaker. That’s what it sounds like when you’re crying your words out. He wouldn’t know,’ he added to Charles. ‘Streaker never cries about nothing.’
‘Someone was already in the shed, crying?’ said Charles.
‘Not just crying, mate, howling. And banging about. And talking gobbledygook.’
‘You didn’t hear anything of what he was saying?’
‘He said, “Blast!”’ offered Basher. ‘He said, “Blast! Crack your cheeks.” ’
‘Piffle like that,’ agreed Streaker. ‘And banging ’is head against the sides of the shed.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘We was a bit took-aback. We just stood there, and then he burst out of there and run away.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Have a heart, Inspector. It was pitch dark. He went past us like a cork from a bottle. ’Aven’t got a clue what he looked like. Why don’t you ask the ruddy ticket-collector what was so good at describing us?’
‘All right. So the maniac ran off. Towards the house?’
‘Round it. Towards the road perhaps. We didn’t see. We was a bit shaken. We thought maybe another night would be better for our scheme, seeing as how we couldn’t make out what was going on.’
‘So?’
‘So we left. We walked back towards the station, but at the bottom of the road there was a lorry waiting at the traffic lights, and we got a lift.’
‘What kind of a lorry?’
‘Farm truck. Full of cabbages, going to the Garden. Took us all the way to town.’
‘We should be able to find that,’ said Charles. ‘Not that that would let you out.’
‘You want to find that maniac,’ said Streaker. ‘That’s who.’
‘We do; if he exists. A good description would help.’
‘What’s the good of saying that? I didn’t see him; I can’t help you. Telling you a fairy story wouldn’t help. Look, you got to get us out of this, we never done it.’
‘I shan’t lay a murder charge this morning,’ said Charles. ‘A charge of blackmail will be enough to let us hold you in custody.’
‘Will the beak give us bail?’ asked Streaker, mournfully.
‘I certainly hope not,’ said Charles. ‘The police will oppose it.’
Returning home, Harriet found Bunter in the hall. Or at least a pale simulacrum of Bunter, swaying slightly on his feet, and looking washed up. Since he was holding Peter’s coat, she deduced that the master had returned along with the man.
‘Your ladyship,’ said Bunter, ‘they tell me that you were disturbed . . . that is to say that a visitor to me . . . Forgive me, my lady, but she is not such a person as to understand the proper formalities of a gentleman’s house . . .’
‘It is my house, too, Bunter, and it was perfectly all right. I found Miss Fanshaw a most interesting person.’
‘I will make sure that it never happens again.’
‘Bunter, you look seriously exhausted. Go to bed. If Lord Peter requires anything tonight, I will see to it.’
‘Thank you, my lady,’ said Bunter.
Peter was found fast asleep, laid out on the bed still fully dressed. Harriet sat down on the foot of the bed and surveyed her property thus returned to her. Item: a sleek blond head, lightened now by a touch of silv
er at the temples. Item: a faint web of laughter lines radiating from the corners of the eyes. Item: a hawk’s beak nose. Item: a mouth slightly longer than proportional to the face. Her lord and master, she reflected, seemed curiously absent from himself when asleep. He must be one of those people described by Miss Fanshaw, whose features when animated were very different from how they were when at rest. She remembered that he had been sleeping when she first looked at him possessively; they had been lounging together in a moored punt. He would have to wake up to get undressed, but it seemed unkind to hurry him. What was it he had said on the telephone, about a lying winter?
She picked up the book from the bedside. A stray quotation from Peter should always be sought first in John Donne. She found it there, quite quickly.
Methinks I lied all winter when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring makes it more.
12
Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children and our sins lay on the king!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All kings is mostly rapscallions.
MARK TWAIN
At breakfast Harriet was feeling some kind of unease. She brushed away the offer of eggs and bacon and kippers and black pudding, all presented in silver entrée dishes, and stuck to thinly buttered toast. Her lord and master, who had woken in the small hours, and celebrated his return in the fashion of the Duke of Marlborough getting back from the wars, tucked in heartily. Harriet eyed him warily. She rather hoped the glow about him represented the aftermath of last night, and not any aspect of his absence from her. And about that absence – would he tell her what it had been about? Before their marriage he had abruptly disappeared from time to time, on secret missions for the Foreign Office she had understood; and this must have been another such. She would not have dreamed of asking him about it back then. It would have put him in an intolerable position to have to refuse to tell, and an awkward position if he told. A person who tells a secret, swearing the recipient to secrecy in turn, is asking of the other person a discretion which he is abrogating himself.
Thrones, Dominations Page 19
