In Pale Battalions - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Perhaps. But he’d have needed a cool nerve to sit tight in his room till the body was found. And I didn’t get a whiff of that when I questioned him yesterday. He seemed nervous, yes, but about going back to France, not my enquiries. Do you know when he was due to resume active service?’

  ‘He told me he had a medical board at the end of the month.’

  ‘And how did he seem to be facing up to the prospect?’

  ‘Badly. He didn’t want to go back. But none of us does, believe me.’

  ‘I do, I do.’ He began to wander down the far side of the knoll, as if finished with the place. As before, I followed. ‘I’ll tell you what troubles me, Mr Franklin. Suicide for fear of going back to the Front fits everything I’ve seen. It’s just that the timing’s wrong. Why so soon after the murder? I don’t like coincidences – they make me restless. That’s what supports the idea that Cheriton was the murderer. Except that I don’t believe it was in his nature. Do you?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘A suicide note would have convinced me. A confession in his hand. I’m surprised he didn’t leave one. These young, sensitive types usually do. But you found nothing?’

  I steeled myself to sound expressionless. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That’s odd.’ We went on in silence for a while, taking a vague route between the spaced elms towards the orchard. Then he resumed. ‘It’s especially odd in view of the position of his left hand. Did you notice it?’ He looked at me with a smile.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It was placed neatly by his side. And the fingers and thumb were held just so’ – he held up his own hand to depict the gesture - ‘as if he’d been holding something in that hand – holding it there when he died. Yet you saw nothing.’

  ‘There was nothing there.’

  ‘Unless somebody else had removed it.’

  ‘There were no other footprints in the dew. Nobody else had been there.’

  He smiled at me. ‘No. I don’t suppose they had. Shall we go back to the house?’ He wheeled in that direction without waiting for an answer. ‘You haven’t asked, by the way.’

  ‘Asked what?’

  ‘About Thorley.’

  ‘I felt sure you’d tell me – if you wanted me to know.’

  He laughed, so warmly I could believe he was genuinely amused. ‘Very good, very good. Well, we caught up with him at Alton and he corroborated your account of Friday night – as far as he could. Then we released him.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I have his address in London. And we’re keeping an eye on him. But I don’t regard him as a serious suspect. He had some kind of motive and he definitely had the means and opportunity. But he doesn’t have what it takes to kill a man in cold blood. Nor did Cheriton.’

  ‘What does it take?’

  We paused at the edge of the drive. ‘It takes what you’ve got, Mr Franklin: not the hot-blooded fury of the warrior or the half-crazed frenzy of the coward, but the finely controlled turmoil of a man at odds with himself.’

  I tried to outface him. ‘You’ve mistaken your man, Inspector.’

  ‘You may be right. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my time. It’s an occupational hazard. If you want my candid opinion, I think my superiors will settle for the Cheriton version. It’s much neater and it’ll keep Lord Powerstock happy. But I shan’t make it easy for them. I shan’t let them forget the inconsistencies.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as the calibre of Cheriton’s revolver: standard army issue. Whereas the post-mortem reveals Mompesson was shot with a smaller, quieter weapon. Almost, you might say, a lady’s weapon.’

  ‘What do you conclude from that?’

  ‘I conclude you know more than you’re telling, Mr Franklin, and that, perhaps, you’re protecting somebody – or yourself. I don’t blame you for letting suspicion fall on Cheriton. It can’t hurt him now, after all. But you needn’t think I’m taken in by it – not for a moment.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be taken in by.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ He made as if to walk away, then turned back to face me. ‘There is one more thing that’s puzzling me, though. You said the footprints in the dew looked fresh.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you heard no gunshot?’

  ‘Not consciously, though I suppose it might have been what woke me. Still, my window was shut and he was some way from the house.’

  ‘His bed hadn’t been slept in, you know.’

  ‘Are you suggesting he was out there all night?’

  ‘The post-mortem will tell us that. But it seems unlikely. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in when I saw the body.’

  ‘My impression was that he’d been dead not much more than half an hour or so. That would fit with first light. I can’t imagine him going out there in the dark.’

  ‘No. Nor can I. Which suggests nobody – apart from you – could have removed a note, if there was one.’

  ‘But there wasn’t.’

  He nodded slowly, though the expression on his face drained all the assent from the gesture. ‘Well, we’ll talk again later … I have no doubt.’ Then he slouched away across the drive and disappeared into the house. I watched him go, cursing myself silently for all the lies I’d been forced to tell by that one concession to Olivia’s threats, that one act which went so far to confirm Shapland’s suspicions that I could almost believe them myself. He’d warned me of his tracker’s instinct for complicity in a crime and still I’d gone ahead and done enough to prove him right for all the wrong reasons. Now he was on my trail.

  * * *

  How I envied Thorley as that long, absurdly sun-splashed Sunday slipped painfully away at Meongate. For reasons of his own, Shapland had let Thorley go, but I was required to remain, expected to wait patiently whilst all I knew was a seething restlessness of body and mind. Perhaps that was Shapland’s hope that in some sudden release of the tension I would reveal the truth he thought I possessed. Little did he know that for me as much as for him that truth was still only a shifting, uncertain shape in the darkness glimpsed from the corner of the eye, never there when you looked in its direction.

  I didn’t wait for the police to leave, but took myself off for a long walk round the lanes, reasoning that physical exhaustion was about the only kind of comfort I could hope for. I could never now hope to know what Cheriton’s note contained, but I couldn’t stop trying to guess. That, I realized, was the measure of Olivia’s cruelty in persuading me to give it up. I had escaped one kind of seduction only to succumb to another.

  I did not return to Meongate until early evening. An uneasy quietude that might have seemed at any other time merely peaceful hung upon the place. There was no sign of the police, nor, indeed, of anyone else. The ticking of the clock in the hall was magnified by a background of silence and immobility. Cheriton was no longer there to pace and fret, nor Mompesson to smile and swagger. There was no click of balls from the billiards room to signal Thorley passing an idle hour. In different ways to different ends, they’d gone.

  I was about to go up to my bedroom when I heard something, a slight and delicate rustle from the morning room: somebody was there after all.

  I went in and found Leonora, seated in a corner reading a book: it was the turning of a page that I’d heard. She looked up without smiling and put the book down on a side-table.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ she said gravely.

  ‘When I came in, I thought the house was deserted.’

  ‘Lord Powerstock was unable, for obvious reasons, to attend morning service, so he’s gone to evensong instead. And Olivia’s gone too. She wouldn’t want him to be seen there alone. I’ve not seen Charter since this morning. Nor you, till now.’

  ‘I’ve had a lot to think about.’

  She looked directly at me for the first time. ‘I was so very sorry to hear about Lieutenant Cheriton. To take his own life … It’s awful.’

  I walked slowly over to the cabinet and poured mysel
f a Scotch. ‘I’m not sure it is awful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I went back with the Scotch and sat opposite her, hunched in my chair. ‘He’d probably have been killed when he went back to France anyway.’

  ‘That’s hardly …’

  ‘And when I found him, he looked somehow more peaceful than he’d ever seemed here.’

  ‘Why should he have done such a thing?’

  ‘Maybe because he killed Mompesson.’ I swallowed some of the whisky. ‘But I don’t think he did, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  I wanted to tell her then that I’d given away the only evidence Cheriton had cared to leave, but instead I drank a little more whisky and told myself to believe that the note had never existed. ‘I don’t suppose the truth of it will ever be known.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  I set the glass down and rose from my chair. ‘Leonora …’ I struggled for the words with which to approach the issue between us.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How well did you know Cheriton?’

  ‘Hardly at all. He kept himself to himself, perhaps too much so for his own good.’

  ‘It’s just that …’ As I looked down at her, my eye was taken by the book she’d been reading. It lay face down, but on its spine was a title at once familiar to me: Deliberations of the Diocesan Committee for the Relief of the Poor of Portsea. Why that, of all books, at such a time? I stared at it in puzzlement.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘This book …’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Yes. I saw it in the library. But …’

  She seemed strangely defensive. ‘Why should I not be reading it?’

  I went back to my chair. ‘No reason. No reason other than … How is it possible, after all that has happened, with two men dead, with your home in uproar, for you to sit here, quietly reading an obscure volume of social research?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I disappoint you.’

  ‘You don’t. You baffle me. This book is dedicated to John’s mother, isn’t it? She wrote part of it. Yet there seems more to it than that. Olivia called it a convenient fiction. What did she mean by that?’

  ‘She meant she resented Miriam’s memory.’

  ‘Of course. But why read it now? Something with so little bearing on the present. It seems … heartless.’

  ‘Think that if you must.’

  ‘Unless … it has a bearing.’

  She seemed about to say something. The form of a word hovered on her lips. I could believe, in the half-light of descending evening, that she was about to vouchsafe a secret. Then something stopped her. She looked abruptly towards the french windows that led to the conservatory and by the sharp intake of her breath I knew that somebody was there.

  It was Shapland. A ragged, slope-shouldered, apologetic figure framed in the doorway, cast in crepuscular shadow. I jumped up.

  ‘Inspector …’

  He scratched his head and smiled as he advanced across the room. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I came round through the garden. The scent of the lavender is …’

  ‘Spare us the botany, Inspector. What do you want?’

  ‘Don’t take on so, Mr Franklin. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Why not let Mrs Hallows continue with what she was saying? Something with a bearing on my enquiries, perhaps.’

  Leonora smiled disarmingly. ‘It was nothing, Inspector, I assure you. We were merely discussing a book we’ve both read.’

  Shapland stooped and tilted the book so as to read its title. His brow furrowed. ‘Portsea? You surprise me, Mrs Hallows.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Hardly an edifying subject for a fine lady. I served my time as a constable there forty years ago, before the Diocesan Committee took much of an interest, I’m afraid. I gather the first Lady Powerstock picked up the contagion that killed her there – and I can’t say I’m surprised.’

  ‘You seem well informed about my family.’

  ‘I’ve learned a little – but not why murder or suicide should have come to this house. Nor what bearing the first Lady Powerstock’s good works in Portsea have upon the case.’

  ‘As I’ve told you: none at all.’

  At that, I intervened. ‘Inspector, what can we do for you? It’s late for unannounced arrivals.’

  He grinned at me. ‘I was hoping to see Mr Gladwin. He’s the only member of the household I’ve not questioned.’

  ‘I doubt he can tell you much.’

  ‘Nevertheless …’

  Leonora rose abruptly and crossed to push the servants’ bell by the door. ‘I think you’ll find him resting in his room, Inspector. I’ll have you shown up.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I hope you’ll bear in mind that he is very elderly.’

  ‘Aren’t we all? Don’t worry, Mrs Hallows. I shan’t keep him long. Like Mr Franklin, I don’t expect him to tell me anything that will alter my conclusions.’

  ‘And what are those conclusions?’

  ‘Officially, I’m inclined to go along with the theory that Cheriton killed Mompesson and then killed himself. Unofficially, I don’t believe a word of it. But, since everybody wants me to plump for that, who am I to resist?’

  At that point, Fergus came in and, at Leonora’s request, showed Shapland up to Gladwin’s room. I watched him go with relief, but, if Leonora felt the same, she didn’t show it.

  ‘He thinks I had a hand in this,’ I said after a while.

  ‘So did I, at first.’ She had resumed her seat and that same look of wisdom beyond my reach.

  ‘But not now?’

  ‘No. Not now. Now I think it is you who are suspicious of me. And for that I cannot blame you.’

  ‘I only want to help. You know that. Everything you seem to be, everything I feel about you, is contradicted by all I’ve seen in this house.’

  ‘I realize that. I wish it were not so.’

  ‘Was Shapland right then? Are we all condoning a presumption of Cheriton’s guilt to hide our own?’

  ‘Tom, you must believe I know nothing of what drove Lieutenant Cheriton to kill himself.’

  It was too much. This time, I had to tell her. I poured myself some more whisky. ‘Cheriton left a note. I destroyed it without reading it. Shapland knows nothing about it.’ I had not dared to look at her as I spoke, but, when I turned towards her, her expression was unaltered.

  ‘Oh, Tom. You shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Believe it or not, I did it for you. I believed the note might contain some evidence linking you with Mompesson.’

  ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘Olivia …’

  ‘What has she to do with this?’

  ‘The note was addressed to her. She persuaded me to let her destroy it – for everybody’s sake.’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘She has deceived you. It can have served only her ends.’

  ‘I know. But she convinced me that Cheriton knew as much as I did. And I couldn’t let that knowledge reach Shapland. I was afraid – am still afraid – that Cheriton might have visited the observatory before or after me.’

  ‘How could he have done? He had no key.’

  ‘That’s just it. When I went there, at the time you specified, the door was unlocked.’

  She looked down. ‘Oh God.’

  ‘What’s wrong? What does it mean?’

  ‘It means that what I most feared has happened – and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Then let me try to help. I think John would have wanted you to let me.’

  A smile hovered on her lips. ‘Yes. I think you’re right. But I can’t speak of it now … with Inspector Shapland upstairs and Olivia due back at any moment.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Tomorrow. We’ll go for a ride in the trap, get away from this house. Then I’ll tell you all that I can.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Now I think I’ll go to my room. I don’t want to be here when Olivia returns
.’ She rose. ‘I’ll ask Fergus to get the trap ready at ten.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘I’m not sure you should.’ She moved to the door. ‘Good night, Tom.’

  She went out quietly, closing the door behind her, and leaving me to ponder in the failing light what she could not tell me till morning. I crossed to the table and picked up the book she’d been reading. The pages fell open, as if from frequent use, at Miriam Powerstock’s posthumous contribution. I lit the oil lamp beside the chair, sat down and began to read.

  ‘Squalor Amidst Plenty’ was very much what I’d expected: a measured but compassionate plea for attention to be given to the material and moral welfare of the people of Portsea … good, civilized, tub-thumping prose. I could easily imagine Hallows’ regard for the mother who wrote and felt such things. ‘There is a regrettable tendency to expect little of the humblest and oldest quarter of a dockyard town beyond the poverty and prostitution, the drunkenness and degradation, that we actually find there. With that complacent attitude this essay and this writer have no sympathy. Too long have we tolerated this slur upon our conscience. Too long have we ignored the misery and misfortune of those whose tragedy is that they know nothing beyond the mean alleys and diseased dwellings of Portsea.’

  It went on in much the same vein. The late Lady Powerstock proved by the depth of her review that she knew the people and places she was describing well enough to justify her conclusion: that without the respect and help of their betters, the inhabitants of the area could not hope to escape the disease and squalor which made them notorious. Of the barefoot children and ragged, drunken men, the scabbed harlots and carousing sailors, the labyrinth of drinking dens and decrepit tenements, she wrote evocatively. She was brave to have visited them and braver still to tell others what they did not want to hear. But, as I and others knew, it had done her no good. Living words from a dead woman: they meant little enough to me at the time. Little enough indeed, for I had not the eyes to see what Leonora had truly been reading.

  Noises from the hall alerted me to Lord and Lady Powerstock’s return. Having, like Leonora, no wish to see them, I slipped out of the room and headed for the back stairs. As I went, I heard Shapland explaining his presence to Olivia; evidently, he’d finished with Charter.