A matter of some interest was what the police had discovered about Rannerson’s financial affairs. His need to sell his horse was all too evident; he had a long list of unpaid bills, and he was living far beyond what his captain’s salary could sustain. His father had been supporting him generously, but his father’s money was, like so many other people’s, melting like snow in June as the Stock Exchange staggered to its knees under the blow of the Great Crash.
‘Nothing of much use here, I’m afraid,’ said Charles, beginning to gather up the papers to replace them in the file.
‘Except this, perhaps,’ said Peter, picking up the postmortem report. He had never heard of the doctor who had carried it out, but it was very thorough. There was no doubt of the cause of death, nor any contributory cause; Rannerson had been a well-built, well-muscled man in robust health. He could probably have fought off an assailant who used a scarf or a garrotte. But the assailant had applied pressure simultaneously to the left and right carotid artery, an expert and swiftly effective method.
Charles read over the paper which Peter handed to him.
‘This is very odd, Charles, isn’t it?’ said Peter.
‘Not unheard of,’ said Charles.
‘But the attack was supposedly made from behind,’ said Peter.
‘So it seems; there were depression footprints in the grass behind the bench, where the assailant’s feet had sunk in a bit with the strain of pulling against the victim’s weight.’
‘Well, the famous swift death attack is carried out by putting one’s thumbs on the pressure points of the neck. Fingers and thumbs work as pincers. Can that be done from behind?’
‘Turn around, Peter, and I’ll try,’ said Charles.
Peter spun his chair round, and obediently offered himself as a sacrificial lamb in the name of science. Charles put his thumbs on the nape of Peter’s neck, and pressed lightly with his index fingers on the softly pulsing arteries. ‘It’s not as easy,’ he said.
‘One would need strong hands,’ Peter said, gently removing Charles’s grasp from his neck.
‘Perhaps that would have left the bruises of two fingers each side,’ said Charles.
‘But the report in front of us just says “Bilateral bruising to the neck.” Exact kind and extent of bruising unspecified.’
‘Yes. Peter, I don’t know that anything could be done about any of this now, after so much time.’
‘I imagine this case is on the unsolved murder shelf? I thought you people never gave up on a murder case.’
‘We certainly don’t!’ said Charles emphatically. ‘But that doesn’t mean that we can think of any further measures to be taken. We are just lurking like a cat at a mouse-hole, waiting for something to come out.’
‘And ready to pounce if and when…’
‘Certainly ready to pounce.’
‘Well, in the meantime, can you corral Mary and bring her round to dinner with us? We could have a pleasant evening à six.’
‘Wouldn’t there be four of us?’ asked Charles.
‘And the Bunters,’ said Lord Peter, rising to go. ‘There are always Mr and Mrs Bunter.’
‘Another coincidence for you,’ said Lord Peter to his wife, on reaching home. ‘A man is murdered in full daylight in St James’s Park only a day after he has relinquished ownership of the king-stone emerald. The circumstances are curious.’
When Peter had finished an account of them Harriet agreed that they were indeed curious. ‘What’s more, Peter, that’s the second coincidental death, I think. Wasn’t the pawnbroker who had staked for both emeralds in 1921 mown down by a motor car before you appeared to redeem Lord Attenbury’s jewel?’
‘Odd, that,’ Peter agreed.
‘Perhaps more than odd,’ said Harriet. ‘Do you suppose that we shall find another fatality just about the time the emerald was next taken out of the bank?’
‘I am beginning to think that we might,’ said Peter grimly. ‘Time to discover what we can about the 1941 escapade. I think Bunter has charge of all those chits from the bank.’ Peter rang for Bunter, and asked him to produce the papers.
‘It would seem, my lord,’ said Bunter, spreading the documents out on the console table, ‘that Lady Sylvia signed the request to the bank to release the jewel. It was to be handed over to Verity Abcock. And here is that lady’s signature.’
‘Who is Verity?’ asked Harriet.
‘Was,’ said Bunter. ‘Now dead. Here is her signed receipt. You will notice, my lord, my lady, the significance of the date.’
‘I think she was young Abcock’s sister,’ said Peter.
‘I have taken the precaution of consulting Debrett’s for you, my lord,’ said Bunter, fetching the stout volume from a side table, and bringing it with a bookmark already in it.
‘Oh, Lord,’ said Peter.
‘What is it?’ asked Harriet, coming to lean over his shoulder at the closely printed page.
But she saw at once. ‘Verity Abcock, b. Dec. 1924, d. 8 March 1941…Daughter of Roland and Sylvia Abcock…educ. Ascot…’
‘So she withdrew the jewel on Wednesday, and died on Saturday of the same week,’ said Harriet.
‘And the jewel was not returned to the bank for a month afterwards,’ said Peter.
‘But the oddest thing of all – doesn’t it strike you, Peter? – is that Lady Sylvia, talking to us about the brouhaha over the purchase of that horse, didn’t mention this at all. Not a word.’
‘I do find that curious, yes,’ said Peter.
Bunter cleared his throat discreetly. ‘Perhaps the whole subject was too painful for her,’ he said.
‘You could be right, Bunter,’ said Peter. ‘She had lost her husband the year before. The loss of her daughter must have been a terrible blow.’
‘She did offer further help if we needed it,’ said Harriet. ‘And we do need her to help, don’t we?’
‘Will you obtain an invitation for us, Bunter?’ said Peter.
Lady Sylvia’s distress was evident immediately Peter asked her about Verity. She went very white, and took a few moments to collect herself to reply. ‘I feel the lack of a daughter every day of my life,’ she said. ‘Of course, I have a dutiful son; but for a woman, to have a daughter…I wish I had had more children, although no child can substitute for another…’
Peter glanced anxiously at Harriet, also a woman without a daughter. Their eyes met, and he saw her tranquil.
‘Could you tell us why she wanted to wear the emerald?’ Harriet asked gently.
‘Oh, it was for a fancy dress party,’ said Lady Sylvia. ‘No, wait, I must tell you more. That girl was having such a dismal time. I thought the war was terrible for young women. No nice dresses, clothing coupons even to buy underwear, all the men away and in danger, nothing nice to eat, blackout all evening every evening; when I compared her life with mine at a similar age, balls and court occasions and lavish dresses, and eager young men paying attention – so deprived. So deprived. But you remember all that. It’s just that when the war started you were already married, I think. Of course she was doing war work. She was with another young woman, a green-grocer’s daughter if you would believe it, but Verity kept telling me the war was a great leveller and a good thing too; and they were driving a van with showers in it, to help bomb victims and rescue workers clean up. Going wherever the trouble had been worst the night before. Once they were nearly blown up themselves when they parked their van next to a collapsed house where the Home Guard were digging people out, and there was an unexploded bomb that went off within yards of them. I asked her over and over to stop; she was looking so drawn and tired. I saw all her young beauty fading before she had a chance…She simply told me she was needed doing a useful job.
‘Well, I mustn’t run on. But you see, when her aunt, my sister-in-law Diana, invited her to a ball, I implored her to go. I have to live with that; she was reluctant, and I implored her to go. First she said she couldn’t because it was fancy dress, and where could we get a
costume with a war on? Diana’s friends had wardrobes full of fancy clothes from before the war no doubt, but we hadn’t anything. Then I had a brilliant idea: if she went as an Indian princess, she could wear a sari; and we could easily make her a sari, because I had a bale of a light green silk that had been meant for curtains, and had never been used. She would look lovely in a sari, just lovely, though we had a bit of trouble working out how it should be worn.
‘But I had a friend, Susan, who had been brought up in Bombay, and who had brought her ayah home with her as a family servant, and so we asked advice. And the ayah was so helpful. She showed us how to wear the sari, and she lent Verity a dozen glass bangles for bracelets and showed her how to make a caste mark on her forehead with a dark red lipstick; we were all so happy playing dressing-up together, and forgetting our troubles.
‘But then the next day Diana called on us; she’s the Marchioness of Writtle, you know. And she asked what Verity would do for a costume, and when we told her she looked rather put out and said her friend Helen was coming as a maharani. Then she saw Verity look a bit crestfallen, and she said it wouldn’t matter if there were two Indian ladies in the party.’
‘It sounds like twice the fun, to me,’ said Harriet.
‘You will perhaps think badly of me, Harriet,’ Lady Sylvia resumed. ‘But I was so cross! I was sure that Diana’s wealthy friend would have a real sari, and all sorts of authentic stuff, and it would put my beloved Verity in a curtain in the shade. And then I remembered that emerald. I thought I remembered that you could wear it as a necklace or as a tiara, and I sent Verity round to the bank to get it and see.’
‘For such a purpose you could have used the paste copy,’ said Peter.
‘Was there a copy? I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘I knew only about the real one. And we asked the ayah to advise us how to wear it. She came round right away, and looked at the emerald, and was very impressed by it. She looked at it and turned it over, and looked again. Then she said to wear it as a necklace. I must say, it looked stunning against the pale green silk. It drew your eyes at once. And it looked, well, authentic. It didn’t look gloomy or out of place at all, as I had heard Roland’s sisters say.
‘Lily – did I mention the ayah was called Lily? – was all over smiles, and almost reverent about the emerald. She told us it was really something special – well, we knew that – and she said it would bring good luck in love, because there was a love-spell written on the back. Verity said that would be nice, and we gave Lily a discreet present for her trouble – half a dozen eggs, as I remember, which we had from the chickens at Fennybrook Hall.
‘So on the night of the party Verity got herself dressed up, and put on the emerald, and she stood in the hall of the London house looking so lovely, and so confident. My son happened to be there, on his way back to his regiment, and he said, “My God, you look beautiful!” just like that. And he went out into the street and called her a taxi, because it was a bit wet, and she was wearing little gold sandals that just slip on between your toes. And she waved at me from the foot of the steps, and got into the taxi, and I never saw her again.’
At this point Harriet realised that tears were running down Lady Sylvia’s face.
‘I’m sorry we have brought such sadness to mind,’ she said.
‘Oh, no – I quite understand,’ said Lady Sylvia. ‘You are only trying to help my son. But I think I had better ask you now to go and talk to Diana about what happened. After all, she was there, and I was not.’
Peter got to his feet. ‘I shall try to make sure that the distress we have caused you in asking you to recall such a painful affair is not wasted,’ he said. ‘I hope we shall get to the bottom of what has happened to the family jewel, once and for all.’
‘I wish you luck, Peter,’ she said. ‘Naturally I do.’
15
‘So are you game to encounter the notorious Marchioness of Writtle?’ Lord Peter asked his wife the following morning.
‘Certainly,’ said Harriet. ‘But put me in the picture first. I take it the Marquess is dead by now?’
‘Oh, long ago. Somewhere around 1935, I think. Leaving no children and a great deal of money.’
‘But if you are still calling her the Marchioness, she has not remarried?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose she had a slightly toxic reputation?’
‘Well, after the notorious trial Writtle kept a firmer hand on her, I gather. Perhaps she didn’t want to risk a second husband who might cramp her style.’
‘No triumph of hope for her?’
‘Well, most husbands would expect to rule the roost. Would expect obedience, submissive charm and co-operation. You have an unduly rosy view of marriage, Harriet, because I myself am so exceptionally permissive and undemanding.’
But this squib failed to flare, because Harriet simply looked at her husband and said, ‘Indeed you are.’
The conversation was interrupted, as their conversations sometimes were these days, by a long, steady, slightly smiling mutual contemplation. Then Harriet said, ‘So what was this lifestyle that a normally repressive husband would have impaired?’
‘Oh, house-parties; moving around with a great cluster of satellite friends between Chamonix, the Riviera, New York and Madeira. Always in the Tatler for this or that grand do.’
‘I wonder how such a person got on in the war?’ asked Harriet.
‘So do I,’ said Peter. ‘Shall we call on her and see what we shall see?’
Lady Diana opened her front door herself. She was wearing a caftan of Liberty silk spattered with sequins which might have been an evening dress, and might have been a dressing-gown. She was smoking a Balkan Sobranie in a long black cigarette-holder. She stared at Peter and then said, ‘Oh, it’s you. Come in. Place is a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Can’t get servants these days. I suppose you’ve still got that creepy manservant of yours?’
‘No,’ said Peter firmly. ‘I can’t stand creepy servants. I’ve got rid of any I ever had.’
‘You must be Harriet,’ said Diana. ‘Don’t you do something rather odd? Writing or something?’
‘I write detective stories,’ said Harriet.
‘Quite a family quirk, then,’ said Diana, leading the way into her drawing-room.
The lack of servants, creepy or otherwise, was immediately apparent. There were dozens of ashtrays full of cigarette butts lying around, and fashion magazines lying everywhere, on sofas and on the floor. A dead fire in the fireplace had probably not expired recently, since the ash pile was sprinkled with cigarette butts and sweet papers. Unwashed glasses and empty wine bottles stood around. The curtains had been roughly and unsymmetrically partly drawn. There was only one chair in the room uncluttered enough to sit in, and Diana sat down in it, and said, ‘Sit down,’ to her visitors.
Without comment Harriet and Peter picked up piles of papers, moved them from a sofa to a side table, and sat side by side.
Harriet reflected, looking at Diana, on the advantages of having been a striking rather than a beautiful woman in youth. Diana, now in her mid-fifties, still looked striking. Any grey in her dark, short-cropped hair had been dealt with. She was boldly and skilfully made-up, and had arranged herself gracefully in her chair. There was a curious, bright, hard glitter about her dark eyes. No fading for her, unlike her unfortunate niece Verity.
‘If you expected a drink you should have let me know you were coming,’ Diana now observed. ‘What do you want?’
Harriet wondered how Peter would start. ‘I suppose you know about the strange claim that the family emerald has been swapped for another, and the one in the Attenbury strongbox is not the right one?’ Peter asked.
‘No, I don’t,’ Diana said. ‘Nobody tells me anything. That will have put the wind up Edward, I’ll bet. What fun!’
‘What I need to ask you might not be fun,’ said Peter. ‘I am trying to track the emerald on every occasion when it has been out of the bank. As, for example, it was when
you took your niece Verity to a ball at the Café de Paris the night it was bombed.’
‘And you’ve brought her along so that she can make a bob or two out of putting it in one of her paperback shockers, I suppose?’ said Diana, waving her cigarette-holder at Harriet.
Peter put a hand on Harriet’s arm.
‘If this were a social occasion, Lady Diana,’ he said, ‘we would leave at once and make sure that we never encountered you again. But I have a professional obligation to your nephew which I shall discharge as faithfully as I can.’
Lady Diana turned her face away from them and answered in a very different tone from her previous brittle light voice: ‘It was absolutely bloody, if you want to know. Bloody, bloody bloody.’
‘It would be helpful if you could tell us as best you can remember what happened that night,’ said Peter.
‘I don’t want to,’ said Diana. ‘The whole thing gives me nightmares every time I think of it. And don’t tell me it would help Edward, because I don’t give a toss about Edward. He’s a pompous, disapproving young shit.’
Harriet said, ‘There have been some deaths in the penumbra of that jewel. Not helping Peter might amount to helping a murderer. How would you feel about that?’
‘You know something?’ Diana said. ‘I could believe that. I really could believe it. I always hated that thing.’
‘What did you hate about it?’ asked Harriet.
‘It was dark. It didn’t look right with the other stones. It seemed somehow jinxed. It wanted to be picked up…Oh, I don’t know, I just didn’t like it. More fool me if we were just thinking of the price it could be flogged for.’
‘Murders have happened for less,’ said Harriet. ‘Please help. Tell us what happened at that party.’
‘I need a drink,’ said Diana.
Peter looked around the room, spotted something that looked like a cocktail cabinet, and went over to open it. He found some tumblers and a bottle of malt whisky.
Wimsey 014 - The Attenbury Emeralds Page 14
