A Dangerous Deceit

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘Go on.’

  He took time to think before answering. At last he said, ‘He seemed to have believed … The fact is, he seemed to think she knew about something or other that had happened when she was in South Africa, though she told him plainly enough she didn’t know what he was talking about. She could hardly be expected to remember everything that had happened twenty-five years and more ago after all. He as good as told her she was a liar. At any rate, that was what he implied.’

  ‘What sort of event, or happening, are we talking about?’

  ‘I really haven’t the faintest idea. I only came into the room halfway through the conversation. He had this old photograph with him of a group of people, out in the country somewhere. He was pointing to some young woman that he said was my mother, but she denied it absolutely. I could see he was upsetting her. She became very agitated, and asked him to leave. When he still persisted, that was when I told the blighter to get out, and helped him on his way.’

  ‘And you still want us to believe that although you were so angry with him and turned him out of the house, you got into his car with him and let him persuade you into parting with your money in some shady deal?’

  ‘To begin with, it didn’t sound shady. I have an expensive wife, many commitments. A house like Maxstead Court is a millstone … it seemed worth the risk. It was only when his body turned up that I knew I’d been duped.’

  ‘Yet you didn’t think to come forward and tell us who he was.’

  He shrugged. ‘You don’t believe me.’ He ground out his second cigarette.

  ‘Oh, I believe you, as far as it goes. Trouble is, it doesn’t go far enough. Why, I ask myself, should this man whom your mother had dismissed and you had personally seen off the premises, suddenly offer you this seemingly golden opportunity? I’m intrigued.’

  A faint line of sweat appeared on the baronet’s forehead. Out of habit he fished for his cigarette case but this time didn’t open it. His self-confidence was deserting him, the superciliousness had been wiped from his face to be replaced by another expression Reardon couldn’t at first identify, until he recognized it as just the sort of look his new mongrel puppy had given him when she’d chewed his library book. Hangdog, they called it, appropriately enough. Shame.

  ‘This is where it gets difficult.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘He said quite openly to me that he didn’t believe my mother when she said she didn’t recognize herself or anyone else in the picture. To be absolutely honest, I wasn’t so sure either – the lady doth protest too much and all that – but that was my mother’s business, if she chose not to speak of it.’ He paused, then went on, speaking very rapidly. ‘Fact is, he said he could put me in the way of making a bit of money if I could find out from her what the truth was.’

  Joe’s pencil snapped. The tiny sound was like a pistol shot. Reardon said, deliberately expressionless, ‘And did you manage to do that?’

  ‘You don’t know my mother.’

  ‘What about Mauritz? Did he give you no more to go on?’

  ‘I rather think he was fumbling about in the dark himself. When she had asked him who had given him the photo, why he had come to her, he clammed up and wouldn’t say.’ He looked anywhere but at the other men in the room. ‘But after he and I had talked, well, he said he would live in hope and that if I could get some information for him, he would keep his promises regarding the mine.’

  ‘He bribed you to get information from your mother.’

  ‘That’s a nasty way of putting it. But in fact she wouldn’t say a thing.’

  Reardon’s opinion of Lady Maude rose. ‘Presumably that wasn’t the end of it. What happened next?’

  ‘Oh, well, later I remembered that when Symon – my brother – got engaged to Margaret Rees-Talbot, it had turned out that her father and my mother had actually met before, in South Africa during the war.’

  ‘You told Mauritz that?’

  ‘I did actually. Nothing wrong with that, was there?’ He was beginning to bluster. ‘Margaret’s father might have been able to help where my mother wasn’t able to.’

  Reardon bent his head and jotted a note on his pad. ‘Well, Sir Julian,’ he said at last, ‘it’s a sorry story. I hope you may sort your affairs out before long.’

  He half rose from his chair. ‘I can go now?’

  ‘We’ll need your signed statement first – and I fancy Sergeant Gilmour has something he wants to ask.’

  Joe sprang to life. ‘What sort of car was Mauritz driving?’

  ‘Black four-door Morris Oxford, newish,’ he replied with an alacrity that revealed an intimate acquaintance with anything on four wheels. ‘Low priced, but not bad, considering.’

  Considering its comparison to the price of the yellow Alvis in which he’d arrived at the station, no doubt. No wonder the baronet was short of funds. No wonder he’d allowed himself to be taken in by promises that no one with any sense would have believed for a second.

  ‘That’s it, that’s Aston’s,’ Joe said, and Reardon turned to Scroope, asking him if he knew who Aston was.

  ‘Aston? Never heard of the feller, who is he?’

  ‘Arthur Aston, owner of a small light engineering works in Arms Green.’

  ‘Should that mean anything to me?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir, I thought perhaps you could tell us. He had certain connections with Wim Mauritz.’

  The baronet sat up. ‘He was one of Mauritz’s associates? Does that mean there’s still a chance of getting my money back?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Arthur Aston is dead. He was murdered, too.’

  Nineteen

  Lady Maude sat at the piano, playing desultorily, just something to occupy herself with while she waited for Inspector Reardon to arrive. She was not doing it well, but then she had never had the right touch. She hit the notes correctly, as would anyone who had conscientiously practised her scales in childhood in order to attain a social accomplishment, but she knew Sir Lancelot had been right when he had teased her as having no true ear for music. Besides, Piers had been the musical one of the family, and the piano, alas long unplayed, needed tuning.

  It didn’t help that her fingers were cold in this little-used, unheated drawing room which overlooked the garden, where the fire was seldom lit nowadays through reasons of economy, not even today when the skies were again sunless and overcast. She had chosen to receive the inspector, not in the family snug but here in the blue and white drawing room, resplendent with gilt and mirrors, blue brocade upholstery, silk-panelled walls and the heirloom Aubusson carpet. It would not have been her first choice for the forthcoming interview but the maids were busy turning out more appropriate rooms elsewhere and in any case she had an odd fancy that this formality might help to keep the emotion out of what she had to say. Unaccustomed to dealing with such feelings, she had no intention of letting them get out of hand.

  She closed the piano lid, rubbing her fingers together. I’m out of practice, anyway, she thought. Like the piano, I’m out of tune – with myself and everything that’s happening around me.

  Such a short while ago, she had written to Addie Dunstable yesterday, our lives were going along in a regulated and uneventful manner, if not, even then, free from the continual worry about Maxstead. But worrying about Maxstead, as you know, Addie dear, has been an established fact for so long that one has grown accustomed to it, like ever-present indigestion, I fancy – unpleasantly there in the background, but something one has to accept because there seems to be little to be done to alleviate it permanently. And now look at us: people we have never heard of, dead people, intruding into our lives. A son who has brought us face to face with ruin, brothers who are at loggerheads – or to put a kinder slant on that, who are not seeing eye to eye …

  It was a letter destined never to be sent. She had torn it up, thrown it into the fire and watched the flames consume it, knowing she could not share such frightening thoughts with anyone – thoughts that
led, inevitably, to Binkie’s decision to sell Maxstead. It was a form of self-pity and she must not – she would not – allow herself to indulge it.

  Closing her eyes, trying to blot out terrible forebodings, she felt rather than heard the distant reverberation of the heavy knocker on the front door. She just had time to compose herself before old Stanton showed him in, the detective inspector with the scarred, unsmiling face, but one which, she was inclined to hope and believe, hid a more sensitive nature than it led one to expect.

  She hoped, in fact, that it was because he didn’t wish to inhibit her from speaking freely that he had come alone today, on the premise that one policeman was less intimidating than two. She waved him to a chair, choosing one for herself that had its back to the light.

  She had decided beforehand to surprise him by taking the initiative, and she began immediately he had taken his seat. ‘I believe you might have guessed why I asked you to come here, Inspector.’

  It was indeed she who had requested the meeting, and though he had fully intended to see her again after the interview with her son, he hadn’t felt it appropriate to request her to present herself at the station, as he had Sir Julian. ‘Guessing isn’t what we’re paid to do in my profession, my lady.’

  She smiled slightly. Her fingers drummed on the table beside her until, becoming aware of it, she quickly folded her hands on her lap. They were square hands, and small – fingers too short for the piano; she had never been able to span an octave – and she did not want him to notice how rough they were, the nails trimmed very short. Gardener’s hands – certainly not a lady’s. She took a deep breath, tried to recall the prepared phrases, and as she began to speak prayed he would not notice how difficult she was finding this.

  ‘I have spoken to my son, Inspector, and we do not need, I think, to go over what passed between you regarding his unwise investments with … with the foreigner, Mauritz, as I understand his name was. On the other hand, I now believe I owe you an apology for not being entirely frank with you about that person when we spoke before.’ She hesitated only a fraction and then went on firmly, ‘I am prepared to do what I can to help you now.’

  ‘Thank you, Lady Maude. Any help you think you can give us would be greatly appreciated.’

  ‘We at Maxstead are as anxious as you are to get to the bottom of all this.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He hoped that was true.

  They were interrupted by a smiling maid who came in with a graceful silver coffee service on a tray, and there was silence between them while the girl poured it out and offered thin almond biscuits before leaving them alone once more.

  That apology had cost the lady a good deal, Reardon was willing to bet, as he nibbled the biscuit. If her offer of help was genuine, it made him feel more kindly disposed towards her, and willing to give her as much background information as he thought wise regarding Mauritz. When the door had shut behind the maid, he briefly outlined what they had discovered about him, and his probable links with a man named Arthur Aston. Her brows rose enquiringly at the last name, but he decided it was not necessary to elaborate that particular point. Her stiff, formal manner of speaking – natural to her, or due to nervousness, or possibly just to remind him of his place, he hadn’t yet determined which – was catching. He heard himself saying when he had finished, in a way that didn’t sound like himself, ‘I understand Mauritz made himself unpopular by coming here and probing into some occasion, or happening, that occurred when you were visiting South Africa some years ago.’

  ‘Visiting? That is not precisely what I was doing there. It was wartime, you understand, the South African war, and I had gone out there on Lady Randolph Churchill’s hospital ship, hoping to nurse our wounded soldiers. However, I was taken ill and had to stay behind in Cape Town while they sailed on to Durban. It was a bitter disappointment to me, but in the end had certain compensations for a very young woman such as I was then. When I was pronounced fit enough, I was able to enjoy the many distractions and amusements Cape Town had to offer, which would not otherwise have been the case, before I left for home.’

  ‘It’s my understanding that Mr Osbert Rees-Talbot and his brother were two of the army officers serving out there.’ In view of her apology, he didn’t remind her that she had evaded the answer to this question about them before. ‘I understand he was injured and spent some time in hospital in Cape Town. So I suppose it was very probable you associated with them there?’

  A small porcelain clock on the white marble mantelpiece emitted a silvery chime, and the crystal drops decorating two vases either side shivered very slightly. ‘I did,’ she admitted stiffly after a moment or two.

  ‘Very pleasant to meet up with old friends, I dare say, neighbours from here in England.’

  ‘I had never met either before I left England. I was still unmarried and living at home with my parents, mostly in town and only occasionally at our home in the country, which lies some miles to the west of Folbury, so the number of people I knew, friends from this part of the world, was limited. The Rees-Talbots and I did not move in the same circles. In fact, we actually met for the first time in Cape Town when Captain Rees-Talbot – Osbert – was convalescing from injuries. He returned to his regiment shortly before I went back home. That was the extent of our acquaintance.’

  ‘Which presumably you renewed after the war?’

  ‘No, not at all. Our paths did not cross again.’

  ‘Perhaps I misunderstood. When we last spoke you told us one of your sons is engaged to the late Mr Rees-Talbot’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Margaret is shortly to become my daughter-in-law, I am happy to say, but their meeting was nothing to do with family friendships or connections. Young people nowadays do not expect their parents to concern themselves with making matches for them, as we did.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true.’ That sort of thing had never been part of Reardon’s working-class upbringing and thank the good Lord for that. He waited a moment before saying carefully, ‘About Cape Town. I’m afraid I have questions to ask, personal questions … I’m sorry if they should be painful.’

  ‘I understand. Carry on.’

  Without any more hesitation, he plunged straight in. ‘Was there, by any chance, any sort of … attachment at the time, between you and either of the Rees-Talbot brothers?’

  She stiffened, but met his gaze directly and answered readily enough. ‘We went to the same dances and parties, I found them both charming, and very amusing company as I have said, but I assure you there was never anything remotely romantic about our meetings.’

  He tried to imagine what Lady Maude – stocky, plain, grey-haired – would have been like as a girl. Although she could never have been a beauty, in the chocolate-box, Gibson-girl prettiness popular in her youth, she would have had vitality, he was sure, that spark of liveliness in her eyes that was, in the end, more attractive and lasting. But no, not in any circumstances could he imagine Lady Maude flirting.

  ‘Sir Julian told us that when Mauritz came to see you, he was anxious to question you about an old photograph he had with him. You told him quite definitely that you didn’t recognize anyone on it, which he saw cause to doubt. What do you think he was hoping you would say?’

  ‘As to that, I remain as much at a loss as you, Inspector.’ She fixed him with her sharp, bright stare, head a little to one side, probably hoping to disconcert him, he felt, until he decided she was actually assessing him, weighing him up. After a moment she seemed to come to a decision and picked up a book on the small table beside her. Underneath it lay an old, slightly faded snapshot, which she slid across to him. ‘The photograph he had was another copy of this. How it should have come into his possession I have no idea. When I asked him where he had obtained it he refused to say. The girl there’ – pointing to a rather dim corner of the picture – ‘is me. It was taken one day when a large group of us took a picnic out to a well-known beauty spot by Table Mountain, where the views are magnificent.’

&nbs
p; ‘Yet you denied that when he showed it to you.’ He could see why she’d hoped she could get away with doing so. The girl she had indicated was sitting in the shade of a large tree, with the result that the picture of her was too indistinct to give any unmistakable impression, and Mauritz would have had no grounds for challenging the truth of what she said.

  ‘If he had been plainer and less secretive, told me honestly what he hoped to gain by questioning me, I might have been more forthcoming. One does not take kindly to unlooked-for probing into one’s private affairs. And there was also something very shifty about the man that I did not like.’

  ‘What about the other people in the picture? Were either of the Rees-Talbot brothers there, by any chance?’

  She placed a hand on the coffee pot, and finding it still hot asked, ‘More coffee?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’ He waited until she had poured one for herself before repeating his question. ‘The Rees-Talbots were not there?’

  ‘No, they were not,’ she answered firmly.

  ‘I see. Lady Maude, do you remember any particular, untoward incident that occurred when you were in Cape Town?’

  ‘Untoward? Unpleasant, you mean? My dear inspector, we were at war with the Boers. Incidents of an untoward, not to say distressing nature were happening all the time.’

  ‘I’m not necessarily referring to the fighting. I was thinking of something different, something that might have happened to people you knew personally. Scandals, rumours going around?’ He thought carefully before adding cautiously, ‘Particularly regarding either of the Rees-Talbots?’

  She drew herself up and sat very straight. ‘I believe you are in danger of overstepping the mark, Inspector.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but that’s something that can’t always be avoided. You must see I have to ask you these questions if we’re to get to the bottom of this matter. We have reason to believe, you see, that Mr Osbert Rees-Talbot may have come under pressure before he died regarding some occurrence when he was serving in the army there.’