The Firebird's Feather

by Marjorie Eccles

  She was working up to be obstructive, but any awkwardness was averted by Estrabon himself entering the room at that moment. His appearance was a surprise although, considering his name, perhaps it should not have been. His once-black hair was threaded now with silver, he had an olive skin and liquid brown eyes. He was tall, about fifty years old, and carried more weight now than he probably had when he was younger, but he still moved with the ease of a man who took regular exercise. He smiled a Latin-American smile and held out a manicured hand to each of the police officers in turn, asking pleasantly what he could do for them.

  ‘I’m sorry for the intrusion, and we realise you’re going out so we shan’t keep you long. You understand it’s necessary in this sort of case to speak to those who knew the victim and we’ve been told you and your wife were as close to Mrs Challoner as anyone.’

  ‘Indeed, to both the Challoners. Louis and I are in business together and we’ve managed to stay friends as well for many years – no mean feat, that. Since we were at school and Cambridge together, in fact.’ He slid open a drawer, took out a photograph and held it towards them. Boats in the background, two laughing young men in rowing apparel, squinting against the sun, leaning together, each with his arm around the other’s shoulder. Two indecipherable signatures across the corner, the date 1884. ‘University Boat Race, the year we won and broke Oxford’s run.’ He put the photograph back and when he turned round again his smile had disappeared. ‘Catch him, Inspector. Catch whoever did this thing and your police benevolent fund or whatever you call it will not be the loser.’

  Inskip’s head jerked up. He opened his mouth to speak but Gaines forestalled him. ‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Estrabon,’ he said coolly. The other man raised his eyebrows, but said nothing more. ‘As I understand it, you socialised a good deal with Mr Challoner – outside of business, that is.’

  ‘Indeed yes, we dined together, perhaps two or three times a month. My wife and Lydia also saw each other frequently, played bridge together.’ He shook his head. ‘This is an unspeakable business … shooting, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Yes. Were you aware that Mr Challoner’s gun is missing from his safe?’

  ‘So he tells me. Pocket pistol, little more than a toy. Not one of those he used regularly.’

  ‘He has other guns?’ Challoner had said nothing about that.

  Estrabon smiled slightly. ‘He has several, mainly for when he goes down to Shropshire to his brother’s place to shoot. He keeps them locked up at the shooting club where we’re both members, in the armoury there. They are very obliging in that way, in the interests of greater security.’

  ‘So you enjoy shooting, too?’

  ‘I keep up my membership but – enjoy? Let’s say I was persuaded to join the club. It was formed after the South African war for training to shoot in case of another, so they say. Useful, no doubt, but as for actually enjoying it? No. Nor can I claim to be anything like the marksman Louis is. In fact I was there on Sunday attempting to improve my skills.’

  And incidentally giving yourself an alibi, thought Inskip, the idea that Estrabon might be one of those who needed an alibi not having occurred to him before. ‘How long were you there for, sir?’

  ‘From eleven to around two. I lunched there. With several other gentlemen,’ he added.

  Inskip wrote, and a short silence ensued. ‘As you and Mr Challoner have been in business for many years, I assume it’s a profitable concern for both of you,’ Gaines remarked.

  ‘As far as the present government will allow. All these new social reforms they’re introducing interfere with market forces and that’s not good for anyone.’

  ‘But your firm’s otherwise in good health?’ He saw no profit in getting into political discussion.

  ‘No one is complaining.’ Estrabon took out his pocket watch. ‘And if that’s all, I must ask you to excuse me, gentlemen. I am due to attend a sale that starts at eleven. There’s an important piece of porcelain I should be mortified to miss.’

  ‘Another collector, are you? Not of Russian art, I presume?’

  ‘My preference lies in acquiring Japanese porcelain.’ He waved towards the cabinets. ‘Celadon ware. A few pictures here and there, as well, but porcelain mostly. An all-consuming passion, you might say, in fact. Just as my wife’s passion is bridge.’

  ‘As Mrs Challoner’s was in collecting Russian art.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, though I consider myself rather more circumspect. Too – flamboyant, Russian art, for my own particular taste, shall we say? But I was happy to help her acquire many rather beautiful objects and, I might add, quite often instrumental in holding her back from being determined to get what she wanted at all costs.’ He smiled a little. ‘You must know how it is with auctions. She was inclined to be a little reckless, as my wife knows.’

  Both of them smiled and Estrabon consulted his watch again. ‘Now, if there is nothing else …?’

  They repaired to the Rising Sun for a well-earned pint to review the meeting with Estrabon. ‘I do not like thee, Dr Fell, the reason why, I cannot tell,’ said Gaines unexpectedly.

  ‘Because he’s a pompous ass, probably. Touch of the dago, what’s more.’

  ‘Plus a passionate nature to go with it?’

  ‘Mrs Challoner, you mean?’

  ‘There might well be a smouldering Latin behind that smile – something’s there, for sure but just what, I don’t know. Bit of an enigma all round, Mr Estrabon. One thing I would say, though – I’d bet next week’s rent money he’s too self-protective to mix business with pleasure. You noticed he was careful to provide an alibi for the time of the shooting.’

  ‘He could,’ Inskip said, ‘have hired someone to do it.’

  ‘But where’s his motive? His association as far as we know with Mrs Challoner seems to have been mainly to do with salerooms. What about Mrs Estrabon?’

  Inskip rolled his eyes.

  ‘I know what you mean. While you’re checking out Estrabon at the shooting club, find out if they have lady members. Some women do shoot, though I’ll grant she looks a pretty unlikely candidate for that sort of thing. Besides, if what she says is true about being so intimate with Lydia, and I’ve no doubt it is, she has no reason to wish her dead. If she has, she’ll have a cast-iron alibi as well. Like everybody else,’ he added gloomily.

  He took a sip of his pint and pondered. The elegant little book with its dainty gilt lock that had been Lydia’s diary had not been very revealing. She hadn’t been amongst those who compulsively wrote up the events of her day, even less had she confided secrets to it. It had in fact been an appointment diary rather than a journal, a few reminders and names against certain dates, though the more regularly occurring ones were indicated for the most part, irritatingly, with initials only; chief among these was ‘F’, presumably standing for Fanny.

  ‘What about “S”?’ Inskip asked. There had been several appointments with an ‘S’ noted, especially in the two or three weeks before she died.

  ‘Hopefully, that will be revealed when we have Mrs Estrabon’s list of Lydia’s friends.’

  The most interesting thing about the little book in fact was that the back half of it had been used as a private expenses account, where she had kept note of her personal shopping items and of bridge debts – sums owed and repaid – mostly between herself and ‘F’. Fanny Estrabon again, presumably.

  ‘And that’s interesting,’ Gaines said. ‘Mrs Estrabon was right about Lydia not running up large debts, but that didn’t apply to her.’ There was a small sum to Fanny, still outstanding, but hers to Lydia, according to the little book, hadn’t been repaid for some time. He’d looked at the total and whistled. Enough for her to want Lydia dead – to kill her herself? If she was already owing money she could hardly have paid someone else to do it – even if the idea of Mrs Estrabon knowing how to find a contract killer wasn’t faintly ludicrous.

  ‘And as far as Mrs Challoner accounting for her expenses, either she was natural
ly careful how she spent her money and kept tally of it, or Louis Challoner was tight-fisted with her allowance and demanded to see how she spent it.’ He thought some more about the Challoners and the Estrabons. ‘Why do I find all this lovesome foursome a bit too much? Have a poke around into it, Inskip. And into Estrabon’s background. And while you’re about it, his wife’s might be interesting, too. See what the Challoners have to say. Don’t forget that shooting club either.’

  It was necessary to check Estrabon’s statement that he had been lunching at the club but it was no surprise to find the staff confirming what he said. The club was a tight ship, run by an ex-army major of impeccable credentials. When he was satisfied Inskip was who he claimed to be, he was only too willing to be co-operative and gave the times of Estrabon’s arrival and departure, the names of his fellow diners and even a list of what they’d had to eat – and drink.

  It was in a gloomy mood that Inskip made his way once more to Egremont Gardens. He had been sent there several times during the last week to see what he could pick up and he suspected everyone living there was getting fed up of the police poking their noses in, and though it didn’t bother him, he thought it likely to prove counter-productive with the sort of people they were dealing with. The Challoner family were unlikely to give away anything which might throw suspicion on Estrabon. Gaines might not like the man and Inskip himself hadn’t been greatly impressed – but he seemed to be a favourite with them all.

  He was a few streets away from his destination when he saw a woman stooping to adjust a shoe. He recognised the bouncing brown curls of the housemaid, Emma Pavell, and hurried to join her. ‘Stroke of luck,’ he said, ‘just on my way to Egremont Gardens. I could walk you there. That’s if you’re going and not coming?’

  She gave him a cool glance. ‘Just coming back, as a matter of fact. I’ve been to see my mother.’

  ‘Spare the time for a cup of tea?’ he asked, indicating the teashop on the other side of the street. He liked what he’d seen of Emma but he hadn’t really expected her to agree, and yet she did.

  ‘Might as well. I haven’t got long,’ she said, ‘but I wanted to see you anyway.’ He would have liked to think she was taken with the idea of such a well-dressed fellow, but sadly, he thought not. She came from the same background as he did, where people normally avoided the police as far as possible. This must be serious. She was already crossing the road. He followed her inside and ordered tea. ‘Toast? Scones?’

  ‘Tea will do, thanks.’ In spite of her brisk manner, Inskip saw she was nervous. Her hands, in crocheted, white cotton gloves, gripped a small, shabby handbag. Her polished buttoned boots pressed themselves tightly together. This robust young woman, with a good complexion and strapping figure, could have been a girl up from the country – a farmer’s daughter, a milkmaid, rather than a product of the ghetto-like conditions in which he knew she’d been brought up … she ought to have been pale, pinched, undernourished and undersized. But then Emma Pavell had been in service since she was thirteen, working hard but living in a healthy environment, eating nourishing meals. She had good teeth, too, he’d noticed.

  She was almost disconcertingly direct and to the point. ‘I wanted to tell you there’s a woman called Rina Collingwood you should keep your eye on. She’s a suffragette and she organised that demonstration in Hyde Park on the day Mrs Challoner was killed.’

  ‘Good Heavens! So you’re one of those …’ He was no longer surprised that women from any walk of life should have joined one of those witches’ covens, but the look on her face warned him to go no further.

  She didn’t look like a suffragette, but then, although some of them were overtly aggressive, didn’t bother to hide it and invariably dressed in mannish clothes, most of them cultivated a deliberately ordinary appearance in order not to attract notice when they went about their unholy business. Others were so outwardly feminine and charming it was nearly impossible to associate them with having a thought in their heads beyond the next new hat or the latest social event. He had learnt not to trust any of them.

  Wearing mourning for her employer was not compulsory etiquette for such as Emma, and although she had on a black skirt, in deference to the heatwave she was not wearing a jacket and the high-necked muslin blouse tucked into it was a pale flower-patterned lavender, possibly her best. Tendrils of damp hair escaped from under her straw boater. She said impatiently, ‘We’re not talking about me. Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  ‘You couldn’t be saying that demonstration was arranged specially so that Mrs Challoner could be shot?’

  ‘I’m not saying that at all.’

  ‘Go on, then.’ He waited, now very interested.

  ‘She had a grudge against Mrs Challoner.’

  This was becoming bizarre. Were they going to have to revise their opinions that the timing of the demonstration and the shot which had killed Lydia Challoner might not be unconnected? ‘This woman – what did you say her name was – Collingwood?’ Not such an unusual name, but he was sure he’d have remembered if he’d seen it on the list of those few who, hampered by their long skirts, hadn’t been able to run away fast enough.

  ‘Yes. Rina Collingwood.’ Emma looked down at the hands gripping the handbag. They looked red beneath their lacy covering, perhaps why she kept them on while she drank her tea. For the first time she seemed uneasy. ‘I’m not one to go tale-telling, and I’ve cooked my goose if anybody finds I’ve been blabbing to you – there’s no way those women’ll let me work with them if they find out, but I can’t rest. I draw the line at murder. Mrs Challoner was a lovely lady. She didn’t deserve to be popped off like that.’

  Inskip thought quickly. ‘Do you mean this Miss Collingwood fired that fatal shot?’

  ‘Rina Collingwood would do anything for the Cause,’ she said shortly, ‘but even she wouldn’t go that far – I think. Bet your sweet life she’ll have an alibi anyway – isn’t that what you call it?’

  ‘She certainly wasn’t one of those women we picked up for running out in front of those horses that day.’ But the shot had come from a distance – there were more people than Marcus Villiers to swear to that – so you couldn’t put money on it that the fleeing figure presumed to have been the shooter couldn’t have been a woman. ‘You don’t think she fired the shot – but she arranged the demonstration as cover for someone else? Why would she do that? What did she have against Mrs Challoner? How did she know her? We haven’t found anything to suggest Mrs Challoner had anything to do with your movement.’

  ‘That was the trouble – she didn’t.’ She was worrying at the finger-ends of her gloves, stretching them out of shape. ‘Rina wrote to her asking for help with funds, never mind that Bridget had asked her not to.’ Inskip felt a stab of surprise that the two young women should be on first name terms, but of course their sympathies obviously lay in the same direction … what these women saw as a crusade was a great leveller, bringing together women who would never otherwise have even met, never mind associated. ‘Well, of course, she wrote back to say she wouldn’t, and it put Rina’s back up.’

  ‘Because she refused to give money?’

  ‘Well, it seems she had some plain-speaking things to say about the movement as well.’

  ‘Did she indeed?’

  ‘She could have a sharp tongue at times. But it’s my opinion Rina Collingwood was against her for other reasons.’ She picked up her teaspoon and put it back again. ‘You see, Mrs Challoner was worried that what Bridget was doing would spoil her chances for Cambridge.’

  ‘That’s something you care about, too, Miss Pavell? Miss Devenish’s future plans?’

  For a moment she didn’t say anything, unsuccessfully trying to smooth the lacy gloves back into position over her fingers. ‘Yes, I do,’ she said at last. ‘And why shouldn’t I? She’s been very good to me – both of them have, Miss Bridget and Mrs Challoner. And she’s a nasty piece of work, that Rina Collingwood.’

  ‘It’s a serious accusation.�
�

  ‘I’m accusing nobody.’ She stood up to go. ‘I’ve said what I’ve got to say and I’m saying nothing more. Take it or leave it. But you haven’t found anybody else, have you?’

  He smiled. He rather liked this young woman. They spoke the same language. And she’d produced another bit of information to add to what they knew of Lydia Challoner. It might mean nothing, of course, what she had just told him. On the other hand, it could mean quite a lot.

  Nineteen

  Rather than the spacious and imposing offices Inskip had expected, the firm of Challoner and Estrabon ran its business from an unpromising building, high and narrow, situated in a side passage off the main road, a dingy thoroughfare scarcely wider than an alley, somewhere off Bishopsgate but not far from the Stock Market, in a district where financial institutions of all sorts abounded. Gaines had elected to go there rather than see Challoner at Egremont Gardens – and hoped not to encounter Estrabon while they were there.

  The building occupied several floors. The ground floor was a hum of efficient activity: clerks bending over desks and behind them, visible through a half-glazed wall, a roomful of young women seated at typewriters. A young, pale-faced fellow showed them into Challoner’s office upstairs. Any surprise he felt at seeing the two police officers he managed to hide and though slightly wary, he received them courteously, sending the young man downstairs again for coffee.

  The interior of the offices was considerably more salubrious than the outside would have led one to believe, cleaner and tidier for one thing, and though its furnishings were old-fashioned, they were of a solid and comfortable nature: the big mahogany desk at which Challoner sat, no doubt his father’s and grandfather’s before him, was spacious and well polished, on three of the walls were prints of Whistler’s ‘Thames set’ etchings, while the other wall was lined with files and folders stuffed into floor-to-ceiling shelves. Polished mahogany shelves matching the desk and the solid, heavy door with its shining brass door furniture. A thick Turkey carpet covered most of the floor, patterned in rich reds, greens and blues; a green-shaded lamp stood on his desk and a comfortable green-leather chair before it.