by John Burke
‘I’ve just been going through Chet’s drawers —’
‘A long time since he bothered to go through yours.’
‘You see!’ Jilly-Jo appealed to her guardian bruiser, who hastily looked away from Georgina. ‘Cheap, vulgar. No wonder he wanted to hide that smut away.’
‘Or didn’t want my poses contaminated by someone like you getting envious.’
Alec came between Nick and Lesley, and touched their elbows. ‘Come on in. Safer to leave them to it.’
‘I wonder. We wouldn’t want another murder on our hands.’
‘Probably only a few scratches, at most.’
He was steering them into the house when Nick said: ‘Just a minute. We meant to head for the cottage and settle ourselves in.’
‘Do come in and have a dram. Or coffee. I can do with some company.’ Lesley had already spotted the grey shadows in the corners of his eyes, and the slight shake in his right hand. ‘Queenie’s not around.’ He sounded shamefully relieved. ‘Cocky’s gone fizzing off somewhere again, and . . .’ He was drowned out by the howl and thunder of a low-flying plane. ‘Probably one of those that set him off. Now she and Anna are wandering around the grounds looking for him.’
He opened a cupboard in the small sitting-room, and poured two large malts in spite of Nick’s raised hand of protest. When he turned to Lesley, she shook her head. ‘I can see I’ll have to do the driving from here on. Anyway, Nick does keep taking wrong turnings.’
Nick raised his glass to Alec. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Now that the police and the telly and the newspapers have gone away, and we’re rid of most of Chet’s house guests I’m trying to sort out some sort of routine. It’s high time I went round the place and checked on the state of things. I’ve got all the keys. But with all this set-to over the will, and Anna not sure where she stands until they’ve got confirmation, or probate, or whatever they call it, I still have to keep the place ticking over. Not to mention finding out who gives the orders for the funeral.’
Lesley smiled. ‘Nick’s told me how conscientious you are — as steady as a rock in a crisis.’
‘He means a fusspot, I expect. But keeping the show on the road has been my job for so long, eh, Nick? And right now there are bills to pay, the staff to pay, refunds for those guests who’ve had to leave mid-week and aren’t too happy about it. Need to do a full recce. But I don’t want anyone coming along later and accusing me of removing things. Or damaging anything.’ He took a long, searing gulp of whisky. ‘Now there’s an idea. Would you both come along with me as reliable witnesses, just in case Jilly-Jo or anybody starts up some snide rumours?’
Lesley was delighted at the idea of a tour of the premises. There was so much she wanted to see, and to fit into place. She ignored Nick’s disapproving glance at her, and got to her feet.
‘Let’s go.’
They had seen most of the main building when they first arrived. Alec led the way through the various rooms, ticking off points in a small blue notebook and in his mind obviously shifting furniture back to original positions.
As they set off upstairs, Lesley stopped at a curve in the stairway. Tucked into a recess was a tiny table carrying what must be a fertility symbol of some kind: a wooden head and shoulders with polished bare breasts and prominent nipples.
‘Javanese?’
‘Could be,’ said Alec. ‘I wouldn’t know. Could be a copy — a bit of Stuart Morgan’s handiwork.’
‘Where would he have seen the original?’
‘Goodness knows. I know that Queenie’s never liked it. Though there’s not much about Stuart that she does like, poor lad.’
On the first landing, the ledge of each tall window looking out on to the garden and the hills beyond bore a figurine of some kind: here a jade Egyptian cat, beyond it a crouching mythological beast in marble.
On the right was a line of bedroom doors. Two of them further along were open, and a little girl from the village was tidying them, piling sheets in the passage. Looking down on the heaps of bed linen were portraits of two tall, dignified gentlemen providing a suggestion of ancestors, but certainly not the ancestors of Chet Brunner. Lesley recognized one of them as a copy of a full-length portrait by Lely of the Duke of Lennox. And one of Lady Jean Seton by Cornelius Jansen, from Traquair House.
‘Chet fancied keeping good company,’ Nick commented. ‘Well and truly putting Soho society behind him.’
They edged past a waste-paper basket stuffed with what looked like the discarded jottings of one competitor trying to solve the clues in one of Brunner’s games, and Alec tried a door at the end of the passage. It was locked. He hesitated, then said, ‘She no longer has any rights in this house,’ reached for a bunch of keys at his belt, and opened the door. Beyond lay another, shorter passage leading to a further door with panels bearing heraldic devices.
‘Cecil B. de Mille crossed with Walt Disney,’ said Nick.
Along the outer wall of the approach, three tomb brasses of armoured knights were set upright into the stone of the wall.
‘Not a Scottish tradition,’ said Nick. ‘Where did he dig those out?’
‘Copies of English originals, I think,’ said Alec.
‘Pretty convincing.’
‘Done by Stuart in his workshop, I imagine.’
‘This Stuart seems pretty versatile.’
Lesley said: ‘Is there any way of getting more light on them?’
‘All provided for.’ Alec reached for a switch, and three precisely adjusted spotlights gleamed down from the ceiling, striking silvery reflections from the breastplates of the knights.
‘Oh, dear,’ murmured Nick as Lesley examined the brasses from each side, and stooped to make closer examination of the dog recumbent at its master’s feet. ‘What awful discoveries are you about to make?’
‘These aren’t copies. I’ll swear these are the real thing. This one on the left here must come from about the same period as Sir John de Creke at Westley Waterless. And this one in the middle — I once saw something remarkably like it in Essex.’ She straightened up. ‘I do think I ought to have a word with the Arts and Antiques folk at New Scotland Yard.’
‘It’s none of our business,’ said her husband.
‘Tracking down tomb robbers is everybody’s business.’
The heraldic shields on the door swung open on to a small sitting-room with the master bedroom beyond, and a smaller one beside it. Velvet tartan hangings must have been Chet Brunner’s preference to medieval tapestries. Two crossed claymores hung above the huge double bed. Against one spread of tartan weave was a small Georgian bookcase.
‘Wouldn’t have thought of your old pal as being much of a reader,’ said Lesley.
Nick grimaced. ‘Least of all in the bedroom. Except maybe between wives, or whatever.’ He bent down to look at the titles of the volumes, all bound in leather with a gilded CB at the foot of the spine. ‘Ah. Bound copies of scripts for all his films and TV shows.’
Through the open door to the smaller room they glimpsed a riot of pink hangings, a pink dressing-table, and a huge blown-up, framed photograph of Jilly-Jo in a cerise boob-tube and black velvet shorts, sprawled over a chaise-longue from which one bare leg dangled languorously. Lesley wondered how long the late Chet Brunner had intended to leave it there before replacing it with a similar portrait of Georgina Campbell.
Nick stared at a small work table, inlaid with ebony and pewter, in the alcove between the two rooms. ‘I remember this. It’s one of the pieces that went missing from McIver’s place at Westerlaw. Some of the stuff was recovered, but not all of it. Not this.’
Lesley, at his shoulder, leaned forward and fingered the surface. ‘It’s a copy.’
‘Then where did the original go?’
‘Maybe Brunner knew, or maybe he didn’t. So long as it looked the way he wanted it, he wouldn’t know an original from a reproduction. But one way and another, he seems to have indulged his artistic tastes pretty lavishly.�
�
There was a sudden squeal from the far end of the corridor. It had to be the maid’s voice. Alec was nearest the outer door, and had turned to investigate when a man rushed towards him, gasped, and tried to turn back.
Alec said: ‘Mr Pitcairn. Taken a wrong turning?’
Harry Pitcairn drew himself up and tried to look unfazed. ‘I came back to look for something I’d left behind.’
‘And what was that?’
‘A cravat stickpin. Lost it. It was supposed to be a key piece in one of Brunner’s silly games. Only the whole thing was half organized, and then things happened and . . . well, you know what confusion there was. It was a clue that had to be planted somewhere. And I . . . well, I thought I might have dropped it in my bedroom. That was my room,’ he added defiantly, gesturing at the doorway in which the maid stood, flustered and indignant.
‘And have you found it?’
‘No, damn it. Probably been swept up and thrown out by now.’
Lesley was impressed by the steely authority that had come into Alec’s voice, fighting off the earlier tiredness. ‘Mr Pitcairn, you had no right to sneak into this house without —’
‘I was not sneaking. I didn’t have to sneak back into a house I know —’
‘Know so well,’ Alec took him up, ‘that you know exactly where to sneak in, and where to prowl — and how to get out with whatever it is you’ve picked up.’
‘I won’t be talked to like that.’
Lesley said: ‘Mr Chisholm as custodian of these premises pending confirmation of Mr Brunner’s will, and executor of that will, would be perfectly entitled to ask you to wait here until the police have checked your story and —’
‘And searched me? To find out what I’ve come back to steal?’
‘That would be an excellent idea, yes.’
Harry Pitcairn looked aggressive for a moment. He might well have stormed away along the passage. And whose job was it to stop him? Lesley tensed, uncertain but ready to act on impulse. Then, still trying to be scornful but subsiding with a shrug, Pitcairn said: ‘All right, so I did come to collect something I believe belongs rightly to our family.’ He made it an accusation rather than a confession. He stooped and rolled up his left trouser leg. Strapped against it was a skean dhu. ‘I remember this as a child. I ought to have removed it when I walked out that evening, but I couldn’t be sure Brunner wouldn’t have spotted it was gone.’
Lesley held out her hand. Warily he put the sheathed, silver-hilted knife in it. She turned it over to read the inscription in the silver. ‘James Mitchell Pitcairn.’
‘My great-grandfather.’
‘Very attractive. It’s a copy, of course.’
‘What?’
‘There’s no hallmark. I’d have thought it might originally be an Edinburgh piece. But the hilt is a giveaway. It’s —’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘My wife is an expert on this sort of thing,’ said Nick frostily.
‘Then where the hell is the original?’
‘Quite possibly Mr Brunner sold it for a good price,’ ventured Alec, ‘but liked it enough to have a copy made first. He put a lot of reproduction work into Stuart Morgan’s workshop.’
‘Just how many things did he sell off? How much of our heritage has been flogged off to some greedy bloody American, or —’
Alec took the skean dhu from Lesley. ‘I think we’ll keep it on the premises, Mr Pitcairn.’ His voice softened into sympathy. ‘But when everything’s been settled, since it means so much to you, perhaps we can —’
‘It means nothing to me,’ snapped Pitcairn. ‘A copy means nothing to me. It was the original that meant everything.’
None of them made a move to stop him as he stalked away.
On the way down, Lesley glanced casually out of the window on the first turn of the stair. Below, a grey Volvo was drawing in by the side door. She thought she remembered it as Anna Chisholm’s, which might mean that she and Queenie had found the wandering dog and were bringing it home.
Before she could comment on it, Nick was saying: ‘You know, Alec, knowing Chet the way we do, I’d have thought he’d have had some security guard on duty round this place. People do seem to be able to come in and out without so much as a by-your-leave.
‘He did, to start with. Two uniformed blokes, clomping around and opening doors and frightening the daylights out of the staff. But then he found they were helping themselves to various perks as they went along. And then a village girl accused one of them of raping her.’
‘And did that get into the papers?’
‘It didn’t get anywhere. The idea of that Wallace girl putting up a fine struggle for her virtue was too much. Never got any further than our Carrick community policeman.’
‘So Chet disposed of his strong-arm buddies.’
‘He’d have done better with a couple of Border terriers.’
Even so, thought Lesley, there really ought to have been some form of protection. She recalled all the lectures she had given to happy-go-lucky landlords who wouldn’t spend a bawbee on security but moaned blue bloody murder when their family treasures went missing.
And how many of them knew when the real thing had gone missing and been replaced by a clever fake?
Maybe tomorrow she ought to pay this remarkably gifted Mr Morgan a visit.
Chapter Fifteen
A wide circuit along the perimeter of the estate had brought them to the unsightly combination of fence, wall and hedge which Brunner had devised to mark the border between his property and the Pitcairns’. Twilight was seeping like a fine purple dew over what until fifteen minutes ago had been sparkling green slopes. Leaves of a sycamore tree rustled uneasily in a faint breeze, suddenly overtaken by the howl of a low-flying plane splitting the skies.
‘It was one of those,’ wailed Queenie. ‘Must have been one of those that terrified Cocky and set him off.’
They stopped at a ragged gap in the hedge and looked across at the hunched greyness of the mock castle in the dell.
‘D’you suppose he might have got through there?’ Anna suggested.
They both started as a voice came from beyond the higher point where fencing met the hedge. ‘Come to make sure we haven’t infringed the late Mr Brunner’s boundaries while he wasn’t looking?’
Harry Pitcairn emerged from the shadow of the fence and stared a challenge at them.
Anna said: ‘We are looking for Mrs Chisholm’s dog. It’s run away. We thought it might have got through the hedge and gone wandering over your land.’
‘Not a lot of it to wander over.’
‘All the same, if you do come across him —’
‘I’ll notify you. And give you details of any damage it’s caused.’
He stood where he was until the two women had turned and continued the search down the slope towards the farmhouse and cottages.
‘What d’you suppose he’ll make of the news?’ said Queenie.
‘The news?’
‘About you inheriting. And . . . oh, dear, I suppose it’ll all come out now. Everyone’ll be sniggering about me and Chet.’
They stumbled on a few more paces, straining their eyes to peer into the distances on both sides. As much to take Queenie’s mind off the missing Cocky as to satisfy her own curiosity, Anna said: ‘Did it go on for long, the affair? Mean a lot to you?’
‘It all seems so stupid now, when you think of it. But we were both a lot younger.’ It was hard to tell whether Queenie was peering across the landscape in search of Cocky or looking dreamily into the past. For a moment Anna thought she was going to leave it at that and not stir up memories which by now must be distasteful. But then she went on. ‘You’ve only seen him as a big shot, throwing his weight about. It’s not the same as the enthusiasm he used to have. He really did believe in every word he said — while he was saying it,’ she added wryly.
‘I think he always did.’
‘Yes. No matter how crazy it was, he did believe
it. Made himself believe his own mad notions. Such as being in love with every beautiful girl he met.’ Queenie darted a glance at Anna. ‘Oh, I was quite a dish in my day.’
‘I’ve never thought otherwise.’
‘And it wasn’t just casting-couch routine. He was quite a powerful lover. More muscle than fat in those days. Peter took after him.’
Yes, thought Anna. Peter took after Chet Brunner in every way. Convincing you with every word he was telling you because while he was telling it he was convincing himself as well.
‘But in the end of course he turned out to be a bastard.’
Anna was about to nod sad agreement, when she realized that Queenie had gone back to talking about Brunner.
‘That thing in the will about Peter,’ Queenie went on. ‘He ought never to have said anything like that. Peter was a lovely boy, but he was so impressionable. I ought to have realized early on that he needed a firmer hand. I was always too indulgent towards him. And Alec — oh, dear Alec — he always felt that if he tried to take a firm line, I’d blame him for making me feel guilty. So we both of us got on with our own work and sort of pretended that things would be all right.’ She came to a halt, breathing heavily and bracing her right leg to keep her balance on the uneven ground. ‘I was so pleased when you married him. I really thought you’d be the making of him.’
If there was a hint of reproach in that remark, Anna was not going to rise to it. She said: ‘I loved him. And I tried to keep loving him, in spite of the way things . . . well, not going the way I’d wanted them to go.’
‘I know you had your difficulties, dear. But he fell under bad influences. Especially that Stuart Morgan.’
‘But Stuart was the one Peter cheated on, as well as cheating on me.’
‘I don’t deny Peter did wrong, but it was that Morgan who played on his weaknesses. And now that you’re in for this inheritance, you’ll be that man’s next target, mark my words.’
She set off again, and said nothing more until they reached the farmhouse.
‘Come on in and have a cup of tea,’ said Anna. ‘And then I’ll run you back to the house. By the time you get back there, you’ll probably find Cocky’s lying in a corner somewhere and pretending he’s been there all afternoon.’
