‘How did it happen?’ Miss Potts inquired delicately.
‘Ah, that is what no one knows — as yet.’
‘It’s so terribly easy to start a fire,’ Mrs. Roper remarked with a portentous sigh.
‘Not when I lay one,’ Lucy Martin observed dryly. But that piece of flippancy was rightly regarded as out of place at such a time and very properly ignored.
‘It takes no more than a dropped match or a cigarette-end in a wastepaper basket,’ Mrs. Roper continued, leading into an instance in her own experience, but Mr. Turnbull who happened to overhear this last remark, broke in to say in that officious way he had of always putting people right, that Mrs. Eskdale did not smoke and since she had only just arrived back from a trip somewhere abroad it was hardly likely there would be any waste paper in the basket to be set alight, he said in his dry old schoolmaster’s voice, and raising his hat, turned away.
Mrs Roper flushed with annoyance understandably at this pedantic contribution to a serious subject, but Miss Potts said in a soothing manner that all this would doubtless come out at the inquest.
For of course there would have to be an inquest.
In The Copper Kettle Ina Farrer was saying somewhat earnestly to Bessie Grainger that somehow it was the husband she felt most sorry for. ‘I mean, what must he be feeling!’
Mrs. Grainger regarded her speculatively for a moment and then ventured to say: ‘In more ways than one, no doubt.’
‘How d’you mean, dear?’
‘They didn’t get on all that well, you know. Heavens knows one doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead, poor dear, but I’ve always understood she wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get on with, I’m afraid.’
‘I don’t think one can go by servants’ gossip, Bessie; it’s not really to be relied on,’ Miss Farrer said, knowing her friend purchased her eggs from Mrs. Slaughter who worked up at the house. She smiled charitably and began to talk of other things.
Yes, undoubtedly people’s emotions were stirred by the event, rousing horror in some and an avid curiosity and excitement in others. People were to become partisan and dogmatic. It led to quarrels and the break-up of old friendships and the start of unexpected new ones.
*
‘Miss Desborough?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is John Bailey.’
‘Who?’
‘John Bailey, your mother’s solicitor.’
‘Oh yes?’
(This was not at all the kind of conversation he considered it proper to conduct by telephone. But in the present circumstances it was unavoidable if she was not to learn baldly of her mother’s death from the papers. He did not consider that would be proper either. Not the sort of thing his late client would have wished.)
He said:
‘I’m afraid I have bad news, Miss Desborough. Please prepare yourself for a shock. There was a fire at Upper down House last night and, tragically, your mother lost her life in it. I am so very sorry,’ he added. He thought he heard her utter a queer sound like the mew of a small animal and catch her breath.
‘Poor old Ma … poor old Ma … ’ she muttered. ‘How awful … How did it happen? Where was everyone? Why wasn’t she rescued?’
Bailey said cautiously:
‘I am under the impression she was alone in the house. It was the middle of the night.’
‘Alone in the house in the middle of the night? Where was my stepfather?’ She gave to the word a note of ridicule and contempt.
‘I understand he made strenuous efforts to rescue her, but the fire had already taken too great a hold … He couldn’t reach her.’
She uttered a laugh like a crow’s caw, harsh and abrupt, startling him.
‘You bet he couldn’t. With a life assurance of fifty thousand coming to him, I can just imagine how hard he must have tried. You must forgive me, Mr. Bailey, I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. It was bound to sooner or later.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand — ’
‘I suppose there’ll be an inquest.’
‘Oh yes, certainly.’
‘I want to be there. Will you see to it that I’m told when it’s to be held and where, please.’
‘Of course, Miss Desborough, and if there’s anything — ’ But she had put down the phone. Mr. Bailey gazed ahead rubbing his knuckles. As far as that gentleman could experience perturbation, the forgoing conversation had certainly shaken him. He had long ceased to be surprised at the extraordinary divulgations of relatives when their nearest and dearest took the last plane out, but on this occasion the daughter’s comments had already been put to him — by the deceased, herself. In a letter which he had received some eighteen months since. A sealed letter, to be opened after her death.
People like to make these final pronouncements from beyond the grave sometimes: Codicils, curses, revelations, last wishes … ‘Who would have thought — ’ the mourners are expected to murmur, drawing in their breath, glancing from the corner of an eye. A small legacy of a different kind.
But this letter, in Aurora’s forceful florid hand, was instructing him if she should suddenly or unexpectedly die, to see to it that intensive investigations were made into the circumstances of her death, because she believed it was possible that her husband, Jeremy Eskdale, was going to kill her. He had already made more than one attempt on her life. The letter declared that there were witnesses who would testify to this effect, but it did not give their names or whereabouts.
It presented Bailey with a bothersome problem. Exactly how much attention should be paid to a letter of this description? He had been Aurora’s solicitor for seventeen years, he knew her pretty well. Certainly she regarded him as a friend, someone to be trusted. Bailey recognised the probability that the letter had been written after some violent quarrel with Eskdale when she’d already had too much to drink; it was hysterical and absurd. But now she had died suddenly and unexpectedly. The husband had been there at the time. Aurora’s daughter obviously laid her mother’s death at his door and had made no attempt to conceal her venom.
But what did that prove?
Eskdale may have married her for her money and very likely had, since he was known to be a gambler. But many persons, female as well as male, have married for money without it leading them to kill their spouses. The one did not by any means predicate the other.
Nevertheless, the letter was not to be disregarded. To do so would be improper conduct. Copies must be sent to Coroner and police.
*
‘The poor man, after all he must have been through, one really must do something. Where will he go?’ people remarked to one another when they heard that Jeremy had discharged himself from hospital after 36 hours, with 2nd degree burns and evidently still in shock. The Norths, Colonel and Mrs. Rumbold, Gina Harmsworth and Neville Bright, all asked him to stay. Invitations which he skilfully declined, preferring to put up at The Wykeham Arms, where he could be as silent and solitary as he pleased, and should he feel the need for commonplace chat there was always the public bar, or a drink between hours with ex-Commander Bill Bastable. He simply did not feel up to coping with people’s curiosity or tactful lack of it.
So far the police had been very decent and had not bothered him with questions. But once he no longer had the hospital staff to protect him their consideration came to an end. A constable came and asked him if he would care to come down to the station and make a statement, the police were naturally anxious to learn the facts of the fatality.
‘It’s always best to get these things down as soon as possible,’ Sergeant Timmins said, bending a grave but not unfriendly glance on him.
‘I’m not too clear about what happened myself. It all happened so quickly.’ He rubbed his brow with his fingertips. ‘I remember the staircase blazing. I couldn’t get back to her.’ He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth. ‘I ran outside and got in through the bedroom window and tried to drag my wife out that way.’ He shook his he
ad. ‘But it couldn’t be done. She had passed out, and the ladder was too short for me to reach it and carry her down at the same time. I went down again to see if I could find a longer ladder.’ Again he shook his head. ‘I tried. I did try.’ He bent his eyes and scratched with his nail at a mark on his trouser-leg.
‘Had you already sent for the Fire Brigade, or did that come later?’
Eskdale looked up, stared as if from far away, and said at last: ‘No, I’d sent for it. That’s how I came to be downstairs. There was something wrong with the phone in the bedroom, the line was dead. I remember suddenly thinking, perhaps the one downstairs … and yes, it had been left off the hook. And then by the time I’d got through … it was already too late to get back.’
‘What time was that?’
‘I don’t know … It’s all a great blur of terror when a thing like that happens, you’ve no idea. I lost my head. I was in a panic.’
‘So you have no idea how the fire could have started?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘How did you first become aware of it?’
Eskdale hunched his shoulders, ran his tongue across his lips, a line puckered between his dark brows.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you hear it first, or smell it?’
He hesitated: ‘I think I heard it.’
‘Did it wake you?’
‘Wake me?’ Eskdale said sharply. ‘No.’
‘You hadn’t been to sleep?’
‘No. I’d only just got back.’
‘You didn’t arrive with Mrs. Eskdale?’
‘No.’
‘Oh? How was that?’
‘I took a later plane.’
‘I see.’ The sergeant regarded him thoughtfully. ‘So you arrived home in the middle of the night, and quite soon afterwards the fire broke out downstairs.’
Eskdale said in a slow considering sort of way:
‘I think the fire had probably started before ever I got in.’ He paused. Sergeant Timmins waited, turning his pen between his fingers. ‘You see,’ Eskdale continued, ‘my wife had already gone to bed. She must have thought I wouldn’t be coming down that night for it was all locked up downstairs. I kept ringing the bell and knocking but I couldn’t make her hear. So I went round to the back where our room was and saw the light was still on. I called and chucked up some pebbles, but still I couldn’t wake her. I was tired and really rather angry at finding myself locked out: I was on the point of driving down to The Wykeham Arms and knocking up Bastable. But I changed my mind. Instead I went to the stables and found a ladder and put it up against the window. As I say, it was a bit short, by about three feet, I suppose. But I broke the window with the torch, slid it open and hauled myself in. My wife was on the bed, dead to the world. She hadn’t even taken off her clothes. It was as I was staring down at her that I heard this extraordinary snapping, crackling, sound. And then I suppose I must have smelt the smoke … ’ He paused in the act of recollecting. ‘And then?’ Sergeant Timmins prompted finally.
‘I tried to rouse her … but … she was out like a light. Then I picked up the phone to get help. But the line was dead. It was then, I think, I began to lose my nerve, began to feel frightened … ’ He met the sergeant’s light blue eyes.
‘You recognised that a fire had started somewhere on the premises.’
‘That’s right. Somewhere on the premises.’
‘Mrs. Eskdale was lying by the window when she was found, you know.’
‘That’s right,’ Eskdale agreed. ‘I dragged her there and then heaved her on to my back, holding her by the wrists. But, you see, she was insensible, she couldn’t help, she couldn’t hang on, and I found it impossible to hold on to her and get out of the window on to the ladder below … ’ he spread a hand across his face.
‘This is very painful for you, I know, sir; I’m sorry, but — ’
The questions went on and on. At length Sergeant Timmins said with a sigh that he didn’t think he need trouble him any further for the present. ‘If you would just read through your statement and see if it is correct and then sign it, sir.’
Eskdale had some difficulty in mastering the contents from a strange inability to keep his mind on the subject, he read it over and over like an illiterate trying to take in a complicated sentence structure.
‘It’s correct, I suppose,’ he said at last, ‘but it does seem rather confused.’
‘If you’d like to alter it, the constable here will take it down for you.’
Eskdale considered this and then said, no, he thought he would leave it as it was. He was feeling tired, still in a state of shock no doubt. If the sergeant had finished with him he’d like to go back to the hotel.
‘By all means,’ said the sergeant rising to his feet. ‘Oh there was one more thing before you go. If you could give me Mr. Ransome’s present address.’
Eskdale regarded the policeman with lofty surprise.
‘Mr. Ransome? I’m afraid I can’t, I’ve no idea where he is. He left here, you know, while we were away and gave no intimation where he was going.’
‘Isn’t that rather odd, in the circumstances?’
‘What circumstances?’
‘Well, he and his family had been staying with you for some considerable time. I was under the impression that he was a friend of yours.’
‘I hadn’t seen him since we were both at Rugby, that was eighteen years ago. Meeting him again was pure chance, and my wife suggested he might like to look after Upperdown for a while; that’s how it came about that he and his family were here. He probably left a forwarding address at the post office.’
‘Ah, we naturally inquired there first.’
‘Did you think to ask Ellis & Hand?’
Sergeant Timmins nodded.
‘The bank must know. He had a drawing account there.’
‘No. He merely closed it the day before he left.’
Eskdale said:
‘You seem very anxious to get in touch with him. May I know why?’
‘We think he may be able to help us with our inquiries.’
Eskdale pushed back his cuff with one finger and regarded his wristwatch in a peculiarly intent manner.
Then he said:
‘But Ransome had left here a week before the fire.’
‘Quite so.’
‘I fail to see how he could possibly — ’ He broke off. And then went on: ‘You surely don’t think he — ’ and again left the sentence unfinished.
‘We only want to ask him a few simple questions, Mr. Eskdale. In connection with the burglary.’
‘Burglary? What burglary is that?’
‘Didn’t you know? Has no one told you?’
‘Told me what?’
‘When Mrs. Eskdale arrived home it was to find that a considerable number of things had been removed from the house. Er — forty-three items, to be exact. Some very large, many — according to your wife — of considerable value. As Mr. Ransome appears to have been the last person there, as far as we know, it seems possible that he might be able to assist us.’
‘You’re not by any chance imagining he might have taken them, I hope.’
Sergeant Timmins favoured him with an amiable grin. ‘Certainly not, Mr. Eskdale. Policemen don’t use their imagination. It wouldn’t do. It’s just that there are one or two quiddities about the affair which make it rather puzzling. One can mistakenly fancy one has lost some trinkets or small ornaments, but how did the thieves remove a 5ft Chinese cabinet or a double pedestal Georgian dining-table and leave no evidence of how they effected an entry or exit? Hardly the sort of things that can be slipped through a lavatory window. Yet they were all taken out somehow, all forty-three pieces. How did the thieves get in? And how did they get out? Quite a little detective mystery. Not that we’re bothered. It’s early days yet. Lists of the missing articles have been sent to all the Antique dealers in the country. Don’t you worry, Mr. Eskdale, whoever took them will never be able to dispose of t
hem. We’ll get ’em if they try.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Eskdale replied, gazing impassively at the other’s smug expression, as imperturbably as if he had not just seen fifteen thousand pounds snatched out of his grasp: all his years at the gaming-tables stood him in good stead now. It was perfectly clear to him that all the stuff Tom had put into store for him would never now be able to be made use of.
Since poor Rory was dead, the loss was of no great significance, for the insurance would come to him anyway. But nonetheless it gave him an uncomfortable sensation, a feeling that he was running on an unlucky streak. Everything was going wrong. It was now Nancy who had taken on the intangible substance of a dream and already he only half believed that when all this was cleared up he would get back to her.
One good thing was that Tom seemed to have had the sense to vanish thoroughly. It certainly looked as though they would not be able to trace his whereabouts or ever link the two of them together. And there was no reason and little likelihood of their ever running into one another again. A shame in one way; he had rather liked Tom. A good chap.
*
The Inquest was held at Redpark village hall three miles away. Eskdale was surprised to find the building packed to the doors. Photographers from the County Gazette and the West Hampshire Herald leaped around like grasshoppers, snapping up the local notables as they arrived.
Dr. Evans, the coroner, a dry, sharp-featured man with a cold blue eye, dealt with the witnesses briskly.
The pathologist made it quite clear to the dullest juryman that the deceased had been asphyxiated by the smoke and would, in his opinion, have been quite incapable of making any effectual effort to save herself anyway with 270 milligrams of alcohol in her blood. In other words she must have been dead drunk.
The police constables confirmed that she had been drinking freely and was already quite unsteady and incoherent when they left. The object of their visit was merely touched on like a grace note and then firmly dismissed as irrelevant by the coroner.
The Regional Fire Officer mentioned in his evidence that the remains of a tin which had contained Sodium Chlorate had been found close by the Mains box where it seemed likely that the fire had started, adding that people really should not be careless about keeping such inflammable substances in confined places where there was a fire risk.
A Game of Consequences Page 14
