Fault in the Structure mb-52

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Really?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Well, tell him that I am no longer in private practice and that, in any case, I see no one without either a personal invitation or by appointment.’

  ‘Bien, madame.’ Célestine withdrew, but before Dame Beatrice could settle down to work again on a paper she was writing for a learned journal, Célestine was back, this time in a state of high indignation.

  ‘Imagine, madame! This assassin of whom I speak to you! He refuses to leave. He has tried to bribe me, madame! He offers me a pourboire – and a very small one, at that! – to show him in to you. It is insupportable!’

  ‘I hope you and Henri, between you, will make it clear to him that I can be of no assistance to him.’

  ‘He is indécrottable, that one, madame. Henri have to hold him en mer—’

  ‘At bay, not “at sea”.’

  ‘Bay is sea, no? Eh, bien, Henri have to hold him at bay with a big knife, so he does not force his way into the presence of madame.’

  ‘He appears to be a man of obstinate resolution. You had better show him in here if he is being threatened with a knife.’

  ‘Madame will receive this parvenu?’

  The man who entered was tall and lean. He was clean-shaven, dark-haired and looked sardonic and ill-humoured. He bowed and took the seat Dame Beatrice offered him.

  ‘Perhaps I should have made an appointment?’ he said.

  ‘It would have been of no use,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘I am no longer in private practice.’

  ‘Oh, I had hoped – your son told me—’

  ‘My son?’

  ‘Sir Ferdinand Lestrange. When he knew I wanted to buy a New Forest property, he told me that you and I were to be near neighbours. I shall be moving to a property just outside the town of Chardle.’

  ‘That is not very near the village here.’

  ‘A mere matter of twenty miles. Nothing in a fast car.’

  ‘My son is not usually anxious to extend my circle of acquaintances. He believes that I am capable of doing that for myself.’

  ‘Oh, but people living in the same neighbourhood should be prepared to socialise, surely?’

  ‘I am afraid that my interests lie elsewhere.’

  ‘Oh, now, now!’ cried the visitor, wagging a playful finger. ‘We are all members one of another, we’re told. Doesn’t John Donne add that…’

  ‘My dear young man,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you told my servant that you had come to consult me professionally.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, that is so.’

  ‘I sent a message to say that I am no longer in private practice. Even if I were, you would have had to consult me in London, not here. This is my private residence and I do not welcome—’ she eyed him straightly ‘—gatecrashers.’

  ‘Well, really!’

  ‘Also I happen to be very busy at this particular time, as, no doubt, you can see for yourself.’

  ‘Oh, well!’ He rose and stood looking down on her. His hat was in one hand, a pair of driving-gloves in the other. The knuckles of both hands, she noticed, were white.

  ‘I can see that you are under considerable strain,’ she said. ‘You would do well, perhaps, to consult a doctor.’

  ‘But not you? I could make it any time which suited you.’

  ‘I am sorry. And now, if you don’t mind —’ She indicated the books and papers on her desk.

  ‘Oh, but, hang it all! Well, look here, if you won’t have me as your patient, whom do you suggest I should go to?’

  ‘Professor Jericho is a very good man,’ said Dame Beatrice coolly. She rang the bell.

  ‘Go to—? Here, I say! I did expect to get at least a courteous hearing! I came here to—’

  ‘Célestine,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘show Mr Lawrence out.’

  The Frenchwoman showed no surprise at the change in the visitor’s name, but having closed the front door behind him she returned unbidden to her mistress.

  ‘He asks me, that one, whether you are alone in the house except for your servants, madame.’

  ‘Oh? What did you tell him?’

  ‘Big lies.’

  ‘Good. That man, if I mistake not, is a murderer.’

  ‘Ciel! En vérité, madame? I go round with Henri tonight to be sure he lock and double-lock all doors. I am glad it is also windows which can be locked since the attack on the life of madame last year.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Gavin insisted on the window fastenings. That will be all.’

  ‘I could wish,’ muttered Célestine, as she went to the door, ‘that the good Georges and Madame Gavin were here to protect madame.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Dame Beatrice, whose ears were keen, ‘I shall now load my little revolver and keep it handy, but I think our visitor, having proved my mettle, is most unlikely to return.’

  She rang up the Chief Constable and told him of the visit.

  ‘What did he come for? What was his object, do you suppose?’ he asked.

  ‘I think he had been in touch with Miss St Malo and took fright at what she told him of my visit to her. He has much on his conscience and for that reason he probably takes fright very easily. I think he decided to come along and take a look at me and my establishment just to see how the land lay. He found it harsh and inhospitable.’

  ‘Well, apart from the telephone directory – you public figures ought never to allow your names and addresses to appear in that, you know – I suppose it’s easy enough to find out from Who’s Who where you live and all about you. Are you going to ask for police protection?’

  ‘Because a man calls on me and stays less than ten minutes?’

  ‘You say he gave a false name? How did you know it was Lawrence?’

  ‘I did not know. He answered to a description my son once gave me of Lawrence. Besides, like that son, I have a suspicious mind and I am always wary of strangers, especially of strangers who try to bribe my servants. For all these reasons, I guessed who my visitor was.’

  ‘Do you think you were wise to let him know you had recognised him?’

  ‘I did it deliberately. It will be interesting to find out how he reacts, if he reacts at all.’

  ‘It may be interesting, but it won’t be very pleasant if he cuts your throat,’ said the Chief Constable grimly. ‘Do, at least, let your village bobby know that a suspicious-looking stranger has called on you. If nothing more than your visit to Coralie St Malo has put wind up him, he must be in a rare old funk, and so am I, knowing that he’s on the loose in your neighbourhood.’

  ‘Very well. If it will ease your mind I will drive into Brockenhurst and acquaint the police with my fears.’

  ‘Your fears? That will be the day!’ said the Chief Constable.

  Dame Beatrice had been placed under police protection once or twice before, although she herself had never asked for it; the safety measure had been taken either by Laura Gavin or by Sir Ferdinand Lestrange on his mother’s behalf. On this occasion, however, she kept her word to the Chief Constable and was assured: ‘We always keep an eye on your place, ma’am, the nature of your occupation being what it is with the Home Office. Some of your murderers have plenty of friends outside.’ So, having done what she could, Dame Beatrice dismissed Lawrence from her mind.

  Some days went by, the little pile of manuscript (to be typed when Laura returned) grew a little bulkier, correspondence was dealt with and, for a change of occupation, Dame Beatrice paid visits to her rose-garden to snip off the dead blooms, and so time passed.

  The Chief Constable wrote to tell her that Chief Superintendent Nicholl was back in charge of the Lawrence case, but, so far, had no progress to report, all further attempts to break Lawrence’s alibi having failed. As for Coralie St Malo and Mrs Lawrence’s brother, Bill Caret, all enquiries concerning them came to nothing.

  So matters stood and so they remained. Laura and George returned to the Stone House and at the end of September the university’s Long Vacation ended. Routine of a pleasant, peaceful kind was re-established
at the Stone House and the only surprise, if such it could be called, was that Lawrence had not returned to resume his northern university lectureship, but had resigned it on the grounds that he was now ‘a man of property’ domiciled in the south.

  CHAPTER 11

  « ^ »

  Off he goes, as nimble as a tadpole,

  Only more bullet-headed.

  Laura, fortified by her holiday, settled down readily and happily again at the Stone House, her days filled with interesting and pleasurable occupations; but she needed very little sleep and during the wakeful watches of the night she turned her thoughts time and again to the murder of the second Mrs Lawrence and to Lawrence’s abortive visit to Dame Beatrice.

  One morning, when Dame Beatrice’s manuscript was typed and had been posted, she said at breakfast:

  ‘There must be some way of breaking Lawrence’s alibi.’

  ‘Unless he committed the murder, he does not need an alibi, dear child.’

  ‘I don’t like that visit he paid you when George and I were both away. I think he’s our murderer all right and if only that alibi isn’t an alibi at all, the police ought to be in a position to charge him.’

  ‘I believe him to be the murderer of old Sir Anthony, and I think Mrs Lawrence had some evidence of this. I believe he may have wanted to kill her, and I believe he was the prowler with the sack who buried her, but I do not believe he carried out the actual murder. I believe he was capable of poisoning Mrs Lawrence; I do not believe he was capable of cutting her throat. Now that I have met him I believe it even less than I did when I had his early history from Ferdinand, who got it from the Warden of Wayneflete.’

  ‘All the same, I’d like to have a go at that landlady of his, to see whether I couldn’t break her down.’

  ‘You are hardly likely to succeed where the police have failed.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Woman to woman might dig up some information which wouldn’t have been given to a male copper, don’t you think?’

  ‘I hardly know what reason you could give for calling upon and questioning her.’

  ‘I bet I could think of something. Anyway, I won’t attempt to go up there so soon after Lawrence’s visit to you. I think that at present the more able-bodied citizens we have in and about this house, the better prepared we shall be if he has any rough stuff in mind.’

  ‘He hardly gave that impression,’ said Dame Beatrice. The next news came from the Warden of Wayneflete himself. It was relayed to the Stone House by Sir Ferdinand. He telephoned his mother to ask whether he might come to dinner and stay the night, as he was defending in Winchester on the following day.

  ‘I shall put up at the Domus after that, while the case lasts, to be handy for the court,’ he said, ‘but it does seem a good opportunity to come and see you, if you can have me.’

  The news he brought was interesting and, in Dame Beatrice’s opinion, significant. Sir Ferdinand himself regarded it as having a somewhat humorous aspect.

  ‘These smart-Alecs,’ he said, ‘they will do it, you know, even if their solicitors advise against it. What they expect to get out of it, I don’t know.’

  ‘Of what do we speak, my dear boy?’

  ‘This insane decision to go for jury trial instead of biting the bullet on what the magistrates dish out. This lunatic would have got off with four months at the most if he’d opted for summary conviction. As it is, the judge has given him two years.’

  ‘And his offence?’

  ‘Drunken driving.’

  ‘And who is this rash speculator? I gather it is somebody we know.’

  ‘Our friend Thaddeus E. Lawrence, none other. Even going before a judge he might have got off more lightly except that, before sentence was passed, he decided to turn cheeky and called the judge “you misbegotten bastard by Colonel Blimp out of the Band of Hope”. That cooked his goose, of course, and to clinch it he biffed his warder.’

  ‘I wish I’d heard him say it,’ remarked Laura. ‘I wouldn’t have believed he was such a sportsman. So he’s behind bars for two years, is he? Less, if he behaves himself, of course.’

  ‘I fancy there is method in his madness,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘At least in prison he will be safe from his enemies and from the hand of all that hate him.’

  Laura looked at her employer with astonishment.

  ‘You mean he feels we’re on his track and may be getting warm?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t think that, up to the present, we’d managed to get anything on him which would stick. You must have said something which frightened him pretty badly when he called on you.’

  ‘Oh, it is not I and it is not the police he fears. My reading of the matter is that he is being pursued by an avenger and that he sees prison as his only chance to put off an evil day. There is a porpoise close behind him, or so I think. He must be in fear of his life to have chosen prison as his only safe hiding-place.’

  ‘Elucidate, mother,’ said Ferdinand.

  ‘Well, as I have been known to suggest, the relationship between brothers and sisters is a strange one.’

  ‘And Mrs Lawrence had a brother,’ said Laura. ‘Yes, but, according to the folklore of the Border ballads, brothers don’t kill their sisters’ husbands, only their boyfriends or the sisters themselves. See “Clerk Saunders” and “The Cruel Brother”.’

  ‘Six of the seven brothers were unwilling to murder Clerk Saunders,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out, ‘and, in the case of the cruel brother, we are given to understand that it was pique which caused him to stab his sister to death. He had not been consulted about the marriage or asked for his consent to it. We are told of the prospective bridegroom:

  He has sought her from her father, the King

  And sae did he her mither, the Queen.

  He has sought her from her sister Anne;

  But he has forgot her brother John.

  With good reason, perhaps.’

  ‘Knowing that John would have refused his consent and that might have ditched the marriage, you mean? Do you think Mrs L’s brother objected to her marriage?’

  ‘At any rate, he appears to have had an affectionate regard for her. You will remember our hearing of frequent visits, walks and boating. If he thinks Lawrence had any hand in her death he well might meditate upon revenge.’

  ‘And that’s what you think Lawrence knows?’

  ‘According to what Ferdinand has just told us, it seems very likely.’

  ‘Yes, he’s an offensive little swine in private life,’ said Sir Ferdinand, ‘but I would say that his outburst in court was so uncharacteristic that I’m sure my mother is right and that he was determined to get himself jugged.’

  ‘But that could mean the brother knows something against him,’ said Laura.

  ‘It cannot be anything he can prove, or surely he would have gone to the police with it,’ said Sir Ferdinand. ‘Besides, if mother is right – and I’m sure she is – Lawrence fears private vengeance. Actually, I feel pretty sure that he is not the murderer, although he well may be the accessory after the fact. It looks to me as though the actual killing was done by an accomplice who then left Lawrence’s flat.’

  ‘How long do you expect your case at Winchester to last? Shall we see you again when it is over? ’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

  ‘Yes, thanks, mother. The wife of my bosom has taken her own mother to Madeira for a period of convalescence, so I’d like to drop by again, if I may. By my reading, my case should last the best part of a week or maybe longer. It’s a little matter of theft followed by death. My client stole from a warehouse and, interrupted by the night watchman, hit the latter and killed him. The prosecution will quote R. v. Jones, of course, when Jones was convicted of murdering a store-manager and had his appeal dismissed. There was a reasonable doubt, in my opinion, whether Jones intended to do more than disable the manager of the store which he had burgled, but I doubt whether, in the case I am defending, I can do any better than a verdict of manslaughter, although I shall do my best to “soften th
e evidence”, as that rascal Peachum would say.’

  ‘The murder of Mrs Lawrence could hardly boil down to a charge of manslaughter,’ said Laura. ‘It was deliberate murder, premeditated, workmanlike and callous.’

  Chief Superintendent Nicholl looked dubious.

  ‘But if it’s a proper question, Mrs Gavin,’ he said, ‘what do you expect to get at his landlady’s?’

  ‘I’m hoping to break down his alibi for the week Mrs Lawrence was murdered.’

  ‘Well, I wish you more luck than we’ve had.’

  ‘Woman to woman, and all that kind of thing, you know. What sort of woman is she?’

  ‘A most respectable old party. Has let rooms to the College for years and never a breath against her. If you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs Gavin, ma’am, I think you’ll be wasting your time.’

  ‘We’ll see. You never know.’

  She drove off blithely to the address he had given her, but her visit proved to be as abortive as the superintendent had prophesied. Lawrence’s lodgings were in a much larger house than Laura had envisaged. It was a solidly built, three-storey Victorian mansion, well maintained; it had a neat front garden, a polished brass knocker, doorbell and letter-flap, and in answer to her ring the front door was opened by a maid capped and aproned and with a well-scrubbed, fresh-complexioned face. This girl stood politely awaiting the caller’s opening remarks.

  Laura produced Dame Beatrice’s official card with her own name added to it in Dame Beatrice’s handwriting.

  ‘I wonder whether I could speak to Mrs Breaston?’ she said.

  ‘Come inside, madam, please. I’ll go and ask. Would it be about a room? – because I don’t believe we have a vacancy.’

  ‘Oh? Has Mr Lawrence’s room been re-let, then?’ asked Laura, who had not foreseen such a useful opening to her visit.

  ‘I’ll speak to Mrs Breaston, madam, if you’ll kindly take a seat.’

  There was a small table in the hall with a chair at either end of it. Laura sat down and was not kept waiting. Mrs Breaston reminded Laura of nobody so much as of the enigmatic housekeeper at Manderley. She was a tall ramrod of a woman dressed all in black. She glided like a fictional nun and carried her hands clasped just below her waist. She was decorated with a large cameo brooch and a long gold chain at the end of which Laura could see a gold cross. Her hair was strained into a small bun at the back of her neck and she wafted before her a faint odour of aniseed.