The Chessman

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Lady Vardon lay on the rug beside the sofa, one arm flung wide, Dr Lucas and Thomas Vardon beside her.

  ‘What did she die of, Doctor?’ asked Ashley, going down on one knee beside the dead woman.

  ‘It’s digitalis poisoning,’ said Dr Lucas, pointing to a small, unstoppered medicine bottle, lying on the floor beside the desk. ‘These are Lady Vardon’s drops. It was a regular prescription of digitalis tincture. This bottle was delivered to her yesterday and it’s now empty. I may say that the external signs are compatible with digitalis poisoning. Lady Vardon has been taking this prescription for over two years under my direction. She suffered from the heart condition known as auricular fibrillation and digitalis is the standard treatment in such cases.’

  Ashley sat back on his heels. ‘I wonder what made her do it.’

  ‘I think the answer’s over here, Ashley,’ said Jack quietly. ‘There’s a letter from the Chessman on the desk. It’s pretty vivid.’

  Ashley strode across the room and read it silently.

  Are you frightened yet? You should be. You will be the next to die. How shall I do it? With a knife or with my hands? I like using my hands. You can close the windows and lock the doors but I will come for you. Enjoy your life. You have very little of it left. I am looking forward to meeting you more than I can say. The Chessman.

  ‘My God,’ he muttered in disgust. ‘When did this arrive?’

  Thomas was ashen. ‘I don’t know. It certainly didn’t come by the first post this morning. I’d have recognized the envelope. I’d never have let her see it.’

  Ashley gingerly moved the envelope out from under the letter. ‘It was posted at nine o’clock last night. Can you ring for Mackay, Sir Thomas? He might be able to tell us if it was in the mid-morning delivery.’

  ‘It was, sir,’ answered Mackay, when the question was put to him.

  ‘I forgot about the second post,’ said Thomas with a groan.

  ‘Did you usually have morning coffee with your stepmother, sir?’ asked Ashley.

  ‘Yes, if I was in the house. This morning I stayed for about twenty minutes or so, then went into the garden.’

  ‘What time did you clear away the coffee things, Mackay?’ asked Ashley.

  ‘It would have been about half past eleven, sir,’ said the butler.

  ‘So you were the last person to see her alive.’

  Mackay looked at him anxiously. ‘I never …’ he began.

  ‘Bear up, man,’ said Ashley. ‘We’re not accusing you of anything. Did Lady Vardon appear her usual self?’

  Mackay hesitated. ‘Well, yes and no, sir. She seemed perfectly well but very tired. I wondered if she’d had a disturbed night. Her Ladyship frequently suffered from sleeplessness.’

  Dr Lucas nodded in agreement. ‘She’d consulted me about it. It had become a real problem after Sir Matthew’s death. I prescribed syrup of chloral which should have helped matters.’

  Ashley turned to Mackay again. ‘Did Lady Vardon always come in this room in the morning?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. She’d have her breakfast, then come in here. She’d usually have a word with the cook about the meals for the day, then read her morning post. At eleven o’clock I would bring her coffee and any post from the second delivery. There were usually one or two letters. She’d spend the rest of the morning until lunch answering them. Lunch is always served at one o’clock and, when she didn’t come, Sir Thomas asked me to see if her Ladyship would be joining him.’

  His voice trembled. ‘That’s when I found her, sir. Just as she is now. I knew she was dead, sir, the minute I saw her. I went to get Sir Thomas straight away. He told me not to touch anything and to get Dr Lucas as fast as I could. I hope I’ve done nothing wrong, sir.’

  ‘You seem to have acted very properly indeed,’ said Ashley, soothingly. ‘I suppose the coffee things have all been washed up now, have they? Ah, well, that can’t be helped.’

  He glanced down at the letter on the desk. ‘Has anyone except Lady Vardon handled this?’

  ‘I have, I’m afraid,’ said Thomas. ‘After Mackay called me, I came to see what was wrong. It seemed so unlikely but when I saw her, I realized she really was dead. The letter was on the floor by the desk.’

  Ashley nodded his head. ‘How was she when you saw her at eleven o’clock, sir? Was she in good spirits?’

  ‘Mixed.’ He hesitated. ‘She wanted to go to London for a few days’ shopping and she had an idea of wintering in Egypt. She was looking forward to spending some money on herself.’

  He stopped, covering his mouth with his hand. Ashley waited patiently. ‘I’m sorry. It suddenly got to me. Things have been pretty tight for the last couple of years. I hadn’t appreciated how tight until I came home. After that, the conversation took a turn for the worse. She was trying to argue me out of something I’m going to do. A private matter.’

  Ashley, who was perfectly well aware of what the private matter was, said nothing.

  ‘I might have lost my temper a bit and said a few things I didn’t mean. I didn’t feel she had any right to interfere and said so. I’m afraid it ended with me striding off into the garden. If we hadn’t quarrelled, she’d probably have shown me the letter. She must have been terrified. I wish I’d been here …’ He tried to speak again, then shook his head and looked away.

  Ashley looked at him with sympathy. ‘It’s only natural to feel like that, sir. Dr Lucas, can you give us an idea of what would have happened after Lady Vardon took the poison?’

  ‘Individual reactions can vary greatly, but a medicinal dose of digitalis makes the heartbeat regular and slower. An overdose has exactly the opposite effect. Breathing would become very difficult and she would probably have experienced convulsions, but I would hate to be dogmatic about it.’

  ‘So it was as if she had a heart attack?’ asked Ashley.

  ‘She did have a heart attack, Superintendent,’ said the doctor testily. ‘That is the result of an overdose of digitalis. The effects would be noticeable immediately. She would become unconscious fairly quickly and, without any help, would die within an hour at the very outside. I arrived just on two o’clock, by which time I should say she had been dead for about an hour and a half. Maybe a little more. That means she died about half past twelve or shortly beforehand.’

  He glanced at Thomas. ‘Even if I had been at hand, it is unlikely that I could have done anything to save her.’ Dr Lucas drew closer to Ashley and dropped his voice. ‘Shall I arrange for the body to be taken away? That poor devil’s really upset about this.’

  ‘I want to get a photographer up here,’ said Ashley after a few moments’ thought. ‘We wouldn’t usually go to those lengths for a suicide but in the circumstances, I want as much evidence as I can gather.’

  Thomas lit a cigarette with twitching fingers. ‘This maniac is making a pretty efficient job of wiping out my family.’

  Ashley felt as helpless as he had ever done in his life. ‘We’re doing all we can, sir,’ he said, hiding behind the well-worn formula. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t blame you for being scared.’

  Thomas put a hand to his mouth. ‘I am scared,’ he said very quietly. ‘But I wasn’t thinking about myself.’ He hesitated. ‘Haldean, Mrs Castradon – Sue – she is safe, isn’t she?’

  ‘As long as she stays away, yes.’

  Thomas took a deep breath. ‘That’s something.’

  Dr Lucas gathered his things together. ‘There’s nothing more I can do here, Superintendent. I’ll let you have a written report as soon as possible.’

  Mackay showed him out of the room.

  Thomas threw his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace. ‘Excuse me. I can’t stay in here any longer.’

  ‘It is suicide, isn’t it, Ashley?’ Jack asked quietly when they were alone.

  ‘I’d say so.’ Ashley puffed his cheeks out disconsolately. ‘That letter’s enough to frighten anyone. There was no doubt this time who it was meant for. If it wasn’t suicide, then it w
as murder. I suppose Thomas Vardon could’ve killed her, but I doubt it. He couldn’t have spiked her coffee with digitalis. Mackay saw her at half past eleven and she was all right then. She certainly wasn’t having convulsions. If he did give her the digitalis, then he must have given it to her in something. There aren’t any cups or glasses, so it would have had to have been in the coffee, which it can’t have been.’

  ‘No,’ said Jack thoughtfully. ‘Even the most obliging of women wouldn’t knock back a straight dose of digitalis from the bottle simply to please their stepson.’

  ‘You’re right. Haldean, I suppose Mrs Castradon really is safe?’

  ‘As long as she doesn’t tell anyone where she is, yes. I just hope she remembers that.’

  They didn’t ring for Mackay to show them out, but made their own way to the Spyker which was parked in front of the house. The postman was coming up the drive. ‘Let’s wait,’ said Jack, his hand on the car door. ‘Call it caution, but I’ve become a bit twitchy about letters to the Vardons.’

  Ashley hailed the postman. ‘Can I see the letters?’ he asked. The postman looked affronted. ‘It’s all right, I’m a police officer … Oh, my God!’

  He stared at the small parcel in the postman’s hand. It was addressed to Sir Thomas Vardon. It was from the Chessman.

  Sir Thomas slit the parcel open. Inside were two little boxes. One contained a red marble queen with crystal chips, the other a black marble pawn. Jack frowned. Two chess pieces?

  A letter was folded up with the box. Thomas winced and gave the letter to Ashley.

  ‘You read it,’ he said wearily. ‘I know what it’ll say. I can’t bear him gloating over my stepmother’s death.’

  ‘He doesn’t do that,’ said Ashley, reading the letter. ‘I’m afraid, Sir Thomas, this is a direct threat to you and …’ He broke off, swallowed, then gave the letter to Jack.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ muttered Jack as he read it.

  Well, well, Sir Thomas … And then there was one. I think you might go out with a bang. By the time you read this, your dear stepmother will be dead. The red Queen suits her nicely. It goes well with the black King that was your late lamented father. Are you grief-stricken, I wonder, or privately relieved? She was getting in the way, wasn’t she? Never mind; you haven’t long to feel anything at all. You will be a black rook, a perfect partner to the red rook that was your dear wife. Soon it will all be over. I shall miss you all when you’re gone.

  By the way, I’m disappointed with our gallant detectives. Poor Alan Leigh. He wasn’t rich, or important, just a cousin of yours. He had to go. He was far too nosy for his own good, but nobody noticed he’d gone. He only merits a pawn. That’s all he ever was. Poor Alan. Maybe he’ll turn up one of these days.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Jack. ‘There’s another body.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Nathan Halford piled his mashed potato on top of his fishcake and ate it quickly. Then, with a nod to his brother, he carefully pulled back his chair so as not to grate on the stone flags of the kitchen floor, and crept quietly to the back door. Ben, less cautious than Nathan, squeaked his chair as he got down from the table, causing his elder sister to look up from where she was struggling with her homework.

  ‘You’ll catch it, you two, if Mum sees you. It’s your turn to do the washing-up and she said you had to mind the baby after tea.’

  His elder sister held no terrors for Nathan. Sticking out his tongue at her, he quietly lifted the latch and escaped to freedom, hotly pursued by Ben. As they ran through the back gate they could hear her voice uplifted in complaint. ‘Mum! Nathan and Ben have gone out again!’

  ‘Will we cop it, Nathan?’ asked Ben anxiously, catching up with his brother.

  ‘We might,’ said Nathan. ‘I don’t care.’

  They skirted round the village, leaving Walter Ribston’s allotment worse off by four potatoes, relieved the Ansty orchards of a few handfuls of late cherries, muddied their boots in the river, and finally pulled aside part of the rickety fence which separated the old Cobden Heath branch line from the Arundel Road.

  They could have got on to the old line by simply walking to the end of the cutting, where the road bridge had a flight of steps leading down to a tiny platform, but compared to climbing through the fence and scrambling down the embankment, that would have been unbearably tame.

  Fifty years ago, this had been a halt station run up by a speculator from Hastings at the peak of the railway boom, but it had been quickly superseded by a proper station, at the other side of the village, built by the mighty London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

  The Halt stood, as it had for the last forty-six years, deserted and overgrown. The padlock and chains on the gates had long since rusted through. Tall grass grew between the steps of the abandoned signal box and such rails as were left were pitted with rust and red with age. All these things the boys ignored. They were heading for the tunnel.

  The tunnel was not a popular place with the children of Croxton Ferriers. It wasn’t that it was dark – that was to be expected – or that it was flooded and impassable a few hundred yards in. It wasn’t even that it was a long walk out from the village, but rather that an unlucky reputation hung over it.

  It wasn’t ghosts; that would’ve been scary and exciting, but a sad atmosphere of failure and decay seemed to cling to the very walls. Nathan and Ben sensed the atmosphere and disliked it, but there was something in the tunnel that they loved with all the passion at their command. It was their secret, the secret that they thought about most of the day and dreamt about at night. The tunnel contained their car.

  They looked at the Vauxhall saloon with swelling pride. They had stumbled on it nearly a fortnight ago whilst running away from an outraged Mr Ribston.

  Ben, who was slightly more thoughtful than his brother, wondered how the car came to be in the railway tunnel, but Nathan had no doubts.

  ‘I wished for a car when Albert Bennington found that dead cat at school. He said if you touched it your wishes come true.’ Ben knew all about the dead cat. ‘I wished for this ’xact same car. So it’s mine.’

  Ben wondered about this part of the story but Nathan could hit harder than he could and generously said he didn’t mind sharing his car.

  They wandered round the black Vauxhall, wishing for the hundredth time they could open the securely closed boot, took turns in the driver’s seat and raised the bonnet to peer ignorantly but enthusiastically at the engine within.

  ‘Let’s pretend,’ said Nathan, ‘that we’ve driven across Africa and there’s lions down in the dark and we have to light a fire to keep them off. You get the wood and I’ll keep guard.’

  ‘Why can’t you get the wood?’ asked Ben.

  ‘I have to mind the car. It’s our link between the darkest jungle and civilization. Hurry up. I can hear the lions roaring. And we can cook the potatoes too. It can be our frugal meal like real explorers have in stories.’

  Ben got a mixture of grass and twigs and they started a smoky fire at the entrance to the tunnel. They put the potatoes in the fire, but were far too impatient to let them cook. The two little boys crunched into the smoky raw potatoes and were completely happy.

  Nathan threw another handful of grass on the fire and stretched out with a sigh. ‘The fire’ll keep the lions away. If any come too close we’ll shoot them with our trusty gun … What was that?’

  For far beyond where the sunlight reached, in the dark and flooded depths of the tunnel, came not the imagined sounds of lions’ paws, but the very real sound of a foot chinking against a stone.

  Nathan gulped and sat up. ‘Come out of there, Albert!’ he called. Albert knew about the car.

  He listened for Albert to start giggling. No giggles came. Instead another chink sounded, as if someone was coming quietly closer.

  Ben, white-faced, jumped up and threw a stone into the blackness. It clattered into silence and then came the laugh. It was a man’s laugh, a grown man’s, not a boy’s and it was ca
ught, echoed and magnified by the tunnel. With a scream the two boys flung themselves away from the fire, along the old track and up the steps of the bridge – no fence this time – and away from that dreadful laugh.

  They faced a grim Mrs Halford when they got home. ‘Where have you been? Jean’s had to mind the baby again and it was … What’s the matter?’ For Nathan and Ben had burst into tears. When she heard the story, Mrs Halford pinned on her best hat and took her sons by the hand.

  ‘Where are we going?’ sniffed Ben. There was a look on his mother’s face that scared him. It was as if she was frightened too, but nothing ever frightened Our Mum.

  ‘We’re going to the police,’ said Mrs Halford, taking a cloth and wiping most of the grime from his face. ‘And you can tell them what you’ve told me. With all these goings-on lately, I think someone ought to know. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times. You never know who’s about.’

  ‘And you see, Mr Stock,’ said Mrs Halford after telling her story to the constable, ‘I knows they shouldn’t be playing in that old tunnel, but there’s someone in there who shouldn’t be, and with that awful thing in the church, there’s something happening round here as should be stopped.’

  Constable Stock nodded. Usually he would have dismissed the story as two kids whose imaginations had run away with them, but the Super was frankly worried that they had a lunatic at large. He brightened as the Super himself came out of his room with Major Haldean. ‘There’s something here I think you ought to know about, sir,’ he started, but the two boys had run to Jack.

  ‘You’ll believe us, won’t you? We’re not making it up, honest.’ And Jack and Ashley listened with serious faces as the children told of hearing that dreadful laugh.

  ‘Nothing here, sir,’ called Sergeant Haddon, coming out of the depths of the railway tunnel, torch in hand. ‘If there was someone there, he’s long gone.’ He nodded towards the car, a substantial Vauxhall. ‘That bit of the kids’ story is true enough, though. Is there anything inside the car, sir?’