“Delighted to oblige, old man,” said Gunning affably. “Just thought you could do with a little help in here. Bit of a rumpus, what?”
“I'll get you a cup of tea, Theo. I've never seen a man more in need of a cup of tea,” said Letty easily. “And perhaps a ginger-nut with that? I shall have to do it myself, I think—you've scared the living daylights out of the maid, and she's run home to her mother. Now, tell me: Earl Grey or Ceylon?”
Theo looked at her in astonishment and dashed a hand awkwardly over his face.
“But first things first—here,” she said, holding out a handkerchief. Gunning's own, he recognised. “Let me posh you up a bit.” She advanced on Theo and, murmuring comforting nannyish sounds, began to dab at his face. With a howl that went through them like a band saw, Theodore lost what little control he had left. He grabbed hold of Letty and bent his head to her shoulder, weeping uncontrollably.
By the time they had managed between them to move Theo along to the drawing room, he had calmed sufficiently to launch into a tirade against his son.
“The traitor! He was in Paris over Christmas! You heard him say so,” he shouted accusingly at Letty. “Denies it all! Well, wouldn't he, the liar? She spoiled him! All that cash—going to a good cause—huh! I shall have his accounts scrutinised. I'll get my man onto it at once. And the sports car! What an indulgence! And now we know what she was paying him for! Bloody gigolo! I've disowned him. He's no longer my son and you're the first to hear it. I'm going straight back into that courtroom and I'm going to tell the coroner all! The world will know I've been harbouring a strumpet and a snake in my bosom for goodness only knows how long!”
“No, you're not, Theo.” Gunning's tone was one Letty had not heard him use before. He was not expecting to be disobeyed. “You're going to stay right here, take a few pink gins aboard, and calm down. We'll go back and make your excuses. Everyone will sympathise and no one will be surprised. You did your stuff this morning. And I'll find out what George has done with himself. I ought to go after him.”
“Listen! Do you hear? That's what George is doing with himself!”
The Bugatti engine roared below in the street as the car emerged from the old coach house and turned into the avenue heading for the centre of town.
“What else would we expect? Running away as usual! Leaving someone else to clear up his bloody mess! Where does he think he's going? I hope he drives off the pier and straight into the jaws of Hades!”
* * *
The coroner raised an eyebrow at the absence of two of the witnesses but made no further comment. A roll call revealed that Eleni also had apparently decided to miss the afternoon session. Showing a shrewd anticipation of the squall in the Russell household and taking evasive action, Letty thought. Finally, Perakis launched into a swift and accurate summary of the autopsy and sat back, sighing.
“I think, ladies and gentlemen, this report makes all clear. It was difficult to ascribe the death of a well-placed and happy young woman to suicide. Mrs. Russell had everything to live for, as they say in these cases. Sadly, her condition, the unaccounted-for and clandestine pregnancy, a child engendered by an unknown man, we must guess, somewhere in France in the month of December last, gives us an entirely understandable motive for taking her own life. She could no longer endure the shame she was about to bring on herself, her husband, and her family. In spite of her attempts to tinker with the progress of the pregnancy, she must have been aware that it was about to become evident at any moment, and this knowledge it was that sparked her suicide attempt.
“Her successful attempt. Successful because the tools of the grim task were immediately to hand: the rope—from her husband's own gown…” He paused and sighed again. “Symbolic perhaps of the lady's remorse. The beam—of her bridal chamber. A classical echo. The knot—a skill learned, her husband tells me, as a child, sailing on the lakes of her homeland. The note she left, the speech of Phaedra, sums up her feelings of shame for her illicit love and tells us clearly why she chose not to go on living.
“A sad case. A deeply sad loss. But I have to bring in the verdict of suicide.” He scanned the court, assessing the effect of his decision. “It is the custom on these occasions to reach for a well-worn formula: The victim took her own life ‘while the balance of her mind was disturbed.’ Frequently used as a comforting anodyne for the family. On this occasion I will not be entering such a phrase in my findings.
“I believe Mrs. Russell to have been fully in control of her emotions. And, though her action was, by the lights of her own religion, sinful, it was prompted by a clear desire to divert the opprobrium which her conduct must inevitably have brought down on her family and to atone for her shameful behaviour and loss of honour.” He shook his head. Then he murmured, “A sinner, undoubtedly, but a sinner who seized on the one way left to her to clutch her sin to herself, by this means preventing the poison from spreading to those close about her.”
The elegant figure of Inspector Mariani stood in wait for Laetitia on the steps of the courthouse. He greeted her and then neatly separated her from the accompanying Gunning, leading her away from the dispersing crowd.
“Miss Talbot,” he said when he judged that they would not be overheard. “A grudging and ill-deserved tribute we've just been treated to, if you don't mind my saying so? I would have said: Now boast thee, Death, in thy possession lies a lass unparalleled.’ Are you engaged for the next hour or so, or may I beg your services?”
“My services, Inspector? Why, yes. I was just going to return to the Villa Europa. Mr. Russell isn't feeling well…there may be things I can do…”
“Perfect.” He smiled, offering his arm. “We'll go together. I think you guess, mademoiselle, that the verdict of suicide is not one that satisfies me any more than I suspect it satisfies you. I would like you to come to Mrs. Russell's room with me. I am quite sure that that is where the answer lies. And I think you can help me find it. Would you mind?”
The right mudguard of the Bugatti hit the wall of the city gate and clanged to the road, causing tumult in the ranks of the mule train coming through in the shadows on the other side.
George accelerated away from the scene, unaware of the uproar, dashing the streaming blood from his eyes, seeing nothing but the road ahead. He shook his head to clear the dizzy confusion but the motion loosened a pain and sent it knifing across his forehead.
He honked his horn to scatter the crowd of beggars gathering in anticipation at the welcome sound of his engine and shot past them, their astonished faces on either side of the car an irrelevant blur.
Clear of the city, he pressed his foot to the floor. The car surged forward. Only speed mattered to George. Speed intoxicated. Speed saved and purified. It separated him from the pain and ugliness, the deception behind him. His mind was no longer befuddled; it was thinking with absolute clarity. It was poised somewhere above his body, all-seeing, as in a nightmare, whipping him on and shrieking a warning.
It had caught sight of the Furies behind him, awake after all these years and giving chase. Hunting him down. The Eumenides, the so-called Kindly Ones. Ha! Savage avengers, ruthlessly dealing out death to sinners who broke the natural familial laws. Monsters born of the blood of the castrated Uranus. No wonder they scented a victim. They were in pursuit and closing fast, demanding just retribution. George pictured them: Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, three women, grotesquely tall and black-clad. Their snake-hair writhed; red eyes blazed, exultant, in white faces as they swooped the last few yards, leather bat wings creaking.
He blinked hard and blinked again, his lashes sticky with blood, focussed on the next bend, and skidded around it, reaching at last the precipitous coast road. There was only one place of safety left to him. It lay ahead. Not far now. To hell with his father! He'd do what he should have done years ago. The right thing. If he could outrun the Furies.
He rounded one more bend and yelled in horror. They'd out-flanked him! A trio of black-clad women stood in the middle of the
road. They turned with the dreadful precision of slow motion, white-faced masks of tragedy confronting him, and he thrust up a forearm to fend them off.
At the last second before impact, he instinctively wrenched on the wheel. The Bugatti, screaming in outrage, ploughed across the yards of rough ground beyond. It charged, nose first, down the side of the cliff, somersaulting three times before crashing into the sea below.
They entered the house to be greeted by a hissing from the first floor. Dickie's anxious face peered over the banister at them. “Up here,” he said. “Be quiet—I've just got him off to sleep.”
He was closing the door to the drawing room with exaggerated care when they joined him. “Hello, Laetitia…Inspector. It took four large ones! William told me to keep pouring them and I did. But it got worse before it got better. The language! The sentiments! Never heard anything like it. Raging against poor old George. Stuff you'd never believe! Treacherous, sneaky, slithy tove, according to Theo. No son of his! Womaniser, should have been strangled at birth, castrated even! Funny—Theo hadn't a bad word to say about Phoebe in all this…Which is a bit strange, if what I'm guessing happened happened? Wouldn't you say? But, more pertinently, what did the coroner have to say? Er, Stewart went off to the courtroom….” Dickie shuffled his feet awkwardly. “I lost the toss and had to stay behind with Theo. We haven't heard the verdict yet. He says he's not interested in hearing but I bet he is!”
Mariani silenced his effusion. “Suicide. It was judged to be suicide. Look, Mr. Collingwood, go back into the drawing room, if you would, and keep watch on him. If he comes round, simply tell him the result. Tell him also that I am in the house and have gone to Mrs. Russell's room.”
He paused at Phoebe's door and ushered Letty into the stuffy room. The silence was broken only by a fly buzzing madly on the ledge of the closed window. Mariani went over, raised the window, and shooed out the fly He opened the second door and left it standing ajar.
Letty stood uncertainly at the threshold, her eyes straying to the beam and seeing again the horror she had confronted days earlier. All was as it had been, down to the indentation on the counterpane where Phoebe's body had lain.
“We've missed something,” said Mariani.
“I have the same feeling,” she said. “I wish I could help, but…”
He gave her a slow smile. “I think you can,” he said. “I can ask none of the other inhabitants of this house. They have their secrets and will not reveal them to me. They have their loyalties and would lie to me without compunction to protect their interests. But you, mademoiselle, so freshly arrived, have not had a chance to form allegiances, acquire prejudices. I believe you to be a clever and honest woman and one whose sole motivation might be judged to be to do right by the deceased. Am I mistaken? Do I assume too much?”
“No. You're quite right, Inspector.” Letty's chin went up. “I could have got very fond of Phoebe and, in fact, I've sworn an oath to myself to work out what really happened to her. And if I can do that working with the police instead of getting up their noses and under their feet, well, that's nothing but good news.”
He smiled again. She was on the hook. Mariani knew there were more ways than one of getting cooperation. The thumbscrew approach was not always the most productive. He was conscious of the intriguing effect his large brown eyes and long lashes had on European women, and though he judged this one to be less susceptible than most, it would be foolish not to push his charm as far as it would go. He noted with some amusement that she hadn't considered for a moment the social implications of her situation—alone in a bedroom with an attractive man. The uniform, of course, defended against any suspicion of impropriety, but Mariani was aware that any Greek girl would have insisted on being accompanied by a male relative—and her grandmother. He wondered briefly whether to summon up that architect the Englishwoman seemed to trust—Gunning—for the sake of appearances.
But Miss Talbot was moving around the room with complete unconcern, inquisitive, eager to get on.
“Shall I look over her things first?” she said, going over to the dressing table. “Women leave quite a lot of clues about themselves in front of their mirrors, you know.”
“We already have an inventory but by all means—cast an eye,” he said easily.
“Nothing unusual here,” she said, poking about. “Some very good makeup. All bought in Paris. Rouge, lipstick, mascara, eyebrow pencil. Hairbrush and nail file. Not much in the way of equipment—no eyelash curlers, not even a pair of tweezers. Really, a modest collection. This is the only thing of significance, don't you think?”
She pointed to a flacon of perfume. “The best. Caron. From the rue de la Paix.” She put out a finger and stroked the red silk tassel fastened around the neck of the elegant Baccarat bottle. “And have you noticed what it's called?”
The inspector came over and picked it up, removing the stopper to wave it about under his nose and sniff at the contents.
“No! This is what you do. May I?” She took it from him and put a forefinger over the neck, tilting it slightly. Slick with scented oil, her finger traced a line along the base of her throat. “Something woody—chypre, sandalwood? And something flowery—lilies and roses!” she murmured. “It needs the warmth and chemistry of skin to release its true scent. And this one is very romantic, wouldn't you say? I recognise it now—it's the one she was wearing the day she died.”
Alarmed that the inspector was responding to her unintentional invitation by leaning towards her, nostrils flaring, she turned and briskly replaced the bottle on the dressing table. “Creamy yet spicy. And perfect for Phoebe. It was created during the war years. A gift that a soldier going off to battle could offer as a memento to the woman he was in love with. It's called N'Aimez Que Moi. ‘Love only me,’” she whispered. “I wonder who gave her this? She's used very little of it. Perhaps it was a gift from her Christmas lover?”
She moved to the escritoire. “All neat and perfectly ordinary,” she said. “Writing paper, silver pen, envelopes of the kind the so-called suicide note was put in…blotter. Did you check the blotter? Oh, sorry, of course you did.” She tilted the used sheet to the light and pointed to a section in the top corner. “Here. She's blotted the name ‘George.’ The sheet isn't badly used so it must have been changed, let's say, less than a week ago.”
“Last Wednesday, according to Eleni.”
“So there we are. Phoebe did address that envelope and very recently. I wonder…” Letty took one of the unused envelopes, opened the flap, and licked it. Then she pressed it down firmly and put it back on the desk. She went to the wardrobe and checked the clothes, searched under the bed, and emerged red-faced but having found nothing of interest. The contents of the adjoining bathroom were orderly and unsurprising. Phoebe's medicine cabinet contained only plasters, an emergency bandage still in its wrapper, and a half-used and ancient bottle of Dr. Collis Brown's Chlorodyne. The top, when Letty tried to unscrew it, proved to be rusted onto the bottle. “Well, this hasn't been opened for a decade, I'd say. Phoebe wasn't one for patented cures, was she? Not even an aspirin! Right—I think we could inspect the envelope now.”
She picked up the envelope and gently ran a fingernail under the seal. It sprang up at once. “Thought so! It's been a damp season. The glue on these things has been pretty poor since the warlord knows what they use these days. I always have a pot of cow gum by me when I'm sealing an envelope. Anyone could have—”
“Removed the original contents and substituted a torn-out page,” said Mariani, beginning to betray his excitement. “And re-sealed it.”
“We found it underneath a paperweight.” That would have ensured it stayed stuck down.”
“I'll take a sample. But now—you gave me at the beginning of all this a vivid picture of the scene of discovery. I want you to reconstruct, if you will, what may have taken place here before you arrived. Imagine for me, conjure up with a woman's insight, what might have transpired between Mrs. Russell and her doctor.�
�
Instantly involved in the game, Letty went to the door and mimed entering. She closed the door after her and with a hand invited the imaginary Stoddart to take a seat at the table. “That's where Harold says the consultation took place. Sit down here, Inspector, and be Dr. Stoddart.” She settled in the matching wicker chair opposite. “Though I noticed, from the door before I came in, that there was a slight indentation on the counterpane. I thought at first she'd been having a rest and perhaps got up to change. But she could have lain down for an examination. It's possible. Anyway, they talked. We can't be sure how much he knew about her condition…I mean the real reason behind her fainting and swooning and sickness. She could have been deceiving him, too. As he told us in court.”
“To go back to what we know to be fact,” said Mariani, “the upshot was that Stoddart gave her a sleeping pill and left her here. Now—tell me—did he have his medical bag with him that day?”
“No. He was out with his wife, having a picnic or something…No, he had no bag. And they came back in the Bugatti and there were certainly no medical supplies in that.”
Mariani picked up her hesitation. “Picnic, you say?”
“Odd, that…Phoebe and I were to have a picnic, but the Stoddarts hadn't brought anything with them. Not even a sandwich or a flask of coffee. They were happy to share the spread Phoebe had got together…and why would they not? It was quite a banquet! Good lord!” she exclaimed, remembering. “There were four plates, four sets of cutlery, and enough food to feed a battalion in the hamper.” She looked at Mariani, excited by her memory. “She'd planned it, hadn't she? Arranged with the Stoddarts—”
“With one of the Stoddarts at least,” he cautioned.
“—to meet there and join us for lunch. She pretended it was a chance meeting. Did she pretend also to faint, I begin to wonder?”
The Tomb of Zeus Page 21
