“Oh, put it on top of Mathew Arnold. Do him good to be used as a tray,” she said. “Tedious man.”
Albert placed the remains of his fish paste sandwich on top of the Collected Works to his left and delicately brushed his fingertips.
“As I mentioned when I rang you,” he said, “I’ve what appears to be a partial manuscript written by my father. It was something he was working on when he… died.”
“Yes, of course, I’ve seen the newspaper accounts. Even allowing for the usual sensationalism, it does seem to me quite a… well, quite a sensational occurrence. Terribly sordid. And extraordinarily strange. I suppose one can’t blame the press for taking a quite unhealthy interest. To be killed by an axe …”
“Knife, actually.”
The newspapers had been particularly excited by the choice of weapons used in the murders, which had been the occasion for a sidebar on medieval armaments. Malenfant not having been forthcoming with precise details, the papers had decided Ruthven and Sir Adrian had both met death by battleaxe.
“But, yes,” continued Albert. “I couldn’t agree more, really. Only natural on their part-it’s like putting a sizzling steak in front of a cage full of starving tigers. But the problem it creates for the family-”
“Oh, yes, I quite see that. It puts all of you in a horrid position, doesn’t it? Not just you, but the others staying at the house. Simply horrid.”
She gave a little shudder to demonstrate the horridness of it all, but in general, Albert thought, she was having a hard time concealing her rabid interest. Only natural, as well. Not only did the story have elements of irony-two members of a family whose name was synonymous with bloody murder being done in by foul play-but there was the added frisson of the opportunity for the press to drag Violet’s historic old crime-alleged crime-across the front pages yet again. And in Mrs. Butter’s case there was an added thrill: She knew two of the victims at first hand, and one of those quite well.
She seemed to be following his train of thought, as her next words revealed:
“Of course, knowing Sir Adrian as well as I did does make a difference.”
“Of course.”
She turned, stretching her hands toward the fire. After a long pause, she said musingly:
“Ruthven and Sir Adrian.” Albert noticed it was not the conventional “poor” Ruthven or “poor” Sir Adrian.
“Both,” she continued. “It’s very strange, that.”
“The whole thing is strange,” said Albert.
“No. No, what I meant was-and I hope I’m not being too indelicate, but-what I meant was, Ruthven’s death was a surprise, in a way. Sir Adrian’s was not. I can’t begin to tell you why I feel that way about it, but I do.”
Albert, who felt it was a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other, held his tongue.
“I used to blame you children. At first, you know. I hope you’ll forgive me. But I was astonished at the lack of family feeling. Few visits, fewer letters. I thought his isolation sad, inexplicable. Then later, of course, I came to understand.”
“You were there some time, weren’t you?”
“Five years, to the day.”
“Remarkable.”
“Yes, wasn’t it? I wanted to leave after three months. But Sir Adrian had promised me-in writing, thank heaven-quite a generous pension for which I would qualify after five years. With Mr. Butter gone-well, you won’t want to hear all of that. But I rather desperately needed that pension. Of course, he tried to renege on the agreement when I left-I knew he would. Which is why I had quite a vicious solicitor lined up before I gave notice. My nephew,” she added, smiling.
Albert laughed.
“You must be one of the few people who worked for my father who have a success story to tell.”
“I imagine. I survived by avoiding him as much as possible. As I came to realize all of you children did, as well.”
It was a sad but true commentary on the family dynamic, thought Albert.
She had resumed her study of the flames in the fireplace.
Into the pause, Albert said, “Why did you say earlier you were surprised? About Ruthven?”
She turned to him.
“Hmm? Oh, just because, it’s rather obvious, don’t you think? I can quite see why he might be killed by even a casual acquaintance- forgive me, I know I’m being blunt-but to kill him during a family gathering, when the suspicion would quite naturally fall on the family… It’s so risky, don’t you see?”
“You think a more public setting, something designed to look like an accident, perhaps…”
“Something like that, yes. Someone pushing him under the Bakerloo Line, perhaps. Something that would point the suspicion a bit away from the family, not right toward it. I must say, none of you children ever struck me as stupid-even George, if you will forgive me, has a certain animal cunning. You were all bright and talented, in your different ways, in spite of it all.”
Albert did not quite know what to say. On the one hand, she was complimenting him-all of them-on being too bright to commit murder, at least in an obvious way. “Thank you” didn’t quite meet the situation.
“Perhaps the manuscript will shed some light?”
“Oh, yes. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Dreadful things. I never needed reading glasses until I worked for your father. Part of the problem, of course, was that he could barely see what he wrote, having writ, so to speak. Let’s take a look.”
She pulled out of a knitting basket at her side a pair of thick spectacles on narrow gold frames and proceeded to attach them to her ears. She reached to accept the pages Albert had pulled from his rucksack.
“Good heavens,” she said, riffling through the pages. “Worse than ever. This will take awhile.”
“I am quite willing to pay for your time. I realize this is a huge imposition on you.”
She laughed, a little chirping sound that rippled through the room and (nearly) woke the cat.
“This is quite the most exciting thing to come my way in an age. You did say when you rang this was not, perhaps, his usual run of manuscript.”
Albert wondered how much he could take her into his confidence, but felt he had little choice.
“I really can only go by the title, but I think there’s bound to be something in there that sheds some light on… something. Something he knew. Perhaps the something that got him killed.”
But she barely noticed what he said. She had begun to read, slowly, tracing the manuscript line by line, occasionally pausing to hold a page closer to her lenses. He could hear a clock ticking in the background, punctuated by the sound of the village church bell tolling the quarter hour.
For a man whose minimum daily requirement of calories tended to come from alcohol, it was a shock to the system to have butter and sugar and flour coursing through his veins. His stomach seemed to have nearly forgotten the formula for converting these ingredients into energy. The unaccustomed exercise of the day-he was more used to spurts of manic activity on the stage than steady walks through the woods-acted, on top of the recent stress, the hot tea, and the fire, as a soporific.
At one point, a second Siamese wandered in, a missing bookend to the first, and settled itself on a pile of periodicals near the hearth before gazing off, cross-eyed, into space.
“There you are, Cly,” she said, looking up. “I wondered where you’d got to.”
“Sisters?” asked Albert, his mind elsewhere.
“Mother and daughter. Clytemnestra is slightly smaller than Leda. It’s the only way I can tell them apart.”
After awhile, Albert asked her permission to replenish the wood in the fireplace. Then he sat back down and watched the Roman Empire cat, it’s back rising and falling with sleep, and soon, inspired, began nodding off himself.
It was a long time before Mrs. Butter removed her glasses and looked up from her task. Albert, by this time, was sound asleep, gently snoring. She studied him awhile, remembering a younger Albert, before time
and drink had left their handprints. She wondered very much what was best to do.
There are people in this world who, while they hold to a high and strict moral code, include in that code the necessity for lying once in awhile in the service of a greater cause. Mrs. Butter was of this flexible school.
Finally, she reached her decision. She cleared her throat. Then again, louder. Albert started awake.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, and or whether to tell you at all,” she said. She looked at him closely to be sure he was awake enough to take in what she said. His eyes were clear, focused. She realized with some surprise that she might never have seen him sober before.
“What is it?” he said. “You’re worrying me now.”
“I am sorry; I don’t mean to. We have to remember we don’t know, never will know, probably, if your father was writing fiction here, or fact. But if he’s done what I think…”
“Go on!”
“Were you aware, Albert, that Ruthven was only your half-brother?”
19. UPSTAIRS
ST. JUST AND FEAR found Sarah in her rooms on the first floor, dealing cards from the bottom of a tarot deck.
“I’ve seen your book in the stores,” he said, pulling up a chair opposite. “You don’t find all of this a bit at odds with Christian beliefs?”
She looked up abstractedly from her task.
“The path to enlightenment is One,” she said. “It is the ancient teachings that carry the most undistorted truth. Ah, the death card.”
She showed it to him-the card depicting a grinning skeleton on horseback-before slapping it down on the table. She sat back, surveying the arrangement.
“Not too surprising, is it?” she said. “It’s all around us.” She sat back more heavily in her chair. “I want to leave this house. We’re all in danger, you know.”
“We’ve men stationed inside and out, not to mention you have the press guarding you. You’re safer here than you would be in London.”
Sarah shook her head.
“Can’t you sense the evil here?”
“As a matter of fact, I can.”
She had been experimenting with makeup, so it appeared, with mixed results. Or perhaps the blue-eyed panda look was the result of frequent swipes at her eyes with the stained handkerchief that lay near her hand on the table. Was she merely eccentric, he wondered- a quality much cherished by the English, after all-or was she barking?
Catching his look, she took up the handkerchief again and began vigorously dabbing the corners of her eyes, making matters rather worse.
“Natasha has been trying to indoctrinate me into what she calls the ‘feminine arts,’” she explained. “It gave us something to do while we’re all stopped here. Trouble is, I think I’m allergic to the stuff.”
Not crying, then, as he had thought. Not a tear for Ruthven or Sir Adrian?
“You’ll never catch who did it,” she was saying now. “Anyway, ‘Justice is mine, saith the Lord,’” quoth Sarah.
“‘Vengeance.’”
“Excuse me?”
“I believe the quotation is ‘Vengeance is mine.’ And quite right, too. I’m looking for justice on behalf of the victims of these crimes.” And trying to prevent another, he wanted to add, but she seemed disturbed enough already. “I’m quite happy to leave vengeance to a higher power, and I wish more people would. It would save the world, not to mention the police, a lot of bother.”
She turned up another card.
“Ah. The Empress. Representing fertility and motherhood.”
“Representing Natasha?”
She seemed to give the matter serious thought.
“I doubt it. But that reminds me: With Christmas coming up, you really can’t hold us here. It is the most important birthday on the calendar, after all. And Albert-he has to earn a living. George, too, I suppose. I saw him this morning and he was quite distraught-although he’d probably just run out of styling gel or something. But I know Albert must be worried; all this may have put his rehearsals in jeopardy. They’ll be looking to replace him; he has financial worries enough without that. You know, it’s quite true that ‘the lack of money is the root of all evil.’”
“Love,” he said automatically. It seemed no one had bothered to tell her that none of them would have financial worries the rest of their lives. Had Sarah not troubled to ask? Or was all the sudden disinterest in money an act?
“Sorry?”
“The saying is that the love of money is the root of all evil. Although, Sarah, I think you may be onto something there.”
***
George settled himself on his spine, crossed one elegantly shod foot over one knee, being careful to maintain the crease of his silk trousers, and glared insolently at the two detectives. Pointedly, he looked at his Rolex, in unconscious imitation of his father.
“I’m due in London in two hours,” he said.
“That’s too bad, Sir,” said St. Just. “I have several questions for you regarding what went on in this house that may have led to the murder of your brother and your father. I’m certain you’re as anxious as we are to get to the bottom of this. Let’s start again with this family dinner. There was some kind of altercation between you and Albert.”
“Albert? No. Not particularly. That was more a ding-dong between him and Ruthven. He was, as usual, somewhat over-trained, so whatever he said I long ago learned not to mind.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He was drunk, Inspector. Three sheets to the wind; lashed up; pissed as a newt-however you wish to say it. One didn’t tend to take him seriously when he was like that. I didn’t.”
“And your father?”
“Didn’t take him seriously either, I would imagine. The dinner was the same as always, not particularly pleasant. Maybe a little worse than usual this time. Look, I’ve been over this with you, with your men. What exactly is it you want to know?”
“I want to know who would have killed your brother, for a start, and why. And your father. Greed? Hatred? I want to know what you think.”
“In Adrian’s case, unless dislike of pretentious bad taste is a motive, I don’t have any theories in particular. My father-Adrian- was a first-class phony. You’ve only got to look around you to see that. Half of this crap”-and here he waved an arm to encompass the room-“is nothing but a load of cheap reproductions. The rest, most of it, is expensive reproductions. Once in awhile he’d get hold of an honest dealer-that commode over there, for example, is genuine Louis XV, or I miss my best guess-but the rest of it is just rubbish. I tried to advise him, warn him-it drove me wild to see him spending money in that way-but he’d have none of it.”
“Surely, it was his money to spend as he wished?” asked St. Just.
The look George shot him was surly: You would think so.
“It was mine. My inheritance. Potentially,” he finished lamely. Realizing he’d just stamped “Suspect” on his own forehead, he hurried on. “Not that I could ever count on that, of course. I was out of the will as often as I was in it.”
“That was true of your siblings as well, of course.”
Oh, them.
“Yes, I suppose so.” It really was as if he had forgotten they existed. “The difference, in my case, is that I’m already well-off, you know. Pots of money of my own. I’d no need of his money. Certainly, not enough to kill him for it. You’ll have to do better than that, Inspector.”
St. Just wondered. If what his sources were telling him they suspected were true, it was a fact that George had pots of money, much of it made from selling a pharmacopoeia of illegal substances. No form, but Vice gossip was seldom wrong. They were anxious to get their mitts on him, but George Beauclerk-Fisk had proved frustratingly elusive.
Could it be George had decided it was time to go straight-and killing his father looked like a way to get the cash influx that would allow him to do so? There was a certain weird logic to it that St.
Just decided he wouldn’t put past
George.
“There was also the title-”
That brought a short bark of laughter from George.
“Yes, well, the ‘Bart.’ was hereditary. And it’s mine now. But you don’t seriously think I’d kill anyone over that? Let me tell you just how valuable that title is: It was bought and paid for. You see what I mean? He was a phony, to his fingertips.”
“He bought the title?”
“You can arrange that, you know, if you have the ready cash. Some distant, elderly, impoverished relation-very, on all counts- with no direct heirs, got in touch with father some years ago. Or maybe it was the other way around. But he wanted money for an operation or some such. Father forked over-he must have borrowed the money from someone, because it was before he came into the serious cash-in exchange for being named heir to the title in the old man’s will. There were a few other potential and equally minor claimants in America, so his being British born became the deciding factor. Obligingly, the relation didn’t survive the operation.”
“I see.” St. Just regarded him. Something George was telling him, he felt, was important to the case, but he couldn’t think for the moment what it could be.
“Did you see your father often?”
George hesitated slightly before answering. St. Just detected the familiar indecision of an interviewee debating whether or not telling the truth were the best course.
“Not often,” said George. “No more often than the others.”
St. Just nodded in Fear’s direction, a nod that told Fear to put a mark by that statement for later verification. Ostentatiously, Fear licked his pencil and drew several big stars on the page. As if suddenly realizing Mrs. Romano would surely be able to put the lie to his statement, George amended:
“Oh, fairly often, I suppose, in recent years. It depends on what you mean by often.”
“You tell me, sir,” said St. Just. Sergeant Fear noticed the familiar frown forming, the one that could make St. Just’s eyes nearly disappear beneath his brows. Young George here, he felt, would do well to notice it, too.
“I made rather a determined policy to stay in his good graces, that’s all. I think the old man was lonely. It rather explains this stupid marriage, doesn’t it?”
Death of a Cozy Writer Page 19
