“The marriage acted as some kind of catalyst, didn’t it? You must feel as I do that none of this would have happened but for the marriage?”
Dishonesty having failed as a policy, George made a further attempt at open frankness.
“It was part of his usual shock treatment. But we were used to it, Inspector. In a way. ‘Numbed by it’ might be a better expression.
Isn’t there an animal that eats its young? Being around him-it was like that for all of us, except Ruthven, perhaps.”
“There were bad feelings between you and Ruthven because of this-competition-your father encouraged between you.”
It was a statement rather than a question.
“There were no feelings at all, Chief Inspector. I tell you, we were simply numbed by it. Ruthven might be on top one year, but it was simply a matter of waiting my turn to catch the King’s eye.”
After fifteen minutes in which George reiterated his indifference, and his alibi for Ruthven’s murder-none of them had a verifiable alibi for the time of Sir Adrian’s death-they left George preening before a mirror.
“Alibis are a two-way street,” said Sergeant Fear as he shut the door, just loudly enough to be sure George could hear.
“With a roundabout in the middle,” said St. Just. “Yes, I realize that if George and Natasha are both lying for each other about being together, it means both have no alibi for Ruthven’s murder at all. I am glad to see you were paying close attention during your interrogation training.”
They walked farther down the hall, pausing near an alcove holding a dusty stuffed crocodile, jaws ajar, in a glass display case. St. Just shuddered and turned away.
“Interesting morsel of information about the title,” he said. “Perhaps Sir Adrian was an even bigger phony than George had sussed.”
“St. Drudmilla’s, you mean.”
“Yes. You and I know now that Sir Adrian was raised in an orphanage- the place Coffield mentioned to me-so we can discount the part of Sir Adrian’s novel where the sensitive young boy left his family behind in Wales. Looks like it was the other way around-someone abandoned him-and it was still very much a sore spot. Since St. Drudmilla’s is a home for unwed mothers, he must have flat-out purchased the title in an even dodgier deal than George believes. I doubt ‘Sir Adrian,’ as we may as well continue to call him, could have learned of some remote blood tie to the Beauclerk-Fisks-the 1976 Adoption Act hadn’t been passed at the time. How did he manage it? Forged documents-had to be. In any event, he was willing to tell the truth about other people’s secrets, but he still couldn’t bring himself to come entirely clean about his origins. He’d look a fool after so many years of passing himself off as to the manor born.
“More than that, I think that coming from a poor background was one thing, but being born on the wrong side of the sheets, to someone of his generation, was another. He would have wanted to take that one secret to his grave.”
Sergeant Fear shook his head in disbelief.
“Who would care, in this day and age?”
“Sir Adrian, apparently. No wonder he felt that nothing would do but that Natasha and George had to get married, and the sooner the better. Well, what next? The lady of the house, I think.”
***
They found her in the sitting room that separated her bedroom from Sir Adrian’s, flipping through a fashion magazine as thick as a telephone directory. Perhaps she felt the occasion of the murder of her new husband called for a freshening of her wardrobe.
She looked up and smiled wanly. There were signs of strain around her eyes, perhaps a smudge of shadow beneath that hadn’t been there before, along with a fine etching of wrinkles, but she was remarkably composed for someone who had sustained such a shock. Her hair was pulled back in the gleaming black, sleek chignon that was apparently her trademark, her lips were carefully lined in dark red, and she wore a dress of soft, dove-gray wool. Perhaps there were degrees and shades of mourning, and pale gray was the best she could manage.
St. Just greeted her and accepted her invitation to sit down. Sergeant Fear took up a position at the window, apparently just watching snow melt against the panes, but listening closely.
“According to Mrs. Romano, you and Sir Adrian were together in his study before he died. But according to our examiners, he was dead well before five, when she heard you in there together. Can you explain the discrepancy?”
“Quite easily. Mrs. Romano is either lying or she is mistaken.”
“You claim you were not in Sir Adrian’s study the afternoon or evening that he died?
“I was not, Inspector,” she said flatly. “Adrian in his study was like a tribal chief in his hut. It was well understood by all that he was not to be disturbed, without permission, which I gather was seldom granted. If he wanted to see anyone, he commanded them into his presence. One did not just casually drop in.”
“Even his wife?”
“Rules of the house. I was no exception, Inspector. Mrs. Romano was granted more leeway than most. She’s been around since the last ice age, and seems to think she owns the place. Perhaps she has her own reasons for implicating me. Not the first time, as you must know by now, that I’ve been in that position.”
“Your first husband-”
“Was murdered. Yes. But not by me.”
Suddenly she smacked the magazine down on the table in front of her, looking straight at him.
“Not by me,” she repeated. “Let me tell you, Chief Inspector, something about Winnie Winthrop and myself, since you’re so curious: No matter what you read or hear, or what you choose to believe, that was a love match. He was rich and I was young. People put two plus two together and came up with four, or so they thought. But I can tell you Winnie was the kindest man who ever lived. Anyone would tell you the same. Also, they would tell you I was devoted to him. He was my best friend, Inspector. I trusted and respected him. To my astonishment, he felt the same, for which I will always be grateful to whatever God allowed me that brief time of happiness. I simply adored the man. Do you have any idea how rare that is, for two people to feel that way about each other?”
St. Just, long a widower, said quietly, “I have some idea. Yes.”
“No one else has ever taken his place for me. No one.”
“Not even Sir Adrian?”
She laughed.
“Especially not Sir Adrian.”
His face must have registered his surprise.
“Does my honesty shock you, Inspector? If you want the whole truth, you will find I am capable of nothing but. I have nothing more to fear, you see. Those of us who have been unjustly accused of a crime can fear nothing, ever again. The truth is I did not murder my husband. Either of my husbands. Believe me or not; I don’t care what you think or what I say to you. I am quite used to being called a liar, ever since Winnie… I don’t care. Because you see, whoever killed Winnie, killed the best part of me as well.”
“Why did you marry Sir Adrian, if you felt that way about him?”
“Do you really need me to spell it out? He promised me security. A retreat from the probing eyes of the world. More money than Zeus, he had, and that was the kind of money I needed to escape the notoriety once and for all. You may think it a terrible reason to marry, but I had no other reason. He loved me, so he said. That I did not love him, he was well aware. I told him so, many times, when he proposed. He said many times it didn’t matter. Somehow, I doubted that and I doubt it still. Don’t most people want more than anything to be loved? But he took me on my own terms. That was our bargain. Life was hard for me after Winnie… died. All the accusations, the suspicions. Sir Adrian offered me not just a refuge, but a comfortable old age, and an unassailable position. ‘He who laughs last,’ after all. If you see anything wrong with my wanting that financial shield against the world, Inspector, you are not a realist. Perhaps, you are just not a realist when it comes to women.”
Somehow, St. Just didn’t doubt that for a moment. What she said about this marri
age of convenience struck him as true. What that said about her character, he could only imagine. As to the rest of her story…
“Here is another dose of reality for you,” she was saying. “Sir Adrian was in failing health. He knew he would not live many more years. That was part of his calculation, part of the deal he struck with me. I had no reason to kill him. The odds were he would be dead long before I was. He knew this, even if you do not.”
“And Ruthven?”
“Ruthven was no threat to me,” she said, a tinge of exasperation in her voice. “Not once Adrian and I were married. There was plenty of money to go around, and Adrian was always generous- with me. I am many things, but greedy is not one of them. You want a motive-I’m the only one in this bunch without a motive.”
Her sang-froid was admirable, he had to admit. But was it the poise of innocence or the arrogance of a woman born without a conscience? St. Just had long ago given up believing he could, at first go, tell the difference.
20. BOOK OF REVELATIONS
“YOU WERE TOLD, SIR, to keep the police apprised of your whereabouts,” St. Just was saying. “Imagine my surprise to learn you were in Felixstowe yesterday.”
Paulo had telephoned the station with ill-concealed delight to report the prodigal’s return to Sergeant Fear.
“Trying to escape and changed his mind,” was Paulo’s verdict.
“He’d be hard put,” Fear told him. “We had a man trailing him the entire time. But thank you for your vigilance, Sir. We’ll put a gold star on your form.”
Now a tired and somewhat chastened Albert was being questioned in his room by St. Just and Fear, under the embroidered eyes of Cain and Abel.
“I understand there was a plan in the offing between you and Ruthven to go to Violet, offering an inducement that she leave the field.”
Albert answered wearily.
“I am not an organizer, a joiner, nor a leader of men, Inspector. I left all that to Ruthven.”
“It was your brother’s idea, then?”
“Of course.”
“Would you say that was a plan likely to meet with a great deal of success?”
Albert wouldn’t say; he simply shrugged.
“I understand, Sir, you’ve had some little trouble with the law.”
“I’ve had some trouble with alcohol, if you want to be strictly accurate. About which I’ve been giving considerable thought the past few days. Do you know, Chief Inspector: I’ve decided I’m through with roles that are all wrong for me, now. Aging gracefully might be the toughest role of all, but I’m willing to give it a try. Somehow, Adrian’s being gone allows me to breathe for the first time. Not-not, I hasten to add, that I would have done anything to hasten his end. I’m just finding it surprising-astonishing- how freeing it is, his being gone. Awful thing, the truth, isn’t it?”
Frequently, thought St. Just. And it seemed that Albert was not alone in finding Adrian’s death to be a breath of fresh air. Of course, having more money than Croesus was wonderfully freeing, too. Had Albert been in touch with Coffield, he wondered? He made a mental note to find out.
“What I am learning about Sir Adrian hardly fits with what I know of his public image.”
Albert laughed.
“It is odd, that. He wrote what are called in the trade ‘cozy mysteries.’ He felt, especially as he grew older, that it was essential to his image to be perceived as this gentle, grandfatherly type, a male Miss Marple, if you like, with superhuman powers of deduction, doddering harmlessly about the village solving crimes in between sips of tea and sherry.”
“And this was not accurate?”
“You do have a gift for understatement, Inspector. No, this was not accurate. It was simply the image he wanted, or needed, to project. At first, I imagine, to bolster his sales. Eventually, I think, because he bought into his own bullshit. No, not by the furthest stretch of the imagination could the word ‘gentle’ be applied to him. Or ‘grandfatherly.’ Although I sometimes felt he had ambitions in that regard.”
“He wanted grandchildren, you mean?”
“His immediate offspring being such a disappointment, yes. Not so he could dandle them on his knee, of course. Heaven forbid: He detested children. I imagine it was more along the lines that he had dynastic ambitions. You know the sort of thing. Perpetuating the House of Beauclerk-Fisk was becoming a bit of a mania with him. All the more reason, I was not a top contender in the ‘Grab for the Gold’ sweepstakes in which we seemed forever to be engaged. Really, George’s announcement was a stroke of genius.”
“The first grandchild. Yes, I can see that might win him to George’s side.”
“It’s rather strange, you know, when you think of it. The four of us, with no children. For whatever reasons, Ruthven and Lillian never had them. I suspect that was Lillian’s doing. Just as well, no doubt. In my case, it would certainly be a new and different kind of miracle birth. Sarah? Always possible, but unlikely, at least in Father’s estimation-which is what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Father’s all-important estimation. Yes, he was bound to look at George with new eyes, if he thought George was his only hope of carrying on the famous family name and title. That silly title. Also, keeping the estate intact was the kind of thing Father tended to worry about. Entail, and all that rot. Still…”
“Still?”
“I rather thought the old man had hopes of Ruthven’s getting a grander title of his own one day. Becoming one of the ‘Press Barons,’ so to speak. Anyway, so it went, back and forth, year after year, Father constantly changing his mind which horse to back-sometimes hedging his bets, sometimes putting it all on the nose to win. Exhausting. It exhausted us all. George seems to have hit on the method that would settle it, once and for all.”
“Rather a cruel game, wasn’t it?”
“George’s or Father’s?”
“Both.”
“George learned from the best, you forget. My father had a self-regard that was truly Shakespearian in its dimensions. It was always, always, all about him, and if it wasn’t all about him, he would accuse whoever was ignoring him of being self-involved. One really could not win, up against that monstrous ego.”
“He was a vindictive man?”
Again, Albert laughed, a harsh, mirthless sound.
“Let me tell you a story by way of illustration, Inspector. Every once in awhile, some reporter would write a profile of him for one of the Sunday papers that accurately captured his personality and attempted to probe his background, rather than regurgitating the nonsense Father routinely fed to the gentlemen of the press. Said accurate reporter would soon find him- or herself out of a job. I always rather suspected Father would enlist Ruthven and his Fleet Street connections on these occasions.”
“How does this manuscript of his you say you found fit into what you’re telling me?”
“In keeping with his personality, I’d say he planned it as his last joke on the world. He knew when he died there would be a crush of authors-university types as well as popular authors-wanting to write the definitive biography. One of them might have the audacity to publish the truth, and he would no longer be in control of that. He decided to take the wind out of their sails by getting his own version out first, is my guess.”
Albert stood up and retrieved the manuscript pages from his desk.
“I had to leave the rest of it with Mrs. Butter. This is as far as she got. It’s all in there. Ruthven was not his son. Ruthven was not my brother. Doting father that he was, he had no idea Ruthven was completely the wrong blood type to possibly be his offspring. It’s something he discovered by accident that time Ruthven was in hospital. He saw the medical chart somehow; probably it was clipped to the end of the hospital bed.”
St. Just pulled out his gloves to handle the pages, knowing it was probably a waste of time. They’d been too manhandled by too many people by now. He turned over the pages, trying to make sense of it.
“You’d need a Rosetta Stone to decipher this,” he s
aid. “I wonder how that American secretary managed it.”
He looked over at Albert.
“You’ve had this from the beginning. I know you didn’t feel it worth mentioning to us. Did you tell anyone about it?”
Albert shook his head.
“I needed time to try to decipher the handwriting. Judging from the title, the book held implications, good or bad, for Violet. I needed time to decide how best to play my hand. The possible ramifications of this were huge, I’m sure you can appreciate, but I wasn’t sure I could anticipate all the fallout.”
“The ramifications were possibly also deadly,” said St. Just.
“I don’t follow.”
“Effectively, Ruthven was cut out of the will from the first moment Sir Adrian discovered that Ruthven was not his son.”
“True. But that removed Ruthven as a threat, don’t you see?” protested Albert. “At least, as far as the rest of the family is concerned.”
“But by your own acknowledgment, you didn’t know about this until Mrs. Butter told you. And you told no one the manuscript even existed.”
Seeing too late the trap into which he had fallen, Albert mentally kicked himself. Too late to save Sarah, or any of the rest of them, for that matter, with a lie.
“I did hint to Sarah that something was up. Something important.”
“That’s not the same as telling her her brother was really her half-brother, and not Sir Adrian’s flesh and blood. As far as your sister knew, your news might have been that you’d found a cure for dandruff.”
“I didn’t know exactly what the manuscript contained, that is true. But I knew it was important. I knew that from the way Adrian was skulking around the house with it-or, to be accurate, having that Paulo skulk around on his behalf, unless I miss my guess. I think you underestimate the strength of the bond between my sister and me. It’s almost… well, telepathic. She wouldn’t have made a move without first finding out what-if anything-I had learned.”
Death of a Cozy Writer Page 20
