Take No Farewell - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Is the gun still loaded?’

  ‘He re-loaded after shooting Rodrigo,’ I put in.

  ‘Victor?’ She laid her hand on his where it grasped the stock, his forefinger no more than half an inch from the trigger. ‘Don’t you think …’ Her gaze met his. I saw him flush with shame at what he must have known I could detect: a willingness to obey her amounting to subservience, an eagerness to let her take charge of events. With a droop of the head, he released the catch and let the breech fall open. Then he pulled out the cartridges, dropped them into his pocket and cast the gun onto the bed.

  I stood up. Miss Roebuck was looking at me now, frowning studiously, as if I posed a complex problem which she was nonetheless confident of solving. ‘I think you should know—’ I began, but she cut me short with a raised hand.

  ‘Let’s speak outside. It’ll be easier to think there.’ She glanced at Victor. ‘Why don’t you go and dress, Victor, before the police arrive?’

  He sighed heavily and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Very well,’ he murmured. Then he walked swiftly from the room. Miss Roebuck gestured for me to follow. Eager in that instant to be out of the sight of Rodrigo’s body and of his blood, splattered all around us, I complied.

  When I reached the passage, Victor was nowhere to be seen. I heard Miss Roebuck close and lock the door behind her, then I turned to face her. ‘He meant to kill me as well, you know.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You weren’t there. I shall make sure the police—’

  ‘Listen to me! The police will be here very soon. We haven’t long, so it’s important we don’t waste the time we do have. What do you propose to tell them?’

  ‘Why … The truth, of course.’

  ‘And what is the truth?’

  ‘That Victor lured Rodrigo and me here tonight. That he knew we were coming. And that he set out to murder us both under the cover of self-defence.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘That won’t do at all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You won’t be believed. Not for an instant. Not in the slightest particular.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I can prove we were led into a trap.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Victor’s own valet was the source of Rodrigo’s information.’

  ‘Gleasure will deny it.’

  ‘Why did Victor leave London before the end of the trial, then?’

  ‘Because he was no longer needed.’

  ‘And why isn’t he sleeping in his own bedroom?’

  ‘It hasn’t been properly aired. He arrived back unexpectedly.’ The inadequacy of this explanation required no emphasis by me. We stared at each other in silence for a moment, then she said: ‘It’s important we understand each other. Rodrigo threatened to kill Victor. I think you’ll agree it wasn’t an idle threat.’

  ‘You admit this was a trap, then?’

  ‘The intention was to have him arrested and deported.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘He chose to involve you, we didn’t. But I won’t deny we foresaw the possibility. How else could he hope to get into the house and find the safe? But we could only tempt him so far. He would have become suspicious if Gleasure had been any more forthcoming.’

  ‘How did you know we’d come tonight?’

  ‘As soon as Hermione arrived yesterday afternoon, I realized what your plan was. I alerted Victor straightaway.’

  ‘So, why the guard-dog, the broken glass, the locks?’

  ‘Because, at first, Victor thought they were all the protection he needed. But Rodrigo wouldn’t stop hounding him. Waiting in the road for him to come and go. Following him round Hereford. Trying to bribe the servants. With the trial imminent, Victor was becoming desperate. Contrary to what you think, he’d done nothing to engineer a guilty verdict. Nevertheless, it seemed then – as it seems now – the likeliest outcome. And Rodrigo had left us in no doubt of what he would do in the event that his sister hanged. So, what were we to do? Wait for him to take the revenge his primitive code of honour made him think was his due? Or bait a harmless trap for him?’

  ‘You call this harmless?’

  ‘Rodrigo’s death was of his own making. You have my word that all we intended to bring about was his deportation back to Brazil. What’s happened instead changes everything. It’s why I’ve told you as much as I have. So you’ll understand – and agree to do as I suggest.’

  ‘And what do you suggest?’

  ‘That you leave. Now. Before the police arrive. There’s still time. And Victor won’t object. He’ll say he surprised a lone intruder who attacked him with a knife and that he shot him in self-defence. I’ll say I saw it happen and that Victor had no choice but to fire. We’ll claim we didn’t recognize Rodrigo until he was lying dead on the floor. As for his reasons for breaking in, nobody will be able to offer any explanation. There will be an inquest, of course, and Victor will have to answer a great many awkward questions, but—’

  ‘Not as many as if I stay and say my piece. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘It’s in your interests as much as ours. If you do stay, you’ll face criminal charges. Breaking and entering at the very least. More to the point, to sustain your version of events you’ll have to expose the parts played in all this by Hermione and Jacinta – and the reason why you’re so anxious to help Consuela. If what I hear about the trial is correct, her best hope lies in clemency, not acquittal. But what clemency is she likely to be shown if the criminal activities of her former lover become public knowledge? Or if, as a result, serious doubts are raised about the paternity of her daughter?’

  As much to postpone a response on my part as to provoke one on hers, I said: ‘Did Victor really make a new will after Jacinta’s birth?’

  ‘If you are going to ask me what the terms of Victor’s will are, I ought to make it clear that I don’t know. Nobody knows – except Victor and his solicitor. Which means that Rodrigo’s fanciful theory, exonerating Consuela, falls at its first hurdle.’

  ‘But is it—’

  ‘We don’t have much longer! You must go now – or stay. If you go, the police need never know you had anything to do with this. And I promise Jacinta won’t be punished in any way. We’ll let her believe we have no idea she helped you. But, if you stay …’

  Why did nothing seem clear except that I had no choice? Why did flight – as so often in my life – seem the only answer? I swallowed hard and saw, in Imogen Roebuck’s eyes, the glint of victory.

  ‘The courtyard door is open. So are the main gates. I sent Harris down to open them for the police and told him to come straight back. So, you can walk out without anyone knowing. If you cut down through the orchard, you can be on the main road within five minutes. In any case, it would be best to avoid the drive, don’t you think?’ I stared at her, but she did not flinch. Her ironic gaze conveyed her meaning precisely. If I left, I was a coward. If I stayed, I was a fool. But at least a coward can hope to discover bravery before the next battle, whereas to be a fool is to be a fool for ever.

  ‘You must go now. It’s your last chance.’ As she said it, she almost smiled. In her tone there was not a shred of doubt about what I would do. She knew and so did I.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘AND YOU SIMPLY walked away – leaving Jacinta with no clue as to what had happened?’

  The amazement in Hermione Caswell’s expression was rapidly blending with indignation. She was staring at me across the drawing-room of Fern Lodge, looking old and haggard in her night-dress and gown, roused from bed too abruptly for her to have brushed her hair or powdered her face. It was not yet light on the morning following Rodrigo’s death. My account of how he had died – and of what I had subsequently done – sounded as unworthy to me as it did to Hermione. The only mitigation I could claim was that I had resisted the temptation to drive straight back to London that very night. Instead, I had called at Fern Lodge as early as I dared and insisted on seeing her. She had to kno
w and understand what had occurred, because only she could make Jacinta understand as well.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Mr Staddon. I really do not know what to say.’

  ‘I had no alternative. Surely you can see that.’

  ‘I can certainly see how you were able to persuade yourself that you had no alternative.’

  ‘What should I have done, then? Stayed and been arrested? Implicated you and Jacinta in a conspiracy against her father? Sabotaged Consuela’s defence by parading my love for her in open court?’

  Hermione bit back a reply and turned away. Then, with a sigh, she opened the curtains to the watery dawn light and stared pensively through the window at Hereford’s roofs and chimneys as they emerged from the mist below us. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Victor – or the Roebuck creature – has outwitted all of us. I should not reproach you for my stupidity.’

  ‘We were both acting against our better judgement, Hermione. Neither you nor I would have helped Rodrigo but for the urgency of Consuela’s plight. At least this way there’s still some basis for hope.’

  ‘Not for Rodrigo.’

  ‘No. But for Consuela. Saving her was all he cared about. He’d have gladly died to achieve that.’

  ‘Yes. But now he has died – without achieving anything. So, what do you want me to tell Jacinta?’

  ‘That I’ll continue trying to help her mother in every way that I can.’

  ‘And you’re sure Victor will take no reprisals against her?’

  ‘How can he, without making her think he murdered her uncle rather than killed him in self-defence? No, Victor has to tread very carefully from now on. And Miss Roebuck will ensure that he does. For the same reason, you have no cause to fear any recriminations.’

  ‘You really think Miss Roebuck has him under her thumb to that degree?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘What is she hoping to achieve?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s clever, ambitious and utterly ruthless. Perhaps she hopes to marry Victor. It would make her much wealthier than any governess could ever dream of being.’

  ‘But only if Victor were free to marry her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, she has a vested interest in ensuring that Consuela hangs.’

  ‘She may have. The question is …’

  ‘Whether she conceived the idea before or after the poisoning.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Whether she brought this situation about – or is merely taking advantage of it.’

  ‘Logically, it has to be the latter.’

  ‘But you suspect the former?’ Hermione turned to look at me. Her expression conveyed clearly enough that she knew what I suspected – and that she agreed.

  ‘There isn’t a shred of evidence.’

  ‘Then what can we do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Except hope and pray that the jury finds Consuela not guilty.’

  Wednesday 23 January 1924 (1.30 p.m.)

  And so the ninth and what is commonly expected to be the final day of the trial for murder of Consuela Caswell has opened at the Old Bailey. I am writing these lines during the luncheon adjournment, after a morning entirely given over to the thoughts of Mr Justice Stillingfleet. His summing-up has been a rambling affair, with no apparent sense of direction, imposing a mood of bathos as well as foreboding on the court. But it can surely have little longer to run. At its conclusion, the jury will be sent out to reach a verdict which is therefore, in all likelihood, only a few hours away.

  With the end of the trial suddenly so close, its beginning seems preposterously remote, overtaken and obscured by the thousands of words spoken in the course of it. The lady of many hats is back, however, adorned in the pink toque she wore on the opening day. I cannot help wondering if this is a conscious celebration of the cyclical nature of the law’s rituals or an unconscious admission of the limit of her millinery account. Either way, she is determined to be in at the death.

  Oh God, how one can instantly regret a jest! We may all be in at a death – the decision, at all events, that there shall be a death – before this day has ended. Perhaps that is what deterred Victor Caswell from attending. Perhaps it also has something to do with Geoff’s absence from London. But I still have no clue to my friend’s activities or whereabouts. He said in his note that he hoped to be back today, so for all I know he may be waiting for me at my club this evening. If he is, what news will I have for him, I wonder?

  Of Mr Justice Stillingfleet, I shall be obliged to say that his summing-up has not been one of the most glorious passages in the history of English jurisprudence. He has achieved what I would have thought impossible. He has reduced the complexities and fascinations of this case to the level of tedium. I cannot accuse him of partiality. He has set out all the points fairly and squarely. Unhappily, he has done so with none of the verve and efficiency of Mr Talbot, let alone Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, whose closing speech seems now – as I feared it might – far longer ago than yesterday morning.

  The gist of the judge’s remarks – insofar as there has been one – is that, whilst the burden of proof lies upon the prosecution, the arguments advanced by the defence have not been convincing. To subscribe to them it is necessary to believe that the accused has been the victim of a conspiracy, which Mr Justice Stillingfleet is clearly not about to do. And that, I suppose, is his prerogative. But what is surely not his prerogative is to dwell more lengthily upon the deficiencies of the defence than upon those of the prosecution. To do so – as he has – is surely to flout the very principle he declared at the outset.

  It is also apparent to me that he dislikes Consuela. Perhaps dislikes is too mild a term. He has a powerful distaste for her that he manfully suppresses most, but not quite all, of the time. When his self-control falters, sinister associations spring up between his words. For instance, having described the murder of Rosemary Caswell as ‘a cruel and cold-hearted act’, he later remarked that Consuela’s testimony had revealed ‘a cold streak to her character’. Thus a dangerous and entirely false proposition may have been planted in the jury’s minds. The murderer is cold-hearted. The accused is cold-hearted. Therefore the accused is the murderer.

  Before this trial began, I would have declared confidently that High Court judges were rational, enlightened and intelligent beings, free of the bias and illogicality which afflict lesser mortals. Now, I find they are no better than the rest of us. Their training equips them to hide their prejudices, but it does not erase them. And their office gives them infinite scope to indulge those prejudices. Well, perhaps it was naïve of me to expect them to resist temptation. To be fair, Mr Justice Stillingfleet has, I think, made some effort to do so. But the effort has not been enough.

  Whether Consuela has been stung by any of his words, or has detected in them an animus against her, is impossible to say. She has seemed this morning more withdrawn than ever, distancing herself from events almost visibly as they near their climax. She is wearing the black suit in which she testified on Monday, but the matching hat is now a little lower over her eyes. Nor does she look straight ahead so consistently. Instead, she spends lengthy periods looking down at her hands folded in her lap. What she is thinking I cannot tell. Whether she is even following what is being said is uncertain. Yet she must know – as do we all – that her fate and future will be settled here, beneath Mountford’s vainglorious dome, this very afternoon. Nothing so far has seemed to penetrate – or even dent – the wall of insouciance she has constructed around herself. Yet, surely, before the day is out, something will.

  Until I reached Ross-on-Wye, the task I had set myself seemed a simple one. To call at Peto’s Paper Mill, posing as an amateur numismatist seeking guidance on whether a certain five pound note was printed on paper of their manufacture, promised to be a straightforward exercise. When I arrived, however, a mass of difficulties occurred to my mind. Would I arouse suspicion? Would I encounter Peto himself and be reco
gnized? Would somebody cry out, ‘He’s the one they’re looking for in connection with the shooting at Clouds Frome’?

  Defeated by my own trepidations, I retreated to an inn in the town and consumed a cheerless lunch, my first meal since dining with Rodrigo at the Green Man. What, I wondered, would they be doing now about his death? Questioning Victor? Opening an inquest? Conducting a post mortem? All that, and more, was bound in due course to be done. But when would they begin to suspect that the truth was being kept from them? Probably never, if Imogen Roebuck’s ingenuity were to be relied upon. How strange and disquieting it was to find myself hoping that she and Victor would be successful, in this if in nothing else.

  It was whilst standing at the bar, weighed down by such thoughts, that I realized providence had guided my choice of inn. A tubby tweed-suited man of middle years had entered some time before, propped himself on a stool and ordered a pint of his ‘usual’. Now he and the barmaid were exchanging well-worn pleasantries. As I listened, at first idly, then intently, it became apparent that the fellow occupied a managerial position at the mill, though doubtless a less exalted one than he claimed. The barmaid called him Mr Howell, laughed wearily at his jokes and looked as if the person who took him off her hands would be doing her a great service. I decided to oblige.

  Howell was an affable, self-centred man, as pleased by my interest in his work at the mill as he was incurious about the reason for it. Was it true that Peto’s had once been paper suppliers to the Bank of England? Indeed it was. Was it also true that a robbery in 1911 had ended the association? To his infinite regret, it was; if only the security of the premises had been his responsibility, it would, of course, never have happened. Would banknotes printed on Peto paper still be in circulation? He supposed so, although it was a long time since he had seen any. Did he mean, then, that he could actually tell the difference? Most certainly, and proud of it. To an expert eye such as his the Peto water-mark was unmistakable. How so? At last his garrulity reached its limit. That was a trade secret. His lips were sealed.