Andrew listened to the playbacks. In less than a minute he looked at Kingston again, his expression unreadable. “The first is from a garage, reminding her that her BMW is due for servicing next week.”
“And the second?” asked Kingston impatiently.
“I think you’ll like this one better.”
“Who is it?”
“Here, you can listen for yourself.” Andrew cued up the message and handed the phone to Kingston.
Kingston took it, glanced at the display and pressed Play.
“It’s Morley. Kingston is still alive. He’s in Staffordshire Memorial Hospital. We can’t do anything more now. I’m afraid you’ll have to take care of it, as quickly as possible. Whatever you do don’t try to contact me—wait until I call you. Sorry.”
Kingston closed the phone and stared at it. “Well … I’ll … be damned,” he said, shaking his head.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Kingston put the phone down on the blanket, his eyes fixed somewhere in middle space as the full force of Morley’s words soaked in.
“What are you going to do?” Andrew asked.
Kingston pulled himself together and shifted his perceptive gaze to Andrew. “I had it all wrong,” he mumbled.
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, partly wrong.”
Andrew shook his head. “Do you mind telling me what you’re trying to say?”
“It was Simon Crawford who tried to kill me down in the pit. But I never thought for a moment that Morley was involved in this mess. Crawford and Vanessa Carlson, yes—I’m sure that we’ll find out that they were hand in glove all the time—but Francis Morley? Was that why he hired me? Good God!”
“How do you know for sure it was Crawford at the temple?”
“The security system was my first clue. At the time I wondered why it was so easy: We could not only waltz halfway across Sturminster to reach the temple but also drag that trough across the park, take all the time in the world trying to find the key to the secret room, and not be spotted. It had to be something to do with the security system. We knew from the cameras at the gates that a security system was in place.”
“Are you saying that the system was deactivated?”
“Not necessarily, though that might be a natural supposition.”
“What else, then?”
“I’m sure now that it was functioning all the time and we were being watched from the moment we entered the park to the end.”
“So why weren’t we apprehended?”
“Because Crawford and Morley knew that we were probably on to something that might lead them to the hidden money. That’s what’s been driving them all along, from the very beginning.”
“Because they couldn’t solve the riddle or figure out the Gray’s Elegy part of the code.”
“Either or both.”
“I’m confused. It would mean that Crawford would have had to sneak away to the temple, take a couple of potshots at you, and then return. Surely, if the system was on and the cameras were running, he would have been captured on tape.”
“He could have done it several ways, and whether Morley was with Crawford when they had us under surveillance is irrelevant. Having given it considerable thought, here’s how I believe Crawford pulled it off. He knew the system intimately—it was no doubt installed under his supervision. More often than not, I believe that surveillance cameras continually pan sensitive areas; they are cycled to complete one pass from left to right, say, and then back in the opposite direction. In the case of the camera covering the area surrounding the temple, Crawford knew exactly how long that cycle was and could have easily adjusted it, to slow it down. He would then know exactly how long he had to get to the temple, get his shots off quickly, and return to reset the system.”
“So when the police looked at the tapes all they would see would be us?”
“Right. I’d been wondering all along why Crawford didn’t fire more shots. He simply didn’t have the time. And he had no way to know if he’d actually shot me.”
“He had to leave quickly or risk being caught in the act.”
“That’s what I think. We’ll know fairly soon, I’m sure.”
“Is that going to be enough to nail him? It’s still supposition.”
“There was something else.”
“I somehow thought there might be, knowing you.”
“It was when I was being lifted out of the room on a stretcher. I was woozy and it took me a moment to recognize Crawford when he knelt to talk to me. You see, I’d never seen him out of his dapper business clothes and I distinctly remember that he was wearing a Barbour jacket, black turtleneck, and dark trousers that night. He looked uncharacteristically shabby. Not only that, his trousers and the lower front of his jacket showed traces of powdery dust on them—the very same dust that had been disturbed and had settled on the floor where the stone slab was raised. None of the other men had dust on their clothes.”
“Very observant of you, considering the shape you were in. Of course, to shoot at you he probably had to kneel or even lie down to peer into the hole.”
“That’s what I figured. And unless he’s had his clothes dry cleaned, traces of that dust will still be in the cloth fibers, even if he gave them a good brushing afterward.”
“Have you told any of this to the inspector?”
Kingston shook his head. “Not yet. See if you could reach him for me, Andrew—Staffordshire police headquarters, in Stafford. Tell them it’s urgent.”
Five minutes later, Kingston’s bedside phone rang. It was Wheatley.
“Thanks for calling, Inspector,” said Kingston. “I have some rather startling news for you…”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Bourne End, ten days later
It was an agreeable summer’s day at Andrew’s house. All morning the sun had been playing cat and mouse, dodging in and out of the white clouds, but had finally gained the upper hand and since noon the temperature had crept up to the low eighties.
Since Kingston had arrived at eleven, he and Andrew had been sitting on the terrace with drinks, talking, of all things, about the Sturminster case. Oddly, though, it was as if each would prefer to discuss something else. Andrew, more than Kingston, had made a couple of creditable efforts to change the topic only to have the conversation eventually wind back, as if tugged by an inexorable external force, to where they’d begun. Though they’d been talking about the case on and off for the last ten days, it seemed that there was always another recollection, another revelation, and more questions arose constantly, some with no cut-and-dried answers.
Only in the last couple of days had the murders slipped from the front pages of the nation’s newspapers and from the TV headlines. To the best of Kingston’s knowledge, Vanessa Carlson was still in the hospital recovering from the internal injuries and broken bones caused by Kingston’s punishing blow. Wheatley had told him that they’d run a check on her mobile and home phones. Billing records listed dozens of calls between her and Crawford in the last six weeks.
In light of the overwhelming evidence, both Simon Crawford and Vanessa Carlson had confessed to and been charged with the murder of Tristan Veitch and the attempted murder of Lawrence Kingston. Francis Morley, who had also confessed, had been charged with being an accessory in both the murder of Veitch and the attempt on Kingston’s life. All had been arraigned and were in jail awaiting preliminary hearings.
“Are you getting hungry?” asked Andrew, after Kingston declined a second gin and tonic.
“I am. Knowing your inclination for—shall we say—generous helpings and courses, I had only tea and one slice of toast for breakfast. Were you able to get the wild salmon, by the way?”
“Of course. Flown down from Scotland yesterday.”
Andrew picked up the empty glasses and started for the kitchen. “Why don’t you camp out here while I get things started. Give me about ten minutes. There’re some new magazines in the rack over there.”
&
nbsp; “Sure I can’t help?”
“You’ve been ordered to relax,” Andrew said over his shoulder.
Kingston was engrossed in a Gardens Illustrated article about Harold Peto’s Italianate garden at Iford Manor when he thought he heard the faint ring of the doorbell. He thought nothing of it until he heard voices. He looked up to see Andrew step onto the terrace. He had a wide grin on his face. “Someone here to see you, Lawrence.”
Kingston was, bewildered. As far as he knew, not a soul knew he was at Bourne End.
“Hello, Lawrence,” said Amanda, smiling, as she joined them on the terrace.
For a fleeting moment he was lost for words as he rose from his wicker chair. She looked lovely: the white linen dress, the straw hat, her wide-set sparkling eyes and winsome smile. “Well, I’ll be—!” he sputtered. “What a wonderful surprise.”
“It was Andrew’s idea,” she said.
“Please sit down,” said Kingston, smoothing the tablecloth unnecessarily as a way of giving himself a few extra moments to think. Seeing Amanda was like a ray of sunshine, but now an unwelcome cloud was moving in, already casting a shadow over what, for him, had been a joyful moment.
“I’ll get you a drink, Amanda,” said Andrew. “What would you like?”
“Something bubbly would be super, if you have it?”
“Absolutely. Well, I’ll leave you two alone for a moment,” said Andrew, departing.
As they were talking, Kingston had been thinking hard. Several days had passed since he’d last talked to Inspector Wheatley. Among the many things they’d discussed related to the case, Kingston had explained his theory about William Endicott’s death, which understandably had taken a backseat following the headline-grabbing events at Sturminster. As for Amanda, he’d only talked to her twice—once from the hospital, a call cut short by the nurse, and again a couple of days later, so he had no idea how much she knew about the most recent developments.
By now Wheatley would have called to tell her that she was no longer a suspect in Tristan’s death. As a point of courtesy alone he would have surely done that, given his punctiliousness. This prompted Kingston to wonder whether Wheatley had also broached the subject of Endicott’s murder. Suddenly, with Amanda sitting there, it had become important for Kingston to know the answer to that question.
In one of his several conversations with the inspector in the days following the incidents at Sturminster and at the hospital, Wheatley had told him that Crawford, Morley, and Vanessa Carslon had all sworn in their respective interviews that they had nothing to do with Endicott’s murder. Wheatley had expressed doubt, but it fitted with Kingston’s theory: that Endicott had been their pipeline to Veitch’s activities, and the last thing the three of them would want would be for him to be silenced. Kingston had been harboring a suspicion as to who had killed Endicott for some time. He’d even ventured that opinion to Morley early on. In the past weeks he’d gone over it at least a half dozen times and kept coming back to the same answer—it must have been Veitch. When he’d told the inspector this, a long silence had followed. He’d taken it to indicate that the police hadn’t considered that possibility, which he found surprising. In their conversation he’d been careful not to say “murdered” because it was more self-serving to think that Endicott had been killed accidentally during a struggle and not with premeditation. For Amanda’s sake, Kingston would naturally prefer that to be the case.
Kingston’s rationale was straightforward: Early in his research Veitch had told Endicott about his suspicions and growing certitude about wrongdoings at Sturminster, and the more Endicott learned, the more intrigued he became in the project. Endicott was still infatuated with Vanesssa Carlson, whom he’d met at the garden club. Though theirs was probably an on-and-off relationship, Endicott made the mistake of mentioning to her that he was helping Veitch, telling her what they were working on. Unbeknownst to Endicott, she was dating Simon Crawford and—as she had since admitted under oath—had been for some time. As Endicott learned more, so did Crawford, and he eventually told Morley about Veitch’s discovery. Unlike Crawford, whose main interest was the hidden money, Morley’s concerns were twofold: finding the money for himself and Crawford and preventing the information from becoming public, which would result in irreparable damage to the family name and to Sturminster. It could spell the end of the dynasty and the entire estate.
When Veitch got his hands on the Winterborne code from Llewellyn-Jones, it was a huge break, but it also created a new problem: He needed someone he could trust to decode it. Though he might not have known to begin with, it was a fortunate stroke of serendipity when he learned of Endicott’s cryptography skills. With Endicott’s expanded role and growing realization that Veitch was really on to something and the vast amount of money that could be at stake, he figured that he should be entitled to a generous share of the proceeds. If he could crack the codes, he was certain that it would lead them to the money.
Kingston’s theory was that Endicott had given Veitch an either-or proposition: Cut him in for a sizable share or he would go to Morley and tell him everything. Exactly what happened next would, most likely, never be known. But a terrified Veitch had a body on his hands and had to dispose of it. As a historian, he knew everything there was to know about Sturminster. That included not only the Arcadian monument and its mysterious unsolved da Vinci–like inscription, but also the pathways and tiny dirt roads. Linking Endicott’s death to Sturminster by dumping his body close to the Arcadian monument was a devious move. To make it appear even more related, Veitch scribbled a few letters on a piece of paper, ripped it in half, and placed the written part in Endicott’s pocket. It achieved its intended purpose: to raise all kinds of speculation of more sinister implications.
Kingston had met Veitch once and only briefly, but having learned more about him—how he thought, what he’d discovered, and how potentially hazardous that information might be—it was just the kind of thing he would have done faced with the horror of knowing that he’d killed a friend and could never prove it was an accident. In a perverse way, it was almost admirable. If he did become a suspect and the accusation of blackmail surfaced, he knew that it could be tantamount to a murder conviction.
Kingston looked at Amanda, realizing that he’d better say something intelligent soon or she could start to think that his injury and harrowing experience had somehow impaired his mental state. He was glad when she spoke first.
“How are you feeling?”
“Quite well, all things considered. Healing faster than I’d hoped for—actually, more a bruised ego and embarrassment than anything else. How about you?”
“I’m managing to come to grips with it, and sleeping more than three or four hours a night for the first time since the day Tristan died. I still find it impossible to believe everything that’s happened, though.”
Kingston knew that the polite conversation couldn’t last. One way or another, lingering questions had to be asked and answered by both of them. “Did you hear from Inspector Wheatley?” he asked without ceremony.
“I did. Yes. He called when you were in the hospital. He told me what had happened. He said that the Carlson woman had confessed to poisoning Tristan and that I was no longer a suspect. I can’t describe what a relief that was. He also told me briefly how she did it. Unknown to me, Carlson and Tristan knew each other through the garden club. According to her statement, it was something of a surprise to Tristan when Carlson had called, because they hadn’t been in contact for a long time. She told him that she had revealing information about Sturminster’s missing money and arranged to meet him at a pub not far from Abbot’s Broomfield. Apparently, she slipped the aconitine into his drink with an eyedropper. It helped that Tristan had ordered whisky, which made the poisonous tincture undetectable. She claimed that she hadn’t meant to kill Tristan, only to give him enough poison to require hospitalization. Their intent was to get both of us out of the house so they could steal all of Tristan’s papers, everythi
ng he’d discovered.”
“A likely story.”
Amanda nodded. “One more thing. The inspector said that Carlson has nursing credentials and once worked at a hospital in Coventry.”
“That would explain a lot.”
“Inspector Wheatley even apologized for the anguish that he knew it must have caused me—being a suspect. He was actually nice for a change.”
“Anything else?”
She brushed her fingers across one eye. “You mean his and your theory about Tristan having killed William Endicott?”
Kingston wished he could be somewhere else. “It’s only an educated guess,” he said, “but we both thought it important that you should know about it. If it were to be proved later that that’s what happened, it would come as less of a shock. Not to dismiss or make light of it, but I believe that when all’s said and done, Endicott’s death will remain unsolved and soon forgotten, overshadowed by the other, far more sensational crimes. I seriously doubt Tristan’s name will ever appear in the newspaper, other than as the historian who laid bare Sturminster’s secrets.”
“You’re a clever man, Lawrence—thoughtful too, even if a little headstrong,” she said, smiling quixotically. “The way you explain it, I almost believe you. Don’t worry, though, I’m learning to live with lots of stressful things these days. You, too, I imagine. I think I can handle it, if that’s what concerns you.”
Kingston was about to reply when Andrew arrived with the champagne.
“Sorry it took so long, but I’m sure you two weren’t lacking for things to talk about. Perhaps you’d do the honors, Lawrence, while I finish in the kitchen,” he said, putting the ice bucket and glasses on the table and departing.
Kingston poured them each a glass of Veuve Clicquot and they continued discussing the Sturminster case. About five minutes or so later Andrew reappeared announcing that lunch was finally ready in the dining room.
Throughout the meal, Kingston and Amanda were content to let Andrew do much of the talking. It was almost as if, left out of the early conversation, he was determined to make up for it. By now he was privy to most of the details of the Sturminster case, but Kingston was impressed by some of Andrew’s questions. Clearly he’d absorbed a lot more information than Kingston had given him credit for.
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