She leaned toward the old man and said, “Crumper, take me to her. I can help. My job, in fact, is talking to people who are upset. I’m good at it.”
He needed very little persuading.
Derek, however, was a different matter. In the muniment room, Inspector Griffin had given up his hope of a quick confession. He had thought, at first, that Derek was going to crumble. Certainly the new Baronet had turned pale and sick-looking when Griffin had begun their conversation with, “Would you mind telling me, Sir Derek, what you were doing last Thursday afternoon at teatime on Hawley’s Hill, northwest of the village, with a pair of binoculars pointed at this house?”
Derek, nowhere near a chair, had sat down on the edge of the long table and closed his eyes.
“I’m waiting for an answer,” Griffin said sternly.
None came. Derek sat silent, his eyes still closed, his skin pasty underneath his tan.
Meera Patel left the corner where she had been silently standing; she picked up Rob Hillman’s chair and brought it around the table to Derek, gently encouraging him to sit in it. As he did so she said, “You’ll feel better, you know, after you’ve told us about it. I promise you, Sir Derek. It’s all going to come out anyway. Might as well get it off your chest.” She was patting his shoulder in a motherly way.
Griffin watched this performance with mixed feelings. Personally, he didn’t care much for Patel—too damn reserved for his taste—but he had to admit the woman knew her job.
Still, it might have gone either way, but for the chance angle at which Patel had set the chair. The illuminated capital, sitting at the end of the long table where Griffin had put it, was now in Derek’s line of vision. Derek saw it when he was looking around miserably trying to find somewhere to put his eyes.
He gasped. “Where did you find that?”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “Hidden in a very odd place,” he replied.
But Derek only stared at the brilliant little square and offered no further comment or question. Griffin decided to push.
“Sir Derek,” he said, “I wouldn’t think a man in your position would need to steal something worth only two thousand pounds.”
Derek gaped at him. “Two—two thousand? Where did you hear that?”
“Carlyle. He should know. He handles the insurance policies.”
Derek stared incredulously at the Inspector and then back at the scrap of parchment. He began to make odd noises that eventually resembled laughter. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks, took his handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped his face and blew his nose, and then explained how he had persuaded Crumpet, whom he referred to as “Miss Crumper,” to assist him in stealing it. “Then when she heard Rob was dead she panicked and hid it somewhere. I told her I didn’t want to know where.”
The confession was transparently true but Griffin was still puzzled. “It’s obvious you thought it was worth a lot more than it is, but why did you want to steal it? Whatever it was worth, it would have been yours sometime in the near future.”
Derek sighed. “Kit Mallowan’s uncle—you’ve met Kit, haven’t you? His late uncle, the sixth marquis, went to Brasenose College, Oxford. So did Uncle Greg. Our family and the Mallowans have all gone to B.N.C. since the turn of the century. Kit’s uncle left the college a huge chunk of money in his will. Uncle Greg wanted to do something for the college as well, but our pockets are not as deep as the Mallowans’ so it couldn’t be money. Uncle Greg got the idea that if Rob Hillman found anything really remarkable in the manuscripts, we would give it to the B.N.C. library. I tried to talk him out of it because Datchworth needs every asset it has, we shouldn’t be giving away things that might help maintain the estate. But I couldn’t get him to see it that way. So I got Miss Crumper to chat Rob up and keep an eye on him so she could notify me right away if he found something really valuable.” Derek shook his head. “Obviously there was some sort of mix-up. Miss Crumper says Rob told her the fragment was priceless, in fact he said ‘beyond price.’ ”
“Ah!” said Inspector Griffin, as several pieces of the puzzle fell into place. After a moment he said, “Sir Derek, you were watching the parapet so you could notify Miss Crumper on her mobile when you saw Rob Hillman. I assume she was waiting nearby until she know the coast was clear and she could then come into this room to steal the fragment, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I don’t suppose you saw Hillman fall, did you?”
Derek shook his head. “He, ah, he went around the west side where I couldn’t see him. I kept watching to make sure he didn’t come back and go down to the muniment room again while Miss Crumper was still there. Then she phoned me and said she’d got the thing and was safely out of the house. So then I didn’t need to watch anymore. So I got back in my car and went back to Oxford.”
Griffin kept after him for a few minutes, but nothing more was to be elicited from Derek. Finally Griffin said, “All right, you can go now. Of course we’ll have to check your story with Miss Crumper.”
“Of course. Remember, though: she didn’t want to do it. I, ah, put pressure on her. Any blame for this goes on me.”
Griffin promised to treat Miss Crumper gently, and Derek left.
Kathryn, meanwhile, was sitting in a large, sunny, round room in the south wing of the Castle, wishing she were less impulsive. The moment Crumper Senior had ushered her into the presence of Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe, it was apparent that when he had said she was very upset, he did not mean she was weeping and in need of comfort. The woman was, on the contrary, mad as a wet hornet.
Not that she was openly angry; on the surface she was acting the perfect lady.
“How do you do, Miss Koerney. You must forgive me if I seemed startled when Crumper announced you. I am unaccustomed to visitors.”
She spoke in the exaggerated upper-class accent of the Royal Family and was, Kathryn judged, about the same age as the Queen. The years had been a bit kinder to Sophy, however, than they had to Elizabeth; Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe was as slender as a girl, and her face had the bones a woman needs to maintain beauty long after youth has flown.
Like her butler, she was dressed with a formality that seemed slightly dated; Kathryn felt self-conscious in her shorts and sneakers. She decided she might make points by apologizing for them.
“I hope you will forgive me, Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe, for calling upon you dressed in such an inappropriate manner. I only put on these clothes so that I could sit on the ground on the west side of the Castle near the place where my cousin died. It was a way of paying my respects.”
“Ah! You are the cousin of that young man who fell from the parapet.”
Superficially it was a polite enough remark. But something in the inflection wasn’t quite right; Kathryn sensed it without being able to name it, and it was not a pleasant sensation. She wondered how Aunt Sophy, that “treasure” so beloved by Meg and Derek, had become this frigid, hostile creature.
She ventured to say, “Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe, Crumper informs me that you are upset over the death of Sir Gregory—”
“I appreciate your sympathy, Miss Koerney, but I don’t need it. My brother and I were never close.”
“Your brother?” Kathryn asked, wondering how complex the family tree could get before it toppled under its own weight.
“Sir Gregory.”
Thoroughly baffled, Kathryn said, “I’m sorry; I thought Sir Gregory was your husband.”
Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe made a noise that in a less elegant person might have been called a snort. “Heavens, no!”
“But the only Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe I have heard of is Sir Gregory’s wife.”
“That was Sophy; she died several years ago. They called her Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe, but they were wrong. I was next in line after Richard, my older brother, died in 1937. But they denied me my birthright and gave it to my younger brother, simply because he was male. But here in private, no one can stop me from using my rightful title.”
/> A slow, cold snake slithered up Kathryn’s spine. “Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe,” she said in a voice that was barely audible, “may I be so forward as to ask you to tell me your Christian name?”
The aged beauty lifted her plucked eyebrows. “That is a curious question, Miss Koerney; I might even say an impertinent one. However, since you wish to know, my name is Clarissa.”
Chapter 27
A Few Minutes Earlier
The private flat of James and Martha Crumper was a far cry from the servants’ quarters of old. Their sitting room had French doors facing south-east onto a mini-garden of their own; these doors were standing open to welcome the evening breeze that was springing up to dissipate the day’s heat. It was altogether pleasant, but it was utterly wasted on Tom.
The Crumpers, of course, were in the main house dealing with the family crisis; Crumper had seated Tom in his own chair, plied him with Earl Grey, and told him to make himself at home. He had then hurried apologetically away. The tea grew cold as Tom stared sightlessly out at the garden.
How could he ever apologize? He would have to explain what had driven him to such fury. And how could he do that without revealing how he felt about her? It would end their friendship. They would become distant, cordial acquaintances. He couldn’t bear it.
Finally he stood up. He had to see her. He had no idea what to say, no idea what disastrous turn the conversation might take, but he had to see her. He walked out of the flat and promptly discovered that he didn’t know where he was. He had been in a daze when Crumper had led him through the servants’ wing to the flat. Rather than get lost inside, he opted for the garden. Taking his directions from the low sun, he headed west across the south face of the Castle. He saw a terrace he thought he recognized; he walked across it, looking through a series of open French doors until he discovered the Family Dining Room. From there it was no problem; he headed like a homing pigeon for the entrance hall, figuring he was bound to run into somebody; sure enough, he had turned no more than four corners before he encountered Mary, who was happy to direct him to the muniment room.
There was a bobby at the foot of the steps who gave him a nod and an interested look. “Evening, sir.”
Tom returned the nod and the greeting and asked if his friend Miss Koerney was in the room.
“She was here, but she might have left, I don’t know; I was away myself for a bit. Shall I have a look for you?”
Tom thanked him, and the man turned to the steps but then turned back. “I say, sir, is it true you’re on the job?” O’Rourke was a fan of American TV cop shows and had picked up the slang.
Tom admitted that it was true.
“Well, then, why don’t you come up yourself?” suggested O’Rourke, who was friendly to a fault. He led Tom up the steps and opened the door.
George Griffin was feeling unusually friendly as well, as he scented an imminent and successful solution to the case, possibly even a sensational solution. Kathryn had told him enough about the manuscript to make it clear that its discovery was likely to make the BBC evening news and the front page of the Times. He himself was about to crack what might be a conspiracy murder involving titled families in stately homes, and if that alone wasn’t enough to get his picture in the papers, the connection with the manuscript would guarantee it. So when Tom was ushered in by O’Rourke, Griffin invited him to stay.
“We’re about to nail Derek Banner as an accomplice after the fact,” he told Tom as if he were speaking to a colleague, “and then he is going to give us the killer.” Excitement and satisfaction emanated from him in equal quantities.
Tom had seen immediately that Kathryn wasn’t in the room, but the policeman in him was hooked by Griffin’s disclosure. He decided to stay, at least for a few minutes. Besides, he thought, if I can tell her they’ve found out who killed Rob, she might be in a slightly better mood. And I’m going to need all the help I can get.
Sergeant Duncan appeared at the door with Derek; Derek cried angrily at Griffin, “What is this inquisition? I’ve told you everything—”
Griffin interrupted with a snarl, “Sit down, Derek!” and pointed to a chair.
It wasn’t just the tone of voice; it was the familiarity of “Derek” without the “Sir.” Even “Banner” might have passed as civil, but as Griffin was using it, the Christian name on its own was a mark of contempt.
Derek stood still. A guarded look came over his face.
“We’ve been having a talk with your delightful friend, Miss Crumper,” Griffin continued. “She corroborated your story. Every bit of it. But it’s the part at the end that interested us most. Tell us, Derek: what did you see on the parapet? What surprised you so much, you hung up on the lovely Crumpet?”
Derek, still without speaking, moved slowly to the chair Griffin had indicated and sank into it. Crumpet, of course, had asked the same question the day after it had happened. Derek had told her that a bloody great spider had dropped from the tree above him onto his head; he had dropped his mobile, it had hit a rock and disconnected, and when he had tried to ring her back he couldn’t get the phone to work. He was sure at the time that she had believed him, and even now he was reasonably certain that she had given the incident no further thought. It was this policeman who had seen through the story. But he’s guessing, thought Derek. There’s absolutely no way he can prove I saw anything on that parapet other than Rob Hillman with a cup of tea in his hand. He decided to call Griffin’s bluff: he repeated the tale about the spider.
Griffin, predictably, poured scorn on it, but Derek stuck to it and they came to an impasse. They were glaring at each other mulishly when O’Rourke said, “Inspector? It’s Mr. Carlyle.”
Griffin, partially annoyed and partially relieved at the interruption, turned and gave his attention to the estate manager, who had just entered the room.
“I don’t know if this will be any use to you,” Carlyle was saying, “but it puzzled me. As I’ve told you before, I’ve only been here about eight months, so this invoice is a bit before my time. It’s from a firm of building contractors in Oxford who were apparently doing some alterations in the south wing. It’s this item here,” he said, showing Griffin the sheet of yellow paper and pointing to one line. “The thing is, I’ve always been informed that the only access to the parapet is from the staircase in this room.”
The Inspector said grimly, “So have I.”
He took the invoice from Carlyle, crossed the room back to Derek, and held the paper in front of Derek’s nose.
“All right, then, Sir Derek,” he said witheringly, “tell me who, on Wednesday last, used the ‘roof access from south wing’ to get to Rob Hillman?”
A look of horror came over Derek’s face. “Oh, no!” he cried, shaking his head. “Oh, no, no, no! It can’t be! It couldn’t be! We were so careful! Uncle Gregory took care of everything! She can’t have got out!”
Griffin threw the paper aside, put his hands on the arms of Derek’s chair, and fairly shouted into his face, “Who can’t have got out? Who went from the south wing up onto the parapet? Who did you see?”
Derek, shaking all over, covered his face with his hands and began to sob. “It looked like her, you see, but I knew it couldn’t be her, because she couldn’t have got up there, there was no way—”
“Out with it, man! Who did you see?”
Tom was almost fifteen feet from Derek but his hearing was acute. There was no doubt; the half whisper, half whimper that came from behind Derek’s hands was, “My mother.”
Kathryn thought, So much for a secure facility in Hampshire.
The Family hadn’t sent their black sheep off to be locked up with strangers. They had kept her at home. It was Jane Eyre, after all. It was positively Gothic. It was ridiculous. What century did they think they were living in?
“Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe,” said Kathryn, rising from her chair, “I apologize for intruding on your privacy. I only came because I, ah, got the impression from Crumper that you wished to speak
to somebody about Sir Gregory’s death. I see I was mistaken. I’ll go now.”
“Sit down, Miss Koerney,” said the icy voice. “I said I didn’t need your sympathy. I didn’t say that I was not interested in information.”
Kathryn hesitated. She found the fabled Clarissa/ Cruella well and truly creepy, but she also found it hard to believe that the woman could represent a real threat. Kathryn admitted to herself she was nervous, but she was determined to behave sensibly. After all, she told herself, I can run a lot faster in these sneakers than she can in those heels.
She sat down again. “What can I tell you, Lady Bebberidge-Thorpe?”
Clarissa, it transpired, wanted to hear all there was to know about her brother’s death. Kathryn thought this a reasonable request and fulfilled it to the best of her ability. Trying for a courteous conclusion, she said, “So now your son is Sir Derek. I’m sure he will take good care of Datchworth.”
“I have no doubt he will,” Clarissa replied indifferently, “but Derek is not my son.”
“I beg your pardon? Derek is—?”
“Not my son.”
“I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t understand.”
“Then you must not be very clever. It is a simple matter. The young man who thinks he now owns Datchworth is not my son. I bought him from a stupid girl in Italy who had got herself pregnant by some German tourist.”
Kathryn struggled for speech. After several seconds she settled for one word: “Why?”
Clarissa looked at her disdainfully. “You are not, in fact, clever at all, are you? We needed an heir, my husband and I. Then, as it happened, my nephew died in a car crash and my brother needed an heir as well. Derek served admirably for both purposes. At least, so I thought at the time. I know better, now. He is an ungrateful wretch who does not deserve what I have given him. Will you have some sherry? You look as though you may not be warm enough.”
Thieves Break In Page 24
