'And you are certain that this is the same sword? How can you be sure?'
'Because I be sure. That's how.'
'Well,' said the coroner, when Marlene Cobb had been dismissed, 'I will now ask the jury to retire and consider their verdict, reminding them that this is primarily an enquiry into the cause of death. It is not a criminal court.'
'Might I ask a question?' said a woman juror. 'There is a point I'd like to clear up. The defendant-I mean Mr Lestrange-identified the body as that of the Reverend Hubert. Isn't it equally likely that Mr Rose, the hotel manager, is mistaken in thinking it was Mr Willoughby? I mean, it's simply one word against another, isn't it?'
'Mr Rose is not unsupported in his assumption, madam. Two members of his staff have asserted, independently of him and of one another, that the body is that of Mr Willoughby. Moreover, Mr Romilly is prepared to agree that the mistake was his,' said Kirkby.
The verdict of the jury was unanimous and was never in doubt. As he left the court, Romilly found himself touched on the shoulder by Kirkby.
'I'm sorry, sir,' said the latter, 'but I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to come with me. There will be a formal charge, and you have the right to ask for your lawyer to be present.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
ZAPATOS-GOODY TWO-SHOES
And he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him!'
Henry IV,Part 2.
(1)
At the police station Romilly was formally charged and two days later he was brought before a magistrate who, in view of the nature of the charge, was sitting alone, and the examination was held in private, reporters and the general public being excluded.
The charge was read, and then Kirkby said:
'If it please Your Worship, the police ask that the accused may be remanded for two weeks pending further enquiries.'
'Remanded in custody, you mean?'
'In view of the nature of the charge, yes, Your Worship.'
'What reason have you for asking that the prisoner be remanded?'
'As I stated, Your Worship, the police wish to make further enquiries into this case. We hope to have further evidence available at the next hearing.'
The magistrate, who was a woman, glanced across at Romilly's solicitor, but he made no sign.
'Very well,' she said, 'but first I should wish to hear the evidence upon which the defendant has been brought here.'
The evidence, given in the usual police-court parrot-utterance, did not seem particularly impressive.
'You accuse him of murder, and of giving a false identification of the dead person, do you, Detective-Inspector?'
'Yes, Your Worship, of deliberately making a misleading statement on the second matter, with intent to defeat the ends of justice.'
'And he was the person who discovered the body?'
'Under what we believe to be suspicious circumstances, Your Worship. There seems to be good reason to suppose that the accused wanted the victim out of the way, and that is the line along which we should like to acquire more evidence. Further to that, the accused has stated, in front of witnesses, that he believes his own life to be in danger. If he is right...'
'Why should he suppose a thing like that?'
'There is a great deal of money involved, Your Worship, and there again we need to probe into the facts.'
The magistrate turned to Romilly.
'Is there anything you wish to say?' she asked. The solicitor was the one to answer her.
'Not at this stage, Your Worship, thank you. We have no objection to a remand, and we realise that, on a charge of this nature, there can be no question of bail. We reserve our defence, both now and at the next hearing.'
'Very well. I order that the accused be remanded in custody for fourteen days, after which time he will again appear before the court to make an answer to the charge of wilful murder. The court will then decide whether the police have made out a case sufficiently strong to warrant a committal to the Assizes.'
(2)
The next thing I've got to do,' said Kirkby to Dame Beatrice, 'is to rustle up something a lot stronger and more telling than anything I've got at present. We're batting on a very sticky wicket.'
'I am not batting at all,' said Dame Beatrice.
'I can't count on your help? I was hoping you'd turn Miss Rosamund inside out for me.'
'I will do that, if you like, but I must warn you that I think you're got the wrong murderer.'
'Oh, come now, Dame Beatrice! If Sir Ferdinand is right, and Romilly Lestrange is an imposter, surely the first thing he'd want to do is to eliminate the one person who could discredit him.'
'But Willoughby was not that one person. You yourself have already mentioned my son.'
'Ah, yes, I know. But my contention is that Romilly hasn't a clue that your son was acquainted with the real Romilly, whereas the latter would almost certainly have been acquainted with his brother's children. It seems to me that the answer lies in Kenya.'
'Lies dead in Kenya,' amended Dame Beatrice. 'The real Mr Romilly, I mean.'
'Murdered, you think, ma'am?'
'Not necessarily by his partner, whom I take this Mr Romilly to have been. Either he died a natural death, or he may well have been murdered by the adherents of Mau-Mau, in which case you are unlikely to be able to get at all the facts.'
'Anyway, a likely review of the situation might be as follows: the real Mr Romilly, subsidised by old Mr Felix Napoleon, his natural father, sets up in Kenya with a partner, this man who calls himself Romilly Lestrange. At some point-we don't know when and, for present purposes, it doesn't much matter-the real Mr Romilly either dies or is killed. In the early 1960's Kenya becomes independent.'
'In the December of 1963.'
'Oh, was it? Well, perhaps at that time, or maybe earlier, or maybe later, the surviving partner, this Mr Romilly, comes back to England. Well, men in a foreign country, perhaps living mostly among natives, with the nearest English neighbours miles away, no doubt get to know a fair amount about one another and about one another's business. They also get letters, we'll say, from home, perhaps regularly, perhaps once in a while. One of the letters, I don't mind betting, was to tell Romilly of his brother's death. Another, written, no doubt, by Mr Willoughby in his capacity of secretary to Mr Felix Napoleon, was to tell him that the old gentlemen, too, had died.'
'You think, then, that this pseudo-Romilly was still in Kenya in 1966? It is quite likely, in spite of the troubles there, I suppose.'
'Whether he was still there or not, ma'am, I bet he knew his partner had expectations under the old gentlemen's Will.'
'Yes, and very considerable expectations, if certain eventualities came to pass.'
'Those being?'
'That if the heiress presumptive died at any time after her twenty-fifth birthday, he, in his impersonation of Mr Romilly, inherited the fortune.'
'Didn't you also tell me that if she could be proved incapable of managing her own affairs, Mr Romilly would also benefit?'
'Yes, that, I think, is why he called me in in my professional capacity. He knew that I should find her completely capable, in spite of his own insincere insinuations to the contrary. He also...' she cackled mirthlessly... 'realised that I am incapable of murdering the girl before she reaches her twenty-fifth birthday. If she died now, you see, I myself would become the legatee. Mr Romilly-we must call him that, until we know his real name-does not want to administer the inheritance on Rosamund's behalf. He wants the money to be his entirely. For that reason, I believe that Rosamund is in no danger from him until after the 29th of May, so, although I believe he will make an attempt on her life after she passes the age of twenty-five, I do not believe he murdered Mr Willoughby. There is no evidence that he had ever seen him.'
'Oh, but, look at it this way, ma'am. He's lived and worked with the real Mr Romilly over a number of years. How many years we don't know, but if, as Sir F
erdinand suggested to you, they went out to Kenya soon after Mr Romilly left the University, it must have been a fairly considerable number. He'd surely have known of Mr Romilly's relatives, including his two nephews, Mr Hubert and Mr Willoughby. Likely enough, he'd been shown their photographs. That means he would have been in a position to recognise them, whereas they wouldn't know him from Adam.'
'All this is nothing but surmise, you know-that he would have seen their photographs, I mean.'
'Granted, ma'am, but it's a probable and workable hypothesis. Besides, he claims he had seen photographs. Well, now, his partner dies. All he has to do is to keep that fact dark, so far as relatives in England are concerned-it isn't as though there were any women to poke and pry...'
'Except Rosamund, of course.'
'Too young to be interested in an uncle I don't suppose she'd ever met. I think we can leave her out of my argument. Well, the partner comes home when he gets a letter addressed to the dead man reporting the death of old Mr Felix Napoleon, assumes Mr Romilly's identity, buries himself down at Galliard Hall, adopts the heiress and knows that all will be well so long as he can choke off Mr Hubert and Mr Willoughby, the only relatives who might possibly realise that he wasn't their uncle. He stages this house-party, so as to have plenty of suspects on the spot, entices Mr Willoughby down, murders him and makes himself, as he thinks, secure.'
'Yes,' said Dame Beatrice doubtfully, 'but we have no evidence to show that Mr Hubert and Mr Willoughby had ever met their uncle or seen a photograph of him. Men do not usually send photographs of themselves or their grown-up nephews to other men. We may assume, too, that both nephews were very young when Mr Romilly emigrated. They may not even have been born, in fact. Their father was younger than Romilly. I do not see why they should have been in any better position to expose the imposter than Rosamund was, and she, it is quite clear, has no idea that her guardian has no right whatever to claim kinship with her. He made a very bad slip when he told me he was married to her.'
'There's this fact that neither Mr Hubert nor Mr Willoughby was invited to join the house-party, ma'am.'
'Yes, but thereby hangs a tale. It seems that they were invited, but the letters did not reach them.'
'Sabotage, eh? Miss Rosamund, do you think? Well, then, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to allow me to question her.'
'I myself would like to hear what she has to say. She is staying with Laura's family in the Highlands. When could you make it convenient to accompany me there?'
'I'd much sooner talk to her down here, ma'am.'
(3)
Laura's father worked for the North of Scotland HydroElectric Board, and the family occupied a pleasant, fair-sized house at Moy, about a mile beyond the point where the River Spean emerges from Loch Laggan. Laura, who had spent only a couple of days in Scotland, and had returned with Gavin and the nurse, sent word that she would be visiting the family with the object of returning to the Stone House with Rosamund, whose stay in the Highlands had never been intended to be other than temporary. She and Dame Beatrice were met on their arrival with the news that Rosamund had vanished.
'It was as though she was getting an awful fright when I told her you were coming,' explained Laura's mother, 'and this morning, when I went up to wake her, as she wasna down to her breakfast, I found her gone, and her wee kist with her.'
'Oh, if she's taken her suitcase, she must have intended to hop it for good,' said Laura. 'I suppose you've sent the bloodhounds after her?'
'Och, she'll not have gone far,' said Mrs Menzies. 'Your father and the lads are away to Spean Bridge. That's where she'll likely make for. She could get a lift from there to Fort William, or maybe even as far as Glasgow, although I dinna care to think of a young lassie stopping a stranger, with so many droch weans about the place.'
'Yes, and from Glasgow,' said Laura, 'she'd go to Carlisle, I don't mind betting. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about her safety. She's well able to take care of herself, if you ask me.'
'An interesting side-light on her abilities,' said Dame Beatrice, 'and an opinion with which I find myself in tentative but increasing agreement.'
'Well, I vote we make for Carlisle and wait for her to turn up. She'd hardly know of anywhere to go except the hotel there, where she lived with old Felix Napoleon,' said Laura. 'She told me quite a bit about it while we were together. Oh, I'll bet she's in Carlisle all right.'
'Your idea has much to recommend it. We can safely leave the search at this end to your father and his helpers,' said Dame Beatrice.
'Aye, you can that,' agreed Mrs Menzies. 'But I dinna ken why the thought of you, Dame Beatrice, should have given the caileag a fright.'
'No, I can't either,' said Laura. 'But she isn't such a "caileag," you know. She's nearly twenty-five. I say, mother, you won't call the police in, will you, if she doesn't turn up? I mean...'
'Is it the police!' exclaimed Mrs Menzies, with as much horror as if she had been born in the west of Ireland. 'Indeed I will not, then! My Cruachan! The police! Whatever next!'
'Oh, that's all right, then. Well, we'd better stay the night here, and tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'
There was no very direct route to Carlisle. George, who wanted to avoid Glasgow, drove to Fort William (Laura and Dame Beatrice looking out for Rosamund the while), and then made for Stirling by way of Lochearnhead and Callander. From Stirling the road went through Airdrie and Lanark to Beattock, and thence to Lockerbie and Carlisle. The journey was one of more than two hundred miles, but they made it, with a stop for lunch at Stirling, in very good time.
Enquiry at the reception desk failed to produce any information. If Rosamund had booked in at the hotel, she had not done so under the name of Lestrange. Laura, who had undertaken the enquiries, pursued them.
'This girl lived here for some years-anyway, up to 1966-with an old gentleman named Felix Lestrange. She is his granddaughter.'
'Oh, I wouldn't know,' said the receptionist. 'I wasn't here then.'
'Can you find rooms for us for one night? Two singles?'
As she signed the register, Laura looked down the list of names and addresses, but there was none which indicated that Rosamund had made an entry in the book. She was given keys and the suitcases were taken upstairs. She saw Dame Beatrice settled, and then went out to the hotel parking yard to find George. He was seated in the car.
'Had something to eat, George?'
'Yes, thank you, madam.'
'We're staying the night. Can you fix yourself up, as usual?'
'Certainly, madam. I have bespoke a room on the off-chance already, as I guessed you wouldn't be proceeding any further today. May I ask if there's any news of the young lady, madam?'
'No, George, I'm afraid there isn't. I would have betted any money that she'd come to this hotel, but, so far, there isn't a sign of her.'
'What time will you be requiring the car in the morning, madam?'
'I'm not sure. I haven't asked. Better be ready to start off at ten, anyway. I don't know what the plans are, but I should imagine we'll go straight home from here, unless we hear something about Miss Lestrange.'
Dame Beatrice was in the hotel lounge when Laura returned.
'I have spoken to the hotel manager,' she said. 'He, of course, knows Rosamund quite well. It is certain that she is not here.'
'What do we do next?'
'I have engaged our rooms for the next two nights. It is possible, if Rosamund is reduced to asking for lifts on the road, that she is still bound for Carlisle, but has not yet arrived. Your dear mother has the name of this hotel, and will send me a telegram if Rosamund returns to Moy.'
'You think of everything,' said Laura, tongue in cheek. She was not surprised, however, when, at lunch-time on the following day, Rosamund walked into the dining-room under the solicitous escort of the head waiter and was given a corner table with her back to the rest of the room.
'Looks a bit the worse for wear,' commented Laura, regar
ding the drooping shoulders and the general air of limpness which Rosamund displayed. 'She'll have a nasty shock when she finds us here, I shouldn't wonder.'
They administered this shock some half-an-hour later. Outside the dining-room swing doors was a small ante-room which, in its turn, opened into the cocktail bar. In this ante-room Dame Beatrice took up her position, bidding Laura to leave her there alone. Laura sought the lounge, found a seat by the fire and a magazine, lit a cigarette and waited upon events.
She had discarded her second magazine and was looking through the pile for a third, when the two came in.
'Well, here we are,' said Dame Beatrice, smiling like a replete python. 'I have asked for coffee, and now we can have a cosy little chat.'
'Hullo, Rosamund,' said Laura, without enthusiasm. 'Where did you spring from? We left you in Scotland with my people. How come that you're here?'
'Oh, I was homesick, and I have to see my lawyers,' said the girl. She was looking strained and tired. 'Please don't pester me. I'm ill.'
'Rosamund walked from Moy to Spean Bridge, and from there obtained a lift to Inverness,' said Dame Beatrice. 'From Inverness she got a train to Edinburgh, but there her money ran out, so she has alternately walked and thumbed lifts from there.'
'I threw away my suitcase,' said Rosamund. 'I got a lift as far as Peebles, and then I began to walk, and the suitcase was just simply too heavy. At last I got to Galashiels and a lorry-driver took me the rest of the way.'
'Well, I should say you'd been pretty lucky,' said Laura.
'My feet are blistered, and I've lost my luggage, and I haven't any money,' said Rosamund. 'I don't know whether you call that being pretty lucky.'
'All's well that ends well,' said Laura, 'but I do think you might have let my people know you intended to sling your hook. They've been somewhat worried about you.'
'Yes, I know. I'm sorry about that. Your mother has been very kind to me. But I was afraid she wouldn't let me go, if I told her I wanted to leave.'
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