‘My dear Miss Tradescant!’ The Master’s face had turned vermilion. ‘There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Sir Seymour died of anything but natural causes. Henley, please, would you be kind enough to confirm?’
Dr Henley said, ‘No suspicious features.’
‘I am terribly glad. You see, I have been in the grip of some extremely complex emotions, that may account for my lack of restraint. Somebody told me once that I had a first-rate mind,’ Bettina went on with a self-deprecating smile. ‘This may sound like an idle compliment, but it isn’t. No second-rate mind could have experienced such an intensity of feeling so … purely.’ She adjusted her hat. ‘I expect this means, Dr Henley, that your signature on the death certificate is imminent?’
‘I wouldn’t say imminent, no.’
‘But it is only a matter of time, yes? Oh, how I wish I’d been there beside Seymour as he lay breathing his last, holding his hand, stroking his forehead, saying the rosary with him …’
The Master frowned. ‘I was not aware that Sir Seymour was a Catholic.’
‘He wasn’t. He nearly became one about fifty years ago, only he hated the idea of turning into a priest-ridden puppet.’ Bettina sighed deeply. ‘I am in an odd state. I try not to give in to sorrow, you see. It is such an appalling waste of energy. You can’t get sorrow into shape—you can’t build on it, can you, Master?’
‘No.’
‘Gazing back into the past is equally fatal. I despise women who wallow in their woes! It’s women like that who bring womanhood into disrepute. But don’t let me detain you any longer with blasts from my feeble trumpet! You should have stopped me! I am sure you are a busy man, Master.’ She rose. ‘May I see Seymour’s body? Would you lead me to it? I want to check something. I will do it very discreetly. I promise I am not going to make a scene. I won’t disgrace myself either. I am not in the least squeamish.’
Her large brocade bag stood on the floor beside her feet and she was aware of the Master’s eyes fixing on the orange sleeve that stuck out of it. ‘Oh, this is one of the frock-coats your boys wear,’ she explained amiably.
‘It’s a habit.’
‘Good or bad? Sorry! That was a terrible thing to say. I mean, terrible in the circumstances. The truth is, I simply had to have one. I find inspiration for my dresses in the most unlikely quarters. My ideas come when I least expect them. Are you by any chance familiar with my latest creation? No? It is a dress that is incredibly soft and limp; it looks almost moist. It brings to mind—rather poignantly—the tongue of a dead kitten. Well! That’s precisely what gave me the idea.’
The Master tugged at his beard. ‘Where did you find the habit?’
‘I didn’t find it. A habit isn’t a dog or an umbrella or a one-pound coin. For heaven’s sake, Master, don’t look so disapproving! It creates such tension. There were quite a few of them downstairs, hanging on a rack in the small room, off the hall.’ Bettina made a vague gesture towards the door. ‘Gathering dust. I was certain you wouldn’t mind. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really imagine it would be missed.’
Penelope Tradescant stood looking down at the various objects that had been laid on the desk in her late husband’s room.
‘Snuff-box, monogrammed handkerchief, pocket watch … Yes … This is all, I believe. Oh, the ring’s not here. Where’s the ring, do you know? Seymour’s diamond ring. I don’t think it’s on his finger.’ She cast a quick glance towards the shrouded form that lay on the bed.
‘The ring?’ The Master’s hand went up to his beard. ‘I think Sir Seymour had some problem with his ring. For some reason he—um—he couldn’t wear it. He thought his fingers had become swollen. He said something to that effect last night. The ring should be inside the little porcelain dish over there—on the bedside table.’
‘It is not in the dish.’
‘How very curious. I am sure it was there last night. Goodness. You are perfectly right. It’s not here.’
‘It’s an extremely valuable ring.’ Penelope looked from the Master to the doctor, then towards the steward in the orange habit standing beside the door.
21
Lord of the Rings
Two days later Antonia was sitting at the breakfast table, leafing through The Times. When she reached the Obituaries page, she felt her heart jump inside her.
‘Sir Seymour has died,’ she said aloud. ‘Now, what do you make of that?’
Then she remembered Hugh was not there to answer her. Hugh had gone to the Military Club the night before to meet an old uncle of his.
She went right down to the very bottom of the obituary and read the last paragraph. It was the cause of death that interested her, naturally, but there was nothing about it. ‘Suddenly’ was perhaps the only suggestive word, though it meant nothing, really. It was true that people lived longer nowadays, but quite a few gentlemen of Sir Seymour’s age—he would have turned seventy in November—did die ‘suddenly’. Why assume his death was due to anything but natural causes?
Antonia leafed back through the paper, to page four, where she glanced through the Home News once more. No, nothing about murder of a baronet or accidental death of a baronet or suspicious death of a baronet. Of course not—she’d have noticed it the first time. It was not the kind of thing she was likely to miss. The obituarist did not say where it was Sir Seymour had died either. Chances were that it was at Mayholme Manor, but she couldn’t be sure.
What the obituarist did mention, and rather harped on, was Sir Seymour’s fabulous financial rating and the fact that the Tradescant family got a mention in the Domesday Book and had once occupied a royal palace. Sir Seymour was survived by his second wife and a son from his first marriage, who now would be the nineteenth baronet.
The capsule-swap at Claridge’s. That was where it had all started. The would-be poisoner, Lady Tradescant had claimed, was the housekeeper, Mrs Mowbray. All Lady Tradescant had done was put the antibiotic capsule back into the box. Well, there was no proof either way. Shame that the housekeeper had died and couldn’t give her side of the story—she had committed suicide earlier that same day. How convenient that the killer was dead and couldn’t be interrogated …
Was that a fair observation? Antonia poured herself another cup of coffee. Sir Seymour had died two days after his attempted poisoning and she seemed to assume that Penelope Tradescant was in fact guilty. Well, when a rich old husband died mysteriously, one always started by suspecting the beautiful and much younger wife. Or could Sir Seymour’s sister be involved after all? Or his son? Or the Master?
The mass of ideas moved like nebulae inside Antonia’s head. She bit into her buttered toast only to discover it was stone-cold. She put it down on her plate and wiped her fingers with the napkin. She was no longer hungry, actually. She thought of the things she needed to do today. Send an email with some queries concerning the proofs to her copy editor rather urgently, as soon as possible. Collect her granddaughter from her primary school at three. Could she really afford to indulge her passion for sleuthery?
There wasn’t much to go upon. Events had been related to her at second hand, which was not particularly helpful. No, at third hand. Jesty told Hugh, who told her. Lady Tradescant told Jesty, who told Hugh, who told her. How annoying. She was not really in a position to form any valid opinion at all. Hugh had the advantage of having met some of the participants in the drama. Captain Jesty, Bettina Tradescant, the Master. Hugh hadn’t met Lady Tradescant, who of course was the principal protagonist, but he had observed the guilty expression on her face.
Hugh had also mentioned one of the Mayholme Manor ‘brothers’. A very old man in a wheelchair, a Dr Fairchild, who had been involved in the Nuremberg trials in 1946 in some capacity or other, same as Sir Seymour’s father, in fact—but, at this point at least, Antonia couldn’t see how Dr Fairchild could possibly matter. The only suspicious thing about Dr Fairchild, she reasoned, was the fact that his room was two or three doors away from Sir Seymour’s … Oh, and he’d ins
isted on being moved to the third floor …
It was only in detective stories the seemingly irrelevant bit-part player turned out to have done it. Antonia considered that a mere trick, not really fair on the reader. She found herself thinking of Lady Westholme in An Appointment with Death—a character who flitted in and out of the story in the most tangential manner imaginable, only to be revealed at the end—logically and entertainingly enough, it had to be said—as Mrs Boynton’s nemesis. Antonia had determined never to do that sort of thing in any of her detective stories. She believed in introducing the killer no later than page four or five.
She poured herself more coffee. Did Penelope Tradescant tell the truth? Had Sir Seymour died of natural causes? Where had Penelope been at the time of her husband’s death?
Once more she wondered if Hugh had read the obituary and, if he had, what he had to say about it.
‘Golly. I wonder if he was made away with after all.’ Major Payne lowered The Times, a thoughtful frown on his face.
‘The buttered eggs are bloody marvellous. I couldn’t recommend them more,’ General Quinton said over his cup of tea.
‘Sir Seymour Tradescant’s died, Uncle Louis. Did you know him? You used to live in his part of the world at one time, didn’t you?’
They were sitting at a round seventeenth-century refectory table in the small green damask dining room at the Military Club, having breakfast.
‘Seymour Tradescant? He was at least ten years younger than me, I think. If it’s the same chap.’ General Quinton tapped his lips with the starched napkin. ‘I knew Frances, his first wife. Not terribly well. Splendid old girl. Seymour bullied her mercilessly, they said, but she never complained. Didn’t know him at all well. Met him once or twice. Never really felt the inclination. Had one of those mercurial temperaments, or so everybody said.’
‘Not a nice chap?’
‘Not a nice chap. Enjoyed goading his twin sister into difficulty or disaster quite on purpose. Or so rumour had it. Was horrible to his son Nicholas. Don’t know if he mellowed with age. A strong element of eccentricity entered into some of his attitudes, apparently. Isn’t that an eminently diplomatic way of saying someone’s gone mad? Nicholas will be … what is the word I want?’
‘Pleased?’
‘The nineteenth baronet. That’s correct, isn’t it? The nineteenth, yes. Met Nicholas on a couple of occasions. A thoroughly decent chap. A bit weak-willed, perhaps. Pining for an heir.’
‘Sir Seymour married a much younger woman.’
‘Ah yes. The second Lady T. At one time everyone was talking about it. Lovely to look at, engaging air of innocence. Always beautifully dressed. After his money of course.’ General Quinton paused. ‘More than a match for him, they said, so he got what he deserved. She didn’t bump him off, by any chance, did she?’
‘The paper doesn’t say. Are you familiar with Mayholme Manor, Uncle Louis?’
‘I thought Seymour lived at Tradescant Hall.’
Before Major Payne could explain, a delicate little cough was heard. ‘Sorry to butt in like this, but I couldn’t help overhearing. As it happens, I was at Mayholme Manor the other night. Did you say Sir Seymour was dead?’ It was a thin, mild-looking elderly man with rimless glasses and a prim mouth, who had spoken from across the table. He sported a rather splendid waistcoat, Payne noticed.
‘That’s correct. It’s in today’s paper.’
‘I was visiting a friend and was persuaded to stay for dinner. Dear me. What a coincidence. I don’t like such coincidences at all. I wonder if Sir Seymour died that same night—or the morning after? He must have done—if his death is in today’s Times. He kept looking down at his fingers, you see—kept flexing them.’ The man demonstrated. ‘He asked me whether I thought his fingers were a bit swollen.’
Payne gazed at him with interest. ‘Really? Did you know Sir Seymour well?’ Small world, he thought—talk of serendipitous discoveries!
‘We’d never met before. I just happened to be seated next to him. The Master performed the introductions. The Master, you see, always behaves with the greatest good cheer and is graceful and charming and unflaggingly delightful with everyone and everything. The Master’s got style. Have you met the Master?’
Payne said he had met the Master.
‘Mayholme Manor is the most civilized place in the world,’ the man in the splendid waistcoat went on. ‘I was told that there is always a back-up course should the soufflé fall. Bridge after dinner, or else the delights of the salle de ciné.’
‘You aren’t by any chance considering joining the brotherhood?’
‘I am still married and not likely to become a widower for some time,’ the man in the splendid waistcoat said a touch wistfully. ‘They are a most clubbable crowd there. Some of the best families in the land, you know. And the stewards are terribly attentive. That evening, if I remember correctly, we covered an incredible number of topics—a proper debating society! The ballistics of fast bowling, the ancient Haitian monarchy with its Dukes of Marmelada and Limonada, Antonia Darcy’s fastidious felons and the Law of Averages. Incidentally, my name is Martindale.’
‘Antonia Darcy is my wife … Are all of her felons fastidious?’
‘Antonia Darcy is your wife? How perfectly marvellous. Somebody said she operated within a remarkably narrow if exclusive social range—her imagination never moved outside Belgrave Square.’
‘I don’t think she would like that. It isn’t strictly true.’
‘I can’t think of any other place that’s quite like Mayholme Manor. A corner, that is forever England.’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘Stewards and style!’ General Quinton harrumphed. ‘Hotbeds of unspeakable passions and unquenchable animosities, places like that.’
‘How interesting, that you should have sat next to Sir Seymour at dinner, Martindale,’ Payne said. ‘I imagine you are one of the last people to have talked to him before he died.’
‘I probably was.’
‘Was there anything wrong with Sir Seymour’s fingers?’
‘Not as far as I could see. But he produced a ring and demonstrated how it wouldn’t fit his finger. His little finger. He seemed to have quite an idée fixe about it. Only the day before the ring had been on his finger and there had been nothing wrong with it. He described himself as “helplessly perplexed”. It was an extremely precious ring, he said. A present to his father from the Duchess of Windsor back in ’46, I think he said.’
Payne sat up. That very old chap, whose room was only two doors away from Sir Seymour’s, had a portrait of the Duchess of Windsor on his wall …
‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’ General Quinton said portentously. ‘Stop me if I’ve said this before, but Mrs Simpson was the greatest mischief-maker the world had ever known. Since Eve.’
‘He might have had arthritis,’ Martindale said. ‘Or some odd form of allergy?’
‘I myself suffer from gouty spasms,’ General Quinton said. ‘Sometimes my feet get so swollen, I can’t put any shoes on and have to wear my slippers. To think I used to wear nothing but boots once!’
Major Payne remained silent. The ring had been in the porcelain dish on Sir Seymour’s bedside table. He had seen it with his own eyes. He wished now he had taken a closer look at it. The next moment another picture rose before his eyes. The day of his visit—Valkyrian skies—he in his black bowler and rolled-up brolly—Sir Seymour’s sister in her ridiculous golfing suit. Bettina had been in a state of some agitation—one of her hands in a glove, the other bare—she had been pulling her ring up and down her finger as they talked—up and down—
Her ring appeared to be—well, loose.
He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now he wondered.
Bettina Tradescant said she hadn’t been allowed to go anywhere near her brother’s room, but that was a lie. She had been inside Sir Seymour’s room.
Two rings, Payne thought—one loose, the other, well
, tight. One made for a thicker finger, the other for a thinner, smaller, one.
22
Cruel Intentions
Later in the day he told Antonia about it.
‘I believe she swapped the rings. They must have looked identical, otherwise Sir Seymour would have known at once. When it didn’t fit, he assumed there was something wrong with his finger, not with the ring. The rather obvious deduction is that Bettina Tradescant had a ring which was identical to the one her brother wore. Her ring was a replica and not worth much while the other one was worth a fortune.’
‘Did you say the ring was a present from the Duchess of Windsor to Sir Seymour’s father? We can assume that Bettina knew all about it.’
‘She is exactly the kind of woman who would idolize the Duchess of Windsor. Actually, she even looks like the Duchess of Windsor. Thin, angular, ugly as sin, one can’t imagine her without her maquillage, she probably sleeps in it, and, again like the Duchess, she is a fashion fetishist. Yes. I believe she simply had to have the ring. Or perhaps there was a practical and purely financial reason for the theft? Maybe she is in debt, needs the money badly and intends to sell it.’
‘Did she go to Mayholme Manor that day with the sole object of pinching it then?’
‘I believe that was a spur-of-the-moment decision. She said she had come to check if her brother was dead. She was convinced that her brother had died—she had had the chill and so on.’ Payne lit his pipe. ‘She goes to his room. Sir Seymour is not there. She spots the ring in the dish on the bedside table. She takes it and leaves her own ring in its place. She then makes a dash for it … That would explain why she was running as though all the devils from hell were after her and why she nearly smashed my face with the door. She was in a highly agitated state. Well, one possible explanation is that she was afraid of being rumbled.’
The Curious Incident at Claridge's Page 12
