“I know you are, old man,” said Quince, “but I really don’t see how I can help you.”
“Your father was the last person I’ve been able to trace who saw him after he went to America.”
“But my father’s been dead for years, Tibbett.”
“I know that. But did he never mention—?”
Ambrose shook his head. “Old Charlton thought I might have heard something from my father,” he said, “but Dad was the proverbial soul of discretion.”
Henry said, “That trip that your father took to the United States in 1949—would you have any record of it here in the office?”
“What trip?”
“Didn’t you know? Your father saw young Simon Warwick at the age of five, and wrote Lord Charlton a letter about him.”
“Oh, that.” Ambrose waved a hand. “Yes, I saw that letter. But what more is there to find out? All that part of the research has been done. My father visited the Finches in McLean, Virginia, and saw the boy. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yes,” said Henry. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Frankly,” said Ambrose, “I’m more interested in the fact that Sally Benson is coming to England. I shall be fascinated to meet that young woman.”
“You will? Why?”
“Didn’t I tell you? She led Rosalie and me right up the garden path when we were in the States.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well.” Ambrose leaned back and lit a cigarette. “We had an appointment to meet her at the Bensons’ house at the university in Charlottesville. We drove all the way down there from Washington—a couple of hours in filthy weather—to be greeted by a maid and an empty house, and a note telling us that she’d been called away because her son had been taken ill at ski camp, and wouldn’t we call and make another date? It was only by the purest chance that we discovered that her son wasn’t ill at all, and she hadn’t been called away. The woman was simply avoiding us.”
“How very strange,” said Henry, “Have you any idea why?”
“I’ve every idea. We were investigating her husband’s claim, and she knew bloody well it was fraudulent. She was afraid she might make a slip and give the game away.”
Henry said, “And you never made another appointment?”
“We didn’t bother. By the next day, we had the Finch situation sewn up and in the bag.” Ambrose paused. “Of course, we didn’t know then that we had a bogus Finch on our hands.”
Still worried, Henry made his way back to his Chelsea flat. Emmy, making preliminary preparations for supper, was bustling about in the kitchen. She listened to Henry’s account of his day with polite but preoccupied interest, and only when the subject of Sally Benson was broached did she show a lively reaction.
She said, “Well, what are you going to do, Henry?”
“Do? Nothing, of course.”
“But that poor girl…coming all this way to a strange country with her husband in prison for murder—”
Henry said, “Do try to be accurate. He’s on remand on a charge of murder. That’s quite different.”
“No, it isn’t. At least, I know how I’d feel if it were you,” said Emmy, with spirit. “And then you say that he’s refusing to see her. What’s she going to do, for heaven’s sake?”
Henry closed his eyes. “I have no idea,” he said. “That’s her problem.”
“When did you say she was coming?”
“Oh, I forget. Here’s the bit of her letter he gave me, if you’re so interested. But I’m warning you, Emmy—it would be extremely improper for me to get involved in any way with her visit. Just remember that. Okay?”
Instead of answering, Emmy switched on the liquidizer to make soup. She glanced at the scrap of blue paper. Good strong handwriting. What are attorneys for? I do so agree, but Benson’s not going to do anything about it and nor is his lawyer. The Pan Am flight from Washington at 11:15 next Tuesday morning. Navy-blue suit with a big yellow flower. Don’t worry, Sally Benson. Someone will be there to meet you.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HENRY’S SECOND VISIT to the Crumbles’ Down Street house was considerably more successful than the first. It was a quarter past four in the afternoon, and the butler informed Henry that her ladyship was taking tea in the drawing room, and would be pleased if Chief Superintendent Tibbett would join her. As the butler helped him off with his raincoat, Henry took a quick look around the hall and decided that it must have been Lady Diana who had planned the decor of this house. Where Sir Percy’s office reflected precisely his taste for brash opulence, here everything was muted and aristocratically understated. A very pretty house. A very feminine house.
The butler opened the drawing-room door (antique brass handle and panels picked out in gold leaf), announced Henry, and stood back to usher him in. The room was as elegant and fragile as the rest of the house, except for the deep, comfortable, and tough-looking Knoll sofa facing the fire. In front of the sofa, on a low table, tea had been laid out on a lace-fringed tablecloth—silver teapot and milk jug, wafer-thin watercress sandwiches, petits fours, eggshell china cups, and minuscule lace napkins—and on the sofa, heads together in conversation, sat Lady Diana Crumble and Rosalie Quince.
“Chief Inspector Tibbett! Oh, dear, I’ve got it wrong, haven’t I?”
“Chief Superintendent,” said Rosalie.
“Well, whatever it is, come in and sit down. So very nice to meet you—Rosalie has told me such a lot… Rotten weather, isn’t it…hope you didn’t get too wet… Milk or lemon?”
Lady Diana was very tall and very thin, with a face like a greyhound’s: not beautiful, but undoubtedly impressive. Henry, perched uncomfortably on a spindle-legged gilt chair, made suitable noises, greeted Rosalie Quince, accepted tea with milk and a watercress sandwich, and wondered how to begin. He need not have worried. Diana Crumble made it easy for him.
“So you have caught your murderer, Mr. Tibbett. I do congratulate you. Percy says you have done splendidly.”
“Thank you,” said Henry. “I’m not—”
“So,” Diana went on, “it can’t be about that that you’ve come to see. I’ve been having a little bet with Rosalie. She thinks you’ve come to ask me to give evidence, or some such gruesome thing. But I say you’re still worrying about Simon Warwick. Am I right?”
Henry grinned. “You’ve won your bet, Lady Diana. I’m not here on an official visit at all. I just want to try to get to the bottom of this Simon Warwick business—to satisfy my own curiosity.”
Seriously, Diana Crumble said, “We’d all be grateful if you could clear it up, Mr. Tibbett. If it should turn out that Harold Benson really is Simon Warwick—”
“Diana would be delighted,” Rosalie put in. “And Percy and Denton and all the rest. But surely it’s most unlikely. Ambrose and I visited his home in Leesburg, and—”
“Now, Rosalie, let the chief superintendent get a word in edgewise,” said Diana, with gentle reproof. “More tea, Mr. Tibbett? Do try one of these little pink things—they’re really delicious. I’m so lucky to have found a Viennese cook. Now—tell us all about Simon Warwick.”
Henry said, “I was hoping you might be able to tell me, Lady Diana.”
“Tell you—what? I only saw Simon twice—once when he was only a few days old, and then a week or so later when I took him down to Marstone, poor little chap, after his parents were killed. Percy told you about that, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Mary Cheverton was an old friend of mine, you see. We were at school together. I didn’t know Dominic so well, of course, but I saw quite a lot of them after they got married.” Henry remembered the wedding photograph, and a younger version of the greyhound face in the background, topped by a uniform cap of some sort. “But of course,” Diana went on, “that’s not the sort of thing you’re interested in.”
“I’m interested in anything that could possibly be relevant,” Henry said. “I don’t suppose you met the adoptive parents whe
n you went to Marstone?”
“No, no. They weren’t expected until later in the day. I just left Simon with Mr. Humberton in his office.”
“You see,” Henry said, “I know so little about Simon Warwick. I know that he was adopted by a couple called Finch who brought him up in McLean, Virginia. I know that he ran away from home when he was fifteen—maybe to England, because later on his adoptive mother came over here and consulted Alfred Humberton. She may well have been looking for Simon. I know that as a small boy he was remarkably like his father but had his mother’s eyes. And that’s—”
Diana Crumble said, “But he didn’t.”
Henry stopped in midsentence. “He didn’t?”
“No. His eyes were blue.”
“I know they were. I’ve seen the passport he left England on as a baby. Didn’t Mary Warwick have blue eyes, then?”
Diana leaned forward and pushed a recalcitrant log into place with a poker. She said, “It was funny. Often people didn’t spot it at once. They were just aware that there was something…something odd about Mary, but they couldn’t put their finger on it until it was pointed out. Then, of course, it became glaringly obvious.”
“What did?”
“Mary’s eyes. The left one was blue, but the right one was a pale hazely green. She was always very self-conscious about it, and I remember so well, when I went to see her and the baby—I must have been her first visitor, apart from Dominic—I remember her saying how glad she was that little Simon had two good blue eyes. The double coloring is often inherited, you see.”
There was a silence. Then Henry said, “Robert Quince—your father-in-law, Mrs. Quince—he knew both Mary and Dominic Warwick, didn’t he?”
“Of course,” said Diana.
“So when he wrote to Alexander Warwick when Simon was five, after seeing the child in the United States, and specifically mentioned that he had his mother’s eyes—he could only have meant that one was blue and the other green.”
“But I saw the baby—”
Rosalie said, “All babies are born with blue eyes, aren’t they?”
“That’s an old wives’ tale,” Henry said. “but in this case it’s perfectly possible that the difference in pigmentation didn’t develop until later on. That passport was issued when the child was only two weeks old, after all.”
Diana said, “Then Harold Benson isn’t Simon Warwick. Nobody we’ve set eyes on is Simon Warwick, because nobody has two eyes of different colors.” She looked at Rosalie. “Ambrose had better put in another advertisement, Rosalie darling. Will all young gentlemen born Simon Warwick, adopted by Captain and Mrs. Finch, and having one blue and one green eye, kindly apply to—”
Rosalie said, “So that’s what the old man meant when he said he would recognize his nephew. He might have told Ambrose.”
“He certainly might,” Henry agreed. “If he had, Ronald Goodman would probably be alive today.”
“Wait a moment,” said Rosalie suddenly. “I think he did try to tell Ambrose.”
“He did?”
“Yes. When he was dying. I suppose he wanted to keep it to himself so long as he thought he would be identifying Simon personally. It’s the sort of dramatic effect that he would have enjoyed. He must have thought that he would have at least a few hours before he died to let Ambrose in on the secret. But the heart attack was so sudden, and happened so late at night, that he had no time. The butler told us what he said…just three words… ‘Ambrose, Simon, I…’”
“Of course,” Henry said, “the butler naturally thought Lord Charlton was saying ‘I,’ referring to himself. Actually, he must have been trying to leave Ambrose the message about Simon’s eyes.” He sighed. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. It scotches a theory I was playing around with, and it makes it a virtual certainty that Simon Warwick is dead. Harold Benson undoubtedly knows a lot more about the real Simon Warwick than he’s letting on—including the color of his eyes. I daresay his wife does, too, and that’s why he doesn’t want her over here.”
“He doesn’t?” Diana Crumble sounded surprised. “Why not?”
“He fed me a cock-and-bull story about being frightened for her safety. That’s nonsense, of course. The fact of the matter is that she knows too much, and he’s afraid she’ll give something away.”
“Which is also why she avoided us in Charlottesville,” said Rosalie.
“Obviously.” Henry stood up. “Thank you for a delicious tea, Lady Diana. And for a fascinating but highly inconvenient piece of information.”
Later that evening, in the Chelsea flat, Henry and Emmy Tibbett sat over steaming mugs of milky coffee, and talked about Simon Warwick.
“I was so sure,” Henry said, “So sure that he was alive.”
“And now you think he’s not?”
“What I think is,” Henry said, “that I’ve got a murderer in custody all right, but for the wrong murder.”
“You mean Harold Benson?”
“Of course. I don’t believe he killed Goodman, for all the circumstantial evidence. I do believe he killed Simon Finch—a number of years ago.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “It’s a nice problem in ethics, isn’t it? Do I let him be justly punished, but for the wrong crime? Or do I blow up my own case against him and let him go free?”
“Isn’t there any other way?” Emmy said.
“Only one. Only one really moral way. Get him acquitted on the Goodman charge, and dig up enough evidence, going back twenty years or so and in another country, to convict him of killing Finch.”
Emmy said, “What makes you so sure he didn’t kill Goodman?”
“Only a hunch. If he knew the real Simon Finch, then he must have known Goodman was a phony. Still…I suppose he might have killed him. I just don’t know, Emmy. Let’s go to bed.”
The following evening, Henry went by appointment to pay a call on Cecily Smeed. Over the telephone, she had been cool, businesslike, and apparently unsurprised that Henry wished to talk to her. As soon as he arrived at the Kensington apartment, however, she opened the proceedings by saying, “I really can’t imagine what you can have to say to me, Chief Superintendent. After all, you have arrested Harold Benson, whom I have never even met. I can’t think why you waited so long. It was perfectly obvious from the beginning that he was guilty.”
“Was it, Miss Smeed? Where did you get that idea from?”
“Oh, Ambrose and Percy Crumble and the Hamstones. They’ve all been talking about it, naturally.”
Henry said, “They could only have got their information from Mr. Quince, and he isn’t in possession of all the facts. However, it seems that for once uninformed rumor may turn out to be right.”
“Well, in that case—”
“Miss Smeed,” Henry said, “I didn’t come here to talk about Harold Benson or the murder. I came to ask you to tell me your precise connection with Denton Westbury. For a start, I think you can tell me his real name.”
Cecily was completely taken aback. She went very pale, and did not answer for a moment. Then she said, “I don’t know what you mean. I have come across the young man quite often in the course of business, that’s all.”
“I don’t think it is all, Miss Smeed. When he came to London seven years ago, apparently knowing nobody, you took him up in a big way. You introduced him to Lord Charlton and other important people, and I strongly suspect that you set him up in business as an interior decorator. Why?”
Cecily said, “That has nothing to do with the case.”
“That’s for me to decide,” Henry said. And then, “Is he your son?”
“Certainly not!” The words came out with spontaneous vehemence. Then, very quietly, Cecily said, “He is my nephew. His real name is Alexander Smeed.”
“Your brother’s son?”
A long pause. Then Cecily said, “No, Mr. Tibbett. Denton is the son of my late sister. She was unmarried. You realize that I am telling you this in strict confidence, and I beg you not to
let it go any further.”
Henry said, “I’ll repay your confidence with one of my own, Miss Smeed. Did you hear that somebody tried to push Benson under a bus and left a threatening note in his pocket? It happened shortly before he was arrested.”
Almost inaudibly, Cecily said, “Ambrose mentioned something about it. Benson made the whole thing up, didn’t he, and wrote the note himself?”
“I turned the note over to our handwriting expert, Miss Smeed,” Henry said, “together with specimens of writing from various other people concerned. He wasn’t able to make a positive identification—nothing that would stand up in court. However, he did tell me two things privately. One was that Benson had certainly not written the note himself, and the other was that in his opinion the note was probably written by Denton Westbury.”
Cecily shook her head despairingly. “The little fool,” she said. “The little fool.”
“I don’t take the so-called murder attempt very seriously,” Henry said. “Nobody meant to kill Benson, because it would have done no good as far as restoring the old will was concerned. Benson is married and has a son, who would have inherited after his father’s death, provided Benson was proved to have been Simon Warwick. No, I think somebody was trying to frighten Benson into withdrawing his claim. In that, they have succeeded.”
Cecily looked up sharply. “They have?”
“Benson is withdrawing his claim. But that makes very little difference, because I now have definite proof that he is not Simon Warwick.” There was a pause. Cecily sat quite still, never taking her eyes off Henry. He went on, “You knew Dominic Warwick, of course, Miss Smeed. Did you ever meet his wife?”
“No, never. What a curious question, Mr. Tibbett. Why do you ask?”
“Never mind. I just wanted to be sure. Now, you say that Mr. Westbury’s real name is Alexander Smeed. Have you any idea who his father is—or was?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop beating about the bush, Mr. Tibbett. You must have guessed long ago. It was Lord Charlton, of course.”
This time it was Henry who found himself momentarily without a reply. Then he said, “No, Miss Smeed, I hadn’t guessed. Did he know?”
Who Is Simon Warwick? Page 15
