A Darker God (23 page)

“I have no recollection of the scratch you mention, Miss Templeton. It went undetected, I’m afraid, but taken alongside the other horrific injuries to her body, I may be forgiven, I think, for overlooking it.”

His dry voice silenced the two women. Thetis made a small noise in her throat and at last could find no words.

“I think you’re going to have to enlarge on that remark, Inspector,” said Letty. “Injuries? What injuries?”

“The ones she received at about ten o’clock last night as a result of falling through the open window of her second-floor drawing room over the balcony and onto the paved area below. Not a huge drop and some might have survived with no more than a twisted ankle, but Lady Merriman was not strong and she fell awkwardly. Her skull was cracked and her spine, we believe, broken. From initial investigation, I deduce that she was thrown out headfirst. But we’ll know for certain shortly. A pathologist is even now working on it.”

“Pathologist?…” Letty managed to breathe. “You’re saying she’s dead? And—
‘thrown
out’? Murdered, you mean? That’s quite an assumption! How sure can you be of that? Shall I tell you what
I’d
guess, Inspector? Maud jumped out of the window herself. Didn’t that occur to you? So recently and tragically widowed—it’s likely that the balance of her mind was disturbed, isn’t it? With Andrew gone, she had little else to live for, you know. They didn’t get on, everyone knows that, but—you know—when the oak tree is felled, the ivy that’s lived on it withers and dies, too.”

Montacute listened patiently, understanding that she was still absorbing and trying to make sense of the shattering news. “As you say. That would, of course, have been our first thought but we were summoned to her side moments before she died. We do not need to rely on guesswork for an account of the events.”

He turned sad eyes on Thetis. “I’m saying that death was not instantaneous. The lady struggled gallantly to the last. She lived long enough to communicate with me. She was conscious and able to summon the strength to tell me she had been pushed through the window. She told me the name of the one who had pushed her. She was holding in her hand a clue to her assailant’s identity.”

His voice took on an even colder formality: “Miss Thetis Templeton, I have to tell you that I am placing you under
arrest for the murder of your cousin Lady Maud Merriman. And further, there may eventually, at the completion of my enquiries, be some question of your involvement in the killing of Sir Andrew Merriman, your lover. For discretion’s sake, I will accompany you from here to the police station and there lay out all the charges necessary and explain the legalities of the situation in which you find yourself. You will be held there under arrest until the situation is clarified. You may wish to summon a lawyer.”

Letty sat in shocked silence, waiting for the explosion.

Chapter 20

T
here was sure to be an explosion but Letty couldn’t guess which of these two incandescent characters would flare first. There they sat on opposite sides of the table, mirror images, locking dark glares, their hands held in front of them like opponents in a card game. In their onstage battles, Letty had thought them well matched: the arrogant, unassailable queen and the chorus leader, her subject, swept by moral outrage to a state of bravado which lay beyond fear. And if it came to a showdown here in this room in real life, could Letty be sure where her loyalties lay?

Of one duty of care she was in no doubt. She got up and deftly removed the half-drunk cups of coffee from their elbows. If handy weapons were to be pressed into use by this volatile pair, she knew she didn’t want Mrs. Rose’s tasteful décor to be the victim of a sudden assault. They paid no attention to her stealthy movements. They simply sat on, deep in thought, showing the intense but sharply circumscribed concentration of arm wrestlers.

It was Thetis who broke the stalemate.

She leaned forward and reached across the table, covering the inspector’s clenched hands lightly with her own. “What a
perfectly foul job you have to do, Percy! You look so tired and miserable … Don’t worry—I’ll come quietly. We’ve all caused you quite enough trouble … And poor old Maud! Not my favourite person in the world, but she didn’t deserve such an end.” Her dark eyes gleamed with tears, holding his, hiding nothing. Her voice was silken and sorrowful. The inspector leaned closer to hear her murmurs. “I didn’t kill her, Percy. And I’m sure I can explain everything if you’ll listen to me. Do you think Letty could come along with us? That is, if she’s willing to, of course? It may be the last thing she would want to do. But she is a witness of a sort—she did hear my confession last night when I loomed up out of the dark, shattering her peace. No—not a confession to murder—but there are other things I’m guilty of, I’m afraid. Things which may have a bearing on the case.”

The inspector detached his gaze and found his voice. “Certainly. It would be most convenient. We’d be grateful. The central police station is just across the square … very handy.” He turned to Letty. “What about it, Miss Talbot?”

To her surprise he made no attempt to hustle them off, sitting on quietly, still hand-clasped and bemused.

“Of course. I’d be glad to be of help. Look—give me a moment to speak to Mrs. Rose. I shall need to leave a message for William Gunning, and I’ll tell her to expect us both back for supper, Thetis,” she finished with a show of confidence she couldn’t feel.

“Has Miss Templeton brought an overnight bag with her, I wonder?” the inspector asked Letty, directing the question over Thetis’s head. “She has? Good. Would you pack it for her and bring it down?”

Letty was suddenly angered by the way the policeman had distanced from himself, had rendered impersonal, in the space of seconds, a woman who had just shown him a surprising understanding. Thetis was now merely a prisoner and only to be
addressed for the business of extracting information, apparently. Her personal welfare was to be the concern of others.

“Why don’t we ask her permission, Percy,” Letty said sweetly and turned to her. “Thetis, my dear, would you mind awfully if I were to go up to our room and see to your things? He doesn’t say so but I think our friend here suspects you capable of scrambling through the attic skylight and showing a clean pair of heels over the rooftops if you go up yourself.”

Thetis gave her a shaky smile and murmured her agreement. As Letty reached the door, she added: “Oh, Letty … while you’re at it …” She bit her lip in confusion, then went on: “I must ask Percy to forgive me if I mention female unmentionables but I can hardly ask him to leave the room. He will just have to close his ears.” Her voice took on its more usual light tone as she spoke: “Could you check that I packed spare knickers? I have a sketchy recollection of stuffing in there last night a handful of green shantung ones with lace edging. Ones I bought in Paris. In the circs, they may not be quite suitable for what the inspector has in mind for me for the next few days … I don’t think his plans involve spiriting me away to that little hotel by the beach at Glyfada … though you never know your luck!”

Montacute tugged his hands hastily out of her grasp, and if that severe face had been capable of showing such emotion, it would have blushed with embarrassment, Letty thought.

“Got it!” she replied. “Know exactly what you mean. Luckily some of my campaign gear’s come with me. Trench-digging undies … elastic tops and bottoms … mosquito-and snake-proof … just the thing for a police station. Won’t be a tick!”

Once in her room, she tugged Thetis’s bag from under her bed and placed it, opened, on the luggage stand. She bustled about collecting toiletries and added from her own collection a cake of Yardley’s lavender soap, a fresh flannel, and a bottle of cologne. She folded the travelling suit and put it on the bed
ready to be placed on top, then fished out from under a pillow Thetis’s wispy white nightgown. Thoughtfully, she put this into the laundry basket and substituted a pair of her own striped flannelette pyjamas. The nights would be cold in a Greek jail, she supposed. But—knickers? What had all that been about? So unnecessary to mention it—except of course as a means of annoying and embarrassing the inspector. Well, that had certainly worked! And serve him right, too!

Letty rummaged about in the depths of the bag and came up with two surprises. The first made her frown. A blue leather
coffret
with gold lettering discreetly on the underside. The name and address of an expensive clinic in Switzerland. Letty had a very similar box from their London branch. With a stab of irritation she wondered how many girls were wandering the world with just such a souvenir of Andrew. She put it back in the bag exactly where she’d found it. And she began to wonder about Thetis.

The second discovery made her gasp. Three pairs of green silk knickers just as described. But it wasn’t the quality and the Paris label that impressed her. It was the object they were wrapped tightly around—a black and purposeful small revolver. Letty inspected it with careful hands, recalling all her brother’s training on handling weapons. A Webley Mark IV. British Forces issue. Its snub four-inch barrel made it perfect for close-range work. Some army men had not been so impressed, even calling it the “Wobbly,” scornful of the way it tended to spray its deadly bullets around when aimed at a more distant target. Colonel Lawrence had confessed that he had accidentally, whilst dashing about the Arabian desert, shot his own camel with his “Wobbly.” But in a confined space, with your enemy at close quarters, it was unbeatable, they said. Trench raiders swore by it. It even had a device at the side by which you could attach a short bayonet in case you preferred a silent approach.

Struck by a sickening thought, Letty swallowed, breathed deeply, and upended the bag onto the bed. She inspected the contents, finding nothing sinister, and then ran her fingers gingerly across the bottom and along the seams as she’d seen customs officers do. To her relief she dredged up no bloodstained blade, but she did find a Harrogate Toffee tin full of ammunition.

Letty used the stirrup-type barrel catch to break open the gun. Not loaded. But it had been used. And recently cleaned, she thought, wiping streaks of gun oil off her fingers. Where on earth had Thetis come by such a gun? Had she brought it with her from England? Or had she acquired it in Athens? Either way—not difficult. Europe was awash still with ex-war-issue pistols if you knew where to look. Letty smiled. Andrew had offered
her
a palm-sized Beretta for self-defence when they’d been digging in Egypt. He was never quite at ease abroad—his soldier’s instincts, she’d assumed, urged him to ensure that the women in his life were adequately protected from whatever nightmares he pictured for them. Her father and brother had demonstrated the same concern; military men were all too aware of the terrors that lurked not far below the veneer of civilisation. Letty had to allow, but refused to contemplate, the horrors they must have witnessed.

For a moment she wondered if Andrew had ever offered a handgun to his wife when she accompanied him to foreign parts and, remembering Maud’s vaunted inability to master anything more mechanical than a tin-opener, thought probably not. She’d have pretended to faint at the sight of a pistol.

Letty held the Webley for a moment, thinking. Even unloaded, the gun in her hand could kill. It was as good as a death warrant. Letty understood the older girl’s concern that she check her underwear. It hadn’t been mentioned merely to annoy and reprimand the policeman. A murder suspect taken along to the clink with such serious armament hidden away in
her luggage was risking her life. Letty had no doubt the meticulous inspector would order the usual searches and the gun would be found. And Thetis had seen this. It could make all the difference between a charge of killing on the spur of the moment while the balance of the mind was disturbed and a charge of premeditated murder. Letty could imagine the mocking disbelief in the voice of the prosecuting counsel as he sought to establish intent: “It would appear, Miss Templeton, that you came to a civilised and friendly capital armed and prepared for some eventuality, would it not? The question we all ask ourselves is: What eventuality exactly did you have in mind?”

The gun in Letty’s hand marked the difference between a life sentence in jail and a death on the scaffold. Did they use the noose or the guillotine out here? Or perhaps the firing squad? Letty had no idea.

She didn’t conduct a debate with herself. There was no question of what she should do. She simply wiped the revolver and the toffee tin clean of previous prints with a towel and was about to slide them into her own underwear drawer when she hesitated.

She was comfortable with guns, had grown up in a country house surrounded by them and respecting them. Although she’d never killed a man, she had learned two years before in Burgundy that she was capable of it. Violence and unexpected death were creeping up on her like jungle beasts and suddenly the little black gun seemed very desirable. Thetis would have no use for it in jail. And Gunning need never know she had it. She didn’t have to think very deeply about Andrew’s reaction to the seduction she was feeling. With his imagined encouragement ringing in her ears—“Do it, Letty!”—she broke open the gun again and reached for the toffee tin.