A Fête Worse Than Death (28 page)

‘Unfortunately, sir, it can't be the end of it as far as we're concerned,' said Ashley politely. ‘The suicide theory may be correct but we have to look into the possibility of murder.'

‘You mean someone was waiting in the barn for both of us? It sounds damned unlikely to me.'

‘Nevertheless it's something we have to investigate. I shall need to take your fingerprints, Mr Lawrence –'

‘Oh no, you don't!'

‘Which you can either let me have before you go home or at the police station. It's perfectly painless and will help us to eliminate you from our enquiries.'

‘You'd better take mine as well,' put in Haldean quickly, with an eye on Lawrence's rising colour. ‘The idea is, sir, to see from the prints who was in the barn who had a reason to be there. If there's a set of prints belonging to a Johnny we haven't got a record of, then we can look for him. We'll need Dr Wilcott's as well and anyone else who we know was around.'

‘Well, if that's all, I guess you can,' said Lawrence, mollified. ‘As you wish, Superintendent. And then, I take it, I can make arrangements to go home.'

‘Back to Hesperus, sir?'

‘Back to Canada. If this is quiet English country life you can keep it. I prefer the Rockies.'

Ashley reached the car and paused, thinking over his words. ‘I must ask you to make no such arrangements at present, sir.'

‘Are you arresting me, Superintendent? No? Then I believe I can go exactly where I want to.'

‘Have a heart, sir,' put in Haldean. ‘Think of Miss Vayle. She's going to be really cut up over this. You can't leave Uncle Philip and Aunt Alice to carry the can.'

‘As far as Miss Vayle's concerned, young man, now that Colonel Whitfield is out of the picture, I have very few worries. I cannot credit that she will spend very long in mourning for him. I know she'll be upset, but she'll get over it. As for myself, you can't honestly expect me to indulge in any crocodile tears for a man I disliked and distrusted. I came over solely to give or withhold my consent as her trustee, and now the situation has been resolved I intend to sail for Canada as soon as I can book a passage.' He glared at Ashley as if expecting a rejoinder, but Ashley merely shrugged, opened the car door, and stood to one side with a smile.

‘In that case, sir, we'd better work quickly. I'm sure you'd like to know the truth of the matter before you go home. After you, Mr Lawrence.'

Haldean tossed aside the newspaper on to the grassy bank and wriggled his back into the knobbly trunk of the weeping willow. This secluded spot by the river was one of his favourite retreats at Hesperus, but it was failing to bring him any comfort. The water gurgling smoothly over the shallow stones showed brown flecked with silver, a blackbird sang as if it was putting the river to music and a blue clump of brooklime flowered like a piece of captured sky, but neither the sight nor the sound had any power to soothe. The newspaper was dire, too. He had intended to put all thought of murder from his mind but Boscombe, Morton and, most insistently of all, Whitfield kept intruding on his thoughts.

Three men, all shot with the same gun. Powder burns on Whitfield, powder burns on Morton. No powder burns on Boscombe but he had been killed from a few yards away. That would be a damn good shot with a small pistol. He was willing to bet it was the same gun that Whitfield had been clutching. But who had put the gun in Whitfield's hand?

He threw a stone moodily into the river. The sound of feet scrambling down the bank made him look round.

It was Isabelle. ‘So there you are, Jack. I've been looking everywhere for you. A fat lot of use you've been. Don't you know what's happening?'

‘I know exactly what's happening. Maggie Vayle's having a fit. That's why I'm out here. When I got back Sergeant Sykes had taken root in the hall and there were significant and worrying noises coming from the morning room.'

‘I'm really sorry Greg's in London,' said Isabelle, sitting down beside him. ‘He wouldn't have sloped off.'

‘You wouldn't have given him any choice. I couldn't face it, Belle. Maggie was all right. After all, she had you, Aunt Alice and Mr Lawrence all clucking over her. I've already seen one woman in tears today because of Whitfield's untimely demise. I couldn't stick another.' He threw another stone in the water. ‘What's she said about it all?'

‘She says she killed him.'

‘
What?
' Haldean sat bolt upright.

‘Oh, don't get so excited. She says he committed suicide because she was beastly enough not to believe him when he explained what he'd said at the ball. According to her, she'd broken Whitfield's heart by being stubborn and mistrustful and it's all her fault.'

‘Crikey.'

‘Yes. You should have seen that policeman's eyes start bulging when she was carrying on. He couldn't write it down fast enough.'

Haldean sighed. ‘I wish to God she hadn't turned up at the barn. What the dickens was she doing there in the first place?'

‘She says she cycled over with the idea of listening to hear what Mr Lawrence said to the Colonel. I think that if Whitfield gave a good account of himself she was going to declare everything on again. It wasn't a bad idea, really. At least if he told Mr Lawrence a pack of lies they might be different lies from those he'd told her. Apparently she went out about ten o'clock. She didn't say where she was going, of course.'

‘Ten o'clock, eh? That'd give her plenty of time to get to Gallows Hill by eleven.'

‘You'd think so, wouldn't you? But she had a puncture and that held her up so it wasn't until twenty past or so that she arrived. She's a bit unclear about the next bit but I gather it involved going into the barn and finding him there.'

‘Oh, bloody
hell
! Sorry, Belle. I suppose she left her fingerprints all over the place. D'you happen to know if she touched anything?'

Isabelle shook her head. ‘She says not. Sergeant Sykes asked her that.'

‘Well, that's something, at any rate. What did she do next?'

‘She backed out, got on her bike and was picked up along the way by the Sergeant. They arrived back together and at first she wouldn't say anything at all. Then the policeman told us what had happened and she started saying she'd killed the Colonel and all hell broke loose. Mr Lawrence got back, you dived in and dived out again and the rest you know. She's just staring out of the window now. I don't think she knew we were really there. I preferred it when she was crying.'

‘Dear God, did you?'

‘I think so,' said Isabelle. ‘It'd be easier to cope with in a way. If Mr Lawrence had any sense he'd have given the thumbs-up to their engagement, then let nature take its course. All Colonel Whitfield had going for him was his looks and she'd have got over them soon enough. She'd probably have managed it before the wedding. She'd have certainly managed it afterwards.'

‘This is all very cynical, Belle.'

‘I feel cynical. I don't believe he ever gave tuppence for her and I could shake her for taking him so seriously. I know he did wonderful things in the war, but he was a perfect stick of a man with no conversation who drank too much. Now he's dead I suppose she'll live in the shadow of his memory and be thoroughly and absolutely dreary about the whole thing for the rest of her life.'

‘She could meet someone else,' suggested Haldean. ‘After all, she's quite nice-looking when she tries and will be very well off. Money answereth all things, as it says in Ecclesiastes somewhere.'

‘Now who's being cynical?' countered Isabelle.

Haldean smiled wickedly. ‘Ah, but when I do it, it's a mixture of realism and Holy Writ. Have a cigarette, Belle, and entertain me. I'm feeling old and stale.'

‘Your only problem,' said Isabelle, accepting a cigarette and puffing blue smoke at a cloud of dancing gnats, ‘is that you're grumpy because you haven't solved the murder.'

‘Which one?' asked Haldean, settling back against the willow. ‘I've got three to choose from. I don't believe for a minute that Whitfield shot himself. That was cold-blooded murder if you like, and Maggie Vayle's trip to the barn hasn't half complicated things.'

Isabelle stared at him. ‘You mean she might be accused of killing him? Really killing him, I mean?' Haldean nodded. ‘I see.' Isabelle put her arms round her knees and looked at the river. ‘That's awkward, Jack. That's very awkward indeed.'

‘How come you're not leaping to her defence?'

Isabelle didn't answer right away. ‘To be honest, it's not the first time I've thought about her in that way,' she said eventually.

Haldean raised an eyebrow in her direction. ‘So she strikes you like that, does she?'

‘I certainly wouldn't want to be the one who stopped her from getting what she wanted,' said Isabelle seriously. ‘After you told us she'd been blackmailed, I wondered if she would be capable of murdering Boscombe. She bottles everything up so much that it's a bit frightening at times. Maybe she'd be different if she was happy. I've only known her since the Vayles died and she was heartbroken by that. Then this thing with Colonel Whitfield started. I wouldn't be surprised if deep down inside she always knew he never really loved her, so she had to love him twice as much and a bit frantically to make up for it. But she did love him, you know. That proves she's innocent, doesn't it?'

‘Unless she finally caught on that he didn't care.'

Isabelle shuddered. ‘Don't, Jack.' She shuddered again. ‘Please don't,' she begged. ‘That's horribly believable.'

There were a few moments' silence. ‘I did think,' said Isabelle eventually, ‘that the Colonel was the man you were after. When he tried to ride you down I thought he'd tried to kill you. Now he's dead, I suppose he was innocent all along. Was that an accident, Jack?'

‘I didn't think so at the time, I must say. He nearly saw me off and came as near as a toucher to getting Ashley as well.'

‘So why did he do it?'

Haldean rolled over on his stomach and frowned at the grass. ‘Fear. He was frightened, Belle. The Chief Constable told him we were looking for a blackmailer and I put the wind up him that night at Mrs Verrity's. He started laying eggs after that. From what I can gather he hit the bottle pretty badly.'

‘From which we infer, Sherlock, that he was being blackmailed, yes?'

‘I wish we could infer that. I'm stuck. But I'm certain Whitfield was murdered.'

‘What about Mr Lawrence? I don't like the idea but he was there just as much as Marguerite and he loathed Whitfield. Or what about Mrs Verrity?'

Haldean grinned. ‘You've got a bee in your bonnet about her.'

‘Buzzing frantically,' said Isabelle, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘She was nuts about the Colonel and she might have known he intended to patch things with up with Maggie. I bet she couldn't bear to see him go to someone else. She lives next door to the barn. Couldn't she have nipped in and shot Colonel Whitfield?'

‘Hardly. The curtain went up at eleven o'clock and at eleven o'clock she was drinking coffee in her morning room. And I was on the spot immediately afterwards, you know. I'm sure I would have seen her or anyone else if they'd tried to get away.'

‘Could she have hidden in the barn?'

‘She
could,
if she'd disguised herself as an old sheaf-binder or a whipple-tree or something. Besides that, I know unrequited love takes people in funny ways, but it'd hardly make her start knocking seven bells out of Mr Lawrence, no matter how stuck on Colonel Whitfield she was. Not only that, she simply couldn't have beaten Lawrence and myself back to the house. We took the most direct route to Thackenhurst just as soon as he was fit to walk.'

‘It's Whitfield then,' said Isabelle in a dissatisfied voice. ‘It has to be. After all, it might have been suicide. He shot the other two and tried to kill Mr Lawrence before shooting himself.'

‘Not only couldn't he have shot Boscombe, it'd be a sight more to the point if he'd shot Lawrence.' He raised his head as a car crunched up the drive and over the bridge. ‘I wonder who that is?'

Isabelle ran to the top of the bank, Haldean joining her at a more leisurely pace. ‘We're not expecting any visitors . . . I say, Jack, isn't that Superintendent Ashley getting out of the car?'

‘He doesn't usually arrive in state like this,' said Haldean in a dried-up voice. ‘He knows something.'

Isabelle caught at his arm. ‘Come on, Jack. It might not be as bad you think.'

Ashley was standing in the hall with Mr Lawrence when they arrived. He was flanked by Constable Hawley and Sergeant Sykes and he looked, Haldean thought, unusually grim. From the end of the hall appeared Aunt Alice, Uncle Philip and Mr Lawrence, drawn by the instinct that Something was undoubtedly Up. Marguerite was nowhere to be seen.

‘Did you want me, Mr Ashley?' asked Sir Philip.

‘No, sir. I need to speak to Mr Lawrence here. Mr Lawrence, you stated this morning that you were unaware that Colonel Whitfield's body was in the barn. Is that correct?'

‘Why yes, Superintendent,' said Lawrence with a puzzled frown. ‘I told you so earlier. Until Major Haldean pointed it out to me I didn't know anything about it.'

‘And at no time did you touch either the body or the gun?'

‘That's right. I wanted to cover him up but the Major said we had to leave everything as it was. I wish now I'd insisted on it as it might have saved poor Marguerite a dreadful shock.'

‘In that case . . .' Ashley took a deep breath. ‘Hugh Douglas Lawrence, I arrest you for the murder of Richard Theodore Whitfield. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be used in evidence at your trial.'