A Fête Worse Than Death (32 page)

Ashley coughed. ‘I'd like to ask you about Jeremy Boscombe.'

‘Boscombe? What about him?'

‘Apparently he knew who your daughter was and had been blackmailing her from January onwards. He also told her that you were alive.'

Tyburn's lips tightened. ‘Little swine. I'd had no idea he knew who Marguerite was. When she told us what she'd been through, it was damned hard to restrain myself. When I think of her being forced to sell her jewellery and actually take Isabelle Rivers' necklace . . . I wish I could've got my hands on him, I can tell you.'

Ashley looked at him thoughtfully. ‘The question is, Mr Tyburn, did you get your hands on him?'

‘What? Murder him, you mean? No, I didn't. I can't pretend I'm sorry he's dead but I didn't kill him. I wasn't aware he was at the fête. Obviously enough, I wouldn't have gone if I'd known he was going to be there. I didn't know he'd seen me. The first I heard about it was last Monday night when poor Marguerite told us what had been happening. I'm not sure how he knew who she was, but I think I might be indirectly to blame. I used to keep a photograph of her and the Vayles propped up against my things in France. We used to talk about our homes and families of course, and it turned out that Captain Hodge knew the Vayles slightly and had actually met Marguerite. She was only a child then, of course, so he couldn't tell me much about her, but the fact I had a daughter I'd never seen aroused quite a bit of comment. There wasn't any secret about it, you see, not then. Boscombe was interested in it, as I recall. He might have recognized her name if he came across her later on. Andrew Vayle was fairly well known and there were various pieces in the newspapers about him when he died. That's the only thing I can think of. Hodge, poor devil, was killed at Fricourt.'

‘I can guess what you're going to answer to this question, Mr Tyburn, but I have to ask it anyway,' said Ashley. ‘Were Boscombe and Morton blackmailing you?'

Tyburn's eyes opened wide. ‘Blackmailing
me
? Of course not. Boscombe had his knife into Marguerite but I don't suppose he had any idea I was alive until he saw me last Saturday. Why, I've been in Canada since the end of 1916. I'd never heard of Morton and I hadn't seen Boscombe since the Augier Ridge.'

‘You hadn't come across Boscombe on one of your trips to this country?'

‘Absolutely not. Let me explain. I knew my position was delicate, to say the least. I felt safe enough coming to Sussex because it was years since I'd lived here. As a youngster I'd been away at school and then up at Cambridge. I don't resemble my father particularly and I couldn't see why anyone would connect the young Martin Tyburn with the middle-aged Hugh Lawrence. And, of course, no one did. But I was wary of anyone who'd known me in the army. I had a list of four people I had to avoid. All the rest had either only known me in passing or were dead. But these four I knew I mustn't see. They were Stafford, who you managed to dig up, Jesson from Norfolk, Petrie from London and Boscombe. They had known me well and although it
might
be all right, I wasn't going to take any risks. I reckoned that if I stayed out of London I'd be safe enough. I never thought Boscombe, a city creature if ever there was one, would come anywhere near Breedenbrook. No, Boscombe never approached me.'

‘And yet his death must have been convenient for you, sir.'

Tyburn chewed his lip. ‘Convenient? Yes, it was convenient but do you really think that a man in my position could afford to risk a murder? Quite honestly, if Boscombe had tried to blackmail me, I'd have probably paid up to keep him quiet. I know you're not meant to admit that sort of thing but what choice would I have had? One word from him in this country would not only have ruined me but made things horribly difficult for Marguerite and downright impossible for Lawrence. Once I'd got back to Canada, it would have been a different matter. There I was known as Stockland and Hugh would've been able to prove he'd been in Canada throughout most of the war. They could've investigated Lawrence until the cows came home without finding anything to his discredit. And, while we're on the subject, I may as well tell you I had nothing to do with that other chap's death. Morton, I mean, the man who was killed at the Talbot Arms. I've told you the truth, Mr Ashley Someone used me as a scapegoat in France and someone's using me as a scapegoat again.'

Tyburn looked at Haldean. ‘Your uncle told me you've got a flair for working out the truth. Work out the truth of this business and it'll be one of the best things you've ever done.'

Haldean avoided his eyes. Work out the truth? He'd done that and the reward was bitter indeed.

Sitting in the garden of the Lamb and Flag, Isabelle picked up her glass and swirled it round, seeing how the liquid danced a reflection on the underneath of the sycamore leaves spreading above her head. She sipped her gin-and-ginger thoughtfully, looking at her cousin. He seemed drawn and unhappy. Tired, as well, which wasn't surprising after driving to London and back twice in two days.

It was Monday morning. Ernest Stafford, the richer by five pounds, had been taken back to Battersea the previous day. Her father, after refusing to believe Lawrence was Tyburn until he heard it from his own lips, had first sulked, then badgered Jack to prove that Tyburn was an innocent man. Marguerite wouldn't consider any other possibility and was only stopped from having a blazing row with Haldean by the presence of Lady Rivers. Isabelle found herself allied with her mother as the keeper of an uneasy peace. She felt distinctly sorry for Jack.

She had gladly fallen in with his plea for company in the car that morning. ‘I need some time off,' he explained. ‘I've always loved Hesperus but the atmosphere is pretty poisonous at the moment . . .' He let the sentence trail off expressively. ‘I wish Greg was here. I'd like to chew things over with him.' He'd not wanted to go back to Hesperus but instead had taken her for lunch in the pub. Sitting by the noisy stream which gave Breedenbrook its name, she noticed the lines around his mouth and the shadows under his eyes. ‘It's been rough, hasn't it?' she asked gently.

He didn't pretend not to understand but gave her a quick, grateful glance. ‘It's been putrid. Ashley's full of praise for my having completed the case, and can't understand why I've got any reservations at all. To him, my producing Stafford was like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, but there wasn't anything magic about it. I was thinking about Boscombe and it suddenly struck me what he'd said at the fête.
Give a man enough rope
.'

Isabelle looked puzzled. ‘
And he'll hang himself
,' she completed. ‘I don't get it, Jack. How did that lead you to Mr Lawrence? Tyburn, I mean.'

He half-smiled. ‘Don't you see? Where did they use to hang people, Belle? Think about London. Oxford Street, you know, where Marble Arch is now.'

‘Tyburn,' said Isabelle slowly. ‘Jack!
Tyburn
.'

Haldean nodded. ‘That's what Boscombe was going on about. He must have seen Mr Tyburn at the fête and been over the moon. Blackmail with a capital B. No wonder he was so full of himself. He was so up in the air about it he couldn't help boasting and it made it all the more fun for him that neither Greg nor I had a clue what he was talking about. When the penny finally did drop, it made so much sense. If Mr Lawrence really was Tyburn it explained why he had been so protective of Marguerite. We all sensed his feelings ran deeper than those of a trustee to his ward. We guessed the wrong motive, that's all.' He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Once I had the idea I had to prove it. It didn't take me long to work out that if there was a war pensioner who'd served with Tyburn before the Augier Ridge tunnels, the War Office would have a note of his current name and address. I hadn't got the mechanics of it, but guessed there was some sort of substitution going on. Hence Ernest Stafford's visit to Breedenbrook and Mr Tyburn's number was well and truly up.'

‘Wasn't it a bit chancy? I mean, Stafford might not have recognized Mr Lawrence – Tyburn, I mean – anyway.'

‘I'd talked to Stafford so much about the war that he must have thought I had an
idée fixe
on the subject. I didn't put the notion into his head, just made sure he was thinking along the right lines. And that's magic. The quickness of the ‘and deceives the h'eye. Brilliant, wasn't it?' he added bitterly.

Isabelle shook her head. ‘Don't be like that, Jack. It was really clever of you to work out what Boscombe was going on about.'

He half-smiled once more. ‘You think so? That puts you in a minority consisting of you and Ashley. He thinks I'm wonderful. He should talk to Marguerite and Uncle Philip. Aunt Alice has been a bit frozen, too. My God!'

‘Jack,' said Isabelle cautiously, aware she was treading on delicate ground. ‘You said something about reservations. Have you really got any?'

‘Oh Lord, yes. Him, mainly. Tyburn, I mean. He was so utterly convincing about his innocence that it was damned hard not to believe him. I stood in that cell, watching him being so sincere and so ruddy brave that I could feel myself really wanting him to be innocent. It worked, you know? I did wonder afterwards if he'd been too convincing. I could feel myself being swayed and I didn't like it, Belle. Do you know what I mean? Someone, someone powerful, tells you what to feel and you
do
feel it. Later on, when you've come out from under the ether and the effect's worn off you begin to think that you might have been led up the garden path. He finished off with a direct appeal to me, Belle, to the man who'd just landed him in it. He knew I'd brought Stafford along. So why ask me?'

‘Because he wanted you to help?'

‘By doing
what
?' Haldean stopped just short of banging the table. ‘Look, I like him. It'd be hard not to like him but he has a real ruthless streak. That's there, too. By his own showing he's a tough and successful copper miner. Anyone, I suppose, can have a lucky strike in somewhere as God-forsaken as the Rockies, but you don't develop it and turn it into a wealthy business without making some hard choices. I sensed how powerful a personality he has that day I helped him out of the barn, the day Whitfield was killed. You know you said you wouldn't like to stand between Marguerite and her getting what she wanted? Well, she inherited that trait from her father and no mistake. The evidence is there too, Belle. Wonderful, scientific, fingerprint evidence. Get round that. Just because his wife died under tragic circumstances doesn't mean he's an innocent man.'

‘I can see that, but . . .'

‘But what? He's dippy about Marguerite. Admittedly, not for the reasons we thought, but he's crackers about the girl. Boscombe, Morton and most of all Whitfield all threatened her well-being and he's not the sort of man to take that lying down. Not only that, but Boscombe recognized him at the fête. What's to say the recognition wasn't mutual? Just think what that'd mean to Tyburn. I know he said he'd be all right once he was back in Canada, but he wouldn't, not really. The best he could look forward to was a lifetime of blackmail, the worst, and this would have seemed much more likely, was exposure, arrest and the rope. Not only that, but the whole scandal would have been dug up again and Marguerite's future would have been utterly blighted. My God, no. Tyburn fits, Belle, he fits. It's a bit like doing a jigsaw, you know. You put in all the pieces round the edge, then pick up the final piece – the murderer – and carefully lay that down. I've put Tyburn into the gap marked “Murderer” and there aren't any chinks showing.'

Isabelle pushed her plate away and, taking a cigarette from her case, leaned forward for him to light it. ‘I can see a chink,' she said. ‘It's you.'

Haldean struck a match. ‘What d'you mean?'

‘If you believed he really fitted into your jigsaw then you'd be . . . happy's the wrong word. Satisfied. You're not. And I don't understand why Colonel Whitfield tried to murder you on that horrible horse. I know you said Mr Law . . . Tyburn might have recognized Boscombe and that's fair enough, but you also said he would have killed him if he'd known what he was doing to Marguerite and I don't believe he did know. She was so secretive about it that she wouldn't tell
anyone
. I think you were right to begin with and Boscombe and Morton were killed because they were blackmailers, but who they were blackmailing, except for Marguerite, I don't know.'

He started to laugh. ‘I think I followed all that.'

‘I should hope you did,' she said, returning the smile. ‘So was Boscombe blackmailing anyone apart from Maggie?'

‘Oh yes. He was blackmailing Whitfield.'

Isabelle breathed deeply. ‘Jack, will you
please
explain?'

‘Okay.' He took a long drink of beer. ‘Think about Whitfield, Belle, think how he acted. The man was scared stiff by the mention of blackmail. That's what made him attempt to murder me. That and my telling him I wasn't a complete dud, that I'd done this sort of thing before. He'd got me on the raw and I said more than I should. Something you don't know – this is in confidence, of course – is that his bank account shows that, whereas before October he was making fairly hefty payments to cash, after October it sky-rocketed. Another seventy-five pounds a month started going out regularly. If he'd carried on at that rate he'd have been ruined by the end of the year.'

‘But what were they blackmailing him
for
, Jack?'

A wry smile lifted the corners of his mouth. ‘That's obvious, isn't it? He was the Augier Ridge traitor.'

Isabelle stared at him. ‘But he can't be. He just can't. If he's the traitor then Mr Lawrence – oh, bother it, you know who I mean – Tyburn – is telling the truth and he's innocent.'