Put on by Cunning (5 page)

Wexford hadn’t taken his overcoat off. ‘I want to see the place. Don’t you feel any curiosity to see the home of our former most distinguished citizen?’

Burden seemed more concerned with dignity and protocol. ‘It’s beneath you
and
me, I should think.’ He sniffed. ‘And when you hear the details you’ll feel the same. The facts are that a Mrs Arno – she’s the late Sir Manuel’s daughter – phoned up about half an hour ago to say the house had been broken into during the night. There’s a pane of glass been cut out of a window downstairs and a bit of a mess made and some silver taken. Cutlery, nothing special, and some money from Mrs Arno’s handbag. She thinks she saw the car the burglar used and she’s got the registration number.’

‘I like these open-and-shut cases,’ said Wexford. ‘I find them restful.’

The fingerprint man (Detective Constable Morgan) had already left for Sterries. Wexford’s car only just managed to get up Ploughman’s Lane, which was glacier-like in spite of gritting. He had been a determined burglar, Burden remarked, to get his car up and down there in the night.

The top of the hill presented an alpine scene, with dark-green and gold and grey conifers rising sturdily from the snow blanket. The house itself, shaped like a number of cuboid boxes pushed irregularly together and with a tower in the midst of them, looked not so much white as dun-coloured beside the dazzling field of snow. A sharp wind had set the treble-clef weathervane spinning like a top against a sky that was now a clear cerulean blue.

Morgan’s van was parked on the forecourt outside the front door which was on the side of the house furthest from the lane. Some attempt had been made to keep this area free of snow. Wexford, getting out of the car, saw a solidly built man in jeans and anorak at work sweeping the path which seemed to lead to a much smaller house that stood in a dip in the grounds. He looked in the other direction, noting in a shallow tree-fringed basin the ornamental water newspapers had euphemistically called a lake. There Camargue had met his death. It was once more iced over and the ice laden with a fleecy coat of snow.

The front door had been opened by a woman of about forty in trousers and bulky sweater whom Wexford took to be Muriel Hicks. He and Burden stepped into the warmth and on to thick soft carpet. The vestibule with its cloaks cupboard was rather small but it opened, through an arch, into a hall which had been used to some extent as a picture gallery. The paintings almost made him whistle. If these were originals . . .

The dining-room was open, revealing pale wood panelling and dark red wood furnishing, and inthe far corner Morgan could be seen at his task. A flight of stairs, with risers of mosaic tile and treads that seemed to be of oak, led upwards. However deferential and attentive Mrs Hicks may have been towards Sir Manuel – and according to Sheila he had been adored by his servants – she had no courtesy to spare for policemen. That ‘she’ was upstairs somewhere was the only introduction they got. Wexford went upstairs while Burden joined Morgan in the dining room.

The house had been built on various different levels of land so that the drawing room where he found himself was really another ground floor. It was a large, airy and gracious room, two sides of which were made entirely of glass. At the farther end of it steps led down into what must surely be the tower. Here the floor was covered by a pale yellow Chinese carpet on which stood two groups of silk-covered settees and chairs, one suite lemon, one very pale jade. There was some fine
famille jaune
porcelain of that marvellous yellow that is both tender and piercing, and suspended from the ceiling a chandelier of startlingly modern design that resembled a torrent of water poured from a tilted vase.

But there was no sign of human occupation. Wexford stepped down under the arch where staghorn ferns grew in troughs at ground level and a
Cissus Antarctica
climbed the columns, and entered a music room. It was larger than had appeared from outside and it was dodecagonal. The floor was of very smooth, polished, pale grey slate on which lay three Kashmiri gugs. A Broadwood grand piano stood between him and the other arched entrance. On each of eight of the twelve sides of the room was a picture or bust in an alcove, Mozart and Beethoven among the latter, among the former Cocteau’s cartoon of Picasso and Stravinsky, Rothenstein’s drawing of Parry, and a photograph of the Georgian manor house in which the music school was housed at Wellridge. But on one of the remaining sides Camargue had placed on a glass shelf a cast of Chopin’s hands and on the last hung in a glass case a wind instrument of the side-blown type which looked to Wexford to be made of solid gold. Under it was the inscription: ‘Presented to Manuel Camargue by Aldo Cazzini, 1949’. Was it a flute and could it be of gold? He lifted the lid of a case which lay on a low table and saw inside a similar instrument but made of humbler metal, perhaps silver.

He was resolving to go downstairs again and send Muriel Hicks to find Mrs Arno, when he was aware of a movement in the air behind him and of a presence that was not wholly welcoming. He turned round. Natalie Arno stood framed in the embrasure of the further arch, watching him with an unfathomable expression in her eyes.

Wexford was the first to speak.

‘Good morning, Mrs Arno.’

She was absolutely still, one hand up to her cheek, the other resting against one of the columns which supported the arch. She was silent.

He introduced himself and said pleasantly, ‘I hear you’ve had some sort of break-in. Is that right?’

Why did he feel so strongly that she was liberated by relief? Her face did not change and it was a second or two before she moved. Then, slowly, she came forward.

‘It’s good of you to come so quickly.’ Her voice was as unlike Dinah Sternhold’s as it was reasonably possible for one woman’s voice to differ from another’s. She had a faint American accent and in her tone there was an underlying hint of amusement. He was always to be aware of that in his dealings with her. ‘I’m afraid I may be making a fuss about nothing. He only took a few spoons.’ She made a comic grimace, pursing her lips as she drew out the long vowel sound. ‘Let’s go into the drawing room and I’ll tell you about it.’

The cast of her countenance was that which one would immediately categorize as Spanish, full-fleshed yet strong, the nose straight if a fraction too long, the mouth full and flamboyantly curved, the eyes splendid, as near to midnight black as a white woman’s eyes can ever be. He black hair was strained tightly back from her face and knotted high on the back of her head, a style which most women’s faces could scarcely take but which suited hers, exposing its fine bones. And her figure was no less arresting than her face. She was very slim but for a too-full bosom, and this was not at all disguised by her straight skirt and thin sweater. Such an appearance, the ideal of men’s fantasies, gives a woman a slightly indecent look, particularly if she carries herself with a certain provocative air. Natalie Arno did not quite do this but when she moved as she now did, mounting the steps to the higher level, she walked very sinuously with a stressing of her narrow waist.

During his absence two people had come into the drawing room, a man and a woman. They were behaving in the rather aimless fashion of house guests who have perhaps just got up or at least just put in an appearance, and who are wondering where to find breakfast, newspapers and an occupation. It occurred to Wexford for the first time that it was rather odd, not to say presumptuous, of Natalie Arno to have taken possession of Sterries so immediately after her father’s death, to have moved in and to have invited people to stay. Did his solicitors approve? Did they know?

‘This is Chief Inspector Wexford who has come to catch our burglar,’ she said. ‘My friends, Mr and Mrs Zoffany.’

The man was one of those who had been in the circle round her after the inquest. He seemed about forty. His fair hair was thick and wavy and he had a Viking’s fine golden beard, but his body had grown soft and podgy and a flap of belly hung over the belt of his too-tight and too-juvenile fawn cord jeans. His wife, in the kind of clothes which unmistakably mark the superannuated hippie, was as thin as he was stout. She was young still, younger probably than Camargue’s daughter, but her face was worn and there were coarse, bright threads of grey in her dark curly hair.

Natalie Arno sat down in one of the jade armchairs. She sat with elegant slim legs crossed at the calves, her feet arched in their high-heeled shoes. Mrs Zoffany, on the other hand, flopped on the floor and sat cross-legged, tucking her long patchwork skirt around her knees. The costume she wore, and which like so many of her contemporaries she pathetically refused to relinquish, would date her more ruthlessly than might any perm or pair of stockings on another woman. Yet not so long ago it had been the badge of an elite who hoped to alter the world. Sitting there, she looked as if she might be at one of the pop concerts of her youth, waiting for the entertainment to begin. Her head was lifted expectantly, her eyes on Natalie’s face.

‘I’ll tell you what there is to tell,’ Natalie began, ‘and I’m afraid that’s not much. It must have been around five this morning I thought I heard the sound of glass breaking. I’ve been sleeping in Papa’s room. Jane and Ivan are in one of the spare rooms in the other wing. You didn’t hear anything, did you, Jane?’

Jane Zoffany shook her head vehemently. ‘I only wish I had. I might have been able to
help
.’

‘I didn’t go down. To tell you the truth I was just a little scared.’ Natalie smiled deprecatingly. She didn’t look as if she had ever been scared in her life. Wexford wondered why he had at first felt her presence as hostile. She was entirely charming. ‘But I did look out of the window. And just outside the window – on that side all the rooms are more or less on the ground floor, you know – there was a van parked. I put the light on and took a note of the registration number. I’ve got it here somewhere. What did I do with it?’

Jane Zoffany jumped up. I’ll look for it, shall I? You put it down somewhere in here. I remember, I was still in my dressing gown . . .’ She began hunting about the room, her scarves and the fringe of her shawl catching on ornaments.

Natalie smiled, and in that smile Wexford thought he detected patronage. ‘I didn’t quite know what to do,’ she said. ‘Papa didn’t have a phone extension put in his room. Just as I was wondering I heard the van start up and move off. I felt brave enough to go down to the dining room then, and sure enough there was a pane gone from one of the casements.’

‘A pity you didn’t phone us then. We might have got him.’

‘I know.’ She said it ruefully, amusedly, with a soft sigh of a laugh. ‘But there were only those half-dozen silver spoons missing and two five-pound notes out of my purse. I’d left my purse on the sideboard.’

‘But would
you
know exactly what was missing, Mrs Arno?’

‘Right. I wouldn’t really. But Mrs Hicks has been round with me this morning and she can’t find anything else gone.’

‘It’s rather curious, isn’t it? This house seems to me full of very valuable objects. There’s a Kandinsky downstairs and a Boudin, I think.’ He pointed. ‘And those are signed Hockney prints. That yellow porcelain . . .’

She looked surprised at his knowledge. ‘Yes, but . . .’ Her cheeks had slightly flushed. ‘Would you think me very forward if I said I had a theory?’

‘Not at all. I’d like to hear it.’

‘Well, first, I think he knew Papa used to sleep in that room and now poor Papa is gone he figured no one would be in there. And, secondly, I think he saw my light go on before he’d done any more than filch the spoons. He was just too scared to stop any longer. How does that sound?’

‘Quite a possibility,’ said Wexford. Was it his imagination that she had expected a more enthusiastic or flattering response? Jane Zoffany came up with the van registration number on a piece of paper torn from an exercise book. Natalie Arno didn’t thank her for her pains. She rose, tensing her shoulders and throwing back her head to show off that amazing shape. Her waist could easily have been spanned by a pair of hands.

‘Do you want to see the rest of the house?’ she said. ‘I’m sure he didn’t come up to this level.’

Wexford would have loved to, but for what reason? ‘We usually ask the householder to make a list of missing valuables in a case like this. It might be wise for me to go round with Mrs Hicks . . .’

‘Of
course
.’

Throughout these exchanges Ivan Zoffany had not spoken. Wexford, without looking at him, had sensed a brooding concentration, the aggrieved attitude perhaps of a man not called on to participate in what might seem to be men’s business. But now, as he turned his eyes in Zoffany’s direction, he got a shock. The man was gazing at Natalie Arno, had probably been doing so for the past ten minutes, and his expression, hypnotic and fixed, was impenetrable. It might indicate contempt or envy or desire or simple hatred. Wexford was unable to analyse it but he felt a pang of pity for Zoffany’s wife, for anyone who had to live with so much smouldering emotion.

Passing through the music room, Muriel Hicks took him first into the wing which had been private to Camargue. Here all was rather more austere than what he had so far seen. The bedroom, study-cum-sitting-room and bathroom were all carpeted in Camargue’s favourite yellow – wasn’t it in the Luscher Test that you were judged the best-adjusted if you gave your favourite colour as yellow? – but the furnishings were sparse and there were blinds at the windows instead of curtains. A dress of Natalie’s lay on the bed.

Muriel Hicks had not so far spoken beyond asking him to follow her. She was not an attractive woman. She had the bright pink complexion that sometimes goes with red-gold hair and piglet features. Wexford who, by initially marrying one, had surrounded himself with handsome women, wondered at Camargue who had a beautiful daughter yet had picked an ugly housekeeper and a nonentity for a second wife. Immediately he had thought that he regretted it with shame. For, turning round, he saw that Mrs Hicks was crying. She was standing with her hand on an armchair, on the seat of which lay a folded rug, and the tears were rolling down her round, red cheeks.