Take No Farewell - Retail (20 page)

‘I didn’t expect him to.’

‘Must be twelve years since we met. That ghastly cricket match at Mordiford. Remember?’

‘Yes. I remember.’

‘Who’d have thought then that my little sister would end up being poisoned – or that Consuela would be accused of murdering her?’ He spoke almost light-heartedly, as if reflecting on the mild ironies of life. ‘Fancy a drink before you go back to your hotel?’ He glanced at his watch and smiled. ‘They’ve just opened.’

‘I’ll press on, thanks all the same.’

‘As you please. Only …’

‘Yes?’

‘If you’ve pumped Aunt Hermione, why not pump me as well?’ He flicked his cigarette into the gutter and grinned. ‘I’ve been known to be indiscreet in my cups.’

The more time I spent with Spencer Caswell, the more baffling his motives became. At first, I thought he was just short of a drinking companion. But in the nearby pub he led me to there were half a dozen bored young men who seemed to know him and would have been glad to stand him a round; even the barmaid looked disappointed when he ushered me away to a corner table. So, clearly, there was more to it than that.

With his long legs stretched out in front of him, a glass cradled on his chest and a cigarette casting smoke-patterns
in
time to his gestures, he seemed to require nothing more than an audience for his jaundiced assessment of Hereford in general and his own family in particular. Twenty-three years old and just too young to have enlisted before the end of the war, he had come down from Cambridge in 1922, destined to join Caswell & Co. for sheer lack of a practical alternative. He did not trouble to disguise his scorn for business, or ‘trade’ as he called it. His talents, he claimed, lay elsewhere, though his besetting tragedy was that he did not know where. Shallow, self-centred and arrogant, he appeared to possess all the worst characteristics of pampered youth. In ordinary circumstances, I would have cut our meeting as short as possible and spared Mortimer a grain of sympathy for fathering such a son. But these were not ordinary circumstances. Spencer’s egotistical maunderings offered me a badly needed insight into the realities of Caswell family life and therefore he found in me the eager listener he seemed to desire.

‘Fact is, Staddon, I’m finding this whole business a bit of a bore. I mean, sister walks under a bus, we all say what a pity. Much weeping into handkerchieves, long faces at the funeral, then we get over it. Life goes on. But sister swallows arsenic in her tea and dies, aunt-in-law’s arrested and facing trial, then there’s just no end to it. Reporters thick as flies, gossip circulating round Hereford faster than the plague, ordinary activities suspended. Mother sits in a darkened room the livelong day and Father forbids light conversation, for God’s sake. It’s all very well for Uncle Victor – he can hide himself away in France – but what am I supposed to do? I don’t even know how long it’s going to go on. There’s no date fixed for the trial yet. We could be talking about
months
.’

‘When the trial does open,’ I put in mildly, ‘how do you think it will turn out?’

‘Badly for Consuela. As far as I understand it, she has no answer to the charge. Motive, means, opportunity. She had them all, we’re told.’

‘You believe the evidence against her, then?’

‘I didn’t say that. They haven’t shown
me
the letters. And I wasn’t at the tea party. I’m no better informed than you are, if it comes to the point. But this I will say …’He crouched forward and lowered his voice. ‘Consuela’s never struck me as a fool. So why leave the letters and a packet of arsenic lying around amongst her silk pretties waiting to be found?’

‘You’re suggesting somebody else put them there?’

‘Not me. But you are, aren’t you? How else are you going to argue her innocence? Your problem is: who would do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Haven’t you wondered, though?’ His face was animated, his eyes aglow with enthusiasm for the mental game he had embarked upon. ‘If my much-lamented sister wasn’t the intended victim, Uncle Victor must have been. And if Consuela wasn’t the murderer, somebody else – for some other reason – must have wanted him dead. But he’s still alive, which means their attempt to kill him failed. Yet there’s been no second attempt. That could be because Consuela really is guilty, of course. Or it could be because fastening the crime on her was the real object of the exercise. It gets her out of the way, you see – most effectively.’

‘Out of the way of what?’

Spencer grinned and leaned back in his chair, as if arousing my interest in his theory was a cause of deep satisfaction. He blew a cone of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘I haven’t taken the idea any further yet, but I turn it over in my mind quite regularly. It’s more challenging than your average crossword-puzzle, after all.’

‘And a great deal more serious,’ I snapped. ‘We’re discussing a woman’s life.’

‘I ought to care, I know, but I’m not going to pretend I feel things when I don’t. The beautiful bride Uncle Victor brought back from South America, aloof, exotic and
unapproachable.
That’s all she ever was to me. I take as much interest in her fate as she would in mine: none at all. But perhaps you know her better than I do. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you all this way. Some dalliance during the building of Clouds Frome, was there?’

‘That’s an unwarranted and offensive suggestion.’

But my words could not touch him. His grin remained, as infuriating as he meant it to be. ‘An entirely logical suggestion, I should have thought, but I’ll not press it if you object so strongly.’

‘I do.’ I rose from my chair, suddenly eager to be out of his company. ‘And I’ll bid you good evening.’

‘Cheerio, then.’ He glanced up at me but otherwise moved not a muscle. ‘Bear in mind what I said. Could be that somebody somewhere is rubbing their hands in glee at what’s happened to Consuela. All you have to find out is: who?’

I left him then, still grinning, reclining in his chair and enveloped in smoke. By the time I had reached the Green Dragon, much of my anger had dissipated, leaving in its wake regret that I had allowed myself to be riled by him and a growing suspicion that, for all his cynicism and sarcasm, he might have chanced upon the truth. Maybe it had not mattered to the murderer who their victim was so long as Consuela was blamed for the death. Maybe her incarceration and possible execution were what they had really desired all along.

Then, as I rounded a bend in the corridor leading to my room, the obvious conclusion came to me, so suddenly and climactically that I cried aloud, ‘Of course!’ and startled a maid who was pushing a basket of laundry. I blundered out an apology to her and, as she went on her way, leaned back against the wall and remembered what Hermione had said about Victor’s reaction to Rosemary’s death. He had not seemed surprised. She could almost have believed he had expected it to happen. ‘
But that can’t be true, can it?
’ Her words and Spencer’s blended in my mind. ‘
It gets her out of the way – most effectively
.’
And
with the recollection of their words came a perverse sense of relief, breaking over me like a wave. Now, at last, I felt I knew the name and purpose of the enemy and what I must do to save Consuela from him.

Chapter Seven

‘A HOLIDAY, GEOFFREY?
This is a most unexpected suggestion, I must say.’

‘Timely, I’d have thought. Winter’s drawing in. I feel in need of a tonic. And I haven’t much work on at present. So why not?’

‘Why not indeed? The French Riviera in November is vastly preferable to London, I won’t deny.’ Angela’s eyes drifted out of focus. She was looking past me at something that existed only in the pretence I was staging for her benefit. Suddenly, I cursed myself for letting her choose from all the obvious and flattering reasons why I might have proposed such a jaunt. ‘I don’t believe we’ve been abroad together since … well, since our honeymoon.’

‘High time we did, then. Base ourselves in Nice, I thought. Hire a car and explore the coast either side. Cannes. Monte Carlo. Cap Ferrat. Take two or three weeks about it. Relax. Enjoy ourselves.’

The smile on Angela’s face was genuine and radiant, testimony to the success of my ploy. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It really is an excellent idea. I can’t think why we haven’t done something like it before.’

‘It’ll take me a little while to make all the arrangements, of course.’

‘Never mind. It’ll be something to look forward to.’

‘Good. That’s settled, then.’ I returned to my newspaper and Angela to the latest of her mother’s multi-page letters. It
was
the Sunday following my return from Hereford and the moment I had judged most propitious for unveiling my plan. All I had to show for my visit was an assortment of stray hints that Victor knew more about his niece’s death than he had cared to reveal. Evidently, his were the complaints that had prompted Banyard to obtain an arsenic-based weed-killer. If he wanted to be rid of Consuela – and admittedly I had no evidence that he did – matters could not have turned out better for him. Seen in that light, his sojourn in Cap Ferrat looked like an attempt to avoid unwelcome questions. There was one glaring objection to my theory, of course. Rosemary’s death proved that the sugar at the tea party contained a fatal dose of arsenic. If she had not arrived unexpectedly to consume it, how could Victor have avoided doing so? Rehearse the events in my mind as often as I liked, I could find no answer. All I could cling to was the notion that, when I saw him and spoke to him, the truth would become clear.

Truth of another kind had begun to trouble me around this time. Who, I wondered, was I really trying to help? Consuela, whom I had not seen for twelve years? Jacinta, whose father I could not resist hoping and believing I was? Or myself? My conscience was in need of shriving, my life in need of direction. Now, in Consuela’s plight, I had found both a puzzle and a mission.

That afternoon, I walked to Brompton Cemetery, put some fresh flowers on Edward’s grave and told him what I was trying to do. Death had become my foe – little Edward’s, which I had failed to foresee or prevent, and Consuela’s, which loomed ahead at the far end of the law’s long and winding road. Edward said nothing, of course. He listened patiently, then watched as I walked away. He neither reproached nor approved. Yet he served faithfully as my confessor.

That night, I wrote to Jacinta, warning her of my plans and asking how we might arrange to meet by chance at Cap Ferrat and so bring Victor and me together. She would devise some cunning stratagem; of that I was certain. I
made
no reference to my suspicions about Victor. For all her precocity, even Jacinta was surely not ready to hear it suggested that her own father had brought about her mother’s downfall.

A few days later, Windrush visited me at Frederick’s Place. He had come straight from an audience with the eminent barrister, Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, and was happy to report that Sir Henry had agreed to lead Consuela’s defence. The dignity of her bearing and the firmness of her testimony at the hearing had evidently impressed him, although he was unable to express much optimism at this stage. He would meet his client as soon as possible and assess her prospects thereafter. At all events, he would do his best, which according to Windrush was the very best the English bar had to offer.

The following Saturday, I journeyed to Wendover and paid a call on Imry. To him at least I could risk revealing what was in my mind and there was, besides, much to tell him: Jacinta’s sudden appearance in my life; the details of my visit to Hereford; the frail theory I had formed to vindicate Consuela. To my surprise and disappointment, he seemed worried by what I had to say.

‘You really think this girl’s your daughter, Geoff?’

‘Why else would Consuela have sent her to see me?’

‘And you propose to let Angela meet her?’

‘There’s no reason why she should suspect anything. I could hardly go to Nice alone, could I?’

‘I’m not sure you should be going at all.’

‘What do you suggest I do? Give it up? Let justice take its course, even if that course is hopelessly misdirected?’

‘You’ve no real reason to think it is misdirected. If Victor Caswell administered poison to himself, how could he be sure he wasn’t going to swallow a fatal dose? And why should he be willing to take such an appalling risk?’

‘That’s what I intend to find out.’

Imry stared at me in silence for a moment, then said: ‘I wish you luck, Geoff. I hope you’re proved right, really I do, because if you’re not …’

‘Yes?’

‘Then I fear this business will end badly – for you as well as Consuela.’

Our departure was eventually fixed for 5 November. Angela’s enthusiasm for the trip heightened progressively as the day approached and, as it did so, grew harder for me to bear. She was more open and affectionate with me than at any time since Edward’s death, having convinced herself that I was making a genuine effort to bridge the gap that had grown between us. If I had known she would react in such a way, I believe I would have told her the truth at the outset, but now it was too late. My deception had succeeded – all too well.

On 1 November – just when I had begun to fear it would not reach me before we left – a letter came from Jacinta. I had been arriving deliberately early at the office all week, in order to intercept the mail before Kevin or Doris could cast an inquisitive eye over it, and it is hard to describe my relief at the sight of the French-stamped envelope nestling amongst the bills and the circulars in the cage that morning.

Jacinta’s handwriting was neat and precise, her prose style as measured and adult as her speech. As I read her letter, standing in my office with my hat and coat still on, it was as if she was once more sitting opposite me, her large eyes trained upon me, her small face set and serious.

Villa d’Abricot

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

Alpes-Maritime

FRANCE

28th October 1923

Dear Mr Staddon,

Your letter of the 21st was waiting for me at the post office when I called there yesterday. Tonight is the first opportunity I have had to reply to it. This is because my governess, Miss Roebuck, constantly interrupts me. But she has gone out this evening with my father and Major Turnbull.