The Return of Captain John Emmett (17 page)

'Why not keep them downstairs if they think they're going to leap out?'

'I suppose downstairs they could escape more easily?'

'Did they say anything about suicide to you?' Charles asked.

'Well, only in a general way. I mean, for God's sake, Charles, I could hardly interrogate them on their failures. Young Chilvers said that it had happened, though very rarely, in the twenty years that Dr Chilvers had been running the place. It seemed rude to ask what "very rarely" meant in numbers.'

He had been quite pleased with how he'd raised the question of his fictional brother's threats of suicide. George Chilvers hadn't looked particularly surprised.

'Six,' said Charles.

'Six?'

'Suicides. Four since the war. One other was actually just discharged, and one was before the war, but, listen to this: that one was a girl of twenty. She got out somehow, lay down on the tracks just outside Fairford Station and waited for some hapless train driver to chop her in three. Her family asked for a post-mortem, which the coroner granted, and, as it turned out, she was five months pregnant.'

'Was that why she was depressed?'

'It might be why she killed herself but it wasn't why she was melancholic in the first place. She'd been admitted eight months earlier. Nearly a scandal, certainly there were nasty rumours. Staff reckoned she was sweet on young Chilvers; a single man then, of course. One female nurse—now dismissed—had said Chilvers had been found with the naked patient in a bathroom. He was using a high-pressure hose on her: she was soaked and squealing. Chilvers insisted it was treatment for hysteria. A different attendant, who went up to check her room when the alarm was first raised, says he saw a letter addressed to Chilvers in an envelope on her desk. At that point, naturally, nobody knew she was dead, but when he went back to check later, no letter.'

As there had been no letter after John's death, Laurence thought, though the incidents must have been years apart.

'My man said that "these sort of letters" seldom helped anybody anyway,' Charles went on. 'They were just self-pity. "The same old stuff they were on about every day," he said.'

'Did people really think George Chilvers was the father of the dead woman's child?' said Laurence. 'Or is that just a sacked man's bitterness?'

'I think they did. Though apparently some said Chilvers Senior could have drugged her to have his way with her. But probably that was black humour. He's a widower, has been for years. Married to the job. All the same, it had to be someone from inside; she never left the place, and George Chilvers already had a bit of reputation as a lady's man. Mad ladies. Sad ladies. I got the impression that his eventual marriage to another patient was not so much for the money but forced upon him by his old man to prevent a further scandal.' He paused. 'Well-made chap, from all accounts—well, the account I got'

'I suppose he's handsome enough in his way,' said Laurence. 'But patients? Surely he could find someone who wouldn't put his reputation at so much risk?'

'Well, he's not a doctor like Papa, so I suppose he could get away with it. Perhaps he's attracted to highly strung girls. Young ones. Lonely. Rich. Can't have been difficult.'

'Yet he is a solicitor, and you said Cyril Trusty seemed to think they'd done well out of a couple of bequests, but then I suppose doctors do, don't they? Quite often?'

'Except the clientele must be rather younger than the run-of-the-mill spinsters of a practice in Bognor Regis. The Holmwood patients wouldn't be expected to die in the normal run of things,' Charles said, 'though one of my Bognor great-aunts was quite mad. Great-Aunt Caroline. She should have been locked away, without any question. Would have saved a mass of trouble.'

He absent-mindedly tore off a piece of bread and soaked it in his beer.

'All this talk of George Chilvers' love life diverted me,' Charles went on. 'We were on suicides: John, most recently. Before him, there was some flying ace who hanged himself, apparently at the prospect of going home, though he had pretty hideous burns so it's a bit more understandable. A major in the Glosters who seemed better but turned out not to be, and after him a chap who certainly made his mark on the establishment. Apparently they've got some kind of atrium, with a glass roof, several storeys up?'

Laurence nodded. It was a slightly grandiose description of the entrance hall.

'He got out on the roof through the attics and threw himself head-first, not off the roof into the garden as you might expect, but in through the skylight, and dashed his brains out on the flagstones in the middle of the house.'

'Good God,' Laurence said. 'How appalling. The poor people who found him.'

'Poor chap himself, I'd say,' Charles observed. 'Not poor George Chilvers, as he'd recently made up a will for him. Mind you, no personal bequests, so scandal kept at bay with this one, but a tidy little chunk to Holmwood itself. In gratitude. So my man says.'

Laurence was looking forward to regaining the peace of his own territory, though it was only when they stopped for a light lunch that he and Charles had any further discussion.

'So. What's your next step, old chap?'

'Hard to know. I didn't like young Chilvers, although Dr Chilvers seemed professional yet sympathetic. The place itself gave me the willies, but then the condition of the men who end up in places like that doesn't exactly bring peace of mind. I didn't feel as strongly as Mary, or Eleanor apparently, that something was rotten.'

He wondered, but didn't say, whether this was simply because, unlike them, he knew about war and what it could do to men's minds as well as bodies. Though Eleanor must have seen much of it too. He also had the first solid information that directly contradicted an account given to him by anyone involved in John's life. However, Eleanor Bolitho was already so cross with him that it was hard to contemplate querying her story or any approach to her that might bear fruit. What if, by some coincidence, John had known two red-haired spitfires? He was grasping at straws, he knew.

'Well, will you be settling your poor lunatic brother there?' said Charles. 'I imagine it will come as the greatest relief to the family to see him locked up.'

Laurence didn't answer. He was considering what it would be like to have a brother, even a mad one. Would he put him in Holmwood? Despite Mary, despite Charles, he thought he might. His reservations lay with the son—too glib, too willing to generalise about the imagined experience of battle.

At one point they had been peering into the small ward. The nearest man lay in bed with his eyes closed. There was a zinc bowl on the nightstand and a sour smell of vomit about him; a bottle of what looked like milk hanging above the bed was passing down the tube into his nose.

'FE again,' said George loudly. 'Flanders Effect.'

The man in bed was startled. His head on the pillow shook and his fingers clutched at the blanket. George made no attempt to soothe him. Laurence thought he detected a flicker of disdain in Chilvers' face but it was quickly replaced by a perfectly businesslike demeanour.

'Some of these people should never have been expected to fight in the first place,' he said.

Laurence agreed with the sentiment but found himself unable to answer. He suspected his reasons for believing it were quite different from Chilvers'. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask the man about his own service but he kept silent, thinking that however delightful it might be to prick Chilvers' confidence, it was hardly worth provoking him.

'Do you know,' Laurence said now, 'I realise that I more or less forgot about Robert once I'd left Dr Chilvers' study. I don't think I mentioned him to George more than once or twice. Must have looked damned odd. He didn't ask me either, too busy selling the place. Still, I suppose it doesn't matter now. Not likely to see him—any of them—again.'

Charles gave a slow smile. If it hadn't been Charles, reliable, straightforward Charles, Laurence might have thought there was something devious in it.

'My man,' said Charles. 'I saw him again, last thing, as the lad was putting our bags in the car. He said Mrs Chilvers, Mrs
George
Chilvers, late resident of Holmwood, was a bit sweet on John Emmett. Or vice versa. Or mutually. Can't have pleased George too much.' He attempted to look inscrutable but couldn't resist sounding pleased with himself. 'Now there's somebody it might be worth talking to, if we could ever get near her.'

He paused, but when Laurence didn't respond, added, 'Apparently everybody there thought that Emmett had been moved up to the top floor as a punishment for talking to George's wife. Not for some falling-out with a warder or trip out without a pass.'

Laurence felt faintly exasperated that Charles had come out with this only now.

'Did you find out where she—where
they—
live?'

'Used to live in a flat above the old stables near Holmwood but Dr Chilvers thought it better for her to live away from somewhere that had mixed memories for her. That was recently, though. After Emmett's death possibly? Now they live out of the village—in a biggish house; she was a wealthy woman, of course—in a rather isolated position. That was courtesy of our good host Cyril Trusty. He says George Chilvers has just about got her locked up. Some of the servants at Holmwood—maid, cleaner, cook—do turns there. Not a great improvement on her original circumstances.'

'What a bloody odious man,' Laurence said, louder than he intended.

'Ah, Sir Laurence, knight-errant. Dragons skewered, enchanters foiled, moustache-twirling seducers thwarted, dungeons breached. Damsels in distress a speciality.' Charles's smile took the sting out of his words.

'I'm being ludicrous, aren't I?' Laurence said.

'Not at all, frankly. Though I'm not sure where it all goes from here.'

'I just can't think what to tell Mary. I had mixed impressions of Holmwood so I'm hardly likely to produce a coherent line for her. The firing squad link would horrify her and I can't tell her about Eleanor. She might go round there and God knows what scenes there'd be.'

'Laurence,' said Charles patiently, 'you're not a hero in one of Mr Drummond's books and she's no swooning maiden. She survived her brother's death—whatever the cause. She asked you to look into it a bit. What did you think? That they were all going to be palpable villains, keeping the deranged wretches chained up in the dripping cellars? Then how on earth would they have taken in so many wealthy and often well-connected families for so long? Or did you hope they were going to come clean and provide a tidy solution at your command? Yes, he did have a gun hidden away. Sorry, slipped the mind. Yes, we found a letter behind the wainscot only last week. Turns out he had some incurable wasting disease and wanted to save his loved ones the pain of watching his prolonged expiry.'

'But what if he didn't exactly kill himself?'

Charles looked incredulous.

'No, hear me out. Maybe someone didn't put a gun to his head but deliberately drove him to it. What then?' Laurence was astonished at his own recklessness.

'Well, I'd ask who?' Charles said, surprisingly calmly. 'Who could have done? Who would have done? Why?'

Laurence thought for a few seconds before saying without great conviction, 'George Chilvers. He'd be top of my list.' He stopped, faced with Charles's look of astonishment. 'No, of course you're right. Is it more likely a depressed man killed himself or that he was murdered by persons unknown? It never entered Mary's head and even Eleanor doesn't think that. Forget I said it.'

Reflecting on Charles's assessment the next day, back in London, Laurence was still surprised at the perspicacity behind his comments. He started to write to Mary about the trip but gave up after two muddled paragraphs. In the end he simply agreed they meet as she'd suggested. But by the time he'd stuck down the envelope, he'd also decided on one further journey. After that, he thought he would stop living someone else's life and get back to his own. His slender manuscript lay on the edge of the desk, very tidy, but, to his shame, a fine layer of dust covered it. He drew an M on it with his finger.

He went out to post the letters. The sky was palest blue with fast-moving clouds. He walked as far as Coram's Fields, where he sat down on an empty bench. There was a folded newspaper abandoned on the damp wood and he read the headlines. Opposite him an old man was tossing crumbs to a dozen squabbling pigeons. A nursemaid holding a well-wrapped small girl by the hand walked past, pushing a perambulator. Laurence smiled at the child and she looked back at him curiously as she passed by.

As he walked home he read a piece about the next month's Varsity match. Having finished with the paper, he put it in the dustbin beneath his own steps. He looked up to see his neighbour, a man who rarely left his rooms, appear in the doorway. There was invariably a faint smell of cats about him. He thrust out a letter to Laurence.

'It's for you,' he said, almost reproachfully. 'Picked it up with my own post.'

'Thank you.'

Laurence examined it, failing to recognise the handwriting. His neighbour nodded and retreated back to his flat. Laurence's eyes followed him briefly. It was possible the man was no older than he was but life had aged him.

He hung up his coat and opened the envelope, expecting it to be from a woman: the writing was what he vaguely thought of as artistic. His eye went to the bottom of the page. This time the letter was from William Bolitho.

Dear Bartram,

It was very good to see you the other day. I realise Eleanor may have given you a different impression but I have enjoyed our brief talks. I rather envy you having a meaty task to get your teeth into, though I continue to regret Emmett's death. He was a decent man. You must not take Eleanor's rebuffs to heart. Eleanor is very defensive of those she loves. It is a sterling quality—I doubt I would be here were it not for her—and I count my blessings even though she sometimes overrates threats to my welfare.

What I wanted to tell you, though I fear it may be of slight use in your enquiries, is that I remembered the name of the major who was billeted on us in 1917 and whose batman helped rescue John Emmett in the tunnel collapse. The man who was in your photograph. Calogreedy was his name. Name like that, can't think how I ever forgot it. Ex Indian Army man. God knows what his servant was called; all I can remember of him is his accent—broad west country—Somerset, perhaps, if that helps at all. It's quite a coincidence but yesterday I was checking some small investments I have and I noticed a firm called Calogreedy and Weatherall were quoted on the stock exchange. As far as I can tell, their business is locks, safes, strong-rooms and so on. It was such an unusual name that I remembered the major instantly and I thought there might, just, be a connection.