The Seven Stars (18 page)

‘
Whether or not that woman turns out to be his mistress?’

‘
I have to go back, Michael, at least to discuss it.’

‘
And if she is?’

Her eyes dropped.
‘I don’t know.’

‘
All right. I’ve said more than enough, but I just want you to know that if you need a shoulder to cry on, mine’s available. Now, perhaps you’d better go, before I forget my promise not to compromise you.’

She said with difficulty
, ‘Thank you for being so understanding.’

He gave a harsh laugh.
‘Understanding is the last thing I am. I’ve not the slightest idea what’s going on, but I
am
worried that you might be putting yourself in danger. If you won’t let me help you, at least promise me you’ll take care of yourself.’

‘
I promise,’ she said. She reached up and lightly kissed his cheek. ‘Good night, Michael.’

And leaving him standing looking after her
, she let herself out of the room.

13

‘
Guy!’

Jackson
’s excited voice jolted Webb from the strains of a piano concerto and he straightened swiftly.

‘
There’s a bloke getting out of a taxi — is that him?’ Webb looked across at the man bent to the taxi-driver’s window.

‘
Very probably, Ken. Let’s go and find out.’

They caught up with him as he was about to insert his key in the entrance door of the building.

‘Mr Hardy?’

He spun round at the sound of Webb
’s voice, and for a moment Jackson thought he was going to make a dash for it. But he just paused and waited.

‘
DCI Webb and Sergeant Jackson, Shillingham CID.’

Hardy said softly
, ‘Slightly off your patch, aren’t you, gentlemen?’

‘
I’m arresting you on suspicion of aggravated burglary in connection with country houses, and must ask you to accompany us back to Broadshire. I’m also cautioning you, sir. You understand what that means?’

‘
Oh, I do, Chief Inspector, I do.’

He turned without demur and went with them back to the car.
‘Been waiting long?’ he asked conversationally, as Webb handcuffed him to Jackson and gestured him into the back.

‘
Long enough.’

Webb got into the driver
’s seat and checked the dashboard clock. It was eleven-thirty-two. He reached for the phone in the glove compartment.

‘
Chris? We’re on our way.’

*

Maybury Street police station was the only building in Steeple Bayliss that showed any lights. Night and day were interchangeable here and the fact that it was two-fifteen in the morning made no difference to the bustling sense of purpose.

Ledbetter was waiting for them in the foyer and Webb went to have a private word with him.

‘He’s been chatting happily all the way home,’ he reported. ‘You’d have thought he was at a bloody cocktail party. Nothing relevant, mind. A blow-by-blow account of a play he saw last week, the state of English rugby, the best way to cook grouse. I wished to God he’d shut up, but at least it passed the time.’

‘
Nerves, would you say?’

‘
Could be, but if so they’re well-disguised.’ Webb paused. ‘Did the girlfriend cough?’

‘
No. Her father’s just died and we finished up having to give her a sedative. She’s asleep in the doctor’s room.’ He jerked his head towards Hardy, standing chatting to an unresponsive Jackson. ‘Does he know we’ve got her?’

‘
Not from us.’

‘
Fine. OK, then, here we go. Want to sit in on it?’

‘
You bet I do. But Ken Jackson’s out on his feet; is there anywhere he can get his head down?’

‘
Sure, I’ll get someone to show him the way. You must be pretty exhausted yourself. I at least managed a brief nap while I was waiting.’

‘
I shan’t sleep till I know whether this lad’s behind the country house business, so let’s get on with it.’

All the same
, he was grateful for the strong black coffee that was brought to the interview room. Ledbetter switched on the tape and went through the usual procedure. Then he took a small plastic envelope from his pocket and pushed it across to Hardy. As far as Webb could see, it contained a small gold button.

Hardy
’s eyes fastened on it, but he made no move to pick it up.

‘
Yours, I believe,’ Ledbetter said.

‘
Not necessarily, Inspector. All members of my club wear them.’

‘
Nevertheless, if you were to look at the sleeve of your blazer, I believe you’d find one missing.’

Hardy
’s eyes narrowed. ‘And why the hell should you think that?’

‘
Because this is smaller than the breast buttons. And also because you’re the only member of Chardsey Yacht Club whom we know to have visited the area.’

‘
What area are we talking about?’

‘
Beckworth House.’

‘
Then I’m afraid you’re mistaken; I’ve never visited Beckworth.’

‘
You might also be interested to know that we have taken casts of your tyre prints from outside the Seven Stars guesthouse to compare with those found near Buckhurst Grange on the night of the break-in.’

‘
How very enterprising of you.’

‘
Some hairs were also found at the scene. It will be interesting if we can complete the hat-trick by matching them to yours.’

‘
You have been busy bees. Any other little snippets I should know?’

‘
Only that your girlfriend’s here.’

A flash of something Webb couldn
’t analyse rippled across Hardy’s face and was gone. That got to him, he thought.

‘
What have you done to her?’ The bantering note had left his voice.

‘
We had an interesting chat,’ Ledbetter lied.

‘
That was bloody insensitive of you, when her father’s just died.’

‘
Lord Cleverley died on Thursday,’ Webb said without expression.

The colour left Hardy
’s face, but his voice was tightly controlled. ‘The significance of that comment eludes me.’

‘
Just an observation, sir,’ Webb said stolidly. ‘In the midst of life, and all that.’

‘
I don’t need reminding, thank you. Like Charles II, Roderick took an unconscionable time dying, and I don’t mind telling you it got me down.’

‘
Which was why you deserted the grieving family and went back to London?’

He said with a flash of anger
, ‘Caro never said that!’

‘
I’m saying it, Mr Hardy.’

‘
Then what
did
Caro say?’

‘
Suppose you tell us your side of it.’

For what seemed several minutes but was probably only seconds
, the two men held each other’s eyes, weighing each other up, perhaps calling each other’s bluff. Then, unexpectedly, Hardy relaxed and sat back in his chair.

‘
Oh, what the hell?’ he said. ‘If the game’s up, at least we had a good run for our money.’

Webb and Ledbetter exchanged a quick look. Could it be as easy as that?

Ledbetter said, ‘You’re prepared to make a statement?’

‘
I suppose so, since you’ve doubtless wormed most of it out of Caro; she’d have been in no state to stand up to your “chat”.’ He said the word viciously. ‘Before we go any further, though, I must make one thing clear. Lord Cleverley’s death was an accident and we bitterly regret it. I met him once at a polo match; he was a nice old chap.’

‘
Which didn’t stop you hitting him over the head to save your skin.’

Hardy looked quickly from one to the other.
‘Hold on a minute. What exactly did Caro tell you?’

‘
What are
you
telling us, Mr Hardy?’

‘
Do you know, Inspector, I think you’ve pulled a fast one. You
haven’t
got a statement from Caro, have you?’

‘
I never said we had.’

‘
Bloody hell!’ Hardy said softly. ‘The oldest trick in the book, and I fell for it!’ Then, surprisingly, he laughed.

‘
All right, you win. If you’ve got this far, I’m not going to demean myself by squirming. What do you want to know?’

‘
Everything,’ Ledbetter said promptly, ‘but principally where the stolen goods went and how we can get them back.’

‘
Ah, now I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I know nothing of the business arrangements.’

Webb
’s heart plummeted. It seemed that even with Hardy’s cooperation, things weren’t after all going to be that easy.

‘
Then what did you do with them?’ he demanded.

‘
Deposited them at the Seven Stars for onward transit.’

The detectives tried to hide their surprise. Webb thought
, so Chris was right; there is a connection. Ledbetter spared a quick, silent cheer for Mrs Campbell.

‘
How did you decide which to rob and what to take?’

‘
Explicit orders from Nicholas Warren. I did the necessary, delivered the goods, and received a handsome payment for my trouble. In cash.’

‘
So Nicholas Warren’s behind it all?’

‘
Come, now, Inspector, I’m not going to do all your work for you. That’s up to you to find out.’

Webb said
, ‘Tell me one thing: why in the name of heaven did you sometimes ignore the equivalent of the Crown Jewels and take some worthless trinket?’

Hardy shrugged.
‘It was immaterial to me what we took. We stole directly to order — no more and no less. And the payment was as good for the trinkets as for the more expensive items, so who was I to quibble?’

‘
You said “we”. Miss Budd was in on it with you?’

‘
This is where I should be gallant and deny it, but there seems little point. Of course she was. She’s petite and agile and could get into small spaces that I couldn’t. She was invaluable.’

‘
And I presume,’ Ledbetter said quietly, ‘that it was she who killed Lord Cleverley?’

‘
I gave that away, didn’t I? But it was an accident, as I said. I was across the room looking at that shepherdess and wondering, I admit, why anyone should pay such a tidy sum for me to nick it, when suddenly the door opened and the old man came in in his dressing-gown. We got the fright of our lives, I can tell you. And Caro, who was behind the door, picked up a candlestick and hit him with it. He went down like the proverbial ton of bricks. It was a purely instinctive gesture — self-defence, really.’

‘
Except that he had to be stopped from identifying you.’

‘
Caro didn’t know that at the time — that we’d met, I mean. When we heard he’d died, she went completely to pieces. Coming on top of her father’s illness, it knocked the stuffing out of her.’

There was a short silence
, while the three of them thought over what had been said. Then Webb asked, ‘How did it all start? Did this Warren ring you up out of the blue and invite you to embark on a series of burglaries for him?’

‘
Not exactly.’ Hardy paused to massage the back of his neck with one hand. It occurred to Webb that he too had had a long day. ‘We were at school together,’ he went on, ‘though I was a year or two younger. I had a somewhat notorious reputation, always in hot water for breaking some rule or other. I was hooked on the Raffles books — “the gentleman thief”, you know — and I started practising stealing from people. Only as an exercise, I hasten to add; I always returned what I took; it was just to prove that I could, though it didn’t always go down too well, and eventually, what with one thing and another, I was expelled.

‘
Well, the years rolled on, and the next time our paths crossed was in South Africa. We met at a party and exchanged the time of day — we’d never been close friends. Then, to my surprise, he phoned a couple of days later and suggested we met for a drink.

‘
The root of it was that a diplomatic crisis was brewing; the wife of a government official had had a piece of jewellery stolen, and swore she knew who’d taken it. But this other woman’s husband was also a high-ranking official, and all hell would have broken out if she’d accused her publicly. And having just met me again, Nicholas remembered my doings at school, and asked if I’d be prepared to try to steal it back.

‘
Well, of course, I was delighted, and nicked it with the greatest of ease. And the beauty of it was that the woman couldn’t make a fuss, because she wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place. Nicholas sent me a case of champagne and returned the brooch to its owner to the acclaim of all concerned. It did his career no harm at all, I can tell you; he became quite a folk hero in his clique.’

Ledbetter stood up
, stretched, and went to the door to request more coffee.

‘
So when you both came back to this country,’ he said as he sat down again, ‘you dreamed up the country house scam?’

‘
Again, not exactly; I had no part in dreaming up anything. But as you say, he contacted me again, and asked how I’d feel about trying my hand on a larger scale. I was intrigued — life in the City can be pretty dull and I’m all for a bit of excitement. And because I moved in well-heeled circles, I was able to case the stately joints without arousing suspicion. Raffles again. It worked like a dream.’