It struck Rose as rather odd that it should be this fact on which she pounced, and not Rose’s accusation that her lover was a murderer. The reason for this was explained a moment later when Miriam’s hand shot to her mouth and her eyes widened. For it was only now that the girl fully comprehended the dreadful truth.
‘You murdered Ursula … and Walter?’’ she muttered. Even then, every bone in her body seemed to protest his innocence. ‘No! I don’t believe it. Algernon,’ she said, grabbing wildly at the sleeve of his jacket, ‘you must tell them it is not true.’ She abruptly loosened her grip on his arm and turned to glare at Rose. ‘You have it all wrong, Lady Belvedere. I don’t think you are much of a detective if you go about accusing perfectly innocent people of the most appalling crimes. Why, I –’
‘Miriam,’ said Algernon, in a firm voice, which was also filled with tenderness. He took a step forward and took the girl gently by the shoulders, holding her until he was certain he had her undivided attention. ‘It’s no good, my dear. I’ve been fairly caught, and I don’t know that I’m not glad of it. I never meant to kill Walter, you see. You don’t know how wretched I have felt about it. And really, I’m no good. You deserve a much better man than I will ever be.’
Miriam made to protest but he silenced her with a look of such intensity that she half recoiled from him, her eyes not leaving his face. Algernon’s voice had threatened to break with emotion; now there was something of a detached note to it.
‘You will look back on this and think what a very fortunate escape you had, my dear,’ he added, glancing around the room until he spied the policemen. ‘I am ready to go with you to the police station, Inspector,’ he said calmly. He looked at the staring, incredulous faces of his companions. He appeared about to say something, but on reflection seemed to change his mind. Instead, he looked towards Cordelia and said: ‘Look after Miriam for me, there’s a dear.’
There had been something so theatrical and dramatic about the performance that it took a moment or two before anyone stirred, so enthralled had they been by the spectacle. Indeed, one or two of the Sedgwick Players had been half tempted to applaud, unsure whether or not it was some elaborate display of fiction, albeit in rather poor taste. Even the policemen had been somewhat taken aback by the frankness of Algernon’s admission, and it was only now that Inspector Deacon stepped forward to arrest the man he knew to be the murderer and to give him the official warning, which seemed to fall on deaf ears.
As the man they had all known as Algernon Cuffe was led away, he paused for a moment in the doorway to look back and catch one last glimpse of the woman he had loved, and for whom he had committed murder. However, if he had hoped to receive some sign from her that, in spite of everything, she forgave him his crimes and returned his affections, he was to be disappointed, for, at that very moment, Miriam Belmore was standing with her back to the room in her habitual pose of a seemingly cold and aloof figure. He was not to know, of course, that she had turned away purposefully to conceal the tears that were now streaming down her face, nor was he close enough to hear her whisper his name.
‘I should like to make a clean breast of it,’ Algernon began, lowering himself wearily into a chair. There was only a vague remnant of the military man about his posture now for, all of a sudden, he looked deflated, as if the air had left his body. It would not be long before all that remained of him was the shell of the man he had once been.
On reflection, Algernon had asked that he be allowed to make his confession in the library at Sedgwick Court, rather than at the police station. It is possible that he was deferring the inevitable, and Inspector Deacon had deliberated for a moment, before acquiescing to his request.
‘I do not need a solicitor to be present,’ Algernon had continued in a weary tone. ‘I intend to plead guilty. I do not ask for mercy, for the truth is, I don’t deserve it.’
Inspector Deacon looked at him somewhat cynically. While the fellow looked dejected enough and had evidently been living under a great strain, to the inspector’s ears, the little speech he had given Miriam had sounded contrived, though it had obviously cost him dear. The policeman could not rid himself of the feeling that the thespian was still playing a part, and was likely to do so up to the very end.
‘I should like to tell you how it came about,’ said Algernon. ‘You will think me a wicked man, and perhaps I am, but I should like someone to know the truth.’ He turned to regard Rose. ‘I am curious to know how you pieced it all together, Lady Belvedere. I heard you were by way of being an amateur sleuth, but … well, I never … I thought I had covered my tracks too well…’
‘I should like to know how it happened that you assumed the identity of Algernon Cuffe, Mr Stapleton,’ Inspector Deacon said, rather brusquely.
‘To tell you that,’ said Algernon, ‘I shall have to start at the very beginning. Oh, you needn’t worry, Inspector,’ he added quickly, as the policeman shifted in his chair, ‘it is not a long story; I can tell it in a few words. You will have heard of my father, of course, he is something of a rich tycoon. What is less well known is that he is also a tyrant. He did not approve of me, and I thoroughly despised him. To infuriate him as much as anything else, I chose to marry a woman he considered beneath me.’
‘Ursula Stapleton?’ said the inspector.
‘Yes, or Ursula Westbrooke as she was called then; a young actress, as she referred to herself, though she spent most of her time in the chorus. My father threatened to disown me if I went ahead with the marriage. I knew he’d keep to his word, but it did not worry me as I intended to make my own way in the world.’
‘Very noble of you, sir,’ muttered Sergeant Lane, who was seated a little behind Algernon, taking down his words in his notebook.
‘You might think so, Sergeant,’ said Algernon, turning his head to glance at him. ‘Unfortunately, my wife thought otherwise. I had assumed, wrongly, that she and I would rub along all right, but I soon came to realise that she had married me only for the money she thought I’d inherit. She did not know my father’s character as I did, you see, and fully expected that in time he would change his mind about disinheriting me. When it became obvious that he would not, she took against me and we had no end of arguments and rows. How it would all have ended, I don’t know, but then war broke out.’ Algernon sighed. ‘Fool that I was, I almost welcomed it as a respite from the quarrels that faced me at home. How very young and unsophisticated I was. If I had only known then that I was exchanging one hell for another … but I digress. I shall get to the point. I became great pals with a fellow named Algernon Cuffe. He was an orphan of sorts, in that his immediate family were dead. But he had some distant relatives in the colonies, and he used to regale me with tales of how he intended to join them after the war and make his fortune.’
‘This chap, Cuffe, what happened to him?’ asked Inspector Deacon curiously. ‘I take it he was killed in the war?’
‘Yes,’ said Algernon quietly. ‘He was the nicest fellow you could hope to meet, was Algernon. He had his whole future mapped out before him, and then … then an artillery shell fell on the trench we were stationed in … and did for him. I thought how unfair it was. There was I, who’d had a privileged childhood, trying to leave my life behind and not caring too much what happened to me, and there was Algernon who’d grown up in an orphanage, and was eager to improve his lot … I couldn’t help thinking what a waste it was, his dying like that when he had everything to live for. And I got to thinking, by rights it should have been me who’d died, and it would have been too if Algernon had been asked to run an errand instead of me moments before the shell fell. And then the thought came to me. Why couldn’t it have been me that died, not Algernon? What was to stop me assuming his identity and leading the life he had planned? If Dudley Stapleton returned to England, Ursula and I would only make each other miserable. And I knew that, in the event of my death, my father would consider it his duty to provide for my widow; I wouldn’t be leaving Ursula destitute. The m
ore I thought about it, the more the idea took hold of me. Algernon and I were about the same age. His distant relatives had never set eyes on him, and there was no one at home in England who would mourn his death. I could see no obvious flaw to my plan. Indeed, I became convinced that it was the right and proper thing to do; it was almost as if fate had decreed it.’
Some of the colour had gone from his face, and Rose wondered whether he was remembering again the sound of the artillery shells, and the smell and the mud of the trenches.
‘I suppose I was half mad with the horror of it all; the war, I mean,’ continued Algernon. ‘I’d just recovered from a bout of trench fever, and the shock of the artillery shell … If I’d been in my right mind, I daresay I wouldn’t have gone through with it.’
‘You went to the colonies after the war and made your fortune,’ said Inspector Deacon, eager to deal with the matter of the murders. ‘That’s what you did, isn’t it? Algernon nodded. ‘What made you come back to England?’
‘The heat didn’t agree with me and, somewhat to my surprise, I found that I rather missed old Blighty,’ said Algernon, with a rueful smile. ‘It occurred to me that enough time had elapsed whereby I might settle down in a quiet little spot and no one would be any the wiser.’
‘The mistake you made was to look up Mr Drury,’ said Rose gently, contributing to the conversation for the first time.
‘Yes’, agreed Algernon, his voice breaking. ‘You are quite right, your ladyship. Walter and I had played together as boys and had been great friends in our youth. He was a distant cousin, but I looked on him almost as a brother, I ...’ He faltered and stared into the middle distance, as if conjuring up memories of long ago. ‘If only I had stayed in the colonies,’ he said, his voice hardly above a whisper, but with such feeling that even the policemen were moved. ‘Then all this,’ he threw his hands in the air in one final desolate gesture, ‘would never have happened.’
‘I still don’t understand why he murdered Ursula Stapleton and Walter Drury, or how you managed to piece it all together,’ Cedric said, sitting back in his armchair and stretching out his legs in something of a relaxed fashion.
He was addressing his wife, who was seated on a sofa opposite. It was a few hours since Algernon and the remaining Sedgwick Players had departed, and they were sitting in the now all but deserted drawing room, all thoughts of dinner quite forgotten in the excitement of the events of the evening.
‘Begging your pardon, my lord, but Mrs Broughton thought you and her ladyship might like some sandwiches, what with you missing dinner,’ said the butler, gliding effortlessly into the room.
‘Good old Mrs Broughton,’ replied Cedric heartily, ‘that’s a splendid idea. We’ll eat in here, I think. Ask Mrs Broughton to make plenty. We’re expecting Inspector Deacon and Sergeant Lane any minute. There’s no sign of them yet, I suppose?’
‘We’re here my lord,’ replied the inspector, entering the room, the sergeant just behind him. ‘Mr Cuffe is safely in custody.’
‘Splendid,’ cried the earl. ‘Pull up some chairs. My wife was just about to explain to me how she did it; solve the case, I mean.’
Rose glanced rather anxiously at Inspector Deacon, wondering if he would consider her husband’s words rather tactless. The inspector, however, smiled at her graciously, as did Sergeant Lane, who said:
‘Do tell, miss …your ladyship. How did you know it was all to do with the lady’s past?’
‘Well, there was the photograph of the Elizabethan Pageant, of course,’ said Rose. ‘That was the first real clue. It was the photograph Mrs Stapleton found by chance in a provincial newspaper. It was the reason she came to live in Sedgwick. I have the cutting here,’ Rose added, producing the article, ‘I borrowed it from Miss Sprat.’
Cedric, being the only one of them not to have seen the photograph before, took it from his wife and studied it closely.
‘Cordelia, Miriam, Walter and Algernon. He looks rather different without his beard. I say, I suppose it was Algernon she recognised?’
‘She recognised them both,’ said Rose. ‘Algernon and Walter, though of course it was seeing Algernon in the photograph that made her start. Miss Sprat said Mrs Stapleton went awfully white, as if she had seen a ghost. And, of course she had in a way, because she thought her husband was dead.’ Rose produced another photograph from her pocket, this time the one taken of Ursula and her husband on their wedding day. ‘It occurred to me this morning to compare the two photographs. I suppose I must have noticed a resemblance. When I studied them together, I knew I was right about Algernon Cuffe being Dudley Stapleton.’
‘It must have been an awful shock to Mrs Stapleton to see a picture of her husband in the newspaper like that,’ agreed Sergeant Lane. ‘I wonder she didn’t blurt it all out to Miss Sprat.’
‘She did in a way,’ said Rose. ‘She told Miss Sprat that she had spotted a relative by marriage, which of course was true, for it applied as much to Mr Cuffe as to Mr Drury. In fact, it was rather a good pun.’
‘Why didn’t she tell her maid-companion the truth?’ queried Cedric.
‘It is only conjecture on my part,’ said Rose, ‘but I rather fancy that she wished to know the lay of the land before she said anything. She had led Miss Sprat to believe that she and her husband had been a devoted couple. It would have been difficult, therefore, to explain why her husband should have chosen to abandon her and fake his own death.’
‘And Walter’s role in all this,’ said Cedric. ‘Was it to plead Algernon’s case?’
‘Yes,’ said Rose. ‘It was a frightful shock to Algernon when Ursula appeared in Sedgwick, and I believe Mr Drury did his best to persuade her to leave. That is why he visited her so often. I don’t think he had much luck, though, which is why Algernon took to visiting her. He had something of a temper, which explains why Miss Sprat often overheard raised voices.’
‘But why did Algernon kill Ursula?’ asked Cedric. ‘Was she blackmailing him?’
‘He killed Mrs Stapleton because he was in love with Miriam Belmore and wanted to marry her,’ said Rose, stealing a glance at her husband at mention of the girl’s name. ‘From what little I have learnt, Ursula Stapleton was rather a vindictive woman. She did not wish to resume her marriage to Algernon and relinquish the allowance she was receiving from the Stapleton family, but neither did she wish to see him settled with a new wife, particularly one who was considerably younger and prettier than herself. She had a hold over Algernon and I think she enjoyed exploiting it.’
‘She sounds a thoroughly unpleasant woman,’ said Cedric, ‘and yet, on the occasions I met her, she seemed perfectly charming.’
Rose suppressed a smile, for it occurred to her that Ursula was the type of woman whose primary aim in life had been to charm every man she met. Aloud, she said:
‘Mr Cuffe had intended that his visits to Ursula remain a secret. It is perhaps unfortunate that he chose to visit her in the evenings when he thought there were less people abroad, because it had the opposite effect. The visits soon became the subject of village gossip and news of them reached Miriam’s ears. Algernon was faced with the very real possibility that Miriam would throw him over unless he got rid of Ursula.’
‘And he decided to poison her?’ said Cedric. ‘And during the rehearsals as well. I suppose he thought it would be too much of a risk to poison her during one of his visits?’
‘Yes. He needed to ensure that a few suspects were present, in the event that it was discovered she had been poisoned. Of course, he hoped that it would be assumed she had died of natural causes.’
‘I say,’ exclaimed Cedric, ‘the poor fellow must have had second thoughts about poisoning her. Do you remember, darling, how he delivered that line telling Ursula not to drink? He spoke so loudly that we all stopped what we were doing and stared at him.’ He paused for a moment, evidently remembering the scene. ‘I suppose he must have administered the poison at the same time he dropped the pearl into the glass?’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes,’ said Rose. ‘Giles Kettering saw him do it, or at least he thought he did, but he couldn’t be certain.’
‘If only he’d said something at the time,’ Inspector Deacon said gravely, ‘Walter Drury might still be alive.’
There was an awkward silence, and Rose was relieved that the secretary was not present to hear his actions condemned. She could only imagine how wretched he must be feeling over Walter’s death.
‘What about the business with the wine glass?’ enquired Cedric, keen to break the silence. ‘Was it Algernon who brought the wine glass from the folly to the house?’
‘Yes. He hid it in the waste-paper basket as a temporary measure. His intention was to take it with him when he left the house. Unfortunately for him, Henry Rewe spotted it and, thinking Miriam had put it there, moved it to the bookcase. Algernon must have had a dreadful fright when he couldn’t find it, particularly when I announced that Constable Bright was of the opinion that Ursula had been murdered.’
‘I suppose,’ said Cedric, rather sadly, ‘that once it became common knowledge that Ursula had been murdered, Algernon had to kill Walter to prevent him from going to the police. He would have realised Algernon was guilty of the crime.’
‘I think he suspected Algernon, but did not know for certain.’ Rose said slowly. ‘He wished to give him the benefit of the doubt, and did not intend to say anything to the police until he had spoken with him. However, the day it was revealed that Ursula had been murdered, he discovered Algernon had gone to London and was staying the night at his club. Meanwhile, Henry told Walter about his interview with the police and that they suspected him of Ursula’s murder because of the business with the wine glass.’
‘It helps explain Mr Drury’s rather erratic behaviour when we questioned him,’ said Inspector Deacon. ‘He must have been very worried and on edge. He kept protesting everyone’s innocence.’
‘Everyone except Mr Cuffe, that is,’ said Sergeant Lane.
Murder in the Folly Page 29