He was ready for a punch, but the man brought his right hand out from behind his leg holding a long-barrelled revolver, a copy, probably Belgian Keith thought, of the Smith and Wesson Russian model, and put it against Keith’s chest.
Keith wanted that pistol in his own fist before he went any further. He held the man’s eyes. ‘My friends know I’m here. And they know you’re here. Are you really going to let that thing off?’
While he spoke, and without looking down again, he stroked one finger of his left hand along the eight-inch barrel of the revolver. The hammer was already cocked, which negated the possibility of gripping the cylinder to prevent any movement of the action. Instead, Keith slipped his thumb under the hammer and then took a firm grip.
To Keith’s surprise and probably his own, the man pulled the trigger. The hammer pinched Keith’s thumb, not very painfully.
Keith was wide open to a punch from the man’s left hand. But in more ways than one a man with a gun is at a disadvantage. The gun conveys power and generates over-confidence, while its user concentrates his mind on it and forgets other forms of attack. By the time the man took his mind off the revolver’s inexplicable refusal to function, Keith had taken a handful of male glands in his right hand and squeezed. The man went up on his toes, his eyes crossed and he let go of the revolver in order to grip Keith’s wrist with both hands. But he still had sense enough not to pull.
Wondering if he hadn’t caught a bear by the tail, Keith tried to juggle the revolver with his left hand, but he could not pull his thumb free one-handed without a shot being fired.
‘What the hell . . .?’ Another man had appeared from the direction of the drawing room, a smaller man, darker, with what Keith thought of as Jewish features and a hare-lip. Without hesitating, he ran at Keith, hands out as if to grip his lapels. Just in time, Keith recognised the signs, the stiffened neck-muscles and unfocusing eyes, and he lowered his own head before the butt to his face could land. Instead, he felt the other’s nose smack down on to the crown of his own head.
His first opponent was emitting a high, hissing sound and Keith realised that the later flurry of movement had been transmitted through his handhold. He released the man and pushed him away. The smaller man was moaning and holding his face. Keith freed his left thumb from under the revolver’s hammer and then, carefully holding back the hammer with his other thumb, used the barrel to administer a sharp rap on the skull to each man. The darker man went down, bleeding copiously from the nose over the hare-lip. The taller, fair man stayed on his feet. Keith had neither the time nor the means to assess whether he were still a danger, so he swept his leg round and kicked the man’s feet out from under him. The man dropped heavily into a sitting position and rolled over.
‘Here endeth the first lesson. That,’ Keith said, ‘was for beating up harmless poofs. The second lesson will be for fun.’
Without awaiting an answer, he walked through the open door of the drawing room. His heart was beating hard, his mouth was dry and he could feel his knees shaking.
*
The spacious drawing room was almost uncomfortably warm. Although the room was equipped with radiators the central heating did not seem to be on, but Mrs Winterton and Mary Bruce were seated comfortably on either side of an Adam fireplace in which an unnecessary log fire was smouldering. If there had been tea or sherry on the occasional table it would have been a cosy scene.
Mary’s eyes flicked to the bone-handled revolver in Keith’s hand. ‘What was all that fuss about?’ she asked.
‘One of your goons pulled a gun,’ Keith said. ‘You may remember that I spend my life around guns. It’s against my religion to have them pointed at me.’
‘Eric always was impetuous,’ Mary said. The remark implied that Eric had had the only firearm. But, Keith wondered, was this a snare? Mary had always been the tricky one.
Keith took an upright chair which had its back to the wall. ‘If he’s in the habit of producing guns at the drop of a hat,’ he said, ‘you’d better buy him something better than this.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
Watching Mary out of the corner of his eye, Keith opened the revolver and looked at the proof-marks. ‘Made in a Belgian back-street and sold in a Glasgow pub for a fiver or two. No rebounding lock, just a half-cock position which I wouldn’t trust inside a glass case. And it must weigh over a kilo. No,’ Keith added quickly, snapping the revolver shut, ‘keep your hand away from your handbag. I’m sure you’ve got something better there but I don’t want to see it just now.’ He raised the muzzle of the revolver an inch.
Mrs Winterton had been looking at him much as she would have regarded a flasher at a garden-party. ‘How dare you come bursting in here in this violent way?’ she demanded. ‘By what right?’
‘I came,’ Keith said, ‘in case you were in any danger. These people have just given that son of yours a thorough battering.’
She seemed unmoved by the news, as if it were either stale or uninteresting, he could not be sure which. ‘Steven brings these things on himself.’
‘Perhaps,’ Keith said. ‘What reason did they give you for their visit?’
The older woman looked at the younger. ‘We came,’ Mary said quickly, ‘to tell Mrs Winterton that a man had sold this to one of my father’s shops yesterday afternoon.’ She picked up a silver table-lighter which Keith had supposed to belong on the table beside her. ‘We thought that it might have been taken at the time of the . . . burglary.’
‘Why did that make it necessary to beat up Steven Clune?’ Keith asked.
‘We didn’t want to bother Mrs Winterton in her time of bereavement,’ Mary said. ‘So we visited her son. But my companions took offence at some of his remarks.’
Keith shrugged off the obviousness of the lie. But what was behind it? ‘Do you have a description of the man?’ he asked.
‘A young man, roughly spoken, wearing jeans,’ Mary said. ‘The shop manager only noticed his hands. He said that the little finger was missing from his left hand. The nails were well-kept but the forefinger of the right hand had a black rim.’
The smaller of Mary’s bodyguards had arrived in the doorway, holding a bloodstained handkerchief to a badly-swollen nose.
‘Stay where you are, Nigel,’ Mary said, ‘and try to keep out of trouble. Where’s Eric?’
‘How would I know?’ Nigel retorted. The distortion of his voice produced by the broken nose, added to the effect of the hare-lip, made him almost unintelligible. ‘Dangling himself in cold water, I should think. But we’ll get even. You know what this bugger did—?’
‘That’ll do,’ Mary said. Of the three others in the room, she exhibited the least hostility to Keith, but he had the feeling that this was because she was using her brain rather than her emotions.
‘Eric wouldn’t by any chance be fetching more armament from the car?’ Keith enquired.
‘We’re not a guerilla group,’ Mary said. ‘The sum total of our armament is what you have in your hand.’
Mrs Winterton had examined the lighter without interest. ‘I don’t remember seeing it before,’ she said.
Even from where he sat, Keith could see the initials. ‘It has R.W. engraved on it,’ he said.
‘Those are very common initials,’ the widow said.
Keith wondered just how far they would carry the charade. ‘The police will be interested,’ he said.
‘I don’t think that we should bother the police with something which is almost certainly irrelevant,’ Mrs Winterton said.
‘Oh, come on!’ Keith said impatiently. ‘Your husband was murdered and now this kind lady turns up with an obvious clue and a description of a man who may be the murderer. Of course you must tell the police.’
Mrs Winterton glared at him. ‘You’re the executor,’ she said. ‘You tell them.’
‘I will,’ Keith said. ‘Leave it on the table for the moment. I don’t suppose there are any prints left on it, but there’s no sense in adding any mo
re. I’ll take charge of it, and if it turns out not to be part of the estate, Mrs . . .’ he had to think for a moment before her married name came to him ‘. . . Anguillas will get it back.’
‘Too kind,’ Mary Bruce said. ‘And now, shouldn’t you be running along?’
Keith had been about to ask what they had taken away from Steven Clune’s bungalow but he changed his mind. Whatever it was, she did not have it with her. Nor did the two men. It might, of course, already be in the house, in which case he would have time to go after it later. More probably, it was in the car. He got out of his chair. Neither woman moved as he wrapped the lighter in his handkerchief – awkwardly, because he was still holding the revolver – and dropped it into one of the poacher’s pockets in his olive-green shooting-coat.
At the door, he stopped and looked Nigel in the eye. ‘If you follow me, I’ll kill you,’ he said and emphasised the words with a gesture with the pistol. He walked out into the hall. Eric was emerging from a door set between the drawing room and the front of the house. He seemed to be walking with care. He stopped dead when he saw Keith and leaned against the doorpost. Behind him, Keith saw a small cloakroom.
‘I’m going,’ Keith said. ‘You stay out of sight or I’ll shoot you where it hurts already!’ He went out through the front door and closed it behind him.
Standing between the cars, he looked back. The windows of the drawing room were round the side of the house. Nobody was watching him. The Granada was locked, doors and boot. Keith muttered something about suspicious sods. If the revolver had been a more trustworthy weapon, he would have been quite prepared to blow the boot-lock off. But that would have fetched them out and provoked another confrontation.
There were still no eyes at the front of the house, but he could feel Ronnie watching him.
Keith stooped and ran his fingers along the inside of the back bumper. It was only a one-in-three chance and he grinned to himself when it came off. His fingers found a small, magnetic box which came away in his hand. It contained a spare key. Mary had always had a fear of locking herself out of a car.
In the boot, he found a polythene bag containing what seemed to be a woman’s brown leather or plastic handbag. The boot was otherwise empty.
He was still unobserved, except by Ronnie and Deborah, but it would not be long before those in the house wondered why they had not heard the sound of his jeep. He started its engine and then walked backwards across a few yards of grass to the ubiquitous rhododendrons, watching the windows as he went. When he was out of sight from the house, he turned at right angles away from the drive and hurried between the bushes for fifty yards before stopping to search for what he wanted. He found it, an old rabbit-hole half-filled with leaves and loose earth where he could bury the bag for the moment without leaving a trace for anybody who might follow him. In the deep shade, there was no undergrowth to retain the marks of his passing, just hard, bare earth. He looked around, to be sure that he could find the place again, and then hurried back to the cars, brushing mould from his fingers.
There was still nobody at the front of the house. He shrugged and produced the revolver from where, after making sure that there was an empty chamber under the hammer, he had stowed it in his waistband. He paused to switch off the jeep’s engine.
Once back inside the front door, he could hear the sound of argument from the drawing room. He would have liked to listen. But it would be better not to let them see earth on his fingers. And the lemonade was suddenly beginning to make its presence felt. He slipped through the first door. The cloakroom gave on to a small compartment with a wash-basin, which in turn led to what he most needed. . . .
It took him some time to wash the grit off his hands. The soap itself seemed to be gritty. When he emerged and walked softly to the still half-open door of the drawing room, the argument had stopped.
‘I still haven’t heard the bugger drive off,’ said Eric’s voice.
‘Just be patient,’ Mary said.
Keith peeped cautiously round the edge of the door but there were still no other guns in evidence. ‘If you’re waiting for me to go,’ he said, coming into the room, ‘you’ll have to be very patient. I’ve decided that this is a good time to ask Mrs Winterton to show me over the house.’
He was blistered by the combined glare of four pairs of eyes.
‘It will not be convenient,’ Mrs Winterton said coldly.
Keith smiled. ‘Yes, it will,’ he said.
Mary Bruce sat back in her chair. ‘We can wait until Mrs Winterton is free.’
‘You’ll have a long wait. I’m staying outside until morning.’
Mary Bruce froze for a second and then gave in gracefully. She got up. ‘Very well,’ she said.
Despite his broken nose, Nigel still had some spirit left. He took a pace towards Keith. ‘Now look,’ he said.
Keith aligned the barrel of the revolver on the middle of Nigel’s forehead. ‘You look,’ he said.
‘That’s my shooter you took off Eric,’ Nigel said plaintively. ‘He’d no business parting with it. We’re not going to shoot you and you’re not going to shoot us. Let’s have it back.’
‘All right,’ Keith said. He lowered his hand suddenly as if the heavy pistol was slipping out of his grasp. And as Nigel stooped, Keith seized his nose with his left hand and tweaked it firmly. As he backed away with the revolver still ready, Nigel was roaring with pain.
‘Come along, boys,’ Mary Bruce said, ‘before the bastard thinks of anything worse to do to you.’ Nose in the air, she led the way out. Her bodyguards followed, Nigel nursing his again bleeding snout. Eric, still walking like a cripple, detoured to pass well clear of Keith. He kept his eyes averted, perhaps, Keith thought sadly, to hide the hate in them.
Keith had intended to keep them too angry to think of looking in the Granada’s boot and in this he was successful. He followed them as far as the front door. A short argument on the gravel was resolved by Mary taking the wheel. The two toughs stowed themselves gently in the back and the Granada set off, slowly and rather unsteadily, down the drive.
*
Keith was still holding the revolver. He broke it open, centred the empty chamber again under the hammer, snapped it shut and stowed it in the other poacher’s pocket opposite the table-lighter. He found that the weight was dragging him to one side, but he preferred to have it with him, just in case.
The widow met him in the hall. She was regally gracious, as if there were no mystery, and she tried to gloss over the recent, angry scenes and the violence. ‘I’m sure you mean well,’ she said. ‘But was it necessary to be so rough?’ Keith could see a hundred signs of stretched nerves, from the quaver in her voice to the clasped hands.
‘Now that they’ve gone,’ he said gently, ‘wouldn’t you like to tell me something?’
‘The place isn’t as clean as I like it to be for visitors,’ she said hurriedly (and indeed Keith could feel his feet gritting on the tiled floor), ‘but on top of losing my maid, my daily woman has let me down. Refuses to work in a house where people get murdered, she says. I don’t know what staff are coming to.’
Keith was tempted to mention that Molly had kept a similar house of almost the same size unaided for years. But Molly had grumbled for years and now had daily help.
‘I’ll make allowances,’ he said. ‘Is there a gardener?’
‘A landscape contractor comes in once a fortnight.’
‘Could I have the inventory,’ Keith asked, ‘just while we go round?’
‘We’ll start from the top,’ the widow decided. She set off up the stairs before Keith could comment. ‘I’m afraid my stepson has the inventory. Robin lent him some furniture and silver. I’ve asked him to mark on the inventory what he’s keeping, so that you can deduct its value from his share of the estate.’
‘Very thoughtful,’ Keith said.
He made sure that he saw through the whole house, attics and all. There were many places where pistols could have been hidden from him.
But not two long Scottish muskets and the other longarms. He saw inside every cupboard and he looked behind and under the furniture. Mrs Winterton was still nervous, although she controlled it admirably, but she was no more nervous in one room than in another.
The house, although it had been very much a home, held a wealth of antiques which would have done credit to a small museum. Robin Winterton had obtained some treasures by inheritance and others by marriage, and he had not confined his investments entirely to guns. Keith, who had almost by the way picked up a knowledge of antiques during his pursuit of old firearms, saw that even without the gun collection the estate was far from valueless. A Minton vase in blue, cream and gold caught his eye. It bore the rare puce mark which had been used only on ceramics made for the 1862 Exhibition. There sat ten grand for a start, thought Keith.
Although it was bare, he made a point of looking in the cellar where the collection had been kept. She unset the alarms and unlocked a strongroom door to let him in. The old, stone barrel-vault was the same, but it hurt him almost physically to see the empty racks which had once held a well-chosen cross-section of the history of the gunmaker’s art.
Two rooms, one on the first floor where Robin Winterton had met his fate and another at ground level where the killer had broken in, had been sealed by the police and Keith satisfied himself that the seals had not been tampered with. If anything had been hidden in those rooms before their arrival, the police would certainly have found it.
They had finished the tour and were returning to the hall when the telephone rang. The widow seated herself at a small table and picked up the instrument. Keith waited, partly out of unashamed curiosity.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Winterton said. ‘You’ve only just heard from him? . . . Those seem to be the facts. . . . Yes, that’s exactly what happened. . . . You can draw your own conclusions. . . . We’ll speak again.’ She hung up.
‘Your stepson?’ Keith asked.
‘My son telephoned him about getting into a fight. I can’t think why.’
The Executor (Keith Calder Book 10) Page 8