A Six-Letter Word for Death

by Patricia Moyes

  “Leaving his fortune and Carnworth to his widow.”

  “Well…not exactly, sir.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Derek Reynolds did not exactly smirk, but he evidently felt quite pleased with himself. He said, “I’ve got a copy of his will, sir. It’s an interesting document.” He burrowed in the file. “It’s in here somewhere…”

  “Don’t bother,” said Henry. “Just summarize it for me. On the back of a postcard.”

  “Sir?”

  “Sorry. Just a reference to what Winston Churchill is supposed to have said to his aides. Long before you were born.”

  Reynolds cleared his throat. He said, “Well, the gist of it is this, sir. Warfield left the house and the interest on the capital to Lady Oppenshaw—that’s to say, Mrs. Warfield—for her lifetime. After that, everything was to go to his daughter by his first marriage, his only child Eugenia. There was a board of trustees looking after the investment of the money and so on. However”—Reynolds paused to let the full import sink in—“however, if Eugenia should predecease her stepmother…”

  “Pamela copped the lot,” said Henry.

  “Yes, sir. But there’s another proviso—a rather strange one.”

  “Go on.”

  “The will specifically states that should Eugenia have a child—issue of her own body, or some such legal term—then he or she should inherit.”

  “After the stepmother’s death?”

  “Yes, sir. That is, unless Mrs. Warfield married again.”

  “Which she has done,” Henry remarked.

  “Precisely, sir. In the case of the girl Eugenia, she would have inherited lock, stock, and barrel at the age of twenty-one, should Mrs. Warfield remarry.”

  Henry said, “So it was obviously greatly to the advantage of the Oppenshaws that Eugenia should not live to be twenty-one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that she shouldn’t have a child. Well, that’s just about out of the question. She was only eighteen when she died, and not married.”

  Reynolds said, “There’s nothing in the will about marriage, sir.”

  There was a long pause. Then Henry said, “What happened to this board of trustees?”

  “It was disbanded, sir, once Eugenia was dead, leaving no issue.”

  “Irrespective of whether Mrs. Pamela Warfield remarried or not?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  Another long pause. Then Henry said, “I wonder if Sir Robert…was he Sir Robert then?”

  “No, sir. Oppenshaw and Trilby didn’t exist. It was just the old firm of Trilby & Son, and it was on the rocks, so I hear. Oppenshaw bought it for very little, and proceeded to build it up into what it is today. He was knighted ten years ago, sir, for services to literature.”

  “Well,” said Henry, “there seems no doubt that Jeannie’s death was an accident. There was nobody with her except six-year-old Barbara, and I can’t imagine even a wicked stepmother coaching Baba on how to drown an eighteen-year-old girl. As I was saying, I wonder if Oppenshaw knew about the provisions of the will.”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. But somebody did. Certainly the present Lady Oppenshaw and the people who were on the board of trustees.”

  “You have their names?”

  “No, sir. There seems no way I can find out, except from Lady Oppenshaw herself.”

  Slowly, Henry said, “If there had been a child…”

  “That seems very unlikely, sir. The girl Eugenia was very well brought up, and young people in those days didn’t—”

  “Young people always have and always will,” said Henry with a grin. “Still, I do agree it’s unlikely. What’s much more probable is that somebody knew about the will, and was using it to try to exert some sort of hold over Sir Robert. It also strikes me that this story—or a fanciful version of it—was the one that Peter Turnberry was trying to hawk around the writers at Carnworth.”

  “Hawk around? I hadn’t heard.”

  “No, Derek, you hadn’t.” Henry smiled. “You’ve done extraordinarily well. Thank you. Can you leave the file with me? I’ll take it from here.”

  The Explorers Club, in fact, had very few actual explorers among its members, although it had been founded in the early nineteenth century as a meeting place for those intrepid English gentlemen who put on pith helmets and strode their way with trains of native bearers over the map of Africa, marking off an Empire with their solid boots. However, it did attract a younger and more energetic type of member than did, for example, the Mausoleum. It had a reputation for fine food, and Henry had not been lying when he told Vandike that he was looking forward to his lunch.

  The porter had Professor Vandike paged, and Harry soon appeared, dapper in a dark gray suit.

  “Ah, Tibbett, delighted to see you. You don’t mind if we go straight to the dining room? As I told you, I have an appointment—and in any case the wine list here is quite exceptional. Personally, I don’t believe in spoiling my palate with spirits beforehand. So…”

  By this time he had guided Henry upstairs and into the spacious and virtually deserted dining room. The headwaiter appeared, and Vandike asked for his usual table, which turned out to be a secluded one in a remote corner. Then began an animated discussion on food and wine, in which Henry took no part except for an occasional nod if his opinion, for the sake of form, was consulted. When the first bottle—a deliciously light and dry Meursault—had been opened and approved by Vandike, the headwaiter withdrew.

  Vandike then sat forward, nursing his glass in his hand. His week in Wales had left him handsomely tanned and fit.

  “Now, Tibbett,” he said, “I’m interested in this notion of yours, as you called it.”

  “I explained on the telephone—”

  “Coroners’ juries,” said Vandike, “are notoriously stupid. Either they bring in a verdict of ‘murder by person or persons unknown,’ which leaves the police in a damned awkward position when they know perfectly well that the death was an accident, or else they ignore the most blatant evidence and say ‘accidental death’ in an obvious case of murder.”

  “I’ve had quite a bit of experience with them,” said Henry gently. “I’ve always found them pretty reliable. Common sense generally follows the right instinct, you know.”

  “You were at the Turnberry inquest?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Subpoenaed?”

  “No. Just out of interest. The proceedings were very short. The police presented an admirable and lucid case, borne out by medical evidence.”

  “And they didn’t call you?”

  “I told you they didn’t, Professor.”

  “You said on the telephone that you had no further interest in the affair. At least you implied it.”

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

  “Well I happen to know that’s not true. You’ve been talking to Myrtle and Fred and even to Barbara. And you’ve been trying to get hold of me.” Harold Vandike sat back and smiled. “Forgive me, but it’s an uncomfortable feeling to know that a senior police official is taking an interest in…in something one is involved in.”

  “Involved? In what way?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean Peter’s death, naturally. But you must have heard that I was his tutor, and that we were… friends. Apart from Barbara, I was the only person at Carnworth who knew him well.”

  “Barbara and her parents,” amended Henry.

  “And her parents, of course,” agreed Vandike, a little hastily.

  Henry said, “Apparently he was trying to sell a mystery plot to the Guess Who members before Emmy and I arrived. I presume he came to you first, since he knew you best.”

  “A plot?” Vandike sounded genuinely surprised. “First I’ve heard of it. What sort of a plot?”

  “From what I’ve been able to gather, something complicated about wills and illegitimate babies,” said Henry, deliberately vague. “I’ve no idea of the details.”

  “The young idiot,” said Vandi
ke. “God preserve us from amateurs. Anyhow, he certainly didn’t suggest any plot to me.”

  Henry said, “Well, you write Gothic mysteries, don’t you? And this was a modern whodunnit. Fred Coe thought it might have possibilities, but Cartwright turned it down flat. So did Myrtle.”

  “And Barbara?” For the first time, Harry Vandike sounded a little on edge.

  “I don’t know if he approached Barbara with it,” Henry said. “Since he was engaged to her, one would think she would be the obvious person, but he may have been afraid of upsetting her.”

  “Upsetting her?”

  “Yes. You see, the murder method was drowning, and there was a young girl involved. In view of her experience with her stepsister—”

  “Oh, that’s ancient history.”

  “Nevertheless, it must have made a great impression on her as a child.” Henry paused. “She didn’t object to your using it in your crossword?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “It did occur to me to wonder,” Henry said thoughtfully, “why you concentrated so much on that mystery, rather than on the others, when you compiled the crossword.”

  “Concentrated? I don’t understand you.”

  “The final solution,” said Henry, “contains far more references to what we may call the Oppenshaw case than to either of the others.” He pulled a paper out of his pocket. “I brought it along, just for fun. You’ll notice that as well as the names, we have ‘beach,’ ‘Baba’—which I’m told was Barbara’s nickname as a child—and even ‘Peter.’ Why drag him in? And in the clues to the two words making up ‘alibi,’ it’s clearly implied that you hope Barbara has one. You see what I mean? Even the clue to ‘whim’ connects with Peter. Can you explain?”

  Vandike smiled, a tightly knowledgeable and superior smile, such as he might well have bestowed on a stupid but enthusiastic pupil.

  “If you knew anything about crossword compilation, Tibbett,” he remarked, “you would realize that my task was extremely difficult. I had to incorporate a number of names into a small puzzle. Naturally, I had intended to make the pattern symmetrical, but even I had to abandon that idea. As for the small, intersecting words—I simply had to use whatever would fit and seemed to have some connection with one or another of the mysteries. It just so happened that more of them concerned the Warfield girl.”

  Henry remembered what Bishop Manciple had said, but did not put it forward as a theory. He said, “You told me before that the clue about Peter holding the keys was a reference to Saint Peter and the Pearly Gates of heaven.”

  “And so it was.”

  “Well,” said Henry easily, “now that he’s dead, we’ll never know whether or not he held the key to anything else. You’ve no idea why he wanted to see me that evening, or why he rode over to his parents’ house in the afternoon?”

  “To answer your questions in the reverse order,” said Vandike dryly, “he rode over to St. Lawrence because he wanted to see his father and mother. What other reason could there have been? He rode, as you may have found out, because some oaf of a magistrate had suspended his driving license. As to why he wanted to see you—perhaps he wanted to expound this famous plot to you. That, of course, is no more than a guess, arising out of what you have just told me.”

  Henry smiled. “An amusing idea,” he said. “You may well be right. Well, I’m only sorry that such a pleasant week should have been spoiled by a tragic death. I was much impressed by Carnworth.”

  “Yes,” agreed Vandike. “A beautiful place.”

  “You’re a climber,” said Henry. “Have you ever climbed the cliff by the old smugglers’ route?”

  “Of course I have,” said Vandike. “The first time I ever visited Carnworth. It was put to me as a sort of challenge. In fact, it’s laughably easy, if you know what you’re doing. The only people who get hurt are the amateurs. I always think it is the greatest mistake for amateurs to attempt to vie with professionals—don’t you?”

  The smile was the same as ever, but Henry suddenly felt a sense of menace and strong hostility. No, not exactly hostility. More like warning. Yet when it came to the detection of crime, he, Henry, was the professional. Interesting.

  Vandike added, “A professional knows what he is doing. If he decides to abandon an enterprise, for any reason, it is foolhardy for an amateur to persist.”

  The conversation had, of course, been punctuated by the periodic arrival of the headwaiter, who seemed to be serving the professor himself as a mark of special favor. He produced various delicious dishes and a bottle of Volnay to accompany the roast ribs of beef and the ensuing cheese. Each time the waiter approached, Vandike was careful to break off the conversation, and did not resume it until he had withdrawn.

  Henry declined coffee. He could get a cup from the canteen, and Vandike had been consulting his watch in a marked manner for several minutes. So the two men rose to leave. It was ten minutes past one.

  “Sorry to hurry you like this,” said Vandike, “but I have so little time. Can I offer you a ride back to the Yard? I have my car in the club’s basement garage.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Henry said, “but I don’t want to delay you, and I have plenty of time. Thanks for a delicious lunch.”

  And that seemed to be that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THAT EVENING, BACK in the shabby but comfortable Chelsea flat that was their home, Henry said to Emmy, “Oh, by the way, I’ve applied for a few days’ leave.”

  Emmy, who was making a salad in the kitchen, put her head around the door. “What do you mean, ‘leave’?”

  “You know what ‘leave’ is, darling. A few days off.”

  “But Henry, I thought we were saving up your leave as well as money to go to Burgundy in the autumn.”

  “I know we were, love,” Henry said, “but I’m afraid I must do this.” He paused, then added, “When it’s all over, you may find that it isn’t counted against my leave allowance after all.”

  “I knew it,” said Emmy resignedly. “I knew the Turnberry thing wasn’t over. We’re going back to the Isle of Wight, aren’t we?”

  “Right the first time.”

  “To see the Oppenshaws?”

  “I don’t know,” said Henry. “They’re certainly not the first on the list.”

  “Then who is?”

  “The Turnberrys. Peter’s parents.”

  “How can they help?”

  “You’ll see, I hope,” said Henry.

  This time, making an early start, Henry drove his own elderly but well-preserved car down to Portsmouth. The weather was still beautiful, the crossing calm, and the Solent speckled with white sails. Soon the Tibbetts were ashore, had lunched, and were bowling along the coast road, bypassing Ventnor, on the southern tip of the island, and regaining the coast on the clifftops near St. Lawrence. They reached the Turnberrys’ house at three.

  Henry had given no prior warning of their arrival, and could only hope that James and Nora would be home. In fact, Nora Turnberry was weeding the garden when they arrived. She straightened up, looked puzzled for a moment, then broke into a smile.

  “Why, it’s Mr. and Mrs. Tibbett. How nice. What are you doing in these parts? Wait while I take off my apron. You must come in and have a nice cup of tea.”

  After polite greetings, Henry and Emmy were ushered indoors and invited to sit down while Nora put the kettle on. From the kitchen, which was connected to the living room by a serving hatch, Nora called, “James will be disappointed to miss you. He’s out seeing to the shops. Always goes around to both of them midweek. James is most particular that the quality and service is always the best it can be. We’re not a big business, Mr. Tibbett, but we do try to keep high standards. There, the kettle’ll be on the boil in a minute. Milk and sugar? And you’ll take a slice of my walnut cake, won’t you?”

  A minute or so later she came in with a laden tray, which she put down on a low table. As she poured tea, Nora Turnberry chatted on. “Having a bit of a
holiday, are you? I’ve often said to James, there’s something about the island. People don’t come down here just once. Back and back they come. Well, look at us, always lived in Ealing and came here on holiday—and here we are. Can’t explain it, but there it is.”

  Henry smiled. “You’re quite right, Mrs. Turnberry—but this is a bit more than a holiday.”

  “More than a holiday? What’s that mean?”

  “We came to talk to you and your husband,” said Henry.

  “About Peter,” Emmy added.

  For the first time a trace of reserve crept into Mrs. Turnberry’s voice. “That’s over and done with, isn’t it, Mr. Tibbett? Wasn’t it bad enough when it happened? James and I—well, we’ve decided that you can’t put the clock back and go on moping all your life—but it’s not what I call very nice to come down here raking everything up again.”

  Henry said, “I know just how you feel, Mrs. Turnberry, and I’m terribly sorry. But I have to ask you.”

  “Ask me what?”

  Quite deliberately, stirring his tea, Henry said, “Did Peter know that he was adopted?”

  Without thinking, Mrs. Turnberry began, “No, we never—” and then broke off and turned angrily to Henry. “You trapped me into that. Unfair, I call it. What James would say—”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Turnberry,” Henry said. “I had a strong hunch that it was true. But I had to hear it from you.”

  “Well, there’s only one person who could have told you, and I’m ashamed of him. I supposed lawyers had to keep people’s secrets—like priests, almost. But then I always did think he was a shifty one, whatever Peter said.”

  “You mean Professor Vandike?”

  “Who else? He was the one who arranged it all, and under what he called the seal of secrecy. Some seal, I must say.” Mrs. Turnberry did not offer either Henry or Emmy a slice of her delicious-looking walnut cake—a sure sign of real fury.

  “Well,” said Henry pacifically, “it doesn’t make any difference now, does it?” Nora Turnberry stirred her tea, glaring at him. He went on, “You knew the identity of the actual parents, I suppose?”