Put On By Cunning

by Ruth Rendell

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  He introduced himself and said pleasantly, 'I jear you've had some sort of break-in. Is that it?'

  Why did he feel so strongly that she was liberated by relief? Her face did not change and was a second or two before she moved. Then, lowly, she came forward.

  'It's good of you to come so quickly.' Her Ivoice was as unlike Dinah Sternhold's as it was ^asonably possible for one woman's voice to fer from another's. She had a faint American accent and in her tone there was an underlying it of amusement. He was always to be aware 'that in his dealings with her. 'I'm afraid I may making a fuss about nothing. He only took a jw spoons.' She made a comic grimace, pursing lips as she drew out the long vowel sound. ILet's go into the drawing room and I'll tell you iboutit.'

  The cast of her countenance was that which le would immediately categorize as Spanish, ill-fleshed yet strong, the nose straight if a raction too long, the mouth full and iboyantly curved, the eyes splendid, as near |o midnight black as a white woman's eyes can Iver be. Her black hair was strained tightly back from her face and knotted high on the back of ier head, a style which most women's faces |ould scarcely take but which suited hers, tposing its fine bones. And her figure was no iss arresting than her face. She was very slim

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  but for a too-full bosom, and this was not at all disguised by her straight skirt and thin sweater. Such an appearance, the ideal of men's fantasies, gives a woman a slightly indecent look, particularly if she carries herself with a certain provocative air. Natalie Arno did not quite do this but when she moved as she now did, mounting the steps to the higher level, she walked very sinuously with a stressing of her narrow waist.

  During his absence two people had come into the drawing room, a man and a woman. They were behaving in the rather aimless fashion of house guests who have perhaps just got up or at least just put in an appearance, and who are wondering where to find breakfast, newspapers and an occupation. It occurred to Wexford for the first time that it was rather odd, not to say presumptuous, of Natalie Arno to have taken possession of Sterries so immediately after her father's death, to have moved in and to have invited people to stay. Did his solicitors approve? Did they know?

  'This is Chief Inspector Wexford who has come to catch our burglar,' she said. 'My friends, Mr and Mrs Zoffany.'

  The man was one of those who had been in the circle round her after the inquest. He seemed about forty. His fair hair was thick and wavy and he had a Viking's fine golden beard, but his body had grown soft and podgy and a

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  flap of belly hung over the belt of his too-tight and too-juvenile fawn cord jeans. His wife, in the kind of clothes which unmistakably mark the superannuated hippie, was as thin as he was stout. She was young still, younger probably than Camargue's daughter, but her face was worn and there were coarse, bright threads of grey in her dark curly hair.

  Natalie Arno sat down in one of the jade

  armchairs. She sat with elegant slim legs crossed

  at the calves, her feet arched in their high-heeled

  shoes. Mrs Zoffany, on the other hand, flopped

  on to the floor and sat cross-legged, tucking her

  long patchwork skirt around her knees. The

  costume she wore, and which like so many of

  her contemporaries she pathetically refused to

  relinquish, would date her more ruthlessly than

  might any perm or pair of stockings on another

  woman. Yet not so long ago it had been the

  badge of an elite who hoped to alter the world.

  Sitting there, she looked as if she might be at

  one of the pop concerts of her youth, waiting for

  the entertainment to begin. Her head was lifted

  expectantly, her eyes on Natalie's face.

  f Til tell you what there is to tell,' Natalie

  began, 'and I'm afraid that's not much. It must

  t have been around five this morning I thought I

  (heard the sound of glass breaking. I've been

  | sleeping in Papa's room. Jane and Ivan are in

  lone of the spare rooms in the other wing. You

  gdidn't hear anything, did you, Jane?'

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  Jane Zoffany shook her head vehemently. 'I only wish I had. I might have been able to help.'

  'I didn't go down. To tell you the truth I was just a little scared.' Natalie smiled deprecatingly. She didn't look as if she had ever been scared in her life. Wexford wondered why he had at first felt her presence as hostile. She was entirely charming. 'But I did look out of the window. And just outside the window�on that side all the rooms are more or less on the ground floor, you know�there was a van parked. I put the light on and took a note of the registration number. I've got it here somewhere. What did I do with it?'

  Jane Zoffany jumped up. Til look for it, shall I? You put it down somewhere in here. I remember, I was still in my dressing gown...' She began hunting about the room, her scarves and the fringe of her shawl catching on ornaments.

  Natalie smiled, and in that smile Wexford thought he detected patronage. 'I didn't quite know what to do,' she said. Tapa didn't have a phone extension put in his room. Just as I was wondering I heard the van start up and move off. I felt brave enough to go down to the dining room then, and sure enough there was a pane gone from one of the casements.'

  'A pity you didn't phone us then. We might have got him.'

  'I know.' She said it ruefully, amusedly, with

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  soft sigh of a laugh. 'But there were only those f-dozen silver spoons missing and two fiveHind notes out of my purse. I'd left my purse

  In the sideboard.'

  'But would you know exactly what was issing, Mrs Arno?' 'Right. I wouldn't really. But Mrs Hicks has ;n round with me this morning and she can't id anything else gone.' 'It's rather curious, isn't it? This house seems me full of very valuable objects. There's a idinsky downstairs and a Boudin, I think.'

  le pointed. 'And those are signed Hockney its. That yellow porcelain...' She looked surprised at his knowledge. 'Yes, it...' Her cheeks had slightly flushed, fould you think me very forward if I said I had

  theory?'

  'Not at all. I'd like to hear it.' 'Well, first, I think he knew Papa used to

  ieep in that room and now poor Papa is gone he red no one would be in there. And, :ondly, I think he saw my light go on before

  le'd done any more than filch the spoons. He

  ites just too scared to stop any longer. How does

  iat sound?'

  'Quite a possibility,' said Wexford. Was it his agination that she had expected a more

  ithusiastic or flattering response? Jane Zoffany ie up with the van registration number on a

  lece of paper torn from an exercise book.

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  Natalie Arno didn't thank her for her pains. She rose, tensing her shoulders and throwing back her head to show off that amazing shape. Her waist could easily have been spanned by a pair of hands.

  'Do you want to see the rest of the house?' she said. 'I'm sure he didn't come up to this level.'

  Wexford would have loved to, but for what reason? 'We usually ask the householder to make a list of missing valuables in a case like this. It might be wise for me to go round with Mrs Hicks...'

  'Of course.'

  Throughout these exchanges Ivan Zoffany had not spoken. Wexford, without looking at him, had sensed a brooding concentration, the aggrieved attitude perhaps of a man not called on to participate in what might seem to be men's business. But now, as he turned his eyes in Zoffany's direction, he got a shock. The man was gazing at Natalie Arno, had probably been doing so for the past ten minutes, and his expression, hypnotic and fixed, was impenetrable. It might indicate contempt or envy or desire or simple hatred. Wexford was unable to analyse it but he felt a pang of pity for Zoffany's wife, for anyone who had to live with so much smouldering emotion.

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  ssin
g through the music room, Muriel Hicks >k him first into the wing which had been ivate to Camargue. Here all was rather more stere than what he had so far seen. The room, study-cum-sitting-room and bath>m were all carpeted in Camargue's favourite low�wasn't it in the Luscher Test that you jre judged the best-adjusted if you gave your |vourite colour as yellow?�but the furnishings �re sparse and there were blinds at the idows instead of curtains. A dress of Natalie's on the bed.

  Muriel Hicks had not so far spoken beyond ing him to follow her. She was not an ictive woman. She had the bright pink iplexion that sometimes goes with red-gold and piglet features. Wexford who, by itially marrying one, had surrounded himself ith handsome women, wondered at Camargue 10 had a beautiful daughter yet had picked an ly housekeeper and a nonentity for a second fe. Immediately he had thought that he retted it with shame. For, turning round, he that Mrs Hicks was crying. She was iding with her hand on an armchair, on the it of which lay a folded rug, and the tears were

  ig down her round, red cheeks. I She was one of the few people he had ever le across who did not apologize for crying, le wiped her face, scrubbing at her eyes. 'I've St the best employer,' she said, 'and the best

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  friend anyone could have. And I've taken it hard, I can tell you.'

  'Yes, it was a sad business.'

  'If you'll look out of that window you'll see a house over to the left. That's ours. Really ours, I mean�he gave it to us. God knows what it's worth now. D'you know what he said? I'm not having you and Ted living in a tied cottage, he said. If you're good enough to come and work for me you deserve to have a house of your own to live in.'

  It was a largish Victorian cottage and it had its own narrow driveway out into Ploughman's Lane. Sheila wouldn't have wanted it, he supposed, its not going with Sterries would make no difference to her. He put up a show for Mrs Hick's benefit of scrutinizing the spot where Natalie Arno said the van had been.

  'There weren't many like him,' said Muriel Hicks, closing the door behind Wexford as they left. It was a fitting epitaph, perhaps the best and surely the simplest Camargue would have.

  Along the corridor, back through the music room, across the drawing room, now deserted, and into the other wing. Here was a large room full of books, a study or a library, and three bedrooms, all with bathrooms en suite. Their doors were all open but in one of them, standing in front of a long glass and studying the effect of various ways of fastening the collar of a very old Persian lamb coat, was Jane Zoffany. She

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  ished, at the sight of Wexford, into a spate of ipologies�very nearly saying sorry for existing all�and scuttled from the room. Muriel lick's glassy stare followed her out. There's nothing missing from here,' she said a depressed tone. 'Anyway, those people irould have heard something.' There was a shance, he thought, that she might lose another id of control and break into a tirade against largue's daughter and her friends. But she idn't. She took him silently into the second >om and the third.

  Why had Natalie Arno chosen to occupy her ither's bedroom, austere, utilitarian and loreover the room of a lately dead man and a rent, rather than one of these luxurious rooms ith fur rugs on the carpets and duckdown luvets on the beds? Was it to be removed from le Zoffanys? But they were her friends whom le had presumably invited. To revel in the iumph of possessing the place and all that went ith it at last? To appreciate this to the full by iping in the inner sanctum, the very holy of blies? It occurred to him that by so doing she mst have caused great pain to Mrs Hicks, and len he reminded himself that this sort of :ulation was pointless, he wasn't ivestigating any crime more serious than petty rceny. And his true reason for being here was make a preliminary survey for a possible iyer.

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  'Is anything much kept in that chest?' he asked Mrs Hicks. It was a big teak affair with brass handles, standing in the passage.

  'Only blankets.'

  'And that cupboard?'

  She opened it. 'There's nothing missing.'

  He went downstairs. Morgan and his van had gone. In the hall were Burden, Natalie Arno and the Zoffanys, the man who had been sweeping the path, and a woman in a dark brown fox fur who had evidently just arrived.

  Everyone was dressed for the outdoors and for bitterly cold weather. It struck Wexford forcefully, as he descended the stairs towards them, that Natalie and her friends looked thoroughly disreputable compared with the other three. Burden was always well turned-out and in his new sheepskin he was more than that. The newcomer was smart, even elegant, creamy cashmere showing above the neckline of the fur, her hands in sleek gloves, and even Ted Hicks, in aran and anorak, had the look of a gentleman farmer. Beside them Natalie and the Zoffanys were a rag-bag crew, Zoffany's old overcoat as shabby as Wexford's own, his wife with layers of dipping skirts hanging out beneath the hem of the Persian lamb. Nothing could make Natalie less than striking. In a coat that appeared to be made from an old blanket and platform-soled boots so out of date and so worn that Wexford guessed she must have bought them in a

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  mdhand shop, she looked raffish and down her luck. They were hardly the kind of >ple, he said to himself with an inward luckle, that one (or the neighbours) would jpect to see issuing from a house in loughman's Lane.

  That the woman in the fur was one of these

  jighbours Burden immediately explained. Mrs

  Lurray-Burgess. She had seen the police cars

  id then she had encountered Mr Hicks in the

  ic. Yes, she lived next door, if next door it

  mid be called when something like an acre

  >arated Kingsfield House from Sterries, and

  ie thought she might have some useful

  formation. They all trooped into the dining room where licks resumed his task of boarding up the token window. Wexford asked Mrs Murrayrgess the nature of her information. She had seen a man in the Sterries grounds. 10, not last night, a few days before. In fact, ie had mentioned it to Mrs Hicks, not being luainted with Mrs Arno. She gave Natalie a ief glance that seemed to indicate her desire a continuation of this state of affairs. No, she Wildn't recall precisely when it had been. Last it she had happened to be awake at five- 7--she always awoke early--and had seen lights of a vehicle turning out from Sterries Ito the lane. Wexford nodded. Could she aitify this man were she to see him again?

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  'I'm sure I could,' said Mrs Murray-Burgess emphatically. 'And what's more, I would. All this sort of thing has got to be stopped before the country goes completely to the dogs. If I've got to get up in court and say that's the man!� well, I've got to and no two ways about it. It's time someone gave a lead.'

  Natalie's face was impassive but in the depths of her eyes Wexford saw a spark of laughter. Almost anyone else in her position would now have addressed this wealthy and majestic neighbour, thanking her perhaps for her concern and public spirit. Most people would have suggested a meeting on more social terms, on do-bring-your-husband-in-for-a-drink lines. Many would have spoken of the dead and have mentioned the coming memorial service. Natalie behaved exactly as if Mrs MurrayBurgess were not there. She shook hands with Wexford, thanking him warmly while increasing the pressure of her fingers. Burden was as prettily thanked and given an alluring smile. They were ushered to the door, the Zoffanys following, everyone coming out into the crisp cold air and the bright sunlight. Mrs Murray-Burgess, left stranded in the dining room with Ted Hicks, emerged in offended bewilderment a moment or two later.

  Wexford, no doubt impressing everyone with his frown and preoccupied air, was observing the extent of the double glazing and making

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  |ugh calculations as to the size of the grounds, itting at last into their car, he remarked to rden--a propos of what the inspector had no jea--that sometimes these cogitations still zed the troubled midnight and the noon's >se.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ic owner of the van was quickly traced rough its registration number. He was a levision engineer called Robert Cliffo
rd who id he had lent the van to a fellow-tenant of his

  Finsbury Park, north London, a man of r-six called John Cooper. Cooper, who was iemployed, admitted the break-in after the

  >ns had been found in his possession. He id he had read in the papers about the death of rgue and accounts of the arrangements at ;rnes.

  'It was an invite to do the place,' he said ipudently. 'All that stuff about valuable

  itings and china, and then that the lusekeeper didn't sleep in the house. She

  I't either, the first time I went.' ^When had that been?

  Tuesday night,' said Cooper. He meant icsday the 29th, two days after Camargue's ith. When he returned to break in, 'I didn't

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  know which was the old man's room,' he said. 'How would I? The papers don't give you a plan of the bloody place.' He had parked the van outside that window simply because it seemed the most convenient spot and couldn't be seen from the road. 'It gave me a shock when the light came on.' He sounded aggrieved, as if he had been wantonly interrupted while about some legitimate task. His was a middle-class accent. Perhaps, like Burden's little villain, he was a pathological kleptomaniac with personality-scarring. Cooper appeared before the Kingsmarkham magistrates and was remanded in custody until the case could be heard at Myringham Crown Court.

  Wexford was able to give Sheila a favourable report on Camargue's house, but she seemed to have lost interest in the place. (One's children had a way of behaving like this, he had noticed.) Andrew's house in Keats Grove was really very nice, and he did have the cottage in Dorset. If they lived in Sussex they would have to keep a flat in town as well. She couldn't go all the way back to Kingsmarkham after an evening performance, could she? The estate agents had found a buyer for her own flat in St John's Wood and they were getting an amazing price for it. Had Mother been to hear her banns called for the second time? Mother had.

  The day of the memorial service was bright and sunny. Alpine weather, Wexford called it,

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  frozen snow sparkling, melting a little in the only to freeze glass-hard again when the went down. Returning from his visit to dngbury Comprehensive School�where ;re was an alarming incidence of glue-sniffing long fourteen-year-olds�he passed St Peter's iurch as the mourners were leaving. The form men wear disguises them. Inside black irercoat and black Homburg might breathe fcually Sir Manuel's accompanist or Sir mePs wine merchant. But he was pretty sure had spotted James Galway, and he stood to