Put On By Cunning

by Ruth Rendell

  Wexford knew Kenneth Ames well by sight, though he couldn't recall ever having spoken to him before. He was a thin, spare man with a

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  >yish face. That is, his face like his figure had ;pt its youthful contours, though it was by now led all over with fine lines as if a web had

  ai laid upon the skin. He wore a pale grey suit

  it seemed too lightweight for the time of year.

  is manner was both chatty and distant which ive the impression, perhaps a false one, that is mind was not on what he was saying or tstening to.

  This made repeating Dinah Sternhold's xount a rather uneasy task. Mr Ames sat with is elbows on the arms of an uncomfortable )king metal chair and the tips of his fingers ressed together. He stared out of the window at it Peter's spire. As the story progressed he

  ished his lips and gradually his whole jaw >rward until the lower part of his face grew mzzle-like. This doggy expression he held for a loment or two after Wexford had finished.

  icn he said:

  *I don't think I'd place too much credence on that, Mr Wexford. I don't think I would. It mnds to me as if Sir Manuel rather got a bee in belfry, you know, and this young lady,

  rs�er, Steinhalt, is it?�Mrs Steinhall maybe Ided the gingerbread.' Mr Ames paused and mghed slightly after delivering these confused letaphors. He studied his short clean igernails with interest. 'Once Sir Manuel was tried he'd have had to make a new will.

  lere was nothing out of the way in that. We

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  have no reason to believe he meant to disinherit Mrs Arno.' The muzzle face returned as Mr Ames glared at his fingernails and enclosed them suddenly in his fists as if they offended him. 'In point of fact,' he said briskly, 'Sir Manuel invited me to lunch to discuss a new will and to meet his bride, Mrs�er, Sternhill, but unfortunately his death intervened. You know, Mr Wexford, if Sir Manuel had really believed he'd been visited by an impostor, don't you think he'd have said something to us? There was over a week between the visit and his death and during that week he wrote to me and phoned me. No, if this extraordinary tale were true I fancy he'd have said something to his solicitors.'

  'He seems to have said nothing to anyone except Mrs Sternhold.'

  An elastic smile replaced the muzzle look. 'Ah, yes. People like to make trouble. I can't imagine why. You may have noticed?'

  'Yes,' said Wexford. 'By the way, in the event of Mrs Arno not inheriting, who would?'

  'Oh dear, oh dear, I don't think there's much risk of Mrs Arno not inheriting, do you, really?'

  Wexford shrugged. 'Just the same, who would?'

  'Sir Manuel had�has, I suppose I should say if one may use the present tense in connection with the dead�Sir Manuel has a niece in France, his dead sister's daughter. A Mademoiselle Therese Something. Latour?

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  icroix? No doubt I can find the name for you 'you really want it.'

  'As you say, there may be no chance of her leriting. Am I to take it then that Symonds, i*Brien and Ames intend to do nothing about kis story of Mrs Sternhold's?' 'I don't follow you, Mr Wexford.' Mr Ames is once more contemplating the church spire Jhich was now veiled in fine driving rain. 'You intend to accept Mrs Arno as Sir

  mel's heir without investigation?' The solicitor turned round. 'Good heavens, >, Mr Wexford. What can have given you that i?' He became almost animated, almost solved. 'Naturally, in view of what you've told we shall make the most thorough and iaustive inquiries. No doubt,,you will too?' |Oh yes.'

  |A certain pooling of our findings would be Arable, don't you agree? It's quite cable that a considerable property such as Manuel left could pass to an heir about lose provenance there might be the faintest ibt.' Mr Ames half closed his eyes. He smed to gather himself together in order to once more into remoteness. 'It's only,' he Id with an air of extreme preoccupation, 'that |doesn't really do, you know, to place too ich credence on these things.'

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  As the receiver was lifted the deep baying of a dog was the first sound he heard. Then the soft gentle voice gave the Forby number.

  'Mrs Sternhold, do you happen to know if Sir Manuel had kept any samples of Mrs Arno's handwriting from before she went away to America?'

  'I don't know. I don't think so.' Her tone sounded dubious, cautious, as if she regretted having told him so much. Perhaps she did, but it was too late now. 'They'd be inside Sterries, anyway.' She didn't add what Wexford was thinking, that if Camargue had kept them and if Natalie was an impostor, they would by now have been destroyed.

  'Then perhaps you can help me in another way. I gather Sir Manuel had no relatives in this country. Who is there I can call on who knew Mrs Arno when she was Natalie Camargue?'

  Burden's Burberry was already hanging on the palm tree hatstand when Wexford walked into the Pearl of Africa. And Burden was already seated under the plastic fronds, about to start on his antipasto Ankole.

  'I don't believe they have shrimps in Uganda,' said Wexford, sitting down opposite him.

  'Mr Haq says they come out of Lake Victoria.

  mt are you going to have?' 'Oh, God. Avocado with Victorian shrimps, I ippose, and maybe an omelette. Mike, I've ;n on to the California police through Jiterpol, asking them to give us whatever they about the background of Natalie Arno, but she's never been in trouble, and we've no son to think she has, it won't be much. And re had another talk with Dinah. The first� |ell, the only really�Mrs Camargue had a ter who's still alive and in London. Ever ;ard of a composer called Philip Gory? He was old pal of Camargue's. Either of both of them ight to be able to tell us if this is the real latalie.'

  [Burden said thoughtfully, 'All this raises Imething else, doesn't it? Or, rather, what ;'ve been told about Camargue's will does, id in that area it makes no difference whether italic is Natalie or someone else.' fe'What does it raise?' f'You know what I mean.' �Wexfbrd did. That Burden too had seen it rcely surprised him. A year or two before the spector had often seemed obtuse. But Ippiness makes so much difference to a son, Wexford thought. It doesn't just make happy, it makes them more intelligent, >re aware, more alert, while unhappiness idens, dulls and stupefies. Burden had seen it he had seen because he was happy, and

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  happiness was making a better policeman of him.

  'Oh, I know what you mean. Perhaps it was rather too readily assumed that Camargue died a natural death.'

  'I wouldn't say that. It's just that then there was no reason to suspect foul play, nothing and no one suspicious seen in the neighbourhood, no known enemies, no unusual bruising on the body. A highly distinguished but rather frail old man happened to go too near a lake on a cold night in deep snow.'

  'And if we had known what we know now? We can take it for granted that Natalie's aim� whether she is Camargue's daughter or an impostor�her aim in coming to her father was to secure his property or the major part of it for herself. She came to him and, whether he actually saw through her and denounced her or thought he saw through her and dreamed he denounced her, he at any rate apparently wrote to her and told her she was to be disinherited.'

  'She could either attempt to dissuade him,' said Burden, 'or take steps of another sort.'

  'Her loss wouldn't have been immediate. Camargue was getting married and had therefore to make a new will after his marriage. She might count on his not wishing to make a new will at once and then another after his marriage. She had two weeks in which to act.'

  'There's a point too that, whereas she might

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  ite dissuaded him from cutting her out, she Idn't have dissuaded him from leaving ries to Dinah. But there don't seem to have any efforts at dissuasion, do there? Dinah sn't know of any or she'd have told you, nor Natalie come to Sterries again.' |*Except perhaps,' said Wexford, 'on the night ^Sunday, 27 January.' fBurden's answer was checked by the arrival of

  Haq, bowing over the table. plow are you doing, my dear?' IfFine, thanks.' Any less hearty reply would re summoned forth a stream of abjec
t apology the cook from the kitchen as well as causing real pain to Mr Haq. II can recommend the mousse Maherere.'

  Haq, if his advice was rejected, was ible of going off into an explanation of how dish was composed of coffee beans freshly ;ked in the plantations of Toro and of cream the milk of the taper-horned Sanga cattle, prevent this, and though knowing its actual jtvenance to be Sainsbury's instant dessert, txlen ordered it. Wexford always had the ise of his shaky and occasional diet. A bowl |J>ale brown froth appeared, served by Mr I's own hands.

  lietly Wexford repeated his last remark, le night of 27 January?' echoed Burden, night of Camargue's death? If he was irdered, and I reckon we both think he was, if

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  he was pushed into that water and left to drown, Natalie didn't do it.'

  'How d'you know that?'

  'Well, in a funny sort of way,' Burden said almost apologetically, 'she told me so.'

  'It was while we were up at Sterries about that burglary. I was in the dining room talking to Hicks when Natalie and the Zoffany couple came downstairs. She may have known I was within earshot but I don't think she did. She and Mrs Z. were talking and Natalie was saying she supposed she would have to get Sotheby's or someone to value Camargue's china for her. On the other hand, there had been that man she and Mrs Z. had met that someone had said was an expert on Chinese porcelain and she'd like to get hold of his name and phone number. Zoffany said what man did she mean and Natalie said he wouldn't know, he hadn't been there, it had been at so-and-so's party last Sunday evening.'

  'A bit too glib, wasn't it?'

  'Glib or not, if Natalie was at a party there'll be at least a dozen people to say she was, as well as Mrs Z. And if Camargue was murdered we will never prove it. If we'd guessed it at the time it would have been bad enough with snow lying everywhere, with snow falling to obliterate all possible evidence. No weapon but bare hands.

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  irgue cremated. We haven't a hope in hell 'proving it.'

  'You're over-pessimistic,' said Wexford, and quoted softly, 'If a man will begin with tainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts he shall end in unties.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  shop that is not regularly open and manned jms to announce this fact to the world even len the 'open' sign hangs on its door and an istant can be seen pottering inside. An ^finable air of neglect, of lack of interest, of various existence and theatened permanent sure hangs over it. So it was with the Zodiac, ig in deep Victoriana, tucked behind a )-Gothic square, on the borders of Islington

  Hackney.

  Ifes window was stacked full of paperback ice fiction, but some of the books had ibled down, and those which lay with their fers exposed had their gaudy and bizarre signs veiled in dust. Above the shop was a jle storey--for this was a district of squat Idings and wide streets--and behind it a iping of rooms, shapelessly huddled and odd little scraps of roof, gables protruding,

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  seemingly superfluous doors and even a cowled chimney. Wexford pushed open the shop door and walked in. There was a sour, inky, musty smell, inseparable from secondhand books. These lined the shop like wallpaper, an asymmetrical pattern of red and green and yellow and black spines. They were all science fiction, The Trillion Project, Nergal of Chaldea, Neuropodium, Course for Umbrial, The Triton Occultation. He was replacing on the shelf a book whose cover bore a picture of what appeared to be a Boeing 747 coated in fish scales and with antennae, when Ivan Zoffany came in from a door at the back.

  Recognition was not mutual. Zoffany showed intense surprise when Wexford said who he was, but it seemed like surprise alone and not fear.

  Td like a few words with you.'

  'Right. It's a mystery to me what about but I'm easy. I may as well close up for lunch anyway.'

  It was ten past twelve. Could they hope to make any sort of living out of this place? Did they try? The 'open' sign was turned round and Zoffany led Wexford into the room from which he had come. By a window which gave on to a payed yard and scrap of garden and where the light was best, Jane Zoffany, in antique gown, shawl and beads, sat sewing. She appeared to be turning up or letting down the hem of a skirt and Wexford, whose memory was highly

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  sntive about this sort of thing, recognized it ^the skirt Natalie had been wearing on the day �y were summoned after the burglary. j|What can we do for you?' Joffany had the bluff, insincere manner of man who has a great deal to hide, jrience had taught Wexford that what such Inature is hiding is far more often some Motional disturbance or failure of nerve than Ity knowledge. He could hardly have lulged in greater self-deception than when he said he was easy. There was something in fany's eyes and the droop of his mouth when |was not forcing it into a grin that spoke of itful inner suffering. And it was more Parent here, on his home ground, than it had at Sterries.

  [ow long have you known Mrs Arno?' Jtinctively, Jane Zoffany glanced towards ceiling. And at that moment a light footstep ided overhead. Zoffany didn't look up.

  )h, I'd say a couple of years, give or take a

  � >

  * �

  IVou knew her before she came to this itry then?'

  Let her when my poor sister died. Mrs Arno my sister used to share a house in Los jeles. Perhaps you didn't know that? Tina, ^sister, she died the summer before last, and id to go over and see to things. Grisly less but someone had to. There wasn't

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  anyone else, barring my mother, and you can't expect an old lady of seventy�I say, what's all this in aid of?'

  Wexford ignored the question as he usually ignored such questions until the time was ripe to answer them. 'Your sister and Mrs Arno shared a house?'

  'Well, Tina had a flat in her house.'

  'A room actually, Ivan,' said Jane Zoffany.

  'A room in her house. Look, could you tell me why you want... ?'

  'She must have been quite a young woman. What did she die of?'

  'Cancer. She had cancer in her twenties while she was still married. Then she got divorced, but she didn't keep his name, she went back to her maiden name. She was thirty-nine if you want to know. The cancer came back suddenly, it was all over her, carcinomatosis, they called it. She was dead in three weeks from the onset.'

  Wexford thought he spoke callously and with a curious kind of resentment. There was also an impression that he talked for the sake of talking, perhaps to avoid an embarrassing matter.

  'I hadn't seen her for sixteen or seventeen years,' he said, 'but when she went like that someone had to go over. I can't think what you want with all this.'

  It was on the tip of Wexford's tongue to retort that he had not asked for it. He said mildly, 'When you arrived you met Mrs Arno? Stayed

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  her house perhaps?' Zoffany nodded, uneasy again. 'You got on well and became friends. After pu came home you corresponded with her and ?hen you heard she was coming back here and leeded somewhere to live, you and your wife jffered her the upstairs flat.' 1 'That's quite correct,' said Jane Zoffany. She jve a strange little skittish laugh. 'I'd always pdmired her from afar, you see. Just to think of ly own sister-in-law living in Manuel mrgue's own daughter's house! I used to worship him when I was young. And Natalie id I are very close now. It was a really good lea. I'm sure Natalie has been a true friend to ie.' She re-threaded her needle, holding the eye ip against the yellowed and none-too-clean net tain. 'Please, why are you asking all these iuestions?'

  'A suggestion has been made that Mrs Arno is )t in fact the late Sir Manuel Camargue's lughter but an impostor.' He was interested by the effect of these words in his hearers. One of them expected this itement and was not surprised by it, the other ?as either flabbergasted or was a superb actor, ran Zoffany seemed stricken dumb with stonishment. Then he asked Wexford to repeat ?hat he had said.

  'That is the most incredible nonsense,' )ffany said with a loaded pause between the

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  words. 'Who has suggested it? Who would put a abo
ut a story like that? Now just you listen to me....' Wagging a finger, he began lecturing Wexford on the subject of Natalie Arno's virtues and misfortunes. 'One of the most charming, delightful girls you could wish to meet, and as if she hasn't had enough to put up with....'

  Wexford cut him short again. 'It's her identity, not her charm, that's in dispute.' He was intrigued by the behaviour of Jane Zoffany who was sitting hunched up, looking anywhere but at him, and who appeared to be very frightened indeed. She had stopped sewing because her hands would have shaken once she moved each out of the other's grasp.

  He went back into the shop. Natalie Arno was standing by the counter on the top of which now lay an open magazine. She was looking at this and laughing with glee rather than amusement. When she saw Wexford she showed no surprise, but smiled, holding her head a little on one side.

  'Good morning, Mr�er, Wexford, isn't it? And how are you today?' It was an Americanism delivered with an American lilt and one that seemed to require no reply. 'When you close the shopj Ivan,' she said, 'you should also remember to lock the door. All sorts of undesirables could come in.'

  Zoffany said with gallantry, but stammering a little, 'That certainly doesn't include you, Natalie!'

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  'I'm not sure the chief inspector would agree you.' She gave Wexford a sidelong smile. 5he knew. Symonds, O'Brien and Ames had >st no time in telling her. Jane Zoffany was fraid but she was not. Her black eyes sparkled. jjlather ostentatiously, she closed the magazine ic had been looking at, revealing the cover |vhich showed it to belong to the medium hard mre of pornography. Plainly, this was >ffany's under-the-counter solace that she had ited on. He flushed, seized it rather too |uickly from under her hands and thrust it �tween some catalogues in a pile. Natalie's face scame pensive and innocent. She put up her ids to her hair and her full breasts in the ireater rose with the movement, which seemed have been made quite artlessly, simply to ick in a tortoiseshell pin. 'Did you want to interrogate me, Mr Oxford?'