Lessons for Suspicious Minds

by Charlie Cochrane

  “You’re not your father. Nor will you ever be.” Jonty put out his hand, stopped just short of grabbing his lover’s arm, and diverted back to hovering over his diagram. He lowered his voice. “You have me at your side, for a start, and all my loud, annoying, wonderful family tagging at my heels. And if you want someone sensible, there are the Artigiano del Rames to raise the tone. Between us we’ll keep you sane and cheerful.”

  “I know.” Orlando picked up his glass and drank from it, as that was preferable to risking making a fool of himself with excess emotion.

  Jonty pointed at Orlando’s forehead. “Whatever’s in there being a nuisance, tell it to go away. It’s not required, and it gets in the way of investigating. Tell it to think about the more important matters of switching identities or breaking noiselessly into houses or how to rig up a hanging, or any of the mysteries we’ve got on hand.”

  “You can eliminate switch of identity,” Orlando said, glad to be back on safer ground, at least safer in terms of public places. “Unless the Ambrosians were all in it up to their eyeballs, it had to be Reggie who died.”

  Jonty sat back, staring at the diagram. “That’s what worries me most, Orlando. The solitary sane explanation seems to be—if it was murder—that one or more of Derek’s crowd did it and the rest either colluded or covered it up. It’s the only thing to explain the apparent ease with which the murderer moved around the house, and why Derek wants to keep it all under wraps.”

  “But why this possibly false alibi rigged up for Ronnie?”

  Jonty moved his pencil from hand to hand, as though the truth could be seen there, if one only got the right angle on the thing. “Let’s take what Gray said as being true, if not the whole truth. Ronnie was devoted to his brother.” He looked up again. “What if he wasn’t invited to Fyfield because he was so devoted he’d have stopped whoever it was killing Reggie? Maybe this constructed alibi thing isn’t a constructed alibi at all. He deliberately wasn’t invited, so he’d be unable to stick his oar in.”

  Orlando nodded slowly and thoughtfully. “That makes more sense. But what’s the motive? Revenge on behalf of Gray’s father?”

  “It seems to be the only thing we have at present. Reggie’s the wrong bloke for pinning the boy’s death on. He couldn’t have killed Livingstone as he wasn’t in the country, so it isn’t your Miss Blunstone taking revenge.”

  “And the business with the bells?”

  “The Ambrosians keeping someone unimpeachable again.” Jonty stood up, pushing his chair back from the table. “We’ll be late if we don’t get a move on.”

  “I refuse to move until you explain that ‘keeping someone else unimpeachable’ remark.” Orlando snatched up his abandoned notepad.

  Jonty headed for the door, saying, “I’ll tell you as we walk,” over his shoulder.

  Once outside, they both took a deep breath of fresh air, cleansing their lungs of smoke and the smell of beer.

  “I wonder,” Jonty continued, as they headed for the station, “whether Gray was kept out of the way too, because he’d never allow a man to be killed. Or to take his own life, for that matter. Let’s say his bell never rang—not from his room, anyway. Hammond rang it from below stairs, as we did when we tested Hayes on his identification. Then he and our footman friend kept Gray occupied while Tuffnell was killed.”

  “And where does Livingstone come into this?”

  “The Lord alone knows.”

  “Maybe He’s told Gray?”

  “Maybe. I wish He’d tell me.”

  The second council of war—convened in the small sitting room of the Stewarts’ guest suite—consisted of weary warriors, fighting to keep their eyes open. Jonty and Orlando had got back late, having stopped to dine on the way home, partly because their train had been delayed (how dare a cow get itself stuck on the line?) and partly because they couldn’t face their host and hostess just yet. The Stewarts excused themselves from dinner early and produced a decanter of port and a set of glasses, which was just what was needed to revive spirits.

  The lads were encouraged to loosen their ties and cast aside their jackets, the evening being muggy—anything to encourage productive thinking. They weren’t the only ones who’d been busy, Mr. Stewart having set off into Maidenhead with a shopping list of questions to be answered. But before any of the information gathered could be shared, Mrs. Stewart carefully closed the window in case anyone wandered onto the terrace to eavesdrop and said, sotto voce, “Derek knows there’s something afoot. He’s got children of his own, and recognised that sheepish look you both wore when you came in to give your apologies for not dining. I think he believed the story about the cow, but he looked distinctly dyspeptic for the rest of the meal.”

  “The story about the cow is God’s honest truth.” Jonty stifled a yawn. “I wish everything else we have to say was as whimsical. Yes, something’s afoot, but I’d rather wait to discuss it.”

  “You may have some information which would make us reconsider our present position,” Orlando chipped in, just as Mrs. Stewart looked as if she was about to demand the truth this instant.

  “You start, Papa.” Jonty felt grateful for not having to outline their latest theory just yet. “We need to get our heads unbefuddled from talking to Gray.”

  “Do you actually mean unbefuddling your head from the beer you no doubt had with dinner?” Mrs. Stewart smiled. “Don’t answer that. And take your shoes off if you want, dear. Both of you.”

  Orlando declined the offer graciously, saying that they were scandalising the company enough by asking questions without doing it in their stockinged feet. Jonty couldn’t help thinking that the sight of socks was infinitely preferable to the scandal they had in store.

  “I decided I’d ring Strevens, in the newspaper office,” Mr. Stewart began. “As I suspected, they’d covered the Tuffnell uncle’s death. There was nothing suspicious about it—a long-term wasting disease and a peaceful end. I even managed to track down the doctor concerned, although I had to use the carriage to go out and speak to him. No telephone. No sense of progress in these parts.” Mr. Stewart shook his head. “Not much bedside manner, either. He confirmed—after a lot of bluster and mistrust and me having to use my title, which was the only thing which seemed to impress him—that all seemed to be aboveboard with the death. Just in case you were feeling doubtful about it and wanted to bring a third murder to the table.”

  “I wasn’t, although I bet Orlando was. No, don’t say anything that you couldn’t swear to be the truth.” Jonty managed a grin for his friend. “Did you find out from Strevens how much the inheritance amounted to?”

  “I didn’t, but it was a tidy amount.”

  “Enough to kill for?”

  Mr. Stewart sighed. “Is any amount of money worth taking a life for? Truly? This is the part of the business I hate. Give me codes and working out who might have been where or how an alibi was manufactured and it’s meat and drink. But when I remember the element of a life cut off unnecessarily, a life which might have gone on to great things, I feel quite cold.”

  “That’s when it ceases to be a game.” Jonty spoke very quietly. Maybe he’d inherited this “avenging angel” thing that Orlando kept referring to from his father.

  “It doesn’t bear thinking about too closely at times.” Orlando seemed distressed; Jonty knew how much he dreaded breaking the news about their latest theory. “I’m afraid I have to treat things, at times, as though they were nothing more than some abstruse, theoretical problem. If I remember the bodies and the blood . . .”

  Jonty would have loved to go over to Orlando’s side and hold him close, to stroke his head and promise that it would be fine, that life didn’t always consist of slit throats at dinner tables, but it was hardly the time or place. As usual, Mrs. Stewart had weighed the situation up to perfection.

  She left her chair and joined Orlando on the little sofa he’d favoured, taking his hand and patting it. “Richard, are we never to use that port or will it ju
st sit in its decanter mocking us? I for one could do with a tot of something to oil my brain and settle my conscience.”

  “Of course!” Mr. Stewart leaped to his feet. “I’ll make that two glasses. Do you lads feel like joining us?”

  “Join you? I think I’d trample you in the rush.” Jonty smiled, came over to the bureau to help, and silently thanked God for having such sensible parents, ones he would have chosen for himself out of ten million had that been the way of things. He presented his mother and lover with a glass each, which they took with their free hands, Orlando’s long, elegant fingers now entwined around his not-quite-mother-in-law’s for comfort.

  “I have some news to report, too.” Mrs. Stewart seemed perkier now she’d had a reviving sip or three.

  “Really? Have you been overwhelmed by the investigating bug?” Orlando asked, colour and humour evidently restored.

  “Oh yes.” Mr. Stewart took his seat once more. “Once you were gone Helena nagged me—admittedly nicely, but it was nagging all the same, Orlando—to be given another commission.”

  “I persuaded Derek to give me the name of Ronnie’s pal who’d been with him the night Reggie Tuffnell died. It took him a while, and a bit of what seemed to be dissembling, but he found it.” Mrs. Stewart raised her eyebrows. “Anyway, this chap backed up the alibi entirely. And, given that I have the ability to spot the presence of a lie at forty paces—an ability perfected in dealing with you and your brothers—I believe I was served up the truth, or at least the truth as this man Jones understood it.”

  “That’s as we feared, Mama.” Jonty took a deep breath. “Let us tell you what Gray told us. And more specifically, how he told us.”

  He and Orlando took it in turns to relate the story of their interview, referring to Orlando’s notebook where they’d reconstructed much of what had been said, aided by having to find something constructive to do while the cow was removed from its trespassing adventure. The conversation at the inn was omitted for the present, but it would need airing soon.

  “A very careful use of words, indeed.” Mr. Stewart focussed his gaze at the empty hearth.

  “I think it’s time for you to be entirely frank with us,” Mrs. Stewart said out of the blue, patting Orlando’s hand afresh, the port glass having outlived its usefulness and been disposed of. “I’ve been long acquainted with that look in your eye, Jonty, and now I can make out its equivalent in yours, Orlando. One assumes it’s not a pane of glass broken with a cricket ball, so what is it you’re hiding?”

  “It might well be a broken friendship, or one that’s potentially broken.” Jonty summoned up his courage. “The only sensible conclusion we can come to—assuming it wasn’t suicide and we’re chasing wild geese—is that Tuffnell was murdered by one or more of the people in this house and they’re all involved in covering it over.”

  Mr. Stewart, for the first time in many a year that Jonty could remember, was lost for words, barely managing a murmured, “Dear God.”

  “I’m afraid that comes as no surprise to me.” Mrs. Stewart, once her husband had regained a bit of his composure, was as ever the voice of reason. “Nor will it to the dowager. She’s suspected as much from the start.”

  “Oh, Mama!” Jonty tapped his chair arm in irritation. “Then why did neither of you say as much and at least point us in the right direction?”

  “I didn’t know until today, when she buttonholed me over tea. She said she didn’t want to prejudice your investigation, dear.”

  “So why mention it now? Does she think we were going in the wrong direction?” Jonty knocked back the last of his port, contemplated helping himself to another, then remembered what might be on the agenda later and laid the glass—and the temptation—aside.

  “Quite the contrary. She wanted to reassure you—via me—that should your trail lead close to home, you should still pursue it. She’s tired of having things covered up.” Mrs. Stewart sighed. “I’m so pleased I married a man who believes in the whole truth and nothing but.”

  “Except in the cause of investigating.” Mr. Stewart blushed. “Establishing the facts of a case allows one the latitude of being slightly . . . um . . .”

  “‘Tell whacking great lies’ is the phrase you’re looking for, Papa.”

  “That’s acting, not lying, Richard,” Mrs. Stewart said, as if that pronouncement sealed the matter. “As I was saying before I was interrupted, my godmother didn’t want you to go looking for things to prove her theory rather than winkling out the truth.”

  “Orlando and I would never do such a thing.”

  “Neither of us are historians, for a start.” Orlando forced a smile, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “And, as such, we’d best remember that our theories are, as yet, only theories and we have, at present, no proof.”

  Jonty couldn’t help grinning. “I think you’ve used your entire ration of ‘as’ and ‘at’ for the year ahead. I don’t suppose either you, Helena Holmes or you, Richard Watson, turned up anything related to Livingstone?”

  “Not a thing, dear,” his mother replied, just as Mr. Stewart said, “Well . . . actually.”

  “Papa, that ‘well actually’ could be the very thing to rescue our day.” There was something else that might just make the day better, but that would depend on getting along the corridor between bedrooms undetected, as well as the port and beer not having any deflating effects. One glass too many and the urge to just go straight to sleep might put all fun off the agenda.

  “I was thinking about Livingstone’s supposed case of ringworm and whether he might have been affected by whatever treatment he was applying. So when I went to see our medical friend, I thought I might as well ask him if some medicine the man was using might have the untoward effect of making him feel low enough to take his life.”

  “And?” Jonty and his mother asked simultaneously.

  “He sent me off with a flea in my ear. He’d got it into his head that I was trying to get a free consultation or something, so told me to take myself off to the local chemist. I’ve never known a doctor who seemed quite so potty. Physician who needed to heal himself, I’d have said.”

  “Do come to the point, Papa.” Jonty hoped there wouldn’t be any snide remarks from Orlando about how he’d obviously inherited that trait. Instead, it was his father who made the obvious connection.

  “Pots and kettles, boy.” Mr. Stewart favoured Orlando with a wink. “I went to the local chemist—the one local to where Livingstone lived, I should clarify—and got a long lecture about different sorts of medicines and mercury and who knows what. Every carboy in the place seemed to be a witness to one of his great successes. What it boiled down to was that Livingstone might have been using something which would have depressed his mood. But if he was, he didn’t get it at that particular shop, and that’s where he usually went for his pills and potions.”

  “Did he have a lot of them?” Orlando asked.

  “Oh, yes. Either he was very unlucky in his range of ailments or he was a bit of a hypochondriac. A bit ‘overdramatic,’ if that’s the word, Helena?”

  “Don’t ask me, as I didn’t know the man. If I had, I’d have made sure he didn’t do anything so silly as take his own life, or get himself murdered.” The port seemed to have enhanced Mrs. Stewart’s belief in her abilities.

  Mr. Stewart raised his eyebrows. “Yes, well. Anyway, my pharmaceutical friend may have been garrulous but at least he was both polite and helpful. When I pressed him, he said Livingstone had been ill as a youth, so bad he couldn’t pursue his chosen career of joining the navy. And he suffered from bouts of depression, linked to repeated disappointments.”

  “I know this spoils young Covington’s theory, but if Livingstone had bouts of depression, maybe he did just kill himself. And if he knew about naval customs, maybe the business with the waxed packet was his idea.”

  Jonty thought he might kill himself because of repeated disappointments, both in this case and if he and Orlando didn’t make it into bed
together soon. He also had the germ of an idea, one so outrageous it was bound to be nipped in the bud.

  “So, where does this leave us?” Mr. Stewart sighed. “Do we give up on Livingstone?”

  “No!” Orlando, Jonty, and his mother all said at the same time.

  “I don’t think we’ve exhausted every sensible avenue.” Mrs. Stewart waved her hand airily. “Lots of men keep a woman in London, or so I understand, but we should at least explore the possibility of this being pertinent. The actress in London.”

  “We should follow that up,” Jonty said, “although finding an actress in London’s like looking for a needle in the proverbial. Maybe you could talk to Mr. Goode again, Mama, while Orlando should visit Miss Blunstone once more.”

  “Must I? Couldn’t you?” Orlando clearly didn’t relish the prospect.

  “Yes, you must. And I mean the aunt, so you should have no worries on that score. You said you had a feeling she knew more than she was prepared to say in front of the niece.” Jonty rubbed his forehead. “And just to add to the joy of nations, my head’s killing me.”

  “That would be the beer, dear,” Mrs. Stewart remarked, smiling.

  “Before you fall asleep where you sit.” Mr. Stewart eyed his son with both amusement and concern. “Tell me why you two think we should continue investigating the Livingstone business.”

  “Because I’m not entirely satisfied,” Orlando replied, just as Jonty said, “It’s about the note on the body.”

  “I understand your point, Orlando, and would expect nothing less, but Jonty’s intrigues me. Haven’t we just come up with a reasonable explanation?”

  “We have. But you’ve also come up with something equally intriguing. That thing about your pharmacist pal. It’s made me have the sort of idea at which Orlando is bound to roll his eyes and snort.”