by Jack Treby
The telephone? ‘Why didn’t he use the one in the hall?’
‘It is not the place for a private conversation.’ The professor regarded me curiously. ‘You are looking, if I may say so, a little flustered, Sir Hilary.’
‘That’s an understatement.’ I pulled a set of house keys from my inside pocket. ‘You might want to head down to the kitchens,’ I told him, handing the bundle across. ‘Doctor Lefranc was anxious to have a word.’
This time, it was Professor Singh who looked flustered. ‘I will go there at once. But I wonder...?’
I was moving away at this point. ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ I said, turning my back and starting to run before the professor started babbling again. At least I had managed to extract some useful information this time. The stables. And if the Colonel was looking for a telephone then he would probably be in that end cottage. And Harry would be with him. But who on earth was Sir Vincent trying to call? And why the need for secrecy?
I made my way quickly along the northern path heading away from the house. The entrance to the maze was up ahead, the large circular hedges bisected by a narrow footpath. I needed to cut left before that but, as I did so, I had a brief moment of what I believe the Frogs call “déjà vu”. I stumbled into the stable yard and saw a figure emerging from the cottage on the far side. This time, it was not Samuel Jenkins, but Harry Latimer, strolling nonchalantly towards the archway. He caught sight of me and immediately changed track.
I had come to a halt outside the apple and plum store and Harry hurried across to meet me. He smiled his usual lazy smile. ‘I was just coming to find you,’ he said, before I had managed to utter more than a grunt of surprise. ‘Listen, old man, you’ve got to get out of here.’ He glanced back at the cottage. ‘The Colonel knows you killed Anthony Sinclair.’ I blinked. ‘It’s all my fault.’ Harry lifted his hands up in an admission of guilt. ‘I let the cat out the bag.’
‘What the blazes are you talking about?’
‘Anthony Sinclair. The Colonel knows exactly what happened. It’s my fault, old man. I was chatting to Felicity this morning and she told me Sinclair had been on the phone last night, talking to his office. She figured that might have something to do with his death. I blabbed it to the Colonel during our little interview and he wanted to check it out.’
‘So you came over to the stables?’
‘He didn’t want to be overheard. You know what it’s like in that house, people coming and going all the time. But there’s another phone line running from the cottage.’ Harry jerked his thumb back towards the small house. The little black door, I could see, was wide open. ‘The Colonel’s still in there, making a few more calls. He spoke to some guy at the Daily Mail. The man said Sinclair called yesterday, asking questions about you.’
I grimaced. The telephone call had been bound to get out at some point. Not that it mattered now. My secret was already in the public domain. It was Harry I was more concerned with.
‘So what did he have on you?’ the American asked, with his usual impertinence. He seemed to be taking the news of my killing Anthony Sinclair with a surprising lack of concern. ‘Don’t tell me. He caught you with some guy, didn’t he?’ His eyes were twinkling now. ‘You old devil. He was going to expose you as a sodomite.’
‘Harry!’
‘Hey, look. It doesn’t bother me. Live and let live, I say. Mind you, I’d have gone for blackmail rather than exposure, but that’s journalists for you. So who was the lucky guy?’
‘I...’
‘It’s okay, old man. You don’t have to tell me.’ Harry was grinning again but the damn fellow would not stop talking. He was worse than Professor Singh. ‘So what happened with Sinclair? I guess it was an accident, right? A fight that got out of hand. Look, I’m not blaming you. I’ve been in a few punch ups myself...’
This was too much. ‘Harry, for God’s sake, will you shut up for just one second?’
Harry blinked in surprise. ‘Okay. Sure.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Thomas Hargreaves has just been murdered.’ My hand slipped down to rest gently on the outside of my jacket pocket.
‘Jesus.’ Harry took out a cigarette. ‘I’m sorry to hear that old man.’ He struck a match and cupped his hand around the flame as he lit the cigarette. ‘How did it happen?’
‘He was strangled, in the kitchens. Not half an hour ago.’
Harry rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘That’s too bad.’ He took a drag of his cigarette. ‘I know what the guy meant to you. Jeez, he’s been with you since...well, forever.’
I snorted. ‘Your sympathy I can do without.’
‘Hey, look, I’m just trying to help.’ He glanced back at the cottage once again. ‘But you really do need to get the hell out of here. Whatever’s happened. If you want to stay out of jail. I’m telling you. The Colonel knows all about Sinclair.’
‘I don’t care about Anthony Sinclair. I only care about justice, Harry. About the murder of Dorothy Kilbride. And my valet.’ My fingers slid into the jacket pocket and wrapped themselves around the handle of the .32 calibre Newton.
Harry’s eyes darted down to my waist. He was frowning now, unsure what was going on. The man had been around the block long enough to know just what I was carrying down there. He took another puff of his cigarette and tapped the ash off the end onto the gravel. ‘Sure, I understand,’ he admitted warily. ‘Look, this has been difficult for all of us.’
I opted for the direct approach. ‘Did you kill Hargreaves?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a simple question.’
Harry was offended. ‘Look, old man, I know you’re upset, but that’s just crazy. I’ve never killed anyone. Leastways, only in self defence. And anyway ...’
‘Was that what it was? Self defence?’
‘Hey, slow down.’ Harry dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out. He had barely taken half a dozen drags. ‘What is this about? You think I killed Dorothy Kilbride?’
‘I don’t know Harry. You tell me.’ I nodded down to my pocket. ‘Think very carefully before you answer.’
‘Look, old man. we’ve been friends a long time. I’ve always been straight with you, haven’t I?’
I laughed. If there was one thing Harry had never been, it was straight. ‘So where did you get the French Francs?’
‘The what?’
‘The Francs. In your holdall? Where did you get them from?’
Harry was confused. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Did someone pay you to come here, to kill Dorothy? Is that what it was? Some kind of hit?’
‘Oh, sure, yeah. I’m a hired assassin. What are you talking about, old man?’
I pulled the revolver out of my pocket. Harry’s eyes didn’t move from my face. ‘I think you killed Dottie. I think you were paid to kill her, in cold blood. Twenty thousand pounds, in French Francs, to blow her brains out. Then Hargreaves found out and you killed him too.’
‘That’s crazy. Look, you’ve had a shock, old man. You’re not thinking straight.’ Harry stepped towards me, but halted immediately as I levelled the Newton.
‘Oh I am, Harry. I’m thinking very clearly indeed.’
Harry kept his hands where I could see them. Sweat was beginning to form on his brow. ‘Look, the money, it was an advance, okay? The deal in France? I was the middle man, like I told you. The Francs were a pay-off for securing the armaments. Strictly cash, strictly in advance. Only way to do business. Brought it back here after the first trip and tucked it safely away in London.’
That sounded worryingly plausible.
‘So why did you ask me to bring it up to Bletchley Park?’
‘I told you. It was another bit of business.’ I waited for him to go on. He knew he had no choice. If he wanted to convince me he was innocent, I needed to hear the whole story. And even then, I doubted I would believe him. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I owed quite a bit of dough to some shady characters up in Manchester. Long story. I’d h
ad a little problem with cash flow. You know how it is. They helped out, gave me a loan to tide me over, but with a rate of interest that would have crippled the Bank of England. They were expecting it back by the end of the month. And these are not the kind of guys you keep waiting. I figured since I’d be coming here anyway, I might as well arrange to meet up with a couple of their goons on Saturday morning and pay them off.’
That was nonsense. The revolver had dipped slightly in my hand, but I steadied it now. ‘You went for a drive with Felicity Mandeville Jones on Saturday morning. In my bloody car, I might add.’
‘Sure, I took Felicity along. We had a wager, remember? Didn’t want to lose momentum. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.’ He smirked briefly, hoping to rekindle a bit of camaraderie, but I kept my expression neutral. ‘We had a nice drive and a pub lunch. But I told her I had an errand to run and we drove in to Aylesbury first. I figured she wouldn’t mind staying in the car for ten minutes while I went and conducted a little business.’
‘Handing the cash over to some hoodlum?’
‘That’s about the size of it, old man.’
My eyes flicked down to the revolver in my hand. ‘So where does the Newton come in?’
Harry sighed. In happier circumstances, I might have been quite pleased to see him looking so uncomfortable. But I wasn’t about to relieve the pressure just yet.
‘Look, I figured I needed some insurance, okay? I stowed the gun with the cash when I first got paid. These are pretty nasty people. And they were expecting nice simple English pound notes not a heap of French Francs. I thought there might be a little trouble, so I made sure I had some insurance.’ He gestured to the revolver. ‘I arranged to meet up in a very public place, right in the centre of town. But even there, they might have got a little tricky.’
‘Why did you need a silencer?’
‘Like I said, old man, it was a public place. So I took that large overcoat from the vestibule. You know, the one with the pockets. I slipped the Newton inside, and kept a hand on the trigger. If I had to defend myself, I didn’t want to make a public spectacle of it. I’d only just avoided a French jail. I sure as hell didn’t want to end up in one over here. A silencer would keep things nice and tidy. But it was just a precaution. And luckily for me they accepted the dough. I took along a copy of the Times, to show them the exchange rate. Made sure they got a good deal. I’m no fool. Then I went back to the car and Felicity and I went off for lunch. And I started laying it on real thick with her, so I could win that fifteen guineas from you.’
‘And that’s it?’ I said. ‘That’s why you had me bring the cash up here from London?’
‘That’s it. I couldn’t get there myself, because of your crazy English weather. The boat nearly capsized on the way back from France. I ended up on the south coast, but in the middle of nowhere. I had to make all the arrangements by payphone. I’d left the holdall with an associate of mine. Small guy. Looks like a baked potato. I was going to meet up with him at Waterloo but I had to send you instead.’
That at least was true. ‘What about the dirty pictures?’
Harry laughed. ‘Little souvenir, from my first trip. Gave them as a gift, to my creditors, just to oil the wheels. You can’t get those kind of photos in England.’
I bit my lip. It all sounded horribly plausible. But Harry had a genius for thinking on his feet. He could convince his own mother that she was his father if his life depended on it. And his life just now depended on convincing me that he was telling the truth. There was one thing that didn’t add up, however.
‘So let me get this straight: you’re saying you handed over all the Francs to these contacts of yours in Aylesbury yesterday morning?’
‘I told you, old man. The photos, the Francs. And the revolver must have been stolen from my holdall sometime yesterday evening. You saw me looking for it this morning, remember?’
I nodded. He’d pulled the bag out from under the bed and checked the side pocket. ‘But if the money was gone then the bag would have been empty,’ I said. ‘And it looked just as full this morning as it did when we first arrived.’
‘Oh, I stuffed a couple of blankets in there, just to bulk it out,’ he said. His eyes were darting over my shoulder. ‘Didn’t want to be seen leaving with less luggage than I...’
Before I knew what was happening, a hand had grabbed my arm from behind. Two men were grappling with me. It was Jenkins and Townsend. Professor Singh must have released them both, rather more quickly than I had anticipated. I felt the revolver smack against my thigh. That was Townsend’s doing. I lost my grip and it clattered noisily to the ground.
Samuel Jenkins rushed forward to grab the weapon. Harry had backed away. Townsend pinned me down, yanking my arm painfully behind my back. His grip was incredible. My wrist felt like it was trapped in an industrial mangle.
‘I wasn’t really going to shoot him,’ I protested, as Harry stepped backwards from the fray.
The Colonel’s valet disagreed. ‘It didn’t look like that to me, Sir Hilary.’
Jenkins was standing inert with the gleaming Newton .32 in his hand. The younger valet had clearly never handled a weapon before. His arms were trembling. I knew just how he felt.
Townsend pushed me down onto my knees, which scraped painfully against the gravel. He took the revolver from Jenkins with his free hand and then released my arm.
‘Right. Back to the house, everyone. You too, Mr Latimer, sir.’ After everything Doctor Lefranc had said, Harry was considered just as much of a suspect as I was. The two valets were taking Lefranc’s pet theory very seriously. But my American friend had already begun to sow the seeds of doubt in my mind.
‘The Colonel’s over in the cottage,’ Harry said, gesturing back across the courtyard. ‘I figure you might want to have a word with him before you do anything hasty. He doesn’t know about Hargreaves yet.’
Townsend considered this for a moment. He reached into his pocket and produced a set of handcuffs. He really was an old policeman. ‘Jenkins, put these on Mr Latimer.’
‘Hey, now hang on, old man....’
The valet pulled me to my feet. ‘Take him over to the cottage,’ he said. ‘Tell the Colonel about Mr Hargreaves. I’ll take Sir Hilary back to the house.’
Harry had his hands stretched out in front of him and Jenkins moved forward to slot the metal cuffs into place.
‘Behind his back,’ the older valet suggested helpfully.
‘Sorry, yes.’
Harry slipped his arms into position. ‘Hey, not too tight,’ he complained as the younger man fastened the manacles into place. He winked at me as the two of them made off towards the cottage.
Townsend pushed me in the opposite direction.
I was barely concentrating on my footing. There was something not quite right here. Ever since Harry had mentioned that empty holdall, a nagging suspicion had begun to form in the back of my mind. If Harry had genuinely disposed of all that cash on Saturday morning, as he had claimed, then there would have been no money left in the holdall for Townsend to find during his search that morning. And even if Harry was lying and still had the money, I had warned him about the search in advance, so he would have had ample opportunity to hide it.
Yet somehow, the Colonel’s valet had known all about the money. And the only way he could have known was if he had searched Harry’s bag at the start of the weekend, before Harry had driven to Aylesbury on Saturday morning. And if Townsend had searched the holdall at that point, he would have seen Harry’s .32 calibre revolver, long before the murder of Dorothy Kilbride. An innocent man would have reported that to his master. But Townsend had said nothing.
I stumbled slightly as the valet push me forward and I turned myself towards him. It was obvious now. It was not Harry who had acted as an assassin. ‘It was you,’ I said, in disbelief. ‘You killed Dorothy Kilbride. And you tried to frame Harry for the murder.’
Edward Townsend smiled coldly. ‘Well, Sir Hilary,’ h
e said, levelling the revolver. ‘It seems you’re not as stupid as I thought you were.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Townsend gestured me along a line of trees towards the circular hedge. A path ran through a gap into the bushes. It was nicely secluded, out of sight of the house or the cottage. ‘You can’t fire that,’ I said, as I moved into the opening of the maze. ‘I left the silencer in the butler’s office. If you pull that trigger, people will come running.’
Townsend was unperturbed. ‘There was a struggle. You tried to wrest the gun from my hand. It went off and you were accidentally killed.’ He smiled tightly. ‘You’re the murderer, Sir Hilary. You’ve already confessed to it. No one will question my account of your death.’
He was right, at that. He could kill me now and get away scot-free. The devil. He had seemed so calm and collected. But beneath that smooth façade lurked something altogether more sinister.
‘I want you to know,’ Townsend said, stepping into the circular enclosure, ‘I take no pleasure in this.’
I tripped backwards. A curved hedge served as the opening to an otherwise traditional rectangular maze; Sir Herbert Leon’s grand folly. A saucer shaped bush in the centre of the circle erupted into a sharp point, rather like an arrowhead.
‘Unfortunately,’ said Townsend, with some regret, ‘I have come too far to stop now.’ At his direction, I stepped further back. There was a small gap in the bushes behind me. This was the entrance to the maze proper.
‘So why did you do it?’ I asked, playing for time. ‘Why did you kill Dorothy Kilbride? What did she ever do to you?’
The man frowned. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Let me guess.’ I considered for a moment. It had to be something simple. Dorothy Kilbride had been the head of payroll at MI5. It must be something to do with money. But Townsend was not a government employee, so it had to be more personal than that. ‘She caught you stealing,’ I guessed. ‘From Sir Vincent?’
The valet flinched. I had hit the mark, first time. ‘It wasn’t stealing,’ he insisted. There was a look of wounded pride on his rock-like face. ‘It was just a few shillings, added on to the accounts. Nothing much. For my retirement. You wouldn’t understand, Sir Hilary. You’ve never had to work for a living.’