‘Indeed I will,’ Miss Goodbody replied indignantly. ‘The wickedness of it! I only hope he’ll be punished.’
Pollard returned to the sitting room where Toye and Superintendent Hart of Alchester were manfully keeping up a general conversation.
‘So sorry for the interruption, Miss Fletcher,’ he said as he sat down. ‘I was just saying, wasn’t I, that we’re very interested in any strangers about in Corbury at the beginning of last December, and that it’s in connection with Bernard Lister’s death? Do you by any chance remember anybody making a pretext to call at Stanton and Mundy’s?’ Mavis Fletcher’s pleasant, rather homely face registered intense concentration. Nice girl, Pollard thought, taking in her mass-produced summer frock and unimaginative hair style. Not over intelligent, but dependable. He wondered what desperate step to silence her Gerald Stanton, now presumably speeding towards Fairport, had in mind.
‘Yes, I do!’ she suddenly exclaimed in a triumphant tone. ‘It was a Friday afternoon, and Mr Stanton wanted to get off early. I couldn’t get the man to make an appointment for the week after, so Mr Stanton saw him, but told me to come in and remind him about a Council meeting in ten minutes. There wasn’t one really, of course, but it worked.’
By dint of further questions, Pollard established the date as Friday, 1 December, and went on to the caller’s appearance.
‘He was pale, and wore dark glasses. I remember thinking it was funny, right in the middle of winter. He had an overcoat, and hat and scarf, and was rather short.’
‘It must be fine to have an observant secretary like you,’ Pollard told her encouragingly. ‘We can hardly expect you to remember his name, I suppose?’
‘I can, as a matter of fact,’ Mavis Fletcher said, blushing at his compliment. ‘I made a note of it, in case there was to be an account. It was Spinner. Mr Spinner.’
Toye involuntarily shifted his position.
‘You’ve been most helpful, Miss Fletcher,’ Pollard said. ‘Now I expect you’re anxious to be back on the job in this busy place, so we won’t hold you up any longer.’
He got up to open the door for her, and she departed, still blushing.
‘This clinches it,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘It’s not an open and shut case even now, but I’m pulling him in. He ought to turn up in about ten minutes — unless he thinks better of it.’
It was a tense and apparently interminable wait. When at last footsteps and voices approached, Toye moved quietly to a position behind the door. It opened and Gerald Stanton was shown into the room, an expression of anxious solicitude on his face. It froze. Before he could speak Pollard had stepped forward.
‘Gerald Stanton,’ he said. ‘I charge you with the murder of Bernard Lister on the fourteenth of December last—’
It took all three of them to overpower him, and get him to the car.
On arrival at Stanton and Mundy’s office some time later, Pollard was admitted by Toye, who informed him that Mr Mundy was raring to get off to Alchester to fix legal representation for Mr Stanton.
‘Seems a decent young chap,’ he added. ‘The arrest’s knocked him for six.’
Pollard decided on a sympathetic but brisk line.
‘I quite appreciate that you want to make legal arrangements for your partner,’ he said, ‘but there are certain points I want clarified. You realise, presumably, that Sir Miles LeWarne’s will was officially drawn up by Stanton and Mundy. Both partners are named as executors. I want a statement of the part you yourself took in the matter.’
An expression of bewilderment and slight alarm appeared in John Mundy’s face.
‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I’m prepared to state on oath that I had no hand whatever in drafting the will. Sir Miles was an old friend of the Plowmans, and Gerald Stanton always handled his business. Lately, if anything wanted doing, he’d be rung up and asked to go over to Edgehill Court, to spare Sir Miles coming in.’
‘Didn’t it strike you as unusual that absolutely nothing in connection with the will was dealt with in this office in the first instance?’ Pollard asked.
‘Not under the circumstances. Everyone knew Sir Miles was bowled over by Roger LeWarne’s death, and would have to rethink what he was going to do about his estate. Gerald Stanton said that he was frightfully steamed up, and had a thing about the new will leaking out, and that he, Gerald, had undertaken to handle the whole business himself, including the typing. It so happened that Mrs Stanton was away, so he worked on the thing at home in the evenings. All the office did was to provide a couple of chaps to go over and witness the signature. It was all perfectly reasonable. Gerald Stanton never wanted to act in the matter — quite understandably in view of his wife’s expectations — but Sir Miles was insistent and in view of the long family link and the old man’s distressed state, he gave in. Isn’t it time you stated categorically just what you are driving at? I am, after all, a partner in this firm.’
Mr Engle leant across the table and handed a letter to Pollard.
‘This appears to be relevant to Mr Mundy’s last statement,’ he said.
Pollard read it. It was a brief, straightforward statement of Gerald Stanton’s reluctance to draw up Sir Miles LeWarne’s will, in view of his wife’s being the chief beneficiary, but concluding with his undertaking to do so because of the very special circumstances.
Feeling inexplicably that something was wrong, Pollard read it again with close attention to detail. It was typed on the firm’s official stationery, headed Stanton and Mundy, Solicitors, 100 High Street, Corbury AL3 OT2. The date was 7 December 1971. He stared and stared. Then, in a flash of illumination, he was in Superintendent Thomas’s room on the occasion of his first visit....
A few minutes later he returned from putting through a call in an adjoining room, and saw Toye look at him sharply. He picked up the letter. Three faces were turned towards him.
‘This letter,’ he said quietly, ‘was not written on 7 December 1971, for the simple reason that the Alchester area was not allotted its postcodes until the beginning of November, 1972. Whoever wrote the letter overlooked this fact, and obviously put it among Sir Miles LeWarne’s papers with intent to mislead. I imagine that what I am driving at must now be clear to you, Mr Mundy.’
White and tense, John Mundy asked if he should go to Edgehill Court, and break the news of her husband’s arrest to Mrs Stanton.
‘I would rather go myself,’ Pollard said. ‘You can rely on me to treat her with consideration. I suggest that you go direct to Alchester, and see Mr Stanton.’
As the door closed, Mr Engle remarked that the prosecution would have a whale of a time putting its case together.
‘Is the wife involved too?’ he asked, gathering papers together.
‘My hunch is, not,’ Pollard replied. ‘It’s important to establish if she really was away from Corbury during that last week of LeWarne’s life. If so, I can’t quite see Stanton discussing it with her over the phone or putting his scheme on paper.’
After further discussion of immediate steps to be taken, he left for Edgehill Court, feeling excited and triumphant. This feeling, he knew, would pass, leaving distaste for the outcome of the case and at best emotionless satisfaction at a job carried through. But at this moment there was the exhilarating sense of achievement against apparently impossible odds.
At the beginning of Edge Crescent he slowed down to pass a stationary car, and as he did so Belinda Plowman and Adrian Beresford scrambled out of it. Taut and breathless, Belinda asked if he were going to her house.
‘I am,’ Pollard said, ‘but not for the reason that has been worrying you. But there’s no joy for you all, I’m afraid. Mr Stanton has been charged with Bernard Lister’s murder.’
‘Uncle Gerald!’ she gasped incredulously.
‘See what you can do for them, Beresford. I suggest that you both keep clear for a few minutes while I call on Mr Plowman.’
‘I’ll do that thing, sir,’ Adrian replied gravely.
Mark Plowman opened the door, stood stiffly and braced himself.
‘I’m afraid I’ve come with bad news,’ Pollard said, and went on to deliver it. He watched the chain reactions reflected in Mark Plowman’s eyes: disbelief … stupefaction … relief … horror … perplexity.
‘I’m going over to tell Mrs Stanton now,’ he said. ‘I suggest you and Mrs Plowman stand by: she might be glad to spend the night here.’
‘Yes, of course. Anything we can do, naturally ... perhaps you’d ring me from there.’ Bewildered and uncertain, Mark Plowman tried to orientate himself. ‘One doesn’t want to butt in. My God, I just can’t take it in. Surely there must be a mistake somewhere? I mean, Gerald....’
Interesting, Pollard thought, as he drove on, how in this hour of crisis, Plowman’s basic lack of confidence came uppermost. All that blasting about was a defence mechanism, of course.
In the just-failing light Edgehill Court had a dreamlike beauty, he thought. He drew up, and in the same moment Shirley Stanton emerged looking both angry and worried. She registered blank astonishment, then quickly took herself in hand.
‘Superintendent Pollard? But what a surprise! Have you run across my husband by any chance? He went off hours ago and I’m really getting quite anxious about him.’
‘May I come in, Mrs Stanton?’ Pollard asked.
At his tone she gave him a startled look, and led the way into the drawing room.
‘Please tell me why you are here,’ she said, with habitual directness. ‘Surely Scotland Yard isn’t concerned with motor accidents?’
He repeated his formula about being the bringer of bad news.
‘I regret to have to tell you that your husband has been charged with the murder of your cousin, Bernard Lister. He has been taken to Alchester, and will appear before a magistrates’ court tomorrow.’
Shirley Stanton stared at him, speechless, and he watched her struggle to regain her habitual composure. For a moment he wondered if she could succeed.
‘I’ve never heard anything so preposterous,’ she said at last. ‘It’s sheer lunacy. They hadn’t even met for over twenty years. Whoever is responsible for this outrageous mistake is going to regret it, I can promise you.’
‘We have evidence,’ Pollard told her, ‘that Bernard Lister visited your husband at his office on 1 December last year.’
She’s intelligent, he thought, watching her assimilate this information and seize on its implications.
‘What on earth do you mean?’ Shirley Stanton demanded. ‘Are you saying that Bernard was blackmailing my husband?’
The telephone bell cut in before he could reply. With an expression of utter exasperation she turned and went swiftly out of the room. Standing in the doorway Pollard tried to listen in, but without success.
When she returned he was startled by her expression. She stood for a few minutes in silence, supporting herself by resting her hands on the back of the chair.
‘That was John Mundy,’ she said at last. ‘He says Gerald has admitted to having forged Sir Miles’s will. This place isn’t mine after all. Gerald has stated on oath that I didn’t know….’
Her voice trailed off, and she stared unseeingly across the room.
‘You will understand,’ Pollard said, deliberately matter-of-fact, ‘that there are some questions I must ask you.’
She appeared to revert to her normal composed self, and suggested that they should sit down.
‘Thank you,’ Pollard said. ‘My first question is this. Are you prepared to state on oath that you did not know that the will purporting to be Sir Miles LeWarne’s, and which was granted probate, was, in fact, a forgery?’
Shirley Stanton looked at him as if pitying his lack of understanding.
‘I am,’ she replied, without comment.
‘Secondly,’ Pollard pursued, ‘where were you during the week of 5 December to 12 December last year?’
‘That is easily verifiable, you will find. From the fifth to the ninth I was in London, as one of the organisers of the Interior Decor in the Seventies Exhibition. From the ninth to the twelfth I was staying at Medstead School, with Mr and Mrs Craig. He is a housemaster there.’
‘Thank you.’ Pollard put away his notebook. ‘Mr Mundy will have told you that he is making arrangements for Mr Stanton’s legal representation. He will, I am sure, be in constant touch with you. Meanwhile, I suggest that you allow me to ring your brother and sister-in-law, and ask them to come over.’
He thought that she smiled faintly, as if he were being naive.
‘Not just at the moment, thank you,’ she said. ‘I want to be alone for a bit, to straighten things out in my mind, if possible. You’ve been very kind: I appreciate it.’
She rose with dignity. After fractional hesitation Pollard rose too and followed her to the front door.
His head seemed hardly to have touched the pillow when the persistent bleeping of the bedside telephone dragged him up into early daylight.
‘Thomas here,’ a harassed voice said. ‘Sorry to tell you there’s been a disaster: Mrs Stanton’s made away with herself. Took her car out some time during the night, and drove it over the edge of a chalk pit. Farm labourer spotted the wreckage on his way to work.’
When he had rung off Pollard got up and went to the next room to rouse Toye, who opened the door at once.
‘I heard your blower going,’ he said, as Pollard took up a stance with his back to the window, and began to talk.
Toye sat on the edge of the bed and listened, impeccable even at this hour in neat striped pyjamas and his horn-rims.
‘You couldn’t have prevented it, sir,’ he said. ‘You’d no grounds for posting a chap outside, let alone in the house. Doesn’t it look as though she was in with her husband after all?’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Pollard said emphatically. ‘He killed her, you know, by destroying forever the image of herself she’d built up and identified with.’
Toye considered.
‘You could say Lister did, by putting the screw on Stanton. He hated her enough to do her. Remember what he wrote on those cuttings from the Courier?’
‘Quite true,’ Pollard agreed, looking at Toye with some surprise. ‘Why was he so bloody-minded? The old Plowmans and his maternal grandparents were partly responsible, I suppose.’
‘Not to mention those chaps who cooked the Corbury Charters, and brought Lister down to these parts to dig it all up,’ Toye said meditatively. ‘Buried in the past, how it all began, isn’t it?’
Epilogue
The Corbury Courier, first published in 1830 during the town’s death throes as a Rotten Borough, kept its readers abreast of the traumatic events in their midst by means of a special edition reporting Gerald Stanton’s arrest and his wife’s suicide, and generous enlargement of subsequent weekly issues. Winnie Rudd complained that with the paper such a size you couldn’t find your way about in the thing and concentrated on the pictures.
‘Them giving out the funeral was strictly private didn’t stop folk sending a heap of flowers for the poor soul,’ she commented, looking at a photograph of Shirley Stanton’s grave. ‘Though there’ll always be some as says she was in with her husband over the will, for all that he’s sworn on his bible oath that she wasn’t.’
She turned over a page and subjected Superintendent Pollard’s countenance to close scrutiny.
‘Don’t look a bad sort, that Scotland Yard detective,’ she pronounced. ‘Here, take the blessed paper. I can’t wade through any more of it.’
Horace Rudd lit his pipe, and settled down for a good read. He was deep in the report of Gerald Stanton’s committal to the Crown Court on a homicide charge when his wife asked him when he thought Corbury people would be getting their rights.
‘It’ll be nice taking a turn in the grounds up to Edgehill Court on a fine Sunday afternoon,’
she said. ‘I’ve always thought I’d like a look inside the place, too.’
Horace gave it as his opinion that anything to do with the law always took a month of Sundays. He ploughed on steadily, taking the pages in their numerical sequence until he arrived at the editorial. It carried the puzzling title PREPOSTEROUS PEDANTRY, and he fetched the dictionary, a leftover from his son’s schooldays.
‘PEDANT, one who overrates or parades book learning,’ he read, and not much enlightened, embarked on the article.
‘Did you ever hear the like?’ he exclaimed indignantly a few minutes later. ‘There’s some chap called Catchpole over to Alchester saying King Edgar never gave us no charter, and what we’ve got’s a fake, and we’ve no right to the Millenary.’
Winnie snorted.
‘That lot over there ’ud say anything but their prayers.’
‘He’s saying,’ Horace pursued, ‘that Corbury copied the Alchester charter, and it’s proved because he wrote in Skinner instead of Spinner, same as they did, for some chap’s name.’
‘Lot o’ rubbish! I never could do with history at school. Now geography’s different. You can go and see for yourself if Australia’s there, but who’s to know what went on hundreds of years back with all the people dead and gone? Tell me that.’
Horace hesitated, dimly aware that the Roman coin he had found at the dig was relevant to the argument, but finding himself unequal to presenting his case convincingly.
‘Seen the advert asking someone to lend one o’ those brindled bull terriers to be St Gundryth’s dog in the pageant?’ his wife enquired.
‘This Catchpole says there never was such a person as St Gundryth.’
‘Well, there’s the parish church named after her, isn’t there? That chap’s got a surprise waiting for him one day,’ Winnie added cryptically.
Horace read the article a second time with knitted brow. Then he fetched writing materials and began a letter to the Editor of the Corbury Courier.
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