by Clara Benson
‘Ursula seems to believe that you, Louisa and Donald are hiding a secret from her. Do you have any idea what it might be?’
‘Pfft!’ said John dismissively. ‘Who knows what the woman’s got running through her head. One can never get a word of sense out of her. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she drinks.’
‘I think she suspects you of knowing who killed Edward and the others.’
‘Bah! Nobody killed them, I keep telling you. Why does everyone keep insisting that there’s some kind of mystery about their deaths? Listen, Angela, the only reason I agreed to Louisa’s mad idea about getting you in was that I thought you might be able to prove once and for all that the whole thing was a mare’s nest. And yet it seems you have fallen for all this nonsense too.’
‘But I’m not at all sure it is nonsense,’ said Angela, wondering at his obstinate refusal to admit that anything untoward might have happened.
‘Of course it is. And even if it isn’t you’ll never prove anything, so why go stirring up the past and causing trouble when we’re all perfectly happy as we are?’
‘Because murder is wrong,’ said Angela simply, ‘and if it was murder then we need to catch the person who did it before he does it again.’
‘Humph,’ was all he said in reply.
‘Has it occurred to you that you might be in danger yourself?’
‘I?’ said John incredulously.
‘Yes, of course. Assuming that someone deliberately killed your sisters and brother, then as the only one left you could be the next target.’ She did not add, ‘Unless you did it.’
To judge by his surprised expression, this was a new idea to John.
‘But why should anybody want to kill me?’ he said.
‘I leave you to work that out,’ said Angela dryly. ‘Have you offended anyone lately?’
He gave a sudden guffaw.
‘Dozens of people, probably. I shouldn’t be surprised if Louisa and half the servants wish me ill, given my general untidiness and the state I leave my clothes in. But that’s hardly a motive for murder.’
‘You have money and property,’ Angela pointed out. ‘A stronger motive you couldn’t find.’
‘I think Louisa and Donald might have something to say about that,’ he said with another bark of laughter.
‘But it isn’t just them, is it? Other people have an interest in your death, too. Mr. Faulkner, for instance.’
‘Are you saying he killed Philippa and the others?’
‘No—he has alibis for the nights of their deaths, but perhaps he got someone else to do it. I don’t say that’s what happened,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘I’m just musing over possibilities. Please, John, I should like you to think about it carefully. If you know of anyone who might have a reason to kill you—however far-fetched that sounds—tell me so at once.’
Seeing she was serious, he bit back his impatient reply.
‘I swear to you I don’t know of anyone who wants me dead,’ he said more gently, ‘and I promise that if anything occurs to me I shall let you know.’
‘Thank you,’ said Angela. ‘Louisa would never forgive me if I let you come to harm.’
‘So the lady has to protect the gentleman in this case, yes?’ he said, eyes twinkling. ‘I must say, I never heard of such a thing.’
‘I doubt it will come to that,’ said Angela, ‘but you never know. And now I have just one more question, then I shall leave you in peace.’
‘Fire away,’ said John.
‘Do you remember the photograph I showed you a few days ago? The one that was lost when I was attacked in London?’
‘Yes,’ said John warily.
‘When I asked you if you knew who the subject was you said you had no idea.’
‘Well?’
‘Was it a photograph of your sister Christina?’
TWENTY-ONE
If Angela had hoped to catch John by surprise she was not disappointed. He started and flushed, then finally gave a brief nod.
‘How on earth did you find that out?’ he asked.
‘It was a lucky guess,’ Angela admitted. ‘When I saw the picture I immediately had the feeling that it looked like someone I knew, but I couldn’t think who. When I looked at it later I realized that it was you she reminded me of—especially around the eyes. Ursula didn’t recognize her so I knew it couldn’t be Philippa or Winifred. In fact, my first thought was that it was a picture of your mother, but the age of the woman and the style of the clothes she was wearing led me to conclude that it was more likely to be Christina.’
‘Well, it was. And what of it?’
‘Was it you who dropped the photograph down by the lake?’
John shook his head.
‘No, that wasn’t me. I’d never seen the picture in my life before you showed it to me.’
‘Then who dropped it?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘But why did you say you didn’t recognize it?’
He looked away and did not reply for a few seconds.
‘It would have been her birthday soon,’ he said eventually in a gruff voice. ‘Every year I used to bring her forget-me-nots from the woods. They were always her favourite, even as a child. I brought her armfuls of them and she would clap her hands together and jump up in delight. She loved wild things—loved to run around in the open air and feel the fresh breeze on her face. She hated being stuck indoors. She wanted to be as free as the wild flowers, she always said.’
‘She died many years ago, I understand,’ said Angela gently.
‘Yes, and it was all Father’s fault,’ he burst out. ‘He goaded her continually until she couldn’t stand it any more and was driven to desperate means in order to escape. At last she ran away, and I never saw her again. I wanted to go and find her, but Father lied and told us she had died. A few years later she did die, and it was only then that I found out she’d been alive all along, believing to the last that nobody cared enough about her to seek her out. I regret that very much.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Angela. ‘I didn’t mean to reopen old wounds.’
John waved his hand.
‘Don’t mention it. I didn’t think it was an old wound but you caught me off guard. I was very fond of her but it all happened a long time ago now, and what’s done is done.’
‘Then you have no idea what her photograph was doing down by the lake?’
‘None at all.’
Angela was about to ask another question when they were interrupted by Louisa, who hurried into the room, full of suppressed excitement.
‘My dears, I’ve just been speaking to the police on the ’phone. They wanted to know if we’d seen Robin. It seems he’s disappeared, and they’ve discovered that quite a lot of money is missing from Peake’s. They’re all in an uproar there, and it could turn into a tremendous scandal if they don’t find him soon.’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed John. He looked almost pleased. ‘Can it really be true? Well, there’s a turn-up and no mistake. You see, Louisa? I always said there was something shady about him. Ursula will be smiling on the other side of her face now, won’t she? Perhaps this will stop her from bandying all these silly accusations about.’
‘Do they want to arrest him, then?’ asked Angela.
‘It looks like it,’ said Louisa. ‘I wonder where he’s hiding. I don’t suppose he’ll come anywhere near us.’
‘What happened, exactly?’
The tip-off had come from within Peake’s, it seemed. Two of Robin’s fellow employees had for some time suspected him of engaging in illicit dealings, and had reported their concerns to their superiors, who in turn had quietly requested the assistance of the police. Robin, apparently unaware that he had raised suspicions, had been under discreet observation for some weeks now without anything coming of it, but events had suddenly been precipitated by the police’s decision to question him about Winifred’s money. This appeared to have thrown him into a panic and the next day it was disc
overed that he had fled with some jewellery and cash belonging to his mother, and that the firm was missing many thousands of pounds. Nobody knew where he had gone.
‘I do hope it’s all a mistake,’ said the kindly Louisa after they had all exclaimed over the news. ‘I know poor Robin isn’t the most agreeable boy but I should hate to think he was a criminal. We all know Ursula can be a little difficult at times but after all, she has just lost her husband and Robin is her only son—the only person she has left to comfort her. What will she do if he goes to prison? John, perhaps we should invite her here for dinner. She must be feeling terribly alone at the moment.’
‘I say, steady on, old girl,’ said John, alarmed. ‘I mean to say, I’m all for showing sympathy when a family member is in trouble, but this is Ursula you are talking about. We can’t have her to dinner. Why, I shan’t be able to eat a thing with her sitting there like a skeleton at the feast, glaring disapprovingly at us all.’
‘John!’ exclaimed his wife reproachfully.
‘And besides,’ he went on, ‘she will be coming here on the 27th anyway for our little family party.’
‘Oh!’ said Louisa. ‘I’d forgotten all about that. Perhaps you’re right, then. We shall have her here on that evening. I may just telephone her, though, to make sure she’s all right.’
‘Do as you please,’ said John, ‘but I warn you now, she will take it amiss. She will be looking for someone to blame.’
The house was abuzz with talk of the latest events and since it was clear that nobody had attention to spare for anything other than Robin’s disappearance, Angela excused herself and went back to London. There she put a telephone-call through to Inspector Jameson.
‘Hallo, Mrs. Marchmont,’ said Jameson when he came on the line. ‘I imagine you’ve heard the news about Robin Haynes.’
‘Indeed I have,’ said Angela, ‘and I must say it looks rather bad for him.’
‘It does,’ agreed the inspector. ‘The silly fool has got himself into the devil of a mess.’
‘What is he supposed to have done with the money from his firm?’
‘Well, I’m not an expert myself, but it appears that he got himself into a dreadful hole by what is known as selling shares on the short side. I don’t suppose you have ever heard of such a thing, but I shall try to explain what it means in simple terms.’
Angela knew all about selling short, but listened patiently.
‘Let’s suppose that you have it on good authority that the share price of a particular firm—let’s call it Smith and Co.—is about to fall. Perhaps you have heard a rumour that the company made lower than expected profits last year, or that a new invention of theirs is not selling as well as they had hoped. If you are bold enough, you can borrow some shares of the company from a Smith’s shareholder, sell them at today’s price, then, when the market learns that Smith’s is not doing as well as expected and the price falls, buy the shares back at the lower amount and return them to their owner, pocketing the profit for yourself. For example, let’s suppose that you borrow a thousand shares and sell them at a price of twenty shillings for a total of one thousand pounds. After a few days, the market price falls to fifteen shillings. You then buy the shares back at the lower price and return them to their rightful owner, making yourself a handsome profit of two hundred and fifty pounds at the same time. Have I explained that clearly?’
‘Quite clearly,’ said Angela.
‘Well, that is what Robin Haynes was doing—borrowing shares owned by clients of Peake’s and taking short positions on them then keeping the profit for himself. Somehow, though, he forgot to ask permission before borrowing the shares. For a while he did rather well out of it, but then he made a couple of bad bets, which is when his problems began. I don’t suppose you remember, but early last year the markets were full of excitement about Anglo-Pretoria, the mining company that struck an enormous seam of gold after doing very badly for some years.’
‘I seem to remember reading something about it,’ said Angela, who had made rather a lot of money from Anglo-Pretoria’s stroke of good fortune.
‘Unfortunately for Robin, he had taken a short position on Anglo’s shares just before the news emerged of the discovery. The share price went up, instead of down as he had expected, and that meant he was forced to stump up a large sum of money to get the stock back to return to the client—money he didn’t have and couldn’t borrow. A similar thing happened on a couple of other occasions, and each time he tried to make up the money through wilder and wilder speculation. You can imagine the result.’
‘That must be around the time he persuaded Winifred to let him invest her money,’ said Angela.
‘Yes. There was no investment fund paying fantastic returns, of course. That was a lie. Robin had merely convinced himself that he would be able to repay her the money by making up his losses and more on the stock markets.’
‘Are Peake’s in serious trouble, then?’
‘I don’t think they will sink, if that’s what you mean. Robin has lost them many thousands of pounds but they have been trading for more than a hundred years so they know what they are about and will most likely weather the storm. I can’t say what this will do to their reputation, though, when the news gets out.’
‘Poor Winifred, to have been duped by her own nephew. No wonder he kept avoiding her. He must have been desperately trying to find a way of getting the money back quickly. I imagine her death shortly afterwards must have been quite a relief to him.’
‘Ah,’ said the inspector, ‘but there is more to the story than you know. Once we heard that he had done a disappearing trick, naturally we went to his house.’
‘I don’t suppose Ursula took too kindly to that.’
‘You could say that,’ said Jameson, feelingly. ‘In fact, I don’t mind telling you that I should far rather tackle an armed gang any day than have to face Mrs. Ursula Haynes with a search-warrant.’
Angela laughed.
‘At any rate, she had to let us in eventually,’ he went on, ‘and we searched through his things. Not that he’d left much that was of any use—as a matter of fact, it looked as though he’d had a very pretty bonfire before he went off.’
‘Dear me,’ said Angela. ‘Presumably that was to get rid of any incriminating evidence of his illicit dealings.’
‘That’s what it looks like, although he may as well have saved himself the effort since we have plenty of proof at the Peake’s end. He won’t get away with it that easily. However, he must have been in a hurry because we did find one rather interesting thing that had somehow slipped down underneath the grate and escaped the flames mostly undamaged.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. It was a letter from Robin himself to his Aunt Winifred, pleading for more time to repay the money and begging her not to report him to the police or—worse—his mother. I assume Winifred must have been threatening to expose his unscrupulous dealings to the proper authorities.’
‘That letter could be very useful to his cousin Susan should she ever wish to make a claim against him to try and get her inheritance back. It may be the only evidence that exists in writing, since I gather Winifred signed no agreement.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ said the inspector, ‘but we at Scotland Yard are taking an even more serious view of the matter than that, given his presence on the scene immediately after Mrs. Dennison fell to her death at Underwood House.’
‘You think it proves he was the murderer?’
‘It certainly points very strongly in that direction. Think about it—why should Robin Haynes have a letter in his possession that he wrote himself? Surely he must have sent it straight after he wrote it—or, if he had decided against sending it, why did he not destroy it at the time?’
‘What is your theory?’
‘Why, I think there is a very good chance that, faced with the threat of exposure, he was driven to extreme measures to avoid being found out. And what better way to stop his aunt from reporting him to
the police or Peake’s than by closing her mouth permanently?’
‘And so he pushed her over the balustrade. It’s certainly a possibility. But what of the letter?’
‘Don’t you think it’s possible that when he was discovered bending over her body, he was searching her pockets for it? If it was found on her, then all his efforts would have been in vain, but if he could only get it back then there was a good chance he would not be found out.’
Angela considered it.
‘Or perhaps he had nothing to do with her death and got the letter back by some other means,’ she suggested.
‘Who knows? All the same, I should very much like to catch Master Robin. I’ve already had a carpeting from the superintendent for letting him escape from under our noses when we were supposed to have him under observation. The super’s a pal of Mr. Peake’s and has been getting it in the neck himself, so I can hardly blame him. Still, I’m not exactly covered in glory at the moment, so I should like to find him as soon as possible. There’s going to be a terrific scandal once this gets into the newspapers.’
‘Might he have gone abroad?’
‘He might. We’re watching the ports, but he got a head start on us and could have been long gone by the time we discovered he was missing.’
The inspector then excused himself, anxious not to lose a minute in the hunt for his quarry, and hung up. Angela sat for a few minutes, thinking over what he had said. He had certainly made a convincing case for Robin’s guilt in the matter of Winifred’s death, she could not deny it, but what of Philippa and Edward? Nothing had been discovered up to now to suggest that he had had a hand in their deaths. Nor was there any suggestion that he had taken their money, so why on earth should he want to kill them? Was it possible that not all the deaths had been murder? Philippa in particular could certainly have died from natural causes—it was only the deaths of her sister and brother, in fact, that had raised the question of whether or not someone had had a hand in her demise. Nobody had had the slightest suspicion before that.