A Southwold Mystery

by Suzette A. Hill

  ‘Oh I quite liked him. But I wonder how he knew who I was?’

  ‘Fabius gets to know most things … Contrary to appearances he is considerably brighter than his brother.’ This was said with a touch of asperity. But recalling Hugh’s and Mark’s disparagement of Claude she was not especially surprised. Evidently Fabius was the local eccentric; Claude the local bore.

  It was rather a pleasant day, the sun bright and for once little or no wind. Thus free of Brightwell’s company Rosy decided to skip lunch and instead buy a couple of sausage rolls and in time-honoured tradition sit on the front, read the newspaper and admire the view. She chose a spot above the beach huts, and taking one of the deck chairs settled down to enjoy the sun.

  Immersed in her newspaper and ‘picnic’ she was only vaguely aware of someone else having taken a chair next to hers. She had just turned to the crossword when a voice said politely, ‘Ah, I trust you are enjoying our Southwold air. It must make quite a change from the London smog.’

  Rosy was about to reply that actually the London smog was greatly exaggerated, when to her surprise she saw that her neighbour was Hawkins. Divested of his usual sombre suit he wore instead a pair of white flannel trousers, smart navy blazer and a rather raffish neck scarf. Was this his off-duty kit? If so for an old boy of near eighty he didn’t look bad!

  On his knees rested a small lunchbox, presumably of his own composing, and a book. She asked him what it was.

  ‘It’s a manual,’ he replied, ‘The Finer Points of Portraiture. It’s a little hobby of mine. I like to dabble occasionally.’

  ‘What, you mean you paint?’ she asked, a little surprised.

  He nodded. ‘But only in a small way, and only people. I used to do more before the eye problem but even so it is not impossible, just slower.’

  ‘But do you always stick to portraits? Never landscapes or a seascape like this for instance?’ she gestured at the sparkling waves and cavorting bathers.

  He smiled. ‘You mean like those clever French impressionists with their cliffs at Cannes or Trouville? No, my talents – such as they are – are confined to the contours of the human face; they represent much that intrigues. Seascapes aren’t intriguing, just moving and beautiful.’

  But what about a studio, she had asked. Didn’t he need one of those?

  Hawkins shrugged. ‘An easel and a good window is enough. In Paris when I was there briefly with the Dovedales I had more sitters and was able to rent a small atelier, but now I work mainly from photographs. In fact the last time I used a live sitter it was Mrs Dovedale herself. That was ten years ago when Mr Dovedale was still alive. He became very fond of that picture.’ Hawkins gave a pensive smile.

  ‘Oh! You don’t mean that one hanging above the staircase do you? The one where she has the little dog on her lap?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied simply.

  ‘But it is splendid … I mean, naturally I never knew her, but there is a real person there! And someone rather nice,’ she added.

  The old man modestly acknowledged the compliment, and murmured, ‘Madam was a very kind lady. People did not always realise that.’

  Rosy felt awkward: her questions had unwittingly led to Delia – and inevitably to thoughts of the sitter’s fate. However, in view of his last observation it would be unnatural not to express some sympathy. ‘You must miss her,’ she said gently.

  ‘One does,’ was the quiet reply. ‘And Mr Dovedale too, a most enlivening gentleman – although one has to say his trumpet playing was not of the best but it was certainly vigorous.’ He gave a rueful smile.

  ‘So you enjoyed those long years with them.’

  ‘It was a highly gratifying arrangement. Alas, not all employers are so agreeable.’

  There was a silence as he nibbled a sandwich and contemplated the sea. Rosy’s glance fell on the first clue of the crossword. As the poet suggests, what those serving also might do. (4-5-3-4). Only stand and wait, she surmised. Rosy waited.

  Hawkins brushed the sandwich crumbs from the pristine trousers, cleared his throat and added: ‘As, I must say, is Master Hugh – agreeable. He has his little ways of course – always did have, even as a boy. What you might call a law unto himself – though his father used another term. But as I observed to you the other day, fundamentally he is sound. It would be a great shame, Miss Gilchrist, were it ever thought otherwise: a wrong and mischievous indictment and one liable to create a false scent. There are other trails.’ Hawkins made a slight adjustment to his black patch, while the good eye regarded her unswervingly.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed meekly.

  He snapped shut the lunch box and stood up about to take his leave.

  ‘But Mr Hawkins,’ Rosy said boldly, ‘quite apart from the case of poor Mr de Lisle, why on earth should your employer have been killed?’

  There was a long pause while he seemed to reflect. And then he said sombrely: ‘As they say in the films, because she knew too much … Now if you would excuse me I have some fresh brushes to collect. I am engaged on a new study.’

  ‘From a photograph?’

  ‘Yes, but I think I am catching the essence all right. Besides it is based on a memory.’

  When he had gone Rosy lit a cigarette and brooded.

  Clearly he was determined to defend his current employer from any whiff of blame regarding the publisher’s death. Both in their conversation by the bonfire and even more explicitly now, he had virtually directed her to keep her mouth shut about the bloodied raincoat. In fact she rather suspected that he may have sat down beside her precisely to ram home that point. And as before, she wondered if such defence was prompted by misplaced loyalty or whether it was a sincerely held belief that Hugh was innocent. If the latter he could of course be deluded; but the more she thought about his manner and words the more she felt that he knew something which implied an alternative culprit.

  Ironic, Rosy thought. She had selected this spot to bask languidly in the sun, toy with the crossword and indulge her taste for sausage rolls; but instead of such ease her mind had been put in a state of fretful activity. She would have done better to return to Laurel Lodge and have an afternoon nap like Angela!

  As she wandered back down the High Street to where she had left the car she was taunted by Hawkins’ cryptic reply to her question about Delia: because she knew too much.

  What was it Delia had known and how had that knowledge been betrayed to whoever had administered the cyanide? She passed a bookshop and casually glanced at some of the titles displayed in the window: Memoirs of a Spy, Dark Exposure, Gossip from the White House, The Fatal Fiction … She recalled Angela’s casual revelation that de Lisle had gloated about his good luck in having chapters from Delia’s book.

  Hell it was obvious surely! The knowledge for which Delia had been killed was without doubt portrayed in that novel she was writing. The extracts discussed at The Sandworth, while in themselves only mildly risqué, as part of a larger context and one factually based, could if published be sensational. What was it Floyd was supposed to have said? ‘Literary dynamite’ or some such. The titles in the window bellowed at Rosy, and suddenly what had been a mere hazy notion became a dazzling conviction. Had the narrative been explosive enough to require the death of its author and its intending publisher? It could just be. Motive enough, but as to the murderer’s identity that was anyone’s guess. Perhaps the police knew, she reflected doubtfully … Or Hawkins?

  She opened the car door wondering what she should do. Absolutely nothing seemed the immediate course, except drive back to Laurel Lodge, put her feet up and have a long meditative bath before supper. She pushed the starter and eased the car into the road.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Felix had been invited to a wine and cheese function held by the festival organisers. He had been slightly reluctant to go as he had been rather relishing the prospect of parading his smart smoking jacket at the hotel that night. After all so far he had only worn it once: definitely time for another airing. How
ever, it might have looked churlish to refuse … and besides he rather suspected the press might be there.

  ‘You will come won’t you?’ he had asked Cedric.

  The other had replied that in view of Felix’s misadventures when last driving alone at night it might indeed be wise. ‘We can drop in at Laurel Lodge on the way back. Angela has a book of mine and I want to ensure I get it back, you know how vague she is.’

  Thus as planned, they stopped off to collect the book and were inveigled into the drawing room for some coffee. Hugh Dovedale wasn’t at home being apparently in London. In some ways Cedric was slightly relieved as he had found the young man’s blend of charm and wayward gaucheness rather unsettling. Angela dutifully returned Cedric’s book, but her comments were interrupted by Hawkins announcing that she was wanted on the telephone.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she murmured, ‘I hope that’s not Amy pestering me to increase her allowance. That girl will squander money anywhere, even on a campsite!’ Looking unusually resolute she left the room.

  Inevitably the conversation turned to matters sinister.

  ‘Angela was right you know,’ said Cedric thoughtfully, ‘there are indeed broad similarities between her recollections of the Paris scene and how it is portrayed in Delia’s account. In fact I am increasingly convinced that Delia deliberately intended to evoke Paris at the time she and her husband were there, basing her tale not only on the events, proven or otherwise, but also on people she had known there, for instance, people who are still around and have reason to fear being featured.’

  ‘You mean people potentially imperilled by the lady’s pen,’ Felix giggled.

  ‘Well one could put it like that I suppose.’

  Rosy was unsure. ‘But according to Angela the Dovedales weren’t in Paris all that long, a temporary sojourn before returning to London. I doubt if she would have been a close observer of what was going on.’

  ‘She didn’t need to be. What she didn’t perceive herself she would have absorbed through general gossip both at the time and later. As Angela indicated, the air was rife with speculation. That spy trial and what it exposed of vice in high circles would have been like a sort of cabaret brightening the grey days of post-war austerity. I’m guessing the identity of the principal artiste didn’t strike Delia until much later … and it was only then, having pieced one or two things together and made certain connections, that she decided to produce this fictionalised version – except that an awful lot of it wasn’t fiction but pure fact and not so pure at that.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Rosy said, ‘but there’s nothing in the text, or at least not the bits we’ve got, to suggest who she thought the anonymous character was. I mean she presents him as being rather suave and ruthless but there is no clue as to who he might have been.’

  ‘Ah, there I think you have made an oversight,’ Cedric observed in his best professorial voice, ‘I rather think there is.’

  ‘Look,’ Felix said a trifle impatiently, ‘it was sharp of you to see that she had probably substituted the name Ralph for the wretched Randolph victim in the river, but that doesn’t take us very far. The chap is dead, and while he may have meant something at the time he certainly doesn’t now, and not to us: a pathetic casualty of a squalid racket and literally sunk without trace one could say. Delia’s compression of Randolph into Ralph is hardly a major factor and I cannot see anything else of note.’

  ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t dear boy, but I can. In fact it is really extremely obvious. Can’t think why I didn’t spot it when we lunched at The Sandworth. Probably too distracted by that rather good champagne they served.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Rosy exclaimed.

  ‘I am getting at the name of Lightspring,’ Cedric replied. He regarded them over the rim of his glasses. ‘I take it you do see its meaning?’

  ‘Not really,’ Felix said carelessly. ‘It’s the sort of damn fool name novelists invent for their characters.’

  Rosy said nothing at first but stared at Cedric incredulously. ‘You don’t really think that,’ she whispered, ‘it’s ridiculous!’

  Cedric shrugged. ‘It strikes me as being a bit of a coincidence – particularly when appended to the forename of Lucian … Frankly it’s not the most subtle of substitutes, which is why I am annoyed not to have seen it before. However, one—’

  ‘Brightwell!’ Felix yelped. ‘They mean the same thing! It doesn’t refer to the season but to a well of water!’

  ‘Sharp as a whippet, isn’t he?’ Cedric remarked to Rosy.

  Felix was too excited to take umbrage. ‘I never liked him,’ he muttered, ‘one of those stiff-necked types.’

  ‘But you’ve only seen him once – at Delia’s funeral.’

  ‘Quite enough on which to base a judgement,’ he replied tartly. ‘He asked me what I did in London, so naturally I informed him of Smythe’s Bountiful Blooms, and in passing just happened to mention her Majesty’s patronage. And do you know what he said? He said: “What, you mean the Queen Mother? You do surprise me. How very extraordinary!” I was about to ask him what was so extraordinary about my business having a royal connection but he had walked off. Rude wasn’t in it!’ Felix scowled at his companions seeking indignant sympathy.

  But their minds were elsewhere: Cedric’s calculating the odds for a coincidence regarding the names (rather long in his view); and Rosy’s recollecting the contents of Brightwell’s briefcase – specifically the photograph of the young man. In the light of what Cedric had just pointed out, the letter ‘R’ on the reverse of the photo now took on a distinctly sinister significance. If Angela had been right in saying that the victim fished from the river had been someone called Randolph, and thus the same as Delia’s character Ralph, it was not inconceivable that the initial ‘R’ stood for the same person: the drowned rent boy. But only of course if Lucas Brightwell and Lucian Lightspring were indeed one and the same person. The whole hypothesis hung on that … a supposition for which there wasn’t a shred of evidence.

  She began to tell them about her discovery of the photo and her now tentative suspicions, but hadn’t gone very far before being interrupted by Felix. ‘I cannot imagine why you are even giving him the benefit of the doubt,’ he exclaimed, ‘a most unsavoury specimen in my view. You should have seen the disdainful look he gave me. Just because he is tall and thinks there’s a gong in the offing I suppose he imagines he can look down on a mere florist! And what’s more—’

  ‘Felix, dear chap,’ Cedric said hastily, foreseeing a rant, ‘there is nothing mere about you! What was it Godfrey Winn wrote in his social column recently? Something like “no one but an idiot would dream of—”’

  ‘“None but a philistine would dream of commissioning anyone but Felix Smythe to supervise their nuptial flowers. His floral mastery lends charm and cachet wherever displayed. Undoubtedly London society would lose a little of its elegance without the fragrant presence of Bountiful Blooms and its discerning proprietor.”’ Felix lowered his eyes modestly.

  ‘How clever of you to remember,’ smiled Cedric.

  Rosy thought it would be cleverer still if they could ignore Felix’s sensitive ego and revert to the Dovedale murder. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘if Brightwell really is the alter ego of Lucian Lightspring and Delia was hoping to capitalise on her character’s lurid activities then he might certainly have something to worry about! I mean it’s not just the sexual shenanigans that she features or even the hints of treason, but she clearly suggests murder as well … or at least judging from the extracts that we have she does. If that book had ever achieved publication and hit the headlines, as doubtless Floyd would have ensured, it would have caused quite a stir. And just possibly Brightwell would have had more than public respect and a knighthood to lose!’

  ‘And serve him right,’ Felix declared righteously.

  At that moment Lady Fawcett reappeared looking both relieved and bemused. ‘Not Amy but Edward,’ she explained. ‘He is always so cheerful but I am never entirely sure what
he is talking about. But still it was very nice to hear him and learn that all is safe in London – or at least that’s what I think he said.’

  Rosy smiled. Angela’s communications with her daughter and nephew were invariably fraught with puzzled confusion. ‘Perhaps you could do with some more coffee,’ she said, ‘I’ll get Hawkins to—’

  ‘No not really – though a light sherry would be nice; I am sure Hugh wouldn’t mind if we helped ourselves.’ She subsided on to the sofa while Rosy dealt with the request. ‘Now what have you all been talking about? This extraordinary business no doubt. Any progress?’

  Cedric apprised her of what had been said and their reasons for suspecting Brightwell. ‘You will probably think it is total nonsense,’ he remarked, and was slightly taken aback when she shook her head firmly.

  ‘Oh no,’ she replied darkly, ‘I remember thinking in Paris that he never quite added up. I don’t know why really but one gets a “feel” about certain people and he was one of them.’

  ‘Agreed!’ Felix exclaimed, helping himself liberally to his absent host’s whisky, ‘my sentiments exactly!’

  ‘In fact,’ she continued, ‘the real surprise is that dear Delia should have fiddled about with those names. I don’t recall her showing such inventiveness at school. The benefit of time and age I suppose … I wonder what talent Amy might develop.’ She gave a wistful sigh.

  ‘What is unclear to me,’ said Cedric thoughtfully, ‘is that if Brightwell is our man how did he discover what Delia was doing? Certainly he could have picked something up from the grapevine to the effect that she was writing her Paris memoirs, but he couldn’t have known he was being featured in that way unless he had tangible proof, such as he had read some of it.’