Jack looked at Bill. ‘Does that sound suspiciously like blackmail to you?’
Bill nodded. ‘It’s beginning to.’
Signora Bianchi’s eyes narrowed. ‘Blackmail? No, I tell you. Signora Askern, what would you have done if I announce myself openly to you? Told you that your ’usband is not your ’usband but mine? That your marriage was never a marriage? That you are not married in the eyes of the law or of the holy church? That is important to you, yes?’
‘I … I …’
‘You would have paid. You would have been grateful to me for going away and you would have paid,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘That is not blackmail.’
‘Well …’ began Bill.
She ignored him and turned on John Askern. ‘I told you that is what I should have done, but you would not hear of it. I wanted to be – what is it you say? Open and above the board. Besides, it is not for me I want the money. It is for Luigi Mantonelli, my – my companion, shall I call him? He is a gifted man, he makes the moving pictures, the films, yes? Before the war, in Italy, he made moving pictures. Italian films, they were good, yes, good, I tell you, and Luigi made them. But now?’ She shrugged. ‘Everyone is in Hollywood, in America. He wants to go to Hollywood, to make the perfect picture, and Colin will come with us and be a star.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ put in Colin, his colour rising.
‘But yes! You have the good looks, you have the talent and, with Luigi behind you, it will be a wonderful film, believe me. But in Italy, since the war, we are poor, so I tell him, I tell Luigi, I will get the money, and my son, he will be a star. That is business, yes? That is not blackmail.’
Bill drew his breath in. ‘Whatever it is, it certainly isn’t murder.’ He looked at Colin Askern with scarcely concealed anger. ‘If you knew your mother was alive, why the devil didn’t you tell us?’
‘I did,’ bit back Colin. ‘God help me, Rackham, I’ve been saying nothing else! When Betty first came to me with that cock-and-bull story, I was scared witless. I honestly thought she had seen something in the cottage, but there was nothing there. I knew my mother was going away for a few days. I knew everything was all right. How could it be anything else? Was I supposed to believe that my father – because if anyone had murdered my mother it would have to be my father – had somehow managed to lure her back to the cottage, without letting me know a thing about it, and then concealed her body so cleverly that it couldn’t be found?’
‘Nevertheless,’ persisted Bill, ‘why didn’t you just tell us the truth about who the Signora was?’
‘How the devil could I? It wasn’t my secret. My father’s been like a cat on hot bricks about this.’ He glanced at Daphne Askern. ‘He was worried stupid you’d find out the truth. Then, yesterday, I heard in the post office that Betty and two strange men had been in my mother’s house. I knew something was up and knew I had to act. I didn’t know where my mother had got to but I knew she’d gone to see – er – her friend. I didn’t have his address but thought I might find it on a letter or something.’
‘So you broke in,’ said Bill flatly.
‘Yes, so I broke in! The key had been moved from where it’s usually kept, so I broke in. I found the address but I found a lot of other papers, too, in that cash box. I knew once you got sight of that marriage certificate, the cat really would be amongst the pigeons, so I took the lot. It seemed the safest thing to do. I fired off a telegram this morning, pleading with my mother to come back and stop this nonsense, and here she is. Now, if Betty can stop insisting she saw horrors when she obviously didn’t, and you, Rackham, and you, Haldean, can leave us in peace, we’ll do our best to sort everything out.’
Bill took a long breath. ‘Very well, Askern.’ He pocketed his notebook with a sigh. ‘There really doesn’t seem to be any reason why we should stay.’
Daphne Askern, who’d been gazing at Signora Bianchi with a sort of fascinated horror, levered her attention away for a moment to glance at the butler. ‘Kingsdown, show these – er – gentlemen out, please.’
‘Very good, Ma’am.’
They left the room in a state of very artificial silence, but they could hear the cacophony of furious voices breaking out behind them once more before they got to the front door.
‘Case,’ murmured Jack, as they trudged down the drive of Heath House, ‘dismissed.’
Bill made an impatient noise. ‘Come on, Jack. I need a drink.’
Over a pint of bitter in the saloon bar of the Brown Cow, Bill, despite having thoroughly vented his frustration, was still going strong. ‘What did Askern call it? A wild goose chase? Well, he was right there and no mistake. I’ve never felt such a fool in all my born days.’
‘So you said,’ agreed Jack mildly.
‘And what Sir Douglas is going to say, I don’t know.’
‘So you remarked before.’
‘And he, poor beggar, has to explain it to the Chief of the Surrey force.’
‘You mentioned that, too.’
‘I can tell you this much. The next young woman who turns up at the Yard yelling she’s seen a murder, better have a damn sight more proof than our Miss Wingate, no matter how personable she is. Women!’
‘That,’ said Jack, running his finger round the top of his tankard, ‘is rather unfair, Bill.’
‘Unfair? Unfair? You have no idea how unfair I’d like to be at the moment.’
‘What I’m saying,’ Jack explained patiently, ‘is that the case – our case – remains exactly the same.’
Bill stared at him incredulously. ‘Excuse me? You were at Heath House just now, weren’t you? You do remember when the murder victim – the victim I’d just arrested John Askern for murdering – came waltzing through the door, large as life? Because, believe you me, that’s something I’m not going to forget in a hurry.’ He drank his beer broodingly. ‘When I think of all the trouble we’ve been to over that ruddy woman and it turns out she was doing nothing more than having a ruddy few high jinks with her ruddy boyfriend somewhere! I couldn’t credit it when she turned out to be Askern’s mother. His mother, for God’s sake! She doesn’t look like anyone’s mother! She’s far too glamorous by half.’
‘Mothers come in all shapes and sizes, I suppose,’ said Jack. ‘I’m surprised no one guessed about Signora Bianchi and Colin Askern, though. They do have quite a marked likeness. I nearly got it when I looked at that photo.’
‘I’ll never forget it,’ rumbled Bill. ‘Never.’
‘No, of course you won’t forget it, old bean,’ said Jack in a placatory way. ‘Incidentally, what were you going to do with Mr Askern, once you had arrested him?’
‘Keep a damn good eye on him to see he stayed put, yell for Constable Shaw or whatever his name is, then haul him off to the police station.’
‘So really, it’s just as well Signora Bianchi came in when she did.’
Bill finished his beer. ‘I suppose it is,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Come on, Jack. The sooner we leave, the better. Motion pictures, indeed! I’d like to give them motion pictures! I’ve got to face Sir Douglas, and what he’s going to say I can only guess. I wish I could use motion pictures to break the news to him.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ said Jack, pulling him back into his seat. ‘If you’ll just stop snorting with righteous disapproval for a moment and look at the facts, what have we got?’
‘A mare’s nest, I’d say.’
‘No, we haven’t. We’ve got the wrong victim – that’s obvious – but we’ve still got the facts. Miss Wingate saw a strangled woman. Yes?’
‘So she says.’
‘Miss Wingate suffered from chloroform blisters around her mouth. Yes?’
‘Again, so she says.’
‘And, when we investigated, we found hair trapped in that very odd angle of the sofa arm. There were threads of brown silk on the wheelbarrow, tracks where the wheelbarrow had been pushed along the field path and threads of brown silk on the barbed wire fence. That’s what we
were investigating, Bill. Naturally we assumed the victim was Signora Bianchi—’
‘Because that’s what Miss Wingate said.’
‘Because, as you rightly say, that’s what Miss Wingate said. To be fair to Miss Wingate, she told us she only caught a glimpse of the victim and that was by the flare of a match. She was expecting to see Signora Bianchi, so that’s who she assumed she had seen. There was so clearly something rum about Signora Bianchi, she seemed an ideal candidate to be the victim, but I always kept in mind that the victim could be someone else.’
Bill’s eyebrows crawled upwards. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he admitted grudgingly, as he lit a cigarette, ‘you did say as much. At least, you floated the possibility that Signora Bianchi could be the murderer. You don’t think that’s it, do you?’
Jack shook his head. ‘It’s possible, but she’s a slightly built woman. I think she’d find it hard to push the wheelbarrow all the way through the fields. I’m not saying she couldn’t do it if she was desperate, but I think she’d come up with another plan to dispose of the body when she was thinking things through beforehand.’
Bill laughed, the first sign of amusement he’d shown for a good hour. ‘You’re sure it was that well planned?’
‘I’m convinced of it. For one thing, the murderer used chloroform, which needs to be bought in advance. It wasn’t an impulsive murder.’
Bill sat back down on the settle. ‘I don’t know what it is about you,’ he complained. ‘A few minutes ago I was ready to storm out of Whimbrell Heath and go crawling apologetically to Sir Douglas. And now …’
‘And now?’ prompted Jack.
‘And now …’ Bill tapped his cigarette on the ashtray. ‘Now, damnit Jack, I think you’re right.’ He pushed his cigarette case over. ‘Help yourself, by the way. There is something to be investigated. But if the victim isn’t Signora Bianchi, which it clearly isn’t, and if the murderer isn’t Signora Bianchi herself, who the dickens is it? It all happened in her house, after all.’
‘Okay,’ said Jack, taking a cigarette and striking a match. ‘I’m not sure we can make any guesses about the victim yet, but let’s think about the murderer. It’s clearly someone who knows enough about Signora Bianchi to know she was going to be away, so that’s someone who knows her and, I’d say, knows Whimbrell Heath.’
Bill nodded. ‘Yes, all right, I can see that. It can’t just be happenstance. There was too much to hand to make life easy for the murderer for it to be coincidental. The empty cottage, the wheelbarrow – those things are necessary to make this work.’
‘And, of course, the wheelbarrow, complete with cargo, pitched up on the road outside Lythewell and Askern where there might or might not have been a car waiting.’
Bill stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. ‘All right. Let’s have some lunch, then go and have a word with the night-watchman. I want to know if he saw anything. I suppose I’d better tell Mr Lythewell what I’m doing. He strikes me as the sort who could make life very awkward indeed if he thought I was exceeding my authority. Incidentally, you don’t think either Lythewell or Askern could be our man, do you?’
Jack shrugged. ‘They could be. At the moment it could be anybody, including,’ he added with a grin, ‘Henry Cadwallader. If anyone said anything untoward about old Mr Lythewell, I’m sure he’d find that an adequate motive for murder.’
‘He had quite an effect on you, didn’t he?’ said Bill with a laugh.
‘You have no idea,’ said Jack earnestly. ‘I wonder if this pub does steak and kidney pie?’
After lunch (which, to Jack’s satisfaction, was steak and kidney pie), they walked back along the road to Lythewell and Askern.
It would be overstating the case to say Mr Lythewell was pleased to see them.
‘I assumed, gentlemen, that after this morning’s fiasco, you would have decided to let this matter drop,’ he said, glaring at them over the desk in his office.
The office, thought Jack, was designed to impress. Mr Lythewell’s portrait hung above the mantelpiece. The desk was large, oak, and inlaid with green leather. The files on the shelves round the room were solidly bound and gave the office the look of a gentleman’s library.
‘I agree,’ continued Mr Lythewell, ‘that Mr Askern’s problems were not of your making, but there is no doubt that your intrusion into the affair made a difficult situation very much worse. I naturally assumed, once your suspicions had been proved groundless, you would return to London.’
‘We can’t do that, sir,’ said Jack with his most charming smile. ‘You see, although Signora Bianchi is still very much with us, it really does look as if someone came to grief that night. We certainly found evidence pointing that way.’
Mr Lythewell’s eyebrows beetled upwards. ‘Evidence? What evidence could there possibly be?’
Bill cleared his throat. ‘That, sir, I’m not at liberty to disclose, but I would take it as a favour if you would let us interview your night-watchman.’
‘Eh? You want to interview one of my men? But why?’
‘Again, sir, I’m not at liberty to explain.’
Mr Lythewell sighed in a much-put-upon manner. ‘Oh, very well. I can’t recall the fellow’s name but you’d better ask Jones, the foreman, in the yard. Tell him I sent you. Oh, and Mr Rackham! Your time may be paid for out of the public purse, but my men’s time is paid for by me. Please ensure you waste as little of it as possible.’
Bill preserved a poker face until they were out in the corridor and safely out of earshot. ‘The pompous old devil,’ he said with feeling.
‘Yes, he was a bit ratty, wasn’t he? Still, I don’t suppose that’s anything to be amazed by. I doubt his partner will be pulling his weight in the office for a while.’
They ran the night-watchman, Gilbert Stroud, to earth in the public bar of the Guide Post Inn, where he was enjoying a leisurely lunch of pork pie, pickles and a half of mild.
His routine was a simple one. He went round the yard with his lantern every couple of hours during the night. ‘There’s plenty of tools worth pinching. I have to keep an eye on things. A car? No, I can’t recollect seeing no car, or hearing one either, unless it was Mr Askern’s going past.’
‘How d’you know it was Mr Askern’s?’ asked Bill.
‘It went up the road to Heath House, that’s how. Who else could it be? Late, that was. He didn’t stop, though. Last Saturday night, you say? No, we don’t get many cars parked up along the road. The other end of the village, yes, with all the new houses and what have you, but we don’t get much traffic near the works. There wasn’t none the other Saturday. None at all, that I can recollect.’
‘It needn’t have been a car,’ said Jack. ‘Did you see a lorry, perhaps?’
Mr Stroud shook his head. ‘No, no lorry either.’ Further questions elicited the fact that Lythewell and Askern had no motor transport of any kind. Anything that needed moving inside the yard was done by cart and muscle power, and anything that was bound for despatch out of the yard was loaded up and taken by horse and cart to the railway station. And no, there weren’t any horse and carts stood round on Saturday night, either. Jack regretfully dismissed the mental image of a murderer making a very slow getaway by horse and cart.
He took out his tobacco pouch and offered it to Stroud. ‘Did you see anything at all odd or out of the way near the works or the chantry last Saturday night?’
‘Odd, now,’ said Mr Stroud. He filled his pipe and tamped the tobacco down with his thumb. ‘Thank’e sir.’ He blew his cheeks out in an effort at recollection. ‘No, I can’t say as I did.’
The landlady, a sharp-faced woman, looked up from where she was washing glasses. She had, Jack had noticed, been washing the glasses at a slower and slower rate, obviously interested in their conversation. ‘Excuse me, sirs, but are you Annie Hatton’s gents from London?’
Jack smiled. ‘That’s us. I’m glad to say Signora Bianchi turned up safe and sound.’
‘Oh, I know that, sir,�
�� said the landlady dismissively. ‘That’s all round the village, that is, and her no better than she should be, I’m sure. Foreigners,’ she added with a sniff. ‘No, it was with you mentioning the chantry. I’m sorry, I’m sure, but I couldn’t help overhearing.’ She leaned forward across the mahogany-stained bar. ‘There are rumours that it’s haunted.’
‘Garn,’ said Mr Stroud in disgust. ‘Some folks are frightened of their own shadows.’
‘Who says it’s haunted?’ asked Jack.
‘Kids,’ opined Mr Stroud. ‘Kids and,’ he added with a sideways look at the landlady, ‘women who should know better.’
‘I’ve seen some strange things in my time, Gilbert Stroud,’ said the landlady. ‘Things that can’t be explained.’ She gestured across the bar to a table where a burly man was sitting, newspaper propped in front of him, a grey-muzzled lurcher curled up under the table beneath him, chomping his way stolidly through a ham sandwich. ‘Sam Catton wouldn’t agree with you. Sam! Have you got a minute?’
Man and dog made their way heavily to the bar. Jack leaned down to let the dog sniff his hand. The dog inhaled warily before letting Jack scratch the top of his head, then licked his hand and flopped to the floor.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ asked Jack hospitably.
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ said Mr Catton, evidently approving of his dog’s acceptance of Jack.
‘These are gentlemen from London,’ said the landlady. ‘Annie Hatton knows them. They’re asking about anything odd up at the chantry.’
‘There’s plenty that’s odd there,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll have a Worthington White Shield, if it’s all the same to you, gents.’ The landlady took a bottle off the shelf and started to pour the White Shield carefully into a glass. ‘There’s lights,’ continued Sam. ‘Lights at all hours.’
‘That’s that mad old artist geezer,’ said Mr Stroud. ‘Cadwallader. He’s always up there.’
Sam weighed up Jack and Bill thoughtfully, as if calculating the chances of being believed. ‘There’s more’n Cadwallader, if you ask me,’ said Sam eventually. He picked up the White Shield and held it up to the light.
After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) Page 12