The Vivero Letter

by Desmond Bagley

  'Of course it doesn't. We've reconstructed pretty well what happened and it seems to be a case of self defence. The man was a thief; we know that much.' I looked up. 'What did he steal?'

  Dave jerked his head. 'Come with me and I'll show you. But just walk where I walk and don't go straying about.'

  I followed him out into the yard, keeping close to his heels as he made a circuitous approach to the wall of the kitchen. He stopped and said, 'Have you ever seen that before?'

  I looked to where he indicated and saw the tray that had always stood on the top shelf of the dresser in the kitchen ever since I can remember. My mother used to take it down and polish it once in a while, but it was only really used on highdays and feast days. At Christmas it used to be put in the middle of the dining-table and was heaped with fruit.

  'Do you mean to tell me he got killed trying to pinch a brass tray? That he nearly killed Bob because of that thing?' I bent down to pick it up and Dave grabbed me hastily. 'Don't touch it.' He looked at me thoughtfully. 'Maybe you wouldn't know. That's not brass. Jemmy; it's gold!' I gaped at him, then closed my mouth before the flies got in. 'But it's always been a brass tray,' I said inanely. 'So Bob thought.' agreed Dave. 'It happened this way. The museum in Totnes was putting on a special show of local bygones and Bob was asked if he'd lend the tray. I believe it's been in the family for a long time.'

  I nodded. 'I can remember my grandfather telling me that his grandfather had mentioned it.'

  'Well, that's going back a while. Anyway, Bob lent it to the museum and it was put on show with the other stuff. Then someone said it was gold, and by God, it was! The people at the museum got worried about it and asked Dave to take it back. It wasn't insured, you see, and there was a flap on about it might be stolen. It had been reported in the papers complete with photographs, and any wide boy could open the Totnes museum with a hairpin.'

  'I didn't see the newspaper reports.'

  'It didn't make the national press,' said Dave. 'Just the local papers. Anyway, Bob took it back. Tell me, did he know you were coming down this weekend?'

  I nodded. 'I phoned him on Thursday. I'd worked out a scheme for the farm that I thought he might be interested in.'

  'That might explain it. This discovery only happened about ten days ago. He might have wanted to surprise you with it.'

  I looked down at the tray. 'He did,' I said bitterly.

  'It must be very valuable just for the gold in it,' said Dave. 'Well worm the attention of a thief. And the experts say there's something special about it to add to the value, but I'm no antiquarian so I can't tell you what it is.' He rubbed the back of his head. 'There's one thing about all this that really worries me, though. Come and look at this -- and don't touch it.'

  He led me across the yard to the other side of the body where a piece of opaque plastic cloth covered something lumpy on the ground. 'This is what did the damage to your brother.'

  He lifted the plastic and I saw a weapon -- an antique horse pistol. 'Who'd want to use a thing like that?' I said.

  'Nasty, isn't it?'

  I bent down and looked closer and found I was wrong. It wasn't a horse pistol but a shotgun with the barrels cut very short and the butt cut off to leave only the hand grip. Dave said, 'What thief in his right mind would go on a job carrying a weapon like that? Just to be found in possession would send him inside for a year. Another thing -- there were two of them.'

  'Guns?'

  'No -- men. Two, at least. There was a car parked up the farm road. We found tracks in the mud and oil droppings. From what the weather's been doing we know the car turned in the road after ten o'clock last night. Grierson reckons that this man was shot before midnight, so it's a hundred quid to a pinch of snuff that the car and the man are connected. It can't have driven itself away, so that brings another man into the picture.'

  'Or a woman,' I said.

  'Could be,' said Dave.

  A thought struck me. 'Where were the Edgecombes last night?' Jack Edgecombe was Bob's chief factotum on the farm, and his wife, Madge, did Bob's housekeeping. They had a small flat in the farmhouse itself; all the other farm workers lived in their own cottages.

  'I checked on that,' said Dave. 'They're over in Jersey on their annual holiday. Your brother was living by himself.'

  A uniformed policeman came from the house. 'Inspector, you're wanted on the blower.'

  Dave excused himself and went away, and I stood and watched what was going on. I wasn't thinking much of anything; my mind was numbed and small, inconsequential thoughts chased round and round. Dave wasn't away long and when he came back his face was serious. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. 'Bob's dead,' I said flatly.

  He nodded gravely. Ten minutes ago.'

  'For God's sake!' I said. 'I wasted half an hour outside Honiton; it could have made all the difference.'

  'Don't blame yourself, whatever you do. It would have made no difference at all, even if you had found him two hours earlier. He was too far gone.' There was a sudden snap to his voice. 'It's a murder case now, Jemmy; and we've got a man to look for. We've found an abandoned car the other side of Newton Abbot. It may not be the right one, but a check.. on the tyres will tell us.'

  'Does Elizabeth Horton know of this yet?'

  Dave frowned. 'Who's she?'

  'Bob's fiancee.'

  'Oh, God! He was getting married, wasn't he? No, she knows nothing yet.'

  'I'd better tell her,' I said.

  'All right,' he said. 'You've got a farm to run now, and cows don't milk themselves. Things can run down fast if there isn't a firm hand on the reins. My advice is to get Jack Edgecombe back here. But don't you worry about that; I'll find out where he is and send a telegram.'

  Thanks, Dave,' I said. 'But isn't that over and above the call of duty?'

  'All part of the service,' he said with an attempt at lightness. 'We look after our own. I liked Bob very much, you know.' He paused. 'Who was his solicitor?'

  'Old Mount has handled the family affairs ever since I can remember.'

  'You'd better see him as soon as possible,' advised Dave. There'll be a will and other legal stuff to be handled.' He looked at his watch. 'Look, if you're here when the superintendent arrives you might be kept hanging around for hours. You'd better pop off now and do whatever you have to. I'll give your statement to the super and if he wants to see you he can do it later. But do me a favour and phone in in a couple of hours to let us know where you are.'

  in As I drove into Totnes I looked at my watch and saw with astonishment that it was not yet nine o'clock. The day that ordinary people live was only just beginning, but I felt I'd lived a lifetime in the past three hours. I hadn't really started to think properly, but somewhere deep inside me I felt the first stirring of rage tentatively growing beneath the grief. That a man could be shot to death in his own home with such a barbarous weapon was a monstrous, almost inconceivable, perversion of normal life. In the quiet Devon countryside a veil had been briefly twitched aside to reveal another world, a more primitive world in which sudden death was a shocking commonplace. I felt outraged that such a world should intrude on me and mine.

  My meeting with Elizabeth was difficult. When I told her She became suddenly still and motionless with a frozen face. At first, I thought she was that type of Englishwoman to whom the exhibition of any emotion is the utmost in bad taste, but after five minutes she broke down in a paroxysm of tears and was led away by her mother. I felt very sorry for her. Both she and Bob were late starters in the Marriage Stakes and now the race had been scratched. I didn't know her very well but enough to know that she would have made Bob a line wife.

  Mr. Mount, of course, took it more calmly, death being part of the stock-in-trade, as it were, of a solicitor. But he was perturbed about the manner of death. Sudden death was no stranger to him, and if Bob had broken his neck chasing a fox that would have been in the tradition and acceptable. This was different; this was the first murder in Totnes within l
iving memory.

  And so he was shaken but recovered himself rapidly, buttressing his cracking world with the firm assurance of the law. There is, of course, a will,' he said. 'Your brother was having talks with me about the new will. You may -- or may not -- know that on marriage all previous wills are automatically voided, so there had to be a new will. However, we had not got to the point of signing, and so the previous existing will is the document we have to consider.'

  His face creased into a thin, legal smile. 'I don't think there is any point in beating about the bush, Jemmy. Apart from one or two small bequests to members of the farm staff and personal friends, you are the sole beneficiary. Hay Tree Farm is yours now -- or it will be on probate. There will, of course, be death duties, but farm land gets forty-five per cent relief on valuation.' He made a note. 'I must see your brother's bank manager for details of his accounts.'

  'I can give you most of that,' I said. 'I was Bob's accountant. In fact, I have all the information here. I was working on a suggested scheme for the farm -- that's why I came down this weekend.'

  'That will be very helpful,' said Mount. He pondered. 'I would say that the farm, on valuation, will prove to be worth something like £125,000. That is not counting live and dead stock, of course.'

  My head jerked up. 'My God! So much?'

  He gave me an amused look. 'When a farm has been hi the same family for as long as yours the cash value, of the land tends to be ignored -- it ceases to be regarded as invested capital. Land values have greatly appreciated in recent years. Jemmy; and you have 500 acres of prime land on red soil. At auction it would fetch not less than £250 an acre. When you add the stock, taking into account the admirable dairy herd Bob built up and the amount of modernization he has done, then I would say that the valuation for the purposes of probate will be not much less than £170,000.'

  I accepted this incredible thing he was telling me. Mount was a country solicitor and knew as much about local farm values as any hard-eyed unillusioned farmer looking over his neighbour's fields'. He said, 'If you sold it you would have a sizeable fortune, Jemmy.'

  I shook my head. 'I couldn't sell it.'

  He nodded understandingly. 'No,' he said reflectively. 'I don't suppose you could. It would be as though the Queen were to sell Buckingham Palace to a property developer. But what do you intend to do? Run it yourself?'

  'I don't know,' I said a little desperately. 'I haven't thought about it.'

  'There'll be time to think about it,' he said consolingly. 'One way would be to appoint a land agent. But your brother had a high opinion of Jack Edgecombe. You might do worse than make him farm manager; he can run the farming side, of which you know nothing -- and you can operate the business side, of which he knows nothing. I don't think it would be necessary to interrupt your present career.'

  I'll think about that,' I said.

  'Tell me,' said Mount. 'You said you had a scheme for the farm. Could I ask what it is?'

  I said, 'The Government experimental farms have been using computers to work out maximum utilization of farm resources. Well, I have access to a computer and I put in all the data on Hay Tree Farm and programmed it to produce optimum profit.'

  Mount smiled tolerantly. 'Your farm has been well worked for four hundred years. I doubt if you could find a better way of working it than the ways that are traditional in this area.'

  I had come across this attitude many times before and I thought I knew haw to handle it. Traditional ways are good ways, but nobody would say they are perfect. If you take all the variables involved in even a smallish farm -- the right mix of arable and pasture, what animals to keep, how many animals and when to keep them, what feedstuffs to plant and what to buy -- if you take all those variables and put them in permutation and combination you come up with a matrix of several million choices.

  'Traditional ways have evolved to a pretty high level and it isn't worth a farmer's while to improve them. He'd have to be a smart mathematician and it would probably take him fifty years of calculation. But a computer can do it in fifteen minutes. In the case of Hay Tree Farm the difference between the traditional good way and the best way is fifteen per cent net increase on profits.'

  'You surprise me,' said Mount interestedly. 'We will have to talk about this -- but at a more appropriate time.'

  It was a subject on which I could have talked for hours but, as he said, the time wasn't appropriate. I said, 'Did Bob ever talk to you about that tray?'

  'Indeed he did,' said Mount. 'He brought it here, to this office, straight from the museum, and we discussed the insurance. It is a very valuable piece.'

  'How valuable?'

  'Now that is hard to say. We weighed it and, if the gold is pure, the intrinsic value will be about £2,500. But there is also the artistic value to take into account -- it's very beautiful -- and the antiquarian value. Do you know anything of its history?'

  'Nothing,' I said. 'It's just been something that's been around the house ever since I can remember.'

  'It will have, to be valued as part of the estate,' said Mount. 'Sotheby's might be best, I think.' He made another note. 'We will have to go very deeply into your brother's affairs. I hope there will be enough ... er ... loose money .. . available to pay the death duties. It would be a pity to have to sell off a part of the farm. Would you have any objection to selling the tray if it proved necessary?'

  'No objection at all -- if it helps to keep the farm in one piece.' I thought I would probably sell it anyway; it had too much blood on it for my liking. It would be an uncomfortable thing to have around.

  'Well, I don't think there's more we can do now,' said Mount. 'I'll set the legal processes in motion -- you can leave all that to me.' He stood up. 'I'm the executor of the estate. Jemmy; and executors have wide latitude, especially if they know the ins and outs of the law. You'll need ready money to run the farm -- to pay the men, for example -- and that can be drawn from the estate.' He grimaced. Technically speaking, I'm supposed to run the farm until probate, but I can appoint an expert to do it, and there's nothing to prevent me choosing you, so I think well let it go at that, shall we? Or would you rather I employed a land agent until probate?'

  'Give me a couple of days,' I said. 'I want to think this over. For one thing, I'd like to talk to Jack Edgecombe.'

  'Very well,' he said. 'But don't leave it much later man that.'

  Before leaving Mount's office I telephoned the farm as I had promised Dave Goosan and was told that Detective-Superintendent Smith would be pleased if I would call at Totnes police station at three o'clock that afternoon. I said that I would and then went out into the street, feeling a little lost and wondering what to do next. Something was nagging at me and I couldn't pin it down, but suddenly I realized what it was.

  I was hungry!

  I looked at my watch and discovered it was nearly twelve o'clock. I had had no breakfast and only a very light snack the night before so it wasn't really surprising. Yet although I was hungry I didn't feel like facing a set meal, so I climbed into the car and headed towards the Cott where I could get a sandwich.

  The saloon bar was almost empty with just an elderly man and woman sitting quietly in one corner. I went to the bar and said to Paula, 'I'll have a pint, please.'

  She looked up. 'Oh, Mr. Wheale, I'm so sorry to hear of what happened.'

  It hadn't taken long for the news to get around, but that was only to be expected in a small town like Totnes. 'Yes,' I said. 'It's a bad business.'

  She turned away to draw the beer, and Nigel came in from the other bar. He said, 'Sorry to hear about your brother, Jemmy.'

  'Yes,' I said. 'Look, Nigel; I just want a beer and some sandwiches. I don't feel much like talking just now.'

  He nodded, and said, 'I'll serve you in a private room if you like.'

  'No, that doesn't matter; I'll have it here.'

  He phoned the order through to the kitchen, then spoke to Paula who went into the other bar. I took a pull of beer and was aware
of Nigel coming to the counter again. 'I know you don't want to talk,' he said. 'But there's something you ought to know.'

  'What is it?'

  He hesitated. 'Is it true that the dead man -- the burglar -- up at the farm was an American?'

  There's no certainty yet, but it's a probability,' I said.

  He pursed his lips. 'I don't know if this is relevant, but Harry Hannaford told me a couple of days ago that an American had made Bob an offer for that tray -- you know, the one they found was so valuable.'

  'Where did this happen?'

  Nigel flipped his hand. 'In here! I wasn't here at the time, but Harry said he heard the whole thing. He was having a drink with Bob at the time.'

  I said, 'Do you know this American?'

  'I don't think so. We get a lot of Yanks here -- you run a place as old as the Cott and you're on the culture circuit. But we didn't have any Americans staying here just then. We have one here now, though; he arrived yesterday.'