Murder Takes a Turn

by Eric Brown

  ‘But you said—’

  He turned to her, smiling. ‘As I recall, I gave you my word that I’d never again attempt to rescue a suicidal, drunken, one-legged man from halfway down the side of a cliff. Well, Connaught hardly falls into that category.’

  Temper flashed in her eyes. ‘But—’

  He touched her cheek. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. He turned, took a breath and approached the first step.

  Behind him, he heard Maria muttering something in French.

  He took the descent slowly, telling himself that the ascent would be easy this time with no drunken old soldier to impede his progress. He just had to take it easy, be sure of his footing and not gaze down to his right at the hundred-foot drop … In fact, best not even consider the rocks far below.

  Which was easier said than done.

  He stared down at Monty Connaught, casually smoking on the jetty, and rehearsed what he was about to say.

  He came to the halfway point, where on Saturday afternoon Colonel Haxby had sat. He stopped and stared down at the concrete that had crumbled away to nothing, his gorge rising. His heartbeat increased as he gripped the rock to his left and negotiated the perished step without mishap.

  Monty Connaught smiled as Langham reached the jetty and sat down on the bottom step, his legs trembling. Langham looked up, saw Maria’s tiny head far above and lifted a hand; her relieved wave cheered him inordinately.

  ‘How can I help, Donald?’ Monty asked.

  Langham mopped his sweating brow with his handkerchief, replaced it and looked at the smiling travel writer. ‘I’ve been thinking over what happened on Sunday afternoon.’

  Monty nodded. ‘That’s all I’ve been able to think about, too.’

  ‘Only,’ Langham went on, ‘I don’t think the killer struck in the afternoon, despite all the evidence. It really happened that morning, well before midday.’

  Monty’s sun-browned face creased into a frown. ‘It did? I don’t follow …’

  ‘You see, whoever killed your brother first rendered him unconscious, then looped a length of piano wire around his neck …’

  And he went on to describe, in detail, how the killer had supplied himself with a foolproof alibi. ‘Or an almost foolproof alibi,’ he finished.

  ‘I see,’ Monty said. ‘Ingenious.’

  Langham nodded towards the man’s maimed hand. ‘You never told me how you came by your injuries.’

  Monty smiled. ‘In all fairness, you never asked.’

  ‘You must have harboured a terrible resentment towards your brother.’

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Annabelle mentioned it.’

  Monty sighed. ‘You cannot imagine, Donald, how it affected me, at first. And, if I’m honest with you, for years afterwards. I was good at cricket, and I wanted to sail, explore the world. But how could I do that with this?’ He lifted his claw. ‘My brother’s thoughtless – malicious – act of vandalism brought an end to all my dreams. Of course I resented him.’ He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a grunt. ‘More, I hated him.’

  ‘I can understand that—’ Langham began.

  Monty swept on, ‘But I matured. It came to me, at around the age of fifteen, that I could go on hating Denbigh and pitying myself, or I could move on and prove to Denbigh and to the world that I wouldn’t allow my injuries to impede my ambitions. The only person I would be harming by sinking into self-pity, by sitting at home and regretting what might have been, was myself. So I learned how to sail, one-man dinghies and small boats, and did my best with larger ones … With the really big brutes like this one, I admitted my restrictions and sought help. I always craved adventure and dreamed of writing about my exploits, and I can safely say that I achieved my dreams.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you must have resented your brother for the many things his actions prevented you doing.’

  Monty closed one eye, tipped his head and regarded Langham. ‘And you think that resentment reached such a stage, years later, that I felt compelled to murder my brother in an act of revenge – render him unconscious, arrange the piano wire around his neck, tie it to the girder’ – he raised the claw of his right hand – ‘with this?’

  Langham sighed. ‘No, Monty. I don’t. Oh, for a time back there in the study I did wonder if it was you.’ He paused. ‘No, I came down here to reassure myself that it wasn’t you. You see, I think I know who killed him.’

  Monty stared at him. ‘I can give you that reassurance,’ he said, and pulled his left hand from the pocket of his blue linen jacket. Langham saw that the hand, its fingers artificial-looking and stiffened, was encased in a leather glove.

  As he watched, Monty pushed up the sleeve of his jacket with his claw, revealing a strap bound around the left wrist. With his claw, he took hold of his gloved hand … and twisted.

  As if watching an optical illusion, Langham saw the gloved hand come away from the arm to reveal the rounded end of a scarred stump.

  ‘There, Donald. I couldn’t have done what you described in order to kill my brother, with just one finger and a thumb, and a useless stump.’

  Langham looked up from the stump and met Monty’s steady gaze. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I surmised, when you never used your left hand …’

  Monty held his gaze. ‘So,’ he said, ‘who do you think did kill him?’

  For the next five minutes Langham outlined his theory, and Monty sat very still and listened.

  When Langham had finished, the other nodded and said quietly, ‘In that case, I think I ought to stay around here for a while, in case I’m needed.’

  ‘I think that might be wise,’ Langham said. He stepped forward, held out his hand and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Monty proffered the claw of his right hand and they shook.

  Langham turned to the steps and climbed.

  As he did so, he was overcome with a nausea that had nothing to do with the thought of the drop to his left or the state of the crumbling steps.

  He reached the top, and Maria clutched his arm and dragged him from the edge of the cliff. ‘Donald?’

  ‘He didn’t do it, Maria.’

  She stared at him. ‘He didn’t? But if he didn’t, then who did?’

  He took Maria’s hand and indicated the bench overlooking the sea. ‘Let’s sit down,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you.’

  THIRTY

  The guests had gathered in the drawing room for drinks before dinner.

  Langham paused outside the French windows and murmured, ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  Maria nodded, still looking ashen in response to what he’d told her. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She smiled at him. ‘But I’ll feel even better when all this is over.’

  ‘You and me both.’

  He led the way into the room.

  Colonel Haxby was at the bar, refilling glasses. ‘Ah, Donald, Maria … What’ll it be?’

  ‘Whisky and soda for me,’ Langham said. ‘A big one.’

  ‘I’ll have just a tonic water, please,’ Maria said.

  ‘Coming up,’ the old soldier said. ‘I say, bit of shocker about young Royce, what?’

  The others drifted over to the bar.

  Charles said, ‘But is it true, Donald? Has Wilson been arrested?’ He looked shocked, and his plump fingers pulled at his bow-tie in consternation.

  Langham took his drink from the colonel. ‘As far as I know, he’s just been taken in for further questioning.’

  ‘But I saw him being hauled off,’ Pandora said, ‘and he was kicking up a hell of a din.’ Her owlish face scanned the group. ‘And he was wailing that he didn’t do it, that he was innocent. I must say, he looked scared to death.’

  Lady Cecelia regarded her sherry. ‘He always did strike me as a … a somewhat shifty character,’ she said. ‘I know that it is wrong to pre-judge in such matters, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were found to be guilty.’

  ‘But why the ruddy hell did he do it?’ Colonel Haxby wanted to know. �
��I mean, I had no love for the man – Connaught, that is. Thought of bumping him off once or twice meself, in idle moments. But what did young Royce have to gain from killing his employer?’

  ‘Who knows what goes on in the mind of someone driven to these terrible acts?’ Charles said.

  Pandora asked, ‘Has anyone seen Annabelle?’

  ‘Bumped into her upstairs five minutes ago,’ the colonel said. ‘She told me she’d be down presently for dinner.’

  The artist sighed. ‘It’s strange, but in a way I’m relieved that the murderer wasn’t one of us – if Royce is proven guilty, that is. I mean, I’ve been wondering who might have wanted the old reprobate dead, and it occurred to me that none of us much liked the man. Any one of us might have—’

  Lady Cecelia said, ‘I must object to that, Pandora. Denbigh might not have been perfect, but do you know something, I did feel sorry for him. He was someone so wrapped up in his own concerns that he was unable to apprehend the feelings of others.’

  ‘And this made you sympathetic towards him?’ Pandora grunted. ‘All the more reason to detest the chap, in my opinion.’

  ‘I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,’ Colonel Haxby declared, ‘but as far as I was concerned, Connaught was a rogue. None of us are perfect, mind, but there was something nasty about the chap. He liked to control the situation, manipulate those around him.’

  Langham looked at the old soldier, surprised by his insight.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Lady Cecelia said, ‘I think he did see the error of his ways, before the end. He did apologize, after all, and bestow generous gifts on those he’d wronged.’

  Colonel Haxby grunted, ‘Fat chance of our getting anything now,’ then realized his faux pas and turned hurriedly to the bar for a refill.

  Conversation ceased suddenly as the door at the far end of the room opened and Annabelle Connaught appeared.

  ‘Ah,’ Colonel Haxby said, ‘can I get you a drink, my dear?’

  ‘I’ll have a dry sherry, please, Colonel.’

  ‘Coming up.’

  She joined the group and took her drink. Pandora smiled at the young woman. ‘We’ll soon be out of your hair, Annabelle. Can’t be any fun, having a houseful of strangers in such circumstances.’

  Annabelle smiled and sipped her drink. ‘Oh, I don’t know. In a way, your being here has been a welcome distraction.’

  ‘What will you do now, my dear?’ Charles asked, ‘if that’s not too impertinent a question.’

  ‘Not at all. Well, I intend to sell this place and perhaps move from the village. My practice is in St Austell, so it would make sense to relocate there. Threepenny Cottage, with its views across the bay to this place …’ She shook her head. ‘No, I couldn’t stay there.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Charles agreed.

  Pandora said, ‘We really should meet up from time to time when you’re in London. And you must come to my next exhibition.’

  Annabelle smiled. ‘I’d like that.’

  The door opened and Watkins appeared. ‘If you’d care to come through for dinner, ladies and gentlemen.’

  The others moved off, but Langham touched Annabelle’s arm and murmured, ‘I wonder if I might have a word?’

  ‘Why, of course.’

  On the pretext of fixing more drinks, Langham remained at the bar. He poured Annabelle another sherry, and Maria a tonic water, then said, ‘Perhaps you’d care to sit down?’

  ‘Is this about Wilson Royce?’ Annabelle asked, taking a seat.

  Langham sat opposite her on the settee, Maria beside him. ‘Indirectly,’ he said.

  ‘But you do think he’s guilty?’ she said.

  He looked up from his whisky. ‘Of killing your father?’ he said. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t think he’s the guilty party at all. In fact, I think he’s the innocent dupe in all this.’

  ‘Innocent?’ Annabelle sat back in her seat as if pushed forcibly. ‘But … but what on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Old Colonel Haxby put his finger on the matter just before you came in,’ Langham went on. ‘He said that your father liked to control situations and manipulate people.’ He paused. ‘There are two types of writer – and I’m speaking very broadly here – those who understand other people, and those who understand only themselves. Your father was of the latter stripe. He was an egotist who understood only himself, who cared nothing for anyone unless he could gain something from them. That was why, throughout his life, he used people, manipulated them to his own devious ends.’

  She stared down at her glass, and he thought it significant that she did not contradict his assessment of her father.

  ‘It’s ironic,’ he said, ‘that his terminal illness should have brought about in him a change of heart, a reassessment of his past and the acknowledgement of how badly he’d treated certain people. Ironic – because it was this change of heart that spelled his premature death sentence.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t see …’ she began.

  ‘In a way, Annabelle, I feel sorry for you. I can only imagine what hell it was for you to have had a father like Denbigh Connaught. You were really as much a victim of his ego as were the many other people he manipulated down the years. Except, growing up in his shadow, you couldn’t escape his influence; he even dictated your choice of profession. And you could have practised anywhere in Britain, but his hold over you was so great that you were compelled to return to Cornwall, to the very village where your father lived. Because, mixed up with your hatred was also, I think, a strange love for the man.’

  He took a drink, then went on, ‘It must have occurred to you that only his death could free you from his grip. And when he told you that he was dying, you must have seen an end to your psychological slavery.’

  Annabelle stared down at her glass and spoke slowly. ‘You can have no conception of what it was like to be controlled by him, to have every facet of my life influenced by someone as domineering as my father. I hated him’ – she shook her head – ‘but you’re right: a small part of me craved his affection, his love. And I hated myself for this dependence, this need.’

  He said quietly, ‘But it was not this hatred of him that pushed you, finally, to kill your father, was it? It was his change of heart towards those he’d wronged that drove you.’

  She looked at him, startled. ‘What makes you think—’

  ‘Do you deny killing your father, Annabelle?’

  ‘But … but I was with you when …’ She looked desperately from Langham to Maria.

  ‘I know how you did it,’ he said. ‘I know how you made it appear that you were nowhere near the study when he was supposed to have been killed.’

  She opened her mouth to argue, then saw the futility of it.

  She murmured, ‘I thought, when he told me he was dying … I thought I would be free of him. I wonder if he realized this and gained some perverted satisfaction in telling me that he planned to give away so much of his wealth. Almost everything, in fact. He even planned to sell the house and give the money to others he judged he’d wronged, leaving me with just ten thousand pounds.’

  ‘And so you planned, before he could do that, to kill him. You were very clever in your method, ingeniously clever – and more so because you planned to kill, as it were, two birds with one stone.’

  She stared at him, and Langham detected something of Denbigh Connaught’s ego in her: even in extremis she could not help but interpret his words as praise.

  ‘At first,’ he said, ‘I thought that your motive for wanting Wilson Royce out of the way, for ensuring he hanged for your father’s murder, was that you’d learned he was blackmailing him and stealing the watercolours.’ He shook his head. ‘But that, to me, didn’t seem sufficient a reason for implicating Royce. I assumed that as you had to implicate someone in the killing, then Royce was the obvious candidate – but then my partner in London discovered a letter in Royce’s possession, from a … a woman to your father, in which she asked him whether “her d
aughter”, Annabelle, would be present this weekend. Wilson Royce was probably in the habit of opening all your father’s mail, on the off-chance that he might come across information he could use … and in this case he struck lucky.’ He stared across at the woman as she hung her head, her eyes closed. ‘My guess, Annabelle, is that in some way he used this information against you.’

  She drew a deep breath, lifted her head and regarded him without emotion. ‘A week ago,’ she said in a voice so soft he could hardly make out the words, ‘Royce told me he had certain information about the identity of my mother – my real mother, he said. He told me that my father had lied to me about my mother’s death, that my real mother was not who my father always claimed she was, but someone else, someone still living. And he had a letter to prove it.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘He said that I could have the letter if … if I paid him five hundred pounds.’

  ‘And, of course, you refused.’

  ‘Of course!’ She said it with venom. ‘Wilson Royce is vile – a nasty, unscrupulous criminal. He deserves …’

  ‘He deserves to hang for your father’s murder?’ Langham finished.

  He looked down at his drink, took a mouthful, then went on, ‘I thought it odd, from the very start, that you should hire me to keep tabs on Wilson Royce for no reason other than you had an “intuition” about him. But that was part of your plan, wasn’t it? You found out that Royce was stealing the watercolours, but you didn’t want to implicate him outright. You merely wanted me to discover Royce’s theft, which, when I learned of your father’s promise of the paintings to Lady Cee, would lead me to assume a motive for Royce’s murder of his employer. No …’ He shook his head. ‘It just didn’t ring true. And then there was the murder itself. That didn’t ring true, either: the odd location of your father’s body behind the piano, and the strength required to cut his flesh to the bone …’ He smiled. ‘So let me tell you how I think it happened, on Sunday morning.’

  He stared at her, and she looked back at him, her gaze forthright, cold and expressionless.

  ‘At some point that morning,’ Langham said, ‘you crossed the bay in your boat and moored at the jetty below Connaught House, then made your way up the cliff steps to your father’s study. I’m surmising here, but I suspect that from time to time you administered a sedative or painkiller to your father, and this was one of these occasions. You gave him an injection – a dose sufficient to render him unconscious for hours. Then you dragged your father to his final resting place behind the piano, placed chocks beneath the piano’s wheels to ensure it didn’t move, rolled up the rug and opened the trapdoor. You then looped a length of piano wire around your father’s neck, led it through the trapdoor and secured it to a girder so that, when the study turned and the wire tightened, the wire would sever your father’s throat and he would die at some point later that afternoon.’