Rebecca's Tale

by Sally Beauman

  It took an age. Francis Browne dived and delved among boxes; he consulted ledgers; he rejected ledgers. Dust rose in the air; dust settled. It was the purest chance—I had to divert myself somehow, and when I couldn’t stand the disorder and dust any longer, I started flicking through those boxes on the table in front of me. I looked at the Lochs—Various, several of which I knew well and instantly recognized. I looked at Churches, A–C, most of which proved to be Victorian monstrosities; then, having no interest in Locomotives or Aviation or the Essex Marshes, I began to flick through Theatrical—Assorted.

  As its label implied, the contents of this box was a hotchpotch; all the cards were in black-and-white, and most were old; no filing system that I could understand was being used: Cole Porter was next to Lillie Langtry, Ivor Novello came before Sarah Bernhardt; Henry Irving was cheek by jowl with Noël Coward. There were famous names in famous parts, but crammed in with them was a great crowd of the forgotten and the anonymous: bosomy Edwardian beauties, moustached men in absurd costumes, clowns and killers, endless lovers striking attitudes.

  Shakespeare was well represented; there was a young Gielgud as Richard II, and Donald Wolfit as King Lear; I looked at a Victorian Hamlet at the Lyceum, and an Edwardian Hamlet at the Birmingham Alhambra. Old theatrical knights—I’d never heard of most of them—addressed their troops before Agincourt, or wooed Juliet on her balcony; they embraced their wives, or stifled their wives, or handed their murderous wives a set of bloodied daggers. Browne was still rifling his boxes, and to pass the time I set myself the task of guessing the plays from the sets and the costumes. I was doing well, on my tenth card, when I found her.

  Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III…I stopped and looked more closely. Was it her? Was it possible? I was looking at a photograph of one of those unknown theatrical knights, Sir Frank McKendrick. He was got up as Richard III, with a fearsome hump, painted eyebrows, and murderous black-rimmed eyes. Next to him, adopting a swaggering stance and flourishing a diminutive dagger, was one of the two princes in the Tower—or so I assumed. I looked closely at that prince, who was being played by a girl—that didn’t surprise me; this picture was dated “1909” on the back, and I knew girls often played such parts at that time. The prince had very dark hair, arresting eyes—and a marked resemblance to the winged child in the notebook sent to the Colonel.

  I took it out of the box, moved to the door, and held it up in the light. The resemblance immediately seemed less striking. I went back to the box, and started thumbing through it very fast. When I’d first seen the picture of the winged girl, the Colonel remarked that she seemed to be wearing a costume. Like him, I’d assumed it was some form of childish fancy dress—but what if it was a theatrical costume, a fairy’s costume, for instance? Suddenly I remembered that conversation with the Briggs sisters: the costume balls at Manderley, the costumes Rebecca had chosen. Jocelyn, you’re getting it all wrong—it was something Shakespearian.

  I found the card for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There were Oberon and Titania, but no fairies that in any way resembled her.

  “Found it!” Francis Browne said, emerging from a pile of ledgers. “I knew I had it. The John Stevenson Studio, Plymouth—specialized in topographical work in the West Country area. Village scenes, beauty spots—and mansions. Made a bit of a name for himself with mansions, did Mr. Stevenson. Early souvenirs, dear boy. Let’s see—John Stevenson: Started up the studio in the summer of 1913, closed it down in January 1915—he volunteered, I imagine. Reopened in 1920, and moved into color quite early. So that dates your card for you: It’s definitely not postwar, so it’s between summer 1913 and the end of 1914. It’s quite a rarity. I’ll take it off your hands, if you like. I’ve scores of postcards of Manderley from the 1920s, all the same, taken from a painting—very dreary. But I’ve never seen one this early. No? Oh, well—anything else I can do you for while you’re here?”

  “I’d like to buy this.” I handed him the Richard III card. “Anything you can tell me about that?”

  “Sweet, isn’t it?” Francis Browne looked at it admiringly. “Don’t you just love that hump, dear? They were troopers in those days, terrible old hams, of course—but I’ve a bit of a weakness for hams, myself. Let me see—ah, the immortal Sir Frank McKendrick. Touring company, dear—never made it to the West End, but did very well in the provinces. Wopsel on his last gasp, really. Repertoire of Shakespeare, Shakespeare, and Shakespeare. Sir Frank was still playing Romeo when he was in his fifties—you have to admire them, don’t you? Floreat 1870 to around 1914—the war again, you see. No one remembers him now, of course, but he was well known in his day. Roused the galleries, dear boy. You’ll find him in all the obvious directories. What? The girl? Is it a girl? Oh, so it is. Haven’t a clue, I’m afraid. And McKendrick’s a bit of a rarity—that’s the only two I have left, the Richard and the Dream, so I’m afraid the price is a bit stiff: half a crown the pair, as it’s you, and you’re a friend of Mr. Hoity-toity….”

  BY THE TIME I’D PAID THIS EXTORTIONATE PRICE AND finally escaped Francis Browne’s shop, it was 5:15: too late for a book shop search, and too late for libraries. Sir Frank McKendrick would have to wait until tomorrow—and that was probably just as well, I decided. Every time I looked at that faded photograph of a doomed prince, the likeness to the child in the notebook decreased. Besides, with luck, and good steering, Jack Favell should provide quick and clear answers to my questions about Rebecca’s background and origins; there was no need to chase hares, and my tendency to chase hares was beginning to alarm me.

  I returned to Regent’s Park, bathed, and changed into one of my Cambridge suits. I took a cab, asked the driver to drop me in Park Lane, and then walked to Favell’s premises from there. As I walked, I went over Favell’s details in my mind, the details I’d discovered, and those provided last night by Colonel Julyan.

  Favell was older than his cousin—always supposing Rebecca was his cousin—and was now in his mid-fifties. I had been unable to trace any birth certificate for him either, but I knew his age from newspaper reports: Favell had had a very checkered career. As a young man, he had been drummed out of the Royal Navy; he was subsequently involved in several dubious business transactions; not long after the inquest into Rebecca’s death, he had gone down on charges of fraud, false accounting, and operating a gambling club without a gaming license. He had served three years in Strangeways.

  He had then disappeared from view, and I could find no trace of his activities until his company took a lease on these premises, some three years ago. The firm of Favell Johnston Ltd., in which he claimed to me he was a partner and codirector, was listed at Companies House, but had filed no annual accounts. Several telephone calls to their showrooms had failed to locate his codirector, Johnston; I suspected he didn’t exist, or was very much a sleeping partner. The premises the car showroom occupied were expensive; the overheads in Mayfair must have been high, and I doubted the firm was prospering. On my last visit to London I’d walked past the showrooms, and, as I approached the windows now, I noticed that not one of the cars I’d seen then had been sold in the interim. Petrol is no longer rationed, but I felt the market for this kind of classic car, beautiful, but expensive to buy and expensive to run, must still be limited.

  I paused just short of the entrance. In the window was a British racing-green Jaguar, a glorious Bentley, and an early Hispano Suiza. I thought of Colonel Julyan’s descriptions of this man—as a blackmailer, a drunkard, and a sponger. I thought of Ellie’s remarks about him, and of the interesting comments Colonel Julyan had made last night—but I bore in mind the advice he is always giving me: Beware the biased witness. On the subject of Favell, I suspect there are few witnesses more biased than Arthur Lancelot Julyan.

  According to the Colonel, Favell had initially shown no interest in discovering the truth about his cousin’s death; not a peep had been heard from him until after the inquest when, as Ellie had told me, Favell had turned up at Manderley, and
produced that note left at his apartment building by Rebecca on the last afternoon of her life. It was headed with the address of her own London flat by the river. “And you can work out exactly when it was written,” the Colonel added, with a sharp glance at me. “The consultation with Dr. Baker was at two P.M.—and, according to him, it was brief. The porter at Favell’s apartment block told him she’d left the note there—Favell was out—shortly before three P.M. That means Rebecca must have seen the doctor, returned briefly to her own flat to write the note, left it at Favell’s apartment block, and then left London at once for Manderley. It was a six-hour drive then—and that’s at speed—and she was definitely back at Manderley by nine that evening.”

  I was listening intently. There was no question, as Ellie had said, of the importance of this note—yet the man I was about to see had concealed its existence from the inquest jury. Instead (and Colonel Julyan left me in no doubt about this) Favell had tried to use it as a means of extorting money from Maxim de Winter. Whereupon, as Ellie had said, the Colonel had been called in—and his take on what then happened interested me.

  “By the time I arrived at Manderley, Favell was already drunk,” Colonel Julyan said. “His manner was obnoxious. He started waving that damn note under my nose and making the most lurid claims. He said that he and Rebecca had been having an affair, that she’d been going to leave her husband, and run off to Paris with him, and that Maxim had killed her in a jealous rage.

  “Well, let me tell you, I took all that with a fistful of salt. For a start, that note proved nothing. It was short and it was curt. Rebecca asked Favell to drive down to Manderley, and meet her that same night at the boathouse. She wrote that she ‘had something to tell him.’ I’ll admit that sounds underhand, but Rebecca couldn’t meet him openly at Manderley. Maxim had banned him from the house months before. It didn’t sound like the note a woman who was planning to kill herself would write—but it didn’t sound like a note to a lover, either. It was notably lacking in any sign of affection. It was a summons, and its tone was cold. Yes—peremptory would be the word for it.”

  The Colonel paused, then gave me a sharp blue-eyed glance. “You see, I think Favell knew that note didn’t provide sufficient grounds for reopening the investigation, let alone overturning the inquest verdict of suicide. If he wanted his accusations to be taken seriously, he had to provide Maxim with a motive for murder. Suggesting Rebecca was unfaithful provided a very effective motive. Favell isn’t stupid. You’d do well to bear that in mind when you meet him.”

  I’d asked the Colonel, whose face was troubled, whether he had believed these claims of an affair. It took some nerve to do it, and, a few weeks ago, he’d have sent me away with a flea in my ear if I’d risked it. He’s more open with me now, but even so his answer was hesitant. Eventually he said that he had never believed that Rebecca was going to leave her husband for her cousin; that, he felt, was an improvisation, designed to strengthen Favell’s case, and made up on the spur of the moment. As to whether there had been infidelities, he had reluctantly come to believe that Rebecca had sought “consolation” outside her marriage, he said—but it did not follow that her lover was Favell, despite his claims.

  “I refer you back to Rebecca’s note,” he said. “That note is crucial. Rebecca would never have written in that way to someone she loved, I’m certain of it. So why did she write it? Why did she want Favell at that boathouse that night? Was she intending to tell him about her illness? Why drag him all the way down to Manderley to do that? She could have waited and told him in London. No, there’s another reason for that note. Find out what it was, and you might get somewhere—and that’s my final word on the subject.”

  I was interested in this suggestion; this account was franker than any I’d previously been given, but it remained circumspect, I felt. I could hear the dislike of Favell that lay behind it. I could understand why the Colonel, given his own devotion to Rebecca, would wish to scotch the idea that Favell could be her lover; but that did not mean he was correct. I remembered how partisan Colonel Julyan was, how deeply misleading his description of Frith had been. Perhaps the same would prove true of Jack Favell. After all, whatever his failings, and however reprehensible his methods, there was a strong possibility that, in accusing Maxim of murder, Favell had been accurate. Resolving to keep an open mind, I walked up to the showroom doors and caught sight of Rebecca’s cousin for the first time.

  He was inspecting his reflection in the Jaguar’s window and adjusting the Windsor knot on his tie. As soon as he saw me, he came forward to greet me with considerable bonhomie: a tall man, good-looking, but with something weak and petulant about the mouth; fair haired, blue eyed, looking ten years younger than his age at first glance, and ten years older when I inspected him more closely. He was wearing an old but well-tailored Prince of Wales check suit, a shirt with frayed cuffs, a flashy gold wristwatch, and brown suede shoes that would have given Colonel Julyan an apoplexy.

  I learned two things about Jack Favell very quickly. He “could do with a drink,” he said—and I didn’t doubt that condition was semi-permanent. And his idea of a “local watering hole” was the bar at the Dorchester.

  SIXTEEN

  IT WAS STILL RELATIVELY EARLY, AND THERE WERE FEW people in the bar. There was a group of American businessmen at one table; at another, two women in smart New Look dresses were discussing the spoils of a recent shopping expedition: “Such a joy not to have those wretched coupons any more,” said one as we passed. A pianist in a dinner jacket was playing a tinkling selection of show tunes. I loathe such places; Favell led the way past the Art Deco tables and chairs, paused to admire himself in a mirror, and approached the bar as if he owned it.

  “Walter not on tonight?” he said to the barman. The barman, looking unimpressed, remarked that Walter hadn’t worked there for the last six months. Favell looked irritated. His tone became blustering: “Well, he served me two nights ago, so I’m surprised to hear that. I come here all the time—maybe you’re new. What will it be, Gray? A scotch, I expect. Barman, a scotch for my Scotch friend, and a single malt for me—make it a large one. Glenfiddich. Very well, Glenmorangie then…. No ice for you, old boy? I’ll have ice. Soda? No? Put that away, this is on me—I wouldn’t hear of it. Oh, if you insist. Cheers, old chap. Where shall we park ourselves?”

  I suggested we park ourselves as far as possible from the pianist. Favell had just committed several cardinal sins: I can’t stand being called “Scotch,” a word that ought to be confined to the drink; I can’t stand southerners who put ice in ordinary blended whisky, let alone a single malt; adding soda to mispronounced Glenmorangie didn’t improve things. Favell’s wallet, I noticed, had been flashed briefly and repocketed swiftly. It didn’t surprise me, in what turned out to be the course of a long evening, that this was the wallet’s one and only sighting.

  We sat down in a far corner of the room, Favell selecting the chair opposite a looking glass. He smoothed back his hair, fingered his signet ring, downed half his drink in a single swallow, and looked at me narrowly. I noticed the slight tremor in his hands, and wondered whether it was a symptom of drink or nervousness: both, I decided. He was certainly ill at ease, and was probably one of those men who manifest that state by belligerence. As an opening tactic—and I wasn’t to understand why until much later that evening—he pressed me hard on the contacts I’d made with him.

  Had I sent him just the one letter? I explained I’d sent two, and had written to his place of work only when I received no reply from the mansion flat address. For some reason, this seemed to put his mind at rest. In an evasive way, he said he wasn’t living at the flat any more; he didn’t volunteer any information as to where he was now living, and I didn’t press him. After a couple more swallows of whisky, which seemed to steady him, he drew out a heavy crested silver case, lit a cigarette, blew smoke in my face, and, watching me closely, came to the point: “So, canter this past me again,” he said. “What’s your angle exactly?”


  I’d prepared for this. From the first, I’d felt sure that Terence Gray, earnest young librarian, was unlikely to cut any ice with Favell, useful though he’s been to me in Kerrith. So I’d killed off that Mr. Gray, and invented a new one, with a journalistic background, and an interest in crime stories—especially ones involving a possible miscarriage of justice, or unsolved murder. I was pretty sure Favell had talked—circumspectly—to journalists before. I now dangled the possibility of newspaper features, maybe even a book, another account of the “Manderley Mystery.” This story had all the right elements, I suggested: a beautiful woman; a famous house; a jealous husband; a mysterious death; rumors of scandal and love affairs…

  “Only one problem,” I said. “Enough has been written about this, God knows, but as far as Rebecca’s concerned, there’s a marked shortage of material.”

  Favell had been listening closely. A glint came into his pale blue eyes. “Might be a bit of money in it, then?” he said. “Something in it for you, old boy?”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But that’s a long way down the road yet. What I need is background. I need new material. I’ve checked out the de Winters—fine. But Rebecca? There’s very little information. I need to know who she was, where she came from, how she came to marry de Winter—what she was like. That’s where you could help. You knew her as a child, I hear. And I’ve been told you remained close, that you were one of the few people who understood her.”

  Favell’s pale eyes rested on my face. He was indeed by no means stupid, I thought; I’d have to be careful not to overdo the flattery. He was still in the process of assessing me; I saw his gaze take in my suit, my shirt, and my cufflinks. I could sense the cogs of his mind turning over. His glass was already empty.