It could have been to make the murder look like a burglary gone wrong.
Nothing felt right, and that was not just because I was driving the wrong car. A fine drizzle spattered the windscreen of Dad’s Morris as I turned into the gates of Kirkley Hall. The troops of beech trees took on a mournful aspect. Poor oak Wellington stood his tallest, shrouded by raindrops, as if waiting patiently to vanish into the mists of time.
I wondered what the original occupants of Kirkley Hall would have made of an investigation into the death of a banker and a photographer. They would have understood the trade of banker, but photographer? That would have seemed like so much magic. A gardener, face lined as a furrowed field, looked up and saluted as I passed. He would have made a perfect subject for one of Len Diamond’s candid photographs, but would be a useless target for extortion. ‘Give me your sunflower seeds and I won’t tell anyone you sold a cabbage.’
But was Diamond guilty of murder? Was the victim also a killer? If Len Diamond had blackmailed King, that would bring them together. King could have turned the tables and said, If you really want money, rid us of Everett Runcie. Diamond would know his way around the Metropole. He killed Runcie. And then King strangled Diamond.
It was an outlandish notion, but plausible. If this idea stood up, Philippa might be involved. Just because I liked her and she had asked for my help did not put her beyond suspicion.
Parking the motor by the stable block, I decided that the best purpose for my visit would be to enquire after Philippa, and see if she needed a sympathetic ear. This was one visit to Kirkley Hall that I did not relish. I told myself she may not be at home. But of course she would be at home. There was too much planning to be done; the planning of a fine funeral for Everett; overseeing the packing of trunks to return to Boston.
The trouble with investigating murder is that one begins to look at people in a different way. On the surface, it is business as usual. When the butler opened the door, I found myself thinking, what do you know? What have you heard, and seen?
Strains of a Schubert sonata floated from the music room, the talented Philippa losing herself in music.
‘One moment,’ the butler said, and I was left standing in the double-height hall, admiring the grandeur of the winding staircase.
The music stopped.
‘This way please.’
I was ushered into the vast space furnished with small sofas and elegant chairs, a harp, a flute on an elaborate stand, grand piano and harpsichord.
Philippa was alone. I felt relieved not to see Gideon King. She turned from the piano and stood to greet me. In that instant, I caught her in profile. The silk dress floated against her body, revealing her pregnancy.
I stared, and then looked away quickly. She immediately picked up a matching voluminous sleeveless over garment and put it on. But it was too late. Perhaps she wanted me to know.
Philippa walked to the nearest sofa, one of a gold brocade pair that would have looked ridiculous in a less grand room.
Seated on the sofas, we faced each other.
She leaned back. ‘I wondered when you’d come.’
‘I’m glad to see you recovered.’
‘Thank you. And well done on finding the woman. I knew you’d be faster off the mark than the police. Who is she?’
‘No one you would know.’
‘I should like to know.’
‘It was purely a business arrangement.’
‘I suppose it would be. Is she a whore?’
‘She’s a woman who needed money.’
‘Well in that respect, it was a good coupling, though she might have had the decency to stay around and report his death. Or is she involved?’
‘No sign of that.’
‘I suppose she wasn’t paid enough to deal with a corpse.’
‘Philippa, I may have to return your cheque. Apart from locating the woman, I have done nothing yet to earn it.’
I did not say that my sudden suspicion of King made me feel uneasy about working on her behalf.
She looked at me steadily. ‘Don’t give up, Kate. I have faith in you. The police could jump to a wrong conclusion, and then I really would need your help.’
Reluctant to be drawn into a discussion of what the police may or may not discover, I looked towards the window, as if light might give me inspiration, or a way out. Something caught my eye. The room was full of works of art. The paintings were few, but striking, including a full-length portrait of Philippa. There were bronze figures and, by the window, a bust of Philippa, beautifully carved. This was very much her room. If I was not mistaken, the bust was carved by Rupert Cromer. Put side by side with the bust of Caroline Windham, the pieces would represent the two important women in Runcie’s life.
She saw me looking. ‘I’m wondering what to take with me. Gideon started to do the inventory, what belongs in the house and what I brought and bought. But it’s all ground to a halt since Gideon took to his room.’
‘Why has he taken to his room?’
‘Embarrassment and annoyance, I think. Apparently he was pickpocketed at the races, and the money has turned up.’
‘Well that’s good.’
‘Apparently not, if you are Gideon King.’
To fill the awkward silence that followed, I walked across the room to where Philippa’s bust stood on a small plinth. ‘This is beautiful. It really captures you.’
‘Does it? An engagement present from Everett. He commissioned it. I had to sit for Cromer, who I felt sure had taken a dislike to me. Either that or Everett had beaten him down on the price for the job.’
It was several moments before Philippa spoke again. ‘What’s going on, Kate, regarding Gideon I mean? I don’t believe Scotland Yard would take an interest in the victim of a racecourse pickpocket. I hate it that the spotlight is being turned on my own staff. Why are they worrying about pickpockets when they should be looking for Everett’s killer?’
‘How much do you know about it?’
She shrugged. ‘Not much. The money Gideon lost has been recovered, from some petty thief. I said he should have reported it, but he’s so careful of my feelings. He didn’t want to spoil the day, or upset me by making a song and dance about it.’
So all she knew was that Sergeant Wilson had questioned King about the money he “lost” at the racecourse.
She leaned back and shifted one leg across the other. ‘This man, the one who had Gideon’s money, was he a gambler?’
‘Yes, so I’m told.’
‘Gideon got into trouble in Boston through his gambling. That’s why he was sent here. I employed him as a favour to my brother and I would swear he’s turned over a new leaf.’
She might be covering for King, by providing a reason why his money would be in Diamond’s possession.
I said, ‘I don’t believe there is any suggestion that Gideon was gambling.’
‘I’m glad the sergeant spoke to him privately. Gideon values my good opinion. He feels so foolish over that incident.’
Now would be the moment to tell her that the man in whose possession the money was found is dead, strangled. Like Everett. But I felt a sudden dread. She had gone through such a lot, and had been unwell. What if my frankness made her lose the baby?
I tried to make light of the situation. ‘Well I hope he doesn’t feel so foolish that he won’t be able to help you pack.’
‘Oh, he’ll come round. He has been a great help to me, though sometimes overbearingly so.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, all sorts of ways. He overheard me arguing with Everett. We had arrived at the stage where Everett never talked to me, not really talked. He addressed me, as if I were the board of directors, or someone he wanted to wheedle money from. Well after he overheard me saying that to Everett, Gideon took to talking to me all the time, chatting incessantly, turning himself into the Malvolio of verbiage. He dotes on me.’
I did not want to ask, but I must. ‘The baby …’
She p
laced her hands on her bump, and said, ‘Ah yes, the baby.’
‘Is Gideon the father?’
She gave a short laugh. ‘No. And he would not have killed Everett for me, if that’s what you are thinking. To tell you the truth, I think he’s otherwise inclined.’
‘Oh?’
Well that explained the photographs.
‘Letters that come for him are addressed to Gideon King the third. The servants have a nickname for him, Gideon King the last, which leads me to believe they know a little more about his night life than I do. But in his fashion he is faithful and doting, and now I feel guilty about his being caught up in this business.’
Did she feel guilty enough to give him an alibi for the time of Leonard Diamond’s murder, I wondered.
She looked down. ‘The funeral needs to be on a cold day, so I can wear a big coat.’
I could hear footsteps on the stairs. ‘Who does know about the baby, Philippa?’
‘My maid and my doctor know. Kate, I want to be on the other side of the Atlantic when this child is born. Just imagine if it’s a boy. He’d be in line to inherit the title. Everett’s brother will never marry. This millstone of a house and this ridiculous life would come to my son. What kind of curse is that to put on an innocent babe?’
There were sounds from the hall. I heard King’s heavy stride and his cultured Boston voice giving chapter and verse about something or other.
He put his head around the door. ‘Philippa, Mrs Shackleton. I’m resuming the inventory. Sorry to be such poor company.’
With a Cheshire cat grin, he was gone.
I was glad, because if he had killed Leonard Diamond, I did not want to be in the same room as Gideon King.
‘Philippa, do you need any help prior to the funeral? Please tell me if there’s anything I can do.’
‘Thanks, Kate. But my brother-in-law has most of the arrangements in hand. I shall be sending notes to people whom I regard as friends, including your Aunt Berta and family, and you of course.’
‘Don’t send me a note, just tell me.’
‘A week on Friday, at All Saints, the family church.’ She stood up. ‘You might give me an opinion, if you’d care to.’
‘About what?’
She walked to the window, and lightly touched the marble bust that Cromer had carved. ‘I will take this. I’m sure it will have some value some day, and I half-believe that Everett was in love with me when he commissioned it.’
‘I’m sure he was. You must keep it. Even if you put it out of sight for a year or two.’
‘Or a decade or two. There are all sorts of bits and pieces that Everett bought me. I don’t know what to take, and what to leave behind. Part of me wants to ditch everything he ever gave me. It was all such a lie.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t. When I think back to that time at the opera, and the way he looked at you. He loved you, Philippa, in his fashion.’
‘In his fashion, exactly.’
‘Take everything that’s yours. You can always pack it in a trunk and look at it in a few years, and perhaps see what the child may want.’
She looked at me sharply.
‘There is that, I suppose. Yes, I’ll take everything. This family and this house have had enough from me already.’ She tapped her belly. ‘And you won’t say anything … I must change this dress.’
‘I won’t breathe a word.’
‘Come upstairs with me. There is one favour you could do.’
I followed her up the broad staircase. The late afternoon sun shone through the splendid leaded lights of the window that picked out a knight, a page and a fine white steed.
She opened a bedroom door onto a room with old oak furniture, and an Elizabethan bed, draped with canopies. Philippa opened a dresser drawer. She took out a silver cigarette case and a lighter.
‘Give these to Caroline. I heard that you went to visit her.’
‘That’s very generous of you, Philippa.’
‘She gave them to Everett, so she can have them back. And perhaps you’ll tell her, I have no objection to her coming to the funeral. I expect she’ll handle herself impeccably, as usual. And her absence would cause more remark than her presence.’
‘I’m not sure I would be so kind if I were you.’
‘It’s not kindness. It’s pity. She’s so grand, and so pathetic. What life will she have? No one will ever marry her.’
As we left the room and walked back down the stairs, I asked, ‘What was Everett planning to do, after the divorce?’
‘His brother had squeezed him out of the bank. He was too much of a liability. His plan was to go to Italy, and live in splendid retirement.’
‘With Caroline?’
‘Why change the habit of a lifetime?’
She walked me to the door. I took a deep breath. ‘Don’t think I’m prying for the sake of it. I have to know, because it impinges on events. Who is the baby’s father?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everett.’ She sighed. ‘It was the night he was pleading with me for a second chance, and I let him plead. That’s why I have to leave this country, Kate. Imagine, if I have a boy, and he becomes the future Lord Kirkley. Once, that would have been my dream. Now, the prospect feels like a nightmare. I do not intend to breed an Everett Runcie, a British aristocrat. This child will be an American.’
I left the house and walked back to the car.
So absorbed was I that it gave me a shock to open the car door and see Gideon King sitting there.
‘Mr King.’
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said quietly. When I hesitated, he said, ‘Please get in as if there is nothing unusual. We don’t know who may be watching from the window.’
I climbed into the car.
‘It won’t take long.’
We sat side by side, as if considering a destination.
‘You’ll have guessed I suppose,’ he said. ‘Because of what I spoke to you about on that Saturday, when you came to talk to Philippa.’
‘You mentioned blackmail.’
‘Yes.’
‘You thought that perhaps Everett Runcie was being blackmailed, but it was you I think.’
‘It was. And now I’ve lied to the police. I didn’t have my pocket picked. I gave the money to the photographer by arrangement because he had something over me. I can’t tell Philippa and lose her good opinion.’
‘Tell the police. They’ll find out anyway.’
‘Yes I realise that. Diamond was supposed to give me a photograph.’
If it was the photograph I had seen, of King touching hands with a groom, or a beater at the shoot, then he had little to fear; but it would not console him to hear that. ‘Did you have anything to do with Diamond’s murder?’
‘Of course not. I wanted him dead but I would have been too scared. I can’t account for my movements, except for part of Sunday when we were at church, and then all together in the house. They’ll think I did it.’
‘Lying won’t help. Make a clean breast of it. I can give you a lift now if you like.’
He thought about this for a moment. ‘Oh God, I feel such a fool. Philippa thinks I came to England to work for her because I got into bad ways gambling, and that I’m totally reformed. I never was a gambler. There were other reasons.’
A deer appeared from the trees. We watched it sniff the air, and then begin to graze.
He said, ‘I had a friendship with a fellow theology student, Edgar. It was drawn to the attention of the authorities and we were quietly given our marching orders. That was why I left Boston.’
A second deer joined the first.
‘Blackmail is an ugly, cruel business. Ask to see the sergeant again, or the chief inspector. If it helps, you can say you talked to me.’
‘They’ll despise me.’
‘Believe me, there is nothing you can say that will shock them. And whatever Leonard Diamond said or wrote to you, I would guess most of it was bluff and
exaggeration, pretence of a little knowledge.’
He nodded. ‘Will I need my toothbrush?’
‘Let us go, Mr King. I hope you won’t need a toothbrush, but if you do, I promise to bring you one, and whatever else you need.’
It was a quiet journey into town, with much of the traffic coming in the opposite direction. I was conscious that now and then, King ran his tongue over his lips, or shifted his posture, unable to be comfortable with himself. I wished that I could say it would be all right.
When we passed the municipal buildings, he said, ‘Where are we going? I thought it would be in there.’
‘Not to CID headquarters. We’ll go to the hotel, where the chief inspector and his sergeant are based.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you ever been in the Metropole?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Interrogating me already? No, I have not. It was Everett’s haunt. I kept away, as did Philippa.’
When we reached the hotel, both of us hesitated. Should I go in with him? He did not budge. I got out of the car, and he followed.
Slowly, we entered the hotel and walked up the flights of stairs. It seemed the longest walk of my life, so I could imagine how King felt. He gives off a prickly air, and is not the kind of man whose arm you might touch or give a squeeze for good luck, but all the same, I did. ‘Come on, Mr King. You can do it. Be brave.’
Red-haired Sergeant Wilson looked up from his log book. ‘Mr King. Mrs Shackleton.’
I nodded, and held back.
King said, ‘There’s something I’d like to add to my statement.’
Without betraying the least surprise, Wilson said, ‘Of course, sir. Come through.’
He led King into the room usually occupied by Marcus. I did not know whether he was in there or not. Wilson popped back, just as I was leaving.
‘Mrs Shackleton, the photographs. Have they been printed yet?’
‘I don’t know. Mr Duffield had it in hand, but I’ll check.’
‘Thank you, that would be very helpful.’
‘Mr Wilson, if Mr King is to stay the night, would you let me know, so that I can bring his toothbrush?’
A Woman Unknown Page 25