Smith-Fennimore was flicking through the papers on the desk. He looked up when Haldean spoke, his mouth set in a grim line. ‘I can’t believe it! This is incredible.’
‘What’ve you found?’ asked Haldean.
‘Files. Confidential files. Lyvenden shouldn’t have these papers here.’ Smith-Fennimore tapped the documents in front of him. ‘Good God, none of these files should have been taken out of the bank and they certainly shouldn’t be left lying around in this casual way.’
‘What bank?’ asked Stanton.
‘My bank, Smith, Wilson and Fennimore. Lyvenden’s a director. I’ll have to have a word with him about this.’ He picked up three files and put them under his arm. ‘I’m taking these with me.’
‘I don’t think we should take anything out of the room,’ said Haldean.
Smith-Fennimore snorted. ‘These shouldn’t have been here in the first place. I’m not having my clients’ affairs left for the police to poke into. I’ll be happier when I’ve got them under lock and key. I don’t know what the devil Lyvenden was thinking of.’
‘Tim said he was careless with papers.’
‘Tim was right. What’s that you’re looking at?’
‘The suicide note,’ said Haldean thoughtfully ‘Does it seem odd to you?’
Smith-Fennimore and Stanton looked at the note critically. ‘Not really,’ said Smith-Fennimore in the end. ‘Apart from the fact it’s on a half-sheet of paper.’
‘Well, that could be just the only paper that was handy,’ said Haldean. ‘No, what I mean is that all the writing is at the top of the sheet. The note’s only a few lines long. Why cram it all at the top of the paper?’
‘Dunno,’ said Stanton. ‘I still think it’s suicide. Maybe he was going to write more and then couldn’t go on.’
Haldean put down the note and continued his search, dropping down on his hands and knees to crawl under the desk. ‘Nothing much here apart from fluff. Waste-paper basket. Empty’ He backed out and, standing up, dusted off the knees of his trousers. ‘There’s one thing I want to try. Fennimore, could you play the victim for me? I want you to pretend to shoot yourself.’
Smith-Fennimore pulled a face. ‘Come on, Haldean, that’s a bit morbid, isn’t it?’
Haldean made a pacifying gesture with his hands. ‘Will you try it? I just want to see something.’
‘I suppose so.’ Smith-Fennimore reluctantly sat down and lifted his fingers to his head. ‘Bang. Is that what I’m supposed to say? What did that show us?’
Haldean stood back and looked at him critically. ‘Where did you shoot yourself?’
Smith-Fennimore looked at his fingers and placed them to his head once more. ‘Here, on my temple.’
‘So you did. And that would be the natural place to shoot yourself, wouldn’t it? But Tim didn’t do that. He shot himself here.’ Taking Smith-Fennimore’s hand he moved the fingers round until they were considerably behind the right ear. ‘Just here, where the bulgy bit of your head goes into the back of your neck. Why should he do that?’
‘Maybe he was disturbed,’ suggested Stanton. ‘Look, like this. If I could just sit in the chair . . .’ Smith-Fennimore got up and let Stanton take his place. ‘Now, I’ve got a gun to my head,’ he said, raising his fingers as Smith-Fennimore had done, ‘and I’m just about to pull the trigger, when there’s a noise. That would make me turn my head – like so – and the bullet would miss my temple but go in behind my ear.’
‘Brilliant, Arthur,’ said Haldean. ‘But what noise?’
‘What about the maid in the next room? If she’d come up for Lady Harriet’s shawl, maybe Tim heard her and it made him jump.’ He gave an irritated shake of his head. ‘As I said, I just don’t believe it, Jack. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Tim killed himself. The poor devil felt like hell and shot himself. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Is it?’ asked Smith-Fennimore suddenly. ‘Is it?’ Haldean caught the note of suppressed anger in his voice. ‘Look, Haldean, all this stuff about murder. You’ve done this before. Do you really think there’s a possibility that Tim was murdered?’
Haldean hesitated, then nodded his head. ‘Yes. I do. Obviously the fact that Tim really was stuck for money changes things, but on the other hand, if Arthur had helped him out, then that reason had gone, for the time being at least.’ He looked at Stanton. ‘Did Tim have any other debts?’
Stanton shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. When he’d stopped telling me how awful things were, I made him go through everything he owed. I don’t think he kept anything back. It amounted to just over three hundred quid. I wrote him a cheque there and then. The trouble is that if he’d continued to hang around with the Brooklands crowd, it wouldn’t be long before he was in the same mess again. Maybe that’s what made him feel so rotten, knowing that the money I’d given him was just a stop-gap.’
‘There’s some truth in that, Arthur,’ said Haldean. ‘He could hardly keep on asking you for the dibs.’
‘He could have asked me,’ said Smith-Fennimore quickly. ‘Bloody hell, if I’d had the slightest idea of what he was up against, I’d have given him a job. Apart from anything else, he was my riding mechanic. He knew how much I relied on him. All he had to do was ask.’ He gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders. ‘Come on, Haldean. What do you really think?’
Haldean clicked his tongue in a dissatisfied way. ‘The official verdict could be correct and I might be making an absolute fool of myself by suggesting anything else. I know that. But last night General Flint made his mind up very quickly He didn’t conduct anything like a proper investigation. I think there are questions to be answered. Tim was my friend and I feel I owe it to him.’
‘Friend?’ said Smith-Fennimore in an undertone. ‘He was the best friend I had.’ Haldean could hear the emotion in his voice. ‘We shared a hell of a lot together. But it can’t be murder. Why should anyone want to kill Tim? It’s so pointless.’
Pointless? thought Haldean. No. If it was murder it wouldn’t be pointless . . .
Chapter Three
The three men came out of Lyvenden’s room. The chatter of voices from the hall below told them that the church party was back. ‘Shall we go down?’ asked Haldean.
Smith-Fennimore tapped the files under his arm. ‘I’m going to put these away safely, then treat myself to a word with Lyvenden.’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake, do it quietly,’ said Haldean. ‘I feel really sorry for Aunt Alice and Uncle Phil – Aunt Alice in particular. She was so looking forward to her silver wedding and what happened to Tim has rather taken the shine off it. If you have a row with Lyvenden, it’ll just make things worse.’
‘I’ll . . .’ Smith-Fennimore looked at him and his face lost its look of mulish obstinacy. ‘All right. I’ll be discreet.’ He walked off to his own room.
Stanton watched him go. ‘Do you honestly like him, Jack?’
Haldean nodded. ‘He’s all right. I can understand why you’re not crazy about him.’
‘I could have liked him,’ said Stanton. ‘In fact I would have done if things had turned out differently, even if he does think he’s the only one who cares about Tim.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘What the devil does it matter? Come on, let’s go downstairs.’
There was quite a crowd in the hall. Lady Rivers looked up and smiled as she saw Haldean and Stanton. ‘There you are.’ She handed her coat to the waiting Egerton, pulled off her gloves, unpinned her hat and put them on the hall table with a definite air of relief. ‘Thank goodness that’s over. The church was absolutely packed. I don’t know how news gets round so fast, but it does. Almost everyone in the village seemed to have heard about poor Mr Preston. Practically all of Stanmore Parry seemed to be there – even the chapel people – simply to look at us. Goodness knows what they expected to get out of it.’
‘They were expressing their sympathy, Alice,’ said her husband.
‘They were satisfying their curiosity more like, Philip. Did
you hear that wretched Daphne Tanner? She was itching to find out exactly what happened last night. Then Mr Freeman, the curate, joined us. I know he’s a very pious sort of man, but he does strike me as incredibly self-righteous. Simply because I said I felt sorry for Mr Preston he warned me of the dangers of misdirected compassion, and I do think it was tactless of him to talk about self-destruction as an act of sinful folly. Thank goodness you weren’t with us, Jack. You’d have hated it.’
Haldean, who usually coped with his urge to kick the sanctimonious Mr Freeman by referring him to his sense of the ridiculous, found his reserves of humour at a very low ebb.
He stepped closer to Isabelle who was standing with Bubble and Squeak Robiceux. They were about the only people in the hall who weren’t talking. The Robiceuxs looked uncharacteristically solemn. ‘It all sounds perfectly septic,’ he said sympathetically.
‘It was putrid, Jack,’ said Isabelle with a shudder. ‘Knowing that everyone was looking at us and talking about us. Will there be an inquest?’
‘There’s bound to be, I’m afraid.’
‘That’ll be even worse. Why did it have to happen?’
‘That’s what I’ve been thinking,’ began Haldean, when he was interrupted by Lady Harriet who was approaching the staircase in a determined way. He moved aside to allow her to get past him. Aunt Alice followed.
‘Lady Harriet,’ she called. ‘As you know, we have had to put your husband in the garden suite on the ground floor. Would you like to change your room so you can be next to him?’
Lady Harriet stopped and looked at her hostess with some surprise. ‘Change? Whatever for? I am perfectly comfortable, and the fact that there was a death in the next room does not concern me in the slightest.’ She swept on her way, leaving Lady Rivers biting her lip in irritation. And well she might, thought Haldean. The only reason Tim’s body had been moved late last night was in deference to Lady Harriet’s supposed feelings. The least she could do was pretend to have some.
He shared a quick look of resignation with his aunt before turning back to the Robiceuxs. They looked upset, and no wonder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Lady Harriet’s totally self-centred. Do you want to stay on here? If not, I’ll take you home in my car and your luggage can be sent on later.’
The two girls exchanged looks. ‘We’d more or less made up our minds to stay,’ said Squeak eventually. ‘It seems like running out to go now.’
‘And we’d only have to come back for the inquest,’ added Bubble. ‘If only I knew why he did it, Jack. We were having such a good time last night and we’d made plans and . . . and . . .’ She blinked very rapidly. Isabelle exchanged glances with Haldean, before taking her friend’s arm and leading her firmly out of the hall, passing Alfred Charnock as he came in.
‘What’s up with the girl?’ Charnock asked Lady Rivers. ‘The one that’s weeping all over the place, I mean. Didn’t she like the vicar’s sermon or something?’
Lady Rivers looked at him in exasperation. ‘Don’t be flippant, Alfred. She’s upset about Mr Preston.’
‘Mr Preston?’ repeated Charnock, puzzled. ‘Who’s . . . Oh yes, the one who topped himself, you mean. I hope she’s not going to sob through lunch about it. Speaking of which, when is it? Lunch, I mean?’
Sir Philip gave him a hostile glare. ‘As always, Alfred, lunch is at one o’clock.’ He was about to say more but stopped as Lawson, the footman, walked into the hall and, approaching Sir Philip, coughed respectfully.
‘May I have a word, sir?’
‘What is it?’
‘There is a disturbance in Lord Lyvenden’s room, sir.’
‘A disturbance?’ repeated Sir Philip, puzzled. ‘What sort of disturbance?’
‘An inharmonious disturbance, sir.’ Lawson coughed again. ‘I fear it may become a violent disturbance before long.’
Sir Philip’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Who the devil’s Lyvenden got in there?’
‘The person would not give his name, sir. I believe him to be a Russian and it is possible that he did not understand my question. He waited while I ascertained what Lord Lyvenden desired me to do and Lord Lyvenden, after seeing the person, gave orders that he should be admitted. I may say I was surprised, sir, as he struck me as an unlikely caller for Lord Lyvenden to entertain, but his lordship’s instructions were unequivocal, sir.’
Alfred Charnock grinned. ‘Maybe Bertie the Bolshie’s come to complain that his last bomb didn’t go off.’
‘Be quiet, Alfred,’ Sir Philip said absently. He looked at Lawson in bewilderment, ‘A Russian? And they’re having a quarrel, you say?’ Lawson bowed his head in agreement. ‘What the devil’s Lyvenden doing, seeing Russians in my house?’
‘Perhaps it would be as well to go and find out, Philip,’ put in his wife.
‘I shall most certainly do so,’ he said grimly. ‘Damn me, as if there wasn’t enough going on to worry about without Russians disturbing the peace. Well, I’ll soon set the feller to rights.’ He braced himself and shot his cuffs in a determined way.
‘I’ll come with you, Uncle,’ said Haldean. A Russian? That was the second one in the space of two days and he didn’t sound the sort of character whom his uncle should tackle alone. In fact, the more help he had the better. He certainly didn’t want Charnock along, but he inclined his head towards Stanton.
‘I’ll come too, Jack,’ said Stanton, taking the hint, and together they walked off down the corridor, following the fuming Sir Philip.
They hadn’t gone far before they heard shouting. ‘That’s not Lyvenden,’ said Haldean, listening. ‘It must be the other chap. My word, there he goes again! He’s pretty shirty about something, isn’t he?’
‘I’ll teach him a trick worth two of that,’ said Sir Philip. He strode on and knocked sharply on the door. ‘Hey! Lyvenden! What’s going on in there?’
The door was flung open by Lord Lyvenden who, when he saw them, nearly collapsed in relief. ‘Rivers, my dear chap. Thank God you’re here.’ He stepped back to let them enter.
A dark, thickset man with a seamed face and a wisp of beard was standing by the french windows. Well, thought Haldean, it’s not the same bloke as last night, but he’s a nasty piece of work, all the same. Unconsciously his hands curled into fists.
The Russian was smoking a thin black cigar and, as they entered, turned to look at them with raised eyebrows. ‘So, my lord.’ There was a wealth of sarcasm in the title. ‘These are your friends, are they?’
‘Don’t you take that tone of voice with me,’ said Sir Philip pugnaciously. ‘Who the devil are you?’
The man smiled, revealing yellowing teeth. ‘A business associate of the lordship here. We were just discussing matters. Private matters.’ He put his head to one side, looking at Lyvenden. ‘And the business has just been concluded, yes?’
‘I . . . I think so,’ said Lord Lyvenden, weakly. ‘You really shouldn’t have come down, my good man. I would much prefer all this to be settled in Town. Look, for God’s sake, will you go!’
The Russian casually dropped his cigar on the rug and ground it out with his heel.
Sir Philip looked at the rug, looked at the Russian and, with eyes blazing, stalked across to him. ‘Out! Now!’
The man spread his hands wide. ‘I am going. I do not wish to spend more time here than I have to.’
Haldean dropped a hand on his uncle’s arm. If Uncle Philip really lost his temper, the Russian looked as if he could be vicious. Who on earth was this chap? That could wait. The main thing was to get him out of here, before Uncle Phil got hurt. ‘The door’s this way,’ he said pleasantly. ‘After you.’
They walked out of the room together, Sir Philip pausing only to jerk his head at his guest. ‘Lyvenden! I’d like a word with you.’
Their progress back to the hall was punctuated by Lyvenden’s attempts at an apology. He scurried after them, his flabby face pale and working with emotion. ‘Terribly sorry . . . wouldn’t have had it happen for wor
lds . . . just a little matter of business . . . most unfortunate . . . very sorry for this unfortunate incident . . .’ The Russian stopped dead and turned to glare at Lyvenden, who cringed like a kicked dog.
‘Come on,’ growled Sir Philip, putting his hand on the man’s shoulders. ‘The sooner you’re out of here the better.’
The Russian threw off Sir Philip’s hand with a contemptuous shrug and strode into the hall. Here curiosity had evidently been too much for everyone, for no one had left. The Russian glanced round at the silent group in obvious disdain before striding to the door, his feet ringing in the silence on the marble floor. Egerton opened the door in his stiffest manner, waiting for the unwelcome visitor to go.
Haldean breathed a sigh of relief. That bloke could have been very nasty indeed. He looked swiftly at Alfred Charnock, pleased if rather surprised that Charnock hadn’t started something. His pleasure was short-lived.
Charnock unpropped himself from the pillar of the door where he had been leaning and said, ‘Just a minute, old sport. I can’t possibly let you pop off without any sort of explanation. What are you doing here?’ His tone was deliberately offensive.
The Russian didn’t answer, but stood with his arms folded across his chest. Charnock stuck his hands in his pockets and lounged back against the pillar.
The two men were oddly alike, trading arrogant stare for arrogant stare. Charnock laughed. ‘Well?’
‘This is a business associate of Lyvenden’s, Alfred,’ said Sir Philip rigidly. ‘He is just leaving.’
Charnock grinned, and walked to the front door, barring the exit with his body. ‘Not so fast, Philip. I want to know who this chap is.’ Then, head to one side, he asked a question in what was, presumably, Russian.
The man started, unfolded his arms and slowly nodded a reply.
‘Well, well,’ drawled Charnock. He shot a glance at Lord Lyvenden, who had sunk on to a chair, before snapping out another question. The man nodded again.
Charnock, who was obviously enjoying himself hugely, stepped back, his weight balanced on one foot.
Mad About the Boy? Page 5