Mad About the Boy?

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘Didn’t you find any of these files and so on afterwards?’ asked Isabelle.

  Haldean shook his head. ‘No. Either Lyvenden took them back to London on Monday or Malcolm hid them in his car. I can’t tell you how I felt, Arthur, when I remembered telling Malcolm that you’d run off with the cigarette case. The document more or less had to be in it because the only things taken out of the room had been the briefcase and the cigarette case. I also told him that you were near your old home. I’d unwittingly set the hounds on your track and told them where to look.’

  He interlocked his fingers and stared at the palms of his hands for a few seconds. ‘I knew that as long as you were free, Arthur, you were in horrible danger. Once I’d got you into the safe hands of the police, I could breathe freely again. However, I thought it was as well to advertise the fact because I was pretty sure that once you were found, Malcolm would show up again.’

  ‘Is that why we went to the Wheatsheaf that night?’ asked Isabelle.

  ‘That’s right. I also took the opportunity to tell any interested parties, through the newspaper, that as far as I was concerned, the attack had been successful and I was hors de combat. I had no desire for any Russian thugs to pay me a return visit. That came off. Malcolm was found but in such a dreadful state, I couldn’t make it add up. From what he said to me on the beach, I don’t think he really cared if he lived or died any more. He’d cold-bloodedly taken an overdose of morphine and gambled he’d be found in time. It was very convincing, but I knew I had to be right, despite appearances. Having the document translated clinched it.’

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand, Jack,’ said Lady Rivers. ‘Why, with all that evidence, couldn’t Mr Ashley simply arrest him?’

  Haldean looked at her. ‘What evidence, Aunt Alice? We could prove he was planning to steal the bank’s funds and illegally transfer them to the Soviets all right, but that didn’t prove he’d murdered Lyvenden. As soon as the story about the money got out he’d be ruined, sure enough, because with the details on that document it’d be easy to find supporting evidence of the transfer, but that wasn’t what I was after. So he’d bought a knife. So what? That’s not a crime. For Arthur’s sake I had to try to get Malcolm to admit it. We had nothing like enough evidence for a jury. The sort of lawyer Malcolm could afford would have made mincemeat of our case. It all sounded so hypothetical and airy-fairy compared to the sight of poor old Arthur standing over Lyvenden, covered in blood. I was hoping for a confession, but it all went horribly wrong. I realized, of course, that if he confessed he would be arrested, tried and hanged. If all Malcolm had done was take revenge for Tim, then I might have left it. Lyvenden was no beauty and deserved everything he got. But you, Arthur . . . I couldn’t stomach that. We had to get him to admit it. Anything less wouldn’t do. Malcolm had been completely safe because no one had seen him wedge Lyvenden’s door to and trap Arthur in there. But what if someone had seen him? That would change things dramatically. So, I typed a blackmail letter.’

  Sir Philip gaped at him. ‘You did what?’

  Haldean grinned. ‘It was very respectful, as these things go. I signed it “A friend”. All it said was that the writer had seen what Malcolm had done in the corridor that day. If Malcolm had been innocent, it wouldn’t have mattered a bean. I promised no further demands would be made if Malcolm could see his way to leaving two hundred quid – I wasn’t doing this on the cheap – under the floor of the summerhouse by five o’clock that afternoon.’

  ‘So that’s what all that was about,’ said Isabelle.

  ‘Yes, old thing,’ said Haldean, getting up and helping himself to another whisky and soda, ‘that’s what all that was about. Ashley and Constable Bevan hid themselves in the shrubbery and watched Malcolm go into the summerhouse. As soon as Malcolm had left, Ashley looked under the loose board and there was an envelope with two hundred quid and a request to meet the writer. Constable Bevan brought me a note to say Malcolm had taken the bait, and next thing the man himself rang the front doorbell, having supposedly just arrived from the station. The trouble was that I didn’t know, and Ashley didn’t know, if our blackmail wheeze would be acceptable in court. Again, when you think of the lawyer Malcolm would have at his beck and call, we might find that we’d run into tiresome things like Judges’ Rules and the whole blackmail business would be deemed inadmissible. We needed to get Malcolm to the stage where, first having believed he was safe, he was suddenly in the position where he was threatened. And that, with a man like Malcolm, was a dangerous game to play. He was as twitchy as a kitten in any event, so I took the elementary precaution of taking the bullets out of the magazine of his gun. Ashley was outside the french windows and as soon as he heard I’d got the gun, he brought you all into the room. Malcolm was far too interested in you, Belle, coming into the room to notice what I was doing.’ He grinned. ‘There was another bullet in the chamber which I discharged as soon as I could.’

  ‘So that’s what you were up to,’ said Sir Philip. ‘Damn me, boy, I thought you’d gone mad when you fired the wretched thing.’

  ‘It was just as well I did though, wasn’t it?’ His smile widened. ‘Quite honestly, Arthur, I don’t know what you thought you were playing at. I knew the gun was empty and Ashley knew it was empty, but you didn’t know and you still went for him.’

  Arthur looked sheepish. ‘I couldn’t let him threaten Isabelle, could I? Besides that, I was hopping mad when I thought what he’d put me through. All I really wanted to do was get Isabelle to safety and wallop him good and hard.’

  ‘I wish you had done,’ said Haldean in a low voice. ‘It would have been so much better than what happened.’ He was quiet for a few moments, looking at the palms of his hands. ‘Anyway, I drove him off the road. God help me.’

  Stanton moved uneasily. ‘Come on, Jack.’

  Haldean took a deep breath. ‘I won’t ever be able to forget the noise he made as he fell. Ever. And I found it a bit tough, you know? I liked him. I’d liked him enormously and having to pretend I was his friend and so on when he came into the house was pretty hard, knowing what I knew.’ His voice broke abruptly. ‘Damned hard.’

  Isabelle took his hands in hers, forcing him to look at her. ‘Jack, listen to me. Arthur was supposed to hang and you saved him. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.’

  ‘Me neither,’ added Stanton. ‘And there’s something else, too.’ He looked at Isabelle affectionately. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but after what I’ve been through, I’m blessed if I’m running the risk of you becoming Mrs Anyone Else.’ He turned to Sir Philip. ‘Er . . . it’s normally the sort of question you ask in private, sir, but can I have your permission to marry your daughter?’

  Sir Philip laughed. ‘I don’t think you can wriggle out of it now, m’boy.’

  ‘In that case, Jack,’ said Stanton, ‘you will be best man, won’t you?’

  Haldean squeezed Isabelle’s hands. ‘Try asking anyone else,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’ll forbid the banns.’