“I have one or two more questions,” Orlando said, although he actually had a whole list of them. “Not least of which is why you left it so very late in coming to us. If Simon died two months ago, you’d have known of the clause in his will not long after. Why wait until you have only a month’s grace?”
Bresnan appeared both flustered and slightly sheepish. “As I said, I was stupid enough to think I could solve the conundrum without aid, as I do my beloved word puzzles. It took me a while—and that threat of slander—to see the light. When you visit Downlea, where he lived, it might be as well not to mention any connection with me. When I was there, people simply saw me as a mourning relative, and would talk quite willingly and openly. Especially to a clergyman. And particularly when I bought them a pint in the pub. I’d hate to raise any suspicions that my actions were less than candid and that you’ve come to raise a scandal.”
Which is exactly what they were meant to do. What would the Reverend Bresnan’s congregation think if they knew what a wily old fox he was?
“And you’re sure you turned out no malicious gossip while you were at Downlea?” Jonty was evidently struggling to hide a delighted grin. He was a fan of malevolent talk; the stuff could be highly informative if you could pick the truth out of it.
“Very little. Blind alleys and dead ends, I suspect.”
“Would you care to enlighten us about some of these dead ends?” Jonty was a fan of those too. Sometimes it wasn’t the alleys that were blind, just the people walking up them.
“No, I’ve decided not to. I would like you, if it’s not an impertinence to expect it, to bring an entirely open mind to the case and not be influenced by what I’ve said or the conclusions I think I’ve reached.” Bresnan shrugged. “Who knows if I’ve even interpreted anything aright?”
“But you have interpreted something?” Orlando, feeling like a hawk after a rabbit of a clue, swooped down.
“Perhaps. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be obscure, but I’d prefer you to just look at the facts for now.” Bresnan picked up his briefcase, which had lain at his feet like a faithful hound. “There are some relevant papers here, with as many objective details of the case as I can muster. Dates, times, names, an approximate valuation of what my uncles inherited and what they stood to pass on.”
“I’m glad to see you’ve such good sense and foresight. Is there a copy of the will among them?”
“Alas, not. I was unable to make one. There is a précis, however.”
“Thank you. I don’t suppose we’d be fortunate enough for you to have furnished us with any further details concerning your uncle’s death?” Orlando cocked his head to one side, a gesture he knew he’d acquired from his lover, probably by some sort of osmotic process. It seemed to aid thought.
“I’ve jotted down a few extra notes about that day, as far as I can put them together. There appears to have been no one else in the house during the afternoon in question, and Aunt Rosalind and Mrs. Hamilton apparently stayed together all the time after my uncle went to sleep. Searching for insects, from the top of the house to the bottom. Perfect alibis.” Bresnan turned his head sharply as Jonty snorted.
“You’ll excuse my colleague, Mr. Bresnan. He has no truck with alibis and can’t hide the fact on occasion. Important to note that the ladies said they weren’t apart, though.” Orlando furrowed his brow. “Those insects. When they were fumigating them, is there any chance your uncle might have inhaled the smoke or powder or whatever they used? Either accidentally or by somebody’s deliberate intention?”
“That’s the first thing I thought of.” Bresnan smiled. “But apparently he kept in the same room all day, away from the workmen. They were most careful. And before you ask me how I know, I asked the chap involved, when I was in Downlea. They didn’t see my uncle after they passed the time of day with him on first arriving.”
“And if he’d been poisoned by something he inhaled, surely there’d have been some sign?” Jonty’s voice was abnormally quiet. He and Orlando had witnessed too many men fall victim to modern warfare’s nastier weapons. “Now, you spoke of more subjective things, things you interpreted, even if you think you got them wrong. I know it goes against your wishes, but would you please consider sharing some of those?”
Bresnan sighed. “I can see that I shan’t be allowed to get away without giving you some sort of an answer. Very well. As I said, when I visited Downlea, I expected to come across all sorts of gossip and unkindness. Tempered, naturally, because people feel that they mustn’t appear mean in the eyes of a priest, so they usually add some sort of moral basis to the tittle-tattle.”
“Villages can be much harsher places than the city. Too close-knit, and everyone knowing everyone else’s business. Like schools.” Jonty shivered. “And where a young wife—a much younger wife—is concerned, one would expect spite in abundance, however it was dressed up.”
“Indeed. And the remarkable thing is that’s exactly what I didn’t find. Hardly anyone seemed to have a bad word for Aunt Rosalind, even some of the people one would most expect it from. It’s almost suspicious in itself, how universally liked she appears to be.” Bresnan clearly had a perceptive and realistic view of the world as it truly was.
Orlando noted the “Hardly anyone,” but let it pass. They’d find out soon enough where the few malicious tongues were wagging. “So we start with almost a blank canvas?”
“You do. And if you provide a picture within the month, I shall be forever in your debt.” Bresnan at last fished into his case and produced a set of papers. “I give you all my hopes with these, gentlemen. Whatever you achieve with them is better than I could manage on my own.”
“We’ll try, won’t we, Professor Coppersmith?” Jonty took the papers, laying them on his lap with care.
“We will that.” Orlando summoned up a smile. Of course they’d succeed; they had to. “If we can’t get to the bottom of things, then they can’t be got to the bottom of.” He covered up his bad grammar with a nod in Jonty’s direction.
The man looked so happy, it seemed a crying shame to have to spoil the day with talk of Owens and chicanery. And something that felt awfully like blackmail.
After escorting their guest to the porters’ lodge, Jonty returned to find Orlando at his desk, already poring through the case papers. The autumnal light danced through the leaves of the plane tree, a huge branch of which had grown halfway across the window since Jonty had first acquired the room. He stopped to enjoy the dappling on his lover’s hands and face, as well as the look of intense concentration. Orlando at work was a magnificent creature.
“Out with it.” Jonty had leaned over the desk, applying his hot breath onto the side of Orlando’s neck, one of numerous strategies he’d devised for getting the truth out of a certain mathematical person.
Orlando jumped a mile. “Out with what?”
“Don’t try to play the innocent with me, Orlando Artigiano del Rame.” The name had a rolling, dramatic feel to it; suitable for when the man was in disgrace or needed to be pinned down to the exact truth. “You’ve changed your tune about this case every five minutes. What on earth is going on now?”
“Well, I’ve been looking at things objectively. This village where Peter Priestland lived, Downlea, is barely twenty miles down the road from here, not far by either rail or the infernal combustion engine.” Orlando gestured airily. “Not like going all the way to Gloucestershire, or even down to Romsey, where Simon lived. It’ll make the time constraint much less intrusive.”
“You couldn’t have known all that when you changed your mind and decided we’d take the case.” Jonty snatched up the papers. “That’s all come from swotting up on these. Tell me the truth.”
“It would be more interesting than writing my lecture.” Orlando looked sufficiently shamefaced. “You have no idea how hard I’m finding it.”
“Of course I do.” Jonty would have thrown up his hands if it wouldn’t have sent all the papers flying. “I have to live with you
, don’t forget, and all our years together have taught me a thing or two about your character. Give me some credit.” He shook his head, amused by the way that such an intelligent man could still be so dim at times. “You want it to be perfect. Which it will be. And there’s more, so out with it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You know damn well what’s eating you. And I’m not saying it on your behalf.”
“You must be the most annoying man in the whole of Christendom.” Orlando turned in his chair, grabbed Jonty’s face and brought it down for a huge smacking kiss.
“That was very nice, but don’t think you’ll make me forget you owe me an answer.”
Orlando sighed. “I’m scared my lecture will be rubbish and I’m also scared that we’ve forgotten how to sleuth.”
“I thought as much.” Jonty perched his not insubstantial bottom on the desk, taking Orlando’s hands in his. “Surely it’s like riding a bike? We’ll get started and after an initial wobble or two, we’ll pedal along like billy-oh.”
“Then come round a corner too fast and end up in a heap? With all the world standing round and laughing at us?” Orlando asked, closing his eyes and shuddering.
“We’ve not failed yet.” By luck if not by judgement.
“No, that’s true.” Orlando didn’t seem convinced. “Has my worrying been that obvious? And that annoying?”
“No more than the usual.” Jonty ruffled his lover’s hair. “You’ve yet to reach a level of grumpiness that’s too much to live with. Be assured the thought of murder has been no more prominent in my mind than it is about thirty-one percent of the time.”
“Only thirty-one percent? I must be getting better.” Orlando still looked shaken, but the fight was back in him.
“Oh yes. Times past it’s been as high as eighty-seven.” Jonty picked up a pen, fiddling with it as if writing the aggravation of Orlando’s ways and in fresh numbers listing all his annoyances. “And irrespective of reducing how much I want to resort to pickaxes and other weapons, I like to see you with a case. You get a light in your eye when you’re on the trail of a villain, a light that I only see there in two other sets of circumstances: when you’ve got your head over a tricky piece of differential calculus or when you’re rogering me.”
Orlando clearly couldn’t stop himself glancing at the door at the mention of rogering. It was shut, and no noise could have penetrated it, but that bit of logic had obviously escaped him. Maybe he thought the dunderheads listened at his keyhole. “There’ll be no rogering at all unless you stop being so wanton in public places like this.” He dropped his voice to a whisper for the key word, and tried to look as if the threat was real.
“Says you. One day I’ll call your bluff on that threat and then where will you be? You’d never stick to it.” Of course he wouldn’t. Orlando was a sight too fond of the double bed, and Jonty in it with him, for that to happen. “Now, you’d better get your head down over that lecture of yours and earn some playtime, because I’m going to take the bull by the horns. If there’s a telephone number here, I’m going to ring our merry murderess and make an appointment to see her on Saturday morning. This Saturday. And if there’s no number, I’ll ask at the exchange. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll send a telegram.”
“And what reasonable excuse will you give for the consultation? ‘Please, Mrs. Priestland, I don’t have much time, so can you tell me how you bumped off your husband?’” Orlando snorted, clearly put out that he hadn’t thought about an interview with the prime suspect. Or, if he’d thought about it, hadn’t acted quickly enough to put in dibs for doing it. “That’s going to earn you a rousing welcome, isn’t it?”
“Actually, I’m going to play the family name card. The more truth I can wangle into these things, the easier it is for my conscience . . .”
“And for your acting abilities,” Orlando muttered.
“I heard that. That’s one whack owed, to be collected later on.” Jonty got out his spectacles and polished them vigorously, as if they were Orlando’s backside getting the deserved thrashing. “I’m going to tell her that I’m paying my respects on behalf of the Stewart family. I’ll explain that I’m behindhand in doing so because when the news came of Peter Priestland’s death, I was abroad.” He stopped, a chilling memory of those months on the Continent clouding his thoughts.
Orlando reached over, took Jonty’s hand, and squeezed it; he didn’t say anything else except, “Go on. Good strategy so far.”
“I’ll also say that Papa knew Peter back when he was a lad—by which I mean my father was a lad. It might well be true, given how many people the old geezer was acquainted with. And even if it isn’t, Rosalind Priestland won’t necessarily know that.”
“Shall I come along to offer the Artigiano del Rames’ condolences too?” Orlando kept rubbing his lover’s knuckles.
Jonty wondered whether Orlando was upset that he hadn’t been invited along from the start. Something was evidently still bugging him. “Much as I’d like to have you at my side, it would look a bit mob-handed if we both turned up. And too much risk of her putting our names together and then putting two and two together on top of that.” Plenty of people had come across the names Coppersmith and Stewart in newspaper stories over the years. Or “Stewart and Coppersmith” when it had been Jonty’s father writing the articles, paternal pride overriding alphabetical order. They didn’t want to risk unsettling their quarry right from the start. “And anyway, when time’s been short in the past, we’ve always split up to maximise our resources. You could find plenty of people in Downlea to work your charm on. Ladies from the church, ladies at the post office.”
“I notice it’s always the ladies getting a mention here.”
“Oh, come on. I don’t want you exercising your charm on the men, do I?” Jonty laughed. “Far too risky. It might lead to one of them wanting to steal you away, and then where would I be?” He freed himself from his lover’s grip and ruffled Orlando’s hair again, to the point that it resembled a bird’s nest. “Stick to the ladies, and anyone else who’ll be no threat to me.” The stupidly smug smile Orlando was desperately trying to hide told Jonty he’d said exactly the right thing to reassure him. The daft beggar.
“So long as I don’t have to do what Holmes did and get myself engaged to a parlour maid or something.” Orlando tapped on his desk with a pencil, which looked like it was about to break under the weight of the man’s loathing for the famous fictional detective. Probably because he never seemed to fail at anything.
“Any man who once posed as a professional dancing partner to solve a crime shouldn’t sneer at something as lightweight as getting engaged to a maid.” Jonty wandered over to a little table, found the last biscuit looking terribly forlorn on its plate, broke it in two and gave Orlando the slightly larger half. On such things was a loving partnership built. “Although maybe I shouldn’t be so cocky. I don’t want to have two wives like Watson did.”
“Two wives? At the same time? That’s plain greedy.” Orlando had stalled halfway through the works of Conan Doyle, stating that the marvellous logic couldn’t compensate for how much he hated Holmes.
“No. Serially or something. Doesn’t quite hang together in the stories, but I don’t think he was a bigamist. We do have one thing in common, though . . .” Jonty spoke wistfully. “The good doctor must have been driven mad at times. I wonder if he contemplated murder as often as I do. I suppose he must have kept that service revolver well-oiled, just in case.”
“You do know they’re not real, don’t you?”
Jonty sighed. Orlando felt the need to keep reminding him about the line between his beloved literature and reality. The dark lady and lovely boy of the sonnets might well have been the genuine articles, but neither Inspector Bucket nor Fitzwilliam Darcy was. “Credit me with some sense!”
“This case. I suppose there is a realistic chance of us getting anywhere with it?”
Back there again. Orlando’s tone twisted Jonty’s heart; t
he great advances in confidence he’d made in the first few years he and Jonty were together had begun to retreat during the war, and the last year or so had been particularly hard on him. “We cracked the Woodville Ward case, didn’t we? And Sarah Carter’s murder. What’s a few months when we’ve been able to tackle murders from years ago, if not hundreds of years, and get to the bottom of things?” Jonty tried to sound more enthusiastic than he felt. Orlando was right to have doubts, but he wasn’t going to fuel them.
“I suppose so,” Orlando sighed. “Well, I’d better get on with the self-torture.” He bundled the case papers up, presented them to Jonty and drew a blank piece of paper—blank apart from the title “Inaugural Lecture”—towards him.
“You do that. I’ll hang a sign on your door to make sure you’re not disturbed.” Jonty hovered by the desk. “Anything else bothering you?”
“No,” Orlando said, too quickly and clearly lying. “It’s just that meeting this morning. Wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped.”
“Would it help to discuss it?”
“Not at the moment. It would put a nasty gloss on the day. I’ll channel my frustrations into this.” Orlando tapped the paper.
“See you in the Senior Common Room for a sherry before high table.” Jonty kissed the top of his friend’s head. “Make sure you’ve earned it.”
Whatever Orlando was brooding on would come out when he was good and ready. No point in forcing things.
Having found a little stretch of sward that was level, clean, and almost made for the purpose of cosseting his metal pride and joy, Jonty parked his automobile on the outskirts of Downlea. He wished that Orlando had been driving; the height of amusement being listening to him complain about the difficulties of having to steer and change gears at the same time, not to mention the impossibility of focusing on the road when Jonty was sitting beside him. And then, perhaps five minutes later, see a face like thunder begin relaxing into what would eventually be a Mr. Toad-like expression of joy.
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