Lessons for Survivors

by Charlie Cochrane

  “They’re itemised as part of her last will and testament. I’ll send you a copy of the list.”

  “Splendid. If we can match the two up, I think we’ll have our answer. Proof enough even for your friend Dr. Coppersmith.”

  “Professor Coppersmith he is now, so we all have to watch our p’s and q’s.” Jonty laughed. “Shall I send you my list today?”

  “If you would. And to this address, please, so it gets my immediate and personal attention.” Collingwood dictated an address that was surprising in its distinction, one of the swankiest roads in that part of Kensington, unless it had gone severely downhill from when Jonty used to go and play with a friend who lived around the corner. “I may even have an answer for you tomorrow, if you’re lucky.”

  “Splendid. Now, there’s just one more thing, if I can push my luck so far.”

  “Ye-es?” Collingwood managed to convey politeness, puzzlement, and wariness all in one short word.

  “Your team has proved remarkably able in the past at what I’d term legwork. Any chance they could do some discreet digging among some doctors and undertakers?”

  “I’m sure they can.” The wary tone had magically transformed to enthusiasm. “Tell me more.”

  Jonty did, laying out all the items to be double-checked in the process of verifying there really hadn’t been any obvious reason for anyone to suspect foul play. “I’m sure your men would manage that with much more discretion than we could. Although maybe discretion isn’t what we need. It would be nice for our suspect to get wind of official type enquiries and maybe begin to panic.” Clutching at straws, although it was beginning to feel like that was all they had.

  “I should advise you now that may be all you have to hope for. If there were signs of mischief, the chances are they’d have been noted by someone and acted on at the time. Young wife. Old husband. Inheritance. All grist to the suspicion mill. Although . . .”

  “Yes?” Jonty asked, eagerly.

  “Rosalind was in the best position to hide any evidence. Left alone when the housekeeper went to phone the doctor. Which suggests, just possibly, that there were no signs that anyone else had murdered him. She’d have drawn those to the housekeeper’s attention, surely? So as to protect herself?”

  “Our very thoughts,” Jonty lied, kicking himself that they hadn’t thought of it first. “Thank you very much.”

  Jonty went to his study and prepared his letter, sticking on a stamp and shoving the thing in his pocket to be taken down to the postbox. A pleasant saunter, enough to get the gastric juices going in anticipation of dinner and to get some ideas about ways to wind up Orlando when he got home.

  A nice-looking lad passed him, heading in the other direction—a sailor home on leave, by his appearance. There’d been lots of nice-looking lads in Jonty’s platoon, back in France, not that he’d ever felt anything towards them and not that he would have done even if there hadn’t been Orlando to consider. It didn’t do to foul your own doorstep. Still, a man could look; pastries in a window were there to be admired even if you didn’t want to indulge.

  Matthew Ainslie was easy on the eye, as was his partner. Mitchell, the vicar, was good-looking too, as Bresnan must have been in his youth. The pair of them were spinsters’ delights, as Mrs. Stewart had termed good-looking clergymen. Or maybe the widows’ delight, now that Bresnan was getting on a bit.

  Jonty stopped, thoughts going back to Mitchell again. Widows’ delight . . . Wife’s delight? Wife’s friend. Wife’s confessor? For all their joking, what if the vicar was keeping Rosalind in Downlea, dreams of being a postmistress notwithstanding? Maybe that’s what his pained speech, concerning things he’d heard but couldn’t repeat, was really about. Deflecting attention from their relationship, but not actually putting it onto anybody else?

  And who was going to confirm just how friendly the vicar and the widow were?

  When Orlando got home, he had no need to ask whether Jonty had made progress in the case; the serenely smug look plastered all over his face gave that away. It seemed unfair, when he’d been so bound up with business and had nothing to report, that mere fellows in Tudor literature should have been having fun. Still, he patiently listened, over dinner, to the news from the London members of the Madingley Road Irregulars, as Jonty tended to refer to anyone who helped them out.

  “So there’s more money to be claimed in the case. Or will be when the two ladies are proven to be one and the same. Will Rosalind be allowed to keep her share come the end of October? Thank you.” Orlando smiled at Mrs. Ward’s granddaughter, who was clearing the plates. “That gravy was as good as anything your grandmother can produce, but don’t tell her I said so.”

  “I’ll keep quiet, Professor.” She smiled. “Ready for pudding?”

  “Please. And coffee in about half an hour.” Orlando watched her leave the room. “And to think I dreaded her coming in and catering twice a week.”

  “You’ve never been one for change, have you?” Jonty stretched. “As for Rosalind, I’m not sure she gets any of it. Peter predeceased the claiming of the jewels so I suspect they all go to Bresnan. Crikey.” He slapped the table. “Orlando, do you think there’s any chance he’s playing us like fish? That this whole thing has been less about Rosalind Priestland than finding Alice Priestland’s missing jewels? For which he seems to be the only heir?”

  “Then why make such a tarradiddle about things? Why not just ask us to find the jewels in the first place?” Orlando said, shrugging.

  “Because he likes to make things complicated. Look at all the business with the riddles and his grandmother. I don’t trust a word he says at the moment.”

  “His behaviour has certainly been odd.” The aroma of Eve’s pudding suddenly wafted through the door, borne by a descendant of Eve herself. But even the wonderful aroma of sponge and apple couldn’t distract the detective instinct. “He’s clearly a clever man. Do you think he’s trying to be more than clever?” Orlando pointed with his spoon. “Could he actually have killed his uncle and be trying to divert the suspicion to his aunt?”

  “It seems a bit far-fetched, although I wouldn’t discount anything where murder and murderers are concerned.” Jonty postulated, helping himself to a big spoon of pudding, evidently to aid his mental processes. “If Billy’s telling the truth, maybe Bresnan’s the mystery man in the shrubbery. He could have slipped into the house and done Peter in.”

  “When Rosalind and Mrs. Hamilton were pursuing ladybirds? It’s possible. Peter would have let him in if he’d come to the conservatory door, and he wouldn’t have been on his guard.” Orlando nodded. “Actually, I doubt he needed to let him in. It might have been unlocked. Even if Peter had woken from his sleep, the sight of Bresnan at his side wouldn’t have raised any alarms.” He waggled his spoon again. “And the same could be said for either Simon or the Reverend Mitchell.”

  Jonty nodded enthusiastically, sending crumbs flying everywhere. “I suspect it would be easy to get away with murder, or just about anything, if you’re a man of the cloth. You can go anywhere, be let in, have people turn their backs on you, and . . .” He made a gesture like wringing a chicken’s neck.

  “Thank you. Very subtly put.” Orlando scraped up the penultimate mouthful of pudding. “What would his motive be, though? Or Simon’s?” He stopped, disappointed. “Or Bresnan’s? He would know Peter’s money was going to go to Rosalind.”

  “That latter fact would be ample motivation for Mitchell, especially if he thought he was going to get his ecclesiastical boots under her bed at some point in the future. And, surprisingly, I have a possible reason for Simon to do the deed.” Jonty began to work his bowl, to get every last little morsel onto his spoon. “He didn’t want to see his mother’s grave desecrated. Maybe Peter was becoming insistent that they should find out, while they had time.”

  “That’s a lot of supposition. And it all seems far-fetched.” Not enough to interrupt Orlando polishing off his pudding. Just as well it wasn’t one of Mrs. W
ard’s cooking nights; she’d have made them eat fruit salad. “If you’re going to indulge, so will I. Let’s say that Bresnan knew about his grandmother’s jewels and wanted to increase his share of them by ensuring that their discovery was after Peter’s death. My assumption is that Helen Phillips’s will only specifies that her children inherit and not their heirs.”

  “But that makes even less sense. Bresnan wouldn’t get anything.” Jonty pushed away his empty bowl, almost sending his water glass flying.

  “Not necessarily. Alice Priestland’s death was in 1872, so Bresnan was already alive. She might have named him specifically. Collingwood could get hold of all these wills and verify the details.” Orlando rose. “I can smell coffee. Shall we repair to the sitting room?”

  “Only when I have the answer to this. There’s another big hole in your argument. Bresnan doesn’t know where the jewels are.”

  Orlando grinned. “Maybe he does and he didn’t dare admit it earlier as it would throw suspicion on him. That’s why he’s asked us in. Because he knew we’d turn his inheritance up, and then he’d have nothing to do but act surprised.”

  “You’re a genius.” Jonty took his friend’s arm and accompanied him to the sitting room. “Either that, or totally daft.”

  Wednesday dawned bright and breezy, blowing away the cobwebs literally and figuratively. Jonty always felt particularly chipper in the morning, when the day was brimful of new opportunities; often something that had seemed an insurmountable problem the previous evening felt manageable at daybreak. Even Orlando appeared to be in better humour, having had some sort of vision in the night that clarified one of the knottier points in his lecture. Breakfast was pleasant, the cycle ride down to St. Bride’s invigorating, and the note awaiting Jonty in his pigeonhole—without a wasp in sight—was the cherry on the cake. Mrs. Sheridan required his presence when convenient, as she had news.

  The only annoyance was that it wasn’t convenient until three o’clock in the afternoon, although at least that meant there might be tea on the table and the last of the Bakewell tarts on offer.

  Jonty had hardly wiped his feet on the lodge’s doormat before he began interrogating his hostess. “Progress?”

  “Oh yes. What one of your heroes might call a palpable hit. Tea?” Ariadne led him into the drawing room.

  “Only if you elucidate while we wait.” Jonty settled into a nice cosy chair just the right distance from the nice cosy fire.

  “Of course. Although we won’t have long to wait. I spotted you coming and put the order in.”

  Jonty didn’t ask if she’d been watching and waiting at the window.

  “You know there was all that trouble when Owens left here?”

  “But of course.” How could any decent Bride’s man not have it permanently in mind, that perpetual blot on the collegiate escutcheon? The opinion of the Senior Common Room was that Dr. Arthur Owens should have been strangled at birth, although that might have been too good for him. Even the chaplain, that good, truly Christian man, would have liked to see Owens hoist on his own petard, if he had a particularly explosive one, or thrown in the Cam with his possibly plagiarised papers to weigh down his pockets. When he’d left the college, he was said to have purloined several volumes from the library, although no one could prove the fact.

  “He’s proved a slippery, slimy thing to pin down.” Jonty frowned. “Nobody could get to the bottom of the plagiarism, either. Not even the students from whom he nicked the work. I’ll say this for him, he’s clever.”

  “Not too clever for me. Or my beloved Robert. He’d like to get those books back for the college.” The arrival of the tea and what looked like some more of those delicious tarts improved matters even further.

  “Would he? Then maybe he’ll succeed where your dear and much lamented brother failed.”

  “My Lemuel was far too noble for his own good at times. The present master is much more . . . let us say, pragmatic.”

  Did “pragmatic” translate as “willing to play dirty”? Jonty hid his grin behind his teacup.

  Ariadne seemed so distressed about the missing books that she waved her spoon, sending droplets of tea flying all over her royal blue dress. “One of those books contained possibly the earliest known reference to Marsh’s Sphenacodon.”

  “As if there were any other Sphenaco-whatsit.”

  “Behave. Robert has never seen the original, so he has a personal interest in getting the book back.”

  “Why would Owens take a thing like that? I thought he studied philosophy when he was here?”

  “I think he took anything he could get his grubby mitts on.” Ariadne leaned forward, conspiratorially. “Which, I sincerely hope, will be his downfall.”

  “I like the sound of that. Nice word, downfall, when it’s applied to your enemies. Could I beg you to elucidate?”

  “No need to beg, I’ll do it gladly.” Ariadne thrust the plate of cakes at him. “Eat up while I prattle. Yesterday afternoon, I went back through the old library archives. No, I must give Dr. Strauss some credit.” Strauss was St. Bride’s librarian, and probably had been since Noah came in to borrow some papyri about boat building and animal husbandry. “We went through the archives together. He was distraught about the thefts, as he believes it was all his fault.”

  “He shouldn’t be. He wasn’t even here.” That was all part of St. Bride’s lore, how Strauss had been in a convalescent home, getting over tuberculosis.

  “That’s one of the reasons for the guilt. He’s convinced none of this would have happened if he’d been present. Swears he wouldn’t have allowed the unctuous microbe alone with even a sheet of paper, let alone the Prince’s favourite.”

  “The who’s what?” Jonty made a grab for his Bakewell, which had decided to leap out of his hand.

  “That’s almost exactly what I said to Strauss. Want another cake? That one’s looking a bit bashed.” Ariadne proffered the pastry-laden plate. “No? Well, perhaps better not to. Mrs. Ward would kill me if you didn’t eat your dinner.” She placed the plate well out of Jonty’s reach, as he was clearly only a boy of seven and not to be trusted. “Apparently one of the volumes that mysteriously disappeared had belonged to Prince Albert Victor. He’d donated it to the library here during his short sojourn at the university.”

  “But he wasn’t at Bride’s. Why not donate the book to Trinity?” Even the last bits of sticky pastry couldn’t enable Jonty’s brain to make sense of that conundrum.

  “Services rendered. Strauss can be remarkably discreet in what he actually says, but if you combine the words with inflexion of tone and the twinkle in his eye, you get quite a picture. The picture I got was of a young man who’d got himself into a distinct spot of bother and needed to be rescued.” Ariadne grinned; she must have seen a few of those down the years.

  “Ah.” Jonty had heard the rumours, although he wasn’t sure he believed them. His father had been taken to play with the royal family as a boy, so he was in the best position to comment on the gossip, and he hadn’t been sure either. “The old chestnut?”

  Ariadne nodded. “College servant this time. Pair of them got caught. The Prince of Wales, as he then was, got wind and was livid. The then master of St. Bride’s had the old man’s ear and saved the day by covering the scandal up.”

  Jonty couldn’t resist cutting in. “Poor old Eddy. Sorry, Albert. Family nickname for him.”

  “Your father’s royal connections coming out again?” Ariadne grinned. “Carry on.”

  “Whatever we call him, I bet he was immensely grateful, although I didn’t know about the scandal. Not this one, or the book.”

  “Shame we don’t have your father still with us.” Ariadne didn’t need to say more. Mr. Stewart would have been able to fill in any missing details.

  “I know. I miss the old boy more than ever.” Jonty shared a wistful smile with his hostess. “Now, back to the point. Cleveland Street is a well-known scandal—at least well-known in the greater scheme of things. H
ow did the master manage to maintain such secrecy about this business?”

  “This business was relatively minor. Much easier to keep secret than an entire establishment devoted to, um . . .”

  Jonty waited to see what euphemism Ariadne would come up with for renters.

  “To unfortunate boys. Don’t grin. Besides, Dr. Stewart,” she said, deftly side stepping the issue, “you’ve been in the Senior Common Room often enough. You’ve seen them close ranks.”

  “I have. But I’ve no experience of whether the same applies at Trinity.”

  Ariadne began to laugh in her deep, almost-manly chuckle. “I’m glad your professor isn’t here to see you make such a mess of what should be an obvious bit of deduction. The servant worked here. The prince wasn’t daft enough to make a mess in his own backyard. The lad in question was found a position elsewhere.”

  “With an emolument to oil the wheels of his going and help keep his trap shut?”

  “Something like that. Prince Albert showed his gratitude by donating a particular book, one that had come to him from his grandmother. One we’re now pretty sure Owens purloined when he got his sticky fingers on the other volumes.”

  “Has nobody confronted the despicable hog about it?” Jonty could imagine King Edward himself coming along and thrashing the truth out of the man.

  “Apparently my brother did, when he accosted him about the other missing stuff. Of course, the lying toerag denied ever having had his hands on the things. Said the timing was merely coincidental.” Ariadne sniffed. “Lemuel never believed a word of it. He even considered asking you two to break into Owens’s set of rooms, locate the missing volumes and snaffle them. I wouldn’t let him, of course.”

  “Spoilsport. I’d have fancied that. And if Professor Coppersmith felt it beneath his dignity, Papa would have lent a hand. He was a true Christian.” Jonty grinned, sparking off another bout of the giggles from his hostess.

  “One day a thunderbolt will strike you, and I hope it doesn’t spark onto either me or Professor Coppersmith.”