Jeffries looked at Verity suspiciously but seemed reassured by what he saw. ‘Lady Dorothy, that was what I called her, miss. “Lady Craig” I suppose I should have said. She was a wonderful woman. There cannot have been another woman in the world who would have made the General happy. If you see what I mean, miss, he was a man’s man. He had no truck with women as a rule. He hated chatter, hated dinner-parties. I was surprised when he told me he was going to that one, in fact. He said, “Jeffries, I’ve got to do my duty and that’s why I’m going. To tell you true I would rather I was charging the fuzzies on board old Diamond” – that was his horse when he was out in the desert with Lord Kitchener, my lord, long before my time, of course. “I’d rather be in a cavalry charge than go, my friend,” he called me that sometimes,’ said the valet proudly, ‘“but I’ve got something I must do before I die.”’
‘What was that, do you think?’ said Edward sharply. Somehow he felt that here might be the key to the whole mystery.
‘I don’t know, my lord,’ said Jeffries disappointingly.
‘But you were going to tell us how Lady Craig died,’ Verity persisted.
‘Yes, miss, that was very sad.’ Jeffries shook his head gloomily. ‘I think she had been ill for some months before either the General or I noticed anything was wrong. You know how it is, sir,’ he said, looking at Edward as though asking for forgiveness, ‘when you see someone every day you don’t notice things. I thought she was looking thin and tired but I thought that was because she was worrying about the General. You see, I knew he had already been to the doctor, and though he wouldn’t tell me what the doctor had said, from things I overheard him say to Lady Dorothy, I think the doctor must have told him then he had the cancer.’
‘When was that?’ asked Verity.
‘That was about two years ago.’
‘And Lady Craig died a year ago?’
‘A year ago, miss. She collapsed one day on the stairs and I ran for the doctor while the General stayed beside her. When the doctor came he looked solemn and between us we got her into bed. He told the General that she needed an operation immediately.’
‘That must have been a terrible shock for the General.’
‘It was, miss. He almost went out of his mind. He blamed himself, you see. He thought that he should have seen she was ill but he had been too bound up with his own illness to see anything. Anyway, my lord, she had an operation that very week and died on the operating table. That was when I feared my poor master might kill himself, but then he heard something or saw something which made him change his mind although he was certainly never the same again.’
‘Have you any idea what he saw or heard?’ inquired Edward gently.
‘No, my lord.’
‘It wasn’t the invitation to have dinner at Mersham Castle?’
‘Oh no, my lord, it was long before that. I think it might have been something the doctor said to him after his wife died, but I am not sure why I think so except that, apart from the doctor, he hardly saw anyone at all.’
‘I see. Well, thank you, Jeffries, you have been most helpful. I promise you if we discover that the General died because . . . because of someone else, we will tell you. Are you coming to the inquest?’
‘Yes, my lord, Inspector Pride has given me a train ticket.’
‘Well then, we’ll see you there. Oh, by the way, a last question: could the General have got confused and taken the cyanide pill by mistake for one of his painkillers?’
‘No, my lord,’ said Jeffries stoutly, ‘he could not. The pills he took for his pain were small whitey-brown things he kept in a silver box in his pocket.’
‘The cyanide capsule – did you ever see that?’
‘Yes, sir. He showed it to me once, my lord, when we were talking about the war, and I saw it after.’
‘And that was different?’
‘Yes, my lord, quite different. It wasn’t round – more like a lozenge and made of a sort of glass, only not quite glass, to break between the teeth, he told me. Also it was much larger than his other pills.’
‘And he kept the cyanide pill where?’
‘He used to keep it in an envelope in the safe, I believe, my lord, but since Lady Dorothy died he carried it in his fob – the pocket in his waistcoat where in the old days he kept his watch on the end of his chain.’
‘It couldn’t have fallen out into his drink by accident?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘You are very sure.’
‘I am sure, my lord.’
‘But it’s odd, isn’t it, that he should have taken the trouble to transfer the cyanide pill to the waistcoat pocket of his dress suit? I mean, even if he carried it around for some sort of comfort it gave him to know it was there, it was surely taking things a bit far to take it into dinner with him?’
‘I expect he thought it would be dangerous to leave it lying around his room, my lord, in case a curious servant found it and did themselves an injury.’
‘Yes, perhaps so,’ said Edward soothingly. ‘You have been very helpful, Jeffries, and I hope talking about it – the General’s death, I mean – hasn’t distressed you.’
‘No, my lord. To tell you the truth, I spend all the time thinking about the General. I feel my life has ended with his, my lord. Without wishing to sound presumptuous, my lord, I was closer to General Craig than many wives are to their husbands and that is no disrespect to Lady Dorothy, and the world seems an empty place without him.’
Afterwards, when they were walking away from the dark, sad house, Edward said, ‘You know, Verity, I’m beginning to think we have got this all wrong. I think we have made an assumption that has made us blind to the truth of the situation.’
‘I think I know what you’re going to say, Edward,’ Verity interjected. ‘What if it was General Craig who was out to do murder and by some chance drank the poison he intended for someone else?’
‘Only, he would have seen it as his duty – as an execution,’ exclaimed Edward, banging his hand into his fist. ‘But who of that company would he have wanted to murder?’
‘Any of them – most of them – I should think,’ said Verity soberly. ‘I mean, we know the Bishop was a convinced pacifist. Craig wouldn’t have liked that, and we have two eyewitnesses who say they actually saw him pass the old man the port with the poison in it.’
‘Yes,’ said Edward, ‘but don’t forget Larmore. Maybe he knew Larmore was selling secrets to the Germans.’
‘Von Friedberg, as a representative of all that he hated in the new Germany, would have been an obvious target if he had wanted to have his revenge on his old enemy.’
‘Mustn’t forget old Gerald,’ said Edward firmly. ‘Maybe he felt guilty because our older brother, you know, would have been duke if he had not been killed in the early days of the war – fighting under whose direct command? General Craig’s, that’s whose. And he may have thought Gerald was making it too easy for the Germans. I mean, all these dinner-parties trying to treat the Nazis as though they were reasonable people. That would have upset him.’
Seeing the distress on Edward’s face, Verity said hurriedly, ‘Weaver has to be the General’s most likely victim though. He was about to reveal an unpleasant story about his shooting German prisoners, wasn’t he? By the way, why didn’t you ask Jeffries about that?’
‘Do you know, Verity, I just couldn’t bear to. Sounds pathetic, I know, but after what he told us of his admiration – no, that’s too weak a word – his hero-worship of the old boy, I couldn’t face his unhappiness if we got on to discussing that. Am I mad?’
‘No,’ said Verity taking his arm, ‘not mad, but I don’t think you are ruthless enough to make a great detective.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Edward agreed glumly. ‘I certainly have it at the back of my mind that I forgot to ask Jeffries one vital question. If only I could think what it was, I would go back and ask him now but for the life of me I can’t.’
‘Hey there, don’t look like that.
The fact that you aren’t ruthless – it makes you a nice man,’ she said, pressing his arm against her, ‘and I never thought I’d say that about a despised enemy of the working classes.’
He laughed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you will stay at the castle tonight, won’t you?’
‘If you wish it and if you promise to protect me, I will,’ said Verity.
‘That’s splendid! Hey! taxi!’ he shouted, walking into the road at risk to life and limb. ‘I’ll drop you off in Hans Crescent and then I’ll go back to Albany, wire Connie we’re coming, and then I’ll come back about five with Fenton and the Lagonda and we can be down in time for dinner. Will that suit you?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Verity, pleased that her saying she would stay at the castle after all had lifted his mood so dramatically. ‘There’s something I have got to do at lunch time but it won’t take long.’
It was only after he had dropped her off at her flat that she realized they still had not reduced the list of suspects. Weaver, Larmore, Friedberg, Haycraft, even the Duke himself had reasons to bump off General Craig, and he had an equal reason for wanting to dispose of any of them. As she held Max in her arms and kissed his furry head she thought, Edward and I are like two dogs chasing each other’s tails. There was a scent – the sweet scent of poisoned wine – but to whom did the scent lead? She put these thoughts aside with a sigh. Before she went to Mersham there was the little matter of a trial she had to attend and it was she who was in the dock.
16
Thursday Afternoon
David Griffiths-Jones grinned at Verity amiably but the other two – a thin-lipped woman of about fifty with iron grey hair tied at the back in a bun and a haggard, depressed-looking man in his thirties, but with the paper-white skin and dull eyes of someone much older – looked at her with something close to malevolence. What did they see, she wondered? She had made an effort to dress sensibly, like a good comrade, but she was aware now that she had failed. She must look irredeemably bourgeois, which of course was what she was. She wore no make-up. She had put on a double-breasted brown tweed coat with a large collar, wide lapels and padded shoulders which she had bought a year ago and never worn. When she had selected it to wear to this ‘kangaroo court’ she thought the outfit had an almost military feel but now she was not so sure. The brown suede shoes were restrained enough and the brown felt hat was serious but she saw now that she ought to have resisted the feather. All in all, she looked less like a soldier of the proletarian struggle than a county lady who hunted three times a week and owned several large dogs. Neither image reflected the reality, as anyone with half an eye could see. She was, in fact, a pretty, lively girl blessed with intelligence and a strong sense of the ridiculous.
‘Verity, this is Comrade Lake,’ David said, indicating the thin-lipped woman. Verity smiled but this was obviously the wrong thing to do: Comrade Lake pursed her lips even more tightly, if that were possible, but otherwise made no sign of being aware of the introduction. ‘And this is Comrade Peterson. He has to catch the night train to Glasgow so he doesn’t have very much time – indeed, neither do any of us,’ he added, seeing Comrade Lake bristle.
‘Is this some sort of court?’ demanded Verity, suddenly angry. ‘I thought, David, that you just wanted to have a talk about my future with the Party.’
‘This is not a court, Verity,’ said David soothingly, ‘but we are a little concerned about your . . . your commitment to the Party. You have been absent from several meetings in the last few days and your participation was required in the Hoxton protest but you were absent. Why was that?’
‘I have been busy,’ said Verity guiltily. She could see where this line of questioning was leading and she did not like it.
‘Busy?’ echoed David.
‘Yes, you instructed me to infiltrate the German embassy, if you remember.’ She was rather pleased with the word ‘infiltrate’.
‘Don’t answer Comrade Griffiths-Jones in that tone of voice,’ said the woman, who reminded Verity of the headmistress of one of the four boarding schools she had briefly attended before being asked to leave. ‘As a Party worker you must obey the instructions of comrades senior to you in the Party and not absent yourself from Party meetings without permission.’
‘You are spending a great deal of time with Edward Corinth, are you not?’ said David.
‘Yes,’ said Verity, ‘and before you ask, I do not approve of him and he is not my lover or anything like that. We are trying to discover who murdered General Craig – that is all.’
She could not quite think why but she felt when she said this as though she was not being entirely honest and that made her crosser than ever.
‘But why should you wish to know who murdered General Craig, if indeed anyone did? He is of no importance – dead or alive. He was an imperialist warmonger and now he is dead,’ demanded Comrade Peterson in a smoker’s wheeze.
‘There is such a thing as justice,’ said Verity unwisely.
‘Aye, there is,’ said Comrade Peterson. ‘These people you have been involved with – what do they understand by justice, these dukes and lords? Do they believe in economic justice?’ he said bitterly. ‘Do they not believe they have the right to exploit other people for profit? Is that justice, comrade?’
‘No,’ said Verity, abashed at the man’s passion. Comrade Peterson was, she knew instinctively, talking from personal experience of poverty, starvation and despair which she could only guess at. She felt humbled. Maybe they were right; perhaps trying to discover who had killed General Craig was an irrelevance, and yet, surely, once one man’s death ceased to be important then no man’s death was significant.
David said, ‘You see, comrade, the people you are mixing with are charming, even well meaning, and that is what makes them so dangerous. They are born to be enemies of the working class. It is important that you go among these people, as you must do, as their enemy. Your one reason for being with Lord Edward Corinth and his kind is to defeat them. Do you understand?’
Without waiting for an answer, he continued: ‘I don’t suppose for one moment that the Duke of Mersham is other than a kindly old fellow who would be distraught if he thought one child was hungry on his account, but the fact is, the wealth of this country – you must have heard your father say this often enough – is owned by a tiny percentage of the population and it is this wealth we in the Party are determined to redistribute. That is what we mean by justice. To put it crudely: the stock exchange must be pulled down and the country houses must be turned into holiday camps for the children of the working class.’
He held up his hand to stop her speaking. ‘The greatest danger is that these good-natured drones – men like your friend Lord Edward Corinth, who have no social purpose – these people are giving the Fascists the power and confidence to delay our victory. Men like your duke are not bad in themselves but they are self-deceived; they think they can negotiate with the Fascists, talk to them as though they were reasonable people, but they are not. That, at least, is something General Craig understood. Even Weaver – with all his money and his newspapers – may not be totally corrupt but that makes him all the more dangerous. He tries to make deals with Hitler’s cronies, men like your friend Baron von Friedberg, and he persuades politicians and the poor fools who read his newspapers that it is possible to talk to these men.’
‘He offered you a job, did he not, comrade?’ said Comrade Lake, turning from philosophy to the particular.
‘Yes,’ said Verity, ‘but I turned him down.’
‘That was foolish of you,’ the woman said. ‘Why did you not consult Comrade Griffiths-Jones or another comrade before taking that decision?’
‘You would have wanted me to work for the bourgeois press?’ exclaimed Verity.
‘Of course! We must use every means we can to bring about the revolution. The Daily Worker is an excellent organ and we are all grateful to your father for supporting it, but we are realists, comrade. The Daily Worker reaches Party members and, I
regret to say, there are far too few of us. We have to tell the masses what is happening and why they should join us.’
This had been David’s line, Verity recalled, and she still found it cynical. ‘You want me to tell Lord Weaver I have changed my mind and that I will write for the New Gazette?’
‘That is correct,’ David said. ‘Tell him you are going to Spain and you wish to report on the political situation there.’
‘But I have no intention of going to Spain!’ Verity said.
‘Yes, you will accompany me to Madrid and Barcelona on Saturday. I have your ticket. If you let me have your passport I will get the necessary visas. There is much of interest happening in that country and we must do what we can to support the struggle. You will find it educational.’
When Verity left the shabby little room in East London – the Party headquarters – she was still in a state of shock. She recognized that she had been chastised and brought to heel. She had been given an opportunity of recovering her position in the Party through unquestioning obedience. She understood that she had met three senior members of the Party on an official footing, so they must think she might be useful; that did something for her self-esteem. However, she had now to part from Edward Corinth – that was one of the reasons she was being ordered abroad – and she found this surprisingly hard to accept. Maybe they were right – the comrades – maybe she was being seduced by the easy charm of the aristocracy. Life for a comrade should not be easy and her life had been easy, she knew that. She had a talent for investigation, for getting to the truth, and she was being invited – no, ordered – to put this at the service of the Party. She could not bear duplicity but what if the Party demanded it – for the sake of the Party? What if the truth, as she saw it, was not palatable to the Party? All her upbringing, all her father’s teaching, all her own natural sympathy, lay with socialist ideals and surely David was right: the ends justify the means – victory for socialism was inevitable and her task was to help see it was not delayed.
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