The Incident at Fives Castle (An Angela Marchmont Mystery #5)

by Clara Benson

  Yes, Claude certainly might have done it. How had it happened? Presumably he must have seen Professor Klausen arrive some time that evening, either during the dance or afterwards. Angela could easily imagine the scene: Claude greeting the professor heartily and inviting him along to the library where they could converse briefly in private. Perhaps he had even said that the Foreign Secretary was waiting there to speak to him. Once in the library, Klausen, completely unsuspecting, had wandered over to the globe—just as she had done herself last night. Then what had happened? Angela saw in her mind’s eye Claude taking the gun out of his pocket and coming up behind the professor. Possibly he had intended to shoot him in the back, but Klausen, perhaps suspecting something, had turned around suddenly and Claude had shot him in the heart instead. Angela pictured Klausen’s shocked expression just before he slumped to the floor, dead. Claude immediately bent down and rifled through the man’s pockets and brought out the papers. Had he put them in his own pocket or had he hidden them there and then? She and Freddy had not succeeded in finding anything in the library, but that was not to say the documents were not there. However, she was more inclined to believe that Claude had taken them away with him. Then what? It depended on when the murder had taken place. If it were earlier in the evening, then Claude could not afford to be away from the dance for too long, or he would be missed. In that case, he must have hidden Klausen’s body behind the globe, planning to come back and hide it properly afterwards. If it were later—perhaps after the game of Sardines had begun—then presumably he immediately picked up the body, carried it next door and put it in the chest, intending to dispose of it at his leisure once the snow had melted. The Fives estate covered hundreds of acres, and there were plenty of places to conceal a body where he could be sure it would never be found.

  It was the oddest thing. Angela had not thought much of Claude, but she would never have believed him to be a traitor and a killer. But Eleanor’s evidence—if she was telling the truth—confirmed it beyond doubt. Mrs. Buchanan’s odd manner had made Angela suspect originally that Claude might be in her power, but as it turned out, it was the other way round. He had known her secret and had blackmailed her into handing over the second copy of the papers. That meant he must have both of them in his possession. Were they the only copies in existence? If so, then it was vital that they be found as soon as possible.

  Sandy Buchanan was saying something to Lady Strathmerrick. Angela caught Mrs. Buchanan’s eye and Eleanor gave her a wan smile in return. What would the Foreign Secretary say when he found out the secret that his wife had been hiding from him? Angela supposed the next hour or so would be an uncomfortable one, to say the least, for both of the Buchanans.

  Lunch was soon over, much to everyone’s relief, and the guests went off to their various pursuits. Freddy wanted to speak to Angela but was waylaid by Priss and Gertie, who bore him off into the depths of the castle for some mysterious purpose. Henry caught Angela’s eye as they left the room and made a sign to her to wait. She watched as he went up to Lord Strathmerrick and murmured something into his ear. The Earl glanced over at her and nodded, and Henry returned to her.

  ‘Lord Strathmerrick says we may use his study,’ he said.

  The study was a comfortable, informal place, set about with several easy chairs and newspapers. It looked more like a refuge to which the Earl came to get some peace from his family than a room in which important business was done.

  ‘Is this where Lord Strathmerrick holds his meetings?’ said Angela, looking about her.

  ‘Some of them,’ said Henry. He went over to a connecting door and opened it, and Angela saw beyond it a more spacious chamber with a big table in the middle, around which were placed about twenty chairs. ‘The more formal ones take place in here.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s more how I imagined it,’ said Angela with a smile. Henry closed the door and came towards her.

  ‘I gather you have something to tell me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Angela, immediately serious, ‘and I’m afraid it’s rather dreadful.’

  Without further ado she told him what had happened that morning, and about her conversation with Eleanor Buchanan. His expression grew as serious as hers but he showed no surprise; nor did he make any comment until she had finished her tale.

  ‘Do you think she was telling the truth?’ he said finally.

  ‘I have no reason to doubt her,’ replied Angela. ‘Of course, she may have made it all up on the spot and may herself be the person we are looking for, but it didn’t strike me like that—and of course, if she was telling lies then it will be easy enough to disprove them. At any rate, I suppose we shall know soon enough, when we find out whether she has confessed all to her husband, as she promised.’

  Henry said nothing, but he was thinking hard. He was not a man who took action precipitately in general, but this was clearly an exceptional case.

  ‘I don’t need to tell you that this is a very serious and delicate matter, Mrs. Marchmont,’ he said.

  ‘No indeed,’ said Angela. ‘To be perfectly frank, I can hardly believe what I have heard—but the fact remains that a man is dead and some very important documents are missing, so someone has evidently been up to no good, and that someone must, when all is said and done, have been somebody who knew what was going on here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry slowly.

  ‘What exactly do you know about Claude Burford, Mr. Jameson?’ said Angela. ‘Presumably he was thought to be above suspicion until now. If he is guilty, then there must be some reason for it. Why is he spying for another country? Of course, I only know what I have read in the newspapers and what you told me last night, but it looks to me as though this scandal goes much further than you thought.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry again.

  ‘I believe Ogilvy was thought to have no idea of what was going on under his nose,’ said Angela hesitantly.

  ‘There was some suspicion at the time that he might have known more than he would say,’ said Henry at last. ‘The idea did cross my mind at the time. But if anything, I thought he perhaps suspected Golovin but was induced by friendship to turn a blind eye. After all, the man was the Home Secretary. It was inconceivable that there was anything more to it than that. It’s still inconceivable, in fact.’

  ‘Where is Ogilvy now?’ said Angela.

  ‘After he resigned his seat he went to live abroad,’ said Henry. ‘I believe he and his wife went to Switzerland. She was ill at the time of the Golovin scandal, and Ogilvy had been spending much of his time at her side. He claimed that was the reason for his not having been aware of Golovin’s activities.’

  Angela considered a moment.

  ‘It really does seem absurd to think that Ogilvy knew what was going on,’ she said, ‘and, you know, there is no reason to suppose that he was involved in any way. The Golovins and the Ogilvys were friends, and Mrs. Buchanan had seen Claude once or twice before. It is quite possible that Claude was recruited by Stephen Golovin, don’t you think?’

  ‘I hope so. That would make the situation marginally less outrageous,’ said Henry dryly. ‘A spy in the House is already bad enough without his turning out to be the Home Secretary. Dear me,’ he went on. ‘If Burford is indeed our man, then it looks as though someone has slipped up rather badly in my department—and since to all intents and purposes I am the department, then it looks as though I will shortly be hauled over the coals.’

  ‘Poor you,’ said Angela in sympathy.

  ‘Still, that’s not important at present,’ said Henry. ‘The question is, what ought we to do now? First of all I suppose we ought to confirm Mrs. Buchanan’s story, since we will need her evidence—if it ever gets that far. Then we will need to decide what to do about Burford.’

  ‘If he is the killer then it may be too dangerous to confront him directly,’ said Angela.

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘and since the most important thing is to retrieve the papers, it may even be necessary to let him go
for the moment.’

  Angela was about to reply when there was a soft knock at the door and Sandy Buchanan entered. One look at his face was enough to tell them that Eleanor had kept her word and confessed all.

  ‘Strathmerrick told me I should find you in here,’ he said. Angela made a move to leave the room but he held up a hand and said, ‘No, no, stay, I beg of you. I gather my wife has told you everything, and I have you to thank for the fact that she has now told me.’

  Angela and Henry glanced at each other but said nothing. Buchanan went on:

  ‘I shan’t trouble you with my own feelings on this matter, except to say that sometimes women can be extraordinarily foolish—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Marchmont. No, the most important thing now is to decide what to do. Clearly, it is of prime importance that we find the papers.’

  ‘Presumably Burford has both copies,’ said Jameson. ‘If he has any sense at all he will have hidden them in two different places, although of course we only need to find one of them.’

  Buchanan shook his head. For a second he looked almost sheepish.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not true. Unfortunately, our job is a little more difficult than that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Henry.

  The Foreign Secretary sighed.

  ‘The two sets of documents are not the same,’ he said.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘What?’ said Henry.

  ‘I suppose I had better explain,’ said Buchanan. ‘You see, when Klausen told us that he was ready to present his research, I insisted that he give me a copy of it for additional security. As you know, Jameson, Klausen had received warnings from one or two somewhat—er—excitable foreign organizations to say that if he refused to work for them then his life was no longer safe, and that they were determined to get hold of his research by hook or by crook. Naturally, we were equally determined that they should not, and in order to prevent any disaster of that nature, Klausen and I agreed that he should make two copies of the documents and give one of them to me to carry up to Scotland, so the enemy should know that it was useless to attack him. Of course, since he believed himself to be under observation at all times, this plan would only work if he gave the papers to me somewhere in full view of the public. Accordingly, we met on the Embankment last week and the hand-over took place.

  ‘It seems, however, that this was not enough for Klausen. He firmly believed that nobody except himself was to be trusted in the matter—and he extended this mistrust to those in government, as he informed me quite openly. Therefore, he said, he had taken additional precautions on his own initiative, by making one real copy of the documents and one dummy one that contained fake calculations and conclusions, and putting them in identical envelopes. He himself had no idea whether the copy he had given me was the real one or the fake one. Thus, if anything did happen to him, then nobody in Whitehall would know whether the documents were valid, and the enemy was as likely as not to have gone to the trouble of killing him for nothing. Of course, it never occurred to either of us that anything would happen at Fives itself—we thought that once we were here we should be quite safe. How wrong we were. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, Jameson,’ he said, ‘but Klausen insisted on my not mentioning it to anybody.’

  Henry shook his head.

  ‘He really ought to have trusted us,’ he said. ‘Then we might have protected him.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Buchanan. ‘I should say that in view of what has happened, his suspicions were entirely justified. Now,’ he went on briskly, ‘we must act. There will be hell to pay soon enough, for us and for the Government, but first of all we must find those papers. Where is Burford now?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Jameson.

  ‘He was talking to Lady Strathmerrick when we left the dining-room,’ said Angela.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Foreign Secretary. ‘I shall find him and hold him in conversation, Jameson, while you go and search his room. Mrs. Marchmont, wait here if you please.’

  The two men went out and Angela was left alone in the study. She was not a little impressed by the Foreign Secretary’s ability to put aside personal catastrophe in order to deal with more pressing affairs. It must have been a terrible shock to him to discover the secret that his new wife had been hiding from him. Once the news got out it was likely to deal an enormous blow to his political career, and it would be a wonder if he could survive it—but nevertheless he had shaken it off in order to concentrate on the thing that mattered the most at present: the return of Klausen’s documents. Few men could have done the same, Angela reflected, and she began to see why people had spoken of Sandy Buchanan as being one day likely to become Prime Minister. He was immensely capable, there was no doubt of it, and if anyone could weather the scandal of having unwittingly married the sister of a foreign spy then Sandy Buchanan was that man.

  An hour passed, and Angela was growing rather bored alone in the study and wondering whether she might leave, when Henry and the Foreign Secretary returned, this time in company with Lord Strathmerrick.

  ‘Have you found the documents?’ Angela could not help asking as soon as they arrived.

  Henry shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Either he’s hidden them somewhere safe or he’s carrying them about his person.’

  ‘But this is terrible,’ said the Earl, who had evidently just that moment been informed that his prospective son-in-law was rather less of a suitable match for his daughter than he had supposed, and was still reeling from the shock. ‘Are you sure of this, Jameson? Is there any proof? Forgive me, Buchanan, but are you quite certain your wife was telling the truth? After all, she has been lying up to now.’

  ‘Yes, she has,’ said Buchanan unemotionally, ‘and naturally I’m extremely disappointed in her. I don’t need to tell you that it has been a great shock to me to discover what my wife has done; however, given the circumstances it was perfectly understandable. She is young and easily swayed by a stronger personality, and I know she believed her actions to be the only way to prevent me from being forced to resign my position. Naturally, her biggest mistake was in not telling me who she was from the beginning, but whatever her mistakes have been, I know for a certain fact that she is not by nature a dishonest woman. At least I can comfort myself with that thought.’

  ‘But she may well have ruined your career, Buchanan,’ said the Earl.

  The Foreign Secretary bowed his head.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘It was not intentional, however. But let us not talk about it any more. What’s done is done, and now we shall both have to live with the consequences.’

  He did not say that it had been foolish of a man in his position to marry a young woman of whom he knew nothing, but he did not need to: they all knew it. He was not the first great man to marry unwisely and nor would he be the last. He coughed and went on:

  ‘At present, my personal concerns are unimportant. What is important is the recovery of the documents. Strathmerrick, how far have the men got in clearing a path to the village? Once they have got through, there is nothing preventing Burford from escaping. We must stop him before that happens. Can we overpower him, do you think?’

  ‘Is there any need for that?’ said Jameson. ‘At present he doesn’t suspect that we know, and so presumably doesn’t realize that he needs to escape.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ acknowledged the Foreign Secretary. ‘Well, then—’

  Just then there was a knock at the door and Claude himself came in. He glanced around at the assembled company and his eye fell on Angela.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I had no idea you were having a private discussion.’

  ‘Oh, we weren’t, my boy,’ said the Earl heartily. ‘Come in. Mrs. Marchmont was just telling us about a mysterious intruder she saw on the night of the murder.’

  ‘Yes—’ began Angela, thinking quickly, but Claude waved a hand and said,

  ‘Don’t worry, I shan’t disturb you. I only c
ame to give you this.’ He brought out a key and handed it to Lord Strathmerrick. ‘It’s the key to the second-floor bedroom, where we have put the professor,’ he said in reply to the Earl’s questioning glance. ‘I wanted to make sure that nobody would be able to get in and disturb the body.’

  ‘Ah, yes, jolly good,’ said Strathmerrick uncomfortably.

  Claude smiled around at them all and went out. There was a strained silence.

  ‘Well, if he didn’t suspect it before, he does now,’ said Henry at last. ‘Did you say the men had finished clearing the path, sir?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said the Earl.

  ‘Well, then, he can’t get away,’ said Sandy Buchanan. ‘We have him where we want him.’

  Angela opened her mouth as though to say something, but changed her mind.

  ‘What is it?’ Henry asked.

  She turned to him.

  ‘Just that—don’t you think he might do something desperate if he knows he’s in danger?’ she said.

  ‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ he said, ‘but I think it’s time we had a word with him, certainly.’ He glanced around at the other two men. ‘Do you suppose we can overpower him between us?’ he said.

  ‘We might,’ said the Foreign Secretary, ‘but I wouldn’t say no to some help from the American chappies. They’ve got plenty of brawn on them.’

  ‘Good God,’ said the Earl, ‘are you seriously suggesting that we restrain a respectable Member of Parliament by force on a mere suspicion?’

  ‘Only if necessary,’ said Henry grimly. He strode to the door. Slow to action, he was nevertheless determined once action was needed. Sandy Buchanan followed him, his jaw set. Lord Strathmerrick and Angela stood in hesitation for a moment or two.

  ‘They can’t arrest Claude,’ said the Earl eventually. ‘Why, he and Priss are supposed to be getting married next year. What is she going to do now?’

  ‘Find someone else, I imagine,’ said Angela. There seemed no other reply.