The Belting Inheritance

by Julian Symons

“As a matter of fact I don’t, this seemed to be a toast-drinking occasion, that’s all. But perhaps you’d prefer that snake juice – ”

  “No, thanks.”

  We had almost finished the bottle when Uncle Miles reappeared, his face preternaturally solemn. “Yours is flat, but you’ll have to drink it just the same,” Betty said.

  Uncle Miles took his glass, absent-mindedly gulped it down, then addressed me. “Christopher, Mamma is dead.”

  It began to rain when we returned to England, and it was still raining when we buried her in Filehurst churchyard.

  A dozen people stood by the graveside as the coffin was lowered into the earth. She had died on the morning that we had found Hugh, and I was glad that she had never learned the truth about Hugh and David, but had died in the belief that her son had come home. With this feeling there was another too, one which I did not like to acknowledge, relief that her benevolent tyranny was over and that my own independent life was about to begin.

  Humphries, bowler hatted and wearing a black tie, was waiting for us when we got back to the house. He read the will in the drawing-room. Stephen was itching to ask questions, but Humphries shook his head. “I think it will be best if I read the will first, Mr Wainwright.” Stephen began to tell him about David, but the solicitor interrupted. “With your permission, Mr Wainwright, I should prefer to read the will.”

  He sat in an arm-chair, took stiff sheets of paper out of a long envelope, and began. “This is the last will and testament of me, Jessica Mary Wainwright…” How easily I could summon up the image of her on that first afternoon in Woking, with her hair piled up under the tall hat with the feather in it, and how long ago that seemed. But what was Humphries saying?

  “…I give to my three children, David who has recently returned to me, Stephen and Miles, an equal share in all my goods and property. I wish to express my appreciation to Stephen and Miles, and to Stephen’s wife Clarissa, for the devotion with which they have looked after me in my declining years, and I should like to say how sure I am that their care for me has not been motivated by any thought of future gain. If it were otherwise I would be grievously disappointed, and so would they.

  “To Christopher Barrington I leave the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, with my thanks for his help with the book about the Egyptian Wars. I trust that he will one day complete this, and that it will bring him a considerable financial reward.

  “To Ellen Peterson I leave the sum of one hundred pounds, with thanks to her for the years of faithful service she has given…”

  Two hundred and fifty pounds. I could hardly take it in. I looked at Stephen and Miles and saw that they were as bewildered as I. Humphries finished reading, coughed, and began to fold up the will. Stephen broke silence, speaking in a kind of high-pitched gasp. “I don’t understand. What does it mean?”

  “It means, Mr Wainwright, that your mother had very little money to leave. She made the few bequests you have heard, and divided the rest equally among her children. There is the house, of course, but it is mortgaged.”

  “Mortgaged! But Mamma was rich.”

  “I am afraid not. She was left sufficiently well off when her husband died, but perhaps she was never quite as rich as you may have thought.”

  “I thought there was – would be – two hundred thousand pounds.” Stephen stopped, as though conscious of the impropriety of naming a sum.

  “Oh dear me no, there was never anything like that, nor even half of it. And then during the five years after the end of the war she plunged quite disastrously in the stock market. Strongly against my advice, I need hardly say. Recently she has speculated less, but even so her income had been further reduced. In a few years’ time things might have become very difficult indeed.”

  “Do you mean there is nothing.” Stephen could not control the shrillness of his voice.

  “There is a certain amount in the bank, and there are a few shares that are worth something. And there is the estate. It is mortgaged, as I mentioned, but for considerably less than its value. Lady Wainwright realised, however, that it would be impossible for any of you to maintain it. It will have to be sold.”

  Uncle Miles began to laugh, not hysterically but with genuine amusement. I had never liked him so much as at that moment. “It’s like Treasure Island, isn’t it? You remember when they found Flint’s treasure chest, and it was empty. It was all for nothing, our staying with Mamma all these years, and Hugh’s trick was all for nothing too. Dear Mamma, she’s certainly had more brains than her sons.”

  Clarissa bayed deeply. “It’s an outrage. After all the years we spent looking after her. An outrage.”

  “I shall want to see the figures.” That was Stephen again. His voice had come down a note or two.

  “By all means,” Humphries said coolly. “Whenever you wish.”

  “I dare say there’ll be a few thousand for each of us,” Miles said cheerfully. He turned to me. “But what about you.”

  “Two hundred and fifty won’t see me through the university.”

  “It certainly won’t. What will you do?”

  “I shall get married.”

  Epilogue

  All this happened a long time ago, and it seems even longer than it is. Elaine and I didn’t share a wedding with Uncle Miles and Betty as they suggested, because I hadn’t got a job. In the spring of the following year, however, I became a reporter on a Sussex paper, and we decided not to wait any longer. A couple of years later I moved to a national, the Banner, and a year after that our son was born. We gave him Hugh Blakeney as Christian names. Our daughter, born a couple of years later, was named Betty, and Betty Wainwright is her godmother. Soon after that I was made Washington correspondent of the Banner, and I’ve been there ever since. I like the life. Elaine gave up working before Hugh Blakeney was born, and never went back to it.

  I come to England four weeks in every year, but find it rather slow and smug. Elaine often comes with me but one year when she didn’t, and when I’d been down to Sussex for lunch with an aspiring politician, I took a wrong road back to London and was surprised to find myself within a few miles of Belting. It seemed natural to turn the car’s bonnet that way.

  I nearly passed the drive, because it had been so much changed. There were concrete gates and a sign that said: Experimental Weapons School, Admin. Branch (E). There was a man in uniform on the gate, but a good many trees had been cut down and I was able to see the house. It looked smaller than I had remembered, and it no longer reminded me of a church but seemed to be simply a piece of ugly red Victorian Gothic. I stared at it for a few seconds without feeling anything, and then drove on.

  I have never seen Stephen since I left Belting, but I believe that he and Clarissa are now breeding dogs in Dorset. We exchanged Christmas cards for a year or two and then dropped it. Miles is still married to Betty, and I believe they are very happy. We see them rarely, but Miles still writes me chatty letters, which I answer with shorter and less interesting ones. Betty insisted that he must have a job, and bought an advertising business for him, which Miles runs. I have his last letter in front of me now.

  The routine is fairly boring, but I do like writing copy. Here is my latest masterpiece, written for Bronk’s steak and kidney pies. Mum is leaning out of the window calling to the children, a Bronk’s pie piping hot on the table behind her. She calls:

  Jack and Jill and George and Sidney,

  Come and get it! Steak and kidney!!

  Growing girls and boys all just

  Adore its crispy flaky crust.

  Good, eh? Anyway the client liked it.

  Most of my youthful notions have been forgotten, and I doubt if Betty would call me a romantic now – even abroad is not what it was since I’ve been living there so long – but when I read one of Miles’ letters the past comes up vividly. I see again the arrival of the claimant in the courtyard on that July day and am taken back to the world of Belting, to the strippling ream and the daylight lamps in the corridors
and the battle of Tel-el-Kebir laid out on the floor of the Pam Moor.

  Inspector Bland

  (in order of first publication)

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. The Immaterial Murder Case 1945

  2. A Man Called Jones 1947

  3. Bland Beginning 1949

  Inspector Crambo

  (in order of first publication)

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. The Narrowing Circle 1954

  2. The Gigantic Shadow also as: The Pipe Dream 1947

  Joan Kahn-Harper Titles

  (in order of first publication)

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. The Man Who Killed Himself 1967

  2. The Man Who Lost His Wife 1967

  3. The Man Whose Dreams Came True 1968

  4. The Players & The Game 1972

  5. The Plot Against Roger Rider 1973

  Sheridan Haynes

  1. A Three Pipe Problem 1975

  Novels

  (in order of first publication)

  1. The 31st of February 1950

  2. The Broken Penny 1953

  3. The Paper Chase also as: Bogue’s Fortune 1956

  4. The Colour of Murder 1957

  5. The Progress of a Crime 1960

  6. The Killing of Francie Lake also as: The Plain Man 1962

  7. The End of Solomon Grundy 1964

  8. The Belting Inheritance 1965

  Non-Fiction

  1. Horatio Bottomley 1955

  2. Buller’s Campaign The Boer War & His Career 1974

  3. Thomas Carlyle The Life & Ideas of a Prophet 1952

  4. England’s Pride General Gordon of Khartoum 1954

  5. The General Strike 1959

  6. The Thirties 1960

  7. Tell-Tale Heart The Life & Works of Edgar Allen Poe 1978

  Synopses of Symons’ Titles

  Published by House of Stratus

  The 31st February

  Anderson was a bored, unhappy sales executive longing for something to liven up his monotonous life. But perhaps he wished too hard because it was not long before he found his wife lying dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs. An accident of course - so why wouldn’t the police believe him?

  The Belting Inheritance

  When a stranger arrives at Belting, he is met with a very mixed reception by the occupants of the old house. Claiming his so-called ‘rightful inheritance’ the stranger makes plans to take up residence at once. Such a thing was bound to cause problems amongst the family - but why were so many of them turning up dead?

  Bland Beginning

  A purchase at a second-hand bookshop seems an innocent enough event. Tony Shelton hadn’t expected it to be anything but that - and he certainly hadn’t expected it to throw him head first into the world of violence, blackmail and robbery. For it becomes clear that the book has a rather higher price than he paid for it - a price that was to lead to murder..

  The Broken Penny

  An Eastern-block country, shaped like a broken penny, was being torn apart by warring resistance movements. Only one man could unite the hostile factions - Professor Jacob Arbitzer. Arbitzer, smuggled into the country by Charles Garden during the Second World War, has risen to become president, only to have to be smuggled out again when the communists gained control. Under pressure from the British Government who want him reinstated, Arbitzer agreed to return on one condition; that Charles Garden again escort him. The Broken Penny is a thrilling spy adventure brilliantly recreating the chilling conditions of the Cold War.

  Buller’s Campaign

  A powerful and invaluable reassessment of the life of General Buller and of the part he played in British military history. Beginning with his struggle for the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1895, it goes on to portray his role in the Boer War, and on its path, reveals many of the Victorian Imperialist attitudes of the day. A man of numerous failures, General Buller has been treated unkindly by history but Symons here seeks to paint a more rounded picture. Whilst never attempting to excuse the General’s mistakes, he portrays Buller as a complex and often misunderstood character and reveals the deep ironies that surrounded so much of what he achieved. An exceptional book and an outstanding contribution to military history.

  The Colour of Murder

  John Wilkins was a gentle, mild-mannered man who lived a simple, predictable life. So when he met a beautiful, irresistible girl his world was turned upside down. Looking at his wife, and thinking of the girl, everything turned red before his eyes - the colour of murder. Later, his mind a blank, his only defence was that he loved his wife far too much to hurt her.

  The End of Solomon Grundy

  When a girl turns up dead in a Mayfair mews, the police want to write it off as just another murdered prostitute, but Superintendent Manners isn’t quite so sure. He is convinced that the key to the crime lies in ‘The Dell’, an affluent suburban housing estate. And in ‘The Dell’ lives Solomon Grundy. Could he have killed the girl? So Superintendent Manners thinks.

  England’s Pride

  General Gordon, charged with the task of defending Khartoum, was stabbed to death on 26 January 1885 when the Mahdi’s forces took the town by storm. Two days later, the Expeditionary force arrived to relieve Gordon but found the town firmly in the hands of the Mahdi. In England’s Pride, Julian Symons tells the story of the disastrous and tragic failure of this mission. Analysing events from both a political and military stance, and consulting a wide range of sources, he questions why the Gladstone Government had not acted sooner in the first place, and then, once orders had been given, what contributed to the complex chain of events that was ultimately to thwart the relieving force. Capturing in brilliant detail all the glory of Victorian times, England’s Pride is a vivid and dramatic book on a sorely neglected subject.

  The General Strike

  In May 1926, Britain was gripped by what became known as the General Strike. This downing of tools lasted for nine days, during which time it divided the people, threatened the survival of the government of the day and brought the country nearer to revolution that it perhaps had ever been. In this accurate and lively account, Symons draws on contemporary press reports, letters and oral sources, along with TUC records to provide an invaluable historical account of the remarkable event and the people and places that featured so prominently in it.

  The Gigantic Shadow

  Bill Hunter, TV personality, made his living by asking the rich and famous difficult and highly personal questions. But when the tables were turned and he found himself being asked about his own rather murky past, he wasn’t quite so sure of himself. Out of a job and little hope of finding another, he teamed up with the reckless Anthea to embark upon a dangerous and deadly plan that was to have murderous consequences.

  Horation Bottomley

  Horatio Bottomley was one of the most flamboyant characters of the twentieth century. From his inauspicious beginnings as a child in an orphanage, he made a series of extremely shrewd financial investments, went on to achieve Parliamentary success, and was reputed to have a mind to equal the finest legal brains in the country. From these dizzy heights he fell to sudden bankruptcy and the remainder of his life proved to be an eternal repeat of the cycle - huge success (he was nearly included in the post-war cabinet) to complete ruin. In this superb biography, Julian Symons brilliantly captures all the irony and drama in the life of this remarkable man, and creates a very readable, and all-too-poignant story of success and failure.

  The Immaterial Murder Case

  ‘Most immaterialists are a little mad. If you ever meet one, you should be most careful to keep your fingers crossed.’ American-born John Wilson and his troop of distinguished friends were well known in the fashionable parts of London. And at their social gatherings the very latest fad was ‘immaterialism’, and the quest for the perfect im
material work of art - but what they hadn’t expected to find was the perfect immaterial murder.

  The Killing of Francie Lake

  Octavius Gaye, founder and creator of the hugely successful magazine empire, Plain Man Enterprises, saw himself as the original ‘plain man’. The truth however was rather different as Gaye was an unscrupulous tycoon with a strangely captivating nature who surrounded himself by a series of weak-willed puppets that he manipulated to his heart’s content. One such puppet was Francie Lake and as the plot unfolds, Symons reveals how and why Francie simply had to die.

  Tell-Tale Heart: The Life & Works of Edgar Allen Poe

  This biography strips away the myths that have grown up around the life of Edgar Allen Poe, and provides a completely fresh assessment of both the man and his work. Symons reveals Poe as his contemporaries saw him - a man struggling to make a living out of hack journalism and striving to find a backer for his new magazine, and a man whose life was beset by so many tragedies that he was often driven to excessive drinking and a string of unhealthy relationships. Fittingly written by another master in the art of crime writing, The Tell-Tale Heart brilliantly portrays the original creator of the detective story and reveals him as the genius, and unashamed plagiarist, that he was.

  A Man Called Jones

  The office party was in full swing so no one heard the shot, fired at close range through the back of Lionel Hargreaves, elder son of the founder of ‘Hargreaves Advertising Agency’. The killer left only one clue; a pair of yellow gloves, but it looked almost as if he had wanted them to be found. As Inspector Bland sets out to solve the murder, he encounters a deadly trail of deception, suspense, and two more dead bodies.