‘Yes, it was rage all right.’
‘There’s one odd thing, my lord. Do you see here?’ The sergeant stabbed a chubby finger at the photograph.
‘What is it? It looks like a fountain pen.’
‘That’s just what it is. See, this next photograph – it’s a closeup.’
Edward studied it carefully. ‘It’s one of those fountain pens clerks use, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s a Waterman. You can get them at any stationer.’
‘There’s no cap on it.’
‘No, we haven’t found that yet. It seems as though either the murderer or Mr Thayer was going to write something and it got knocked on to the floor.’
‘It doesn’t – it didn’t – belong to Mr Thayer?’
‘No, the servants are adamant that it was not his. In any case, his Parker was still in his jacket pocket. We’ve looked at cheques and letters Mr Thayer wrote recently and they were all written with his Parker.’
‘So this is an important clue?’
The sergeant sighed. ‘Yes, but there are thousands of people with pens like this.’
‘No fingerprints, I suppose?’
‘None we have been able to make out.’
Edward continued leafing through the photographs. ‘The time of death?’
‘Well, as you can see, Mr Thayer was in his dinner jacket – the servants said he dined alone and then dismissed them before going into his study. That was about eleven or eleven fifteen. Apparently, he often worked in his study after dinner. There’s a half-smoked cigar in the ashtray on his desk – one of the Monte Cristos from the box you can see in that photograph. He normally went to bed about one in the morning so it looks like he was killed between, say, eleven thirty and maybe one or thereabouts. The medical evidence supports that.’
‘No glasses? I mean – he didn’t take a glass of brandy in with him?’
‘There was brandy in the study with one glass on the tray, but he hadn’t touched it so, if he expected a visitor, he made no obvious preparations we can see.’
‘Was he working on anything special when he was killed?’
‘No. It looks as if he had been sitting in his chair smoking his cigar and thinking.’
‘Or waiting.’
‘Or waiting, yes, my lord.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant. You have been most kind to satisfy my curiosity.’
‘No bother, my lord.’
‘I suppose I can’t keep this photograph . . .’
‘Oh no, sir, that would be more than my life’s worth.’
Before Edward could say anything more, the communicating door opened and Pride appeared. ‘Ah, Lord Edward, not gone yet? Willis, will you come in here.’
With an apologetic smile, Sergeant Willis left him alone. On an impulse, Edward took the photograph he had been examining, slid it into an empty envelope from a pile on the sergeant’s desk and left hurriedly. Damn it, he thought, I’m reduced to thieving now. What would Verity say!
As it happened, he had an opportunity of asking her because, on returning to his rooms in Albany, Fenton informed him that she had visited while he had been out.
‘Good Lord, Fenton, I didn’t even know she was in England.’
‘No, sir. The young lady asked me to convey to you her disappointment at having missed you and inquired whether you might be free to take her for dinner this evening.’
Edward had no difficulty in interpreting this as: ‘I’m hopping mad not to find you in and I demand you meet me tonight.’
‘Very good, Fenton. Did she leave a telephone number?’
‘Yes, my lord. She said to tell you she is at the New Gazette.’
Edward looked at his hunter. It was two o’clock. ‘Get her on the blower for me, please, Fenton.’
Edward was both pleased and alarmed to hear that Verity was in town and wanted to see him. Was the little termagant going to tear him limb from limb for having abandoned her in Madrid or was she going to forgive and forget? Hardly the latter, he decided.
‘My lord . . .’ Fenton passed the telephone receiver over to him.
‘Verity, is that you?’
‘Of course it’s me! You’ve just rung me, haven’t you!’
‘I mean, it’s very good to hear your voice again.’
‘Hmf,’ she said. ‘I don’t know whether you will say that after dinner tonight. I assume that’s why you’re ringing – to invite me to dinner.’ She went on without letting him get a word in: ‘I suppose I must accept, even though my father doesn’t approve of you . . .’
‘Your father?’ said Edward puzzled.
‘Yes, he’s been in Madrid helping get David off the hook. He thinks you abandoned me without just cause . . .’
‘I thought you never listened to your father . . .’
‘Don’t be smart with me. Your wicket is a sticky one and don’t you forget it.’
Verity’s father was a distinguished left-wing lawyer called Donald Browne. As D. F. Browne, he was known on committees up and down the country as the respectable face of the Communist Party. He had defended in the courts many well-known figures on the left of the political spectrum: union leaders, Party members and, notoriously, an MP accused of passing state secrets to a foreign power. He was respected and execrated in equal measure.
‘Sorry! As it happens, I have got things to discuss with you . . .’
‘About Tilney?’
‘Sort of, but I’ll tell you tonight. Where do you want to go – the Ritz?’
‘No, idiot, why not Gennaro’s – for old times’ sake.’
‘Gennaro’s at eight then.’
Gennaro’s was the Soho restaurant where Edward had first taken Verity when they had decided to join forces to discover who had murdered General Craig. He thought he knew Verity quite well by now but he was never sure how she would react to anything. She had no respect for him as a male, as the brother of a duke or even for being rich – and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. If Verity stopped treating him like a precocious but rather irritating child of seven, he would know their relationship – and he could never be sure they even had a relationship – was dead.
As Edward rose from his seat to kiss Verity on the cheek, almost knocking over his champagne glass as he did so, he thought she looked even thinner and paler than when he had last seen her. However, he knew better than to comment on her appearance.
‘Verity, how good to see you. Damn difficult to get under the brim of that hat though. When did you get into London? Have you forgiven me for deserting you?’
‘Oh gosh, yes. I didn’t really need you after all,’ she said, smiling at the head waiter who was pouring her champagne. ‘Thanks, Freddy. How are you?’
‘Most well, thank you, Signora Browne, an’ you are well I ’ope?’
Freddy was as English as bully beef but liked to pretend he was Italian. Once they had ordered and Freddy had made himself scarce, Verity said breezily, ‘Yes, your absence was not remarked upon. I’m afraid I was a bit unreasonable when you jumped ship without warning.’
Edward was nettled. ‘The Spanish police – they didn’t make a fuss?’
‘No, not with me. Why should they?’
‘Rosalía?’
‘She did say she always thought you might prove unreliable, but we didn’t discuss you. Oh, by the way, how is your brother? I wasn’t very sympathetic when you told me about his accident.’
Verity had reason to be wary of the Duke. He distrusted all journalists and her behaviour, when she had been at Mersham the year before, had confirmed his prejudices.
‘He’s regained consciousness but he’s still very weak.’
‘He’s at Mersham?’
‘Yes, fortunately there’s a marvellous nurse who looked after him in hospital and she agreed to come back and nurse him at home.’
‘Huh!’ said Verity, reddening. ‘I might have known it! Can you imagine some poor injured miner being able to hire his hospital nurse to come and look after him
– that is if he even got to hospital. I’m surprised your brother didn’t hire the whole place.’
Edward might once have risen to the challenge but now he just grinned at her and dug into his huge plate of ravioli al sugo. ‘The old Verity!’ he said sententiously.
‘Less of the old, if you don’t mind, Comrade Corinth. I think I will have to start calling you Comrade, just to annoy you.’ She smiled and touched his hand as it lay on the tablecloth.
In her cashmere twin-set, fur tippet and string of pearls, she looked like any ordinary upper-class girl with nothing more pressing on her mind than her rather absurd hat – she had always liked hats. And yet Edward knew it was just a disguise – or rather not a disguise, because there was a part of her which longed to be conventional, but the active part of her hated the whole charade. He guessed it was quite hard for her always to be swimming against the current. It was what had puzzled the Duke: she was, as he put it, ‘one of us’ and yet the whole purpose of her life was to war against her own class. She wanted to redistribute wealth from rich to poor and to take away economic power from the small group of men who had run the country and the empire for generations – men like Edward Corinth.
Edward sympathised with her dream of a fairer, less class-ridden society in which there was no yawning gulf between the very poor, living – and often starving – in slums unfit for animals, and the very rich like himself. What he could not share, as he had told Connie, was her preferred method of achieving her objective. He believed in gradual change brought about through the ballot box. Verity scorned this as unrealistic: ‘Whoever’s voted themselves out of power?’ she would inquire, with some justice, though ignoring the fact that she certainly would. She subscribed to the view that revolution was the only way of achieving a just society.
Edward was too much of a cynic to believe that change would necessarily be for the better. If one economically dominant class were destroyed – and he was quite prepared to accept that it might be, even that it might deserve to be – he believed another as bad or even worse would emerge to take its place. In his mind, the slogans and catch phrases of the left – ‘class struggle’, ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘monopoly capitalism’, ‘exploitation of the workers’, ‘nationalisation of the means of production’ – were nothing to do with democracy. After the revolution it would be people like David Griffiths-Jones – ruthless ideologues – who would decide what the workers wanted and the result would be an even more pernicious system of government. However, Edward did not despair: the working-class people he came across – and they were surprisingly numerous and varied – were too bloody-minded, individualistic – too conservative with a small ‘c’ – to be taken in by Griffiths-Jones and his ilk.
‘How’s world revolution?’
‘Don’t joke, Edward,’ she said, removing her hand. ‘Sneer all you want, but history’s on our side. Whatever you say, it is a class struggle. Until you understand that – until you change your life and come over to the progressive side of the conflict, the side of the workers – your life will be unreal, a fantasy. You and your class can’t cope with reality so you play the ostrich. If you’re not an activist you’re nothing.’
For a second, Edward was tempted to brush aside her words, ascribing them to some lecture of David’s. What could she know about his life – about life, period, as they said in New York. Then, looking into her eyes, earnest and intense, it was borne in on him that there was something in what she said. His life was purposeless – it was a fantasy. He would always hate Griffiths-Jones’ communism – brutal and self-serving – but he was prepared to admit his life was . . . not what he wished it to be. He did need to change it if he was to achieve . . . if not happiness, at least contentment. But how . . .?
‘Is the struggle over in Spain?’ Edward inquired.
‘No. David thinks it hasn’t even begun. The Republic is thriving – chaotic but thriving – but the Church and the army are dragging us down. There may be blood spilt before the new Republic is safe,’ she added darkly. ‘But let’s get off politics. Tell me what you meant when you said you had learnt something which might bear on Tilney’s death.’
‘Dragging “us” down? Come on, V, it’s not your fight.’
‘Of course it’s my fight,’ she flared up, ‘and yours, too, if you would only recognise it.’
Edward thought it was time to change the subject. ‘I’ve just come from Scotland Yard.’
‘Stephen Thayer? He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he? We’ve just been discussing him at the paper. In fact, to be honest, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I thought you might give me an insider’s view. I rather need a scoop. Absolutely nothing seems to happen in Spain – at least nothing people over here care about.’
‘No, Verity. I absolutely forbid you to write about Stephen’s murder.’
‘But I only want to . . .’
‘No, and no. I mean it, Verity. If you want me to tell you . . . things, you’ve got to promise me on whatever you hold most sacred that you won’t write about it in any Fleet Street rag – and that includes the Daily Worker – unless I give you my express permission. Understood, Comrade?’
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ she said scowling, ‘but . . .’
‘No buts. I can just see the headline in the DW: “Old Etonians murdered by class enemy”. Just finish your foie gras.’
Verity saw he was serious and was rather impressed. Maybe he had some spirit in him after all.
She put down her fork. ‘I can’t eat any more.’
‘Well, pass it over. At one and nine, I’m not letting it go to waste.’
‘Old Etonians?’ she said meditatively. ‘So you think Tilney’s death may be linked with Stephen Thayer’s?’
‘Yes, and perhaps Makepeace Hoden’s too. I told you about him, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, he was eaten by a lion.’
‘More or less. Actually, that’s high on my list of things to do – find out exactly how he did die. It may have been an accident, but it’s a bit of a coincidence that three of my school friends – exact contemporaries, all of whom knew each other well – should die within the space of a few months.’
‘Hmf. A coincidence but why do you think it’s anything more? I mean the New Gazette report says Thayer was hit on the head by a rock or something in a – what was it? – “a frenzied attack”.’
‘Look at this,’ he said, taking out the photograph he had stolen from Sergeant Willis.
‘It’s a pen.’
‘Yes, a cheap fountain pen belonging not to poor Thayer, so almost certainly to his killer. But that’s not all. Do you see that white thing a few inches from the pen?’
‘Ye . . . s, but I can’t make out what it is.’
‘The police missed it too,’ Edward said smugly. ‘I stole this photograph from under Chief Inspector Pride’s nose.’
‘Cripes! Did you really? I didn’t think you had it in you. Is Pride a Chief Inspector now?’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t matter. Look at this, girl!’ Verity considered protesting at being called ‘girl’ but was too intrigued to bother. Edwrard took a magnifying glass out of his pocket and gave it to her.
‘Sherlock,’ she said predictably. She glued her eye to the glass. ‘Good heavens, it’s . . .’
‘Yes, it’s one of those little matchboxes they have on the tables at Chicote’s. Do you see?’
‘Golly, yes, you’re right. You must be right. So . . .?’
‘So,’ said Edward sombrely, ‘Stephen Thayer’s last visitor and probable killer has to be . . . is likely to be . . . someone we know.’
‘Mmm. Yes, but I suppose the matchbox might have been on the floor for some time.’
‘With servants in the house? I doubt it. Anyway, I was going to try and inveigle myself in to talk to them. If you want to come with me . . .’
‘Pride still hates your guts?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit of a nuisance but it does mean I feel no compunction about n
ot sharing my thoughts with him. I offered and he turned me down like a bedspread.’
‘Mmm, I can see why you are worried: you expect to be the next corpse.’
‘Verity!’
‘Oh, sorry. Can’t you take a joke? It’s interesting, though. I mean, the chances of anyone making that connection between Tilney, Hoden and Stephen Thayer are remote, though you might be jumping to conclusions. There’s certainly nothing to link Hoden’s death with the other two. There must be Old Etonians being murdered all over the world most of the time.’
‘Verity!’
‘You know what I mean!’
‘Yes, I wonder how I can find out more about how Hoden died. I don’t have time to go to Kenya at the moment and, even if I did . . . Wait a moment, though, I wonder if the Colonial Office might have reports of the inquest or anything. There must have been an inquest. I’ll ask Thoroughgood to see what he can get me.’
‘The New Gazette has people who report from Africa. I’ll find out if there’s anyone in Nairobi who could do some snooping on our behalf.’
‘Good idea.’
Verity tried not to look pleased. ‘What else can I do?’
‘You can find out if anyone we know who frequents Chicote’s happened to be in England when Stephen was murdered. How long before you have to go back to Spain?’
‘Soon, but I can stay a few days if there’s a good enough reason.’
‘Well, it might be better for you to go back sooner rather than later. You might be able to make some discreet investigations in Madrid. If you’re establishing who was where when, you can also get a list together of who was in Kenya when Hoden died. Didn’t Ben Belasco say he had been in Africa before going to Spain?’
As soon as he said it, he remembered that, according to David, Verity was having an affair with Belasco. Seeing her in London like this had, for a blessed moment, put it out of his mind.
Verity blushed a little but Edward pretended not to notice. She had no idea that David had told him about Belasco, so had no reason to object to his remark. He hurried on: ‘In the meantime, I’ve got two visits to make. You can come with me on one if you like. It might be educational in every way. The other would be too dangerous for you.’
Bones of the Buried Page 17