Bones of the Buried

by David Roberts

  There was also the question of money. If Thayer’s financial affairs were in a mess, as he was beginning to suspect . . . well, he had spoken on the telephone to Caine, the boy’s housemaster, and made it clear that if there were any problems on the fees he would make up any shortfall. He must talk to this Cooper woman as soon as possible and try and put things on a formal footing. He wondered who Thayer’s solicitor was. He ought to talk to him too.

  ‘The evening he died . . . I understand Mr Thayer had dinner in the dining-room and then went into his study – into this room – to work, saying he would not need you again that night. Did you go straight to bed?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. It took Mrs Harris and me about twenty minutes to clear up Mr Thayer’s dinner. He had eaten very lightly and, of course, we had eaten earlier. We then went up to our rooms.’

  ‘And you heard nothing? You did not hear a knock at the door, or voices?’

  Barrington hesitated. ‘The servants’ quarters are at the back of the house, on the top floor, but I thought I did hear something.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Well, it must have been just before I fell asleep . . . about one or half-past. I did not think to turn on my bedside light and look at my alarm clock. I thought I heard the front door slam.’

  Barrington was beginning to sound defensive and Edward was quick to reassure him. ‘Of course not. I expect Mr Thayer did occasionally have late night callers, or perhaps he went out for a final walk before turning in?’

  ‘Maybe, my lord, but I can’t say I ever knew the master to have visitors so late before and I am not aware he was given to late night perambulations.’

  ‘I see. You can say nothing else about the visitor, if indeed there was one.’

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘Did you tell Chief Inspector Pride about this?’

  ‘No, my lord. I suppose I should do so. I only remembered the noise some time after I had been interviewed by the Chief Inspector. It went out of my head with all the . . . with all the distress of finding the master’s body . . .’

  ‘I quite understand and I’m sure the Inspector will too, but I think you ought to inform him. It helps establish the time of Mr Thayer’s death, you understand.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘And is there anything else? Did anything strike you about the body . . . I mean apart from the horrible savagery of the killing? Or this room . . . was anything moved, apart from the Buddha, or taken?’

  ‘No, my lord, nothing was stolen. The police checked with me very carefully about that. All the jade was there. There was the fountain pen, but I expect you know about it. I told the Chief Inspector that it didn’t belong to Mr Thayer.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about that.’

  ‘About the pen, my lord?’

  ‘I noticed in one of the police photographs that there was a box of matches from a Spanish restaurant lying beside the pen. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘No, my lord. I never noticed it and the police never brought it to my attention.’

  ‘Could it have been there on the floor a day or two before the murder?’

  ‘I would very much doubt it, my lord. Betty is a most conscientious girl and she cleaned the master’s study every day . . . but, of course, you can ask her.’

  ‘No, I am sure you are right about Betty. Did Mr Thayer have any visitors in the few days before he was killed?’

  ‘No, my lord. He was a solitary man, if I may say so.’

  ‘He had no . . . no lady friends?’

  ‘Not that I am aware of, my lord.’

  ‘It seems strange that an attractive, rich, comparatively young widower had no . . . no personal friends.’

  ‘No doubt he had friends, my lord,’ Barrington said a little stiffly, ‘but he did not bring them home.’

  ‘He must have gone out in the evenings. Did he ever go to night-clubs . . . anything of that sort?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, my lord. I don’t think he was the kind of gentleman to go to night-clubs. He did go out to dinner-parties on occasion but, as I say, he was a solitary man. He liked to keep his own company.’

  ‘Yes, of course, and I suppose he would have seen his . . . his business visitors at his office in the City.’

  ‘I imagine so, my lord.’

  ‘Well, you have been most helpful, Barrington, and I am grateful to you for talking to me so frankly. Here is my card. If anything else does occur to you or, indeed, if I can be of any help in the . . . domestic arrangements, please do let me know.’

  ‘There is just one other thing, my lord. I don’t expect it is at all important but . . .’

  ‘Well, spit it out, man,’ Edward said a trifle impatiently.

  ‘You were asking about lady friends. I do remember about a couple of months ago – at the end of January – when he came in. I opened the door and saw that he had just got out of a taxi. He had turned to say goodbye to a red-haired lady who I presume was being taken on to another destination. That was the only occasion I saw Mr Thayer with a lady in the past six months, my lord.’

  15

  ‘Oh God,’ said Verity wiping her lips. ‘Eton, falling for a handsome young dukeling and now champagne. I just hope the comrades don’t find out. They’ll never believe it’s all in aid of the class struggle.’

  Edward grinned and leant over the table to wipe away a few errant drops of the forbidden drink from the crease at the corner of her mouth. For some reason, when he had reported to her on his interview with Barrington, he had failed to mention the ‘red-haired lady’. That was something he wanted to brood about.

  ‘You’re not trying to get me drunk, are you? I’ve read about what evil aristocrats do to innocent young girls: they lure them into their apartments and ply them with drink and then . . . and then . . .’

  He wondered, without meaning to, what it would be like to kiss the laughter lines around her mouth which signalled her inability to be totally serious, even about Marxist-Leninism. ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ he said. ‘I would wager Comrade Stalin is enjoying a glass of champagne with his caviar at this very moment.’

  ‘Don’t tease, Edward,’ she said, making faint efforts to prevent him refilling her glass. ‘I suppose a girl can be forgiven for straying off the narrow path of rightchess . . . righteousness – oh cripes, I can’t even say the word – I must be squiffy . . . once in a while. No! . . . no more bubbly. You represent everything David dislikes about British society and it’s just annoying that I happen to like you. It muddles me, or the champagne does.’

  ‘Gosh! I would hate to confuse you,’ Edward said. ‘I mean, I know how difficult it is – or ought to be – for intelligent people to believe in generalisations. The moment one gets anywhere near the individual, one’s favourite generalisation starts to look as full of holes as a string vest.’

  ‘You’re not going to lecture me again, are you? I don’t want to be lectured.’

  ‘I remember Gerald saying,’ he went on regardless, ‘that it was the civilians – particularly the women – who hated the Boche most fiercely in the war. The men in the trenches were too busy surviving to hate the enemy. They tended to feel that Jerry, a few hundred yards away in trenches as insanitary as their own, was very much in the same boat as they were. Of course, all private soldiers hate their officers – or rather not the young captains and majors who were being killed with them but the generals sitting in chateaux far behind the lines. It was probably unfair – old General Craig would have said so – but there it is.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Verity earnestly, ‘that’s the purest example of class war. It’s precisely what destroyed the Romanovs, and it accounts for the mutinies in the French army . . .’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Don’t “but” me, please, Edward. The trouble with you is you’re afraid of ideas. You consider yourself a pragmatist but all that means is you can’t stand back and see the whole picture. You don’t deny the social order is changing . . . perilously slowly
in this country, I grant you. Look at women, for instance. Women found freedom to live their own lives and earn their own bread in the munitions factories during the war and they’ll never give that up. Mrs Pankhurst, much as I revere her, could never achieve what economics has.’

  ‘Of course! I welcome change . . .’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, but as I’ve had occasion to say to you before, what I do not welcome is revolution. Change, at least in Britain, has always been gradual . . .’

  ‘Very comforting . . .’ Verity expostulated, the champagne loosening her tongue. ‘Generations have to live and die in poverty so your feathers aren’t ruffled by something as distasteful as naughty old revolution. I don’t think so. You honestly believe it’s possible in a world without honour, in a country like ours – morally defeated, ready and even willing to do deals with murderers and worse – to have change without bloodshed? We have had to suffer a world war even to get your “gradual” change. The miners – when they reached the trenches – discovered conditions to be much better than in the mines. The food was better, the chances of being killed were only a little greater . . .’

  ‘Yes, and all those coal owners living the life of luxury in London comfortably unaware of what they were inflicting on the people who made them wealthy . . . I agree . . . I agree: things had to change.’

  ‘Shaw said and I agree,’ Verity continued, unstoppable now in her indignation, ‘that even good solid folk, the middle class, with their investments in companies owning coal or slum property, are accessories to murder . . .’

  ‘Murder! That’s going it a bit, Verity.’

  They looked at each other, surprised at the vehemence of their exchange. Verity wondered at how quickly a moment of happiness, in which Edward could wipe away the champagne from her lips without her objecting, had changed to violent argument. Edward sighed. It was the temper of the times; politics were extreme. Verity was right: one had to stand up and be counted. Gentle liberalism was no longer enough.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said gruffly. ‘I told you not to get me drunk. I remember now, I get quarrelsome when drunk. That’s before I get maudlin.’

  Edward accepted the olive branch gratefully. ‘Don’t be silly, V, it was my fault. So much of what you say is right. One gets on one’s high horse when one is in the wrong. Henceforth, discussion of politics will be banned at table. I don’t know how we got on to it, anyway. Let’s go back to Thayer’s murder.’

  Verity grimaced. ‘I’ve seen things in Spain that . . . that frightened me,’ she said suddenly, still a little drunk. ‘I sometimes think . . . I sometimes think politics are going to tear us all apart.’

  They were silent for a few moments and then Edward said, ‘Well, show me what you’ve found.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. Here we are.’ She pulled a sheaf of press cuttings from a brown envelope and passed them over to him. ‘It seems your friend Thayer was a naughty boy at school.’ She watched him in silence as he scanned the papers with increasing amazement.

  ‘This is absolutely extraordinary. I just can’t understand how I never knew anything about it. Look at this headline: “Actress siren threat to Eton morals”.’

  ‘From what I can gather, the powers-that-be quickly stamped on the press. They didn’t want this sort of thing being read by the “common people”,’ she said ironically. ‘Actually, I think ordinary people like reading about the aristocracy behaving badly. It confirms their prejudices.’

  ‘Yes, but I saw newspapers even when I was at school.’

  ‘I doubt they would have let you see these. My schools – note my use of the plural – all had one thing in common: they censored the newspapers. I remember seeing one of my headmistresses solemnly cutting out stories she didn’t approve of and then handing us something which looked like the paper streamers we hung up at Christmas. And I don’t suppose your father would have . . .’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ Edward said, continuing to read, ‘he wouldn’t. I say, none of the papers mention Stephen by name.’

  ‘Yes, but I happen to know it was him. Look at this one from the New Gazette. It’s one of the most detailed. It’s dated July 15th 1917.’

  Edward read the article aloud with furrowed brow. ‘ “. . . Inspector George Yarrow told our reporter that, in the course of two Sundays’ observation, he noted well over a hundred expensive motor cars bringing weekend revellers to dance to bands from fashionable London night-spots such as the Kit-Cat club. He says that among these were the actress Miss Dora Pale with theatrical friends and three or four young men whom he was able to identify later as boys at nearby Eton College. The Hotel de Paris in Bray is a favourite meeting place for the ‘fast set’. The hotel lets suites for three guineas a night and Miss Pale is thought to have been ‘a habitual visitor’.” ’

  ‘Look, here’s an article in the News Chronicle a few days later: “Eton boys ordered to leave – punished for an unauthorised night out – three ringleaders . . . indecent and unnatural acts at a riverside hotel.” Pretty strong stuff.’

  ‘But we can’t be absolutely sure this was about Stephen,’ Edward said, reluctant to believe what he was reading.

  ‘Yes we can. I tried to find out if the policeman . . . what was he called?’

  ‘Yarrow.’

  ‘Yes, I tried to discover if Yarrow was still alive but unfortunately he died last year. However, I found out that the New Gazette reporter, retired of course – a man called Mike Nadall – is alive. I got a telephone number from the file and bingo – there I was!’

  ‘Gosh, that’s brilliant!’

  ‘Yes, it is rather,’ said Verity modestly. ‘But that’s not all. Nadall was quite happy to talk about the scandal. He said that when he read Thayer had been murdered, he got out his notes to refresh his memory. He was quite definite; it was Thayer who was sacked from Eton on account of the brouhaha. But what is more . . .’ Verity looked at Edward with undisguised triumph, ‘he gave me the names of the two other boys expelled with him . . .’

  ‘Makepeace Hoden and Godfrey Tilney?’

  ‘You got it, pal. Oh yes, and I also talked to Peter Weiss who is covering the story for the paper. He says Pride is certain Thayer was murdered by someone he crossed while doing business. The bank was teetering on the brink, apparently, and Thayer needed to pull off one of three or four deals he was doing if it was to survive.’

  ‘Well,’ said Edward at last, ‘we may be barking up quite the wrong tree. Pride’s no fool. We had better go and see this Mike Nadall and find out if he knows anything which might help us. Where does he live?’

  ‘Seventeen Riverside Drive, Putney, and he’s expecting us for tea.’

  Edward looked at Verity with frank admiration. ‘Sherlock Holmes, you’re a genius.’

  ‘Elementary, elementary, my dear class enemy. Now, let’s finish the champagne. I want to be in the right mood to discuss high jinks among the upper classes.’

  16

  ‘I’m beginning to think Pride may be right,’ Edward said as he negotiated Hyde Park Corner. ‘I really don’t see how schoolboy escapades could possibly end in murder years later. I probably ought to be in Germany talking to Thayer’s business partner – what’s his name? – Heinrich Hoffmann.’ He swung the Lagonda in front of a tram, to the driver’s fury.

  ‘But the fact that the three boys who were expelled . . .’

  ‘We say “sacked”,’ Edward interjected.

  ‘Sacked then, as if I care about your jargon. It’s just another way in which you can make yourself special and feel superior to us lesser mortals.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘A secret language. Instead of tuck you say “sock”, and your “halves” instead of terms, and “dames” and “beaks”. Please don’t try and make me feel small.’

  ‘But you are small,’ said Edward unwisely. Verity punched him so hard he almost drove the car into a roundsman’s cart and was sworn at once again.

  ‘Joke, Verity, just a jo
ke.’

  ‘Yes, well, remember Napoleon was small.’

  ‘I know, that’s so interesting. Dr Freud says . . .’

  ‘I don’t care what Dr Freud says. The point is the three boys sacked from Eton nineteen years ago have all died within a few months of each other. When was it Hoden died?’

  ‘At the beginning of January. I have to find out much more about that. But I agree, all our instincts say there is a connection and maybe Mr Nadall can spell it out for us.’

  Edward eventually pulled up the Lagonda in front of a black Ford Prefect which, if it belonged to Mr Nadall, suggested that he was not without means. It was parked directly in front of number 17, a small house separated from its neighbours by shrubberies and from the road by a privet hedge. This was what estate agents described as a cottage or – Edward had seen the phrase somewhere – a bijou residence. A wicket gate opened on to a gravel path which led up to a front door painted green and boasting a brass knocker. Before he could raise it, the door swung open and a cheerful, red-faced man in his late sixties or early seventies appeared before them.

  Ford Prefect which, if it belonged to Mr Nadall, suggested that he was not without means. It was parked directly in front of number 17, a small house separated from its neighbours by shrubberies and from the road by a privet hedge. This was what estate agents described as a cottage or – Edward had seen the phrase somewhere – a bijou residence. A wicket gate opened on to a gravel path which led up to a front door painted green and boasting a brass knocker. Before he could raise it, the door swung open and a cheerful, red-faced man in his late sixties or early seventies appeared before them.

  ‘Lord Edward? Come in, come in. This is a great honour. And Miss Browne – I have read your articles on Spain in the New Gazette – most absorbing.’

  There was still a hint of cockney but, over the years as a reporter, Nadall had taken on that neutral ‘London’ accent designed to put duchesses and serving girls equally at their ease.

  ‘Now what may I offer you?’ he said, rubbing his hands. ‘I have some very acceptable elderberry wine, or bottled beer.’