‘But she loves you more.’
Adam thought about this. ‘She loves me differently. Perhaps it will be as Gaunt said in Richard II – our “rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last”. We played it at Oxford. I was the fascist Duke of Northumberland.’
‘Maybe.’ Edward was suddenly bored with this boy. It was in bad taste to discuss Verity in this way and he knew she would not forgive either of them if she ever found out. ‘What was your other reason for wanting to see me?’
‘It is nothing but Verity said you were investigating that poor woman’s murder – Miss Pitt-Messanger.’
‘Yes.’
‘Two things really. I know that both Castlewood and the surgeon, Montillo, have many friends among the Nazis.’
‘So I have been told,’ Edward said drily.
‘You knew that?’
‘I did but Verity was going to ask you to find out more about them – their links with the Nazis. Something bad is going on and Montillo is at the heart of it. I am thinking of going back to Cannes to do some sleuthing.’
‘Sleuthing?’
‘Make some inquiries. What else?’
‘It’s probably not significant but you should know I saw Lady Castlewood walking down towards the stream a few minutes before Miss Pitt-Messanger’s body was found.’
‘She, at least, could not have murdered Maud,’ Edward said briskly. ‘She isn’t strong enough.’
‘Maybe so, but that’s not it. She had been talking to the maid – the pretty one, you know, who is such a great favourite with Sir Simon? I went up to the house to fetch a book – cricket can be rather dull to a foreigner,’ he said with a grin. ‘I saw the maid in tears and Lady Castlewood stalking off towards the stream. Naturally, I did what any man would do who finds a pretty girl in tears – I put my arm round her and asked what the matter was.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said, “Not you too,” and pushed me away and ran into the house.’
‘“Not you too”? Someone had been bothering her?’
‘Adding two and two together, I would say Lady Castlewood might have been scolding her for some indiscretion . . .’
‘With Sir Simon?’
‘I think so. I thought it might be important but I expect you will say it is tittle-tattle – a word I learnt at Oxford.’
‘Yes, but a detective must listen to tittle-tattle. Why didn’t you tell Verity?’
‘It’s not something to tell a woman . . . You think I am old-fashioned that I do not like to talk about sex with a lady?’ Edward raised his eyebrows but said nothing. ‘It is not polite and Lady Castlewood is her friend,’ Adam ended, on the defensive.
Soon after, the two men parted and Edward walked back to Albany feeling a little soiled. Adam was an honourable man, he was sure of that, but he was thrashing around in a net which was daily drawing tighter about him, restricting his movements and reducing his options. He was a patriot who hated the Nazis. He wanted to remain in Germany and work for his country without being contaminated by those around him. How could a good German square the circle? Edward was grateful he was spared such a problem. On the spur of the moment, he decided he would accept the job Sir Robert Vansittart had offered him to run the department in the Foreign Office which assessed foreign intelligence. It was his duty.
It would never have occurred to either Adam or Edward to ask the other to keep their conversation at the London Fencing Club a secret from Verity but it was equally certain that neither man would mention it to her. She was not the sort of woman any man with an ounce of common sense would try to manoeuvre or second guess. On the other hand, it was uncomfortable for Adam, who abhorred lying even by omission, to be asked by her, as they lay in bed watching the new day through the curtainless windows, to use his friends in the German Embassy to investigate Sir Simon’s links with senior Nazis.
He got out of bed, ignoring Verity’s protests that it was only seven thirty, and began to dress. When he was in London, he used a flat lent him by a friend, presently in Hamburg on business, but recently he had been living with Verity in Cranmer Court. It was as though, after helping her move in, he had forgotten to move out. It was still hardly furnished with only the radiogram from Peter Jones, the bed, a table, a couple of chairs and a telephone – which she had insisted on installing immediately she bought the flat as a necessary tool of her trade. There was a public telephone in the main entrance hall, which was sufficient for many of the residents, but Verity could not picture with any pleasure the porters listening in on her private conversations.
They only had one record – ‘Stormy Weather’ – which they played incessantly. Adam found himself humming it now as he looked out over the river while he pulled on his trousers. Battersea Power Station smoked in the distance and the sun reflected off roofs, glistening after a recent shower.
‘Yes,’ he said, sounding perhaps a little too prepared, ‘I believe Sir Simon has links with several of our beloved leaders and also with IG Farben. I am going to ask my friend, Fritz Schieff, whose flat I am using . . .’ he glanced round at Verity stretched naked on the rumpled sheets and corrected himself to ‘whose flat I was expecting to use.’
‘It’s a lovely flat,’ she said drowsily. ‘Come back to bed, Adam. We can go there this afternoon if you want.’
‘I have written to Fritz,’ he said firmly, ignoring the interruption, ‘to see if he can find out anything about Sir Simon’s links with IG Farben. As you know, Fritz is in Hamburg which is where the company has its headquarters.’
Verity sat up, pulling the sheet over her breasts. ‘You have already written to Fritz? What made you think of doing that?’
Adam stared ferociously at the power station and said, as casually as he could, ‘It was something Lord Edward said.’
Thoroughly awake now, Verity looked at Adam’s back silhouetted against the window and bit her lip. Was her new lover in cahoots with Edward? Was there some conspiracy of which she was the subject? She hoped not. Edward had an unnerving way of undermining her relationships by remaining on good terms with his rivals. But, she checked herself – that sounded smug and arrogant. Did she really think of the two men in her life as rivals? It was absurd. She loved Edward and respected him. He was – and she had no idea how it happened – her closest friend and occasional lover. But Adam was something else; her true love. His body, as she saw it against the light, milk white – almost luminous – straight-backed, slim-waisted, made her want to crush him in her arms. But what of his mind? She knew him to be honourable, intelligent and a committed anti-Fascist but what did he really think about her? Was she just ‘entertainment’ or was this ‘true love’ for him too? She feared his only true love was his country, which he simultaneously despaired of and valued above all else.
As if in answer to her unspoken question he came back to the bed and sat upon it. He leaned over her, put his arms on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Marry me,’ he said.
‘You don’t mean that,’ she gasped. It was a shock. She had never expected such a declaration and it knocked the breath out of her as though she had received a blow to the stomach. She had said the first thing that came into her mind and it wasn’t the right thing to say. He had got up again and his back view told her he was hurt. She tried to explain what she had meant – it wasn’t that she did not love him but rather that they were trapped in the nexus of two worlds which had, in this explosive moment in history, come into each other’s orbit. ‘I am a Communist and you are a German aristocrat.’
‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘For a Communist, you seem to have a way with the aristocracy.’ He regretted it the moment he had spoken. ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. I just . . . I was jealous of . . .’
‘Forget it,’ Verity responded but his words had wounded her to the heart. What did it say about her if her lover could accuse her, of all people, of being a hypocrite?
She hardly heard Adam as he went on, ‘I’m not a Nazi, Verity. I’m a patriot. I w
ill fight for my country if it comes to war with England. Though I will do it with a heavy heart, I shall fight.’
‘Well then,’ she said gently, ‘we shall be on opposite sides. If I married you and we went to live in Germany, I could not possibly stop doing everything I could, however feeble, to oppose the Nazis and we should both end up in a concentration camp. I could never allow that.’
‘Well then? Have we any future together?’ He turned to look at her and she saw the pain in his eyes.
‘We must seize the day. Come with me to Vienna – just for a few weeks – and help me establish myself. I know it is selfish of me but I will need you and not just as a lover. In any case, you promised to teach me German. I can’t get by on endearments, you know, Liebchen.’
‘Leben muss man und lieben; es endet Leben und Liebe. Schnittet ihr Parzen doch nur die beiden Fäden zugleich. One must live and love; life and love must end. If only, Destiny, you’d cut both these threads at once. Goethe.’
‘You love poetry, don’t you?’ She got out of bed and went over to him at the window. ‘Come back to bed. Touch me here. Can you feel how much I need you?’ She stood on tiptoe, put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips.
With a reluctance which quickly turned to eager passion, he returned her kiss. He shook off his trousers and carried her over to the bed. ‘I love you!’ he cried as he thrust himself into her as if this were their last moment together. Later, he lay with his head on her breast and she stroked his hair and stubbled cheek, murmuring endearments. He shivered and she pulled the sheet over them as their sweat cooled. He lit a cigarette for her and then one for himself. A black cloud passed over the sun and darkened the window. Rain began to spatter against the panes.
‘I am so scared,’ she whispered in his ear.
‘You are as brave as a lion,’ he said, raising his head a little and looking at her with surprise.
‘No, no. I am scared most of the time.’
‘Scared of what?’
‘Of everything – of what awaits me in Vienna, of the coming war, of losing you . . .’
‘You are not going to lose me.’
‘Not today, not tomorrow, not next week, but I will lose you. We both know that.’
‘I don’t know that,’ he contradicted her, ‘but, if you are right, we must – as you say – carpe diem. By the way, I am lunching at the Embassy tomorrow with a friend of mine. What would they say if they knew I had been sleeping with the enemy?’
‘Maybe they do know?’ Verity said, eyes wide in alarm. ‘Are you sure you are not being watched?’
‘The Gestapo is not yet active in England,’ he said soothingly. But Verity was not soothed and held him tightly as if, once he left her arms, she would never see him again.
Edward put in a trunk call to the police station at Tunbridge Wells and asked to speak to Inspector Jebb. He was put through with very little delay and before he could say a word Jebb said, ‘Is that really you, Lord Edward? I shall have to start believing in telepathy. I was about to telephone you and ask whether you would mind coming down and having a word.’
‘You aren’t going to arrest me, I hope, Inspector?’
‘Indeed not, your lordship. The fact of the matter is Chief Inspector Pride was with me yesterday and suggested I might talk to you. I have to confess that we have come to something of standstill, a cul-de-sac, if you follow me.’
‘When would you like to see me, Inspector? I am yours to command.’
‘That’s very good of you. Would tomorrow be too early for you?’
‘Will Chief Inspector Pride be there?’
‘Regretfully, the Chief Inspector has to be in court tomorrow.’
‘What has he done?’ Edward inquired, possessed by an urge to be jocular.
‘No, my lord, you misunderstand me. He is giving evidence in the case of Mr Harold Mottram. You may have read about it in the newspapers.’
‘The Indo-China fraud case?’
‘That’s correct. Far be it for me to prejudge a case but Chief Inspector Pride is very satisfied he will get a conviction.’
‘Well, that is very good news. I shall be with you at – what shall we say – ten thirty?’
As soon as he had put down the receiver he picked it up again and asked the operator to put him through to Swifts Hill. The butler, Lampton, answered and told him that Sir Simon was away but Lady Castlewood was at home.
When Virginia came to the phone, Edward was concerned to find she was not her normal buoyant self. Her voice trembled as if she had been crying.
‘Is that you, Lord Edward?’
When he told her that he was coming down to see Inspector Jebb and asked if there was any possibility of a bed for the night she was positively effusive.
‘That would be wonderful. I very much need advice and I thought of you but, to tell the truth, I was frightened to ask you. Isn’t that absurd? You would be doing us all such a favour if you would come.’
He wondered to whom the ‘all’ referred but she supplied the answer before he had to ask the question.
‘Lampton told you my husband is abroad but Roddy and Isolde are here.’
Jebb said, ‘I keep on thinking I’m just about to crack it when I come across some insuperable objection.’
He and Chief Inspector Pride were seated with Edward at a small table in the room used for interviews. Mottram had changed his plea to guilty and Pride had been told that he need not take the stand after all. The police station was small and badly in need of expansion and improvement. What had once been a sparsely populated area was now experiencing a rapid growth in population. Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells were thriving and what Jebb disparagingly called ‘stockbroker houses’ were springing up everywhere, destroying a countryside which had not changed over many centuries.
‘You know these people. You have inside information,’ Pride said. ‘I told Jebb you would help if you could, Lord Edward. I was right, wasn’t I?’
Edward looked at him speculatively. He had never particularly liked the man but he knew him to be a good police officer. ‘I am flattered that you should think so, Chief Inspector. Can you bring me up to date with the two investigations and then I can add any crumbs of information I happen to have picked up.’
‘Certainly. As far as my investigation into Professor Pitt-Messanger’s murder in the Abbey is concerned, I have decided to accept the confession Maud Pitt-Messanger made to you. I have failed to find any other credible suspect. We know the old man had his enemies but none of them were in the Abbey as far as we have been able to discover. In any case, most of them are academics – men as old as he was and therefore hardly likely to commit murder, however much they might dislike him.’
‘You’ve traced no one related to Sidney Temperley then?’
‘The man who claimed to have discovered that tomb . . .?’ Jebb interjected.
‘And who was more or less engaged to Maud Pitt-Messanger,’ Edward added.
‘Nothing,’ Pride said ruefully. ‘It was the obvious lead but, as far as I have been able to find out, there are no living relatives and no close friends. No one, in other words, who might have wanted to avenge his death.’
‘But something is worrying you?’ Edward prompted.
‘Yes . . . if the girl hated her father so much for taking away her one chance of a husband and a normal life, why wait so long before doing away with him? She would have had hundreds of opportunities to kill him in the privacy of their own home. Why choose to do it in the most public place imaginable?’
‘Because at home, if her father had died unexpectedly for no obvious reason, she would have been the obvious suspect. But in a public place . . .’ Jebb said.
‘Correct,’ Edward agreed, ‘but there is more to it than that. I believe she must have found out something which sparked off this moment of madness.’
‘Something like what?’ Pride asked doubtfully.
‘Well, I’m only guessing, but it may have been about that brother of
hers who disappeared when she was only a child.’
‘Didn’t he run away to sea?’ Jebb inquired.
‘He may have done,’ Pride said heavily. ‘I discovered that he had a harelip and a cleft palate. Miss Pitt-Messanger believed – according to what she told Miss Browne – that Mr Montillo operated on him. Montillo, when I asked him about it, denied it, saying he did not even know of his existence.’
‘Huh!’ Edward expostulated.
‘You don’t believe him and I’m not sure I do,’ Pride said. ‘You think someone told Maud what had really happened to the boy. She blamed her father for whatever it was and stabbed him. It certainly explains the dagger. It could have been one in the Professor’s own collection.’
‘Or the boy came back unrecognized and stabbed his father,’ Jebb suggested.
They thought about this and finally Pride said, ‘Have you any ideas, Lord Edward?’
‘I do, as a matter of fact, but it’s only an idea. Let me do a bit of digging and I will report back.’
‘So who murdered Maud Pitt-Messanger?’ Jebb sighed. ‘It must have been someone staying at Swifts Hill because they had to have easy access to the dagger. The murderer chose it quite deliberately when he or she – but probably he given the strength required to drag the body into the water – stabbed her. He chose to use the dagger rather than a less showy weapon like a kitchen knife or . . .’
‘Or a cricket bat,’ Edward put in. Pride laughed.
‘No, I am serious, Chief Inspector,’ Edward continued. ‘We take it for granted that Maud was stabbed – like her father – but it would have been easier to knock her on the back of the head with a heavy implement. Then unconscious – if not dead – she could be dragged into the water and drowned.’
‘But she wasn’t drowned.’
’No, Jebb. So, if you think it was a man who killed Miss Pitt-Messanger and someone with easy access to the dagger, that surely doesn’t leave many suspects.’
‘No, my lord. Sir Simon himself and Mr Montillo, who may have returned from London earlier than he said . . .’
‘Miss Berners is adamant she saw him talking to Sir Simon.’ Edward had given the two policemen an edited account of his meeting with her.
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