by Ellis Peters
Charlotte looked enquiringly at Gus, and waited.
‘I’m afraid he did know,’ said Gus regretfully. ‘He acted as consultant for us occasionally, and he probably picked up a good deal about the top fences in the business. The problem collectors he knew already. And then, you see, he had the top-weight to work the racket in a big way, as an amateur couldn’t do. His name and reputation would count for as much underground as in the daylight. Collectors would take his word and pay his price.’
‘Well, all right!’ She had a curious feeling that she ought to be experiencing and showing more indignation, that it was all part of some devious and elaborate charade, of which she understood something, but not enough. She had probably made one mistake in timing already, with that key. Writing her part as she went along was not so easy. But at least her voice had the right edge of irritation and challenge. ‘But all you’re describing is an absent master-mind in voluntary exile—or sanctuary—somewhere in Turkey. Whoever prowled about the riverside all day on thorns, waiting for everybody to go home and night to fall, so that he could salvage his last instalment of gold, whoever found that poor, silly boy rifling his cache, and killed him and hid his body until night, it certainly wasn’t Great-Uncle Alan by remote control from Aphrodisias. If he’s at the bottom of this affair, then he had an agent here on the spot to keep an eye on the place and feed the remaining stuff out to him gradually—either to him, or wherever he directed. Somebody well-paid and unscrupulous, and once recruited, in for good. They had to trust each other, either one of them could destroy the other. So even the assistant was deep enough in to have to kill the boy who blundered into the secret, and try to kill the detective who was getting too close to the truth. Well, at least we all know who made that last murderous attack on Mr Hambro. Do we therefore know who this local agent was? Is that what you’re saying?’
There was a brief, expectant silence, in which everyone looked at Orrie; but he maintained his silence as though nothing that had been said bore any reference to him. However delicate your fingering, it’s difficult to find a sensitive spot in a being who has no nerves.
‘Yes,’ said Lesley, slowly and clearly, ‘we do know. At least, I know.’
She had their attention at once, but more, she had Orrie’s. For the first time he turned his whole body, and fixed the sharpening stare of his blue eyes on her, and though the crudely splendid lines of his face never quivered, it was plainly a live human creature who peered through the slits of the mask. She looked back at him for a long moment, steadily and squarely, and it was as if her look was a reflection of his, for her face, too, was motionless and tranquil in its bright purity, but her eyes were alert, uneasy and agitated.
‘There’s something that happened just over a month ago.’ She turned to face George, and addressed herself resolutely to him throughout. ‘I never wondered much about it then, I had no reason to, and until now I’d forgotten it. But I can’t tell you about it without telling you how I came to be… where it happened… where I saw it. And if this case is going to come to court, ever,’ she said, clasping her hands tightly on her knee, ‘this would have to come out in evidence. I can’t even ask you to keep it in confidence.’
‘I can’t promise anything,’ said George. ‘It may not be necessary to make anything public that would hurt or embarrass you, but I can promise nothing.’
‘I know. I’m not asking you to. It’s Stephen who would be hurt, and he doesn’t deserve it.’ And after a deeply-drawn breath she said, clearly and steadily: ‘I’ve been Orrie’s mistress for eighteen months. I was actually in love with him. There wasn’t anything he could have asked of me that I wouldn’t have done for him. It was like a disease that turns you blind. I never saw, even for a moment, that he was making a convenience of me, using me as cover while he bled all that gold and treasure out of Aurae Phiala. I didn’t believe it even when you charged him. Now I know it’s true.’
Even then, it was not the bonds of silence that Orrie Benyon broke. They had all been watching Lesley in such fascination that for an instant no one was watching him. It was like the almost silent explosion of a leopard out of its cover, so sudden and so violent that his great hands were not an inch from her throat when Barnes and Collins pinioned both arms and dragged him off, and even then the blunt nails of his left hand drew a thin red thread down the creamy smoothness of her neck, and a drop of blood gathered and spread in the roll collar of her white sweater. But the most impressive thing was that Lesley never shrank or blinked, only turned a blazing, defiant face and stared him out at close quarters until he was hauled off her and thrust back into his chair. She did not even lift a hand to touch the scratch. There was something superb about her confidence that they would not let him harm her.
Then she sat silent, still fronting him unflinchingly, while he broke his silence at last for want of being able to express himself with his hands, which were always more fluent. Wide-eyed, long-suffering, with all the distaste she felt for him and for her own infatuation in her set face, she listened to the names he found for her, and never tried to stem the flood. Neither did anyone else. It would have been useless. He had been containing it in doubt and patience for so long that no banks could have held it now it was loose.
‘Damn you to hell for a lying, swindling whore! Don’t listen to her, she’s lying, she’s nothing but lies right through. Ditch me now, would you, like you ditched him after he’d served your turn? Drop the whole load on me to carry, and you stroll out of it as pure as a lily, you dirty, cheating devil! But it isn’t going to work! Not with me! Deeper than the sea, I tell you, this bitch—look at her, with her saint’s face! And she began it, she called the tune—not only about the bloody gold, but the sex kick, too. You think she ever wanted that old man of hers, except for cover and an easy meal-ticket? Winding herself round him with that tale about being let down, and her life ruined—poor bloody misused innocent, needing his pity! But she didn’t want any of his bed, bargain or no. Kidded him she was a sex-nut-case, a virgin nympho who couldn’t stand being mauled but couldn’t help asking for it! But it didn’t take her long to pick up the clues with a real man, I tell you! With me she was all nympho! You wouldn’t credit all the games that one knows. You think she intended to stick it out here with that old fool for life? Not a chance! We were going to clear up the lot, and then take the money and get out together—the cheating sow, I thought we were!—No hurry, we’d got our ways of passing the time while we waited. Every time her old man’s back was turned—in her bed and mine, in the shed, in the orchard, down in the hollow where the bloody Roman jakes was, and that was hell on them stones, but she liked it to be hell sometimes, she’d think up ways to make it hell, ways you’d never dream of. Nails, teeth and all, she knows the lot! Six more weeks, and we’d have been ready for off, somewhere safe and soft for life. And then that bloody river had to come up and start the damned bank slipping…!’
His voice, even in murderous rage, was a deep, melodious thunder, the singing western cadences like a furious wind in strings. Although no one was holding him now, he heaved and strained against his own grip on the arms of the chair, as though he were chained. ‘I’ll fix her, though! I’m going to make a statement that’ll see her off, the dirty, cheating bitch, the way she’s trying to see me. There’s nothing in her but lies, and lies, and lies. You can’t twist fast enough to have her. You can only kill her! I will kill her! I’ll…’
The pealing thunder snapped off into abrupt silence. He shut his mouth with a snap, biting off words too dangerous to utter. For he was charged only with the attempt as yet, not the achievement.
‘You shall have your chance to make a statement, all in good time,’ said George, to all appearances unstartled and unmoved. ‘Go on, Mrs Paviour. Say what you were going to say.’ She would not be interrupted again; Orrie had made his point and could bide his time.
‘I realise,’ said Lesley quietly, ‘that it’s my word against his. I realise that my recoil from him now makes him
want to drag me down as low as he can. I can only tell the truth. I never knew anything about any thefts from the site, but I do admit the affair with him. I wish I needn’t. It wasn’t even a happiness while it lasted—not for long. My own fault! Yes, I was going to tell you… We did meet in his cottage sometimes. That was what I had to explain, how I came to be there in his bedroom.’ She took a moment to breathe; she was quite calm, even relaxed, perhaps in resignation now that the worst was over. ‘The last time was about a month ago. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was in the last few days of March. He had a letter with a foreign stamp on the table by the bed, and I was surprised, and picked it up to look at the stamp, out of curiosity. I didn’t know he knew anyone abroad. It was a Turkish stamp, and the postmark was the twentieth of March. When he saw me looking at it he took it out of my hand and dropped it into a drawer. But afterwards I kept thinking I knew the handwriting, and couldn’t place it. It was addressed in English style, the lay-out and the hand. I had the feeling that it was familiar in some special way, that some time or other I’d copy-typed from a hand like that. I had. I know now. I happened to turn out some notes I typed up for him while he was staying here. It was Doctor Morris’s handwriting.’
‘She lies!’ said Orrie, shortly and splendidly, without weakening emphasis. ‘There never was any such letter.’
‘A month ago?’ said George sharply. ‘Dated the twentieth of March? You’re sure it wasn’t old? From a previous year?’
‘Quite sure. The date was plain. It was March of this year.’
‘Then about six weeks ago Doctor Morris was unquestionably alive and well, and still in Turkey?’
‘He must have been. He addressed that envelope, I’m certain of that.’
‘Where in Turkey? Could you read the postmark? Was there anything to give you a clue to where he could be found now?’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember anything more. It was the date I noticed—’ She turned and looked full at Orrie. ‘But he can tell you. He must know where Doctor Morris is. He’s always known.’
The briefest of glances passed between George Felse and Gus Hambro; and Gus, who had been silent during all these last exchanges, said suddenly, briskly and forcibly:
‘I doubt if he does. But we do. We know exactly where Doctor Morris is. He’s down in the flues of the hypocaust, luggage, briefcase, typewriter and all, and he’s been there ever since he left your house to catch his plane, nineteen months ago.’
She had had no warning, none at all; for once her sixth sense had failed her. She came out of her chair with a thin, angry sound, quivering like a plucked bow-string, torn between panic acceptance and the lightning reassertion of her terrible intelligence; and in the instant while the two clashed, she shrieked at him: ‘You’re lying! You can’t have been near where we put hi…’
The aspirate hissed and died on her lip, and that was all, but it was fierce and clear, and just two words too many. She stood rigid, chilled into ice.
‘He wasn’t on the direct route, no,’ agreed Gus softly, ‘but my route was a good deal less than direct. There’s hardly a yard of flue passable in that hypocaust where I haven’t been. Including the near corner where —“we”— put him. I left your bronze helmet with him for safekeeping. As soon as you’re in custody we’re going to set about resurrecting them both.’
The deafening silence was shattered suddenly by a great, gusty, vengeful sound, and that was Orrie Benyon laughing. And in a moment, melting, surrendering, genuinely and terrifyingly amused by her own lapse, Lesley Paviour dropped back into her chair and laughed with him, exactly like a sporting loser in a trivial quizz-game.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
« ^
She laughed again, when she was alone with George in his office at C.I.D. headquarters in Comerbourne, with no shorthand writer at hand and no witnesses, and he asked her, with genuine and unindignant curiosity—since indignation was quite irrelevant in any dealings with Lesley—: ‘Do you always contrive to have not merely one fall guy on hand in case of need, but at least two? And doesn’t it sometimes make things risky when you decide to change horses in midstream?’
‘I never plan,’ she said with disarming candour, ‘not consciously. I just do what seems the clever thing at the moment.’
All too often, he reflected, it not only seemed clever, but was. She had matched every twist until the last, the one she hadn’t foreseen even as a possibility. For some built-in instinct certainly acted to provide her with escape hatches and can-carriers well in advance of need. Why, otherwise, had she gone out of her way to let Charlotte not only see but handle the package still waiting to be reclaimed from the bank? And to tell her guilelessly that it was Orrie’s, and not the first time he had put similar small items into safe-keeping? Thus underlining for future reference his involvement and her own naïve innocence. She had even scattered a few seeds, according to Charlotte, concerning Bill Lawrence’s solitary and furtive prowlings about the site, in case she should ever need yet another string to her bow. Lesley collected potentially useful people, and used and disposed of them like tissues, without a qualm.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said, ‘it was so clever to write off Orrie. I wonder at what stage you made up your mind to throw him to the lions? You did allow him the chance to drive you back from the hospital last night. Hadn’t you decided then? He’d been waiting on hot coals for a chance to talk to you alone. He wanted you to do your share, didn’t he? You were in the house, it was your turn to do the necessary killing. Even a delicate little woman could press a cushion over the face of a man fast asleep under drugs after an exhausting ordeal. But you never intended sticking your neck out for him. Why didn’t you tell him so? Obviously you didn’t, or he wouldn’t have left his own attempt so late. He waited all night, hoping you’d do the job for him. And I don’t doubt you slept soundly.’
‘Never better,’ she said.
‘Was it more fun letting him sweat? Was it just to make sure he would mistime it and be caught? Or were you afraid you wouldn’t get back alive from the hospital with him if you pushed him too far?’
‘I’m never afraid,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I don’t drive through red lights, but I’m not afraid.’ He believed that, too.
‘And of course,’ he said, ‘it was only going to be your word against his, since your husband was going to die. And if you were winding up the operation and getting out with the proceeds, Orrie was going to be a liability as well as an expense, wasn’t he? But what would you have done if he’d refused to put his neck in the noose, and decided to take a chance on Gus, and sit it out?’
‘I’d have thought of something,’ said Lesley confidently.
‘In the end even you had to make one slip.’
‘I shan’t make another. I knew your thumbs were pricking about me,’ she said without animosity, ‘when you encouraged me to do poor old Stephen out of his alibi for the night. I could hardly do that without pointing out that I hadn’t got one myself, could I? But even now, what are you going to charge me with?’
‘Concealing a death will do to begin with.’
Lesley laughed aloud. ‘You’ll never make even that one stick. Not without Stephen’s evidence, and you’re going to have to go rather a long way to get that, aren’t you?’
‘Just as far,’ said George, ‘as the General. It’s a mistake to be too clever at reading between the lines. Neither Doctor Braby nor Sister Bruce told you any lies, they just didn’t tell you the whole truth. Sister told you repeatedly he wasn’t any worse. She didn’t say he wasn’t any better. He is, very much. Digitalisation is taking effect excellently. He’s out of danger.’
‘But she told me,’ said Lesley, genuinely indignant at such duplicity, ‘that he was dying!’
‘She did nothing of the sort. She told you simply that you could visit any time, even out of visiting hours. What you read into that is your worry. So you can visit, if you’d like to—under escort, of course.’
She mad
e a small, bitter kitten-face, wrinkling her nose. The jolt was shrugged off in a moment; she adapted to this as nimbly as she did to everything. ‘Thanks, but in the circumstances perhaps it wouldn’t be tactful. It certainly wouldn’t be amusing. But even if you do get to talk to him,’ she said, strongly recovering, ‘he won’t say a word against me, you know.’
‘You may,’ said George, rising, ‘find you’ve over-estimated even his tolerance. How will you get round it then?’
‘I’ll think of something,’ said Lesley.
It was two days before Stephen Paviour was sufficiently recovered to be visited briefly in hospital, and even then George put off what he really had to tell and ask him for two days more, and consulted his doctors before taking the risk of administering a new shock. By Thursday evening his condition was so far satisfactory as to allow the interview.
In all his life of half-fulfilment, of disappointments and deprivations, of loving without being loved, he had perhaps become accustomed to the fact that no one ever came to break good news. It was better to hear the whole story at once than to put it off, since his forebodings were almost always worse than the reality. And with long experience he had acquired a degree of durability against which even this might break itself and leave him unbroken. All the same, George approached the telling very gently and very simply. Flourishes would only have made sympathy intolerable.
Paviour lay and listened without exclamation or protest. There was offence and pain in it for him, but beneath the surface there was no surprise. When it was over he lay and digested it for a minute or two, and strangely he seemed to lie more easily and breathe more deeply, as though a tension and a load had been lifted from him.
‘They both admit this? It’s been going on—how long?’
‘Since before Doctor Morris’s visit. Perhaps two years. Perhaps even more.’
‘I was rejected,’ he said slowly. ‘I had to respect her morbid sensitivity, and cherish her all the same, and I did it. That I could bear. And all the time she was wallowing with that beautiful draught-horse, that piece of border earth. While she fended me off with those elaborate lies, because I was too dull, too civilised, too old to serve her turn.’ He thought for a moment, and there was colour in his grey face, and a spark in his normally haggard and anxious eyes. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, ‘exactly what happened, though I see now that it was not what happened at all, since there’s no truth in her. This propensity of hers—to provoke men and then recoil from them—this feigned propensity… She used it on Alan Morris, too. You know he was a ladies’ man? But a gentleman, and experienced enough to be able to deal with her. I was not worried at all.’