The Inheritance

by Simon Tolkien

  “All right,” Trave said grudgingly. “I’ll keep an open mind. Now show me your pictures.”

  Silas didn’t need to be asked twice. He opened the briefcase and took out two large colour photographs. Then, moving Trave’s whisky bottle out of the way, he laid them out side by side on the low coffee table in front of the fireplace.

  Trave sat on the sofa as far away as he could from Silas and studied the pictures. It was obvious that one photograph was simply a blown-up section of the other. In the first the murdered man sat in his high-backed green leather armchair with the bullet hole in his forehead and the game of chess laid out on the table in front of him. In the second there were only the big heavy chess board and the hand-carved ivory pieces. Some were on the board and some were on the table, some still in play and some taken.

  “Well, what’s the point?” asked Trave. The irritation was back in his voice. There was nothing new to see. Cade had played chess with his younger son before he died. Everyone agreed that that had happened. According to Thompson, the loss of the game was one of the things that drove Stephen over the edge.

  “Can’t you see?” asked Silas.

  “No, I can’t. And I don’t know how you got these photographs either. They’re a crime scene, for God’s sake. And that man’s your father.”

  “Was my father. I took quite a few photographs when the policeman you’d put in the study had his back turned. It was the same one who told Jeanne all about me and Sasha at court. What was his name?”

  “Clayton. Adam Clayton. And he didn’t tell Jeanne anything.”

  “She overheard him. Yes, I know. But it still had the same effect. Anyway, the second picture, the one with the chess pieces: I developed that off the first one about a week ago. I did it because of what I heard my brother say when he was giving his evidence.”

  “About what?”

  “About the chess pieces. You were in court too, Inspector. I saw you. But perhaps you didn’t listen. Too busy building a case against me, I expect.”

  Trave felt an almost irresistible desire to punch his visitor, to literally kick him out of the house. But he did resist. He swallowed his anger and waited for Silas to continue.

  “Stephen said that our father told him he could have the money he wanted if he won a game of chess. And then a little later he said that Dad played black and without a knight, but he still won easily. All that struck a chord with me, Inspector. It was the sort of thing my father did. He liked to show off his superiority, and he had a sadistic streak. It was there all the time when we were children, but it got worse after my mother died—much worse.”

  “In any case, what Stephen said about the chess game jogged something in my memory. And so I went back to the photographs I’d taken in the study, and that’s when I saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “That black didn’t win. Look. It’s the black king that can’t move. And the white queen’s attacking him down the rook file. White won in the photograph, Inspector. Not black.”

  “And so he must have carried on playing chess with himself after Stephen walked out. Really serious players do that, don’t they?” said Trave, suddenly excited. “Your photograph shows that Stephen must have left the study like he said. And Cade replayed the game or some of it before his killer came in.”

  “Dressed in my hat and coat.”

  Trave ignored Silas’s denial that he was the murderer. The photographs entranced him. They were like a laser beam shining back through time toward the truth, and yet they were not enough. Trave had realised that almost as soon as he had understood their significance. They supported Stephen’s case only if he was telling the truth about his father playing with the black pieces. Of course he had no reason to lie. But the evidence was self-serving. It wouldn’t be enough to reverse the conviction or save Stephen from the hangman. More was needed. Some independent evidence exonerating Stephen of the crime. But where was it to come from? There was so little time left, and Trave didn’t know where to begin.

  “Is this all you’ve got?” he asked. “It’s good but it’s not enough. Or maybe you know that already.”

  “I know we need more, if that’s what you mean,” said Silas. “The photographs are important for me because they made me change my mind, not because they’ll save Stephen.”

  “So, have you got anything else?” asked Trave, trying to contain his irritation.

  “Not much. Somebody changed the chess pieces back to their starting positions. I found them that way when I came downstairs in the morning a couple of days after the murder. I don’t know who did it, but everyone in the house denied responsibility. Especially Esther, the housemaid. She got quite angry when I asked her, as if I was accusing her of something. We never got on after that, and I had to get rid of her. She was too much trouble.”

  “You think it was the murderer who came back and changed the pieces.”

  “Maybe. Except I don’t know how he’d have known what happened in the chess game without Stephen telling him. I only realised when Stephen gave his evidence.”

  “Unless Stephen said something while he was still in the house.”

  “What? You mean before you arrived?”

  “Or after. But we’re clutching at straws. And straws won’t save your brother.”

  Silas looked over at Trave quickly. He’d picked up on the policeman’s use of the word “we.” Perhaps Trave would keep an open mind after all.

  “There’s one other thing that might help,” he said slowly. “Do you remember the Mercedes that got stopped outside Moreton on the night my father was killed?”

  “Yes. How do you know about that?”

  “You gave evidence about it, and there was a report in one of the newspapers. Anyway, the driver gave his name as Noirtier. Well, I don’t know if it means anything, but look.”

  Silas bent down and took an old book out of his briefcase. It was an atlas, and he quickly turned to the page he wanted. A map of northern France. He pointed to a black dot a little way south of Rouen.

  “Do you see the name?” he asked.

  The light was bad, and Trave had to bend down close to the page so that his head almost touched Silas’s.

  “Moirtier,” he said. “Moirtier-sur-Bagne.”

  “An m for an n,” said Silas. “It’s close enough. And Marjean is less than three miles down the road. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but maybe not.”

  “You think your father’s murder had something to do with what happened in France?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why, but I feel sure of it. Ritter and my father did kill those people, you know. Stephen and I heard them talking about it. Things like that don’t go unpunished.”

  “In war they do,” said Trave. He felt suddenly as if Silas was trying to lead him somewhere, and his natural obstinacy combined with his policeman’s suspicious mind to hold him back. And yet he had always felt he should go to France and ask some questions, look in the record books, see what he could find. He remembered Swift’s question to him at the trial: “Why didn’t you go to Marjean to investigate for yourself who shot Professor Cade in 1956 and sent him the blackmail letter the following year?” “It was a prosecution decision,” he had said. But it hadn’t been his decision. And he could still go. To Moirtier. It didn’t sound like a common name. It didn’t sound like a coincidence.

  And yet why would Silas want to send him to France? Perhaps he wanted him out of the way until his brother was safely executed and the case was closed forever. Trave remembered what Swift had said to Silas when he cross-examined him the second time: “You’re the one who’s been pulling the strings in your family for a long time now.” Silas was the one with the motive, and Silas was the one with the false alibi. It had to be false. Trave remembered Sasha Vigne’s suitcases standing in the hall at Moreton Manor. She’d been in a hurry to leave because she didn’t want to be in the house when Silas got out of hospital. She had never slept with him. Trave was sure of it.

  Trave walked over
to the front window and looked out into the dark empty street. He felt confused and uncertain—a man in search of a sign. Unless the sign was on the map lying open on the table behind him, where Silas had just put his finger. Moirtier-sur-Bagne, the place was called. Less than three miles from Marjean.

  “I’ll go with you if you like,” said Silas, breaking the silence. “There’s nothing to keep me here.” It was as if he’d been reading Trave’s mind.

  “No,” said Trave more harshly than he had intended. “I can’t go if you go. Surely you can see that.”

  “Because I’m still a suspect, you mean,” said Silas, laughing mirthlessly. “What more can I do to convince you, Inspector?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do other than what you have done. Nothing at all. I’ll go alone, and I just hope I’m doing the right thing.”

  Hearing himself, Trave realised that he had already decided what to do before he had even known of his own decision. He was going to follow his instinct. That was what had deserted him in this case. Perhaps it would take him in the right direction now. He’d take a leave of absence. With luck he could be in Rouen by Tuesday evening.

  Silas went back to the manor house in a taxi. His injured foot made it impossible for him to drive the Rolls-Royce, which had stood parked in the garage behind the house since the day the Ritters died. The road to Moreton was full of landmarks: the bottom of the hill where his mother died, the place where the unknown driver of the black Mercedes was stopped by a traffic policeman and gave the name Noirtier and a false address in Oxford. But Silas was not looking out the window. He had taken the photographs back out of his briefcase and was gazing with rapt attention at his father’s last game of chess. So many secrets. The Marjean codex hidden inside the board and the black king mated. Under attack and with nowhere left to go, just like Silas’s brother up in London. Alone in his cell, awaiting the coup de grâce.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Early the next morning, Trave went to his police station in the centre of Oxford. He itched to be on his way now that he had decided to go to France, but he couldn’t leave without getting the superintendent’s blessing. There should be no problem with his cases. They were mostly quiet, and Adam Clayton could look after them while he was away. All in all, Trave didn’t anticipate Creswell making any objection. The superintendent had only a few years left before his retirement, and he was content to let Trave and the other two inspectors get on with their jobs without too much interference, as long as their activities didn’t add to his own workload.

  “I need a leave of absence,” said Trave almost as soon as he was inside the superintendent’s office. He was in too much of a hurry to take in that Creswell looked like thunder.

  “Why?”

  “I want to go to France for a few days. I’ll be back by the end of the week.”

  “So tell me, has this sudden desire to go south got something to do with the case of Mr. Stephen Cade?” asked Creswell, leaning back in his chair and giving his subordinate a look of unconcealed distaste.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Trave, taken aback. Silas hadn’t mentioned talking to anyone else about his suspicions.

  “Let’s just say it’s an educated guess,” said Creswell acidly. “You’d better sit down and read this. It’s from that barrister up in London. He doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

  Tiny Thompson had certainly made good on his promise to write a letter of complaint. On two pages of closely typed paper, he had portrayed Trave as having been engaged in a sort of guerrilla operation to sabotage Stephen Cade’s prosecution almost from the outset. The last straw had been the maid’s statement that Trave had taken to Thompson’s chambers after the Ritters died.

  “Well?” asked Creswell once Trave had finished reading the prosecutor’s diatribe.

  “It’s rubbish. Every word of it. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Maybe not. But it doesn’t look good, does it? I don’t need this Thompson character causing me grief. Or you making it worse. And this trip to France isn’t going to help, is it? Why’ve you got to go?”

  “Because I think there might be something over there that everyone’s missed up to now. I just don’t believe Stephen Cade killed his father. I haven’t done so for a long time now. And I don’t want him to hang for something he never did.”

  “Well, if you’ve got evidence that he’s innocent, you should take it to the powers that be. And they’re in London, not France. What you shouldn’t be doing is slinking around trying to undermine your own case just because you’ve got some kind of hunch about it. You’re not the damned jury, Bill, do you hear me? It’s done its job. Now you get on and do yours.”

  Trave remained silent, but the stubborn scowl that had formed around his mouth was more expressive than any mere words could be.

  After a moment, the superintendent sighed and pushed Thompson’s letter to the side of his desk, where it joined a growing pile of unanswered correspondence.

  “I can’t stop you from taking a holiday, Bill,” he said resignedly. “You’re due for one. But remember this: It’s your trip and not mine. You’re not taking anyone else down with you if down is where you’re going. I’ll see to that. And don’t claim any expenses,” he added as Trave got up to go.

  Trave nodded. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and he meant it. Creswell could have made it a lot harder for him if he’d chosen to, although it wouldn’t have stopped his leaving. Trave had made his mind up, and he’d have disobeyed a direct order to stay in Oxford if he’d had to. But that didn’t stop him from being grateful it hadn’t come to that.

  Trave took Clayton out to lunch at a nearby pub. In recent weeks he’d warmed to the young man. He made mistakes, but there was an innocent, wide-eyed enthusiasm about him that Trave had grown to like. Clayton asked questions and worked late because he was doing what he’d always wanted to do, not because he had his eyes set on the next promotion, like so many of the other young detectives on the force. And there was a human side to the boy that made Trave feel almost fatherly toward him. He hadn’t forgotten Clayton’s sudden nausea at Cade’s postmortem or his panic outside the courtroom in London. The memory of these episodes made Trave smile as he paid for two pints of Oxford bitter and took them over to a table by the fire.

  “There’s something that I want you to do for me while I’m away,” he said, wiping the froth of the beer away from his lips after taking his first sip.

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  Trave smiled at the Americanism. Clayton had clearly been watching too much television on his days off. “It’s about one of the exhibits in the Cade case,” he said. “The key to the study door.”

  “The one with our man’s fingerprints on it?”

  “Yes. That’s the one. Not surprisingly, our friend Mr. Thompson attached a great deal of importance to it at the trial, because Sergeant Ritter heard Stephen turning the key in the lock before he opened the door. And both the Ritters said that the professor never locked the internal door of the study, so the jurors were left to infer that Stephen must have done so himself sometime before he unlocked it to let Ritter in. Pretty incriminating on the face of it, you have to admit.”

  “Unless someone else locked the door after Stephen left the room and then didn’t have time to remove the key before Stephen came back,” said Clayton slowly.

  “Yes, exactly,” said Trave, pleased by Clayton’s understanding. “Neither of the Ritters ever said anything about Cade’s leaving the key in the door, and in fact there’s no reason for him to have done so if he never locked it. He was an orderly man, and so he’d have kept the key on the ring in his desk drawer. And that’s not all. This murder was premeditated. I know it was. You don’t bring a gun to an interview unless you’re intending to use it. This killer didn’t lose his temper, Adam. He did what he came to do. And if he locked the door to stop anyone from following him in, he wouldn’t have relied on there being a key in the door waiting for him to use. He’d have brough
t one with him.”

  “Which he would’ve had copied before.”

  “Yes. Using either Cade’s key or Mrs. Ritter’s for the purpose. It’s a long shot, Adam, but what I want you to do is get hold of Cade’s key ring. It should still be with the other exhibits up at the Bailey. If one of the keys on it fits the study door, then the one with Stephen’s prints on it is a copy, and you’ll need to start checking with all the locksmiths in the area. I’ll call you tomorrow evening after I’ve arrived, and you can tell me how you’ve got on. But keep your enquiries quiet. The superintendent isn’t exactly wild about what we’re doing.”

  “How long are you going for?” asked Clayton.

  “I don’t know. It would help if I knew what I was looking for. I told Creswell that I’d be back by the end of the week, but maybe it’ll take longer. Not much, though, or there won’t be any point. Stephen Cade’ll be dead.”

  “When’s the execution fixed for?” asked Clayton, feeling his blood run suddenly cold as the reality of the situation got through to him.

  “Nine days’ time is what I’ve heard. Wednesday week at eight in the morning. We’re his only hope, Adam, if Swift can’t get the home secretary to come through with a reprieve, and I wouldn’t hold your breath over that happening. This is the most right-wing government we’ve had since the war.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Clayton, feeling slightly sick as he finished his drink.

  “And all his saints,” agreed Trave. But his mind was already looking ahead, thinking about his journey the next day. Although many of his colleagues would have taken Trave for the epitome of a little Englander, he was in fact surprisingly widely traveled, and he spoke French quite well for a man who’d learnt the language off long-playing records on weekday evenings after work.

  It was French, in fact, that had first brought Trave and his wife together. They’d met at a class that he’d taken for a while when he’d gone as far as he could with the records. The teacher had divided her students into pairs so that they could practise talking about a day on the beach or visiting the cultural sites of Paris. Some pairings were more successful than others, but theirs was inspired. Trave and Vanessa never changed partners after that first day. The class became the highlight of their weeks. They laughed at each others’ mistakes and encouraged each others’ efforts, and slowly but surely their laboured conversations turned into actual plans. They visited Paris first and then went south in search of the sun, and as soon as the first holiday was over they were planning the next one. Those were the happiest days of Trave’s life. They’d scrimped and saved and gone third class on trains, camping out at night under the stars and waking in the mornings with the cathedrals of Chartres or Tours or Rheims waiting for them on the horizon. They’d fallen in love with France and fallen in love with each other, and the experience had brought Trave out of himself, temporarily expunging his natural shyness. And it occurred to him now, as he prepared to return to a country that he hadn’t seen for more than four years, that he had been in headlong retreat from himself since Joe’s death, putting back up the shutters that he had first taken down when he started going to French classes at the Lycée on the Banbury Road all those years ago.