After Clare

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘Who, then, was he blackmailing?’ he enquired at last.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, sir. But do I need to? Don’t you already know?’

  Markham’s knuckles were white as he gripped the glass. He was white around his mouth, too, and there was a dangerous glint in his eye. Novak understood what Rosie had meant when she’d said she didn’t want to be around when her father lost his temper. Gerald said, ‘I don’t think I understand what you are saying.’

  ‘We have reason to believe Peter Sholto might have been blackmailing your wife, sir.’

  ‘That’s an outrageous suggestion!’

  Novak didn’t rise to this. ‘Did you send a letter to Peter Sholto just before he disappeared?’

  The reaction was not what he expected. Markham suddenly subsided into one of the leather chairs and waved Novak to the opposite one. ‘Perhaps you’d better sit down.’ He gulped at his drink and said, tiredly, ‘All right, I don’t know how you know, but yes, I did write to him. I’d heard he was due to be demobbed and I wrote and told him that I wanted to see him as soon as he arrived back in Netherley.’

  ‘Presumably you wanted to talk to him about the blackmail?’

  ‘About that, yes . . . you’re quite right, he had been obtaining money from my wife, I’m afraid. He didn’t answer my letter. Then weeks later, out of the blue, he telephoned me – calling from Leysmorton. I was astonished – stunned! I knew the place was locked up, though I’d no doubt he knew how to get in. He said we should have that talk I wanted right there and then, he would wait for me to go over. It was just before dinner, and after some hesitation, I agreed. He was waiting outside the door when I reached Leysmorton and we said what we had to say out there.’

  ‘Why outside?’

  ‘There were lights on in the house, but as he didn’t make any move for us to go inside, I suspected he had someone else there with him. I was glad enough to keep our conversation to ourselves, however, without anyone else overhearing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I called his bluff and told him his sordid little game was over. That I knew what it was all about, that the affair was finished and he could say goodbye to any more money from Stella – or from Stronglove. He said if that was all I wanted to see him about I needn’t have bothered, all that was an irrelevance now, he’d have all the money he wanted soon enough. I’d no idea what he was talking about. I could only assume he meant blackmail money from other poor fools.’

  ‘How long had you known about your wife and Stronglove?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said tiredly, ‘I suspected before the war. I happen to love my wife, in spite of everything, and I care about my family, so I said nothing, hoping it would blow itself out, like Stronglove’s other affairs. I had no idea that Stella was being blackmailed, though, until I discovered a valuable piece of jewellery I had given her had been sold, despite her very generous allowance. I said nothing to her, but I was able to work out what had happened for myself. I had never liked Peter Sholto, I thought him crafty, and something about the way Stella had always reacted to him made me put two and two together. But then the war put a stop to it. Both he and Stronglove went away and I thought that was the last of it. Until, when peace came, I heard Stronglove was planning to return to Leysmorton. Peter, of course, would be demobbed and would also be coming home, and I was afraid the whole business would start up again. That was why I wrote to him. When I saw him, I told him to his face that his nasty little scheme had gone flat and warned him to keep his nose out of my wife’s affairs in future, or I’d let the police know what was happening.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘He laughed.’ Markham had grown taut with anger. ‘He said, “No, you won’t do that, I think. Too much risk of all your fancy friends getting to know. A slur on your precious family name. Sniggers behind your back whenever you—”’ He passed a hand across his face, as if to wipe away a distasteful memory. ‘Well, he was going on to say a lot more, but I didn’t stay to hear . . . I turned my back on him and left him standing where he was.’

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t threaten him further?’

  ‘What would have been the use, with someone like that? I simply left him and came home.’ With an effort he prised himself from his chair. ‘It’s not a particularly elevating story – but now, if that’s all . . .’

  ‘Before I go – this all happened on the seventeenth of March, did it not?’

  He looked puzzled. ‘I don’t remember the exact date.’

  ‘That was the day Peter Sholto absented himself from his unit.’

  ‘Then I suppose it might have been.’

  ‘Did you send him a second letter?’

  ‘No’

  ‘What did you think when you heard that he had apparently been killed at least six months earlier, just before the war ended? When you had actually seen and talked to him a few days previously?’

  For a moment he said nothing. ‘I’ll tell you what I thought. I knew it wasn’t true, of course, but as far as I was concerned it couldn’t have been better news. If he was supposed to be dead, he couldn’t bother us any more. If he wasn’t, the same thing applied. And now, Inspector, I’ll leave you to find out which of his enemies dealt with him.’

  ‘Oh,’ Novak replied, ‘we know who did it. What we don’t know – yet – is how.’ He, too, stood up. ‘I think you’re right about not waiting for Miss Markham. I can always see her in the morning, and Mrs Gaunt will have my supper waiting. No, don’t bother, I’ll see myself out, sir.’

  ‘You’re very late, Gerald. You do realize we’re dining with the Sydenhams?’

  ‘Don’t remind me, Stella. I hadn’t forgotten that! But there’s still plenty of time.’

  ‘Only if you hurry like mad.’ She looked annoyed, but then she shrugged. Her fingers plucked through her jewel case, selecting a small pair of emerald earrings he had given her on her last birthday.

  ‘Let’s cancel,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’m very tired, and I don’t think I can face Pamela Sydenham tonight.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Gerald.’ She screwed a green jewel into her ear-lobe.

  In two strides, he was across the room, gripping her shoulders from behind and staring into her face as she sat in front of the looking glass. She winced as his grip tightened painfully. ‘I have been ridiculous for too long,’ he said, ‘but not any more. It’s time you and I talked and got things straight. It’s too late for anything but the truth between us, Stella.’

  Twenty-Three

  At last it was out in the open, no longer a secret. His affair with Stella was finally, irrevocably, over.

  Dirk smarted as the last half hour played itself over and over, like a needle stuck in a gramophone record. Gerald – Gerald Markham, of all people – storming over here to confront him, lecturing him with that insufferable air of righteousness. That stuffed shirt actually having the effrontery to announce that he was speaking for Stella! When in fact it wasn’t difficult to see what was really happening: Gerald delivering an ultimatum and forcing the issue, laying down the law and forbidding his wife to have anything more to do with Dirk – which diktat Stella would have had no choice but to obey, and probably no inclination, either, thought Dirk bitterly, at last accepting the inevitable. He crashed his fist impotently against the desk. Now, when the threat of exposure no longer existed, Stella had to go and admit everything about their affair to her husband! He wondered what else she had told him.

  Stella. Finish. Finale. Their affair had finally run its course, and he was affronted to find how much pain it caused him, though he had always known that she would never leave her husband. Gerald represented too much that was paramount in Stella’s life: money, comfort, status, the opinions of the set she moved in. At first he had never imagined their casual affair would last so long, would turn into something much more important – for him, at least – would even survive the separation of the war and be rekindled after it. Or perhaps he had known subliminally that it cou
ld, and that was at least one of the reasons why he’d fought against his desire to return to Leysmorton, after the war had forced a break on them, his intuition telling him it would be a mistake. His previous affairs had always been relatively short-lived, easily dismissed, but this one was different, and more dangerous. Yet he had returned. And then had come a great lifting of the weight that had lain on his shoulders for four years, when Sholto’s father, for reasons best known to himself, let it be known that Peter had not survived to see the end of the war.

  It was not only the prospect of restarting things with Stella, however, that had brought him back. Despite himself, Dirk had a nostalgia for this old house where he had grown up, ancient creaking timbers, draughty stone passages and all. But primarily, he considered a famous author such as Dirk Stronglove had a right to live in, and eventually inherit, such a fitting setting as Leysmorton. He had never dreamt that right would ever be challenged.

  Even before life had unfairly thrust the disaster of his failing sight on him, he could have found his way blindfold around every corner of Leysmorton, so familiar was he with the whole of this great house and its garden, his home since he had been a babe in arms. He could still find his way tolerably well around it now, without making too much of a fool of himself, without blundering into anything or falling over and thus bringing someone rushing forward with officious offers of help, which he hated above all things. People who didn’t know him had difficulty in believing the extent of his blindness. They did not even guess that it was so bad now he could barely distinguish even the words he himself wrote.

  He wasn’t, as everyone thought, putting off the advised operation because he was afraid of the uncertain outcome. He knew what that would be. Knew – with utter conviction, without any shadow of doubt – that, operation or not, one day he would be completely blind. He had always been cursed by this intuition, second sight, clairvoyance, call it what you will. As a twelve-year-old boy he had foreseen that his mother, Florence, would die of the pleurisy she had contracted. He had been forewarned of the tragic end to that business of Marta’s. And he had known that Peter Sholto would die. Throughout his life he had had these unshakeable convictions of what was to happen.

  And he had never been wrong.

  There were other discomforts that went with his condition: a sick vertigo and the headache that today was blinding. He had difficulties in sleeping. The lotion Marta had concocted to bathe his burning eyes with was soothing, and the pills she rolled for his headaches sometimes helped, though little more. So what was the point in going through with it? Operation or not, very soon he would be completely blind.

  Meanwhile, there was Marta. What of her future? What was he to do about poor Marta?

  The police would be back, inevitably, and he had to act before that.

  He reached out for the Chinese tobacco jar that stood on his desk. Lifting its lid, he let the contents slide through his fingers for a moment before picking up a small handful and stuffing it into his pocket. He then pulled a sheet of writing paper towards him and, unscrewing his fountain pen and bending his head until it almost touched the paper to see better, he began to write.

  When the police came, Dirk was in the small dining parlour with Marta, who had just crossed the room to draw the curtains.

  The darkness outside made a mirror of the window, and for a moment she stared at her reflection: a dowdy, unattractive, middle-aged woman, her doughy face expressionless. With a sharp tug, she pulled the curtain across to shut out the image and went back to sit with Dirk at the table, where only the wine and their half-empty glasses stayed after the remains of supper had been cleared. She lifted the bottle, a sweet purplish wine akin to port, to refill Dirk’s glass, but he covered it with his hand.

  ‘No, I’ve had enough. This elderberry stuff of yours is enough to knock out a horse. Any more will only make my head worse.’

  She put the bottle down. His eyes were half-closed and he had let his chin drop to his chest. ‘You should go to bed, Dirk, get some rest.’

  Even as she spoke, the sound of the heavy knocker on the front door reverberated through the house. They looked at each other and the blood surged to her face. She left him and hurried to answer it. ‘It’s not a good time,’ she told the two policemen. ‘My brother has been having a bad day, he has a very severe headache.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Heeren,’ Novak said. ‘But it’s important we see you both now.’

  Grudgingly, she let them in. When they entered, Dirk looked up. ‘Marta. Some of your coffee for these gentlemen, perhaps? I suppose it’s Peter Sholto again?’ he asked in an exaggeratedly resigned note.

  ‘Not for me, thank you,’ said Willard, waving away the offer of coffee.

  ‘A glass of my wine then.’ Without waiting for an answer, Marta produced two more glasses and poured a substantial amount into each.

  ‘Yes, it is about Peter,’ Novak said.

  ‘He always liked my home-made wines,’ Marta remarked, refilling her own glass and then, despite his earlier refusal, Dirk’s too. ‘Go on, a little more won’t hurt you.’

  The hair of the dog? wondered Novak, noting the pallor of Stronglove’s face, the tense frown between his brows. The alleged headache, no doubt. He sipped cautiously from his own glass. Syrupy sweet, but with a heck of punch, probably. These home-brews were deceptive. He took a moment to wonder if Marta, too, had been at it already. She looked suspiciously bright-eyed, and a dull, unbecoming flush was on her round face. It might be a clue as to how Marta Heeren got through her day. He sensed that she could have had more to give to the world than worrying over a brother in the way she would have worried over a troublesome child, living in someone else’s home, doing nothing more exciting than growing herbs and vegetables.

  Willard, too, sipped, raised his brows at the taste, put his wine aside and then opened his notebook.

  Novak began, ‘Let me start by going over what we’ve gathered together about Peter. Correct me at any time if you think we’ve got it wrong.’

  Stronglove fingered his wine glass. The light from the oil lamp on the table gleamed on his dark features; he looked like some devilish, predatory insect, his eyes hidden by the thick, distorting lenses of his spectacles. ‘Go on.’

  ‘As we’ve established, his abiding interest was in old furniture. But it seems not to have been the only thing he was interested in.’

  Moments passed before Stronglove spoke. ‘Perhaps you’d care to be a little more explicit.’

  ‘To put it bluntly, he was showing an unhealthy preoccupation with your personal affairs, Mr Stronglove, isn’t that so?’ He didn’t answer. Marta began to speak, but Dirk put a heavy, detaining hand on hers where it lay on the table. Novak watched them. ‘All right, let’s not beat about the bush. Let me tell you that we have the money you and Mrs Markham paid out to keep him quiet about the affair you were having. You should have gone to the police over that.’

  He made no attempt at bluster. ‘Has Mrs Markham admitted this?’ Not getting an answer, he shrugged and asked, ‘Where did you find the money?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. You don’t deny the affair – or the blackmail?’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point. You seem to have made up your minds. Anyway, it was finished with, all that, before he died.’

  Novak doubted whether this was the truth. ‘That wasn’t his only reason for threatening you, was it?’

  ‘That, I’m afraid, is purely a matter of speculation on your part.’

  ‘Not entirely. As I understand it, you have reason to believe you are Lady Fitzallan’s heir, that you will inherit this house and quite possibly her fortune as well.’

  ‘What has that to do with Peter Sholto?’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Quite a lot, Mr Stronglove. I have something here that he believed gave him an even stronger hold on you. And I suspect you believed it, too.’

  ‘Please don’t speak in riddles. It’s exhausting.’

  ‘I’ll try
to be more plain. Have you seen this letter before?’ The thin paper rustled as Novak showed the Gautier letter, opening it carefully because its recent handling was beginning to threaten disintegration.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you know what it is, though. Peter told you he had discovered that he was the grandson of Lady Fitzallan’s sister, and he had a letter that would go far to substantiate his claim when he made one on her estate. I suggest he was blackmailing you over that, too. Wills can be changed.’

  Stronglove suddenly reached out an unsteady hand and took a large gulp of wine, spilling it slightly as he put the glass back on the table, not deigning to answer.

  ‘You must have felt very relieved when his father told everyone he was dead. But you already knew that, didn’t you? You were here when he died, the night of March the seventeenth.’

  ‘I never saw him, after the war.’

  ‘As we’ve told you, no one was here that night,’ Marta put in.

  ‘I don’t think that’s so, Miss Heeren. Lights were seen in the house.’

  ‘But if Peter had come here, as you say, wouldn’t that account for it?’ Stronglove reached out to top up his glass, which did not seem like a good idea in view of his intense pallor and the nervous tremble in his hands he didn’t seem able to control.

  ‘Whoever that witness was,’ Marta said woodenly, ‘must have been mistaken. We left the house two days before that, and didn’t return until the end of April.’

  She might have been even more dismissive had she known just how unreliable that witness was, but before she had the chance to question their identity, Stronglove added, ‘And in case you had forgotten, I have what’s known as an alibi for March seventeenth.’