In the end, it was Angela who made the choice. ‘Shall we stop here and stretch our legs?’ she said, as we neared Beaulieu on a morning excursion to Monte Carlo. It was the Monday following our arrival, 12 November, clear and bright after a Sunday of heavy rain. My watch showed half past ten. The time was right, the opportunity perfect. I could not refuse. I could not delay.
We halted the car by the casino and climbed out. The wooded flank of the Cap Ferrat peninsula looked green and inviting in the sunlight, the terracotta roofs of secluded residences peeking out from the trees. ‘I believe there’s a footpath that runs from near here to the village of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat,’ I remarked casually.
‘Let’s follow it, then,’ Angela replied. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a light cream coat over a yellow dress. She strode out purposefully in the direction I had pointed, rushing almost, it seemed to me, towards the encounter I had planned. I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves and caught her up.
The footpath left the road at the eastern end of the Baie des Fourmis. We started along it, with the blue waters of the bay beyond a low stone wall to our left and sloping, wooded gardens to our right. My heart jumped at the sight of a group of people walking towards us, but they were strangers. I rebuked myself silently. This had to appear accidental. This had to seem unexpected.
We paused by a bench set in a bulge of the wall and looked back at the elegant palm-fringed hotels of Beaulieu. Angela joined me in a cigarette and gazed out across the bay. ‘What made you suggest Nice, Geoffrey?’ she asked, leaning out over the wall as she had leaned out over the balcony of the Negresco.
‘We’ve never been here before.’
‘No other reason?’
‘Should there have been?’
‘No. Except … It was inspired. That’s all I meant.’
‘Oh, I—’
I heard footsteps behind me and saw Angela glance at something over my shoulder. It could have been just another passer-by we did not know, yet I sensed it was not. I turned round slowly, ordering my voice and face to obey me, forbidding them to betray me.
Jacinta was standing a few feet away. She was wearing a pink dress and a dark topcoat. Her face was shaded by a broad-brimmed felt hat. In her left hand she held a long chain, at the other end of which strained a large and dishevelled poodle. Its fur was a mottled grey and it was panting heavily, dribbling as it did so.
‘Good morning,’ said Jacinta demurely.
‘Good morning,’ Angela replied. ‘Are you English, young lady?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here on holiday?’
‘Not really.’ She looked at me for a fleeting moment, then back over her shoulder. ‘Here comes my father.’
Two figures were approaching along the path. One was Victor, clad in a tweed suit and jag-patterned sweater, Cheshire hat thrown back on his head. Beside him was a woman I took to be Miss Roebuck. She was almost as tall as Victor and was wearing a woollen suit and cloche hat, the uniform, it might be thought, of the dowdy governess. But there was nothing dowdy about Miss Roebuck. Her nose and jaw were too prominent for conventional beauty, but there was a pride about her features and a self-confidence about her carriage that instantly seized the attention.
‘Staddon!’ said Victor, pulling up as he recognized me. ‘What the devil—’
‘Hello, Caswell.’ I nodded at him and assessed, for an instant, the changes that twelve years had wrought in him. My immediate impression was that there had not been many. His moustache was flecked with grey, his face had grown leaner, edging towards his brother’s gauntness. He was in his mid-fifties, I knew, but could have been taken for forty-five, so proof against time was the arrogance that turned his steps to swaggers and his smiles to sneers.
‘Do you know this gentleman, Geoffrey?’ said Angela from behind me.
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do. Mr Victor Caswell … My wife, Angela.’ I stood between them as they shook hands. ‘What a remarkable coincidence,’ I continued. ‘Are you staying near here?’
‘Royston Turnbull lives at Cap Ferrat,’ said Victor. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘I’m not sure. If so, I’d forgotten.’
Angela shot a piercing glare at me. The name of Caswell was familiar to her and the inconceivability that this meeting had been the coincidence I claimed was already racing across her mind.
‘This is my daughter, Mrs Staddon – Jacinta. And Jacinta’s governess – Miss Roebuck.’
Reprieved for the moment, I found myself looking at Miss Roebuck and she at me. At closer quarters, the modesty of her costume was exposed as a sham. There was a directness to her gaze and a tilt to her chin that denied all the servility of her office.
‘How do you do, Mr Staddon.’ Her voice was soft and low, yet here too sham was implicit. The tone was practised, the pitch prepared. ‘The architect of Clouds Frome, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘It’s a beautiful house. You’re to be congratulated.’
‘Thank you.’ Some instinct told me to say as little as possible to this woman. Already, I detected in her something I had never detected in anybody before. Her attention, however briefly bestowed, was total, her concentration absolute. For as long as we looked at each other, nothing about me escaped her. It was a deeply uncomfortable experience. I felt as if my eyes were windows and through them she could see and read every secret thought. I turned hurriedly away to face Victor. ‘I was sorry to read of your recent family difficulties,’ I said falteringly. ‘It must—’
‘Difficulties! You understate the case, Staddon. My wife tried to murder me.’
‘It must have been an acutely distressing experience, Mr Caswell,’ said Angela in conciliatory vain. ‘I believe you suffered a bereavement at the same time. I’m sure my husband would wish to join me in extending our deepest sympathy.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Staddon. That’s kind of you. What brings you to Cap Ferrat, might I ask?’
‘A holiday.’ She glanced ominously at me. ‘Nothing more.’
‘Then I hope it will prove congenial. Now, if you’ll excuse us—’
‘Aren’t you going to ask them back to the villa, Father?’ put in Jacinta. ‘Major Turnbull wouldn’t want to miss them, would he? And I’ve never met Mr Staddon before. I’d like to hear how he built Clouds Frome.’
‘He built it the way I told him to.’
‘I’m sure you’re very busy,’ said Angela. ‘We wouldn’t want to intrude, would we, Geoffrey?’
‘Intrude? No. Certainly not.’
Victor was about to speak, but the words, whatever they were to have been, froze on his lips. I had the briefest possible impression that he had looked at Miss Roebuck and she had signalled to him, with hand or eyes, to be cautious in his response. Whether that was the case or not, he smiled, shifted his balance and said: ‘Perhaps my daughter has a point. Why don’t you return with us to the Villa d’Abricot, since that’s the direction you’re heading in? Royston would never forgive us for letting the opportunity slip.’
‘Have we time, Geoffrey?’ countered Angela. ‘Shouldn’t we be on our way?’
I avoided her eyes as I replied. ‘There’s no hurry. We’d be delighted, Caswell, delighted.’
‘That’s settled then.’ As Victor spoke, I glanced at Miss Roebuck and sensed once more her overwhelming perceptiveness. Every significant feature of the exchanges had revealed itself to her. She knew that Victor and I disliked each other, that Angela distrusted me, that Jacinta was anxious our encounter should be prolonged. And what did I know? Only that she, not Victor, had made the final decision as to whether it should be.
We covered the half mile to the Villa d’Abricot in varying states of awkwardness, Angela and Miss Roebuck debating the rejuvenating effects of the Mediterranean air whilst Victor strode ahead in silence, hands clasped behind his back. Jacinta brought up the rear with the slobbering Bolivar. I risked a couple of glances back at her and each time she smiled at me in
encouragement.
At length we came to an arched wooden door set in a high stone wall to our right. Victor wrenched at the handle, but it would not yield. Then Miss Roebuck passed him the key. With a glower of irritation, he took it, unlocked the door and led us through.
We ascended a steep flight of steps, with a pair of grinning stone monkeys watching us from creeper-clad plinths at the top. We were in a large, east-sloping garden, where a rich and riotous design was teetering on the brink of wildness. Gravel paths led off in several directions towards dark overhangs of pine and fir. Behind us, in the lee of the wall, enormous cacti reached towards the sky. Ahead, palm trees soared above thickets of bamboo and rhododendron. And everywhere the bare tendrils of some determined parasite were to be seen, choking shrubs and swathing masonry.
Jacinta slipped Bolivar from his chain and he loped off up the garden. As he vanished from our view, I turned to Victor and casually enquired: ‘How long has Major Turnbull lived here?’
Victor made no answer. After a moment, Miss Roebuck said: ‘I believe he settled here on his retirement from South America fifteen years ago.’ She smiled at me. ‘Isn’t that correct, Mr Caswell?’
‘Mm? Yes. About that.’
Emerging from a particularly overgrown patch, we suddenly came in sight of the house. It stood at the top of the slope on which the garden had been constructed, beyond a palm-fringed lily-pond and a steep grass bank. It was of conventional Mediterranean design, virtually square, with a long conservatory appended at one side. A loggia occupied the central third of the upper floor, marked by a row of arched pillars. Otherwise, the windows were classically regular, framed simply in white against the apricot wash of the walls.
‘The doctors recommended rest and recuperation after the poisoning,’ growled Victor, as if he had suddenly decided his presence at the villa required justification. ‘My health’s still not entirely recovered, you know.’
It was, I think, Angela’s little frown and nod of understanding that provoked me into saying: ‘Nothing to do with all the gossip and publicity, I suppose?’
‘That too,’ snapped Victor, glaring back at me. ‘It wasn’t fair to expose Jacinta to the clacking tongues of the ill-informed.’
‘Of course it wasn’t,’ said Angela. ‘We quite understand, don’t we, Geoffrey?’
Once again I avoided her glance. ‘Yes. I rather think I do.’
We rounded the pond, mounted the bank by a flight of steps and followed a gravel path along the back of the house towards the conservatory, traversing as we went a row of lichen-patched statues of mythical beasts – wyvern, griffin, merman and cockatrice – all of whom wore the same inane grins as the monkeys at the end of the garden. The conservatory itself was an extravagantly arched composition of glass and cast-iron, its interior obscured by streams of condensation and barriers of frondage. We entered by a narrow side-door and were met by sweet, humid air. Songbirds in a cage I could not see were in full voice against a tinkling melody of fountain-water. The huge leaves of exotic plants seemed to over-arch and receive us, disclosing at their centre a semi-circle of wicker chairs, in one of which Major Turnbull was taking his ease according to his nature.
He was at least a stone heavier than when last we had met and his fair hair had faded towards white. Yet he was still disarmingly handsome, his bulk offset by his height and the cut of his loose cream suit. His legs were propped up on a footstool, in his lap lay a newspaper and on a low table before him were a crumb-scattered plate and an empty coffee-cup with a cigar-butt in its saucer. Between his chair and the next stood a life-size plaster statue of a naked woman, voluptuously formed and possessed, her expression and pose suggested, by a disabling ecstasy. Major Turnbull was at that moment engaged in running his hand down her back. It came to rest on her right buttock and there remained as he smiled across at us.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Your stroll has proved unusually rewarding, Victor.’
I stepped forward. ‘Remember me, Major?’
‘There was no danger of my forgetting you, Staddon. None at all.’ He gave the statue a farewell pat, swung his feet to the floor and rose to meet us. I noticed a limp that he had not exhibited before, but his upright bearing was otherwise intact. ‘Your wife, I presume?’ He flashed a smile at Angela by which I sensed she would be instantly charmed. As I completed the introductions, I glanced at her and saw that I was right.
‘Mr and Mrs Staddon are here on holiday,’ said Victor. ‘We met them on the path. By chance.’
‘A happy chance indeed. Welcome to the Villa d’Abricot, my humble home-from-home. Can I offer you some refreshment?’
‘That would be very pleasant,’ said Angela. Suddenly, her eagerness to be away had evaporated.
‘Why not show them round first, Major?’ put in Miss Roebuck. ‘You know how proud you are of the villa.’ She smiled at Angela. ‘Major Turnbull has an exquisite collection of furniture and objets d’art, Mrs Staddon. You should see them, you really should.’
‘A capital notion, Miss Roebuck,’ said Turnbull. ‘It would be my pleasure.’
‘Take Mrs Staddon by all means,’ said Victor. ‘But I’d appreciate a word with Staddon in private.’ He looked across at me. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘In that case,’ said Miss Roebuck, ‘you and I should take ourselves off, Jacinta. Come along.’
Miss Roebuck led Jacinta back into the garden whilst Turnbull escorted Angela towards the open French windows that linked the conservatory with the rest of the house. In a matter of moments, Victor and I were alone, confronting each other across Turnbull’s richly patterned rug and the remnants of his petit déjeuner. Victor’s face was like a thundercloud. Anticipation of what he would say, as much as the humidity, prickled against my neck.
‘I’ve had a full account of your visit to Hereford, Staddon, so we can drop the charade about holidays straightaway. What the devil do you mean by prying into my affairs?’
‘I wouldn’t call it prying.’
‘Questioning Banyard. Plotting with my sister. Coming here uninvited. What would—’
‘You didn’t have to ask us in.’
‘By God—’ He broke off, aware, it seemed, that his voice might carry. He moved to the French windows, closed them and turned round, with his back against them. His voice was calmer now, his anger under control. ‘I’d be obliged for an explanation of your conduct. I think you’ll agree one’s due.’
‘Very well. I don’t believe Consuela is capable of murder.’
‘You don’t, eh?’
‘That’s why I went to Hereford. And nothing I learned there lessened my certainty on the point.’
‘So you decided to make a nuisance of yourself here as well?’
‘You left me little choice. Most of the witnesses have conveniently left Hereford. And I gather you don’t intend to return there until the trial begins.’
‘What business is that of yours?’
‘None. Except for this. You may have fooled everybody else, but you haven’t fooled me.’
He strode slowly towards me and halted by the statue that Turnbull had fondled. He took a deep breath, then said: ‘I’ll have it plainly, if you don’t mind. What exactly are you accusing me of?’
‘Nothing – yet. But since I don’t believe Consuela murdered your niece, I have to believe somebody else did, somebody who was also at the tea party and who may have covered his tracks by administering part of the poison to himself.’
‘To what end, may I ask?’
‘I thought you might tell me that.’
He slipped his hand round the statue’s neck. ‘What makes you so sure my wife is incapable of murder?’
‘Everything I remember about her.’
‘Everything? You were barely acquainted as I recall. Are you about to tell me you knew my wife better than I thought? Better than a jobbing architect had any right to?’ His grip on the statue’s neck tightened. His eyes engaged mine. How much he
knew, or how little, was indecipherable. I could make no answer, merely stare dumbly back at him. ‘If not, your interest in this matter is common effrontery.’
‘Call it what you like. I’m not prepared to let her be hanged for want of action on my part that you may find objectionable.’
‘She may have changed since you last met. Have you considered that?’
‘Nobody as good and gentle as your wife—’
‘Good and gentle? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Consuela’s never been either of those things unless she wanted somebody as gullible as you to think she was. Quiet and still I’ll grant you, so quiet and still you can hear her scheming little mind ticking away like a time-bomb. She’d have happily watched me swallow that arsenic and stood idly by whilst I retched out my last hours, and if that’s what you call good and gentle you’re an even bigger fool than I thought. As for the idea that I might have poisoned myself, I’d laugh in your face if it weren’t so absurd. Have you any idea of the sheer damned agony arsenic inflicts? Of course not. Nor did I, until I’d spent six hours gagging on my own blood. I nearly died, Staddon, and it’s not a death I’d wish on any man. The doctors told me that if I’d had a weaker constitution I’d have been done for. Do you seriously think I’d have taken a risk like that? And for what? What would I have gained by it?’
His vehemence confounded me. Now, like a creeping paralysis, doubt assailed me. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Consuela was a murderess after all. ‘You’d be rid of her,’ I stumbled. ‘Free to … to …’ I clutched at a straw. ‘Hermione remarked on how unsurprised you were. As if you were expecting it to happen.’
‘And so I was.’ His hand fell away from the statue. ‘I’d been expecting her to do something for months. I don’t know what. Run away. Lash out. Something drastic, at any rate. I never thought she’d go as far as murder, but, when she did, Hermione’s right: it didn’t surprise me.’
‘But … but the letters. She hadn’t been receiving them for months.’
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