‘I feel responsible in a way,’ she was saying. ‘Ted Mortimer used to be very close with my husband and me. We used to see a lot of him. But he’s not a countryman. He was in the merchant navy.’
Paul was drinking a cup of tea she had poured him and he scarcely heard her story about the row Kelby had with the neighbouring farmer. ‘Mr Kelby was going over there on Monday afternoon,’ she said, and the words registered with a sudden shock.
‘What did you say, Mrs Ashwood?’
‘To see Ted Mortimer. He was going over to Galloway Farm—’
‘Did he ever arrive?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘What was their row about?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Mr Temple, but they do say in the village that there was a quarrel about money. We don’t see Ted Mortimer any more, you see, and I’m not one to gossip myself—’
‘Of course you aren’t, Mrs Ashwood. But you’re a wonderful raconteur. Excuse me if I dash away.’ He squeezed her shoulder affectionately. ‘By the way, this is my card. If you do remember any gossip, please let me know. I’m a devil of a gossip myself.’
She was laughing complacently as he left the kitchen and collided in the hall with Charlie Vosper. The inspector had come running from the library.
‘Where are you off to?’ Vosper asked suspiciously.
‘Me? Oh, I thought I’d make a tour of the neighbouring farms. It hasn’t been done, has it?’
‘No, it hasn’t. Would you mind driving with me, Temple? I’d like to be sure I know all that you know before we search Ted Mortimer’s place. I like to keep abreast.’
They walked across the drive towards the police car with studied casualness. But the inspector reached it first.
Chapter 4
‘OF course there never was such a diary, my dear. How could there be when Dickie never had such a mistress? Dickie had his faults, I’d be the first to admit them: he was a bore and he danced abominably, but I never noticed people rushing off to enter up their diaries whenever Dickie trod on their corns. What did you say this person’s name was?’
Steve persevered with the assignment. ‘Miss Spender. Margaret Spender.’
‘Never heard of her!’
‘She was your husband’s secretary.’
The frail old lady said: ‘Oh!’ like an ancient bird sighting a small field mouse. ‘That Miss Spender. I always felt sorry for her. She was a big girl. We called her the last of the big Spenders.’ Her eyes sparkled with malicious life.
‘Miss Spender did keep a diary for those ten years,’ said Steve, ‘and of course that included the period after the war when your husband was murdered.’
‘Killed, dear. It could have been an accident. I expect it gave her something to do in the evenings.’
‘And now that she is dead her sister has decided to publish it.’
‘How very demeaning.’
Steve had felt slightly nervous when she arrived at Delamore House. But she had made an appointment with Lady Delamore’s secretary, which Paul had said was significant. She’s worried, he had said, or else she wants to know what is going on. A butler had shown Steve into the drawing room; and then Lady Delamore had bustled in calling for Simpson to bring tea.
‘We’ll have tea early today,’ she had said pedantically. It was only ten minutes to four. ‘Mrs Temple looks as if she needs sustenance.’
She was not putting Steve at her ease.
‘You young people are so thin these days. I’m thin, but then I’m eighty-five. When I was your age I had a generous bosom and a bottom you could really sit on.’
‘You must have led a busy life in those—’
‘It must be all this unisex that you people go in for these days. It makes everybody thin.’
The butler brought in tea at that point. It gave Steve an excuse to change the subject. She talked about the diary although Lady Delamore’s attention soon wandered.
‘How do you come to be involved in this?’ she suddenly demanded.
‘My husband is a crime writer, and it was his publisher who acquired the diary.’
‘Crime, eh?’ She laughed derisively. ‘It’s a little late for solving any of the mysteries which surrounded my husband’s death. Those of us who are still alive have forgotten what little we knew.’
‘Nobody is trying to solve anything, Lady Delamore,’ Steve said provocatively. ‘The solutions are all given in the diary.’
‘Which has disappeared, you said?’
‘A man has disappeared, Lady Delamore. The historian, Alfred Kelby. The diary is incidental, although if we found that we might also find Mr Kelby. My husband wondered whether you, or some of your friends, might be being blackmailed. Whoever has this diary might try to extort money by it.’
‘I never pay blackmailers,’ she pronounced aphoristically, ‘and none of my friends have any money. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.’
Steve helped herself to another tea cake. ‘Alfred Kelby was reading the diary to give his opinion on its historical authenticity,’ she said.
‘I don’t understand. Do you mean he could confirm that my husband was really murdered? And murdered by whomever Miss Spender accuses? Surely if Mr Kelby knew that he should have said in 1947, when poor Sir Philip Tranmere was arrested. I believe there was a Mr Kelby in the party up at the shooting lodge at the time, but I don’t remember that he was really in with the best people.’
Steve suggested that Mr Kelby could find the diary explanation convincing or not. ‘He would know the people involved, and he might be a better witness than you, Lady Delamore, on the subject of Miss Spender.’
‘What would a historian know of my poor late husband’s sexual relationships? This publisher should have asked me. I could have told him that Dickie’s morals were above reproach. He snored in his sleep and his feet smelled. Those are not characteristics that attract stray women. What is more, after three whiskies he fell fast asleep. What would he want with a mistress? I never knew a man who slept as much as Dickie.’
Lady Delamore had already spent eighty-five years of her life keeping people in their place. Steve found it almost impossible to guess whether she was worried, guilty, or sublimely above the contemporary world. But just as she was about to leave the butler appeared.
‘Excuse me, my lady. Sir Philip Tranmere is on the telephone.’
‘I’ll ring him back, Simpson.’
‘He says that it is most urgent, my lady.’
Lady Delamore sighed. ‘The silly man. It is not urgent to me. Tell him that everything is perfectly in order, and I’ll ring him this evening. Mrs Temple is about to leave.’
Steve left. After the afternoon’s ordeal it was almost a shock to see the mini and maxi skirts and fashionable long hair, people on the streets who belonged unmistakably to the 1970s.
Paul was still out when she reached home. So Steve helped Kate with the housework and allowed her mind to freewheel over the things Lady Delamore had said. She had a record sleeve to design by Monday, but she didn’t want to become absorbed in anything else until she had talked to Paul. He arrived shortly after nine o’clock to find Steve doodling at the drawing board.
‘Lady Delamore didn’t feel worried or guilty, I’m sure of that,’ Steve assured him. ‘In fact I don’t think she gives a damn about anything or anybody. I only hope I’ll be like that when I’m eighty-five. She was so dreadful she was rather splendid.’
Paul laughed. ‘I’m sure that when you’re eighty-five you’ll be absolutely appalling!’
‘Flatterer.’
‘It’s nice to be back.’ He poured himself a whisky and sat beside Steve. ‘Hello, have you been commissioned to do some work?’
‘Yes, I saw Jeremy while you were away.’ She smiled quickly. ‘He said the work was flowing in again. Design looks up. Britain will look a better place to live in—’
‘That sounds like Jeremy. While I was pounding along the Atlantic seaboard earning dollars for Britain Jeremy was seducing my w
ife with record sleeves.’
Steve laughed. ‘I sat here night after night, thinking of you and knitting in front of the fire. I read Dylan Thomas in America to keep myself company. But did you miss me?’
‘I’ll say I did, my darling.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Next time I see Jeremy I’ll punch him on the nose. Do you want some whisky?’
‘Not at the moment. I’ve spent a hideous afternoon to discover what that old crone knew about the diary. So listen and sound interested.’
‘Mm. Tell me.’
‘I think the diary is probably in her possession.’
Paul stood up in amazement. ‘Really? Steve, you’re marvellous! How did you establish that?’
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t. Call it feminine intuition.’
‘Oh, that. You mean you’re guessing.’
‘I’m convinced of it. Can I have some brandy?’
Paul went across to the sideboard and opened a bottle of brandy. ‘I suppose she would be the number one suspect for stealing it. But I can’t see an eighty-five-year-old woman kidnapping Kelby.’ He looked at the bottle for a moment, then said quietly: ‘Did I tell you? We found Kelby this afternoon.’
Charlie Vosper had driven like a stunt man in a silent film to reach Ted Mortimer’s farm. He had telephoned for two constables to conduct a search of the premises. The constables arrived from the opposite direction at the same time as Charlie Vosper swung into Galloway Farm and narrowly missed three hens out for a walk. They drove in convoy past the barn and cattle sheds alongside a field of sheep to the rambling farmhouse. By the time the two cars had skidded to a halt Ted Mortimer was already in the doorway.
‘Do you realise it’s dangerous to drive at that speed?’ he demanded.
He was a big man with a red, weather-beaten face. His arms were tattooed with swords and snakes. An aggressive man who was none too pleased to see the police.
‘What’s all the panic?’ he asked.
Charlie Vosper showed his identification. ‘We’re investigating the disappearance of Mr Alfred Kelby. I believe you knew him. He’s been missing since Monday morning, and I wondered whether you could help us to locate him.’
Mortimer shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. Kelby and I weren’t really on visiting terms.’
‘He was coming over here on Monday afternoon.’
‘That’s right. But he never arrived.’
Charlie Vosper stared at the farmer, deciding whether he was ‘straight’ or not. It was a careful examination and Paul could see why the man should glare so aggressively back.
‘Do you mind if we look over your farm?’
Mortimer was ungracious. ‘Go ahead if you must, but don’t disturb my livestock. They aren’t used to policemen.’
The farm was obviously run down. Ted Mortimer himself bore a grudge against the world, and his men bore a grudge against Ted Mortimer. The animals obviously didn’t give a damn for anyone. It was something to do with the weather, Paul decided as he wandered round in the wake of the police. The weather was always bad for farmers.
‘Bad weather for the crops,’ he said conversationally to Ted Mortimer as they came out of the tractor shed.
‘We’re mainly livestock here,’ he said. ‘Dairy farm.’
Paul nodded. ‘Shocking weather.’
The two constables had been through the rooms and attic and cellars of the house, without success. Of course a body could have been buried in the fields. But they went through the outhouses and ramshackle cattle sheds systematically. They found Kelby when they reached the barn.
The barn was built on two levels. The ground level was scattered with sacks of fertiliser and a set of disc harrows. On the upper level a rusty old bath kept company with an abandoned sewing machine, a child’s rocking horse and an odd assortment of junk. One of the constables on the top level was leaning out of the loading bay as Charlie Vosper and Paul Temple reached the doors.
‘He’s down there,’ the man called. ‘The rain butt by the corner.’
Paul and the inspector ran to the back of the barn. The rain butt was very large, and unless you were deliberately searching you wouldn’t have seen the hand resting over the edge by the drainpipe.
A police ambulance and a doctor were sent for, as well as the photographer and a fingerprint man from the lab. Paul Temple watched in fascination as the whole organisation moved smoothly into action. A constable stayed on duty by the body and the other took statements from the farm hands. It was such a routine operation for them that a man’s violent death became almost an irrelevance.
‘Nobody’s been near this bloody barn for ten days. You can see it’s hardly used at this time of year.’
Paul Temple realised that the farmer was still standing next to him. As the only other man without a part to play he had stayed helplessly by Paul’s side, watching and feeling sorry for himself.
‘When did you last see Mr Kelby alive?’ Paul asked him.
‘I saw him in the village about a week ago. But I didn’t speak to him.’
‘Why not?’
‘I saw him first.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘What do you think it means? It means I avoided him.’ Ted Mortimer stepped aside to allow the doctor to pass. They were about to move the body. It was a bloated, blue-hued impersonal thing, nothing more to do with Alfred Kelby. ‘Wouldn’t you avoid someone if you owed him two thousand quid, and you were up to your bloody ears in debt?’
Paul smiled thoughtfully. ‘That’s a good question. I think I probably would, Mr Mortimer.’
The farmer looked at him for a moment, not quite sure what to make of Paul’s attitude. Then he turned away to stare at the ambulance. The stray hand was visible again, hanging below the white sheet.
‘Did you know that Mr Kelby was coming to see you on Monday afternoon?’
‘That stuck-up secretary of his telephoned; it was like announcing a royal visit. But Kelby didn’t turn up.’
‘Were you at home Monday afternoon and evening?’
‘Yes,’ Mortimer said angrily. ‘And I didn’t see anybody putting him in the rain butt. I would have sent them both packing if I had!’
‘What time do your men go home?’
‘At this time of the year about six o’clock. Now do you mind if I get some work done? I’ve a livelihood to earn.’
Ted Mortimer strode away to the house. Paul smiled to himself and went across to join Charlie Vosper. The ambulance was just departing, and Charlie was watching it go as he lit his pipe.
‘Well?’ asked Paul.
The inspector growled and carried on lighting his pipe. ‘He’s been in that water some time. Probably since Monday.’
‘Was he drowned?’ Paul asked.
‘I don’t know. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy.’ He threw a match into the ground level of the barn and watched to see whether it carried on burning. ‘From the look of him I’d say that his neck was broken, but there’s bound to have been a struggle. I’d like to know which happened first.’
Paul nodded. ‘It would make quite a difference.’
‘If he died of a broken neck he could have been killed elsewhere and then brought here later. That would be easier.’
‘You’re speculating, inspector.’
Charlie Vosper glared, caught out in an unpolicemanly act. ‘Let’s find a cup of tea, shall we?’ he muttered.
Vosper led the way into Ted Mortimer’s large flagstoned kitchen. Mortimer was sitting at the scrubbed wooden table staring at the bottle of beer before him. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, looked in need of a woman’s hand. Paul guessed that the man’s wife had left him years ago; he was not a warm and charming man.
‘I’m afraid there’s a little more to it than that, Mr Mortimer,’ said the inspector. ‘A dead man has been found on your farm. Can you tell me anything about it?’
‘No, of course I can’t.’
‘Why did the dead man lend you money?’
Mortime
r strode across to the refrigerator, his large farm boots clattering on the stone floor. ‘Do you want some beer?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t anything else…’ They said no thanks. ‘Alfred Kelby lent me two thousand pounds because I was broke. This farm is mortgaged to the last pig’s tail. He wanted to help me.’
‘Why?’ Paul asked.
‘How should I know? I suppose he wanted me to like him. Why do people usually lend money?’
Vosper sighed and looked at Paul. ‘Perhaps we ought to be going. Mr Mortimer may remember something more helpful when the importance of this death has sunk into him. Coming back to the Kelby residence, Temple?’
Paul Temple shook his head. ‘I want to get back to London. There are one or two things…’ Then he remembered that the inspector had driven him over and that his car was still at Melford House. ‘Oh well, perhaps I will. Let’s ask Gladys Ashwood to make that cup of tea. She’s a first-class cook.’
Charlie Vosper agreed. ‘We’ll have to break the news there. The son will have to make formal identification.’
Perhaps it was because breaking such news to anyone, a son or a secretary or even the handyman, is an unpredictable ordeal that they drove back slowly. Paul watched the passing countryside with a new sense of its strangeness. Darkness was already falling. He found himself wondering whether Kelby had died in pain.
‘By the way, Charlie, we didn’t find Kelby’s briefcase, did we?’
‘No, we didn’t.’
They remained in the car when it drew up at Melford House. ‘I suppose you were wondering about the diary.’
‘As a matter of fact—’
‘I think it’s all a bit fanciful. I’m a simple copper, I believe in simple murders for simple motives. I don’t see that Alfred Kelby would be murdered for a diary the same day as it was given to him. It’s too much of a coincidence that he should have it in his briefcase, and from what I hear the publisher was the only man who knew he had it.’
Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair Page 3