Blood From a Stone

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Jack, leaning forward to light her cigarette. ‘Was it a formal arrangement?’

  ‘No, not at all. It was just the way things always happened. That’s the problem, of course. Still,’ she added with an ironic smile, ‘at least they’re still in the family. It’s just as well my grandfather never got near them. If he’d got hold of the sapphires, they would have vanished long since.’

  Her smile faded. ‘Aunt Constance was in possession and, legally speaking, she could dispose of them however she liked. She was left very badly off when her husband died and thought about selling the sapphires. Dad was keen they shouldn’t be sold, so got together enough money to buy Aunt Constance an annuity. In return, she made a will leaving the sapphires to him, to ensure they’d stay in the family. What Dad was really afraid of was that she’d give them to her son, Sandy. Aunt Constance absolutely doted on Sandy. She thought he was the complete cat’s whiskers, but he was even worse than my grandfather. My grandfather was an inveterate gambler but Sandy Paxton was a crook, pure and simple.’

  ‘A real crook?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Celia, nodding vigorously. ‘We’ve never spoken about him at home much, because Dad gets all hot under the collar if his name’s mentioned, but I’ve managed to piece

  the story together. Aunt Mary – she’s not an aunt really, but a neighbour I’ve known for years – has told me quite a lot about him. From what I can make out, there were a series of robberies – furs, jewels, money and so on – from country houses he’d been invited to and people began to talk.’

  ‘He sounds an absolute charmer,’ said Isabelle.

  ‘He was,’ said Celia. ‘Seriously, I mean. He lived off his charm. He was an actor for a time, after he got kicked out of Oxford. His speciality was making up to rich women. From what I can make out, he’d get silly women to fall in love with him, write compromising letters – I can never get over how many letters women used to write! – and then buy him off.’

  Isabelle’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Blackmail?’

  Celia shrugged. ‘What else can you call it? Dad lost patience with Aunt Constance over him in the end. When the war came, Dad reckoned it was Sandy’s chance to put the past behind him and make good. Reading between the lines, I think Dad more or less bribed Aunt Constance to get him to join up and, when Sandy was officially posted as missing, Aunt Constance blamed Dad and cut off relations completely. She never spoke to him again. And that,’ she added, leaning forward, ‘is where Evie comes in.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Jack, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Evie was a war widow. During the war she met Aunt Constance through some charity or other for the bereaved and they became very close.’

  She contemplated the end of her cigarette for a few moments. ‘That’s that, really. As I said, the sapphires legally belonged to Aunt Constance and, although I think it was very mean spirited of her to go back on the arrangement she had with Dad, there’s nothing he can do.’

  ‘Possession being, as they say, nine points of the law,’ put in Arthur.

  ‘Exactly.’ She blew out a long mouthful of smoke. ‘The ironic thing is, they did come back into the family, despite Aunt Constance. Well, they came to Evie, at least.’

  ‘From what you’ve said, that’s not quite the same thing though, is it?’ commented Isabelle.

  Celia shrugged, then brightened. ‘You never know. At least we’ve got them. Dad suggested that Evie has the sapphires re-set and he told me to hope for the best. He hopes she’ll agree to sell a couple of the stones. If I had some money, I might be able to make Ted see sense and drop this silly idea about managing a tin mine in Singapore.’

  She stubbed out her cigarette and looked up as a ring on the doorbell sounded, followed by footsteps in the hall as Lizzie, the maid, went to answer it.

  ‘That’ll be Bill Rackham, I expect,’ said Jack.

  ‘Rackham?’ asked Celia. ‘Inspector Rackham? He’s the man who spoke to Dad.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a friend of mine,’ said Jack.

  ‘A policeman?’ queried Celia, with raised eyebrows. ‘Oh, I was forgetting. You do detective things, don’t you? I’d forgotten. You’re always so flippant, I’d forgotten just how capable you are.’ She shot him an admiring look. ‘That’s a very admirable trait.’

  Jack instinctively drew back. There was something in that look which no engaged or semi-engaged girl should direct at an unattached man, particularly one for whom she’d once had tender feelings.

  ‘I must tell Dad about you,’ continued Celia. ‘He’s hired a private detective to look into this idiotic idea he’s got about Terence Napier, but if he’s going to hire anyone, he might as well hire you.’

  ‘I’m not a taxi,’ said Jack with a grin.

  Celia looked at him blankly. ‘Of course you’re not. I said you were a detective, not a cab driver. It’s not the same thing at all. I suppose,’ she said, as if she were talking about an alien species, ‘you have to know heaps of policemen.’

  ‘Bill Rackham’s a friend of ours, too,’ said Isabelle, catching the hint of snobbery in Celia’s voice and determined to squash it. ‘I like him very much.’

  The door opened and Lizzie showed Bill into the room.

  ‘Miss Leigh?’ he asked, as they were introduced. ‘I’m meeting your father tomorrow. He’s coming to the Yard to reclaim his sapphires.’

  ‘He was very complimentary about you, Mr Rackham,’ said Celia. ‘He thought it was marvellously quick work.’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ said Bill with a smile, pushing a lock of ginger hair out of his eyes. ‘We were set on the right track by Mrs Stanton. No, not a cocktail, Stanton, thanks,’ he said in answer to Arthur’s question. ‘I’d rather have a whisky and soda.’ He took the glass with satisfaction. ‘Thanks. I’ve earned this.’

  He looked at Celia enquiringly. ‘Have you explained how the sapphires and money came to be stolen this morning?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, actually,’ said Celia, turning to Jack, Arthur and Isabelle. ‘A man came to the house this morning, supposedly looking for work. Dad found him hanging around the garden and didn’t like the look of him, so turfed him off the premises. There’s an old right of way that runs through the grounds, so it’s perfectly easy to get in, but passers-by aren’t meant to come up to the house, of course. He must’ve got into the study – the French windows open onto the garden – and looted the safe. Dad said there was some money missing, too.’

  ‘We found fifty pounds in his jacket pocket,’ put in Bill.

  ‘There was fifty pounds missing from the safe,’ said Celia. ‘That must be it.’

  ‘I’d say so,’ said Bill. ‘The man murdered on the train was one Andrew Parsons. From what your father told me, the safe seems a very old-fashioned affair and Andrew Parsons was an expert safe-cracker.’

  ‘So I was right,’ said Isabelle triumphantly. ‘He was a thief.’

  ‘Absolutely he was,’ said Bill. ‘The Records Department turned him up.’

  Arthur sipped his cocktail with a frown. ‘I still don’t get it. Why murder someone and leave the sapphires?’

  ‘We think the murderer didn’t realise Parsons had the sapphires,’ said Jack. ‘Leonard Duggleby said they were pushed under the seat. Tell us what you’ve unearthed about Parsons, Bill.’

  Bill took a cigarette from the box on the table. ‘There’s no fingerprints or photographs on file, worse luck, as we never laid hands on him, but we had a record of him, all the same. You remember we found two cards in his things, Jack? Well, Parsons left a card in the Leighs’ safe. He’d drawn a motif on it, a little cross with a circle over it like a halo. That motif was well known to the Yard a few years ago. Parsons, would you believe, is none other than the Vicar.’

  ‘The Vicar?’ repeated Celia, puzzled. ‘A clergyman, you mean?’

  Jack laughed. ‘From the sound of it I don’t think he’s a minister of the established church.’ He looked at Bill. ‘It’s a play on the n
ame Parsons, isn’t it?’ Bill nodded. ‘Come on. Who the dickens is the Vicar?’

  ‘The Vicar,’ said Bill, ‘had a pretty fierce reputation as a crook before the war.’ He hunched forward. ‘There’s always been a question mark over him. He was supposed to have been killed in 1915. He was cornered in a warehouse in Lambeth. The place caught fire and a charred body was recovered but, as you’d expect, there’s always been rumours it wasn’t his body and that he got away scot-free.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Jack, getting up and refilling his glass. ‘This is beginning to ring a bell. I wrote a series about past crimes for On The Town a couple of years ago. If he’s the man I’m thinking of, he pulled off a good few robberies in France. Is he the chap who stole a small fortune in diamonds from the Calais Mail Train in 1911 or thereabouts?’

  Bill nodded. ‘That’s the one. The diamonds belonged to a Wenzel Osterhagen, the American butter king. I read up on the case this afternoon and I don’t think the diamonds were ever on the train. Mrs Osterhagen’s maid could have easily stolen the diamonds beforehand and passed them on to the Vicar.

  She resigned shortly after the robbery and set up a fashionable milliners in New York, having apparently come into a considerable amount of money. The really rotten thing about the

  whole business, though, is that the train guard was murdered. If the maid did steal the diamonds, the guard’s murder was nothing more than a blind.’

  Isabelle gave a little cry. ‘That’s horrible!’

  ‘It didn’t end there,’ said Bill. ‘A string of thefts, a raft of assaults and at least three murders were attributed to him.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Arthur. ‘I’d have thought that would have started a real hue and cry.’

  ‘You’d think so, Stanton, but all the victims were petty crooks and known informers and not the types to attract much sympathy. They’d promised to squeal on the Vicar but he got to them before we did, poor devils. We know it was the Vicar because he always signed his crimes with that cross and halo. Sometimes it would be chalked on a wall, sometimes it was drawn on a card or a piece of paper, but he always signed it.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Isabelle and Celia together. ‘That’s really creepy,’ added Isabelle with a shudder. ‘Why advertise yourself like that?’

  ‘Mainly because it is creepy, I imagine,’ said Bill. ‘He had a fair old reign of terror in the underworld before the war. He was a real hard case.’

  ‘I wonder if he’s been holed up in France?’ said Jack. ‘There was a definite French theme to the things we found on him. Was the knife a French trench dagger?’

  ‘It was. I had a good look at it after the doctor got it out. Unfortunately, as far as we’re concerned, it’s a type which was produced by the thousand. It had a plain wooden hilt, as we saw, Jack, a steel cross guard and a blade about seven inches long. It’s a very efficient weapon.’

  ‘Vengeance,’ said Jack. ‘If I know the type, it had Le Vengeur 1870 inscribed on the blade.’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘I’m going to have nightmares at this rate,’ complained Isabelle. ‘It was bad enough finding the man in the first place without you going on about daggers. Why on earth did it have Vengeance written on it?’

  ‘Because of the Franco-Prussian war,’ said Jack absently. ‘The French had some scores to settle. It seems as if someone else did too. We were looking for a motive, weren’t we, Bill? I wonder if it’s revenge? Someone who wanted to be revenged on the Vicar, perhaps?’

  ‘You might be right,’ said Bill. ‘It’s worth bearing in mind, certainly.’

  ‘Who could that be?’ asked Isabelle.

  ‘An old associate of the Vicar’s, perhaps?’ suggested Jack. ‘Actually, Bill, I wonder if that is the reason? The Vicar was supposed to have died in 1915. What if someone, someone with a grudge, spotted him, still alive and kicking, and decided to finish off the good work that should have been completed years ago?’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ said Arthur. ‘You don’t know anything, really. You’re just guessing.’

  ‘True,’ admitted Jack.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think is odd, though,’ continued Arthur. ‘If the Vicar was supposed to have died in 1915, why would he come back to England? And, if he did come back, wouldn’t

  he try and conceal his identity?’

  ‘I think Arthur’s got a point,’ said Isabelle. ‘Are you absolutely sure it was the Vicar?’

  ‘Who else could it be?’ asked Bill. ‘Why should anyone try and make out it’s the Vicar when it isn’t? It’s not like saying someone’s Jack the Ripper, say. The Vicar had an unenviable reputation in the underworld, but he was virtually unknown to the public. Andrew Parsons is a very obscure figure. It wasn’t his name that gave him away, but the cross and halo on the card.’

  ‘Andrew Parsons,’ said Isabelle thoughtfully. ‘Andrew Parsons ... Did he have his initials on any of his things?’

  ‘As a matter of fact he did,’ said Bill, puzzled. ‘His case and toiletry set and so on.’

  ‘His initials,’ repeated Isabelle, slowly. ‘A.P.’ She looked up sharply, her eyes bright. ‘Jack! A.P.! France!’

  ‘What about it?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ she said excitedly. ‘Celia, what was the name of Mrs Paxton’s son?’

  ‘Sandy,’ said Celia. ‘I told you so earlier.’

  ‘But he was actually called Alexander, wasn’t he? Alexander Paxton. A.P. The same initials as the Vicar. What if Paxton is the Vicar?’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Bill, blinking. ‘The Vicar’s called Andrew Parsons not Alexander Paxton.’

  ‘That could be just a blind.’

  Jack clicked his tongue. ‘The pun on the name Parsons doesn’t work if the Vicar’s actually called Paxton, does it?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Celia repressively. ‘This is a relative of mine you’re discussing.’

  Isabelle wriggled impatiently.‘Come on, Celia. It was you who told us Sandy Paxton was a crook. After all, he disappeared, just as the Vicar did.’

  ‘He was posted as missing,’ said Celia blankly. ‘That means he’s dead.’

  ‘I know what it usually means,’ said Isabelle impatiently, ‘but what if he’s alive? According to the papers, Terence Napier said Sandy Paxton had deserted and was still alive. Mrs Paxton must’ve believed he was alive, otherwise she wouldn’t have gone to France with Terence Napier.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to believe the word of a man like that ...’

  ‘He could be telling the truth.’

  ‘Come off it, Isabelle,’ said Jack witheringly. ‘Sandy Paxton might or might not be alive but the Vicar was killed – or supposedly killed – in 1915. Sandy Paxton was certainly alive until he was posted missing on the Somme which, as you’ll recall, was in 1916.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Isabelle stubbornly. ‘He could’ve been leading a double life. We don’t know either of them were killed when they said they were.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Jack.

  ‘And,’ she said, pressing home her advantage, ‘Celia told us he’d been an actor. It’d be easy for him to pretend to be someone else. In fact, that could be it, couldn’t it? Sandy Paxton might not have been the real Vicar but he could’ve been pretending to be the Vicar.’

  Jack rolled his eyes to heaven, but Arthur looked impressed.

  ‘That’s an idea, Isabelle,’ said Arthur. ‘How old would Paxton be, Celia? If he was alive, I mean?’

  ‘He’d be about forty, I suppose.’

  Bill clicked his tongue. ‘The age is about right, as far as that goes, but if Sandy Paxton stole the sapphires, Miss Leigh’s father would have recognised him when he turned up at the house yesterday, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Celia. ‘He’s dead. I keep on telling you he’s dead.’

  ‘Just pretend, Celia,’ said Isabelle. ‘Just for the moment, yes? If he was alive, would your father have recognised him?’

  Celia
frowned in disapproval but tried hard. ‘Actually, I don’t think he would,’ she said slowly. ‘Dad disapproved of Sandy intensely and had as little to do with him as possible.’

  ‘You see?’ said Isabelle. ‘It could have been Sandy Paxton. If your father was convinced he’d died years ago, he wouldn’t expect to see him, would he?’ She looked at Bill and suddenly grinned. ‘I can see you’re not convinced.’

  ‘I can’t say I am,’ said Bill. ‘I can’t see why Paxton, or anyone else for that matter, would pretend to be an obscure crook from years ago. Even if the man on the train was Paxton, it doesn’t tell us who killed him.’

  ‘I suggested a confederate before, Bill,’ said Jack. ‘Did

  the Vicar have any associates?’

  ‘He had people who worked for him, certainly. As far as we know, they’re all dead.’

  ‘What if one isn’t dead? What if the murderer is a disgruntled ex-confederate?’

  Isabelle sat up straight. ‘Could he be Sandy Paxton? The confederate, I mean?’

  ‘Dash it, Belle, they can’t all be Sandy Paxton,’ said Jack with a laugh. ‘Although, to be fair, I think there’s more chance of Paxton being one of the Vicar’s hangers-on than the Vicar himself.’

  ‘Why’s that, Jack?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Well, let’s say Paxton is alive.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ muttered Celia.

  ‘Let me play around with the idea,’ said Jack with a smile. ‘We know there was a lot in the papers about the sapphires after Mrs Paxton was killed. Anyone – any prospective thief – could have read about the sapphires and decided to have a crack at them, but there’s no doubt that if Sandy Paxton saw them, he’d be fascinated.’