‘She was a very striking woman,’ said Aunt Alice thoughtfully. ‘He must’ve been flattered, poor man. He was probably lonely, as well. Wasn’t there a danger, though, that Frank Leigh would introduce his wife to Mrs Paxton? After all, she was his aunt and Evie Leigh was meant to have been an old friend.’
‘None whatsoever,’ said Napier, shaking his head. ‘Aunt Constance blamed Frank for Sandy’s supposed death. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him. You think Sandy let his mother know he was alive though, don’t you, Haldean?’
‘That’s certain. She went from believing him dead to believing him to be a deserter, and the obvious person to tell her that is Sandy himself. Anyway, there we are. Evie’s now secure as Frank Leigh’s wife and Paxton’s waiting on the sidelines.’
‘What were they waiting for, eh?’ demanded Sir Philip.
‘For the right opportunity to crop up, Uncle Phil. Paxton came to London, established his identity as Leonard Duggleby, the down-at-heel journalist, and Evie had something approximating to the life of Riley at Frank Leigh’s expense. As Frank’s wife, she could afford to wait. They probably had a few schemes in mind but an absolute corker became possible when Mrs Paxton’s housekeeper retired.’
Jack blew a smoke ring and studied it for a few moments. ‘The fact that the plan meant murdering Paxton’s mother didn’t seem to bother them at all.’
Lady Rivers and Isabelle gave a little cry.
‘That’s revolting,’ said Arthur, standing up. ‘Here, let me refill your glass, Jack.’
‘Thanks, Arthur. Well, Evie, with, no doubt, forged references, got the job and created the personality of Mrs Welbeck.’
‘She couldn’t have kept it up for long,’ objected Isabelle. ‘Someone would have cottoned on to her. Besides, even Evie Leigh couldn’t stay away from home forever.’
‘She didn’t have to keep it up for long,’ said Jack. ‘Just long enough to convince everyone that she was Mrs Welbeck, the housekeeper, a plain, conscientious woman who kept herself to herself and whose ambition was to go back to the north of England. With Evie in place, it was time for Sandy Paxton to appear on the scene. And this,’ he added, leaning forward and flicking the ash off his cigarette, ‘is where it gets clever. Imagine an old lady – an old lady alone with her servants – is murdered. Who’s the first person or group of people the police question?’
‘The servants, of course,’ replied Aunt Alice promptly. ‘They know more than anyone about what goes on in a house. And, of course, a newly arrived servant would be open to suspicion.’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Jack. ‘And that would never do.’ He nodded towards Napier. ‘So Evie and Paxton arranged things so suspicion would immediately fall on you.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Napier, ruefully.
‘Why on earth did Mrs Paxton agree to introduce her son as you, Napier?’ asked Arthur.
‘Aunt Constance was always soft on Sandy,’ said Napier. ‘At a guess, he wrote to his mother, saying he wanted to return to the fold but couldn’t come back openly as he’d been a deserter.’
‘There’s a general amnesty for deserters,’ said Arthur.
Jack wrinkled his nose. ‘More or less, but only if there’s no other charge against the man in question. As we know, Paxton’s record was distinctly spotty. Paxton probably said he could only come home if his mother told everyone he was her nephew, Terence Napier.’
‘Why did Paxton take his mother off to Paris, Jack?’ asked Isabelle.
Jack thoughtfully swirled his sherry round in his glass. ‘There’s a few reasons. Both Paxton and Evie wanted Terence Napier to make as big an impact as possible and this was the perfect way to ensure that Terence Napier was talked about endlessly in the village without actually having to face a battery of questions from inquisitive neighbours. Again, although Mrs Paxton wasn’t a chatty woman, she might very well have let something slip if they stayed put. As far as his mother was concerned, Paxton could have told her he was taking her for a holiday or, more probably, that she had to sign documents in Paris that
would prove that he really was Alexander Paxton, her son, so he could return openly to England. It’d be easy enough for Paxton, who had lived in France for years, to hire an office and get a couple of old pals to pretend to be French officials. Nothing he signed would be examined, you see. All he had to do was convince his mother.’
‘And she, poor woman, would want to be convinced,’ said Lady Rivers softly.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Jack. ‘The second part of the plan was put into effect when Mrs Paxton and her son returned home. The interesting thing is that our account of what happened next rests solely on Mrs Welbeck’s evidence.’
‘And Mrs Welbeck is our old friend, Evie,’ said Arthur slowly. ‘My God!’
‘I should’ve seen that,’ said Napier. ‘It never occurred to me that Mrs Welbeck was a phoney.’
‘She’s a good actress,’ said Jack. ‘She asked Dr Mountford for a fresh bottle of sulphonal and asked him to call the following morning. The whole story of the quarrel between Mrs Paxton and Terence Napier rests on her say-so. Dr Mountford – and, I may say, all of Topfordham – believed that Terence Napier was out for what he could get. It seemed only too believable that Mrs Paxton had tumbled to the fact Terence Napier was up to no good and thrown him out. That gives Terence Napier the reason, as was thought, to act quickly, to forge a will, to poison the brandy decanter and to disappear, hoping for the best. The thing is, though,’ he added, reaching for another cigarette, ‘we were meant to see through that will.’
‘Were we?’ asked Aunt Alice. ‘I thought the doctor was very bright to spot it.’
‘He was bright,’ agreed Jack, ‘but it was bound to be spotted soon enough. Evie, in her incarnation as Mrs Welbeck, had learned enough about Topfordham to use two obviously false witnesses. And, once that will had been discounted, it also seemed obvious that the second will was the real one, the one that left everything to a Mrs Evangeline Farley or, to put it another way, to Evie.’
‘I guessed both wills were false, of course,’ said Napier. ‘And I still didn’t suspect Mrs Welbeck.’
‘She was helped along by Dr Mountford,’ said Jack. ‘He’s so obviously honest that he’s a perfect witness. Evie wanted him to find the body. She knew he’d spot the discrepancy about the bottles of sulphonal and she was on hand to point out the brandy decanter laced with sulphonal, if he happened to miss it. For all the world it looked as if Terence Napier had murdered Mrs Paxton and dressed it up as suicide. That was very important, of course, because otherwise the police were bound to suspect Mrs Welbeck. She was the one who gave Mrs Paxton her sleeping draught, you see.’
‘So was the sulphonal – the fatal dose – in the brandy decanter?’ asked Isabelle.
‘I doubt it. I imagine Mrs Welbeck slipped the fatal dose into the glass and laced the brandy decanter afterwards.’
Isabelle shook her head. ‘It’s so simple.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Jack gravely. ‘And that very simple crime should have been it. Evie Leigh produced evidence to show she had been Mrs Evangeline Farley – which, unless she’d been bigamously married to a Mr Farley, she couldn’t have been – and the bank handed over the sapphires, no doubt reassured by the fact that, by a happy coincidence, the Mrs Farley of the will was actually Mrs Leigh and therefore the jewels were returning to their old home. But, as we know, they were very definitely Evie’s and not the property of the Leigh family.’
‘Did she want the sapphires for themselves?’ asked Aunt Alice. ‘Or was it the money she was interested in?’
Jack shrugged. ‘The money, I think. In either case, I don’t imagine Frank Leigh would have lived for much longer to worry about it.’
‘I told him so,’ said Napier. ‘I don’t know if he believed me.’
‘So what happened next?’ asked Isabelle. ‘Where did the poor man on the train come into it?’
‘Who the devil was the man on the train?’ de
manded her father. ‘I can’t work it out at all.’
Jack laughed. ‘D’you know, I very nearly guessed it when I was with Ashley at the Mountfords’. The man on the train was John Bright.’
Sir Philip continued to look baffled. ‘Who the dickens is John Bright?’
‘John Bright,’ said Jack, ‘was a Topfordham man born and bred, a bit of a local Lothario—’
‘Raffish,’ put in Isabelle.
‘As you say, raffish, and Mrs Paxton’s outdoor man.’
Sir Philip’s frown deepened. ‘So how on earth does he fit
into it?’
‘He fits in,’ said Jack, ‘because of the poor girl Belle and I found murdered in the cave. She was Florence Pargetter, Mrs Paxton’s maid, and a sharp, observant girl. I don’t think Florence suspected Mrs Welbeck was anything other than a housekeeper while she was at Mrs Paxton’s. Certainly she never said as much to her bosom chum, one Mavis Stainburn. However, she
did notice Mrs Welbeck had false teeth. John Bright must’ve noticed them too.’ Jack coughed delicately. ‘John Bright had – er – tried his luck with Mrs Welbeck and her false teeth had shifted to one side.’
‘So what if they had?’ questioned his uncle. ‘It sounds a sordid little episode but that’s all.’
‘It didn’t strike me until later. Mrs Welbeck was described as having rabbit teeth. You see?’
‘No,’ said Uncle Philip, after some thought. ‘I can’t see that
I do.’
‘Of course!’ said Aunt Alice. ‘False teeth – real false teeth, if you know what I mean, – are straight! That’s why they often look so unnatural, because they’re perfect. No one would have false teeth that stuck out, unless they were in disguise.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jack. ‘Mrs Welbeck was someone in disguise. As soon as I twigged that, I realised just how much our ideas depended on Mrs Welbeck’s evidence, the mysterious Mrs Welbeck who disappeared so abruptly after Mrs Paxton’s death. So who the devil was she? And the answer to that, incredible as it seemed at first sight, was obvious. The woman who’d benefited from the crime, of course.’
‘Evie Leigh,’ said Isabelle. ‘Jack, when we discovered Florence Pargetter’s body, you knew who she was right away. How?’
Jack leaned forward and tapped his cigarette on the ashtray. ‘Evie Leigh had been photographed wearing the sapphires. That photo was published in Joy, Love and Laughter, a relentlessly wholesome publication, which Florence, according to her friend, Mavis, was excited about. Now, at this point I’m guessing, but I think I’m right. I think Florence Pargetter let slip to John Bright she thought the woman in the magazine was none other than Mrs Welbeck. I’m not sure if John Bright stumbled upon the magazine in Florence’s hands or if Florence asked him outright if he knew who the woman was, but John Bright certainly did know, because we found the torn-out page from the magazine in his jacket pocket.’
‘That was much later on though, Jack,’ objected Aunt Alice.
‘Yes it was. What I think happened is that Florence went off under her own steam to beard Evie Leigh. And, as Isabelle and I found her body in the cave, we know how that interview turned out. John Bright hung about, waiting for Florence to return and, when she didn’t, decided to have a crack at Evie Leigh himself.’
‘So John Bright was the man who turned up at the Leighs’?’ asked Arthur.
Jack nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. I think, because of the way that things worked out, Bright must’ve written to Evie, asking for an interview, so Evie knew what time he was coming, and warned Paxton to be ready.’
‘So did Bright rob the safe?’ asked Aunt Alice.
‘Of course not. Bright was a gardener, not a safe-cracker. No, Evie Leigh gave him the fifty quid that was in the safe to buy him off and put the marked card in the safe to make it look like the Vicar’s work.’
‘Why did they bring this Vicar into it?’ asked Sir Philip.
‘They simply couldn’t allow Bright to live,’ said Jack. ‘He was far too dangerous. At the same time, they wanted, at all costs to avoid the link being made with Mrs Paxton’s household. Now the police will try very hard to identify a body, even a headless one, so Evie and Paxton did their level best to give us an identity, that of their old, safely dead, boss, the Vicar. They used his trademark cards, and enough French bits and pieces, including the dagger and the gloves, to suggest it was a French crime, which tied up with the Vicar. Sandy – Alexander – Paxton also put some of his own things in the compartment, to add a bit of depth to a character supposedly called Andrew Parsons.’
‘Did Evie Leigh give John Bright the sapphires?’ asked Lady Rivers.
Jack shook his head. ‘I doubt it, Aunt Alice. What I think is actually far more likely is that she gave them to Sandy Paxton. Because, you see, what must’ve happened is that Sandy Paxton trailed Bright from the Leighs’.’
He turned to Isabelle. ‘You were on the train. You felt the shock of the impact as Bright’s body hit the bridge. You came across Paxton – Duggleby – standing beside the compartment with Bright’s body in it, and yet you didn’t suspect him. Why?’
‘The same reasons that you didn’t, Jack,’ said Isabelle with a shrug. ‘He looked so pathetic for one thing, and, for another, I couldn’t see that anyone would commit a murder then hang around in the corridor to tell people about it. The main reason was the sapphires, though. He told me they were there. That alone seemed to prove he was innocent.’
‘We all thought the same, didn’t we, Jack?’ said Arthur.
‘Of course we did. It was a brilliant move. From Evie and Paxton’s point of view, it worked perfectly. Paxton murdered Bright, planted the sapphires, and no one suspected him. Paxton kept guard outside the compartment to yell blue murder at the first passer-by and ensure that same passer-by didn’t nick
the sapphires. Evie got her jewels back and the evidence Paxton planted on the train sent us hurtling off in the wrong direction, hunting for the Vicar.’
‘But we knew it wasn’t the Vicar,’ said Isabelle. ‘I’d heard Bright speak and he couldn’t speak French.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jack. ‘Evie and Paxton must’ve realised that you could disprove that Bright was the Vicar early on, so that’s why they shadowed you to the Criterion and why they tried to kill you. As soon as Paxton realised you weren’t dead, he staged his own accident and was careful to tell us his accident was linked to yours.’
‘Did it really matter that much?’ demanded Arthur. ‘That we should believe the man on the train was the Vicar? After all, even when we worked out he couldn’t be the Vicar, we weren’t much wiser.’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Jack. ‘However, we thought that the murderer was the Vicar, which, from Evie and Paxton’s point of view was nearly as good.’
‘There’s something I want to ask,’ said Napier. ‘When you and Mrs Stanton saw the resemblance between me and the portrait of Ebenezer Leigh in the portrait gallery, you knew who I was. Why were you so sure?’
‘Because of Mr Leigh,’ said Jack. ‘Granted you were a member of the family, you more or less had to be Terence Napier because that’s who Mr Leigh would protect. He wouldn’t shield Sandy Paxton. That gave me a bit of a problem though. It seemed impossible you could be Napier, because you’d been to Topfordham and, what’s more, had a long talk to Dr Mountford. That meant, you couldn’t be Terence Napier – unless the Terence Napier accused of murdering Mrs Paxton wasn’t actually Napier but an impostor. And, granted that Mrs Paxton had been party to the deception, I knew who the impostor must be.’
‘I guessed Paxton was behind it,’ said Napier. ‘I wanted proof, though. That’s why I wanted a photo of him. I wanted to show it to Dr Mountford.’
‘Evie must’ve destroyed it,’ said Jack. ‘She had ample opportunity to get rid of it.’
‘How did Evie and Sandy get onto me?’ asked Napier. ‘They obviously did.’ He grinned. ‘I knew that séance was a set-up.’
‘You were simply too much a
t home,’ said Isabelle. ‘I noticed that. You fitted in too well and Mr Leigh treated you very warmly.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Celia. Sandy Paxton must’ve got her to suggest a séance. She’d never believe it, but she’s a very suggestible person.’ She turned to her mother. ‘The séance was really creepy. It was the noise of the water that got to me. It sounded just like the cave. Jack told me how they’d done it.’
‘And how was that, dear?’ asked her mother.
‘I’ll show you.’ Isabelle reached out her hand to Arthur. ‘Now, you’re on one side. Jack, bring that low table over to the sofa and sit on my other side. We’re pretending,’ she explained to her mother, ‘that we’re at a séance, you see? Now, everyone put their hands on the table.’
‘You’re doing this very well,’ murmured Jack.
‘I’m only doing what you showed me. From now on, this is going to be one of my party tricks.’
She laid her hands flat on the table, so she touched Jack’s fingertips with her left hand and Arthur’s with her right. ‘You can see we’re touching each other’s fingertips, yes? It would be dark, of course, so you can’t actually see, but you can feel the other person’s fingers. Arthur, close your eyes, darling. Jack, close your eyes as well.’ Isabelle wriggled and moved her hand. ‘Sorry, I just need to get comfortable.’ She readjusted her position. ‘Arthur, without opening your eyes, tell me. Am I touching your fingertips?’
‘Yes, I can feel them.’
‘Have a look.’
Arthur opened his eyes and gave an astonished laugh. Isabelle’s left arm was draped across the back of the sofa. Her hand, the hand that was touching his, was also touching Jack’s.
‘You see?’ said Isabelle. ‘When we rejoined hands, you assumed you were holding the same hand as you’d been before, but you can see for yourself I’ve now got a free hand.’
‘And with that free hand,’ said Jack, ‘you can drop liquid into a glass and, with the right atmosphere, it sounds exactly like the drip of water in the cave. Good, eh?’
Blood From a Stone Page 27