In the opposite corner, beside a bookcase, stood Beatrix’s prize example of Tunbridge Ware: an elegantly turned satinwood work-table complete with drawers, hinged flaps either side of the leather-covered top and a silk work-bag beneath. All the wooden surfaces, including the legs, were decorated with a distinctive cube-patterned mosaic. Though it was not this but the array of mother-of-pearl sewing requisites kept in the pink silk-lined drawers that Charlotte remembered being fascinated by in her childhood.
“The effect is produced by applying a veneer of several different kinds of wood,” she said absently. “Highly labour-intensive, of course, especially on the smaller pieces. I suppose that’s why it died out.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Hyslop. “But we have an officer who specializes in this kind of thing. It’ll mean more to him. Mrs Mentiply said the cabinet contained tea-caddies, snuff boxes, paper-knives and so forth. Is that your recollection?”
“Yes.”
“She agreed to draw up a list. Perhaps you could go over it with her. Make sure she leaves nothing out.”
“Certainly.”
“You say this stuff is worth a bit?”
“Several thousand pounds at least, I should think. Possibly a lot more. I’m not sure. Prices have been shooting up lately.”
“Well, we can assume our man knew that.”
“You think he came specifically for the Tunbridge Ware?”
“Looks like it. Nothing else has been touched. Of course, the fact he was disturbed may account for that. It would explain why he left the work-table behind. If he was in a panic to be away, he’d only have taken what was light and portable. And he would have been in a panic—after what happened.”
Charlotte gazed around the room. Aside from the empty cabinet, all else seemed intact, preserved in perfect accordance with her memory of so many tea-time conversations. Even the clock on the mantelpiece ticked to the same recollected note, last wound—she supposed—by Beatrix. “Where did it…” she began. Then, as her glance moved along the mantelpiece, one other change leapt out to seize her attention. “There’s a candlestick missing,” she said.
“Not missing, I’m afraid,” said Hyslop. “It was the murder weapon.”
“Oh, God. He…hit her with it?”
“Yes. About the head. If it’s any consolation, the pathologist thinks it must have been a quick exit.”
“Did it happen here—in this room?”
“No. On the landing upstairs. She’d got out of bed, presumably because she’d heard him down here. He seems to have climbed in through one of these windows. None of them would have given a professional burglar much trouble and that one there”—he pointed to the left-hand side of the bay—“was unfastened when we arrived, with signs of gouging round the frame, probably by a jemmy. Anyway, we can assume he heard her moving about upstairs, armed himself with the candlestick and went up to meet her. He probably didn’t intend to kill her at that point. She had a torch. We found it lying on the landing floor. Perhaps he panicked when she shone it at him. Perhaps he’s just the ruthless sort. There are a lot of them about these days, I’m afraid.”
“This was last night?”
“Yes. We don’t know the exact time of death yet, of course, but we reckon it was in the early hours. Miss Abberley was in her night-dress. The curtains in her bedroom, in the bathroom and down here were all closed. They stayed that way until Mrs Mentiply arrived at half past four this afternoon.”
“What made her call? She doesn’t usually come in on Sundays.”
“Your—half-brother did you say?—Mr Maurice Abberley. He’d telephoned his aunt several times and become concerned because there was no answer. She’d told him she’d be in, apparently. He lives quite some way away, I believe.”
“Bourne End. Buckinghamshire.”
“That’s it. Well, to put his mind at rest, he telephoned Mrs Mentiply and asked her to look round. I’ll need to confirm her account with him when he arrives, of course. You live somewhat nearer yourself?”
“Tunbridge Wells.”
“Really?” Hyslop raised his eyebrows in sudden interest.
“Yes. I suppose that’s why I know so much about Tunbridge Ware. It’s a local speciality. There’s a very good collection in the—”
“Does the name Fairfax-Vane mean anything to you, Miss Ladram?”
“No. Should it?”
“Take a look at this.” He opened his pocket-book, slid out a small plastic bag enclosing a card and passed it to her. Set out boldly across the card in Gothic script was the heading THE TREASURE TROVE and beneath it, in smaller type: COLIN FAIRFAX-VANE, ANTIQUE DEALER & VALUER, IA CHAPEL PLACE, TUNBRIDGE WELLS, KENT TNI IYQ, TEL. (0892) 662773. “Recognize the name now?”
“I know the shop, I think. Hold on. Yes, I do know the name. How did you come by this, Chief Inspector?”
“We found it in the drawer of the telephone table in the hall. Mrs Mentiply remembered the name as that of an antique dealer who called here about a month ago, claiming to have been asked by Miss Abberley to value some items. But Miss Abberley hadn’t asked him, it seems. She turned him away, though not before Mrs Mentiply—who was here at the time—had shown him into this room, giving him the chance to run his eye over the Tunbridge Ware. Now, how do you know him, Miss Ladram?”
“Through my mother. She sold some furniture to this man about eighteen months ago. As a matter of fact, Maurice and I both felt she’d been swindled.” And had bullied her remorselessly on account of it, Charlotte guiltily recalled.
“So, Fairfax-Vane is something of a smart operator, is he?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met the man. But certainly my mother…Well, she was easily influenced. Gullible, I suppose you’d say.”
“Unlike Miss Abberley?”
“Yes. Unlike Beatrix.”
“You don’t suppose your mother could have told Fairfax-Vane about Miss Abberley’s collection?”
“Possibly. She knew of it, as we all did. But it’s too late to ask her now. My mother died last autumn.”
“My condolences, Miss Ladram. Your family’s been hard hit of late, it appears.”
“Yes. It has. But—You surely don’t suppose Fairfax-Vane did this just to lay his hands on some Tunbridge Ware?”
“I suppose nothing at this stage. It’s simply the most obvious line of enquiry to follow.” Hyslop made a cautious attempt at a smile. “To expedite matters, however, we need a definitive list of the missing items with as full a description as possible. I wonder if I could ask you to find out what progress Mrs Mentiply has made.”
“I’ll go and see her straightaway, Chief Inspector. I’m sure we can let you have what you need later this evening.”
“That would be excellent.”
“I’ll be off then.” With that—and the chilling thought that she was glad of an excuse not to go upstairs—Charlotte rose and headed for the hall. She turned back at the front door to find Hyslop close behind her.
“Your assistance is much appreciated, Miss Ladram.”
“It’s the least I can do, Chief Inspector. Beatrix was my godmother—and also somebody I admired a great deal. That this should happen to her is…quite awful.”
“Sister of the poet Tristram Abberley, I understand.”
“That’s right. Do you know his work?”
Hyslop grimaced. “Had to study it at school. Not my cup of tea, to be honest. Too obscure for my taste.”
“And for many people’s.”
“I was surprised to find he had a sister still living. Surely he died before the war.”
“Yes. But he died young. In Spain. He was a volunteer in the Republican army during the Civil War.”
“That’s right. Of course he was. A hero’s end.”
“So I believe. And yet a more peaceful one than his sister’s. Isn’t that strange?”
CHAPTER
THREE
The employment of Avril Mentiply had represented Beatrix’s principal co
ncession to old age. It was, as she had often explained to Charlotte, a substantial concession, since Mrs Mentiply’s standards of cleanliness were less exacting than her own. Nevertheless, the relationship had endured, far longer than initial reprimands and threats of resignation had suggested it might. Indeed, it had eventually blossomed into something not far short of friendship. Consequently, upon arrival at Mrs Mentiply’s house that evening, Charlotte had not been surprised to find her strained and tearful, with the promised list of missing Tunbridge Ware far from complete.
She lived with her taciturn husband in a strangely sunless pebble-dash bungalow on the Folkestone road—one of the few parts of Rye to which tourists never strayed. It was not a setting in which Charlotte would have wished to linger. Yet linger she had, as Mrs Mentiply offered her cup after cup of stewed tea and poured out her distress at Beatrix’s death.
“I know she was old, my dear, and frailer than she’d care to admit, but she always had an…indomitable look…that made you think she was indestructible. But she wasn’t, was she? No more indestructible than any of us would be if we were attacked in our own home like she was. What’s the world coming to, I should like to know, when that kind of thing can happen to a respectable old lady?”
“Could have been worse,” put in Mr Mentiply, whom Charlotte had hoped might take one of several hints and leave the room but who had instead remained slumped in his chair by the flame-effect gas fire. “At least it wasn’t one of those sex maniacs. Just a straightforward burglar.”
“Have some respect for the dead, Arnold,” retorted Mrs Mentiply. “Miss Ladram doesn’t want to hear talk like that.”
“Only facing facts.”
“Well, facts are that if he’d been a straightforward burglar he wouldn’t have murdered Miss Abberley, would he?”
“She should have stayed in bed. Left him to it. Then she’d have come to no harm.”
“How do you know?”
“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? He was only after her knick-knacks. You said so yourself.”
Seeing that Mrs Mentiply was once more close to tears, Charlotte decided to intervene. “It’s certainly the Tunbridge Ware the police want to know about. Let’s just read through this list and make sure we’ve left nothing off, shall we?”
“Very well, my dear.”
“A tea-caddy with a view of Bodiam Castle on the lid. Two cake baskets. A cube-patterned tray. Two other marquetry trays. A thermometer stand. A solitaire set. Three paper—”
At the first ring of the telephone in the hall, Mrs Mentiply was out of her chair and bustling from the room. Charlotte took a deep breath and set the list aside. Then Mrs Mentiply reappeared. “It’s your brother, Miss Ladram. He wants to speak to you.”
Charlotte smiled and made her way to the telephone. “Hello, Maurice?”
“I’m at Jackdaw Cottage, Charlie. Chief Inspector Hyslop’s been putting me in the picture. And a depressing one it is.”
“I know. I’m drawing up a list of the missing items now with Mrs Mentiply.”
“So I understand. The Chief Inspector wants me to go with him to the mortuary. To identify Beatrix.”
“Really? He never—” Charlotte stopped. Hyslop had probably thought it a kindness not to ask her to perform such a duty. “Will you go straightaway?”
“Yes. But there’ll be a sergeant here to take the list when you’ve finished it. It’s probably best to get the identification done as soon as possible.”
“Of course.”
“Afterwards, well…I was wondering if I could spend the night at Ockham House.”
“Certainly. You don’t need to ask.”
“There’ll be umpteen formalities to see to tomorrow. Registrar, solicitor and so forth. And I can’t say I fancy driving all the way back to Bourne End tonight.”
“All right. I’ll see you later.”
As she put the telephone down, Charlotte realized what a relief it would be to let Maurice take charge of the whole sad affair. Since her father’s death, he had become the calm and efficient organizer of family business. He had assumed control of Ladram Aviation, her father’s barely solvent flying school, and turned it into Ladram Avionics, an internationally successful company. He had negotiated the contracts relating to his own father’s poetical works from which her mother—and subsequently she—had handsomely benefited. And he had consistently shown himself able to offer his half-sister a helping hand without trying to run her life. Now, once more, he would come to her rescue. And, as she walked slowly back into the Mentiplys’ sitting room, she acknowledged to herself that the sooner he did so the happier she would be.
The list at last completed and delivered, Charlotte drove back to Tunbridge Wells. It was pitch dark by the time she reached Ockham House and cold enough for the warmth of the day to seem a distant memory. At all events it felt cold, though whether the temperature was to blame—or Mrs Mentiply’s account of how she had found Beatrix—Charlotte was uncertain.
“He’d hit her with one of those heavy brass candlesticks. Several times, I should say. I hardly recognized her at first. Her hair all matted with blood. And this terrible wound in the side of her head. They told me it must have been quick and I hope to God they’re right. But it won’t fade quickly from my mind, I can tell you. I shan’t ever forget going up those stairs and finding her huddled in the corner of the landing. Not ever.”
Charlotte turned on more lights than she normally would and lit a fire, then poured herself the stiff drink Maurice had recommended earlier. As the fire gained a hold and the chill left her, she went in search of the family photograph album and found in it the last picture taken of Beatrix. Longer ago than she would have expected, it dated from a party thrown in honour of her eightieth birthday. There, on the lawn at Swans’ Meadow—Maurice’s home beside the Thames at Bourne End—the family had staged a rare and photographically commemorated gathering.
Beatrix was, naturally enough, the centre of the septet. Unusually tall for a woman of her generation, she had also remained resolutely straight-backed with the passage of time. Newly coiffured and barely smiling, she projected even greater self-possession in the picture than she had in life. Mary, Charlotte’s mother, standing to Beatrix’s left, could, indeed, have been the same age rather than twelve years younger. Hunched and peering, contriving somehow to frown and smile simultaneously, her appearance produced in Charlotte a surge of grief and guilt that was so intense she slammed the album shut. Then, after a swallow of gin, she reopened it.
Only to confront herself to her mother’s left, grinning fixedly at the camera. She had worn her hair too long then and favoured shapeless dresses intended to disguise her weight. Not that she need have worried on that score. Five years later, bereavement had achieved what a dozen different diets never had. Yet this image of herself reminded her why she had always, even as a child, sought to avoid being photographed. Not because of superstition or shyness, but because the camera could force her to do what she least desired: to see herself as others saw her.
On Charlotte’s left, unbalancing the group by standing a foot or so to the rear, was Mary’s brother, Jack Brereton. At the sight of him, red-faced and clearly more than slightly drunk, Charlotte chuckled. Uncle Jack, thirteen years his sister’s junior, was the free and infuriating spirit that she was sure every family needed. Witty when sober and offensive when not—which meant at least half the time—he was as unreliable as he was lovable. As a result of their parents’ early death, he had lived with Mary even after her marriage to Tristram Abberley. Later, during the war, they had all lived with Beatrix in Rye and from those crowded years in Jackdaw Cottage Uncle Jack had culled a vast fund of anecdotes with which to entertain those—like Charlotte—who had never had to endure him on a daily basis.
The three figures to Beatrix’s right were Maurice, his wife Ursula, and their daughter Samantha. They were a family within the family, the one branch of it where convention and continuity seemed assured. Each of them was strikingly
good-looking and seemingly happy to proclaim an easy-going affection for the other two. Hence the casual way in which Maurice had put his arm round Ursula’s waist. And hence the unthinking readiness with which Samantha held her mother’s hand.
Even at fifteen, Samantha’s clear-skinned beauty had not been in doubt, although the figure with which she was subsequently to turn many a head had yet to fill out. Ursula and she could just about—Charlotte reluctantly conceded—be taken for sisters, so lightly and elegantly had Ursula coped with motherhood and early middle age. They both had naturally wavy hair and an instinctive finesse of bearing, although it was an awareness of their own superiority—conveyed by the way they held their chins, the manner in which they met the camera’s gaze—that had always set Charlotte’s teeth on edge.
As her eyes moved to Maurice—calm, debonair and jauntily grinning—she heard a crunch of car tyres on the gravel of the drive that told her he was about to arrive in the flesh. Suddenly, without understanding why, she knew she did not wish to be found studying an old photograph in which two of the subjects were now dead. Accordingly, she closed the album and hurriedly put it away, allowing just enough time to compose her features in the mirror before opening the front door.
“Hello, old girl.” He greeted her with a hug and a weary smile.
“Hello, Maurice.” Stepping back from their embrace, Charlotte caught herself comparing him for an instant with his photographed image.
His hair was marginally thinner, perhaps, the smudges of grey at his temples more extensive. Otherwise, he was at fifty what he had been at forty-five: lean and craggily handsome, with a reassuring blend about him of strength and sincerity. He inspired trust even—perhaps especially—in those who did not know him. As for those who did, occasional descents into petulance were easy to forgive when set against his undoubted generosity.
“I could use a drink, Charlie, I really could.”
“I’ll pour you one. Come in and sit by the fire.”
He followed her into the lounge and subsided into an armchair. By the time she had returned from the drinks cabinet with a large scotch and soda, he had loosened his tie and was massaging his forehead. “I’m glad you lit this,” he said, nodding at the blazing logs. “Those mortuaries chill your blood, I can tell you.”
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