A Little Murder

by Suzette A. Hill

  Rosy gaped in indignation. How the hell did the old trout know about that?

  ‘How do you—’ she began.

  ‘Cedric mentioned it. He was there at the back, lunching with a friend – not Felix, you understand, so kindly keep that under your hat.’ She gave a wry chuckle.

  ‘I didn’t see him!’ Rosy exclaimed.

  ‘Well, no, you wouldn’t. They were discreet. They always are – which is precisely why they were sitting away from the front; Smythe can be very touchy about these things. Anyway, I trust that you were entertained by Latimer. He can be quite amusing when he wants to – and generous.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ replied Rosy stiffly. She was damned if she was going to discuss her luncheon dates with Vera Collinger.

  But the latter seemed disposed to pursue the subject. ‘Handsome in a way, if that’s what one likes. He knew your aunt, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rosy said indifferently, ‘so I gather. They were quite close years ago but hadn’t been in touch for some time.’

  ‘Is that what he told you?’ asked Miss Collinger.

  ‘Well, yes – yes he did.’

  ‘A few edges shaved off the truth there,’ the other snorted.

  ‘I am sorry, I’m not quite—’

  ‘Maynard Latimer was conducting an affair with Marcia up to within days of her death. He has a small pied-à-terre off Jermyn Street for when he’s in London, but just now and again – “under cover of nightfall”, as they say – he would visit her at home in St John’s Wood.’ Miss Collinger gave a dry laugh, adding, ‘But every subterfuge has its fraught moments; I gather there was one occasion when he thought he had been seen by a passenger in a passing car – someone he knew, a woman, I believe. But as nothing was ever said, either he had been mistaken or the person took no interest. Still, apparently it quite rattled him.’

  Rosy was both astonished and sceptical; but she was also intrigued. And as antidote to Vera’s smouldering cheroot and not wishing to appear startled, she drew out her lighter and lit a cigarette. ‘Really?’ she said casually. ‘He seemed very emphatic in telling me it was over some time ago.’

  ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he? Latimer is, or was, a notorious philanderer. It was an open secret – I don’t mean with the public but among those within his own tight circle. It is amazing how easily those with style, charm and influence are forgiven their shortcomings. My brother was much the same: he could behave outrageously and no one would care, or if they did they kept their thoughts to themselves … Ask Felix,’ she added with a grim smile. ‘However, a couple of years ago Latimer’s boat was rocked and he had to change tack, or at least conduct himself with rather more discretion. There was an unscheduled sea change.’ She broke off, bending down to tickle the dog and disentangle its lead from the table leg.

  ‘So what happened?’ asked Rosy, trying to maintain a cool indifference while at the same time curious.

  ‘The sainted Silvia.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The wife – she lives in Malta, you know.’

  Rosy nodded. ‘Yes, he did mention her.’

  ‘Only mentioned? Hmm. So I assume you won’t know the full story.’

  Rosy shook her head, perplexed. ‘Why sainted?’

  Miss Collinger sighed and lit another cheroot, mercifully a little less acrid than the previous. ‘The woman is an invalid … beautiful in a wheelchair, and latterly taken to wearing a lace mantilla. Rather a showy form of piety I always think. She is rich, exceedingly well connected and not a little boring … always was, even before the accident.’ She paused and then said musingly, ‘I have known others similarly placed who despite their handicap have been remarkable for their stimulus and gaiety; but such cannot be said of the lovely lady in Malta. Alas, Silvia Beresford was dull from birth.’

  ‘So why did he marry her? And what sort of accident?’

  ‘In answer to your first question, I should say that was obvious: the money, the impressive connections and the undoubted beauty. The first two retained their usefulness, the last I imagine palled quite quickly. Without an accompanying wit it tends to do that. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it, really.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you have. Not within your sphere, perhaps.’ For a moment Rosy wondered if she had heard an acid note in the voice but couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Anyway, regarding the accident,’ Miss Collinger continued carelessly, ‘she fell out of a tree.’

  ‘Oh …’ Rosy felt vaguely surprised.

  ‘Yes, it’s not the most distinguished type of accident, is it? Not like being thrown from a horse or mauled by a bear. Wasn’t even a very tall tree, and what she was doing there in the first place nobody really knows – most women of my acquaintance tend not to clamber about in trees. But it did for her all right, been stymied ever since.’ She stooped down, and blasting its face with a swirl of smoke, fed the dog a biscuit from her pocket. Unperturbed by the fumes the dachshund fell upon the titbit like a marauding lion. Perhaps it thought it was.

  ‘But how very sad,’ Rosy said. ‘I hadn’t realised—’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s sad all right. But it’s something else too. You see, his friendship with your aunt has put him in a tricky position, which is why he is so keen to keep it concealed, or at least to let it be thought that the whole thing was finished years ago. People are prepared to grant a man of his standing a degree of licence, indeed the image of the “gay dog” can even hold a certain cachet. But they are less tolerant when the betrayed wife is not only beautiful but also crippled: it makes her a martyr and him a heel. Had it become public knowledge the liaison might have done serious damage to his reputation. Still could really. Yes, Silvia falling out of that tree put a different complexion on things: he had to change his ways, or at least be seen to do so.’

  ‘But if it was so secret, how did you get to know all about it?’

  ‘In the obvious way: Marcia told me. We were friends – or at any rate I tended to be her confidante.’

  Tacitly noting the distinction, Rosy said, ‘So Marcia confided in you but not to anyone else?’

  ‘Not as far as I am aware; though of course had she done so then this latest development would jeopardise Latimer’s position even further. He’s in for a K, you know, possibly even a new creation in the peerage – services to industry etc. Not bad for a man whose father was a fiddle maker … or was it penny whistles?’ She paused musingly.

  Ignoring the matter of Latimer’s antecedents, Rosy asked, ‘What do you mean, “development”?’

  Miss Collinger gave her a withering look. ‘For someone of your intelligence, Miss Gilchrist, I should have thought that was obvious. The murder, of course! Were it known that Latimer had been conducting an illicit friendship with Marcia the police would be on his tail quicker than you could say knife. I don’t suggest that he himself is implicated – no reason to be – but the publicity would be quite enough to sink his hopes of the knighthood, let alone anything further … Yes, that particular event must have given him a very nasty shock. On the whole quite a lot at stake for him, I should say. Could be quite sticky.’ She gave a wolfish grin.

  Vera Collinger’s version of Latimer’s story had unsettled Rosy, and she left the pub for the walk home in a state of some dudgeon. If the woman’s words were to be believed, then Latimer had been lying to her throughout much of their lunch date, and lying with calculated purpose. Clearly she had been charmingly duped. Idiot!

  It wasn’t the revelation of a philandering past that upset her (after all, no more than she had expected – and his own business in any case) but the fact that he had used her so cynically to lay a false trail, to spin a smokescreen.

  She scowled at a passing cat, reflecting sourly that concern for reputation and the lure of public honours were lethal forces in the human psyche … but then paused, confronted by her own frail psyche with its fear of her aunt’s past activities being exposed to all and sundry. Wasn�
�t it concern for reputation that governed her own reluctance to aid the police? Very largely (just as Vera had discerned). But at least in her case the fear had taken a negative form: she had told no lies, volunteered no misleading information, merely said as little as possible and done her best to keep out of it all. In fact precisely as bloody Latimer had counselled. Besides, surely it was not so much her own skin she was trying to save as Marcia’s – wasn’t it? Not exactly: she would be tainted by association and so in a way was probably as self-preserving as Latimer, if less overtly. Yet the smoothness of his lie rankled and she still felt angry.

  And then suddenly anger vanished, eclipsed by a thought as stark as it was shocking. Was it conceivable that Latimer himself had done the murder: felled his mistress to keep her quiet, to scotch the one possible bar to the coveted accolade? Had Marcia become a burden, a potential embarrassment – perhaps cut up rough and threatened to blow the gaff on the affair and so scupper everything?

  She stopped abruptly, staring at her reflected face in a shop window. Could he really have done it? No, absurd! The face frowned, even Vera had dismissed the idea: I don’t suggest he is implicated – no reason to be … Yet, Rosy argued, even a seasoned bloodhound could miss a scent. What Vera had stressed was Latimer’s current social peril should hints of his recent relations with the murder victim leak out and become a matter of police interest, however temporary. But suppose he had been bedevilled by earlier fears, fears that prompted the deed itself? Vera had said he had much at stake; but perhaps even she had underrated the value he placed on the winnings – or their loss. Rosy recalled the truism that murders are often committed for the most banal and seemingly trivial motives: it all boiled down to circumstance and personal priority. Presumably fear of lost status or forfeited accolades could be as great a determinant as hate, lust or avarice … and killings stirred by panic, for whatever cause, were legion. Broad categories there might be, but within those categories motives for murder were as many and varied as its perpetrators.

  She walked on, re-living their lunchtime conversation and the patronising way he had dismissed her feelings for Johnnie: People are more expendable than one imagines; you will learn that one day, my dear … Had Marcia become expendable? Indeed, her death imperative? Perhaps so. And if the man had a motive she guessed he also had the nerve to exploit it. As to opportunity, well it was obvious – he could have shot Marcia during an assignation … No, not obvious: Vera had said he visited ‘under cover of nightfall’, whereas the death had occurred in mid afternoon, the body found at five o’clock. But people didn’t always keep to their routines. And besides, if he had been desperate to get the thing done perhaps he had grown bold and risked a daylight entry. Yet what about Clovis painting the portrait? Let alone Felix muffled in the hall curtain. It would have needed pretty neat timing to avoid that pair! Yet obviously someone had avoided them and dispatched Marcia after their exit. So presumably that someone could have been Latimer as well as any ….

  She brooded. Plausible? Just about. But if that were so it made mincemeat of Whittington’s conviction that Marcia had been killed by one of her blackmail victims haunted by the hangman’s noose. Perhaps Latimer’s own fears of exposure were as acute as those of the wartime conspirators and he had just happened to do the job first.

  The next instant Rosy gasped and nearly tripped over the kerb. As acute as those of? Why assume a distinction? Suppose they were one and the same! She recalled Wooden Leg’s theory that with the assassination plan no longer relevant, the plotters had swathed themselves in the cloak of the British Establishment, safe in its garb of service and rectitude. Admittedly Maynard Latimer’s sexual mores may have raised the odd and envious eyebrow, but his contribution to the country’s economic recovery after the ravages of war was indisputable, and (with the exception of Adelaide Fawcett whose judgement was questionable anyway) he was generally regarded as a ‘good egg’. Yes, if anyone were wrapped tightly within the folds of the Establishment it was certainly he.

  But what about the use of Felix’s wretched coal scuttle? Surely an unduly crude gesture for one as poised as Latimer. It suggested either a debased sense of humour or a vindictive impulse. Neither seemed in character. In any case, she mused, could one really suspect a man simply because he happened to fit a social category – or indeed that he was anxious to conceal his relationship with the deceased? No, of course not. She was doubtless barking up the wrong tree, i.e. indulging in outlandish speculation brought on by injured pride and too much drink with the likes of Vera Collinger!

  By this time she had reached her front door and was about to insert the key when there was the sound of a cough and a voice from the gloom said, ‘Ah, that’s lucky, I was just about to give up. Wasn’t quite sure if your bell was working.’

  Rosy spun round, visions of a murderous Latimer immediately re-forming. ‘What the—’ she began, but stopped, as out of the shadows glided not Latimer but a man wearing what at first sight appeared to be a dressing gown. She blinked and then realised that the apparel was in fact some sort of cassock and that its owner was the priest she had seen at the Gills’ whist drive.

  Flustered, she exclaimed, ‘Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. It’s Brother Ignatius isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s the habit,’ he replied apologetically, ‘it doesn’t show up in the dark – and by and large most people call me Lola.’

  Oh Christ, thought Rosy, that’s all I need! She said dryly, ‘Do they? Now I wonder why that is.’

  ‘Short for Loyola – Ignatius Loyola, you see.’

  ‘But he was a Jesuit. What were you doing in the Anglican church at my aunt’s funeral – you were there, weren’t you? Or have the Anglo-Catholics appropriated the names of Roman saints? Newman’s notion, I suppose – they always said he was excessive.’

  ‘Oh no, nothing to do with Newman. You see I am a Jesuit but the Saint Anselm lot asked me along to help out. Their censer-bearer had broken his wrist and they needed a swift replacement. I am rather a dab hand at swinging the lead – or the censer for that matter!’ He gave a bray of mirth, produced a handkerchief and began to trumpet loudly.

  Rosy took a step back, and before she could ascertain why exactly he had been ringing her doorbell at that late hour, he said, ‘Actually, I am quite a pal of the Reverend Keithley there, and it was he who persuaded me to participate – said there was likely to be some rather fine wine served at the wake, and knowing my partiality for—’

  ‘I don’t remember any,’ broke in Rosy accusingly, visualising only the British Sherry and rancid fruit cup.’

  ‘No,’ he said sadly, ‘you’re right, there wasn’t any.’ He looked pensive and Rosy grasped the moment to ask what he wanted.

  ‘It’s a bit complicated,’ he replied slowly, ‘and er, well it’s getting rather chilly. Do you think we might …?’ He gestured hopefully towards the front door. She hesitated, far from sure that such hospitality would be prudent. He must have seen her concern for he smiled and said, ‘Oh, have no fear Miss Gilchrist, my only weapons are my tracts.’

  ‘Tracts? What tracts?’ she exclaimed nervously. ‘I hope you are not going to bombard me with literature from the Catholic Truth Society!’

  ‘Hah! Don’t worry, only my little joke. Actually, I have a message for you.’

  If anything the little joke made her even more doubtful; but noting his chattering teeth and intrigued by the mention of a message (from God?) she allowed charity and curiosity to prevail. So crossing fingers that this wasn’t to be her last mistake on earth, she unlocked the door and invited him in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘So what’s this message, then?’ she asked warily, once they were seated in the sitting room.

  Brother Ignatius cleared his throat and threw a wistful glance at the half-bottle of whisky on the sideboard.

  Certainly not, thought Rosy, I’m sick of strangers coming in here at night and guzzling my Scotch uninvited. It was bad enough with the other one! Thus s
he affected not to notice, and repeated the question.

  ‘Well I don’t have the message as such, but I think I know of its likely whereabouts,’ he replied, crossing his ankles and gazing at her earnestly.

  ‘Really,’ said Rosy tersely. ‘And who is it from?’

  ‘It’s from your aunt. I meant to—’

  ‘Aunt Marcia?’ she yelped in astonishment. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘What I say. She gave me to understand that—’

  ‘So where did it come from, this message? Beyond the grave – the other side, perhaps?’ she enquired acidly.

  ‘Oh no, this side. Entirely this side. She told me about a week before her unfortunate—before her unhappy accident; said she had left you something important, a packet and—’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘What? Oh under the draining board, well the sink, actually.’

  Rosy regarded him thoughtfully, taking in the thin primly crossed ankles, sparse eyebrows, nicotined fingers and slightly stained soutane (vestiges of ‘good wine’?), and reflected ruefully that it was indeed a great mistake taking this man in. She resolved to ring the Reverend Keithley first thing in the morning and advise him to select his friends more carefully. Meanwhile, how to get rid of him?

  But she had no time to ponder for at the next moment he said simply, ‘Your aunt was always very kind to me. I think we had a bond. I taught her to play backgammon, you know.’

  ‘She hated backgammon.’

  ‘Not with me she didn’t. We would take it in turns.’

  ‘Take what in turns?’ Rosy asked irritably.

  ‘Well, one week she would supply the gin bottle and the next week I would. Though I have to say that I fear my offering was vastly inferior to hers. In my line of work one can only run to a standard blend from the off-licence, whereas she always produced the most exotic stuff. Delicious!’ He crinkled his nose as if scenting vestigial fumes. ‘Ah well, nothing lasts does it?’

  ‘No,’ Rosy agreed pointedly, glancing at the clock, ‘it doesn’t.’ And then a thought struck her: ‘Tell me – Lola,’ she said cautiously, ‘this message – did she tell you about it during one of these jolly sessions, e.g. over the dice and the gin?’