‘Poor Vic. I doubt if he would make a good witness. I am concerned about him, you know. Didn’t you find him a trifle on the febrile side—a shade unbalanced? He’s been stalking me, you see. He keeps phoning. He wouldn’t accept no for an answer. He is far from reasonable. He has developed the annoying habit of bursting into tears when least expected.’ Penelope shook her head. ‘The police would take a very dim view of it, if I were to make a report.
Poor Vic needs psychiatric help … What a clever-looking cat! Perhaps he is a detective too?’
‘He is named after a detective,’ Antonia said, feeling a little foolish.
Dupin had walked up to Penelope Tradescant and was rubbing against her legs. She scratched him behind his ears and made him purr. And I always thought you such a good judge of character, Payne thought, annoyed by what he perceived to be Dupin’s treachery. He snapped his fingers and called out, ‘Dupin! Come here at once!’
‘He is not a dog, Major Payne,’ Penelope Tradescant said. ‘All right. I admit Captain Jesty has been making rather a nuisance of himself. So what? Say, I made the mistake of letting him into my house on one or two occasions. That proves nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘Jesty was at Mayholme Manor on the morning of the murder,’ said Payne. ‘One of the stewards saw him come out of Sir Seymour’s bathroom. Jesty was wearing an orange habit. He had clearly decided that he could be taken for one of the stewards. The front of the habit was wet with Sir Seymour’s bath water. It was you who gave him the habit, wasn’t it? Sir Seymour had brought the habit home and had been using it as a dressing gown. But perhaps Jesty has a cast-iron alibi for the morning of Sir Seymour’s murder?’
‘Perhaps he has. Why didn’t the steward try to stop him? Why didn’t he raise the alarm? Why didn’t he tell the police at once? He hasn’t told the police yet, has he?’ Penelope’s voice rose. ‘Do you really believe the police would take his account seriously?’
‘They might.’
‘You have no case. There is nothing either of you can do. Your case is as flimsy as the little piggy’s house that was made of straw.’ Penelope Tradescant glanced at her watch, then rose to her feet. ‘I need to go home to change. I have a flying lesson at five. I am buying one of those light two-seater planes.’
‘You came here with the intention of ascertaining if we had any serious evidence against you and your accomplice. Luckily for you—perhaps luckily for us as well—we haven’t.’ Payne spoke a little wearily. ‘Am I right in thinking there is a gun inside your bag?’
‘A gun? Oh yes. I completely forgot about it.’ She opened her bag and produced a small, rather elegant-looking revolver. ‘I’ve got a licence for it. I only carry it for protection. I hope I’ll never need it, but who knows? We live in troubled times.’
‘If things had turned out differently, would you have shot us—and our poor cat as well, perhaps? I believe you would. Your outlandish outfit makes it clear that you didn’t want to be recognized if someone saw you enter or leave our house.’
‘I would never have shot your cat,’ Lady Tradescant said. ‘Never. Such a clever-looking cat.’
Payne’s mobile phone rang.
It was Madden.
Madden had had second thoughts. He had called Payne back. Madden had agreed to cooperate. It was on Payne’s instructions that he had called Captain Jesty and pretended to blackmail him.
Payne had contemplated a trap. Jesty’s compliance would have constituted proof of guilt.
‘He didn’t turn up,’ Madden said. ‘He must have realized that you were behind the ploy, that you were trying to get him and I was merely your instrument. You shouldn’t have suggested Claridge’s.’
‘Damn. I meant to say the Savoy.’
‘I recorded our conversation on my mobile,’ Madden said. ‘Wouldn’t that help?’
‘Most enterprising of you, my dear fellow. Well, let’s see what the police will make of it,’ said Payne.
He was not particularly optimistic.
38
Nemesis
The police made very little of the recorded conversation between Captain Jesty and the steward Madden. They did not think it was the kind of evidence that would be considered acceptable in a court of law. They agreed to listen to the story the young man called Vic Levant had to tell, but that too failed to impress them.
A jilted lover, as Major Payne pointed out, rarely makes a reliable witness. Not even when he happens to be the culprit’s brother.
So it was that Sir Seymour Tradescant’s huge fortune passed into the hands of his murderers. Evil appeared to have won. Nevertheless, Nemesis did have the final word, and when Major Payne and Antonia read in the morning paper that Lady Tradescant and her friend Captain (‘Beau’) Jesty had been killed in the accidental crashing of Lady Tradescant’s two-seater plane in a field near the M25 on 30th August, they knew that Justice was satisfied.
There were signs of autumn in the air and their garden looked silvery with faint dew.
‘Well, that’s that, I suppose,’ Payne said, putting The Times down.
‘It’s the kind of deus ex machina solution I would never have chosen for any of my detective novels,’ said Antonia as she helped herself to more coffee.
The Curious Incident at Claridge's Page 21