Cherry Mount, Leesburg—the address that Harold R. Benson, Jr., had given Ambrose as his childhood home—turned out to be a smallish but exquisite example of such a mansion, several miles outside Leesburg and standing in about twenty acres of rolling grassland. Ambrose maneuvered the car with difficulty up the ice-rutted lane from the main road, noting with a pang of envy the stables, the large swimming pool tarpaulined for the winter, and the neat hedged garden around the house. Harold R. Benson, Jr., whoever he really was, had been reared in circumstances of considerable affluence.
The present owners of the house, who had been warned of Ambrose’s visit, were U.S. Air Force Colonel Withers, currently employed at the Pentagon, and his very Southern wife. They were charming and hospitable, but could help very little when it came to the Bensons. They had bought Cherry Mount, they said, ten years earlier from the widowed Mrs. Benson, who had been living there on her own since the death of her husband and the departure of her son to George Washington University.
“Mrs. Benson was a very gracious lady,” said Melanie Withers. “ Y’all must understand that she felt deeply about this house. It had been in her husband’s family for several generations, you see. Coming from England as she did, she had a great sense of tradition, and she did not want to leave her home. We appreciated that, but she told us her son had finally convinced her that this place was too big for just one little person. Such a nice, good-looking boy, wasn’t he, Arthur? I understand he’s a professor at the university now, and married with a boy of his own. How the time does go by! Anyways, Mrs. Benson agreed to sell the house, and she moved to an apartment in town. It can’t have been more than a year later that we read about her death in the paper. Pneumonia, it said, but I always had the feeling that maybe she was just pining for this old house. Mrs. Benson was not the sort of lady to live in an apartment.”
Rosalie looked up, caught her husband’s eye, and quickly looked away again, afraid that she might disgrace herself by giggling. The colonel’s lady, with true-blue Southern logic, was apparently suggesting that English-born Mrs. Benson had shown no more than well-bred delicacy in deciding to die rather than to live in an apartment.
Colonel Withers said, “Since you’re interested in the Bensons, Mr. Quince, we took the liberty of inviting some people over for drinks—neighbors who knew them when they lived here. They should be able to tell you more than we can. I hope that the snow hasn’t. . . ah, I think I hear a car now. That’ll be Mark and Lucy.” He hurried out to open the front door.
Mark and Lucy Pettigrew were a sprightly couple, both in their late sixties, and it soon transpired that they lived two miles away and were the Witherses’ nearest neighbors. The Bensons had been living at Cherry Mount when the Pettigrews arrived in Leesburg, nearly thirty years ago. Little Harry must have been about five then. How exciting that he might stand to inherit some money from English relations. Of course, Joan Benson had been English— everybody knew that. Harold had met and married her when he was over there during the Second World War, and had brought her back to live in this house, which he had inherited from his father.
Ambrose asked if Captain Benson had been wounded in the war, but nobody seemed to know. If he had been, it was never mentioned. He had died most tragically of a heart attack, at an early age.
The conversation then turned to the weather, the difficulty of exercising the horses, and a certain amount of spicy local gossip and politics. As tactfully as he could, Ambrose detached Lucy Pettigrew from the others, and asked her if she had known that Harry Benson, Jr., was an adopted child.
Lucy opened her black-rimmed eyes wide. “Adopted? You have to be joking, Mr. Quince. Did you hear that, Mark? Mr. Quince says young Harry Benson may have been adopted! Well, of course, there’s no proving it one way or the other, and it’s true the Bensons didn’t have any other children . . . but it seems an extraordinary idea. They were such a close-knit family, weren’t they, Mark? Oh, I wouldn’t believe that story, Mr. Quince, especially if it might stand in the way of a legacy for Harry. Thank you, Melanie, another martini would be just dandy.”
Back at the hotel in Washington, Ambrose said to Rosalie, “The whole thing stinks. It’s ridiculous. If what Benson says is true, his parents were still in England on October 28, 1944, and yet a birth certificate was issued alleging that Harold Raymond Benson, Jr., was born at Cherry Mount, Leesburg, on that day.”
Rosalie said, “This is the South, Ambrose. Families like the Bensons obviously had great influence and power—and still have, I believe. Maybe they simply turned up in November and gave a set of facts to the registrar, and looked him straight in the eye—and he issued the certificate. What puzzles me more is—why?”
“What do you mean—why?”
“I mean, I feel it’s easier to believe that the Bensons fixed the birth certificate than that somebody like Harold Benson should come forward with this story if it’s not true. He’s obviously not an adventurer. He’s a university teacher, comfortably off and with an impeccable family background. Why should he do it?”
Ambrose sighed. “I’ve long ago given up trying to pinpoint people’s motives, darling,” he said. “Any lawyer knows that even apparent pillars of society can and do behave quite irrationally at times.” He paused. “Anyhow, there’s nothing particularly eccentric about wanting to lay hands on a couple of million pounds. University teaching isn’t the highest paid of professions.”
“He has Simon Warwick’s passport,” Rosalie pointed out. “That’s obviously the clue to the whole business,” said Ambrose. “He somehow came by the passport, and that gave him the idea of coming to England and passing himself off as Simon Warwick. If we could just find out where he got it. . . Ah, well, perhaps we’ll get somewhere when we see his wife tomorrow.”
“You spoke to her on the telephone, didn’t you? What does she sound like?”
“A nice woman, by her voice. Not a Southern accent, like those two comic turns this afternoon. Soft spoken, northeast seaboard, I’d say. Not so very different from English, really.”
Rosalie said, “She doesn’t sound like the sort of woman who’d go along with this sort of deception.”
“Maybe she’s deceived, too. Maybe he’s convinced her that he really is Simon Warwick. He might well have convinced us, remember, if we hadn’t such strong reason to believe that the name of the adoptive parents was Finch.”
“Hm.” Rosalie sounded doubtful. “I’m not believing anything for the moment. I’m just looking forward to seeing Charlottesville. I hope the snow lets up.”
The Quinces were lucky. The next day, the sun shone from a chilly blue sky and sparkled on the Virginia countryside as they drove southwest from Washington toward the impressive skyline of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was Friday, and already people in cars carrying skis were bowling along the salted, snow-free highway toward Warrenton and Culpeper, heading for a weekend at one of Virginia’s ski resorts. In less than three hours, when the flat-topped mountain range was towering close ahead, the Quinces came to the university town of Charlottesville.
In many ways, Charlottesville is the University of Virginia, and the University of Virginia is Thomas Jefferson. In his old age, after his political career was over, long after the design and building of his own beautiful house, Jefferson turned his multi-skilled mind to his last project—the creation of a great university for his home state.
A Renaissance man strayed into the eighteenth century, Jefferson was diplomat and statesman, traveler, inventor, politician, architect, writer, and artist. For his home, Monticello, he personally designed every detail, down to the drapes: he invented and installed, among other things, self-opening doors, a seven-day clock run by huge pulleys and weights, a lift for sending dishes up to the dining room from the kitchen, so that confidential political dinner conversation could be carried on without the presence of servants, and a duplicating machine enabling two longhand copies to be written simultaneously. His European travels as American ambassador to France shap
ed his taste to an exquisite expression of neo-classicism. Clean, clear lines and elegant geometrical conceptions characterize his architectural designs—octagons and spirals, circles set in squares, and ovals set in circles.
The main buildings of the university represent his crowning achievement. Two great colonnaded buildings, of rose-red brick and white stucco, face each other across a sweep of green lawn; and at one end, linked by colonnades to the side-buildings and—in Jefferson’s original conception—gazing out down the greensward to the distant mountains, stands the great Rotunda; that domed circle in a square, with oval rooms nestled like eggs within the circle, and all the orders of classical architecture meticulously reproduced for the edification of the students. It was little wonder that Queen Elizabeth 11 of England, on her trip to the United States during the bicentennial, picked this building as the one place of her own choice to visit.
When Ambrose and Rosalie arrived, the great lawn was a carpet of unbroken white, and the bare trees were outlined in rime. Several visitors were busily clicking away with cameras, posing family groups on the Rotunda steps and admonishing their children not to throw snowballs; but the place had the unfulfilled air of a college on vacation, a sense of the buildings catnapping, breathing lightly, waiting for the bustle of life to return.
The address that Harold Benson had given Ambrose turned out to be one of the apartments under the colonnade—quarters that Jefferson had envisaged as housing undergraduates, but now the privileged dwellings of university staff. Rosalie rang the bell, and the door was opened almost at once by a smiling black girl wearing a dark dress and a neat white apron.
“Mr. and Mrs. Quince?” she said.
“That’s right,” said Ambrose. “Mrs. Benson is expecting us.”
“I’m real sorry,” said the girl. “Miz Benson’s not here right now. Won’t you come in? She left a note for you.”
Ambrose and Rosalie exchanged a quick glance. Rosalie said, “When will she be back? We’ve driven all the way from Washington on purpose to—”
“If you’ll just come in the drawing room. She left you a note.”
Ambrose and Rosalie were ushered into a cheerful and beautifully proportioned room, furnished with antiques and chintz and smelling of lavender and wax polish. A log fire crackled in the grate, and propped on the mantelpiece above it was an envelope, addressed in a firm, forward-sloping hand to Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose Quince.
Ambrose tore open the envelope and read aloud. “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Quince, I am most sincerely sorry that I cannot meet you today. I tried to telephone your Washington hotel, but you had already left, so all I can do is ask Bettina to make sure you get this note. The fact is that I received a call this morning telling me that my son has been taken ill. He is up at a ski camp in the mountains with a group of young friends. Nobody seems to know exactly what the trouble is, and the local doctor thought I should drive up to be with him. I’m afraid I have no idea how long I shall be away. If you will telephone me before you leave Washington, maybe we can set up another meeting, if I am here. Please forgive me. Sincerely, Sally Benson.” Ambrose turned to his wife. “What a damned nuisance,” he said.
“Coincidence, do you think?”
“How do I know? Convenient coincidence or a diplomatic cold in the head. Well, she needn’t think I’m leaving the States without seeing her—she’s only putting off the evil hour, that’s all. Where did that girl go?”
Ambrose went out into the paneled hallway. Through a half-open door, he saw the black girl energetically sweeping a carpet. He opened the door and went into what could only be Benson’s study—a small, pleasant room, book-lined, the desk clear of papers in the absence of its owner. All that was on it was a large color photograph of an attractive, strong-featured girl—presumably the elusive Mrs. Benson.
The black girl suspended her sweeping and looked at Ambrose in mild inquiry. He said, “This camp in the mountains where Mrs. Benson’s son is.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Where is it? Is it far from here?”
“I don’t know, sir. I surely don’t know where Master Hank is.”
“Did Mrs. Benson tell you when she’d be coming back?”
“No, sir. She told me Master Hank’s not well, and she go off in the car. She say maybe two-three days. That’s all I know.”
“It’s very annoying,” said Ambrose grumpily. There was a pause. The maid resumed her sweeping.
Ambrose went back into the hall as Rosalie came out of the drawing room. “Well, that seems to be that. Nobody knows where she is, or how long for.”
“Never mind, darling,” said Rosalie. “Let’s go and visit the Rotunda, get ourselves some lunch, and then go back to Washington.”
The maid had come out of the study and transferred her attentions to an oriental rug in the hall. Rosalie said, “Bettina, can you tell us a good restaurant around here?”
The girl considered. Then she said, “Miz Benson go Boar’s Head sometime.”
“Where’s that?”
“Couple miles out of town, toward the mountains.”
“Thank you,” said Rosalie. “We’ll try it. Please ask Mrs. Benson to call us in Washington as soon as she gets back.”
“Okay.” The girl opened the front door. “ Have a good day now.” The Boar’s Head turned out to be a rambling hotel whose central building had once been a mill house. It was the centerpiece of a carefully landscaped estate of opulent houses. In the big, dark-paneled dining room, girls and men in eighteenth-century costumes—mobcaps and velvet knee-breeches—served excellent food with smiling Southern hospitality.
As Ambrose and Rosalie were finishing their fried chicken, the maitre d’—a young man in modern dress—came to their table to inquire if they were enjoying their meal. They reassured him on that point, and Rosalie added, “We were very lucky to be directed here, being strangers from England. It was Mrs. Benson who recommended you.”
The young man looked puzzled. “Mrs. Harold Benson, Jr.?”
“That’s right. From the university.”
“But you’ve just missed her.”
Ambrose said, “What do you mean?”
“Why, Mrs. Benson finished lunch not half an hour ago. She was sitting at that table over there, on her own. Her husband’s in England, as I expect you know. We had quite a chat. She told me she was lunching early, as she was spending the weekend with friends in Williamsburg, and she wanted to get there in daylight, in case the weather closes in. Why, you only missed her by about ten minutes.”
“She didn’t say anything about her son being ill?” Rosalie asked.
“Hank? No, not a word. I thought he was up at ski camp. Is something wrong?”
Ambrose said quickly, “No, no. Nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry we missed Mrs. Benson.”
The maitre d’ smiled and moved to another table. Rosalie said, “Well!”
“That clinches it,” said Ambrose grimly. “She knows her husband’s an impostor, and she’s afraid she might give the game away. Well, she’s just made a big mistake. She would have done better to try to bluff it out.”
“It’s going to be very awkward when we do meet her,” Rosalie said.
“You leave her to me,” said Ambrose, with a sort of satisfaction. “She’s told us exactly what we came here to find out, and the important thing now is that she should go on thinking she’s fooled us. Once she suspects that we know the truth, she’ll alert Benson and he’ll simply disappear. No, thank you very much. I intend to nail that young man for fraud and impersonation and everything else in the book. He thinks he’s too damn clever. Well, let him go on thinking it for a little longer. He’ll find out soon enough who’s clever.”
Rosalie gave her husband a long, amused look. “Ambrose Quince is clever,” she said.
Ambrose flushed. “I didn’t exactly mean that,” he said. “But at least I’m not stupid enough to be taken in by Harold Benson, Jr. D’you want a dessert?” he added, as a mobcapped waitress appeared with a larg
e menu. “No? Neither do I. Just two coffees, please. Then back to Washington. Tomorrow, we’ll start on Mr. Simon Finch.”
4
Harold R. Benson, Jr., had at least provided Ambrose Quince with an ancestral mansion, an up-to-date address, and a live—if elusive—wife to visit. Simon Finch was a more difficult proposition. All that Ambrose had to go on was an address in suburban Washington dating back more than fifteen years. With the rapidly growing suburbs and the quick turnover of inhabitants that is even more marked in Washington, D.C., than in most American cities, Ambrose felt that his task was going to be far from easy.
The next day, Saturday, under a leaden sky that threatened more snow, Ambrose and Rosalie drove over Key Bridge from Georgetown to the Virginia bank of the Potomac River, and were soon in the expensive suburb of McLean. Everywhere, new houses were going up—large houses with colonial-type facades, big gardens, and swimming pools. The vast shopping center at Tyson’s Corner enticed shoppers into the luxurious emporia of Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Every house had at least two cars, many three or four.
Ambrose had some difficulty in tracing the address that Finch had given him. Old Colonial Drive turned out to be a country road that was rapidly assuming the appearance of a wealthy housing estate as new buildings went up. However, number 186—to Ambrose’s relief—was still there. It was a pretty little stone house, smaller but much more solidly constructed than its newer neighbors.
The front door was answered by a dark-haired maid, who greeted the Quinces in Spanish. When Ambrose asked in English to speak to the lady of the house, the maid giggled, went red in the face, and fled—leaving Ambrose and Rosalie shivering on the doorstep. They heard a hurried consultation of female voices in Spanish, and then a tall, good-looking woman appeared from the back of the house.
Who Is Simon Warwick Page 4