“His age, for a start.”
“He was in his thirties, probably. Brown hair, on the long side, but starting to thin on top. Grey eyes. Thin, a little less than six feet tall. And apart from the stab wound, there was a nasty scratch on one of his hands.”
“I see.” Rachel considered. “And you swear that you didn’t murder this man? You’re not in a state of fugue amnesia?”
His eyes widened in horror and his voice rose as he demanded, “Don’t you believe me? Of course I didn’t stab the man. I don’t know him from Adam. The girl tricked me. I’ve done my utmost to be totally honest with you. I….”
She smiled. “I just wanted to make sure.”
He glowered. “You seem to know a lot about Daisy. The girl, I mean.”
“I should do. I saw her in a restaurant this evening, in the company of an older man.” She sighed. “I was dining with your bed-mate at the time.”
“What?” He gaped. “Not the man who was stabbed?”
“Yes, his name is Louis Morgans. He’s a solicitor whose firm acts for the Dobell family.” She yawned. “I’m afraid I took a strong dislike to him. His passing will be no great loss to the legal profession.”
19
Rachel refused to answer any of Jacob’s questions until he’d described his escape from the attic. After coming to the end of his tale of woe, he slumped back in his chair while she gave a brief account of her dinner with Morgans. Trueman’s burglary wasn’t mentioned.
“You look shattered,” Martha said. She was the only one to show any sympathy, he thought. “No wonder, after what you’ve been through.”
“Fingerprints, I’m worried about fingerprints,” he muttered. “I tried to wipe them off, but I’m sure I missed some.”
Martha turned to Rachel. “What will the police make of it?”
“Jacob’s right,” Rachel said unexpectedly. “The odds are that the woman called the police. By now, they’ll have found the body.”
“Do you think they’ll come knocking at my door?” Jacob asked hoarsely.
“Wipe the sweat off your brow. You escaped, and that makes all the difference. Suppose you did leave fingerprints. How would the police know they are yours? Nobody has given them your name.”
“Why not?”
“Think about it. It’s all very well to call the police and report mysterious cries from a deserted mews. It’s something else to identify one specific journalist. That raises as many questions as answers. With all due respect, you’re not a household name. Or a household face. It would have all the hallmarks of what our American cousins call a frame-up.”
“Oakes gave me a membership card for the Clan,” Jacob said. “He knows I intended to go to Soho. If my name is given to the police, and they want to take my fingerprints, I’m in a cleft stick.”
Rachel shook her head. “If you did visit the attic, who is to say it was last night? Nobody saw you with Louis Morgans when he was alive.”
“When else might I have gone there? And why else, for that matter?”
“Whoever owns the property,” Rachel said, “the police will assume that the attic is used for prostitution. You could have been there on other occasions. Immoral, yes, but not illegal.”
“But I’ve never…”
“Hush,” Rachel put a finger to her lips. “Whoever tried to incriminate you has failed. Pinning the murder on you is now more trouble than it’s worth.”
“After going to such extremes? Bringing me to that mews, killing this fellow Morgans?” He pushed his hand through his hair. “It makes no sense.”
“You suppose Morgans was stabbed to death simply so that you could be accused of murder?” Rachel arched her eyebrows. “You flatter yourself. This evening’s events have all the hallmarks of improvisation. They had a victim, and you made an obliging scapegoat. Two birds, one stone.”
“Improvisation?” He breathed out noisily. “Ridiculous. People don’t improvise when it comes to murder.”
“Because murder is so solemn and serious?” She shook her head. “Wrong. It’s precisely when you’re dealing with something out of the ordinary that you need to improvise. There’s no instruction manual for murderers.”
“The police won’t be satisfied.” He couldn’t let it go. “Morgans was a solicitor, a respected member of the community.”
Rachel made a scornful noise. “You think so?”
“They can’t ignore his murder. It’s not the same as some miserable scoundrel being killed.”
“It’s exactly the same, in my opinion, but let that pass. What the police will think is this: Morgans was killed in a lover’s tiff, or by a prostitute, male or female, following a drink-soaked quarrel. Such crimes aren’t unheard of in Soho. There will be a not-very-helpful inquest, and a bland statement to the press. The British public will be assured that such crimes are isolated incidents, that enquiries are being pursued. Nothing for the law-abiding majority to fear. Morgans was playing with fire, and got his fingers burned. If you’re not available as a scapegoat, and the investigation runs into a cul-de-sac, people will lose interest. Including Scotland Yard.”
His throat dry after talking so long, he said feebly, “What if they do question me?”
“Give them an alibi.”
“I don’t have an alibi.”
“Wrong again.” Rachel exchanged a glance with the Truemans.
“What do you mean?”
Martha cleared her throat. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”
“Forgotten what?”
“Jacob, really! And after I let you stay the night.”
“You’ve been hanging around here lately,” Trueman said quietly. “We thought it was Rachel you were interested in. Instead it was my sister.”
Jacob’s mouth dropped open. He wanted to ask if they were serious, but dreaded sounding ungrateful or causing offence. They were offering him a lifeline. Just like that drainpipe in the dingy mews, he had to grab it.
“Not that we spent the night in bed together,” Martha said gently. “I don’t trust you that far. We just talked and talked, and then it was too late for you to go back home, so I made up the bed in one of our spare rooms.”
“The room you’ll sleep in once you’ve had a hot bath,” Hetty said.
Jacob looked at their composed faces. If his brain had been scrambled earlier during this strange and terrible night, it was now well and truly mashed up. He felt more dead than alive. But he had to trust them.
“It’s very good of you, Martha.” He coughed to hide his embarrassment. “To be prepared to help me… in that way. Thank you.”
“You make a lovely couple,” Rachel said.
*
“You were right,” Hetty told her husband when Jacob had left. “Thank goodness you did return that folder to Morgans’ office straight away. The moment the body’s identified, the police will go sniffing around.”
“I left his room as I found it,” Cliff Trueman said. “Not that I expected him to be murdered.”
“First Payne, now Morgans,” Hetty said. “Where will it end? Was it worth the risk of breaking in?”
“I’ve read the copies the three of you made,” Rachel said. “Martha’s handwriting is much better than yours, thank goodness.”
“What do you make of the letters?” Trueman asked. “If you managed to decipher my scrawl?”
Rachel sighed. “Leonora has scrupulously obtained permission every time she wanted to sell a picture. There’s no hint of fraud.”
“And the settlement deed?”
“I wondered if she was lying about being entitled to stay on at Mortmain Hall after her husband died, but Morgans confirmed her understanding. So does the deed. The estate goes to Oswyn Dobell’s son or grandson, natural or otherwise. The surviving widow of an incumbent heir is entitled to a life interest, so that the next generation has to wait its turn.”
“Oswyn was far more liberal than most testators, then.”
“Generous to a fault.”
/> “So even if Felix Dobell had died the very next day after marrying Leonora, she’d have remained as the tenant of Mortmain for the rest of her life?”
“Exactly.”
“Quite an incentive for murder.”
“Except that her motive would be screamingly obvious. Twelve years since their marriage, Felix is still alive and kicking. Leonora is content to go her own way. While a nurse looks after her husband, she amuses herself at the Old Bailey or the Clandestine Club as the mood takes her. Why risk killing Felix? What would she gain?”
“Unless,” Cliff said slowly, “she wanted to kill him for the hell of it. Just for the thrill of seeing if she could commit the perfect murder.”
*
“This is your room.” Martha indicated an open door on the landing of the second floor. Jacob saw a four-poster bed, with white towels laid on the bedspread.
“Thanks,” he said. “And I’m grateful for the alibi.”
Her smile showed strong white teeth. “My pleasure. The bathroom is first on the left. The water’s hot, you can have a good soak; it’ll do you good. Don’t fall asleep. It would be a shame if you drowned after surviving so much.”
His grin was weary. “You’re very kind.”
“If you want me to scrub your back, just ring the bell.” A cheeky giggle. “Only your back, mind.”
With a peal of musical laughter, she skipped off downstairs while he was still blushing.
*
They woke him for a late breakfast in the conservatory at half past nine. He panicked on seeing the time, and stammered incoherently about the Clarion, but Rachel put a restraining hand on his arm.
“Martha called your office. She told them you’d be in later.”
“She did?” He had visions of colleagues being told he’d spent the night with Rachel’s maid. “What did she say?”
“I took the liberty of claiming to be your landlady,” Martha said. “They were quite understanding when I told them you were following up a murder that’s just been reported.”
His eyes widened. “A murder?”
Trueman pointed to the newspapers piled on a chair. “A man’s body was found in Soho last night. Cause of death, stabbing. There are veiled hints that the circumstances are unsavoury, and that the deceased was a toff. So far, he hasn’t been named.”
“It won’t take long to identify him.” Rachel buttered her toast. “I expect the woman and her associate left his wallet. Just as they left yours, Jacob.”
“You think the man who hit me was the man you saw in Foibles? The chap who was squiring Daisy?”
She shook her head. “No, he was too old and too dignified to indulge in violence. Men like that delegate their dirty work to hired hands.”
“Who are these people? Why are they doing this?” He gulped some orange juice. “And why did they pick on me?”
“Whoever it is,” Rachel said, “is powerful enough to warn you off via a Scotland Yard inspector. Raking over old coals, wasn’t that the phrase?”
“You suspect this is connected with Gilbert Payne?”
“Yes.”
“And Louis Morgans? Where does he fit in, and why was he murdered?”
“Excellent questions, Jacob.” She poured herself a coffee. “If only I had all the answers.”
“Is it to do with Leonora Dobell? Is she mixed up in this murky business?”
“At first I doubted it,” she said, “The trouble is that wherever we turn, the woman pops up.”
“Something odd is going on,” Hetty said.
“You have a genius for understatement.” Rachel rubbed her chin. “It’s almost as if…”
“As if what?” Jacob asked.
She thought for a moment. “As if we’re looking at a Cezanne, and noticing brushstrokes by Gauguin.”
This was too Delphic for him. “And why has Leonora arranged this house party?”
“There’s only one place to find the answer, Jacob.”
“Namely?”
“We need to go to Mortmain Hall.”
*
“Good of you to turn up.” Gomersall made a show of checking his watch when he spotted Jacob in the corridor at Clarion House.
“You got my message?” Jacob tried to exude the quiet excitement of a man on a warm trail.
Gomersall frowned. “Those rings under your eyes make you look as though you’ve been up all night. Burning the candle at both ends, lad?”
“All in the line of duty, sir.” Well, it was more or less true. “This murder in Soho.”
“Squalid affair.” Gomersall snorted. “Is that really what our readers want to accompany their porridge in the morning? Chap stabbed to death in a dive by some tart or pimp? We’re a family newspaper, Jacob, never forget.”
“Absolutely.”
“Whatever happened to the middle-class murderer?”
An image swam into Jacob’s mind. The author of Respectable Murders, dressed up as a man, singing “Ain’t She Sweet?” to a nubile young woman. Respectability wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“The professional man at the end of his tether.” Gomersall warmed to his theme, sounding almost nostalgic. “Seeing no way out other than a shocking crime. Crippen, Armstrong…”
“Danskin?”
“Defence lawyers are getting smarter,” Gomersall muttered. “That’s what’s wrong with this country.”
“Let me run with Soho, sir. I’ll file a story as soon as the victim is identified. I’ve got a first-rate lead, and I’d like to see where it takes me.”
Gomersall shrugged. “You’re the chief crime correspondent. Ball’s in your court.”
“Leave it with me,” Jacob said, with more confidence than he felt. “By Monday I may have a scoop.”
*
“You must see my menagerie.” Sir Samuel Dackins’ command brooked no argument. “Come on. Plenty of time before the start of play.”
The Masqueraders had enjoyed a hearty breakfast around a long table in Tunnicliffe’s old cruck barn while their host regaled them with tales of his triumphs in business, jungle exploration, and village cricket. Each field of endeavour, he explained, demanded comparable grit and perseverance.
He led his guests under an ivy-clad loggia at the back of the manor and along a path running beside a colourful herbaceous border. The scent of roses filled the summer air. Shading his eyes from the sun, Dackins opined that it was a perfect day for cricket. Major Whitlow gave a curt nod of agreement.
As they passed a small chapel with an even smaller graveyard, they heard the squawk of birds and screech of monkeys. Reggie exchanged a glance with Pennington, whose ruddy cheeks were almost bursting with suppressed amusement. The din became louder as they reached the front of the stable block. Dackins halted, and raised a hand. The party gathered in a semicircle in front of him, like tourists clustering around a Thomas Cook guide.
“I converted the stables to house the smaller animals as well as my collection of parakeets,” he announced. “Listen to them chatter: you can tell how much they love it here.”
After inspecting the birds and monkeys and making the requisite murmurs of appreciation, the cricketers entered a stockade containing a pool for penguins as well as the cages of the larger animals. A lion prowled around in front of them, and bared its teeth in greeting.
“Aren’t people in the village frightened, having so many dangerous animals on their doorstep?” asked an earnest little fellow called Turner. He was about thirty, although his thin hair and anxious demeanour made him look ten years older; he worked as a statistician in an office two doors down the corridor from Reggie’s.
“One or two malcontents may mumble into their beer,” Dackins said. “Ha! You get more sense out of dumb creatures than you do out of the British working man. The blasted farmers moan the most. Mithering that the lions will get out and kill their sheep. Sheer hypocrisy. What happens to their beloved flock, eh? They end up on the dinner table, that’s what. Lamb chops and mutton.”
Dackins snorted. “There’s a ravine over yonder, behind the cricket ground, where my head keeper lets ’em run free. Don’t worry, I’ve had the sides built up so it’s impossible for them to escape. Safe as houses. Safer than in the wild, come to that. Perfectly true what they say about nature being red in tooth and claw. Ever seen a lion chewed to death by a pack of hyenas?”
Turner shook his head nervously, and Sir Samuel took them on to the wild cats’ cage. A full-grown tigress swished her tail and stalked towards the iron bars. Reggie found himself gazing into yellow eyes with black irises. For all the morning’s warmth, he felt a chill.
The menace in her smile reminded him of Rachel Savernake.
*
Major Whitlow won the toss, and elected to bat under a clear blue sky. The Masqueraders amassed one hundred and thirty runs before he declared their innings closed, and the teams adjourned for tea in the thatched pavilion. Reggie set about his egg-and-tomato sandwiches with the zest of a man who had nudged and nurdled fifteen runs before missing a straight ball and hearing the crash of his stumps behind him. He’d made his highest score for two seasons, and worked up an appetite.
Pennington quaffed a tankard of beer. He was basking in the appreciation of his teammates after notching a rapid half-century. Turner, who had vacated the place to Reggie’s right a few minutes earlier, sat down beside him again, and poured himself a glass from the jug of ale. Reggie was surprised. Unlike the rest of the Masqueraders, Turner was a modest drinker who usually confined himself to half a pint after the game was over.
“Dutch courage?” Pennington demanded with his customary joviality as Turner took a swig. “Don’t worry, your slower ball will bamboozle their batsmen. They won’t know whether to slog it for four or for six.”
He guffawed at his own wit as Turner frowned. “I went back to change my shirt, and heard the news on the wireless. Chap I was at school with has been murdered. Bad business, by the sound of it.”
Mortmain Hall Page 19