A Fête Worse Than Death (15 page)

Lawrence looked away and picked up his billiard cue once more. ‘You're talking about the Augier Ridge tunnels, aren't you?' He tapped the cue lightly on his hand. ‘What can that have to do with the murders?'

‘That's what we – Superintendent Ashley and myself – are trying to work out. Tyburn's name cropped up and I decided to try and find out a bit more about him.'

‘He's dead.'

‘Is he?' asked Lady Rivers. ‘He disappeared after the truth came out, I know, but are we sure he's dead, Mr Lawrence?'

Lawrence nodded. ‘I'm certain of it. There's no proof, I know, but I'm sure of it.'

‘He must be dead,' said Sir Philip. ‘If he wasn't we'd have heard something after all this time.'

‘Would we, Philip?' asked Lady Rivers. ‘I wonder. He might have easily changed his name and appearance and he wouldn't want to be found, of course.'

‘But there's his daughter, Alice. Surely he'd try and contact her?'

‘Martin Tyburn showed precious little interest in her before he was found out,' said Lady Rivers grimly. ‘It's not very likely he'll want to get in touch with her now.'

Haldean sat down on the leather sofa and lit a cigarette. ‘Will you tell me about him? I only know what I've read in the official records, and that's little enough. For instance, where does Miss Vayle fit into it all? How did you come to be her trustees?'

‘Oh, that part's quite simple,' said Lady Rivers. She sat down and put her hands round her knees. ‘The Tyburns came from Lower Woodbury and were very well thought of. But Martin Tyburn . . . Well, he always had a reputation, if you see what I mean.'

‘He was a rip,' put in Sir Philip. ‘He got entangled with a most unsuitable girl whilst up at Cambridge and his father had to buy her off. And then what must the young fool do but run away with a German governess, of all people, whom Cranford, the local doctor, had employed to teach his daughters. I was older than Tyburn, of course, and wasn't here when it happened, but I remember the scandal it caused.'

‘They got married though, Philip,' said Lady Rivers.

‘Oh yes, I know they got married, Alice, but that only made things worse. There was no getting out of it then, you see. Old Tyburn wouldn't have anything to do with them and they went to live in London.'

‘And then Marguerite was born,' continued Lady Rivers. ‘It's a pity she wasn't a boy. Old Mr Tyburn might have come round then, but she wasn't.' She sighed. ‘He had very rigid views, you know. Very rigid. The real tragedy was that Marguerite's mother died soon afterwards. Martin Tyburn abandoned the baby and left England for Canada.'

‘Abandoned's a strong word, Alice.'

‘Well, what else would you call it?' she demanded. ‘I don't mean he left her on a doorstep somewhere, but he didn't want anything to do with her.' She looked at Haldean. ‘He left her in the care of Andrew and Cissie Vayle, who came to be such friends of ours, and they brought her up as their own daughter. They heard nothing from Martin Tyburn for years and then in 1915 had a letter from a solicitor in London. Apparently Tyburn had come back to this country and decided to join the army. Rather late in the day he decided to make some provision for his daughter in case he got killed and set up a trust fund for her. Cissie and Andrew Vayle were one set of trustees and Mr Lawrence here was the other. Martin Tyburn still had no interest in seeing the child, though. He refused to go to their house and although the Vayles met him it was all arranged at the solicitor's office.'

Haldean looked at Lawrence. ‘Did you know Martin Tyburn well, Mr Lawrence?'

Lawrence nodded. ‘I knew him very well.' He smiled faintly at Lady Rivers. ‘I realize you feel bitter about what he did, and I can't blame you, but he was a good friend of mine and a good man. That's why I'm so certain he's dead. I simply can't believe that he'd be in this sort of trouble without letting me know somehow. I guess I shouldn't say this, but he'd have known I would've helped him, no matter what. I never believed he was guilty but even if he was, he'd have had a reason, a good reason, for what he did.'

Sir Philip snorted in disagreement. ‘Name me one good reason for being a traitor.'

‘Well, perhaps there aren't any. I can't actually argue with you, Rivers, because I agree. But Tyburn knew me and he would have known how I'd react. We owed each other a lot. Personally, I mean. I met him before the war and we started up in business together, but when the war was declared he sold me his share and came back to Britain.'

‘Did Tyburn intend to return to Canada after the war?' asked Haldean.

Lawrence shook his head doubtfully ‘I don't think so. He had no reason to any more and he was sure glad to be back in England. I think he wanted to settle down here after the war was over. lie was always more English than Canadian and I guess he was homesick. He used to talk about Sussex so much I felt I knew the place. Why, when I came here I'd heard so much about it, it was like coming home. All the high-shaded lanes and the little fields you felt you could pick up and put in your pocket. You know, that sense that people had been living here for thousands of years. All cosy and homey and just about the biggest contrast with the Rockies there could possibly be.'

‘And yet he turned out to be a bad 'un,' said Haldean, stubbing out his cigarette.

Lawrence shook his head. ‘The only reason I can think of for him going off the rails was his wife. Maybe she influenced him. She was German, you remember, and he might have been inclined to that point of view. But as I say, I never thought he was guilty. I tried to say as much to anyone who would listen and caused a bit of a row.' He picked up his whisky and sipped it thoughtfully. ‘With the copper contracts I'd arranged, the government had plenty of reason to be grateful to me, but as far as both the Canadian and British War Offices were concerned, he was guilty and that was that.'

‘The evidence was pretty damning.'

‘If you say so.' Lawrence finished his whisky and rested his arms on the edge of the billiard table, the cloth reflecting green light on his face. He shrugged. ‘All I can say is, he was my friend. Anyway, before he left for France it was all set up that the Vayles and I were his daughter's trustees in case he was killed. Tyburn wrote to the Vayles and the four of us met up in the offices of a London lawyer and arranged the whole thing. He was a rich man by now, Major Haldean, and the money was going to go to her when she was twenty-one or when she got married. The trustees had to approve the marriage, of course.'

‘Do you know why he didn't want to see her?'

Lawrence picked up his cue, rolled a white ball into position with the tip and struck it thoughtfully. ‘Not really. Maybe he didn't want to disturb her. He knew that these people, the Vayles, were raising her as their own child and he might have thought it was unfair to them. It was probably for the best.'

Lady Rivers unclasped her hands from her knees. ‘As far as the Vayles were concerned the trusteeship didn't change anything and I believe they were rather relieved that Marguerite's father didn't intend to interfere.' She looked at Haldean. ‘Do try and understand, Jack. No one concealed anything on purpose from Marguerite but, as I say, the Vayles had always treated her as their own daughter and the question of who she was simply didn't arise. And then when it came out that he was a traitor and had been in the pay of the Germans it seemed impossible to tell her. It was in the newspapers and was a tremendous scandal. The press loved it, because of the contrast between Martin Tyburn and Richard Whitfield. Marguerite was only a child when it happened and it was thought best to keep it from her. Andrew Vayle, who probably would have told her when she was old enough to understand, died in the last year of the war and Cissie only survived him by a few months. Poor Cissie knew she hadn't got long left and asked us to take over as trustees, which, of course, we did. Marguerite was still at school, so all it really involved was having her for the holidays occasionally. Most of the time she went to stay with friends but at Christmas she met Colonel Whitfield and it became obvious that there was an attraction there.' Lady Rivers shook herself. ‘We must take some action now, Philip. It's a matter of justice. We can't allow Marguerite to continue seeing Colonel Whitfield without letting her know the truth. I wanted to tell her when you arrived, Mr Lawrence, but you advised waiting.'

‘I had a mind to see things for myself,' said Lawrence. ‘I'm far from happy about the idea of her marrying the Colonel in any case. It's no secret she's going to be a wealthy woman when she marries and I'm a little suspicious of his motives.'

Lady Rivers stood up. ‘This is ridiculous,' she said in a firm voice. ‘Here we are discussing Marguerite's future and the one person who's most intimately concerned doesn't know a thing about it. We must tell her. Why not now? It's as good a time as any.'

‘Because . . .' began Sir Philip, and shrugged. ‘Lawrence? What's your opinion?'

Lawrence put his hands in his pockets, thinking. ‘Why not?' he said eventually. ‘Let's go and find her. She was in the drawing room the last time I saw her.'

In the drawing room Isabelle was feeling bored. She had been about to suggest a game of bridge when her mother had left the room. She glanced across at her brother, but Gregory was stuck inside a copy of
On the Town
.

Marguerite was sitting by the window, an unread magazine on her knee. She was abnormally still, and Isabelle thought, as she had thought before, just how difficult Marguerite was to get to know. Since Saturday she'd been worse than ever. Not talkative – she was never that – but apprehensive in an odd sort of way. It was as if she was waiting for something to happen. It wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't so quiet, but she never started a conversation and she certainly never gossiped. Maybe she'd suffered from that awful phrase they used to drill into you at school: ‘If you haven't anything to say worth saying, don't say it.'

Jack liked her but that, thought Isabelle, had far more to do with Jack's character than with Marguerite's. He was always frantically over-protective to anything or anyone he saw as weak or who'd had a raw deal. He liked her in the same way he'd like the runt of the litter or an unhappy child, which was all very well, but it did mean he was blind to her faults. He wasn't really capable of seeing that Marguerite had any and he certainly wasn't capable – and this
was
annoying – of talking about them.

Dad was much the same. He called her ‘a shy, retiring little thing', but Dad could be very dim sometimes. Shy? No. The phrase ‘pent-up' came into her mind. Something was bothering Marguerite, bothering her badly, but what on earth could you do with someone who wouldn't talk?

Marguerite glanced up, caught Isabelle's eye and looked away, flushing, her fingers tightening on the magazine.

For heaven's sake, this was
ridiculous
. Here they were, two girls of roughly the same age, who knew the same people, living in the same house and they couldn't find a thing to say to each other. Mr Lawrence could always find something to say to her . . .

Isabelle stopped, intrigued by a new line of thought. Mr Lawrence, eh? There was no doubt Marguerite liked him. She was easy and at home with him in a way she wasn't with anyone else, not even her beloved Richard Whitfield. That, in Isabelle's opinion, was nothing more than a crush. She remembered some of the crushes of her own and felt a twinge of sympathy. Maybe Maggie knew what was obvious to anyone looking on, that she was a great deal fonder of Whitfield than he was of her. Maybe it wasn't so much Whitfield she was in love with as the thought of having a home of her own. Maybe that was it. Maggie Vayle didn't have a home. She was cared for, certainly, but she'd spent years inside other people's houses, living by other people's rules.

Marguerite's eyes met hers again. ‘For heaven's sake, Isabelle, stop
staring
at me!'

Isabelle concealed her affront with a laugh. ‘Sorry. Just a bit bored, I suppose.' She walked across to the gramophone and wound it up. ‘Let's have some music.' She put a record on and took the magazine from her brother's indignant hands. ‘Come on, Greg, let's dance.'

He made a grab for
On the Town
. ‘Stop it, Isabelle. I don't want to dance, I want to read. Besides,' he added, listening to the music for a moment, ‘I don't know the steps.'

‘I'll show you. Come and dance, Maggie,' she asked with a welcoming smile. ‘I'll be the man, if you like, and Greg can watch. It's ever so easy.'

Marguerite unwillingly put down her magazine and came forward.

‘That's right,' said Isabelle encouragingly. ‘Watch, Greg. Back one, side step, back one . . .' The door opened and she stopped. ‘Jack! I didn't know you were here. Maggie and I are trying to show Greg this dance.' She paused. ‘Whatever's the matter with everyone? Mother? What's wrong?'

‘There's nothing really wrong, Isabelle, but we need to talk to Marguerite.' Lady Rivers smiled at the girl. ‘Would you come into my sitting room, dear?'

To everyone's surprise, Marguerite shook her head. ‘I think I know what this is about. I've been waiting for you to say something.' She stood rigidly still, her chin pointed forward. ‘You'd better say it here and get it over with. After all, it concerns everyone.'

Mr Lawrence coughed. ‘This is private, Marguerite. Family matters, you know?'

She looked at him blankly. ‘Family matters?'

Lawrence put his hand on her arm. ‘Come with us, my dear.' His voice softened and he added, seeing she was reluctant to move, ‘We're talking about your father, Marguerite. There's something you need to know. You don't want to discuss it here.'