A Fête Worse Than Death (37 page)

He smoked his cigar down to the butt and crushed it out in the ashtray. ‘Mrs Griffin went into the tent and came out giggling about “the gentleman” being drunk. Now Mrs Verrity didn't have to ask who “the gentleman” was. She realized straight away it was Boscombe, which should have rung some alarm bells. I'm ashamed to say it did nothing of the kind. She took command and marched into the tent to ask him to leave. All of us, Mrs Griffin, Belle, Greg and myself, crowded in after her. D'you remember what she did? She looked down at Boscombe, started, fixed us with a glance and asked us to get out and fetch help.' He paused. ‘Belle, you were there. What did you think had happened?'

‘I thought he was dead, of course. I didn't know until afterwards that he'd been shot.'

‘Bang on. And Greg thought he was dead and so did I. He wasn't.'

‘What?'

Haldean leaned forward. ‘It was so simple. She contrived to have herself left alone with Boscombe, who was too drunk to know anything about it, and when we left, she shot him.'

‘Good God.' Rivers looked at him with wide eyes. ‘She shot him
after
we'd seen him? Are you sure, Jack? I mean, I could see we wouldn't hear a shot beforehand, because of all the noise and not listening out for one, but surely,
surely
, she was taking a terrible risk afterwards.'

‘She was taking a calculated risk,' agreed Haldean. ‘And that's where my little friend, Sally Mills, came into it with her doll. Sally had put the doll, cot and pillow down and when she came back the pillow had been taken. She told me afterwards she and her mother had looked everywhere for it. I don't know how she struck you, Belle, but she seemed a most determined child to me. I couldn't help thinking that if the pillow was there to be found, she'd have found it. When we met her the other day it occurred to me that although the doll, cot and blanket were found, the pillow had gone for good. But why should anyone take part of a child's toy? What could it be used for? And then a glimmer of light dawned. It's a nice, handy shape, a doll's pillow, and stuffed thick with flocking, or whatever it is they use. Just the right size to be hidden in a handbag or a pocket, for example, and just the right thickness to be used as a silencer on a gun. I put the idea to Ashley, and he did some experiments with the .22 in his possession.'

‘It wasn't a bad silencer,' agreed Ashley. ‘Despite what people think, you can't silence a gun completely, but you can cut down the noise dramatically. And although we could still hear the shot, it would be faint enough to pass unnoticed at the fête, especially with all the other racket there was going on. If you'd heard anything, you would have probably thought it was a crack from the air rifles or the trap-shooting. The fact that she'd used the pillow as a silencer explained why there were no powder burns on the body. Naturally there weren't. All the burning was on the cloth. It would have taken a real crack shot from the tent walls to plug Boscombe in the temple like that. If he was shot by someone holding a gun to his head it was easy. I liked the idea and the more I thought about it the more I liked it. It took all the mystery out of the affair, you see. We didn't have to wonder how some unseen man had parted the tent walls and shot Boscombe so accurately. Instead you'd had a murderer who walked up to their victim as bold as brass and pulled the trigger.'

Haldean nodded. ‘It
felt
right, didn't it, Ashley? And, of course, once we'd got that far with Boscombe's murder, it led us on to Morton's. That was tough, because no one knew he was in the Talbot Arms. So why did Mrs Verrity go there?'

‘She wanted to search Boscombe's room,' said Isabelle, slowly.

‘And the Talbot Arms is the only place you can stay in the village,' put in Greg.

‘Absolutely. And Boscombe's key was in Boscombe's pocket, with his room number on it. So that gave Mrs Verrity his room number on a plate, so to speak. After Whitfield's poor showing at the fête I can't see her trusting him to break in and search the room without making a complete pig's ear of it. I think she simply slipped into the office and took the spare room key without anyone knowing. I managed to do it, so it was perfectly possible. Then, of course, she went up to Boscombe's room and found Morton, waiting for Boscombe's return. As we know, Mrs Verrity had a fairly short way with anyone who crossed her path. She shot him and disappeared with the diary. You believe she burnt it, don't you, Ashley?'

‘Almost certainly,' he agreed. ‘I can't see her keeping it. It'd be far too dangerous.'

‘Horribly dangerous.' Haldean took another cigar from the box. ‘But an even bigger danger to her was Whitfield. When he found out the police were looking for someone who had been blackmailed, he went up like a flushed pheasant.' Haldean carefully examined his cigar. ‘I can't blame him, either. As someone who had been blackmailed for years, he must have thought his position delicate, to say the least. And, of course, he'd recently been presented with what he referred to as “a bombshell”.'

He looked at Marguerite. ‘When you told him who your father was and said there was a chance he was still alive, it must have been like a nightmare. That meant that not only was there one man who
knew
that Tyburn wasn't a traitor but that same man probably had a jolly good idea of who the traitor was. But he still desperately wanted to marry you because of your money. He needed that as much as before to keep Mrs Verrity satisfied. He tried to kill me, you know,' said Haldean, reaching for the cigar clippers. ‘Compared to the other murders it was a clumsy affair, but it nearly came off. If he'd been lucky, he'd have got us both with that great brute of a horse. As it was . . . well, our luck held, didn't it, Ashley?'

‘Thank God. It was a close-run thing though, Haldean. I didn't realize the risk I was taking by leaving you at Mrs Verrity's.'

‘No, although I was probably safer there than almost anywhere else. Mrs Verrity knew I mustn't suffer a fatal relapse or you and the doctor would ask some very searching questions. Perhaps, if she'd been in it by herself, she might have seen me off and brazened it out, but she couldn't trust Whitfield. Even though it meant the loss of his blackmail money, he had to go.'

‘Didn't she have any affection for him, Jack?' asked Isabelle. ‘After all, they had been close, if I can put it like that.'

‘I think what she liked was power, and you must remember how dangerous he was to her. He was drinking like a hydroptic fish, and might at any moment spill the beans about the whole business. And she didn't like –' he nodded towards Marguerite – ‘saving your presence – the company he was keeping. The very day Whitfield tried to ride us down, she'd been round digging away about you, Mr Lawrence. Boscombe had said that Tyburn was alive and I think she left convinced in her own mind that you either were Tyburn or knew far more about things than you should. You'd threatened to look into his past life if Whitfield persisted in attempting to marry Marguerite and she certainly didn't want that to happen. All in all, it would be a healthier world for her if both you and Richard Whitfield ceased to exist.'

Sir Philip frowned. ‘Why did she go about it in such a complicated way, Jack? Surely if she suspected Lawrence was Tyburn, she could have killed him without involving Whitfield? After all, even though it makes me cold to think about it, once Tyburn was dead she'd have nothing to fear from Whitfield any more. Whitfield could have married Marguerite –' he glanced apologetically at the girl – ‘because although I deplored his behaviour at the party, I know I would have eventually let you have your own way, my dear.'

‘You'd think that'd be the size of it, wouldn't you?' Haldean lit his cigar and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. ‘But she looked at it from our point of view. If Lawrence, as we then knew you, sir, was murdered, who would the police look to first? Why, Whitfield, of course. And we'd have had a good circumstantial case against him. After all, Lawrence was the one who was preventing his marriage to Marguerite and Whitfield was in such a state I doubt if he'd have been able to stand up to any prolonged or serious questioning. But if she murdered Whitfield in such a way that Lawrence appeared to be guilty, that was a different kettle of fish. Mr Lawrence's dislike of Whitfield was well known and she had arranged for them both to be at the same spot at the same time without witnesses. She got Whitfield to write a letter asking to meet Lawrence. It would be, she probably told Whitfield, a good opportunity for him to find out what Lawrence really did know.'

‘I fell for it,' said Tyburn grimly. ‘I must admit I welcomed a meeting with Colonel Whitfield with nobody else around. I intended to offer him money to leave Marguerite alone and I would've been very surprised if that hadn't done the trick. If it didn't, I thought an odd hint about his VC would have worked. I had a whole story planned, about how I had bumped into a German way up the Peace River who had dished the dirt, but I never got a chance to say a thing. Even now I can't see how she did it. If you're telling me a woman like Mrs Verrity can land a punch like a prize-fighter, then I'm going to have to dissent, Major Haldean.'

Haldean grinned broadly. ‘She didn't. And do, please, stop calling me Major. I feel as if I'm on parade.' He held his hands wide. ‘She knew you'd be at the barn by eleven o'clock and probably a bit sooner. She must have arranged to meet Whitfield there earlier. By that time he was in such a state of nerves he'd probably want her moral support fairly badly and he'd also want her to hear what Mr Lawrence had to say. So, at about twenty-five to eleven at a guess, she put her plan into operation. I think she drugged him first. She used ethylchloride on me in the tunnels, and I bet she used it on Whitfield as well. You might have had it at the dentist's. It produces instant unconsciousness for about two minutes or so. She made it look as if he'd been in a fight by walloping him with the spade handle. Then she shot him, arranged his body as if he'd committed suicide, and waited by the door for you, Mr Tyburn. Do you remember how dark the barn was after the sunshine outside? When you came in, blinking, she slugged you with the spade. We saw the blood on it. You went down and she completed the good work by applying the ethylchloride. That gave her up to two minutes and she must have gone like the clappers. She'd previously wiped the gun, of course, and it wouldn't take her long to put your fingerprints on it. Then she placed the gun in Whitfield's hand, roughed you up a bit, made sure your prints were on the spade as well, and scooted off across the road to the garden gate of Thackenhurst, where, once safely behind the wall, she fired the shot with her other revolver which brought me hurtling up the road. I was an added bonus, of course, but she did want there to have been a shot. It would have looked grim enough anyway, but she must have been delighted to find that I'd heard a gun go off at eleven o'clock. Well, you know what happened next. We went across to Thackenhurst to be met with a fine display of grief and the statement by Norah the maid that at eleven o'clock her mistress had just rung for her morning coffee.'

‘And how did she manage that?' demanded Gregory Rivers. ‘Magic?'

‘Not a bit of it. She put the clock back. As simple as that. It'd chime the half-hour again, of course, but that would be mistaken for the quarter if anyone was listening. In through the french windows, which she'd prudently left open, adjust the clock, ring the bell, and there's Norah ready to swear that at eleven o'clock her mistress was deep in coffee without a care in the world. Not actually being there I can't prove that's what she did, but it's by far the easiest way. Good, eh? It was risky, like Boscombe's murder, but she brought it off brilliantly. She must have been highly amused in the days which followed to see my industrious efforts to land poor Mr Tyburn still deeper in the soup. Once Stafford had identified him as Tyburn she could breathe again. But fortunately we ran into little Sally Mills. I hope she got her tea-set, Belle. If ever a little girl deserved one, she did. Anyway, this excellent and meritorious child pointed me in the right direction. I badgered myself to death for the best part of the afternoon, went to see Ashley and by the end of the evening we had a plan.'

‘A dangerous plan,' grunted Ashley.

‘A successful one,' countered Haldean. ‘And once you'd secured the co-operation of the French police and Greg had weighed in on my side, I stopped worrying. You see, it was one thing being certain in our own minds what she'd done, but proving it was quite another matter. We had to draw her out somehow and so I paid Mrs Verrity a visit. Having so publicly appointed herself as Whitfield's champion she more or less had to go along with me. She certainly didn't want to take me down the tunnels, but I dropped so many hints about what I hoped to find that she must have thought I was crackers. Because, on the face of it, what on earth could there be? She'd never read Boscombe's book. She'd only read Petrie's diary and, as I remember saying before, you had to read both of them to spot the flaw. I made references to a mysterious Mr X – she must have thought I was chasing moonbeams – and told her my intention of going with or without her. I was almost certain she'd buy it. After all, she
thought
she was safe but I managed to raise enough of a question mark in her mind for her to ensure she was. And if I did, by some weird chance, find anything, she wanted to be on the spot.

‘And so we went to the Chateau d'Augier. It's a dismal place. Not nice at all. Not any more. What she didn't know was that in the tunnel, arrayed in his old battledress, was my long-suffering cousin, Gregory Rivers.' Haldean raised his glass. ‘Here's to you, old pal. It must have been a grim vigil.'

‘It was,' said Rivers with feeling.

‘And, in the cellars, were, of course, Ashley and three officers of the French police. Now what
I
didn't know was that she'd helped herself to a grenade from the stack of weapons that French farmer, Rimet, had. However, I did notice her bag seemed jolly heavy.