Charters and Caldicott (17 page)

As they watched, the girl faltered, turned and hurried away. ‘Blast,' said Caldicott. ‘She's seen us. She's turning back, Charters.'

‘Yes, I'm not totally blind, Caldicott. What the devil is she doing here?'

‘The same as we're doing here,' said Margaret, as ‘Jenny' hopped over a stile on the other side of the green. ‘When we find out what that is.'

‘Little point in giving chase, I suppose?' said Caldicott.

Charters grunted. ‘You can rule me out, afraid. My running and jumping days are over.'

‘And it's going back a bit since
I
won the girls' hundred yards sprint, but I'm going after her,' said Margaret determinedly. ‘I'll find you around the village.'

‘Margaret! Be careful!' Caldicott called.

‘Wasn't I always?' she shouted back with a cheeky grin.

Caldicott gazed wistfully after her across the village green. Charters gave him an affectionate glance and said gruffly, ‘A penny for them, old chap.'

‘Oh, I was just wishing...'

‘Yes?'

‘That we could have seen a spot of village cricket on this splendid green.'

Charters and Caldicott decided to postpone their researches in the village pub until Margaret's return and to investigate instead the churchyard. The Reverend Adam Lamb, passing the church a short while later on his way from tennis to lunch at the vicarage, was puzzled to hear organ music coming from inside. He entered, and discovered Charters, playing “Abide With Me” with more enthusiasm than skill, watched admiringly by Caldicott who was doing the vocal accompaniment in a tuneless drone.

‘I do beg your pardon, Vicar,' said Charters, stopping his playing abruptly and in some confusion as he caught sight of Lamb. ‘I don't know what you'll think of this unwarranted intrusion...'

‘He never could resist a church organ. You see, they won't let him play in his own parish,' said Caldicott.

‘Really! It's not that they won't let me – they have a competent enough organist already! I should have asked your permission, Vicar, but I wouldn't like you to think I don't know how to handle the instrument. It will have come to no grief under my hands, I assure you.'

‘He did organ studies at school,' Caldicott confided.

Lamb nodded. ‘I know. To get out of rugger.'

‘Yes, well, you see, I'd always been a soccer man at my prep...' Charters broke off and stared at the omniscient clergyman.

‘I've been expecting you. My name's Lamb – appropriately enough, I suppose, considering my trade. Follow me.' He led the way up into the belfry. ‘I was beginning to wonder when you'd get here.'

‘Thanks to Jock's fondness for confounded conundrums, it was only by a fluke that we did,' said Caldicott.

‘I wouldn't say that, Caldicott. Applied logic, that's what got us here.'

‘A pity you didn't apply it earlier,' said Lamb coldly. ‘I'd like to get this business off my hands.'

‘Lamb. That name rings a bell,' said Caldicott.

‘More than this rope ever will,' said Lamb, untying a bell rope that had been separated from the others and wound round a rail. ‘That's Old Tom, pensioned off with a crack a yard long.'

‘Weren't you with Jock in postwar Berlin?'

‘I was his padre. He got me my living here – so all this tomfoolery is by way of repaying him the favour.' Lamb gave the rope a deft tug and an old deed box came tumbling down from the rafters. Lamb unlocked it and took out an official­looking document which he passed to Caldicott. ‘This was his idea, not mine. Left to myself, I should have kept this in the crypt safe.'

‘As I've always said, a strong
Boy's Own Paper
influence,' said Charters.

‘His last will and testament,' said Caldicott.

‘He didn't like lawyers – probably because he equated them with the law – and he'd got the idea into his head that if he shipped the will directly to you with his other things it would have gone missing,' Lamb explained.

‘There's certainly been no shortage of suspicious characters trying to get their fists on Jock's effects,' said Caldicott.

‘I happened to be out in Hong Kong for the Christian Missions convention earlier this year, so he placed it in my hands with endless instructions and admonitions.'

‘I can imagine,' said Charters, amused.

‘Together with this letter addressed to you both.'

Charters took it and glanced through it. Caldicott, meanwhile, was scanning the will. ‘Appoint Reverend Adam Lamb sole executor – cash sum to steeple fund – books to school library – billiard table to Hong Kong Travellers Club – bequests to charity,' he muttered. ‘I say, Charters! He's left practically everything to us!'

‘How embarrassing.'

‘“I give and bequeath to my oldest friends Hugo Lovelace Charters...' Charters winced, ‘and Giles Caldicott...'

‘Giles
Evelyn
Caldicott,' said Charters, spitefully.

‘“... my remaining capital and investments.”'

Charters turned to Lamb. ‘Amounting to what?'

‘The last time I looked in the City pages, something over two million pounds.'

Caldicott whistled. ‘I expected nothing more than his signed Kent county cricket bat,' said Charters, stunned. ‘We can't possibly accept this bequest, of course.'

‘Hold on, Charters, there's more,' said Caldicott. ‘“Said investments to be realised at their discretion to finance any expedition on which they may embark, and the proceeds from such expedition to be distributed as they think fit.” What expedition?'

‘How should I know?' said Charters.

‘Doesn't it say in that letter?'

‘No no, it's purely personal. Cricket reminiscences and so on.'

‘Now there's a thought. Perhaps Jock means us to do what we've always talked about and follow the England Test team around Australia and New Zealand.'

‘With over two million pounds? Don't be absurd, old fellow – surely the exchange rate's not as bad as all that. Vicar, I know you're anxious to wash your hands of us, but until we've some idea what it is that Jock desires us to do –'

‘If you're asking me to keep the will stuffed up my belfry, the answer 1s no,' said Lamb firmly. ‘I want shot of it.'

‘You
are
his executor.'

‘But I've no wish to be his accessory.' Lamb relented. ‘I shall be in Town tomorrow. If you like, if you're nervous of taking possession of all this stuff, I'll deposit it with your bank.'

‘That should do admirably.'

‘Good idea,' said Caldicott, without thinking. ‘Why?' he added, when he had.

‘Why? It's obvious why,' said Charters. ‘In case there are any more attempts to steal it.'

‘Oh, I see,' said Caldicott, but still he didn't. ‘Why should anyone wish to steal it?'

‘Why should anyone wish to steal it? This is a very valuable document.'

‘Only to us, old man. Nobody else can do anything with it.'

‘Yes, well,' Charters began, suddenly as baffled as Caldicott.

‘Except dispose of it,' said Lamb.

‘There you see!' said Charters triumphantly to Caldicott. Still puzzled, he frowned. ‘Why should anyone – oh, I see. A previous will.'

‘A copy of it. The original vanished before he could destroy it.' Lamb handed the copy to Caldicott who skimmed through it.

‘Aha! Under this you
would
have got the signed cricket bat, Charters.'

‘That's more like it.'

‘And I his collection of scorecards and other memorabilia.'

‘You'd have appreciated that.'

‘And the bulk of his estate, had this will not been revoked, would have been divided between – guess who?'

‘Do get on with it, Caldicott.'

‘“My daughter Jennifer Beevers and my secretary and friend Helen Appleyard.”'

 

‘What happened between Jock and his daughter, do you know?' Caldicott asked Lamb as they climbed down from the belfry.

‘He never mentioned her. From the odd word dropped in the Hong Kong Travellers Club I gather she got into a bad lot – drugs and all that. Playing the heavy father, he settled an allowance on her on condition that she cleared out of Hong Kong and never came back. She went to America, as you probably know, and then vanished.'

‘It must have come as a nasty shock to you when you thought she'd been found dead in my flat,' said Caldicott.

‘Not entirely. He anticipated someone coming after the will, though he didn't spell out who – hence the elaborate precautions. So I wasn't altogether surprised at the bad penny turning up again – as I thought – now.'

‘But then the body in the case proved to be a different bad penny. Did you meet Helen Appleyard at all?'

‘Briefly. A great influence on Jenny, so I was told. A great influence on Jock, come to that – you know the idiot nearly married her? Would have done, too, if he hadn't found her in bed with his driver.'

‘Yet Jock continued to employ her as his secretary,' said Charters. ‘I find that baffling.'

‘Gossip, old boy,' said Caldicott. ‘You know what it's like in these far-flung English communities. If he'd thrown her out bag and baggage, it'd have been like something out of Somerset Maugham. Isn't that so, padre?'

‘And, of course, she knew a great deal about Jenny, and probably about his own affairs, that he wasn't keen to have broadcast. I wonder how she came by Jenny's identity?'

‘Planted on her. By an imposter posing as Jenny,' said Caldicott brusquely, the knowledge that they'd been duped still rankling. ‘Who, as a matter of interest, is even now roaming this village.'

‘Or so we believe – our eyesight isn't what it was.' Caldicott shook his head slightly, disowning this remark. ‘If it is her, then of course she, too, is after the will.'

‘She among others,' said Caldicott. They walked down the aisle – passing, without a glance, a figure kneeling in one of the pews, apparently in prayer. It was Cecil St Clair.

‘Well, Charters, can you fit an expedition into your crowded engagement programme?' Caldicott asked as they came out into the porch.

‘It depends entirely on where he intends us to go. It could be Timbuktu or the moon for all I know.'

‘No hints to you, padre?'

Lamb shook his head. ‘I didn't encourage him to tell me. It's probably something illegal and I'm not of the branch that takes confessions.'

‘You didn't like Jock very much did you?' Charters asked.

‘Let's say I didn't approve of his activities, his wheeler-dealering.'

Charters dismissed this tolerantly. ‘Small beer.'

‘Two million pounds?'

‘Oh that! Icon smuggling,' said Caldicott laconically.

‘Russian icons?'

‘In cahoots with that fellow who was his Soviet opposite number in your Berlin days,' said Charters.

‘Colonel Pokrovski. As big a rogue as Jock himself. I'm sure he must have told you about the ex-U-boat commander they interrogated over some currency racket or other.'

‘Often,' said Caldicott. ‘The chap who was supposed to have scuttled a submarine-load of gold bullion. And spilled the beans as to its whereabouts in exchange for their leaving the cell door open.'

Charters chuckled. ‘Romantic poppycock, saving Jock's soul. If all the German U-boats containing gold bullion were laid end to end – Caldicott! Do you remember what that fellow St Clair said to us at Thamesview just as we were leaving?'

‘Yes I do,' said Caldicott slowly, the same thought dawning on him. ‘“We're all chasing the same crock of gold – but this isn't the end of the rainbow.”'

‘This expedition, Caldicott. You don't suppose he means us to find that gold?'

‘Possible, knowing Jock.'

‘Probable, I'd say,' said Lamb with disapproval.

‘But where are we supposed to look?' Caldicott asked.

‘There could be a map or a chart or something of the sort,'

said Charters. ‘Probably in that confounded trunk.'

‘What about the place he bought for his retirement, padre?' Caldicott asked. ‘Is there any of his stuff there?'

‘The Old Oast-house? Oh yes, it's just as his sister left it when she died last year. Chock-a-block with wartime souvenirs and relics – you'd probably find enough to get him cashiered retrospectively. Key at the Post Office Stores – say I sent you. I shall want your bank details – drop back to the vicarage for a sherry.'

‘Will do. Though I think, Charters, we ought to find Margaret first. I'm getting rather worried.'

‘Never fear, Caldicott. Mrs Mottram will find
us
– at the first chink of the vicar's decanter.'

Charters and Caldicott collected the key from the village shop but it turned out to be unnecessary. The Old Oast­house was unlocked. 'That's of no particular significance,' said Charters, a rural resident himself. ‘Country folk are very lax in these matters.'

In spite of this reassurance, Caldicott pushed open the front door very slowly. His caution was justified. Someone had been there before them and ransacked the place. Papers were scattered everywhere, drawers had been pulled out and emptied, regimental paraphernalia and German souvenirs examined and discarded, furniture overturned and pictures torn from the walls.

‘
Very
lax,' said Caldicott.

‘Yes, well we know who's been here, do we not?'

‘Fortunately we also know that she hasn't found what she's looking for,' said Caldicott, wandering round straightening ornaments and picking up papers from the floor. ‘Though what use Jock's will would be to her, now that we know she isn't the real Jenny Beevers, I can't readily fathom.'

‘But
do
we know it, Caldicott?'