Get yourself some sweets too.’ He got into the car. ‘Here, John-isn’t a Mr Villiers that’s brother to Mrs Nightingale a teacher at your school?’
‘Old Roman Villa?’ said John. ‘I don’t know whose brother he is. He teaches Latin and Greek. What d’you want to know for?’
‘Oh, nothing,’said Burden.
It was a red-brick house, built during the reign of Queen Anne, and it had an air of crouching close above the road, its windows Argus eyes that gazed down over the village, its footings embowered in thick green shrubs which rustled in the wind. Burden parked his car behind the bigger official one Wexford had arrived in, pushed open the wyvern gates and mounted the steps to the front door. Detective Sergeant Martin opened it before he had a chance to ring the bell.
‘Chief Inspector’s in the r, what they call the morning room, sir.’
The house was full of people and yet a thick breathless hush seemed to hang over it, the silence of the incredible, the silence of shock. Burden tapped on the morning-room door and went in.
It was a small elegant room, its panelling painted in cream and blue.
A broad shelf followed the line of the picture rail on which stood floral plates in blue Delft. There were water-colours too, delicate pictures of pastoral scenes-Myfleet Mill, Forby Church, the river bridge at Flagford.
Squeezed into a small chair upholstered in cream satin, Wexford looked even more mountainous than usual. His heavy face was grave but his eyes were alert and watchful, fixed on the woman who sat on the opposite side of the fireplace. Glancing at the neat white hair, the homely red face furrowed by tears and the trim blue nylon overall, Burden summed her up as a faithful servant, an old and devoted retainer.
‘Come in,’ said Wexford. ‘Sit down. This is Mrs Cantrip. She has kept house for Mr and Mrs Nightingale since they were married sixteen years ago.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Mrs Cantrip, putting a handkerchief up to her swollen eyes. ‘And a lovelier person than Mrs Nightingale you couldn’t wish to meet. Good as gold she was and the best I ever worked for. I often used to think, though it don’t sound respectful, pity it’s me and not her who might be wanting a reference one of these days. I could have painted it in glowing colours and that’s a fact.’
Burden sat down gingerly on another satin chair. All the furnishings were spotless and exquisite from the gleaming china to the lady’s firescreens, painted oval discs on long stems.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you must think of us, sir,’ said Mrs Cantrip, misinterpreting his expression. ‘The place in the state it is, but nothing’s been done this morning. Me and Catcher, we haven’t felt up to lifting a duster. When they told me the news I felt so bad I don’t know why I didn’t pass clean out.’ She turned to Wexford and sniffed back her tears.
‘Well, sir, you said as you wanted to see everyone in the house, so I mustn’t keep you now the other gentleman’s come.’ Counting on work-worn fingers, she said, ‘There’s old Will Palmer, him that found her poor dead body, and Sean Lovell and Catcher ..
‘Who’s Catcher?’
‘The foreign girl, what they call an au pair, sir. You’ll find her up in her room on the top floor. And then there’s poor Mr Nightingale himself, locked in his study and won’t open the door to no one.’
‘I will see Mr Palmer first,’ said Wexford.
‘How long have you been here?’ asked Burden. The sepulchral silence of the place made him feel that whispering was in order.
‘Since seven-thirty,’ said Wexford, keeping his own voice low as they followed Mrs Cantrip down a long passage and into the garden via the kitchen. ‘Thank you, Mrs Cantrip. I think I can see Mr Palmer coming up to meet us.’
The grounds were being searched by men in uniform and men in plain clothes. Will Palmer, emerging from behind a macrocarpa hedge, stopped in the middle of the lawn, looking surly, as Constable Gates grubbed among the flower-pots in one of the greenhouses, and Constable Bryant, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, thrust his arms into the green depths of the lily pond.
‘The body has been photographed and removed,’ said Wexford. ‘Someone hit her on the head. God knows what with. They’re looking for the weapon now.
There was a hell of a lot of blood.’ He raised his voice. ‘Mr Palmer!
Will you come over here, please?’
He was a tall lean old man with hard fleshless features that the wind and weather had polished to the tint of rosewood. Dark red, too, was the bald spot on his crown, a daisy centre amid white petals.
‘I reckoned you’d want a word with me,’ he said with lugubrious importance. ‘What’s all this poking about in my garden in aid of?’
‘We are searching,’ said Wexford frankly, ‘for the weapon that killed Mrs Nightingale.’
‘Don’t reckon you’ll find it among my fuchsias.’
‘That remains to be seen.’Wexford pointed in the direction of a thin column of smoke. ‘How long has that bonfire been burning?’
‘Since yesterday afternoon, governor.’
‘I see. Where can we go and talk, Mr Palmer? How about the kitchen, or will Mrs Cantrip be there?’
‘Like enough she will, governor, and she’s got mighty long ears when she wants. We could go in the Italian garden, being as it’s sheltered from the wind.’
They sat down on a long seat of metal scrollwork beside a formal pool whose waters were still muddy from the investigations of its bottom by Wexford’s men. At the far end of this pool was an elaborate baroque structure with a niche in which stood a bronze boy pouring water from a flagon into a bowl. The whole garden measured perhaps thirty feet by twenty and it was surrounded by cypress trees which shivered in the wind.
‘Well, it was like this,’ said Palmer. ‘That old wind come up in the night, making such a racket it was, it woke me up. Near enough about four-thirty. First thing I thought of was Nfr Nightingale’s chrysanths, them as we’re getting ready for the flower show. They was standing out in the open in their pots, see, and I thought, That wind’ll have them over, sure as Fate. So I got on my bike and I come up here, quick as I could.’
‘What time did you get here, Mr Palmer?’
‘ ‘Bout five.’ Palmer spoke slowly and with relish. It was evident he was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Them
chrysanths was all standing up well to the wind but I put them in the greenhouse to be on the safe side. Then I saw something was up. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One of them french windows was wide open. Burglars, I thought. They’ve had burglars. I didn’t rightly know what to do for the best. Maybe it’s just that old wind, I thought, and they’ve forgot to lock up. Still, I reckoned it was my duty to wake Mr Nightingale, so in I went and up the stairs and banged and banged on his bedroom door. Must be a real heavy sleeper, I thought to myself, and I took the liberty of going in to have a look.’
‘He was there?’
‘No, he weren’t. His bed was empty. “Mr Nightingale,” I said, “arc you there, sir?” thinking he might be in his bathroom, the door being shut ..
.’
‘But you didn’t look?’ Wexford interrupted as he paused for breath.
‘I hope I know my place, sir. Besides ...’Palmer looked down at his darned and shiny trouser knees. ‘Besides, for all they slept separate like, they was married and ...’
‘You thought quite reasonably that he might have spent the night in Mrs Nightingale’s room?’
‘Well, governor, I did at that. I always have said the gentry have their funny ways as the likes of us don’t understand.’ Giving no sign of embarrassment at his perhaps inadvertent inclusion of Wexford and Burden among the hoi-polloi, Palmer went on, ‘So, not getting no answer from Mr Nightingale, I took it upon myself to knock on Madam’s door. Nobody come and I was beginning to get the wind up, I can tell you. A proper state I was in. Nothing else would have got me barging into a lady’s bedroom, and pe just a servant like and in me working things. Well, she wasn’t there either and the bed not touched.’