“Well, you were told to keep your head down,” Joe reminded her. He drew in a tight breath in his anxiety. “Just as well you didn’t go out to investigate. God knows who you might have run into.”
Lydia looked sharply at her brother. “Not sure about God but I think you know, Joe, who was out here. A professional killer. Not someone using his gun at random, not in a rush of emotion and not at a distance. Small wound, the least possible damage done. It seems a cold killing but … oddly intimate.” She grimaced at her own choice of word. “He could have spoken her name … held her still by the shoulder … And, had you noticed? The eyes? Someone’s closed the lids. I shouldn’t imagine you’d close your eyes yourself, the moment someone puts a gun to your face. You’d stare and stare, wouldn’t you? You’d be hypnotised by the weapon or the man holding it. Pleading, hoping to the end … You wouldn’t be able to open your eyes wide enough! Isn’t that what happens?”
Joe and Kingstone both nodded.
“So whoever shot her, closed her eyes. It’s a very ancient gesture. A burial rite. It signifies respect … honour … regret … A last farewell.”
She turned to the senator standing dejected by the car. “Oh, Cornelius! I’m so sorry!” She ran out of words and held out her arms instead. He came forward hesitantly and, managing somehow to accommodate his bear-like frame to her slender shape, he accepted his comforting hug with the natural grace of a small child.
Joe found the crocodile skin bag where Lydia had said it would be. He looked about him hopelessly, picturing the cascade of makeup and personal items that might spill out. “Can’t deal with this out here. I’ll take it inside to examine it. And ring up the Chief Constable again. Hope he’s not on the golf course by now.”
“No. He said he’d stand by,” Lydia said. “Not sure he’ll like having this thrown into his lap though. Armed intrusion successfully defused is one thing, murder accomplished is another.”
“I’ll need his permission to transfer the case to the Met. As the perpetrators are most likely to have come down from London, he won’t object.”
“Go ahead, Joe,” Kingstone said. “Look—I’ll stay here with her until they can send an ambulance. I’d like a quiet moment.” He sat down on the back seat and took one of the dead hands in his.
Joe sighed and prepared to object. This was highly irregular. But then—irregularity had seemed to be the pattern from the start of this sorry mess.
“That’s well understood, old man. Rejoin us whenever you feel like it. Let me know when they get here and I’ll instruct the crew.”
With a thin smile, Kingstone handed the keys back to Joe. “Better have these back. Wouldn’t want you to worry.”
LYDIA LEFT HIM with the telephone in the hall. “Get hold of the Chief and make your arrangements. I’ll go into the drawing room and fill Marcus in on the latest occurrence. Oh, dear, he’ll be on to his second glass of champagne by now. I shall have to sober him. And tell cook to hold back lunch.”
All was quiet and calm when Joe joined them, his requirements graciously acceded to by the capable Surrey officer. Marcus had laid out the objects dredged from the pockets of the gunmen on a table and made a list of each man’s possessions. The handbag, untouched, was standing ready for his inspection.
“The hat, Joe,” Lydia moved straight in. “It looks like a man’s but it was hers. The label inside is Aspinal’s ladies department. Like the rest of her outfit—smart but sporting. Just what a cosmopolitan woman would think right for a trip out into the country. Very practical actually, like all Chanel’s things. You can move about easily in them. Run if you have to. If you’re given the chance.”
“One thing before you get started on the lady’s bag …” Marcus was eager to speak. “Here’s a puzzle. May not be anything to it but I’ve learned over the years to cultivate a suspicious mind. This here page from the paper you took from Onslow’s inside pocket …”
“The racing sheet? I’ll look at that later.”
“No, no … now might be better. It’s more than it seems. It is indeed about racing but it’s one of the back pages torn out of this morning’s Daily Mirror. Early edition. Out on the London streets from six A.M. Good reporting they do, on sports. It was the headline that caught my eye. Lord Astor’s nag—crème brûlée, if you please—was beaten in yesterday’s Manchester Cup. Surprise that! I had a fiver on him! And then, I was half way down the article when I noticed it. Turn the paper sideways and you’ll see someone’s written something in ink in the margin. A note to himself by Onslow? I don’t think so. Take a look, Joe.”
“Black ink. Woman’s writing, would you say? What do we make of this? Odette invites Siegfried to join her for Act 4 of original version.”
“Last act of Swan Lake?” Lydia suggested. “But why write on the sports page? They have an Entertainments section, don’t they?”
“Any other single sheet torn out would have asked a question. Called for a closer inspection. Racing tips found in the pocket of a London thug hardly merits a second glance. As we demonstrated! It’s just our good luck that Marcus was intrigued by the article … Good Lord! He was going to show this to Kingstone. He’d recognise the writing and understand the reference—she was dancing the part of Odette when he first clapped eyes on her in New York. He’d see from the date that she was still alive—at least she was early this morning—and know she was out there waiting for him. It’s an identification and an assignation. Both.”
“What’s the significance of ‘original version’ do you suppose? How many versions can there be?”
The men turned to Lydia.
“Lots! Some have happy endings, some tragic. Choreographers will keep playing with the story. Tchaikovsky wrote his original version in eighteen seventy-seven. His brother changed the ending in the eighteen ninety-five revival.”
“The first one, Lyd, how does it end? The one we’re talking about?”
“Happily. Odette is a princess who’s been turned into a white swan by day, under the spell of a wicked sorcerer—Von Rothbart …”
“A German gentleman, would that be?” Joe asked.
“Probably. This was straight after their invasion of France, remember. Not the last but the eighteen seventy invasion. The Franco-Prussian business. Paris had been besieged, Parisians starved to death, the city pounded to rubble for weeks by German artillery. ‘Big Bertha,’ I believe their ghastly cannon was called. Bogeymen and villains and large bossy ladies all acquired Prussian names in storytelling circles.”
“Even Conan Doyle was at it,” Marcus offered. “Who can forget his villainous adventuress Fraulein Adler and her association with Wilhelm Gottsreich something or other von Ormstein!”
“I can, for one,” Joe said. “Get on, Lydia.”
“Well there’s no duelling scars or lederhosen on display in the ballet,” Lydia pressed on. “It’s pure fairytale. A prince catches sight of Odette by the lakeside with the other bewitched swans and lingers long enough to watch her transform back into her human form after sunset. They fall in love. Unfortunately, at a ball, the prince is tricked into a flirtation with the Black Swan, the evil daughter of Von Rothbart—Odile—who is her double. The black and the white swans are danced by the same ballerina and, of course, are never on stage at the same moment. Just as the sorcerer believes he has everyone in his power, the prince pulls himself together, returns to the lake, finds a despairing Odette, apologises and is forgiven. He fights Von Rothbart and tears his wings off, so destroying his powers. He marries Odette and they live happily ever after.”