In the yellow drawing-room, as they passed through the gallery, Andrew Callum was singing, in a voice achingly muted and raw and sad:
“The judge looked over his left shoulder.
He said: ‘Fair maid, I’m sorry.’
He said: ‘Fair maid, you must be gone.
For I cannot pardon Geordie.’ ”
“So that’s the way it is,” said Duckett heavily. “Well, we can put out a general call immediately for the car, and turn on everything to find it. That’s no problem. About the boy I’m not so happy. We’ll get all the airports covered, and have a watch kept on his flat – though if the girl was lucky enough to catch him there, that’s one place he’ll have written off. We’ve nothing to lose by avoiding a public appeal. There still could be another answer.” But he sounded exceedingly dubious about it. “I suppose it’s practically certain he did take the car?”
“I’d say a hundred per cent certain,” said George. “He knew, as everyone here knew, that Arundale wouldn’t be expected back until to-night. He could give himself many hours grace by making off with that car.”
“Well, since she’s tipped him off about the body being found… you say she hasn’t admitted anything about that?”
“She won’t say anything at all. She’s done what she could for him, now she doesn’t care what happens to her.”
“You don’t think she actually was in it with Galt? After the fact, say?”
“I’m certain she wasn’t. If she had been, the last thing she’d have done was to go looking for the body. She’d just have sat back and prayed for us not to find it. But she did go looking for it. According to Meurice, she’s been hunting it at intervals all day. Oh, no, it wasn’t Arundale she expected to find, it was Lucien. That’s why she’s so calm now, almost happy. He may be in trouble, but at least he’s alive.”
“Then why won’t she talk about any part of it?”
“Two reasons, I think. First, because she knows nothing herself, and isn’t sure how much I know, so that even by opening her mouth on something that seems innocuous to her she may be handing me another little fact that makes damning sense to me. And second, by refusing to say anything at all, she may be able to leave us in some doubt about her, and divert a bit of our attention from him.”
“I thought she hated him?” said Duckett.
“She thought so, too. She knows better now, and so do we. One more point, he certainly has a valid passport, because in three weeks time he’s due to leave for a tour of Latin America. First destination Buenos Aires. And since she caught him successfully at his flat, he’s undoubtedly pocketed his passport. Most likely that’s what he went there for. And possibly to raise some quick cash.”
“You think he was heading out in any case?”
“I think so.”
“Right, airports, then. Ports, too, but less likely. For the car we’ll put out a general call immediately. Where d’you want the wagon to come? That drive’s too public by far.”
“We’re lucky there. Have them go on along the main road, past the lodge and over the river bridge beyond the edge of the estate. Just beyond the bridge there’s a gate, and a cart-track crosses two fields – it’s drivable, all right – and reaches Follymead ground at a third gate by the riverside. Lockyer’s down there on the spot, and I’m going back there now. No point in viewing the place where we got him out, it’s pure chance he got held up there. The doctor can have him right away.”
“Did he drown?”
“Unlikely. If so, the water won by a very short head. His skull isn’t the right shape. I didn’t do any close investigating, there were too many spectators, and the doctor will do it better. But something hit him.”
“It couldn’t have been a fall?”
“Could have. Pending closer examination, of course. But in that case, why run for it? It looks as if Arundale went hopelessly wild when the ground reeled under him. It looks as if he was the aggressor. And lost. They’ve been married twenty years, and never anything, not a shadow.”
“It happens,” said Duckett, and drew in breath gustily through the moustache that would have done credit to a Corsican maquisard.
“It does, I only wish it hadn’t.”
“You can say that again, George… they’re due out to-morrow evening, this folk-music party?”
“There’s a final concert after tea, five to half past six, then they disperse. We can hold it that long, if we have to. I’d prefer it, too.”
“Keep it wrapped, then, and I’ll manage this end. If the lid has to blow off, let it be when they’ve gone home. We may save something.” His hard breathing rattled in the receiver. “But… Arundale! My God, George, he was impregnable. Do you reckon Buckingham Palace is safe?”
“Think of me,” said George bitterly. “I’ve still got to break the news to the widow.”
The class came chattering and singing from the after-dinner session at a quarter to ten, and headed for the small drawing-room to continue their discussions over coffee. Every evening the noise had grown, and the gaiety, and the exhilaration. Professor Penrose must have surpassed himself, in spite of being deprived of the services of Liri Palmer and Dickie Meurice. It was extraordinary how the two dramatic productions being staged at Follymead had run parallel all the way, even in their crises and accelerations, apparently unconnected and without communication. Only Liri linked them now, or rather, moved from one to the other freely, and had a part in both. Meurice, thought George, reluctantly but clearly, was largely irrelevant. He stirred up a little mischief in passing, but he was of no importance. In a sense he never had been. His malice frayed the edges of events, but never determined or even deflected them. He was the mouse gnawing at the exposed root of an oak tree already split by lightning.
When Audrey Arundale passed along the gallery – and he noted that she had so arranged matters as to move as long as possible alone – George was waiting for her. He saw her pause for a moment outside the open door of the small drawing-room, and brace herself to enter and put on her hostess face.
“Mrs. Arundale.”
She turned and saw him, and her look was almost glad. Whatever business he had with her would be preferable to going in there and making pleasant talk. But she didn’t know, of course, what it was going to be.
“Can you spare me a few minutes? There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Of course. Shall we go into the office?”
There is no easy way to tell anything as heavy as bereavement, and the spiral approaches are worse than the straight. The victim has so long to imagine and fend off belief. George was only just back from seeing the body removed from the Follymead grounds by the police ambulance, and was very tired. Everything he could do tonight was done, every inquiry he could set in motion was already on the move. By this time all the airports were alerted to look out for Lucien Galt, and the number and description of the stolen Volkswagen were being circulated on all the police transmissions. They had reached a dead point where there was nothing for them to do but pause and draw breath. George and Audrey looked at each other across the hearth of Arundale’s office with a shared exhaustion, not enemies, not even opponents.
“Mrs. Arundale, I think you must know that ever since I was called in here we’ve been accepting it as a possibility that a death was involved, and in fact have been looking for a body. I’m afraid what I’ve got for you is not good news. This evening we’ve found it. We took him out of the river about an hour and a half ago.”
She set her hands to the arms of her chair, and rose. Her eyes, wide and fixed, held steady on his face. She said nothing at all, so plainly waiting that there was nothing to do but complete the half-arrested blow.