‘I like that theory,’ said Inspector Devereux, ‘but I still find the whole thing pretty incredible. Late in the evening, Sir Peregrine, travelling by night in case anybody recognizes him perhaps, a meeting with person or persons unknown at that time of night, nobody seeing him leave. In my book there’s one likely explanation for this behaviour. If it barks, it’s a dog. If it mews, it’s a cat. If it’s an elderly rich man charging round in the middle of the night to a hotel where he has a permanent suite, it’s a woman. Suppose the mysterious man was actually female? And suppose the meeting took place, not in some private room downstairs but between the sheets in some vast bed in the Baron Haussmann Suite upstairs? What do you say, my lord?’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘It’s certainly possible. I don’t think we could rule it out. But it’s a pretty odd coincidence. Inspector Fletcher, you are the only one of us who has actually met this potential Casanova by the Thames. Do you think it likely? Possible?’
‘I tell you this, my lord, when my sergeant and I were talking on our way back from the hotel, neither of us even considered it. Later on we did, and we thought it impossible. He’s not a nice man, my lord, that Sir Peregrine. I’m not an expert on what makes women tick, far from it, but it’s hard to see any female jumping into bed with Sir Peregrine.’
‘Forgive me,’ Miles Devereux stretched and moved to a sitting rather than a recumbent position on his chaise longue, ‘isn’t that the point? The women are dealing in a currency other than love. They’re dealing in money, possibly in gold. Maybe Sir Peregrine brought a high-class tart with him in the car, or his secretary perhaps. I’m sure there may be some form of crime involved, procurement, prostitution, God knows what all going on, but this isn’t relevant to the murder. Or is it?’
Powerscourt took another sip of his coffee. ‘It’s very unlikely that it is relevant, but it might be. I don’t think we should dismiss it altogether. If nothing else it might be a useful lever against Sir Peregrine. Now then, somebody has to talk to the wretched man, ask him what he was doing down there in Marlow late at night. Maybe we should talk to the chauffeur too. What do you say, Inspector Fletcher?’
Inspector Fletcher turned a bright shade of pink. ‘I’m happy to do that, my lord. The thing is’ — he paused and gathered his courage — ‘I don’t think he thought very highly of me when we met before. In fact he complained about me to my Chief Constable. I know he did.’
‘I think that’s commendable, your telling us that,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I really do. But don’t you see, we can turn that to our advantage. If I go and see him, it’ll put him on his guard. Same with Devereux here. But if it’s you, he won’t bother to put up his defences at all if he has a low opinion of you already. Much better from our point of view.’
Inspector Fletcher managed a small smile. ‘Right, my lord, I shall go and call on him tomorrow and see what he has to say for himself. I’ll take my sergeant for protection and moral support.’
‘Good man,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Now then, what do you think of this codicil business, gentlemen?’
‘Before we do that, my lord, I’ve just thought of something.’ Inspector Devereux looked excited all of a sudden. ‘Why don’t we just arrest Sir Peregrine now? He was on site at the Silkworkers Hall the night of the murder there. We only have his word for it that he left when he did. He was in the vicinity hours before the first murder. In both cases he had a very powerful motive for killing his victims, they stood between him and a fortune. I’m sure any jury would look kindly on such a prosecution, my lord.’
‘Maybe they would,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I have wondered myself if we shouldn’t arrest him. But I don’t think our case is strong enough. We have a possible motive, we have proximity to the deed itself, but we don’t have any hard evidence. Not yet at any rate. And if we picked him up now, London’s finest solicitors would be on our backs straight away. London’s finest barristers would be on parade at the Old Bailey. For the time being, I think we should consider the codicil. Inspector Fletcher, you have not been exposed in person to the academics who are arguing about the thing. What is your view of the matter?’
‘We don’t have much to do with codicils and livery companies down in Marlow, my lord,’ Fletcher began, and inspected his boots for a moment. ‘What strikes me as curious is the discrepancy in the payments. Twenty guineas for the man in Cambridge, five hundred for the man in London. That sounds pretty damned fishy, even in Buckinghamshire.’
‘Your man in Cambridge, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Devereux, ‘he said that the London fellow must be the forger with that sort of payment. Why on earth did Claypole tell me that in the first place? He didn’t have to, he didn’t have to say a word about it. “My financial affairs are private,” that sort of thing.’
‘Vanity?’ said Powerscourt. ‘He seems to have been pretty keen to tell you he had to be in the House of Lords very soon. Very clever people can get superiority complexes, they think they’re above everybody else. I’m very certain of one thing though. It makes a great hole in any possible defence for Sir Peregrine in court.’
‘How?’ said the two Inspectors, more or less in unison.
‘Suppose you are the counsel for the prosecution, gentlemen. You line up a little collection of these academics who gave their views on the codicil. Up comes Professor Number One, he does his stuff. “How much were you paid?” “Twenty guineas.” Professor Number Two, “How much were you paid?” “Twenty guineas.” Up comes Professor Number Three. “How much were you paid?” “Twenty guineas.” Now it’s Professor Wilson Claypole’s turn in the witness box. “How much were you paid?” “Five hundred guineas” “Five hundred guineas? Would you just like to repeat that figure, Professor Claypole, so the gentlemen of the jury can be in no doubt of it?” “Five hundred guineas.” With a skilful barrister the jury would be left in little doubt that Claypole was the forger.’
‘And once we know that Claypole was the forger,’ Miles Devereux was now walking up and down the room, ‘the whole codicil sideshow disappears. Sir Peregrine’s plans collapse like a pack of cards. The man’s a crook.’
‘He may be a crook,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but that doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer.’
The headmaster of Allison’s School was a worried man. Even now, many days after the murder, no boy had come forward with any details of the fake postman who had arrived in the school to strangle its bursar. The boys had been invited to speak to Inspector Grime after the second visit. None had done so. The headmaster had tried speaking, in confidence, to the boys he considered most influential with their schoolfellows. Nothing had happened. He had enlisted the help of the local bishop, the Bishop of Norwich. That mighty churchman had preached an eloquent sermon on the theme of render unto Cesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s from St Matthew’s Gospel. He spoke of the obligations on Christians to pay their taxes, to support the civil authorities, to be law-abiding citizens. The headmaster thought at the time that short of telling the boys to tell what they had seen on either of those days, the bishop had done all he could to persuade some boys, impressed by the weighty presence of a prince of the Church among them, to tell what they knew. The bishop’s message fell on stony ground. Now the headmaster’s last hope lay in the slender figure of Lady Lucy Powerscourt, pretending to be Mrs Hamilton, the French language teacher. The headmaster had little hope in that direction.