“But you stuck with it anyhow.” Despond smiled. “And my daughter and I are eternally grateful. Not used to being taken for a ride, Sandilands. I’m used to being the biggest shark in the pond. What will you do now?”
“My bag’s packed. I thought I’d leave them in the company of their dear friends to hear their judgement. I’d hope to hear the question asked: ‘How can we accept the fact that the forthcoming Home Secretary, destined to be in absolute charge of Law and Order in the land, has been complicit in the killing of his wife and other forms of skulduggery?’ I wonder what sentence they’ll dole out.”
“Ten years’ exile? Blackballing from his clubs? In Ancient Athens they’d have written his name on a potsherd and got the guy ostracised. But, don’t raise your hopes, Sandilands. He’s among friends back there.” His eyes narrowed in mischievous speculation. “Not sure of the newsman, though … He’s the weak link. Too good a story to keep under wraps, are we thinking?”
Joe smiled. “You’re forgetting the ladies, Despond. My hopes rest with Maggie Somerton, Alice McIver, who has the country’s most influential newspaper magnate wrapped around her little finger, and Florence Ripley. Florence was scribbling notes throughout. A man’s reputation can be preserved in the safe confines of a St. James’s club but …”
“Not in the tearooms of London,” Dorothy supplied with an unladylike chortle. “That’s where I’m planning to make a start on the demolition!”
“Well, I’m off now to have a cup of cocoa with the superintendent and Dorcas. They’ll be wanting to hear the outcome. Such as it is.” Joe held out his arm. “Won’t you join us, Adelaide?”
CHAPTER 25
In the cocoon of his lamp-lit home, Adam Hunnyton’s comment on the affair was, predictably, a grumbling protest on behalf of Ben, the footman. “You tricked him! He’s a good lad. He deserves better.”
“I know Ben’s worth! Yes, I did deceive him because I am also aware of his sense of loyalty. I never like to put a man’s loyalty under stress. It does no one any good. But I did give him my card with a scrawled message on the back. The police college at Hendon can use such a man. He’s wasted smoking Woodbines to pass the long watches of the night in a slops cupboard spying on Cecily’s guests.”
Joe stayed on with Adam when Dorcas and Adelaide left. Dorcas had gratefully accepted the offer of Adelaide’s spare bed for the night, before returning to Cambridge and the railway station in the morning. She had broken her silence to say only that she wanted to go home to Lydia and Marcus. Joe gathered that his company would be unwelcome for the moment and mentioned tactfully that he was planning to stay on in Cambridge for a couple of days. Forms to complete, statements to make, liaising to be done …
Before he crept up to the sleeping quarters in the loft, Joe agreed to a snifter of apple brandy and a smoke with the superintendent and settled with him at the table. He reached into his pocket and took out a shining object. He placed it on the table in front of Hunnyton.
“Recognise it? No, why should you? There must be thousands like it scattered around the Truelove estate. But this one is special and very identifiable. For a start I witnessed it missing my fleeing form—deliberately missing, I hope—and lodging itself in the trunk of a lime tree. I marked the spot and later retrieved it. Attempted murder? That’s the first charge. When I hand this to our ballistics blokes they’ll be able to tie it to one of the Purdey guns you keep on the premises, Hunnyton.”
Adam smiled. “And what’s the second charge?”
“Murder.”
“How come? I see you sitting here in front of me as large as life and twice as ugly … I must have missed you. Someone’s bound to point it out.”
“No. I have in mind the murder of Robert Goodfellow, lately resident on the Truelove estate. You shot the bugger at seven o’clock precisely as he lay in his bed. Forty minutes later you fired at me, establishing a second possible killing time. More plausible, as it couldn’t be connected with any rook-scaring explosions. It sent me off back to the hall, blood-stained and dishevelled, looking every inch a wild killer. The scene of crime also was, as you pointed out to me, innocent of any trace of a third man. No one else had entered the cottage, according to the best evidence you could find. Of course there was none. Just my bloody foot and fingerprints. Perhaps a stray hair or print from the investigating officer but—there—you’d expect and discount that, wouldn’t you? The fact that the man lived on a further twenty minutes and really did die in my hands just added more credence to your story.”
“You may have noticed that I didn’t charge you with anything formally or informally. Why on earth should I want to pin a killing on you, Joe?”
“A trade-off. Knowing what the risks were, I would be more likely to rush to accept the alternative you so nobly offered me. Suicide. Goodfellow is buried with a suicide label attached to him and no one will ever know the truth. Just as Phoebe was branded a suicide. Poetic justice? Symbolic but hardly lyrical. The man died in revenge for Phoebe. This was always about Phoebe, wasn’t it? You could not be sure. You always thought it was a Truelove who drowned her—a suspicion so unpalatable you chose to bury it with her corpse. It was another death of a woman in suspicious circumstances that gave you the leverage you needed to get—at long last—a CID detective down here to sort it out for you. You could hardly go about arresting your own much-admired, unimpeachable half-brother. The exemplary Englishman. Get some other poor fool to do the dirty work for you …”
Adam smiled again and refilled his brandy glass. “Good story so far. Carry on,” he invited.
“You were keeping the villain Goodfellow under surveillance. You trailed him back from the pub, intrigued that he had had much less to drink than he normally did. A break in the behaviour pattern. Your professional eye would have taken that in. You watched as he prepared his departure. You saw him put his farewell letter to me in Diana’s hand. You read it and in it found confirmation of your girl’s killing and James Truelove’s seduction. You guessed—it could be no more than a guess—that it was Goodfellow himself who’d drowned her and for that he was going to die.
“Next morning, you returned, armed. The old steward striding about the estate with his father’s Purdey tucked under his arm was a familiar sight. But you never intended to use your gun on the Green Man. You took his shotgun from under his bed, fixed up the firing angle and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, he woke and moved his head a split second before the bullet struck. You must have been in a quandary, Adam. Leave him and hope for the best? You could hardly administer a second shot! As his throat was a wreck, you took the chance that he was not about to make any deathbed accusations. But you hung about just in case, watching.
“And a few minutes later, in response to the earlier shot, tripping along through the bluebells comes the London Plod, who proceeds to put his feet right in it. You see him off with a shot up his bum and put together a bargain he’d be mad to refuse. He even feels grateful to you. Do you know, Adam, it was some time before the penny dropped and I worked out what you were up to. You bugger! You even had the gall to shove a crumb or two of the horse bate you were given by Adelaide into one of Goodfellow’s drawers—leaving it ever so slightly open with a sticker on it so that I’d couldn’t miss it. Establishing a tangible link between the dead rogue and the guilty family. In case I needed a little shove in the right direction. That’s the third charge: supplying false evidence.”