“Why?”
“Don’t you see, if it were indeed something so awful that she paid out that great sum of money and if I got my hands on it, I could divorce her. Captain Cathcart is investigating the murder, is he not?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall offer to pay him anything he wants to find me proof.”
“Can you think what it might be?”
“A man, perhaps. But what man? I mean, look at my wife. I will go back and search for you. And I will talk to Captain Cathcart later.”
“I am so sorry I hid in your room.”
“Don’t worry about it. You have given me hope.”
∨ Hasty Death ∧
Nine
Even if we take matrimony at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of friendship recognised by the police…
Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dinner on the previous nights had been long, dull affairs. The guests mostly concentrated on the delicious food and largely ignored each other.
Lady Glensheil did not notice, mainly because she liked the sound of her own voice and filled in the long gaps with monologues about the state of the nation, the weather, and the difficulties of getting good outdoor staff. She would probably have complained about the difficulty of getting good indoor staff had not so many of them been waiting on the guests.
That evening, however, began badly over the soup and proceeded to get worse. Mr Jerry Trumpington had already been drinking quite a lot. His shoulders were usually hunched like a man expecting another blow, but for once he was sitting up straight. There were two hectic red circles on his cheeks.
“What a jolly bunch we are!” he cried.
“Oh, do be quiet, dear,” admonished his wife.
“No, I won’t be quiet. For once in my bullied married life I won’t be quiet, you fat old frump.”
“Mr Jerry, perhaps you would like to lie down?” said Lady Glensheil in glacial tones.
“No, I’m fine and dandy. The prison door has opened a crack. Do you know why we’re all here, hey?” He pointed with his dripping soup spoon, first at his wife, then at Angela Stockton and Lord Alfred. “See those three? Each one of them paid the late and unlamented Freddy Pomfret ten thousand pounds. Blackmail, I think. So, dear wife, if the murderer and blackmailer is amongst us, I beg of him to supply me with whatever he has on my dear wife and I will pay him a fortune.”
Harry glared at Rose, who dropped her eyes to her plate.
“You’re drunk,” said Lord Alfred coldly. “If you can’t hold your wine, go to bed and stop making ridiculous accusations. The police have already questioned us. It is sheer coincidence that we all decided to help Freddy out. He demanded the same amount from each of us.”
“Oh, Lady Rose!” squeaked Maisie Chatterton. “Don’t tell me there’s going to be another death. Death does seem to follow you around.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Mrs Jerry snarled. Mr Jerry merely grinned.
“Listen to me, all of you,” said Lady Glensheil. “We are all going to church in the morning, and I mean all. Now, let’s talk about something else. The situation in the Balkans is fraught…”
Her voice rose and fell inexorably through eight courses before she finally rose as a signal to the ladies to follow her to the drawing-room. But she turned in the doorway. “I think this evening we will break with tradition and the gentlemen will come as well.”
To everyone’s relief, Mr Jerry said he was going to bed. In the drawing-room, tables were set up for cards while Frederica Sutherland entertained them by singing Scottish songs and accompanying herself on the piano.
Harry drew Rose aside. “Why did you tell Jerry about the blackmail?”
So Rose told him about being caught hiding behind the curtain.
“You shouldn’t have said anything,” said Harry crossly. “Now they really will be on their guard.”
“Oh, pooh!” said Rose defiantly. “They must already have thought it odd that all three of them have been invited. Did you find anything in Lord Alfred’s rooms?”
“Nothing incriminating.”
“Did you bury the body very deep?”
“No, we didn’t bury it. We took it off away to the Thames with his car and sank the both of them.”
“So Daisy was right. He must have been following us. Where was the car?”
“Outside the gates.”
“But someone will find the body in the river.”
“Don’t worry. The water was pitch-black and we wedged him behind the steering wheel of his car.”
♦
Philip Hargraves, a blacksmith and motor mechanic, was walking along the upper reaches of the Thames outside the village of Maidenton with his teenaged son, Bertie, just as the sun was coming up. He planned to get in some early fishing before starting work.
It was a truly beautiful morning and the dawn chorus sounded from the trees along the grassy bank.
“Look at that, Dad,” said Bertie, stopping short. “Tyre tracks going straight into the river.”
Philip joined his son and together they looked down into the waters of the Thames. The water may have been pitch-black at night, but in the brightening rays of the sun it was still and clear along the stretch outside the village. There was a strong current in midstream, but by the bank the water was as clear as glass.
And so, looking down, they were able to see a figure in a car sitting on the bottom.
“Better call the police,” said Bert.
“No, wait a bit,” said his father. “Let’s get that car out first. I’ll go back and get the tractor and winch it out. You keep a look-out.”
“But, Dad!”
“Do as you’re told or I’ll take my belt to you!”
The motor car and body were slowly winched up out of the Thames.
Philip’s face was red with excitement. “Let’s get this back afore anyone sees us,” he said. “Hop in the tractor.”
“But, Dad, the body.”
“I’ll tell you about that.”
Philip drove carefully back to his smithy, looking carefully left to right to make sure no one was watching. It was still very early and his smithy was on the outskirts of the village.
Outside the smithy, he unhitched the motor car and pushed it inside. “Now, you,” he said ferociously to his son, “not a word of this or I’ll beat the living daylights out of you. Run along. You say one word and I’ll get to hear of it. Poor gentleman probably was drunk and drove straight into the river.”
The boy scampered off. Philip shut the double doors of the smithy and locked and bolted them. Then he stood and stared at the car in delight. It was a Spyker six-cylinder engine, four-wheel drive. Other cars only had rear-wheel brakes. He had seen a photograph of it in the London Illustrated News showing it parked outside the Crystal Palace. The Spyker factory was in Trompenburg, Amsterdam. The family name was Spijker, but the firm’s name was Spyker, largely because the motor cars were exported to English-speaking countries.
He was itching to get to work on it, but first he had to get rid of that body. He unlocked the doors of the smithy and peered out. No one around. He went to the stables and hitched up the pony to the trap. Then, with his powerful arms, he lugged the dead and wet body of McWhirter and threw it in the back and covered it with sacking. The river had washed the blood away and swollen the corpse, so he did not, in his excitement, notice the bullet-hole in the back. He relocked the smithy and left a note on the door to say he would be back later.