He stopped and stared.
He was put in mind of a fantastic growth – he might have been standing in front of some giant poison mushroom!
Horizontal orange-red and yellow stripes – heavy use of stucco – arched windows – a domed roof. He was put in mind of Edward James and his surreal piles Monkton House and Las Pozas. It was that kind of house. Surreal. Bizarre. The Villa Byzantine.
He thought of Sir Christopher Wren’s epitaph – Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. If you wish to recall me, look around you. Did the Villa Byzantine reveal anything about Tancred Vane?
A well-to-do bachelor of irreproachable if somewhat florid taste, leading a life of blameless bookishness. A collector of rare objects. The kind of chap who notices at once if his silver has become tarnished or his precious leather-bound volumes and rosewood tables too exposed to the glare of daylight.
Or would he turn out to be something more sinister? A connoisseur of the recherche, an aficionado of the fantastic? Like one of those bachelors in L. P. Hartley’s short stories…
As he walked towards the front door, Payne happened to glance up at one of the first-floor windows. He saw a white hand pull down a parchment-coloured blind with what he imagined to be a frantic gesture. A ring flashed in the sun Payne rang the front door bell. A couple of moments later he rang again. The utter silence that met his ear had the quality of an animal’s freezing in its burrow. He was aware of great tension – or was the tension inside him? Eventually he heard cautious footsteps coming down the stairs, which creaked a little.
The door opened tentatively and a face appeared. A youngish man’s face – well-bred, if indeterminate, features – receding chin – flushed – indecisive. What was that the chap was wearing? Not a bow-tie? Major Payne had an aversion to bow-ties. Instinctively distrusted bow-tie wearers.
‘Mr Vane?’
‘Yes?’
‘My name is Payne.’ Silly that their names should rhyme.
‘Yes?’
‘We haven’t met, but I was wondering whether I could have a word with you?’
‘What about?’ Tancred Vane spoke in an abrupt manner, which, Major Payne felt at once, did not come naturally to him.
Tancred Vane’s eyes travelled over the intruder’s immaculately knotted regimental tie, his double-breasted blazer with its silver buttons, his sharply creased trousers, and came to rest on his perfectly polished brogues Payne saw his expression change – soften. It was almost as though the royal biographer had expected somebody else – somebody who looked as though they needed to be scared off Major Payne said, ‘We have what is sometimes called an “acquaintance in common”. A foreign lady. Had. She is, alas, no longer with us.’
‘What foreign lady?’
‘A Bulgarian lady.’
‘You don’t mean you knew-?’
‘The tragic Stella Markoff. Yes.’
The door opened a crack wider and now Payne could see the royal biographer’s left as well as his right hand. He wasn’t wearing any rings. The hand which had pulled down the blind hadn’t been his.
Vane was not alone. Could she be with him?
Vane’s face had turned a deeper shade of pink. The next moment he shot a glance over his shoulder.
‘What – what’s this about?’
Vane’s sotto voce clearly indicated he didn’t want the person inside the house to hear what he was saying.
‘I’d better put my cards on the table, Mr Vane. I believe it will make things simpler.’ Payne lowered his voice. ‘I am a private investigator.’
‘You are a detective?’ The biographer drew back a little.
‘Yes. I would be grateful if you treated this as the most confidential of communications. A day or two before she was killed, Stella Markoff sought my professional advice,’ Payne improvised. ‘Mrs Markoff was extremely worried about a certain matter.’
‘What matter?’
‘It seems she met someone at your house-’
A sound came from inside the Villa Byzantine – a floorboard had creaked.
‘-an elderly lady who introduced herself as Miss Hope.’
‘Miss Hope?’
‘Yes. Is Miss Hope a friend of yours?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Is she here, by any chance? She is here, isn’t she?’
After a moment’s reflection, Vane nodded, then put his forefinger across his lips, indicating that on no account should Payne go on. The royal biographer’s face was now the colour of beetroot.
‘I see.’ Payne’s upper lip was so stiff, it might have been injected with Novocaine.
He found himself reconstructing the scene that had taken place moments before he had rung the front door bell.
She had been looking out of the window. She had seen his approach. She had recognized him. She had panicked. She had pulled down the blind. She feared he would recognize her. She had begged Vane not to let him inside the house. She might have said Payne was dangerous – that he was a criminal or a lunatic. That would account for Vane’s initial hostility.
Major Payne decided to take the bull by the horns.
‘I don’t suppose you are familiar with the actress Melisande Chevret?’
22
Phantom Lady
‘I scribbled my phone number on a piece of paper and slipped it to him,’ he told his aunt some forty-five minutes later as she was buttering a second crumpet for him.
‘Most enterprising of you. You think he’ll ring you?’
‘I believe so, yes.’ Payne glanced at his watch. ‘As soon as he gets rid of her. The moment I said “Melisande Chevret”, his eyes rounded – became as big as saucers. The name seemed to strike a chord at once. He gave several nods when I put an imaginary phone to my ear and mimed dialling a number.’
‘How perfectly extraordinary. What d’you think has been going on, Hughie?’
Payne looked up at the ceiling. ‘Weird things. Crazy things. Things no normal person would do. That is how Stella’s daughter put it.’
‘Surely, Hughie, you can’t take anything that gel says seriously? From what you’ve told me, she’s not to be trusted one little bit.’
‘In this particular instance,’ Payne said thoughtfully, ‘I am prepared to give Moon a chance.’
‘You don’t think the gel chopped her mother’s head off?’
‘She might have done, but, as it happens, I don’t think she did.’
‘You suspect Miss Hope?’
‘I suspect Miss Hope, though of course no such person as “Miss Hope” exists. I believe that Miss Hope is in fact the actress Melisande Chevret.’
‘Heaven knows I am no expert, but I bet you’ll find in the end that the gel did do it after all.’
‘Well, you may be right, darling. It may be her, as you say. I am doing my best to keep an open mind. As a matter of fact, I haven’t counted anybody out yet. Not even Tancred Vane. Or James Morland.’
‘The garden of live flowers. I find I have started saying the first thing that pops into my head. Is that a sign of dotage?’ Lady Grylls poured herself more tea. ‘Are you comfortable in that chair? You don’t think this room is too narrow?’
‘No, not at all. It’s comfortable. It’s cosy.’
‘I must admit I feel a little cramped up here, Hughie. I know I wanted a house in St John’s Wood more than anything in the world, but now that I’ve got it, I find myself regretting my decision. Last night I dreamt I went to Chalfont again.’
‘You aren’t serious. After everything you said!’
‘I find this place too small and stuffy, Hughie.’
‘You used to find Chalfont too big and draughty.’
‘Do you think it’s perverse of me?’
‘As a matter of fact I do, darling. Terribly perverse.’
‘You don’t think I could change my mind and buy Chalfont back?’
‘No. Too late. The Russians won’t have it. They’ll laugh at you – or shoot you. Given how hard you bargained and how you bullied them and how you drove them mad and everything. You got exactly the price you wanted.’