“You’ll kindly tell me what I ask.”
“Now, you listen to me…”
Henry shut his notebook with a snap. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mason. I shall have to ask you to come to the police station.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had hoped,” said Henry, “that we could have an informal talk here. But if you persist in your attitude…”
“Oh, very well.” Mason slumped down behind the desk. “If I answer your fool questions, will you listen to what I have to say?”
“Of course.”
“All right then. Yesterday, I spent the morning working on my book at home. I live in London, as you probably know. Got a service flat, Victoria way. Went out to my local pub for lunch. Afterward, I looked in to the office to see how things were going. Left there about half-past three and went along to the Reading Room of the British Museum to do a bit of research. Came home, via the local, getting in about half-past seven. That was when the local police got hold of me to tell me about the old man. They’d been ringing for some time, they said. No reply, of course. I told them I’d be along at once, but they said there wasn’t much point in coming down here until today. So I drove down from London this morning, and here I am. Satisfied?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “Thank you. That seems quite straightforward. Now…” He sat back and looked at Mason. “What’s all this about knowing who killed your father?”
“I’ll tell you, in two words: Julian Manning-Richards.”
“That’s a very serious accusation, Mr. Mason.”
“You bet your sweet life it is.”
“Very well. Go on.”
Mason frowned. He picked up a carved ivory paper knife from the desk and fiddled abstractedly with it, picking his words. He said, “My father and I weren’t very close. I’m not pretending we were. We went our own ways. I suppose I was a disappointment to him, because he wanted me to go into the business full-time. He just couldn’t understand that I preferred an academic life to making money. We disagreed about politics, too, I need hardly say. In fact, we disagreed about everything. But we agreed to disagree. We didn’t fight. D’you understand that?”
“Yes,” said Henry.
“We didn’t see much of each other. In fact, when he came to live down here it was more or less a complete break between us. I came down to see him once, and I was pretty sickened, I can tell you. It was pathetic. Poor old Dad, swanking around trying to be Lord of the Manor and fawning like a blasted toady all over die-hard old Fascists like Adamson. I swore I wouldn’t come again and I never have, until now.” He paused.
Henry said. “So it’s some time since you last met your father?”
“Well, no, not so long. The one point of contact we had, you see, was the office. The old firm. I’ve told you that I go along there every week or so and Dad used to do the same. A couple of weeks ago we happened to turn up there on the same day, and so we went out and had lunch together. We were pretty friendly so long as we didn’t see too much of each other.” There was another hesitation, and then Mason went on. “As a matter of fact, though, I soon began to suspect that Dad had found out from the office manager when I was expected and had deliberately engineered for us to meet in what would look like an accidental way. He hemmed and hawed all through the soup and fish, but it wasn’t until the coffee and brandy that he plucked up courage to come out into the open and spill the beans.”
“What beans?”
“That he was thinking of getting married again. Married! I ask you. And to some ghastly debutante half his age. This Manciple girl. I was absolutely disgusted, and I told him so. It was bad enough his having turned into a snob and a social climber, I said, without being a dirty old man into the bargain.”
“That must have pleased him,” said Henry drily.
Frank Mason slapped the desk with his hand. “The really bloody thing was,” he said, “that I didn’t seem able to get it into his thick skull that I was trying to insult him.”
“No? I should have thought…”
“He would misunderstand me. He’d made up his mind, you see, that I’d be against the marriage simply because I’d see my inheritance disappearing — or at any rate, having to be shared with the little woman and any unspeakable stepbrothers or sisters who might put in an appearance. He judged everybody by himself, you see. Couldn’t conceive that I’d be interested in anything but the financial aspect. The more I tried to point out to him how repellent the whole idea was, the more he kept assuring me that I’d be better off, not worse. ‘I’m very fond of Maud,’ he kept on saying, ‘but at the same time, I know which side my bread’s buttered on. And yours, my boy.’ It made me puke. I suppose the blasted girl’s family is rolling in filthy inherited capital.”
Henry made no comment. After a moment Mason continued. “Anyhow, I made my views as plain as I could, and we parted on fairly rough terms. Then, last week — Tuesday evening, it was — the old man telephoned me. First time in years he’d done such a thing. ‘Well, Frank,’ he said, ‘it looks as though things are going to work out your way after all.’ I asked him what he meant, and he said, ‘I’ve been turned down. The lady won’t have me.’ ‘Bloody good thing too,’ I said. ‘Not only that,’ he went on, ‘but it seems she’s engaged already, to a young man by the name of Manning-Richards.’ Well now, that rang a bell at once. I’d met this pustule Manning-Richards at the university; he comes from Bugolaland, as you may know, of fine old Imperialist stock, and he was over in England doing a postgraduate course of some sort. We’d had a couple of smashing old ding-dongs one way and another, and it seemed to me that if the girl was silly enough to contemplate marrying him, she was only getting what she deserved.
“Dad was very interested to hear that I knew Julian Manning-Richards. ‘In that case, son,’ he said, ‘you’ll do well to know that he threatened me with physical violence. Said that if I didn’t leave Maud alone he’d see that things got unhealthy for me. Now you remember that, Frank boy. Then, if anything happens to me, you’ll know who to blame.’ ” Frank Mason, having reached the climax of his story, sat back with an angry snort. “You see, Inspector? Do you understand now why I…?”
“Wasn’t it rather odd, your father telephoning to tell you about Manning-Richards?”
For a moment Mason hesitated. Then he said, aggressively, “Seems to me it was the most sensible thing he ever did, as it turned out.”
“That,” said Henry, “remains to be seen. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Mason. Now, since I’m here, I wonder if I may take a look around this house?”
“You mean, you’re not going to arrest Manning-Richards?”
“Not just at the moment.”
Mason looked at Henry with a sneer. “Whose pocket are you in, Inspector? Who’s making it worth your while to lay off the Establishment? I suppose you’ll find some poor bloody working man to put the blame on…”
Henry sighed, and stood up. “I’ll be back with a search warrant to look over the house,” he said.
“Oh, for God’s sake, look at anything you like. I’m going out for a walk. This place suffocates me.”
Henry watched the spiky figure in its shabby duffle coat as it strode away through the gathering dusk of the September garden. Then he turned his attention to Cregwell Lodge.
The house had been built as a gatekeeper’s lodge to Cregwell Grange in the days when the main road ran to the east rather than to the west of the big house. With the construction of the new road, around the turn of the century, the present carriage drive to Cregwell Grange had been laid out, and the Lodge left in isolation. The old driveway was completely overgrown with grass, and the splendid wrought-iron gates beside the Lodge led only to a rutted, leafy lane. Beyond the lane marshy fields stretched away toward the river.