‘Everything’s fine.’
‘You don’t consider yourself a prisoner of the vast ancestral barracks? I am prepared to bet you find cosiness unattainable? I want the truth — you must tell me the truth!’
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Remnant’s cold, isn’t it? I vividly remember how on one memorable occasion you made the journey between your bedroom and the dining room wearing a fur coat, to escape pneumonia, you said, which I thought a perfectly charming kind of explanation. The feel of that fur coat drove me mad …’
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘You sound as though you are in a state of narcosis.’
‘I am not in a state of narcosis.’
‘No need to be defensive, Clarissa. Your secret is safe with me. Safe as houses. You know it’s not the kind of thing I disapprove of. Better ersatz happiness than no happiness, my darling. I want you to be happy … You did what I asked?’
‘Yes.’
‘You followed my instructions to the letter? You got rid of Tradewell and all the other flunkeys and lackeys?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are all alone at Remnant? Good girl. You know how much I value submission. I apportion you extra Brownie points. So no trouble of any sort? You haven’t attracted the attention of agents provocateurs? Any police officers? Any snoopers — any well-meaning busybodies?’
‘No. No one.’
‘Splendid. You haven’t had your fancy boy to stay yet? No? Splendid, absolutely splendid news. I suppose you’ve grown out of him, which doesn’t surprise me at all. He was unworthy of you. That film now. I hope you destroyed it? I said burn it, didn’t I? It shouldn’t have been made in the first place. It was your idea, my darling. Your rather idiotic idea, I should say.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Only the most conventional kind of brain would come up with an idea like that. It is almost as though you wanted me to be caught! … No, of course not. That was a joke. A little light relief. Oh well, too late to fuss and fret now. What is it they say? No day is so dead as the day before yesterday … You didn’t forget to have the film destroyed, did you?’
‘I didn’t forget,’ Clarissa lied after a moment’s pause. ‘The film’s been destroyed.’
He would have been furious if she had told him she had no idea where the film was. The film had been the last thing on her mind that night. She had asked Aunt Hortense to put the camera away. She hadn’t the foggiest what had become of the film.
‘You burnt it? You let it be consumed by fire? Good girl,’ she heard him say. ‘I believe I have been misjudging you, my darling, for which I humbly apologize … I have a confession to make.’
‘What confession?’ She was filled with foreboding.
‘It concerns our reunion,’ he said solemnly. ‘I find myself looking forward to our reunion with ardour and tendresse. You will indulge me, won’t you, my darling? I want you to wear one of your fur coats. Mink … against … naked skin?’
27
As Major Payne walked down Harley Street towards Dr Sylvester-Sale’s surgery, he mulled over Louise Hunter’s strange tale, which Antonia had recounted to him on her mobile phone some five minutes previously.
Well, there seemed to be only one explanation that covered all the facts: the dead man’s hands, the high-pitched giggle in the bathroom, the arrival of the Grimaud, Lord Remnant putting a silencer on the gun, the mysterious Mr Quin, Clarissa dismissing all her servants … Yes.
Going up the couple of well-polished steps leading to Dr Sylvester-Sale’s front door, Payne rang the bell.
A minute later he was ushered in. He wondered if he would be able to get the information he needed. It was a very tiny bit of the puzzle, but it was important to fit it in where Payne believed it belonged.
Late thirties or early forties, black hair smoothed back off a high forehead, sculpted nose and well-shaped mouth. Dr Sylvester-Sale possessed the dark and handsome, if somewhat conventional, looks of a matinee idol. Or what fifty years previously would have qualified as a matinee idol …
Dr Sylvester-Sale’s consulting room did not look like a consulting room at all. The walls were covered in washed silk paper of an Oriental design, the parquet floor was the colour of burnt sugar. The mantelpiece was carved out of black marble and on it stood a very intricate-looking clock under a glass dome and two crystal candlesticks dripping with minute stalactites.
The fireplace was filled with oleander blossom placed in a copper bowl polished so that it shone like burnished red gold. The window curtains were made of light blue chenille and they were magnificently looped; the three tall windows looked out over the most decorous of inner-court gardens. The walnut desk was kidney-shaped and it was decorated with a delicate orchid in a vase made of Venetian glass.
Payne sat down in one of the two Chippendale chairs. He glanced at the comic triptych on the wall, eighteenth-century, at a guess, showing a bewigged medico in various difficult, surreally absurd situations.
‘Doctor’s dilemmas, eh?’ He waved at them.
‘That, I believe, is what the cycle is called.’ Dr Sylvester-Sale glanced down at the card his visitor had handed him. ‘It doesn’t say here that you are a private detective … Are you really? Didn’t think they existed any longer.’
Dr Sylvester-Sale wore a charcoal suit of a discreet stripe and a silk tie that hinted but only hinted at flamboyance.
‘I am acting on behalf of Felicity Fenwick, who is now Lady Remnant. Lady Remnant asked me to look into the possibility that her brother-in-law might have been the victim of a local vendetta,’ Payne said.
‘You seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’ Sylvester-Sale gave a superior smile. ‘Lord Remnant died of natural causes. He had a heart attack. Whatever gave his sister-in-law the idea that he was killed?’
‘Lady Remnant received a videotape showing Lord Remnant’s death in the course of a playlet based on The Murder of Gonzago,’ Payne said smoothly. ‘One can actually see Lord Remnant being shot in the back of the head.’
‘I very much doubt that such a tape exists,’ Dr Sylvester-Sale said.
‘It does exist. As it happens, I watched it twice. You are in it. You take part in the playlet.’
‘Impossible. You seem to be taking me for someone else.’
‘You are one of the protagonists. You are the murderous beau. It is you who kills the King. At one point the camera shows you carrying a tumbler upside down. Am I likely to know such a detail if I hadn’t actually seen it?’
The doctor’s expression didn’t change, but his face turned the colour of a guardsman’s jacket. ‘I am sorry, Major Payne, but I am going to ask you to leave, if you don’t mind.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve remembered that I have a patient coming any moment now.’
Payne didn’t stir. ‘You are seen examining Lord Remnant’s body. There is no sound, sadly, so it is impossible to ascertain what you are saying, but everybody looks quite shocked.’
‘Didn’t you hear what I said? You must leave.’
‘The tape was sent to Lady Remnant by one of your fellow guests, who has subsequently talked to us about what happened. You were all involved in a cover-up,’ Payne went on relentlessly. ‘It was you and another doctor — a Dr McLean — who signed the death certificate, giving the cause of Lord Remnant’s death as a heart attack.’
‘If you don’t leave my surgery within the next minute, I’ll have no other option but to call the police,’ Dr Sylvester-Sale said.
‘By all means. I am sure they will be interested in hearing the story about the tape. And perhaps they will choose to follow it up.’