Mr. Casaubon made no reply. He smiled vaguely as people do when addressed in a foreign language and then he held out his glass to Monkey, who promptly refilled it and, once more taking on the task of interpreter, said, “He kept all her letters. Very devoted to Elsie is Mr. Casaubon, being as he never had no kiddies of his own,”
“I see,” said Wexford, and suddenly he did. He felt his features mould themselves into a scowl of rage as the whole racket worked by Mr. Casaubon and his niece grew clear to him. Without looking again at the letter he recalled certain significant phrases. “A fine old fuss that you will want to know or and “hoping the news may be of use” sprang to mind. A chambermaid, be thought, a chiel among us taking notes . . . How many adulterous wives had Elsie spotted? Into how many bedrooms had she blundered by the merest chance? How many homosexual intrigues had she discovered when homosexual practice was still a crime? Not to mention the other secrets to which she would have had access, the papers and letters left in drawers, the whispered confidences between women, freely given at night after one gin too many. The information about Swan, Wexford was sure, was just one of many such pieces of news retailed to Uncle Charley in the knowledge that he would use them for the extortion of money of which Elsie, in due course, would claim her share. A clever racket, though one which, to look at him now, had not finally worked to Mr. Casaubon’s advantage.
“Where was this Elsie working at the timer he snapped.
“He don’t remember that,” said Monkey. “Some where up in the Lakes. She had a lot of jobs one way and another.”
“Oh, no. It was all one way and a dirty way at that. Where is she now?”
“South Africa,” mumbled Mr. Casaubon, showing his first sign of nervousness. “Married a rich yid and went out to the Cape.”
“You can hang on to the letter.” Monkey smiled ingratiatingly. “You’ll want to do a bit of checking up. I mean, when all’s said and done, we’re only a couple of ignorant fellers, let’s face it, and we wouldn’t know how to go about getting hold of this judge and all that.” He edged his chair towards Wexford’s. “All we want is our rightful dues for setting you on the track. We don’t ask for no more than the reward, we don’t want no thanks ‘nor nothing . . .” His voice faltered and Wexford’s baleful face finally silenced him. He drew in a deep lungful of smoke and appeared to decide that at last it was time to offer hospitality to his other guest. ‘Have a drop of Scotch before you go?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Wexford said pleasantly. He eyed Mr. Casaubon. “When I drink I’m choosey about my company.”
Chapter 14
Nervous bliss, Wexford decided, best described Inspector Burden’s current state of mind. He was preoccupied, often to be found idle and staring distantly into space, jumping out of his skin over nothing, but at least it was a change from that bleak irritable misery everyone had come to associate with him. Very likely the cause of the change was a woman, and Wexford, encountering his friend and assistant in the lift on the following morning, remembered Dr. Crocker’s words.
“How’s Miss Woodville these days?”
He was rewarded, and somewhat gratified, by the uneven burning blush that spread across Burden’s face. It confirmed his suspicion that recently there had been something going on between those two and something a good deal more exciting than discussions about whether young Pat ought to have a new blazer for the autumn term.
“My wife,” he went on, pressing his point home, “was only saying yesterday what a tower of strength Miss Woodville has been to you.” When this evoked no response, he added, “All the better when the tower of strength has an uncommonly pretty face, eh
Burden looked through him so intensely that Wexford suddenly felt quite transparent. The lift halted.
“I’ll be in my office if you want me.”
Wexford shrugged. Two can play at that game, he thought. You won’t get any more friendly overtures from me, my lad. Stiff-necked prude. What did he care about Burden’s dreary love life, anyway? He had other things on his mind and because of them he hadn’t slept much. Most of the night he had lain awake thinking about that letter and Monkey Matthews and the old villain who was Monkey’s guest, and he had pondered on what it all meant.
Elsie was as sharp as a needle but bone ignorant. To a woman like her any J.P. was a judge and she wouldn’t know the difference between assizes and a magistrates’ court. Was it possible that all those years ago the young Swan had appeared before a magistrate, charged with murder or manslaughter, and the case been dismissed? And if that was so had the facts of that hearing somehow escaped being included in Wexford’s dossier of Swan?
Night is a time for conjecture, dreams, mad conclusions; morning a time for action. The hotel had been somewhere in the Lake District and as soon as he was inside his office Wexford put through calls to the Cumberland and Westmorland police. Next he did a little research into the antecedents of Mr. Casaubon, working on the assumption that he had been in Walton at the same time as Monkey, and this conclusion and the investigations it led to proved fruitful.
His name was Charles Albert Catch and he had been born in Limehouse in 1897. Pleased to discover that all his guesswork had been correct, He learned that Catch had served three terms of imprisonment for demanding money with menaces but since reaching the age of sixty-five had fallen on evil days. His last conviction was for throwing a brick through the window of a police station, a ploy to secure - as it had done - a bed and shelter for the blackmailer who had be come an impoverished vagrant.
Wexford wasted no sympathy on Charley Catch but he did wonder why Elsie’s information had led her uncle to take no steps against Swan at the time. Because there really was no evidence? Because Swan had been innocent with nothing to hide or be ashamed of? Time would show. There was no point in further conjecture, no point in taking any steps in the matter until something came in from the Lakes.
With Martin and Bryant to keep watch from a discreet distance, he sent Polly Davis, red-wigged, off to her assignation at Saltram House. It was raining again and Polly got soaked to the skin, but nobody brought John Lawrence to the park of Saltram House or to the Italian garden. Determined not to speculate any further on the subject of Swan, Wexford racked his brains instead about the caller with the shrill voice but still he was unable to identify that voice or to re member any more about it but that he had heard it somewhere before,
Holding her in his arms in the dark, Burden said, “I want you to tell me that I’ve made you happier, that things aren’t so bad because I love you.”
Perhaps she was giving one of her wan smiles. He could see nothing of her face but a pale glow. The room smelt of the scent which she used to use when she was married and had, at any rate, a little money. Her clothes were impregnated with it, a stale musty sweetness. He thought that tomorrow he would buy her a bottle of scent.
“Gemma, you know I can’t stay the night. I only wish to God I could, but I promised and . . .”
“Of course you must go,” she said. “If I were going to my - to my children, nothing would keep me, Dear kind Mike, I won’t keep you from your children.”
“You’ll sleep?”
“I shall take a couple of those things Dr. Lomax gave me.”
A little chill touched his warm body. Wasn’t satisfied love the best soporific? How happy it would have made him to know that his love-making alone could send her into sweet sleep, that thoughts of him would drive away every dread. Always the child, he thought, always the boy who had secured for himself all his mother’s care and passion. And he imagined the miracle happening and the lost dead boy, restored to life and to home, running into the darkened bedroom now, bringing his own light with him, throwing himself into his mother’s arms. He saw how she would forget her lover, forget that ho had ever existed, in a little world made just for a woman and a child.