‘Of course, my own job was my first consideration. Nobody can blame me for that. I’d heard one or two names mentioned and I knew they were younger men than myself, but my own name had not come up. It isn’t easy to get another berth when you’ve been in management and are approaching fifty-five, so I thought I would try to find out exactly where I stood.’
‘And that meant rifling the board’s private files, I suppose.’
‘You can’t blame me. I only wanted to know.’
‘And what you found out by your burglarious exploit was not conducive to your peace of mind, I take it.’
‘No. There was nothing absolutely definite, you understand, but there was a pile of correspondence which, when boiled down to essentials, indicated to me that I could prepare myself for redundancy and that the most I could hope for was a very moderate golden handshake.’
‘So when Vittorio put his proposition to you, you were ready to fall in with it.’
‘Dame Beatrice, I was obliged to fall in with it. You see, I’d slipped into the little kitchen place again when the meeting was over, and then I’d gone back to the board room. When I’d found out what I could I ran straight into one of the stenographers. I recognised her at once as the girl who had been present taking down what was said at the board meeting. “So we had a good old rummage among the files, did we?” she said. “The cleaner saw you, you know. She thought you were entitled to be there, but, of course, I know better. So what are you going to do about it, Mr Honfleur?”
‘Well, I did my best to keep my end up. “I have a perfect right to inspect the files,” I said. “I am a member of the board.” It didn’t work, so I asked her what her price was. She giggled. “Higher than you can pay,” she said. Of course it wasn’t until I had this drink with him, that I found out she knew Vittorio. After that, there was nothing for it but to go his way.’
‘And how long ago was this?’ Dame Beatrice asked.
‘About two years. Long before you and Miss Mendel came to dinner.’
‘The merger is taking a long time to reach its climax, then.’
‘All sorts of problems have had to be ironed out. If I’d realised how slow the whole business was going to be, I might have taken a chance and said I’d see Vittorio at the devil before I’d come in on his racket, but I thought it would only be a matter of months – even weeks – before the thing became a fait accompli and I, most likely, would then be out of a job.’
‘But you are a free man. I mean, you haven’t got a wife to worry about,’ said Laura. ‘That must surely make a difference.’
‘Alimony,’ said Honfleur, ‘and also what is euphemistically known as “a little nest” to keep feathered. I wasn’t sitting pretty, I assure you, or I would never have given in. Of course, it was the use of our coaches he wanted, to move the stolen antiques to the port of embarkation.’
‘Well, B. Honfleur – and B. doesn’t only stand for Basil – seems very sorry for himself,’ said Laura, ‘but I can’t say I feel much sympathy for him. He seems to have behaved like a rather depraved ninny throughout the proceedings, wouldn’t you say?’
‘We still haven’t heard the true story.’
‘Even if (as I firmly believe) Vittorio stabbed those two drivers, help would have been needed in transporting the bodies, especially in hoisting them up to those gatehouses,’ said Laura. ‘Do you think Honfleur was the other man?’
‘Time, as always, will show.’
‘We still haven’t actually put a name to the person who sneaked into the Stone House that night and bashed that dummy you’d had the forethought to slip into your bed. That couldn’t have been Vittorio. He was dead. Besides, I thought we both recognised him, although we couldn’t prove it.’
‘You yourself pointed out, if you remember, that whoever it was must have had an acquaintance with the house. As we would scarcely imagine that any of our own relatives and friends would make an attempt on my life, there can be little doubt which two people come under suspicion, although, as you say, we have no proof.’
‘So far as I can see,’ said Laura soberly, ‘the only people who could have been involved are Conradda Mendel and Basil Honfleur. Both had been to the house several times for psychiatric treatment and the room you used at that time as a temporary clinic was next door to your bedroom. Did you ever show Conradda into the bedroom?’
‘No, but on her own confession the fact that she is not shown into bedrooms does not deter her from inspecting them.’
‘But you don’t really suspect Conradda Mendel, do you?’
‘Women have done people to death before now.’
‘But she’d had an operation. She was still convalescent, and it struck me that she was still looking pretty groggy when we called on her.’
‘True. Ah, well, let us turn to other matters.’
‘Back to Basil Honfleur, perhaps? Anyway, we know now how Vittorio came to have him under his thumb. We also know that Vittorio sometimes travelled on the coaches. What we don’t know is whether he travelled on Noone’s coach to Hulliwell Hall and on Daigh’s coach to Dantwylch.’
‘I am sure he travelled on neither. What is more, I have no doubt that when those two coaches, on their different days, set off, the deaths of the drivers were already planned. That planting of the bodies on the gatehouses was no haphazard or makeshift arrangement. It must have been most carefully worked out.’
‘Do you think Honfleur, when he was checking up on hotels and such, travelled by coach, then?’
‘Oh, I am sure he did not. That brings me to another point, and one which involves a fast car.’
‘Honfleur’s?’
‘Very likely.’
‘A fast car which took the loot from where it had been stored in a suitcase in the boot of the coach and carried it to Fishguard to be shipped to Eire, you mean.’
‘Not necessarily into Eire, you know. There is one aspect which intrigues me and has puzzled me a little.’
‘But now you know the answer?’
‘Possibly. Possibly not. Did you ever wonder why Honfleur, under the name of Carstairs, bought a bungalow at Saighdearan?’
‘No, I never thought of it, but, then, I wasn’t connecting Honfleur with Carstairs.’
‘We thought at first that a Welsh port was being used,’ Dame Beatrice went on, ‘but my suspicions were aroused when I realised that leaving the coach at Swansea was a blind. I thought of Fishguard, but I still was not quite satisfied. The bungalow at Saighdearan clinched the matter.’
‘Oh! Stranraer to Larne!’ said Laura. ‘And the stolen antiques were stored in the bungalow until they could be transported. Rather a long hop from Saighdearan to Stranraer, but I suppose your theory of a fast car still holds good, or, of course, they may have shipped the stuff down Loch Linnhe by boat to Oban and then on.’
CHAPTER 16
Confession of an Avenger
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Do you intend to find that out?’ Laura went on.
‘There is no need. I know most of what I need to know. What I do not know is who killed Vittorio. I can guess, but I cannot be certain. I have taken one step which may help. I have suggested to the police that it might be as well to make certain that the blood-stains on the bedding did actually come from the knife-wound on Vittorio.’
‘I remember you suggested that to the inspector, but where else could they have come from?’
‘His killer, as I also suggested. Please note that this time I do not say his murderer.’
‘You’re sticking to that idea about a fight and Vittorio getting the worst of it?’