“Who told you I meant Giles Faudrey? You don’t mean…here, you’re putting words in my mouth! I never said a word about Giles Faudrey!”
“One of us had to,” said Dame Beatrice, “and now that we’ve gone as far as this, we must go a little bit further. How did Mr Luton find out that Faudrey was the man?”
“I’ve no idea, I tell you, and I don’t want to say any more.”
“Not even although I assure you that I believe the father of your daughter’s baby to be a triple murderer?”
“Please go, please do! I don’t want to get mixed up in anything, I tell you…and I don’t know nothing for sure.”
“It seems that Mr Luton must have done. How would he have found out?”
“I don’t know! I suppose he got it out of Mabel! I must see to the dinner! Please go.”
Dame Beatrice returned to the Sunday School hall and reached it to the sound of the bells from the parish church. Julian was waiting at the gate. The Sunday School children were leaving the hall to go home and, at a further gate, the congregation was drifting in for the eleven o’clock service in the chapel. It seemed, thought Dame Beatrice, that the Darbey family must sit down to their Sunday dinner at an unusually early hour.
She went into the Sunday School hall and was able to buttonhole the secretary once more.
“Just one thing,” she said, “before you go into chapel. Would you have called Mr Luton a reckless man?”
“I don’t know that I’d use that word. He had a lot of courage. If he ever thought someone was doing wrong, he said so, not mincing his words.”
“Always a risky proceeding, don’t you think? At any rate, he seems to have found it so.”
“Why, how do you mean, Dame Beatrice?”
“You never suspected that Mr Luton might have resorted to blackmail, I suppose?”
“Blackmail? You must be joking!”
“No, I am not joking.”
“But…Luton? Sunday School superintendent and sang in the choir?”
“Blackmail is sometimes resorted to by persons whose only object is to do what they conceive to be their duty. The road to hell, we are told, is paved with good intentions. I think that, in Mr Luton’s case, he was murdered because of his good intentions, and his murder resulted in the deaths of two other persons.”
She rejoined Julian Perse, who was still waiting at the gate.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“Well, my theories have not been disproved. Neither have they led to any real proof, but I do not despair about that. The next moves will have to be made by the police, and I have small hope at present that they will be willing to set my particular ball rolling. However, we shall see.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Droit de Seigneur
“…it was a signal to commence hostilities.”
« ^ »
How did you enjoy yourself?” asked Laura, when her employer returned to the Kensington house. “Are we to take action as a result of your enquiries?”
“I think I must consult our dear Robert before we decide to do that. Something came out which may or may not have a bearing on the matter in hand. The trouble is that all my instincts are at war with my logical deductions.”
“Oh, dear! Psychological conclusions gone haywire?”
“Yes, indeed. I am in the utmost confusion of mind.”
“Well, Gavin won’t be much help over that. I don’t think he’s got a mind. What he relies on are a masculine ego and a policeman’s conscience.”
“It will help me to talk matters over with him. He will know what steps I ought to take.”
“It doesn’t sound like you when you assume such modesty. Why not talk things over with me? You don’t think Gavin is more intelligent than I am, I hope?”
“It is his experience of police work upon which I shall be relying, and his bump of caution, which is so much better developed than your own.”
“At least tell me what you’ve found out. I’m aching with curiosity. I suppose Giles Faudrey is all mixed up in it somehow.”
“He seems to be, but, all the same…”
“Well, what’s wrong with that? We’ve thought from the very beginning that he was a shady little character.”
“Yes,” admitted Dame Beatrice, “I know we have. I obtained an interview with the secretary of Mr Luton’s Sunday School…”
“Oh, yes, the sunbeam chap. Did he dance for you?”
“No. He gave me the address of some people in Brayne. I called there and obtained an item of information which, although it did not surprise me in itself, is not going to prove very helpful. One of the Sunday School teachers is to be the mother of Giles Faudrey’s child—at least, that is what I gathered. The girl was one of the servants at Squire’s Acre.”
“Well, I can see why that didn’t surprise you, but why isn’t it helpful? It would be very helpful, I should think, if you could prove that Luton knew about it and so was in a position, perhaps, to get Giles slung out of Squire’s Acre.”
“I don’t need to prove that Mr Luton knew about the girl’s misfortune. The secretary (now acting-superintendent) knew that the girl was to have a child, and he informed me that Mr Luton interested himself in the kind of social work connected with such cases. I feel certain, therefore—”
“That Luton not only knew about the baby, but would have found out who the father was, I suppose. Well, that ties up very neatly with Giles having been the murderer of Falstaff, doesn’t it? I should have thought it was Q.E.D.”
“Yes,” said Dame Beatrice, “that is what I tell myself. The trouble is that I cannot convince myself. I do not think it is the truth.”
“Why ever not? Look at the way it all hangs together. Falstaff, that peace-making little do-gooder, goes along to Squire’s Acre to borrow a sword in order to smooth over the quarrel between Ford and Page. Giles Faudrey is at home—that much we know for certain—but the rest of his story is all lies. He didn’t shut himself away in the library while Falstaff was left alone to roam about in the long gallery selecting a sword. That bit never did make sense. Do you agree so far?”
“Yes, I do agree. I have never thought that Mr Luton was seen by nobody but the servant who answered the door.”
“Well, then, the rest is perfectly simple and perfectly obvious. Falstaff taxes Giles with the girl’s troubles and gets him to promise to do something in the maintenance line. Giles, who, we shall find, has nothing but his allowance from the Batty-Faudreys to live on, has not the slightest intention of keeping the promise. He probably wouldn’t want to, anyway, but, in any case, he knows he can’t, for the simple reason that he isn’t in a position to fork out ready cash. Are you still with me?”
“You re-state my own arguments in their entirety.”
“Then I’m dashed if I can see your difficulty. It’s copybook stuff, this.”
“Pray continue your exposition. If you go on long enough, I have a feeling that you will begin to share my doubts.”
“I don’t think I shall. The story hangs together far too well. Giles watches while Falstaff selects a sword from the armoury in the long gallery. It seems to me that he guides Falstaff’s choice, so that he is certain to take one of a matching set. When Falstaff has gone, Faudrey earmarks a similar sword and, early on the following evening, enters the Town Hall and hides away in Bouquets until Falstaff is carried off the stage in the washing-basket. Then he inveigles him into Bouquets on the pretence of discussing the regrettable affair about the girl, pinks him through the heart with the duplicate sword, locks the body in Bouquets to keep it hidden until the show is over, wipes the sword on the dirty washing and brings the basket into Bouquets with the corpse. He probably stays in Bouquets himself until he knows the coast is clear and he can dump body and basket in the mud. Anything wrong with that?”