“I think very likely it is. I wonder just how great a villain young Mr Faudrey is?”
“By which you mean that he may be blackmailing his uncle? Oh, I’m perfectly certain he is doing that, and that’s why it’s paying him not to give the old man away. My chaps did their utmost to break him down, but he fended them off. He stressed that he had nothing to do with the murders, insisted that they had another go at the members of the drama club, and told them that the criminal had hanged himself and that was that. They couldn’t shake him.”
“What had the Colonel to say?”
“He blustered, as you’d expect. Said that Giles had been sowing wild oats since he was sixteen and had been expelled from two schools for so doing. The inspector asked for the names of the schools, and the Colonel rather weakly said he couldn’t remember them. Then he was asked for the name of Giles’ college, and that he gave readily enough. I can find out whether Giles was sent down and, if so, for what, but it won’t really help us. Then my chaps sounded the Colonel about his movements on the Friday when Spey was killed. He said he had no idea what he’d done or where he’d been, and damned them to perdition for daring to question him. He asked them what the hell they thought they were playing at, and threatened to report them—he didn’t say to whom. Upon this, they apologised for troubling him and told him that, as it was now established (which it isn’t, of course) that Gordon did not commit suicide, but was murdered, the police had no option but to turn the borough upside down and question everybody who might have the slightest bit of information to give.”
“And this satisfied the Colonel?”
“They said he certainly seemed a bit happier, but blustered again when they said they’d like to speak to his wife, so they agreed that he should stay in the room while she was questioned.”
“But he did not do so?”
“Now how do you know that?”
“I was asking a question, not making a statement.”
“Well, you seem to have made a shrewd guess, then. Mrs Batty-Faudrey put on a grande dame act and became very haughty, so apparently the Colonel decided that she was more than equal to the situation, and slid out, leaving her to cope. This she did remarkably well.”
“Could she account for her movements on the evening of Spey’s death?”
“Yes, she could. She went to a Soroptimist meeting at which she introduced the speaker and acted as chairman.”
“So she cannot give an account of what Giles and the Colonel did at the time?”
“Not with any certainty. She thinks they watched television. She had invited the speaker and a couple of Soroptimist members to tea, a ceremony from which the Colonel and Giles had opted out, and she did not see either of the men again until she got back from her meeting. That, she thinks, was at about half-past ten, because, when the meeting was over, the Soroptimists threw a sherry party.”
“Where was the meeting held?”
“At the Town Hall, because the Mayoress, who is a member, gave the sherry party in the Mayor’s parlour.”
“Oh, well, all that must be true, because it would be so easy to check on it. Besides, whoever the guilty person may be, it cannot be Mrs Batty-Faudrey.”
“No, I don’t think it could possibly be a woman at all, because of the nature of the crimes.”
“I wonder at what point it was suggested to Mr Spey that he should retain his Henry VIII costume in order to be photographed wearing it?”
“The only person who might have been able to tell us is Gordon, and, of course, he is dead. I still don’t see why there was such a long gap between Spey’s death and his own.”
“Oh, I explained that to Laura. Mr Perse’s second pageant was seen as a trap, and, so far as the murderer knew, Gordon was the only person who could spring it. Gordon’s murder was a panic measure, so, of course, was Spey’s. It is highly probable that neither man had an inkling of the murderer’s identity.”
“Why should he have thought Spey had?”
“Spey must have lingered in the Town Hall for a little while after Gordon had gone over to the public house. The murderer’s guilty conscience did the rest.”
“So he has a conscience, has he?”
“His wife has seen to that. The next thing is to interview the girl on whose behalf Mr Luton tackled Giles Faudrey on the night of the dress rehearsal.”
“You think Luton believed that the girl laid her ruin at Giles Faudrey’s door, as the saying is?”
“Oh, no. I am sure that Mr Luton had extracted the correct information from the girl and had expected to confront the Colonel with his evidence. Finding nobody but Giles at home, he confided it to him instead, and Giles, who is a thorough-paced young scoundrel, saw a golden opportunity to blackmail his uncle in return for keeping the bad news from his aunt.”
“You’d think that the old man would have murdered the girl if only he’d had the opportunity.”
“He cannot have had the opportunity, but, apart from that, I am quite certain that Mr Luton was able to assure Giles that nobody else—not even the girl’s mother—knew the truth. The girl’s mother believed that Giles was the baby’s father.”
“Then why didn’t she denounce him?”
“Why should she, when the money was coming in so regularly?—the Colonel’s money, of course.”
“You don’t know that for certain, though, do you?”
“I thought it was perfectly obvious, but you could find out.”
Laura returned half-an-hour after her husband had left the house.
“Oh,” she said, “so Gavin’s been here, has he? I smell his pipe. What does he think about things?”
“He is convinced that Giles Faudrey is a blackmailer and that Colonel Batty-Faudrey is a murderer.”
“Ah, that’s what I was coming to. It can’t be true, you know. The whole thing’s out of character.”
“In what way, child?”
“In every way. I can see why the Colonel might have murdered Falstaff, and, in a panic, thought he’d better get rid of Spey and Gordon. But why the elaboration? Why put Falstaff and basket in the Thames? Why decapitate Henry VIII and hang Edward III from the Druid’s Oak?”
“I thought we had settled all that.”
“If the murderer was Giles Faudrey, yes, but not if he’s the Colonel.”
“Much more so. The Colonel, as an old campaigner, is not destitute of cunning, nor is he afraid of a little bloodshed. It is because he has the name for being…”
“An old stick-in-the-mud?”
“Yes, if you care to phrase it so—that the ritualistic nature of his behaviour (after the straightforward killing was done) would deflect suspicion from him. Your own reactions give me the impression that his instinct in the matter was sound. Incidentally, there was a little more in it than that.”
“But why go to the length of murdering people? Why didn’t he stick to stout denial—always a sound defence, so long as you don’t weaken.”
“He did not think that stout denial would stand him in good stead if his peccadillo came to the ears of Mrs Batty-Faudrey. She had already seen him with a girl on his knee when Mr Luton (inadvertently or not) turned the lights up at an unfortunate moment during the masque at Squire’s Acre Hall some two years ago. She is not the woman either to forgive or forget such an episode.”
“You mean his name was mud with her, and she’d have been only too ready to believe he’d got that servant of theirs into trouble? But, after all, what was he scared of? These things have been hushed up before and they’ll be hushed up again.”
“He was terrified of the divorce court.”
“But surely, for her own sake, Mrs Batty-Faudrey wouldn’t really have gone as far as that!”
“Well, it is my firm conviction that the Colonel thought she would. And, remember, he probably has nothing to live on but his Army pension. His wife owns Squire’s Acre and holds the purse-strings, as she pointed out at that lunch we gave her.”