‘It’s a deal.’ She felt foolish, but what else could she have said? He could be so disarming.
‘Here goes. A man dies on 23rd January, yet is buried on 22nd January. How is that possible?’
‘Well…’ Antonia scowled. ‘If the man died in Fiji and the body was flown to Western Samoa for burial, the flight would cross the International Date Line from west to east, wouldn’t it, so the date would go back one day?’
‘Makes perfect sense,’ Major Payne said magnanimously. ‘This is a trick question, actually, so the simple answer is that he died at sea on the 23rd but his mortal remains weren’t recovered until a year later – next January, in fact. That’s when he was buried, on the 22nd. I told it to my aunt and she loved it.’
Antonia sighed. ‘I always go for the complicated.’
‘Well, your novel manages to combine both, a complicated plot and a trick that is wonderfully simple. It was such fun to read. Few people write stories like yours nowadays.’
‘Thank you for saying so, but I am sure you are wrong. Lots of people write better than me.’
‘I am not wrong. I am fed up with pretentious bores. Baronesses with missions who shall remain nameless.’
Antonia didn’t think it right to ask him to elaborate. How he managed to read so much she had no idea. She had imagined that all his energies would be channelled into the management of his Suffolk farm and the indoor cricket school he had established, which, he had told her, attracted teams from all over England to its six-a-side tournaments and other events. Besides, there were the social dos – dinner parties, polo tournaments – she imagined he’d be in great demand – amazing he hadn’t been snapped up yet – what had his late wife been like?
He was talking. ‘… and, really, your sentences are a joy to read.’
‘Don’t be idiotic.’
‘Do you know who said, “I like sentences that don’t budge though armies cross them”?’
Antonia was aware that he was looking down at her hands and she put them on her lap. ‘Monty?’ she suggested flippantly.
‘Virginia Woolf actually… So what’s your puzzle about?’ Major Payne twisted his head slightly to one side and screwed up his eyes at one of the sheets on the desk. ‘Lawrence Dufrette has the reputation of a maverick and is considered something of a loose cannon. I can read upside down, you see,’ he explained. ‘They taught us how to do it in the Secret Service. That was a longish while ago, but I haven’t yet lost the knack. Wait a minute.’ He tapped the sheet with a forefinger. ‘I used to know a Lawrence Dufrette. Must be the same chap. Name like that. Tall and stately – beak of a nose – wild glare. Like Wellington on amphetamines – or Heseltine, sans le nez, on speed?’
‘Yes.’ Antonia laughed.
‘Fancy. It’s a small world. Well, he’s written a book that’s totally bizarre. Under a pen name. I read the review in Fortean Times first – I do read an awful lot of tosh, mind. The reviewer gave away Dufrette’s real name, so I went and got hold of the book. I was curious. Needless to say it wasn’t reviewed anywhere else.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it is too bizarre.’
‘In what way bizarre? What is it about?’
Major Payne stroked his jaw with a forefinger. ‘Well, his theory is that the same interconnected bloodlines – the so-called Babylonian brotherhood – have controlled and dominated our planet for thousands of years. The President of the United States and members of the British royal family are part of it – many other world leaders as well. Mind-controlled human robots are used to pass messages between people outside the normal channels. The communications are dictated under a form of hypnosis brought about by means of a high voltage gun, which lowers blood sugar levels and makes the person more open to suggestion. It isn’t science fiction, but the history of the world according to Lawrence Dufrette. He claims in the introduction that he has researched the subject extensively.’
‘I wonder if he became completely deranged after Sonya’s death,’ Antonia said thoughtfully The next moment she cried, ‘Oh – he does list the Babylonian brotherhood in Who’s Who as one of his interests!’
‘That was his daughter, wasn’t it? Sonya. There was something wrong with her, correct?’
‘Yes. They thought she was autistic.’
‘She drowned, didn’t she?’
‘That was the verdict.’
He looked at her. ‘How well do you know Dufrette?’
‘We stayed at the same house twenty years ago. I thought I saw him yesterday – twice. Once outside White’s, then here, in the library. Sounds incredible, doesn’t it, but he seems to haunt me. I hope I am not going mad.‘
‘There is a definite link between madness and creativity,’ Payne said in grave tones. ‘It’s been scientifically proven. Writers are at a particular risk.’
‘Oh, thank you for warning me… Where did you meet Lawrence Dufrette?’
‘We were in the Secret Service together. Different departments. I had just joined. He. wasn’t at all popular. Had no friends, apart from old Mortlock, who was already on his way out. Mortlock had been to school with Dufrette pere… Lawrence Dufrette was abrasive, contemptuous and critical of everything and everybody. And that wasn’t a front concealing any cavernous uncertainties – he did genuinely believe he was better than everybody else.’
‘That was very much the impression he gave when I knew him.’
‘I do remember the first time I saw him. I went into his office to borrow a file. He was sitting at his desk, very still, staring straight ahead, his patrician profile tilted ever so slightly upward, as if he were listening to celestial harps lesser mortals couldn’t hear.’ Payne laughed. He looks ten years younger when he laughs, Antonia thought. ‘Then he saw me and looked enormously put out. His face twisted demoniacally… Apparently he had a great appetite for byzantine dealings and he engaged in elaborate plotting to eliminate his enemies
‘Do you know a Major Nagle?’ Antonia interrupted.
‘Nagle? I believe I have heard the name, but no, I don’t know him. I think he left the service altogether. I may be wrong… In what way is Nagle important?’
‘He was one of Dufrette’s enemies.’
‘Really? How interesting… Did you get on well with Dufrette? I do hope he was decent to you?’
‘As a matter of fact he was. When his daughter disappeared – presumed drowned in the river – his wife Lena became hysterical. She suggested it had been my fault, but he said nothing – nothing at all. When I told him how sorry I was, he shook my hand… I was there, you see, when it happened.’
‘What’s the puzzle exactly?’
‘I believe there is something wrong somewhere in my account of the events leading to Sonya’s drowning. I can’t say what it is but I know it’s there…’
There was a pause. ‘Do you think she was murdered?’ he asked.
Antonia blinked. ‘I don’t know. I have all sorts of ideas. Some really far-fetched ones. My suspicions keep shifting. A moment ago I even thought Lady Mortlock’s interest in eugenics might have had something to do with it!’
‘Elimination of the mental defectives, eh?’
‘That sort of thing, yes. Very silly, really. Out of the question. I don’t think Lady Mortlock cared for Sonya, but then she didn’t like children. She’d never had any.’ Antonia pushed the folder towards him slightly. ‘I’d be glad of your opinion. Do you think you could…’
Major Payne said with great alacrity that he would be delighted to read what she had written. He had le gout du policier, he was terribly clever at noticing things, but he had never before been involved in a real-life mystery. He could start now, couldn’t he?
‘I’ll order some coffee for you, shall I?’
‘Please do. They make damned good coffee here.’ Picking up the folder and without another word, he went up to one of the high-backed armchairs beside the fireplace and sat down. Antonia watched him take out his pipe, a straight-stemmed briar, which he proceeded to fill with tobacco from a leather pouch. He struck a match, puffed away and opened the folder.
The Sherlock Holmes touch. Le gout du policier. They both shared it. This is not a game, she reminded herself.