‘Did you pay him off?’ Antonia asked.
‘I did. Yes.’ Veronica spoke in a toneless voice.
‘Won’t he bother you again?’
‘I don’t think so. Sonya’s dead now. There would be no point.’ Veronica paused. ‘You should have seen him that day, respectability personified, with his navy-blue blazer and bowler hat and polished boots… I was extremely polite. I even gave him a drink. No, he won’t come again. Nagle qua menace is – what was that silly phrase Sir Michael used to quote? A spent egg?’ She laughed. It was a musical kind of laugh. ‘Is that Wodehouse? No, Major Nagle won’t come a second time… Are you sure Lawrence won’t decide to pay me another visit?’
‘He won’t. He admitted he wouldn’t have been able to cope with Sonya as well as you. He is a very strange man… He lost Sonya twice, it suddenly occurred to him. Once twenty years ago, the second earlier today. He didn’t recognize her at once, you see, and it gave him a shock when he did.’
‘Yes. Terribly sad. Lawrence did love her. I know.’ Veronica took a sip of whisky. ‘Of course you realize that she wasn’t his daughter?’
Antonia stared at her. ‘Sonya wasn’t his daughter?’
‘No. She had brown eyes. Both Lawrence and Lena have blue eyes. Blue-eyed people can’t produce a brown-eyed child, though a brown-eyed father and a blue-eyed mother can. I remember reading about it after we took Sonya. Anatole and I too have blue eyes. I was worried that someone might notice. Of course no one did. People don’t usually – unless they are scientists or something.’
‘Sir Michael,’ Antonia whispered. ‘Was Sir Michael Sonya’s father?’
‘As a matter of fact he was. Lena and he had an affair. It went on for some years, apparently. Lena told me about it. Michael was mad about her, she said. Lawrence had no idea – neither did Hermione for that matter. Lena believes Lawrence is sterile, though he was always too proud to go and have a test.’
There was a pause. ‘How did Sonya die?’ asked Antonia.
‘She…’ Veronica’s eyes narrowed again. ‘She emptied a bottle of pills into her mouth. She thought they were mints. We had no idea – until it was too late. I found the empty bottle. It happened between the nurses’ shifts. She had been in bed, pretending to be asleep. That was why we had relaxed our vigil. Sonya was cunning… She then managed to run out of the house. We had no idea where she’d gone. We kept looking for her. She knew she had done something very wrong, you see. We couldn’t find her. When we did, it was too late. She had swallowed some pretty powerful sleeping stuff. Zolpicone. Apparently she collapsed where you found her… Lawrence had already appeared on the scene… Then there was you.’
Another pause.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Antonia asked.
‘I believe the ambulance has already been called. They’ll be here any moment. Do we need to inform the police as well?’ Veronica opened her eyes wide. Deep circles of red burned on her cheeks and suddenly she looked young and beautiful again. ‘I mean, it was, after all, only a tragic accident?’
‘I think you’ll have to call the police, yes.’
‘Oh dear… Poor Sonya. It was an awful thing to happen, but it’s better for her to go that way, don’t you think? It wasn’t much of a life. It would have broken my heart to see her being led away in a straitjacket… That must be the ambulance.’ Veronica Vorodin looked up as a car was heard drawing up outside. ‘I do hope you stay on a bit longer, Mrs Rushton. May I call you Antonia? You must call me Veronica
… Actually, I’d like to ask you to do something for me… Do you mind? We have very little time…’
27
The Asprey’s Cigarette Case
Three days later, Antonia was entertaining Major Payne to dinner at her house and she told him the whole story.
‘I’ll never forgive myself for missing the denouement,’ he said as he watched her pour out coffee from her new and rather superior coffee-maker. ‘What a remarkable woman… What did you tell the police exactly?’
‘Nothing much, apart from how and where I had found the body. Veronica introduced me as one of her oldest and dearest chums, you see. I explained that I’d been on my way to the house, on a visit… Veronica does seem to have the extraordinary knack of bending people to her own will, to get them to do what she wants. I said I’d known Sonya as a little girl and confirmed that she had been extremely ill. Veronica had all the necessary papers. Funnily enough they had gone on calling her Sonya. No one made a connection between the psychotic young woman whose death was clearly a tragic misadventure and the disappearance of the little girl from that same house twenty years ago. The policemen were all rather young… I hope I did right.’
As distant thunder signalled the end of the heat wave, Major Payne said, ‘You think she killed her, don’t you?’
‘I do. I believe it was a case of mercy killing. Veronica couldn’t bear to watch Sonya’s misery. She said so in that letter. I believe she made up the story about Sonya’s fondness for mints and how she’d put pills and suchlike in her mouth. It’s all too neat. You probably think it’s my imagination again?’ She paused. ‘There was also the way her eyes narrowed when she told me what Sonya had done… She had a certain look. Not ruthless exactly – I can’t quite explain it.’ Antonia frowned. It had occurred to her that she had surprised that same look on Veronica’s face not once but twice…
Major Payne produced his pipe. ‘Well, Veronica Vorodin is a Yusupov on her mother’s side. She and Lena are cousins. Prince Yusupov first tried to kill Rasputin with poison, remember? He put cyanide in the cakes, and it was only when it didn’t work that he shot him. What I mean is, poison was his first choice. It’s probably all rot, but I suppose it can be argued that it’s in her blood? Veronica is descended from a poisoner… It would have been easy for her to crush a lethal dose of sleeping pills, slip them in a drink and give it to Sonya – ’
‘Wait a minute,’ Antonia interrupted. ‘Drink… Oh my God. Hugh, she is a poisoner all right. She did it twice.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She killed Major Nagle too.’
‘What?’
‘That’s when her eyes narrowed and she got that same look. She said, “I gave him a drink. No, he won’t come again.” It ties up with several other things. Nagle’s disappeared – no one knows where he is. And he was wearing a blazer when he paid Veronica his second visit!’
Payne stroked his jaw with a forefinger. ‘The blazer button you found in the garden? Beside the Edwardian game larder, did you say?’
‘Yes. The button had been there for some time. It was a bit rusty. The game larder’s covered in some creeper plant. I did have a funny feeling when I saw it. Thought it looked like a shrine.’
‘You think that’s where she put Nagle’s body?’
‘Yes. And if you are still not convinced,’ Antonia went on, her eyes very bright, ‘there’s the Asprey’s cigarette case on Veronica’s mantelpiece. It has Major Nagle’s initials on it. T.N. Tommy Nagle.’
‘Crikey,’ Payne said. ‘It must have fallen out of his pocket when
…’
Antonia nodded. ‘She kept it.’
After a pause, Major Payne cleared his throat. ‘Do you think we could go to Twiston again? Just the two of us? You said that Veronica would be going abroad soon. We could sneak into the garden and see what’s in that game larder. Then we’d know – um – beyond any reasonable doubt? We don’t have to involve the police…’
Antonia nodded again.