‘George’s George had a George to go with Philip’s George – these are second cousins, now, same generation as Balfour’s grandfather although older since the original daughter married her Pollard very young – and between them they had a pair of Philips and a pair of Jameses too, and every James and Philip and George in time had a George of his own. Making six George Pollards in total who could all be called cousins of Philip Balfour. They’re every age between seventy and forty-five. All married, none dead yet as far as I can tell.’ He threw the paper down. ‘I’m used to facts being a help to me,’ he said. ‘I can’t be doing with this – it’s like a comic operetta.’
‘And what about the next generation?’ I said. ‘Surely six married Georges must have had some sons.’
‘They did,’ said Hardy. ‘Three. Including two Georges.’
‘Just two?’ I said. ‘The great days of Georges are over then. Don’t you count these as cousins? What would they be? Third cousins? Or cousins twice removed? I never know the difference, do you?’
‘Oh, I’d have to count them all right,’ said Hardy, ‘but they’re dead. The war. There are no more Georges to bring yet more Georges now unless one of them remarries and starts again. I tell you, I’m sick of the lot.’
‘And how did you find all this out since yesterday?’ I said. ‘It’s miraculous when your men are so stretched.’ I looked around at the tall cases of leather-bound books. ‘Is there a family history?’ I asked. ‘Is it all set out in one of these volumes here?’
Hardy looked up very sharply at the bookcase behind his head.
‘By God, there’d better not be,’ he said. ‘I found out by telephoning to my sister-in-law in St John’s Wood and sending her in to Somerset House to do my work for me. I’ll never hear the end of it.’
‘She must be a remarkable scholar,’ I said. ‘I always thought it took weeks of toil and wheedling of the porters to trace back as much as all that.’
‘I had her sworn in,’ Hardy said. ‘She’s now a special constable of the London Constabulary, Northern Division. So she got the curators or whatever you call them to hop to it and got the job done. She’ll probably refuse to turn in her armband ever again. She’s one of these new women. Well, I beg your pardon, for you’re probably one yourself. But I can just see her out on the street tonight, boxing strikers’ ears and telling them to go home to their beds.’
‘She sounds like Great Aunt Gertrude,’ I said. ‘Have you met that lady, Superintendent?’
Hardy nodded and crossed his arms – an involuntary attempt to defend himself against her, I thought.
‘You know she’s offered Mrs Balfour a home?’ I said. ‘We have to overturn this will.’
Hardy, with a determined glint in his dark eyes, gave the sharp single nod I had come to know, but then immediately after it he groaned.
‘Back to the Georges, then,’ he said.
‘I would bet that all of them have sound alibis,’ I said. ‘Having a George Pollard – no current address – named in the will when there are so many of them to choose from sounds exactly like Pip Balfour. Like one of the horrid little jokes he played on his wife.’
‘And everyone else,’ said Hardy.
I took a deep breath. This was going to take some explaining, and Hardy was not going to like it.
‘No, Superintendent,’ I said. ‘Not everyone else. Not anyone else. Listen to what I worked out this afternoon.’ To his credit, he did, clearing up the mess of papers on the desk as I talked, saying nothing, taking no notes, just nodding now and then. When I had finished he offered me a cigarette, took one himself, lit both and stared at me.
‘So what the devil are they up to?’ he said at last. He sat up and looked around himself, ready to take hold of anyone he could find and shake it out of them. ‘Pretending that a man who’s cruel to his wife is cruel to his servants too, when he’s not. Are they covering for her?’
‘Not all of them. But going by significant looks and general squirming when I told them about Pollard, I’d say the kitchen girls are sitting on some sort of secret. The valet and chauffeur too. And the footman. Not Mrs Hepburn and not the butler. But definitely – most definitely – Mattie, Clara and Phyllis.’
‘Ah, Phyllis,’ said Hardy. ‘Our friend with the bulging purse.’
‘Did you get anywhere with the mystery of the seventeen pounds, by the way?’
‘She denied the whole thing,’ said Hardy. ‘Acted as if the very idea of a pawnshop was beyond her. And I couldn’t pursue it without “blowing your cover”.’ He looked tremendously proud of having delivered this choice morsel of vocabulary. ‘I’m delighted to hear that you think it’s worth me pressing her again.’
‘And Clara too,’ I said.
Mr Hardy rested his cigarette in the ashtray, laced his fingers together, then turned his hands palms outward and flexed them with a series of sharp cracking sounds. ‘I shall press with the greatest pleasure. I don’t like the feeling that someone has got one over on me; it’s not a feeling I’m used to. And’ – he unlaced his fingers and picked his cigarette up again – ‘while I’m not used to having to do everything myself these days – I’ve been a superintendent ten years now – I’m beginning to remember what a good way it is to get things done.’
‘Quite,’ I said, wondering if he knew how terrifying he was when he spoke that way, lips thin and brows lowered. ‘But if you will permit me, I have a plan to press Mattie myself and I’d like to pursue it. I think he might dissolve if one pressed him too abruptly, but I’m going to put him in a vice and turn the handle so slowly he won’t know what’s happening until all of a sudden the truth pops out.’ Mr Hardy looked terribly impressed, as well he might, for such a plan would have been pretty hot stuff, but in reality I was only trying to make sure that he stayed away from Mattie and left him to me. The dissolving was only too likely and, besides, I could not consign that stammer and those dimples to a man whose knuckles cracked in such a fearsome way.
13
‘Mistress says you’re off out again today, Miss Rossiter,’ said Phyllis at breakfast the next morning. It was eight o’clock and, tea trays delivered to Lollie and her aunt, bedroom fires lit, morning room and breakfast room swept and ready, we were gathered around the long table in the servants’ hall for bacon, eggs and ebony tea. Mrs Hepburn was grumbling and apologising in equal measures for the state of the food, which had come from ‘thon useless contraption’ now that the range was cold, but it all tasted the same as ever to me.
‘I am indeed, Phyllis,’ I replied. ‘Mistress has Mrs Lambert-Leslie to attend to her and she’s sending me on an errand.’
‘Aye, but in the wee car though,’ said Phyllis. ‘All right for some.’
‘You’d better not be blacklegging,’ said Harry.
‘And what would Miss Rossiter and mistress be blacklegging?’ said Mr Faulds. ‘You’re tilting at windmills, Harry boy, with this strike. You’re getting a… thingumijig… over it.’
‘Monomania,’ I supplied.
‘That’s the one,’ said Mr Faulds. ‘You’ve a proper head for knowing, Fanny.’
‘But here’s another thing,’ said John. ‘How come you’re getting to drive Goitre’s wee car instead of me taking the Phantom? First I’ve heard of a maid doing that, I can tell you.’
‘Great Aunt Goitre to you, John,’ said Mr Faulds, causing much laughter.
‘I’ll be next,’ said Phyllis. ‘Nothing I’d like more than to tootle away down to Portobello on my free day. Good on you, Miss R.’
‘I’m not driving it myself,’ I said. ‘Mrs Lambert-Leslie’s chauffeur is accompanying me.’
‘Ohhhh,’ said Clara. ‘Great Aunt Goitre’s “chauffeur”. I see.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘It’s always been a free and easy house and no one happier for it than me’ – here she flushed a little – ‘but these things can go too far.’ She gave me a stern look and although she said no more I took her meaning.