‘It’s number thirty-eight, Bloomfield Terrace, Pimlico.’
‘That’s right, sir. Thirty-eight, Bloomfield Terrace …’ His smile froze and his confidence died instantly. ‘How on earth do you know?’
‘Colbeck sent me a telegraph with the details.’
‘But I had to spend ages finding the place.’
‘All you found was something we already know. Now, then,’ said Tallis, reaching for a cigar. ‘Since you were so certain that you’d collect vital evidence from the young lady, tell me what you actually discovered.’ He lit the cigar, had a few puffs to make sure that it was fully alight then issued a grim challenge. ‘Come on, man. Impress me.’
Leeming could hear the firing squad shuffling into position.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Stanley Quayle was in a vile mood. The first person to feel the lash of his tongue was John Cleary, the coachman. They were outside the stables and Quayle’s voice echoed around the yard.
‘Whatever did you think you were doing?’ he demanded.
‘Mrs Quayle asked to be taken for a drive, sir.’
‘My mother is ill. She needs complete rest. The doctor advised that she remain in bed until further notice. The last thing she should be doing is leaving the house.’
‘I only did what I was told, sir,’ said the other, politely.
‘You should have talked to me first.’
‘You were not here, Mr Quayle.’
‘Then you should have sought my brother.’
‘Your mother was very insistent, sir. She’s always enjoyed being taken for a drive in the country, and the weather was warm.’
‘This is nothing to do with the weather,’ shouted Quayle. ‘It’s to do with my mother’s health. She’s very poorly and coping badly with her bereavement. If you’d had any sense, you’d have realised that. You should have refused to take her.’
‘That would only have upset Mrs Quayle.’
‘It’s what you should have done, Cleary.’
He continued to berate the coachman. Everyone within earshot felt sorry for Cleary but the man himself withstood the onslaught with relative equanimity. The fact that the coachman remained so calm under fire only enraged Stanley Quayle even more and he threatened to dismiss the man.
‘I was employed by your father, sir,’ Cleary reminded him. ‘Now that he’s no longer here to give orders, I’m answerable to Mrs Quayle instead.’
‘Damn your insolence!’
After ridding himself of another torrent of bile, Quayle turned away and stormed back into the house. Roused by the first confrontation that evening, he was pulsing with fury as he went off to the second one. When he found his brother in the drawing room, he went straight on the attack.
‘Why, in God’s name, did you let it happen?’
Lucas Quayle shrugged. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Mother is dying in front of us and you let her go gallivanting around the countryside in the landau.’
‘She said that she needed fresh air, Stanley. That seemed to me a very reasonable proposition.’
‘It will have taxed her already waning health.’
‘Only the doctor can decide that,’ said his brother. ‘But I’m told that she looked well enough when she came back. Even Agnes admitted that and she did everything to prevent Mother going out in the first place.’
‘Well, it won’t happen again. I’ve just given Cleary orders to that effect.’
‘You can’t stop Mother going out, Stanley.’
‘It’s in her best interests.’
‘She loves the countryside around here.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Lucas, she’s in mourning!’
‘So are you, for that matter,’ responded his brother, tartly, ‘yet it didn’t stop you traipsing off to one of our coal mines.’
‘Someone had to make the funeral arrangements.’
‘I agree, but you didn’t have to go on to Ilkeston afterwards.’
‘I had things to check up on,’ said the other, angrily, ‘so I won’t be called to account by you. I’m in charge now and that means I make all the decisions. In fact, that’s what I really want to talk about. I had a legitimate reason to go out, Lucas. You didn’t. Agnes tells me that you went to Derby to see Inspector Colbeck.’
‘That’s right,’ said the other, defiantly. ‘I wanted information.’
‘I gave the inspector all the information he required.’
‘That’s nonsense, Stanley. You told him almost nothing and had him out of the house in a matter of minutes. It was absurd. Don’t you want to catch the man who killed our father?’
‘Of course, I do.’
‘Then why didn’t you offer proper assistance to Inspector Colbeck?’
‘I had too many other things to do.’
‘The investigation takes precedence over all of them.’
‘Nothing that’s happened within these four walls has any bearing on the case. That’s why I was not prepared to waste time talking to the police. Above all else,’ he said, sternly, ‘I’m not having our dirty linen washed in public.’
‘Inspector Colbeck is very discreet.’
‘But you aren’t, Lucas. You blurt things out before you realise what you’re doing. You had no cause to leave this house.’
‘I wanted to know what was going on, Stanley. That’s what normal people do. If a loved one is murdered, they want every scrap of information they can get about the police investigation. It’s only natural.’
‘I don’t want strangers prying into things that don’t concern them.’
‘The police need our help,’ Lucas emphasised.
‘Keep away from them.’
‘The inspector said how useful I’d been.’
‘You shouldn’t have been allowed within a mile of him.’
‘Stop giving me orders, Stanley. I’m old enough to make up my own mind about things. Power goes to your head sometimes. It was the same when we played cricket. I told the inspector about it.’
His brother was puce with indignation. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your insistence on being in control,’ said Lucas. ‘You had to captain the team even though people like Burns, Cleary and me were much better players. You went round bawling commands at us as if you really knew what you were doing.’
‘I did know, Lucas. That’s why we always won the matches.’
‘Gerard Burns was the real match-winner not Stanley Quayle.’
‘Captaincy was the deciding factor. I set the field and I chose the bowlers.’
‘You also selected yourself as our opening batsman even though you hardly ever got into double figures. That was appalling captaincy.’
The row escalated at once and the brothers stood toe to toe, exchanging insults. Though they talked about cricket, they were really arguing about the lifelong tension and inequality between them. Stanley Quayle became more and more like his father, cold, authoritative and uncompromising, while his brother regressed into the rebel he’d been in his younger days. All of the old dissension between them came to the surface. They were still trading accusations when their sister came into the room.
‘Whatever’s going on?’ she asked in alarm. ‘I could hear you upstairs.’
Sobered by her intervention, Lucas apologised to her but Stanley Quayle was determined to shift any blame from himself. He claimed that his brother had let the whole family down by talking to Colbeck. At a time as fraught as the present one, the one thing they had to guard was their privacy. It was deplorable, he said, that the police were allowed to peer into their lives and learn about their past upheavals. Agnes agreed that it had been a mistake for her younger brother to go to Derby but he defended himself vigorously.
‘I learnt things of importance to us,’ he asserted.
‘You should have stayed here to mourn Father,’ said Agnes.
‘I prefer to help in the search for his killer.’
‘What could you say that would have been of any help?’
‘I talked about Lydia, for a start.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ railed his brother. ‘There was absolutely no need to open that Pandora’s box. It should have been left firmly closed.’