He Died with His Eyes Open (6 page)

'What is this?' I said. 'An antique business?'

'It's my husband's private collection,' she said frigidly.

'I wouldn't care to have to pay death-duties on it.'

She didn't like that. She got in front of me and strode carefully into the sitting-room. Hooked round it. There were more sofas there than in any small room I had ever seen—four. There wasn't logically room for anything else; all the same there were more pictures, either landscapes with the shrubbery done like overcooked sprouts or with that military flavour again. Also, eight small piecrust tables crouched under the weight of heavy shaded lamps, figurines, silver ashtrays and beaded mats meant for standing drinks on. Sombre curtains half shrouded the windows and were looped back with silk ropes. It was much too hot in there.

Now I could take Mrs Staniland in. She was not attractive. She took no care of her skin, which resented it in the form of wrinkles. Also she had no bottom, and was flat all over like a playing card. Her gravy-coloured tweed suit did nothing for her, and she did nothing for it back. She had a nice string of pearls on, but they only emphasized the fact that she had no bust. Now that she had got over the shock of the word 'police', she spoke in a harsh, upper-class voice, some of it copied. Once she tried smiling, but it didn't get very far.

'What is this about?'

'I'd rather tell Mr Staniland that, if you don't mind.'

'I see. I'll go and get him, then. Wait here, please.' She began swinging her skirts grimly towards the door.

'Just a minute,' I said. 'Would you mind my asking where all this gear comes from?'

She gazed at me as if I were something that shouldn't have been on the carpet (a Shiraz, I noted automatically).

'Most of it was in my husband's family. He inherited it.'

'They must have needed a castle to house this lot.'

'They had one.'

Well, she had got me there.

'I can assure you it wasn't stolen,' she add viciously, 'if that's what you were getting at.'

'I wasn't,' I said. 'It just makes rather a contrast with your brother-in-law's life-style, that's all.'

'Oh, God,' she groaned, 'you haven't come about him, have you?' She added: 'You know, I had a feeling. Well? What has he done now?'

'If you'd like to fetch Mr Staniland for me,' I said, 'you'll find out.'

'He's collating some incunabula upstairs.'

'Ask him to come down, please.'

She started to leave, reluctantly.

'It's all right, I won't whizz anything,' I said.

She slammed the door on me. While she was gone I gazed at the seven clocks in there with me. One had a little pendulum that jumped up and down; another hiccoughed when it got to the half hour but couldn't chime. I wished they would upgrade our wages so that I could buy some decent clothes; I would have looked slightly less out of place.

Somewhere upstairs I could hear two voices going vigorously in counterpoint; the sound was followed after a while by the sound of four feet galloping energetically down-stairs. Then the door flew open and Grampian came in rubbing his hands, also wearing a tweed suit—a well-cut one, two hundred and fifty pounds' worth from Savile Row.

'Good evening to you,' he boomed heartily. 'My wife tells me you've come about my brother Charles. Well? What has he been up to this time?'

'Well, he's gone and died,' I said.

That put an end to the heartiness; there was a sudden silence in the stuffy little room.

'Died?' repeated Grampian. 'Good God, whatever of?'

'Of repeated blows from a builder's hammer. He was beaten to death.'

'Who by?'

'That's what I'm trying to find out.'

After a while Grampian said: 'I very much doubt if we can be of any help to you. There was very little contact between Charles and ourselves, you know.'

'Really? Well, I have to follow up every lead.'

'Of course you do. Of course.'

'Anyway' said Mrs Staniland in a brittle voice, 'he was definitely murdered, was he?'

'Oh, yes,' I said. 'We're quite sure about that.'

'Perhaps you could be more explicit,' said Mrs Staniland.

'He just has been,' said Grampian.

'Well, it wasn't an accident,' I said. 'He didn't fall or get run over by a passing car. He wasn't killed where he was found, either. He was found one side of London and he lived on the other'

'He could have had business where he was found.'

'Most unlikely. Besides, there was hardly any blood under the body' I produced the photograph I had shown the governor of the Agincourt. 'A bit of a mess, isn't he?'

Grampian took a quick look at it, belched, put a hand to his mouth and said, turning white: 'Please put it away.'

'What exactly were your relations with your brother?'

'Well, hum,' said Grampian, rubbing his hands together, 'few and far between.'

'The further between the better, in fact,' said Mrs Staniland.

'I see. Why was that?'

'Money,' they replied simultaneously.

'He was often asking you for it?'

'Well, he'd have done it even more often if we'd given him the chance,' said Mrs Staniland acidly.

'I assume, though,' I said, gesturing around me, 'that when you inherited all this, er, stuff here, your brother must have been left something too?'

'That's a private matter, I'm afraid.'

'Nothing's private to me,' I said flatly.

A silence fell.

'I wonder if we oughtn't perhaps to ring our solicitor, Grampian,' said Mrs Staniland suddenly, 'if this interview is going to turn awkward?'

'I wouldn't bother him at this stage if I were you,' I said. 'I haven't bitten you yet.'

'No, quite,' said Grampian. He said to his wife: 'I honestly don't see the need, Betty.'

'I just don't like answering questions like these without expert advice,' she snapped. 'That's all.'

'Well, no solicitor on earth can prevent me putting the questions to you,' I said.

'Of course not,' said Grampian. 'It would be fifty pounds simply thrown down the drain, Betty. You must see that. In any case,' he said to me, 'there's absolutely no way we can be implicated in my poor brother's death, don't you see?'

'All right,' I said, 'well, let's pick up the thread again, then. When you inherited, your brother inherited.'

'More than I did, too. He was the elder.'

'So he was quite rich at one stage.'

'Oh, not badly off at all, not at all. Even after duty had been paid. Property, mostly. He had some nice things, too.'

'You're in the antique trade?'

'Oh, I don't know about trade, exactly. I dabble in objects, buy and sell occasionally, invest in certain painters and manuscripts a little, yes.'

'What happened to your brother's property?' I said. 'Where did it go? He hadn't a light when he died, as far as we can make out.'

'Well, it's, er, all quite complicated,' said Grampian. He cleared his throat, twice. 'But actually I've got it, you see.'

'Perhaps you wouldn't mind enlarging on that.' I suddenly understood why Grampian's house was so full of things.

'Well, the trouble with Charles,' said Grampian, 'was that he was always roaming about. Never bought a house. Hated settling down. Never had much idea about money, never had any money. So, well, I put it to him-—'

'You offered him cash for the lot.'

'That's right,' he grumbled, 'and the hell of a business I had raising it like that in a hurry, too. What with sky-high interest rates—'

'How long ago was this?'

'Oh, I don't know, must be five years or so, I suppose.'

'What was the sum involved?'

He huffed and puffed. 'Oh, pretty hard to remember now, at this distance in time,' he boomed, blowing through his purplish lips.

'Have a go,' I said drily.

He sucked in air judiciously. 'Well—shall we say in the region of thirty thousand pounds?'

I realized instantly that Staniland had been badly cheated. I knew that from what I had seen in this place. But to cheat someone in that way unfortunately isn't an indictable crime, and even less so between brothers.

'What happened to the money?'

'How should I know?'

'What we do know,' Mrs Staniland interrupted, 'is that it went.'

'But you don't know how'

'That's right.'

'And then he started trying to borrow money from you?'

'Yes, after he came back from France.'

'And how long ago was that?'

'Oh, about two years. After his wife and daughter had left him.'

'Anyway, you neither of you lent him any money.'

'Grampian had told him all along that it simply wasn't on!' shouted Mrs Staniland.

'We've got our own row to hoe,' said Grampian, 'and making ends meet isn't easy these days, Sergeant.'

I knew that.

'And then to have him coming down on us!' Mrs Staniland's voice trailed indignantly away.

'But he didn't become unpleasant in any way? Threaten you, anything like that?'

'Oh, no,' said Grampian. 'He just rang up sometimes, came round once or twice—'

'Always drunk,' Mrs Staniland put in.

'And asked for a loan?'

'Well, talked round it.'

'Seems normal enough,' I said, 'if you're a brother who's fallen on hard times.'

'He never fell on any other times,' said Mrs Staniland, and snorted like a horse.

'Did you ever help him at all?'

'Well, I tried to advise him, naturally;' said Grampian.

'What sort of advice?'

'Does that really come within your purview, Sergeant?' said Mrs Staniland.

'It certainly does,' I said. 'We're talking about a murder, believe it or not.'

'I hate your manners,' said Mrs Staniland. 'I find them really detestable.'

'The truth's no respecter of drawing-rooms, madam,' I said.

'If I could just resolve the little impasse,' said Grampian, clearing his throat. 'We were talking about advice. I said to Charles, ease up on the sauce, cut back on these harpies you go in for, that sort of thing. If he'd had a few bob to spare, I could have given him some tips on the Stock Exchange, of course, but as it was—'

'If only he hadn't always been so drunk!' said Mrs Staniland.

'There, there, Betty,' sighed Grampian,
'de
mortuis
, etcetera. Poor old Charles.'

I saw how greatly they had both hated, even feared, Staniland; but, like all egoists, they couldn't afford to admit it in case it damaged their own view of themselves, in the eyes of a third person.

'Talking of the dead, by the way,' I said, 'there'll be the funeral, of course, after the inquest.'

'Oh, quite.'

'And the expenses.'

'Yes, but well, that's just the snag,' said Grampian awkwardly, snapping his huge pink fingers.

'I don't see how we could think of coping,' said Mrs Staniland firmly. 'Not financially.'

'Yes, we'll have to see,' said Grampian in a tone which suggested that he already had. 'Incidentally, was there evidence that he was drunk much of the time, not just when he came to see us?'

'Some.'

'Yes, well, that was what I was always warning him about, of course.'

'Quite. But, in talking to him, you must have realized that he had other problems, surely?'

'Other problems?' said Grampian. 'What do you mean? Mental problems? You don't actually mean to say he was mad, do you? Do you? Really, how very interesting!'

'No,' I said, 'I don't mean to say he was mad. Quite the opposite. I just mean there was evidence to show that life had got rather on top of him.'

'We could all of us complain about that,' said Mrs Staniland tardy.

'What evidence, anyway?' said Grampian.

I hadn't read all through Staniland yet, so I just said: 'A good deal, and there's more to come.'

'There's always more to come with someone like my brother-in-law,' said Mrs Staniland bitterly.

'You can't tell me, either of you, what he was doing while he was in France at all?'

'I've no idea,' said Grampian. 'Just existing, I should think. Drifting along.'

Just existing. This long, boring London evening, interviewing Staniland's next of kin, suddenly got up my nose. I had an image of Staniland himself, somewhere in the South of France, appearing at his local bistro, hanging over the bar at six o'clock like a thirsty angel.

'Which would be pretty typical of him,' said Mrs Staniland.

'He was living on this money you gave him in consideration of, er, what he sold you?'

'I assume so?

'All right,' I said, 'what about his wife, now?'

'Margo, you mean?' snapped Mrs Staniland. 'Margo was nothing but a tart.'

'Still, I gather she had a daughter by your brother-in-law.'

'Charlotte? Destructive little devil,' said Mrs Staniland. 'The only time she came round here with her mother she broke one of my Delft vases.'

'Oh, well, children do that,' I said. In a flash, I saw my own child, lying asleep and flushed on a spotless white pillow. She would be twelve now.

'They do if you don't watch them,' said Mrs Staniland, 'and give them what-for now and then. Thank God I haven't got any.'

'How did you know your brother-in-law's wife was a tart, by the way?' I said. 'Just by looking at her?'

There was an uneasy silence, during which the pair looked covertly at each other; the sun came and went in slow yellow bursts of hysteria beyond the heavy window curtains. The pendulum of the little clock I had noticed before jumped desperately up and down, like a decoy trying to distract my attention.

'Well, it rather goes back,' said Grampian, clearing his throat, 'to before.'

'Before what?'

'Well.'

Now the silence was really loud. It was like the lull before a first flash of lightning.

'Come on,' I said.

'Well, I met Margo in a club,' said Grampian.

Mrs Staniland exploded: 'She was a whore, just a whore! She worked in night clubs!'

Grampian turned a nasty colour, red and purple. The colours looked all right in a tweed suit but were alarming on a face.

'He's just a poor old goat,' said Mrs Staniland hoarsely, turning away.

'Now, now, Betty old girl!'