housemaster was far from that. He was charming, handsome still in middle age, attentive to his aunt and to their unexpected guest.
Orlando simply announced to the butler that he was here on behalf of Mr. Collingwood and left the
rest to speculation. Rhodes welcomed him in, offering tea and chatting as if they were old friends, then letting the old lady act as hostess, something which she obviously relished.
Lessons in Power
The conversation flowed with relative ease, the only uncomfortable moment being when the
chatelaine started, out of the blue, to relate an encounter she’d had with a ghost, a tale which appeared to unnerve Rhodes, possibly because it demonstrated his elderly relative’s slightly tenuous grasp of reality.
He invited his guest into his study, “So that we may discuss business, Aunt,” ushered the man into a
comfortable chair then sat at his desk, smiling with great charm. If Orlando hadn’t known the whole sordid truth, this façade would have taken him in—no wonder Rhodes had got away with things so easily.
“I’m here to see if you can be of help regarding the tragic murders of two of your old pupils,” Orlando began, more civilly than he felt.
“Lord Christopher Jardine and the Honourable Timothy Taylor? If there is anything I can do to help
bring their murderers—or perhaps murderer, single, I might infer from your tone—to justice, I would be honoured so to do.”
“Then you might begin by answering me a question. Where were you on the morning of Sunday the
tenth of March?”
“I was here.” Rhodes’s sweeping gesture seemed to take in the whole estate. “My aunt will verify
that. As she wasn’t well enough to go to church, I stayed with her. I won’t ask you why you need to know the answer. I have read about the detective exploits of Dr. Coppersmith and Dr. Stewart.”
Orlando bridled at the blatant mention of Jonty’s name, but still made a mental note to check all the train timetables, to see how quickly a trip to London and back could have been made on the Sunday
morning Taylor was killed. He didn’t think there was any point in talking to Auntie. She appeared to be having a few problems remembering what had happened ten minutes since, let alone a week or more.
“And had you seen Mr. Taylor at all, recently?” Orlando produced an impressive-looking notepad and
pen, unscrewing the lid of the latter in a theatrical manner as he prepared to make observations. It diverted his immediate thoughts away from those concerning Rhodes’s nose and contact with
his
fist.
“I have, on the Saturday evening, the day before his murder. He’d rung me in the afternoon as he had
things he wished to discuss. Now don’t look so surprised, Dr. Coppersmith—there are certain of my ex-
pupils with whom I have kept in fairly constant contact, offering an avuncular ear when required. Taylor was one.” Rhodes smiled, looking just like a kindly uncle.
“How often did you speak with him?” Orlando forced the words out.
“Not often. We usually corresponded, both of us being fonder of the pen than this contraption.”
Rhodes indicated the phone. “And we don’t have the opportunity to meet face-to-face as often as we might wish.”
Orlando felt sick. This man was so smooth, so plausible, he couldn’t work out whether any of what
Rhodes said was true or just a fabrication. Or some clever mixture of the two. He fiddled with his pen again, took in some of the surroundings. Nothing seemed of particular significance, except for a picture on
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Charlie Cochrane
the desk of a young blond-haired man, not unhandsome, who might just have been a distant Stewart cousin.
Orlando focussed on the matter in hand. “And what did he want to talk about?”
“He was having a crisis of conscience about something which had happened in his youth. I hope you
won’t ask me to divulge the nature of his problem, as it was told to me entirely in confidence.” Rhodes smiled again, exuding the air of some wise Old Testament judge, at which point Orlando decided that he really did want to murder him. He could guess what the conversation with Taylor had been about and that his and Jonty’s visit had prompted the call. Assuming Rhodes was telling the truth.
“You would tell the police, of course, should they feel it necessary to come and speak to you, as I
shall suggest they do.”
“I would tell the police everything they wanted to know. Like you, Dr. Coppersmith, I know what my
duty is.”
Orlando dragged his thoughts away from blunt instruments and the skulls of smarmy men. “Was his
lordship one of the men with whom you kept in touch?”
“Not as much as I did with Taylor, but we did correspond occasionally.” For once Rhodes looked a
touch uneasy. “Would you like some more tea, or a glass of something? The sun is well over the yardarm.”
The man smiled, although Orlando knew that he’d sought to change the subject.
“No, thank you. When did you last see Lord Christopher?”
“The night he died, believe it or not. I must have been in the house when he was murdered.” Rhodes
had secured the chink in his armour and he’d adopted his bland, believable face again.
Orlando felt sick once more. He was either getting to the crux of the case or some strange web was
being spun around him, of which he had no understanding. “Are you saying…?”
“Dr. Coppersmith, I’m sure you possess a facility for logic and reasoning. All I’m stating is that I was there, not that I committed the deed.” Rhodes suddenly smiled, his persuasive air returning. “I’m being unfair, let me explain. I had arrived at the house earlier. His lordship wanted to discuss a matter related to the one Taylor later wanted to talk to me about. I understand they’d already had words over it. I assume you know that?”
Against his will, Orlando found himself nodding and being compliant—he recognised he was losing
control of this interview and wasn’t sure how to regain what Jonty, when he’d been reading Marryat, called
‘the weather gage’
.
“Then why did the servants not remember you being there?”
“You are, I’m sure, a man of the world, Dr. Coppersmith. Much more than I am, with my sheltered
background and quiet existence.”
I’ll kill him now and make it look like his aunt was responsible
.
“You will therefore understand how Lord Christopher valued his privacy. His general rule, or so he
told me, was to let all his guests in and out himself after dark. Not a normal practice for a gentleman but 74
Lessons in Power
that was his whim. So I was not seen by the domestic servants, nor was the other visitor, who came after me.”
“And did
you
see this other caller?” Orlando had decided that a knife would be too messy, bare hands too time consuming and making the man choke on his own teeth satisfying but not easy to pin on Auntie.
“Alas, no, or I could have provided the police with a description. His lordship made me retire to the library while he entertained this other individual. Now here’s a conundrum for you. When I entered the house Jardine was alive and when I left it he was dead, yet I wasn’t aware that this person or persons unknown had committed the deed.”
Orlando fixed his enemy with a steely glare. “I don’t wish to deal with conundrums, Mr. Rhodes.
Please make yourself plain.”
“I have teased you, sir, quite wrongly in so serious a case. I was talking to Christopher…”
Orlando noticed the slip into familiarity that suggested, along with the other signs, that Rhodes hadn’t been entirely candid about the extent to which he knew Jardine.
“…when the door was knocked, and knocked very forcefully, I may add. His lordship at this point
asked me to step into the library for a while, this room being on the other side of the hall from his drawing room. I waited there for the best part of an hour. There was plenty to read and keep myself occupied with. I believed I then heard the front door open and close, so prepared myself to be readmitted to my former pupil’s presence. It did not happen. Eventually I simply let myself out.”
“You didn’t go and say goodbye to your host?”
“Dr. Coppersmith, as we said before, my host—as you call him—was a man of the world. He often
had visitors in the evening who didn’t take their leave until the morning. Not all of them were close friends nor did they use the guest apartments.” As Rhodes spoke there was the merest hint of some emotion lurking beneath the smooth veneer. “You can imagine I would have assumed this is what had happened, so I felt discretion was called for. In any case we had said all we needed to.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know Jardine well? How can you be aware of so much intimate detail
about his life?”
“I do not believe I said that at all, Dr. Coppersmith. You can verify it in your notes.”
Orlando coloured, bridled—Rhodes had caught him out there. The great, gaping void at his side, the
lack of his lover to help and support him, ached. It was a terrible shock to realise he could no longer function alone as efficiently as he’d done for so long before Jonty had burst into his life. He tapped his notes, ploughed on. “Then how did you know he was dead when you left? That’s the crux of the
conundrum you stated, is it not?”
Rhodes seemed unperturbed at being questioned so intensely. “As I returned to the station I was
passed by a policeman cycling up to the house. I now assume he’d been summoned when the butler found
the body. Certainly the details in the newspaper support this assumption.”
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“And why didn’t you tell the police about this second visitor?”
“I am ashamed to admit that I was scared. I feared they would hear me confess that I was in the house and presuppose—as you have not, I take it, being a man who would rely on proof—I was the culprit.
Besides, what could I say? I had only heard the door. I had no evidence from my own two eyes of whether it was even a male or female visitor. It would make my own story appear even more counterfeit.”
Orlando contemplated long and hard, until he was sure he detected another sign of Rhodes’s unease,
although that might simply have been a matter of genuine social discomfort at the long delay in the
conversation. His mind was whirling. He knew the truth about what this man had done to Jonty and how he had covered his tracks efficiently. Rhodes must be adept at spinning a yarn, embroidering a tale, making himself appear as credible as possible. Was he employing such techniques now? Orlando simply couldn’t tell, and he regretted again that Jonty wasn’t by his side.
He
might well have seen through the outer façade of reason and into the cold heart of the monster. “Is everything you have told me the truth?” It was a feeble assay and Orlando knew it.
“It is, Dr. Coppersmith. Not a word of a lie.”
“So you went to see Rhodes. Without me. I knew it,” Jonty snapped, awash with anger. “All that
nonsense about a mathematical meeting—I guessed where you’d gone, I just didn’t admit it to myself.”
“I didn’t want you hurt any more. Not after seeing what you were like when Wilson and Cohen were
here. Anyway, you went to see Kermode without telling me.” Orlando knew he’d handled this all wrong.
Even when he’d shared his knowledge about Rhodes being in Jardine’s house it had only provoked more
annoyance. Though whether that had been partly because it scuppered Jonty’s lovely theory about Taylor, he couldn’t be sure. Attack now seemed his only way of defence.
“It’s not the same case at all. Kermode wasn’t one of my
bêtes noires
. He was just a source of information.”
“But you kept it all a secret. Why?”
“Don’t try to change the subject and pin things on me, Orlando bloody Coppersmith. I’m not some
poor maiden in a children’s adventure who needs to be cosseted and sheltered. I can fight my own battles.”
Jonty certainly looked at that moment as if he’d never known fear or doubt. It would have been awe-
inspiring had Orlando not known the truth.
“I only thought…”
“You think too much. Leave off.” Jonty flapped away the hand that reached to touch him, then
stormed from the room.
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Lessons in Power
Orlando began to follow but thought better of it. One had to let Jonty have at least three-and-a-half minutes to calm down before it was worth broaching anything. Then one could go, spy on him and decide the next piece of strategy.
Orlando watched his lover stomping around the garden, kicking at stones and muttering to himself. He
could think of no words to broach the situation or bring about a rapprochement. He’d made an error of judgement with Rhodes and now he was paying for it. Whatever he tried, he’d have to be canny about it.
As Jonty scuffed though the wet grass and launched a snail shell through the air with the toe of his
boot, he suddenly felt an express train hit him between the shoulders. Or more precisely it hit him around the waist, taking him down in one of the most effective rugby tackles he’d ever undergone.
“Orlando, what the hell…” His words were stifled as he was kissed roughly and had his arms pinned
down on the lawn.
“I won’t let you up until I’m forgiven.” Orlando kissed him again, and again, until Jonty started to
giggle.
“You are so unfair. You know that you can’t come and reason things out with me so you resort to
dirty tactics. I always end up laughing and then I can’t be angry with you.”
“Say I’m forgiven.” Orlando looked like a spaniel that had been chastised over a stolen piece of meat.
“Kiss me again.”
“Not till you say I’m forgiven.” The spaniel’s ears drooped.
“That’s changing the tactics halfway through. Fine, I forgive you, Orlando, only do let me up, my