Mad About the Boy? (19 page)

Lady Harriet spared him an uninterested glance. ‘No.'

‘We'll need a statement from you,' persisted the Superintendent in a firmer voice.

She looked at him coolly. ‘My good man, you'll get a statement when and if I choose to make one. I shall be in my room. It's next to the one that had the other dead body in it.' She got up and swept up the stairs, leaving a stunned group of men behind her.

‘Whew!' said Ashley at last. ‘She's a cool customer and no mistake. What did she mean by that?'

‘Perhaps Mrs Strachan would elucidate matters for us?' asked Sir Philip.

Mrs Strachan sniffed and put down the handkerchief. ‘It's just Lady Harriet's way, Sir Philip. She always resented my friendship with poor Victor. She never did understand that we were simply friends. Yes, friends.'

‘Friends?' repeated Sir Philip in a dangerous voice.

‘Friends. We were only ever friends.'

‘Friends?' ground out Sir Philip in a glacial tone. ‘What sort of friends?'

Mrs Strachan buried herself in the handkerchief once more. ‘Don't be hor-hor-horrible. How can you dream of such a thing?'

Superintendent Ashley took one look at his incandescent host and decided to intervene. He put a kindly hand on the sobbing woman's shoulder. ‘Now, now, Mrs Strachan, why don't you come along to the gun room with me? We can have a cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.' He steered the still sniffing Mrs Strachan down the hall, pausing to speak to his constable at the door of the garden suite. ‘Organize some tea for us, Bevan.'

The Superintendent escorted Mrs Strachan to the gun room, chatting of strictly neutral topics until the tea arrived. Helping her to sugar, he judged the moment right to start asking questions. ‘Perhaps you can tell me what you were doing this morning?'

‘This morning?' she quavered. ‘Nothing. I decided to go into Stanmore Parry and have lunch there. I don't know this part of the country very well, and I decided to have a look round. And . . . and . . .'

‘Yes?' asked Ashley, sympathetically.

‘I had some money with me, rather a lot of money. I'd mislaid it last night. I thought Lady Harriet's maid had taken it. She's French, you know, and in my opinion she is not at all trustworthy. One thing led to another and there was a bit of a fuss about it.'

Superintendent Ashley thought that ‘a bit of a fuss' was a magnificent understatement contrasted with the screaming row detailed at some length by Sir Philip to him earlier in the day. His face showed nothing but polite interest and, emboldened, Mrs Strachan continued.

‘She does take things, that girl. She's fundamentally dishonest. I never have trusted foreigners. I'm sure she'd moved the money from where it was. Anyway, I thought the best thing to do would be to pay it into the bank.'

‘Where did the money come from, Mrs Strachan?' asked Ashley, gently.

She licked her lips, nervously. ‘I brought it with me.'

He smiled. ‘No. Now where did it really come from?'

She dissolved into sobs again. ‘Victor gave it to me. He was always so kind and generous. And Lady Harriet thought . . . Lady Harriet thought . . .' She was overwhelmed by tears.

Ashley cleared his throat. ‘Did Lady Harriet think you were having an affair?'

There was silence, broken only by the sound of tears. ‘Yes,' Mrs Strachan whispered eventually. ‘She was silly and jealous, but Victor and I were only friends.'

Ashley reserved his opinion about the nature of the friendship and pressed on. ‘What did you do after you'd been to the bank?'

‘I walked round the village, before going to a little tea shop for lunch. It was called the Oasis. I had cod in parsley sauce and a gooseberry tart with custard. After lunch I called into the chemist's for a new toothbrush and some aspirin. I didn't like the look of the weather so I went into another tea shop for an early tea, hoping the rain would blow over. It was quite a nice place. It's called the Golden Rose. It has golden roses on the wallpaper. I had Welsh rarebit and a pot of Ceylon tea and a plate of mixed cakes. Then I got a cab back. I instructed the driver to drop me at the far side of the park because I wanted to walk.'

Ashley's face expressed polite incredulity. ‘You wanted to walk? In this weather?'

‘I had my umbrella. I thought a walk would be nice. And then when I got back in I heard the terrible news and I can't bear it!' The handkerchief was pressed into service once more, but Ashley wasn't being fobbed off.

‘Mrs Strachan, you can't honestly expect me to believe that you fancied a stroll in the worst thunderstorm we've had in months. You were going to meet someone, weren't you? Who was it? Lord Lyvenden?'

‘No, no, it wasn't. I'd rather not say, officer. Why won't you believe me?'

‘Because I . . .'

There was a noise in the corridor outside and he heard one of the constables say, ‘Miss! Stop, miss! You can't go in there!' The door was flung open and Isabelle Rivers, followed by two other girls and Jack Haldean, came into the room. Malcolm Smith-Fennimore brought up the rear like a blond and gloomy sheepdog.

Haldean gave Ashley an apologetic glance and shrugged. If he had said, ‘It would take more than me to stop her,' his meaning couldn't have been clearer.

‘Mr Ashley!' proclaimed Isabelle in ringing tones. ‘You've got this all wrong. Dad says you think Arthur killed him, but he didn't. I know he didn't!'

Superintendent Ashley had risen to his feet. ‘Miss Rivers, please –'

She brushed her hair back from her face impatiently. ‘But can't you see, Superintendent? You've got to believe that Arthur's innocent. He couldn't have committed a murder, he just couldn't. You've got it all wrong!'

Superintendent Ashley pulled out a chair for Isabelle, but she waved it aside. ‘You've got it all wrong,' she repeated. ‘Tell him, Jack. Tell him Arthur couldn't have done it. He'll believe you. Mr Ashley, you'll believe Jack, won't you? You've got to.' She glanced at Haldean impatiently. ‘Tell him, Jack.'

Haldean felt and looked wretchedly indecisive. ‘I'm sorry, Belle. I don't know if I can.'

She rounded on him furiously. ‘I thought he was your friend!'

Haldean flinched. ‘Isabelle! For heaven's sake.' He looked at Ashley with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘Hello. Nice to see you again, even if this isn't the meeting I had in mind.'

‘Jack,' broke in Isabelle, ‘will you please tell Mr Ashley how wrong everyone is? Arthur's not guilty. He can't be.'

Haldean remained silent. Isabelle bridled with impatience and turned to Bubble and Squeak Robiceux for support. ‘You'll tell him, won't you? It doesn't matter what we saw. It doesn't
mean
anything. You don't believe Arthur's guilty, do you?'

Bubble Robiceux shook her head. ‘It was horrible, absolutely horrible, but I don't believe Arthur killed Lord Lyvenden. He couldn't be a murderer.'

Isabelle looked at her with gratitude. ‘Thanks, Bubble.' She gave the Superintendent a defiant glare. ‘You see, that's two of us who believe he's innocent.'

‘Unfortunately, Miss Rivers, we don't find out if someone's guilty by taking votes. Unless you're on a jury,' he amended, conscientiously. ‘You know how we work. We take statements, examine the evidence, and come to a conclusion that way.'

‘Then take my statement,' said Isabelle, forcefully. ‘Please, Mr Ashley.'

Ashley looked at her thoughtfully. He remembered Isabelle Rivers perfectly well and had seen her worried and anxious before now, but he had never seen her quite as strung up as she was at the moment. She was crackling with tension. He made a mental note to refer the puzzle to Haldean but for the moment he had Isabelle herself to deal with. ‘Don't you want to go and get changed, miss?' he asked. ‘In fact,' he added, looking at the little group, ‘doesn't everyone want to go and get changed? That was a pretty nasty bit of weather to be out in.'

‘I want you to take my statement,' repeated Isabelle vehemently. ‘And Bubble and Squeak's.' She flicked her wet hair out of her eyes with a nervous twitch of her hand. ‘The sooner we can convince you of the truth, the better.'

Ashley glanced round the crowded room. ‘We usually take statements singly. I was going to ask you to make a statement of what you'd seen, but –'

‘Do it now!' demanded Isabelle.

Ashley gave an almost imperceptible gesture in Haldean's direction. ‘I suppose now's as good a time as any.'

Haldean got the hint. ‘We'd all better push off. We'll be close at hand should you want us.'

‘Bubble, you stay,' said Isabelle, quickly. ‘And you, Squeak. Now I know who Arthur's real friends are,' she added meaningfully, glaring at her cousin.

‘Shall I stay, Isabelle?' asked Smith-Fennimore.

Isabelle gave him a withering look. ‘You!' It was like a whip crack.

Smith-Fennimore shrugged in a depressed way and held the door open for the still sniffing Mrs Strachan to leave.

‘Now,' said Ashley, when they had the room to themselves. ‘Perhaps you ladies can tell me what you know. When did you get back from playing golf?'

Haldean stood in the open doorway looking across the terrace to where the distant line of trees shielded the river. The fury of the storm had subsided into low, far-off grumbles of thunder and the rain had lost its slashing, tropical force. Arthur was out there, somewhere. He leaned his forehead on the cool stone of the door frame, absorbing the smell of hot, wet earth. He was aware that Smith-Fennimore was near by but couldn't think of anything to say.

There was a movement by his elbow. ‘Cigarette?'

He half turned. Smith-Fennimore was offering him his open case. ‘Thanks.' He glanced at the man's face and felt a twist of compassion. He was about to speak when Smith-Fennimore broke in.

‘I can't understand it! Why the hell has Isabelle reacted like this? Can you tell me what I'm supposed to have done?'

The obvious answer was probably the best. ‘Shot Arthur.'

‘But . . .' He drew heavily on his cigarette. ‘I didn't shoot him. Not as she means. I was trying to stop him. You saw that. What is it about Stanton? I know everyone assumed he cared about Isabelle but he did damn all about it if he did. I've done everything by the book. Everything.'

And Smith-Fennimore
had
done everything by the book, thought Haldean. He had courted Isabelle – the word ‘courted' was exactly right – openly and . . . well, courteously. He'd met Aunt Alice and Uncle Philip, he'd been respectful, polite and touchingly tender. Yes, the man had a mistress, but so what? He was rich, handsome and a man of the world. It was almost inevitable he'd have a mistress, for God's sake. Smith-Fennimore had assured him that Countess Whatnot was a thing of the past and he believed him. There wasn't any doubt about Smith-Fennimore's feelings for Isabelle. As for Arthur . . .

Haldean sighed inwardly. How on earth could he think of Arthur without seeing once again the scene in Lord Lyvenden's room? And yet this was Arthur he was thinking about, his oldest friend whom he'd known, trusted and liked for years. He'd wanted him to marry Isabelle, for heaven's sake. If the man had a fault, it was his slowness in getting off the mark, the way he goofed around looking like a lost sheep, not going off the deep end and knifing some wretched munitions manufacturer, no matter how appalling he'd been. The whole thing was nuts. Was Arthur nuts too? He'd had shell shock, yes, but that had left him shaken and ill. Diffident, if anything. That was why he'd taken so much time to come to the point with Isabelle. All that made sense. What didn't make sense was that Arthur should suddenly turn into a homicidal maniac. Yes, he'd been angry, really angry when he'd found out Lyvenden was Victor Todd, Isabelle had begged him not to do anything. Maybe the effort of keeping his feelings bottled up had got too much. Maybe Lyvenden had taunted him. Maybe . . .

Smith-Fennimore smoked his cigarette down to the butt, threw the end out of the door and tried to light another one. He swore under his breath as his lighter failed to work.

‘Here,' said Haldean, throwing him a box of matches. Smith-Fennimore tried to catch them in his bandaged hand, fumbled it, and swore again. ‘Sorry,' said Haldean, picking up the matches and giving them to him. ‘Here you are. Keep them.' He was a bit ham-fisted with his left hand, thought Haldean, struck by his uncharacteristically clumsy movements. He noticed how Smith-Fennimore's fingers holding his cigarette trembled. Perhaps it wasn't just his hand that was making him clumsy.

‘Haldean, you saw what happened. Isabelle seems to think Stanton's innocent, that it's all a ghastly mistake. Can she possibly be right? I'm racking my brains to try and come up with some other explanation for what we saw.'

‘I'm blowed if I can think of one.' Haldean broke off as, down the corridor, the door to the gun room opened. Isabelle, Bubble and Squeak came into the hall.

‘Superintendent Ashley wants to see you now, Jack,' said Isabelle, coldly. ‘Off you go. I just hope you remember who your friends are. I'm going to my room.'

‘Damn that,' broke in Smith-Fennimore quickly. ‘I need to talk to you, Isabelle. We're engaged, remember?'

Isabelle drew herself up. ‘Jack, I would be obliged if you would inform Commander Smith-Fennimore that I have no desire to speak to him.'

‘Inform him yourself, Belle,' said Haldean. ‘Don't drag me into it.' He was stung by her attitude and moved by the emotion on Smith-Fennimore's face. ‘I think you're being rotten. And get off your high horse. It doesn't suit you.'

‘Isabelle,' said Smith-Fennimore firmly. ‘You're going to speak to me. I couldn't care less about Stanton.'