The Tomb of Zeus (21 page)

A
marrying man,
that's what my old ma would have called
him,”
said Gunning.

“Great heavens, William! I never realised you had a mother,” said Letty.

“And I'm afraid it's what
I
shall be expected to become if I'm observed bringing you here alone with such frequency. Did you notice the waiter dashed forward with a potted palm the minute I put my foot over the doorstep?”

“Where would you have preferred to confer? In the wrecked library? In the drawing room with Theodore snoring on the chaise longue? Your room or mine? People just assume we're tourists from one of the boats. A kind uncle taking his niece for a pastry. Oh, speaking of which, I'll have one of those little Cretan cheese-and-cinnamon things.”

Gunning ordered
kalitsounia me kanella
for two and a pot of Darjeeling.

“You're confusing this with your last job, I think, William. Last summer, you were supposed—you were
paid
to ensure I didn't get into trouble of an amorous, or any other, nature. You are no longer employed by my father, so you can jolly well come off watch.”

“I'm sorry. Old habits…I got used to trying to fend off the beasts of prey.”

“He's not a beast of prey! William, you're mad!
Kosta—
the inspector—is a very respectable, educated, and honourable man.” She couldn't prevent herself from adding, “And dashed attractive! Cretan Christian name, Italian surname—that's a seductive blend…” George may have proved to be a damp squib when it came to tormenting Gunning, but here, most unexpectedly, was the unwitting policeman filling the role nicely.

Gunning sighed. “I say again—Mariani's a marrying man. All Cretan men are that. A bachelor is almost unknown on this island. It's a wonder he's got to his age—thirty would you say?—still unattached. He's got mistresses all over Crete, I shouldn't wonder, but it's high time he settled down. His career demands it if nothing else. He's ambitious, and someone like you would do him credit-actually smooth his path—on the international scene. Mariani would be Head of Interpol in three years with you at his side.”

“You let your imagination run away with you, William. There's no danger, I'm sure. But perhaps we shouldn't tell him quite yet that I'm a rich woman. Think what happened to poor Phoebe! Now—give me a moment to nibble this cake and I'll reveal to you the contents of her will. Phoebe Russell continues to astonish us, you'll find!”

“Good lord!” Gunning's surprise at her account of her session with the inspector was very satisfying. “Well, I never! Seems morally correct to me—don't you agree, Letty?—that the lion's share of her fortune goes back to the family whence it came? But as to the rest…Theodore is going to be devastated to receive nothing more than a grudging annuity. More ructions to come from that quarter, I fear! I'd like to know the reason behind all that. And even stranger—the generous gift to George. She must have trusted him.”

“Without conditions, too. He could just go out and buy a string of racing cars if he wanted to,” said Letty, disapproving. “Where
is
George?” she asked, struck with sudden anxiety. “I didn't like the look of that head wound his father inflicted. Someone ought to go and find him, check that he's all right.”

“I was prowling the streets while you were dallying with the inspector. No trace of him. His car was seen making off towards the harbour. He could be miles away by now. All we can do is wait for him to come back again.”

“I'm not so sure. A wound like that—he'll have taken it straight to the doctor, won't he? Come on, William. You know the way. That's where we'll start. Let's go and bother Harry.”

The door of the Stoddart house down by the harbour was opened not by a maid but by Olivia herself. It creaked open a reluctant inch or two.

“Yes?” The single word conveyed such a depth of inhospitality and suspicion that Gunning took a step back, and words of stumbling apology were already leaking from him when Letty firmly put her foot in the door, the assertive action belied by the cheerful smile on her face.

“Olivia! It's only us! We need to see Harry. Rather urgently, I'm afraid. Tell me—how are you both bearing up? It's been quite a day one way and another, hasn't it?” She started to peel off her gloves.

Olivia's face was blotched with red—anger or grief?—impossible to tell. Her watery green eyes were swollen and she had clearly been weeping. She was twisting a damp handkerchief nervously between her hands. Clearly, Letty and Gunning were the last people she wanted to have in her hallway.

“You can't see him. He's in his study and has asked not to be disturbed by anyone. You'll have to leave.”

“Don't be silly, Ollie! Harry won't at all mind seeing us. It's about George. George Russell. And it is, as I say, very urgent.”

“Matter of life and death,” Gunning added dramatically.

Olivia hesitated. Finally, her nurse's instincts overcame her truculence. “I'll give you five minutes. That's all,” she said ungraciously. And, with a surprising swirl of resentment, in a voice rising out of control, “Oh, by all means, go in and annoy him! Why not? Kick him in the privates! Take a paper knife to his knick-knacks! What do I care?”

Harry, when they hurried to his consulting room, looked up and cringed, obviously fearing just such an attack. He was righting a fallen hat stand and in some disarray, but he waved his visitors to chairs by his desk and took a seat behind it. Letty looked about her with dismay. The scene in the library at the Europa had been devastating. A battlefield. This consulting room could in no way be compared with that, but emotions had been unloosed here also. Ink had spilled from an inkwell, ponding over the desk and dripping onto the Turkey carpet; a framed photograph had been knocked from the mantelpiece, the glass splintered.

Curious to see whose features had incited someone to smash a heel down over them, Letty took a wider than necessary track to her seat and noted the subject of the photograph as she passed by.

Aurelia.

Strangely, not a picture of a person but a ship. The steamship
Aurelia.
The kind of trashy souvenir handed out by the captain at the end of a cruise, received with gushing thanks, and instantly thrown away with the rubbish. In this austere, panelled room it was puzzlingly out of place.

“George Russell? You've come about George Russell?” Harry seemed surprised and relieved. “Haven't seen him since this morning—in the courtroom. Why do you ask?”

“We're very concerned for him…” Gunning gave a résumé of the scene at the Europa, outlining the reason for the altercation and describing, as best he could from his brief glimpse, the serious nature of George's wound.

“Hit him with a volume of
The Palace?
Good God! Weighs a ton! And he drove off? In
that
car? I understand your concern. Better check the hospital. The boy's most probably a casualty by now.”

Stoddart looked exhausted, Letty thought. His wife had been giving him a rough time and the coroner's court had been a strain. If ever wifely sympathy was called for, this was the moment. What could have got into Olivia? And what was the reason for those crude and desperate suggestions she'd thrust at them? Letty eyed the paper knife on Harry's stationery tray, almost fearing to see blood on it. And—knick-knacks? What on earth did Olivia have in mind?

And then the shock of realisation ran through her. Her mind had seized on the last dozen pieces of a jigsaw and slotted them home with gathering speed, one after the other.

She was sitting opposite the man who had murdered Phoebe. And she was going to make him confess.

She put a restraining hand on Gunning's knee as he made to rise and leave. He instantly, without quibble, sank back, waiting to hear from her.

“Such an unfortunate family, the Russells,” she remarked. “How many more disasters? And how unfair that George should be found guilty of being the father of that poor babe! Surely the true father must be in Europe and well away from the scene? No man with a shred of honour could stand by and see another being destroyed by an unjust accusation! I do not think George could possibly be responsible…nor does William. What about you, Doctor? Does this strike you as a reasonable proposition?”

“Well…no…Actually, George would be the very last person who'd come to mind…”

“We should be looking elsewhere for the man in Phoebe's life. For her Christmas lover.
‘N'aimez que moi,’
he told her in the rue de la Paix.” Letty sighed. “And that's just what poor Phoebe did. You should be aware, Doctor, that I visited her room again just now with Inspector Mariani. We made some interesting discoveries.”

Stoddart slumped at his desk, waiting for the blow to fall.

Letty got up and strolled to the broken photograph. She picked it up gingerly and examined it. “Ah, yes, a memento. Carefully framed. Happy memories? Not, it would seem, for someone? It's been stamped on. Is this heel mark Olivia's?”

She put the photograph down on the desk and resumed her seat. “We've concluded that this affair of Phoebe's could well have started on her journey to Paris. On the boat! She had taken a first-class cabin, of course. And you'd need the comfort and privacy if you were going to have a prolonged bout of seasickness—or spend a week curled up in your lover's arms. Phoebe told me you were ‘wonderful with seasickness.’ I wonder, Doctor, if you ministered solely to Phoebe that week? Olivia was obviously completely taken in by whatever stories you concocted to account for your absences.”

“Didn't need to ‘concoct’ anything. Ollie was the one who suffered—she spent most of the time groaning in her cabin, begging to be left alone. She understood I was doing the rounds of the ship, ministering to the suffering.”

“And the affair continued in Paris. You all stayed at the same hotel. Phoebe chose to spend her time there rather than in the comfort of her family home. She must have valued the anonymity—and the proximity of her friends.”

“Ollie did a lot of shopping…Christmas coming up, you know…She was rather pleased to get rid of me,” the doctor said dismissively. “Our interests were never the same. She understands that I like to go off round the museums. Not her cup of tea.”

“You are admitting that the child conceived in December was yours?”

Stoddart's head drooped, his reply was almost unintelligible. “I had no idea until Sunday! She dropped her bombshell in the car on the way back to Herakleion. She sent me a note, arranging the meeting at Knossos. It was getting increasingly difficult to plan time together. Ollie made it very awkward. Oh, not that she suspected anything—she didn't. They say the wife's always the last to hear…and she wouldn't have believed any such gossip. She'd have laughed! Doesn't regard me as love's young dream, exactly. Problem was—Ollie seemed to think it was
her
Phoebe was keen on seeing.”

He studied his fingers for a moment. “Phoebe's mad idea, that! Get close to Ollie and it would be a good cover for our…um…And now it's doubly backfired! Ollie isn't a woman who makes friends easily, and when Phoebe started to make overtures she was thrilled and flattered. And now she's dead and Ollie's worked out who the Parisian Lothario was—she feels twice betrayed.
I
deceived her.
Phoebe
deceived her. And I'm not certain which of the two offended her more. I'm not going to get out of this alive,” he mumbled in misery.

“Why did she arrange to see you that morning, Harry?” Gunning asked.

“To tell me she was pregnant. It was beginning to show and she'd have to come clean. She wanted me to pack and leave for Europe with her straight away. I couldn't.”

“Why on earth not? Sounds like a good offer to me,” said Letty to provoke him.

“And give up my profession forever? I'd have been struck off! And doctoring's what I do. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do. I've very nearly finished my research here on the island and I'm about to publish the results. I could be a world authority on…Oh, never mind! To go away with her would have meant giving up everything, and for an uncertain future. Suppose she found a younger model next year and left me high and dry? Many more seductive blokes to be found in Paris. Not so much competition here.” He shot an assessing glance at Gunning. “At one's time of life…well, one begins to lose confidence in that department, I'm sure you'd agree, old boy.”

“Nothing wrong with Mr. Gunning's department,” Letty snapped, impulsively.

“Oh, indeed?” He looked from one to the other, speculation beginning to dawn. But he had weightier matters on his mind and, to Letty's relief, did not pursue his thoughts. “Er—very well—I'm a coward. There, you have it.”

“A coward and an adulterer,” said Letty in a neutral voice. “Yes. But are you also a murderer? Did she threaten to expose you, Harry?”

“You didn't know her well. Phoebe would never have done that! She would have protected my good name. And—no—I didn't murder her. Nor did anyone. She committed suicide. I'm very clear on that now all the evidence is in. My rejection was part, I don't doubt, of her motivation and to that extent I am culpable. We heard the decision in court. Leave it alone, Laetitia. Let the dead rest in peace.”