The Wrong Rite (18 page)

It was as well they’d pretty much finished breakfast; the bereft brother was a sight to kill anybody’s appetite. Nobody had thought to take Bob a change of clothes, perhaps he hadn’t even been undressed last night. He was still wearing his John Dee getup, and a fine mess it was. His beard was every which way, his gray hair lay in greasy strings across his scalp, his features seemed to have melted and run together.

This was the way a witch’s waxen malkin would look after it had been set by the fire to toast, Janet thought. She’d seen Bob coming by the window, a shapeless mass of black bundled into a wheelbarrow that Owain was trundling, with Huw walking beside. The father and son between them had got him into the kitchen, dumped him into a chair, and been out the door even before Betty could offer them a cup of tea. They must be thoroughly fed up, and no wonder.

Anyway, Betty was quite ready to take over. “It is plenty of sugar you will be wanting this morning, Mr. Bob. Is it myself who will be putting it into the cup for you?”

Bob must be in even worse shape than Janet had thought, he wasn’t even talking. He did finally manage about half a nod, but by then Betty had the sugar all scooped and stirred.

“There you are, then. Do you be drinking while it is still hot, it will be putting heart into you.”

It was going to take more than oversweetened tea to stiffen this one’s backbone. Either Bob was still dopey from the doctor’s knockout drops, or else he was working up to a full-scale depression. Having a fit of the guilties, perhaps, over the hocus-pocus in the chapel. Maybe the gunpowder had even been Bob’s own idea—not that he’d have wanted to murder Mary if she was the family breadwinner, but because he’d been too cocksure of his own omniscience to realize how dangerous it was.

Well, no point in speculating now, Janet decided, Dorothy was getting reckless with her porridge. “Come on, baby,” she coaxed. “Into the mouth, not on the floor.”

Betty put a plate of assorted comestibles in front of Bob; he stared at it blankly, then turned his head away like a sick animal. Lady Rhys had appeared by now, she picked up the teacup and held it to Bob’s flaccid lips. He managed a swallow or two, then shook his head. It was a painful thing to watch. Lady Rhys set the cup down.

“All right then, if you won’t, you won’t. Would you like to go up to your room?”

He didn’t respond.

“Perhaps we’d better get the doctor back here,” said Janet. “Try a spot of brandy,” Madoc suggested.

The brandy worked, but not the way they’d hoped. Once he’d gulped it down, Bob laid his head on the table and bawled. Dorothy, either frightened or sympathetic, started crying too.

“I’d better take her outside,” said Janet. “She doesn’t usually do this.”

“Neither does he, I don’t suppose,” said Lady Rhys. “Let me take her, Jenny, you haven’t finished your tea. Bob, do you want to go outside with me and the baby?”

“Wha—ah, tea. I will drink my tea.”

He was dabbing at his wet, blubbered face with his napkin, making a pitiful attempt at pretending to be back in control of himself. The tea Betty had poured for him earlier was still standing there beside the untouched plateful, stone-cold by now. She sloshed it into the sink and poured him a fresh cup, hot from the pot she’d kept sitting on the back of the stove. This time Bob drank avidly, but he still had no stomach for food.

That was all right, at least he was back among the living, more or less. The rest of them went on with their breakfasts, making careful chat about nothing in particular, skirting any allusion to the events of the previous day. It was a relief to them all when Sir Caradoc pushed back his chair.

“I am going to work on my accounts. Madoc, when Cyril comes, will you bring him into the office? Bob, would you like to come with me?”

It wasn’t really a question, Bob was rational enough to sense that. He heaved himself away from the table and shuffled after Sir Caradoc into the small room where the old man did most of his paper work and much of his napping.

Bob’s lack of appetite had put Janet off hers. She finished her tea and refused more toast. “Now what, Madoc? Do I make myself scarce or hover in the background?”

“Hover, I think, if you can bear it. What are you and Mother doing this morning, Tad?”

“I don’t know,” Sir Emlyn replied. “Sillie hasn’t made up my mind yet. That was a nasty piece of business just now. I wonder if Bob is going a little daffy like his sister. Actually what I would like is to spend some time with Owain. We haven’t had much chance to chat since he and Mavis got back. You don’t need me here, do you?”

“No, go ahead. Jenny and I will probably straggle along in a while. I’d better go bring in the kid so you and Mother can get along.”

“Not on your life, my boy. We’ll take Dorothy with us in the pram.”

“Not with porridge all over her face,” Janet objected.

“Oh, Sillie can sponge her off. Anyway, what’s a little porridge? Ah, I see that the strong arm of the law is about to be amongst us.”

Rhys the Police was indeed heaving into view, the badge on his bicycle agleam in the morning sun and all his buttons atwinkle. Today was going to be hot and fine like yesterday, Janet thought. Too nice to be shut inside, poking questions at a slobbering bowl of jelly who might at any moment slip round the bend.

No, nothing that dire was going to happen today, not with Uncle Caradoc running the show. They might as well go ahead and get it over with.

“A
CCORDING TO INFORMATION RECEIVED
by Chief Constable Davies and conveyed to me this morning via the telephone, he being engaged for a game of golf with three other gentlemen whose names he did not tell me, the sad demise of Miss Mary Rhys was occasioned by her having had gunpowder of the most volatile kind in the pockets of her skirt and sprinkled here and there about her person, as has been determined by a laboratory analysis of the clothing Miss Mary Rhys was wearing. Said gunpowder became ignited upon contact with the bonfire whilst Miss Mary Rhys was in the act of leaping, and burned so fiercely that severance of the mortal coil was instantly effected.”

Before Constable Rhys had got down to business, the usual courtesies had been exchanged. Bob had got through his part listlessly, now he was bold upright, quivering with outrage.

“Gunpowder? That is ridiculous! That is impossible!”

“With all respect, Mr. Robert Rhys, I must tell you that, in the fireplace of the very bedroom which Miss Mary Rhys had been occupying here in the house of Sir Caradoc, was found discarded a green cardboard box containing approximately one half-teaspoon of finegrained gunpowder.”

“You are prevaricating to me! Mary could not have had gunpowder. She told me nothing about gunpowder.”

“It was then Miss Mary Rhys who was always telling you everything, is it?”

Bob hesitated. “Perhaps not everything. No, not always everything. It is not everything I should have wanted to hear.”

“Then the circumstance of Miss Mary Rhys’s not having told you anything about gunpowder, look you, is in truth no guarantee that she was not in fact having gunpowder in her possession, Mr. Bob Rhys?”

“I cannot gainsay you. Nonetheless, I maintain that gunpowder is not a thing Mary would have had. Unless,” Bob appended with a glint of craftiness in his small black eyes, “she would have had it without telling me. Mary has become subtle of late.”

“Subtle, you say? Can you explain in what way Miss Mary Rhys was having become subtle?”

“She has teased me with inscrutabilities. She has hinted.”

“Of what manner of thing was Miss Mary Rhys having been hinting?”

“That I cannot tell you. There were knowing looks and enigmatic nods. It was an atmosphere of ‘I could an if I would.’ As though, in short, she had a tale she could unfold, but she was not unfolding it. This is a game Mary has played before, to get my attention fixed upon herself when my thoughts would fain have rested upon higher matters. Often have I found it necessary to direct my sister’s wayward mind into more uplifting channels.”

“Was that what you were doing with Mary in the chapel before you went to light the fire?” Madoc interjected gently.

Bob was rather pleased than offended. “You saw us then?”

“My wife and I. We’d noticed the candlelight shining out through the windows.”

“Yes, the candles were necessary. Why did you not come and join with us?”

“We wouldn’t have known what to do.”

“I would have instructed you what to do.”

“But we might not have followed your instructions. What if the ceremony was not done properly?”

“It was done properly.”

“Then why were you screaming about sorcery after Mary was killed in the fire?”

“I was not screaming about sorcery. This is police-brutality tactics. You are trying to intimidate me.”

Madoc did not press the issue. It was quite likely that Bob had no recollection of the way he’d carried on last night. If he did remember, one could hardly blame him for pretending he didn’t.

Sir Caradoc had been listening quietly; now he decided it was time for him to speak. “Bob, would it not have been courteous of you to ask my permission, or at least to inform me of your intention, to conduct a ceremony in the chapel?”

“But it was for your protection, Sir Caradoc.”

“And what made you think I needed protection?”

The butchered ram, perhaps? The one thing Sir Caradoc wasn’t supposed to know about? Madoc felt a stab of apprehension, but Bob came up with a more esoteric reason.

“The golden sickle, surely. Had you been aware of what dark forces you were stirring up, Sir Caradoc, you would not have dared to touch that sickle without having first performed the proper rites. Look you what has happened to the monks who wrested from the Druids their magical tools. Gone, all gone, and the bats nesting in their once-proud chapel.”

“We do not know for how many centuries the sickle may have lain hidden inside the monastery walls before the monks were driven out, Bob. Nor do I think I can fairly claim responsibility for the bats in the chapel. However, I thank you for your kind intention. I can only hope that Mary did not become sufficiently carried away as to convince herself that self-immolation would be a useful adjunct to your rite. You must understand, Bob, how essential it is that we find out why Mary had gunpowder on her person when she performed her leap.”

“Yes, yes! If her death should be proved to have been caused by suicidal impulses, then it will be resulting that those rapacious fiends at the insurance company will not pay what is owed to me. Mary would not have spited me this way, she knew too well what I would—” He stopped short.

Janet hoped she wasn’t going to vomit. Even gentle Sir Caradoc was having a struggle not to show the disgust he must be feeling. Madoc, on the other hand, appeared merely interested.

“But you’re not going to starve to death in any case, are you, Bob? Surely a provident fellow like you will have something put by. My mother says you had an income from your parents’ legacy, but lived mostly on Mary’s earnings. That was from gem-cutting, right?”

“From the gem-cutting and from the annuity. And that is another tragedy!” Bob’s voice rose again. “The annuity will stop now, just when it was about to get bigger!”

“What annuity was this, Mr. Bob Rhys?” demanded the constable. “Why was it going to be getting bigger, and why will it now be stopping?”

“I do not know why the annuity would have got bigger. Mary said only that it would. She was smug and self-satisfied, she was bragging. The annuity will stop because it was for her and for her only.”

“You mean she bought it herself, out of her earnings?” said Madoc. “My father seems to be under the impression that she used to turn all her earnings over to you.”

“Those moneys that came from the business, yes. It was our father’s business and we inherited jointly. Therefore I was entitled to my share.”

“Even though your sister did all the work?”

“Ah, but I bore the responsibility. The female brain has not the power to deal with matters of finance. Mary understood that she was not to be trusted with money because she was a female and therefore stupid. I made the reason plain to her.”

“But in fact Mary was your sole source of income, outside of whatever interest you’ve been earning on the money your parents left you. How much is this insurance you hope to collect?”

“One hundred thousand pounds. I would not have you suppose I held my dear sister’s life cheap.”

“Nothing could be farther from my mind,” Madoc assured him. “And you insured your own life for a similar amount?”

“I insured my life for nothing at all. Where would have been the profit in that?”

“It never occurred to you that, since Mary’d been supporting you all these years, she might deserve to have some provision made for her old age should you predecease her?”

“But she would have had the annuity,” Bob argued.

“The annuity she’s supposed to have bought from the earnings you took away from her? How did she manage that? And why did she say the annuity was going to get bigger?”

“I told you I do not know why. And I did not say Mary bought it, Madoc Rhys. She claimed only that it came through Arthur.”

“You mean Lisa’s husband Arthur? The gem dealer?”

“Oh yes, Arthur was doing business with us for many years, and his father with our father before us.”

“So this was another insurance deal pertaining to the business, was that it?”

“No, that was not it,” Bob sputtered. “If the annuity had been related to the business, I would have had a legal claim to half. As it was, I had to take only what Mary chose to give. It was a great humiliation.”

“So what it boils down to”—Madoc was still trying to be patient—“is that Arthur simply bought your sister an annuity out of the goodness of his heart?”

“Mary did not say that Arthur bought the annuity, she said only that it came through him. I have already told you this.”

“And when did she start receiving it?”

“Soon after Arthur died, of course.”

“Then it was a legacy? She inherited through his will?”

“Mary did not inherit through his will. There was nothing in the will about Mary Rhys. Arthur’s estate was all for Lisa and the daughter, barring some small bequests to servants and five thousand pounds to Arthur’s own sister. Naturally I went to Somerset House and saw for myself. I am not a fool, Madoc Rhys.”