Grave Mistake ra-30 Page 14

  Prunella, who held Verity’s hand, said: “Who’s that, I wonder? Do you know? The tall one?”

  “It’s the one who called on me. Superintendent Alleyn.”

  “I can see what you mean about him,” said Prunella.

  The three representatives of the provincial press slid up to Alleyn and began to speak to him. Alleyn looked over their heads toward Verity and Prunella and as if he had signalled to her Verity moved to hide Prunella from the men. At the same instant Bruce Gardener came out of the hall and at once the three men closed round him.

  Alleyn came over to Verity and Prunella.

  “Good morning, Miss Preston,” he said. “I wondered if you’d be here.” And to Prunella. “Miss Foster? I expect your splendid Mrs. Jobbin told you I’d called. She was very kind and let me come into your house. Did she tell you?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry I was out.”

  “There wasn’t any need, at that juncture, to bother you. I’m sorry you’re having such a horrid time. Actually,” Alleyn said, “I may have to ask you to see me one of these days but only if it’s really necessary. I promise.”

  “O.K.,” Prunella said. “Whenever you like. O.K.”

  “My dear Alleyn!” said a voice behind Verity. “How very nice to meet you again.”

  Mr. Markos had come up, with Gideon, unnoticed by the others. The temper of the little scene changed with their appearance. He put his arm round Prunella and told Alleyn how well Troy’s picture looked. He said Alleyn really ought to come and see it. He appealed to Verity for support and by a certain change in his manner seemed to attach a special importace to her answer. Verity was reminded of poor Syb’s encomium before she took against the Markoses. She had said that Nikolas Markos was “ultra sophisticated” and “a complete man of the world.” He’s a man of a world I don’t belong to, Verity thought, but we have things in common, nevertheless.

  “Miss Preston will support me,” Mr. Markos said, “won’t you?”

  Verity pulled herself together and said the picture was a triumph.

  Alleyn said: “The painter will be delighted,” and to all of them: “The gentlemen of the press look like heading this way. I suggest it might be as well if Miss Foster escaped.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Gideon quickly. “Darling, let’s go to the car. Quick.”

  But a stillness had fallen on the people who remained at the scene. Verity turned and saw that Dr. Schramm had come out into the sunshine. The reporters fastened on him.

  A handsome car was parked nearby. Verity thought: that’s got to be his car. He’ll have to come past us to get to it. We can’t break up and bolt.

  He said something — “No comment,” Verity supposed — to the press and walked briskly toward the group. As he passed them he lifted his hat. “Good morning, Verity,” he said. “Hullo, Markos, how are you? Morning, Superintendent.” He paused, looked at Prunella, gave a little bow and continued on his way. It had been well done, Verity thought, if you had the nerve to do it, and she was filled with a kind of anger that he had included her in his performance.

  Mr. Markos said: “We all of us make mistakes. Come along, children.”

  Verity, left with Alleyn, supposed Mr. Markos had referred to his dinner-party.

  “I must be off,” she said. She thought: Death creates social contretemps. One doesn’t say: “See you on Thursday” when the meeting will be at a funeral.

  Her car was next to Alleyn’s and he walked beside her. Dr. Schramm drove past them and lifted a gloved hand as he did so.

  “That child’s surviving all this pretty well, isn’t she?” Alleyn asked. “On the whole, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes. I think she is. She’s sustained by her engagement.”

  “To young Markos? Yes. And by her godmama, too, one suspects?”

  “Me! Not at all. Or anyway, not as much as I’d like.”

  He grunted companionably, opened her car door for her and stood by while she fastened her safety belt. She was about to say goodbye but changed her mind. “Mr. Alleyn,” she said, “I gather that probate has been granted or passed or whatever it is? On the second Will?”

  “It’s not a fait accompli but it will be. Unless, of course, she made yet another and later one, which doesn’t seem likely. Would it be safe to tell you something in confidence?”

  Verity, surprised, said: “I don’t break confidences but if it’s anything that I would want to speak about to Prunella, you’d better not tell me.”

  “I don’t think you would want to but I’d make an exception of Prunella. Dr. Schramm and Mrs. Foster were engaged to be married.”

  In the silence that she was unable to break Verity thought that it really was not so very surprising, this information. There was even a kind of logic about it. Given Syb. And given Basil Schramm.

  Alleyn said: “Rather staggering news, perhaps?”

  “No, no,” she heard herself saying. “Not really. I’m just — trying to assimilate it. Why did you tell me?”

  “Partly because I thought there was a chance that she might have confided it to you that afternoon but mostly because I had an idea it might be disagreeable for you to learn of it accidentally.”

  “Will it be made known, then? Will he make it known?”

  “Well,” said Alleyn, “I’m sure. If it’s anything to go by, he did tell me.”

  “I suppose it explains the Will?”

  “That’s the general idea, of course.”

  Verity heard herself say: “Poor Syb.” And then: “I hope it doesn’t come out. Because of Prue.”

  “Would she mind so much?”

  “Oh, I think so. Don’t you? The young mind terribly if they believe their parents have made asses of themselves.”

  “And would any woman engaging herself to Dr. Schramm make an ass of herself?”

  “Yes,” said Verity. “She would. I did.”

  ii

  When Alleyn had gone Verity sat inert in her car and wondered what had possessed her to tell him something that for twenty-odd years she had told nobody. A policeman! More than that, a policeman who must, the way things had gone, take a keen professional interest in Basil Schramm, might even — no, almost certainly did — think of him as a “Suspect.” And she turned cold when she forced herself to complete the sequence — a suspect in what might turn out to be a case of foul play: of — very well, then, use the terrible soft word — of murder.

  He had not followed up her statement or pressed her with questions nor, indeed, did he seem to be greatly interested. He merely said: “Did you? Sickening for you,” made one or two remarks of no particular significance and said goodbye. He drove off with a large companion who could not be anything that was not constabular. Mr. Rattisbon, too, looking gravely preoccupied, entered his own elderly car and quitted the scene.

  Still Verity remained, miserably inert. One or two locals sauntered off. The Vicar and Jim Jobbin, who was part-time sexton, came out of the church and surveyed the weathered company of headstones. The Vicar pointed to the right and they made off in that direction, round the church. Verity knew, with a jolt, that they discussed the making of a grave. Sybil’s remotest Passcoigne forebears lay in the vault but there was a family plot among the trees beyond the south transept.

  Then she saw that Bruce Gardener, in his Harris tweed suit, had come out of the hall and was climbing up the steps to the church. He followed the Vicar and Jim Jobbin and disappeared. Verity had noticed him at the inquest. He had sat at the back, taller than his neighbours, upright, with his gardener’s hands on his thighs, very decorous and solemn. She thought that perhaps he wanted to ask about the funeral, about flowers from Quintern Place, it might be. If so, that was nice of Bruce. She herself, she thought, must offer to do something about flowers. She would wait a little longer and speak to the Vicar,

  “Good morning,” said Claude Carter, leaning on the passenger’s door.

  Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. She had been looking out of the drive
r’s window and he must have come up from behind the car on her blind side.

  “Sorry,” he said, and grinned. “Made you jump, did I?”

  “Yes.”

  “My mistake. I just wondered if I might cadge a lift to the turn-off. If you’re going home, that is.”

  There was nothing she wanted less but she said yes, if he didn’t mind waiting while she went up to the church. He said he wasn’t in a hurry and got in. He had removed his vestigial beard, she noticed, and had his hair cut to a conservative length. He was tidily dressed and looked less hang-dog than usual There was even a hint of submerged jauntiness about him.

  “Smoking allowed?” he asked.

  She left him lighting his cigarette in a guarded manner as if he was afraid someone would snatch it out of his mouth.

  At the head of the steps she met the Vicar returning with Bruce and Jim. To her surprise Jim, a bald man with a loud voice, was now bent double. He was hovered over by the Vicar.

  “It’s a fair bugger,” he shouted. “Comes over you like a bloody thunderclap. Stooping down to pull up them bloody teazles and now look at me. Should of minded me own business.”

  “Yes, well: jolly bad luck,” said the Vicar. “Oh. Hullo, Miss Preston. We’re in trouble as you see. Jim’s smitten with lumbago.”

  “Will he be able to negotiate the descent?” Bruce speculated anxiously. “That’s what I ask myself. Awa’ wi ye, man, and let us handle you doon the steps.”

  “No, you don’t. I’ll handle myself if left to myself, won’t I?”

  “Jim!” said Verity, “what a bore for you. I’ll drive you home.”

  “No, ta all the same, Miss Preston. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. I’m best left to manage myself and if you’ll excuse me that’s what I’ll do. I’ll use the handrail. Only,” he added with a sudden, shout of agony, “I’d be obliged if I wasn’t watched.”

  “Perhaps,” said the Vicar, “we’d better—?”

  Jim, moving like a gaffer in a Victorian melodrama, achieved the handrail and clung to it. He shouted: “I won’t be able to do the job now, will I?”

  There was an awkward silence broken by Bruce. “Dinna fash yourself,” he said. “No problem. With the Mister’s kind permission I’ll dig it myself and think it an honour. I will that.”

  “The full six foot, mind.”

  “Ou aye,” Bruce agreed. “All of it. I’m a guid hand at digging,” he added.

  “Fair enough,” said Jim and began to ease himself down the steps.

  “This is a most fortunate solution, Bruce,” said the Vicar. “Shall we just leave Jim as he wishes?” and he ushered them into the church.

  St. Crispin’s-in-Quintern was one of the great company of parish churches that stand as milestones in rural history: obstinate registers to the ravages of time. It had a magnificent peal of bells, now unsafe to ring, one or two brasses, a fine east window and a surprising north window in which — strange conceit — a walrus-mustachioed Passcoigne, looking startlingly like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was depicted in full plate armour, an Edwardian St. Michael without a halo. The legend indicated that he had met his end on the African veld. The familiar ecclesiastical odour of damp held at bay by paraffin heaters greeted Verity and the two men.

  Verity explained that she would like to do anything that would help about the flowers. The Vivar said that custody of all brass vases was inexorably parcelled out among the Ladies Guild, five in number. She gathered that any attempt to disrupt this procedure would trigger off a latent pecking order.

  “But they would be grateful for flowers,” he added.

  Bruce said that there were late roses up at Quintern Place and he’d thought it would be nice to have her ain favourites to see her off. He muttered in an uneven voice that the name was appropriate: Peace. “They endure better than most oot o’ water,” he added and blew his nose. Verity and the Vicar warmly supported this suggestion and Verity left the two men to complete, she understood, the arrangements for digging Sybil’s grave.

  When she returned to the top of the steps she found that Jim Jobbin had reached the bottom on his hands and knees and was being manipulated through the lych-gate by his wife. Verity joined them. Mrs. Jim explained that she was on her way to get dinner and had found Jim crawling backward down the last four steps. It was no distance, they both reminded Verity, along the lane to their cottage. Jim got to his feet by swarming up his wife as if she was a tree.

  “It’ll ease off once he straightens himself,” she said. “It does him good to walk.”

  “That’s what you think,” her husband groaned but he straightened up and let out an oath as he did so. They made off in slow motion.

  Verity returned to her car and to Claude, lounging in the passenger’s seat. He made a token shuffle with his feet and leant over to open the door.

  “That was as good as a play,” he said. “Poor old Jobbin. Did you see him beetling down the steps? Fantastic!” He gave a neighing laugh.

  “Lumbago’s no joke to the person who’s got it,” Verity snapped.

  “It’s hysterical for the person who hasn’t, though.”

  She drove as far as the corner where the lane up to Quintern Place branched off to the left.

  “Will this suit you?” she asked, “or would you like me to run you up?”

  He said he wouldn’t take her out of her way but when she pulled up he didn’t get out

  “What did you make of the inquest?” he asked. “I must say I thought it pretty off.”

  “Off?”

  “Well — you know. I mean what does that extraordinary detective person think he’s on about? And a further postponement. Obviously they suspect something.”

  Verity was silent.

  “Which isn’t exactly welcome news,” he said. “Is it? Not for this medico, Schramm. Or for Mr. Folksy Gardener if it comes to that.”

  “I don’t think you should make suggestions, Claude.”

  “Suggestions! I’m not suggesting anything, but people are sure to look sideways. I know I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I were in those gentlemen’s boots, that’s all. Still, they’re getting their lovely legacies, aren’t they, which’ll be a great consolation. I could put up with plenty of funny looks for twenty-five thousand of the best. Still more for Schramm’s little lot.”

  “I must get home, Claude.”

  “Nothing can touch my bit, anyway. God, can I use it! Only thing: that old relic Rattisbon says it won’t be available until probate is allowed or passed or whatever. Still, I suppose I can borrow on my prospects, wouldn’t you think?”

  “I’m running late.”

  “Nobody seems to think it’s a bit oft-colour her leaving twenty-five thousand of the best to a jobbing gardener she’d only hired a matter of months ago. It’s pretty obvious he’d got round her in a big way: I could tell you one or two things about Mr. gardener-Gardener.”

  “I must go, Claude.”

  “Yes. O.K.”

  He climbed out of the car and slammed the door. “Thanks for the lift, anyway,” he said. “See you at the funeral. Ain’t we got fun?”

  Glad to be rid of him but possessed by a languor she could not understand, Verity watched him turn up the lane. Even seen from behind there was a kind of furtive jauntiness in his walk, an air of complacency that was out of character. He turned a corner and was gone.

  “I wonder,” she thought, “what he’ll do with himself.”

  She drove on up her own lane into her own little avenue and got her own modest luncheon. She found she hadn’t much appetite for it.

  The day was gently sunny but Verity found it oppressive. The sky was clear but she felt as if it would almost be a relief if bastions of cloud shouldered each other up from beyond the horizon. It occurred to her that writers like Ibsen and Dickens — unallied in any other respect — were right to make storms, snow, fog and fire the companions of human disorders. Shakespeare too, she thought. We deprive ourselves aesthetically when we forg
o the advantages of symbolism.

  She had finished the overhaul of her play and had posted it off to her agent. It was not unusual, when work-in-hand had been dealt with and she was cleaned out, for her to experience a nervous impulse to start off at once on something new. As now, when she found herself wondering, if she could give a fresh look to an old, old theme: that of an intelligent woman enthralled by a second-rate charmer, a “bad lot,” in Verity’s dated jargon, for whom she had no respect but was drawn to by an obstinate attraction. If she could get such a play successfully off her chest, would she scotch the bogey that had returned to plague her?

  When at that first Markos dinner-party, she found that Basil Schramm’s pinchbeck magnetism had evaported, the discovery had been a satisfaction to Verity. Now, when a shadow crept toward him, how did she feel? And why, oh why, had she bleated out her confession to Alleyn? He won’t let it rest, she thought, her imagination bolting with her. He’ll want to know more about Basil. He may ask if Basil ever got into trouble and what’ll I say to that?

  And Alleyn, returning with Fox to Greengages via Maidstone, said: “This case is getting nasty. She let it out without any pushing or probing and I think she amazed herself by doing so. I wouldn’t mind betting there was more to it than the predatory male jilt and the humiliated woman, though there was all of that, too, I daresay.”

  “If it throws any light on his past?”

  “We may have to follow it up, of course. Do you know what I think she’ll do about it?”

  “Refuse to talk?”

  “That’s it. There’s not much of the hell-knows-no-fury in Verity Preston’s makeup.”

  “Well,” said Fox reasonably, “seeing how pretty he stands we have to make it thorough. What comes first?”

  “Get the background. Check up on the medical side. Qualified at Lausanne, or whatever it was. Find out the year and the degree. See if there was any regular practice in this country. Or in the U.S.A. So much waste of time, it may be, but it’ll have to be done, Br’er Fox. And, on a different lay: here comes Maidstone again. Call at stationers and bookshops and see if anyone’s bought any Will forms lately. If not, do the same in villages and towns and in the neighbourhood of Greengages.”