“I HAVEN’T SEEN THE current manuscript in several weeks, Inspector. I’ve just kept busy updating files, answering correspondence, and so on. I did rather start to wonder…”
He spoke in a flat American accent reminiscent of a young Jimmy Stewart talking to his horse, but with twice the animation. St. Just found himself leaning forward as he listened, wishing for sub-titles, as he often did during American films. Fear, who had caught up with St. Just in the garden after his interview with Paulo, edged his chair closer.
Looking around Jeffrey’s flat, St. Just said, “This is quite a nice arrangement. Self-contained, I see, and separate from the house, so you have some privacy.”
“Yes, I must say, I’m pleased as punch about the arrangements.” He hesitated, unsure whether “pleased as punch” were a British or American saying. Was it perhaps, “pleased as Punch?” It was important that the Inspector understand him completely. Hands across the water, and all that.
“I’m very pleased with the arrangements,” he amended. “Very, very pleased indeed.”
“Good. Now, about this latest book of his…”
“I only saw the very early chapters, you understand. But I can tell you that it was different from the others.”
“How, different?”
Jeffrey squinted, diving into deep thought. After a moment he said:
“Better, for one thing. His books tended to be very plot-driven, low on characterization. He was often accused by the critics of using cardboard figures. They were right about that. Stick figures. You know, the absent-minded cleric-often the murderer-the sharp-eyed but sympathetic parson’s wife, the horsy county matron, the pukka sahib Colonel, all the rest. They were quite interchangeable, these characters, from book to book. This time was… different. It was almost as if he were describing real people. Which he wouldn’t have done,” Jeffrey added hastily. “Much too careful about being sued, was Sir Adrian.”
“Did you mention any of this to him?”
“Good heavens, no. He’d have taken my head off and had it for stew. I rather got the impression sometimes he thought I was stupid. But then, he held most Americans in the lowest possible regard.”
But Jeffrey’s analysis had St. Just wondering whether Jeffrey was anywhere near as silly as he appeared. Take away the ridiculous attempt at an English accent and the puppylike exuberance-the man couldn’t seem to sit still, but St. Just wasn’t certain whether this was nervousness or just an excess of energy-and you might just find a high degree of intelligence operating behind those guileless calf ’s eyes.
“What seemed to be the plot?”
“Well, the title was A Death in Scotland, but the beginning chapters are about an ambitious, talented, sensitive young boy from a mining town in Wales who longs for fame and pines for acceptance into the upper classes. At first I thought he was borrowing from the life and times of Richard Burton, and he may well have been. Anyway, this boy hares off to London, leaving a curt farewell note for his mother, and on the strength of a few short stories published in the newspapers, finds himself taken under the wing of a society matron who sees herself as heading up a salon in eighteenth-century fashion. He-Sir Adrian-devotes quite a few pages to a mercilessly cruel portrait of this woman, while it is evident, reading between the lines, that she was the soul of kindness to a penniless-penceless-young writer. That part, or at least the spirit of it, you can bet your last dollar-pound-is true.
Then, one day, said penceless writer is invited to a house party in Scotland by someone he’s met at one of this lady’s salons. He realizes he hasn’t the clothes for it, and has no idea how to comport himself in such a setting, and he winges on about that for a few pages. Finally, he convinces this salon lady-the one he holds in such contempt-to sponsor a new wardrobe. That’s about it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s as much of it as I saw. When last spotted, our hero was on the overnight train to Scotland, new wardrobe tucked away in new luggage, courtesy of his sponsor, whom one strongly suspects he dropped like a rock as soon as her usefulness had been served. Now he’s worried that he doesn’t have a valet, and spends the journey thinking of a story to cover for this embarrassing state of valetlessness in which he finds himself. He’s also frightfully worried because he’s never been on top of a horse and to get out of the hunt he’s wrapped one of his ankles in a bandage. Read on one level, it’s rather amusing, but I don’t think Sir Adrian intended that. How it would have gone over as a book, I’ve no idea, but the fact is he could get away with printing the deed to this house and it would fly off the shelves.”
Jeffrey now sat forward on his typist’s chair, regarding them both eagerly.
“I must say: I’m finding it quite, well, intriguing, Inspector, to be in the middle of a murder investigation. Not exciting, exactly-well, yes, ok, I have to admit: It is exciting in a way. I’ve been bored silly the past few weeks-one can only write fictitious replies to fan mail for so long, you know. ‘I am delighted by your comments and will certainly take them under consideration for my next book.’ Baloney. Or as you might say: fish and chips. He never read the things-the man couldn’t stand the slightest hint of criticism. His books were loaded with factual errors and gross improbabilities; as a result, he got quite a lot of mail. I winnowed out the flattering letters and reviews and hid the rest from him. God knows, he wasn’t willing to learn anything from anyone; his success had taught him not to bother.
“Now,” and here finally he took a pause for a breath. “Now, I’ve given this whole situation quite a lot of thought. For example, have you thoroughly investigated the triangle angle?”
“The what?”
“Just a thought. I wouldn’t want to presume. But, well, Sir Adrian was known to have bits on the side, wasn’t he?”
“You mean to say, women friends?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“I do wish, Sir, you’d stick with American expressions, and let us translate,” said St. Just. “But yes, to answer your question, I gather there were affairs here and there. But more so in the past, and Violet apparently prevailed in the end. Why do you ask?”
But Jeffrey was now off on a new train of thought.
“Then there’s that Paulo. His mother is a nice woman but I’d trust him as far as I could throw him. Always skulking about. Up to no good whatsoever. By the way, you might want to have a look in the shed back there.” He pointed out his small window in the general vicinity of the back gardens. “Unless they’ve suddenly started storing trash-rubbish-there for no reason, he’s up to something with that.”
As they walked away from the stables, having firmly refused Jeffrey’s offer to “get to the bottom of the rubbish situation,” St. Just said to Fear:
“I imagine he came here to search for his roots. With a name like Spencer he’s bound to climb up several wrong branches of the family tree. Still, Americans do seem as delighted to think their forebears were yeoman as they are to learn they were ladies and lords of the realm.”
“He was sod-all use about the manuscript.”
“Do you think so, Sergeant? I’m not sure I agree. But I can think of two explanations: Either he knows everything about the rest of the tale and is being coy about it for some reason, or else he knows nothing at all, as he says.
“Let’s see if our lads have even had a chance to look at that shed he mentions.”
Tracking down Mrs. Butter had proved to be far easier than Albert had imagined, for, much to his surprise, she was not ex-directory. Albert had remembered her as a private person, but perhaps she had turned into one of those lonely elderly ladies who enjoyed the intrusion of salesmen’s telephone calls on her dinner hour.
Getting out of the house proved a far more difficult matter than locating Sir Adrian’s former secretary, for the press had dug in without the gates and could occasionally be spotted lurking in the trees or patrolling the perimeters of the house in the hope of a photo opportunity-or, better yet, another murder to report.
While St. Just had warned the family not to leave, Albert told himself what he meant was that they should not depart permanently for the Costa del Sol. But they were effectively held hostage anyway unless they were willing to run this gauntlet of reporters and photographers. Albert, usually ravenous for publicity, decided that there were, after all, occasions when bad publicity was worse than none, and that this was one of those occasions.
He kicked himself for not having brought his full stage makeup kit with him, but in the end, he felt that a minimum of disguise was safe enough: a hat pulled low over his forehead and a scarf muffling his nose. He would have borrowed Watter’s wellies, to aim for a more rustic effect, but Watters had been complaining yesterday that the police had now “run off” with all of them. Thus minimally shielded from photographers, Albert headed toward the opening in the fieldstone wall at the back of the estate, an area so overgrown, so untouched by Watters since time immemorial, that Albert felt certain no city-bred journalist would venture there.
Sergeant Porter, meanwhile, spotting him through field glasses from the roof, radioed Sergeant Fear to ask if he wanted him followed, or stopped.
A half-hour’s walk brought Albert to the village in time to catch the chicken-stop train that would take him into Cambridge. From there he traveled to Ipswich and, after a slight delay, to Felixstowe, on the way passing endless farmland and little else. At another time of year, fields of corn would have enlivened the gray scenery. Albert peered somberly through the rain-spattered, fogged-up window of the train as it approached the resort town, perched at the tip of a flat peninsula standing fast against the North Sea. In summer the beach and pier served as a backdrop for the full catalog of the human form on parade, wearing all the possible hues of sunburn. During winter, no one seemed to have business at the seaside-indeed, Albert began to regret that his costume had not included another layer of wool, for the wind at water’s edge once he arrived at Felixstowe was fierce, stinging as it spat saltwater in his eyes.
He took a taxi to the other end of the bay, to the little fishing town of Felixstowe Ferry, a village consisting of little more than a cluster of cottages, a pub, a dollsized church, and a boatyard resting on low-lying land at the mouth of the River Deben.
He had taken the precaution of phoning ahead from the station at Cambridge. Mrs. Butter greeted him warmly at the door.
“It’s lovely to see you, my dear,” she said, taking his coat. “I don’t get many visitors. Of course, that was the point in moving way out here.”
Like Jim Tanner’s cat at the Thorn and Crown, she seemed untouched by time. The room she led him into just off the hallway was of the kind where stacks of books and furnishings upholstered in a riot of chintz patterns seemed to proliferate of their own accord. Green and red dominated the color scheme-in the plaid at the windows and in assorted garden prints on chairs and sofa. It was, apparently, Christmas every day at Mrs. Butter’s house.
The ceiling was painted a deep goldenrod that reflected back an Aubusson carpet on the flagstone floor. The bright colors in such a small room should have been unsettling but, once the eye adjusted, were oddly restful, with flames from the Tudor-style fireplace casting flickering light and shadow against the ceiling. Two brass sconces, one on either side of the hearth, provided further soft illumination.
A lovely blue-point Siamese dozed atop a copy of The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. As Albert walked in, it stirred, opened one eye, stretched one paw in what looked like a friendly wave, and went back to sleep.
Presumably there had once been a Mr. Butter, but he was nowhere in evidence.
She bustled about a bit, offering tea and an assortment of little cakes and sandwiches that Albert was certain had been purchased specially for his visit. Mrs. Butter, despite the implications of her name, was neither large nor particularly plump. Age had followed its tradition of redistributing her weight a bit more around her waist, making her even more sparrow-like in appearance- rounded and brownish gray with black-button eyes that missed nothing. He imagined she kept herself fit with brisk, healthful walks at water’s edge.
Albert hoped she could afford the lavish little spread for tea, and was torn between consuming everything offered to show his appreciation for her effort and eating sparingly so there would be something left for her the next day. In the end, ravenous hunger won out-he had had nothing to eat all day but the dry crust and cheese sandwich wrapped in plastic on offer from British Rail.
After awhile she finished fussing. Sitting back and fixing him with those shiny dark eyes, she asked:
“So, what was the old devil up to, then?”
Taking the signal that they were now getting down to business, Albert looked around for a place to set aside his plate.
“Oh, put it on top of Mathew Arnold. Do him good to be used as a tray,” she said. “Tedious man.”
Albert placed the remains of his fish paste sandwich on top of the Collected Works to his left and delicately brushed his fingertips.
“As I mentioned when I rang you,” he said, “I’ve what appears to be a partial manuscript written by my father. It was something he was working on when he… died.”
“Yes, of course, I’ve seen the newspaper accounts. Even allowing for the usual sensationalism, it does seem to me quite a… well, quite a sensational occurrence. Terribly sordid. And extraordinarily strange. I suppose one can’t blame the press for taking a quite unhealthy interest. To be killed by an axe …”
“Knife, actually.”
The newspapers had been particularly excited by the choice of weapons used in the murders, which had been the occasion for a sidebar on medieval armaments. Malenfant not having been forthcoming with precise details, the papers had decided Ruthven and Sir Adrian had both met death by battleaxe.
“But, yes,” continued Albert. “I couldn’t agree more, really. Only natural on their part-it’s like putting a sizzling steak in front of a cage full of starving tigers. But the problem it creates for the family-”
“Oh, yes, I quite see that. It puts all of you in a horrid position, doesn’t it? Not just you, but the others staying at the house. Simply horrid.”
She gave a little shudder to demonstrate the horridness of it all, but in general, Albert thought, she was having a hard time concealing her rabid interest. Only natural, as well. Not only did the story have elements of irony-two members of a family whose name was synonymous with bloody murder being done in by foul play-but there was the added frisson of the opportunity for the press to drag Violet’s historic old crime-alleged crime-across the front pages yet again. And in Mrs. Butter’s case there was an added thrill: She knew two of the victims at first hand, and one of those quite well.
She seemed to be following his train of thought, as her next words revealed:
“Of course, knowing Sir Adrian as well as I did does make a difference.”
“Of course.”
She turned, stretching her hands toward the fire. After a long pause, she said musingly:
“Ruthven and Sir Adrian.” Albert noticed it was not the conventional “poor” Ruthven or “poor” Sir Adrian.
“Both,” she continued. “It’s very strange, that.”
“The whole thing is strange,” said Albert.
“No. No, what I meant was-and I hope I’m not being too indelicate, but-what I meant was, Ruthven’s death was a surprise, in a way. Sir Adrian’s was not. I can’t begin to tell you why I feel that way about it, but I do.”
Albert, who felt it was a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other, held his tongue.
“I used to blame you children. At first, you know. I hope you’ll forgive me. But I was astonished at the lack of family feeling. Few visits, fewer letters. I thought his isolation sad, inexplicable. Then later, of course, I came to understand.”
“You were there some time, weren’t you?”
“Five years, to the day.”
“Remarkable.”
“Yes, wasn’t it? I wanted to leave after three months. But Sir Adrian had promised me-in writing, thank heaven-quite a generous pension for which I would qualify after five years. With Mr. Butter gone-well, you won’t want to hear all of that. But I rather desperately needed that pension. Of course, he tried to renege on the agreement when I left-I knew he would. Which is why I had quite a vicious solicitor lined up before I gave notice. My nephew,” she added, smiling.
Albert laughed.
“You must be one of the few people who worked for my father who have a success story to tell.”
“I imagine. I survived by avoiding him as much as possible. As I came to realize all of you children did, as well.”
It was a sad but true commentary on the family dynamic, thought Albert.
She had resumed her study of the flames in the fireplace.
Into the pause, Albert said, “Why did you say earlier you were surprised? About Ruthven?”
She turned to him.
“Hmm? Oh, just because, it’s rather obvious, don’t you think? I can quite see why he might be killed by even a casual acquaintance- forgive me, I know I’m being blunt-but to kill him during a family gathering, when the suspicion would quite naturally fall on the family… It’s so risky, don’t you see?”
“You think a more public setting, something designed to look like an accident, perhaps…”
“Something like that, yes. Someone pushing him under the Bakerloo Line, perhaps. Something that would point the suspicion a bit away from the family, not right toward it. I must say, none of you children ever struck me as stupid-even George, if you will forgive me, has a certain animal cunning. You were all bright and talented, in your different ways, in spite of it all.”
Albert did not quite know what to say. On the one hand, she was complimenting him-all of them-on being too bright to commit murder, at least in an obvious way. “Thank you” didn’t quite meet the situation.
“Perhaps the manuscript will shed some light?”
“Oh, yes. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Dreadful things. I never needed reading glasses until I worked for your father. Part of the problem, of course, was that he could barely see what he wrote, having writ, so to speak. Let’s take a look.”
She pulled out of a knitting basket at her side a pair of thick spectacles on narrow gold frames and proceeded to attach them to her ears. She reached to accept the pages Albert had pulled from his rucksack.
“Good heavens,” she said, riffling through the pages. “Worse than ever. This will take awhile.”
“I am quite willing to pay for your time. I realize this is a huge imposition on you.”
She laughed, a little chirping sound that rippled through the room and (nearly) woke the cat.
“This is quite the most exciting thing to come my way in an age. You did say when you rang this was not, perhaps, his usual run of manuscript.”
Albert wondered how much he could take her into his confidence, but felt he had little choice.
“I really can only go by the title, but I think there’s bound to be something in there that sheds some light on… something. Something he knew. Perhaps the something that got him killed.”
But she barely noticed what he said. She had begun to read, slowly, tracing the manuscript line by line, occasionally pausing to hold a page closer to her lenses. He could hear a clock ticking in the background, punctuated by the sound of the village church bell tolling the quarter hour.
For a man whose minimum daily requirement of calories tended to come from alcohol, it was a shock to the system to have butter and sugar and flour coursing through his veins. His stomach seemed to have nearly forgotten the formula for converting these ingredients into energy. The unaccustomed exercise of the day-he was more used to spurts of manic activity on the stage than steady walks through the woods-acted, on top of the recent stress, the hot tea, and the fire, as a soporific.
At one point, a second Siamese wandered in, a missing bookend to the first, and settled itself on a pile of periodicals near the hearth before gazing off, cross-eyed, into space.
“There you are, Cly,” she said, looking up. “I wondered where you’d got to.”
“Sisters?” asked Albert, his mind elsewhere.
“Mother and daughter. Clytemnestra is slightly smaller than Leda. It’s the only way I can tell them apart.”
After awhile, Albert asked her permission to replenish the wood in the fireplace. Then he sat back down and watched the Roman Empire cat, it’s back rising and falling with sleep, and soon, inspired, began nodding off himself.
It was a long time before Mrs. Butter removed her glasses and looked up from her task. Albert, by this time, was sound asleep, gently snoring. She studied him awhile, remembering a younger Albert, before time and drink had left their handprints. She wondered very much what was best to do.
There are people in this world who, while they hold to a high and strict moral code, include in that code the necessity for lying once in awhile in the service of a greater cause. Mrs. Butter was of this flexible school.
Finally, she reached her decision. She cleared her throat. Then again, louder. Albert started awake.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, and or whether to tell you at all,” she said. She looked at him closely to be sure he was awake enough to take in what she said. His eyes were clear, focused. She realized with some surprise that she might never have seen him sober before.
“What is it?” he said. “You’re worrying me now.”
“I am sorry; I don’t mean to. We have to remember we don’t know, never will know, probably, if your father was writing fiction here, or fact. But if he’s done what I think…”
“Go on!”
“Were you aware, Albert, that Ruthven was only your half-brother?”