terrible world. All that blood. All that nastiness.’ His voice was even louder now, almost a scream. ‘Go away, please, Mrs Langstone.’
‘Perhaps we can talk in the morning,’ Lydia suggested. She waited a moment but there was no reply. She wished the door goodnight.
As she turned to go upstairs, she realized that she was not alone in the hall. Mrs Renton was standing in the doorway of her room. She could have heard the whole conversation.
‘Mr Serridge says that Mr Wentwood is moving out,’ Mrs Renton said, mumbling because her teeth were out.
‘On Monday, I believe.’
The little eyes considered her. ‘He didn’t last long.’
‘No,’ Lydia agreed. ‘By the way, have there been any more parcels lately for Mr Serridge?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I was wondering, you see,’ Lydia went on. ‘Do you think the hearts and the skull came from the same person?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘You would. But should you?’
‘What will you do with Miss Penhow’s skirt?’
‘I’ll wrap it up and send it to Miss Kensley. Her niece.’
She smiled at Mrs Renton and went upstairs. She turned on the fire in the sitting room and drew the curtains. She had been very stupid, she thought.
She went into the bedroom and took out the skirt and the two sheets of brown paper, its inner and outer wrapping. She picked up the lighter-coloured sheet of the two, the outer wrapping, and went into the kitchen. There was another piece of brown paper in the drawer. The colour of the two sheets matched. In the sitting room she unfolded both of these sheets and placed them side by side on the sitting-room table. Each had three straight edges. Each had an irregular fourth edge that looked as if it had been cut by someone in a hurry with a pair of blunt scissors. She lined up the two irregular edges. They fitted perfectly together.
Somewhere here was the key to the whole mystery. The problem was, she didn’t want to be the one to unlock it. She had enough troubles of her own already.
It was nearly midnight before she heard Captain Ingleby-Lewis’s footsteps on the stairs. While she waited, she had returned to Virginia Woolf and
Her father ambled into the room and tossed his hat onto the table. It skidded to the edge and fell to the floor.
‘Hello, old girl,’ he said, yawning. ‘Thought you’d have turned in by now.’
‘I waited up for you.’
‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’ He beamed at her. ‘Well, goodnight. I’m off to Bedfordshire.’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
Her father, who had clearly remembered the awkwardness of their last meeting, was already edging towards the door. ‘Better leave it until the morning. We’ll be fresher then.’
‘This won’t take a moment,’ Lydia said. ‘Have a cigarette.’
Automatically he changed direction and advanced towards the packet she was holding out to him, for his responses were Pavlovian in their precision where alcohol and tobacco were concerned. He took the cigarette. She struck a match for him. He grunted with effort as he lowered his head to the flame. When the cigarette was alight, he fell backwards onto the sofa.
‘Are you really throwing me out, Father?’
He looked reproachfully at her. ‘You know it’s not like that, my dear.’
‘That’s what it seems like. Why can’t we carry on as we are? I’m going to divorce Marcus, and then there will be more money coming in. Everything will be much more comfortable.’
‘Langstone may not make it easy. As far as I can tell, he seems pretty keen on staying married to you.’ The Captain was drunk but not too drunk. He added courteously, ‘Of course that’s understandable.’
‘The lawyer seems to think I should be able to get a reasonable settlement. Enough to live on.’
‘Who have you got?’
‘Mr Shires.’
‘Did Serridge arrange it for you?’
‘No. I arranged it myself.’ As she stared at her father, however, Lydia wondered whether this was in fact true. She remembered how cautious Shires had been at first when she mentioned the divorce, and how, a few hours later, he had become much more helpful, and the question of who was going to pay his bills no longer seemed to concern him so urgently.
Ingleby-Lewis shrugged. ‘You know your own business, I suppose. Never had much time for the fellow myself.’
‘Your friend Mr Serridge seems to like him well enough,’ Lydia said carefully.
‘Anyway, that’s not the point,’ he went on. ‘The long and the short of it is that you can’t stay here.’
‘Why are you listening to Mrs Alforde and not to me? I want to stay here.’
‘It’s for the best. Believe me.’
‘Is it because there’s something going on? Something you don’t want me to know about?’
He snorted. ‘Of course not. It’s quite simple. This isn’t really a suitable-’
‘New York,’ Lydia said. ‘Ring any bells? Grand Central Station, New York City.’
Captain Ingleby-Lewis dropped the cigarette on his lap. He leapt to his feet, swearing and patting his trousers. The cigarette fell to the carpet. Lydia picked it up and gave it to him.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, sinking back on the sofa and swiftly recovering his poise.
Lydia opened her handbag and took out the papers she had found in the writing box. ‘Do you know what these are?’
‘Of course I don’t. Not a mind-reader in a music hall, am I? Can’t this wait until the morning?’
‘Two pieces of paper,’ Lydia said, ignoring him. ‘There’s Miss Penhow’s signature on one of them, written over and over again. It looks as if someone was practising it.’
Her father stared straight ahead.
She unfolded them. ‘On the other bit of paper are the words “I expect you are surprised to hear”. And there’s something else on the other side.’ She looked up at her father but still he did not react. ‘It’s written in pencil, in a different handwriting and rather faintly. Shall I read it to you? “And so tell the vicar you’re sorry for all the upset, that you met an old pal, a sailor who you were-”’
‘That’s enough,’ Captain Ingleby-Lewis said quietly. He sat in silence while he finished the cigarette. He stubbed it out and said, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
He sucked in his cheeks. ‘I thought you might be about to start making threats.’
‘So did I,’ Lydia said. ‘And perhaps I will, I don’t know. Does it mean what I think it means?’
Captain Ingleby-Lewis shrugged. ‘That rather depends what you think it means, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m told that you’ve always been good at copying things with a pen.’
He looked at her. ‘You mean they’ve told you that I forged some cheques. They’ve told you about the mess accounts.’
It was not a question so Lydia said nothing.
‘I had to leave the army. I wasn’t court-martialled but everyone knew the reason. The mess sergeant was involved as well. But he wasn’t so lucky.’
The significance hit her. ‘Mr Serridge?’
Her father nodded. ‘He was in prison for two years. Still, all that’s water under the bridge. But of course it’s one reason why you shouldn’t be staying with me.’
Lydia folded the papers. ‘And what about these?’
‘That silly Penhow woman, I knew she’d cause trouble. All heart, no head — that was her problem.’ He
