confirmed in thinking that it might turn out to be something very important, even valuable. After that it seems likely he’d keep it under close guard, and I doubt if any outsider would have had a chance of getting near it, or learning anything about it. But during those two days he may have treated it rather more casually. On the face of it, it was a fake, and he’d know that. But he may not have known, until Evan Joyce got excited about it, that there was something genuine and potentially precious under the fake. I’d like to hunt up all those who may have got wind of his find. Some of his professional rivals have been going in and out pretty freely here, I take it.’
‘They certainly have,’ agreed Barbara with feeling. ‘These Little Nells watch one another like hawks, spy on one another on principle. All’s fair! And he encouraged them, of course, the risk was also his own opportunity. Part of my function was to bring them here and set them talking – prise information out of them if I could. No doubt they were doing as much for me. It wouldn’t take much to alert them, either. If he even looked excited or smug, they’d begin to probe. But those two days… let me think! I had a musical party here that Thursday evening, while he was at practice. He sometimes got more that way, by turning me loose on them in his absence, or he thought he did. Now I come to think of it, he did go straight through into the office with his music-case before coming in to join us, and he locked it away, too. I believe I even said something about how possessive he was looking, something about never knowing where treasure might turn up, even at choir practice. Good lord,’ she said, startled, ‘even that could have been enough to start a really keen one on the scent! Do you suppose it did?’
‘Who was present to hear it?’
‘I’m not sure I can remember them all. Mr Goddard was here, and he brought a Mr and Mrs Simmons who were staying with him, I’d never met them before. They’re nothing to do with antiques, though, as far as I know. Then there was that man who conducts for the Amateur Operatic Society, and Tom Clouston and his wife, they run the gallery in Comerbourne. But they’re more new and local things, paintings and sculpture and fabrics and pottery. And John Stubbs. I was having difficulty over getting rid of John at the time, though, so that needn’t mean much. He hasn’t been around since, probably doesn’t like the heat. And Colin, of course, he’s usually around. That’s the lot, I think. It was just a run of the mill party. Arthur joined us after he’d put his case away. He did look smug. But there was nothing said, of course. I wouldn’t think there was much given away that night. But you never know. Really you never know!’
‘And the next day, Friday?’
‘He was home all morning, and I don’t think there were any visitors. After lunch he had a date to play golf with Robert Macsen-Martel at Mottisham, to make up a foursome. I think the other two were Charles Goddard and Doctor Theobald, but you could confirm that with the club. I suppose if he was carrying this thing round with him, he might leave it in his locker, but if it was that precious he’d take care to turn the key on it.’
‘And the rest of Friday?’
‘He was home for tea, which doesn’t leave him time for many other contacts. And we had guests for dinner. Nothing to do with trade. He was collecting bits of county, you see, and this was a squireish night.’ She named the guests. They were antiques rather than antique-dealers, and feudal and distant rather than tribal elements from Middlehope. George shrugged them off resignedly.
‘And Saturday – Saturday isn’t so easy, because he left for Comerbourne after breakfast. The Clouston Gallery had a ceramics show, and he’d promised to look in there, and then he was going to a small exhibition at the Music Hall, Victorian jewellery, I think. He had lunch somewhere there, but I don’t know with whom. He was back before tea, and apparently that’s the evening he went to see Professor Joyce. Maybe he had an eye open for a possible safe confidant in town, but decided against it, and preferred to go to an academic here.’
‘So that’s about it. Somewhere along the way, I do believe, somebody got involved. All for a scrap of parchment.’
‘You really think that was why it happened?’ Barbara lifted her head and showed him a face more conscious of pain and worry than he was ever likely to see in Isobel Lavery. ‘Somebody killed him for a manuscript from the Middle Ages?’
‘Yes,’ said George, ‘that’s exactly what I think. There are other possibilities, but none of them explains why that membrane of parchment has vanished. And when and if we find it, I do believe we shall have found your husband’s murderer.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
« ^ »
Five days!’ said Bunty thoughtfully, over the breakfast table on Tuesday morning. ‘Late to bring in the Yard – for which I’m sure you’re grateful – but you do seem to be up against a long slog, don’t you? After the almost invisible man. Nothing from any of the local garages on cars with one front wing damaged?’
‘Any amount of reports,’ said George, ‘all of which petered out on examination. Probably hardly any damage at all, if the truth be known, maybe a slight dent, nothing to be noticed, and he had plenty of time to get well away before we even got the call, let alone felt sure it wasn’t an accident.’
‘So you’re left with a list of all those dealers in close competition with Rainbow, especially the ones who were frequent visitors up there, plus all the other guests at his house that particular Thursday evening. Plus,’ she added doubtfully as an after-thought, ‘Evan Joyce, who just may have let his scholarly passion run away with him at the sight of treasure. Two days to fill in, in detail, for all those. Quite an order! So I suppose,’ she ended with a sigh, ‘I can expect you when I see you!’
‘Not even then!’ said George, and kissed her, and set off to begin a long day of patient leg-work at the Golf Club.
At about this same hour Bossie Jarvis, brushed and fed and fit, his school cap at the approved angle, erupted in the doorway of Sam’s study and solemnly reported himself off to catch the school bus down to Mottisham. By this time his grazes had faded to a quiet light-brown colour, and ceased to be glaringly noticeable. He was wearing his Sunday choir-boy look, so glossily clean that it was plain no dirt would adhere to him, so neat that the experienced adult, confronted with him, must instantly be haunted by suspicion of such virtue. His bulging school-bag was slung on one shoulder, and his glasses shone urbanely in the morning sun of what promised to be a fine day.
‘I’m going now, Dad!’ He had the doctor’s permission, and the sense to be just a degree more dutiful and amenable than usual, for reassurance to parents whose nonchalance hadn’t got him fooled for a moment. ‘Ginger and Bill are outside, we shall all be together.’ Don’t overdo it! One step too far, and they’d smell a rat.
‘Push off, then,’ said Sam briskly, aware that he, too, was playing a part, and skating over even thinner ice. ‘Just as long as you all come back together, too.’ Not much could happen on a school bus full of riotous youths, and in broad daylight. No coddling, they agreed firmly. One, he wouldn’t stand for it, and two, he’s smug enough already, deploy an army round him and he’ll be unbearable.
‘Oh, yes, well, we always do. But, Dad, a bunch of our class are staying later this afternoon and going round Mottisham Abbey with a party. All right if I go with them? We’re going to do a project on it.’ Magic word, terror of
