Scold's Bridle

repeated the exercise with everything else you've ever earned and then came home to leech off the woman you'd abandoned. I'd say it's arguable who was the greater thief. If the clocks were so important to you, why didn't you take them with you?'

'Couldn't afford to,' said Gillespie dispassionately. 'Put together enough for my passage. Nothing left over to freight the clocks.'

'Why didn't you sell one to pay for the freight of the others?'

'She blocked it.' He saw the scepticism in Cooper's expression. 'You didn't know her, man, so don't make judgements.'

'Yet by your own admission you used to beat her to make her frightened of you. How could she stop you selling your own property? You'd have thrashed her.'

'Maybe I did,' he growled. 'Maybe she found another way to stop me. You think I was the first one to try blackmail? She was a past master at it.' He touched his lips again and this time the tremor in his hands was more marked. 'We reached an accommodation, the essence of which was no scandal. She'd let me leave for Hong Kong on the condition that there was no divorce and she kept the clocks. Mutual insurance, she called them. While she housed them, she could be sure of my silence. While I owned them I could be sure of hers. They were worth a bob or two, even in those days.'

Cooper frowned. 'What silence were you buying?'

'This and that. It was an unhappy marriage, and you washed your dirty linen in public when you divorced in those days. Her father was an MP, don't forget.'

She let me leave for Hong Kong ... Strange use of words, thought Cooper. How could she have stopped him? 'Were you involved in something criminal, Mr. Gillespie? Were the clocks a quid pro quo for her not going to the police?'

He shrugged. 'Water under the bridge now.'

'What did you do?'

'Water under the bridge,' the old man repeated stubbornly. 'Ask me why Mathilda had to buy my silence. That's a damn sight more interesting.'

'Why then?'

'Because of the baby. Knew who the father was, didn't I?'

Water under the bridge, thought Cooper sarcastically. 'You told Mr. Duggan that your wife kept diaries,' he said, 'that they were on the top shelf of her library disguised as the collected works of William Shakespeare. Is that correct?'

'It is.'

'Did you see them when you went to Cedar House or did Mrs. Gillespie tell you about them?'

Gillespie's eyes narrowed. 'You saying they're not there now?'

'Will you answer my question, please. Did you see them or are you relying on something Mrs. Gillespie told you?'

'Saw them. Knew what to look for, see. I had the first two volumes bound for her as a wedding present. Gave her another eight with blank pages.'

'Could you describe them, Mr. Gillespie?'

'Brown calfskin binding. Gold lettering on the spines. Titles courtesy Willy Shakespeare. Ten volumes in all.'

'What sort of size?'

'Eight inches by six inches. An inch thick or thereabouts.' He wrung his hands in his lap. 'They're not there, I suppose. Don't mind telling you, rather relying on those diaries. They'll prove she set out to defraud me.'

'So you read them?'

'Couldn't,' the old man grumbled. 'She never left me alone long enough. Fussed around me like a blasted hen. But the proof'll be there. She'd've written it down, just like she wrote everything else.'

'Then you can't say for sure they were diaries, only that there were ten volumes of Shakespeare on the top shelf which bore a resemblance to some diaries you'd bought for her forty-odd years ago.'

He pursed his lips obstinately. 'Spotted them the first time I was there. They were Mathilda's diaries all right.'

Cooper thought for a moment. 'Did Mrs. Lascelles know about them?'

Gillespie shrugged. 'Couldn't say. I didn't tell her. Don't believe in emptying the armoury before I have to.'

'But you told her you weren't her father?'

He shrugged again. 'Someone had to.'

'Why?'

'She was all over me. Wouldn't leave me alone. Pathetic really. Seemed wrong to let her go on believing such a fundamental lie.'

'Poor woman,' murmured Cooper with a new compassion. He wondered if there was anyone who hadn't rejected her. 'I suppose you also told her about the letter from her natural father.'

'Why not? Seemed to me she has as much right to the Cavendish wealth as Mathilda had.'

'How did you know about it? It was written after you left for Hong Kong.'