'Naturally,' smiled Skelwith. 'Capstick's got this old house out in the sticks where he's kept in his place by a ferocious old housekeeper, it seems. Those who rescue him either by visiting, or better still by removing him, are rewarded with long and often scandalous reminiscences of Harrogate social life over the past half-century. And your luck's holding, as usual, Peter. It's on your way home. The address is Church House, Little Leven.'
Herbert Capstick had been rendered symmetrical by age. The shock of white hair which crowned his head was exactly matched in shade by the swirl of white bandage which swathed his foot. In between, a thin but not emaciated body, clad only in a cotton singlet and a pair of old-fashioned, pocketed rugby shorts, reclined in a huge, deep, upholstered wheelchair at the open door of a jungle-like conservatory.
The old woman who had escorted Pascoe through the house frowned disapprovingly at Capstick and withdrew. She hadn't spoken more than two words, listening to Pascoe's request for an interview in silence, then leaving him standing on the doorstep while she vanished inside. On her return she had beckoned to him and led him through a gloomy drawing-room into the miasmic conservatory.
The ferocious housekeeper, guessed Pascoe.
Capstick said in a high, precise voice, 'Mrs Unger has all the merits of her class and situation. She distrusts equally sunshine and strangers. You would probably be more comfortable, Mr Pascoe, if you moved that chair outside and sat in the sun. I should dearly love to join you but this is as far as I dare go without putting myself in the way of punitive reprisals such as lumpy custard and stewed greens. I hope you don't mind talking through the doorway. It should give something of the quality of the confessional to our exchanges, which in view of your profession may be not inappropriate. Which of my many embezzlements over the past sixty years do you wish to discuss, Inspector?'
Beneath the apparently uncombed or perhaps simply uncombable white hair, grey eyes rounded interrogatively in a wrinkled, leonine face, and full lips smiled.
Pascoe returned the smile, took a deep breath, and said, 'Not
'Ah,' said Capstick. 'Patrick. You have, of course, spoken with him about this matter?'
'No. I haven't as a matter of fact,' said Pascoe uncomfortably. 'I've only met him once, very briefly.'
'Yet to me, whom you have not met at all, you are quite willing to broach the subject openly, without preamble? Strange. Perhaps you have been preadvised of my frank, disingenuous nature, my upright character?'
'Perhaps,' said Pascoe.
'Or is it, perhaps, that you have been told that old Capstick is so tired of his own company out here in God's heart-land all day, not to mention a touch of senile dementia, that he has started talking to the sparrows and may be easily persuaded to almost any verbal indiscretion?'
Pascoe took a chance and laughed.
'I see I have been misinformed,' he said. 'I'm sorry. I'm here quite unofficially, Mr Capstick. I can't even hint a threat that I may have to return some day officially. At the moment, though I can never be entirely off-duty, I am merely trying to satisfy my own curiosity. Shall I go on? Or shall I just go?'
Before Capstick could reply, Mrs Unger returned bearing a large tea-tray with folding legs. She stood in front of Pascoe and waited till, catching on belatedly, he unfolded the legs. She set the tray before him and left. It held, besides the teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two cups, a plateful of buttered scones.
'Mrs Unger has decided to approve you,' murmured Capstick. 'The buttered scones are the sign. Tea she would bring were my visitor Adolf Hitler. But buttered scones are a sign of special grace. She will be sorely distressed if you do not eat the buttered scones. On the other hand, I should warn you that you will be sorely distressed if you do. This is a dilemma. Such dilemmas cannot be unknown to you in your profession; moments when loyalty to those you work for clashes with loyalty to those you work with. You follow me, Pascoe?'
'I think so,' said Pascoe.
'I had one such moment some years ago with Patrick Aldermann. I am not sure I may not be having just such another one now. Can you reassure me?'
Pascoe poured tea for both of them and said, 'I'm not sure I can. But what I
He looked uneasily at the ill-omened scones. Then, seizing one boldly, he took a bite.
'Yes, I think that's quite enough, Mr Pascoe,' said Capstick. 'One bite will not harm you. If you care to take the rest and put them on the bird table in the middle of the lawn, we shall be entertained as we talk. The birds appear to be immune, I hasten to add.'
Pascoe took the scones to the bird table, not without an uneasy glance back to see if any curtains were twitching indignantly in the old house. But all seemed still. The well-tended lawn ran down to a thicket of flowering shrubs, including many richly-bloomed bush roses, bounded by a tall cypress hedge beyond which Pascoe could see the tower of the church which gave the house its name. Presumably it was St Mark's church and presumably that was the very tower from which the stone had fallen to crack open the Reverend Somerton's skull.
He returned to his chair by the open door. Without further preamble, the old man began to talk.
'Patrick Aldermann was articled with my firm in 1968 or it might have been 1969. He was not outstanding in accountancy terms, but he was quiet, respectful, attentive and once you got beneath the rather bland shell, interesting and likeable. At least I found him so. Also I had known his uncle, or rather his great-uncle, Edward Aldermann. He had also been an accountant and a very successful one. He made the money which reconstructed Rosemont where young Patrick now lives. He was a quiet man too, but very pleasant when you got to know him. His wife drove him, of course. She drove him to make more money and she drove him to buy that rambling place which was far too large for the two of them. Well, he had her there, of course. He rebuilt the house for her but he rebuilt the garden for himself, and it was big enough for him to hide in. Still, she got him in the end, they usually do. But when his heart gave out, he was in his garden, thank God, pruning his roses. So, by one of life's curious ironies, was she. Interesting, that. Perhaps his ghost appeared to her and frightened her to death! I've often speculated!
'Patrick, now, he loved to talk, and listen to me talking, about old Eddie. It was funny. I don't suppose he'd met him more than a dozen times and then only on short visits. But he loved the old boy as if he'd been his own father. You know he changed his name, of course? He was articled with us when he attained his majority and it was almost
