clean.”
“Has it indeed? And what about fingerprints?”
“None of them either. Crosby’s been over the lot. The armour’s been handled all right—but with gloves on.”
The pathologist nodded swiftly. “In that case we can’t do a lot of harm by going inside.”
He didn’t touch the visor, but went straight to the helmet, lifting it with both hands from behind.
There was—after all that—no doubt about how Mr. Osborne Meredith had died.
The back of his skull had been staved in.
7
« ^ »
After he left Lady Eleanor, Charles Purvis went to his car. Ornum House was too far from any of its neighbours to visit them on foot—especially if time was short.
He drove the mile to the village, went through the ornamental gates and out into the High Street. All of the properties there were in good condition, most belonged to the Earl. He nosed his car gently past the usual Sunday afternoon village traffic and stopped outside the last cottage in a row not far from the Post Office. Most of the village would be watching the cricket, the rest getting ready for Evensong. He was quite sure the occupant of number four, Cremond Cottages, would be doing neither.
The man who came to the door was older than both Lord Henry Cremond and Charles Purvis and already running to overweight. He was dressed in old corduroy trousers that were none too clean and a shirt so open- necked as to be undone.
No one could have called his manner agreeable.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Charlie-boy.”
Purvis stiffened. “Good afternoon, William. Your uncle has sent me down—”
“I didn’t think you’d come on your own.”
Purvis tightened his lips. “No, I don’t think I would.”
Suddenly the man grinned. It changed his face completely. “Fifteen all. Your serve—”
“Your uncle sent me down,” repeated Purvis stolidly, “to say he wants to see you.”
“That’s a pleasant change, I must say,” drawled William Murton. “I’ve never known him actually to want to see me before.”
“Well, he does now”—shortly.
“Why?”
The Steward hesitated. “There’s been a spot of trouble up at the house.”
“Has there? I’m sorry to hear that.” William Murton did not sound particularly sorry. He squinted across the doorway at Charles Purvis. “Someone run off with the family plate, then, or something?”
“Not that sort of trouble.”
Murton raised his hands in mock horror. “You don’t mean to tell me that some cad has asked for my cousin Eleanor’s hand in marriage?”
Charles Purvis flushed to the roots of his hair. “No.”
“Not that sort of trouble either?”—offensively.
“No.”
“Well, well, how interesting. I shall come at once.” He paused on the threshold. “Tell me, does this invitation include a meal, do you suppose?”
“He wants to see you,” repeated Purvis.
“I see. What you might call a general summons rather than an invitation.”
What Detective Inspector Sloan could have done with was a ball of string.
That was what pot-holers used when they were in dark caves and wanted to be sure of their way back. It was not unlike that in Ornum House. What he was looking for was the door behind which Lady Maude had retreated earlier on. If he could find a large Chinese vase he thought he would be all right from then on.
He could, of course, easily have asked someone to take him there, but there were risks inherent in the way in which he was announced that might very well disturb the two old ladies with whom he wanted a quiet chat. With whom he wanted a quiet chat before anyone else got to them—which was why he had slipped away from the armoury for a few moments.
He was unlucky with the Chinese vase. He found it all right. Vast, well-proportioned, and delicately coloured, there was no mistaking it
Except for one thing.
Its twin.
It wasn’t until he had opened a whole series of wrong doors that he realised the gigantic vase he and Crosby had seen had been one of a matching pair. He found the other—the right one—at the far end of the same long corridor. From then on it should have been plain sailing.
He knocked on Lady Maude’s door.
A thin old lady—the same one as he had seen earlier—appeared. Fortunately she recognised him.
“I’ve seen you before.”
“That’s right, Lady Maude. I wanted to see you again. You and Lady Alice.”
“You did?” Sloan felt himself being scrutinised. “Why?”
“Someone has killed Mr. Meredith.”
She stared at him for a moment. “Have they indeed. You’d better come in. This way.” She turned abruptly on her heel and went back into the room. “Alice, Alice, where are you?”
Lady Alice was—if that were possible—even older than her sister. Old age, however, had not altered the outline of the Cremond nose, which was planted firmly in the middle of a face that in its time must have been striking. Say about the year the Old Queen died.
He stood in front of her. “Good afternoon, your Ladyship.”
A claw-like hand lifted a lorgnette and examined him through it in a silence that soon became unnerving. Sloan hadn’t felt like that since his early days as a very jejune constable—when he was being checked over by his station sergeant before he was allowed out on the beat. Pencil, notebook, whistle… subconsciously he wanted to make sure that they were all there now.
“Who are you, my man?”
“My name is Sloan, Lady Alice.”
“Well?”
Perhaps, conceded Sloan to himself, that hadn’t been such a good beginning after all. Circumlocution was a device for handling the middle-aged, not the very old.
“Someone has killed Mr. Meredith.”
“Ha!” said Lady Alice enigmatically.
Perhaps, he thought, to the very old death was such a near and constant companion that they minded less.
“And I,” he went on, “am a police officer who has come to find out all about it.”
Of course, there was always the possibility that she would have expected him to have been in red. The Scarlet Runners, that was what the Bow Street people had been called in their day.
Or should he have just said he was Sir Robert Peel?
“Good riddance,” said the old lady vigorously.
He had been wrong to worry about upsetting her then.
“Tryin’ to make out that Great-great-great-grandfather Cremond was a bastard.”
“Dear me,” said Sloan, conscious of the inadequacy of his response.
“Thought the title should have gone to someone else.”
“No?”
“Yes,” countered Lady Alice firmly. “Said it was all in the archives.”
