Mr. Pardoe rose to his feet, and said,
'Michael Rogers? You may not know my name but your wife was my cousin. She called me Uncle Reuben always, but we haven't met, I know. This is the first time I've been over since your marriage.'
'Of course I know who you are,' I said.
I don't know quite how to describe Reuben Pardoe. He was a big burly man with a large face, wide and rather absent-looking as though he were thinking of something else. Yet after you had talked to him for a few moments you got the feeling that he was more on the ball than you would have thought.
'I don't need to tell you how shocked and grieved I was to hear of Ellie's death,' he said.
'Let's skip that,' I said. 'I'm not up to talking about it.'
'No, no, I can understand that.'
He had a certain sympathetic personality and yet there was something about him that made me vaguely uneasy. I said, as Greta entered,
'You know Miss Andersen?'
'Of course,' he said, 'how are you, Greta?'
'Not too bad,' said Greta. 'How long have you been over?'
'Just a week or two. Touring around.'
Then it came to me. On an impulse I went on. 'I saw you the other day.'
'Really? Where?'
'At an auction sale at a place called Bartington Manor.'
'I remember now,' he said, 'yes, yes I think I remember your face. You were with a man about sixty with a brown moustache.'
'Yes,' I said. 'A Major Phillpot.'
'You seemed in good spirits,' he said, 'both of you.'
'Never better,' I said, and repeated with the strange wonder that I always felt, 'Never better.'
'Of course – at that time you didn't know what had happened. That was the date of the accident, wasn't it?'
'Yes, we were expecting Ellie to join us for lunch.'
'Tragic,' said Uncle Reuben. 'Really tragic…'
'I had no idea,' I said, 'that you were in England. I don't think Ellie had any idea either?' I paused, waiting for what he would tell me.
'No,' he said, 'I hadn't written. In fact, I didn't know how much time I should have over here, but actually I'd concluded my business earlier than I thought and I was wondering if after the sale I'd have the time to drive over and see you.'
'You came over from the States on business?' I asked.
'Well, partly yes and partly no. Cora wanted some advice from me on one or two matters. One concerning this house she's thinking of buying.'
It was then that he told me where Cora had been staying in England. Again I said,
'We didn't know that.'
'She was actually staying not far from here that day,' he said.
'Near here? Was she in a hotel?'
'No, she was staying with a friend.'
'I didn't know she had any friends in this part of the world.'
'A woman called – now what was her name? – Hard – something. Hardcastle.'
'Claudia Hardcastle?' I was surprised.
'Yes. She was quite a friend of Cora's. Cora knew her well when she was in the States. Didn't you know?'
'I know very little,' I said. 'Very little about the family.'
I looked at Greta.
'Did you know that Cora knew Claudia Hardcastle?'
'I don't think I ever heard her speak of her,' said Greta. 'So that's why Claudia didn't turn up that day.'
'Of course,' I said, 'she was going with you to shop in London. You were to meet at Market Chadwell station.'
'Yes – and she wasn't there. She rang up the house just after I'd left. Said some American visitor had turned up unexpectedly and she couldn't leave home.'
'I wonder,' I said, 'if the American visitor could have been Cora.'
'Obviously,' said Reuben Pardoe. He shook his head.
'It all seems so confused,' he said. He went on, 'I understand the inquest was adjourned.'
'Yes,' I said.
He drained his cup and got up.
'I won't stay to worry you any more,' he said. 'If there's anything I can do, I'm staying at the Majestic Hotel in Market Chadwell.'
I said I was afraid there wasn't anything he could do and thanked him. When he had gone away, Greta said,
'What does he want, I wonder? Why did he come over?'
And then sharply: 'I wish they'd all go back where they belong.'
'I wonder if it was really Stanford Lloyd I saw at the George – I only got a glimpse.'
'You said he was with someone who looked like Claudia so it probably was him. Perhaps he came to see her and Reuben came to see Cora – what a mix up!'
'I don't like it – all of them milling around that day.'
Greta said things often happened that way – as usual she was quite cheerful and reasonable about it.
Chapter 22
There was nothing more for me to do at Gipsy's Acre. I left Greta in charge of the house while I sailed to New York to wind up things there and to take part in what I felt with some dread were going to be the most ghastly gold-plated obsequies for Ellie.
'You're going into the jungle,' Greta warned me. 'Look after yourself. Don't let them skin you alive.'
She was right about that. It was the jungle. I felt it when I got there. I didn't know about jungles – not that kind of jungle. I was out of my depth and I knew it. I wasn't the hunter, I was the hunted. There were people all round me in the undergrowth, gunning for me. Sometimes, I expect, I imagined things. Sometimes my suspicions were justified. I remember going to the lawyer supplied for me by Mr. Lippincott (a most urbane man who treated me rather as a general practitioner might have done in the medical profession). I had been advised to get rid of certain mining properties to which the title deeds were not too clear.
He asked me who had told me so and I said it was Stanford Lloyd.
'Well, we must look into it,' he said. 'A man like Mr. Lloyd ought to know.'
He said to me afterwards,
'There's nothing wrong with your title deeds, and there is certainly no point in your selling the land in a hurry, as he seems to have advised you. Hang on to it.'
I had the feeling then that I'd been right, everybody was gunning for me. They all knew I was a simpleton when it came to finance.
The funeral was splendid and, I thought, quite horrible. Gold-plated, as I had surmised. At the cemetery, masses of flowers, the cemetery itself like a public park and all the trimmings of wealthy mourning expressed in monumental marble. Ellie would have hated it, I was sure of that. But I suppose her family had a certain right to her.
Four days after my arrival in New York I had news from Kingston Bishop.
The body of old Mrs. Lee had been found in the disused quarry on the far side of the hill. She had been dead some days. There had been accidents there before, and it had been said that the place ought to be fenced in, but
