Blood From a Stone (20 page)

‘That's right,' said Ashley with a nod. ‘He could think it was really funny to talk about “the Vicar” when all the time he meant Parsons. I think I'd better let Inspector Rackham know what the Mountfords said.' He sucked his cheeks in thoughtfully. ‘I wish we knew if Paxton did die on the Somme or really was a deserter. His mother was convinced he was alive, but he's officially dead.'

‘Let's say he was alive,' said Jack, spearing a pickled onion. ‘Apart from anything else, it's more fun that way. Adds a bit more mystery, don't you think?'

‘That's all we need,' said Ashley grumpily.

‘Maybe both Napier and Paxton were in it with the Vicar, as Dr Mountford suggested. They were cousins, after all. Come on, Ashley. You're not on duty now. Engage in a little speculation.'

Ashley laughed. ‘All right, I'll play. Paxton and Napier could've been working together or Paxton could've moved in on his own account after Napier managed to mess it up
and
see off Mrs Paxton into the bargain. If the description of Napier wasn't so far adrift from the description of the murder victim, I'd have him down as a likely candidate to have another crack at the sapphires again, too.'

‘You're right. The man who the Leighs saw – and Belle saw, too, for that matter – sounds nothing like Napier, which brings us back to Paxton.' Jack thought for a moment, then looked up, his eyes brightening. ‘Wait a moment! Dr Mountford said Paxton's mother had a photo of him! If I can find it, I can show it to Isabelle and ask her if he's the man she saw at Market Albury.'

‘You could ask the Leighs if he's the man who turned up at their house, as well.'

‘Mrs Leigh has probably got Mrs Paxton's things,' said Jack. ‘Who knows, it could be boxed up and at Breagan Grange. I'm going there tomorrow. If I can lay my hands on that photograph, that'll be a big step forward.'

‘If he really was the man on the train, it'd be a massive step forward,' said Ashley.

Jack clicked his tongue. ‘I wonder if it's really on the cards? Our train victim couldn't speak French. I'd assumed Paxton does.'

‘Why?' asked Ashley. ‘Because Napier told Mrs Paxton he'd seen him in France? We can't trust anything Napier said.'

‘That's true,' agreed Jack adding chutney to his cheese sandwich. He ate without speaking for a few moments. ‘I must say I'd hoped to get a bit further on today.'

Ashley put his beer down in surprise. ‘I think you've come a dickens of a way.'

‘M'yes. But even if our man on the train is Sandy Paxton, how does that lead us to the Vicar? I was convinced that once we'd identified him, we'd have the Vicar, and we haven't. And I really would like to know where the servants have got to.'

‘You've got a bee in your bonnet about them,' said Ashley.

Jack cocked his head to one side. ‘Are you in a hurry to get back this afternoon?'

‘Not particularly. Why?'

‘Because it strikes me,' said Jack, running his finger round the top of his pewter mug, ‘that although Mrs Mountford seems to know everything that goes on in Topfordham, the only way
to find out for certain if Mrs Welbeck, Florence Pargetter and John Bright haven't told anyone where they're going, is to ask the people they're likely to have talked to.'

Ashley's eyebrows shot up. ‘What? Interview all the servants in Topfordham, you mean?'

‘Interview's a bit official. I was thinking of having a chat to Mrs Henderson's Mavis, as she seems to have been closest
to Florence Pargetter, but you can call it an interview if you'd rather. Old-fashioned police work,' added Jack with a grin, taking a gulp of bitter. ‘You should love it. Or do you have minions to do that sort of thing for you nowadays?'

‘Minions be blowed,' grumbled Ashley. ‘This is supposed to be my day off.'

‘I
don't know as who could tell you about Mrs Welbeck,' said Mavis blankly. ‘Or John Bright, neither.'

Mavis Stainburn was a big, amiable, fair-haired girl with large, placid blue eyes, only too willing to follow Mrs Henderson's instructions and ‘talk to these gentlemen'. She reached across the well-scrubbed kitchen table for the sugar bowl, stirred three spoonfuls into her tea and settled back happily.

Mavis had echoed more or less what they had learned from Mrs Mountford. Mrs Welbeck had departed in a huff back up north, John Bright had hung around until he, too, had taken himself off and as for Florence ...

‘I don't suppose,' said Ashley, ‘that Miss Pargetter and John Bright could've gone off together, could they?'

Mavis blinked at him in slow disbelief. ‘Flo go off with Bright?' She gave a rich laugh. ‘She wouldn't give him the time of day. Mind you,' she added, ‘it wasn't for want of asking. Quite struck on her, he was, for a time, but Flo wouldn't have any of it.'

‘So there wasn't any special friendship between them?' asked Jack.

‘No ...'

He picked up the hesitancy in her voice and looked a question.

‘There was something going on,' she admitted. ‘I couldn't make it out. She didn't fancy him, nothing like that. She could do far better than him, but there was
something.
I saw them with their heads together a couple of times.'

‘Could it be something to do with Terence Napier, perhaps?' suggested Jack.

Mavis digested the notion. ‘Perhaps,' she said, then shook her head. ‘No. That doesn't seem right, somehow.' Jack could see her struggling to put her thoughts into words. ‘Florence was worked up about something. I don't know what. She should've told me,' she added, indignation clouding her good-natured face. ‘She had no right, keeping things back. We were best friends but I've not heard nothing.'

It was slow work, but they learned quite a bit about Florence. How she could take off Mrs Paxton, with her snooty ways, so you would weep with laughing. And the vicar. Yes, and Mrs Welbeck, too, and anyone else you could care to mention in the village. She was a rare one for noticing, was Florence. ‘My mum,' said Mavis, pouring herself another cup of tea, ‘said that Flo was so sharp she'd cut herself one of these days, but she made me die, she did.'

‘It's a real gift, to be able to mimic someone properly,' said Jack with a warm smile. ‘You have to be a very keen observer. And, of course, a good mimic gets to know all sorts of things about the people they're impersonating.'

A slow smile spread across Mavis' face. ‘I'd say so. Florence always knew what was going on.' Mavis laughed. ‘She did all right out of it, too. She had some nice presents from folk who wanted to keep her sweet. Bits of jewellery, stockings and chocolates and so on. My mum,' she added with a sniff, ‘didn't like it, but, as Flo said, if you don't want to be caught out, don't get up to anything you shouldn't in the first place.'

‘What about Florence's mum? Did she approve?'

Mavis gave an incredulous snort. ‘Mum? She didn't have no mum. She only had her gran and when she passed over, Flo went to the orphanage. They put her into Service. She reckoned she'd never have been in Service if she wasn't an orphan. We often spoke about what we'd do if we had the choice.' Mavis' expression became dreamy. ‘I'd be a film star, and wear a fur coat and have jewels, just like they do in the magazines.' She looked at a pile of magazines on the kitchen sideboard and sighed.

‘Which ones have you got?' asked Jack with interest, strolling over to the sideboard and flicking through the heap of magazines. ‘I see.
Peg's Paper, Up To Date, Woman's Companion, Chit-Chat, Society Snippets, Joy, Love and Laughter Weekly
and
Film Life
.'

‘Not one of yours, then, Haldean?' asked Ashley. He turned to Mavis. ‘Major Haldean writes for
On The Town
magazine.'

Mavis' eyes bulged. ‘Do you, sir?' she asked in awestruck tones. Unconsciously her hand reached up and she patted her hair into place. ‘Flo would've loved meeting you. That's what she wanted to do. Be one of these people who find things out and write about it in magazines, I mean. Oh, I wish she was here.'

‘I wish she was, too,' said Jack. ‘I could've given her a couple of tips about how to get on, perhaps.'

Mavis nodded vigorously. ‘She would've liked that. You might meet her, up in Lunnon. I reckon that's where she is. She had something in mind, I know. What's more, I'm sure it had something to do with a magazine. Mad about magazines, she was.'

‘About magazines in general or any one in particular?' asked Jack, his hand resting on the pile.

Mavis ruminated for a few moments. ‘She talked about
Joy, Love and Laughter.
' Slightly surprised, Jack held up the copy of the magazine
.
From Mavis' description of Florence, he'd had expected her to be more drawn to the acidic observations of
Chit-Chat
or
Society Snippets
rather than the fulsome sentimentality of
Joy, Love and Laughter.
‘Yes, that's the one. Mind you, we were all excited about it, because of the sapphires.'

Jack and Ashley exchanged glances. ‘The sapphires?' questioned Jack.

‘Yes, Mrs Paxton's sapphires. A big picture it was, with Mrs Whoever it is – the lady who's got them now, I mean – all dressed up, with them on. Flo wanted to take the magazine,' continued Mavis, ‘but I wouldn't let her. I wanted to show it to mum. Flo fell out with me over it, but I said if she wanted it, she'd have to buy her own.'

As Mavis talked, Jack flicked through the magazine, remembering the feel of the picture he and Bill had taken from the dead man's wallet. The quality of the paper was right and so was the price. A tuppenny weekly, he'd said.

And there it was. The picture he had last seen in that gloomy room in Charing Cross, complete with a half-page article, describing the origin of the sapphires in reverent terms.

The writer rather spread themselves about the mysterious Breagan Stump Bounty, locked away in a golden box in the dark fastness of a cave for millennia, etcetera, etcetera. The fact that the sapphires had been locked away in the equally dark fastness of a bank for years and had only seen the light because an old lady was murdered wasn't mentioned. Murder, he thought, wouldn't induce the appropriate emotions in the readers of
Joy, Love and Laughter.

‘You say whatever Florence had in mind had something to do with this magazine?' he asked.

Mavis nodded. ‘I think so. As I say, she was excited for some reason. I dunno why, but she was. Do you really write for a magazine, sir?' she added wistfully.

Jack smiled. ‘Yes, I do. Would you like me to send you a copy of the next issue? I've got a story in it.'

‘Oh,
yes,
' said Mavis in a sort of rapture. ‘That would be lovely. My mum won't believe it when I tell her I've met you!'

‘What would you call a sharp young woman who takes “nice presents” from people who want her to keep quiet?' asked Jack as he drove Ashley back to Lewes.

‘I'd call her dangerously close to a blackmailer,' said Ashley. He looked at Jack speculatively. ‘I know I laughed at the idea earlier, but I wonder if Florence Pargetter did know something about Terence Napier?'

Jack nodded. ‘Maybe, but what seems to have really got her going was the picture of the sapphires in the magazine. The same magazine picture,' he added, ‘that turned up in our victim's wallet.'

Ashley digested this slowly. ‘Well, there's one thing about the victim in the train,' he said with a grin. ‘Whoever it was, it wasn't Florence Pargetter.'

Jack spent that evening with Aunt Alice, Uncle Philip and Isabelle. The next morning, with Isabelle beside him in the car, he drove from Hesperus to Breagan Grange.

‘You haven't been to Breagan Grange before, have you, Jack?' asked Isabelle as Jack negotiated the Spyker through Breagan Hollow and turned up the long drive to the Grange.

‘No, I haven't,' said Jack, swerving to avoid a pot hole.

After the homely prosperity of Hesperus, he felt his spirits dulled by the sight of Breagan Grange. He had been told that Frank Leigh had found it a struggle to hold onto the Grange after his father had gambled away the family fortunes but he could have guessed at the struggle, if not the cause, from the unkempt air of the place.

The lawns on either side of the drive were ragged and the house itself, although beautifully proportioned, was badly in need of pointing and painting. Discoloured patches of grey grime and damp marred the white façade. Even the surrounding countryside appeared shabby and down at heel. The woods behind the house, climbing the slope of Breagan Stump, seemed dusty in the heat and the tops of the surrounding hills were scorched a dull dun colour.

‘It looks as it could do with a bit of spit and polish, I must say,' he continued. ‘If I'd just inherited a string of sapphires, I'd be tempted to cash them in and spend the money where it was needed.'

‘So would I,' said Isabelle, ‘but there's no chance of that, I'd say, judging from what Celia says.' She tutted in irritation. ‘I do hate seeing a place run down like this.'

‘I don't suppose Mr Leigh can do much about it,' said Jack.

‘There's lots he could do,' said Isabelle robustly. ‘He could put his foot down for a start and stop his wife squandering money.'

‘Celia's been bending your ear, hasn't she?' said Jack with a sideways glance.

‘I suppose she has,' said Isabelle with a giggle, ‘but I do think she's got a point.'

‘The real point is that Celia and her stepmother don't get on very well, isn't it?'

‘What d'you expect? Celia didn't mind her father remarrying,' she added tolerantly, ‘but if he had to jump off the dock again, she expected it to be with Mary Hawker. She's a neighbour,' she continued in answer to Jack's questioning look. ‘Her husband's dead and she's obviously got a real soft spot for Mr Leigh. Celia likes Mrs Hawker. She's one of those efficient women, the sort who's always on committees and who ropes you into things. I bet she worked her socks off during the war. You're bound to meet her sooner or later.'