Murder of Gonzago (13 page)

‘My memory’s getting worse. What is a
meta
-documentary once again, not that it matters the tiniest bit, but do remind me?’ Lady Grylls cupped her ear with her hand. ‘I
see
. You are so terribly clever, Hughie, they must have hated you in the army, or did you contrive to keep a low profile?’

‘I was clever enough not to let anyone suspect me of being clever at all. I believe I managed to blend in. Actually I was quite popular with my brother officers.’

‘Were you? You mean you drank to excess, gambled for high stakes and talked about women and horses in a knowledgeable if highly irresponsible fashion? I am so proud of you.’ Lady Grylls tapped the tape of the documentary. ‘It’s a real hoot, terribly funny. I am sure you will be amused. Is there any particular reason you are so keen on watching it?’

‘We are curious to see what Lord Remnant was like,’ Major Payne said. ‘In any murder case the character of the victim is of paramount importance. Murder is frequently – though by no means invariably – a direct consequence of something the victim has done.’

‘Roderick certainly managed to upset a great number of people and, from what I hear, he never quite knew when to stop. He called it “teasing”. He seemed to have lacked the wisdom to be afraid. Well, the Grenadin locals had been
threatening to carve him up and set La Sorcière aflame, so perhaps it was one of the locals who killed him after all? A case of raw revenge, what do you think?’

‘You may be right, darling. Perhaps it was a case of raw revenge.’

Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘You don’t sound too convinced. You think it’s too simple. I imagine it’s an addictive pursuit, the hunting down and ultimate unmasking of lethally inclined characters?’

‘It is addictive, yes.’

‘Who’s your favourite suspect, Hughie?’

‘I have no favourite suspect.’

‘Not the stepson, surely?’

‘The stepson seems to be the most obvious choice, but in a vague kind of way we are suspicious of Clarissa’s aunt. As it happens, she is also Clarissa’s mother. Well, Hortense Tilling is the only member of the house party, with the exception of Stephan, that is, who was
not
in the room at the time of the murder—’ Payne broke off. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Mr Quin! I’ve been meaning to tell you about Mr Quin! The mysterious Mr Quin! Goodness, my memory’s really bad these days. The Case of the Curious Codicil, that’s how I think of it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘That would make a pretty decent title for a detective yarn.
The Conundrum of the Curious Codicil
. It’s got a ring to it. Antonia might like it, what do you think?’

‘It sounds like a short story title and you know Antonia doesn’t write short stories, only novels.’

‘How about
The Mysterious Mr Quin
?’

‘I believe that’s already been used.’

‘Can’t it be used again?’

‘Not really, darling. What codicil and who or what is Mr Quin?’

‘There’s something peculiar about the whole business. I
mean, leaving a fortune to a fella no one’s ever heard of. I
knew
there was something I needed to tell you, Hughie. You told me to keep my eyes and ears open for developments, didn’t you?’

‘I believe I did, darling, but perhaps you could try to present your facts in a slightly more linear fashion?’

‘The other curious fact is that Clarissa has dismissed
all
the servants and is at Remnant on her own. Bobo believes she’s gone bonkers. One of the Remnant maids is the sister of Bobo’s gardener, you see. That’s how he heard about it, from his gardener. The sister was terribly upset. They were given no notice. Clarissa just told them to go.’

‘Clarissa is at Remnant on her own?’

‘She is indeed. The mind boggles. Remnant is the size of a hippodrome, with high vaults, eccentrically hazardous staircases and endless corridors. A former abbey or something equally gruesome. For some reason Clarissa brings to mind the woman in the story who sits and waits for her demon lover.’

‘Who
is
Mr Quin?’ Something had started stirring in Major Payne’s deep well of unconscious cerebration. He believed he was already in possession of a certain significant fact. What was it? Then it came to him. The Damascus chest in the Fenwicks’ drawing room – the secret drawer – the letter from Marrakech signed ‘Q’ – Q for Quin?

‘Quin is the enigmatic legatee. The fellow to whom Roderick left a fortune in his will. No one knows who he is. I was on the blower, talking to Felicity, just before you came and she told me all about it. She is puzzled and angry. Gerard had never heard Quin’s name mentioned before, or so he says. Well, everybody seems to be puzzled. Only Clarissa, it appears, is not.’

Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘Clarissa is not puzzled?’

‘No. At least, Gerard thought not. He was watching Clarissa while the will was being read, you see. She didn’t
seem to turn a hair. Didn’t gasp. Didn’t look round in dismay. Asked no questions. She seemed terrified – but that’s a different thing altogether, isn’t it?’

‘Clarissa seemed terrified?’

‘Yes. That’s what Gerard said. He fancies himself as something of a writer, you know. He believes he has special insights into people’s emotional states and all that sort of rot. Writers do like to put on a lot of airs, don’t they?’

‘Antonia doesn’t.’

‘The chap’s full name is Peter Quin and he has been left a fortune in Lord Remnant’s will. Five million pounds sterling, Felicity says, which does seem an exorbitant amount to leave to a stranger, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ Payne agreed.

‘Though of course it’s nothing really, a trifling canapé
amuse-gueule
affair, considering Roderick was worth thirty million pounds, some such sum. Apparently Roderick used to boast about his wealth, so terribly vulgar, he behaved more like a baron than an earl. He said once that, if he felt like it, he could pay a great number of people to do nothing but paint his portrait for the rest of his life, even though he knew the value of the finished product would be negligible.’

‘Was any reason given for the Quin legacy?’

‘
For services rendered
. It appears Quin had done Roderick some great favour.’

‘What kind of favour?’

‘That was never specified. It’s a mystery, I keep telling you. Felicity is annoyed with Gerard because Gerard doesn’t seem to think it’s such a big deal … She is also unhappy that he spends most of his time at his club. She said they had drifted apart … Perhaps this Quin saved Roderick’s life?’

‘Perhaps he did.’ Payne spoke absently. ‘Clarissa was not particularly surprised and she has dismissed all her servants, eh? Now I find
that
extremely curious.’

‘It may turn out that it was Quin who killed Roderick after all. Five million is an awful lot of money. For some people, that is. Quin might have saved Roderick’s life for that purpose alone. Quin might have engineered the
life-threatening
situation in the first place, so that he could save Lord Remnant from it. Do you see? Once he knows the legacy has been made in his name, as a token of Lord Remnant’s gratitude, he kills Lord Remnant.’

‘He saves his life, so that he can kill him later on?’

‘Yes! I love paradoxes like that, don’t you?’

‘Terribly ingenious, darling. A beautiful example of what I believe they call “convoluted cerebration”. Positively Chestertonian. Who was it you said Clarissa might be expecting at Remnant?’

‘Her demon lover. But I never meant it seriously. Demon lovers don’t exist. What is it, Hughie? Why are you looking like that?’

‘I think you’ve just given me a very interesting idea,’ Major Payne said.

‘Lord Remnant was putting the silencer on his gun?’ Antonia said slowly. ‘You are sure it was a silencer?’

‘Well, yes. The gun, when we found it, had a silencer screwed on it all right. A tubular thing. I thought, how odd, but then Lord Remnant was a very odd kind of person. He’d do
anything
to keep boredom at bay.’

‘Was he a good shot?’

‘I believe he was. The week before he was killed I saw him shoot a rabbit … May I have your
pirog
, if you’re not going to eat it? It helps me to concentrate if I eat.’

‘You are welcome to it. I haven’t touched it. By all means.’ Antonia pushed the plate towards her.

‘I’d eat
anything
that’s got jam in it … When I am tense, I
tend to eat more than usual,’ Louise confided. ‘I love
pirog
. I’d sell my soul for a well-made
pirog
.’

‘Did you say Lord Remnant shot a rabbit?’

‘Yes. It happened the week before he died. I was in the garden next to La Sorcière – enormous botanical gardens, as large as a cricket pitch, stretching down to the sea. I saw Lord Remnant first, then I saw the rabbit. The silly thing was sitting on its haunches, still as a statue. It seemed to think that if it didn’t move, it would remain unnoticed! Lord Remnant was wearing old corduroy trousers, a shabby tweed jacket and he had a pith helmet on his head. He looked terribly eccentric, quite ridiculous, really.’

‘He had a gun with him?’

‘Yes. He lifted the gun and took aim, but he didn’t fire at once. I must have gasped – he glanced in my direction and smiled – as though to say, watch.
Then
he fired. The bullet hit the rabbit’s hindquarters. The poor creature screamed – how it screamed! It started crawling towards the undergrowth—’

‘Oh no.’ Antonia couldn’t help herself.

Louise stabbed her fork into the
pirog
. ‘Lord Remnant fired again. This time the bullet hit the rabbit’s head. But still it wasn’t dead! It started twitching horribly. I thought he was going to grasp its hind legs and strike hard with his gun at the base of its neck, put it out of its misery. But he didn’t. He stood gazing at the quivering, bleeding, mangled creature. He gave a little bow in my direction. It was only then that he bludgeoned it to death with the butt of his gun.’

‘That wasn’t the same gun he was killed with, was it?’

‘Oh no, the gun he was killed with was much smaller. This was a four-ten gun. I am actually convinced he did it so very brutally because he knew I was watching. He then came up to me and said that shooting men and animals was the occupation of a gentleman, that it was the kind of thing that should be lauded and encouraged since it put a curb on effeminate impulses. Would you say that was funny? Or clever?’

‘No, not particularly.’

‘Lord Remnant took great pleasure in shocking and upsetting people. He had a real knack for it. He liked playing mind games – experimenting – goading people into doing things against their will – into compromising themselves. He liked setting people up. In my opinion, he displayed all the traits of a sociopath.’

There was a pause.

‘Tell me about the lead-up to the murder,’ Antonia said.

‘Dinner that evening was superb. Cocktails, iced consommé, roast duckling with apple sauce, peas and new potatoes.’ Louise sighed reminiscently. ‘Pudding was a very special kind of ice-cream called Alaska Bombe. There were scented candles on the table. Augustine and his wives went round with silver bowls full of fragrant rosewater for the ladies to dip their fingers in. It was quite marvellous.’

‘Was dinner on time or earlier than usual – because of the performance?’

‘Much earlier. Well, Lord Remnant was in a highly excited state. He was wearing his snow-white robes and he kept making appalling jokes. He asked Basil how the pigs on the farm were shaping up and, as he did so, he looked at me fixedly. He pointed to the jewellery Clarissa was wearing – to her necklace, bracelet, rings, earrings – and informed us that it was he who had given it all to her. He reached out and raised Clarissa’s hand to his lips. He then declared he hadn’t actually paid a penny for any of Clarissa’s jewels. He said he had pinched them.’

‘Pinched them?’

‘Yes. Every single piece of jewellery Clarissa was wearing that night had been stolen from the debs he had deflowered back in the sixties. There had been so many of them, he said, that sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he counted deflowered debutantes the way other people count sheep.’

‘He said that?’

‘Yes! A very unusual brand of debs’ delight, that’s how he described himself. A sort of erotic Raffles. Plumbing the depths of bestial debauchery had been his favourite pastime, but then most of the girls had been more than willing to be seduced by him. It wasn’t always plain sailing, though. Sometimes a girl struggled, which he found terribly irksome. He was not the kind of man who accepted no for an answer. Normally he was gentle and gracious, but he could also be pugnacious.’ Louise raised the saucer to her lips.

‘I hope he wasn’t hinting at rape,’ said Antonia.

‘He
was
hinting at rape.’

‘I don’t suppose he used the word?’

‘No. He had been firm, forceful and uncompromising, that’s how he put it. He had been in the habit of collecting trophies, to remind himself of his conquests. It was mainly jewellery he stole, but he’d also taken scarves and gloves and, on one memorable occasion, a stiletto-heeled shoe.
Well-born
girls in those days were fond of bedecking themselves, he said, frequently wearing the family jewels, so there were always rich pickings.’

‘You don’t think he was making it up, do you? Perhaps he was just showing off? One of his appalling jokes?’

‘Somehow I don’t think he was … The girls were usually so scared or ashamed of what they had allowed him to do to them, he said, they never made any fuss afterwards. They never complained, never told anyone about it. But he took no chances. He was careful to make it hard for anyone to track him down.’

‘How did he manage that?’

‘He wore disguise. He described himself as an “inveterate masquerader”. He had a talent for voices and accents. He would attend parties wearing a variety of beards, moustaches, wigs and so on, and each time he gave a false name. He said there was nothing like making love in disguise. He got a kick out of passing himself off as a
foreigner, French or Italian, sometimes Portuguese. He spoke French like a native. That made things easier, he said.’