A Darker God (24 page)

Her arrangements complete, she took out three pairs of sensible cotton bloomers and put them in Thetis’s holdall.

On reflection—what
did
you pack for a friend on her way to jail?—she added a bag of fruit drops, a notebook, and a pen. She took her precious copy of
The Three Musketeers
from her shelf and wrote on the flyleaf: “Gunning and I are with you!” Well, Alexandre Dumas would keep anyone’s spirits up, she reckoned.

Letty fastened up the bag, grabbed her own battered leather satchel that went everywhere with her, and hurried downstairs to the parlour. “There! All done,” she announced into the charged silence. “The inspector may rummage in total confidence. Everyone’s blushes spared!”

“You’re a godsend, Letty,” Thetis said quietly.

Chapter 21

W
ell, for a start, her name’s not Templeton and, to go on, she’s not ‘Miss,’” Montacute confided as they left the police station.

Letty had done what she could to mediate with the forces of law and order on Thetis’s behalf. She had enough knowledge of Athenian society to come up with the name of a lawyer of whom she’d heard good things spoken and insisted that he be fetched at once. A slight nod of encouragement from the inspector reassured her in her choice and the prisoner was led away by the duty officer and a local woman hurriedly brought in to act as wardress. Letty did wonder if the prisoner had helped her cause, though, when she’d turned dramatically at the last moment and smiled back at the inspector. “Don’t worry about me, Percy,” she’d announced in throbbing tones. “I know how to be brave!” Then, with a wink for Letty, she’d disappeared, all gracious smiles for her escorting jailers, into the depths of the building.

Montacute had admitted gruffly that he was not yet ready to conduct an official interrogation; he needed more hard evidence and this he intended to comb from the scene of the
crime in Kolonaki Square. He’d invited Letty to accompany him there; in a house where she was very much at home, she might well have insights helpful to his study of the case. And with, doubtless, a clutch of domestic servants to interview, a respected female presence at his elbow would be essential. Letty sighed at the prospect of more hours of her time being commandeered by the inspector. Did he envisage her trotting at his side, smiling reassuringly at his female targets until the moment the case was resolved?

Probably. But first—he’d reminded her—he had an appointment at the Embassy and she was very welcome to attend with him. He’d looked at his wristwatch. “We’re a little early. Take a turn with me around the square, will you?”

She had had the feeling that refusing was not an option.

“Crikey! She’s not Miss Templeton? You don’t say! Well, I think you’d better tell me—in whose company
did
I spend last night?” Letty asked, confused. “Is she—at least—
Thetis?”

“Yes. That bit’s accurate. Named for the sea nymph … silver-footed, shape-shifting Thetis …” He paused and grinned. “Huh! Very appropriate! Fast mover if ever I saw one! And you’re never quite certain who exactly you’ve got. The original Thetis was a nymph favoured by Zeus. The mother of Achilles. She’s Thetis all right. But not Miss Templeton. Her real name is no deep secret, I understand, but I bring all this to your attention as a warning. I observe you to be a kindhearted and accommodating sort of person, miss. Someone likely to stand by her friends—or anybody—experiencing difficulties with the forces of law and order. But I’m obliged to tell you that you ought not to rush to take people on trust, as I see you do.”

“I don’t have the benefit of your underhand methods, Inspector, to inform me. Where on earth do you get your facts?”

“I check with London on every British subject who looks like staying for any length of time. That way I can head off a
lot of trouble. You’d be surprised how many problems are created by us foreigners. I like to know who I’ve got on my patch and what they’re up to.”

“And what was Thetis ‘up to’—apart from putting in a splendid performance as the wicked queen?”

“You’ll be surprised! And don’t wonder that her acting was impressive—it’s what she does. It’s her occupation, I mean. It’s what she does for a living. She’s on the stage. An actress.”

Letty had the impression that he was stumbling somewhat, watching for her reaction.

“And doesn’t
that
explain a lot!” she said. “She didn’t confide any such thing over the cocoa last night. I wonder why?”

“It’s the sort of information that’s not always found digestible by people of your standing in society, Miss Talbot. I imagine that cold shoulders, blank stares, and chilly set-downs are the order of the day for ladies of her profession.”

Letty couldn’t deny the prejudice of her class.
She’s on the stage …
The phrase was nearly as condemning as
She’s entered a house of ill-repute
. It was generally assumed that the exit from one was the entrance to the other. Unless an actress was elderly, ugly but stately, and had the protection of married status—
Mrs. Brewster Langdale-Price makes an unforgettable impression in the role of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt—
she was regarded as “no better than she ought to be and a disgrace to her family … if she has a family …”

“I think it’s very intriguing. I go often to the theatre … I wonder if I may have seen her performing in something?” she asked, confident that the omniscient inspector would have an answer.

He did not disappoint. “She toured the country with a repertory company after the war. Comedy or tragedy—she could turn her hand to anything. A chirpy Eliza Doolittle one week, a soggy Ophelia the next … you know the sort of thing. Then her talent was spotted and she graduated to the London
stage.
Love Your Enemy
at the Savoy …
A Lady of Easy Virtue
at the Duke of York’s—wonderful reviews for that one!
‘A revelation!’
the critics said of Miss Templeton’s performance as Chloë, Lady Brunswick-Plaice.
‘Her charm of appearance and beautifully flexible voice are matched by a swift intelligence and forceful personality’
, the theatre critic of The Times enthused. I don’t think we could argue with
that
, could we, miss?”

“No, indeed,” Letty agreed, amused. “But, Inspector—you are full of surprises! I had no idea you were a masher! You lack only the moustache to twirl. I trust you took the opportunity of getting her autograph while you had her under restraint? Look—I don’t see why this ability and success of hers should make her interesting to the police—or the government—whichever is sticking its nasty suspicious nose into her affairs.”

“Just background,” he muttered.

Letty stood and faced him on the pavement. “Which you wouldn’t have bothered to trail before me unless you were about to stun me with the foreground. Do get on with whatever character assassination you have in mind and leave me free to make my own judgement.”

“Bit of a firebrand, that young lady,” he said tantalisingly, and began to walk off on a second tour around the square. When Letty caught up with him, he was flowing on: “… follower of Mrs. Pankhurst, seat on the board of the Suffragist movement, Bolshevist agitator … you understand I quote from the file we hold on her, and I speak in confidence and without implied criticism … I’m aware that such behaviour has its admirers among what they call the upper-class intelligentsia … She marched down Piccadilly with the coal miners, carrying a banner, in the ’26 strike that brought the country to a standstill. You may well have seen her photograph on the front page of the
Herald
, Miss Talbot.”

Letty glanced at the face of the inspector, carefully composed in neutrality, and decided to annoy him. “No, I wasn’t
aware of that. But how disappointing! They didn’t take
my
photograph!” she said. “Not on that occasion.”

“Someone
did,” he replied quietly. “Don’t imagine that you went unnoticed.”

His reply chilled her.

“I’m wondering, miss, if I were to pick through the photographic evidence on file, whether I might find you and Miss Templeton in the same shot? Two known female agitators … It would be surprising if you’d never met before you both turned up on the same stage set in Athens. Chummy lot, the Sisters, I understand? And you do seem to be hitting it off rather well … perhaps too well for women so recently acquainted?”

“What a sinister world you inhabit, Inspector! I think we’ve had this conversation before. You obviously have a short memory. The last time you asked me if I knew Thetis, I said no. I say again: I had never set eyes on Thetis Templeton’s face until the moment she took off her mask onstage last night. And—photographic record? What are you telling me? That all my father’s warnings about the fanatical nature of the present régime at home—the surveillance he hints at, the sabotage of reputations he suspects, the gagging of opposition he has experienced—are well founded?” Letty challenged wildly, expecting no answer.

Suddenly oppressed by the deadweight of the postwar male hierarchy she had been struggling against for years, she turned on him—the immediately accessible, flesh-and-blood representative of the all-powerful but shadowy forces of the Establishment. “It would be interesting to hear this confirmed—and by an employee—a minion, a tool of the oppressive authorities that run our country. I do not lose sight of your chain of command, Inspector.
You
, Montacute, are a pawn in the State’s game and you are ultimately answerable, at the highest level of your department, to your king-piece—the
most damaging, most retrogressive Home Secretary we’ve had for decades. Do you feel no shame, being a cog in the machine of that prejudiced, vindictive homebred Napoleon? That narrow-minded little peacock?”

Letty ran out of breath and she waited, expecting to hear the clink of handcuffs. With that speech she had earned a place next to Thetis in the cells. Halfway between the police station and the Embassy, he would be wondering to which authority he should deliver her up on a charge of treason. She cut short her tirade, distracted by the contortion of his facial muscles. Grinding his teeth in fury? Bristling at her insults? In the end she decided he was trying to fight back a smile.

“A fine mixture of metaphors there, miss,” he commented mildly. “Good effort. But my ‘ultimate authority’ as you call him, my boss—the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, I think we’re speaking of—has had much worse opprobrium heaped on him. It always slides off,” he said comfortably. “Water off a duck’s back! I’ll disregard your abuse of my superior but I will pick up your original question and answer it directly: yes. You
ought
to pay attention to your father’s warnings. You should listen to his advice. Sir Richard’s suspicions are not ill-founded.”

Letty was silenced. This was not the language of a devoted Servant of the Law. Montacute disturbed and puzzled her. She’d heard of agents provocateurs who sidled up at demonstrations and, with a show of friendship, drew one out into making statements against the government, and she wondered whether she was faced with one such now. The police force with its right-wing, anti-Jewish, anticommunist leadership was riddled with Fascisti, it was rumoured. Men who put on black shirts and shorts and paraded at weekend rallies, confident that their antics were shielded from criticism by gangs of their paid bully-boy supporters. She would be wise to hold her tongue. For a C.I.D. man, even one at the forefront of
his profession, Montacute seemed to have access to knowledge that she would have reckoned outside his sphere.

Letty resolved to struggle with the telephone system to put a call through to her father. With his connexions, Sir Richard would be able to make discreet enquiries about the smiling sleuth who’d now tucked her arm companionably under his as they made a second tour of the square.

“What did you tell me about Maud Merriman?” he mused. “‘Takes people at face value, puts them into pigeonholes and there they stay…’ Something on those lines? You’ve been learning from her! Don’t assume you know me on two minutes’ acquaintance, miss. But your rush to judgement illustrates neatly the point I was about to make regarding Thetis Templeton and her activities.”

“Ah, yes. I did wonder what had tempted her to come to Athens. It sounds as though things got a little too hot for her back home in London?”

“I’ll say! But, in the end, it wasn’t her political activities that got her into trouble last spring. Oh, no. The stage-door Johnny she claims to have had an altercation with in the alley behind the Drury Lane Theatre didn’t just suffer a reproving tap on the cheek with a fan. She decked him—right there in front of a gang of his roistering cronies. Even worse for her, the bloke happens to be related to the Home Secretary. Yes, the gentleman of whom we were just speaking: your hero and mine, Death-Warrant-a-Day Joynson-Hicks himself. Or ‘Jix’ as he is playfully called by one and all.”

Letty shuddered. “Jix indeed! Is that supposed to endear him? I once knew a Rottweiler called Cuddles.”

“Well, you can imagine the fuss that ensued. An arrest was made for Grievous Bodily Harm—the man’s jaw bone
was
broken, so there were grounds. There was the suspicion that she’d used some concealed instrument to deliver such an injury—”