Ellis Peters - George Felse 13 - Rainbow's End (13 page)

‘But there was nothing on it, not really,’ objected Jimmy. ‘Nothing for him to get excited about.’

‘That’s what we thought! But there was, there must have been. Something he could find in that old writing that was on it, even if it was faint.
We knew
where the parchment came from,
he’s
had to find out by studying it, but there must have been some clue there for him to decypher. I bet you anything he’s got a fair idea now where to look, to see if there’s any more of it to find.’

‘It must be something pretty marvellous,’ said Toffee Bill, staring round-eyed at treasures in his mind. ‘I mean, to make him want to steal the paper in the first place, let alone what he did to Rainbow. There could be a clue in it, couldn’t there, to some place where they buried the church plate, when those chaps came to dissolve the monasteries. Or perhaps where the prior hid all the money that was left, when he was shoved out on to the roads, so he or somebody else could sneak back and collect it. Only maybe they killed him, and he couldn’t come back for it.’

‘We don’t know what it is,’ said Ginger firmly, ‘but we do know it must be something important. What matters is, what do we do about it? We can’t tip off the police! If it was only us it would be all right, but it isn’t only us. And still we can’t just do nothing. So what
do
we do?’

‘We tackle it ourselves.’ Bossie squinted ferociously through his corrective lenses, and scrubbed at his grazes, which were beginning to itch. ‘Even if he’s found a clue to the general area where he has to look, it’s still a whacking great barracks of a place, unless he knows just where to search he could spend months going over the whole show. But I know exactly where the leaf came from, we can start looking right there. What we’ve got to do is beat him to the treasure, whatever it is, and then, when we’ve got something to show, we can hand over to the police, and let them do the rest. We can easily make up a cover story for how we happened to hit on the right spot. It could be just plain luck, we don’t have to split on anybody. If we simply say: Just look what we found, and look where we found it – all innocent! – they’d have to accept that.’

‘All right,’ said Ginger, unimpressed but willing. ‘When, and how, and how many of us? You’ve been thinking it out, now let’s hear it.’

‘It’s got to be safety in numbers, or I don’t get to go anywhere for a bit,’ said Bossie, displaying a comprehension of his elders’ states of mind which would not have surprised his parents to any great extent. ‘So look, as soon as I’m back at school we work this together, the whole gang of us…’

He leaned forward and sank his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and all the young heads drew together over the quilted coverlet in profound session.

They were just about clear and agreed when Jenny, almost excessively discreet, tapped at the door before entering, and opened it slowly to give them time to take in the invading vision.

‘You’ve got another visitor, Bossie. Mrs Rainbow’s enquiring how you’re progressing. I don’t suppose you ever had time to thank her for rushing you into hospital. Now’s your chance!’

Bossie shot upright against his pillows, rushed a fist rapidly over his fell of hair, and put on his most adult face. It squinted rather more than was now usual with him, out of pure excitement, but happily he was unaware of that. His dignity was monumental. He hardly needed to cast a glance at his henchmen. They all said goodnight submissively, and trooped away downstairs as if in response to an order. And Bossie and Barbara were left alone.

‘Hullo!’ said Barbara, in the velvet voice he remembered. ‘Can I sit on the bed?’ She was dressed for a Sunday night up in the forest, but Bossie was not to know that the black and gold silk shirt with the tiger’s-eye cuff-links, and the matching head-scarf, and the tapered black silk slacks, were for another male, not for him. Barbara’s cloth of gold came in all degrees of utility and display. She was particularly beautiful because she was on her way to Willie the Twig, but the largesse was lavished upon everyone along the way. Bossie expanded and matured like a plant in the sun.

‘They wouldn’t let me do this in the hospital,’ said Barbara with pleasure, stretching her long legs and crossing her elegant ankles. ‘I’m glad they let you out of there so quickly, it proves you’re doing all right. What about the bruises? That was quite a crash you took.’

And this was the exquisite creature who had leaped out of her car to rescue him, called the ambulance, and ridden with him to the hospital. Bossie submerged in the profounds of love, and was exalted into airborne fantasies of self-esteem.

He said all the things he’d dreamed of saying to her, that he was fine, that it was thanks to her, that the bruises were nothing. ‘You saved my life,’ he said, and was promptly brought up hard against the realisation that he had been instrumental, however inadvertently, in getting her husband killed, for which her coals of fire seemed a truly crushing return.

Barbara, since her conversation with George that morning, had been thinking much the same thing, but thought it desirable to turn the boy’s mind away from any such consideration. She cast about for a neutral topic, and remembered that the child was musical. By the time Sam came up, a quarter of an hour-later, rather to rescue Barbara than to protect the invalid, they were chatting animatedly about musical boxes, of all things, and Barbara had promised to come again and show him one that played ‘The Shepherd on the Rock’, quite beautifully. Almost, Bossie’s qualms of conscience had been lulled to sleep, almost he had forgotten what he had just been plotting with his fellow-conspirators. Almost, but not quite.

‘Dad,’ said Bossie, after long consideration, when his visitor had departed, ‘do you think she really liked Mr Rainbow?’ He was naïve enough, and had been fortunate enough in his own opportunities of studying a marriage at close quarters, to suppose that husbands and wives must unquestionably like each other. Yet Barbara’s manner, while not suggesting any degree of rejoicing at her widowhood, certainly conveyed no suggestion of conventional mourning.

Watch your step! thought Sam, and took his time about answering. ‘Difficult to say, but I think they got on quite well together. But sometimes people do get married for different sorts of reasons, that seem sound enough at the time, and then find they aren’t really suited. That doesn’t mean they dislike each other. The fire just burns a bit dull, you might say, instead of nice and brightly. He was a lot older than his wife, for one thing.’

‘And that’s bad?’ queried Bossie, reflecting shrewdly how much younger he himself was. ‘Is it bad the other way round, too?’ There had been a time when he’d thought of marrying Miss de la Pole as soon as he was old enough.

‘It complicates things, either way. It’s something to think hard about, before you take any rash steps.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Bossie resignedly, ‘she probably wouldn’t wait, anyhow. And marrying people isn’t as fashionable as it used to be. Lots of lovers get along without it. Even married to other people sometimes, like Tristan and Isolde. Just as long as you don’t think she’s missing him all that much. And I wouldn’t say she is, really, would you?’

The inquest on Arthur Everard Rainbow duly opened on Monday morning, and was duly adjourned for a week at the request of the police, after evidence of identification and medical evidence had been given. That took care of any immediate leakage of information, anything that might have betrayed to the murderer a suspected connection between his crime and the ‘accident’ to Bossie. Keep him guessing, and keep an eye on the boy. The populace of Abbot’s Bale might be adept at reading between the sparse lines, but they were not talkers, except to trusted neighbours and friends.

The widow attended, austerely dressed in grey, and behaved with gravity and dignity if not with grief. What was more surprising was that she should be escorted by Charles Goddard, large, impressive and protective, though whether his company and attentions were welcome to Barbara was not so clear. Probably he had taken the responsibility upon himself uninvited, George thought, and that in itself was revealing. He was quite a personality in the county, a widower for some years, and not a doubt of it, he was considerably smitten with Arthur Rainbow’s relict. Willie Swayne, of course, worked for his living, and understood that Barbara needed no man to hold her hand on this occasion, and wanted none, either.

The whole procedure took only a short time, and the coroner released the body for burial. The undertakers would collect Rainbow and box him decently, and Barbara would never have to see him again.

George drove up the manorial drive once again that same afternoon, and climbed the sweeping staircase to the house.

Nobody let him in, this time. The great front door stood open, and the Land-Rover was parked on the gravel at the foot of the steps. When he rang the bell, Barbara’s voice called from the hall: ‘Come in, George! We saw you coming, we’re in here!’

She was in an old plaid skirt and a roll-necked sweater, her sleeves rolled up, and Willie the Twig was sitting cross-legged on one of the elegant Georgian couches, watching her fold garments into a large suitcase on the central table. He looked like a primitive prince supremely calm in his right and his authority, and Barbara had imbibed his certainty, and went about her leisurely preparations in placidity and fulfillment. They were graciously pleased to see George, but would have been perfectly content without him.

‘I’m glad you came, I was thinking I ought to give you official notice,’ said Barbara serenely. ‘I’m moving in with Willie. Regularising the situation. Or irregularising it, maybe? Anyhow, I never did like this house, and who needs so many things for living? It’s all right, I can’t officially touch anything here yet, I know that, except my own clothes and things. I’m locking the place up and turning the keys over to Arthur’s solicitor, and there’s a second set you can have, if you’re going to need them.’

George acknowledged that it might be an idea. ‘Have you talked to Bowes yet?’

‘About the will?’ She smiled, detached and untroubled. ‘He did call me, by way of an off-the-record bulletin, so that I’d have some idea where I stood. But actually I already knew, you see. I will say for Arthur that he was quite open about it. Fair, too! Everything he offered me, explicitly or implicitly, he delivered, and everything I was supposed to do for him I did. No complaints! Yes, I know just what I’m to get, and I know she gets all the rest. I dare say she earned it, just as honestly, in a way, as I did. I shan’t keep the house, or anything out of it.’

‘I came to pick your brains, actually,’ said George, ‘over filling in the details of just two days. Your husband came home from choir practice on the Thursday evening, one week before his death, with the leaf of parchment I told you about. That we know. We also know that on Saturday evening he took it to Professor Joyce, and was confirmed in thinking that it might turn out to be something very important, even valuable. After that it seems likely he’d keep it under close guard, and I doubt if any outsider would have had a chance of getting near it, or learning anything about it. But during those two days he may have treated it rather more casually. On the face of it, it was a fake, and he’d know that. But he may not have known, until Evan Joyce got excited about it, that there was something genuine and potentially precious under the fake. I’d like to hunt up all those who may have got wind of his find. Some of his professional rivals have been going in and out pretty freely here, I take it.’

‘They certainly have,’ agreed Barbara with feeling. ‘These Little Nells watch one another like hawks, spy on one another on principle. All’s fair! And he encouraged them, of course, the risk was also his own opportunity. Part of my function was to bring them here and set them talking – prise information out of them if I could. No doubt they were doing as much for me. It wouldn’t take much to alert them, either. If he even looked excited or smug, they’d begin to probe. But those two days… let me think! I had a musical party here that Thursday evening, while he was at practice. He sometimes got more that way, by turning me loose on them in his absence, or he thought he did. Now I come to think of it, he did go straight through into the office with his music-case before coming in to join us, and he locked it away, too. I believe I even said something about how possessive he was looking, something about never knowing where treasure might turn up, even at choir practice. Good lord,’ she said, startled, ‘even that could have been enough to start a really keen one on the scent! Do you suppose it did?’

‘Who was present to hear it?’

‘I’m not sure I can remember them all. Mr Goddard was here, and he brought a Mr and Mrs Simmons who were staying with him, I’d never met them before. They’re nothing to do with antiques, though, as far as I know. Then there was that man who conducts for the Amateur Operatic Society, and Tom Clouston and his wife, they run the gallery in Comerbourne. But they’re more new and local things, paintings and sculpture and fabrics and pottery. And John Stubbs. I was having difficulty over getting rid of John at the time, though, so that needn’t mean much. He hasn’t been around since, probably doesn’t like the heat. And Colin, of course, he’s usually around. That’s the lot, I think. It was just a run of the mill party. Arthur joined us after he’d put his case away. He did look smug. But there was nothing said, of course. I wouldn’t think there was much given away that night. But you never know. Really you never know!’

‘And the next day, Friday?’

‘He was home all morning, and I don’t think there were any visitors. After lunch he had a date to play golf with Robert Macsen-Martel at Mottisham, to make up a foursome. I think the other two were Charles Goddard and Doctor Theobald, but you could confirm that with the club. I suppose if he was carrying this thing round with him, he might leave it in his locker, but if it was that precious he’d take care to turn the key on it.’

‘And the rest of Friday?’

‘He was home for tea, which doesn’t leave him time for many other contacts. And we had guests for dinner. Nothing to do with trade. He was collecting bits of county, you see, and this was a squireish night.’ She named the guests. They were antiques rather than antique-dealers, and feudal and distant rather than tribal elements from Middlehope. George shrugged them off resignedly.