"What was this present, sir?"
"I don"t know," Quentin said, suddenly weary once more. "I only heard Georgina thank her for it."
Burden shifted on his stool. "Why did your wife go into the forest, Mr Nightingale?"
"I don"t know that either. My G.o.d, I wish I did. She often went for a walk in the grounds. in the late evening, I mean. I never dreamt she would go into the forest."
"You were a happily married couple, sir?"
"Certainly we were. Ideally happy. Ask any of our friends. Oh G.o.d, would I be like this, the way I am, if we hadn"t been happy?"
"Please don"t distress yourself, Mr Nightingale," Wexford said gently.
"Now I want you to answer very carefully. You"re aware that Palmer came into your bedroom just after five this morning but couldn"t find you?
Would you mind telling me where you were?"
A dark asharned flush coloured Quentin"s face. He put his hands up to his cheeks as if he thought their cold touch would drive the blood away. "I
was in the bath," he said stiffly.
"A curious time to take a bath."
"Occasionally we all do curious things, Chief Inspector. I awoke early on account of the wind. I couldn"t get to sleep again, so I had a bath."
"Very well, Mr Nightingale. I should like to search this house now, if you please."
"As you like," said Quentin. He looked like a condemned man who has received a reprieve but knows it is only a temporary stay of execution.
Fingering a paperweight of dark blue stone threaded with silver, he said, "You"ll be careful, won"t you?"
"We aren"t vandals," said Wexford sharply, then relenting slightly, "Afterwards you won"t know we"ve pa.s.sed this way."
As country houses go, Myfleet Manor wasn"t large, but it wasn"t, to use Burden"s own phrase, a council maisonette either. Altogether there were fifteen rooms, each furnished with taste and apparently with love, nearly every one a museum of objets d"art. Nothing was out of place, no carpet stained or cushion crumpled. Clearly no child and certainly no dog had ever been permitted to run wild here. Only the petals fallen from flower arrange- ments told of half a day"s neglect.
And yet, despite the dahlia-filled vases and the pale sunbeams that the wind blew flickeringly across satin and polished wood, the place had a cold sepulchral air. It was, as Wexford remarked, ascending the staircase, rather like being in church.
The life of the Manor, its pulse and the sole source of its laughter, was up above them in the au pair girl"s flat. Glancing up the topmost flight rather wistfully, Wexford entered Quentin"s bedroom, Burden following close behind.
The bed had been made. Beside it on a low table lay a book which Wexford glanced at, making no comment. He opened drawers and scanned the well-stocked wardrobe while Burden went into the bathroom.
"The bath towel"s still wet, sir," he called. "It"s on a hot rail, though, and ..." Wexford tramped across to the bathroom where he found Burden looking at his watch. "It wouldn"t take seven hours to dry, would it?"
Wexford shook his head. "He"s either had two baths," he said, "or just one and that at nine or ten this morning."
"You mean the first one was a real cleaning-up operation? In that case there ought to be blood on the towel or somewhere, and there isn"t."
"We"ll check the laundry with Mrs Cantrip. Let"s go next door."
The dead woman"s bedroom was papered in lilac and silver, a pattern of rosebuds and blown roses which was repeated identically in the satin of the curtains. Between the two windows stood a triple-mirrored dressing table, its legs skirted in white tulle. The bed was white too, huge and smooth, flanked on either side by white fur rugs like patches of snow on the emerald field of carpet.
While Burden searched the dressing table and lifted the lid of a writing desk, Wexford examined the wardrobe. Mrs Nightingale had possessed enough clothes to stock a boutique, the only difference between this rack and a boutique"s being that these garments were all of one size, a young girl"s size twelve, and they had all belonged to one woman.
"No diary," said Burden, busy at the desk. "A couple of receipted dressmaker"s bills from a shop in Bruton Street, London, a place called Tanya Tye. The bills she"s paid were for a hundred and fifty-odd and two hundred pounds, and there"s a third one outstanding for another ninety-five. No interest there, I think."
Wexford moved on to the dressing table. He lifted from its surface jars of cream, bottles of lotion, lastly a flagon of liquid whose declared purpose was to lift and brace facial muscles. "Made out of a cow"s digestive juices," he said expressionlessly. "Or so they tell me." His face softened and grew sad. " "Why such high cost," " he quoted, " "having so short a lease, dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?"
"Pardon?"
"Just a sonnet that came into my head."
"Oh, yes?"said Burden. "Personally, I was thinking what a waste of money when you"ve got to get old anyway. I don"t suppose she went to all this trouble for her husband, do you?"
"No, there was another man."
Burden nodded. "The man she went to meet last night, presumably," be said.
"What"s your theory, sir? That Nightingale suspected, followed her into the forest and killed her? Burnt his clothes on Palmer"s fire?"
"I haven"t got a theory,"said Wexford.
They descended slowly. The staircase was long and shallow with a wide landing halfway down. Here a window whose crimson velvet curtains matched the Etoile de Hollande roses in a copper bowl on its sill, gave on to the garden. The wind was still fresh and skittish, sending the hedges rippling like green rivers.
"There"s a candidate for the third side of our triangle," said Wexford, pointing down at the hothouse.
"Sean Lovell?" Burden"s intense disapproval of this suggestion, with all its attendant implications, showed in an angry frown. "The gardener"s boy? Why, he can"t be more than twenty and she ... I never heard of such a thing!"
"Oh, rubbish," said Wexford. "Of course you"ve heard of it. Even you must have heard of Lady Chatterley, if you haven"t read it."
"Well, a book," said Burden, relieved that the chief inspector had chosen a literary rather than a real-life instance of what he considered a monstrous perversion. "Cold in here, isn"t it? I suppose it must be the wind."
"We"ll go and have a warm in the hothouse."
Sean Lovell opened the door for them and they stepped into steamy tropical heat. Pale orchids, green and lemony pink, hung from the roof in moss-lined baskets, and on the shelves stood cacti with succulent lily-shaped flowers. Scented steam had condensed on the cold gla.s.s and there was a constant soft dripping sound.
The perfume, the heat and the colours suited Sean"s rather exotic looks.
Although probably an inheritance from gypsy forbears, his jet-black hair and golden skin suggested Italian or Greek descent. Instead of jeans and sweater he should have worn a corsair"s shirt and breeches, Wexford thought, with a red scarf round his head and gold hoops in his ears.
"She was a nice lady, a real lady," Sean said gruffly. Viciously he snapped a fat leaf from a xygocactus.
"Always on the look-out for what she could do for you. And she has to go and get herself murdered. It"s like what my old lady says, it"s always the good as dies young."
"Mrs Nightingale wasn"t that young, Lovell."
A brilliant seeping of colour came into the olive-gold cheeks. " "Bout thirty, that"s all she was." He bit his lip. "You can"t call that old."
Wexford let it pa.s.s. Elizabeth Nightingale had tried so hard with her creams and her muscle bracer that it seemed ungenerous, now that she was dead, to disillusion her admirejs.
"I"d like to know your movements last night. What time d"you knock off here and where did you go?"
Sean said sullenly, "I knock off at five. I went home to my tea. I live alone in the village with my old lady. I had my tea and I watched telly all evening."
"Don"t you have a girl friend?"
Instead of answering directly, Sean said, "You seen the girls round here?" He gave Wexford a shifty look that gave him the appearance of a Greek pirate. "Some evenings I watch telly and some I go into town and play the juke box at the Carousel. What else is there to do in a dump like this?"
"Don"t ask me, Lovell. I"m asking the questions. You watched television right up to the time you went to bed?"
"That"s wh,)t I did. Never went out again. You can ask my old lady."
"Tell me what programmes you saw."
"There was Pop Panel, then the Hollywood musical till ten."
"You went to bed at ten?"
"I don"t remember. I can"t remember what I saw and when I went to bed.
How can I? I reckon we went on with our viewing after that. Yeah, it was Sammy Davis junior, that"s what it was."The dark face lit suddenly with an almost religious awe. "My G.o.d, I"d like to be like him. I"d like to be him."
Chilled by Wexford"s eyes, he shifted his own and said rapidly, "I"ve got to go now. I"ve got to get on with my work. Old Will"11 be after me."
He sidled past Wexford, roughly bruising cactus spikes as he made his escape, Suddenly in the doorway Mrs Cantrip loomed.
"Your dinner"s ready in the kitchen, Sean. I"ve been looking all over for you. Get cracking, do, or it"ll be stone cold." Thankfully Sean marched out of the hothouse and, when no one called him back, made for the kitchen at a run.
"Odd, that," said Wexford. "Sammy Davis was booked to appear on television last night, but the programme was cancelled at the last moment. They put on an old film instead." He patted Burden"s shoulder. "Off you go to lunch now, Mike. I"ll join you when I can."
He watched Burden go, and then, almost running himself, he caught up with Mrs Cantrip, "Is there anyone else living in this house or employed here that I haven"t yet seen?"
"No, sir." Her look told him that she was still bemused with shock, the reins of the household as yet unsteady in her hands. "Would you be wanting a bite to eat?" she asked tremulously. "You and the other police gentlemen?"
"No, thank you." Wexford put a firm hand under her elbow as she tripped at the terrace steps. "You can tell me one thing, though. Who were Mrs Nightingale"s friends? Who came visiting to the Manor?"
She seemed pleased at this tribute to her dignity as a valued and confidential servant. "Mrs Nightingale was never one of them as gossips, sir, or pa.s.ses the day on the telephone. The ladies she saw was to do with business, like, arranging bazaars and gymkhanas, if you know what I mean. Then ..." Her voice took on a sad importance, "Then there was their friends as came here to dine, Sir George and Lady Larkin-Smith, and Mr and Mrs Primero, and all the county folks, sir."
"Gentlemen friends? Please don"t be offended, Mrs Cantrip. These days a lady can have men friends without there being anything-er, wrong."
Mrs Cantrip shook her head vigorously. "Her friends was their friends, sir,"she said, adding with a shade of sarcasm, "Would there be anything else you wanted to know?"
"There is just one thing. A question of laundry. Whose job is it to change the linen in this house, the r, sheets and towels?"
"Mine, sir," said Mrs Cantrip, surprised.
"And did you remove any damp towels from Mr Nightingale"s bedroom this morning?"
"No, sir, definitely not. I wasn"t looking for work this morning and that"s a fact." Mrs Cantrip gave a virtuous lift of her chin. "Besides, it"s not the day for that," she said. "I change the sheets Monday mornings, and the towels Mondays and Thursdays. Always have done, year in and year out since I"ve been here."
"Suppose someone else were to have ...?" Wexford began carefully.
"They couldn"t have," said Mrs Cantrip sharply. "The soiled linen"s kept in a bin in the back kitchen and no one"s been near it today. I can vouch for that. Now, if you"ll excuse me, sir, I"ve got my lunch to serve. I"m sure I don"t know if Mr Nightingale"s feeling up to a snack but there"s the tray to go over to Mr Villiers as usual ... Oh, my dear G.o.d! Mr Villiers! I"d forgot all about Mr Villiers."
Wexford stared at her. "D"you mean to say Mr Nightingale"s brother-in-law lives in this house?"
"Not to say "lives", sir," said Mrs Cantrip, still wideeyed, a red hand frozen to her cheek. "He comes up every day to do his writing in the Old House. And, oh, sir, I don"t reckon no one"s told him!"
"Mr Villiers must have seen all our comings and goings.
"He wouldn"t, sir. You can"t see a thing from the Old House on account of all them trees, no more than you can see it from the outside. I"ll have to go and tell him.
All I can say is, thank Cod they wasn"t close. He won"t take i * t hard, there"s one blessing."
She trotted off at a half-run. Wexford watched her disappear under an arch in the hed-c, an arch overhung with the leaves of lime trees turning gold.
Above these all that showed of the Old House was a shallow roof against the white-spotted blue sky.
He allowed her five minutes and then he followed the path she had taken. It led him into a little paved court in the centre of which was a small square pond. Carp swam in the dark clear water under the flat shining rafts of lily leaves.
The court was heavily shaded by the trees which surrounded it. Their roots had sapped strength from the narrow borders, for nothing grew in them but a few attenuated and flowerless plants stretching desperately in the hope of reaching the sun. Mrs Cantrip must have entered the ancient house-to Wexford it appeared at least four hundred years old-by a black oak door which stood ajar. By the step stood a boot-sc.r.a.per, a c.o.c.k with spread wings made of black metal. Looking up past creeper-grown lattice windows, Wexford noticed its fellow, a crowing chanticleer on the weather vane.
As he entered the Old House, he became aware that the wind had dropped.
4.
THE place in which Wexford found himself was evidently used as a storeroom. Birch logs were stacked against the walls in pyramids; racks above them awaited the Manor harvest of apples and pears. It was all very clean and orderly.