Portrait with Death, page 30
“Indeed,” the lawyer said and sipped his soup.
The soup had been removed, they were well into their ham and greens, when Flick suddenly sat back. “It’s constantly on my tongue. I won’t avoid it any longer. Inspector, can you tell us anything about the case?” And she looked at him, full on, the hostility no longer in her eyes.
Flick’s use of his name should not please him so much. He was farther gone than he realized—with no hope of going further with her—but his spirits lifted out of their abyss. “A little.”
“Can you tell us his motive?”
“Elwen served in Webberly’s unit in the war.”
“Oh.” Isabella’s fork clattered onto her plate.”That’s not good, is it? Mr. Farrell intimated that Webberly had done something very bad, something that should have had him up on charges.”
Michael remembered how his War Office source had refused to speak in specifics. Yet he had talked around and around until enough details emerged to build a picture. “I have no proof and Elwen hasn’t said.” He shot a direct look at the barrister. “My understanding is that those higher up didn’t want any accusations brought against Webberly. He didn’t receive the field commission that he apparently hoped for. They relocated him to another regiment and a different field of action to stop rumors.”
“What happened in the war?”
“This is a rough description, understand. Webberly ordered his men to charge across the battlefield to take a German trench. He told them that the Germans had withdrawn and they would face opposition only from a few sentries. Machine guns cut his unit apart. Only three survived.” That he’d learned from Robby Gilchrist as well as “Webberly didn’t go over with his men but stayed in shelter.”
“Elwen didn’t tell you that, did he?” Flick’s question pre-empted Allister’s. “Who told you?”
“Two different sources.” He hid a smile at her frustrated look.
“So, Elwen recovers as much as he can from his wounds and tracks down Webberly.”
“No. He didn’t know Webberly was here. He saw him in December. I think his need for revenge built from then. I don’t know. He didn’t speak of that. He visited Greavley Abbey on Sunday morning to see Dodges, who lost his son in that charge.”
“Is Dodges a source?” Allister asked.
“No.” He didn’t mention Robby Gilchrist. Let Elwen tell the lawyer that. Gilchrist the Younger deserved to bury those events, not keep dragging them out.
“Dodges’ son and Webberly and Elwen, all together,” Isabella marveled. “It’s a small world.”
“Recruitment from a single area means that men who are acquainted will serve together,” Allister said pedantically. “The belief is that they will provide moral support for each other.”
“The actual result,” the hard note had returned to Flick’s voice, “is that whole districts lost every young man. So, Elwen sees Dodges then sees Webberly and decides to kill him?”
“I don’t think that was his plan, no. Nothing he said sounded premeditated. That may prevent his execution. Elwen had returned to Greavley to see Dodges, heard Webberly arguing—.”
“With Mrs. Filmer,” Isabella inserted.
“Yes. He saw her leave. He waited, and Webberly appeared.”
“But ... we found Webberly on the path to the river.” Isabella sounded confused. “Did he follow him? Did he strike him from behind? How could he keep up with Webberly? His leg is crippled.”
“Mr. Allister, do stop me if I say anything I shouldn’t.”
The barrister shrugged at Michael’s request. “He’s not my client.”
Flick gave the man another glare then turned to Michael. “Did he only intend to confront him? I doubt he had premeditated the murder.”
Michael leaned back. This next was from Elwen himself. He needed to be exact with Elwen’s confession. Allister had said the young man wasn’t his client. That could change. Would change, he supposed, if Flick convinced the man to take the case. Lawyers could be tricky, sliding around words’ meanings to get the result they wanted. “Whatever Elwen was thinking, he led the way to the river path. Webberly became impatient at his slow pace. At some point, they argued, and Elwen struck him over the head with the golf club. He said, when he surfaced—by which I understand Elwen to be in a rage—Webberly was dead. The church bells began ringing. He knew people might soon come onto the path. He left.”
“Leaving the splotches of blood because he used the club as a walking stick. What did he do with it?”
“I would have flung it in the river,” Flick said sturdily.
“He did.”
Isabella turned over her plate knife, again and again. “He expected to—well, get away with it?”
“He said nothing about that, Mrs. Tarrant.”
“How is he doing?” Flick asked.
“Not good. Which is the reason that a visit from an attorney interested in helping him may change his mind.”
“It’s not premeditated?” she asked.
“Not as he described. Not as he’s charged.”
Allister smirked. “Are you building a case for the defendant, Inspector?”
“Why should he not?” Flick cried. “And it would be a good case. Every jury would hesitate to convict a man who merely wanted revenge for the dozens upon dozens of men that Webberly killed when he sent them on that assault. An assault he himself didn’t go on. Isn’t that correct, Inspector?”
The barrister shrugged. “Juries can be capricious. I would take him for client, but I doubt he can pay my fee.”
“We were going to pay you to represent Chauncey. We can pay you to represent Elwen.”
He bent his head in acknowledgment. “Very well. I will remain for the inquest and his sentencing. I may even convince him to allow my representation.”
“There, that is done,” said Isabella, “now for cake,” and she determinedly turned the conversation to Mr. Allister’s background, asking about his experience, his firm, and his family. From there she tugged out his favorite restaurants in London and his perspective on the best places for gatherings.
Michael gave one last check on Callaway, still holding court in the pub, then he headed upstairs.
He was yawning as he climbed between the bedcoverings. He lay back, hands behind his head, and considered the evening.
Flick Sherborne no longer actively hated him, yet she still grasped at a grudge. She had refused to shake his hand in farewell and added no well wishes behind Isabella’s for his journey to London in the early morning. She didn’t even say goodbye, remaining silent as Isabella promised to send his message to Madoc in her next wire.
He would see Flick in London. He hoped time would work its magic.
Yet time hadn’t worked for Kenneth Elwen.
He turned to his side, thumped his pillow, switched off the lamp, and stared into darkness.
Epilogue
End of March
Owl loved the photos and article about the topiary garden. She also snapped up all of Flick’s photos of public school boys, running along a cloister walk for the next class, strolling across a green, laughing together outside a building. “Greavley?” She held aloft a photo of the Saturday games day, boys scrumming in a rugby match against the masters.
“That one, yes. You’ll find Eton and Harrow and Godolphin for girls. That was yours, wasn’t it?” Flick had gathered the photos from Greavley with a collection that she had taken over the past couple of years, whenever she’d swung past one of the schools. When she’d begun the series, she had had only the glimmer of an idea for a feature.
Flick hadn’t mentioned the murder, and Owl didn’t know to ask. The murder hadn’t interested London newspapers.
“The mamas who subscribe to Modern Woman will love them,” Owl crowed, and that was the easiest pay chit that Flick had earned. “We’ll take them all. When you have those other gardening articles ready, we’ll take them as well.” She slid toward herself the photo of Chauncey and a master of the Old Guard, laughing. “How is your brother?”
“Doing well.” Thank God that was true. “He gained weight in the three weeks that I was there.”
“Were you bored? Village life can be pure tedium.”
Actually, Flick’s return to London was filled with tedium. Stepha and Milla had each found a beau and were out most nights. The flat stood empty, lonely.
She spent her first week at the London Library, the Tate, or another museum, researching ideas for new articles and writing letters to the sources MacAlphin had given her. She needed to branch out from obscure gardens like Greavley.
She wandered the streets with her camera ready, taking photos of an aged couple on a park bench and rowdy men clustered outside a pub, a young couple perusing a movie poster and a queue at a soup kitchen. She didn’t offer the street scenes to Owl. She took them straight to the London Daily. Alan Rettleston barely looked at them before committing to buy. Then he buzzed his secretary and asked if old Pickwick was in.
“Another photo narrative? I can find more photos of returned soldiers and men out-of-work.”
He grinned but didn’t comment, lighting another cigarette. Then he stubbed out the one he’d finished. “Know anything about that murder in Upper Wellsford? That’s where you were, wasn’t it?”
Flick’s breath caught. She laughed. “I know it happened, but I wasn’t involved.”
“Doing anything tonight?”
“Are you offering dinner again?”
“Dinner. Dancing. A party after.”
“Where’s the party?” She ran her finger along the side of his desk and started to breathe again. She’d escaped discussing the murder. She didn’t want any of her comments in a news story: Eyewitness Tells All.
“Bloomsbury. Stephen Pettigrew. Know him? Artist. Connections in theatre.”
Art and theatre. Her flatmate Millie worked in theatre, but more connections never hurt. Especially theatre directors, actors and actresses wanting publicity shots, and newbies and wannabees looking for a way to stand out before their stars flickered and faded.
“Sounds fun. I may find some business there. Dinner at the Fitzwilliam Victoria, please.”
“God, why do you like that place? Filled with frumps and grumps.”
“The chef is extraordinary.”
Flick didn’t mention the person she hoped to see. Their paths hadn’t crossed elsewhere.
She wore a beaded gown borrowed from Stepha, a fan spandelle loaned by Millie, and her own Spanish shawl, tied around her waist this time. The maître d’ smiled upon her but still led them to a table behind a column, blocking her view of the dance floor and the orchestra.
She had no obstruction to her view of Michael Wainwright.
The woman draped around him in the foxtrot was the woman of before. Flick envied her embroidered dress in the new style.
Halfway through the dinner with Rettleston, a waiter called him to the telephone. “An emergency with the presses, sir.”
Rettleston swore words that ladies weren’t supposed to hear, flung down his napkin, and stalked away with never a word to her.
Flick propped her chin on her hands and played speculation about the other diners.
Michael Wainwright’s group—only four this time—were leaving. He murmured to the older man then crossed through the dancers to her side of the floor. He moved slowly, not speaking, and couples shifted out of his way, his aura alone clearing his path.
Then he reached her. He extended his hand, and when she placed hers in his, he bowed and kissed her fingertips. “Good evening, Miss Sherborne.”
“Is that your chief and his wife? Who is the lady?”
“Margot Pomphrey, widow. How is your brother?”
“Chauncey is very well, thank you.” Expected pleasantries. Have we nothing else to say to each other?
Then he said, “I saw your photos in the London Daily. Women In and Out of Work. F. Sherborne. That’s you, isn’t it? They’re good, very good. Important.”
She swallowed her surprise. “I didn’t think the Daily would be a newspaper you normally read.”
“Callaway brought it in to me.”
“How is Sergeant Callaway? How is his hand?”
“He’s using it without trouble. He hated his two weeks working with local constabularies, though. He’s back with me now.”
“Oh. Um. I have an article about topiaries in Modern Woman in June and a photo spread in September.”
His mouth quirked. “That’s not a magazine that either I or Callaway will see.”
“I can send them to you. Advance copies.”
That half-smile broadened. “I would like that, Miss Sherborne. A break from the norm. Like tonight’s dinner. It’s hard to turn down the chief inspector when he’s feeling benevolent to the lower orders.”
“When I saw you here, in mid-February, before—all that, you were with Miss Pomphrey then.”
“It’s Mrs. She’s a widow and a friend of the chief’s wife. I’m Spare Man,” he explained, “called upon when no other escort is available.”
Rettleston appeared, trying to loom beside Michael and failing. While their heights were equal, Michael’s shoulders were broader, and he held himself straighter. “Excuse me, sir.”
Michael shifted over. “I have to leave. Have a good evening, Miss Sherborne. Sir.”
Since she didn’t want to raise Rettleston’s ire—he looked harassed—Flick didn’t watch Michael leave.
“How do you know Michael Wainwright?” he asked as he slid onto his seat.
“In passing,” she lied smoothly. “How do you know a rather obscure detective inspector of the Met?”
“Business,” he said, which explained nothing. Tit for tat, Flick supposed. “I’ve a problem with the presses, Felicity. I must return soon. We can finish our dinner, but I don’t have time for the party. I’ll make it up to you. If not a party at Pettigrew’s, then somewhere else.”
“Right-O,” she said and wondered where she’d picked that up.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
10 April 1920
Isabella tossed a blanket over her legs then opened her sketchbook. Shipboard life offered endless possibilities for drawing. Tony Carstairs had a source who promised to use every illustration of life aboard a cruise ship. Posters, brochures, postcards: the uses for illustrations were endless.
Tony had snapped up her six watercolors of Greavley Abbey’s gardens. The pen-and-ink drawings of London sites had pleased him; those had given him the idea for the shipboard illustrations. He promised to send her a tourism contact in Australia. “Your watercolors come to me. Always. And anything in oils. I hear Lady Malvaise is very pleased, but no portraits, if you will, Izzy. Your letter box may be filled with offers for portrait commissions. Please do not need to distract yourself with those. Ocean. India. Australia. An exotic interest for the gallery. Now the war is definitely over, everyone’s looking around for possibilities. Freight will be less expensive when you send the shipment in groups.”
“Yes, sir,” she said meekly, happy to bask in Edward Malvaise’s pleasure with the portrait rather than take another commission. The youth had promised to hang the portrait in public rooms as long as he was at Emberly.
He laughed. “I’m being a dictator, aren’t I? You know me well. I have an eye for the new and different as long as it’s good.”
“Would you be interested in photographs?”
“No, no, Izzy darling. Don’t convert to photography.”
“Not me, Tony, my friend. She works for magazines and newspapers, but she will be branching into art photography. You might try three or five, see how the public likes them.”
“Who is she?”
She gave him Flick’s name and direction and a telephone where she could be reached.
“No guarantees,” he warned.
“I only said to her that I would mention it. Nothing more.”
Tony nodded and tucked the paper in an inner pocket of his bright plaid jacket. “When do you leave?”
“A week,” she said and shivered with delight.
Isabella had thought a week would give her sufficient time to finish packing. She only had clothes to pack, those to take and those to store. In addition to two large suitcases, she’d had to buy a trunk. She comforted herself with the knowledge that she was sailing into the southern hemisphere. The SS Sophocles of the Aberdeen Line had given her a cozy berth with no room for anything beyond one suitcase. She consigned her heaviest coat and clothes to Cecilia’s boxroom then packed two jackets and other warm clothes in a trunk now stowed in the bowels of the ship. Warm weather was only a guarantee around the equator, but that would be the greater part of the voyage.
A steward came along the deck. “Mrs. Tarrant? Mrs. Tarrant?” he called.
Isabella lifted her hand, and he brought a sealed envelope to her. “A letter?” Who is writing to me?
“Waiting for you in port, ma’am. We sorted the mail bag, and I recalled that you had booked a deck chair for the afternoon.”
“Adonis, isn’t it? Thank you for remembering.”
“Have you everything you need, ma’am? Would you care for tea?”
“Not yet, thank you.”
He bowed a little then sauntered away.
The handwriting was sloped block letters. She didn’t recognize it. Isabella closed her sketchbook, tucked her pencil in her bun, then peeled open the envelope’s flap. She drew out the folded papers. Three pages!
She flipped to the last page for the signature. Madoc!
Sighing happily, she began to read.
Thanks!
Thank you for reading Portrait with Death, the conclusion to Isabella Newcombe Tarrant’s Into Death series and the introduction to a new series with Flick Sherborne.
When I conceived the idea for Isabella Newcombe and an archaeological dig on Crete—the story that became Digging into Death—I fully intended it to be a stand-alone. Imagine my surprise when Christmas with Death started clamoring to reach the page.
