Bertie and the Tinman, page 22
I wasn’t standing for evasions. I said, “Duchess, I’m bound to ask whether you are able to confirm this shameful transaction.”
Her response to this topped everything, for she nodded emphatically and at the same time said, “Of course I can’t confirm it. I knew nothing about a bribe.”
“So you deny it?”
She answered, “Emphatically,” and at the same time shook her head!
This was strongly reminiscent of that old parlor game called the Rule of Contrary, when the players are given instructions and expected to perform the very opposite action. However, Carrie and I were playing a more dangerous game, and the forfeit could even be death. I said in as steady a voice as I could sustain, “People have been murdered, Duchess. Are you, or are you not, prepared to help me?”
She nodded her head three times and said, “I’m unable to throw any light on the matter. Haven’t I made that clear?”
I said, “If you won’t speak to me, I’m afraid I shall have to ask the police to question you.”
This, as I had expected, alarmed her even more, for she vigorously shook her head and flapped her hands to discourage me.
The reason for the dumb show was by now abundantly clear to me. I lifted my eyebrows inquiringly and pointed at the ceiling, and Carrie responded by enthusiastic nods of the head.
I glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel. I was sensitive to her message that she wanted me to remain, whatever she’d said to the contrary. Of course I had no intention of leaving yet. I just hoped to God I could rely on the Squire to play his part in the plan.
I said, “Won’t you come away from the door and be seated? I don’t insist that you stand in my presence. Ladies look better on chairs.”
Carrie gave me a piercing look and answered, “That will not be possible.” Without pausing for breath she launched into a diatribe about the position of women in society and her lifelong fight to assert her independence. Apparently she wore plaid trousers for hunting in the 1840s, years before Mrs. Bloomer’s fashion was taken up. What this had to do with the matter I had come to investigate was far from clear, but I was content to let her continue as long as possible.
What happened next will strain your credulity, I am certain. As I live and die, it is true. At some stage, I stopped listening to Carrie. The idea of ladies in trousers doesn’t appeal to me in the least, and my ears had picked up another sound. I wasn’t sure whether it was autosuggestion, and I strained to listen more acutely, because it seemed to me that I’d heard the drumming of hooves on turf, and it came from the direction of the heath.
Carrie heard it, too, for she interrupted the oration and asked, “What was that?”
“Something in the fire,” I told her to avert the jitters.
She said, “It sounded like a rider to me.”
“You’re imagining it. Please go on. Did you say tartan trousers? How very diverting!”
Although she resumed, she might have saved her breath, for I didn’t listen to another word of it. My heart had doubled its beat and I had to hold down my knees to stop them from shaking. Archer was out there galloping his phantom steed. He had gone by once, and now he was returning.
Carrie stopped. We could both hear the beating hooves now, and they were coming closer, closer. The rhythm slowed from a gallop, to a canter, to a trot.
We stared at each other.
A scream rang through the house. Carrie’s maid came clattering from the servants’ quarters.
“God save us, ma’am, it’s him—the ghost! I know it’s him!”
“Be quiet, girl!” Carrie rebuked her. “His Royal Highness will deal with it.”
His Royal Highness was already behind the sofa. I had no quarrel with Archer; in fact, we’d got on tolerably well, but now that he was dead, I wasn’t insisting on a reunion.
The maid whimpered, “He’s in the garden.”
To my considerable surprise, Carrie took this as encouragement. She gave the order, “Turn off the gas and draw back the curtains.”
I was closest to the chandelier and I didn’t mind plunging us into darkness if we were less visible from outside, but I wasn’t so rash as to pull back the curtains. Carrie marched across the room and did that herself with one powerful sweep of the arm.
She said in a flat, trancelike voice, “There he is. He’s wearing my colors and he’s on St. Mirin.”
Thinking she was mad, I ventured close enough to the window to check the truth of her statement, whereupon I learned what it means when the flesh creeps. Mine crept like an army of tortoises on the march.
Not thirty yards away on the frost-covered lawn, pale in the moonlight, was a mounted jockey I recognized as Archer. The style, the seat, was his alone, long legs almost straight in the stirrups, so that the feet were visible below the body of his mount; the rounded shoulders and the way of wearing the cap so that the peak jutted upward from his forehead.
Horse and rider were motionless and staring at the house.
“Lord be merciful unto me, a sinner,” whispered the maid.
Carrie announced, “I’m going to him.”
“No, ma’am!” the maid appealed to her. “Ma’am, it isn’t safe!”
But Carrie was off like a lamplighter. For a heavyweight, she moved at exceptional speed across the room and into the hall. I heard the front door being opened before I started to follow. I wouldn’t have put a foot outside the door alone, but when Carrie moved off to square her account with the ghost, I discovered that curiosity is the best antidote for a blue funk.
She hadn’t even stopped to snatch up a coat. She charged across the hoarfrost in her evening gown, shouting, “Fred Archer, I want a word with you!”
Let’s give credit to the horse; spectral it may have been, but the sight of the Dowager Duchess of Montrose bearing down on it must have been terrifying. It stood its ground until she was within a dozen yards, and then it reared slightly, whinnied and trotted away toward an evergreen plantation at the edge of the lawn, its rider allowing the retreat, yet turning his head to see if he was being pursued, which he was.
“Fred, I want to know why!” shouted Carrie.
As far as I was concerned, she was speaking for both of us. I padded after them, all fear dispersed—that is, until they turned behind the evergreens and I heard a scream from Carrie that rooted me in my tracks.
It was a full-bellowed shriek that stopped halfway through, choked off as if she had fainted.
Then I heard a voice say, “Someone pick the lady up, for heaven’s sake.”
There were people behind the holly bush.
I assumed they were people and not ghosts. I was less certain when a hat bobbed above the level of the foliage: a cocked hat of the sort worn by the late Duke of Wellington. For a petrifying instant I thought the Iron Duke had materialized to add his support to the haunting, doubtless to register a complaint about his damned statue. Then I saw the glint of a monocle, and I remembered Sir Charles Warren.
“You’re perfectly safe now, Your Royal Highness,” the commissioner told me as I stepped around the holly.
I stared at the spectacle behind the evergreen plantation. Three policemen in shirts and braces were on their knees attempting to revive Carrie Montrose, who was wrapped in their jackets. Another dozen or more with truncheons drawn were watching the house. And the “ghost” of Archer had dismounted and was tying the horse to a tree. He it was who had caused the Duchess to swoon, for he was not Fred Archer, but her archenemy, the Squire.
“You!” I said.
The Squire gave an insufferable smirk. “Did I take you in as well, sir? Not a bad likeness was it? I learned my riding from Fred and my build is similar, so I can give a fair imitation. The horse is a ringer for St. Mirin too.”
I snorted my contempt and asked what on earth had justified such a pantomime. It certainly wasn’t in my instructions.
He explained, “I alerted the police and brought them here as you ordered, sir. We surrounded the house and waited for a signal from you, but none came.”
I said frigidly, “I didn’t say I’d give one.”
The Squire went on as if he were speaking for Sir Charles Warren and all the police, “As time went on, we became increasingly concerned for your safety. We couldn’t send in the police while you were at risk, so we decided to draw you and the Duchess out of the house by some means. Nothing less than Archer’s ghost would bring out the Duchess, so I devised this pantomime, as you describe it, and Sir Charles fell in with it. Saved both your lives, probably.”
“The devil you did,” said I. “We’ll probably die of pneumonia.”
At this juncture, Warren hissed in my ear, “Do you mind bending down, sir?”
“What?” I was starting to doubt my sanity, or theirs.
“We’re about to storm the house,” Warren explained.
“To arrest the murderer,” said the Squire with damnable smugness, as if some of the credit belonged to him.
Willy-nilly, I found myself cooperating with Warren’s request, sinking out of sight like a broadsided galleon.
“How many are in the house now to your knowledge, sir?” Warren inquired.
“To my knowledge? Three. The maid and a young man whose name is Gilbert. He has a broken leg and is sedated.”
“And the third?”
“The murderer. I didn’t see him. He was upstairs, I gathered from the Duchess.”
There was a moan from Carrie. She was regaining consciousness. She said, “I’m innocent. He forced his way in and threatened to murder Gilbert. He was holding a gun at Gilbert’s head.”
“He still is, Your Grace,” said Warren, causing the Duchess to relapse into unconsciousness.
Warren took out a whistle and blew it, and everyone except Carrie stood up and charged across the lawn toward the house. Policemen sprang up from behind walls and hedges all over the garden. A couple of shots were fired. I couldn’t tell where they came from. I was keeping my head down.
I found myself in a crowd of policemen waiting by a window, which was presently pushed open by the Squire. “It’s all right,” he assured us. “He’s still upstairs.”
Fifteen or more of us clambered over the sill into the drawing room. Warren was already there by the door, directing his men. “Those with guns, step forward,” he ordered, and several did.
Someone said to me, “You’ve got a shooter.” He was right. I’d withdrawn it from my pocket as we raced toward the house.
“He’s the Prince of Wales, mate,” said someone else.
“He can pull a trigger,” said the first.
His simple logic galvanized me. This was my moment, and I’d almost allowed it to go by default. The police would not have been here unless I had summoned them. My investigation was about to be brought to a triumphant conclusion, and by Jove I would take charge of it myself.
I ordered Warren to stand aside. He gaped, swallowed and obeyed.
I wish some painter of heroic subjects had been there to record the scene. Standing squarely at the head of the posse, I pointed my gun up the stairs. In a strong, clear voice I addressed my adversary, the killer I had cornered at last. “This is the Prince of Wales. I have twenty armed men down here. Put down your weapon and come downstairs with your arms raised.”
We all watched the top of the stairs.
“Be sensible, man,” Warren called up. He couldn’t bear to keep his mouth shut and leave it to me.
A movement was audible upstairs, a chair being scraped back and something thudding on the floor. Footsteps crossed the landing.
“Keep the arms high,” I ordered.
A figure appeared in view. One arm was held high. The other was limp at his side. If you thought all the ghosts in Newmarket had been laid to rest, you were mistaken.
We were looking at Charlie Buckfast.
CHAPTER 23
An awesome silence prevailed as Buckfast descended the stairs without a word and was handcuffed.
I heard the Squire whisper, “He should be dead.” A moment later he added with more voice, “Dammit, his body was pulled out of the Thames. It was dressed in his clothes. It was identified.”
“By his accomplices,” I pointed out, making it plain that I thought any fool would have deduced as much. “Messrs. Sarjent and Parker, the valet and gardener at Falmouth House. I suggest you send someone to arrest them, Sir Charles.”
“Sarjent and Parker—at once, sir!” responded the commissioner. He rounded on the luckless senior policeman in Newmarket and said, “Inspector, haven’t you attended to this already?”
“Very suspicious characters,” commented the Squire, transparently trying to recoup some respect. “Didn’t care for them at all.”
Of course he impressed no one.
“I suggest you take your prisoner away and ask him some pertinent questions,” I advised Sir Charles. Everyone except me seemed incapable of thought or action; bemused, I suppose, by the sensational turn of events. Even Buckfast was staring at me as if I had turned into the genie of the lamp.
Sir Charles said, “Emphatically, Your Royal Highness.” Then he cleared his throat, turned extremely pink and asked me in a subdued voice, “Would you care to accompany us to the station, sir?”
I gave him the Saxe-Coburg stare. “That wouldn’t be seemly, Commissioner.”
“I merely suggested it for selfish reasons: for the benefit of your indispensable advice, sir,” he said, groveling.
The wretched fellow hadn’t the faintest idea what to say to Buckfast.
I said, “Captain Buckfast, are you ready to do the honorable thing?”
“And confess?” said Buckfast. He drew back his shoulders in what amounted—unintentionally, I have no doubt—to a mockery of the regiment he had once served with distinction. “Yes, sir. I’ll make a clean breast of it.”
“To the commissioner?”
“Certainly.”
I turned to Sir Charles Warren. “That being the case, Commissioner, I shall return to the Jockey Club for supper. If I feel so inclined, I may call at the police station at a later hour.”
About 1 a.m., restored to my equable self by good Scotch broth, ptarmigan pie, broad beans and bacon, plum pudding and champagne, I was admitted to the interview room, a narrow, functional chamber with barred windows, whitewashed walls and a stone floor. I sat opposite the murderer Buckfast, with only a desk between us and one puny constable on duty.
The murderer Buckfast. It has a strange ring, hasn’t it? The credit for his arrest and detention was mine alone, but I had mixed feelings about meeting him. Believe me, I could think of more agreeable ways of passing the small hours of the night. I knew most of what he was likely to tell me, anyway. However, there were a few minor points to be cleared up, and as you know by now, I’m a stickler for detail.
First I took a cool look at the fellow. Not much over a month ago, I’d appointed him as my assistant. He looked little different from the upright ex-officer, discreet, dependable, who had made such a suitable impression then. The only noticeable difference was the absence of that splendid cavalry officer’s mustache, and I couldn’t blame him for that.
I refrained from greeting him. The vicious murder of Myrtle was strong in my thoughts.
“I haven’t read your statement. I gather that you made a full confession.”
He declined to look me in the eye, but he still observed the correct mode of address. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m more interested in your motives than what you did. What possessed you?”
A sigh, possibly from remorse, possibly from sheer exhaustion. “I got into deep water, sir.”
I was about to remark that he wasn’t the only one when it became obvious that he was speaking metaphorically.
“I took advantage of my friendship with Archer. He invited me to manage his business affairs because he was so busy riding and traveling, and it rapidly became obvious to me that he was illiterate and incapable of keeping track of what I was doing. I appropriated his money and put it to my own use.”
I said with distaste, “Embezzlement.”
“Of monumental proportions, sir. I milked his funds systematically.”
“That was deplorable.”
“When did you suspect me, sir?”
“Well, it was obvious something decidedly fishy must have been happening when the will was published,” I told him. “He should have been worth more than sixty thou.”
“He was, to me,” Buckfast remarked as coolly as if he were discussing a dabble in the stock market. I was seeing a fresh side of his character.
“Unfortunately for you,” I remarked, “someone else developed an interest in him. A matrimonial interest.”
“The Duchess of Montrose.”
“The indefatigable Duchess.”
He grimaced. “And no oil painting, either. You’d think it was a grotesque mismatch. I did, at any rate, but I underestimated the Duchess. Fred was a lonely man after the death of his wife. He lost interest in everything except racing, and of course, he kept meeting Carrie Montrose on the Limekilns and at the racecourse. He raced her horses, and she paid him more generously than any other owner. She flattered him by taking his advice. She was about the only woman he saw except his sister-in-law. One day he told me that Carrie had offered to marry him. He asked me what I thought. I took it as a jest before I realized that he actually wanted my opinion.”
“Which placed you in a dilemma.”
“Right, sir. If he married the Duchess, questions were going to be asked about his finances. She’d soon be going through the books asking for explanations. My first impulse was to do everything in my power to dissuade Fred. Yet when I weighed it up, it was as sure as fate that sooner or later the Duchess would claim the victory. Her force of personality far outweighed Archer’s. So I decided on a different approach. I would throw in my lot with the Duchess.”
