See no evil, p.20
See No Evil, page 20
“How did Victor Gladstone find out what you were doing?” asked Gabriel. He was not standing by the window out of whimsy—he expected the police to turn up at any moment, and once Applegate had blundered into the house, Florence was unlikely ever to speak to him again. “This is important. How did he find out?”
“How should I know?” snapped Florence, bristling at the very mention of Victor’s name. “He had a nasty, suspicious mind. I suppose he noticed that we were rather flusher with cash than most families in our position, and he couldn’t resist interfering. I’ve no idea how he got hold of that pendant of yours, though; I’d never seen it before you showed it to me.”
“I suspect Horace never intended to sell that amulet,” answered Gabriel, “or at least not for many years. It’s too rare and too obviously a stolen Jewish artefact. But Victor was blackmailing you both, wasn’t he?”
“He called it a business agreement,” said Florence bitterly. “He took ten percent in return for keeping his mouth shut.”
Gabriel could hear the rumble of a car driving along the path outside. “Mrs Martin, we don’t have long. I need to ask you this. Did you kill Victor Gladstone?”
“Of course I didn’t, for pity’s—”
“Did your husband?”
Florence gaped at him. “Of course not.”
“Can you give him an alibi?”
“I . . . well, I don’t know where . . . he wouldn’t have done that!”
Gabriel looked back at the path and saw Inspector Applegate clambering out of the car, along with two constables. “A court will say that if he could hire a couple of thugs to beat and rob a man, he’s perfectly capable of killing or ordering the killing of a man who was taking his money.”
Florence rushed to the window, but the thunder of fists on the door warned her that she was out of time. “Help me!” she cried. “I did not kill him!”
“The police will say that you invited Victor Gladstone to your home with only one intention,” said Gabriel calmly. “Why did you invite a man to your home when he was hurting you so much? You can see how it will look.”
There was the sound of the door opening and Horace’s raised voice. “We didn’t invite that louse to our party; he invited himself!” exclaimed Florence. “He turned up to gloat over us and frighten us! I was on edge all evening, terrified he’d say something!” The door handle rattled behind them. “I’m glad he’s dead, Father,” she whispered. “Whoever did it deserves a medal around his neck, not a noose, but I didn’t kill him.”
Applegate was standing in the doorway in his coat and hat. Behind him, Gabriel could see the two constables and, a little further into the hall, three others. Applegate stepped nonchalantly aside to allow the constables in, followed by a protesting Horace, a subdued Bron, and Verity, who was predictably on the verge of tears. Gabriel had not noticed that the piano had stopped, but he supposed that if he no longer noticed the sound, he would not have noticed the silence. “Well, well, well,” said Applegate, in the sardonic tone Gabriel had come to expect every time the inspector spoke to him. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”
You know exactly why thought Gabriel uncomfortably, praying Applegate would not give away that he had been the person to tip him off. “I thought you might give me brownie points for keeping out of your way for most of this investigation,” suggested Gabriel, hoping to lighten the atmosphere a little. It had never been his gift to put anyone at ease, and he could see immediately that Applegate was not in the mood for a friendly exchange.
“A pity you didn’t think to keep out of the killer’s way, by the look of things,” Applegate retorted, pointing at Gabriel’s bruised face in a manner that simply looked rude. “I heard about your mishap. Maybe you’ll think twice next time about trying to do the police’s work for us.” Applegate turned his back on Gabriel and looked steadily at Horace Martin. He gestured to one of the constables, who produced a set of handcuffs. “Horace Martin, I’m arresting you on suspicion of trading in stolen goods and for the murder of Victor Gladstone. You have the right to remain silent; anything you do or say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.”
Horace glared at Applegate, but he knew better than to prevent the constable from cuffing his hands; an added charge of resisting arrest would do him no good. “I shall need to telephone my solicitor before I speak with you,” he said, with admirable calm. “Now, might we leave with as little ceremony as possible?”
“If you drape your coat over your shoulders,” Applegate suggested, “the handcuffs should not be visible. Not that there are many people to see.” He turned to Florence. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come to the station with me too, Mrs Martin,” said Applegate, in a noticeably warmer, almost apologetic tone. “I’m arresting you as an accessory to murder. You have the right to remain silent—”
“I’ll do no such thing!” shouted Florence, shrinking away from the constable and clutching her hands behind her back. “Neither of us had anything to do with Victor Gladstone’s death. You’re making a terrible mistake!”
“Mrs Martin, I think you’d better go with them,” said Gabriel, but he felt the queasiness in the pit of his stomach as yet another plan backfired. His message to Applegate had never said that the Martins were murderers. “With any luck, you’ll be home in the morning.”
“But she’s innocent!” came a timorous voice from the background. Verity was being held by her uncle Bron, but there were tears streaming down her face, and she was struggling to free herself from him so that she could go to Florence. “Inspector, this can’t be right! These are good people; Florence wouldn’t hurt a fly. Neither of them would.”
Verity’s tearful concern seemed to rally Florence, and she stood up straight, holding out her hands to the constable in what was almost defiance. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” she said to him, curtly, then turned to Verity and Bron. “Is there any way the two of you could stay on here until we return? I hope it will not be very long before this unpleasant business is cleared up, but I can’t bear the idea of the house being unsupervised in our absence.”
Bron nodded, letting go of Verity so that he could pat Florence’s arm. “Don’t worry about anything,” he said soothingly. “We’ll stay as long as we need to. You needn’t concern yourself with anything here.”
Florence nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Bron. I knew I could rely on you.”
Gabriel stood guiltily in the shadows as Horace and Florence were led out of the house and into the threatening darkness. The queasiness had been replaced by a fluttering in his chest, that half-guilty, half-anxious feeling of having boarded the wrong train and having no way to disembark. Gabriel looked back at Bron and Verity. Verity had calmed herself down and was wiping away her tears in a handkerchief; Bron was looking at him almost sheepishly, which gave Gabriel hope that neither of them had worked out his involvement in this whole sorry affair.
“If you need to get home, I’m sure I could drive you back,” said Bron, “but I’m loathe to leave Verity here, even for an hour.”
“There’s no need, Bron,” said Gabriel, a little too quickly. “I’ll put a call through to the presbytery and tell Fr Foley I’ll be home tomorrow. He won’t miss me if I’m back in good time. You’re right; I don’t think Verity should stay here on her own.”
“I won’t be on my own,” said Verity, with forced brightness. She was speaking with the tone of a girl attempting to sound more confident than she really was. “I can sit in the kitchen and chat to Molly while you’re out. It’ll help pass the time. She’s feeling a little out of sorts herself, I think.”
“You will do no such thing,” said Bron sternly. “Sitting in the kitchen gossiping with servants. You ought to know better than that at your age.”
“Oh Uncle, don’t be so old-fashioned,” said Verity, but it was abundantly clear that Bron had no intention of leaving her in the house without his supervision.
“Please don’t inconvenience yourself on my behalf,” Gabriel put in, desperate to avoid the two of them having a domestic quarrel in front of him. “I shall call for Molly now and ask her to make up two more guest rooms. It shan’t take a moment if I help her.”
“Father!” protested Bron when Gabriel walked towards the door, indicating that he was going to go down to the kitchen to talk to Molly rather than ring for her.
“You needn’t concern yourself with my position,” said Gabriel over his shoulder. “I am a servant myself. I shall be quite at home helping Molly carry the linens.”
14
Gabriel hurried down to the kitchen door and knocked softly before entering. The scene before him could easily have been mistaken for one of domestic serenity. Cook stood near the oven, idly stirring a pot that was giving off a cloud of enticing aromas—cinnamon, nutmeg, autumn fruit. In a chair by the stove, Molly sat next to a pile of darning, staring down at the man’s sock she was repairing. It was only when Gabriel closed the door behind him a little too loudly that the tension in the room became palpable; Cook looked up with a start and Molly jumped out of her skin, dropping her work at her feet.
“What happened to you, Father?” demanded Molly, getting up and hurrying over to him. “Who did that?”
“It’s nothing, Molly; please don’t concern yourself.”
“Is that what all that noise upstairs was about? Is that why the police came?”
“No,” replied Gabriel. “Mr and Mrs Martin have been arrested. But I think you knew they would be.”
Molly threw a mortified glance at Cook, who was glowering at her. “I saw the bobbies coming in, so I made meself scarce. Didn’t seem right to gawp.”
Cook took the pot off the heat, shaking her head in irritation as the steam condensed on her skin. Her fleshy face was so deeply lined that it was impossible to imagine that she had ever been young, whilst her voice, on the rare occasions when she saw fit to speak, sounded too loud and too full-bodied to have come from such a weathered vessel. “And what are we supposed to do? Nobody ever tells us nothing!”
“There’s nothing to worry about for the present,” said Gabriel, as calmly as he could, though he knew that these women had every reason to worry. He had no idea what punishment the Martins would face if they were convicted of dealing in stolen goods, but he suspected that a clever lawyer could help them both wriggle out of that particular charge. If either of them were to be convicted of murder, however, the repercussions would be huge, and not just for whichever of them went to the gallows. Molly’s fate had already been decided, but where would Cook go? She was a woman in her sixties who had probably first arrived at the estate when she was no more than fourteen, a wide-eyed girl joining a small downstairs community of maids, footmen and gardeners. The community had shrunk, the men lost to wars, the women to the economic squeeze faced by these old households and the prospect of better employment in the towns and cities. But Cook had never had to leave, had never known any other life than the quiet, secluded world of the Martin estate.
“Nothing to worry about?” echoed Cook. She had the indignant tone of a woman whose personal fiefdom has been invaded by a male interloper, and Gabriel doubted she would relax until he had admitted defeat and fled the room. “Nothing for you to worry about, no doubt. What about us?”
Gabriel cleared his throat. The aches and pains of his assault had had the effect of making him tire easily, and he would have loved to have been invited to sit down, but the two women were too preoccupied by the news to note his discomfort. “I doubt Mr and Mrs Martin will be kept in custody for long. They will be interviewed by the police, then Mrs Martin will be free to return home and Mr Martin will be formally charged. That is what I imagine will happen.” He noted the look of intense panic on Molly’s face and endeavoured to distract her before Cook noticed. “Molly dear, Miss Verity is staying for the time being, and Mr Gladstone, and I have also agreed to stay whilst Mr and Mrs Martin are away . . .” Gabriel groaned inwardly, thinking he had made it sound as though the Martins had gone to the seaside for a few days. “I’ll only be staying the night, but . . .”
“I’ll make up your rooms directly,” said Molly, noting Gabriel’s warning glance before scampering back to her place by the stove to clear away her things. “Why don’t you make yourself at home in the drawing room? I shan’t be a minute.”
“I wonder if I might use the telephone?” he asked. “I need to put a call through to the presbytery, or Fr Foley will be wondering where I’ve got to.”
“Of course,” she said. “Straight up the stairs. It’s behind the curtain, next to the coat stand.”
Gabriel nodded before making his way back to the hall and finding the telephone. The telephone had been built snugly into a little compartment hidden behind a thick curtain, designed both to conceal a vulgar modern contraption and to offer a modicum of privacy to the caller. That was one thing that puzzled Gabriel about the scene of this crime. The house did not offer a great deal of privacy. For all its artfully created alcoves and compartments, it was a nosy parker’s dream. There was something about the echoing acoustic that made it difficult to have a private conversation anywhere—Gabriel had overheard Bron and Victor because they were outside his room at the time, but he suspected he would have heard them from the foot of the stairs in the absence of any solid internal walls to block out the sound. The sound of Verity playing the piano could be heard all over the house, albeit quietly, even when she was playing in that room in the far corner of the building that had been specifically intended to contain the racket of noisy children.
Only the cover of thick fog could have concealed this murder, and even then, Gabriel could not get it out of his head that someone would have witnessed the killer if he had left the house. Was that the only reason he thought that Horace must be innocent? Could Gabriel really believe that he had slipped out of the house entirely unnoticed, when there were more people than usual in the house, and the servants busy taking care of their needs? More food to prepare and ferry about, more fires to light, more breakfast trays to carry from the kitchen to the upstairs bedrooms . . . or perhaps it merely confirmed that Florence had indeed been an accomplice. If the killer had been resident at the house on the morning of the murder, an accomplice would surely have been essential.
Gabriel was still musing over this possibility as he replaced the receiver, his ear smarting from the strength of Fr Foley’s near-exasperated feelings on his latest vanishing act. He peered out through the narrow gap of the curtain and watched as Molly emerged into the hall and began to climb the main stairs. Gabriel pushed back the curtain and followed her, letting her get a short distance ahead of him before he called her softly. Even with a distance and with Gabriel’s subdued tones, Molly still jumped like a scalded cat and very nearly lost her balance. “For pity’s sake, Father!” she yelped, grasping the banister. “Whatever were you creeping up on me for?”
“I wasn’t creeping up on you, I promise,” said Gabriel, climbing the stairs until he stood at her side. “I was going to offer to help you prepare the rooms.”
“I . . . I wouldn’t dream . . . I wouldn’t dream of it, Father,” Molly managed to reply, but the suggestion had thrown her. “I can . . . well, I can manage.”
Gabriel walked with her onto the landing and down the corridor, stopping only when Molly paused by a cupboard door, carefully painted to blend in with the rest of the wall. She hesitated as though embarrassed to reveal its contents, before gingerly opening the door to a deep cupboard with shelves heaving with sheets, towels, pillowcases and blankets. Molly was nothing if not orderly, and every single item was crisp, spotlessly clean and perfectly folded into neat piles that would not have disgraced a military establishment. Only the items at the very bottom of the cupboard were slightly ruckled from being laid on the uneven base of the compartment, a detail which Gabriel suspected must irk a person as particular as Molly. “Let me carry the bedclothes,” said Gabriel, holding out his arms to take them.
Molly gave an uncomfortable smile and took out the necessary items for two guests before closing the door with evident relief. “I’m sorry, but Madam doesn’t like guests to see things like that. She’d . . . well, not that I suppose it matters much anymore.”
“I hardly imagined the house was cleaned by magic,” said Gabriel, following her into the room he had inhabited the night before the murder. He put the linens down on the table to keep the bed clear. “Molly, I’m so sorry for your trouble. Mrs Martin told me she’d dismissed you. Have you anywhere . . .”
“Not yet, but I’ll think of something,” said Molly, taking a sheet from the pile and spreading it out over the mattress. “I’m sorry I’m so nervy, Father. I’m afraid I’ve a lot on my mind.”
“Molly, if you need a reference to find yourself another position,” Gabriel began, “I could get you some work at the presbytery, and then . . .”
“That won’t be necessary, Father. I was going to hand in my notice before my marriage, but I needed to save a little more.”
Gabriel sat down in the easy chair, watching Molly’s back as she stooped forward to tuck in the corners of the sheet. “Molly, why are you really so nervous? This isn’t just the loss of your position, is it? You were frightened when you saw the police coming into the house.”
“Of course I were frightened!” exclaimed Molly, turning round to face him. “Sure, the police here hate Paddies!”
Gabriel shifted position, forcing himself not to look away. “Molly, I’m sorry I sent you snooping for me. I should never have asked you—”
“I was only looking for some old clothes,” she retorted, sounding almost irritated by the conversation. “And all I found for you was an old broken belt. There are worse things to lose sleep over.”
“Such as?”
Molly looked at him, her eyes glistening. “You know, don’t you?”
“That Victor Gladstone paid you a rather more substantial sum to go snooping for him?” said Gabriel. “That you were the one to discover those pretty things carefully hidden about the house? That you were the one to tell him about the shadowy figures who turned up at the house from time to time?”
