As if by Magic (9 page)

Peggy Culverton managed to speak. ‘Anne,' she said, her voice breaking. ‘Alexander's dead.'

Mr Lassiter started forward.
‘What?
Alexander Culverton?' He put a hand to his mouth. ‘Dear God.'

Anne put an arm round her friend. ‘Come and sit down near the fire. You're cold. Peggy, this is awful.'

‘I shouldn't be so upset,' said Peggy, holding on to Anne's arm. ‘You know what it's been like, Anne, but seeing him there . . .' She swallowed. ‘He was murdered,' she said starkly with a break in her voice. ‘I had to come here. It was the only place I could think of.' She looked up at Mr Lassiter. ‘You don't mind, do you?'

‘No. No, not all,' he said in a dazed voice. ‘Culverton dead!' He seemed to pull himself together. ‘You know you have my sympathy, Peggy. My greatest sympathy. Did you say
murdered
?' Mrs Culverton nodded dumbly. Mr Lassiter stepped back and breathed deeply. ‘Anne,' he said quietly, ‘I'll telephone Nigel. He needs to know about this right away.'

As Mr Lassiter left the room, Rackham drew Jack to one side. ‘What the dickens are you doing here, Jack?' he asked in a low voice. ‘And is that George Lassiter? The man in the Royal Free? Is he part of the family?'

‘He is,' said Jack, ‘but he didn't know anything about it. It's a long story. I'll tell you later. Look, I don't want to sound like a parrot, but what are you doing here?'

‘Mrs Culverton and Mrs Lassiter are old friends. After seeing her husband in the mortuary she wanted to come here and she was far too upset for me to let her come alone. You know who the dead man is?' he added. ‘It's Culverton of Culverton Air Navigation.'

Jack gave a low whistle. ‘My God, is it? This'll hit the headlines and no mistake.' He looked sharply at Rackham. ‘I say, he's not your naked man in the Thames, is he?' Rackham nodded. Jack's eyes widened. He looked at Mrs Culverton. ‘The poor woman. That must have been really nasty for her.'

‘Yes,' said Rackham, in an odd voice. ‘I think it probably was. Look, Jack, I need to go to Culverton's office. Lloyd, his secretary, has promised to wait for me there. Do you want to come?'

‘Absolutely,' said Jack. ‘Of course I do. The only thing is, I'm here with George.' He motioned to George to join them. ‘George, this is Inspector Rackham. You've heard me speak of him. Rackham and I could do with sloping off for a while. Will you be all right without me? I'll be back later. I don't know what time dinner will be.'

‘It looks as if dinner might go by the board,' said George quietly.

Jack shook his head. ‘No, it won't. You'll see. I know this sort of house. If I'm not back in time, go ahead without me. I'll skip dinner if necessary. Look, when your grandfather comes back, get him to show you where you can have a rest. There must be a sofa in the library or something. You need it.'

George nodded. ‘I don't particularly want to stay, not with them all at sixes and sevens, but I know my grandfather would be hurt if I left right away. You go, Jack. I'll see you later.'

‘Good man. Make my excuses for me, will you?'

‘I'd better have a word with Mrs Culverton before I go,' said Rackham. ‘I won't be a minute, Jack.'

On Anne's instructions, Corby showed them to the door. As soon as they were on the street and could speak freely, Jack turned to Rackham. ‘Alexander Culverton? I can hardly believe it.'

‘Neither could I when I realized who he was. It's incredible that the man disappeared for days before anyone noticed he was gone.'

‘Didn't his wife know?' asked Jack.

‘I can't help thinking his wife knows a lot more than she's telling me,' said Rackham in dissatisfaction. ‘She didn't like seeing him on the mortuary slab, Jack, that was real enough, but, God help me, she's glad he's dead.'

His meaning was so unmistakable that Jack stopped short. ‘Bill, what are you saying?' Rackham didn't answer. ‘Are you telling me that you think she murdered her husband? She can't have done. The murder was brutal.'

‘So what if it was? I don't like to think a woman's tied up with it, but she really was glad he was dead. She's obviously a very determined sort of person. Just because the crime was brutal doesn't mean we can rule her out. After all, when a married man's killed, the first person we usually look at is his wife – and vice versa.'

‘Yes, I know,' said Jack impatiently, falling into step beside Rackham once more. ‘But for heaven's sake, Bill, his face was battered in. She wouldn't do that, surely?'

Rackham shrugged. ‘Why not? I mean, look at your reaction. You've automatically excluded her
because
it was a brutal crime. I think she's clever, Jack. Clever enough to work that out. After all, it only needs a few blows with something heavy and the job's done. She was a nurse in the war. If she saw a fraction of what we did – and she must have done – she must be fairly proof against most horrors. She's not some fragile little thing. Physically, she'd be perfectly capable of it.'

‘But . . .' Jack was silent for a few moments, putting his thoughts in order. ‘How did you find her? Did she tell you her husband was missing?'

‘That's right. She'd left him, so she says. She's got a flat in Kensington and she telephoned me from there. She'd had a letter from his secretary, a Mr Gilchrist Lloyd, to say that he'd vanished. I went round to see her, hoping that it might be my naked man in the Thames and, as you know, was proved right. She identified him.'

‘But that doesn't make sense, surely? If she killed him and walloped him afterwards, presumably that was to conceal his identity.'

‘I tell you, she was glad he was dead. It could be sheer hatred, Jack.'

‘Well, even it was, I still don't see why, after having bumped him off, she runs and tells you that he's gone. If she hadn't come forward you'd still have an unidentified body on your hands. All she has to do is sit tight and no one's any the wiser.'

‘Yes, that's true enough,' admitted Rackham. ‘However, his secretary knew he'd disappeared and if Mrs Culverton hadn't reported the fact, he would have done. There's the other point that it takes years before death can be presumed and she might not want to get tied up in legal wrangles. Look, Jack, I'm no happier about the idea than you are, but I can't exclude Mrs Culverton from suspicion on the grounds she's a woman. Having said that, we have to know a great deal more about Culverton before we can suspect anyone. That's why I'm going to his office. It's as good a place as any to start.'

If Culverton's taste was reflected in his offices, then he must have been a rum sort of beggar, decided Jack. His first impression of Culverton Air Navigation was of grandeur hovering on pretentiousness. The building stood on the prosaically named Cooper Street, SW3, but the street name was the only prosaic thing about it. The office was a cross between one of the more pompous banks and a Hollywood film set.

The entrance hall was a riot of green marble which splashed across the floor, pillared up in columns and finally wound in an architectural frenzy round the central skylight. Two discreetly, if precariously, draped and vaguely female winged forms – symbolic, Jack was willing to bet, of Flight – stood wingtip to wingtip, guarding the lift at the far end of the hall. The lift doors appeared to have been constructed for Tutankhamun's tomb, as did the reception desk over which a pair of stiffly carved goddesses of the Nile extended winged arms. Jack fought hard to subdue a smile. Culverton Air Navigation might be a temple to aviation, but anything as utilitarian as the internal combustion engine was ignored. It seemed as if the human race had got aloft with the aid of feathers.

The commissionaire looked at Rackham's warrant card. ‘Mr Lloyd is waiting for you gentlemen in his office,' he said. He escorted them across the empty, echoing hall to the lift, up to the third floor and along an imposing pillared corridor to the secretary's room.

Gilchrist Lloyd, a thin, spare man with a worried expression, was waiting for them inside. ‘Inspector Rackham?'

‘Yes, sir. And this is Major Haldean.'

Lloyd nodded briefly to both of them. ‘This is a perfectly awful business,' he said. ‘I only hope the firm can survive. It's been a dreadful few days, first with the Paris crash –'

‘Was that one of your aeroplanes?' asked Jack.

Lloyd looked at him in weary surprise. ‘Didn't you know? Yes, it was one of ours. The only good thing was that no one was injured but that, to be honest, was more a matter of luck than anything else. Then Mr Culverton, whom I believed to be in Paris, disappeared, and I couldn't get in touch with Mrs Culverton. My very worst fears were confirmed when you telephoned, Inspector. I haven't made any announcement to the staff yet. I need to speak to Mrs Culverton before it's decided what will happen to the company.'

‘Was Mrs Culverton involved in the running of the business?' asked Rackham.

‘Not the actual running of it, no. Mr Culverton had very firm ideas how the business should be conducted and arranged matters accordingly. I suppose if anyone was Mr Culverton's second-in-command, I was. We're a private limited company, Inspector, and the shares were held by Mr and Mrs Culverton. He took all the decisions but the company itself belongs to Mrs Culverton. She's the majority shareholder.' Rackham's raised eyebrows invited a further explanation. ‘It was a purely business decision, Inspector. It enabled Mr Culverton to safeguard some assets that might have otherwise have been endangered.'

Rackham pondered this for a moment. ‘In fact,' he said slowly, ‘to use the common phrase, he put it in the wife's name?'

Gilchrist Lloyd winced but had to agree. ‘As you say, Inspector.'

‘As I understand things,' said Rackham, ‘it was Mrs Culverton's money which provided the foundation for the entire business.'

Lloyd nodded. ‘That also is true. However, it was Mr Culverton's vision and ability which made it grow. Some of the risks he took were breathtaking, but he always got away with it.' Jack could see that the significance of the phrase ‘got away with it' had not been lost on Rackham. ‘However,' continued Lloyd, ‘you came to see Mr Culverton's office.' He led the way to a pair of oak doors. ‘It's through here.'

Alexander Culverton's taste in interior decoration had, it seemed, been faithfully reflected in the hall below. His office ran to rather fewer statues, but the theme of green marble was continued. The massive oak desk was held up by eight Egyptian goddesses, two to each corner. The chairs, judging from the carving on the legs and backs, had been made not for an office but for a pyramid. The desk and chairs aside, the man might as well have set up in an Italian church, thought Jack. It was all very well to dream of dwelling in marble halls, but it was a bit overpowering at close quarters. A large framed map of the world, with lines marked in red showing, presumably, the routes flown by Culverton Air Navigation, looked out of place against such luxuriant surroundings. Beside the map was hung an enlarged photograph of three men in front of the propellers of an aeroplane.

Jack pointed to the photograph. ‘Is Mr Culverton part of that group? I never met him.'

‘Yes, that's him,' agreed Lloyd. ‘He's standing with Carlton Lascelles, the actor, and Samuel Hoare, the Minister for Air. Mr Hoare flew with us to Paris last year.' He indicated a substantial oil painting on the wall over the desk. ‘That's Mr Culverton, too.'

Jack looked at the pictures of Culverton. It was remarkable what a picture could say that a description couldn't. Culverton was a well-built, fleshy man in his middle fifties, exuding confidence and self-satisfaction. Jack was reminded of something or someone completely out of context. It was the eyes which struck a chord. He'd seen eyes like those before . . . something to do with the Tudors . . . With a shock of recognition he realized it was the Holbein portrait of Henry the Eighth. Culverton's thin lips and watchful, cold, calculating eyes were akin to those Holbein had captured in that devastating and surely truthful portrayal.

‘Did you like Mr Culverton?' Jack asked curiously.

Lloyd, prowling apprehensively by the window, looked surprised by the question. ‘Like him? What do you mean?'

Jack smiled disarmingly. ‘Just that. Was he a pleasant man? Did you like him?'

‘I respected him,' said Lloyd reprovingly. ‘My personal likes and dislikes hardly enter into the matter, Major. He was an excellent businessman who saw a future for commercial aviation very early on.'

‘Did you like him, though?' asked Rackham.

Lloyd wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Do I really have to answer that question, Inspector?'

Rackham raised his eyebrows. ‘I think you probably have,' he said quietly. He opened his notebook. ‘Tell me about the company. When did it start?'

Lloyd brightened, clearly relieved to drop the topic of Culverton's personality. ‘Mr Culverton set up the firm after the war. He had two Handley Pages which he converted into passenger aircraft flying the London to Paris route, and that's still the nub of the business. Unlike many of our competitors, the aeroplanes were ready to fly when restrictions on civilian flying were removed in May 1919, and by July of that year we were well established. Since then the business has expanded greatly, of course. We fly from London to all the major British cities and two circular routes. One, our most popular, flies from London to Paris then on to Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Harwich and back to London. The other route goes from Paris through Orleans, Tours and Bordeaux to Toulouse and Marseilles, up to Lyons then to Berne and Dijon and back to Paris. However, there has been a certain amount of opposition from the French authorities and that route is hotly contested by both our British and foreign rivals. Mr Culverton was actively looking for other routes, preferably within the Empire.'