Cast For Death (17 page)

‘I wondered what you know about Joss Ruxton,’ Patrick asked him, accepting his beer.

‘In what way? He’s a fine actor and a nice bloke,’ said Denis.

‘Why isn’t he doing Othello this year?’

‘No time – still at the Fantasy and he’s got a big screen contract. He’s filming all day.’

‘As simple as that? Didn’t he want to repeat last year’s success?’

‘He’d had enough of it, I think. It’s pretty demanding, you know. And there’s a lot of money in this film thing. It will make him known all over the world.’

‘I see. You don’t happen to have the programmes for last year, do you? I don’t mean the cast – I mean the programme of performances.’

‘I might have. Why?’

‘I just want to know which nights different plays were on,’ said Patrick.

Denis shrugged, as if to say life was full of people with the weirdest ideas, but he good-naturedly went to a drawer beside the bookshelves and looked through some papers in it, eventually producing several of the booklets which he handed to Patrick.

‘Here you are. The complete set,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ Patrick accepted them.

‘I’ll let you have them back in a day or two,’ he said. ‘Ever had Joss round here?’

‘I have, yes. Once or twice, in fact.’

‘Did he remark on your pictures? Show any interest?’

‘He did, now that you mention it. Wanted to know where I’d got them.’

‘And where did you?’

‘The artist’s a friend of mine. Lives out beyond Warwick. Why do you want to know?’

Patrick changed tack and used the politician’s trick of answering one question by asking another.

‘You know a lot about acting, don’t you, Denis?’

‘A bit, yes. I wanted to act myself,’ said Denis. ‘But then I got diverted on to this side of the business. It was lucky, actually. I’m doing all right as I am – out front’s not too easy.’

‘You know a lot about the theatre, though. Tell me, how much can one do with make-up?’

‘A great deal. What do you want to know? How to stick on a false nose?’

‘In a way, yes. You can change your appearance totally, can’t you?’

‘God, yes. Think of Olivier.’

They did, in respectful silence, for some seconds.

‘Take noses, as you said, beards and so on. Wigs and spectacles. But more than that – could one be made up to resemble someone else and get away with it?’ Patrick demanded.

‘Well—you can do certain things. For instance a wig, that’s obvious. Dragging the hair up under it and pinning it on top of your head will tilt your nose and give a slight face-lift to a sagging jaw. Eye colour can be changed by wearing contact lenses. You can add height with built-up shoes. You can pad cheeks and adopt a different posture. Then there’s voice and expression.’ Suddenly Denis pulled his short, straight hair forward over his forehead, relaxed his jaw, raised his voice a few tones, and adopting a slurred accent, said, ‘You can become the village yokel, straight out of the Archers, at a stroke.’

His whole appearance was quite changed by the altered voice and the slackening of what was normally a taut, strong jaw-line. Then he thrust a hand through his hair till it stood upright, turned on an ingenuous grin, pretended to be chewing gum, and immediately looked like every Briton’s idea of a typical American youth from a university campus or a baseball team.

‘It’s not difficult,’ he said, smoothing his hair down again with a small comb which he took from his shirt pocket. ‘You see what you expect to see,’ he added. ‘Does that answer your question?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘Thank you. I think a brilliant actor has been lost.’

Denis looked gratified.

‘I was always a good mimic,’ he said. ‘But what’s all this about?’

‘I’ll tell you when I know the answer,’ said Patrick.

At this point the doorbell rang, and Denis bounded over to admit his visitor. The other two, rising slowly, saw him spread his arms wide to enfold her. Only when she was released did they see that it was Tessa Frayne.

From a nearby hotel, Patrick telephoned to tell Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher that the suspect paintings were probably at Pear Tree Cottage before Tessa moved in, while Humphrey enquired if there were a table free for dinner.

‘Well, the police are moving,’ Patrick said, returning to the lounge. ‘By tomorrow Gulliver will be in jail.’

‘And Joss Ruxton?’

‘Who knows? He’ll have to be investigated. Though if he was implicated in the robberies he’d never leave stolen paintings in a house he’d sold.’

They went into the restaurant and postponed further discussion until the important matter of choosing their meal was concluded; then, over Humphrey’s
pâté maison
and Patrick’s smoked trout, they resumed.

‘The burgled householder who owned the Corot was in the audience of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre when the robbery took place,’ said Patrick. ‘Now the police are checking where other people who’ve recently been robbed of paintings were on the nights their houses were broken into. If they, by coincidence, were in the theatre here too, there could have been someone working behind the scenes – in the box office, or with access to it – tipping the thieves off about bookings. Or it could be an actor who on those nights was not performing.’

‘Denis Vernon was in a position to look at the theatre bookings, wasn’t he?’ Humphrey said. ‘And he has an interest in art.’ And an interest in Tessa Frayne, he thought balefully.

‘Yes. And he knows the area – would be on the spot to reconnoitre likely houses.’

Over the roast duck Hymettus each of them put forward various theories which the other then tried to knock down. They concluded that if an actor were behind the thefts, Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, had the best opportunity of completing the robbery, hiding the pictures and returning in time to take the final curtain calls. The programmes would show which plays were performed on the nights of the robberies, and thus which actors were not fully occupied then.

‘I don’t suppose Joss Ruxton’s involved at all,’ said Patrick. ‘Someone else must have dumped the paintings at the cottage. Tina, for instance.’ Or Denis. Or Sam: there was still the packet of tea and the evidence that someone had camped there to be explained. ‘Frobisher may get something out of Gulliver.’

‘I’m glad they’re taking action, not leaving these people free to plan another robbery,’ said Humphrey.

‘I know, but it seems a pity to scoop up the small fry and risk losing the big boys.’

‘Why did you ask Denis Vernon all those questions about make-up?’ Humphrey asked.

‘Impressive, wasn’t he, changing his own appearance like that without a prop or a stick of grease-paint?’

‘Very. Confident young chap, and no wonder,’ said Humphrey enviously.

‘I was wondering how easy it would be for someone well known to be impersonated successfully,’ said Patrick.

‘I suppose it would depend a bit on who it was and what they had to do,’ said Humphrey. ‘Isn’t there a woman who’s often mistaken for the Queen?’

‘There was that chap who stood in for Montgomery during the war, wasn’t there?’ mused Patrick. ‘That worked. He was an actor, the substitute, I seem to remember.’

‘You’re right, I believe,’ said Humphrey. ‘But what’s all this about?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Patrick. ‘It begins with a body in the Thames.’

Through the rhum baba of Humphrey’s choice and Patrick’s lemon sorbet, he related the tale.

‘So that’s how you got on to these crooked art dealers? What an extraordinary story.’

‘It is.’

‘Sounds so improbable – but there was that business of the woman’s address in Putney being false.’

‘There could be an innocent explanation for that,’ said Patrick. ‘She might not want to be involved – but she was prepared at the time to step forward and say it was Sam whom the police had plucked from the river.’

‘But what do you think really happened? Do you think this friend of yours was impersonating someone and got killed by mistake?’

‘I think it’s possible.’

‘But whom was he impersonating?’ Humphrey plainly thought it a fantastic notion.

‘I’m not prepared to say just yet,’ said Patrick.

‘Could he have been mistaken for one of the art thieves? Was there a robbery the night he was killed?’ asked Humphrey. ‘Maybe he surprised them? Surely that’s much more likely? If you’re right in assuming, on the strength of a packet of tea, that he’d been at Pear Tree Cottage, that may be what happened.’

‘Why chuck him in the Thames, then, with the Avon at your door?’

‘Too near home,’ said Humphrey promptly. ‘That one’s easy. Perhaps he was drowned in the Avon first, fished out, and moved. Would a post-mortem show which river it was that had done for him?’

‘It might. There would be certain things in certain stretches of river – pollutants and what-not. If you looked for that sort of proof, you’d find it, I expect. In the liver, for instance,’ he added, remembering a talk he had had once with a forensic pathologist. He thought of the sacks in the garage at Pear Tree Cottage, and the threads of sacking under the corpse’s fingernails. Could this be part of the answer? The sacks had disappeared; it would have been easy for the murderer to collect them after dark. ‘This body wasn’t drowned, though,’ he went on. ‘He died from shock – he had arterio-sclerosis – a traumatic fright would have been enough to stop his heart.’

‘What a lot of strange things you know,’ said Humphrey, who had now become intrigued by the problem himself.

‘I wish I knew how Tina Willoughby fits into all this,’ said Patrick. ‘She’s the peg that holds it all together.’

‘You’ll find out,’ said Humphrey.

‘Your faith in me is touching,’ said Patrick. ‘The police don’t seem satisfied about Sam, I’m glad to say. They’ll sort it out, I expect.’

Before they went back to Oxford they drove up the road, parked near Shakespeare’s Birthplace, and walked past Gulliver’s Gallery. The narrow entrance to the alley leading to it was dark and shadowy, out of range of the street lights. Patrick pointed it all out to Humphrey.

‘We’d better not loiter here, the police are probably watching the place,’ he said.

‘It’s an unobtrusive approach,’ said Humphrey. ‘If we were thieves hustling in with our loot, we wouldn’t be very conspicuous.’

‘No. And if Gulliver was waiting inside, canvas and oils at the ready, the new master could be daubed over the old one pretty smartly. He probably has it prepared in advance, or all roughed up on the canvas like that painting by numbers my nephew does. Gulliver turns out those hideosities of the plays by the dozen.’

‘In a way I can’t help admiring his daring,’ said Humphrey.

‘You don’t mean to say you condone this reprehensible conduct?’ Patrick was shocked.

‘No. But it’s non-violent, and the results must go to people who appreciate them or it wouldn’t be happening at all. You can’t sell this sort of stuff on the open market.’

‘Pride of possession. That’s what it’s all about,’ said Patrick. ‘But I’m surprised at you, Humphrey. You must uphold the rule of law.’

‘Oh, I do. I’m just impressed by people who live so adventurously,’ said the timid don.

As they drove along the A34 and through Shipston-on- Stour, Patrick wondered aloud whether to ask Joss Ruxton about his acquaintance with Tina, as indicated by the photograph of them both in Venice.

‘If he’s a crook, he won’t tell you anything about it. If he isn’t crooked, he’ll say, “Mind your own damned business”,’ said Humphrey. ‘The police will find all this out now, surely. I should sit tight and wait.’

This was probably sound advice. And there was Manolakis to be thought of, too. He was to go back to Crete at the end of the week. Patrick mentioned this to Humphrey.

‘I don’t know how he wants to spend the rest of his visit,’ he added. He might have decided to remain in London, spending every spare second with Liz. ‘We took him to Woburn – my sister and her husband.’

‘I didn’t know you went in for touring round stately homes,’ said Humphrey.

‘I don’t. I’ve been to very few. People take you to their local one if you’re staying for the weekend and they can’t think what to do with you,’ said Patrick. ‘So I’ve seen one or two like that. One should do more.’

‘I go to them quite often,’ said Humphrey. ‘Mainly because of the pictures – and sometimes because of the history of the house. It can be an absorbing pastime, and it’s one that can be pursued alone. One develops little ploys and interests in odd ways – you know that. You have your spare-time sleuthing. How did that start?’

‘Oh—a woman died. I didn’t think it was quite straightforward,’ said Patrick. ‘Other times, I’ve just happened to be there.’

‘You attract these things, though.’

‘You mean I put a jinx on events? I hope not. They’ve usually happened before I appear – I just seem to drop in later.’

‘How eerie. I’m glad it doesn’t happen to me –I hope it’s not catching, like measles.’

Patrick thought that it might be. Perceptions grew sharper with practice.

‘Let me know what happens next,’ Humphrey urged when they parted in the quadrangle of St Mark’s to go to their separate staircases.

‘I will,’ Patrick promised.

The theory about Sam’s death which he had mentioned to Colin as being so unlikely, and which Humphrey had not seriously considered, was now foremost in his mind. Look for evidence, Colin had advised. Before going to bed, Patrick made telephone calls to several London numbers, and as a result of what he learned from these, he resolved to go up again the following day.

While there, he would get in touch with Liz and Manolakis. Naturally.

The dark red MGB entered London before eight o’clock the following morning. Patrick found a four-hour meter off the Bayswater Road and shovelled money into it; soon afterwards he walked into a new luxury hotel nearby. He carried a large white envelope addressed in typewriting, and with the words ‘By Hand’ inscribed in the corner. This he gave to the desk clerk, who glanced at it, said, ‘I’ll see it’s delivered right away, sir,’ called a page over and said to him, ‘Take this up to suite 538 at once.’