Cavalier Case (7 page)

Then Zena started to take out Decimus' precious manuscripts from locked cases. The inspection seemed to calm her. No more was said about the Lackland Country Club. And when together they looked again at the Van Dyck at the head of the stairs, Zena was at her most rational and historic-minded. There was no mention, frivolous or otherwise, of ghosts stepping out of pictures.

Instead: "It's the hand which gives it away," Zena explained. "That perfect white hand with its assertive pointing finger. Daring us to point out that the whole hand is a fake, and thus the picture a copy, a much-improved copy. Decimus lost all the fingers of his left hand in a tilting accident at court as a young man, according to '
Heaven's True Mourning
.' Defending the honour of Lady Isabella in a duel, says Aubrey, but we needn't believe
that
. He was a mere boy when it happened. There are various references to it in letters of the time. You never see the left hand in the contemporary pictures. This was probably done after his death, either Olivia or his son decided to give him back his fingers."

"I think I prefer my portrait," exclaimed Jemima. "It's more tranquil and thus more poetic."

Jemima's second visit to Lackland Court ended, however, as it had begun with thoughts of Decimus the Ghost not Decimus the poet. This time it was not the unexpected sight of Zena Meredith descending the stairs in her Cavalier costume but Nell Meredith, a generation younger, whose words recreated the ghostly presence for her. Nell's peaked little face became quite pink as she poured out the story.

"I
did
see him, not just when I was little, now, nobody believes me—"

"Your father does—"

"They didn't believe me then. Besides, my father wasn't here."

"Here?"

"At Lackland. When Cousin Tommy died. Just before Cousin Tommy died. The night he fell down."

"You were here?"

"I was staying here. I do sometimes. I did sometimes. Lots of times. Mummy used to park me here. Actually—" Nell looked rather embarrassed, "I think it was a way of getting at Daddy. To show the world Cousin Tommy hadn't deserted her, even if Daddy had. When she had to go abroad for her shop. She runs this sort of gift shop called Goldentimes for things which are really pretty and sweet. She used to buy lots of them abroad. She even went to China once and India lots of times. So I used to come here. Cousin Tommy was sorry for me. And he loved Mummy. He loved her. Ask Mr. Haygarth.

"I
saw
the ghost," continued Nell earnestly. "I used to go wandering about sometimes at night. I've never slept, all my life, Mummy says, since I was born. And the night Cousin Tommy fell down the stairs I saw him clear as clear. So did Mr. Haygarth. Even though grownups aren't supposed to see the ghost. Otherwise something horrid happens. Well, it did happen, didn't it? Poor Cousin Tommy died."

From the battlements it was possible, as Dan had suggested, to overlook the whole broad sweep of Taynfordshire, all the way to the winding slate-blue ribbon which was the River Tayn; Jemima had not realised the river, between its guard of pollarded willows, ran so close to Lackland Court. The soughing of the summer wind among the strange turreted chimney pots which fringed the parapet—they were extremely high up—and the wheeling screams of the rooks above their heads, made a strange accompaniment to Nell's story, like the sound track at the start of an eerie movie.

There was a loud noise behind them. Jemima started nervously and clutched the turret behind her. There was in fact a narrow iron bar between the two turrets before them—"We're not allowed to go beyond here," Nell told her—but she was suddenly glad of the additional security. Then she realised that it was only the small door in the narrow east turret which led up to the roof—or down into the Long Gallery—which had slammed violently shut, presumably in a sust of wind. The sound sent the screaming birds above their heads hi - her still m an arc of protest.

Disaster

It was quite dark chat night at Lackland Court, with no moon to illumine the gardens lying below, when the little spiral staircase to the battlements was once more found convenient. A noise awakened one of the sleeping inhabitants of Lackland Court, who by now numbered quite a few: not the new Lord Lackland perhaps, gone up to London after dinner for his "business meeting," but his wife Charlotte, his cousin Marcus, his sister Zena, his daughter Nell and his three children by his second marriage, down to the boy Dessie. Then there were the members of the staff who still slept in the house such as Nuala the nanny.

One of these sleepers awoke; one who was never a heavy sleeper at the best of times. After listening for a while, he thought there must be intruders in the house, and after all, his property—which is how he saw it—must be defended. So he rose and with surprising lightness of tread, made his way from his bedroom to the Long Gallery. The first thing he noticed was that the little door at the end of the gallery which led to the roof was open. He hesitated; an intruder or intruders? Could he tackle more than one by himself? But then he had never lacked courage, had he? No-one had ever accused him of that.

He advanced towards the spiral staircase through the darkness of the empty gallery. His footsteps sounded hollowly on the wooden floor, and preoccupied by finding his way - so little light came from the arched windows on the moonless night - he did not realise for a while that there were further footsteps behind him, footsteps which stopped - almost - when his did, like someone playing grandmother's footsteps in the dark. It was not until he had begun to ascend the winding staircase to the roof that he had some suspicion that he might not be alone. But since he had no choice, he went on. He went, bending, through the little door which led to the roof. Now he was certain he was being followed.

Courage! If only he had a weapon of some sort, any sort. He should have picked up one of those heavy ancient swords from the landing, off the wall.

As he turned, determined to do his damnedest to protect Lackland Court, he had the extraordinary impression of a man in full armour rearing up in front of him, against the background of the turrets and the parapet. It was the last thing he saw, before he hurtled downwards to a certain death.

Early the next morning, about the time that the body of the butler Haygarth was found spread-eagled incongruously among the shrub roses of the big Lackland Court border, Jemima Shore was having an acerbic argument with Cass Brinsley. It was eight o'clock; they were both in bed and furthermore they were both in bed in Jemima Shore's flat in Holland Park Mansions. (Cass' overnight stays, welcome in the dark hours, added to the tension when daylight came, Jemima found.)

Love and death had produced a similar chaos: the rumpled scene presented by Jemima's enormous low white bed bore a resemblance to the mess of earth and broken branch which surrounded Haygarth's sprawling body. Jemima's bed displayed a mess of hastily discarded garments, male and female, white jockey shorts entangled with black stockings in a happy parody of their owners' own entanglement. Jemima's favourite very high-heeled black satin evening shoes, the ones she sometimes thought were too much (but Cass never did) were on the other hand separated from each other one white carpet, one marching to oblivion in the wrong direction, the other lying tipsily on its side; only one of Cass' shoes was visible.

The chaos of death was less aesthetic. But amid the wreck of an enormous Mme Isaac Pereire rose bush, deep pink petals everywhere, Haygarth's clothes also were shed around, his dark red woollen dressing gown ripped half off his body, his striped pyjamas gaping and torn. There was absolutely no doubt from the unnatural angle of his head that he was dead, and there were contusions on his face and chest as well as scratches from the roses. At least this was the conclusion of the young woman gardener who found him: actually a student whose parents lived in the village, filling in as a gardener for a holiday job.

Gingerly, Cathy Smith touched the bruised scratched face with the void staring eyes; Haygarth was cold to her touch although the morning sun was already beginning to beat down on the east-facing wall quite fiercely. Her first thought was: that rose, it'll take years to recover. Then she leant away from the corpse, supporting herself on a great wooden pyramid of white Colbert roses, and began to sob.

She sobbed first with shame at her unworthy thought about the rose, and then with further shame because she had never really liked old Haygarth when he was alive. He had several times made it clear that he disapproved of young women students acting as gardeners, "not what we had under his late Lordship." Now that he was dead, the first dead person she had ever seen, Cathy Smith cried because she could not summon up the appropriate feelings, whatever they were. Besides, who on earth did she summon in this emergency? Since the answer to this question would normally have been old Haygarth himself. The sight of young Nell Meredith—Little Nell as the staff were inclined to call her, not knowing that her father did likewise— approaching down the path, swinging an ancient wooden tennis racket, filled Cathy Smith with additional panic. At least she was alone; no sign of the younger children.

"Don't come any nearer, Nell," she shouted. Rapidly Cathy Smith pulled the red dressing gown over Haygarth's battered face before wondering whether she should really be touching either him or his clothes. And as Nell still advanced she cried more desperately: "You mustn't look. It's Mr. Haygarth. I'm afraid he's - dead." 

It was in this way that Nell became the first member of the Meredith family and the second person - other than his murderer, of course - to know of Haygarth's death, a fact which was to have some bearing on the subsequent course of the Cavalier Case.

At roughly the same time in Holland Park Mansions, it was, ironically enough, on the subject of Haygarth and Nell that Jemima and Cass were having their acerbic argument.

"If you rule out a real live ghost - " began Jemima.

"Rather an odd concept, that, darling - a real live ghost." Jemima realised that, argument apart, Cass Brinsley was cross. This was because she had just proposed putting on the new white track suit Cass had given her for her birthday "to dazzle Handsome Dan." And she added: "I must go. The Planty is miles away down the Fulham Palace Road and then you have to find it. That maze of streets, near the river. "

"The Vanderbilt is so much closer." Cass spoke pointedly.

Jemima had to accept that Cass remained insecure about even such tiny aspects of their relationship as the fact that she had chucked a tennis single with Cass the night before - at the Vanderbilt - on (genuine) grounds of work; yet now she was finding time to play at the I lantaganet and in the sacred working morning too. Useless to explain at this juncture that this too was (genuine) work, whereas playing with Cass was . . . well, pleasure; if pleasure which contained within it a good deal of healthy competition.

Sometimes Jemima thought that all the complexities of their present relationship should be fought out on the tennis court. Rather than in bed for example. Last night - and on other nights recently - Cass seemed determined to prove to Jemima with his physical ardour that something permanent existed between them, which, whatever her reservations about "settling down," whatever his brief "infidelity" with Fora Hereford (as his precipitate marriage was now tacitly accepted to be), could not be denied. But Jemima saw no reason to deny it. Why should she? It was true enough. It was just that she had never quite worked out the exact value to be placed upon a deep, and as far as she could see, permanent physical attraction existing between two people.

Jemima put these unresolvable thoughts aside and concentrated on the argument in hand about the case of the Ghost, the Girl and the Butler (as Cass had sarcastically once termed it). "My point is merely that
something
must have happened to have frightened them both. And if not a ghost—which it wasn't because we don't believe in ghosts, you and I, and we are right—if not a ghost, what?"

"Autosuggestion! A trick of the light or of the imagination. A failing old man about to retire and a neurotic teenage girl. Not very convincing witnesses in court, as it were. And by the way, darling, you do look ravishing in that white track suit and do put it on, and do ravish the eyes of the ageing tennis star—God damn him!"

"I wish I could believe you. No, not about the track suit—thank you—I mean about the failing butler and the neurotic girl. My instinct tells me—don't laugh, Gass, the past should remind you about the value of my woman's instinct, and I'm extremely proud of possessing such a thing. The time for apologising for women's instincts is definitely past. To put it another way, I'm in touch with myself. Whereas you, a man—Cass—no, Cass, listen. My instinct tells me that there's something going on here. The old Lord died; nothing wrong with that except that he was beginning to sell things from the library. At least according to Dan, who got it from Zena, the historically minded sister. So that it was convenient he popped off when he did rather than later. More than that you can't say. He was nearly eighty. And he did drink, especially late at night. Got lonely and depressed and then hit the whiskey bottle. Haygarth, in his starchy way, didn't deny that."

"No trouble with the inquest, I take it."

"None whatsoever. That's my point.
If
something was going on, it was very cleverly organised to seem utterly natural." She paused and added rather unhappily, "Here, since I don't believe in ghosts, I suppose I
have
to be talking of someone impersonating a ghost, dont I?" The image of Zena Meredith, the pale wraith in the dark suit with its white lace collar, which had startled her on the stairs the day before, came uncomfortably into Jemima's mind.

She had not in fact mentioned that episode to Cass - and in any case Zena had hardly benefited from her ancient cousin's death, rather the reverse, in view of the hated country club now projected by her brother. All the same, Jemima decided not to mention Zena's masquerade now. It would only complicate matters. "Someone impersonating a ghost," she repeated. "Or someone making ghost noises. Or whatever else you do - outside a Hallowe'en party - to impersonate a ghost."

"The only other possible explanation, m'lord," said Cass in his most reasonable voice which he reserved for really difficult judges, "being that the events of the night in question were perfectly natural. So that there's no case to answer." 

He hugged Jemima again, but it was no longer a demanding hug, something kinder, more brotherly and under the present circumstances more welcome. Jemima, realising that Cass had decided to be reasonable about her tennis game (as well as about alleged psychic phenomena), decided that the moment was propitious to take her departure as fast as possible. Especially as she was already in danger of being late, which she somehow did not think would be appreciated by Cy's friend, the somewhat imperious Lady Manfred. To say nothing of Dan Lackland himself. (The only good thing about all this was that Jemima had no time to worry about her actual tennis. )

For all Jemima's expeditious driving of her smart new Mitsubishi Colt (chic navy-blue with her initials on the doors) she arrived at the Plantaganet Club at five past nine. It was definitely a maddening journey from Holland Park to this part of the world. The time was recorded on the big, reproachfully big, clock above the reception desk. Jemima, seeing Alix Carstairs standing there in bright pink shorts, white Planty T-shirt, and a white snood bundling her red hair away, rushed forward muttering hasty and breathless apologies. But Alix Carstairs' expression was abstracted and her manner was friendly but absent: the exact reverse to the hostile studied politeness of their previous meeting. She even looked rather white beneath that thick powdering of brown freckles.

It was only when Jemima murmured the words "Ghastly traffic at Hammersmith" that Alix sprang briefly to life.

"Ghastly!" she echoed rather loudly and then stopped. "Oh, the traffic. Yes. Yes, ghastly. Look, don't worry, actually Dan's not around just at the moment. Whereas Lady Manfred is around. So perhaps - " Alix Carstairs waved her hand in the direction of the bar where Jemima saw Jane Manfred sitting at one of the little tables, apparently inspecting the arrangement of pink roses in its centre for signs of dropping petals.

Lady Manfred's thick hair, which on Sunday in the harsh sunlight had given the impression of a busby so vibrantly black - even improbably so - was its colour, was now neatly confined in a white bandeau pulled low on her forehead. An enormous pair of faintly tinted sunglasses covered a great deal of the rest of her face. From a distance she created, as ever, an impression of graceful composure. It was not until Jemima actually approached her that she realised that Jane Manfred too, like Alix Carstairs, was suffering from some kind of agitation.

"Darling!" Jane Manfred had seen Jemima and the moment was gone. "Now where is our naughty Dan? Ten past nine! Impossible. Are we to play a single? No, certainly not, look at your long English legs. What am I to do against legs like that? And at my age." Jane Manfred looked deprecatingly down at her legs, exquisitely brown between the dazzling expanse of white represented on the one hand by her exquisitely pressed skirt, on the other by her immaculate socks and shoes. Everything she wore had the air of being brand new: except the enormous pear-shaped pearl earrings which dangled from her ears. These were the sort of thing you saw being featured in a sale at Christie's.

It was true that Jane Manfred's legs were somewhat shorter than Jemima's own (generally agreed to be exceptionally long). They were still excellent legs, and strangely slender compared to the rest of her rather matronly figure.

"So, let us play!" Jane Manfred, however charming her tone—and it was very charming—made it sound like a command. She tossed her head. The enormous pearl earrings which contrasted so oddly with her tennis gear (could they he real, at that size?) swung in her ears. She was an Empress, Jemima decided: so would Cleopatra in ripe middle age have commanded some slave to a tennis game. "This is not like our darling Dan. Some crisis, I think. And that woman with red hair, what is she called, hardly seemed to take in what I was saying." All signs of agitation or melancholy were gone.