Closed Circle (16 page)

Proceedings commenced promptly at ten thirty. A jury of local stalwarts was sworn in and the first of five witnesses called. This was Diana, whose softness of voice and grace of bearing made a marked impression on the coroner. She described the events of the night without flinching: her change of heart about the elopement; her father's departure to keep the appointment with Max; his failure to return; the search for him; the discovery of his body. The coroner offered her the court's sympathy and she walked back to her seat in an eloquent hush. Vita followed her into the box and confirmed what her niece had said from the point of view of a brisk and unaffected spinster equal to anything. The coroner congratulated her for waiting alone in the dark with her brother's corpse and her reply that she had only done her duty elicited mutters of approval on all sides.

I was called next. As soon as I admitted being Max's friend, I detected a cooling in the atmosphere around me. In his absence, I had become the surrogate villain of the piece. The coroner, meek and mild in his approach to the ladies, turned suddenly curt and severe.

"Did this escapade not strike you as grossly irresponsible, Mr. Horton?"

"No, sir, it did not."

"What did you think had happened when your friend failed to return?"

"I didn't know. That's why I went to look for him."

"You saw him running from the scene?"

"I heard somebody running. I can't say who."

"But they drove away in your car. Who but Mr. Wingate would have known it was there? Who but Mr. Wingate could it have been?"

"I can't say."

"When you reached the body, Miss Vita Charnwood and Miss Diana Charnwood were already there?"

"Yes, sir."

"And it was apparent to you that Mr. Charnwood had been brutally murdered?"

"It was apparent to me that he'd met a violent death."

"At whose hands?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't you ask yourself if your friend could have done such a thing?"

"Naturally."

"And what did you conclude?"

"That I couldn't believe he was capable of murdering anyone."

"But was he capable of murdering Mr. Charnwood?" He stared at me with flinty insistence. "In the circumstances, Mr. Horton?"

I braced myself for the hostility my reply was bound to provoke. It mattered only to Max and me what I said, since his guilt was already manifest. But it did matter. "No, sir. I don't think so."

There was a leaden pause, then the coroner said: "Thank you, Mr. Horton." But there was no hint of gratitude in his tone. That will be all."

I left the box with honour satisfied but nothing accomplished on Max's behalf. Mine had been a token protest. Whatever impact it may have had was swiftly erased by Hornby, who made it crystal clear what he believed had occurred that night.

"Mr. Wingate went to meet Miss Charnwood in order to elope with her. Mr. Charnwood was waiting for him with news he cannot have welcomed. Mr. Charnwood was beaten to death. And Mr. Wingate has been missing ever since." It seemed to be all he could do not to add: "Q.E.D." He made no mention of the bloodstains on the steering-wheel of our car or the letter to Max's father. Perhaps he was saving such points for the trial on which his sights were obviously set. The coroner thanked him for his diligence and summoned the pathologist who had carried out the post mortem.

His evidence was gruesomely straightforward. A succession of extremely violent blows with a heavy sharp-edged object had smashed the right cheek, temporal and parietal bones of the deceased, inflicting fatal damage to the brain. His blood group matched that of blood found on a wedge-shaped flint nearby which the pathologist had no doubt was the murder weapon. Death had occurred some time between midnight and two-thirty. There were no signs of a struggle, suggesting that the first blow had been delivered unexpectedly and with considerable force. It was by some way the most savage murder he had encountered in his professional career.

The coroner then delivered a perfunctory summing-up, more or less telling the jury what their verdict should be. They obliged after such a brief retirement that there was not even time to slip outside for a cigarette. "We find that the deceased was murdered by Max Algernon Wingate." No ambiguity, then, no reservation. And no hope for Max, so far as I could see if the police ever caught him.

I drove up to Box Hill afterwards and smoked the cigarette I had earlier been denied while gazing down on Dorking and the rolling farmland of the Mole Valley. The shadows of fast-moving clouds were chasing each other across the fields and the wind that propelled them was roaring past the open window of the car. For an instant I imagined the speeding shadows to be cast by the events of Max's life and mine. Each had seemed at first like an escape from its predecessor, only to reveal itself later as a blurred way marker on our accelerating course. Hitherto, I had never thought in terms of a destination. But perhaps we really were close to one now, closer than either of us wished to believe.

An hour had passed since the inquest when I left and headed for Amber Court, long enough, I judged, for Vita and Diana to be home again, free of admirers and advisers. And so it proved. They were waiting for me in the drawing-room, still dressed as they had been in court. As the maid showed me in and they turned in their chairs to greet me, I noticed a greater similarity between them than I ever had before. Diana was young and slim and beautiful, of course, whereas Vita was none of these things. But something in their eyes illuminated a deeper resemblance: the shared instincts that made good every difference of age and temperament. Perhaps this, I thought, was what Diana had meant by reconciliation.

"Thank you for coming, Guy," said Diana, in a tone fractionally more guarded than I had recently become used to. "After this morning, you might have wished to drive away from Dorking and never come back."

"If you had, it would have been partly my fault," said Vita. "You have balanced your obligations to your friend and your sympathy for Diana in a way which I should have praised instead of .. ." She smiled. "Forgive a foolish old woman, Guy." It was the first time she had addressed me as Guy since the murder and represented a bigger concession than any number of apologies.

"There's nothing to forgive," I replied as warmly as I could. "The past few weeks have been difficult for all of us."

"Perhaps more difficult than you realize," said Diana. "Please sit down and I'll explain."

I moved to the sofa on the opposite side of the fireplace from their armchairs. Behind them, through the bay window, I could see the clouds racing on above the swaying heads of the trees that climbed the slope towards the Dorking road. If I had gone after Max sooner... If I had not taken the wrong turning on the path... But always it was so, as the portrait of Maud Charnwood above the mantelpiece proved. A step taken or not taken was instantly irrevocable.

"Would you care for some tea?" asked Vita.

"Er.. . Well, if .. ."

"Guy doesn't want tea, Aunty," put in Diana. "He wants to hear what we have to tell him." The fingers of her right hand were threaded through the fringe of her cushion, turning and twisting the silken loops this way and that. "The whole world will know soon enough. We can't delay any longer."

"You're right, of course. Let me '

"No. Let me." She released the fringe and laid her hand calmly in her lap. "Charnwood Investments is insolvent," she said, looking straight at me. "It'll be announced tomorrow that the company's going into liquidation. A receiver will be appointed and my father's assets, such as they are, will be seized."

"Good God!" For all that Trojan could be said to have warned me, it was still a shock. Now, at last, the bounced cheque made sense. "I had no idea things were so '

"Neither had we. It appears he lost a great deal of money in the Wall Street Crash and has been struggling to recover ever since. Some months ago, an Austrian bank defaulted and '

"The Credit-Anstalt?" I remembered reading of its collapse in May.

"Yes. I believe that's the name the accountant mentioned. Anyway, Papa had some large deposits in it and in some German banks sucked down in its wake. He never breathed a word of his troubles to us. There were signs, but I thought nothing of them. Barker leaving, for instance. Papa said he just didn't need a valet any more and I accepted the explanation at face value. Besides, none of the economies affected me. I was completely unaware of most of them."

"So was I," said Vita. "But Fabian would have wanted to shield us from any .. . unpleasantness. It was in his nature."

"And he'd probably have succeeded in pulling it all round," Diana resumed. "His judgement hadn't deserted him. And his clients still trusted him. He just needed time. If I'd known, I'd never have She paused and blinked away some tears. "But there it is. Time ran out."

"I'm sorry. Really I am. This must make his death all the harder to bear."

"It does," said Vita. "It's as if he's to be taken from us all over again his reputation dismantled piece by piece." She glanced round the room. "This house is forfeit, of course. I own half of it, but the creditors will want their share, so we'll have no choice but to sell."

"If there's anything I can '

"We shan't be destitute," Vita said with sudden force. "My father left me well provided for. And I shall ensure Diana wants for nothing."

"Even so, if I can help in any way .. ."

"You've done enough already, Guy," said Diana. "From now on, we must shift for ourselves."

"What will you do?"

"In the first instance, go abroad. To Italy, as Papa intended."

"I have rented a villa on the Venetian Lido," said Vita. "We will stay there until the end of October. By then, my brother's creditors will have done their worst and we may be able to return to England."

"Or we may prefer to remain in Italy," said Diana, her voice assuming a distant quality. "So much has changed. So much has ended. We must make a new beginning. But where or with whom or in what fashion ..." She looked not at me but up at the portrait of her mother. All I did not know about her and could not guess seemed contained in her soulful gaze. "I cannot say," she murmured. "I cannot say what our futures may hold."

Diana walked out with me to the car when I left, perhaps as glad as I was of the chance for a few words in private. The clouds were fewer now, but the wind no slacker, tearing at the tree-tops, snatching at the hedges, scattering leaves across the gravel of the drive. The sunlight was clear and brilliant, finding and revealing every detail of Diana's beauty as she looked at me. For the first time, I felt I understood why Max had killed the man who stood between them. To be denied her might prove too much for anyone. Which was why, at the reasoning core of my being, I was relieved there were to be no more 'secret outings'. Cynicism can only withstand so much joy and my reserves of it were running dangerously low.

"When do you leave for Venice?" I asked.

"Tomorrow. We would have gone sooner but for the inquest. I couldn't bear to be here when they say the terrible things they will say about Papa."

"So this is goodbye, then."

"I hope not. In fact, I'm sure not. We'll meet again."

"At the trial, you mean?" She jerked her head away and I instantly regretted the remark. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend that to sound .. . reproachful."

"I know." She composed herself with a visible effort. "But I deserve to be reproached for letting Papa meet Max in my place. If I'd gone myself and explained my decision to him, none of this would ever have happened."

"You're not to blame for what Max did. And he wouldn't want you to think so."

"No? What does he want, Guy? My forgiveness? He might have had that if he'd given himself up straightaway. But not now. Not after hiding for so long, without sending me word of any kind. Not after accusing me and you of betraying him, when he's the one who betrayed us."

"Do you hate him?"

"No. But he killed my love for him when he murdered Papa. And nothing can bring it back." She sighed heavily, then smiled at me. "Why not visit us in Venice? You may find it's the change of scene you need as well."

"I've tried changes of scene before without success. No, I think I'll stick it out here this time."

"Well, look upon it as an open invitation."

"Thank you. I will. And now ... I must be going."

"Guy '

"Yes?"

She clasped my right hand between her palms. "Remember everything. Regret nothing. So Papa always said. Do you think it's possible?"

"I'm not sure."

"Neither am I. But we must try, mustn't we we who remain?" She kissed me lightly on the lips. "Au revoir."1

I left her standing on the lawn, the wind twitching at her hair and rippling the fabric of her skirt. I saw her last as a motionless figure in black against the waving trees, bathed in light, one arm half-raised as if in benediction. I experienced a sudden desire to turn back but gritted my teeth and drove on. If I could learn anything from Max, it was not to repeat his mistake. To be tempted was one thing, to fall quite another. I would not follow her to Venice or anywhere else.

The outcome of the inquest and the insolvency of Charnwood Investments commanded less space in the newspapers than I had expected. The ever-worsening economic crisis pushed such matters into cramped paragraphs at the bottom of inside pages. And small wonder, for the men of the Atlantic Fleet had mutinied when asked to take a cut in pay, the drain of gold from the Bank of England had become a flood, the Brazilian government had defaulted on its debt and there was panic in the City.

Somewhere, in whatever hiding-place he had chosen, Max must have read of the verdict. I thought of him struggling to come to terms with the crime laid at his door. But there was nothing I could do for him. He had chosen his road and must tread it alone. I imagined the same reflections pressing in on Diana in Venice. It would have been better if they had never met. Her father would be alive and quite possibly solvent. Max would not be wanted for his murder. And she would be able to go on as before. Instead, she sat nursing her wounds in exile, while Max hid his face from view. Contrary to Charnwood's adage, there was everything to regret, as he may himself have realized a split-second after the first blow fell.