Trouble Brewing (34 page)

‘Hang on a minute, Jack,' said Meredith with a frown. ‘I remember both you and Rackham saying it more or less had to be Valdez in Gower Street because the murderer couldn't know the body was going to be undiscovered for so long. If the body
had
been found shortly afterwards, that would have ruined Tyrell's plans, wouldn't it?'

Jack grinned. ‘You'd think so, wouldn't you? But let's ask the expert. Bill, old son, how do the police identify a body?'

‘We see what identification's on the corpse. That usually tells us who they are. If we suspect foul play, we drum up someone who knew the person concerned. That's usually a formality, as there's very rarely any doubt.'

‘Let's say the body in Gower Street had come to light within a few days. What then?'

‘We'd assume it was Valdez, because of his things in the room. Our main lead would be the cards in the card case, which included one of Frederick Hunt's.'

‘Who would you've asked to take a dekko at it?'

‘None other than Frederick Hunt, I'm afraid. You see, there were only three people in England who could identify Valdez. Helston, who was missing, Mr Hunt senior, and Frederick Hunt himself. It's an unpleasant business, identifying a body and we certainly wouldn't put an old man such as Mr Harold Hunt through it unless it was absolutely necessary. As there had been no attempt to disguise the body, apart from removing the clothes, Frederick Hunt's identification would be the only one we'd require. We'd have taken his word for it, all right.'

‘And Tyrell,' said Jack, ‘had told Frederick Hunt to identify the body as Valdez. The fact that Frederick could easily have taken Mark's knife was an added fact that Tyrell used to make sure Frederick behaved himself. It would have worked, you know. After all, Frederick didn't know Wainstall. It wasn't as if he was going to be confronted with Helston. The man on the slab would have been a complete stranger. It was very much to Hunt's advantage to do what Tyrell said.'

‘He never was called on, was he?' asked Pat.

‘No. As things turned out, the body wasn't found until long afterwards and, as time went on, Frederick must have breathed a sigh of relief. John Marsden was safely back in Brazil and the mutually beneficent arrangement between him and Hunt continued to flourish. And then, Pat, a monumentally sized spanner was flung into the works in the shape of your grandmother's will.'

Pat swallowed. ‘So it was about money, after all.'

Jaggard gave a bitter laugh. ‘I knew it! It must have struck Tyrell as pretty ironic that he'd gone to such lengths to convince us Mark could still be alive and now, with all that money at stake, he'd made it impossible to prove that Mark was dead.'

‘Exactly,' said Bill. ‘He didn't come straight to London though, did he, Jack?'

‘No. He blazed a traceable, provable trail across Brazil to fit in with his character as a rootless wanderer, fetching up on the banks of the Araguya. Here, what I think he intended to happen, was an accident that would account for his sudden reawakening of memory. What actually happened, for the Amazonian jungle is a dodgy place to fool around in, is that the accident nearly saw him off. The statement from Freire Jose, the Dominican missionary, says as much. I believe in Freire Jose. The Dominicans at Chalk Farm vouch for him. Complete with a verified story, Larry Tyrell turned up in London to receive his hero's welcome.'

Jaggard covered Pat's hand with his own. ‘Where did I fit in?'

‘You didn't, old man. Pat, as he rightly pointed out, was his wife, not yours and besides that . . . Well, he'd been in Paris, don't forget. He knew that your home life wasn't all it could be.'

Pat looked up with very bright eyes. ‘Suppose I'd decided to divorce him? What then?'

Jack shrugged. ‘He relied on his charm to let you give him a run for his money. In any case, a divorce takes time to arrange. I don't think you'd have lived to see it. Sometime in the future, there would have been an accident. He was betting on a certainty, of course. He knew that Mark was dead. However, then he met Sheila Mandeville.'

He glanced across at Meredith. ‘This is going to be a bit rough for you, I'm afraid, Merry. On the ninth of January, Helston should have been on holiday but Sheila Mandeville was at work. With Helston away, she spent the time filling in for other people and acting as a high-class receptionist. She spoke to Valdez for a good few minutes. Tyrell recognized her that night at the Ritz. With the exception of Frederick Hunt, she was the only person in Britain who'd seen him both as Valdez and Tyrell. He was in great danger and acted very quickly.'

Meredith Smith sat very still for a moment. ‘She said he looked familiar.' He took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘There was something about his hands. She didn't know who he was, though. She didn't know he was Valdez.'

‘She could have tumbled to it at any time,' said Jack. ‘He had a crooked little finger. Perhaps it was that she remembered. Tyrell just couldn't risk it.'

He looked at Pat Tyrell. ‘Did he see Frederick Hunt that night? Perhaps when he brought you home?'

Her brow wrinkled. ‘No, but he was here very early the next morning. He had breakfast with Uncle Frederick.' She caught her breath. ‘He was excited about something that night. D'you think he planned it then? That's horrible.'

‘Yes,' agreed Jack, softly. ‘It is. Tyrell knew Miss Mandeville was the girl who'd met him as Valdez, but that was it. Hunt gave him the information he needed. Tyrell must have got into her flat that morning while she was at work. She kept a key behind the door and it was easy to get in. A newspaper with the cut-out coupon for a film competition gave him an idea. He wrote to Sheila Mandeville to say she'd won the competition and, posing as a journalist, requested an interview for half past five on Friday evening. That made sure she'd be on the spot. He thought he'd get rid of Jaggard as well. I'm afraid you helped him, Pat.'

‘Me? What did I do?'

‘You must have given him some money. Jaggard cashed a cheque for fifty pounds on the twelfth of April. Four of those notes turned up in Sheila Mandeville's handbag. He must have got them from you.'

She looked horrified. ‘I gave him some money the evening he arrived. I took thirty pounds out of the desk at home. He needed it to tide him over. He paid me back and after that he always had his own. Why would he have kept it all that time?'

‘Perhaps he didn't keep it on purpose, but, when the occasion arose, he realized what damming evidence those banknotes would be against Jaggard. He knew about the race on Saturday, and guessed Jaggard would be working on his car. A phone call to the track confirmed that Jaggard was actually there. He went to Weybridge solely to telephone from the station. When you, Jag, got a message from someone called “Pat” naturally it didn't occur to you to ask if the “Pat” on the phone had been a man or a woman. Later on, when the call was traced, it seemed obvious that you'd nipped across the footbridge to the station and left a message for yourself.

‘Then Tyrell went to Southwark. At lunchtime the offices are more or less deserted, and he was able to type a letter on Sheila Mandeville's typewriter without anyone, apart from Frederick Hunt, being any the wiser. Then Hunt and Tyrell went to the Archias Club at quarter past five. With Hunt covering up for him, Tyrell was able to go to Dunthorpe Mansions and kill the poor girl. Jaggard arrived, right on schedule, and drew no end of attention to the fact he was there.'

‘It seems very elaborate,' said Jaggard. ‘Why not have me walk in and discover the body?'

‘Because he couldn't be sure you'd be alone, or what your alibi was for the afternoon. If you could prove that you had been in other people's company up to the time the body was discovered, he'd have been sunk. As it was, the time of death was vague enough for there to be enough doubt about your actions, no matter what you'd been doing. And I think you, Jaggard, should have died the next day.'

‘What?'

‘Your accident. Your tyres blew, didn't they?'

‘Yes, they did.' His eyes widened. ‘Damn it, I saw him! I saw someone on the banking just before the tyres went. What did he use? Caltrops?'

‘What on earth are caltrops?' asked Pat.

‘Wire stars with four points,' said Bill. ‘The Aussies used them a lot in the war. Thrown on the road, they're a nasty, simple and effective way to cripple a horse. They work just as well on tyres.'

Jaggard looked grim. ‘It's easy enough to get onto the banking from the railway line. The car was such a mess, no one would've noticed a piece of extra metal unless they looked for it.'

‘I don't
know
he used caltrops, but it's the easiest solution,' said Jack. ‘If you'd bought it, we'd have thought the case was closed before it was really opened. However, you survived. And, then, Jag, you made a suggestion which brought things to a very nasty head.'

‘Are you talking about my will?' asked Pat. ‘I never did get round to signing it.'

‘I am.' Jack lit another cigarette. ‘It really rattled him, didn't it? By a stroke of the pen you could disinherit him, and all his efforts would have been for nothing. He had one night in which to act, and act he most certainly did. I
knew
there was something in the air. I saw the look he gave you. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.'

‘I can vouch for that,' put in Bill. ‘I thought you were over-egging it, but I thought it as well to have a couple of my best men keep an eye on things, just in case.'

‘We know what happened. Helped by that little worm, Lahone, he laced your wine, Pat, then tried his very best to drown you. Thank God, it didn't come off.'

‘Because of you,' said Pat.

Jack grinned. ‘I didn't seem to dry out for days. By George, it was cold! But even Tyrell couldn't plan everything. Not only were you still alive, but H.R.H. had a visitor. Tyrell didn't know it, but that visitor was a dangerous man.'

‘Who was it?' asked Meredith.

‘His name was Robert Waldron, an old friend of H.R.H.'s from Brazil. I guessed as much at the time and also guessed his visit was responsible for what happened next. He's a coffee planter and his plantation is about a hundred miles or so from Hunt's. As he hadn't approached the family to offer his condolences when H.R.H. died, I thought it was likely he was out of the country and more than likely he was sailing back to Brazil. I checked the shipping lists and there he was. I asked Bill to send a marconigram to the ship. We needed to know the gist of the conversation he had with H.R.H. regarding Laurence Tyrell and John Marsden.'

Jack walked across to the mantelpiece and, taking down the cable form, handed it to Bill. ‘You read it, Bill. It was addressed to you.'

Bill took the cable. ‘This is Waldron's reply:
Deeply sorry hear news Harold Hunt.
Never met Tyrell before. Marsden not at plantation at Christmas. De Oliveria in sole charge.
Now we knew Tyrell wasn't at the plantation at Christmas and could prove it from the evidence of the shipping list and the testimony of the steward, but the significance of Waldron's cable is that it proves old Mr Hunt knew it too.'

Bill put down the cable. ‘What I can't work out, Jack, is why Mr Hunt didn't tell us that Tyrell had lied about being in Branca Preto at Christmas. How much d'you think he knew?'

Jack frowned. ‘That's interesting, isn't it? I don't think he got as far as realizing that Tyrell was Valdez, or was guilty of Mark's murder. He would certainly have told us that, if only to clear Mark's name. What he did know, however, was that Larry Tyrell's account of himself was false, and that had quite dreadful implications for Pat. His worst fears were justified by the episode on Waterloo Bridge. The newspapers might have described the incident as high spirits that got out of hand, but H.R.H. knew better. I'm afraid he regarded me as a washout. I'd been woefully ineffective in finding Helston. From his point of view, I'd only made things worse. He'd been a tough, vigorous man and hated relying on others. He had grave reservations about Frederick, and decided to act in the only way open to him.'

Jack took a long drink. ‘When he got the news about you, Pat, he wrote to Tyrell, inviting him to lunch the next day. He must have also sketched out some ideas for his new will. Mr Stafford, as we know, called that afternoon and drew up the new codicil.

‘The next day Tyrell came to lunch. The coffee was served here, in the drawing room. Mr Hunt, not Fields, served it. Incidentally, Mr Hunt was sharp enough to realize that although it wasn't certain, there was a good chance Frederick Hunt knew that John Marsden was a fraud. You can see his indecisiveness reflected in the new codicil. After Tyrell had left, Mr Hunt went into the library, where, if you remember, he always wrote his letters. The letter he had to write was a suicide note.'

‘A
suicide
note,' cried Pat. ‘You mean he really did kill himself? But why?'

Meredith Smith looked frankly distressed. ‘I don't believe it. That swine Tyrell must have done for him.'

Jack shook his head. ‘No. It can't work that way round. Mr Hunt wanted to protect Pat from a man he knew to be a murderous liar. He thought I was hopeless and he didn't trust the police. Every minute Tyrell was alive spelled danger to Pat. So Mr Hunt killed Laurence Tyrell.'

There was a stunned silence. ‘You're kidding,' said Meredith eventually. He looked at Jack's face. ‘You're not, are you?'

Jack shook his head. ‘Consider the facts. There's the new will, hurriedly made effective by a signature. There's the fact that Mr Hunt asked for the coffee to be served in the drawing room and his determination to serve it himself. There's the fact that Larry Tyrell died after leaving the house and there's also the fact that on his tray of medicines, Mr Hunt had a tonic containing strychnine.'