She seemed pleased at this tribute to her dignity as a valued and confidential servant. ‘Mrs Nightingale was never one of them as gossips, sir, or passes the day on the telephone. The ladies she saw was to do with business, like, arranging bazaars and gymkhanas, if you know what I mean. Then ...’ Her voice took on a sad importance, ‘Then there was their friends as came here to dine, Sir George and Lady Larkin-Smith, and Mr and Mrs Primero, and all the county folks, sir.’
‘Gentlemen friends? Please don’t be offended, Mrs Cantrip. These days a lady can have men friends without there being anything—er, wrong.’
Mrs Cantrip shook her head vigorously. ‘Her friends was their friends, sir,’she said, adding with a shade of sarcasm, ‘Would there be anything else you wanted to know?’
‘There is just one thing. A question of laundry. Whose job is it to change the linen in this house, the r, sheets and towels?’
‘Mine, sir,’ said Mrs Cantrip, surprised.
‘And did you remove any damp towels from Mr Nightingale’s bedroom this morning?’
‘No, sir, definitely not. I wasn’t looking for work this morning and that’s a fact.’ Mrs Cantrip gave a virtuous lift of her chin. ‘Besides, it’s not the day for that,’ she said. ‘I change the sheets Monday mornings, and the towels Mondays and Thursdays. Always have done, year in and year out since I’ve been here.’
‘Suppose someone else were to have ...?’ Wexford began carefully.
‘They couldn’t have,’ said Mrs Cantrip sharply. ‘The soiled linen’s kept in a bin in the back kitchen and no one’s been near it today. I can vouch for that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ve got my lunch to serve. I’m sure I don’t know if Mr Nightingale’s feeling up to a snack but there’s the tray to go over to Mr Villiers as usual ... Oh, my dear God! Mr Villiers! I’d forgot all about Mr Villiers.’
Wexford stared at her. ‘D’you mean to say Mr Nightingale’s brother-in-law lives in this house?’
‘Not to say “lives”, sir,’ said Mrs Cantrip, still wideeyed, a red hand frozen to her cheek. ‘He comes up every day to do his writing in the Old House. And, oh, sir, I don’t reckon no one’s told him!’
‘Mr Villiers must have seen all our comings and goings.
‘He wouldn’t, sir. You can’t see a thing from the Old House on account of all them trees, no more than you can see it from the outside. I’ll have to go and tell him.
All I can say is, thank Cod they wasn’t close. He won’t take i * t hard, there’s one blessing.’
She trotted off at a half-run. Wexford watched her disappear under an arch in the hed-c, an arch overhung with the leaves of lime trees turning gold.
Above these all that showed of the Old House was a shallow roof against the white-spotted blue sky.
He allowed her five minutes and then he followed the path she had taken. It led him into a little paved court in the centre of which was a small square pond. Carp swam in the dark clear water under the flat shining rafts of lily leaves.
The court was heavily shaded by the trees which surrounded it. Their roots had sapped strength from the narrow borders, for nothing grew in them but a few attenuated and flowerless plants stretching desperately in the hope of reaching the sun. Mrs Cantrip must have entered the ancient house-to Wexford it appeared at least four hundred years old-by a black oak door which stood ajar. By the step stood a boot-scraper, a cock with spread wings made of black metal. Looking up past creeper-grown lattice windows, Wexford noticed its fellow, a crowing chanticleer on the weather vane.
As he entered the Old House, he became aware that the wind had dropped.
4
THE place in which Wexford found himself was evidently used as a storeroom. Birch logs were stacked against the walls in pyramids; racks above them awaited the Manor harvest of apples and pears. It was all very clean and orderly.
Since there was no other room down here and no sign of Denys Villiers’
occupation, Wexford ascended the stairs. They were of black oak let into a kind of steeply sloping tunnel in the thick wall. From behind the single door at the top he heard low voices. He knocked. Mrs Cantrip opened the door a crack and whispered:
‘I’ve broke the news. Will you be wanting me any more?’
‘No, thank you, Mrs Cantrip.’
She came out, her face very red. A shaft of sunlight stabbed the shadows of the lower room as she let herself out. Wexford hesitated and then he went into Villiers’ writing room.
The classics master remained sitting at his desk but he turned a grave cold face towards Wexford and said, ‘Good morning, Chief Inspector. What can I do for you?’
‘This is a bad business, Mr Villiers. I won’t keep you long. just a few questions, if you please.’
‘Certainly. Won’t you sit down?’
A large, somewhat chilly room, darkly panelled. The windows were small and obscured by clustering leaves.
There was a square of carpet on the floor. The furniture, a horsehair sofa, two Victorian armchairs with leather seats, a gateleg table, had apparently been rejected from the Manor proper. Villiers’ desk was a mass of papers, open works of reference, tins of paper clips, ballpoint pens and empty cigarette packets. At one end stood a stack of new books, all identical to each other and to the one Wexford had seen on Nightingale’s bedside table:
Wordsworth in Love, by Denys Villiers, author of Wordsworth at Grasmere and Anything to Show More Fair.
Before sitting down, Wexford picked up the topmost of these books just as he had picked up the one in the bedroom, but this time, instead of quickly scanning the text, he turned it over to eye the portrait of Villiers on the back of its jacket. It was a flattering photograph or else taken long ago.
The man who faced him, coldly watching this brief perusal, seemed in his late forties. He had once, Wexford thought, been fair and handsome, strikingly like his dead sister, but time or perhaps illness had taken all that away. Yes, illness probably. Men dying of cancer looked like Villiers.
In their faces Wexford had seen that same dusty parched look, yellowish-grey drawn features, blue eyes bleached a haggard grey. He was painfully thin, his mouth bloodless.
‘I realise this must have been a great shock to you,’ Wexford began. ‘It seems unfortunate that no one broke the news to you earlier.’
Villiers’ thin colourless eyebrows rose a fraction. His expression was unpleasant, supercilious. ‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘it makes very little diftrence. My sister and I weren’t particularly attached to each other.’
‘May I ask why not?’
‘You may and I’ve no objection to answering you, The reason was that we had nothing in common. My sister was an empty-headed frivolous woman and I-well, I am not an empty-headed frivolous man.’
Villiers glanced down at his typewriter. ‘Still, I hardly think it would be tactful for me to do any more work today, do you?’
‘I believe you and your wife spent last evening at the Manor, Mr Villiers?’
‘That is so. We played bridge. At ten-thirty we left, drove home and went to bed.’ Villiers’ voice was clipped and sharp with an edge of temper to it, a temper that could be quickly aroused. He coughed and pressed his hand to his chest. ‘I have a bungalow near Clusterwell. It took me about ten minutes to drive there from the Manor last night. My wife and I went straight to bed.’
Very tidy and brief, thought Wexford. it might all have been rehearsed beforehand. ‘How did your sister seem last night, sir? Normal? Or did she appear excited?’
Villiers sighed. More from boredom than sorrow, Wexford decided. ‘She was just as she always was, Chief Inspector, the gracious lady of the Manor whom everyone loved. Her bridge was always appalling, and last night it was neither more nor less appalling than usual.’