‘Was this the secret you mentioned just now?’ Diamond asked Lady Sally.
‘Yes. I had the job of distracting him while they got it ready.’
‘Something involving Newburn?’
‘Indirectly, yes. I’d better go inside,’ she added. ‘They want me near the front.’
Diamond was pleased to have a moment to himself — the chance to contact his back-up team by phone. He moved across the lawn to a shaded area under a willow.
Success at the first touch of the controls — and no one at his side to appreciate it.
‘Guv?’ Halliwell sounded pleased.
‘How far away are you?’
‘Some distance to go, I’m afraid. Maybe twenty minutes more climbing.’
‘As long as that?’
‘It’s bloody steep and overgrown in places. No one has come through here in years as far as I can tell. But we made a find.’
‘Oh?’
‘Almost at the bottom of the steepest part, a gun.’
Diamond pressed the phone harder to his ear. ‘Did I hear you right? A gun?’
‘Handgun.’
‘Really?’ His heart started pumping at a rate he could practically hear. ‘Amazing... What sort — a revolver?’
‘A Smith and Wesson and what’s more it says nine millimetres on the barrel. It’s in good nick as far as I can see. Obviously hasn’t been lying there long. Scarcely any dust and muck on it.’
‘Have any of you handled it?’
‘It’s okay. It won’t get contaminated. John Leaman had a spare evidence bag in his pocket. He thinks of everything. But he wasn’t the one who found it. That was one of the uniformed guys.’
Diamond was silent for some seconds, processing this sensational new information. ‘You were just telling me no one had been through before.’
‘It must have been thrown from the top where you are. It’s a sheer drop of maybe a hundred and fifty feet below the pool.’
‘Can you see the pool from where you are?’
‘You’re kidding. It’s huge. From down here it looks like a multistorey car park built into the side of the hill. If someone stood where the water tips over and slung the gun as far as they could, it would land roughly where we found it.’
He didn’t have time to trade theories with Keith. They both knew the whopping significance of the find.
‘Anyhow,’ Halliwell continued, ‘we marked the spot on the ground and moved on. Serious climbing in front of us and there’s thick bracken here. A machete would be more use to us than a gun. How’s it going with you?’
‘Tough. I don’t think I can manage another sausage roll.’
‘Still on for an arrest?’
‘Definitely. I can’t stand here talking. There’s some kind of presentation underway. I’ll call you again when I need you.’
He pocketed the phone and stepped out towards the house. Most of the partygoers were already inside but a voice hailed him from behind. ‘What do you think of the building, then?’
He turned and saw Algy fast approaching in his scooter. A distraction he could do without.
‘I haven’t given it a proper look,’ he answered in all truth. ‘I got to the party late and came round the side without taking it in.’ Forced to take an interest in Ed’s dream home, he wasn’t over-impressed now he was facing the twisted steel and glass north aspect.
‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ Algy said.
‘Wouldn’t be my choice, I have to say.’ Right now he didn’t want to debate modern architecture.
‘Nor mine. Frank Lloyd Wright, who knew a bit about designing buildings, once said something along the lines of a doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.’
‘Nice one.’
‘And I don’t think it’s wheelchair-friendly. Ed ought to know better than that, being a builder. Will you help me up the steps?’
Diamond should have guessed Algy had been leading up to this. He meant the set of ten steps in front of the entrance. The house was sited on a steep slope.
Hard to refuse.
‘We’ll need a second person.’ Algy was already waving to recruit another helpmate. ‘When you’re handicapped you soon learn it doesn’t pay to be shy.’
One of the Beau Nash regulars came over, a clergyman Diamond remembered from the meeting in the Circus and so thin that his dog collar gaped like a pouch. Surely capable of lifting hearts and minds, but a wheelchair containing the chunky Algy might be more of a test.
‘The only way up is backwards,’ Algy told them both. ‘You take the handles, reverend, and Pete will provide the beef. He’ll face me, hold on to the frame and do the lifting.’
No point in suggesting Algy vacated the chair while they took it to the top. Diamond would end up trying to carry the overweight man upstairs in his arms. The wheels definitely had to be employed in this operation.
The two good Samaritans obeyed orders and with a bit of a struggle succeeded in raising the scooter step by step to the top. Diamond was on autopilot, absorbing the news he’d got from Halliwell. There was no proof yet that the revolver was the weapon that had murdered Perry Morgan, but everything suggested it was.
‘Deeply obliged, gentlemen,’ Algy said. ‘Haven’t delayed you much, I trust. I didn’t want to skip the tribute after I helped pay for it. We won’t have missed much. If Crispin’s in charge, he’s awfully long-winded.’ Free to go, he went — at some speed into the house.
The room was packed for the presentation. On this hot afternoon no one in his right mind would want to be there long. People were making room for the wheelchair and Diamond followed far enough inside to get a reasonable view. At the front, Crispin was standing like an old-fashioned schoolmaster beside an easel, except that it wasn’t supporting a blackboard but some substantial object draped in red velvet. Close by was Newburn, the drug-pusher and gallery owner. From his expression you would think he was an angel in a nativity play.
‘...and we decided at an early stage,’ Crispin was saying, ‘that we should look for something he could keep, a memento of his years as our Beau, and one of us happened to look into the window of a shop in Broad Street, the Upmarket Gallery, and see a rather novel work of art, a trompe l’oeil — is that the term, Mr. Newburn?’
Happy to be mentioned, the golden-haired cocaine-seller bestowed his blessing with a smile.
Crispin was in full flow. ‘This serendipitous event — the sighting of the object in the window — gave us the idea of commissioning a unique gift for Ed, something we believe he will enjoy for at least as many years as he has served as our president and, we hope, much longer than that. There wasn’t a lot of time and there was research involved and official permission, questions of copyright and all manner of things Ed was blissfully unaware of. We took Lady Sally into our confidence and she has conspired with us to make sure the artist knew exactly what was required while Ed knew nothing.’
On Crispin’s other side, Lady Sally nodded. She was standing beside her new friend Georgina.
‘So without more ado,’ Crispin said (and you could almost hear the sighs of relief), ‘I invite Sir Edward Paris, our respected Beau, to step forward and unveil his leaving present from the society.’
To huge applause, the man of the moment appeared from the front row, shaking his head in a way that was both gratified and baffled. He grasped the velvet cover and lifted it from a gold-framed picture of... who else but Beau Nash? Ed was getting a full-sized copy of the portrait in the Pump Room, the white tricorne, wavy black wig, pouched blue eyes, ruddy complexion and double chin — the fat old dandy in his dotage.