They set up a pillar of stone with the dead man's titles therein engraved.
THE women were still out. Fighting the soporific heat which had met him with a tropical blast as he entered the house, Wexford sat down, found his new glasses, and read the caption under the photograph. 'Detective Superintendent Howard Fortune, Kenbourne Vale C.I.D. chief, who is in charge of the case, arriving at Kenbourne Vale Cemetery where the girl's body was found.'
The cameraman had caught Howard leaving his car, and it was a full-face shot. Beneath it was another picture, macabre, compelling the eye. Wexford, refusing to be drawn, turned his attention to the newspaper's account of the case, its lead story. He read it slowly.
'The body of a girl was this morning discovered in a vault at Kenbourne Vale Cemetery, West London. It was later identified as that of Miss Loveday Morgan, aged about 20, of Garrnisch Terrace, W.15.
'The discovery was made by Mr Edwin Tripper, of Kenbourne Lane, a cemetery attendant, when he went to give the vault its monthly inspection. Detective Superintendent Fortune said "This is definitely a case of foul play. I can say no more at present."
'Mr Tripper told me, "The vault is the property of the Monfort family who were once important people in Kenbourne. A sum of money has been set aside under a trust to keep the vault cared for but the lock on the vault door was broken many years ago.
' "This morning I went as I always do on the last Tuesday in the month to sweep out the vault and put flowers on the coffin of Mrs Viola Montfort. The door was tightly closed and jammed. I had to use tools to force it. When I got it open I went down the steps and saw the body of this girl lying be- tween the coffins of Mrs Viola Montfort and Captain James Monfort.
' "It gave me a terrible shock. It was the last place you would expect to find a corpse".'
Wexford chuckled a little at mat, but the photograph of the vault chilled him again. It was a monstrous mausoleum, erected apparently at the height of the Gothic revival. On its roof lay two vast slaughtered lions with, rampant and triumphant above them, the statue of a warrior, the whole executed in black iron. Perhaps one of the Montforts had been a big- game hunter. Beneath this set-piece, the door, worked all over with heroic frescoes, stood half open, disclosing impenetrable blackness. flexes, those trees beloved of cemetery architects, lowered their dusty evergreen over the vault and shrouded the warrior's head.
It was a good photograph. Both photographs were good, the one of Howard showing in his eyes that perspicacity and passionate determination every good police officer should have but which Wexford had never seen in his nephew. And never would either, he thought, laying down the paper with a sigh. He hadn't the heart to read the rest of the story. What was the betting Howard would come in for his dinner, kiss his wife, enquire what his aunt had bought and ask solicitously after his uncle's health as if nothing had happened? If anyone could ignore that evening paper, he would. It would be surreptitiously whisked away and the status quo would just go on and on.
But now it would be worse. Howard wouldn't really be able to pretend any longer and his continuing silence would prove what Wexford guessed already, that he thought his uncle an old has-been, maybe just fit to catch a country shop-lifter or root out a band of thugs with a cock-fighting hide-out on the South Downs.
He must have fallen asleep and slept for a long time. When he awoke the paper had gone and Dora was sitting opposite him with his dinner on a tray, cold chicken, and more of those bloody biscuits and junket and two white pills.
'Where's Howard?'
'He's only just got in, darling. When he's finished his dinner he'll come in here and have his coffee with you.'
And talk about the weather?
It was, in fact, the weather on which he began.
'Most unfortunate we're having this cold spell just now, Reg.' He never called his uncle uncle and it might have caused raised eyebrows if he had, for Howard Fortune, at thirty-six, looked forty-five. People were inclined to deplore the age gap between him and his wife, not guessing it was only six years. He was exceptionally tall, extravagantly thin and his lean bony face was wrinkled, but when he smiled it became charming and almost good-looking. You could see they were uncle and nephew. The Wexford face was there, the same bone construction, though in the case of the younger man the bones were almost fleshless and in the older obscured under pouches and heavy jowls. Howard smiled now as he poured Wexford's coffee and placed it beside him.
'I see you've got Utopia there.'
It was not quite the remark expected of a man who has spent his day in the preliminary enquiries into murder. But Howard, in any case, didn't look the part. His silver-gray suit and lemon Beale and Inman shirt were certainly the garments he had put on that morning but they appeared as if fresh from the hands of a valet. His thin smooth fingers, handling the leather binding of More's classic, looked as if they had never handled anything harsher than old books. Having placed a cushion behind his uncle's head, he began to discourse on Utopia, on the 1551 Ralph Robinson translation, on More's friendship with Erasmus, occasionally pausing to insert such deferential courtesies as, 'which, of course, you already know, Reg'. He talked of other ideal societies in literature, of Andreae's Christianopolis, of Campanella's City of the Sun and of Butler's Erewhon. He talked pleasantly and with erudition and sometimes he broke off to allow a comment from Wexford, but Wexford said nothing.
He was boiling with anger. The man was not merely a snob, he was monstrously cruel, a sadist. To sit there lecturing like a professor on idealist philosophy when his heart must be full of its opposite, when he knew his uncle had brought in not only Utopia but that Dystopia on which the newspaper had enlarged. And this was the same little boy whom he, Wexford, had taught to take fingerprints!
The telephone rang and, out in the hall, Denise answered it, but Wexford could see Howard was alert for the call. He watched his nephew's face sharpen and when Denise came in to tell her husband it was for him, he saw a silent signal pass between them, a miniscule shake of the head on Howard's part indicating that.the call and all it implied must be kept secret from their guest. Of course, it was one of Howard's subordinates phoning to tell him of a new development. In spite of his mortification, Wexford was hungry to know what that development could be. He listened to the murmur of Howard's voice from the hall, but he couldn't distinguish the words. It was all he could do not to open the door, and then, when Howard returned, ask him baldly. But he knew what the answer would be.
'You don't want to bother your head with all that.'
He didn't wait for Howard to come back. He took Utopia and made for the stairs, calling a curt good night to Denise and nodding to his nephew as he passed him. Bed was the best place for an old fogey like him. He got between the sheets and put on his glasses. Then he opened the book. His eyes felt gravelly but surely it wasn't his eye playing him a trick like that . . .? He stared and slammed the book shut.
It was in Latin.
He dreamed a lot that night. He dreamed that Howard had relented and personally driven him to Kenbourne Vale Cemetery to view with him the Montfort vault, and when he awoke it seemed impossible to him that he could go home without ever having actually seen it. The murder would, for a short space, be a topic of conversation even in Kingsmarkham. How was he going to explain to Mike that he had been e~c- cluded from all concern in it? That he had stayed with the man in charge of the case and yet learned no more than the average newspaper reader? By lying? By saying he wasn't interested? His temperament revolted from that. By telling the truth, then, that Howard had refused to confide in him.
At ten he came downstairs to the usual pantomime. Shred deaf wheat and orange juice and Denise waiting at the bottom of the stairs today. Otherwise it was the same as all the other mornings.