Miss Teatime nodded in instant recognition. “One of nature’s gentlemen. He’s vice-president of one of my doggier charities.”
“The problem in question,” Mr Rothermere went on, “concerned the good name of a subsidiary company which contributes a disproportionately large slice of profit to the Cultox loot. Northern Nutritionals—you know it?”
“Certainly I do. It is a factory beyond Northgate, on the Brocklestone Road, and it is the source of a delicacy called WOOF.”
“The caviare of the canine world.” Suddenly he frowned and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lucy. Fatuousness is an occupational disease among Cultox employees. But, dear God! We work for people who actually believe their own advertising. Our nerves are pretty taut.”
Miss Teatime uncorked the whisky. “Take your time, Mortimer. Then when you have finished what you have to tell me, you may care to listen a while to the evening service. The organ drifts across very prettily when there is no wind.”
Mr Rothermere said that he would enjoy that, as it would remind him of the days when he annotated Bach scores for Schweitzer. Ah yes, good old Albert, said Miss Teatime. Mr Rothermere smoothly returned to the subject in hand.
“Of course, you know what these incredible corporations are, Lucy. They try and offset their predatory commercialism with a sort of happy families ethos, especially on the managerial level. My own theory is that it’s a relic of the terrible personal puritanism of the old-time moneymakers. Carnegie—you know?” He shuddered.
“Anyway, the Cultox Corporation backs up its code of moral spotlessness by using the spy network that is euphemistically described as its Security Division to report on the private lives of all Cultox executives.
“Now, then. This man Harton and his wife score very badly indeed. Incidentally, do you know them?” Miss Teatime said, yes, but not well. “Up to the ears in turpitude,” declared Mr Rothermere, “and a grave potential risk to the WOOF image. Or so”—he paused significantly—“I am told when I am sent up here in my capacity of expert divorce fixer.”
Miss Teatime looked up from contemplation of her cigar. “But would not a divorce expose the company to even further embarrassment?”
“Not if it were undefended and consequently unpublicised. You could say that clean fission is my speciality—no fallout.” Mr Rothermere juddered in a silent chuckle and gave each side of his moustache a quick little stroke. But quickly his amusement faded.
“An academic point, anyway, Lucy. No divorce was ever in prospect, as far as my wretched employers were concerned. I have been sacrificed on the altar of commercial expediency.”
“No Happy Ending?”
“This is not a matter for amusement, Lucy. We are in very serious trouble with the police. And I mean serious.”
“We?” Miss Teatime looked startled.
“Julia Harton is, certainly. And I might easily be involved as well. In any case...” He paused and fingered his beard, dubiously this time. “In any case, I have a certain responsibility.”
“Yes?” Miss Teatime thought she had never seen him look so crestfallen. She hoped it was not due to the proximity of the church: the sound of hymns did depress some people quite alarmingly.
“I fear,” said Mr Rothermere with a sigh, “that I have been unaccountably näive.”
And he told her of the plan, formed in consultation with Harton and with Cultox Security, to break Julia Harton’s stubborn opposition to an agreed divorce by baiting the trap of self-compromise with promise of a huge cash settlement; of the invention of a motor-cycling lover; of the planted clothing; of the photograph (“Maisie and Ted sent you their love, by the way”); and of the final devastating, incredible invocation of the police—presumably by Harton himself—and the suggestion in the newspapers that the man supposedly picked at random as Julia’s fictional lover had died in a manner of which she had knowledge.
Miss Teatime, who had listened with such close attention that there now was nearly an inch of ash on her cigar, remained silent for several seconds more, then shook her head sadly.
“Oh, dear, Mortimer; why ever did you lend your simple talents to furthering the skulduggery of big business? You realise now, of course, where you will stand if ever your share in this affair becomes known?”
Rothermere made cheek-puffing affectation of indifference, but not convincingly.
“Unless my reading of the situation is woefully awry,” said Miss Teatime, “you have succeeded in becoming—wittingly or unwittingly—an accessory to murder.”
The face of Mr Rothermere contorted and twitched, as if he had been asked a terribly difficult question.
Miss Teatime tossed him a crumb of reassurance. “Accessory after the fact,” she said. She considered further. “Unless, of course, it is decided that you merely conspired to pervert the course of justice.”
“Now look, Lucy, this is nothing to joke about.”
“I am not joking, Mortimer. You have been extremely foolish. The fact must be faced that these people have manipulated you into a position only fractionally less dangerous than that in which you have helped to place the unfortunate Mrs Harton.”
“You might give me credit for having been reasonably circumspect. I really don’t see how I can be connected with whatever Julia is suspected of doing. No address, no phone number, and Rothermere I haven’t used for ages.”
“You said that you had introduced yourself to her by letter.”
“I got her to give me that back.” He looked suddenly pleased with himself.
“But you were seen in the woman’s company in a restaurant, then at an hotel...”
“Motel,” Mr Rothermere corrected, as if to imply that so outlandish an indulgence did not count.
“Very well—motel. But you will allow me that the third stage of your odyssey was an hotel—the place in Norfolk.”
“True.”
“Very well, then. You have been fairly liberally exposed. Then there is the matter of your motor car. It is not exactly unnoticeable. And it doubtless bears a number. You do not seem to realise, Mortimer, that if a murder has been committed, the ensuing investigation will not be confined to a couple of offhand questions by a constable on a bicycle. There will be unleashed a multitude of inquisitors, photographers, finger-print seekers...”
“Lucy, I do get the drift of your argument. I’m sorry, but I didn’t come all the way up here to be harrowed. A little help was what I had in mind, if that is not too presumptuous.”
She smiled. “That is better. You are sometimes too self-confident for your own good, Mortimer. Now let me see what you have in that intriguing package.”
Mr Rothermere handed over his envelope.