'You going?' she said.
'Yes. We won't bother you much longer.'
'Oh aye.' She shook her head, whether in negation or to clear it was not certain.
'Hold on a moment,' she said, stepping into the room.
Pascoe watched, impatient to get back to Davenant to present Backhouse with his killer, to go home. Slowly the old woman moved forward and stood behind her son.
'Yes, Mother,' he said.
'The clever policeman’s going, Hartley. Don't you want to talk to him?'
She said nothing more but stood in silence looking at her son's unyielding back. Then she did something amazing. She turned and threw all her old weight at one of the Chinese vases. Pascoe leapt forward to catch it as it toppled off its plinth but he was too late.
It hit the ground and exploded into green and blue and white shards. Something lay among them like a gift in a child's chocolate Easter egg.
A shotgun.
Pascoe moved fast, but the old woman was in the way and the shotgun was in Culpepper's hands before he could get by her.
'I'm sorry, son,' said the old woman. 'I waited long enough, too long perhaps. You should have told him yourself.'
Pascoe's mind was spinning. There was no room for fear there, or at least only for the fear that he might never hear the truth.
'Why?' he cried. 'But why?'
'Your friend was going to tell everybody,' said Culpepper, his face twisted in a plea for understanding. 'He had no right. You understand that? And I didn't realize that everybody knew already. But I never meant… but I never meant..’
In the lounge they heard the almost simultaneous double blasts of the shotgun. For a second no one moved. Then they poured into the hallway and gazed with varying degrees of incomprehension at the scene before them.
Pascoe, old Mrs Culpepper and her son were standing in the porcelain room looking at the damage the double blast from the gun which still smoked in Hartley's hands had wreaked on his collection.
Some of the pieces were still untouched. Now Culpepper stepped forward and smashed these with the gun barrel. Satisfied at last, he dropped the weapon and came out into the hall where he stood and gazed unemotionally at his wife who was sobbing rhythmically in Sam Dixon's arms.
Dixon? wondered Pascoe, surprised at nothing now.
The study door opened and Davenant and Ferguson stepped out.
Davenant looked into the porcelain room and shook his head at the shambles. Then he turned to Pascoe.
'Pity,' he said. 'I hoped he'd blown your bloody head off.'
Chapter 11
Statement of Antony Neville Dick made at Thornton Lacey Police Station, Oxfordshire, in the presence of Detective Superintendent D. S. Backhouse. I am a free-lance feature writer, working under the name of Anton Davenant. The nature of my work has brought me in close contact with many people connected with art and antiquities and I have from time to time acted as an agent for dealers. At no time have I had reason to suspect that any dealer I worked for did not have full title to the goods I handled.
'Can he get away with this?' asked Pascoe, almost in admiration.
'We can only hope you do a better job of work in Yorkshire than you've managed down here,' said Backhouse.
On Friday September 17th at about seven p.m. I called at Brookside Cottage, Thornton Lacey. My purpose was partly social as I knew the owners, Mr and Mrs Colin Hopkins, and partly business. Mr Timothy Mansfield, a house-guest, had brought with him a figurine which I had agreed to pick up from him and show to a local collector, Mr Hartley Culpepper.
'Is there anything other than Davenant's assertion to tie Timmy in with this business?' asked Pascoe.
'Circumstantial stuff only.'
'But you believe it?'
'It seems probable, that's all.'
'And the others?'
'Customers, perhaps. A couple of things went missing from the cottage at the time of the fire. I suspect Davenant picked them up just to get any evidence out of harm's way.'
'He started the fire?'
'Left a gas tap on, I believe. Eventually the pilot light ignited it. But it's all beyond proof.'
I had dealt with Mr Culpepper before. Indeed he owed me almost four thousand pounds from a previous business deal, so I was naturally concerned when his name was mentioned in connection with the book Mr Hopkins was working on. Its theme was poverty in the affluent society and it was concerned not so much with breadline poverty as with credit living, conspicuous waste, executive unemployment, that kind of thing. Mr Hopkins had gained access to information from one of the big executive employment agencies and had noticed the name of his new neighbour there. He was intrigued to find that Culpepper was still maintaining the pretence that he was employed by the Nordrill Company and he had hopes of ultimately getting the man's co-operation in using his experience as material for the book, though no approach had yet been made. Shortly after seven-thirty I left Brookside Cottage and called at the Culpepper's house. He expressed an interest in the figurine but said he had not sufficient cash on hand to pay for it and asked me to add it to the price of his previous debt. In view of the information I had just received, I refused and told him why. He denied it at first, then became very angry and demanded to know how I had found out. I told him about Hopkins's book and suggested it might be worth his while financially to co-operate with Hopkins, and even offered to act as his agent should he decide to dispose of his porcelain collection. At this he became so incensed that I left and returned to Oxford.
'And that is all we are going to get out of Master Davenant, I fear,' said Backhouse.
'And Culpepper?'
'A long and rambling statement swinging between self-justification and recrimination. I don't think you'd care to read it.'
'No.'
'It's pretty clear what happened. He went down to Brookside to protest to Hopkins. Mrs Hopkins had just gone off to the pub. He and Hopkins had a row in the dining-room. Your friend was quite drunk, of course, and perhaps did not realize just what this business meant to Culpepper.'
'What did it mean?' asked Pascoe.
'It meant the shattering of a self-image as well as a public one,' said Backhouse slowly. 'He came from a poor background, you know. Achieving the position he had done was his life's work. More. His life perhaps. Suddenly Hopkins must have seemed the focus of everything that threatened him. He picked up the nearest suitable object, which happened to be the shotgun your friend had borrowed from Pelman, and struck him on the head with it. Half unconscious, Hopkins staggered through the french window into the garden. The other two now came through the lounge to investigate. He brought the gun up and pressed both triggers. At that range you don't have to be any kind of gunman.'
'And Colin?'
'Hears the gun and sets off down the garden into the stream bed, follows the flow of water. He's on the point of collapse, remember. Culpepper's only made more furious by what he's done. Hopkins made him do it – that's the way he's thinking. There's a box of cartridges on the sideboard. He reloads it, sets out after Hopkins. Unfortunately, Mrs Hopkins arrives home at this point and comes round the back of the house to re-enter through the french window. Nothing is going to stop Culpepper now. He shoots her down without a thought and goes after Hopkins. He catches up with him by the culvert.'
'Oh God.'
'And that's that. As some kind of rationality returns, he sets about tidying things up. He goes back to the cottage and unearths your friend's notes for his book. These he must destroy. Then he comes across the jottings from the poem and sees how these might just sound like a suicide note. So he sets it all up. He's lucky. No interruption and later it rains so heavily that all traces of Hopkin's passage up to the stream are obliterated. Back home. His wife is out – with Sam Dixon, of course – and he's safe. Except that his mother sees him, and then or later discovers the gun. Poor old woman. She suspected something, but with Hopkins still missing and apparently the killer, she persuaded herself all was well. Later however… Not a good way to end your life.'