“But that’s just…daft!” said Charley.
“Yes, I agree,” he said instantly. “And I thought, the simplest way for me to see how daft it was would be to see you again and wonder why I’d bothered.”
It was silly for a sensible adult woman who really didn’t fancy being fancied by a weirdo to feel disappointed, but Charley definitely felt a pang of something a lot like disappointment.
“Good thinking,” she said heartily.
“Not really. It doesn’t seem at all daft to me now,” he said. “In fact, it seems perfectly logical. And I’m sorry I thought even for a second you might have been in on that trick the police played to get me to talk. When I thought about it later, I knew I had to be wrong, and when I heard you stand up to the pair of them just now, I was certain. So there you go. What I feel about you might be hopeless, but it certainly isn’t daft. Now I’ve got to go.”
“Where? Why?” she demanded.
“To the Avalon. You were right, that girl Clara should be our main concern now.”
He turned and walked swiftly away.
She felt an impulse to shout after his retreating figure, to say they needed to talk more, but she was fearful that anything she said might be taken as encouragement. If he knew it was hopeless already, why risk changing that?
As he climbed onto the bike, a familiar dusty old Defender drew up alongside the lawyer’s Daimler and the driver jumped out. He was a tall young man with broad shoulders and a smile to match as he strode across the lawn toward her.
“Hi, Charley,” he said as soon as he got within distance. “Don’t be mad, but when we got your news, the only way to stop Dad coming straight over here to make sure you’re all right was for me to come, and I reckoned that was the lesser of two evils!”
He was right. She should have felt mad, or at least hugely exasperated to know that the Headbanger still thought of her as a helpless child in need of protection.
Instead, as her brother reached her and put his arms around her, she surprised herself even more than him by saying, “Oh, George!” and bursting into tears.
7
In the large drawing room, the late Sir Henry Denham looked down upon the newly entered quartet of men with a patrician indifference.
Was the slight squint evidence of Bradley d’Aube’s determination to paint a true portrait, warts and all? wondered Pascoe. Or had he just got fed up with being patronized?
The drawing room had been Mr. Beard’s choice. He had led them there without consultation. Presumably this was where he usually encountered Daphne Denham. Also he was clearly a man used to being in charge, even or perhaps especially in the company of policemen.
He sat down on a huge sofa. His secretary placed the briefcase beside him as an unambiguous signal that he intended single occupancy, then she sat down at a small ormolu table by the wall near the big bureau, pad and pencil at the ready.
Pascoe and Dalziel and Wield rearranged three armchairs so they centered on the lawyer and took their seats with a synchronicity worthy of Busby Berkeley.
Beard said, “I take it, Mr. Pascoe, that you do not yet have the perpetrator of this monstrous crime in custody?”
“Afraid not,” said Pascoe.
Beard nodded as if this came as no surprise.
“And you have not seen a copy of Lady Denham’s will?”
“No.” Else we wouldn’t be wasting time sitting here with you, thought Pascoe, giving Dalziel a quick glower to stop him saying it out loud.
“I see,” said Beard, not sounding surprised, but sounding as if he might be if he let himself. “In that case, assuming that you regard all of those who might reasonably expect to profit from my client’s will as possible suspects, I think I am justified in revealing its contents to you in advance of the beneficiaries.”
Dalziel scratched the folds of double chin with the baffled air of one who couldn’t see how the fuck the lawyer should imagine he’d got any choice in the matter even if he did look like a self-portrait of Toulouse-Lautrec.
“That would be most helpful,” murmured Pascoe.
Mr. Beard unlocked his briefcase and extracted a folder that looked as if it were made of vellum. Out of this he took a document.
He proclaimed, “I have in my hand what is, presumably, the last will and testament of Lady Daphne Denham.”
“Presumably?” said Pascoe. “Any reason to think there might be a later one?”
Beard sighed like a French horn and said, “No specific reason, else I would have mentioned it. But in her latter years Lady Denham had got into the habit of writing wills. It is not uncommon. Some aging people solve crosswords, some do cross-stitch, a few take to the composition of haikus. But a large number devote themselves to the writing and revising of wills. Basically, size does not matter. As long as there is portable property of any nature and any quantity, the habitual will writer gains hours of pleasure from distributing and redistributing it. But where the estate is, as in this case, substantial, there is the additional element of exercising real power.”
“So how often did Lady Denham revise her will?” asked Pascoe.
“Four times this year that I know of,” said Beard. “By which I mean, four times when her purposed modifications were major enough to require my professional assistance. I suspect, nay I am sure, that there have been frequent minor changes, or even major ones that did not stand the test of time and bring her to the stage where she consulted me. Such documents of course would have no status unless properly signed and witnessed. So, as I say, this, to the best of my knowledge, is the last will and testament of Lady Denham. It is a document of considerable detail, and commensurate length. Do you wish to hear it all?”
Dalziel let out a sighing groan, or a groaning sigh, the kind of sound that might well up from the soul of a tone-deaf man who has just realized the second act of Götterdämmerung is not the last.
Pascoe said, “I think you might spare us the fine detail, Mr. Beard. The principal bequests are naturally what I am most interested in.”
“As you wish. At what level would your definition of principal begin?”
Another sound from Dalziel, this one more ursine than human.
Hastily Pascoe said, “Start at the top and work your way down.”
“That would in fact mean starting at the end,” said Mr. Beard with distaste. “But if you insist. ‘To my nephew by marriage, Sir Edward Denham of Denham Park in the county of Yorkshire, all the residue of my estate real and personal…’ You see the problem, Chief Inspector? Without the details of the other bequests, the term is meaningless…”
“I’m sure you’ve made an estimate,” said Pascoe. “We won’t hold you to it.”
“It isn’t easy, property and the market being constantly in flux. I would say at least ten million. In fact, it could be as much as-”
“Ten million will suffice,” said Pascoe. “Go on.”
He went on. Esther Denham got a million and all her aunt’s jewelry except for the single item Clara Beresford was invited to choose to accompany her five thousand.
“Five thousand,” interrupted Pascoe. “Not five hundred thousand?”
“No, five thousand,” said Beard.
“Not a lot, considering. By comparison, I mean.”
“It is not a lawyer’s duty to consider, Chief Inspector. Nor to compare. I will say that this was typical of the changes Lady Denham made in her will from time to time. The principal beneficiaries tended to remain the same, but the pecking order varied considerably. There have been times in the last twelve months when Miss Brereton was in line to inherit the hall and a couple of million beside. Presumably when my client prepared this will, she felt she had reason to feel ill disposed to her cousin. Had she survived another week or so, no doubt it would have changed.”