Chapter Eight

OF THE DINNER party at the Villa d’Abricot I retain only a jumble of competing recollections: glimpses, snatches, passing images behind which the truth hovered, close at hand but out of sight. Turnbull had invited an American couple who were neighbours of his and they, in their innocence, no doubt think of it to this day as an unremarkable and civilized gathering. To the rest of us, however, bearing our burdens of secrecy and suspicion, it was an arena of unresolved conflict.

The boundaries of this arena were set by our outwardly genial host, Major Royston Turnbull. He took me on a tour of the house before dinner, his chest puffing out with pride as he revealed room after room filled with antique tapestries, oriental rugs, marquetry furniture, exotic statuary and fine porcelain. I began to understand then that there was more to him than the cynicism and bombast I had so far detected. He was an unapologetic sensualist, glorying in the tactile richness of his possessions: the smoothness of a table-top, the curve of a chair-leg, the delicacy of a glaze, the binding of a book. He would happily describe in detail how he had acquired such articles and always, I noticed, he claimed to have had the better of the bargain; he had never been cheated, never even outmanoeuvred. His vanity required him to believe this, of course, yet, strangely, I found myself believing it as well.

To Turnbull, human relations were no different from his hoard of objets d’art. They too were designed for his sensual gratification. He of all those who sat at the candlelit dinner table was most at ease, most in his element, because to him nothing could seem more agreeable than to watch and listen as his friends and acquaintances fenced and parried behind a screen of polite conversation.

Faces, expressions, casts of eye and twitches of mouth, are what remain now uppermost in my memory: Angela responding to Turnbull’s blatant attentions with equally blatant encouragement – her moues and nods and purrs of pleasure; Victor saying little, but clenching his jaw and darting venomous looks at me; Miss Roebuck’s cautious, indirect glances leavened by an imminent but never present smile; and Turnbull himself, grinning broadly, eyes half-closed, absorbed in his enjoyment of the occasion he had created.

For Imogen Roebuck to be among the dinner guests was, in its way, the most significant event of the evening. Turnbull had explained her attendance casually – ‘I don’t know enough decorative and intelligent females to let one go to waste just because she’s a governess’ – but I noticed that her status was not specified when she was introduced to his American neighbours. Here then was further evidence to support Jacinta’s suspicions.

Miss Roebuck sat to my left, with Turnbull to my right at the head of the table. Angela sat opposite me, with Victor to her right. Thus I had little opportunity to look directly at Miss Roebuck, whilst her tone of voice, as she moved adroitly from one topic to another, betrayed only studied neutrality. She questioned me about my career. She sought my views on Cubist art and German inflation. She even asked my opinion of the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Always she led and I followed. The disquieting impression crept upon me that I was dealing with somebody who possessed far greater mental agility than me, somebody who could anticipate and pre-empt every attempt of mine to learn what she did not wish me to. And before us, paraded where it could not be ignored, was my wife’s hostility, transmuted into a grinning, gulping enthusiasm for every word or glance that Turnbull spared her.

Angela wore a black velvet dress that she normally reserved for the opera, dramatically low-cut. She had drawn her hair back and encircled her slender neck with a pearl choker. She looked magnificent. But her half-turned face, her sparkling smile, her parted, playful lips, her pale, inviting breasts, quivering as she laughed, were not, I knew, displayed for my benefit. Turnbull’s greedy, heavy-lidded gaze never left her. That for her was success. I saw it and understood it. And so, I sensed, did Miss Roebuck.

At some point, Angela insisted that Turnbull should dine with us at the Negresco before we left Nice. He accepted. Then, upon hearing that we had not yet sampled the delights of the Casino at Monte Carlo, he insisted that we should accompany him there one evening. Angela accepted on my behalf. And so, with bewildering speed, a sequence of social occasions had been arranged at which they could proceed with their flirtation, a flirtation with which Angela clearly hoped to torment me.

But in this regard she had misjudged my mood. More shocking to me than any aspect of her behaviour was how indifferent I felt to it. I was in the grip of an obsession that left me no energy to invest in jealousy. This too, I suspect, Imogen Roebuck realized. This too she coolly stored away in her mental armoury, to be turned against me when the moment was right.

For the present, however, Miss Roebuck showed me only what she wanted me to see: deference, modesty, intelligence and a percipience amounting almost to telepathy. She made it apparent that she could guess my thoughts and, by so doing, issued a warning that she knew exactly what had brought me to the Villa d’Abricot. It was, after all, what had brought her there as well. It was why we were gathered at Turnbull’s laden table. It was the real substance of our every exchange. And yet it was never mentioned.

As for Victor Caswell, he became strangely insubstantial in Miss Roebuck’s presence, stricken into glum and glowering silence. It was as if he were embarrassed by her mental superiority. At times, I felt almost sorry for him, absurd though I knew the sentiment to be.

For this – and for much else that the evening held – let one last image stand. We were leaving and Turnbull had stepped out with us onto the drive, ostensibly to sample the air but actually to whisper some parting endearment into Angela’s ear as he opened the car door for her. I looked away, quite deliberately, towards the villa. The front door was open and in the brightly lit hallway stood Victor and Miss Roebuck. She was plainly dressed in some costume of coral pink. Her hair was fashionably short. Her features were handsome rather than beautiful. But on her lips was a smile of regal detachment. And Victor was gaping at her, his jaw sagging, his shoulders hunched, his face squirming with some illegible emotion. Then I was sure – if I had not been before – that whatever had happened at Clouds Frome, she, not Victor, had been its instigator.

I did not see Angela during the day following our dinner at the villa. She had carried out her threat to move to a single room and now we communicated only when practical necessity required us to. Assuming that the couturiers of Nice would occupy her happily, I drove to Beaulieu and sat in a bar, wondering if I should try to surprise Miss Roebuck by appearing at the Hotel Bristol when she customarily took morning coffee there with Jacinta.

I was still debating the point when, through the window, I saw John Gleasure entering a chemist’s shop on the other side of the road. Our brief exchange in Victor’s presence three days before had achieved nothing and I had been at a loss to know how I might go about questioning him further. Now, suddenly, the perfect opportunity had presented itself. When he emerged from the chemist’s shop, I was waiting.

To say that he was a changed man when his employer was not watching and listening to him would be an exaggeration. Certainly, however, he was a more relaxed and accommodating version of himself than I had previously encountered. He readily accepted my offer of a drink and needed no prompting to explain that he had been collecting medicine for Victor, whose digestion had yet to make a full recovery from the poisoning. With scarcely more prompting, he recounted finding Victor in agony in his room at Clouds Frome.

‘At one point I thought we were going to lose him, sir, I really did. It’s a great relief to see him looking as well as he does now. The climate here has done him good. And Miss Roebuck’s been a tower of strength.’

‘Miss Roebuck?’

‘She nursed him through the worst of his illness.’

‘Did she indeed? I didn’t know she was a nurse as well as a governess.’

He frowned at me for a moment, then said: ‘We all did what we could, sir.’

‘Naturally.’ I attempted a reassuring smile. ‘How long have you been Mr Caswell’s valet, Gleasure? I remember you as a footman.’

‘Since I came back from the war, sir, five years ago. Mr Danby valeted for Mr Caswell till then.’

‘You spoke up loyally at the hearing, I believe. About the anonymous letters, I mean.’

‘It wasn’t loyalty, sir. It was the truth.’

‘Of course.’

He leaned forward across the table. ‘Mr Caswell might well regard my talking to you now as disloyal.’

‘He might, at that. What you said when he asked you if you thought Mrs Caswell was guilty struck me as odd, you know.’

‘Did it, sir? Why was that?’

‘“The facts permit of no alternative.” Those were your exact words, as I recall. Hardly unequivocal, were they? What precisely is your opinion?’

‘I don’t have one, sir.’

‘You must have.’

‘Not one I wish to share.’

His expression was unyielding. And yet his reluctance was eloquent in itself. I tried a different tack. ‘Do you get on well with Miss Roebuck?’

‘Neither well nor badly, sir. We merely share an employer.’

‘I wondered if you thought she was perhaps, well, harbouring ideas above her station.’

Gleasure said nothing, but by his silence gave me a kind of answer. Then he swallowed the last of his beer and rose from the table. ‘I must be on my way, sir. Thank you for the drink.’

‘Do you think I’m wasting my time here?’

‘That’s not for me to say, sir.’

‘Does that mean yes or no?’

He hesitated, seemed for an instant about to smile, then said: ‘It means you must judge for yourself, Mr Staddon. It means that and nothing else.’

The following evening was set aside for our excursion to Monte Carlo. Turnbull had said he would collect us at eight o’clock. I waited for Angela in the salon of the hotel and watched as she emerged from the lift. She was as sumptuously dressed as I had anticipated, but in a gown I had not seen before. Its clinging, peach-hued silk showed off her figure to maximum effect. She must have bought it in Nice, I realized, with this occasion in mind. As she walked slowly towards me, she smiled, knowing what I must be thinking. She cast her wrap over the chair beside me, lit a cigarette and gazed about her. She said nothing and neither did I.

Turnbull arrived promptly at eight in a vast chauffeur-driven Lanchester. To my surprise, he had brought Imogen Roebuck with him. She too, he explained, was to be initiated into the mysteries of the casino. I detected in Angela’s tone as she spoke to Miss Roebuck a note of disapproval that she should be expected to socialize with a governess, but she was swiftly distracted from this by Turnbull’s flattering attentions.

During the drive, Turnbull sustained a stream of anecdotes, leaning back over the front seat to address us. Angela, to my left, was vastly entertained, whilst Miss Roebuck, to my right, said little. Whenever I glanced at her, she was looking out of the window, one hand held contemplatively to her chin whilst the other lay placidly on her knee. She seemed to me then that rarest of beings, one who literally did not care what others thought of her.

We dined at the Café de Paris, then joined the late-evening trickle towards the gaming rooms. The night was cold and still, but the domes and balconies of the Casino were bathed in warm, alluring light. Up its steps moved murmurous knots of the rich and idle, jewels glistening against fur stoles and sequined dresses. I could see the glint of pleasure in Angela’s eyes and the gleam of conquest in Turnbull’s. But Imogen Roebuck’s eyes were averted. They told me nothing.

We passed through the public rooms, where already the tables were busy. Above, cherubim frolicked across decorated ceilings. Below, silent vices were indulged to the incantations of the croupiers. Turnbull, needless to say, was a member of the Cercle Privé. Thus we gained admission to the yet vaster and more ornate private rooms, where gambling, it seemed, had attained a status midway between religion and art.

The black suits of the croupiers. The chequered whirl of the roulette wheel. The multi-coloured jetons scooped into piles. The green, disdainful baize. The varnished wood. The studded leather. The plumes of smoke, climbing towards icing-sugar ceilings. And everywhere, etched in the faces of the gamblers, bright in their lupine gaze, tight like a vice round their hunched, expectant shoulders as the wheel slowed and the ball fell, was greed – pure, refined and naked.

Turnbull vouched for us with an official, then summarized the rules of roulette and baccarat. Drinks were ordered, jetons obtained, games viewed from a distance. Turnbull found two seats at one of the tables and invited Angela to join him. She eagerly accepted. Miss Roebuck wandered away. I laid a few pointless bets and lost, drifted off to the bar, then returned, bored and vaguely disgusted by all I saw around me.

I looked at the table where Angela and Turnbull were sitting, their backs towards me. The croupier was in the act of pushing a jumble of winnings in their direction. Angela’s shoulders were shaking with nervous laughter. Turnbull was grinning, his face suffused with self-confidence, his right hand holding a cigar aloft whilst his left snaked round Angela’s waist. Above their heads, a vast chandelier threw back their reflections in a thousand miniature fragments. I saw a scarlet smear of Angela’s lipstick on the rim of a glass near her elbow and followed a bead of sweat as it trickled down Turnbull’s temple. Suddenly, I felt physically sick. ‘Faites vos jeux’ pronounced the croupier as I hurried away.

Imogen Roebuck was watching me from one of the sitting-out benches in the corner of the room. It was as if she had been waiting for me and, obedient to the sensation, I walked over and sat down beside her.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ I lamely enquired.

‘Are you, Mr Staddon?’

‘Frankly, no.’

‘I think you should leave.’

‘Angela wouldn’t agree. The night is young and she seems to be winning.’

‘I mean that I think you should return to England as soon as possible.’

I looked round at her, startled by her directness. ‘Why?’

She nodded towards the table. ‘Because Major Turnbull is in the process of seducing your wife. And because she appears to be a willing victim.’

‘I really don’t think that’s—’

‘Any of my business – as a mere governess?’

‘Is that what you are, Miss Roebuck? It would be easy to mistake your role.’

‘In this case, my role is that of somebody who does not wish to see your marriage thrown away for the sake of a misguided pursuit of the truth. I know what has brought you here. Believe me, you are mistaken.’

‘About what?’

‘I am entirely in Victor’s confidence. You must understand that.’

‘Oh, I think I do.’

‘Consuela is guilty.’

‘I disagree.’

‘That is because you think of her as she was twelve years ago.’

‘How would you know what she was twelve years ago?’

‘I don’t claim to. I only claim to know what she is now.’

‘And that is?’

Her eyes moved at last from the middle distance to meet mine. ‘Insane, Mr Staddon. Consuela Caswell is insane.’

My immediate response to Imogen Roebuck’s statement lies now beyond my power to recall. It was probably she who suggested we leave the Casino and for that at least I was grateful. I doubt if Angela noticed our departure, though Turnbull may have brought it to her attention.

The terrace behind the Casino was empty, for the air was chill, our breath frosting as we spoke. The moon was high and full, bathing the palms and promenades in a frail and frozen light. We leaned against a stone balustrade overlooking the sea. Far out across its surface, a distorted twin moon quivered and kept watch. I lit a cigarette. And Imogen Roebuck told me what I did not want to hear.

‘I first met Consuela when she and Victor interviewed me for the post of governess last February. She said little on that occasion and, though she seemed somewhat highly strung, I was not unduly concerned. I spoke to my predecessor, Miss Sillifant, and she gave me no cause to think that I would find the position other than congenial and rewarding. Perhaps I should have enquired further into her reasons for leaving, but the attractions of the post were sufficient to put the idea out of my head. Jacinta is a charming and intelligent girl and Clouds Frome, as you know, is a beautiful house in a delightful part of the world. The salary and conditions were more than fair, so I accepted without hesitation.

‘Within a few weeks of my arrival, it became apparent to me that Consuela was not well. I have experienced many kinds of employer – the reasonable and the unreasonable – but never before had I been required to cope with somebody whose moods were so various and unpredictable. Days would pass in which she scarcely spoke to me. Then she would be animated, communicative, eager to involve herself in Jacinta’s upbringing. Then, with equal suddenness, she would accuse me of defying her orders, of undermining her standing in Jacinta’s eyes. She would demand that Victor dismiss me. When he tried to reason with her, she withdrew to her room, emerging days later quiet and subdued, unaware, it seemed to me, of her previous behaviour. And so the dreadful cycle would begin over again.

‘Victor refused to admit that she was ill. It was too much for his pride to bear. Besides, he had Jacinta to think of. She loves her mother dearly and would be horrified to think she was mad. Consuela was always the soul of sweet reason in her presence; she never had any cause to doubt her mother’s sanity. For her sake, I refrained from leaving straightaway. Later, Victor pleaded with me not to resign. He needed help to cope with Consuela, help to prevent the servants realizing what was wrong. So, I remained.

‘Consuela had no friends. Nobody visited her aside from Victor’s relatives and she never went anywhere. Apart from a weekly visit to the Roman Catholic church in Hereford, she seldom left the house. I attributed this to her Brazilian blood, to a sense of alienation from her surroundings, but Victor told me she had originally been carefree and gregarious; that her tendency to depression and isolation dated only from about the time of Jacinta’s birth.

‘I felt sorry for Victor and he, I know, was grateful for the little I could do to help him. Out of this, I will not deny, grew friendship between us and out of this in turn, I fear, grew Consuela’s belief that Victor was being unfaithful to her. The belief was groundless. You have my word on that. If it had not been, Consuela would not have written the letters. She would not have felt she needed to. I cannot prove she wrote them, of course. That is merely my opinion, a guess consistent with how she behaved. It is always possible that somebody else wrote them, but, in either event, the effect was the same. They gave her what her disturbed mind saw as justification for what she was probably already planning to do. That is why she kept them, you see, along with the packet of arsenic, where she knew they would be certain to be found. She wanted them to be found. They were her ready-made excuse.

‘In the days after the poisoning, when we were all still trying to believe that there was some innocent explanation for what had happened, Consuela would have seemed to some the calmest of us all. But it was not calm. She had merely lapsed into introspection. She was waiting patiently for her crime to be discovered, as she knew it would be, as she had planned that it would be. She had chosen Victor as her victim, but, when Rosemary took his place, she does not seem to have greatly cared. That, I think, is the true measure of her insanity. She was set upon a course as destructive of others as it was destructive of herself. Her intention was and is to bring about her own death. Murder was simply a means to an end.

‘I do not expect you to believe me. Even Victor prefers to think of his wife as a murderess rather than a madwoman. In time, however, you will both come to see that I am right. Consuela desires martyrdom and will insist upon having it.

‘Victor tells me you have concocted a theory to sustain your belief in Consuela’s innocence. This involves Victor having poisoned himself in order to dispose of Consuela, thus freeing himself to marry another. Well, you do not need me to tell you that the practical objections to this are formidable. He could not have known his sister-in-law and niece would call that afternoon. If you think he planned to consume sufficient arsenic to induce severe illness, you should remember that judging the quantity in a laced bowl of sugar would have been dangerously difficult. Moreover, the charge against Consuela would then have been attempted, not actual, murder, for which a term of imprisonment is the likeliest punishment. In that case, she would remain his wife. Your theory is, you see, self-defeating.

‘You are, besides, not the only theorist in this matter. I have asked myself what could have brought Consuela to such a pass. What could so have eaten away at her grip upon reality? She had a maid before the war called Lizzie Thaxter. Perhaps you remember her. She committed suicide, apparently, in the orchard at Clouds Frome, in the summer of 1911. She hanged herself from one of the apple trees. Nobody seems to know why she did it. I cannot help wondering if Consuela knows more of the event than she has ever revealed. After all, the punishment for murder – the charge she faces – is death by hanging, the same death as that suffered by Lizzie Thaxter. There is an association between them, a link, a connection I cannot quite explain but am sure, nonetheless, does exist.

‘Do you know what the connection is, Mr Staddon? You last saw Consuela twelve years ago. You have told me so yourself. And I know you attended a house-warming party at Clouds Frome on the fourteenth of July 1911. The visitors’ book still bears your signature, you see. I remember noticing it. Was that your last visit? If so, it is an interesting coincidence that it took place but a few days before Lizzie Thaxter’s suicide. According to her gravestone, she died on the twentieth, only six days after the party. I am assuming, of course, that it is no more than a coincidence. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you would care to tell me if I am wrong. Or perhaps you would not.

‘What I think you should understand is that the making of unwelcome enquiries is not your exclusive prerogative. Moreover, once embarked upon, there is no knowing where those enquiries may lead. Mystery lies all about us. We should, in my judgement, leave such mystery inviolate. The tragedy of Consuela Caswell is her own. We should not interfere. If we do, the consequences may be unpredictable – and deeply disagreeable.

‘Go home, Mr Staddon. That is my earnest advice to you. Go home and take your wife with you, while she is still yours to take. Leave Victor to repair his life as best he can. Leave me to help him. And leave Consuela to answer for what she has done in the way that she has chosen.’

I could have confessed then and yearned, indeed, to do so. If Imogen Roebuck was right, then I knew what nobody else knew: the origin of Consuela’s insanity. My desertion of her burned as searingly within my conscience as it ever had. But I could not speak of it. To do so would lay at my door the death for which Consuela was to stand trial.

The cigarette slipped from my grasp. I turned slowly round. Miss Roebuck’s face was in shadow. Silent expectation seemed everywhere about us in the still, cold air. I searched my brain for words with which to refute what she had said. And found none.

‘I am sorry we had to meet in this way,’ she said softly. ‘At another time, in another place … Go home, Mr Staddon.’

I may have nodded. Aside from that, I made no parting gesture, but walked swiftly away, my pace quickening as I climbed the steps towards the Casino.

‘Go home? Immediately? I really don’t know what you can be thinking of, Geoffrey.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased. A few days ago, you were urging me to stop harassing Victor Caswell.’

‘That is beside the point. I happen to be enjoying myself here. I have no intention of cutting our visit short on a whim of yours. Quite the reverse, as a matter of fact.’

‘What do you mean – quite the reverse?’

‘I mean that I may well stay on – after your departure.’

‘Really? Why, may I ask?’

‘I have already told you. To enjoy myself.’

Angela smiled and drew on her cigarette. It was the late morning of the day following our visit to the Casino. I had called at her room to announce my decision and had found her still breakfasting, clad in a silk peignoir and luxuriating in the sunlight that was flooding through the high balcony windows. On a side-table stood a vase of richly coloured orchids and, beneath it, the florist’s envelope, torn open and addressed in a firm hand Angela Staddon, Hotel Negresco, Nice. I did not need to ask whose writing it was and Angela, looking across at me, seemed almost to dare me to remove the note inside and read it.

‘Besides,’ she resumed, ‘I have certain commitments. I cannot simply leave.’

‘What commitments?’

‘Major Turnbull has asked me to visit the Casino with him again tomorrow night.’

‘He said nothing to me.’

‘He assumed you would not wish to join us, in view of your conduct last night. Did Miss Roebuck prove diverting company?’

‘We had matters we wished to discuss. That was all.’

‘You do not have to explain yourself to me, Geoffrey. What you do – and with whom – is a matter of indifference to me.’

‘I think we should leave. It’s as simple as that.’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t. I have already agreed to take tea at the Villa d’Abricot one day next week. And Major Turnbull has undertaken to obtain tickets for the opera. Don Giovanni is opening here on the twenty-seventh. I understand it’s not to be missed.’

‘You know very well I’m expected back in the office before then.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to attend. You hate opera.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Very well. I’ll go alone. When may I expect you to follow?’

‘I’m not sure.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, rose and walked across to me. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll think I’ll have a bath.’

She left me standing by the vase of orchids, the sunlight falling brazenly on their bright, waxy petals. I picked up the envelope and held it for a moment between my fingers. Water began to gush in the bathroom. Then I let the envelope fall and turned away.

The bathroom door was open and I glanced in as I walked past. Angela was standing by the bath, pouring some lotion in as the water rose, steam pluming about her. She was naked and, as my eyes rested on her for a moment, I could not help wondering if, after all this was over, my hands would ever again touch her pale, familiar flesh.

‘Goodbye, Geoffrey,’ she said, setting down the lotion bottle and moving away towards the hand-basin. ‘Let me know when you decide to leave.’

I watched her for one more second, then turned and hurried from the room.

Two days passed. I filled them with aimless drives into the mountains. I saw nothing of Angela and gave Cap Ferrat and Beaulieu a wide berth. I was marking time, waiting and hoping for some signal or event that would break the disabling hold Imogen Roebuck’s version of events had taken upon me. When a letter from Imry arrived, I thought it might herald my release. But its contents only made that release seem more remote.

Sunnylea,

WENDOVER,

Buckinghamshire.

15th November 1923

Dear Geoff,

I returned from York today with little to show for my enquiries on your behalf. Having agreed to go, I cannot, I suppose, complain, so here, whilst it’s all fresh in my mind, is what I discovered, or, more correctly, what I didn’t discover.

Colonel and Mrs Browning are a respectable, rather stuffy pair with a thirteen-year-old daughter – a late and only child. I told them I was a friend of the Caswells and gave my name as Wren. (May his shade forgive me.) Mercifully, they seemed to know nothing of Consuela’s court appearance and responded with righteous indignation to my suggestion that they might not have been completely frank about Miss Roebuck’s suitability as a governess. They’d been sorry to lose her and claimed to know of no specific reason for her departure aside from the attraction of a salary they couldn’t afford to match. She was with them nearly two years, arriving in the spring of 1921 with impeccable references from a family in Norfolk.

Colonel Browning is a drinking man. Ensconced in his favourite watering-hole and free of his wife’s starchy influence, he proved more forthcoming, but not in a way that will please you. He couldn’t have spoken more warmly of Miss Roebuck. Indeed, I began to suspect he might have made certain overtures towards her. Perhaps that’s what prompted her to seek another post. Certainly there was nothing to suggest she’d offered him any encouragement.

I have the name and address of her previous employer – the family in Norfolk – but I really don’t think you would gain anything by approaching them. The fortune-hunting seductress is a cap that will not fit.

Come home, Geoff. That’s my advice. And the sooner the better. I had Reg on the blower this afternoon and I virtually promised him you’d be back with them next week. If not, I shall have to put in an appearance. So, does one good turn deserve another?

Yours aye,

Imry.

A cold rain was falling as I drove to Cap Ferrat. The Mediterranean was grey and churning. Suddenly the Côte d’Azur had become a place I did not want to be. I wished I had listened to Imry and never come at all. I wished turning back seemed easier than going on.

The gates of the Villa d’Abricot stood open. I sped up the curving drive and pulled to a halt in front of the house. Then I jumped out and hurried towards the front door, my collar turned up against the rain. Before I reached the door, however, it was wrenched open from the inside and a figure burst out past me, striking my shoulder as he went.

I caught only a glimpse of him, but the glimpse was a memorable one. He was several inches broader and taller than me, dressed in a dark, travel-stained suit and cape. He was bare-headed, with unusually long hair that had once been jet-black, but was now streaked with grey, and a piratical moustache of the original shade. His face was distorted by a grimace of pain or fury – I could not tell which – and he was muttering under his breath, though what he was muttering – or in what language – I could not catch.

I watched him for a minute or so as he marched away down the drive. He was talking to himself quite loudly now, slapping one hand against his thigh and flinging out indecipherable oaths, throwing his head back and mouthing at the sky as the rain slanted down around him. Suddenly, I realized Turnbull’s Italian man-servant was standing beside me, straining to afford me the shelter of an umbrella.

‘Buon giorno, Signor Staddon.’

‘Good morning. Who’s that?’

‘I do not know. He has been to see Signor Caswell.’

‘Caswell’s here?’

‘In the drawing-room. With Signorina Roebuck.’

‘Good. I’ll go straight through. Don’t bother to announce me.’

They were on opposite sides of the room, Miss Roebuck sitting calmly in an armchair, whilst Victor was wheeling and pacing on the hearthrug, smoking frantically. He was speaking, almost shouting, as I entered.

‘No, no. He damn well meant it. I could—’ He broke off at sight of me. ‘Staddon! What the devil do you want?’

‘A brief word, that’s all.’

‘If you’re looking for your wife, you’ll find her lunching with Royston at La Réserve.’

‘I was looking for you.’

‘Well, you’ve found me.’

‘Would you like me to leave?’ put in Miss Roebuck.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’d prefer you both to hear what I have to say.’

‘Spit it out, then,’ snapped Victor.

‘I wanted you to know: I’m going back to England.’

‘Royston will be sorry to hear that. He seems to enjoy your wife’s company.’

‘Angela may not be coming with me.’

‘Really?’ The thought that his friend might be making a cuckold of me seemed to cheer Victor. His tone shifted from the irritable to the sarcastic. ‘Well, wives can be damnably fickle, Staddon. I know that to my cost.’

‘My marriage isn’t something I want to discuss with you.’

‘No? You amaze me. You seemed eager enough to discuss mine.’

‘Victor!’ said Miss Roebuck, mildly but with a hint of reproof. ‘Would it not be simpler to let Mr Staddon say what he has to say?’ She looked across at me. ‘Am I correct in thinking you’ve seen the merit of the advice I offered you last week?’

‘Not exactly. I—’ Her gaze was coolly ironic. She knew I was defeated and she knew also how impossible it was for me to admit as much. ‘You won’t hear from me again. That’s all I’m saying. Unless I discover—’

‘Unless you discover what?’ barked Victor.

‘That I’ve been misled.’

‘You haven’t been,’ said Miss Roebuck, gazing at me in solemn assurance.

‘In that case,’ I continued, ‘you’ll hear no more from me.’

We stared at each other for a silent moment, then she said: ‘Thank you, Mr Staddon.’

I turned towards the door. ‘You’ll get no thanks from me,’ said Victor.

When I looked at him, I realized for the first time that his resolution ran no deeper than mine. His hostility was eggshell thin. Beneath, lay an uncertainty horribly akin to my own. ‘I expected none,’ I said, hurrying from the room before he could reply.

The hallway was quiet, so quiet I could hear the rain falling against the porch windows and a clock ticking somewhere deep in the house. At the top of the curving stairs stood a small, motionless figure in a pale blue dress with matching ribbons in her long dark hair. She was standing still and upright, her hands held rigidly by her sides. Her face was expressionless, but in her eyes, as they met mine, there was something fierce and reproachful.

She had been there all the time, I felt certain. She had heard my every word through the open drawing-room door. She had heard and she had understood, only too well. ‘Jacinta—’ I broke off, suddenly aware of Imogen Roebuck standing behind me, looking past me and up the stairs.

‘If you’re ready, Jacinta, we’ll resume our lesson,’ she said. ‘Wait for me in your room.’

Without a word, Jacinta turned and walked away. As soon as she was out of sight, I moved towards the front door, eager for mobility and the open air, eager for the refuge they seemed to offer.

‘Mr Staddon—’

I looked back at her.

‘I am grateful, you know.’

‘You needn’t be.’

‘You won’t regret your decision.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘Oh I am, believe me.’ She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye.’

But the handshake at least I could deny her. We had sealed no pact and I would do nothing to imply that we had. ‘Goodbye,’ I said, starting for the door in fugitive haste.

As Victor had said I would, I found Angela at a luncheon table of La Réserve, Beaulieu’s most exclusive restaurant, communing with Royston Turnbull over oysters and champagne.

‘Well, Staddon, this is a surprise.’

‘I’ve come to speak to my wife, Major, not you.’

‘What do you want, Geoffrey?’ Giggling and girlish the moment before she noticed me, Angela was now stern and cold.

‘I’m leaving Nice tomorrow. Will you be coming with me?’

‘You know very well that’s impossible.’

‘You refuse?’

‘Let’s say I decline.’

‘When can I expect you home, then?’

‘When you see me there.’

There was nothing left to say. Angela’s unyielding gaze confirmed as much. Turnbull swallowed an oyster, dabbed his chin with a napkin and grinned up at me. ‘Don’t worry, Staddon. I’ll take good care of her.’

I drove wildly back to Nice. Desertions, past and present, seemed to close upon me faster than I could ever hope to flee them. I drank away the afternoon in the bar of the Negresco, slept for a few stunned hours, then woke to find the rain still falling, heavier and wind-blown, from a dark and turbulent sky.

Early evening of the following day found me aboard the night-train to Calais. I had made no further attempt to reason with Angela and now, as the hour for departure grew close and I surveyed the bustling late-comers from the window-seat of my compartment, I entertained no hope whatever that I would see her among them. Disbelief at how little respect remained between us was all that prompted me even to look.

Whistles were blowing, doors slamming and the engine getting up steam when a familiar figure appeared on the platform. Not Angela, but the man I had seen leaving the Villa d’Abricot the previous day. A stern-faced gendarme was holding him by the arm and urging him forward whilst another gendarme in sergeant’s uniform trotted along in front, carrying a battered leather suitcase. My curiosity aroused, I opened the window and leaned out.

The sergeant flung back a door two carriages down the train, tossed the case inside and signalled with his thumb for its owner to follow. He scowled, shook himself free, brushed himself down, said something which the two gendarmes studiously ignored, then climbed aboard.

A moment later, the train began to move. As it gathered speed, the gendarmes remained where they were, staring pointedly towards the carriage where they had deposited their charge. Only when the guard’s van cleared the end of the platform did they turn away, shrugging at each other as if in relief at an awkward task accomplished.

A few minutes later, I made my move. Whoever the man was, I hoped he would now be calm enough to approach. And approach him I must. As a visitor to the Villa d’Abricot, he was merely interesting. But as a visitor to the Villa d’Abricot subsequently bundled out of Nice by the police, he was a man I had to speak to.

He had a compartment to himself, which was small wonder in view of his menacing appearance. He was slumped low in his seat, feet propped up on his suitcase, the cape wrapped about him making his vast frame seem gigantic. Not that this, the layers of dust on his clothes or the dishevelled state of his greying mane of hair was what would most have deterred his fellow-travellers. They would have found more intimidating still the angry curl of his lip as he muttered to himself, his twitches and snorts of indignation, his alternate stretching and clenching of his right hand.

He glared up at me as I entered, then looked away. ‘Bonsoir, monsieur,’ I ventured, but he did not reply. I sat in one of the seats opposite him and smiled. ‘Où allez-vous, monsieur?’ Again there was no reply. I took out my cigarette-case, opened it and held it towards him. ‘Voudriez-vous une cigarette?’ Still no response. I pretended to search my pockets for a match, then grinned across at him. ‘Excusez-moi. Pouvez-vous me donner du feu?’

His eyes flashed up and fixed me with a stare. ‘Deixe-me empaz, senhor,’ he growled.

It was what I wanted to hear. He had spoken in Portuguese. ‘I saw you leaving the Villa d’Abricot yesterday,’ I said in a rush. ‘Why were you there?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Was it because of Consuela?’

At the sound of her name, his muscles tensed. ‘Who are you, senhor?’ he said in a heavy Latin accent.

‘My name is Geoffrey Staddon.’

‘Staddon?’ He frowned, as if, somewhere he had heard my name before.

‘I’m a friend of Consuela. I’m somebody who—’

Before I knew what was happening, he had whipped his feet to the floor, kicked the suitcase aside, lunged forward and grabbed me by the wrist. His grip was like a steel manacle, his stare no less ferocious. ‘What kind of friend?’ he said slowly.

‘The kind she needs. The kind that believes she’s innocent.’

‘She has always been innocent. That is her mistake.’

‘You’ve known her long?’

‘Longer than you, I think.’

‘I first met her fifteen years ago. I built a house for her husband.’

‘For Caswell?’

‘Yes. Clouds Frome. Where—’

‘That is it! That is where I know your name. Staddon. O arquitecto.’

‘Yes, that’s who I am. But you still have the advantage of me.’

He let go of my wrist. ‘I am Rodrigo Manchaca de Pombalho. I am Consuela’s brother.’

Rodrigo was by nature a happy and gregarious man. I remembered Consuela speaking of him as such. O Urso de Mel, she had called him: the Honey-Bear. She had kept a special place in her heart for the brother nearest to her in age and spirit and he, it seemed clear, had done the same for her. We sat long and late in the restaurant-car of the train that night and, though Rodrigo’s true character emerged more and more as food and wine softened his temper, it was still swamped at intervals by the sadness he felt at his sister’s plight, the helplessness, the raging despair. He crushed a glass in his hand once when speaking of Victor and, at another time, wept like a child. His voice boomed, his arms waved, his eyes flashed; he was to his fellow-diners an object of horror and fascination. To me, however, he seemed an elemental force for hope. Joyous, angry and dejected by turns, he nonetheless succeeded in making me think for the first time that Consuela really could be saved.

Rodrigo’s elder brother, Francisco, was head of the family business. In this capacity, he attended many dinners and receptions where members of Rio’s diplomatic community were to be found. From an attaché at the British Embassy he had been dismayed to learn that his sister was to stand trial for murder. Hurt by Consuela’s failure to tell them herself and baffled by what little they could learn of the circumstances, the family had at first been too confused to act. At length, in defiance of his brothers’ wishes, Rodrigo had decided to travel to Europe and root out the truth, little realizing the magnitude of his task.

Upon arrival in England, he had proceeded directly to Hereford, only to confront the same brick wall as I had. Consuela had refused to see him, sending a message via Windrush that he had shamed her by coming and should return to Brazil at once. As for Victor, he had vanished to France, taking Jacinta with him. Windrush had offered to arrange a meeting for Rodrigo with the barrister he had recruited – Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett – but that was the extent of the assistance he could offer. Pausing only to antagonize a senior officer of the Herefordshire constabulary, Rodrigo had set off for Cap Ferrat.

His reception at the Villa d’Abricot had been predictably hostile. Victor had refused to let him see Jacinta, had rejected all suggestions that Consuela might be the victim of an injustice and had told him to leave straightaway or be forcibly removed.

‘I took him by the throat for saying that to me. He had not the right. He was frightened. I could see that. He was always a little frightened of me. But too clever. Too clever for Rodrigo. He sent the police for me. They told me I must leave France. Um criador-de-casos. That is what they called me. A maker of trouble. They said I threatened him. It is true. He deserved it. He deserved more, but … I left. I had no choice. I cannot help Consuela from a prison in France.’

Rodrigo was incapable of believing that his sister had committed murder. It was for him an article of faith. Questions of motive and evidence were therefore irrelevant. And, since Consuela was necessarily innocent, it followed that Victor was guilty, guilty of abandoning his wife to her accusers even if not of the crime they had laid at her door. When I suggested that there might be something improper in Victor’s relationship with Imogen Roebuck and that, if there were, it could have a bearing on the case, Rodrigo seemed genuinely confused.

‘You are like Victor. You are too clever for me. What I see is this. Somebody tried to murder Victor. He did not die. Que pena! I would not weep for him. His … his sobrinha … died instead. That is sad. But who did this thing? Not Consuela. Nunca, nunca. Then who? Somebody who wanted him to die. Somebody who needed him to die. Who is this somebody? I do not know. But when I find out …’

There was in this, and much else he said, a distaste for Victor that amounted to more than disapproval, more even than contempt. He loathed everything about him, detested everything he represented. It was impossible to believe that he would have allowed his sister to marry a man about whom he harboured such feelings. Therefore, I was forced to conclude, his hatred of Victor stemmed from later events. What were they? He would not say. When I pressed him, he pretended to misunderstand. All I could glean was that his father had died a broken man, that his family’s prosperity had steadily declined since and that he held Victor, in some strange way, to blame for this.

‘We made him welcome in our home. We treated him like a member of our family. Victor Caswell. Smiling. Rich. A friend to every man. O grande empreiteiro. O cavalheiro culto. I did not trust him. Francisco said he would be useful to us. His money. His land. His rubber. But I saw, in his eyes, what he was. Um ladrão. A thief. Like his friend, Major Turnbull. But what did I know? I did not understand. I was Rodrigo the fool, Rodrigo o bêbado. So, they let him marry Consuela. They let him take her away to England. And then they found out, too late, what he really was.’

So he continued, lashing out with his tongue where he would as readily have struck out with his fists. He had come to save Consuela, but he could not be sure who or what to save her from. Until he could be, Victor would fill the role. As for the rest – the evidence, the circumstances, the universal condemnation – he would not allow himself to be overborne. In his own unappeasable anger, his own unquenchable confidence, he would place his trust. And I found myself doing the same as I watched him sway away up the corridor that night. He had none of my guilt to stay his hand, none of my doubts to cloud his thoughts. He was the saviour that Consuela needed.

It was over breakfast the following morning, as the train drifted north through a grey dawn, that Rodrigo and I agreed our plan of campaign. He would return to Hereford, speak to as many of those involved in the case as were willing to speak to him and accept Windrush’s offer of a meeting with Consuela’s barrister, Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett; I would also attend. Upon what the great man thought of our prospects the future of our campaign depended.

The Channel was as grey and cold as the day itself. Rodrigo and I were the only passengers on deck as the ferry battled across towards Dover. As the White Cliffs came into sight, I asked him how he had left matters with Victor, what undertakings, if any, he had extracted from him. The answer, it appeared, was none.

‘He told me to go back to Brazil. He told me to forget Consuela. He said he would do nothing to help her, because he believed she was guilty. My sister: uma homicídia. That was too much for me. That was why I made him a promise. Uma promessa soleníssima. If they hang my sister, I will kill him. I meant it. He could see that. If they take her life away, I will take his.’

I looked up at him then and saw what Victor must also have seen. No wonder he had been sufficiently frightened to call in the police. In Rodrigo’s face, as he stared implacably at the heaving waves, was a warning I too should have heeded, but yet could not. Tragedy is its own father, but its offspring were still to be confronted. For all that the past held, the worst was yet to be.