Chapter Sixteen

WE LEFT THE Green Man while there were still enough customers in the bar to distract the landlord’s attention. A short drive along deserted lanes took us up into the wooded hills behind Clouds Frome. There we pulled the car off the road and waited as patiently as we could for midnight to come and go. The night was cold and still, a pale three-quarters moon drifting in and out of a ragged cloud-rack. Silence of an intensity only the countryside in winter can contrive lay all about us and neither of us made any attempt to break it. Instead, we sipped by turns from Rodrigo’s hipflask, heard the church clock in Mordiford strike twelve, let another half hour slowly elapse, then started for the house.

We were both carrying electric torches. Rodrigo, in addition, had the car-rug slung over his shoulder and, as I knew but had not cared to confirm, a knife concealed in one of his pockets. He led the way down a grassy track he had reconnoitred earlier. A mile of cautious descent brought us to the eastern wall of Clouds Frome, ten feet of ivy-swathed brick with nothing visible beyond. Already, I was in danger of losing my bearings. But Rodrigo knew exactly where we were. Within minutes, he had located the ladder, hidden in a bank of ferns.

We propped it against the wall and Rodrigo climbed up with the rug. This he folded thickly and draped like a saddle over the top of the wall as protection against the broken glass. Then he signalled for me to follow. Once I had joined him, he pulled the ladder up after me, swung it round as if it were no heavier than a feather and lowered it to the other side. I descended first, then Rodrigo threw down the rug and followed.

At the foot of the wall, we paused to catch our breath. We were on sloping ground, roughly grassed and sparsely dotted with shrubs and bushes. Based on our point of entry, I reckoned we were now some way to the south of the kitchen garden, with the eastern limit of the orchard directly ahead of us and the house about half a mile away on a north-westerly bearing, its outline obscured by the wooded hills behind it. The only way to confirm this, it seemed to me, was to locate the kitchen-garden wall and follow it to its south-western corner. It had been agreed beforehand that Rodrigo would not quibble with my navigation once we were inside the grounds. True to his word, he trailed faithfully behind me, carrying the ladder in one hand and the rug in the other as I headed up the slope.

A fleeting appearance by the moon revealed the kitchen-garden wall before we reached it. Encouraged by this success, I altered course to the left, hoping to reach the south-western corner more quickly. That would give me an exact appreciation of our whereabouts relative to the house. From there, I knew, a path led round the boundary of the orchard to steps that ascended to the lawn east of the pergola. And from there the nursery window was directly accessible.

I could not hear Rodrigo behind me, though whenever I looked back he was there, ten yards to the rear, the ladder tilted in his hand like the lance of a knight. The only sound that reached me was my own breathing and the swishing of my feet through the lank grass. Already, a chilly dampness had penetrated my shoes. But there was dampness of another kind on my face. One half of my brain was content to calculate distance and topography, whilst the other struggled to keep a host of irrational fears at bay. The moonlight was faint and shifting, as disturbing in its way as the impenetrable blackness that had swallowed most of our surroundings. The kitchen-garden wall reappeared a few yards ahead and, only a few more yards beyond, ended abruptly. We had found the south-western corner.

I turned it confidently, expecting to feel the texture of the grass alter beneath my feet as I stepped onto the path. But I never did. There was a sound in the darkness to my right, a sound at once heavy, rushing and panting. Then, with a growl that was almost a bark, it launched itself at me. It was the guard-dog, as huge and strong as I had dreaded it might be. It leapt and, in one movement, flung me back against the wall with its forepaws. The breath shot out of me. Winded and utterly terrified, I cowered away, but the beast was standing as tall as me, its legs against my chest, its teeth bared, its throat spitting phlegm. I could see moonlight glistening on its fangs, could feel the heat of its breath against my face.

Then, as quickly as it was upon me, it was gone. Rodrigo charged and grasped it about the shoulders, throwing himself to the ground and carrying the dog with him. For a second, they were just a wrestling, snarling tangle in the darkness at my feet. Then Rodrigo gained the hold he wanted. He was behind the dog, his legs scissored round it to immobilize its lower limbs. His right arm was round the animal’s throat, his left hand forcing its muzzle down against his arm to prevent it barking.

‘The knife!’ he said as loudly as he dared. ‘Take the knife from my pocket and—’ The dog bucked and strained. Rodrigo’s grip weakened for an instant, then was restored. ‘Take the knife and kill it!’

I crouched beside him and tried to open his jacket, but it was fastened and the buttons were out of reach beneath the dog’s back. I had to twist my hand in past his collar, with the dog’s head only a few inches from mine, its eyes rolling, its jaws foaming.

‘Depressa! Depressa!’

My stretching fingers found the handle, tugged at it, lost it momentarily, then found it again and pulled it out. It was a heavy weapon about ten inches in length, with a wooden handle and a leather sheath. When I slid the sheath off, it was to expose a thick double-edged blade.

‘Do it now, Staddon! I cannot … I cannot hold this brute much longer.’

I reversed my grasp on the knife, raised it to strike, then hesitated. Where should I strike? How? Even though I knew the act was necessary, its commission seemed beyond me.

‘Slit its throat! Quickly!’

‘Its throat? My God, I can’t—’

‘Then give the knife to me!’ He was grimacing with the effort of continued restraint. ‘If you cannot do it, I can!’

I thrust the knife into his right hand with a kind of dumb eagerness and turned away, too late to miss the dull flash of the blade as he closed his fingers round the handle. There was a single thump like a rug being beaten, a horrible tearing note half-hidden by the hissing of Rodrigo’s breath, a low gurgling growl, a frenzied scrabbling, then a brief silence. When I looked back, the dog lay limp and lifeless.

Rodrigo struggled to his feet, stooped to wipe the blade clean against the grass, then took the sheath from my hand, slid the knife back into it and replaced it in his pocket.

‘I … I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I just couldn’t … couldn’t bring myself to …’

‘Keep your apologies for later, Staddon! I do not want to hear them now.’

‘But—’

‘Fique quieto! Forget the dog. It died without making a noise. That is all that matters. Now, get us to the house!’

I hurried ahead, found the path and began to walk along it as quickly and steadily as I could, aware that the trembling in my hands was slowly abating, the hammering of my heart subsiding. I thanked God there had been no daylight by which to see what Rodrigo had done and winced with shame at the memory of how little I had helped him. I wondered if there was much blood on him, or any on me, wondered what, in the morning, I would think about this night’s work.

So preoccupied was I that I did not notice the outline of the house looming above me, more densely black even than the sky behind it. I reached the foot of the steps without realizing it, stumbled against the lowest tread and fell up them.

‘What is wrong?’

‘Nothing. These steps lead up to a lawn behind the house.’

‘Then go on, Staddon. What are you waiting for?’

I turned and hastened up the steps, through a gap in the beech-hedge at the top and so out onto the lawn. Now the rear of the house was clearly visible beyond the ornamental garden. The ground-floor windows were blank and shuttered. As for those on the first floor … Yes, there was the Catherine wheel window of the nursery, looking, at this range, as firmly closed as the rest. I was gaping up at it when Rodrigo appeared behind me.

‘That is it?’ he whispered, following the line of my gaze.

‘Yes.’

‘Is it open?’

‘Don’t worry. Jacinta won’t have let us down.’

‘I hope you are right.’

‘Wait here while I cross the garden. Follow when I signal.’

I moved as swiftly and silently as I could across the lawn, clambered over the low stone wall separating it from the ornamental garden, then steered a path between the rosebushes and the fountain to the terrace running past the ground-floor windows. Now the nursery was directly above me. Peering up, I could see that its window was indeed ajar. I turned and waved to Rodrigo.

A few minutes later, we had succeeded in propping the ladder beneath the curving sill of the Catherine wheel. Rodrigo held it fast while I began to climb. I paused at each rung, determined to make no sound that might raise the alarm. The ascent seemed to last an absurdly long time. I remembered the pleasure I had taken from designing this fenestral conceit, remembered the coy explanation I had given Consuela of its purpose, one blazing afternoon in the summer of 1909 as we sat in camp-chairs on what was now the lawn. ‘It will supply a circular view of a circular world, Mrs Caswell, for the son or daughter you and Mr Caswell will one day—’ I reached the top and there, as a dim reflection in the glass, met myself fifteen years later, peering in like the intruder I had always been.

Jacinta had opened the window just wide enough for me to squeeze my fingers between it and the sill. It swung out smoothly until it was almost horizontal, then stopped, leaving an aperture sufficient for me to crawl through. Sufficient or not, though, it was a scramble, with a drop of four feet inside which I had to negotiate without making any noise. At length, I lowered myself to the nursery floor confident that nobody could have heard me.

I took the torch from my pocket, switched it on and moved its beam round the room. Clearly, it was no longer used for anything but storage. There were a couple of mats covering the boards in the centre, a large wooden chest in one corner, some cardboard boxes piled on top of each other, a rocking horse, a play-pen, two large cupboards, and over all a musty air of collective abandonment. Turning back, I leaned out through the window and waved Rodrigo up.

Alone, I doubt Rodrigo could have managed the entry. As it was, I hauled him bodily through the gap and did my best to break his fall. After a few stifled oaths, he pronounced himself ready to proceed. I led the way to the door by an indirect route, hoping to avoid creaking any of the boards. The policy seemed to work, for we reached the door in silence. I opened it cautiously, but there seemed no cause for alarm. The passage outside was quiet and empty.

To the right lay Jacinta’s bedroom. I wondered if she had stayed awake and felt sure, in that instant, that she had; if so, she must surely have heard us by now. To the left the passage curved and descended by a short flight of steps to the gallery above the hall. From there the shapes and alignments of every room fanned out in my mind like diagrams leaping from a page. For a moment, I could believe I was both outside and inside a doll’s house of my own construction, stooping to squint through a tiny window at its still tinier occupant just as I was turning to see a huge eye blinking at me through the glass.

‘Staddon!’

‘Yes, all right. I know what I’m doing.’

‘Then do it.’

I started down the passage, keeping close to the left-hand wall. The gallery was empty and silent, but less dark than the passage; the windows looking out over the courtyard were uncurtained, admitting a meagre ration of moonlight. We reached its far end and there, I knew, a decision would have to be made: whether to go downstairs first or search some of the bedrooms. The obvious room in which to install a safe was the study. The library was another possibility. They both had the additional advantage (from our point of view) of being remote from the staff quarters. I signalled my intention to Rodrigo and eased open the door leading to the stairhead.

We descended slowly, the darkened hall opening up beneath us like a cavern. The height of the treads and the dimensions of the quarter-landings were exactly as I remembered, but for Rodrigo’s sake I shone my torch behind me as I went. Below, some embers were still smouldering in the fireplace, casting across the room a faint yellow light that could have been a failing afterglow of its gaudy inauguration thirteen years ago.

At the foot of the stairs, more memories flew to meet me from a lost time. To my right were the doors to the drawing-room, where she had waited for me that July afternoon before the house-warming. How grateful I was that we did not need to enter. Instead, I turned left, leading Rodrigo out of the hall and into a branch of the lobby that led to the library, study and billiards-room. With luck, we would soon have found the safe and I could set all thoughts of the past aside.

But it was not to prove so easy. The library was unaltered. That became obvious to me as I cast my torch-beam round the well-stocked bookshelves. We hurried on to the study, only to find that the same applied. It was a small enough room for anything as significant as a blocked-off alcove to be immediately obvious, but its proportions were exactly as I had designed them. The only doubt raised by its contents was whether it still served as a study. It had more the appearance of a schoolroom and I wondered if this was where Jacinta received her tutors. If so, obviously the safe must be elsewhere. But where?

Victor was as cautious as he was secretive. In his mind, as much as the architecture of Clouds Frome, the answer surely lay. As I stood and thought of how devious yet logical he was, Rodrigo started to say something in my ear, but I cut him short.

‘I have it! It must be upstairs. Come on.’

I led the way back to the lobby, opened the double doors leading to the hall and was about to step through when there was a noise ahead of us, not loud but quite distinct, something between a snap and a creak. I pulled up at once, my every sense alert, but nothing followed. The wavering glimmer from the fire reached the shuttered windows and played weakly across the furniture. Otherwise there was neither sound nor movement. Rodrigo touched my elbow and whispered: ‘The fire, I think.’

I nodded. Subsiding ash in the grate was indeed the likeliest explanation. Perhaps the acoustics of the unusually high ceiling accounted for the noise seeming to come from a different direction. I headed across the room to the stairs and started up them, theorizing as I went. According to Hermione, Victor retained use of the master bedroom, whilst Consuela’s bedroom was what had originally been dubbed the Wye suite. So, where better for Victor to conceal a safe than in a room only he had the use of and where, as an additional precaution, he slept every night? Except this night, of course, when he was in London and we had a chance we might never have again to learn his best-kept secret.

The master bedroom was directly above the hall, reached by a dog-leg passage from the head of the stairs that led nowhere else. The privacy this was intended to bestow was ideal for our purposes. I opened the door carefully but without hesitation, willing myself to disregard all the memories I knew would be lying in wait for me of the last time I had been there, and why, and with whom.

All trappings of femininity were gone from the room, plain wallpaper and striped curtains replacing the colourful fruit and flower patterns favoured by Consuela. I stood a few feet inside the door and swept the torch-beam methodically round the walls, reconstructing in my mind every detail of the angles and proportions I had planned and setting them against what I saw. Nothing had changed. The recesses either side of the fireplace were not only the same as each other but the same as my recollection of them. There were no tell-tale tamperings with skirting-boards or picture-mouldings, no signs of any kind that a partition had been constructed.

‘Nothing,’ I said, turning back to Rodrigo.

‘You are certain?’

‘Of course I’m certain.’

‘Those doors—’ He pointed across the room. ‘Where do they lead?’

‘Dressing-rooms, communicating with the bathroom. Not very promising, I’m afraid, but we’ll look.’

Twin dressing-rooms, both leading to the same bathroom, had been Victor’s idea. Entering what had been Consuela’s, I realized from the arrangement of brushes, clippers, colognes and razors on the table beneath the mirror that Victor had taken it over, presumably for the sake of its superior view over the orchard. Rodrigo waited in the bedroom whilst I walked round through the bathroom into the second dressing-room. It was unfurnished and clearly no longer used. In fact, the door leading back into the bedroom was locked. I turned round to retrace my steps, glimpsing a stray reflection of myself in the mirror as I did so.

Then I stopped. Something was wrong, different, inconsistent with the plans I had meticulously drawn up for this house so long ago. I looked in the mirror, shone the torch at it, moved the beam away to the door, then back at the mirror. This dressing-room was smaller than the other one, rectangular where it should have been square, narrower by at least two feet. I stepped closer to the wall on which the mirror hung, and tapped it with my knuckle. It was hollow, nothing but a plasterboard partition fashioned to resemble the real wall which stood two feet behind it.

‘What is it?’ whispered Rodrigo from the bathroom doorway. He must have heard the tapping and followed me in.

‘I think we’ve found it.’

‘Where?’

‘Behind here. But I can’t—’ I had moved the torch-beam up and down the wall without seeing any crack or crevice that might be part of a hatch. Then, as the beam flashed back at me from the mirror, I realized why. Reaching out with both hands, I tried to lift the mirror away from the surface behind it. It would not budge. It was not suspended, then, but firmly fixed. I ran my fingers carefully round the rim and, as they neared the bottom right-hand corner, felt something catch them. It was a tiny lever and, as I pushed down against it, it moved and clicked. Then the mirror, and the section of wall behind it, swung slowly open.

We had found the safe. It stood on a shelf linking the false and real walls, somehow smaller than I had expected, no more than two feet in any dimension, but as solid and unyielding as one three times its size, black and gleaming, with the manufacturer’s name proudly scrolled in red and gold. There was a handle to open it, raised in a locked position, and, in the centre of the door, a dial with numbers inscribed around it, running from zero to a hundred.

‘You have done well, Staddon,’ said Rodrigo.

‘Can you open it?’

‘Of course. Shine your torch on the dial.’

According to Gleasure, the combination was a set of three two-digit numbers representing the years of birth of Victor, Mortimer and Hermione, with the thousands and hundreds omitted in each case. From the Hereford registrar, Rodrigo had established that Victor was born in 1868, Mortimer in 1864 and Hermione in 1858. The combination was therefore 68–64–58. If this safe operated in the same way as the one used at the office, the first number would need to be dialled four times anti-clockwise, the second number three times clockwise and the third number twice anticlockwise. Following this, it would only be necessary to ease the dial back in a clockwise direction to release the locking mechanism before turning the handle.

As Rodrigo stooped forward, I trained the torch-beam on the dial. He rested his fingers on the knurled boss at its centre for a moment, then began to rotate it, muttering instructions to himself as he did so. ‘Sessenta e oito … Em sentido anti-horário … Um, dois, três, quatro … Agora, sessenta e quatro em sentido horário … Um, dois, três … Por fim, cinquenta e oito em sentido anti-horário … Um, dois … Agora, se Deus quiser …’ Gingerly, he turned the dial for the last time. There was a click. Then he lowered the handle and pulled the door open by an inch. Then he looked back at me and grinned. ‘Maybe I should have done this for a living, eh Staddon?’

‘What’s inside?’

‘The will, I hope and pray. Let us see.’

He stepped back to open the door wide. The torch-beam fell on three shelves filled with neatly stacked documents. To my surprise, on the top shelf, there were also several bundles of freshly minted bank-notes. Peering closer, I saw they were five pound notes. Each bundle must have contained several thousand pounds. The strangest and most irrational thought sprang into my mind. I reached forward, slid the top note out of one of the bundles and slipped it into my pocket.

Rodrigo glared at me in amazement. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ll explain later. Concentrate on finding the will.’ With that, I flashed the torch-beam down to the lower shelves. Rodrigo shrugged his shoulders and stretched out his hands towards the sheaves of documents.

Suddenly, there was a noise to our right. As I swung round, I realized it was a key being turned in the lock of the door leading to the bedroom. In the same instant, the door was framed in yellow and a glimmer of light appeared behind us in the bathroom. ‘Porcaria!’ murmured Rodrigo, snapping off his torch. But it was too late for such precautions. The door was already opening. Light flooded in, blinding me for a moment. I heard a voice shout, ‘Stay where you are!’ and recognized it with a jolt of incredulity. It could not be. We were not merely discovered, but—

‘Victor!’ exclaimed Rodrigo.

Victor Caswell was standing in the doorway, clad in slippers, pyjamas and a dressing-gown. With the light behind him it was difficult to tell what expression was on his face. But there was no doubt about the double-barrelled shot-gun he was holding. It was aimed straight at us. ‘Don’t move, either of you,’ he said in a controlled voice. ‘This is loaded and I’ll use it if I have to.’ Imogen Roebuck appeared behind him. She too wore a dressing-gown, as if she had just been roused from bed. But something was wrong about the sequence of events, something false in the circumstances that confronted me. Why was Victor not in London? And why, since he was here, had we not found him in his bedroom? ‘Miss Roebuck,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘go downstairs and call the police station in Hereford. Tell them we’ve discovered some burglars and will hold them pending their arrival.’ Without a word, she slipped away. I heard the bedroom door close behind her.

‘What do you mean to do with us?’ I heard myself ask in a hoarse parody of my normal voice.

‘Hand you over to the authorities. What else should I do with a pair of housebreakers?’

‘You must realize that’s not what we are.’

‘I realize nothing of the kind.’

‘We came for your will. We came to find out who would have inherited in the event of your death last September.’ Rodrigo was screened from Victor to some extent by the door of the safe. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see he had slipped his right hand into his jacket. I guessed his intention in the same moment that I guessed Victor’s. He was here because he knew we would be here. He was here to spring the trap we had blundered into. ‘Who’s your heir, Victor? That’s all we want to know.’

‘Really? Well, it’s not going to convince the police any more than it convinces me.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘If it is, you’re bigger fools than I thought.’

‘Your fools, you mean. The fools you’ve made of us.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Gleasure put us up to this. But you know that, don’t you? You know because you told him to.’

‘I’ve heard enough! Close the safe and step out here.’ He moved back a pace.

‘You want us out of the way, don’t you? In prison, where neither of us can do you any harm – or Consuela any good.’

‘I won’t tell you again. Move away from the safe.’

‘Do as he says, Staddon,’ said Rodrigo in a resigned tone, reaching up with his left hand to swing the door shut. ‘We have no—’ Suddenly, he launched himself at Victor, the knife clasped in his right hand and raised behind his head. He shouted as he lunged, some cry of hatred and anger. And, as he shouted, there was a roar that swallowed every other noise, an explosion from the doorway that caught Rodrigo in its path and threw him past me against the wall. The whole room seemed to be vibrating. Blood was spattered across the mirror and dripping onto the floor. And Rodrigo was coughing, choking, clutching at his chest. I heard the knife fall at his feet, then, as slowly as a tree falling, he toppled sideways, struck the door-frame and subsided onto his face.

Sound subsided with him, fading rapidly till only the dripping remained, growing less frequent all the time. The twitching of his limbs stopped, the pool of blood around him ceased to spread. Then, and only then, I nerved myself to look at Victor. He was leaning back against the bedroom door, breathing hard, the shot-gun broken and pointing down, smoke rising from its barrels.

‘You’ve … You’ve killed him.’

‘I had no choice. It was him or me.’

I dropped to my knees. Rodrigo’s face was half-turned towards me, squashed and distorted by his fall, his moustache clotted with blood, one of his eyes open and staring blankly in my direction. ‘You planned it this way,’ I murmured. ‘You wanted this to happen.’

‘Nobody but you will believe that.’

‘He threatened to kill you if Consuela hanged. That’s why, wasn’t it? Because you were afraid he’d be as good as his word.’

‘Oh, I think he would have been, don’t you?’

There was a hollow, sliding sound above me. When I looked up, I realized what it was. Victor had put a cartridge into one of the barrels of the gun. And now, as I watched, he loaded the other barrel as well and closed the breech. Then he licked his lips nervously and turned towards me.

‘Get up!’

He meant to kill me too. One glimpse of his expression told me it was so.

‘Get up, I say!’

‘Why? So you don’t have to explain why you shot a kneeling man? I’m unarmed, remember.’

‘Pick up the knife.’

‘No.’

‘Pick it up, damn you!’

‘It won’t work, Victor. One man shot in self-defence is credible. But they won’t believe two. Not with only one weapon between us.’

Doubt entered his mind. I could see it wriggling behind the trembling mask of his face. Some part of his brain, if not persuaded by what I had said, was at least uncertain enough to hold him back.

‘Victor!’ The door on the far side of the bedroom opened and Imogen Roebuck hurried in. ‘What’s happened?’ As she approached, she saw Rodrigo’s body on the floor, saw me kneeling beside it, saw Victor pointing the gun straight at me. All this she took in and assessed at a glance. There was surprise but no horror in her expression, dismay but not a hint of panic. ‘I heard the shot. I thought …’

‘He came at me with a knife,’ said Victor over his shoulder.

‘Is he dead?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Victor made sure of that.’

For an instant, his eyes widened, his grip on the gun tightened. Then Miss Roebuck was at his elbow, looking straight at me as she spoke. ‘The police will be here as soon as possible. Why don’t we go downstairs and wait for them there?’

A desire to finish what he had started still gnawed at Victor, but he knew now that it was too late. ‘All right,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Let’s do that.’

‘Is the gun still loaded?’

‘He re-loaded after shooting Rodrigo,’ I put in.

‘Victor?’ She laid her hand on his where it grasped the stock, his forefinger no more than half an inch from the trigger. ‘Don’t you think …’ Her gaze met his. I saw him flush with shame at what he must have known I could detect: a willingness to obey her amounting to subservience, an eagerness to let her take charge of events. With a droop of the head, he released the catch and let the breech fall open. Then he pulled out the cartridges, dropped them into his pocket and cast the gun onto the bed.

I stood up. Miss Roebuck was looking at me now, frowning studiously, as if I posed a complex problem which she was nonetheless confident of solving. ‘I think you should know—’ I began, but she cut me short with a raised hand.

‘Let’s speak outside. It’ll be easier to think there.’ She glanced at Victor. ‘Why don’t you go and dress, Victor, before the police arrive?’

He sighed heavily and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Very well,’ he murmured. Then he walked swiftly from the room. Miss Roebuck gestured for me to follow. Eager in that instant to be out of the sight of Rodrigo’s body and of his blood, splattered all around us, I complied.

When I reached the passage, Victor was nowhere to be seen. I heard Miss Roebuck close and lock the door behind her, then I turned to face her. ‘He meant to kill me as well, you know.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You weren’t there. I shall make sure the police—’

‘Listen to me! The police will be here very soon. We haven’t long, so it’s important we don’t waste the time we do have. What do you propose to tell them?’

‘Why … The truth, of course.’

‘And what is the truth?’

‘That Victor lured Rodrigo and me here tonight. That he knew we were coming. And that he set out to murder us both under the cover of self-defence.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘That won’t do at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You won’t be believed. Not for an instant. Not in the slightest particular.’

‘You’re wrong. I can prove we were led into a trap.’

‘How?’

‘Victor’s own valet was the source of Rodrigo’s information.’

‘Gleasure will deny it.’

‘Why did Victor leave London before the end of the trial, then?’

‘Because he was no longer needed.’

‘And why isn’t he sleeping in his own bedroom?’

‘It hasn’t been properly aired. He arrived back unexpectedly.’ The inadequacy of this explanation required no emphasis by me. We stared at each other in silence for a moment, then she said: ‘It’s important we understand each other. Rodrigo threatened to kill Victor. I think you’ll agree it wasn’t an idle threat.’

‘You admit this was a trap, then?’

‘The intention was to have him arrested and deported.’

‘And me?’

‘He chose to involve you, we didn’t. But I won’t deny we foresaw the possibility. How else could he hope to get into the house and find the safe? But we could only tempt him so far. He would have become suspicious if Gleasure had been any more forthcoming.’

‘How did you know we’d come tonight?’

‘As soon as Hermione arrived yesterday afternoon, I realized what your plan was. I alerted Victor straightaway.’

‘So, why the guard-dog, the broken glass, the locks?’

‘Because, at first, Victor thought they were all the protection he needed. But Rodrigo wouldn’t stop hounding him. Waiting in the road for him to come and go. Following him round Hereford. Trying to bribe the servants. With the trial imminent, Victor was becoming desperate. Contrary to what you think, he’d done nothing to engineer a guilty verdict. Nevertheless, it seemed then – as it seems now – the likeliest outcome. And Rodrigo had left us in no doubt of what he would do in the event that his sister hanged. So, what were we to do? Wait for him to take the revenge his primitive code of honour made him think was his due? Or bait a harmless trap for him?’

‘You call this harmless?’

‘Rodrigo’s death was of his own making. You have my word that all we intended to bring about was his deportation back to Brazil. What’s happened instead changes everything. It’s why I’ve told you as much as I have. So you’ll understand – and agree to do as I suggest.’

‘And what do you suggest?’

‘That you leave. Now. Before the police arrive. There’s still time. And Victor won’t object. He’ll say he surprised a lone intruder who attacked him with a knife and that he shot him in self-defence. I’ll say I saw it happen and that Victor had no choice but to fire. We’ll claim we didn’t recognize Rodrigo until he was lying dead on the floor. As for his reasons for breaking in, nobody will be able to offer any explanation. There will be an inquest, of course, and Victor will have to answer a great many awkward questions, but—’

‘Not as many as if I stay and say my piece. Is that what you mean?’

‘It’s in your interests as much as ours. If you do stay, you’ll face criminal charges. Breaking and entering at the very least. More to the point, to sustain your version of events you’ll have to expose the parts played in all this by Hermione and Jacinta – and the reason why you’re so anxious to help Consuela. If what I hear about the trial is correct, her best hope lies in clemency, not acquittal. But what clemency is she likely to be shown if the criminal activities of her former lover become public knowledge? Or if, as a result, serious doubts are raised about the paternity of her daughter?’

As much to postpone a response on my part as to provoke one on hers, I said: ‘Did Victor really make a new will after Jacinta’s birth?’

‘If you are going to ask me what the terms of Victor’s will are, I ought to make it clear that I don’t know. Nobody knows – except Victor and his solicitor. Which means that Rodrigo’s fanciful theory, exonerating Consuela, falls at its first hurdle.’

‘But is it—’

‘We don’t have much longer! You must go now – or stay. If you go, the police need never know you had anything to do with this. And I promise Jacinta won’t be punished in any way. We’ll let her believe we have no idea she helped you. But, if you stay …’

Why did nothing seem clear except that I had no choice? Why did flight – as so often in my life – seem the only answer? I swallowed hard and saw, in Imogen Roebuck’s eyes, the glint of victory.

‘The courtyard door is open. So are the main gates. I sent Harris down to open them for the police and told him to come straight back. So, you can walk out without anyone knowing. If you cut down through the orchard, you can be on the main road within five minutes. In any case, it would be best to avoid the drive, don’t you think?’ I stared at her, but she did not flinch. Her ironic gaze conveyed her meaning precisely. If I left, I was a coward. If I stayed, I was a fool. But at least a coward can hope to discover bravery before the next battle, whereas to be a fool is to be a fool for ever.

‘You must go now. It’s your last chance.’ As she said it, she almost smiled. In her tone there was not a shred of doubt about what I would do. She knew and so did I.