‘BUT HOW DID MR GONZALES know it was a fraud—that’s what I don’t understand.’ Lily Poole chewed thoughtfully on her cheese sandwich. ‘I read that letter you showed me from the estate agent in Switzerland, and I still can’t see how he guessed.’
‘I’ve wondered the same thing.’ Julia gazed sadly into the fire. ‘Poor Philip—I was so unkind to him after he accused Ilse.’ She turned to Madden. ‘What do you think, John?’
‘We may never know.’ Madden shrugged. ‘But if I had to guess I’d say it was some sort of sixth sense that alerted him.’
They had gathered in Julia Lesage’s drawing-room on their return from the village: Madden and Lily and Probst, and Angus Sinclair as well. The chief inspector was lying on the sofa in front of the fire wrapped in a blanket, drowsing for the most part, only half awake, but feeling better, or so he’d assured them, after swallowing two of his pills, the bottle that contained them having been discovered tucked under Doris’s mattress.
Although he’d done his best to disguise the fact, he’d been in considerable pain earlier, breathing with difficulty, and his memory of the past hour or two was confined to a series of fragmented images as he’d tried to piece together what had occurred from the time he’d collapsed in the snow after seeing Julia disappear down the slope in her toboggan. He remembered being loaded onto the sledge sometime after that and had wondered what had become of her, a mystery that was resolved when he’d awoken from a daze to find that Madden was carrying their hostess in his arms while he himself was being pulled along in the sledge by Hans Probst. It was only when they had reached the village that he had realized Lily was one of the party too and was bringing up the rear with her prisoner. And it was she who had filled in the missing parts of the story when she had come into the drawing-room before the others appeared, lugging a basket full of chopped wood to put on the fire. The chief inspector had been struggling to recall something he thought he remembered, but might have only imagined, and had turned to her for help.
‘Am I right in thinking I heard Billy Styles’s voice at some point?’ he asked her. ‘Is he here?’
‘We ran into him and Inspector Morgan in the village,’ Lily told him. ‘You were asleep. I’d left a message for them with the Banbury police. Then soon afterwards some more coppers arrived from Oxford and after one of them had driven Mrs Lesage’s car down so as to clear the road and a local farmer had used his tractor to cut a path for us, we all came up to the manor. Don’t you remember, sir?’
‘Only bits of it. I was drifting.’
She had sat down beside him for a few minutes. ‘They’d gone up there to talk to some lady who’d told the police that a man who looked just like Voss’s picture had broken into her house the other night. But after Mr Morgan grilled her she admitted it was really her fancy man who was there paying her a visit and who had legged it when her husband turned up unexpectedly.’
Lily shook with laughter.
‘Anyway, as I say, they got my message and came straight over and joined us. Mr Styles found your pills when he went upstairs to search Doris’s room. She hadn’t said much up to that point, nor has she since, as far as I know. According to Mr Probst she’s in what he called a catatonic state, whatever that might mean.’ Lily shrugged. ‘But she admitted she was Voss’s sister and her real name’s Alicia and she came over all queer at the sight of his body. Do you remember hearing her howl?’
‘Howl?’
‘Like a wolf. I’ve never heard anything like it.’ Lily shivered. ‘We had to drag her away.’
‘But Julia’s all right, is she? Mrs Lesage?’
‘Right as rain.’ Lily grinned. ‘Baxter was threatening to cut her throat and she just laughed in his face, or so Mr Madden said.’ She shook her head in wonder. ‘She’s upstairs now resting, but she’ll be down later.’
‘And where are Styles and Morgan?’
‘They came up here with us to collect the body in the garage. What was the lady’s name again?’
‘Ilse Holtz.’ Sinclair supplied the answer.
‘Then they went back to the village to see to the other two bodies—the ones up in the woods—and take Doris to Oxford and put her in the cells. But they’ll return tomorrow to get statements and so forth. Mrs Lesage has invited the rest of us to stay the night. She says she’d appreciate the company.’ Lily blew out a sigh. ‘I’m going to have some explaining to do myself,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I knew Mr Probst had a pistol with him when he shouldn’t have had and then he went and shot Voss. Do you reckon I’m in hot water, sir?’ She had looked anxiously at the chief inspector.
‘Not necessarily.’ Sinclair had given a few moments’ thought to the question. ‘The circumstances were exceptional, to say the least, and if you need any support Mr Madden and I will be pleased to speak on your behalf.’
‘Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.’ But Lily still needed to be reassured. ‘Then there’s the matter of Mr Styles’s car. I ran it into a snowbank. It’s still there, as far as I know.’
‘Ah . . . now that’s a serious matter.’ He saw the expression on her face and smiled. ‘I’m only joking, Lily. I doubt you’ve any need to worry. You’re the one who collared Doris after all.’ He yawned. ‘Where’s Mr Madden at the moment?’
‘Outside in the yard chopping wood. He managed to find a spare axe.’
‘Spare?’
‘The other one’s been impounded as evidence. Doris tried to brain him with it.’ She rose to add another few logs to the fire and then brushed off her hands. ‘I’ve got to get along to the kitchen myself and see if I can make us all something to eat. We’re a bit short of servants as you know.’ She grinned.
With her departure, the chief inspector had drifted off to sleep and only awakened when the others had joined him in the drawing-room for a belated supper.
‘A sixth sense?’ Julia asked.
Madden explained. ‘I’m afraid Philip Gonzales was known to the Spanish and German police as a confidence man, by name at any rate. Hans learned it from his people in Berlin.’ He glanced at the Berlin detective. ‘I think when Gonzales read that supposed letter you got from the agent telling you there had been a delay in the sale, he sensed a fraud was in the offing and thought Mrs Holtz must be the guilty party. After all, she handled most of your business affairs.’
Julia reflected on his words. ‘So what you’re saying, in a nutshell, is that it takes one to know one.’ She shook her head. ‘What a fool I’ve been. I never suspected he might be after my money. I was totally taken in by him.’
‘No, you’re wrong, Julia.’ To the surprise of all, it was Sinclair who spoke up. He’d been lying silent for so long they had thought him asleep. ‘I truly believe he only wanted to protect you. That’s why he went to Switzerland to talk to your agent. He knew something was wrong. I saw you two together, how he behaved with you, and whatever his original intentions might have been when he made your acquaintance, I think they changed. He became devoted to you. He would never have harmed you in any way.’
She turned to him. Her smile was tinged with sadness.
‘That’s very sweet of you, Angus. Thank you. And I shall always think of Philip that way. But as for Hieronymus Baxter! How could I have had that monster living under my roof for two years, together with his sister of all people? The joke is I’ve always thought of myself as a good judge of people.’
‘Most of us do, if that’s any consolation.’ Madden smiled. ‘And some of us live to regret it. But he probably traded on that. It was just a matter of never giving you any reason to suspect him, something he’d had plenty of practice at if his record is anything to go by.’
Sinclair stirred again.
‘What John is saying, Julia dear, is that if you have a fault, and I’m sure you don’t, then perhaps you’re too trusting.’
She threw back her head and laughed, her green eyes shining. ‘On the strength of that, I think I’ll have another glass of wine.’
Probst got to his feet at once, bottle in hand. In the absence of servants, it was Lily who had made the cheese sandwiches, Madden who had brought in a supply of wood for the fire, and Hans Probst who had opened two bottles of wine, retrieved from the cellar at their hostess’s direction.
‘Dear Herr Probst, I haven’t properly thanked you.’ Julia held out her glass. ‘If it weren’t for you I would be quite dead.’
The Berlin policeman received her words with a bow. ‘Honesty obliges me to admit it was a lucky shot, dear lady.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘I am nowhere near a good enough marksman to have risked aiming at his head when it was so close to yours. I intended to send a bullet past his ear, but close enough so that he could hear it whistle by. I remember from the war how the sound used to terrify me and I hoped it would cause him to let go of you. But I was out of breath from running and my hand was shaking.’
Julia couldn’t contain herself. ‘Are you telling me you only hit him by mistake?’ She burst out laughing.
‘I fear so.’ Probst hung his head.
‘Isn’t that marvellous? And it only proves what I’ve always said about life. That it’s just a question of luck. Let’s drink to that, shall we? Good luck to us all.’ She raised her glass, and the others followed suit.
Listening to his hostess, the chief inspector recalled something Madden had said to him earlier on their way back to the manor. ‘She launched herself down the hill on her sledge without a second thought. She knew exactly what she was doing, the risk she was taking, but she didn’t hesitate for a moment.’
She was one of those blessed with no fear of death, the chief inspector saw, and he realized too that he did not share her cool courage. He had always thought he would be ready when the moment came, but lying in the freezing snow, gasping for breath, and with the pain in his chest growing sharper by the second, he had found himself clinging to life, no matter if it was only to be counted in minutes, and knew he was condemned to live with the memory from now on. It was there, waiting for him, the void . . . just a heartbeat away.
‘Stop pretending, Angus. You’re not dead. I can tell. You’re breathing.’
Sinclair opened his eyes with a shocked start. He’d been in the middle of a dream populated by dark figures in an ice-clad forest.
‘Good God!’ he exclaimed.
‘No such luck.’ Lucy Madden’s smile was serpentine. ‘He’s otherwise occupied. Open your mouth.’
‘What—?’
She popped a pill in.
‘No, wait . . . I’ve already had two.’
‘Another one won’t hurt.’ Raising his head, she held a glass of water to his lips.
‘Stop it . . . I don’t want to . . .’ His protests went unheeded; the pill slipped down his throat. ‘But listen . . . you here . . . why?’ He half choked on the words.
‘I’m surprised you have the gall to ask.’ Her smile vanished. ‘You’re supposed to be resting, so we won’t prolong this conversation. But I’d better tell you now you’ve a lot of explaining to do. Honestly, I turn my back for five minutes and what do you do? Go off on the trail of some fiendish murderer. Don’t try to deny it. Lily’s told me the whole story.’
He wilted under her fierce gaze.
‘And as for this last episode, which, if I understand right, ended with you lying in the snow unconscious—well, I simply don’t know what to say. But Mother will, you can depend on it.’
The chief inspector shut his eyes. ‘On reflection I think I’d prefer to be dead,’ he said. ‘Where’s everyone?’ He’d woken to find himself alone in the drawing-room.
‘Mrs Lesage has gone to bed. We’ve been upstairs getting the rooms ready.’
The voice was Lily’s. She had come in from the hall while they were talking.
‘You and I are going to have to share,’ she said to Lucy, who rubbed her hands together in glee.
‘Oh, goody.’
‘And there’ll be no talking after lights-out.’ Madden came in from the hall. ‘Angus, we’re going to take you upstairs to your bedroom,’ he said. ‘That mobile seat of Julia’s is just the ticket. We’ll put you on it.’
‘You’ll do no such thing.’ The chief inspector bridled.
‘Do you see what I mean, Daddy?’ Lucy turned to her father. ‘He’s quite impossible.’
Footsteps sounded in the flagged hall outside. This time it was Hans Probst who came in. He was carrying a plate and a glass.
‘I found a cold leg of chicken in the fridge, Miss Madden. And I brought you a glass of wine as well. Will that be enough?’
‘More than enough . . . you are sweet.’ She favoured him with her mother’s smile. ‘And Lucy, please, that’s my name. It’s such a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from Angus.’
‘The pleasure is mine, I assure you.’ He bowed gravely to her. ‘I had no idea I would be so fortunate as to meet two lovely young ladies in such a short space of time: first Lily, and now you.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Sinclair threw up his hands.
Lucy lifted an eyebrow. But she was too busy with the chicken leg to speak.
‘Let’s get moving, shall we?’ Madden suggested. ‘Why don’t you get that seat down, Lily. You’ll find the switch at the bottom of the stairs. Are you ready, Angus?’
The chief inspector glowered.
‘Before that,’ he said, ‘would you mind just explaining to me what your daughter is doing here?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to ask her that. It’s a mystery to me.’ Madden chuckled. ‘Let’s get things ready, then.’ He turned to go out into the hall.
‘I’m here to lend a hand.’ Lucy put her plate down. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Not to me,’ Sinclair growled. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I borrowed a car from a friend, if you must know, and drove down from London. It wasn’t easy finding you. First I went to your hotel, but they didn’t know where either you or Daddy were. In the end I had to telephone the police. They weren’t happy about handing out information over the phone, so I had to go to the station in person and persuade them I was who I said I was. All in all, you’ve cost me a great deal of trouble, Angus.’ She finished her wine.
‘Yes, but to go back, you borrowed a car from a friend, you say?’ The chief inspector smiled sweetly. ‘A male one, I dare say.’
‘Just what do you mean by that?’ Lucy flushed.
‘One of your swains, was he?’
‘My swains?’
‘One of the four or five husbands you’re planning to have?’
‘What?’ Madden stuck his head through the doorway. ‘What did you say? Four or five husbands?’
‘It’s all right, Daddy, it’s nothing, pay no attention.’ Lucy made a soothing gesture. ‘Angus’s mind is wandering. I’ll give him another pill.’