The Tomb of Zeus Page 22

  He raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “She collapsed, practically into the pudding. She'd been very wobbly all morning…I hadn't realised that her feet and ankles were terribly sore and I thought it was just another stumble, but it was more than that. She lost consciousness. And the doc drove her back in George's Bugatti. I cycled back with Olivia. We must have arrived, oh, half an hour after them and then I walked back here from the Stoddarts' house.”

  “Did you come straight back here after leaving Olivia?”

  “Well, no. It was a Sunday. I loitered, enjoying the atmosphere, watching people parade about in their Sunday best…it's all very exotic for me, you know! And the shops. I looked in quite a few windows on the way back down the avenue.”

  “You came by the main road?”

  She nodded. “It's the only one I know. I had only arrived two days before. I didn't—and still don't—know the byways.”

  “Or the shortcuts,” he murmured.

  “So. Phoebe is given a sleeping pill. It had to come from her own supplies. Did you…?”

  “Of course, mademoiselle.” He rummaged in his briefcase and took out an evidence bag. “This bottle. It was in her bathroom. The label declares that it contains the usual amount of twenty pills. Prescribed a year ago. These are rather a strong formula and doctors never prescribe in large quantities for obvious reasons. This bottle contains nineteen. The doctor says he gave her one pill that day.”

  “Phoebe didn't like to take drugs. We know that. Harold knew that. He said he sat here at the table and watched her take it. Eleni brought a glass of fresh water…Right…I'm Phoebe. I'm upset…cross…nervous…I have things to do…decisions to make…A letter to write to George? If ever I needed to keep my wits about me it's at this moment. I don't like the idea of sleeping pills anyway. Now—Phoebe was right-handed.”

  Mariani watched as the young Englishwoman held an imaginary glass in her right hand and an imaginary pill in her left. She put the pill to her lips, pulled a face, and swallowed from the glass. Under cover of replacing it with a flourish on the table, her left hand went casually to the cushion of the wicker chair and felt about beneath it. It came up a second later, a white pill pinched between thumb and forefinger.

  Mariani said something unintelligible in Greek.

  Letty looked closely at the pill, seemingly amazed to find it in her hand. “It's got a trace of lipstick on it—do you see? Phoebe pretended to swallow it, palmed it, and hid it in the easiest place.” Her voice betrayed her distress as she spoke again: “This is worse than I feared. You know what this means, Inspector? Phoebe went to her death fully conscious. She was in complete possession of her senses when the noose went round her neck.”

  She knew what she was doing! Good lord! Old Sokratis Perakis had it right!” said Mariani, taken aback. “She did commit suicide. There were no signs of a struggle, no resistance had been put up. And if she was fully conscious, she could have resisted. Anyone would have.” He was muttering to himself, reasoning aloud. “Her husband, through there,” he pointed to the door standing open, “would have heard something. Would surely have been alerted and come running?”

  They looked at each other, unwilling to share their thought. “Unless he was in the room with her at the time, with his hands around her throat,” Letty managed to hold back from saying.

  They both jumped on hearing a tap at the door and the embarrassed clearing of a throat. Mariani strode over and flung the door wide open to reveal the boot boy, pressed into service to deliver a message.

  “Excuse me, sir…lady,” the lad mumbled. “There's a gentleman below who urgently wants to speak to the master, but Mr. Collingwood won't let him up until you say it's all right. It's the mistress's lawyer come all the way from Athens.” He thrust a card into Mariani's hand.

  Mariani didn't hesitate. “Mr. Russell is not to be wakened. Send the gentleman up here. I will have a word with him. Thank you.”

  “Would you like me to…?” Letty began to say politely, edging to the door.

  “No, no. Stay here, Miss Talbot. We'll receive him together.” He passed her the card.

  “A Frenchman,” she said. “Offices here in Herakleion. Also Paris and Athens.”

  “Monsieur Dupleix.” Mariani beamed, taking the hand of the puzzled lawyer when he appeared. “I believe we have met before. Do come inside and I'll present you to a young lady, a compatriot and friend of the deceased who was in her confidence. Miss Talbot is helping me in my researches.”

  M. Dupleix was most uncomfortable, and it took all Mariani's easy charm to persuade him to enter. He was young, like the inspector, but had none of his confidence. Letty noticed that as soon as his prey was inside, the inspector stationed himself in front of the door, which he closed gently.

  “I came the moment I got the news,” Dupleix said defensively. “I was in Athens when the telegram reached me. Dropped everything and came back on the next boat. Thought it might be urgent. But, of course, I should be addressing myself to her husband and her immediate family. Have we had the funeral yet? Families like to hear the will read straight after the last slice of funeral fruit-cake's disappeared, you know. Haven't missed it, have I?”

  “No, no. It's scheduled for next week. It was decided to allow time for some of her relations to get here from Europe. Don't worry, Monsieur Dupleix, you are in good time! Take a seat, will you?”

  Uncertainly the lawyer sat down on the edge of the chair Mariani indicated, clutching his briefcase to his chest and looking up with suspicion at the imposing figure of the inspector.

  “You have the will with you?”

  “Yes, the final version. I have it.”

  “Final version? Tell me, monsieur, when was this arrived at?”

  The man clearly wanted to tell him it was none of his business.

  “You may not be aware, coming straight from the port, that a murder enquiry is in progress,” Mariani lied smoothly. “I believe Mrs. Russell to have been the victim of a murderous attack. She was hanged, monsieur, from that beam.” He pointed dramatically and Dupleix shuddered. He began nervously to tug at his moustache. “I am collecting evidence,” Mariani explained, “and the contents of your briefcase may well be material to the progress of my enquiry. I'm sure I don't need to spell out why.”

  Dupleix held his case more tightly to his chest. It was clearly going to take force to separate him from it.

  “Now. I would not like Mr. Russell to think that anyone had jumped the gun, set aside the protocol…I would not like you, my friend, to have to admit to any illegal or even careless lapse. So I will ask—and Miss Talbot will bear witness to my request”—Letty tilted her head and smiled, obliging and demure—“that you keep your documents to yourself, to be shown to whomever and whenever you judge proper.” He made a gesture conveying light unconcern. “I am not requiring that you show them to me.”

  Dupleix began to relax. Letty waited for the blow to fall.

  “But I must insist before you leave this room that you give me an outline of the contents—an oral résumé of Mrs. Russell's last will and testament will suffice. A simple statement of the main provisions will satisfy me and will help enormously in the pursuit of the guilty party. I'm quite certain you would wish to do all that you can to bring about his unmasking and arrest? No?”

  The lawyer considered his position. He weighed his options. He looked again at the athletic, smiling menace before him, camouflaged in reassuring blue serge and gold braid. He made his decision.

  “She changed it a month ago,” he finally answered. “She called at our office and did it there and then. Seemed extremely certain of what she wanted.”

  “Which was?”

  “You may be aware that my client was a rich woman? Legacies from—”

  Mariani nodded and with a brusque gesture invited him to get a move on.

  “She had maintained control of her assets on her marriage to Mr. Russell. He was, I believe, frequently consulted, but had no legal int
erest in her financial affairs. Though he did benefit in—” He caught himself, reconsidered, and carried on. “The upshot is: Instead of her wealth passing immediately and entirely to her husband, half her fortune now goes straight to her younger sister, Alice, who is married and living in Paris. Of the rest…a sum is to be invested in a trust in her husband's name and payments made to him from it at monthly intervals. The residue—by no means a negligible sum—is to go to her stepson, Charles St. George. No strings, no conditions; he may dispose of it as he wishes. Yes…Master George Russell is about to discover that he is now a very well-off young man!”

  “Indeed? And can you assure me, Monsieur, that no one but yourself was aware of Mrs. Russell's revised provisions?”

  “She did everything necessary in my office, as I've said. My secretary and my clerk witnessed the signing and, of course, were given no view of the document other than that. Mrs. Russell kept no copy of the will at home and was very clear as to her wish for absolute discretion in the matter. As far as I know she had kept it a close secret. Which it still was until a moment ago,” he added resentfully.

  “You have been most helpful, Monsieur Dupleix. I will remember that,” Mariani assured him. “And now, may I recommend that you return to your office? And await further instructions from the family? Mr. Theodore Russell is quite unable to deal with anything for the present. Distressed, indisposed…” he murmured.

  “Drunk as a skunk, the boot boy said.” Dupleix shrugged and made a dash for the door.

  A marrying man, that's what my old ma would have called him,” said Gunning.

  “Great heavens, William! I never realised you had a mother,” said Letty.

  “And I'm afraid it's what I shall be expected to become if I'm observed bringing you here alone with such frequency. Did you notice the waiter dashed forward with a potted palm the minute I put my foot over the doorstep?”

  “Where would you have preferred to confer? In the wrecked library? In the drawing room with Theodore snoring on the chaise longue? Your room or mine? People just assume we're tourists from one of the boats. A kind uncle taking his niece for a pastry. Oh, speaking of which, I'll have one of those little Cretan cheese-and-cinnamon things.”

  Gunning ordered kalitsounia me kanella for two and a pot of Darjeeling.

  “You're confusing this with your last job, I think, William. Last summer, you were supposed—you were paid to ensure I didn't get into trouble of an amorous, or any other, nature. You are no longer employed by my father, so you can jolly well come off watch.”

  “I'm sorry. Old habits…I got used to trying to fend off the beasts of prey.”

  “He's not a beast of prey! William, you're mad! Kosta—the inspector—is a very respectable, educated, and honourable man.” She couldn't prevent herself from adding, “And dashed attractive! Cretan Christian name, Italian surname—that's a seductive blend…” George may have proved to be a damp squib when it came to tormenting Gunning, but here, most unexpectedly, was the unwitting policeman filling the role nicely.

  Gunning sighed. “I say again—Mariani's a marrying man. All Cretan men are that. A bachelor is almost unknown on this island. It's a wonder he's got to his age—thirty would you say?—still unattached. He's got mistresses all over Crete, I shouldn't wonder, but it's high time he settled down. His career demands it if nothing else. He's ambitious, and someone like you would do him credit-actually smooth his path—on the international scene. Mariani would be Head of Interpol in three years with you at his side.”

  “You let your imagination run away with you, William. There's no danger, I'm sure. But perhaps we shouldn't tell him quite yet that I'm a rich woman. Think what happened to poor Phoebe! Now—give me a moment to nibble this cake and I'll reveal to you the contents of her will. Phoebe Russell continues to astonish us, you'll find!”

  “Good lord!” Gunning's surprise at her account of her session with the inspector was very satisfying. “Well, I never! Seems morally correct to me—don't you agree, Letty?—that the lion's share of her fortune goes back to the family whence it came? But as to the rest…Theodore is going to be devastated to receive nothing more than a grudging annuity. More ructions to come from that quarter, I fear! I'd like to know the reason behind all that. And even stranger—the generous gift to George. She must have trusted him.”

  “Without conditions, too. He could just go out and buy a string of racing cars if he wanted to,” said Letty, disapproving. “Where is George?” she asked, struck with sudden anxiety. “I didn't like the look of that head wound his father inflicted. Someone ought to go and find him, check that he's all right.”

  “I was prowling the streets while you were dallying with the inspector. No trace of him. His car was seen making off towards the harbour. He could be miles away by now. All we can do is wait for him to come back again.”

  “I'm not so sure. A wound like that—he'll have taken it straight to the doctor, won't he? Come on, William. You know the way. That's where we'll start. Let's go and bother Harry.”

  The door of the Stoddart house down by the harbour was opened not by a maid but by Olivia herself. It creaked open a reluctant inch or two.

  “Yes?” The single word conveyed such a depth of inhospitality and suspicion that Gunning took a step back, and words of stumbling apology were already leaking from him when Letty firmly put her foot in the door, the assertive action belied by the cheerful smile on her face.

  “Olivia! It's only us! We need to see Harry. Rather urgently, I'm afraid. Tell me—how are you both bearing up? It's been quite a day one way and another, hasn't it?” She started to peel off her gloves.

  Olivia's face was blotched with red—anger or grief?—impossible to tell. Her watery green eyes were swollen and she had clearly been weeping. She was twisting a damp handkerchief nervously between her hands. Clearly, Letty and Gunning were the last people she wanted to have in her hallway.

  “You can't see him. He's in his study and has asked not to be disturbed by anyone. You'll have to leave.”

  “Don't be silly, Ollie! Harry won't at all mind seeing us. It's about George. George Russell. And it is, as I say, very urgent.”

  “Matter of life and death,” Gunning added dramatically.

  Olivia hesitated. Finally, her nurse's instincts overcame her truculence. “I'll give you five minutes. That's all,” she said ungraciously. And, with a surprising swirl of resentment, in a voice rising out of control, “Oh, by all means, go in and annoy him! Why not? Kick him in the privates! Take a paper knife to his knick-knacks! What do I care?”

  Harry, when they hurried to his consulting room, looked up and cringed, obviously fearing just such an attack. He was righting a fallen hat stand and in some disarray, but he waved his visitors to chairs by his desk and took a seat behind it. Letty looked about her with dismay. The scene in the library at the Europa had been devastating. A battlefield. This consulting room could in no way be compared with that, but emotions had been unloosed here also. Ink had spilled from an inkwell, ponding over the desk and dripping onto the Turkey carpet; a framed photograph had been knocked from the mantelpiece, the glass splintered.

  Curious to see whose features had incited someone to smash a heel down over them, Letty took a wider than necessary track to her seat and noted the subject of the photograph as she passed by.

  Aurelia.

  Strangely, not a picture of a person but a ship. The steamship Aurelia. The kind of trashy souvenir handed out by the captain at the end of a cruise, received with gushing thanks, and instantly thrown away with the rubbish. In this austere, panelled room it was puzzlingly out of place.

  “George Russell? You've come about George Russell?” Harry seemed surprised and relieved. “Haven't seen him since this morning—in the courtroom. Why do you ask?”

  “We're very concerned for him…” Gunning gave a résumé of the scene at the Europa, outlining the reason for the altercation and describing, as best he could from his brief glimpse, the serious nature o
f George's wound.

  “Hit him with a volume of The Palace? Good God! Weighs a ton! And he drove off? In that car? I understand your concern. Better check the hospital. The boy's most probably a casualty by now.”

  Stoddart looked exhausted, Letty thought. His wife had been giving him a rough time and the coroner's court had been a strain. If ever wifely sympathy was called for, this was the moment. What could have got into Olivia? And what was the reason for those crude and desperate suggestions she'd thrust at them? Letty eyed the paper knife on Harry's stationery tray, almost fearing to see blood on it. And—knick-knacks? What on earth did Olivia have in mind?

  And then the shock of realisation ran through her. Her mind had seized on the last dozen pieces of a jigsaw and slotted them home with gathering speed, one after the other.

  She was sitting opposite the man who had murdered Phoebe. And she was going to make him confess.

  She put a restraining hand on Gunning's knee as he made to rise and leave. He instantly, without quibble, sank back, waiting to hear from her.

  “Such an unfortunate family, the Russells,” she remarked. “How many more disasters? And how unfair that George should be found guilty of being the father of that poor babe! Surely the true father must be in Europe and well away from the scene? No man with a shred of honour could stand by and see another being destroyed by an unjust accusation! I do not think George could possibly be responsible…nor does William. What about you, Doctor? Does this strike you as a reasonable proposition?”

  “Well…no…Actually, George would be the very last person who'd come to mind…”

  “We should be looking elsewhere for the man in Phoebe's life. For her Christmas lover. ‘N'aimez que moi,’ he told her in the rue de la Paix.” Letty sighed. “And that's just what poor Phoebe did. You should be aware, Doctor, that I visited her room again just now with Inspector Mariani. We made some interesting discoveries.”

  Stoddart slumped at his desk, waiting for the blow to fall.