Death of a wine merchant lfp-9 Read online

  Charles Augustus Pugh was seated at his desk in Gray’s Inn. His feet, for once, were on the ground, not resting on his desk. His hands were attending to some piece of paper rather than wrapped round the back of his neck.

  ‘Damn and blast!’ he said to Powerscourt, just settling himself in on the other side of the formidable desk. ‘I mean, seriously damn and blast!’ He opened a low drawer rather furtively and produced a packet of cheroots and a box of matches. ‘Not meant to have one of these before six o’clock in the evening. Manage it most days. I’ve always said a chap should be allowed a few sins every now and then to make his virtues brighter the rest of the time. Would you agree with that, my friend?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Powerscourt, wondering what fresh catastrophe had reduced Pugh to his tobacco at ten o’clock in the morning. A quick glance out of the window revealed no hecatomb of dead birds or dismembered mammals that might have been massacred by the Pugh chambers cat.

  ‘The gun,’ said Pugh, blowing a great cloud of smoke past Powerscourt, ‘you will remember the gun in the state bedroom, held by Cosmo, believed to have been the weapon used to kill Randolph?’ Powerscourt nodded. ‘My God, this cheroot tastes good. Maybe you have to smoke them earlier and earlier in the day.’ He took another contented puff. Powerscourt looked expectant.

  ‘And you will recall, my dear Powerscourt, that you yourself toiled mightily to find a couple of fingerprint experts who might be willing to give evidence, travelling as far as the louche purlieus of Brighton to find one of these gentlemen? And indeed you did find such a man. So I had our solicitors write to the Norfolk Constabulary, copied to the prosecution solicitors, naturally, to ask if one of our own experts might look at the fingerprints on the gun and give his opinion to the court. The law officers of East Anglia, I fear, took some time to reply. Now I know why. This is the relevant portion of their answer: “The Norfolk Constabulary does not, at present, have its own fingerprint service. In any cases where we consider fingerprint evidence necessary, we send the relevant materials to the Metropolitan Police in London and they look after our interests as they would those of their own officers. Unfortunately” – I’ll say this is unfortunate, Powerscourt, wait for it, my friend – “the gun found in the possession of Mr Cosmo Colville was brought back to Fakenham police station. It was not tagged or stored in a safe place. A new cleaning woman, unacquainted with the customs of the force and the need for integrity in the storing of evidence, dusted the gun the very day it was taken to Fakenham. She told the station sergeant that she didn’t like dirty and dusty objects cluttering up the place. It looks much better now it’s cleaned up, that gun, she told the officer in charge. There’s not a print left on the thing now. It’s as clear of fingerprints as the day it left the factory.” God save us all.’

  ‘Heaven deliver us from Norfolk cleaning women,’ said Powerscourt, ‘especially the ones from Fakenham. How bad is it, Pugh?’

  ‘Well, suppose there were no prints other than those of Cosmo Colville on the gun. We could have argued that he wiped the gun with his own handkerchief to protect the murderer, that it was entirely consistent with his policy of being prepared to lay down his life for another. And if there had been anybody else’s fingerprints, then they would obviously have been those of the murderer. So far, my lord,’ Pugh pulled at the sleeve of an imaginary gown, ‘we have not been able to find the owner of these other prints. Perhaps he is in hiding or has fled abroad. But, gentlemen of the jury, I would remind you of your duty not to convict my client if you think there is any doubt at all about his guilt. I put it to you that these other fingerprints are themselves eloquent witnesses to the dangers of a conviction and the need for a more prudent acquittal.’

  Pugh took another satisfying pull of his cheroot. ‘I could have wittered away for quite a long time in that vein, Powerscourt, you know. It might have done some good.’

  ‘Is there anything at all you can do with the gun, Pugh?’

  ‘Well,’ he grinned slightly, ‘I’ve subpoenaed the cleaning woman for a start. I want her to say that nobody had told her about not cleaning certain things, that she regarded everything in the station as fair game for her dusters, that if the Ark of the Covenant itself had dropped into the yard at the back of the premises, she’d have been on to that in a flash, brush and dusters in hand. I shall imply that the Norfolk police were negligent. I shall point out that their incompetence has made it impossible for my client to have a fair trial and that the case should be thrown out because of the tampering with the evidence.’

  ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of that?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ said Pugh, blowing an enormous cloud of smoke towards the ceiling, ‘but it’s worth a try. The thing is, I don’t think many of these judges understand fingerprints. One of them told me after a case not long ago that he believed they changed every time a person washed his hands. Stood to reason, his lordship said, all that water running over the skin, it’s bound to change the patterns.’

  ‘You are bound to be a much better judge than I of what might weigh with the jury, Pugh. Now the fingerprint evidence is gone, what are we left with?’

  ‘Don’t underestimate the cleaning lady, Powerscourt. I have high hopes of the cleaning lady. I shall recall the elderly police person before her. She may show up the Norfolk Constabulary for a collection of fools who couldn’t look after things properly, and ipso facto, were unlikely to have arrested the right man. Mind you, they may get some director person up from the Theatre Royal in Norwich to coach her. I’ve known provincial police forces do stranger things in my time.’

  ‘The mysterious Frenchman,’ said Powerscourt, ‘how do you rate him?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Pugh, ‘if anything I like the mysterious Frenchman even more than I like the cleaning lady of Fakenham. That couple from the hotel are going to appear for the defence. Tell me this, Powerscourt, you have been writing to lots of people who were near to where the murder was committed in the Long Gallery, is that not so? And none of them remember a Frenchman?’

  ‘Not one,’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘I just wonder if we shouldn’t shift the focus. Look at it this way. If our theory is correct, and the mysterious Frenchman was the murderer, then I don’t think he would have gone back into the crowd after he’d done the deed. He’d have cleared off as fast as he could, down the stairs from the state bedroom and legged it round the empty side of the Hall. So he wouldn’t have been up there in the Long Gallery for any of your correspondents to see. Why don’t we try the other seating plan, the one taken in the garden before they went into the house, and see if any of those people remember a Frenchman or a stranger. He’s bound to have been lurking about then. He had to get into the house to commit the murder after all.’

  ‘Right,’ said Powerscourt, ‘we’ll write to them all.’

  ‘What about the vanished under footman or trainee coachman or whatever he was,’ said Pugh. ‘Has he turned up yet?’

  ‘William Stebbings,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘trainee footman, close to the butler and the murder scene at Brympton Hall. No sign of him as yet. I think the Nashes are beginning to lose hope.’

  ‘I’m sure you know as well as I do, Powerscourt,’ said Charles Augustus Pugh, ‘horrible thing to say, but he’s more use to us dead than alive. God forgive me, but if he was murdered I could almost guarantee to get Cosmo off.’

  Powerscourt nodded across the desk. ‘Lucy and I were saying the same thing only the other day. I’d like to pick your brain on a slightly different tack, if I may. It doesn’t help us in the short term with the defence, mind you.’

  ‘As things stand at present,’ said Pugh, now nearing the end of his cheroot, ‘we don’t have enough to save Cosmo. Unless we can work a miracle, he’s going to swing. Tell me what you want to pick my brain about.’

  ‘It’s this,’ said Powerscourt, ‘why is Cosmo refusing to say a word? Nobody’s made any sense of that so far. Let’s leave women out of it for
a moment. What on earth would persuade a conservative character like Cosmo to play the hero? Does he know who the murderer is? Does he refuse to give somebody away? Is it a question of honour in some way? Did some dark secret of the Colvilles have to remain a secret? Family honour and all that? I can just about see Cosmo taking that line, you know. Like a lot of people who aren’t necessarily very clever, I’m sure he could be very obstinate when it came to what he saw as his interests or his family’s interests. Did the secret have to do with the family row? God knows, Pugh, I’m sure I don’t.’

  ‘I’m sure the notion of honour, probably family honour, is a runner. But your theory worked on an assumption that women had nothing to do with it. I seem to remember you telling me that one of his relations said Randolph was a ladies’ man throughout his lifetime, before and after his marriage. Who might he have been carrying on with who could have brought dishonour and disgrace to his family? The wife of a Colville? The wife of a competitor? Some pretty twenty-year-old serving maid? Somebody whose lowly origins would have brought disgrace to the family? But how could that lead to his death? Unless he promised money, marriage and all that to the girl and then changed his mind. Then she shoots him. That’s no good at all, Powerscourt. It remains the very centre of this case, that little tableau in the state bedroom, Randolph lying dead on the floor, Cosmo sitting opposite him with a gun in his hand, refusing to speak. If we could unravel that we could get Cosmo off, but we can’t.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald dropped into Markham Square late that afternoon. He refused all offers of tea. He had further news to report, though none of it, he would be the first to admit, likely to lead to an acquittal.

  ‘My first piece of news,’ he began, ‘has to do with the man we used to call the Necromancer.’

  ‘Used to call the Necromancer?’ Powerscourt cut in. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No, he’s not dead. I followed that Septimus Parry to a warehouse in Shadwell. Huge forbidding place, about six or seven floors. Maybe they’re all filled with fake wines. Anyway I was trying to listen at the door when they pulled me in. I was, thank God, a tramp for the afternoon, rather than myself. I had to confess to working for a Lord Francis Powerscourt every now and then, before they kicked me out. Literally. I’ve got a bloody great bruise on my leg. The thing is he’s not called Necromancer at all. He’s called the Alchemist. He was very cross that his fakery had been discovered. He uttered some dire threats against you, Francis.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’m not too worried about a few threats from a forger. He’ll probably find another corner of another warehouse tomorrow, I shouldn’t wonder. What news of Colvilles, Johnny?’

  ‘I think I’ve finally discovered what all the young men there are frightened of,’ Johnny said, stretching himself out full-length on a Powerscourt sofa. ‘They think the firm is going to go bust. It was bad enough, they said, with Randolph and Cosmo alive. Neither of them ever paid very much attention to the future. Their main concern was that things should go on as they had done in the past. But now they’re both gone, there’s nobody with any grip left in the place. There’s an old general manager who’s apparently no use to anybody at all. There’s a young relation called Tristram who tried to move into Randolph’s shoes and Randolph’s office recently but he was more interested in going out to lunch than he was in the business. He’s cleared off now. What they should do is to advertise for a first rate man from one of the other wine merchants and pay him handsomely to drag Colvilles back from the brink. One of the young men told me the place was running on collective memory, nothing else.’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that any of the young men had any information about dark secrets that might lie beneath the surface?’

  Johnny Fitzgerald shook his head. ‘I tried them all, all the bad words. Family rows, blackmail – I went on and on about blackmail – adultery, mistresses, fallen women. None of them registered. One of them told me they were too far from the centre to pick up any of that, and he was probably right.’

  Johnny looked sternly at the cupboard in the centre of the opposite wall. That was where the Powerscourt wine usually dwelt. But the doors were firmly closed today.

  ‘I think they may be a bit naughty, the Colvilles,’ he said, ‘but probably not any naughtier than everybody else.’

  ‘What sort of crimes are they up to, Johnny?’ asked Lady Lucy, very aware of the keen interest her guest was taking in the closed cupboard by the wall.

  ‘Bit loose with the labels was what my man said. Stuff comes up in a wine train from the south, wagon after wagon full of cheap Languedoc red, gets bottled in Dijon or Beaune and then labelled as Bourgogne Cuvee or some such name. Much more expensive now. My man says everybody’s doing it. This chap, he comes from Beaune by the way, had another story to tell. The Colvilles have a very close relationship with a man called Thevenet, Louis Thevenet, a grower in the Maconnais to the south of Beaune. He’s rather a whiz at wine making, our Louis, and when he produces a really cracking wine every two or three years the Colvilles buy the lot, get out the labels again and call it Meursault, which sells for more than four times the price of the Macon. It all adds up. They’ve also bought up a large parcel of land just inside the official boundary of Puligny Montrachet. Clean the land up, plant your vines, wait for them to grow and then you’ve got your very own world-class white wine at world-class prices. And there’s one other thing I’ve got to report. I’ve found the pub in St John’s Wood where the Colville servants drink. It’s called the Jolly Cricketers, oddly enough. I tried the subject of family rows in there two nights running and got absolutely nowhere. They’re not saying a word.’

  ‘All this fiddling about with the wines, it’s still not enough to kill for,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if he would ever get to the bottom of the mystery of two brothers, one dead and unable to speak, one alive and refusing to speak, and one gun which took the life of the elder.

  Johnny Fitzgerald looked at his watch and sprang to his feet. ‘Francis, Lady Lucy, forgive me, I’m going to be late. I’ve got to go to a meeting with my publishers about the bird book. Bloody man said he’d found a problem with it.’

  Half an hour later Johnny’s place in the Powerscourt drawing room was taken by the dapper figure of Sir Pericles Freme, dropped by in a hurry, as he put it, to impart one piece of important news and one rather odd piece of gossip.

  ‘The important thing,’ he began, checking that the crease on his trousers was still immaculate, ‘is this. Colvilles are in danger of going broke, going out of business. The business hasn’t been run properly for a long time. It’s going to seed really, like a field that hasn’t been cared for in years. Pity, really. In their day they were a fine business.’

  Powerscourt wondered how impending bankruptcy might provide a motive for murder but he couldn’t see it.

  ‘Could anything save them? The return of Cosmo maybe? A general increase in levels of thirst in the population at large?’

  Sir Pericles smiled. ‘Fresh management might do the trick. A substantial injection of funds might keep them afloat but they’d still have to put their house in order.’

  ‘And the gossip, Sir Pericles?’ asked Powerscourt hopefully. He had known many cases where the gossip had been more useful than the facts in solving the mystery.

  ‘Simply this,’ replied Freme. ‘That chap from Beaune, the one who looked after the Colville interests and has since disappeared, dammit, I’ve forgotten the fellow’s name.’

  ‘Drouhin,’ said Powerscourt, ‘Jean Pierre Drouhin.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Sir Pericles. ‘Anyway, it seems the fellow is completely ambidextrous, able to sign his name with both hands, write at the same time on both sides of a notebook, all kinds of tricks. Just thought I’d mention it.’

  With that Sir Pericles departed into the night.

  Neither Powerscourt nor Sir Pericles noticed a figure lurking in the shadows a few doors away from the Powerscourt house in Ma
rkham Square. The coat was drawn up and the hat was pulled down over the forehead. The figure appeared to have its eyes locked on the Powerscourt’s front door.

  Lady Lucy looked closely at her husband after Sir Pericles had left. He was walking up and down the drawing room again and his face looked as though he had travelled in his mind to some far distant place. Something was nagging at him, some connection he couldn’t quite place. Without a doubt it had to do with what Freme had just said, but was it the facts or the gossip that were swirling round his brain? He sat down by the fire and looked at Lady Lucy as if he hardly knew her. Then he came back.

  ‘Lucy,’ he began, ‘I think there was somebody else in this case who was ambidextrous but I can’t for the life of me remember who it was.’

  ‘Somebody in Norfolk perhaps, Francis? Some Colville relation? Someone to do with the wine business?’

  Powerscourt shook his head. Lucy was close, surely, but she hadn’t quite pulled it off. Suddenly he knew where he had heard it before. It was at Randolph’s funeral and the remark had come from a neighbour who had watched Randolph play tennis some years before without a backhand ever being employed. The thing was impossible, surely. Powerscourt shot down the stairs to his study where he had a file of information about the case. With difficulty he managed to raise Georgina Nash on the telephone. She was another great shouter down the line as if her words had to travel the entire length of the train tracks between Norwich and London. After checking in her wedding notebook she reported that Jean Pierre Drouhin and his wife had indeed been invited to the happy occasion, but had declined. The reply was in a man’s hand. She provided an address in Beaune. Lord Francis Powerscourt, she informed her husband as he tucked into a large helping of oysters later that evening, appeared to be losing his wits.