David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘William,’ she said, ‘I’m so glad to see you. I’m sure everybody here will be glad to have you back. But what happened? Why did you not send word? It’s days now you’ve been gone. We thought you might be dead.’

William pulled a crumpled telegram from his pocket and smoothed it out as best he could. ‘This came for me very early in the morning the day I left,’ he said. ‘Nobody else was about. Please read it. I don’t think I could read it again.’

‘Mother severely ill. Please come at once. Father.’ Georgina Nash read it to herself and looked up at the young man.

‘I was in such a state when I got that, I just rushed off. I know now I should have left a note. When I got home, my mother was very ill. There was some terrible influenza going round and she had caught it worse than most. The doctor told me he was so glad I had been able to come. He didn’t think she would last another twenty-four hours.’ William paused while a cup of tea was poured for him. He looked up into the reassuring face of the butler Charlie Healey.

‘William’s just been telling me about the terrible time he’s been having,’ Georgina Nash said to her butler. Charlie Healey smiled at William and withdrew.

William looked close to tears once more. ‘If you’d rather wait and tell me another time, I’m perfectly happy to do that,’ said Georgina.

‘No,’ said William gulping at his tea, ‘it’ll be bad whenever I tell you.’ He paused and looked up at a sumptuous Gainsborough of a previous chatelaine of Brympton, Lady Caroline Suffield. She too seemed to be smiling down at him.

‘Neither my father nor I knew exactly when she passed away, it must have been one or two in the morning. We thought at first she’d just gone to sleep, she looked so peaceful, as if the pain had been taken away. Then she seemed to lose colour. Then we knew.’

Mrs Nash gave him another cup of tea. ‘I was so upset I never thought of sending word back here,’ William said sadly, ‘and there was so much to do what with the funeral and all. It was the next morning I sent the telegram here saying what had happened. Or at least I think I sent the telegram. I’d never sent one before and I got a bit confused in the post office about the money and that.’

‘It never got here,’ said Georgina Nash. ‘Never mind. The main thing is you’re safe now.’

‘I’ve nearly finished now,’ said the young man. ‘We had the funeral this morning and that was awful. It didn’t seem real, as if it were happening to somebody else. My father seemed to feel a bit better when it was over. “We’re through with it all now, thank God,” he said to me as I was leaving. “Your mother would want us all to get on with our lives.”’ William Stebbings stopped. ‘So here I am,’ he said and burst into tears once more. Georgina Nash comforted the young man as best she could. Then she hurried off to send word to her husband and telegraph to Powerscourt and Pugh to give them the good news.

‘What do you make of all that, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy as they rattled back towards Beaune.

‘It’s the only case I’ve ever come across with a bigamist at the heart of it,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Easy to see how he got caught, I suppose. I’m sure I leave bits of paper and letters hanging out of my pockets all the time. I shall have to be more careful in future. But it doesn’t look as if the bigamy killed him.’

‘Surely it did in a way,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘If he hadn’t been a bigamist he wouldn’t have been in France to come across the pretty young wife down the road. And if he hadn’t had the tendencies of a bigamist he wouldn’t have carried on with her like that.’ Lady Lucy looked across at her husband and considered some of his qualities. Absent-minded, yes, sometimes selfish when on a case, yes, forgetful, yes, too interested in cricket, yes, bigamist or even capable of bigamy, absolutely not. ‘Do you think her husband the sergeant did it?’

‘We’ll have to ask her tomorrow where the husband is based. Then we can send a cable asking when he was there and when he wasn’t. Pretend for a moment, Lucy, that they now have women on juries. It’s a triumph for the suffragette cause. You’re on the jury trying Cosmo Colville. The defence come along with a story about a flirtation in France, a stolen kiss, a promise to kill our bigamist friend, who is indeed murdered. A Frenchman came to Norfolk, stayed overnight in a hotel the day before the wedding, set off in the morning to attend said nuptials. The contention of the defence is that Yvette Planchon’s husband was that hotel guest. He didn’t attend the wedding service in case he was noticed and remembered, but he managed to make his way into the house and kill Randolph before the wedding lunch. Would you believe it, Lucy?’

‘We come back to the gun, surely, Francis.’ Lady Lucy was frowning at her new responsibilities as a jurywoman. ‘How did the Frenchman get hold of the gun?’

‘There’s an answer to that, surely. Randolph remembers the death threat from this volatile French person. Randolph brings the gun in case the Frenchman turns up. But the point here is this, Lucy. Would you believe the story about the Frenchman from Burgundy? Or rather would you believe it enough not to believe in the prosecution version, if you see what I mean?’

‘I’m not sure, Francis. I’m not sure at all. I think I wouldn’t really believe either of them, which means I’d be for an acquittal, I suppose. The evidence against the Frenchman is pretty flimsy when you think about it. Nobody remembers actually seeing him at the wedding. It would be different surely if they had. None of those people on the seating plan you wrote to remembered seeing a Frenchman either, did they?’

‘No, they didn’t, but I don’t think that’s conclusive. Nobody ever knows all the guests at weddings.’

‘One more question, Francis. Why did Randolph Colville change his name in France? Why didn’t he just carry on being Colville? There are plenty of English people with English names living in France after all.’

‘I don’t know the answer to that, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I can guess. Plenty of English people pass through Burgundy for one reason or another. Randolph Colville, they say to themselves? I was at school with the fellow. I’ve bought a lot of wine from him. I wonder how he’s getting on. Fancy him ending up here of all places. I’ll pop over and see him this evening. One or two of those and you’re finished. A visitor from the Home Counties – one is enough – reports back to his friends that he’s seen Randolph Colville in France when they saw him only last week at the races in Epsom. Too risky, I’d say. That’s why I think he changed his name.’

They had now reached their hotel. As they walked up the steps to the entrance they were greeted by a loud shout from a figure holding the largest glass of red wine that Powerscourt had ever seen.

‘Francis! Lucy! How very nice to see you!’ Looking completely unruffled from his hectic charge across France, Johnny Fitzgerald had come to pay his respects. There was a good deal of mutual embracing and kissing on both cheeks.

‘Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, ‘stay here a moment for me. Don’t move.’

He shot into the hotel and communed with the man at reception for some minutes.

‘Johnny,’ he said, returning to join his friend, ‘I hope you haven’t unpacked or anything.’

‘Course I haven’t unpacked yet,’ said Johnny, ‘I’m not a bloody butler, for God’s sake. What’s all this about, Francis?’

‘It is now six forty-five, my friend. At twenty minutes past seven the last Paris express stops in Beaune. There is a night train to Calais, for some reason. Most irregular but never mind.’