R.T. Raichev - Murder of Gonzago

Why had they been invited? They were not exactly Clarissa’s sort of people. Not as some kind of camouflage for Clarissa’s affair with the doctor, surely? That was what Louise had suggested. Louise was a nasty cat. He never ceased to marvel at the fascinating depths of his wife’s inexhaustible banality. Louise had gone out of her way to poison his mind against Clarissa. Louise was jealous. Terribly jealous. Well, there was nothing he could do about it.

Would things be different now that Lord Remnant was dead? Perhaps Clarissa would phone and ask him over for a drink. She owed him a lot . That was what she had told him the night Lord Remnant died.

What a night it had been …

The air had seemed full of electricity. They had stood about and stared … It was he and Sylvester-Sale who had eventually carried the body up the stairs — not to the master bedroom, Clarissa had said, but to Lord Remnant’s dressing room next door. They had laid the body on some kind of couch.

He had watched Dr Sylvester-Sale take off Lord Remnant’s cardboard nose, then his wig and the Gonzago beard. Lord Remnant’s eyes had been darkened with kohl — his cheeks covered in rouge — his mouth painted with purplish lipstick. The whole episode had had a nightmarish quality about it. They had kept the velvet cushion from the chaise longue downstairs under Lord Remnant’s head. The cushion had been damp with blood.

They had moved the body from the murder scene. They hadn’t called the police. It seemed that different rules operated at La Sorciere. Clarissa’s rules. Clarissa had taken charge of the situation.

He saw himself once more standing inside Lord Remnant’s dressing room. Each detail remained seared on his mind. The couch was upholstered in dark brown leather. There was a door on the right leading to the bedroom and another, a green baize door, to the en-suite bathroom on the left. A picture hung on the wall above the couch, an Edwardian painting entitled Cheating at Cards . It showed four men in full evening dress sitting stiffly around a table, one of them pulling a card sneakily out of his pocket.

Underneath the picture, pushed against the wall, stood a washstand of the greatest elaboration, dating back to the 1890s, or so he imagined; a freak of fancy, really, decorated with silverwork and a series of rhomboid-shaped painted panels. In the centre of it, forming the climax of the design, there was a prominent, highly ornamental copper tap.

As he stood looking down at Lord Remnant’s body, he had heard a sound. A laugh. A high-pitched giggle. He was sure he hadn’t imagined it. It had given him — well, quite a jolt, really. He had caught his breath. His hair had stood on end. Sylvester-Sale had been there, beside the door, on his way out, but he said he had heard nothing.

In a moment of weakness Basil had told Louise about it. He shouldn’t have. Louise had started speculating, wondering, propounding absurd theories … How could he ever have married her!

Basil Hunter stood still in his tracks and frowned. Though the window had been open, he didn’t think the sound had come from outside. He didn’t believe it had been made by a bird or an animal. It had been a human sound. Someone had laughed . Had there been someone hiding in the bathroom? But who? Who could it have been? Everybody had been downstairs — hadn’t they?

Their eyes were glued to the TV screen. Again they saw the french windows and the net curtains over them and once more the woman with the silver hair and the glasses — Clarissa’s aunt — was walking briskly towards the windows, but before she managed to draw the silk curtains, Payne held out the remote control and pressed the Pause button.

‘There it is.’ Payne pointed at the frozen image. ‘Do you see it?’

‘See what, Hughie?’

‘Do look carefully, darling.’

‘I am looking,’ Lady Grylls said a little peevishly. ‘Though I have no idea what I am supposed to see. There’s Roderick in the ghastly Gonzago beard lying on the divan — is that a divan?’

‘A chaise longue. What do you see behind the chaise longue?’

‘You make it sound like a game. What do I spy with my little eye? I see the french windows — the aunt — I have a feeling the aunt’s pretending to be scattier than she is. Beware of emotionally volatile women of a certain age — I wouldn’t trust the aunt.’

‘Never mind the aunt. What else do you see?’

‘I see a pedestal with what looks like a too perfect statuette of Pallas Athene. She has an annoyingly smug expression on her face. Am I the only one who finds classical figures forbidding?’

‘We’ll discuss art later,’ said Payne. ‘What else do you see?’

‘Nothing else. Only the net curtains.’

‘Concentrate on the net curtains … D’you notice anything?’

‘What is there to notice?’

‘Do you mean the shadow?’ Felicity Remnant said quietly.

‘I do mean the shadow. Eureka! You see it, Lady Remnant, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘Goodness, yes. You are absolutely right. There is some sort of shadow outlined against the net curtain. Someone is standing outside.’ Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘Doesn’t look like a human shadow — too big. What are those things sticking out of it?’

‘Are those — ears ?’ Felicity frowned.

‘I believe so.’

Lady Grylls screwed up her eyes. ‘What is it? Looks like a giant rabbit. Goodness, how gruesome.’

‘It’s a person dressed up as some kind of long-eared animal,’ Felicity said.

Payne fast-forwarded and paused again. The silk curtains were now drawn across the french windows.

‘Watch carefully,’ he said. ‘Do keep your eyes on the curtains. What do you see? Now .’

‘The curtains move — they part — oh, there’s someone standing there! Yes! Goodness!’ Lady Grylls’s hand was at her bosom. ‘Something’s protruding from between the curtains — oh, it’s gone! It caught the light for a moment, but it’s gone now. Something shiny. Something made of metal. There was a flash of sorts, but it happened awfully fast!’

‘Yes. It happened very fast.’ Payne leant back in his seat.

They watched the flailing Lord Remnant lift his head, gape and stare at the camera as though in tremendous surprise, then fall back and lie still.

There was a pause.

‘I believe that was a gun,’ Felicity said. ‘Wasn’t it?’

Payne nodded. ‘It was a gun, no bigger than a toy.’

‘So that’s what killed him,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘A gunshot to the head.’

Two hours later Major Payne was back in Hampstead.

‘Well, you will be pleased to know my copy-editing problem has been resolved,’ Antonia said. ‘My beloved Emmy has been persuaded not to hang up her pencil quite yet … Did the chest live up to your expectations?’

‘What chest?’

‘The chest you went to inspect, Hugh. Felicity Fenwick’s chest. The Damascus chest. I thought your aunt was taking you to see Felicity Fenwick’s Damascus chest.’

‘She was. I saw it. It has a secret drawer. The chest is fine,’ Payne said absently. ‘One of the most beautiful objects that has ever been crafted by man. I found it quite remarkable. Definitely on my list of desiderata.’

There was a pause.

‘What is it, Hugh? Has something happened?’

‘Well, yes. You’d never believe it if I told you. The most extraordinary business. The devil of a business.’

‘Surely not?’

‘I am afraid so.’ Payne produced his pipe portentously. ‘The game, as they say, is afoot.’