R.T. Raichev - Murder of Gonzago

‘I believe he was. The week before he was killed I saw him shoot a rabbit … May I have your pirog , if you’re not going to eat it? It helps me to concentrate if I eat.’

‘You are welcome to it. I haven’t touched it. By all means.’ Antonia pushed the plate towards her.

‘I’d eat anything that’s got jam in it … When I am tense, I tend to eat more than usual,’ Louise confided. ‘I love pirog . I’d sell my soul for a well-made pirog .’

‘Did you say Lord Remnant shot a rabbit?’

‘Yes. It happened the week before he died. I was in the garden next to La Sorciere — enormous botanical gardens, as large as a cricket pitch, stretching down to the sea. I saw Lord Remnant first, then I saw the rabbit. The silly thing was sitting on its haunches, still as a statue. It seemed to think that if it didn’t move, it would remain unnoticed! Lord Remnant was wearing old corduroy trousers, a shabby tweed jacket and he had a pith helmet on his head. He looked terribly eccentric, quite ridiculous, really.’

‘He had a gun with him?’

‘Yes. He lifted the gun and took aim, but he didn’t fire at once. I must have gasped — he glanced in my direction and smiled — as though to say, watch. Then he fired. The bullet hit the rabbit’s hindquarters. The poor creature screamed — how it screamed! It started crawling towards the undergrowth-’

‘Oh no.’ Antonia couldn’t help herself.

Louise stabbed her fork into the pirog . ‘Lord Remnant fired again. This time the bullet hit the rabbit’s head. But still it wasn’t dead! It started twitching horribly. I thought he was going to grasp its hind legs and strike hard with his gun at the base of its neck, put it out of its misery. But he didn’t. He stood gazing at the quivering, bleeding, mangled creature. He gave a little bow in my direction. It was only then that he bludgeoned it to death with the butt of his gun.’

‘That wasn’t the same gun he was killed with, was it?’

‘Oh no, the gun he was killed with was much smaller. This was a four-ten gun. I am actually convinced he did it so very brutally because he knew I was watching. He then came up to me and said that shooting men and animals was the occupation of a gentleman, that it was the kind of thing that should be lauded and encouraged since it put a curb on effeminate impulses. Would you say that was funny? Or clever?’

‘No, not particularly.’

‘Lord Remnant took great pleasure in shocking and upsetting people. He had a real knack for it. He liked playing mind games — experimenting — goading people into doing things against their will — into compromising themselves. He liked setting people up. In my opinion, he displayed all the traits of a sociopath.’

There was a pause.

‘Tell me about the lead-up to the murder,’ Antonia said.

‘Dinner that evening was superb. Cocktails, iced consomme, roast duckling with apple sauce, peas and new potatoes.’ Louise sighed reminiscently. ‘Pudding was a very special kind of ice-cream called Alaska Bombe. There were scented candles on the table. Augustine and his wives went round with silver bowls full of fragrant rosewater for the ladies to dip their fingers in. It was quite marvellous.’

‘Was dinner on time or earlier than usual — because of the performance?’

‘Much earlier. Well, Lord Remnant was in a highly excited state. He was wearing his snow-white robes and he kept making appalling jokes. He asked Basil how the pigs on the farm were shaping up and, as he did so, he looked at me fixedly. He pointed to the jewellery Clarissa was wearing — to her necklace, bracelet, rings, earrings — and informed us that it was he who had given it all to her. He reached out and raised Clarissa’s hand to his lips. He then declared he hadn’t actually paid a penny for any of Clarissa’s jewels. He said he had pinched them.’

‘Pinched them?’

‘Yes. Every single piece of jewellery Clarissa was wearing that night had been stolen from the debs he had deflowered back in the sixties. There had been so many of them, he said, that sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he counted deflowered debutantes the way other people count sheep.’

‘He said that?’

‘Yes! A very unusual brand of debs’ delight, that’s how he described himself. A sort of erotic Raffles. Plumbing the depths of bestial debauchery had been his favourite pastime, but then most of the girls had been more than willing to be seduced by him. It wasn’t always plain sailing, though. Sometimes a girl struggled, which he found terribly irksome. He was not the kind of man who accepted no for an answer. Normally he was gentle and gracious, but he could also be pugnacious.’ Louise raised the saucer to her lips.

‘I hope he wasn’t hinting at rape,’ said Antonia.

‘He was hinting at rape.’

‘I don’t suppose he used the word?’

‘No. He had been firm, forceful and uncompromising, that’s how he put it. He had been in the habit of collecting trophies, to remind himself of his conquests. It was mainly jewellery he stole, but he’d also taken scarves and gloves and, on one memorable occasion, a stiletto-heeled shoe. Well-born girls in those days were fond of bedecking themselves, he said, frequently wearing the family jewels, so there were always rich pickings.’

‘You don’t think he was making it up, do you? Perhaps he was just showing off? One of his appalling jokes?’

‘Somehow I don’t think he was … The girls were usually so scared or ashamed of what they had allowed him to do to them, he said, they never made any fuss afterwards. They never complained, never told anyone about it. But he took no chances. He was careful to make it hard for anyone to track him down.’

‘How did he manage that?’

‘He wore disguise. He described himself as an “inveterate masquerader”. He had a talent for voices and accents. He would attend parties wearing a variety of beards, moustaches, wigs and so on, and each time he gave a false name. He said there was nothing like making love in disguise. He got a kick out of passing himself off as a foreigner, French or Italian, sometimes Portuguese. He spoke French like a native. That made things easier, he said.’

‘He chose nations he liked?’

‘He chose nations he particularly dis liked. That was part of the joke. He’d pretended to be a sheikh and a maharaja several times, but maharajas, apparently, took ages to get right.’

‘He was never recognized?’

‘He said he wasn’t. Afterwards no one would associate him with the character he had played. Some of his hosts and hostesses cooperated with him, though he was a notorious gatecrasher as well. He also admitted that on a number of occasions he resorted to spiking the girls’ drinks.’

‘He drugged them? Rohypnol? That’s a notorious date drug,’ Antonia murmured. ‘I wonder if it was available in the sixties?’

‘It was awful, sitting there listening to him. It was particularly awkward for Clarissa of course,’ Louise said with ill-concealed relish. ‘She pretended to treat the whole thing as a joke, as a ridiculous fantasy, but I could see she was upset. Poor old Hortense looked quite shaken too. I thought she might faint. In fact she got up and left the room. When she came back she looked sick as a parrot. Even Augustine seemed shocked — and he is rumoured to have slept with every single woman on Grenadin!’

‘Did anyone say anything?’

‘No. We all pretended that nothing untoward had been said. Basil praised the wine. SS asked if there was anything wrong with the air-conditioning. Renee, as usual, said nothing. Then suddenly Lord Remnant declared he was bored. He launched into one of his monologues. Why was it that most of the people he met were bores — conventional conformists, trivial-minded, insignificant little people with peanut-sized brains? Did anyone have an explanation ? He invariably felt depressed and demoralized after a dinner party. Talking to bores was like prodding at particularly resilient mattresses. He could bear neither the sound nor the look of bores. He glanced round the table as he said that. He then said he felt an irresistible urge to have himself blindfolded. There was only one chap he knew who wasn’t a bore. A chap called Quin.’