Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“What I think doesn’t matter,” said Trave. “It’s the jury’s decision that counts.”

“But you believe it was the wrong decision, don’t you?” said Silas, refusing to be put off. “You think I should be the one with my head in the noose. Not my precious brother.”

“I’ve got concerns. Yes. But they’re my affair. Not yours.”

Silas met the policeman’s stare for a moment and then dropped his eyes. “I’m here because I don’t think Stephen killed our father either,” he said in an almost inaudible voice. “I used to, but I don’t anymore. And I don’t want him to hang for something he never did. I was hoping that the appeal would work, but it didn’t, and now I’ve got to do something.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear that,” said Trave sarcastically. “But just how do you propose to stop them hanging your brother, Mr. Cade? Are you here to make a confession? If so, you’ll have to wait while I go and get a pen and some paper. It shouldn’t take long.”

“No,” said Silas angrily. “I didn’t kill my father any more than Stephen did.”

“That’s not what Mrs. Ritter said.”

“I know,” said Silas slowly. “I thought she was lying at first. God knows she was angry enough to say anything once she got in that courtroom. But now I’m not so sure. I think someone did go into my father’s study after Stephen left it and then slipped away across the courtyard after he came back.”

“Yes. And that person was you.”

“No. Not me. Someone wearing my hat and coat, pretending to be me. Jeanne never said she saw my face, remember? You were in court for her evidence.”

“All right, maybe she didn’t,” said Trave grudgingly. “But who was it she saw in the courtyard if it wasn’t you? Who else had a motive to kill your father?” Trave made no effort to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“I don’t know,” said Silas. “I wish I did, but I don’t.”

“You don’t know. And yet you’re the one with the motive and the alibi that I’ve never believed in for one second. How much did you pay Miss Vigne to say you were sleeping together, Mr. Cade? It must have been a lot, but I suppose you can afford it now that you’re the lord of Moreton Manor.”

Trave had had no intention of discussing the case with his visitor, but his anger toward Silas had got the better of him. Now he just wished Silas gone so that he could nurse his bitterness in peace.

“Why would I be here talking to you if I were the murderer?” asked Silas, refusing to give up now that he had come so far.

“I don’t know. Perhaps you’ve got a guilty conscience.”

“Oh, come on, Inspector. You can do better than that.” Silas had started to get to his feet while making this angry outburst, but now he sank back into the armchair, and his brow creased as if he was suddenly deep in thought.

The brass clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, and Silas nervously fingered the catch on the briefcase that he was holding across his knees.

“It’s not easy for me,” he said, breaking the silence. “Helping to exonerate my brother is just going to make you point the finger at me even more. It’s hardly an incentive. I was a lot better off when I believed that my brother did commit the murder.”

“What made you change your mind?” asked Trave. He was not in the business of making deals with murderers. If Silas had something to say, he should say it. Let the evidence point where it will.

“Jeanne’s dying and my almost getting killed by Ritter shook me up. Changed me more than my father’s death, I think. But in the end it was photographs,” said Silas. “Photographs and a name. They made me change my mind.”

“What name? What photographs?”

“The ones I have here. In my bag. If I show them to you, Inspector, will you do one thing for me? One small thing.”

“What thing?”

“Keep an open mind about who killed my father. That’s all I ask. Just keep an open mind.”

Trave was not won over. The pleading edge to Silas’s voice annoyed him. But the request was a reasonable one. If he’d had more of an open mind at the outset, he might not have been so quick to hand Stephen over to Gerald Thompson. And Silas was right. There was no reason for him to be here if he was the murderer. He would be undoing his best-laid plans just as they were coming to fruition.

“All right,” Trave said grudgingly. “I’ll keep an open mind. Now show me your pictures.”

Silas didn’t need to be asked twice. He opened the briefcase and took out two large colour photographs. Then, moving Trave’s whisky bottle out of the way, he laid them out side by side on the low coffee table in front of the fireplace.

Trave sat on the sofa as far away as he could from Silas and studied the pictures. It was obvious that one photograph was simply a blown-up section of the other. In the first the murdered man sat in his high-backed green leather armchair with the bullet hole in his forehead and the game of chess laid out on the table in front of him. In the second there were only the big heavy chess board and the hand-carved ivory pieces. Some were on the board and some were on the table, some still in play and some taken.

“Well, what’s the point?” asked Trave. The irritation was back in his voice. There was nothing new to see. Cade had played chess with his younger son before he died. Everyone agreed that that had happened. According to Thompson, the loss of the game was one of the things that drove Stephen over the edge.

“Can’t you see?” asked Silas.

“No, I can’t. And I don’t know how you got these photographs either. They’re a crime scene, for God’s sake. And that man’s your father.”

“Was my father. I took quite a few photographs when the policeman you’d put in the study had his back turned. It was the same one who told Jeanne all about me and Sasha at court. What was his name?”

“Clayton. Adam Clayton. And he didn’t tell Jeanne anything.”

“She overheard him. Yes, I know. But it still had the same effect. Anyway, the second picture, the one with the chess pieces: I developed that off the first one about a week ago. I did it because of what I heard my brother say when he was giving his evidence.”

“About what?”

“About the chess pieces. You were in court too, Inspector. I saw you. But perhaps you didn’t listen. Too busy building a case against me, I expect.”

Trave felt an almost irresistible desire to punch his visitor, to literally kick him out of the house. But he did resist. He swallowed his anger and waited for Silas to continue.

“Stephen said that our father told him he could have the money he wanted if he won a game of chess. And then a little later he said that Dad played black and without a knight, but he still won easily. All that struck a chord with me, Inspector. It was the sort of thing my father did. He liked to show off his superiority, and he had a sadistic streak. It was there all the time when we were children, but it got worse after my mother died-much worse.”

“In any case, what Stephen said about the chess game jogged something in my memory. And so I went back to the photographs I’d taken in the study, and that’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“That black didn’t win. Look. It’s the black king that can’t move. And the white queen’s attacking him down the rook file. White won in the photograph, Inspector. Not black.”

“And so he must have carried on playing chess with himself after Stephen walked out. Really serious players do that, don’t they?” said Trave, suddenly excited. “Your photograph shows that Stephen must have left the study like he said. And Cade replayed the game or some of it before his killer came in.”