D. Mitchell - The King of Terrors

‘The pleasure was all mine,’ I said.

‘And you will come to wedding?’

I smiled. ‘Thank you for your invitation; as I said to Simon, I will be honoured.’

She nodded. ‘I do love him. You do believe that, don’t you?’

I said it was none of my business whether I believed her or not, but since she asked it I thought they appeared very much in love. They made a fine couple.

‘It is not about the money at all, though tongues have been wagging ever since we met. I did not know who he was at the time, I truly did not, and I never meant to fall in love, but we cannot help ourselves at times, can we?’

I agreed. I thought back to my own wife and how I missed her terribly.

She fell silent. ‘Is everything alright, Evelyn?’ I asked at length.

She smiled broadly and wished me well and a safe journey back home; that she looked forward to seeing me again at the wedding. However, I came away feeling there was something left unsaid that day, and that she veered away from it at the last moment.

I spent the rest of the morning playing a round of golf with Simon, albeit painfully slow on my part and I left Gattenby House warmed by my rekindled friendship with Simon. This time we vowed we would not allow our friendship to lapse. After all, true friends are so very hard to find, he told me. I realised as I was driven to the station that although he had great wealth, Simon was a very lonely man, save for Evelyn, in whom, he confided in me, he put all his trust and love, both of which he felt he’d not been able to dispense in a long time.

So you can understand how distraught Simon Lambert-Chide was when Evelyn disappeared never to return, two days before the wedding.

He called me on the phone, so upset he could hardly string two words together. For no apparent reason she had packed a small case with a few things, a selection of clothing, the brooch I saw her wearing, and left early in the morning. Where she went no one knew. She left him a short note, which Simon tearfully read to me, saying that she was immensely sorry but she had to leave; she said she loved him dearly and wished him well. Simon said he needed to see me and would I come over to the house right away? I agreed and went over the following day.

When I got there the contrast in the atmosphere of Gattenby House compared to that when I first visited was marked. It was now like a mausoleum. I saw the preparations for the wedding that had been made — large bouquets of flowers, white ribbons laced around the banister of the grand staircase, and in the dining room a large, multi-tiered wedding cake sitting on a magnificent table laid out for a good many guests. But the seats were to remain empty.

Simon was in the drawing room, clutching the crumpled letter. He was disconsolate, as if someone had taken a dagger to his very soul. ‘She may still return,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m not allowing any of the things to be packed away.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Hell, if she doesn’t want the wedding we don’t need it. Why, Thomas? Why has she left me? She told me she loved me, she told me she was happy, and I believed her.’

I said I could offer no explanation. It was quite bizarre. He then rambled on about her being abducted, forced to write the letter; she’d been kidnapped, and her jewellery taken as well. That was the reason, no matter how preposterous it appeared. He was clutching at any explanation he could.

‘Find her for me, Thomas,’ he asked as evening drew in on us. He had calmed down somewhat but he looked desperately beat up. ‘I don’t care what it takes, how much money, how long, just find her for me.’

I didn’t take him seriously at first. ‘What if she doesn’t want to be found?’ I speculated.

‘You were the best detective on the force. If anyone can find her, persuade her to come back to me, then that man is you. Help me, Thomas. I’m begging you, as a friend.’

I did not have the heart to disappoint him. I caved in to his ardent request. ‘You may not like what I find,’ I warned.

‘I don’t care. I simply want her back, good or bad. I’d give all this,’ he said, pointing loosely at the walls around him, ‘in exchange for her. She’s my life. I cannot live without her.’ He went to a cabinet and took out two photographs, which he held out for me to take. They were of Evelyn, sat in the Shelter by the glazed arched window where I’d first seen her. ‘They are copies, old boy.’ He looked on them as if his very soul would crumble into dust. ‘In case you need them.’ When he handed them over he turned his back on me, perhaps to hide the moistness in his eyes. ‘Find her for me, Charles. Return her to me, that is all I ask.’

Yet it was not that simple. During my short stay all hell broke loose. Simon’s son, David, came with news of a servant’s discovery. It transpired that many more things had gone missing alongside Evelyn. Apart from a significant amount of the former Mrs Lambert-Chide’s jewellery, there were many other valuable objects, including two small watercolours by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti; in truth the Victorian paintings had fallen out of favour with the art-buying public and were not worth a great deal in themselves, but in total the haul was worth many, many thousands of pounds.

‘I told you she was a bad egg, father,’ said David Lambert-Chide, wearing a corrosive I-told-you-so sneer. ‘Well, I’ve called the police. They will soon put a stop to this woman’s wicked ways. She was obviously part of a gang, had been planning this for ages. They knew exactly which pieces to target. Preparing for a wedding? She was all along preparing to fleece you, father, taking you for a jolly old ride.’

Simon, naturally, refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. And true to David’s word a veritable sandstorm of police officers descended upon Gattenby House, swirling around every hallway and corridor and filling the house in their search for evidence.

Simon did not want me to leave, even though I thought it wasn’t my place to be there in the midst of all this family angst. He took me into his private chambers. ‘Thomas,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but I don’t care a jot about the damned jewellery and paintings. I want you to find her, as you promised.’

‘But the police will soon find her,’ I said. ‘There are enough of them on the case, after all.’

‘Damn the police! She is innocent!’ he fired at me. Then his eyes softened. ‘They are looking for a thief. You are looking for a woman. Please, Thomas, for an old friend. Promise me you’ll try to find her. You are better than the whole of Scotland Yard. If anyone can locate her, then I know you can.’

We parted on the shaking of hands and an agreement that I would try my best, which seemed to calm him down somewhat, though I feared for his health, even at that stage in the game. I came away from Gattenby House with a heavy heart.

And so events took a queer turn. I began my long search for Evelyn Carter as promised. And this is where there came that inexplicable link with the long-deceased Jimmy Tate. It transpired the woman whom Simon had fallen in love with was not the real Evelyn Carter.

It gave weight to David Lambert-Chide’s accusations. It was part of a grand swindle. The Evelyn Carter whom his fiance claimed to be had died thirty years previously.

He sat on the edge of his bed, a fourteen-year-old boy on the verge of uncertain manhood, staring at the old wooden trunk lying on the floor in front of him. There were hefty bands of metal at the trunk’s corners, more ribs of metal enveloping it in a brutal embrace, a monstrous medieval-looking padlock securing the lid. Dust motes circled it, as if intrigued.