Web of Discord Read online

  As Box came down the stairs, a fair-haired young woman emerged into the hall from a room near the front door of the house. She was wearing a simple black evening dress, and had thrown a light cashmere shawl across her shoulders. She looked at Box with what seemed like hauteur, but he recognized it as a special kind of nervous shyness that some girls betrayed when confronted by authority.

  ‘You will be Inspector Box,’ said the young woman. ‘I am Olga Courteline. Come into the morning-room, please. I should like to talk to you.’

  They entered a small, candle-lit room, where Olga motioned Box to sit beside a round mahogany table near the fireplace. Although she had called it the morning-room, Box thought that it was probably a kind of household office. Olga Courteline sat opposite him at the table.

  ‘Inspector Box,’ said Olga, ‘you have just come from seeing my mother. She will have told you what happened today, but she is in a very emotional state, and I thought a few words from me would give you a more accurate view of events.’

  A cool customer, thought Box, fully in control of herself. Whatever her private feelings, this young lady was expert at concealing them. He took a notebook from his pocket. Olga Courteline wouldn’t quail at the sight of him taking a few shorthand notes.

  ‘What happened, Mr Box, was this. Mother and I heard the sound of a shot downstairs. It was unbelievably loud, like a great clap of thunder. People were shouting and running. Mother and I sat transfixed with fear. I said: “Something has happened to Father”. Mother said nothing. She just sat quite still and frozen.’

  ‘But in the end, I believe, she went downstairs?’ asked Box gently.

  ‘She did. “Let me see him”, Mother said. I tried to dissuade her, but she insisted. I yielded to her entreaty, and that, I may say, was a great mistake. Mervyn and I helped her downstairs and into the study. Mother knelt by Father’s body, and touched his neck. She looked at her fingers – I think she expected to see blood on them, but there was none.’

  For the first time, the girl’s voice faltered. Conjuring up the morning’s horrors was beginning to have its effect.

  ‘What happened next, Miss Courteline?’ asked Box. ‘Your evidence is very valuable to me.’

  ‘Mother saw the cigar smouldering on the carpet near Father’s hand. “It’s still lit”, she said, and then she touched his hand. Suddenly, she started to scream. We should not have brought her down there. She screamed without ceasing. I half dragged her into the domestic quarters of the house where the cook and I attempted to calm her. It was useless. She screamed until she collapsed.’

  Box was quiet for a moment. He was wondering why this girl had decided to talk freely about her father’s murder, and her mother’s reaction to it. Most people did not volunteer that kind of information. They waited to be asked. Olga seemed to sense what was passing through his mind.

  ‘I’m telling you all this, Mr Box, because I know that Mother will have spoken dismissively of my father. She’d got into the habit of ridiculing his liking for clubs and coteries, and all the rest of it. But as you can see from her reaction to his murder, she loved him dearly. That isn’t hard to understand. My father was a great benefactor of mankind. In time, perhaps, he will be seen as a saint. So don’t set too much store on Mother’s slighting remarks. They are merely a mask for a lifetime of devotion.’

  When Box left the room, Mervyn was waiting to open the front door. Box took the bloodstained visiting card from his pocket, and handed it to the butler.

  ‘Do you recollect this calling-card being left at the house today, Mervyn?’ he asked.

  The butler viewed it with evident distaste, turning it over to look at the Russian characters on its reverse. He handed it back to Box.

  ‘No, indeed, sir,’ he said. ‘No such card was left here today.’ Mervyn hesitated for a little before adding, ‘It was very clever of you, sir, if I may say so, to identify the assassin so quickly, and then bring him to book.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to say so, Mr Mervyn,’ said Box. ‘But I’ve still got to find who it was who hired Killer Kitely to do the murder. I’m only halfway there, you see, and maybe this calling-card will take me a bit further along the path.’

  He accepted his hat and gloves from Mervyn, and stepped out into Edgerton Square.

  It was quite dark when Box got back to King James’s Rents. Sergeant Knollys was sitting at the long table, writing carefully in a notebook. He looked up from his task as Box pushed open the swing doors and came into the warm office. He sank down in his chair with a sigh, and threw his hat and gloves on the table.

  ‘I’ve been to see Lady Courteline,’ he said. ‘She tells an interesting tale, Sergeant, but there’s something about her manner that I can’t quite fathom. I met her daughter, too. But never mind them for the moment. How did you get on at East Dock Street?’

  ‘Well, sir, there’s not much left of that side of the street where Kitely’s hideout was, but they’d set up gas flares in the ruins, and – well, guess who was there, sitting on top of a pile of wet debris?’

  ‘Not Mr Mack? Surely they wouldn’t send a Home Office explosives expert to a place like that?’

  ‘Mr Mack it was, sir. Maybe someone high up told the Home Office to show some interest over Sir John Courteline’s murder. There he was, in the ruins of Kitely’s house, with his umbrella up, and smoking that clay pipe of his. He was holding a length of gas-pipe.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said it was a very nice piece of work, simple and effective. The gas-pipe had been severed with a hacksaw. He’d found that, too, and told me the name of the tool shop where it must have been bought.’

  Box laughed. The past year had brought him into close contact with the old expert from the Home Office Explosives Inspectorate, and there had grown up between him and Box a mutual regard. Mr Mack was no stranger to King James’s Rents.

  ‘But there was more to it than that, sir,’ Knollys continued. ‘He told me that he’d found the remains of a marine flare, and part of the metal mechanism used to hold a slow-match. Our murderous friend had arranged for Killer Kitely to be blown to pieces.’

  Arnold Box lit a thin cigar, flicked the wax vesta into the grate, and smoked in silence for a while. Knollys was content to wait. He listened to the coal settling in the grate, and the gas mantle spluttering and hissing.

  ‘Our murderous friend,’ said Box at length. ‘Perhaps he was the man whose name is printed on that card: Dr N.I. Karenin.’

  ‘We can’t be sure about that, sir.’

  ‘No; but there’s such a thing as being too cautious, Sergeant. That card…. I thought at first that Sir John Courteline had been holding it when he was shot, but I’ve changed my mind about that. I’ve just spoken to Mervyn, the butler, and he was positive that no such card had been handed in at the house today.’

  ‘You said that the card was lying near his hand?’

  ‘Yes, but not in his hand, Sergeant. He wasn’t clutching it. I rather think that it was Killer Kitely who placed that card there after he shot his victim. This Dr Karenin told him to do it, as much as to say, “Here’s my master’s calling card. Please accept a bullet through the heart, with his compliments”. It’s just a thought.’

  ‘It sounds as though there’s politics involved somewhere, sir.’

  ‘Perhaps; but that’s none of our business, Sergeant. Dr Karenin’s name isn’t in any of the medical registers, by the way, which doesn’t surprise me. Nobody I’ve asked seems to have heard of him.’

  Box sighed, stretched his arms, and stood up. He retrieved his curly-brimmed bowler from the table, and settled it carefully on his head, using the mirror to check that he’s got the tilt just right He picked up his gloves.

  ‘I’m going home, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘It’s half past eight, and I’ve been running around since eight this morning. I’m going to my digs in Cardinal Court, where Mrs Peach has promised me a plate of steak and kidney pie, to be washed down with a pint of porter. I’m leav
ing you here to hold the fort. Remember, the teeming millions are seething all around you, and much sin and wickedness is being plotted by countless villains. Keep your weather eye open.’

  Sergeant Knollys laughed, and turned back to his work. Box hovered near the swing door for a moment, then came back to the table.

  ‘I’m going out to Finchley tomorrow, Jack, to have tea with Louise – Miss Whittaker. I’m going to tell her all about Lady Courteline. There was something about her reaction to her husband’s murder that I can’t quite fathom. And there were things her daughter Olga said that puzzle me a bit. I want to hear a female slant on the matter. It’s time for me to have a word with Louise.’

  Detective Inspector Box stood on the narrow strip of lawn in the long, brick-walled garden of Miss Louise Whittaker’s semi-detached house in Finchley. He had been sent out of the neat modern villa to smoke one of his slim cigars in the chill light of the March afternoon.

  Ethel, Miss Whittaker’s little maid, demure in cap and apron, appeared at the back door.

  ‘Tea’s served, Mr Box. Missus says to come in when you’re ready.’

  Arnold Box threw the butt of his cigar behind a convenient bush, and walked into the house.

  ‘Well, Ethel,’ said Box, ‘you’re very solemn today! Usually the very sight of me sends you into a fit of the giggles.’

  Ethel smiled, and gave him a small curtsy.

  ‘That’s on account of you being so funny, sir, coming to pay court to Missus, and pretending to be fierce. But I’ve heard all about what you did yesterday, sir, about poor Sir John Courteline, I mean, so I’m knowing my place. Miss Whittaker’s in the study, sir.’

  Box had first met Miss Whittaker when she had appeared as an expert witness in a celebrated fraud case. Since that meeting, he had called on the woman scholar and college lecturer many times. They had taken tea together, and, chaperoned by Miss Whittaker’s young friend Vanessa Drake, they had been to the theatre. Box would have blushingly denied Ethel’s assertion that he was ‘paying court to Missus’, but he had more than once told the lady scholar bluntly that he liked her very much, and she had not objected.

  Ethel conducted him to the large front room of the house, where he was received by his hostess, a very beautiful, raven-haired young woman. She had been sitting at a large table in the bay window, working on a manuscript, but she rose when Box came in, and sat down opposite him at a small table near the fireplace, where an ample afternoon tea had been set out.

  ‘I hope you enjoyed your cigar, Mr Box,’ said Louise Whittaker. ‘Let me pour you some tea.’

  Box admired the lace tablecloth, the thin, patterned china, the silver teapot, the inviting sandwiches and cakes on their stand. He also admired Miss Whittaker’s grey silk dress, with its demure white cuffs and collar. It was nice to sit back quietly, and watch her pouring out the tea.

  ‘What are you working on today, Miss Whittaker?’ he asked. ‘Your table in the window there seems more piled up with books than usual.’

  ‘I’m engaged on something rather different from my usual linguistic studies,’ she replied, glancing at the many reference works and papers arrayed on her table. ‘I’m writing an introduction to the collected works of Mary Shelley. Have you heard of her? She was Shelley’s second wife.’

  ‘Shelley? He was the poet, wasn’t he? “Daffodils”, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Mary Shelley, Mr Box, was a woman who dared to see herself as an equal of her genius of a husband, and of her philosopher father. And so her imaginative powers were liberated, and she gave us that strange creation-tale Frankenstein. But I suspect that you have not come here today to hear about Mary Shelley.’

  ‘No, Miss Whittaker. I’ve come partly because I want to tell you about a woman who’s engaging my attention at the moment. I refer to Lady Courteline, widow of our great benefactor of the poor, Sir John Courteline.’

  ‘Ah, yes! The papers today are full of the case. They say some very flattering things about you, Mr Box.’

  Box was not really a vain man, but he rather enjoyed the look of respect that came into his friend’s eyes. He tended to forget that he was himself something of a public figure.

  ‘I almost literally walked into the case, Miss Whittaker, and as soon as I crossed the threshold of his house I knew who’d murdered him….’

  As Box told Louise about his visit to Sir John Courteline’s house, she sat quite still, cradling her teacup in her hands, and looking thoughtfully at the flickering flames in the grate. When he had finished his tale, she treated him to a brilliant smile. He realized that she was sharing his professional triumph.

  By tacit consent, they turned their attention to the business of afternoon tea. After Louise had poured them both a second cup of tea, Box resumed the thread of his narrative.

  ‘It’s the attitude of Lady Courteline that’s puzzling me,’ he said. ‘There’s something wrong there, and I can’t put my finger on it. When I talked to her yesterday, she was obviously distraught – yes, that’s the word. She’d screamed and screamed, her daughter told me, and I heard the sound of her grief myself, when I first went to the house.’

  ‘Distraught? Do you mean that when you called on her yesterday she was still screaming?’

  ‘Well, no, miss, she was calm and collected then, but her face was – was ravaged with grief. That sounds over-dramatic, I dare say, but I can’t express it any other way. She was ravaged.’

  Louise Whittaker put her cup down gently on the tray, and sat back in her chair.

  Did she say anything, Mr Box? Or did she just sit there, looking ravaged?’

  Dash it all, why did her look of mild amusement so unnerve him? What with her, and little Ethel, coming into her house was like entering the lion’s den.

  ‘She began to talk to me about her husband. About Sir John Courteline. She told me about his work, his committees, his charities. “My husband this, my husband that”. Then she said he belonged to clubs and societies, and she became very sarcastic, if that’s the word I mean. She said that he was really just a big boy who liked belonging to gangs. She said he liked being inscrutable, and that they pretended to be overawed.’

  ‘They? Whom did she mean by that?’

  ‘Well, I think she meant herself and her daughter. Do you see, Miss Whittaker, she was angry, scornful – just like you are, when you’re having a go at men! Angry. But at the same time she was ravaged with grief. Her face showed that. I can’t square the two things at the moment.’

  Louise Whittaker looked into the flames of the cheerful fire. There was a slight frown on her face, an expression of thoughtful puzzlement.

  ‘Do you mean that she spoke of him as though he was a public figure? As though she was someone looking in from the outside?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly it! She was angry that he had gone and got himself shot. She was relieved that she would be left well off. And yet – there were black shadows under her eyes, and she was as pale as death. She was ill, sick with grief—’

  ‘Are you sure of that, Mr Box? Sick with grief? Sometimes, you know, when two things are supposed to be linked, and one of them won’t fit properly, then it’s possible that they’re not linked at all. You say that Lady Courteline was sick, and you have the evidence of your senses to confirm that. But sick from what cause? Grief? Or fear?’

  ‘Fear…. I’d not considered that. But fear of what, miss? Not of Killer Kitely, because she never saw him. She didn’t know about him.’

  Louise shifted her gaze from the fire, and looked directly at Box.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that kind of fear. I meant fear for something – or someone. Those screams – they invite a question that may seem too obvious to ask: Why did Lady Courteline scream and scream?’

  ‘Because her husband had just been murdered.’

  ‘Are you sure of that? I mean, did she scream because her husband had been murdered, or did she scream after she had been told something? In whose presence did she scream?’


  This was more like it! Louise was about to explore a particular female slant on the case. Box drew a cloth-bound black notebook from his pocket, and leafed through its pages.

  ‘Lady Courteline was in her sitting-room talking to her daughter Olga. They heard the shot, and sat transfixed with fear—’

  Louise held up her hand to stop him.

  ‘A moment, Mr Box. Who was it who talked about being transfixed?’

  ‘The daughter, Miss Olga Courteline. I saw her briefly yesterday, and took shorthand notes of what she said. Let me read you her exact words. “Mother and I heard the sound of a shot downstairs. It was unbelievably loud, like a great clap of thunder. People were shouting and running. Mother and I sat transfixed with fear. I said: ‘Something has happened to Father’. Mother said nothing. She just sat quite still and frozen”.’

  Louise sighed with what was evidently satisfaction. She stood up, and leaned on the corner of the mantelpiece. It was a habit of hers that Box had noted; it indicated that she was sole mistress of this particular hearth and home.

  ‘You see, Mr Box,’ she said, ‘that was the reaction I would have expected. Frozen fear. She knew in her heart that her daughter was right. Something had happened to her husband, and so she waited, petrified, for confirmation. It’s the next bit that’s vital. What happened then?’

  ‘The butler, who had seen the assassin, ran up the stairs and broke the news of his master’s death.’

  ‘How did he know that Sir John Courteline was dead?’

  ‘He had rushed into the study and seen his master lying on the hearth rug. He knelt down and ascertained that he was dead, and then conveyed that news to his mistress.’

  ‘And what did she do?’

  ‘According to her daughter, she said, “Let me see him”. The daughter tried to dissuade her, but she insisted. It turned out to be a mistake. She was helped downstairs and into the study, where she in turn knelt down by the body. Again, let me read you Miss Olga’s exact words. “Mother knelt by Father’s body, and touched his neck. She looked at her fingers – I think she expected to see blood on them, but there was none. Mother saw the cigar smouldering on the carpet near Father’s hand. ‘It’s still lit’, she said, and then she touched his hand. Suddenly, she started to scream. We should not have brought her down there. She screamed without ceasing. I half dragged her into the domestic quarters of the house where the cook and I attempted to calm her. It was useless. She screamed until she collapsed”.’