Assassins at Ospreys

17

The Mortification of Moriarty

At four in the afternoon Robin Renshawe drove to Athlone Place. He rang the bell twice and waited several moments before pushing his hand into his pocket. He didn’t really expect Lily to be lurking inside.

The lock was a rather ordinary one and it took him exactly thirty-five seconds to pick it with the special piece of wire he had brought with him. He let himself into the flat. He shut the door behind him and stood beside an ornate hall lamp, which dangled from the arm of a marble caryatid. Nobody had seen him, not even the concierge. He had managed to slip by his desk in the hall. The concierge was some ancient duffer, a hearing aid sticking out of his left ear, and he been engrossed in a book. If all crimes were to be made that easy!

Robin hadn’t taken off his gloves. They were tan-coloured and made of the finest thin leather and fitted his hands like another skin. He pulled all the curtains across the windows and turned on a table lamp. He stood looking round Lily’s sitting room. Everything in pristine order, rather like in a museum. What an absurd setting Lily had created for himself. A cross between the Brompton Oratory, the Savoy and the Athenaeum – with more than a hint of a fin de siecle bordello! An Aubusson carpet. A Turkish cabinet. Two palms in Japanese-style porcelain pots. Intricately carved bookshelves. Two marble busts of unidentifiable ancient sages -or were they Roman emperors? A divan upholstered in red velvet – candelabras – two gruesome religious paintings on the walls, also some framed Max Beerbohm caricatures, authentic, he bet – silk and satin cushions – a polished Sheraton bureau – Robin looked at the books that lay on the bureau. Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe. De Quincey’s Opium Eater and Murder as a Fine Art. No surprises there. The Leopold and Loeb Case Revisited. How curious. Robin opened the book – turned a page. Had Lily seen a parallel between himself and Robin and those two? They were nothing like them. Leopold and Loeb had killed one of their fellow students solely for aesthetic kicks. Besides, they had had an affair – and Robin couldn’t imagine any-thing more ghastly than having an affair with Lily, not even for a bet.

He opened a drawer, then another, examining their con-tents. A photo of a very old woman, strabismic, wearing small round glasses. Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies’ last appearance in ‘The Master Blackmailer’. What freakish tastes Lily had, Robin had forgotten.

More photos. Aportly man with a bald head and the lips of a highly disciplined voluptuary. Lily’s papa, the prosperous banker – there was a resemblance. Another photo, of a rather forbidding woman with a Roman nose. Mrs Lillie-Lysander, nee Lushington. Lily’s mamma. She was wearing an elaborate hat, which suggested a wedding or a garden party. Robin remembered meeting them once – they had come to Antlers in a Daimler. They had been extremely formal with Lily – a handshake and a pat on the shoulder – no kisses – Lily’s mother hadn’t even taken off her gloves. She had known exactly how many sons of Catholic Dukes there were at the school at the moment.

Papers. Bills… Bills… Bills… Lily must have been desperate… Loans from three banks. Catalogues from sales – Christie’s – Sotheby’s. A gilt-edged card with the Midas club address and phone number. He had several of those himself. A book: Unbreakable Systems. Lily seemed to have taken roulette rather seriously. Another book: Satan’s Seraglio. Had Lily been planning selling his soul to Satan or had he already done so? A mahogany humidor filled with cigars. Expensive tastes. A Masonic tie-pin. Nothing of a remotely personal nature. No suspicious-looking brown envelopes.

Robin found himself thinking back to the scandal of Father Canteloupe – everybody had been talking about it – it had happened in their second year at school – there had been rumours that the school might be closed down. Father Canteloupe had committed suicide the same day the police had raided his study and discovered hundreds of what the press called ‘disturbing images’. Father Canteloupe had been found hanging in the cricket pavilion – as though the cricket pavilion hadn’t seen enough horrors already.

No, no dirty pictures of any kind. Robin had been hoping for something esoteric – something recherche. How terribly disappointing. I don’t believe that he ever experienced what one might call a stirring in the undergrowth for anyone – man, woman or child. That was what Nico, the least screwed-up of the five doomed Llewellyn Davies brothers and the last to die, had said about his ‘Uncle Jim’ Barrie. Lily, Robin imagined, was very much in the same category. Yes, Lily seemed to be one of those astonishing asexuals who went through life without any of the destructive passions known to man. Apart from gambling, that was.

It was for anything that could connect him, Robin, with Lily that he was looking. Well, there was a school group photo. There he was – had his hair really been that long? Well, that had been in 1979. Apart from the hair, he had changed little, he thought. He had the same dashingly chiselled cheekbones. Where was Lily? The overfed cherub on his right? Good lord. Yes. They weren’t standing side by side, Lily and he – there were no names written on the photograph. Still, Robin put it into his pocket – better play it safe…

He picked up a booklet bound in maroon leather. It looked familiar somehow. The Mortification of Moriarty. As he read the title, his heart missed a beat. Of course. It was the one-act play he and Lily had written together, though they had never got to perform it. Robin was going to play Moriarty – Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis. What was it all about? Robin leafed through it. He had forgotten. Something about Moriarty falling victim to one of his own cunning schemes? Pulling strings – getting people to commit all sorts of crimes for him, but not realizing – what? For the life of him Robin couldn’t recall the twist. Holmes didn’t appear at all, but it was all rather clever and had this terribly ironic denouement -

Putting the play into his pocket, Robin opened the last drawer.

No, nothing. Nothing at all.

Had he given Lily any of his joke cards? Robin Renshawe, Gentleman of Leisure. Robin’s address and phone number were printed on it. Where was the card? Lily had placed it inside his wallet – it all came back to Robin now… Well, Robin had instructed Eric not only to rough Lily up but to remove every scrap of paper from his pockets as well. He had also asked him to dispose of Lily’s mobile, which would have a record of all the calls Robin had made to him. The idea was that there should be nothing to connect Lily with Robin. Then, even if Lily became difficult and unpleasant and, say, attempted to blackmail him in some way, he would not be able to prove that he had been acting under Robin’s edict…

Lily had promised to send him a message as soon as he had accomplished his assignment, but he hadn’t. Robin didn’t want to ring Ospreys and draw attention to himself. He had rehearsed what he was going to say – the casual tone of voice in which he would ask Wilkes some totally silly question – had she knitted his pullover? And of course, if his uncle was dead, Wilkes would tell him at once. But wouldn’t they have called him anyway if his uncle had died? No one had called him so far, which suggested that all was in order at Ospreys.

Where was Lily? It was half past four now. Six hours! What if Eric had executed the ‘roughing’ task without the finesse it required – a little bit too roughly, perhaps? So far Eric hadn’t contacted him, which suggested that Eric might have killed Lily and was too scared to admit it.

Robin knew in his bones that at some point of the operation something had gone spectacularly wrong. He sat on one of Liy’s heraldic chairs and reflected that the worst scenario would be if his uncle was still alive and it was Lily who had ended up dead.

Robin had phoned Eric at five minutes to ten in the morning. By then he had drunk two thirds of the whisky. Eric of course had been delighted to hear his voice. Eric was like a puppy. Oh Robin, so nice to hear from you. How have you been? Eric was in Coulston, taking care of a Mr Stanley who was an invalid. It was Robin who had got him the job after his uncle had sacked Eric. Robin knew Mr Stanley from the Midas. Mr Stanley had been a regular at the roulette table until he had had his stroke. He could hardly move now. Eric was deeply grateful to Robin for getting him the job.

Yes, Robin. Anything. Anything… I see… You don’t want me to get anywhere near the house? Wait further down the road and watch the gates? A Catholic priest – I’ll recognize him by the collar? Stop his car and tell him I have a message from you? Ask him to follow my car? Take him to the disused quarry? I know the quarry very well, yes. Then you want me to -?

(Robin had wished the slow-witted fool hadn’t repeated everything he said.)

If Eric had killed Lily, what had he done with the body? What had he done with his car?

Then another thought struck Robin. When asked, old Saunders would certainly say that it had been Robin Renshawe who had recommended Father Lillie-Lysander. Well, what if he had? That proved nothing. All he needed to say then was that they had been to school together, that was how he knew Lily. Still – The irony would be if they arrested him, Robin, for Lily’s death. Lily then would have the last laugh from beyond the grave. Robin smiled grimly. Something like that had happened in the play they had written together, The Mortification of Moriarty, hadn’t it?

How prophetic that would be – and how pathetic.