Butchers and Other Stories of Crime

The Corder Figure

Mrs D’Abernon frowned at the ornamental figure on the shelf above her. She leaned towards it to read the name inscribed in copperplate on the base.

‘Who was William Corder?’

‘A notorious murderer.’

‘How horrid!’ She sheered away as if the figure were alive and about to make a grab at her throat. She was in the back room of Francis Buttery’s second-hand bookshop, where cheap sherry was dispensed to regular buyers of the more expensive books. As a collector of first editions of romantic novels of the twenties and thirties, she was always welcome. ‘Fancy anyone wanting to make a porcelain effigy of a murderer!’

‘White earthenware,’ Buttery told her as if that were the only point worth taking up. ‘Staffordshire. I took it over with the shop after the previous owner passed on. He specialised in criminology.’ He picked it up, a glazed standing figure about ten inches in height.

‘The workmanship looks crude to me,’ ventured Mrs D’Abernon, determined not to like it. ‘I mean, it doesn’t compare with a Dresden shepherdess, does it? Look at the way the face is painted; those daubs of colour on the cheeks. You can see why they needed to write the name on the base. I ask you, Mr Buttery, it could be anyone from the Prince of Wales to a peasant, now, couldn’t it?’

‘Staffordshire portrait figures are not valued as good likenesses,’ Buttery said in its defence, pitching his voice at a level audible to browsers in the main part of the shop. He believed that a bookshop should be a haven of culture, and when he wasn’t broadcasting it himself, he played Bach on the stereo. ‘The proportions are wrong and the finishing is too stylised to admit much individuality. They are primitive pieces, but they have a certain naive charm, I must insist.’

‘Insist as much as you like, darling,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, indomitable in her aesthetic judgements. ‘You won’t convince me that it is anything but grotesque.’ She smiled fleetingly. ‘Well, I might give you vulgar if you press me, as I’m sure you’d like to.’

Buttery sighed and offered more sherry. These sprightly married women in their thirties and forties who liked to throw in the occasional suggestive remark were a type he recognised, but hadn’t learned how to handle. He was thirty-four, a bachelor, serious-minded, good-looking, gaunt, dark, with a few silver signs of maturity at the temples. He was knowledgeable about women — indeed, he had two shelf-lengths devoted to the subject, high up and close to the back room, where he could keep an eye on anyone who inspected them — but he had somehow failed to achieve what the manuals described as an intimate relationship. He was not discouraged, however; for him, the future always beckoned invitingly. ‘The point about Staffordshire figures,’ he persisted with Mrs D’Abernon, ‘is that they give us an insight into the amusements of our Victorian ancestors.’

‘Amusements such as murder?’ said Mrs D’Abernon with a peal of laughter. She was still a pretty woman with blonde hair in loose curls that bobbed when she moved her head.

‘Yes, indeed!’ Buttery assured her. ‘The blood-curdling story of a man like Corder was pure theatre, the stuff of melodrama. The arrest, the trial and even the execution. Murderers were hanged in public, and thousands came to watch, not just the rabble, but literary people like Dickens and Thackeray.’

‘How macabre!’

Buttery gave the shrug of a man who understands human behaviour. ‘That was the custom. Anyway, the Staffordshire potters made a tidy profit out of it. I suppose respectable Victorian gentlemen felt rather high-hat and manly with a line of convicted murderers on the mantelpiece. Of course, there were other subjects, like royalty and the theatre. Sport, as well. You collected whatever took your fancy.’

‘And what did Mr William Corder do to earn his place on the mantelpiece?’

‘He was a scoundrel in every way. No woman was safe with him, by all accounts,’ said Buttery, trying not to sound envious. ‘It happened in 1827, way out in the country in some remote village in Suffolk. He was twenty-one when he got a young lady by the name of Maria Marten into trouble.’

Mrs D’Abernon clicked her tongue as she took a sidelong glance at the figure.

‘The child didn’t survive,’ Buttery went on, ‘but Corder was persuaded to marry Maria. It was a clandestine arrangement. Maria dressed in the clothes of a man and crossed the fields with Corder to a barn with a red roof, where her luggage was stored and a gig was supposed to be waiting to take them to Ipswich. She was not seen alive again. Corder reappeared two days after, and bluffed it out for months that Maria was living in Ipswich. Then he left the district and wrote to say that they were on the Isle of Wight.’

‘And was he believed?’ asked Mrs D’Abernon.

‘By everyone except one tenacious woman,’ said Buttery. That was the feature of the case that made it exceptional. Mrs Marten, Maria’s mother, had two vivid dreams that her daughter had been murdered and buried in the red barn.’

‘Ah! The intrusion of the supernatural,’ said Mrs D’Abernon in some excitement. ‘And did they find the poor girl there?’

‘No one believed Mrs Marten at first, not even her husband, but, yes, eventually they found Maria buried under the floor. It was known as the Red Barn Murder, and the whole nation was gripped by the story. Corder was arrested and duly went to the gallows.’ He paused for effect, then added, ‘I happen to have two good studies of the case in fine condition, if you are interested.’

Mrs D’Abernon gave him a pained look. ‘Thank you, but I don’t care for that sort of reading. Tell me, what is it worth?’

‘The figure of Corder? I’ve no idea.’

‘It’s an antique, isn’t it? You ought to get it valued.’

‘It’s probably worth a few pounds, but I don’t know that I’d care to sell it,’ said Buttery, piqued that she had dismissed the books so off-handedly.

‘You might, if you knew how much you could get for it,’ Mrs D’Abernon remarked with a penetrating look, ‘I’ll make some enquiries. I have a very dear friend in the trade.’

He would have said, ‘Don’t trouble,’ but he knew there was no stopping her. She was a forceful personality.

And next afternoon, she was back. ‘You’re going to be grateful to me, Mr Buttery,’ she confidently informed him as he poured the sherry. ‘I asked my friend and it appears that Staffordshire figures are collectors’ items.’

‘I knew that,’ Buttery mildly pointed out.

‘But you didn’t know that the murderers are among the most sought after, did you? Heaven knows why, but people try to collect them all, regardless of their horrid crimes. Some of them are relatively easy to obtain if you have a hundred pounds or so to spare, but I’m pleased to inform you that your William Corder is extremely rare. Very few copies are known to exist.’

‘Are you sure of this, Mrs D’Abernon?’

‘Mr Buttery, my friend is in the antique trade. She showed me books and catalogues. There are two great collections of Staffordshire figures in this country, one at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the other owned by the National Trust, at Stapleford Park. Neither of them has a Corder.’

Buttery felt his face getting warm. ‘So my figure could be valuable.’ He pitched his voice lower. ‘Did your friend put a price on it?’

‘She said you ought to get it valued by one of the big auctioneers in London and she would be surprised if their estimate was lower than a thousand pounds.’

‘Good gracious!’

Mrs D’Abernon beamed. ‘I thought that would take your breath away.’

‘A thousand!’ said Buttery. ‘I had no idea.’

‘These days, a thousand doesn’t go far, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’ she said as if Buttery were one of her neighbours on Kingston Hill with acres of grounds and a heated swimming pool. ‘You might get more, of course. If you put it up for auction, and you had the V and A bidding against the National Trust..."

‘Good Lord!’ said Buttery. ‘I’m most obliged to you for this information, Mrs D’Abernon.’

‘Don’t feel under any obligation whatsoever, Mr Buttery,’ she said, flashing a benevolent smile. ‘After all the hospitality you’ve shown me in my visits to the shop, I wouldn’t even suggest a lunch at the Italian restaurant to celebrate our discovery.’

‘I say that is an idea!’ Buttery enthused, then, lowering his voice again, ‘That is, if your husband wouldn’t object.’

Mrs D’Abernon leaned towards Buttery and said confidentially, ‘I wouldn’t tell him, darling.’

Buttery squirmed in his chair, made uneasy by her closeness. ‘Suppose someone saw us? I’m pretty well known in the High Street.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, going into reverse. ‘I must have had too much sherry to be talking like this. Let’s forget it.’

‘On the contrary, I shall make a point of remembering it,’ Buttery assured her, sensing just in time that the coveted opportunity of a liaison was in danger of slipping by. ‘If I find myself richer by a thousand pounds, I’ll find some way of thanking you, Mrs D’Abernon, believe me.’

On Wednesday, he asked his part-time assistant, James, to manage the shop for the day. He got up earlier than usual, packed the Corder figure in a shoe box lined with tissue, and caught one of the commuter trains to London. In his corduroy jacket and bow-tie he felt mercifully remote from the dark-suited businessmen ranged opposite him, most of them doggedly studying the city news. He pictured Mrs D’Abernon’s husband reading the same paper in the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, his mind stuffed with stock market prices, uninterested in the dull, domestic routine he imagined his wife was following. Long might he remain uninterested!

The expert almost cooed with delight when Buttery unwrapped his figure. It was the first William Corder he had ever seen, and a particularly well-preserved piece. He explained to Buttery that Staffordshire figures were cast in simple plaster moulds, some of which were good for up to two hundred figures, while others deteriorated after as few as twenty castings. He doubted whether there were more than three or four Corders remaining in existence, and the only ones he knew about were in America.

Buttery’s mouth was dry with excitement. ‘What sort of price would you put on it?’ he asked.

‘I could sell it today for eight hundred,’ the expert told him. ‘I think in an auction it might fetch considerably more.’

‘A thousand?’

‘If it went in one of our sales of English pottery, I would suggest that figure as a reserve, sir.’

‘So it might go for more?’

‘That is my estimation.’

‘When is the next sale?’

The expert explained the timetable for cataloguing and pre-sale publicity. Buttery wasn’t happy at the prospect of waiting several months for a sale, and he enquired whether there was any way of expediting the procedure. With some reluctance, the expert made a phone call and arranged for the Corder figure to be added as a late item to the sale scheduled the following month, five weeks ahead.

Two days later, Mrs D’Abernon called at the shop and listened to Buttery’s account of his day in London. She had sprayed herself lavishly with a distinctive floral perfume that subdued even the smell of the books. She appeared more alluring each time he saw her. Was it his imagination that she dressed to please him?

‘I’m thrilled for you,’ she said.

‘And I’m profoundly grateful to you, Mrs D’Abernon,’ said Buttery, ready to make the suggestion he had been rehearsing ever since he got back from London. ‘In fact, I was wondering if you would care to join me for lunch next Wednesday as a mark of my thanks.’

Mrs D’Abernon raised her finely plucked eyebrows. ‘I thought we had dismissed the possibility.’

‘I thought we might meet in Epsom, where neither of us is so well known.’

She gave him a glimpse of her beautiful teeth. ‘How intriguing!’

‘You’ll come?’

She put down her sherry glass. ‘But I think it would be assuming too much at this stage, don’t you?’

Buttery reddened. ‘How, exactly?’

‘One shouldn’t take anything for granted, Mr Buttery. Let’s wait until after the sale. When did you say it is?’

‘On May the fifteenth, a Friday.’

‘The fifteenth? Oh, what a pity! I shall be leaving for France the following day. I go to France every spring, before everyone else is on holiday. It’s so much quieter.’

‘How long will you be away?’ Buttery asked, unable to conceal his disappointment.

‘About a month. My husband is a duffer as a cook. He can survive for four weeks on rubbery eggs and burnt bacon, but that’s his limit.’

Buttery’s eyes widened. The future that had beckoned ever since he had started to shave was now practically tugging him by the sleeve. ‘You go to France without your husband?’

‘Yes, we always have separate holidays. He’s a golfer, and you know what they’re like. He takes his three weeks in July and plays every day. He doesn’t care for travel at all. In fact, I sometimes wonder what we do have in common. Do you like foreign travel, Mr Buttery?’

‘Immensely,’ said Buttery huskily, ‘but I’ve never had much opportunity... until this year.’

She traced the rim of the sherry glass with one beautifully manicured finger. ‘Your thousand pounds?’

‘Well, yes.’ He hesitated, taking a glance through the shop to check that no one could overhear. ‘I was thinking of a trip to France myself, but I don’t know the country at all. I’m not sure where to head for.’

‘It depends what you have in mind,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, taking a sip of the sherry and giving Buttery a speculative look. ‘Personally, I adore historical places, so I shall start with a few days in Orleans and then make my way slowly along the Loire Valley.’

‘You can recommend that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll do the same. I say,’ he added, as if the idea had just entered his head, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to meet somewhere in France and have that celebration meal?’

She registered surprise like a star of the silent screen. ‘Yes, but you won’t be going at the same time as I... will you?’

Buttery allowed the ghost of a smile to materialise fleetingly on his lips. ‘It could be arranged.’

‘But what about the shop?’

‘Young James is perfectly capable of looking after things for me.’ He topped up her glass, sensing that it was up to the man to take the initiative in matters as delicate as this. ‘Let’s make a rendezvous on the steps of Orleans Cathedral at noon on May the eighteenth.’

‘My word, Mr Buttery!... Why May the eighteenth?’

‘So that we can drink a toast to William Corder. It’s the anniversary of the Red Barn Murder. I’ve been reading up on the case.’

Mrs D’Abernon laughed. ‘You and your murderer!’ There was a worrying pause while she considered her response. ‘All right, May the eighteenth it is — provided, of course, that the figure is sold.’

‘I’ll be there whatever the outcome of the sale,’ Buttery rashly promised her.

Encouragingly, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘So shall I.’

When she had gone, he went to his Physiology and Anatomy shelf and selected a number of helpful volumes to study in the back room. He didn’t want his inexperience to show on May 18th.

The weeks leading up to the auction seemed insufferably long to Buttery, particularly as Mrs D’Abernon appeared in the shop only on two occasions, when by sheer bad luck he happened to be entertaining other lady customers in the back room. He wished there had been time to explain that it was all in the nature of public relations, but on each occasion Mrs D’Abernon curtly declined his invitation to join the sherry party, excusing herself by saying she had so many things to arrange before she went to France. For days, he agonised over whether to call at her house — a big detached place overlooking the golf course — and eventually decided against it. Apologies and explanations on the doorstep didn’t accord with the cosmopolitan image he intended to present in Orleans.

So he made his own travel arrangements, such as they were: the purchase of an advance ticket for the cross-Channel ferry, some travellers’ cheques and a map of the French railway system. Over there, he would travel by train. He gathered that Mrs D’Abernon rented a car for her sightseeing, and that would have to do for both of them after Orleans, because he had never learned to drive. He didn’t book accommodation in advance, preferring to keep his arrangements flexible.

He also invested in some new clothes for the first time in years: several striped shirts and cravats, a navy blazer and two pairs of white, well-cut trousers. He bought a modern suitcase and packed it ready for departure on the morning after the auction.

On May 15th, he attended the auction. He had already been sent a catalogue, and the Corder figure was one of the final lots on the list, but he was there from the beginning, studying the form, spotting the six or seven dealers who between them seemed to account for three-quarters of the bids. They made him apprehensive after what he had once read about rings that conspired to keep the prices low, and he was even more disturbed to find that a number of items had to be withdrawn after failing to reach their reserve prices.

As the auction proceeded, Buttery felt increasingly nervous. This wasn’t just the Corder figure that was under the hammer; it was his rendezvous with Mrs D’Abernon, his initiation into fleshly pleasures. He had waited all his adult life for the opportunity, and it couldn’t be managed on a low budget. She was a rich, sophisticated woman, who would expect to be treated to the best food and wines available.

‘And so we come to Lot 287, a very fine Staffordshire figure of the murderer, William Corder...’

A pulse throbbed in Buttery’s head and he thought for a moment he would have to leave the sale room. He took deeper breaths and closed his eyes.

The bidding got under way, moving rapidly from £500 to £750. Buttery opened his eyes and saw that two of the dealers were making bids on the nod at an encouraging rate.

‘Eight hundred,’ said the auctioneer.

There was a pause. The bidding had lost its momentum.

‘At eight hundred pounds,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Any more?’

Buttery leaned forward anxiously. One of the dealers indicated that he had finished. This could be disastrous. Eight hundred pounds was below the reserve. Perhaps they had overvalued the figure.

‘Eight-fifty on my left,’ said the auctioneer, and Buttery sat back and breathed more evenly. Another dealer had entered the bidding. Could he be buying for the V and A?

It moved on, but more slowly, as if both dealers baulked at a four-figure bid. Then it came.

‘One thousand pounds.’

Buttery had a vision of Mrs D’Abernon naked as a nymph, sipping champagne in a hotel bedroom.

The bidding continued to twelve hundred and fifty pounds.

The auctioneer looked around the room. ‘At twelve hundred and fifty pounds. Any more?’ He raised the gavel and brought it down. ‘Hudson and Black.’

And that was it. After the auctioneers’ commission had been deducted, Buttery’s cheque amounted to eleven hundred and twenty-five pounds.

Three days later, in his blazer and white trousers, he waited at the rendezvous. Mrs D’Abernon arrived twenty minutes late, radiant in a primrose yellow dress and wide-brimmed straw hat, and pressed her lips to Buttery’s, there on the cathedral steps. He handed her the box containing an orchid that he had bought in Orleans that morning. It was clearly a good investment.

‘So romantic! And two little safety-pins!’ she squeaked in her excitement. ‘Darling, how thoughtful. Why don’t you help me pin it on?’

‘I reserved a table at the Hotel de Ville,’ he told her as he fumbled with the safety-pin.

‘How extravagant!’

‘It’s my way of saying thank you. The Corder figure sold for over a thousand pounds.’

‘Wonderful!’

They had a long lunch on the hotel terrace. He ordered champagne and the food was superb. ‘You couldn’t have pleased me more,’ said Mrs D’Abernon. ‘To be treated like this is an almost unknown pleasure for me, Mr Buttery.’

He smiled.

‘I mean it,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t mean to complain about my life. I am not unloved. But this is another thing. This is romance.’

‘With undertones of wickedness,’ commented Buttery.

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re here by courtesy of William Corder.’

Her smile returned. ‘Your murderer. I was meaning to ask you: why did he kill poor Maria?’

‘Oh, I think he felt he was trapped into marriage,’ Buttery explained. ‘He was a philanderer by nature. Not a nice man at all.’

‘I admire restraint in a man,’ said Mrs D’Abernon.

‘But, of course,’ Buttery responded, with what he judged to be the ironic smile of a man who knows what really pleases a woman.

It was after three when, light-headed and laughing, they stepped through the hotel foyer and into the sunny street.

‘Let’s look at some shops,’ Mrs D’Abernon suggested.

One of the first they came to was a jeweller’s. ‘Aren’t they geniuses at displaying things?’ she said. ‘I mean, there’s so little to see in a way, but everything looks exquisite. That gold chain, for instance. So elegant to look at, but you can be sure if I tried it on, it wouldn’t look half so lovely.’

‘I’m sure it would,’ said Buttery.

‘No, you’re mistaken.’

‘Let’s go in and see, then. Try it on, and I’ll give you my opinion.’

They went in and, after some rapid mental arithmetic, Buttery parted with three thousand francs to convince her that he really had meant what he said.

‘You shouldn’t have done it, you wicked man!’ she told him, pressing the chain possessively against her throat. ‘It was only a meal you promised me. I can’t think why you did it.’

Buttery decided to leave her in suspense. Meanwhile, he suggested a walk by the river. They made their way slowly down the Rue Royale to the Quai Cypierre. In a quiet position with a view of the river, they found a salon de thé, and sipped lemon tea until the shadows lengthened.

‘It’s been a blissful day,’ said Mrs D’Abernon.

‘It hasn’t finished yet,’ said Buttery.

‘It has for me, darling.’

He smiled. ‘You’re joking. I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.’

‘I couldn’t possibly manage dinner after the lunch we had.’

‘Call it supper, then. We’ll eat late, like the French.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m going to get an early night.’

He produced his knowing smile. ‘That’s not a bad idea. I’ll get the bill.’

Outside, he suggested taking a taxi and asked where she was staying.

She answered vaguely, ‘Somewhere in the centre of town. Put me off at the cathedral, and I can walk it from there. How about you? Where have you put up?’

‘Nowhere yet,’ he told her as he waved down a cab. ‘My luggage is at the railway station.’

‘Hadn’t you better get booked in somewhere?’

He gave a quick, nervous laugh. She wasn’t making this easy for him. ‘I was hoping it wouldn’t be necessary.’ The moment he had spoken, he sensed that his opportunity had gone. He should have sounded more masculine and assertive. A woman like Mrs D’Abernon didn’t want a feeble appeal to her generosity. She wanted a man who knew what he wanted and took the initiative.

The taxi had drawn up and the door was open. Mrs D’Abernon climbed in. She looked surprised when Buttery didn’t take the seat beside her.

He announced, ‘I’m taking you to lunch again tomorrow.’

‘That would be very agreeable, but—’

‘I’ll be on the cathedral steps at noon. Sweet dreams.’ He closed the door and strode away, feeling that he had retrieved his pride and cleared the way for a better show the next day. After all, he had waited all his life, so one more night in solitary was not of much account.

So it was a more assertive Buttery who arrived five minutes late for the rendezvous next day, found her already waiting and kissed her firmly on the mouth. ‘We’re going to a slightly more exotic place today,’ he told her, taking a decisive grip on her arm.

It was an Algerian restaurant on the fringe of the red light district. Halfway through their meal, a belly dancer came through a bead curtain and gyrated to taped music. Buttery clapped to the rhythm. At the end, he tossed the girl a five-franc piece and ordered another bottle of wine.

Towards 3 p.m. Mrs D’Abernon began to look restless.

‘Had enough?’ asked Buttery.

‘Yes. It was wonderfully exciting and I enjoyed every minute of it, but I have to be going. I really must get back to my hotel and wash my hair. It must be reeking of cigar smoke and I made an appointment for a massage and manicure at five.’

‘I’ll give you a massage,’ Buttery informed her with a no-nonsense statement of intention that pleased him as he said it. It more than made up for the previous day’s ineptness.

‘That won’t be necessary, thank you,’ responded Mrs D’Abernon, matching him in firmness. ‘She’s a qualified masseuse and beautician. I shall probably have a facial as well.’

He gaped at her. ‘How long will that take?’

‘I’m in no hurry. That’s the joy of a holiday, isn’t it?’

Buttery might have said that it was not the joy he had in mind, but he was too disconcerted to answer.

‘We could meet again tomorrow for lunch, if you like,’ offered Mrs D’Abernon.

He said, letting his resentment show, ‘Do you really want to?’

She smiled benignly. ‘Darling, I can think of nothing I would rather do.’

That, Buttery increasingly understood, was his problem. Mrs D’Abernon liked being treated to lunch, but there was nothing she would rather do. Each day that week she made some excuse to leave him as soon as possible afterwards: a hair appointment, a toothache, uncomfortable shoes. She declined all invitations to dinner and all suggestions of night-clubbing or theatre-visiting.

Buttery considered his position. He was going through his traveller’s cheques at an alarming rate. He was staying at a modest hotel near the station, but he would have to pay the bill some time, and it was mounting up, because he spent each evening drinking alone in the bar. The lunches were costing him more than he had budgeted and there was nearly always a taxi-fare to settle.

In the circumstances, most men planning what Buttery had come to France to achieve would have got discouraged, cut their losses, and given up, but Buttery was unlike most other men. He still nursed the hope that his luck would change. He spent many lonely hours trying to work out a more successful strategy. Finally, desperation and his dwindling funds drove him to formulate an all-or-nothing plan.

It was a Friday, and they had lunch at the best fish restaurant in Orleans, lobster scooped wriggling from a tank in the centre of the dining room and cooked to perfection, accompanied by a vintage champagne. Then lemon sorbet and black coffee. Before Mrs D’Abernon had a chance to make her latest unconvincing excuse, Buttery said, ‘I’d better get you back to your hotel.’

She blinked in surprise.

‘I’m moving on tomorrow,’ Buttery explained. ‘Must get my travel arrangements sorted out before the end of the afternoon.’ He beckoned to the waiter.

‘Where do you plan to visit next?’ asked Mrs D’Abernon.

‘Haven’t really decided,’ he said as he settled the bill. ‘Nothing to keep me in Orleans.’

‘I was thinking of driving to Tours,’ Mrs D’Abernon quickly mentioned. ‘The food is said to be outstanding there. I could offer you a lift in my car if you wish.’

‘The food isn’t so important to me,’ said Buttery.

‘It’s also very convenient for the châteaux of the Loire.’

‘I’ll think it over,’ he told her, as they left the restaurant. He hailed a taxi and one drew up immediately. He opened the door and she got in. ‘Hotel Charlemagne,’ he told the driver as he closed the door on Mrs D’Abernon. He noticed her head turn at the name of the hotel. It hadn’t been difficult to trace. There weren’t many that offered a massage and beauty service.

She wound down the window. ‘But how will I know...?’ Her words were lost as the taxi pulled away.

Buttery gave a satisfied smile as he watched it go.

He went to the florist’s and came out with a large bouquet of red roses. Then he returned to his hotel and took a shower.

About seven, he phoned the Hotel Charlemagne and asked to speak to Mrs D’Abernon.

Her voice came through. ‘Yes?’

In a passable imitation of a Frenchman, Buttery said, ‘You are English? There is some mistake. Which room is this, please?’

‘Six-five-seven.’

He replaced the phone, went downstairs to the bar and ordered his first vodka and tonic.

Two hours later, carrying the roses, he crossed the foyer of the Charlemagne and took the lift to the sixth floor. The corridor was deserted. He found 657 and knocked, pressing the bouquet against the spy-hole.

There was a delay, during which he could hear sounds inside. The door opened a fraction. Buttery pushed it firmly and went in.

Mrs D’Abernon gave a squeak of alarm. She was dressed in one of the white bathrobes that the best hotels provide for their guests. She had her hair wrapped in a towel and her face was liberally coated in a white cream.

‘These are for you,’ said Buttery in a slightly slurred yet, he confidently believed, sexy voice.

She took the roses and looked at them as if a summons had been served on her. ‘Mr Buttery! I was getting ready for bed.’

‘Good,’ said Buttery, closing the door. He crossed to the fridge and took out a half-bottle of champagne. ‘Let’s have a nightcap.’

‘No! I think you’d better leave my room at once.’

Buttery moved closer to her, smiling. ‘I don’t object to a little cream on your face. It’s all right with me.’ He snatched the towel from her head. The colour of her hair surprised him. It was brown, and grey in places, like his own. She must have been wearing a blonde wig all the times he had taken her to lunch.

Mrs D’Abernon reacted badly. She flung the roses back at him and said, ‘Get out of here!’

He was not discouraged. ‘You don’t mean that, my dear,’ he told her. ‘You really want me to stay.’

She shook her head emphatically.

Buttery went on, ‘We’ve had good times together, you and I. Expensive lunches.’

‘I enjoyed the lunches,’ conceded Mrs D’Abernon, in a more conciliatory vein. ‘Didn’t I always express my appreciation?’

‘You said you felt romantic.’

‘I did, and I meant it!’

‘Well, then.’ He reached to embrace her, but she backed away. ‘What’s the matter with you? Or is something the matter with me?’

‘No. Don’t think me unappreciative, but that’s enough for me, to have an escort during the day. I like to spend my evenings alone.’

‘Come on, I’ve treated you well. I’ve spent a small fortune on you.’

‘I’m not to be bought,’ said Mrs D’Abernon, edging away from the bed.

‘It’s not like that at all,’ Buttery insisted. ‘I fancy you, and I reckon you fancy me.’

She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘For pity’s sake, Mr Buttery, I’m a married woman. I’m used to being fancied, as you put it. I’m sick of it, if you want to know. All evening he ignores me, then he gets into bed and thinks he can switch me on like the electric blanket. Coupling, that’s all it is, and I want a break from it. I don’t want more of it. I just crave a little innocent romance, someone to pay me some attention over lunch.’ Then Mrs D’Abernon made her fatal mistake. She said, ‘Don’t spoil it now. This isn’t in your nature. I picked you out because you’re safe. Any woman could tell you’re safe to be with.’

Safe to be with? He winced, as if she had struck him, but the effect was worse than that. She had just robbed him of his dream, his virility, his future. He would never have the confidence now to approach a woman again. He was finished before he had ever begun. He hated her for it. He hated her for going through his money, cynically eating and spending her way through the money he had got for his Corder figure.

He grabbed her by the throat.

Three days later, he returned to England. The French papers were full of what they described as the Charlemagne killing. The police wished to interview a man, believed to be English, who had been seen with the victim in several Orleans restaurants. He was described as middle-aged, going grey, about 5 ft 8 ins and wearing a blue blazer and white trousers.

In Buttery’s well-informed opinion, that description was worse than useless. He was 5 ft 9 ins in his socks, there was no grey hair that anyone would notice and thirty-four was a long way from being middle-aged. Only the blazer and trousers were correct, and he had dumped them in the Loire after buying jeans and a T-shirt. He felt amused at the problems now faced by all the middle-aged Englishmen in blue blazers staying at the Charlemagne.

He experienced a profound sense of relief at setting foot on British soil again at Dover, but it was short-lived, because the immigration officer asked him to step into an office and answer some questions. A CID officer was waiting there.

‘Just routine, sir. Would you mind telling me where you stayed in France?

‘Various places,’ answered Buttery. ‘I was moving along the Loire Valley. Angers, Tours, Poitiers.’

‘Orléans?’

‘No. I was told it’s a disappointment historically. So much bombing in the war.’

‘You heard about the murder there, I expect?’

‘Vaguely. I can’t read much in French.’

‘An Englishwoman was strangled in her hotel bedroom,’ the CID man explained. ‘She happens to come from the same town as you.’

Buttery made an appropriate show of interest. ‘Really? What was her name?’

‘Mildred D’Abernon. You didn’t meet her at any stage on your travels?’

He shook his head. ‘D’Abernon. I’ve never heard of her.’

‘You’re quite sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘In that case, I won’t detain you any longer, Mr Buttery. Thank you for your co-operation.’

In the train home, he tried to assess the case from the point of view of the police. In France, there was little, if anything, to connect him with the murder. He had travelled separately from Mrs D’Abernon and stayed in different hotels. They had met for lunch, but never more than once in the same restaurant and it was obvious that the descriptions provided by waiters and others could have applied to hundreds, if not thousands, of Englishmen. He had paid every bill in cash, so there was no question of his being traced through the traveller’s cheques. The roses he had bought came from an old woman so short-sighted that she had tried to give the change to another customer. He had been careful to leave no fingerprints in the hotel room. The unremarkable fact that he came from the same Surrey suburb as Mrs D’Abernon and had been in France at the same time was hardly evidence of guilt.

All he had to do was stay cool and give nothing else away.

So he was irritated, but not unduly alarmed, when he was met off the train by a local policeman in plain clothes and escorted to a car.

‘Just checking details, sir,’ the officer explained. ‘We’ll give you a lift back to your place and save you the price of a taxi. You live over your bookshop, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘You answered some questions at Dover about the murder in Orleans. I believe you said you didn’t know Mrs D’Abernon.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Never met the lady?’

Buttery sensed a trap. ‘I certainly didn’t know her by name. Plenty of people come into the shop.’

‘That clears it up then, sir. We found a number of books in her house that her husband understands had been bought from you. Do you keep any record of your customers?’

‘Only if they pay by cheque,’ said Buttery with a silent prayer of thanks that Mrs D’Abernon had always paid in cash.

‘You don’t mind if I come in, then, just to have a glance at the accounts?’

The car drew up outside the shop and the officer helped Buttery with his cases.

It was after closing time, but James was still there. Buttery nodded to him and walked on briskly to the back room, followed by the policeman.

‘Nice holiday, Mr Buttery?’ James called. ‘The mail is on your desk. I opened it, as you instructed.’

Buttery closed the door, and took the account book off its shelf. ‘If I’d had any dealings with the woman, I’m sure I’d remember her name,’ he said, as he held it out.

The officer didn’t take it. He was looking at an open parcel on Buttery’s desk. It was about the size of a shoe-box. ‘Looks as if someone’s sent you a present, sir.’

Buttery glanced into the box and saw the Corder figure lying in a bed of tissue paper. He picked it out, baffled. There was a letter with it from Hudson and Black, dealers in objets d’art. It said that the client they had represented in the recent auction had left instructions on the day of the sale that the figure of William Corder should be returned as a gift to its seller with the enclosed note.

The policeman picked out a small card from the wrappings, frowned at it, stared at Buttery and handed it across.

Buttery went white. The message was handwritten. It read:

It was signed: Mildred D’Abernon.

Below was written: P.S. Here’s your murderer.