Murder in the Museum

Chapter Eighteen

Graham Chadleigh-Bewes caught sight of Carole Seddon standing in the doorway, and embarrassment coloured his ageing baby face. He removed the revolver barrel from his mouth and let out an inadequate ‘Ah’.

Clearly it wasn’t her he’d been expecting. Carole didn’t have any difficulty working that out. Nor was it too wild a conjecture to conclude that the person he had been expecting was his aunt. She lived in the cottage, after all, and there had been a note of familiarity in Graham’s words. Were his suicide threats, Carole wondered, another of the rituals which he and Belinda played out on a regular basis, a darker counterpoint to their cake-eating pantomime?

He put the revolver down amidst the chaos of his desk. ‘I don’t know what you must be thinking,’ he said, with an incongruous attempt at joviality. ‘Just a little game I play.’

‘Russian roulette?’

He chuckled, assuming her to be sharing the lightheartedness he was trying to impose on the situation. But she wasn’t. Carole’s emotions were more complex. There was an element of shock at seeing the man in that situation, but, more powerfully, a sense of embarrassment, as if she had disturbed some shameful ritual. Graham’s own reaction to her arrival compounded the impression

‘No, not Russian roulette,’ he replied tartly.

‘You mean there aren’t bullets in any of the chambers?’

‘Oh no. In fact, every one is loaded.’ He let out a manufactured chuckle. ‘So the odds for any Russian playing games of chance with that gun wouldn’t be very good. I don’t think even Dostoevsky would have taken that bet.’

‘The gun works then?’

‘Oh yes. Been looked after with great care. The Estate Manager is a great gun enthusiast. Checks that one out at least once a year. Even indulges in a little target practice in the kitchen garden.’

‘Is that legal?’

‘I’m sure it isn’t. But who’s to know? When the revolver was originally put on display, it was spiked, so that it couldn’t be used. The Estate Manager thought that was a pity, so he restored it to its original splendour.’

Carole moved into the room and sat down. ‘I assume it’s the one that belongs in the glass case in the Bracketts dining room?’

‘Yes. Graham Chadleigh’s revolver.’

‘ “Contents removed for cleaning and restoration”.’

‘Exactly. It’s been to a specialist gunsmith, to be properly cleaned. Has to be done every few years. Only came back from there yesterday.’

‘And when did it go? When was it sent off to be cleaned?’

‘Oh . . . What? Three weeks ago.’

‘Before the last Trustees’ Meeting?’

‘Definitely before that, yes.’

Carole didn’t contest this, but she knew it wasn’t true. She remembered seeing the revolver in its display case at the meeting. Either Graham Chadleigh-Bewes’ memory was playing him false, or he was lying. She favoured the second explanation, though she could not guess at the reasons for his duplicity.

‘You talked of “Chadleigh bad blood”,’ she said suddenly.

‘Sorry?’

‘When I came in. When you were playing your . . . game with the revolver. Is “Chadleigh bad blood” part of the game?’

He looked flustered, and went on to the attack. ‘I don’t see why you’re bombarding me with questions. There’s one very basic one I haven’t asked you yet. What do you think you’re doing walking uninvited into my house?’

Carole held out the envelope with the publisher’s permissions request in it. ‘I brought you this. Remember? You asked me to.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He retreated.

‘Your front door was open. I knocked and called out, but got no reply.’

‘I thought Auntie was here,’ he said rather peevishly, maybe confirming Carole’s guess that the suicide routine had been for Belinda Chadleigh’s benefit.

She decided to push forward while he was on the back foot. ‘I thought I saw Professor Teischbaum leaving as I arrived.’

‘What?’ He considered denial, but thought better of it. ‘Yes, she was here.’

‘Offering to co-operate with you? A jointly written biography?’

There a bark of derisive laughter. ‘Hardly. No, she was trying to blackmail me.’

‘Oh?’

‘Somehow she knows about the body that was found in the kitchen garden.’ Carole reacted as if this were fresh news. ‘She’s threatening to tell the press.’

‘So what did you say to her?’

‘I told her to bloody tell them!’ he snapped petulantly. Then a comforting thought came to him. ‘If she does, I think we can guarantee that she’ll alienate every single one of the Bracketts Trustees. Nobody’ll contemplate taking her side after that kind of betrayal.’

‘I didn’t think anyone contemplated taking her side now.’

‘There are a few waverers.’ He looked piercingly at her, so that his words became an accusation.

Carole ignored the challenge. ‘You don’t think Marla Teischbaum’s going to the press will cause any harm?’

‘So long as I warn Sheila what’s going to happen, it’ll be all right.’

‘Sheila won’t be surprised.’

‘Oh?’

‘I told her Marla Teischbaum knew about the body.’

‘But how on earth did you—’

Carole didn’t let him get any further. ‘Anyway, what’s this about Sheila? Isn’t Gina the one you should be telling?’

‘Who?’ At first, he appeared genuinely to have forgotten the Director’s existence. ‘Oh yes. Yes, of course. Sheila’ll tell her.’ He smiled with satisfaction. ‘Actually, we’ve done very well. Sheila’s contacts are brilliant. She’s kept the story quiet all this time. Only two more days till Bracketts closes for the winter. And if there is any threat of over-inquisitive press or ghoulish members of the public creeping round, we can just close a little early.’

‘So what was Marla Teischbaum trying to blackmail you for?’

‘Sorry?’

‘She threatened to spill the beans to the press, unless you did . . . what?’

He coloured, and pushed the revolver around in its nest of papers. ‘She wanted more information about Esmond, more documentation. Huh. If she thinks I’m going to give up my hard-won research that easily . . . well, she’s taken on the wrong person.’

Coming from those flabby lips, the attempt to sound macho didn’t work.

‘Going back to the “Chadleigh bad blood”, could we—?’

She was interrupted by a panicked voice from behind her. ‘Graham, what on earth are you doing with that?’

Carole hadn’t heard Belinda Chadleigh enter the room. But, when she turned and saw the old woman’s faded eyes staring with horror at the revolver on Graham’s desk, she began to wonder how much of a game his suicide threat had been.

And, also, whether the ‘Chadleigh bad blood’ perhaps referred to a depressive tendency in the family’s genetic make-up.