Scandalous Behavior

58

Stone was awakened by the telephone at midmorning. He fumbled for it. “Yes?”

“Stone, it’s Lady Bourne. I thought you should know that Sir Charles appears to be slipping away. His doctor doesn’t believe he’ll last out the day.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Stone said. “I know this has been a difficult period for you, and I hope the future will be better. Would it be all right if I visited him?”

“I’m afraid he is unconscious — has been since the day before yesterday, so it wouldn’t do either of you any good.”

“I wish there were something I could do. Will you let me know if you think of anything?”

“I will, thank you.” She hung up.

Stone went into his bathroom, shaved, showered, and began to dress. He took a shirt from the cabinet where they were stacked, shook it out, and got into it. Something was wrong. It was a familiar shirt; he had had several of the same pattern made at Turnbull & Asser over the years, but this one didn’t fit. The sleeves were too long, and it was tight around the middle. He took it off and inspected it. At the bottom of the shirt he found a label with a name on it, but it wasn’t his. Sir Charles Bourne. The laundress must have mixed it in with his shirts, which wasn’t surprising, since they both had the same maker’s label.

He was about to refold it and return it to the laundress when he saw something that stopped him. The three buttonholes on the cuff were encrusted with what appeared to be dried blood, and there was a noticeable stain on the cuff itself. It was the sort of thing that would have stopped him in his tracks when he had been a homicide detective. He immediately began to imagine how the stain had got there.

Putting a bloody shirt into a washing machine with hot water would set, not remove, the stain. Blood had to be rinsed away with cold water before washing it in hot. If a man, say a former Royal Marine commando, wanted to kill a man with a knife, he would do it the way he had been trained. Approaching from behind, a right-handed man would clap his left hand over the victim’s mouth, then, with his right hand, reach around and bring the knife blade across the throat, releasing a spurt of arterial blood that might well stain his left cuff. Stone was looking at the left cuff.

He went and sat on the bed and thought about this. What he had imagined was how the brigadier, a former Royal Marine commando, would have killed Sir Richard Curtis. But this shirt had not belonged to the brigadier, who was a smallish man; it had belonged to Charles Bourne, who was tall, and he had no doubt that DNA analysis would reveal the blood to be Sir Richard’s. He believed he had just solved a murder.

He found another shirt and got dressed, then he telephoned Deputy Chief Inspector Holmes and invited him to the house for morning coffee. “I have something to show you,” he said. Holmes accepted his invitation.

Stone had finished breakfast when Holmes arrived. The two men greeted each other cordially and sat down while coffee was brought.

“Thank you for coming, Inspector,” Stone said. “There’s something I have to show you.” He handed the inspector the shirt. “Please examine the left cuff and tell me what you see.”

Holmes looked at it. “I see a bloodstain that laundering did not wash away,” he said. “I suppose it was washed in hot water.”

“That is what I see, too, and I believe that analysis will prove it to be the blood of Sir Richard Curtis. Look at the small label at the bottom front of the shirt.”

Holmes did so. “You are telling me that Sir Richard Curtis was murdered by Sir Charles Bourne and not the brigadier?”

“That is correct.”

“The problem is, I have a written confession from the brigadier, expressing sorrow for what he had done.”

“I think his sorrow arose from guilt,” Stone said, “but not guilt over having murdered Sir Richard.”

“Then what?”

“I believed, and I think you did, too, that Sir Charles had thought for many years that Sir Richard had had a continuing affair with Lady Bourne, and had fathered both her children.”

“I think that is certainly a credible theory, based on the blood groups of the father and the two children.”

“But the brigadier also had the same blood type.”

“Yes, that is so. Are you saying that it was the brigadier who fathered the two children?”

“I believe that to be the case.”

“But Sir Charles believed Sir Richard to be the father.”

“Yes, and that belief finally got the better of Sir Charles, and after an argument of some sort, he killed Sir Richard.”

“And the brigadier’s confession?”

“He was expressing guilt over having been the cause of Sir Richard’s death. By not revealing to Sir Charles that he knew himself to be the father, he had allowed the killing to happen.” Stone was beginning to feel that he was living in an Agatha Christie novel.

Holmes thought about it. “I believe that is a perfect solution to what happened, and if it is, the blood on Sir Charles’s shirt should confirm it.”

“I believe it will.”

“And how did you come by the shirt?”

“Sir Charles and I have the same shirtmaker and the same laundress. I believe the laundress on the estate accidentally put his shirt in with mine and delivered them to me.”

“Well, then,” Holmes said, “I have a couple of jobs ahead of me: first, I must have the blood on the shirt analyzed, and if it proves your theory, I must then arrest Sir Charles on a charge of murder.”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that,” Stone said.

“How so?”

“Sir Charles lies, dying, a quarter of a mile from where we sit. His doctor believes he will not live out the day.”

Holmes allowed himself a chuckle. “Then what would be the point of charging him?”

“I can’t think of one. The brigadier is dead and has left no family, save his two natural children, who don’t know he is their biological father. And Sir Charles is departing this life as we speak.”

“Then you are suggesting that I — what’s the expression? Let sleeping dogs lie?”

“What would be the point of doing anything else?”

“Well,” Holmes said, rising, “I don’t believe that is properly my decision to make. I am bound to take this shirt and this theory to my chief inspector. We will see what he has to say.”

“Then do what you must,” Stone said. “However, I don’t think you are ethically bound to speak to him today. Perhaps tomorrow would do as well.”

“You have a point, Mr. Barrington,” Holmes said. “I’ll make an appointment to see him tomorrow. I’m sure he’s too busy to see me today.”

The two men shook hands, and the deputy chief inspector took his leave, the shirt tucked into his raincoat pocket.