The Inheritance

SEVEN

Trave arrived late, anxious to avoid if possible another encounter with Thompson, and earned himself a malevolent glance from the judge as the swing door banged closed behind him and he took a seat at the side of the court.

Silas was already in the witness box, and he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor as he answered the prosecutor’s questions, studiously avoiding the eager stare of his brother, who was gazing at him expectantly across the well of the courtroom. Trave realised that it must be four months or more since the two had last met.

Unsurprisingly, Silas looked more ill at ease than when Trave had seen him at the manor house the day before, but there was the same lack of expression in his voice as he answered the prosecutor’s questions, and the way in which he always seemed to think before he spoke made Trave more sure than ever that the young man was hiding something. Not for the first time Trave wished that he’d had the chance to interrogate Silas in that same windowless interview room at the back of Oxford Police Station, where he had questioned Stephen on the day after the murder. The trouble was that the evidence against the younger brother was just too strong. Trave had had no option but to charge the boy, and that had put an end to further investigation. Trave stirred in his seat, trying unsuccessfully to shake off his frustration and concentrate on the evidence.

“How would you describe the relationship between your brother, Stephen, and your father?” asked Thompson, getting straight to the point.

“When?”

“Let’s say, in the last two years of your father’s life. I don’t think there’s any need to go back further than that.”

“They were estranged.”

“They didn’t speak to each other at all?”

“Not as far as I know. My brother was at the university, and my father lived at home. He never went out,” Silas added, as if it was an afterthought.

“Why was that?” asked Thompson.

“He couldn’t because of his health, but he was also concerned about security. Although less so toward the end. I don’t know why. In the last couple of months he would sit outside in the garden sometimes, which he never used to do before. But he still didn’t leave the grounds.”

“What was wrong with your father’s health?”

“He was shot in the lung while on a trip abroad about three years ago. He never really recovered.”

“Was he working? During his last two years?”

“Yes. He’d retired from the university, but he was writing a book on illuminated manuscripts. That was his real field of expertise. Sasha helped him with the research, and I did the photography.”

“What did that involve?”

“My father had his own collection, and I was mainly documenting that. He wanted to use as many of his own manuscripts as possible in the book.”

“I see. This collection must be very valuable.”

“Yes.”

“And what did you believe would happen to the manuscripts after your father died?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it. I suppose I assumed that Stephen and I would inherit from my father. That is until I heard him talking about his will with Sergeant Ritter.”

“This is admissible hearsay, my lord. It will go to the defendant’s state of mind,” said Thompson, anticipating a defence objection.

“Very well, Mr. Thompson. Carry on,” said the judge. He looked almost benign this morning. The trial was going well. The prosecution seemed to have everything: motive, fingerprints, and now a history of ill will between victim and defendant. Getting a conviction should be child’s play.

Thompson turned back to his witness and asked Silas to tell the court about the conversation he’d overheard.

“They were in my father’s study.”

“And where were you?”

“I was in the corridor outside. I heard them talking about the will, and so I stopped to listen. They didn’t see me.”

“What did they say?”

“It was my father who was speaking. He was telling Sergeant Ritter that he didn’t have long to live. I don’t know how he knew that, but I assume his doctor had told him. And it was then that he told Ritter that he was intending to change his will. The house, my home, was going to become a museum for the manuscripts, and Ritter was to be one of the trustees.” A note of emotion had crept into Silas’s voice when he was speaking about the house, but it was immediately suppressed. “I don’t know who the other ones were going to be,” he added. “My father’s solicitor, perhaps.”

“How did you feel about what you heard?” asked Thompson.

“I was shocked. Obviously. I hadn’t expected it. I suppose I felt betrayed.”

“So what did you do?”

“I tried to talk to my father, but he wouldn’t listen. It’s hard to explain. We didn’t have the sort of relationship where I could talk to him about things like money.”

“Did you do anything else about the situation?”

“Yes. I went to talk to my brother, so that we could decide what to do. He was in his rooms at New College. Mary was there too, but I waited until she left.”

“How did your brother react to what you told him about the will?”

“He was very upset.”

“Just that. Upset?”

“He was angry too. You need to understand-Stephen was in a very confused state those first two years he was up at Oxford. Our father had always been very important to him, and when they quarreled, it was like…” Silas hesitated looking for the right word, “it was like a light went out somewhere inside him. He didn’t seem to believe in anything anymore. I didn’t see him very often but I know that he drank a lot. He tried to cover it up, but I think he was very unhappy.”

“Please stop the witness from speculating, Mr. Thompson,” said the judge, stirring in his seat.

“Yes, my lord,” said Thompson. “Tell us, Mr. Cade, what you and your brother decided to do about your father’s will.”

“We agreed that Stephen should try to end his quarrel with our father. He is the natural son, whereas I was adopted. He always got on better with our parents when we were younger, and I-we-felt that my father might listen to him. Stephen’s always been better at speaking his mind than I have.”

“So what did you do?” asked Thompson.

“Do?” Silas seemed momentarily lost, remembering a childhood that he always tried to forget.

“Yes,” said Thompson, failing to keep the impatience out of his voice. “What did you both decide to do in order to end your brother’s quarrel with your father?”

“Stephen wrote a letter, and I took it back with me to Moreton and gave it to our father. He agreed to allow Stephen to visit, and my brother came out for lunch on the following weekend. He brought Mary with him.”

“Was your father enthusiastic about the meeting?” asked the judge, holding up a hand to stop Thompson’s next question. “How did he respond to the olive branch?”

Silas didn’t answer for a moment, and when he did, he seemed almost surprised at what he was saying.

“I don’t know. It was like he was indifferent. He didn’t seem to care much what Stephen did. Whether he came or whether he stayed away.”

“Why?” The single word escaped from Stephen in the dock as if it was a sudden exhalation of breath, and it brought an immediate response from the judge.

“You will be silent, young man. Do you understand me?” Murdoch’s voice was harsh, meant to make Stephen realise the power arrayed against him. “If you are not silent, you will be removed.”

Murdoch stared at Stephen Cade a moment longer and then nodded to Thompson to continue.

“How did the lunch go?” asked the prosecutor.

“It was okay,” said Silas. He had looked up at his brother for a moment when Stephen had shouted, but now he had reverted to his former posture with his eyes fixed on the dark wood of the witness stand in front of him. “I mean, it was fairly awkward,” he went on, “but that was only to be expected. Stephen hadn’t seen my father for two years.”

“Was the will discussed on that day?” asked Thompson.

“No. I don’t think Stephen saw my father alone, and there was obviously nothing said about it at the lunch. Anyway, Stephen wasn’t going to talk to my father about the will straightaway. That only changed because of what I saw in his diary.”

“What was that?”

“An appointment for my father to see his solicitor at three o’clock on Monday, June eighth, about the will.”

There was something too precise about Silas’s recollection of time and date, thought Swift, leaning back in his chair. It was frustrating. He wanted the chance to rattle Silas Cade and see what came out, but his client wouldn’t let him. Swift was convinced that Silas knew more than he was letting on.

“Is this the entry you’re talking about?” asked Thompson handing up the same engagement diary that he had shown to the solicitor the previous day.

“Yes, I saw it on the Wednesday. I was in my father’s study getting something, and the diary was open on the desk.”

“What did you do about what you’d seen, Mr. Cade?” asked Thompson, eager to move the story on.

“I told my brother. He arranged to come out to Moreton on the Friday evening with Mary, and he told me that he was going to talk to my father in his study at ten o’clock. That was the night my father was murdered.”

“All right, let’s deal with that night. Who was there at dinner?”

“Stephen and Mary. My father. Jeanne, that’s Mrs. Ritter, and the sergeant. And me, obviously.”

“What was the atmosphere like?”

“Strained. Like I said before, Stephen and my father hadn’t been together for a long time.”

“What time did the dinner end?”

“Nine o’clock, maybe. I can’t be sure.”

“And where did you go then?”

“I went to my room. I had some work to do. I was in there for a couple of hours before I heard shouting coming from the east wing, and so I went downstairs. My father was dead in his study.”

“Where is your room, Mr. Cade?”

“It’s in the west wing, but it faces east looking down on the courtyard.”

“And were you alone during the two hours that you were in your room after dinner?”

“Yes. Completely alone.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cade,” said Thompson. “That’s all I have to ask you. If you wait there, there’ll be some more questions.”

“May I speak to my client a moment?” Swift asked the judge.

“Very well. But don’t be too long about it. The jury is waiting,” said Murdoch.

Swift leant over Stephen in the dock, enveloping him in an intimacy that excluded the prison officers on either side.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he whispered. “Why don’t you at least let me put it to him?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed. “Silas had a motive, and there’s something he’s holding back. I can feel it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t kill my father,” said Stephen. His voice was soft but firm. “And I won’t have you accuse him of it.”

Swift turned away. There was no time for further argument. He’d already spent an hour with Stephen in the cells before court, trying to persuade his client to change his instructions, but he’d got nowhere. The die was cast.

“You have told us, Mr. Cade,” Swift began, “that your brother and your father had been estranged for two years prior to your father’s death.”

“Yes.”

“Tell us, please, what was the cause of that estrangement?”

The question seemed to agitate Silas. He looked over at his brother for a moment and swallowed deeply.

“I’d prefer not to answer that,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cade, but I must insist,” said Swift. “It’s important that the jury has the full picture.”

When Silas still did not answer, the judge intervened. “Answer the question, Mr. Cade,” he ordered. “You’re a witness in a murder trial. This isn’t some tea party.”

“My brother believed that my father had killed a number of French civilians at the end of the war in order to steal a manuscript.” Silas spoke slowly and with visible reluctance.

“And did you believe it?”

“Yes. I had to. Stephen and I overheard my father and Sergeant Ritter talking about what they’d done. My father couldn’t deny it after that.”

“And that made Stephen angry?”

“Yes. Angry and ashamed.”

“And what did it make you feel?”

“I don’t know. I felt bad, but I lived with it. Perhaps I don’t expect as much from people as my brother does.”

“I see,” said Swift. “Now, I want to ask you about a blackmail letter that your father received two years before his death. You and Stephen read this letter, did you not?”

“Yes. That was when the trouble between them started.”

“What did the letter say?”

“That the person had seen what my father did at this place called Mar-jean. He wanted the manuscript if he was going to stay quiet. My father was supposed to take it to him in London.”

“Did he?”

“No. My father never left the house. Sergeant Ritter went. He said he was going to deal with the man. There were no more letters after that, or at least none that I knew of,” said Silas, correcting himself.

“So Professor Cade and the sergeant seemed to know who had written the letter,” said the judge.

“Yes. They were certain it was someone called Carson, who’d been with them at this place-Marjean. My father said he was the one who shot him in France.”

“Carson,” said the judge repeating the name.

“Yes,” said Silas.

The judge made a note on a piece of paper and nodded to Swift to continue.

“You told the court earlier that your brother decided to seek a reconciliation with your father about a week before his death,” said Swift.

“Yes.”

“And that this decision was because of what you’d told your brother about your father’s intention to change his will.”

“Yes.”

“But that wasn’t Stephen’s only reason for going to Moreton, was it, Mr. Cade?”

Silas didn’t respond, and so Swift answered his own question.

“You said to your brother when you visited him that you’d overheard your father telling Sergeant Ritter that he didn’t have long to live. Isn’t that right, Mr. Cade?”

“I told Stephen a lot of things. That was just one of them.”

“But it upset him, didn’t it, to hear that his father was going to die?”

“He was upset by everything I told him,” said Silas. “Angry too.”

“Angry,” repeated Swift. “But that doesn’t mean that he said that he was going to harm your father.”

“No. We wanted to get our father to change his mind. About his will.”

“Did you ever see your brother with a gun?” asked Swift, changing tack.

“No. Not that I remember.”

“Are you sure? Didn’t Sergeant Ritter make you and Stephen fire his pistol in the garden once?”

“Yes,” said Silas after a moment. “I’m sorry, I forgot about that. We didn’t want to, but he made us.”

“He nailed a target to one of the oak trees, and you and Stephen took turns shooting at it.”

“Yes.”

“How did your brother do?”

“I don’t remember.”

“He missed every time, didn’t he, Mr. Cade? He didn’t even hit the target.”

“I told you. I don’t remember. I was concentrating on what I was doing.”

“And how did you do?”

“I was better than my brother, but that doesn’t make me a marksman,” said Silas, suddenly defensive.

“Thank you. No more questions,” said Swift, resuming his seat.