‘The most obvious conclusions are the ones I try to avoid.’
‘Well, you have your own methods, Herr Pünd, and I won’t say they haven’t been helpful in the past. What we’ve got here is a local land owner, been in the village all his life. It’s early days but I can’t see that anyone would have a grudge against him. Now, someone came up here around half past eight last night. He was actually spotted by Brent, the groundsman, as he was finishing work. He hasn’t been able to give us a description but his first impression was that it wasn’t anyone from the village.’
‘How could he know that?’ Fraser asked. He had been ignored up until this moment and felt a need to remind the others he was still there.
‘Well, you know how it is. It’s easier to recognise someone if you’ve seen them before. Even if you can’t see their face, there’s something about the shape of their body or the way they walk. Brent was fairly sure this was a stranger. And anyway, there was something about the way this man went up to the house. It was as if he didn’t want to be seen.’
‘You believe this man was a burglar,’ Pünd said.
‘The house had already been burgled once just a few days before.’ Chubb sighed as if it irritated him having to explain it all again. ‘After the death of the housekeeper, they had to smash a back window to get in. They should have got it reglazed but they didn’t and a few days after that someone broke in. They got away with a nice little haul of antique coins and jewellery – Roman, would you believe it. Maybe they had a look around while they were there. There’s a safe in Sir Magnus’s study which they might have been unable to open but now they knew it was there, they could come back and have a second crack at it. They thought the house was still empty. Sir Magnus surprised them – and there you have it.’
‘You say he was killed violently.’
‘That’s an understatement.’ Chubb needed to fortify himself with another lungful of smoke. ‘There’s a suit of armour in the main hall. You’ll see it in a minute. Complete with sword.’ He swallowed. ‘That’s what they used. They took his head clean off.’
Pünd considered this for a moment. ‘Who found him?’
‘His wife. She’d been on a shopping trip to London and she got home at around nine fifteen.’
‘The shops closed late.’ Pünd half-smiled.
‘Well, maybe she had dinner too. Anyway, as she arrived, she saw a car driving off. She’s not sure of the make but it was green and she saw a couple of letters off the registration plate. FP. As luck would have it, they’re her own initials. She came in and found him lying at the foot of the stairs almost exactly where the body of his housekeeper had been the week before. But not all of him. His head had rolled across the floor and landed next to the fireplace. I’m not sure you’ll be able to talk to her for a while. She’s in hospital in Bath, still under sedation. She’s the one who called the police and I’ve heard a recording of the conversation. Poor woman, she can hardly get the words out, screaming and sobbing. If this was a murder, you can certainly strike her off the list of suspects unless she’s the world’s greatest actress.’
‘The body, I take it, has gone.’
‘Yes. We removed it last night. Needed a strong stomach, I can tell you.’
‘Was anything removed from this house on this second occasion, Detective Inspector?’
‘It’s hard to be sure. We’ll need to interview Lady Pye when she’s up to it. But on first appearance, it doesn’t seem so. You can come in, if you like, Herr Pünd. You’re not here in any official capacity, of course, and maybe I should have a quick word with the Assistant Commissioner, but I’m sure no harm can come of it. And if anything does spring to mind, I can rely on you to let me know.’
‘Of course, Detective Inspector,’ Pünd said although Fraser knew that he would do no such thing. He had accompanied Pünd on five separate enquiries and knew that the detective had a maddening habit of keeping everything under his hat until it suited him to reveal the truth.
They climbed three steps but Pünd stopped before he entered the front door. He crouched down. ‘Now that is strange,’ he said.
Chubb gazed at him in disbelief. ‘Are you going to tell me that I’ve missed something?’ he demanded. ‘And we haven’t even gone inside!’
‘It may have no relevance at all, Detective Inspector,’ he replied, soothingly. ‘But you see the flower bed beside the door …’
Fraser glanced down. There were flower beds running all the way along the front of the house, divided by the steps that led up from the driveway.
‘Petunias, if I’m not mistaken,’ Chubb remarked.
‘Of that I am unsure. But do you not see the handprint?’
Both Chubb and Fraser looked more closely. It was true. Somebody had stuck their hand in the soft earth just to the left of the door. From the size of it, Fraser would have said that it belonged to a man. The fingers were outstretched. It was very odd, Fraser thought. A footprint would have been more conventional.
‘It probably belongs to the gardener,’ Chubb said. ‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’
‘And you are probably right.’ Pünd sprang back to his feet and continued forward.
The door led directly into a large, rectangular room with a staircase in front of them and two more doors, left and right. Fraser saw at once where the body of Sir Magnus had lain and he felt the usual stirring in the pit of his stomach. There was a Persian rug, gleaming darkly, still soaked with blood. The blood had spread onto the flagstones, stretching towards the fireplace, encircling the legs of one of the leather chairs that stood there. The whole room stank of it. A sword lay diagonally, with its hilt close to the stairs, its blade pointing towards the head of a deer that looked down with glass eyes, perhaps the only witness to what had occurred. The rest of the armour, an empty knight, stood beside one of the doors with a living room beyond. Fraser had been to many crime scenes with his employer. Often he had seen the bodies lying there – stabbed, shot, drowned, whatever. But it struck him that there was something particularly macabre about this one, almost Jacobean with the dark wooden panelling and the minstrel gallery.
‘Sir Magnus knew the person who killed him,’ Pünd muttered.
‘How can you possibly know?’ Fraser asked.
‘The position of the suit of armour and the layout of the room.’ Pünd gestured. ‘See for yourself, James. The entrance is behind us. The armour and the sword are further inside the room. If the killer had come to the front door and wished to attack Sir Magnus, it would have been necessary to go round him to reach the weapon and at that moment, if the door was open, Sir Magnus could have made good his escape. However, it seems more likely that Sir Magnus was showing someone out. They come in from the living room. Sir Magnus is first. His killer is behind him. As he opens the front door, he does not see that his guest has drawn out the sword. He turns, sees the guest moving towards him, perhaps pleads with him. The killer strikes. And all is as we see it.’