‘You lied to me, Lady Pye.’
‘That was wrong of me, Detective Inspector, and I’m sorry. But the fact is, it doesn’t make any real difference, does it? The rest of my story was true. Coming home on the train. Arriving at half past eight. Seeing the green car. Those are the salient points.’
‘Your husband is dead. You were deceiving him. I’d say those are also salient points, Lady Pye.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Jack Dartford cut in. ‘She wasn’t deceiving him. That’s not how I saw it anyway. You have no idea what Magnus was like. The man was a brute. The way he treated her, his infantile rages, it was disgusting. And she gave up her career for him!’
‘What career was that?’ Pünd asked.
‘In the theatre! Frances was a brilliant actress. I saw her on the stage long before I met her.’
‘That’s enough, Jack,’ Frances cut in.
‘Is that where your husband met you? In the theatre?’ Chubb asked.
‘He sent flowers to my dressing room. He’d seen me as Lady Macbeth.’
Even Chubb knew that one: a play in which a powerful woman persuades a man to commit murder. ‘Were you ever happy together?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I knew very quickly that I’d made a mistake but I was younger then and I suppose I was too proud to admit it. The trouble with Magnus was that it wasn’t enough for him to marry me. He had to own me. He made that clear very quickly. It was as if I were part of the package – the house, the grounds, the lake, the woods and the wife. He was very old-fashioned, the way he saw the world.’
‘Was he ever violent to you?’
‘He never actually struck me, Detective Inspector, but violence can take many forms. He was loud. He could be threatening. And he had a way of throwing himself around that often made me afraid.’
‘Tell them about the sword!’ Dartford insisted.
‘Oh Jack!’
‘What happened with the sword, Lady Pye? Chubb asked.
‘It was just something that happened a couple of days before I went up to meet Jack. You must understand that, underneath it all, Magnus was a great big child. If you ask me, this whole business with Dingle Dell was more about upsetting people than actually making money. He had temper tantrums. If he didn’t get what he wanted, he could become very nasty indeed.’ She sighed. ‘He had a good idea that I was seeing someone – all those trips to London. And the two of us were sleeping apart, of course. He didn’t want me any more, not in the way a husband wants his wife, but it hurt his pride that I might have actually found somebody else.
‘We had a row that morning. I can’t even remember what started it. But then he started screaming at me – how I was his, how he would never let me go. I’d heard it all before. Only this time, he was crazier than ever. You noticed that there was a painting missing in the great hall. It was a portrait of me, which he’d commissioned as a present for my fortieth birthday. As a matter of fact it was done by Arthur Redwing.’ She turned to Pünd. ‘Have you met him?’
‘He is married to the doctor?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have seen another work of his but we have not yet met.’
‘Well, I think he’s very talented. And I loved the painting he did of me. He actually managed to capture a moment of real happiness, standing in the garden near the lake – and that was rare enough, I can tell you. It was a gorgeous summer that year. Arthur did the painting over four or five sessions and although Magnus hardly paid him anything for it – that was typical of him to be so mean – I think it was rather wonderful. We talked about putting it in for the summer exhibition, you know, at the Royal Academy. But Magnus wouldn’t put me on show. That would mean sharing me! So it stayed on the wall in the main hall.
‘And then we had that argument. I’ll admit that I can be quite nasty when I want to be and I certainly let him have a few home truths. Magnus went very red, as if was going to burst. He always did have problems with his blood pressure. He drank too much and he quite easily worked himself up into these rages. I told him I was going up to London. He refused to give me permission. I laughed at him and told him I didn’t need his permission or anyone else’s. Suddenly he went over to that stupid suit of armour and with a great yell pulled out the sword—’
‘The same sword with which he would later be killed?’
‘Yes, Mr Pünd. He came over to me, dragging it behind him and for a moment I thought he was going to attack me with it. But instead he suddenly turned it on the painting and stabbed it again and again in front of my eyes. He knew it would hurt me, losing it. At the same time, he was telling me I was his possession and that he could do the same to me at any time.’
‘What happened next, Lady Pye?’
‘I just went on laughing. Is that the best you can do? I remember shouting those words at him. I think I was a little hysterical. Then I went up to my room and slammed the door.’
‘And the painting?’
‘I was sad about that. It couldn’t be mended. Or maybe it could, but it would have been too expensive. Magnus gave it to Brent to put on the bonfire.’
She fell silent.
‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ Jack Dartford muttered, suddenly. ‘He was a total bastard. He was never kind to anyone and he made life a misery for Frances. I’d have done it myself, if I’d had the nerve. But he’s gone now and we can start again.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘No more hiding. No more lying. We can finally have the life we deserve.’
Pünd nodded at Chubb and the three of them moved away from the rose garden and back across the lawn. There was no sign of Brent. Jack Dartford and Lady Pye had remained where they were. ‘I wonder where he was on the night of the murder,’ Fraser said.
‘You are referring to Mr Dartford?’
‘We only have his word for it that he stayed in London. He left the hotel at half past five. That would have given him plenty of time to catch the train ahead of Lady Pye. It’s just a thought …’
‘You think him capable of murder?’
‘I think he’s a chancer. You can tell just by looking at him. He comes across an attractive woman who’s being badly treated by her husband – and it seems to me that if you’re going to cut somebody’s head off, there has to be a better reason than saving a local wood and those two had a better reason than anyone.’
‘There is some truth in what you say,’ Pünd agreed.
Their car was parked a short distance away from the front of the house and they moved towards it slowly. Chubb too had noticed that Pünd was resting more heavily on his walking stick. He had once thought that the detective only carried it as a fashion accessory. Today he clearly needed it.