‘It makes a lot of difference. Lady Frances. The conduct of an inquest is entirely in the hands of the coroner. He has wide powers. He can make things easy or difficult as he pleases. In this case everything went off perfectly.’ ‘A good stage performance, in fact,’ said Frankie in a hard voice.
Nicholson looked at her in surprise.
‘I know what Lady Frances is feeling,’ said Roger. ‘I feel the same. My brother was murdered, Dr Nicholson.’ He was standing behind the other and did not see, as Frankie did, the startled expression that sprang into the doctor’s eyes.
‘I mean what I say,’ said Roger, interrupting Nicholson as he was about to reply. ‘The law may not regard it as such, but murder it was. The criminal brutes who induced my brother to become a slave to that drug murdered him just as truly as if they had struck him down.’ He had moved a little and his angry eyes now looked straight into the doctor’s.
‘I mean to get even with them,’ he said; and the words sounded like a threat.
Dr Nicholson’s pale-blue eyes fell before his. He shook his head sadly.
‘I cannot say I disagree with you,’ he said. ‘I know more about drug-taking than you do, Mr Bassington-ffrench. To induce a man to take drugs is indeed a most terrible crime.’ Ideas were whirling through Frankie’s head – one idea in particular.
‘It can’t be,’ she was saying to herself. ‘That would be too monstrous. And yet^ his whole alibi depends on her word. But in that case -‘ j She roused herself to find Nicholson speaking to her.
‘You came down by car. Lady Frances? No accident this time?’ Frankie felt she simply hated that smile.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I think it’s a pity to go in too much for accidents – don’t you?’ She wondered if she had imagined it, or whether his eyelids really flickered for a moment.
‘Perhaps your chauffeur drove you this time?’ ‘My chauffeur,’ said Frankie, ‘has disappeared.’ She looked straight at Nicholson.
Indeed?’ ‘He was last seen heading for the Grange,’ went on Frankie.
Nicholson raised his eyebrows.
‘Really? Have I – some attraction in the kitchen?’ His voice sounded amused. ‘I can hardly believe it.’ ‘At any rate that is where he was last seen,’ said Frankie.
‘You sound quite dramatic,’ said Nicholson. ‘Possibly you are paying too much attention to local gossip. Local gossip is very unreliable. I have heard the wildest stories.’ He paused.
His voice altered slightly in tone. ‘I have even had a story brought to my ears that my wife and your chauffeur had been seen talking together down by the river.’ Another pause. ‘He was, I believe, a very superior young man. Lady Frances.’ ‘Is that it?’ thought Frankie. ‘Is he going to pretend that his wife has run off with my chauffeur? Is that his little game?’ Aloud she said: ‘Hawkins is quite above the average chauffeur.’ ‘So it seems,’ said Nicholson.
He turned to Roger.
‘I must be going. Believe me, all my sympathies are with you and Mrs Bassingtonffrench.’ Roger went out into the hall with him. Frankie followed. On the hall table were a couple of letters addressed to her. One was a bill. The other Her heart gave a leap.
The other was in Bobby’s handwriting.
Nicholson and Roger were on the doorstep.
She tore it open.
Dear Frankie (wrote Bobby), I’m on the trail at last. Follow me as soon as possible to Chipping Somerton. You’d better come by train and not by car. The Bentley is too noticeable. The trains aren’t too good but you can get there all right. You’re to come to a house called Tudor Cottage. I’ll explain to you just exactly how to find it. Don’t ask the way. (Here followed some minute directions.) Have you got that clear? Don’t tell anyone. (This was heavily underlined.) No one at all. Yours ever, Bobby.
Frankie crushed the letter excitedly in the palm of her hand.
So it was all right.
Nothing dreadful had overtaken Bobby.
He was on the trail – and by a coincidence on the same trail as herself. She had been to Somerset House to look up the will of John Savage. Rose Emily Templeton was given as the wife of Edgar Templeton of Tudor Cottage, Chipping Somerton.