‘But what about your children?’
‘Claudia is about to marry a greater fortune than mine, in the shape of Randall Kimpton. She will be perfectly all right. And Harry has a good head on his shoulders and a dependable if enervating wife. Poor Joseph needs what I have to give more than Claudia or Harry.’
‘I must appeal to you to think very carefully before—’
‘Michael, please don’t make a cake of yourself.’ Lady Playford cut him off. ‘Do you imagine the idea first occurred to me as you knocked at the door a few minutes ago? Or is it more likely that I have been ruminating on this for weeks or months? The careful thought you urge upon me has taken place, I assure you. Now: are you going to witness my new will or must I call for Mr Rolfe?’
So that was why Orville Rolfe had also been invited to Lillieoak: in case he, Gathercole, refused to do her bidding.
‘There’s another change I’d like to make to my will at the same time: the favour I mentioned, if you recall. To this part, you may say no if you wish, but I do hope you won’t. At present, Claudia and Harry are named as my literary executors. That arrangement no longer suits me. I should be honoured if you, Michael, would agree to take on the role.’
‘To … to be your literary executor?’ He could scarcely credit it. For nearly a minute, he felt too overwhelmed to speak. Oh, but it was all wrong. What would Lady Playford’s children have to say about it? He couldn’t accept.
‘Do Harry and Claudia know your intentions?’ he asked eventually.
‘No. They will at dinner tonight. Joseph too. At present the only people who know are you and me.’
‘Has there been a conflict within the family of which I am unaware?’
‘Not at all!’ Lady Playford smiled. ‘Harry, Claudia and I are the best of friends—until dinner tonight, at least.’
‘I … but … you have known Joseph Scotcher a mere six years. You met him the day you met me.’
‘There is no need to tell me what I already know, Michael.’
‘Whereas your children … Additionally, my understanding was that Joseph Scotcher …’
‘Speak, dear man.’
‘Is Scotcher not seriously ill?’ Silently, Gathercole added: Do you no longer believe he will die before you?
Athelinda Playford was not young but she was full of vitality. It was hard to believe that anyone who relished life as she did might be deprived of it.
‘Indeed, Joseph is very sick,’ she said. ‘He grows weaker by the day. Hence this unusual decision on my part. I have never said so before, but I trust you’re aware that I adore Joseph? I love him like a son—as if he were my own flesh and blood.’
Gathercole felt a sudden tightness in his chest. Yes, he’d been aware. The difference between knowing a thing and having it confirmed was vast. It led to thoughts that were beneath him, which he fought to banish.
‘Joseph tells me his doctors have said he has only weeks, now, to live.’
‘But … then I’m afraid I’m quite baffled,’ said Gathercole. ‘You wish to make a new will in favour of a man you know won’t be around to make use of his inheritance.’
‘Nothing is ever known for certain in this world, Michael.’
‘And if Scotcher should succumb to his illness within weeks, as you expect him to—what then?’
‘Why, in that eventuality we revert to the original plan—Harry and Claudia get half each.’
‘I must ask you something,’ said Gathercole, in whom a painful anxiety had started to grow. ‘Forgive the impertinence. Do you have any reason to believe that you too will die imminently?’
‘Me?’ Lady Playford laughed. ‘I’m strong as an ox. I expect to chug on for years.’
‘Then Scotcher will inherit nothing on your demise, being long dead himself, and the new will you are asking me to arrange will achieve nothing but to create discord between you and your children.’
‘On the contrary: my new will might cause something wonderful to happen.’ She said this with relish.
Gathercole sighed. ‘I’m afraid to say I’m still baffled.’
‘Of course you are,’ said Athelinda Playford. ‘I knew you would be.’
Conceal and reveal: how appropriate that those two words should rhyme. They sound like opposites and yet, as all good storytellers know, much can be revealed by the tiniest attempts at concealment, and new revelations often hide as much as they make plain.
All of which is my clumsy way of introducing myself as the narrator of this story. Everything you have learned so far—about Michael Gathercole’s meeting with Lady Athelinda Playford—has been revealed to you by me, yet I started to tell the tale without making anybody aware of my presence.
My name is Edward Catchpool, and I am a detective with London’s Scotland Yard. The extraordinary events that I have barely begun to describe did not take place in London, but in Clonakilty, County Cork, in the Irish Free State. It was on 14 October 1929 that Michael Gathercole and Lady Playford met in her study at Lillieoak, and it was on that same day, and only an hour after that meeting commenced, that I arrived at Lillieoak after a long journey from England.
Six weeks earlier, I had received a puzzling letter from Lady Athelinda Playford, inviting me to spend a week as a guest at her country estate. The various delights of hunting, shooting and fishing were offered to me—none of which I had done before and nor was I keen to try them, though my prospective host wasn’t to know that—but what was missing from the invitation was any explanation of why my presence was desired.
I put the letter down on the dining room table at my lodging house and considered what to do. I thought about Athelinda Playford—writer of detective stories, probably the most famous author of children’s books that I could think of—and then I thought about me: a bachelor, a policeman, no wife and therefore no children to whom I might read books …
No, Lady Playford’s world and mine need never overlap, I decided—and yet she had sent me this letter, which meant that I had to do something about it.
Did I want to go? Not greatly, no—and that meant that I probably would. Human beings, I have noticed, like to follow patterns, and I am no exception. Since so much of what I do in my daily life is not anything I would ever undertake by choice, I tend to assume that if something crops up that I would prefer not to do, that means I will certainly do it.
Some days later, I wrote to Lady Playford and enthusiastically accepted her invitation. I suspected she wished to pick my brains and use whatever she extracted in a future book or books. Maybe she had finally decided to find out a little more about how the police operated. As a child, I had read one or two of her stories and been flabbergasted to discover that senior policemen were such nincompoops, incapable of solving even the simplest mystery without the help of a group of conceited, loud-mouthed ten-year-olds. My curiosity on this point was, in fact, the beginning of my fascination with the police force—an interest that led directly to my choice of career. Strangely, it had not occurred to me before that I had Athelinda Playford to thank for this.
During the course of my journey to Lillieoak, I had read another of her novels, to refresh my memory, and found that my youthful judgement had been accurate: the finale