Read Online A Murder in Mayfair by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Barnard
Ads: Link
reactions, and they all realized it had a class dimension as well as a political one: MAYFAIR SLAYING; WEST END SLAUGHTER, and so on. All got the crime-in-fashionable-circles angle through. Not bad, considering that the police had not been called till toward midnight. By the second day after themurder they had latched on to another aspect: the sex angle. Friends of the couple had mentioned the nanny.
I sat back at this point and reviewed my impression of the instant coverage of the affair. One thing that had been lacking had been photographs. Of course no one had expected the Minister for Overseas Trade as he then was to emerge distraught from his house and disappear into the night, so no one had been there to record it. As a consequence most of the photographs of Lord John Revill were posed, respectable, formal affairs. They could have been, and very likely were, put on his election addresses. The best the popular papers could achieve was some blurred ones taken at a party, where he appeared raffish, slightly drunk, and with a high color. At first glance there appeared nothing worse to these photographs than the fact that he was holding a glass, but when I looked more closely at the one in the Daily Sketch I felt that the eyes looked desperate.
I saw no resemblance in that face to myself.
What were the facts, so far as they had been gathered by the reporters covering the initial breaking of the story? The bare outline of events was that Lady John Revillâchristened Veronica Martindaleâhad been murdered in her bed by her husband, who had then left the family home in Upper Brook Street. Police had been called to the house, and the photographic coverage was of a massive, floodlit presence there. Those were in the evening papers of March 5, a Wednesday. The Thursday papers had pictures of Lady Veronicaâs parents driving away from the town house, very much in mourning, with the two children, Caroline and Matthew. Reporters had chased the car, but its destination was predictable. Hadleigh Grange in Northamptonshire, the home of Sir George and Lady Martindale, the grandparents. A substantial police presence there kept the posse of reporters at the high, wrought-iron gates half a mile from the house. Little more was heard of the peopleinside. The children, obviously, had been very efficiently protected, with the cooperation of the police.
That same day mention had been made of the nanny. Reporters asserted confidently that the only people in the house apart from Lord John and his immediate family had been the nanny and the housekeeper in her basement flat. By the Friday the usual âfriends of,â sometimes varied to âsources close to,â the family had told the newspapers that Lord John and the nanny had been having an affair. Several papers printed a fuzzy photograph of a window in the house in Upper Brook Street, behind which there seemed discernible a female face. By Friday the police were saying that the nanny had helped them with their inquiries and had left the house. They were also saying that reports that fingerprints on the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, had been identified as those of Lord John were âspeculative.â On Saturday they revealed just how speculative they were. Lady John had been strangled. By Saturday Lord Johnâs post at the Department of Trade had been filled by an obscure backbencher. Sources close to the government emphasized that the Prime Minister was making no judgments on the case, but had come to the conclusion that government had to be carried on. Ho-hum, I thought. I knew political flimflam when I read it. Government could survive the absence of a junior minister for a few days. Mr. Macmillan was engaged in damage limitation.
By then attention had begun to switch to the whereabouts of Lord John. Here the reporters had even less to go on. Literally speaking they had nothing to go on. He had left the house and had never been seen again. Oh, of course there
I sat back at this point and reviewed my impression of the instant coverage of the affair. One thing that had been lacking had been photographs. Of course no one had expected the Minister for Overseas Trade as he then was to emerge distraught from his house and disappear into the night, so no one had been there to record it. As a consequence most of the photographs of Lord John Revill were posed, respectable, formal affairs. They could have been, and very likely were, put on his election addresses. The best the popular papers could achieve was some blurred ones taken at a party, where he appeared raffish, slightly drunk, and with a high color. At first glance there appeared nothing worse to these photographs than the fact that he was holding a glass, but when I looked more closely at the one in the Daily Sketch I felt that the eyes looked desperate.
I saw no resemblance in that face to myself.
What were the facts, so far as they had been gathered by the reporters covering the initial breaking of the story? The bare outline of events was that Lady John Revillâchristened Veronica Martindaleâhad been murdered in her bed by her husband, who had then left the family home in Upper Brook Street. Police had been called to the house, and the photographic coverage was of a massive, floodlit presence there. Those were in the evening papers of March 5, a Wednesday. The Thursday papers had pictures of Lady Veronicaâs parents driving away from the town house, very much in mourning, with the two children, Caroline and Matthew. Reporters had chased the car, but its destination was predictable. Hadleigh Grange in Northamptonshire, the home of Sir George and Lady Martindale, the grandparents. A substantial police presence there kept the posse of reporters at the high, wrought-iron gates half a mile from the house. Little more was heard of the peopleinside. The children, obviously, had been very efficiently protected, with the cooperation of the police.
That same day mention had been made of the nanny. Reporters asserted confidently that the only people in the house apart from Lord John and his immediate family had been the nanny and the housekeeper in her basement flat. By the Friday the usual âfriends of,â sometimes varied to âsources close to,â the family had told the newspapers that Lord John and the nanny had been having an affair. Several papers printed a fuzzy photograph of a window in the house in Upper Brook Street, behind which there seemed discernible a female face. By Friday the police were saying that the nanny had helped them with their inquiries and had left the house. They were also saying that reports that fingerprints on the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, had been identified as those of Lord John were âspeculative.â On Saturday they revealed just how speculative they were. Lady John had been strangled. By Saturday Lord Johnâs post at the Department of Trade had been filled by an obscure backbencher. Sources close to the government emphasized that the Prime Minister was making no judgments on the case, but had come to the conclusion that government had to be carried on. Ho-hum, I thought. I knew political flimflam when I read it. Government could survive the absence of a junior minister for a few days. Mr. Macmillan was engaged in damage limitation.
By then attention had begun to switch to the whereabouts of Lord John. Here the reporters had even less to go on. Literally speaking they had nothing to go on. He had left the house and had never been seen again. Oh, of course there
Similar Books
