Read Online A Murder in Mayfair by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online Page A

were “sightings,” but even newspapers desperate for something, any thing, on the subject had to admit that the sightings were always vague and unconvincing, sometimes absurd. It didn’t take them long to decide that someone must have seen him, someonemust have talked to him, someone must have shielded him, and taken him in. By Monday, always a lean day for news, several had decided that one or some of Lord John’s aristocratic friends had arranged for his disappearance.
    There was never, as Margaret Stevens had said, any convincing indication that that was the case, let alone proof of any kind. Yes, the Revills had mixed in an upper-crust circle, had—in a fairly modest way—partied, nightclubbed, crush-barred in places where they were likely to meet and mingle with people of their own kind. But there was little indication from the newspapers that Lord John was part of a tight-knit group who were so devoted that they would feel they had to sacrifice reputation and even liberty by spiriting him out of the reach of the law.
    â€œHow are you getting on?”
    I had been so absorbed that I hadn’t heard Susan’s key in the door of the flat. She swung in, still looking as fresh as a morning meadow in a butter ad, carrying an interesting-looking plastic bag stuffed with paper.
    â€œNot too bad,” I said, still having to make an effort to keep my voice normal. “I’ve got through the first two categories, and I’ve still got the longer-term coverage to go.”
    â€œAnd what are your impressions?”
    I followed her academic example and pondered long before answering.
    â€œI’ve got a stronger sense of the situation, the ménage à trois, than of the people.”
    â€œWas it a ménage à trois?” Susan asked, something that it hadn’t occurred to me to question. “To me that means a willing threesome. But I haven’t seen any evidence that the wife was complaisant.”
    â€œWell, she’d chucked him out of the marital bed, according to one or two of these reports. How on earth would they know?”
    â€œCould be the housekeeper. Could be the police. They tendto leak little droplets of information to keep a story alive. I think it’s on the principle of using a sprat to catch a mackerel. The more alive a story is the more likely they are to get further information.”
    â€œWell, it doesn’t seem to have worked in this case.”
    â€œNot so far as we know. So you got no sense of the main players in all this from the early reports?”
    â€œActually I’d got some sense of Lord John and of his wife from the permanent secretary at the Department—very much an outsider’s view, but strongly held. It needs to be checked and modified, to say the least. But I didn’t get any idea from these reports of the character of the nanny.”
    â€œNo,” Susan agreed, nodding vigorously. “I had the feeling that the police very much kept her under wraps, and eventually spirited her away.”
    â€œThere seems to be a lot of spiriting away in this case. Why would the police do that?”
    â€œMaybe they thought that as the main witness she was in danger. Maybe they thought she’d sign up for a ‘Nanny Tells All’ exclusive in one of the papers.”
    That was a new angle. I’d grown up in the era when any such stories before a trial were inconceivable.
    â€œCould she do that? Could they print it?”
    â€œI’m pretty sure they could at that date. And it could have prejudiced any trial—given a handle to the defense.”
    â€œOf course. That’s presumably why the rules were changed. . . . And yet the nanny must have been crucial in all this.”
    â€œMaybe. Or maybe it was the wife who was crucial and that’s why she got murdered. . . . I rather wish I hadn’t set you on to reading the early reports