Read Online The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons - Free Book Online Page B

little. David was at her side in a moment. “The excitement. A little too much for me. It’s nothing.”
    “I’ll come upstairs with you.”
    “Yes. And then if you’ll tell Peterson.” The smile she gave us was ghastly. She went out of the room leaning heavily on David’s arm. The door had barely closed when Stephen said in his thin, acid voice, “Now, Mr Markle.”
    Markle stubbed out his cigar and smiled at Stephen, who said, “Why are you here?”
    “I’m a solicitor. Steinberg, Markle and Fasnach. I’m here to look after Mr Wainwright’s interests.”
    “You know that we dispute his identity,” Clarissa bayed at him.
    “Your husband wrote a letter to that effect. I have it in my possession. He offered my client money, which of course we shall return.”
    We had sat a long while at the dinner table and now Susan, the maid who had helped to serve the meal, came in, not for the first time. As we were going through to the drawing-room Markle excused himself, saying that he had some papers in the car that might interest us. He came back briskly cheerful, with a briefcase under his arm which he unzipped. I looked at the things it contained with a curiosity which may be imagined, and ended my inspection rather disappointed.
    The things he put upon a table were a copy of Donne’s Songs and Sonets, bent at the edges and obviously much read, and a tattered wallet. In the manner of a lecturer he described them. “This little book was given to my client by Mr Miles Wainwright. There is an inscription inside the front cover.” There was, too: David from Miles, Christmas 1943 . “You don’t dispute that this is the copy you gave him?”
    “I don’t dispute it.”
    “Good, good. We’re making progress. Now, this is the wallet he had during the war. You may recognise it? No? Well, this is the one. Contents, pay book, letters. One here from Lady Wainwright, one from his brother Hugh, one from a lady friend named Joyce. A few other odds and ends, like this small key with a lion’s head on it, perhaps you recognise that? Well, there you are, gentlemen.”
    “These don’t mean anything,” Stephen said. “They could have been taken off David’s body.”
    At the same time Clarissa asked, “How does he happen to have them still in his possession?”
    “A good question, Mrs Wainwright,” Markle said, still in his lecturer’s rôle. “The Russians took the wallet, let him keep the little book of poems, which you can see was his constant companion in camp. Then when the Russians let him go they handed back his wallet intact.”
    Silence. Then Stephen said, “As far as I’m concerned these don’t prove anything, if that’s all he’s got to show.”
    Markle shrugged. “What do you expect? You heard his story, it’s a marvel he was able to keep anything at all. His mother knew him at once.”
    “She believed what she wants to believe.”
    “That old man in the garden recognised him.”
    “He’d heard this tale about David being alive.”
    Markle’s mouth curved in a sneer. “You two gentlemen are what might be called interested parties I understand, and Mrs Wainwright too. Perhaps even this young gentleman here.”
    “That’s an outrageous insinuation,” Stephen cried.
    “Oh, come along now, you won’t pretend you didn’t want to keep my client away from here. That was your object, wasn’t it? To buy him off. On the cheap.” Markle sat in a cretonne-covered wing arm-chair with his legs stretched out, odiously at ease, and looked around him with surprise. “This really is a period piece, isn’t it? Must say I’ve never seen a room like it. Might be something out of a film.”
    Stephen confronted him, trembling with indignation. At this moment David returned, and took in the scene.
    “Trouble?” he asked.
    I can’t convey what a difference I felt in his attitude in the way he spoke that one word. It was as though he were saying, “All right, the fancy talk is over, let’s get down to