The hunt for Sonya Dufrette chc-1 Read online

  27

  The Asprey’s Cigarette Case

  Three days later, Antonia was entertaining Major Payne to dinner at her house and she told him the whole story.

  ‘I’ll never forgive myself for missing the denouement,’ he said as he watched her pour out coffee from her new and rather superior coffee-maker. ‘What a remarkable woman… What did you tell the police exactly?’

  ‘Nothing much, apart from how and where I had found the body. Veronica introduced me as one of her oldest and dearest chums, you see. I explained that I’d been on my way to the house, on a visit… Veronica does seem to have the extraordinary knack of bending people to her own will, to get them to do what she wants. I said I’d known Sonya as a little girl and confirmed that she had been extremely ill. Veronica had all the necessary papers. Funnily enough they had gone on calling her Sonya. No one made a connection between the psychotic young woman whose death was clearly a tragic misadventure and the disappearance of the little girl from that same house twenty years ago. The policemen were all rather young… I hope I did right.’

  As distant thunder signalled the end of the heat wave, Major Payne said, ‘You think she killed her, don’t you?’

  ‘I do. I believe it was a case of mercy killing. Veronica couldn’t bear to watch Sonya’s misery. She said so in that letter. I believe she made up the story about Sonya’s fondness for mints and how she’d put pills and suchlike in her mouth. It’s all too neat. You probably think it’s my imagination again?’ She paused. ‘There was also the way her eyes narrowed when she told me what Sonya had done… She had a certain look. Not ruthless exactly – I can’t quite explain it.’ Antonia frowned. It had occurred to her that she had surprised that same look on Veronica’s face not once but twice…

  Major Payne produced his pipe. ‘Well, Veronica Vorodin is a Yusupov on her mother’s side. She and Lena are cousins. Prince Yusupov first tried to kill Rasputin with poison, remember? He put cyanide in the cakes, and it was only when it didn’t work that he shot him. What I mean is, poison was his first choice. It’s probably all rot, but I suppose it can be argued that it’s in her blood? Veronica is descended from a poisoner… It would have been easy for her to crush a lethal dose of sleeping pills, slip them in a drink and give it to Sonya – ’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Antonia interrupted. ‘Drink… Oh my God. Hugh, she is a poisoner all right. She did it twice.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She killed Major Nagle too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s when her eyes narrowed and she got that same look. She said, “I gave him a drink. No, he won’t come again.” It ties up with several other things. Nagle’s disappeared – no one knows where he is. And he was wearing a blazer when he paid Veronica his second visit!’

  Payne stroked his jaw with a forefinger. ‘The blazer button you found in the garden? Beside the Edwardian game larder, did you say?’

  ‘Yes. The button had been there for some time. It was a bit rusty. The game larder’s covered in some creeper plant. I did have a funny feeling when I saw it. Thought it looked like a shrine.’

  ‘You think that’s where she put Nagle’s body?’

  ‘Yes. And if you are still not convinced,’ Antonia went on, her eyes very bright, ‘there’s the Asprey’s cigarette case on Veronica’s mantelpiece. It has Major Nagle’s initials on it. T.N. Tommy Nagle.’

  ‘Crikey,’ Payne said. ‘It must have fallen out of his pocket when

  …’

  Antonia nodded. ‘She kept it.’

  After a pause, Major Payne cleared his throat. ‘Do you think we could go to Twiston again? Just the two of us? You said that Veronica would be going abroad soon. We could sneak into the garden and see what’s in that game larder. Then we’d know – um – beyond any reasonable doubt? We don’t have to involve the police…’

  Antonia nodded again.

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