A Pocket Full of Rye (Miss Marple 7)

“I don’t suppose the subject will arise, Mr. Fortescue.”

“I must have my bit of fun with Percy,” said Lance. “I want to make him sweat a bit. I’ve got to get a bit of my own back.”

“That’s rather a curious phrase, Mr. Fortescue,” said Neele. “Your own back—for what?”

Lance shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, it’s old history now. Not worth going back over.”

“There was a little matter of a cheque, I understand, in the past. Would that be what you’re referring to?”

“How much you know, Inspector!”

“There was no question of prosecution, I understand,” said Neele. “Your father wouldn’t have done that.”

“No. He just kicked me out, that’s all.”

Inspector Neele eyed him speculatively, but it was not Lance Fortescue of whom he was thinking, but of Percival. The honest, industrious, parsimonious Percival. It seemed to him that wherever he got in the case he was always coming up against the enigma of Percival Fortescue, a man of whom everybody knew the outer aspects, but whose inner personality was much harder to gauge. One would have said from observing him a somewhat colourless and insignificant character, a man who had been very much under his father’s thumb. Percy Prim in fact, as the AC had once said. Neele was trying now, through Lance, to get at a closer appreciation of Percival’s personality. He murmured in a tentative manner:

“Your brother seems always to have been very much—well, how shall I put it—under your father’s thumb.”

“I wonder.” Lance seemed definitely to be considering the point. “I wonder. Yes, that would be the effect, I think, given. But I’m not sure that it was really the truth. It’s astonishing, you know, when I look back through life, to see how Percy always got his own way without seeming to do so, if you know what I mean.”

Yes, Inspector Neele thought, it was indeed astonishing. He sorted through the papers in front of him, fished out a letter and shoved it across the desk towards Lance.

“This is a letter you wrote last August, isn’t it, Mr. Fortescue?”

Lance took it, glanced at it and returned it.

“Yes,” he said, “I wrote it after I got back to Kenya last summer. Dad kept it, did he? Where was it—here in the office?”

“No, Mr. Fortescue, it was among your father’s papers in Yewtree Lodge.”

The inspector considered it speculatively as it lay on the desk in front of him. It was not a long letter.

Dear Dad,

I’ve talked things over with Pat and I agree to your proposition. It will take me a little time to get things fixed up here, say about the end of October or beginning of November. I’ll let you know nearer the time. I hope we’ll pull together better than we used to do. Anyway, I’ll do my best. I can’t say more. Look after yourself.

Yours, Lance.

“Where did you address this letter, Mr. Fortescue. To the office or Yewtree Lodge?”

Lance frowned in an effort of recollection.

“It’s difficult. I can’t remember. You see it’s almost three months now. The office, I think. Yes, I’m almost sure. Here to the office.” He paused a moment before asking with frank curiosity: “Why?”

“I wondered,” said Inspector Neele. “Your father did not put it on the file here among his private papers. He took it back with him to Yewtree Lodge, and I found it in his desk there. I wondered why he should have done that.”

Lance laughed.

“To keep it out of Percy’s way, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Inspector Neele, “it would seem so. Your brother, then, had access to your father’s private papers here?”

“Well,” Lance hesitated and frowned, “not exactly. I mean, I suppose he could have looked through them at any time if he liked, but he wouldn’t be. . . .”

Inspector Neele finished the sentence for him.

“Wouldn’t be supposed to do so?”

Lance grinned broadly. “That’s right. Frankly, it would have been snooping. But Percy, I should imagine, always did snoop.”

Inspector Neele nodded. He also thought it probable that Percival Fortescue snooped. It would be in keeping with what the inspector was beginning to learn of his character.

“And talk of the devil,” murmured Lance, as at that moment the door opened and Percival Fortescue came in. About to speak to the inspector he stopped, frowning, as he saw Lance.

“Hallo,” he said. “You here? You didn’t tell me you were coming here today.”

“I felt a kind of zeal for work coming over me,” said Lance, “so here I am ready to make myself useful. What do you want me to do?”

Percival said testily:

“Nothing at present. Nothing at all. We shall have to come to some kind of arrangement as to what side of the business you’re going to look after. We shall have to arrange for an office for you.”

Lance inquired with a grin:

“By the way, why did you get rid of glamorous Grosvenor, old boy, and replace her by Horsefaced Hetty out there?”

“Really, Lance,” Percival protested sharply.

“Definitely a change for the worse,” said Lance. “I’ve been looking forward to the glamorous Grosvenor. Why did you sack her? Thought she knew a bit too much?”

“Of course not. What an ideal!” Percy spoke angrily, a flush mounting his pale face. He turned to the inspector. “You mustn’t pay any attention to my brother,” he said coldly. “He has a rather peculiar sense of humour.” He added: “I never had a very high opinion of Miss Grosvenor’s intelligence. Mrs. Hardcastle has excellent references and is most capable besides being very moderate in her terms.”

“Very moderate in her terms,” murmured Lance, casting his eyes towards the ceiling. “You know, Percy, I don’t really approve of skimping over the office personnel. By the way, considering how loyalty the staff has stood by us during these last tragic weeks, don’t you think we ought to raise their salaries all round?”

“Certainly not,” snapped Percival Fortescue. “Quite uncalled for and unnecessary.”

Inspector Neele noticed the gleam of devilry in Lance’s eyes. Percival, however, was far too much upset to notice it.

“You always had the most extraordinary extravagant ideas,” he stuttered. “In the state in which this firm has been left, economy is our only hope.”

Inspector Neele coughed apologetically.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Fortescue,” he said to Percival.

“Yes, Inspector?” Percival switched his attention to Neele.

“I want to put certain suggestions before you, Mr. Fortescue. I understand that for the past six months or longer, possibly a year, your father’s general behaviour and conduct has been a source of increasing anxiety to you.”

“He wasn’t well,” said Percival, with finality. “He certainly wasn’t at all well.”

“You tried to induce him to see a doctor but you failed. He refused categorically?”

“That is so.”

“May I ask you if you suspected that your father was suffering from what is familiarly referred to as GPI, General Paralysis of the Insane, a condition with signs of megalomania and irritability which terminates sooner or later in hopeless insanity?”

Percival looked surprised. “It is remarkably astute of you, Inspector. That is exactly what I did fear. That is why I was so anxious for my father

to submit to medical treatment.”

Neele went on:

“In the meantime, until you could persuade your father to do that, he was capable of causing a great deal of havoc to the business?”

“He certainly was,” Percival agreed.

“A very unfortunate state of affairs,” said the inspector.

“Quite terrible. No one knows the anxiety I have been through.”

Neele said gently:

“From the business point of view, your father’s death was an extremely fortunate circumstance.”

Percival said sharply:

“You can hardly think I would regard my father’s death in that light.”

“It is not a question of how you regard it, Mr. Fortescue. I’m speaking merely of a question of fact. Your father died before his finances were completely on the rocks.”

Percival said impatiently:

“Yes, yes. As a matter of actual fact, you are right.”

“It was a fortunate occurrence for your whole family, since they are dependent on this business.”

“Yes. But really, Inspector, I don’t see what you’re driving at . . .” Percival broke off.

“Oh, I’m not driving at anything, Mr. Fortescue,” said Neele. “I just like getting my facts straight. Now there’s another thing. I understood you to say that you’d had no communication of any kind with your brother here since he left England many years ago.”

“Quite so,” said Percival.

“Yes, but it isn’t quite so, is it, Mr. Fortescue? I mean that last spring when you were so worried about your father’s health, you actually wrote to your brother in Africa, told him of your anxiety about your father’s behaviour. You wanted, I think, your brother to combine with you in getting your father medically examined and put under restraint, if necessary.”

“I—I—really, I don’t see . . .” Percival was badly shaken.

“That is so, isn’t it, Mr. Fortescue?”

“Well, actually, I thought it only right. After all, Lancelot was a junior partner.”

Inspector Neele transferred his gaze to Lance. Lance was grinning.

“You received that letter?” Inspector Neele asked.