on the Bechstein in the drawing-room. At this point in Ursula’s narrative, Fabian gave a short laugh.
‘He plays very well,’ Ursula said. ‘Doesn’t he?’
‘Astonishingly well,’ Fabian agreed, and she said quickly: ‘She was very fond of music, Fab.’
‘Like Douglas,’ Fabian murmured, ‘she knew what she liked, but unlike Douglas she wouldn’t own up to it.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by that,’ said Ursula grandly and went on with her narrative.
Young Cliff continued at school when Florence went to England. He had full use of the Bechstein in the drawing-room during the holidays. She returned to find him a big boy but otherwise, it seemed, still docile under her patronage. But when he came home for his summer holidays at the end of 1941, he was changed, not, Ursula said emphatically, for the better. He had had trouble with his eyes and the school oculist had told him that he would never be accepted for active service. He had immediately broken bounds and attempted to enlist. On being turned down he wrote to Florence saying that he wanted to leave school and, if possible, do a job of war work on the sheeprun until he was old enough to get into the army, if only in a C3 capacity. He was now sixteen. This letter was a bombshell for Flossie. She planned a university career, followed, if the war ended soon enough, by a move to London and the Royal College of Music. She went to the manager’s cottage with the letter in her hand, only to find that Tommy Johns, also, had heard from his son and was delighted. ‘We’re going to need good men on the land as we’ve never needed them before, Mrs Rubrick. I’m very very pleased young Cliff looks at it that way. If you’ll excuse me for saying so, I thought this posh education he’s been getting would make a class-conscious snob of the boy but from what he tells me of his ideas I see it’s worked out different.’ For young Cliff, it appeared, was now a communist. Nothing could have been further removed from Flossie’s plans.
When he appeared, she could make no impression on him. He seemed to think that she alone would sympathize with his change of heart and plans and would support him. He couldn’t understand her disappointment nor, as he continued in his attitude, her mounting anger. He grew dogmatic and stubborn. The woman of forty-seven and the boy of sixteen quarrelled bitterly and strangely. It was a cruel thing for him to do, Ursula said, cruel and stupid. Aunt Florence was the most patriotic soul alive. Look at her war work. It wasn’t as though he was old enough or fit for the army. The least he could do was to complete the education she had so generously planned and in part given him.
After their quarrel they no longer met. Cliff went out with the high-country musterers and continued in their company when they came in from the mountains behind droning mobs of sheep. He became very friendly with Albie Black, the rouseabout. There was a rickety old piano in the bunkhouse annexe and in the evenings Cliff played it for the men. Their voices, singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and strangely Victorian ballads, would drift across the yards and paddocks and reach the lawn where Flossie sat with her assembled forces, every night after dinner. But on the night she disappeared, his mates had gone to the dance and Cliff played alone in the annexe, strange music for that inarticulate old instrument.
‘Listen to him, now,’ said Arthur Rubrick. ‘Remarkable chap, that boy. You wouldn’t believe that old hurdy-gurdy over there had as much music in it. Extraordinary. Sounds like a professional.’
‘Yes,’ Fabian agreed after a pause. ‘It’s remarkable.’
Ursula wished they wouldn’t talk about Cliff. It would have been better to have told Uncle Arthur about the episode of the previous night, she thought, and let him deal with Cliff. Aunt Florence shouldn’t have to cope with everything and this had hurt her so deeply.
For the previous night, Markins, the manservant, hearing furtive noises in the old dairy that now served as a cellar, and imagining them to be made by a rat, had crept up and flashed his torch in at the window. Its beam darted mothlike about dusty surfaces of bottles. There was a brief sound of movement. Markins sought it out with his light. Cliff Johns’ face sprang out of the dark. His eyes were screwed up blindly and his mouth was open. Markins had described this very vividly. He had dipped the torch beam until it discovered Cliff’s hands. They were long and flexible hands and they grasped a bottle of Arthur’s twenty-year-old whisky. As the light found them they opened and the bottle crashed on the stone floor. Markins, a taciturn man, darted into the dairy, grasped Cliff by his wrist and, without a word, lugged him unresisting into the kitchen. Mrs Duck, outraged beyond measure, had instantly bustled off and fetched Mrs Rubrick. The interview took place in the kitchen. It nearly broke Florence’s heart, Ursula said. Cliff, who of course reeked of priceless whisky, said repeatedly that he had not been stealing, but would give no further explanation. In the meantime Markins had discovered four more bottles in a sugar bag, dumped round the corner of the dairy. Florence, naturally, did not believe Cliff and in a mounting scene called him a sneak-thief and accused him of depravity and ingratitude. He broke into a white rage and stammered out an extraordinary arraignment of Florence, saying that she had tried to buy him and that he would never rest until he had returned every penny she had spent on his schooling. At this stage Florence sent Markins and Mrs Duck out of the kitchen. The scene ended by Cliff rushing away while Florence, weeping and shaking, sought out Ursula and poured out the whole story. Arthur Rubrick had been very unwell and they decided to tell him nothing of this incident.
Next morning – the day of her disappearance – Florence went to the manager’s cottage only to be told that Cliff’s bed had not been slept in and his town clothes were missing. His father had gone off in their car down the road to the Pass. At midday he returned with Cliff whom he had overtaken at the crossroads, dead-beat, having covered sixteen miles on the first stage down-country to the nearest army depot. Florence would tell Ursula nothing of her subsequent interview with Tommy Johns.
‘So Uncle Arthur’s suggestion on that same evening that Cliff should play at the dance came at rather a grim moment,’ said Ursula.
‘The boy’s a damned conceited pup if he’s nothing worse,’ said Douglas Grace.
‘And he’s still here?’ said Alleyn. Fabian looked round at him.
‘Oh, yes. They won’t have him in the army. He’s got something wrong with his eyes, and anyway he’s ranked as doing an essential job on the place. The police got the whole story out of Markins, of course,’ said Fabian, ‘and for want of a better suspect, concentrated on the boy. I expect he looms large in the files, doesn’t he?’
‘He peters out about halfway through.’
‘That’s because he’s the only member of the household who’s got a sort of alibi. We all heard him playing the piano until just before the diamond clip was found, which was at five to nine. When he’d just started, at eight o’clock it was, Markins saw him in the annexe, playing, and he never stopped for longer than half a minute or less. Incidentally, to the best of my belief, that’s the last time young Cliff played on the piano in the annexe, or on any other piano, for a matter of that. His mother, who was worried about him, went over to the annexe and persuaded him to return with her to the cottage. There he heard the nine o’clock news bulletin and listened to a programme of classical music.
‘You may think that was a bit thick,’ said Fabian. ‘I mean a bit too much in character with the sensitive young plant, but it’s what he did. The previous night you must remember he’d had a snorting row with Flossie, and followed it up with a sixteen-mile hike and no sleep. He was physically and emotionally exhausted and dropped off to sleep in his chair. His mother got him to bed and she and his father sat up until after midnight, talking about him. Before she turned in, Mrs Johns looked at young Cliff and found him fathoms deep. Even the detective-sergeant saw that Flossie would have returned by midnight if she’d been alive. Sorry, Ursy dear, I interrupt continually.
