The Burden of Proof Read online

  The Burden of Proof

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1962

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1977 by John Long Ltd.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Prologue

  “I sentence you to ten years’ preventative detention,” said the judge.

  There was a stifled cry from the public benches. A woman, worn and ugly, stood up. Her husband hastily and nervously pulled her down. He whispered to her but she heard nothing.

  “In awarding this sentence,” continued the judge in his even voice, “I have borne in mind the need to protect the general public from your criminal activities for as long as is compatible with justice.”

  The prisoner tried to look defiant and careless of his fate, but he could not conceal the shock he felt. When he had been caught after hitting the old man over the head with an iron bar, he had envisaged nothing sterner than five years. “The mouthpiece said if I was to plead guilty…” he began furiously.

  “Can it, boy,” said the policeman by his side.

  The judge wrote in his notebook. The prisoner was led down the steps that were at the back of the dock and the last the public saw of him was the top of his curly brown hair.

  “Regina against Ventnor,” said the clerk.

  The public began to show interest. Old men were hit on the head every day of the week, but only occasionally was a wealthy young man up on a charge of murder. Besides, the case was filled with the kind of details that interested everyone: money, sex, death. The papers had been running the case, and the photograph of the starlet whose bath towel had only needed to slip another half inch to have created a sensation had appeared in most of them.

  A policeman in uniform and Roger Ventnor came up the stairs into the dock. The policeman indicated where Roger was to stand. The judge looked up for a brief second and stared at the prisoner with a completely dispassionate — and therefore frightening — regard. The jury were being called into the jury box and there was a slight wait for one of the woman members.

  Roger stared at the jury. Did they feel as absurdly out of place as he did? That it was a charade without meaning, a farce without humour?

  “Yes,” said the judge, as he turned over a page in his notebook.

  The clerk stood up. “Roger Picton Franchot Ventnor, you stand charged upon this Indictment for that…”

  Chapter 1

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Patricia Ventnor asked her brother.

  Roger turned away from the window of the drawing room. “Only the bank manager armed with a couple of bailiffs.”

  “A car’s just driven up.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing. You know something? You’d hear a pin drop five miles away onto a bed of cotton wool, and you owe it all to having spent your early life stretching your ears to try and hear what other people were talking about.”

  She ignored his comment. “Are you going or shall I?”

  “I will.”

  The front doorbell rang and the sound was surprisingly harsh and out of character with the house.

  Roger crossed to the door leading into the hall and his easy swinging walk was in marked contrast to the forced movements of his sister. A childhood illness had permanently affected one side of her, even to the extent of twisting her mouth.

  He went into the hall and saw, through the outside glass door, two strangers. He looked across at the grandfather clock which had always reputedly been a Tompion but which, when he had tried to sell it, had proved to be an unusual — but not thereby valuable — nineteenth-century fake. Half past six.

  He crossed the large and rather dim hall and opened the front door.

  “Mr. Roger Ventnor?” asked the younger of the two men.

  “Yes.”

  “Detective Constable Ritter, sir, and this is Detective Constable Layton.” He indicated his companion, who looked rather as though he had that moment eaten a sour apple. “D’you think we might have a quick word with you, sir?”

  “Come on in… What’s the panic?”

  “Some routine inquiries, sir.” The two detectives entered the hall and stared about themselves with open curiosity as they studied the old arms and armour hung on the oak-panelled walls, the long halberds and glaives in the stands on either side of the huge fireplace, the paintings dark with age, the battle colours almost in shreds, and the collection of china dogs in the glass-fronted cabinet.

  Roger led them through to the drawing room. As he introduced Patricia to them they wondered what was odd about her and then looked hastily away as they realised.

  “Am I allowed to offer you a drink?” asked Roger.

  “A glass of beer would go down a real treat, sir.”

  “The same for both of you?”

  “Do me down to the ground,” said Layton, speaking for the first time.

  Roger crossed to the movable cocktail cabinet and opened the doors. He examined the bottles on the bottom shelf. “No beer here so I’ll slip down to the cellars and bring some up.” He stood upright. “Light or brown?”

  “Light, thanks very much, sir,” replied Ritter. His answer seemed to be for the two of them.

  Patricia started to walk toward the door. “I’ll get them, Roger.” Her forced gait wasn’t nearly as laboured as it appeared to be, and although she seemed to experience great difficulty in bringing her left foot forward, her actions were dictated by caution, not necessity.

  Roger took his cigarette case from his pocket. “If you don’t like the filters, tear them off.”

  Ritter accepted a cigarette, Layton shook his head.

  Roger stood with his back to the fireplace and waited. Along the walls hung portraits, dating from the middle of the seventeenth century, of the Ventnor family, and it was strange to note how often Roger’s likeness was closely reflected in them.

  “We’re making some inquiries, sir, and it seems you might be able to help us. We’re trying to find the present whereabouts of a girl called Margaret Stukeley.”

  Roger did not try to hide his surprise as he flicked ash into the fireplace behind him — a habit of which his sister had, for years, tried to break him. “What’s she been up to now?”

  “Left the place where she had rooms three days ago and that’s the last anyone’s seen of her. Her landlady reported to the police this morning and we’re checking up to see if her absence means anything… Landlady says the girl’s never gone away before without saying so and also when she’d be back, and a bit earlier on we got on to the place she works and they haven’t seen her since last Friday. When she didn’t turn up on Monday they took it she was ill.”

  “I suppose you’ve checked with her parents?”

  “Had a word over the blower. They haven’t seen her in six months but her letters have been all normal like.”

  Patricia returned, carrying a shopping basket in which were four bottles of beer. Roger hurried across and took the basket from her. He poured out beer for the detectives and gave Patricia a Rossi and himself a whisky. “Apparently
Maggie’s gone missing for the last few days,” he said.

  Patricia looked at him. “Margaret Stukeley?”

  “I’ve only ever known two Margarets and one of them dates back to when I was taking dancing lessons at Prestry. I trod on her toes so she trod on mine, so I trod on hers again with as much weight as I could muster. I seem to remember that that convinced her it was a rough game. Didn’t her mother come round here and utter threats?”

  “I don’t doubt it — Mother always said that looking after you was worse than trying to keep Nero away from the Christians… What’s happened to Margaret?”

  “She’s been missing from her digs for three days, miss,” said Ritter.

  Roger crossed to one of the large leather armchairs, well-worn but still serviceable, and sat down.

  “Really missing?” asked Patricia. “From the very little I saw of her, I’d say she was quite likely to disappear and most definitely not thank you to try and find her.”

  Ritter finished the beer in his glass. “Her landlady says she’s never gone before without saying.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  “You think then that she probably just took off and’ll show up again when she gets tired?”

  “I don’t think anything where she’s concerned — too likely to be proved wrong.” She smiled briefly and the twist to her mouth turned the expression into a grimace, but a grimace that contained its own charm.

  “Would you call her a normal kind of girl?”

  “I’d never nominate her as a Vestal Virgin, but in this day and age perhaps it would be unusual if I did.”

  Ritter looked across at Roger and there was a baffled expression on his face. Layton seemed only interested in his glass and he swirled it around in his hands and watched the surge of beer.

  “How about refills?” asked Roger.

  “Slip down better than the first one, sir,” said Ritter quickly.

  “Thirsty weather this, what with not having seen a smell of rain for the last fortnight.”

  Roger opened the remaining bottles of beer and emptied them into the detectives’ glasses. He gave himself another whisky. “And if we don’t see rain for the next two weeks, that’ll be quite soon enough.”

  “Good weather for the crops, sir?”

  “Just what they need at the moment.”

  “Have you a lot of land here, sir?”

  “Just about two thousand acres, some of which is let, some of which I farm.”

  “Very nice, too, sir.”

  “Only a remnant of what the estate used to be — twenty thousand acres that stretched from here to the Prestry Hills.”

  “I’ve always had a hankering to go into farming, sir, but the trouble these days is the thundering big capital you need to start with. If I was to sell up everything I’ve got I wouldn’t be able to do much more than buy the twine for the bailer.”

  “Have you tried the hospitals?” asked Roger suddenly.

  “Been through all the locals, sir. We’re beginning to move further afield now.”

  “It’s strange she should vanish without a word to anyone.”

  “I gathered, sir, your sister didn’t think it strange?”

  “It all depends what you mean by strange. I think if you went up to Margaret and suggested a cruise on a yacht in the Mediterranean she’d go and more than likely forget to tell people what was happening.”

  “And throw up her job?”

  “I don’t know about that. If it were I, I think I’d risk it if I knew the cruise was going to be a long one. Wouldn’t you?”

  Ritter wasn’t prepared to answer that. “Did she have a job when you knew her, sir?”

  “She was a translator with Steeley and Brights — they’d get hold of trade catalogues and so on from rival firms all over the world and she’d help to translate them to see if Steeley was missing out on any vital advancements in the world of industry. She was a dab hand at French.”

  Layton suddenly spoke. “When did you last see her, Mr. Ventnor?”

  “Quite a time ago.” Roger stubbed out his cigarette.

  Ritter waited but when Layton didn’t pursue the conversation, he said, “Sounds as though you can’t really help us, sir, or suggest anywhere we might begin to look for her?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “She’ll turn up soon,” said Patricia in an ironic tone of voice, “with a couple of millionaires in tow — and she’ll manage to keep them apart.”

  Ritter smiled. “You make her sound quite a girl, miss, and that goes to underline her photograph. She’s got it, plus.” He stood up and was about to speak again when the harsh sound of the front doorbell interrupted him.

  Roger left the room and returned in less than half a minute. He was accompanied by a girl. “My fiancée, Miss Wheeldon.”

  The detectives acknowledged the introduction and then Ritter said they must be going and thanks very much for the drinks. Roger went with them to the front door and just before they left he offered them any further assistance he could give. Ritter said thanks again.

  The two detectives climbed into their Austin. Ritter switched on the engine. “Cracking nice place.” He engaged first gear and drove off.

  “More like a bloody museum,” muttered Layton.

  “Where’s your feeling for history, Cock?”

  “Where it ought to be — buried.”

  As the car went around the circular raised lawn and then up the drive to the tall and intricately worked wrought-iron gates, Ritter said, “One thing’s for sure, he didn’t pick his intended out of a Miss World contest.” He brought the car to a halt as he waited for two heavily laden lorries to go past.

  “That’s all you youngsters ever think about. Sex. Eat it, drink it, and sleep it.” Layton noisily cleared his throat.

  “Who the hell mentioned the subject? All I was saying was, if I had all the necessary he’s got, I’d pick something a bit snappier.”

  “You would, but then you ain’t no brains. He’s got some. Never heard of Wheeldon and Harrie?”

  The lorries were clear and Ritter turned the car into the road. He whistled. “D’you think she’s from that outfit?”

  “Give you a thousand to one on it.”

  “She must be worth a fortune, then.”

  “Her loose change’d keep you in comfort for the rest of your natural. Sex, boy, is for them that can’t see beyond their own nasty faces. But a bloke like Ventnor has the sense to see that a bank balance is a bloody sight more attractive than a pair of bulging tits. One lasts, the other don’t.” Layton became silent, as though he had spoken so much he must pause to recharge his vocal batteries.

  Chapter 2

  Detective Inspector Fisher was smooth and capable and it was generally believed he was well in the running for promotion to detective chief inspector at H.Q. when the present man retired. If he made it, there’d be twelve other detective inspectors in the twelve other divisions of the county who’d point out that he was cocky, much too self-confident, and all too clearly of the opinion that pretty soon Maigret would give way to Fisher.

  Fisher demanded efficiency from those who worked under him and, as far as he was concerned, efficiency meant results. His office was small but he kept it in apple-pie order. On the far wall hung the framed citation he’d been presented with some years back when he’d disarmed a killer. Some said Fisher ought to have found sufficient modesty not to hang the citation in full view. Others asked what the hell was the use of it if you didn’t parade it around a little.

  Ritter reported to the detective inspector’s office.

  “Well?” asked Fisher. Although the day was hot enough to rumple collars, he looked cool and at ease.

  “Wonderful old place, sir, although it looks as though it could do with a bit of repair.”

  “The family’s not rolling in it as it used to be… I was born near there.”

  “Were you, sir?” Ritter rather plainly didn’t give a damn where the D.I. had be
en born.

  “Great ones for helping the poor, they used to be… Well, what’s the verdict? Does Ventnor know where the girl is?”

  “Hasn’t seen her since the year one, doesn’t know where she is now, and so sorry, no can help.”

  “The truth?”

  Ritter shrugged his shoulders. “Wouldn’t go nap either way, sir. He strikes me as one of those blokes who can lie with such a straight face you’d back ’em against the Recording Angel.”

  Fisher signed one of the crime reports that lay on the desk in front of him.

  “We met his fiancée.”

  “Must have been a thrill for you.”

  “She’s the kind of girl you’d marry rather than take to the local shuffle.”

  Fisher looked up, a sardonic expression on his face. “Thinking of entering the lists?”

  “Not likely, sir. Her name’s Wheeldon, so if she’s from Wheeldon and Harrie she’s outside my price range.”

  “Those bastards… Remember the early thirties?”

  “Only through the bars of my cradle.”

  “Wheeldons sacked seventy per cent of their men so that they could carry on and operate at a profit. Never occurred to them there was something else to worry about besides profit.”

  “Seems like they weren’t the only ones to do that, sir.”

  “Just round here they were the only big employers of labour in those days… Doesn’t mean anything to you young chaps, does it?”

  “I saw a film the other day on the telly — ”

  “You saw a film!” Fisher sarcastically cut short the other’s words. “All right, let’s get back to something you can understand. Was Ventnor running a course with the Stukeley woman?”

  “I’d say yes. All the signs were there. The casual — ”

  “O.K., Don Juan, I’ll trust your expert evidence.” Fisher read another crime report, then looked up. “How far have you got toward tracing her?”

  “We’ve been on to her parents but they weren’t any use — she doesn’t go back very often to see them. Her old man was in the Cornwall police force before retiring from ill health. Did you know that, sir?”