Chapter 4: Pocket Billiards

Norman St John-Ferris led the way from the long gallery against the flow of the visitors down the stairs and towards the back of the house. The two men passed through the billiard room; the table an immaculate green, the polished brass markers on the scoreboards glinting in the soft light from the lamps over the table. More teasels provided a disincentive for those seeking comfort on the padded leather arm chairs that once seated the more louche of the St John Ferrises, those that had lost the family fortune the first time around. Norman scowled at the rack of billiard cues, all secured in place by a padlocked bar, ensuring that no visitor would be tempted to put the table to the use for which it was intended.

Norman carried on into the library, an airy room lined with books, all carefully wired into place on their shelves and overseen by one of the more sour-faced room guardians.

"What do you notice," Norman waved a hand around the room. Freddie looked blank. It was a library, there were books, he wasn't sure what else he might be expected to see. "No ashtrays!" he blustered, "I can't even smoke in my own library. And," Norman nodded to three silver frames on the table in the window bay, "that's the worst insult."

The Trust had placed three wedding photographs, Norman with each of his wives, on the table. Freddie couldn't help noticing that they were all good looking women. But Norman had always been attracted by a face and a figure. And, of course, it had been Norman's inability to restrict that attraction to the woman he was married to that had been the main marital problem he had faced.

They stepped out onto a brick paved walk that led down into the formal garden. "Of course," Norman said, seeming to get closer to the subject in hand, "if I didn't have to pay the alimony I would be able to get the property back; tell this load of jolly, historical, theme-parkers to get on their way." He had to step to one side as one of the "theme-parkers" almost walked backwards into him trying to take a photograph of the Hall's garden frontage. Freddie could see that it was all Norman could do to prevent himself from elbowing the man into the ornamental pond beside the path

"I suppose so," Freddie said.

"It occurred to me that I might be able to do you a favour and you could do me one."

"Favour?" Freddie was always mistrustful of situations where people were offering to help him. Experience told him that things rarely turned out the way they were presented.

"Obviously if these three ladies were to go missing I would immediately attract attention from the forces of law and order. Since I have most to gain, I have the best motive."

"True," said Freddie warily.

"But what if for example I had the perfect alibi? Then their disappearance could have nothing to do with me, could it?"

"I can see that."

"So that there was, for example, someone able to benefit from the availability of three, physically attractive women. And if they were, completely of their own initiative, to take advantage of certain information about the ladies' whereabouts that I might let slip, then I could hardly be blamed, could I? They would certainly have their recompense from whatever could be raised on the three individuals; I would have no further alimony to pay. They would have a rather easy acquisition of three valuable properties while I would have succeeded in removing a significant financial encumbrance with no risk of suspicion to myself. Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically," Freddie agreed, "An intriguing proposition for someone in that line of business, of course."

"Of course." Norman St John-Ferris smiled with satisfaction. He believed that his point had been well taken. "Hypothetically."