by M. M. Kaye
Miss Moon sighed and Amanda said: ‘You like Mrs Barton, don’t you?’
‘Well … yes, dear. One could not help being fond of her. She was such a child.’
‘Glenn said that too,’ said Amanda slowly.
‘He was right. Some adults seem to retain the more endearing qualities of childhood longer than others. Though many, of course, retain the worst ones for ever. Anita Barton was one of the former. A little spoilt perhaps, but very trusting and honest, and not very clever. A woman like Claire Norman, for instance, could make rings round her. It seemed that Anita and Glenn would be perfectly happy. Of course she was gay; she always liked parties and people and pretty clothes. And Glenn, poor boy, was very overworked and perhaps did not take her about as much as he should, so that____’
Miss Moon stopped suddenly and was silent for a moment or two, frowning.
‘What is it?’ asked Amanda curiously.
‘Well dear, it suddenly struck me that if one hears a thing repeated sufficiently often, one begins to believe that it is true, even if it is not. We have all heard so often of late that Glenn neglected Anita. But now I come to think of it, they appeared to go about together a great deal. One certainly never heard that he was remiss where the social side of life was concerned. Of course she may just have found him dull. One does not know.’
‘I don’t see that she can have it both ways,’ pointed out Amanda. ‘If—as she says—he was behaving like a Don Juan and making love to about six different women at once, he can’t have been exactly dull. He must have had something—plenty of spare time, for a start!’
Miss Moon sighed again. ‘One would think so. Although of course women do like Glenn. I am very fond of him myself. And so was Claire. She was not at all pleased when he married Anita. All the same, it was exceedingly foolish of Anita to be rude to her, and I have always had a suspicion—uncharitable of me, I fear—that Claire was in some way responsible for the break-up of that marriage. What is it, Euridice?’
Euridice was standing in the french windows behind them, wearing the patient expression of one who has been waiting for at least five minutes. She made a brief and unintelligible remark and went to collect the tea-cups, and Miss Moon turned to Amanda and said: ‘Someone asking to see you, dear. If it is that nice Mr Howard, ask him to stay and dine with us.’
Amanda stood up quickly and put her hand to her hair in a gesture that was purely instinctive and feminine.
Miss Moon smiled at her with warm understanding and said: ‘You look exceedingly nice, dear. In fact, if I may say so, quite charming.’
Amanda blushed, laughed and went quickly through the french windows and across the drawing-room into the hall: to check abruptly at the sight of her visitor, aware of a sudden and ridiculous sense of disappointment.
It was not Steven Howard who stood waiting for her in the hall of the Villa Oleander. It was, surprisingly enough, Anita Barton. And Anita Barton was frightened. That fact was immediately and startlingly apparent, and it sent an odd cold shiver of apprehension through Amanda.
In the dimness of the high, dark hall Mrs Barton’s face had the appearance of a white paper mask on which a child has scrawled features in crudely coloured chalks. The patches of rouge on her cheeks, the vividly lipsticked mouth, the blue-tinted eyelids and heavily mascara’d lashes, stood out in harsh and painful artificiality in a face that was drawn and drained of all natural colour, and eyes that were as wide and glittering as a terrified cat’s.
There was no longer any trace of prettiness in that face, but strangely enough its look of haggard fear was not ageing, and with the loss of her hard defiant assurance, Anita Barton seemed to have become all at once younger, and as though she were indeed only the foolish, frightened child to which both her husband and Miss Moon had likened her.
Amanda was aware of a sudden pang of pity and an instinct of protectiveness, and she went forward quickly with her hand outstretched. ‘What is it? Did you want to see me?’
‘Yes____’ Anita Barton’s frightened-cat eyes darted quick glances about the hall and the long staircase that stretched up into the shadows of the upper landing, and her fingers tugged nervously at a small lace-edged handkerchief so that the delicate fabric tore with a small ripping sound. She dropped it, startled, and said breathlessly: ‘But not here. Can’t we go somewhere else. Will you walk down the road with me?’
Amanda looked at her, puzzled and disturbed. ‘All right. Just wait a moment while I tell Miss Moon.’
She returned to the verandah and informed Miss Moon that she would be going out for a short walk. Miss Moon looked interested. ‘Anita, you say? I was not aware that you knew her. Hardly a suitable companion for you just now dear. People talk so. Do you not think that perhaps it would be wiser to decline the invitation—tactfully, of course?’
‘I can’t,’ said Amanda, distressed. ‘I think she’s in trouble. I don’t suppose I shall be long.’
Once outside the gates of the Villa Oleander Anita Barton turned to the right and away from the main road, and as soon as they were out of sight of the house she clutched Amanda’s arm and spoke in a harsh, breathless voice:
‘Is it true that something of mine was found in Miss Moon’s house last night?—a flower off that dress I was wearing?’
‘Yes,’ said Amanda briefly.
She heard Anita Barton catch her breath in a hard gasp and the fingers that held her arm tightened convulsively so that the pointed scarlet nails dug painfully into her flesh.
Mrs Barton stumbled and recovered herself and stopped near a group of dusty tamarisk trees by a high, white-washed wall in what appeared to be a deserted cul-de-sac:
‘Then it is true! I didn’t believe it. I thought that it was only-only a spiteful story. But Lumley said____’ she stopped, and her wide, hunted eyes searched Amanda’s face with a desperate intensity. ‘Tell me about it, please. I must know.’
Amanda told her. There was not much to tell, but the bare facts were ugly enough and Anita Barton’s white face seemed to grow whiter and more pinched as she listened.
She said at last in a harsh whisper: ‘Didn’t they ask whose it was?’
Amanda hesitated and once more the lacquered fingernails dug into her arm. ‘Didn’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said Amanda unhappily. ‘I–I said it was mine.’
‘You what?’ Mrs Barton’s voice was suddenly strident. ‘Why did you do that? Why should you do a thing like that for me?’
‘I didn’t,’ confessed Amanda. ‘I did it because of your husband. You see____’
‘Glenn?’ Anita Barton relaxed her grip and took a quick step backwards, staring. A stare that changed suddenly to a look of scornful comprehension:
‘Glenn,’ repeated Mrs Barton, her mouth no longer slack-lipped with fear but twisted and derisive. ‘So you’ve fallen for him too, you silly little fool!’
Amanda’s chin came up with a jerk. Her grey eyes were suddenly cold and angry and her voice as scornful as Mrs Barton’s own:
‘I think it is you who are the fool, if you really imagine that I have any interest at all in your husband. Perhaps no one else has ever had any interest in him either, and you are just another Julia Blaine. Someone who imagines that no other woman can speak to her husband without falling in love with him. You do love him, don’t you? You’re only behaving like this because someone has made you jealous. Julia was like that.’
For a long minute Anita Barton did not speak, but the scorn and bitterness left her face and it was once more frightened and quivering. She put her hand up to her throat and said in a voice that was barely above a whisper: ‘Yes, Julia was like that. And Julia died. But I don’t want to die!’
She swallowed convulsively and her eyes came back to Amanda:
‘If Glenn doesn’t mean anything to you, and I don’t, why did you tell the police that the flower was yours?’
‘Because I owed your husband something. My life,’ said Amanda bluntly.
‘Your life? What do you mean?’
Amanda told her, omitting only the fact that her fall had not been accidental. ‘So you see,’ she concluded, ‘I thought that I owed him something in return.’
‘So that’s why you said that flower was yours!’ Suddenly and without warning Anita Barton threw back her head and laughed. A loud peal of hysterical mirth that was somehow incredibly shocking. It stopped as abruptly as it had begun and she reached out and clutched at Amanda’s arm once more:
‘Listen, I never went near Miss Moon’s house yesterday. Do you hear? I never went near it?’
Her teeth chattered suddenly as though she were cold, and Amanda said quickly: ‘If you didn’t, you’ll be able to prove it, and then____’
‘But I can’t prove it!’ interrupted Anita Barton desperately. ‘Someone telephoned the café on the quay and asked them to give a message to Lumley. Some visitor who wanted to know if he would take a few of his pictures up to the Club. But the man never turned up, and Lumley waited and didn’t get back until late. I was alone in the flat; but I can’t prove it. I might have gone out. The floors below are empty. They’re used for storage. And there are two ways out of that house.’
‘Perhaps you wore that dress to Miss Moon’s house some other time?’ suggested Amanda. ‘That flower thing could have been there for ages, you know. Euridice doesn’t seem to be very good at dusting and I don’t suppose that anyone would have noticed it.’
‘I haven’t been at the Villa Oleander since the winter,’ said Anita Barton, ‘and that flower couldn’t have come off my dress there because I’ve never worn it to the house. Someone put it there; and I know who it was. I know how they could have got it and why they did it. And then you said it was yours, which might have spoilt it all. But it won’t—you’ll see! The police and everyone will know soon enough.’
Her voice died out in a frightened, hopeless whisper and Amanda’s fingers closed over the hand on her arm in a comforting grasp.
‘No they won’t. Don’t look like that, Mrs Barton. The police think that it’s mine; and they won’t worry about it any more because Miss Moon says that they think it was a thief who killed Miss Ford.’
Anita Barton drew a long shuddering breath and her eyes seemed to look through and beyond Amanda as though they did not see her. She said in a barely audible whisper: ‘I shall have to be careful. I shall have to be very careful…’
The sky beyond the dusty tamarisk trees was tinged with gold and the deserted lane was in shadow, and high above the tree tops Amanda could see the distant, rocky outline of St Hilarion, bright with the sunset. It would not be long now before the swift tropical twilight would be upon them, to merge once more into another night of moonlight and stars. She heard a cart creak past the end of the lane, and from somewhere behind the high, white-washed wall a woman began to sing a plaintive Turkish ballad that was old when the Empire of Byzantium was young.
Anita Barton’s eyes seemed to focus Amanda again and she drew a short, hard breath and said: ‘Thank you for trying to help. It was kind of you. I don’t think you’d better be seen with me, so I’ll go back a different way.’
Amanda said, impulsively: ‘If there is anything I can do—to help I mean—I’d like to do it. I really would.’
Mrs Barton smiled crookedly. ‘That’s nice of you. I’ll remember.’
She turned on her heel and walked quickly away, and Amanda, following more slowly, saw her take the turning that led into the narrow lane behind the wall where the pigeons of the Villa Oleander cooed and paraded in the ruined embrasures of the timeworn stone.
15
Amanda walked slowly back to the house, but at the gate she suddenly changed her mind, and instead of going in, went on and turned down towards the centre of the town.
She would go and see Steve Howard and tell him about that odd, disturbing interview with Anita Barton. Steve would know what to do.
There was a man loitering at the corner of the road, and as she passed him Amanda had the odd impression that he had taken note of her; not as a pretty girl, but as one who observes and files away a piece of information.
She looked quickly back over her shoulder, but the man was leaning against the wall, apparently intent upon removing a stone from the sole of his shoe, and she wondered if her imagination had tricked her, or if the police were not so satisfied as Miss Moon supposed with the theory that Monica Ford had been killed by a thief, and were watching the Villa Oleander?
It was an uncomfortable thought, and yet she had to admit that she would sleep easier that night if she could be assured that the police were keeping an eye on the house.
She saw Claire Norman and Toby Gates in the town, but they did not see her. They were talking earnestly outside Karafillides’ shop, and as she approached they turned and walked away together.
Amanda saw no one else that she knew, with the exception of several children who grinned cheerfully at her and were presumably among those admirers of Steve Howard’s whose acquaintance she had made on her first morning in Kyrenia. And struck by a sudden thought, she did not go directly to the Dome, but turned instead towards the harbour, where the low rays of the setting sun had turned the massive walls of Kyrenia Castle to molten gold, and dyed the long range of the hills with rose and cyclamen and lavender streaked with soft blue shadows.
The quiet water of the sleepy little harbour lay like a vast opal in the shelter of the sea wall, mirroring all the clear colours of the evening and the orange-brown mainsail of a small blue sailing boat whose owner was manoeuvring her to her moorings at the far side of the harbour. It was a picture to delight the eye of the least appreciative: a back-drop for a ballet or the setting for an opera by Puccini. But there was no one painting on the wall that evening and Amanda could see no sign of Steve Howard.
She turned to look at the row of tall, flat-roofed houses that ringed the far side of the harbour, one of which contained Lumley Potter’s studio flat. The french windows of the Potter studio gave on to a small iron-railed balcony, and Amanda saw a man step out on to the balcony and peer down on to the quay beneath. The distance was too great for her to be able to make out his features, but against the dark square of the open window behind him the man’s blond head stood out in sharp relief, and Amanda wondered if Alastair Blaine—if it was Alastair—was being inveigled into purchasing a companion piece to ‘Sea Green Cypriots’?
The man turned and went in again and Amanda’s gaze wandered along the quays and over the crowded tables of the little café, but Steve Howard was definitely not among those present, and after a time she turned away and walked slowly back towards the Dome Hotel.
The girl at the desk glanced at an array of keys and said that she was afraid Mr Howard must be out. He had left his key at the desk and had not reclaimed it. Perhaps Amanda would care to wait?
Amanda lingered, uncertain whether to stay or to leave a message asking Steve to call at the Villa Oleander. But as she hesitated, there was a click of high heels on the floor behind her, a waft of ‘Bois des Iles’ and Persis Halliday said: ‘Hullo there! Just the girl I wanted to see! Amanda honey, I was round at that old Palazzo of yours this morning trying to see you, and I rang up twice this afternoon. But your phone must be out of order. I hear you’ve been right spang in the middle of a front page story? Come and have a shot of something and tell me all about it at once. Am I thrilled!’
She took Amanda’s arm in an affectionate and possessive clasp and swept her off to a corner of a wide lounge where the lights had already been lit and the windows that looked out onto the placid ocean were filled with the last daffodil glow of the sunset.
Persis, thought Amanda, was showing signs of strain. There were lines about her eyes and mouth that Amanda did not remember having seen before, and she looked less glossy and well dressed than usual. There was a large flake of crimson lacquer missing from one fingernail, and for the first time since Amanda had known her, her gleaming hair was less than immaculately sleek.
She questioned Amanda about the even
ts of the previous evening in a low, eager voice that was entirely unlike her usual gay, high-pitched and incisive tones.
Amanda gave her an outline of the story, but avoided details, and eventually Persis abandoned the catechism and relaxed in her chair.
She had apparently called at the Villa Oleander that morning, after hearing the news of the murder from a hotel acquaintance, and had met Miss Moon.
‘She wouldn’t let me see you,’ explained Persis. ‘Seems you were asleep. The place appeared to be crawling with cops and your hostess was dealing with them with considerable firmness. She’s quite a character. Glenn was there too. And Toby dropped around to ask after you. We all went upstairs and sat in the boudoir and had a quiet smoke, while the cops milled around in the drawing-room. It was quite a party.’
‘Why was Glenn there? Were they____?’
‘They’d been doing a bit of reconstructing the crime I gather,’ said Persis, hailing a passing waiter and throwing him into temporary confusion by demanding rye-on-the-rocks:
‘It seems that Glenn was their Public Enemy Number One, until someone tripped over a handful of valuables on the garden path. Will you have sherry or gin? Okay waiter, make it tomato juice.’
Amanda said: ‘You mean they thought that Glenn had killed her?’
‘Sure. Why not? After all, on his own say-so he was the last person to see her alive, and it seems that his wife’s been tooting it all over town that he had an affair with the dame. They had it all doped out. Even the local cops have read that one about the secretary who is seduced by the boss!’
‘Did you ever see Monica Ford?’ demanded Amanda heatedly.
‘Nope. But I’ve heard plenty from those who had that privilege. I gather that she would not exactly have reached the finals of the Beauty Contest at Mud Flats, Pennsylvania. Am I right?’
‘You are. She was plain and efficient and thick and thirty-fiveish, and____’
‘I get you, honey. But I guess the cops must have been reading Candid Confessions, for they were quite a little taken with their theory. Seems they thought the guy had gotten tired of amorous games around the office and had tried to toss the gal aside like a soiled glove, and she wouldn’t toss. So he upped and strangled her, left the corpse in Miss Moon’s drawing-room, came on up to Hilarion and callously ate a hearty tea to celebrate. That was their theory and they were crazy about it.’