by Anne Morice
Of course, if the Inspector had then invited me to pull the other one, as I had no doubt he would, I could have gone on to explain that there had been more to it than this and that my primary object had been to discover what kind of woman lurked beneath the bombast and bullying and how best she could be persuaded, coerced or threatened into desisting from her ruination of the countryside and the lives of its inhabitants. The trouble there was that I could not see how this was to be done without naming Elsa, among others, as my source of information, thereby setting her up as a potential murder suspect too.
I became so engrossed in this problem that it was some while before I noticed that Elsa was also looking distinctly preoccupied and depressed. There was no trace of that muted rejoicing one might have expected to find on the face of a woman, the bane and scourge of whose life had just been permanently removed, at no trouble or expense to herself, and it occurred to me that she was probably not thinking along such selfish lines at all, but was merely saddened by the thought that it had come about too late to save Geoffrey from his fatal heart attack. However, it presently emerged that much more mundane considerations had been exercising her mind and that she was concerned with nothing more profound than Toby’s lunch.
‘It would have done all right for us two,’ she explained, having gone into details about the shepherd’s pie and stewed apricots, ‘but I’m not sure that I’d dare offer it to him. I think I had better just nip in to Storhampton and get a few avocados and things, to jolly it up a bit. It will mean making lunch rather late, but I don’t suppose he’ll mind that, so long as it’s worth eating when he gets it.’
‘Can’t I go for you?’ I asked, keeping my fingers crossed, for I had now decided that, as an interim measure, my safest bet was to skulk for as long as possible in the house and grounds and not to tempt providence by blazoning myself abroad, with the ever present risk of coming face to face with Alice. Luckily, Elsa’s response was all that I could have wished for.
‘No, I don’t think that would do, thank you, Tessa, because I shan’t know what to get until I see it. You stay here and entertain Toby till I get back.’
Nothing could have suited me better because, second only to the right conditions for skulking, what I most needed in this crisis in my life was a detached view of it from an outside observer and it has sometimes been said that the world holds few outsiders with more detached views on any subject you care to name than my cousin Toby.
‘It sounds to me,’ he said, living up to this reputation, as we strolled in the rose garden, ‘as though my advice would be of very little use to you. What you need now is a clever lawyer.’
‘You really think it’s as bad as that?’
‘Not really, no. There is usually a way out. If they do come and get you, I should simply deny everything.’
‘That was my first thought, naturally, but I soon saw that it would only get me into worse trouble. Dozens of people could testify that I was wearing slacks and a white top yesterday and also that I do possess a rather flamboyant turquoise ring.’
‘Then I suppose you will have to humble yourself and ask Robin’s advice. I can quite understand your reluctance to admit that your meddling has landed you in quite a nasty pickle, but I am afraid this is pride swallowing time. He knows far more about these matters than you or I, or should do, by now.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘In any case, I have to confess that I have now rather lost interest in the whole affair. How tame and predictable it has turned out to be, and after such a promising start! A lot of people wishing to murder a tiresome old woman and eventually one of them does so. That’s not much of a plot.’
‘It is one which has been used in numerous successful plays, however. And, besides, you have over-simplified it. There are any number of sub-plots and cross currents threading their way in and out.’
‘Well, that’s cheering, I suppose. You had better tell me what they are. Be brief, though!’
‘I shall start with the purloined camera,’ I told him, ‘and the photograph too few.’
Having done so, I added: ‘And those are not the only puzzles which confront us.’
‘That’s good! What else?’
‘Well, you see, the minute Millie told me that our local editor had turned us down, I detected the hand of Mrs Trelawney pulling strings in the background and, as a result of what you would no doubt call meddling, I had actually discovered, as I thought, how she had got wind of what we were up to. However, I was wrong.’
‘It can happen to the best of us.’
‘And a pardonable mistake, I maintain, in this case. When I heard that the young woman having tea in Mrs Parkinson’s shop when Diane brought the camera in was the daughter of a woman who worked for Mrs Trelawney, I immediately concluded that the leak had come from her. Wouldn’t you have done the same?’
‘Yes, I expect so. Why were we both wrong?’
‘The theory was shaken a bit as soon as I met Alice Hawkins, because she did not strike me as the type of woman who would be on gossipy terms with her employer. She seemed timid and unassertive, whereas Mrs Trelawney was a great big rumbustious bully and, in fact, it’s my belief that if news had reached Alice that someone was about to spike those guns, far from interfering, she would have given it a round of applause.’
‘You can’t always tell, you know. It could be the Uriah Heep brand of timidity, compulsive favour currying.’
‘The real crunch was her not having recognised me. That can’t have been out of any noble ambition to go to the gallows in my place because she was so hell bent in getting herself out of the noose that she would cheerfully have thrown anyone to the lions at that point. So it must have been true.’
Noticing Toby’s smug, amused expression, I went on, ‘Kindly get it through your head that I don’t expect to be recognised wherever I show my face, or have to fight off the clamouring fans, but if her daughter and son-in law had really been talking to her about me so recently and, if, as a result, she’d known I was staying here with Elsa, then isn’t it almost inconceivable that she wouldn’t have made the connection when I turned up at Pettits Farm?’
‘So you now believe that she hadn’t heard a word about the photographs and that someone else passed on the information?’
‘I honestly don’t know what I believe any more. Perhaps the answer is simply that the editor cancelled our appointment for the reason he gave, or because he had second thoughts and got cold feet. They keep it very bland, you know, these local newspapers; never take sides, especially when the rich and powerful are involved. I ought to have taken that into account. Not that anything’s lost, now that the old harridan is dead.’
‘So what are you worried about? Apart from being arrested for her murder, of course?’
‘Well, I’d still love to know what became of that missing photograph. It’s even harder now to guess who might have taken it, and for what purpose.’
‘I don’t know why you keep harping on that. I expect Millie took it herself and then tried to put the blame on Diane, hoping to get her into trouble.’
‘Oh, do you really think so?’ I asked doubtfully. ‘I know she hates Diane and is probably passionately jealous of her, but I don’t think she’d stoop to anything so underhand as that.’
‘No? How about the letter Diane gave her? Didn’t you tell me that Millie was all for steaming it open?’
‘Oh no . . . that was just a joke,’ I said, more doubtfully than ever.
‘Well, don’t fail to let me know if anything a little more sensational than a missing photograph turns up. I should think our avocados must be about ready by now, wouldn’t you?’
He was in for a shock, however. Not only were they unready, but non-existent as well. Elsa tossed out some remark about having changed her mind and decided to start with tomato salad instead, but I happened to know that the refrigerator had been bursting with tomatoes when she set forth to Storhampton. The stewed apricots were unadorned too, not
an almond or macaroon in sight, so it was hard to see exactly what purpose the expedition had served. The abstracted, faraway look, although less pronounced, also reappeared from time to time and, since I could neither nerve myself to take the plunge and call at the police station, nor admit to Robin that I had blown it completely, I went to bed that night with all my problems still unsolved and one fresh one to add to them.
FRIDAY P.M.
Marc arrived after tea on the following day and it was immediately apparent that Elsa had gone to the opposite extreme from boastfulness in describing him as presentable and not bad-looking, because the years had been much kinder to him than to his sister, transforming him into a real custom-built Prince Charming. He had been about seventeen when we last met, still awkward and overgrown and strangely out of proportion, with hands much too large and a head a size or two too small. Now all these flaws had been smoothed out, with everything fitting neatly into place and with the added bonus of pleasing manners and a radiant smile.
Watching these in action, I found it all the more regrettable that Diane should be so awful for in appearance no two young people could have complemented each other more beautifully. On the other hand, I at least felt encouraged to persist in my campaign to bolster Millie’s self-esteem. Since she and Marcus were fundamentally so alike, in colouring, features and bone structure, there could no longer be much doubt that she too would be well on her way to the knock-out class the minute she stopped scowling and laid off the banana cake.
We were in the kitchen, as usual, when he arrived and inevitably the first hour or so was devoted almost exclusively to bringing him up to date with the stirring events of the past four days, with Elsa as principal narrator and Millie and me filling in whenever her breath or memory ran out.
She took it in chronological order and by the time she reached the climax Marc, whose eyes had been popping throughout, was as gratifyingly amazed, thunderstruck and attentive an audience as anyone could have wished for.
‘Dead?’ he repeated in an incredulous voice. ‘You’re not pulling my leg? You honestly mean she’s dead?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I just can’t believe it. Someone’s actually had the guts at last to finish the old witch off! Well, good on ’em, eh?’
‘Now, Marc, you really will have to be careful not to say things like that, you know,’ Elsa told him reprovingly. ‘All of us here realise it’s a joke, but some people might not understand.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said, not in the least abashed. ‘They’d understand perfectly, and I bet some of them are wishing they’d had the sense to do it months ago, seeing how simple it turns out to have been. I wonder who did do it, though, if the police are right in treating the burglary stunt as a fake? One of the estate workers who’d got it in for her, perhaps? Oh well, let’s just hope they don’t catch him, and I must go and ring up Diane this very minute and offer my congratulations. All right if I ask her over for a celebration dinner, Ma?’
‘She’s not there,’ Millie said, with the merest hint of triumph in her voice.
‘What do you mean not there, fathead? This is Friday, remember? She always makes a point of getting home by six on Friday when she knows I’m coming down.’
‘Yes, only you see, darling . . .’ Elsa began, but Millie was not to be denied.
‘She’s in Bexhill.’
‘You’re joking! What would she want to go there for?’
‘To stay with an aunt. Her mother’s had another turn and Diane has taken her for a little holiday by the sea.’
Marc looked angry and puzzled, then tried to cover his disappointment with a jauntiness which deceived none of us.
‘Well, well, talk about absent-minded! Never a word of this to me!’
‘It was all arranged in such a hurry, you see,’ Elsa explained, getting her oar in at last. ‘Cheer up, darling! She’s only gone for a few days, so she might be back by tomorrow, or Sunday anyway. And what Millie didn’t tell you is that she’s written you a note to explain all about it. It’s upstairs in your bedroom.’
Marc left us without a word and, turning to Millie, Elsa said reproachfully, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t be so tactless! Why did you have to fling it at him like that?’
‘Don’t see what difference it’d have made if I’d handed it to him on a bed of watercress. She’d still be in Bexhill.’
‘Yes, I know, but there are ways and ways of doing things and I don’t think yours was very kind.’
‘Oh, here we go again, blaming me for everything! Everything’s always my fault. We don’t hear much about Diane being unkind to go skipping off to Bexhill without bothering to let him know. Oh no, that would never enter your head, would it? You’d always find excuses for her! It’s just stupid, boring old Millie who makes all the trouble and I’m getting bloody fed up with it, if you want to know.’
Her face had been turning scarlet during this plunge into self pity and at the end of it, evidently finding this as good a curtain line as she was likely to hit on, she jumped up, crashed her chair against the table and fled from the room, slamming the door behind her.
‘What a charming way to start the weekend!’ Elsa commented bitterly, now looking close to tears herself.
‘Yes, I’m afraid my so-called influence didn’t go very deep. In fact, I may have done more harm than good by encouraging her to think well of herself. She was nicer when she didn’t.’
‘Oh no, it has nothing to do with you, it’s almost always like this nowadays. And I look forward to it all the week, you know, the three of us being here together. Each time I vow that, whatever happens, I’ll keep the peace, even if it means turning myself into a zombie, and each time Millie manages to break down my defences. Then I hear myself sounding like a prissy old maiden aunt and the next thing you know we’re up to our necks in one of these scenes.’
‘Take heart! She’ll be back at school in a week or two.’
Elsa sighed. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to help much. She’ll still be at home at weekends and that’s when all the trouble starts. She’s not so bad when we’re here on our own.’
The door opened and the subject of this lament stuck her head round it, to announce in defiant tones that she was going out to see someone called Janie and probably wouldn’t be back for dinner.
‘Oh, I see! Well, all right, darling, but try not to be too late, won’t you? You know how I worry!’
‘Oh, God!’ Millie groaned, not forgetting to slam the door again.
Seeing how infuriating her last reminder must have been to any sensitive sixteen-year old, I was wondering whether I dared point out to Elsa a few of the errors of her ways, when the door opened again and this time it was Marc who made the dramatic entrance. In fact, the whole evening was becoming more like a stage production every minute and I was quite sorry that Toby was not present to pick up a few tips, specially as Marc was able to provide us with something slightly more enthralling than a display of adolescent tantrums.
We could tell at once that something had gone seriously wrong in his life because all the self-confidence and buoyancy had oozed away, leaving him a little shrunk and beaten looking. He was holding Diane’s letter, but his opening question concerned Millie.
‘She’s gone out,’ Elsa told him.
‘Well, that’s one blessing, anyway! To have her crowing and trumpeting about might be a little more than I could stand just at this moment. Perhaps we can hush it up for a bit? Or does she know already, by any chance? Did everyone know except me?’
‘Know what, darling?’
‘About Diane?’
‘Yes, of course she knew. What’s the matter with you, Marc? She told you herself, just now, that Diane had gone to Bexhill.’
‘I don’t mean that. Bexhill was just an excuse.’
‘I simply don’t understand you, darling. An excuse for what? You mean she hasn’t gone there at all? But . . .’
‘Oh, she’s gone all right, but all that stuff about hav
ing to take her mother down there was just twaddle. She’s gone because she couldn’t face me. She was afraid I’d go straight up to Orchard House and make one hell of a scene and ask her what she thought she was up to. She’s damn right too. That’s exactly what I would have done.’
‘I do wish you’d explain what this is all about,’ Elsa said, showing a certain obtuseness, in my opinion, or perhaps not yet daring to believe the obvious, which Marc now proceeded to deliver in plain terms.
‘She’s chucked me over, that’s what! Backed out, turned me down, called it off! Refused to marry me, if you prefer!’
‘Oh, my dearest boy, how dreadful for you! What an awful thing to do, and how extraordinary! You hadn’t quarrelled, had you?’
‘No, Diane’s like you, she never quarrels with anyone. You ought to know that by now.’
‘Then why? What reason does she give? She hasn’t . . . found someone else?’
‘No, nothing like that. Her motives are of the purest and most disinterested. She says it wouldn’t be fair to me for us to be married. She’s thought about it a lot and in her heart she knows she’s not really cut out to be the wife of someone as ambitious as I am, not clever enough to keep up and she’d only damage my career. Did you ever hear such rot?’
‘Well, in a way . . . No, no, of course I didn’t. I find it quite incomprehensible. What would any of that matter, if you really love each other?’
‘She says it’s because she really does love me that she’s made up her mind to break it off. She’s finally decided that she wants me to have my freedom. Not hers, mark you, mine!’
Presumably, Elsa and I were both wearing our sceptical expressions a little too openly by this time, because he said defensively:
‘Okay, I know it sounds loony, and so it would be in anyone else, but Diane’s like that. That’s the way her mind works, and she’s got this stupid, ridiculous sense of inferiority. And she does give another reason why it wouldn’t be fair to me, quite a practical one this time, in case you’re interested?’