A Mysterious Affair of Style

by Gilbert Adair

  No objection had been raised. The memory of authority exerts nearly as powerful a pressure as authority itself and, even had anyone wished to, no one was tempted to contradict an ex-Scotland Yard officer.

  ‘How do you feel, Evie?’ he now enquired in a surprisingly tender voice. ‘Bearing up, are you …?’

  She eked out a wan smile.

  ‘Eustace, you’re wonderful.’

  ‘Wonderful?’ he echoed her. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. I never realised that great big burly police officers could have such perfect bedside manners. Certainly none of those in my whodunits ever had and I realise I’ve been libelling you all. Without you I don’t know what I’d have done. Made a right Charley of myself, I dare say.’

  ‘Chut! Chut! You’ve pulled yourself together wondrously well, in my opinion, considering what close friends you and – and Miss Rutherford were.’

  Though he and the actress had eventually made it to first-name terms, he felt awkward about being posthumously familiar with her.

  ‘You know, Eustace,’ replied the novelist, ‘I’ve spent the last twenty years blithely killing off my characters, devising the most picturesque forms of death for them, and somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind I suppose I’ve always wondered how I myself would react if the same kind of fate were to befall somebody I knew. Roger ffolkes was already a test – but Cora! How could such a thing happen to Cora?

  ‘We’d lost touch with each other in the last few years. But you know, as they say of the last breath of a drowning man, when a woman like Cora dies, it’s also her friends who see her whole life flash before their eyes. So many good times to remember … She was a game old bird and, my God, she’d really been a game young bird. Oh, she had her faults. She could be a proper she-devil when crossed, but she never really meant any harm. She just couldn’t resist a bitchy comeback. Half the time she was genuinely surprised to discover that your feelings had been hurt.’

  ‘I understand,’ murmured Trubshawe, scouting the idea. ‘Of course I barely knew her, but I do believe I recognise her in what you’ve just been saying. With all her badinage it was as though she were acting in a play, if you know what I mean, as though nothing she said should affect you more than it would some actor she was playing opposite.’

  ‘Why, that’s it exactly. After all, you don’t start booing the actor you’ve just watched play Iago or Richard III if you meet him afterwards in the street, do you? Cora was simply playing a role, the role she was born to play, the witty, catty stage and screen star. And now she’s dead. Poor, dear, glorious, outrageous Cora. Heaven’s finally Heaven now that she’s there …

  ‘It’s funny,’ she added softly. ‘I’m not sure why, but I’d always taken it for granted that, of the two of us, I would be the first to go. It’s almost as though she jumped the queue.

  ‘Cora dead …’ she said again, still not quite able to credit it. And she was just repeating, ‘Cora dead …’ when the door to the commissary opened and Lettice Morley walked in. Behind her was a boyishly handsome young man in a fawn raincoat, a prim black bowler hat held in his hands.

  ‘Here you are, Miss Mount,’ Lettice said, holding out a battered silver hip-flask. ‘It’s Gareth Knight’s. Scotch, I’m afraid, not brandy, but it ought to do the trick. Go on, take a swig.’

  ‘Why, thank you, my dear, you really are a very sweet girl.’

  She unscrewed the top of the flask, raised it to her lips and took a long, gurgly drink. Almost immediately, a splash of colour suffused each of her cheeks.

  ‘Ah,’ she sighed, ‘I needed that.’

  Sensing that the moment was propitious, the raincoat-clad young man stepped forward and respectfully addressed the Chief-Inspector.

  ‘Mr Trubshawe, sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Trubshawe shot a keen glance at him.

  ‘I’m sorry. Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

  ‘Well, you I’d know anywhere, sir,’ said the young man with a hesitant smile, his restless Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, ‘even if we haven’t clapped eyes on each other for longer than I care to remember. I’m Tom Calvert.’

  Trubshawe peered at him.

  ‘Why, of course. P.C. Tom Calvert. My apologies – Inspector Thomas Calvert of Richmond C.I.D., so I’ve been reading. Congratulations, young ’un!’

  The young policeman nodded, shyly twirling his bowler.

  ‘Thanks. I owe my success to you as much as to anyone. And may I say, sir, it’s quite amazing, but in all those years you haven’t changed a bit.’

  ‘I kind of thought you’d say that,’ replied Trubshawe with a sardonic smile.

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘No reason, no reason at all. So you’ve been assigned to this case too, have you?’

  ‘Too?’

  ‘Well, I read of how you investigated the fire at Alastair Farjeon’s villa in Cookham, and now here you are.’

  ‘You heard about that, did you?’

  ‘I not only heard about it, I’ve been following it more closely than you’d ever imagine.’

  ‘Well, sir, it seemed pretty logical to have me cover this business. Not that we have any reason to believe there might be a connection between the two – except that, as I’m sure you know, Farjeon, before he died, was to be the producer of the picture they’ve been making here.’

  ‘Director,’ said Trubshawe drily.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take it from me, Tom, my boy. Director, not producer.’

  ‘Very well, sir. I see you’ve come to know the patois.’

  ‘I have indeed. You see, I’ve been spending the day down here with –’

  He turned to Evadne.

  ‘– with the well-known mystery writer Evadne Mount.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course,’ said Calvert warmly, shaking her hand. ‘Very pleased to re-make your acquaintance, Miss Mount. And just let me say how terribly sorry I am. I know that Cora Rutherford was a very old friend of yours.’

  ‘Re-make her acquaintance?’ said a baffled Trubshawe. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Have you forgotten, Eustace?’ said the novelist, ‘When I wanted to invite you down here, it was Mr Calvert who was kind enough to give me your home address.’

  Before Trubshawe could reply, Calvert, who had to stifle a smile on hearing the Chief-Inspector’s Christian name, explained:

  ‘That’s right, sir. I did give Miss Mount your address. I know we’re not supposed to do that, even for retired officers like yourself, but she insisted you’d be glad to hear from her and I assumed …’

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ Trubshawe answered genially. ‘As a matter of fact, I was extremely glad. Unfortunately, what started out so very pleasantly has now turned into a nightmare.’

  ‘It’s a nasty one all right.’

  ‘She was poisoned, I suppose?’

  ‘It’s what all the signs point to, sir. Of course, the doctor’s only just arrived, and even he won’t be able to give us anything conclusive until he’s performed an autopsy. Poison, though, would seem to be the obvious bet so far. Which poison is another matter.’

  ‘No lingering aroma of burnt almonds, I suppose?’ asked Evadne Mount.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Calvert. ‘But I’m afraid, Miss Mount, since we’re in the real world here, we can’t rely on having that kind of clue served up to us on a plate.’

  He turned to address Trubshawe again.

  ‘The police surgeon – that’s Dr Beckwith, by the way, you probably remember him from the old days –’

  Trubshawe nodded.

  ‘Well, he’s a cagey one, the type that won’t say much till he’s two hundred-percent sure of his facts and figures, but I did get it out of him that he thought it most likely to be one of the acid-based poisons. They’re quite tasteless and colourless, you see, and, even if they’re pretty horrendous things to swallow, it’s all over in ten seconds. As I say, though, we won’t really know until the autopsy.’

&nbs
p; ‘A tricky case, Calvert,’ said Trubshawe, ‘with so many people milling around.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ replied Calvert with a sigh. ‘Between the lunch break and the moment Cora Rutherford dropped dead, do you know that there were no fewer than forty-three people on the studio set? And all of them had an opportunity to administer the poison. We already know when the lemonade was poured into the glass, and by whom, but that’s it.’

  ‘Lemonade? I thought it was champagne.’

  ‘Can’t have the cast quaffing champagne, you know. No, it was some kind of transparent soda pop. As the doctor was examining the body, this chap came forward – almost in tears, he was – he’d been in charge of props and it was he who, at one o’clock, just as the afternoon filming was about to start, opened a bottle of the fizzy stuff and half-filled the champagne glass, as per his instructions. He wanted to get his defence in before he was questioned, and I can’t say I blame him. The first person we would have gone after was whoever actually filled the glass.’

  ‘And he’s to be believed, you think?’

  ‘Oh, I really can’t imagine why not. No motive, you see. Been in the picture business upwards of thirty years, so he claims. And, above all, he’s got witnesses.’

  ‘Witnesses?’

  ‘It appears that his assistant, the chap who brought the bottle of lemonade from the studio canteen, actually hung around long enough to see him unscrew the top.’

  ‘I don’t suppose the bottle could already have been tampered with in the canteen itself?’

  ‘Not a chance. It was picked up at random out of a couple of dozen on display. And the top was unscrewed in the presence of this lady here’ – he indicated Lettice – ‘who also verified that the glass had just enough liquid in it.’

  He hesitated, turning to Lettice herself to complete the explanation.

  ‘Tell us again, Miss, what you just told me.’

  Lettice answered with characteristic composure.

  ‘The fact is,’ she said to Trubshawe, ‘I’m responsible for what’s called continuity, for making sure that, if there’s a red handkerchief in an actor’s jacket pocket in one scene, it hasn’t turned into a yellow handkerchief in the next, that kind of detail. Well, when Props – his real name’s Stan but everybody calls him Props – when Props came on set with the bottle of lemonade, I had to be present to check that there was going to be exactly the right amount of “champagne” in Miss Rutherford’s glass. And I can testify that Props opened the bottle in front of me.’

  ‘So that puts him out.’ Calvert sighed once more. ‘Which leaves us with just forty-two potential suspects, any one of whom could have introduced the poison. I’ve already gathered – these picture people are a pretty talkative lot, I can tell you – I’ve already gathered that it takes so long to set up a new shot, as they say, that the glass sat on the table for about an hour while everyone went about their respective jobs, installing lights, laying cables, making up the actors and actresses and I don’t know what else. I haven’t a clue where we’re going to start. In fact, I haven’t a clue, full stop.’

  ‘Then may I offer you one?’ said Evadne Mount, who had been paying close attention to the exchanges between Calvert and Trubshawe.

  ‘One what?’

  ‘Clue. An important one, if I’m not in error.’

  ‘I’d be grateful, Miss Mount, for even the most trivial of clues.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘as Eustace here will confirm, we watched this morning’s filming together before going off to the commissary to lunch with Cora. And it was during our meal that she mentioned how Rex Hanway, the director, had taken her aside just before the break to tell her about a new idea he’d had for the afternoon’s big scene, the idea being that there should be some champagne, or lemonade, still in the glass and that Cora should swallow it before throwing it at Gareth Knight. In the original script, you see, she was simply to pick up an empty glass, which was naturally how everyone expected it to be filmed.

  ‘Ergo,’ she ended, taking evident pleasure in hearing the Latin word trip off her tongue, ‘whoever decided to poison Cora could only have hatched the plot between twelve noon, when Hanway apprised her of his idea, and two o’clock, when she herself drank the lemonade.’

  ‘Curses!’ Trubshawe berated himself. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Which means, of course,’ she went on, once more raising her arm like a policeman to control the conversational traffic, and more especially to warn the Chief-Inspector not to venture down what she regarded as her own private one-way street, ‘that the murderer would also have had to belong to what must surely be an extremely select group. That’s to say, only those who were actually privy to Hanway’s change of plan.’

  Both Calvert and Trubshawe instantly saw the justice and relevance of her words.

  ‘My God, Evie!’ cried Trubshawe. ‘Poor old Cora has just been murdered and already you’ve come up with an important clue. You’re the real thing.’

  ‘Yes, bravo!’ Calvert chimed in. ‘With that one insight you’ve considerably narrowed the scope of the investigation. Now all we have to do is draw up a list of everyone whose job would have necessitated their being told of the business with the champagne glass. My word, we’re actually getting somewhere.’

  ‘Is there any reason, Mr Calvert, why we don’t start right away?’ asked the novelist. ‘This crime isn’t going to solve itself.’

  ‘What do you mean, start right away?’

  ‘Start drawing up a list. It shouldn’t take too long. I can’t believe that any of the – what did Cora call them? – the ordinary grips and geezers would have been informed of the change. As I said, it could only have been a select few. Indeed, I rather think a couple of the prime suspects may be sitting right here in this room.’

  Hearing these last words, Calvert, who had been nodding over each pertinent point raised in the conversation, stiffened almost as though he were immediately preparing to apprehend, with handcuffs if necessary, the two about-to-be-designated suspects.

  For his part, however, Trubshawe merely smiled.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, Tom,’ he said, ‘she means us – me and her. I’m right, Evie, aren’t I?’

  When the novelist nodded in agreement, Calvert shook his head.

  ‘You two as suspects? Come now, Miss, let’s be serious.’

  ‘Oh, I assure you, I am being serious, deadly serious. What would be the point of drawing up such a list if it weren’t both inclusive and unbiased? Eustace and I were the very first to hear, from Cora’s own lips, of the new bit of business. And even though, this afternoon, not once were we out of each other’s sight – also, as mere visitors, practically interlopers, neither of us was permitted to approach the actual performing area – we were nevertheless physically present at the scene of the murder and might well have committed it, singly or in tandem, via some incredibly deft sleight-of-hand. One of those impossible crimes you read about in the anthologies.’

  ‘All right, Miss Mount,’ said Calvert, ‘we’ll have it your way if you insist. You and Mr Trubshawe are Suspects 1 and 2. Now shall we get down to brass tacks? The third suspect – and, as far as I’m concerned, the first in any real sense – must be this Rex Hanway. The idea was his, after all.’

  ‘Ah, but don’t you see, Inspector, unless I’m very much mistaken, the fact that Hanway actually directed Cora to drink from a glass of lemonade which turned out to be poisoned is going to be precisely his alibi.’

  ‘His alibi? Why, it’s the very contrary of an alibi.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she replied. ‘I can just hear how he might respond to any such accusation you level against him. “My dear Inspector,”’ she went on in a remarkably lifelike imitation of the director’s cut-glass vowels, “if I’d really planned to murder poor, darling Cora, do you suppose I’d have told her – in public, mark you, in public – to drink out of a glass I already knew to contain poison?”’

  ‘H’m,’ said Calvert, strok
ing his cheek, on which few traces were visible of a razor’s coarsening attentions. ‘I see what you mean …’

  It was now Trubshawe’s turn to speak.

  ‘Hold on a sec there,’ he said. ‘Yes, Evie has cleverly shown why we need take far fewer than the original forty-two suspects into serious consideration. Hats off to her, even though,’ he added a trifle ungraciously, ‘it’s a point that one or other of us would have made eventually. But there’s something else she seems to have forgotten.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Evadne, ‘and what’s that, may I ask?’

  ‘Well, of course I don’t claim to know much about film folk, but I have had a lot of experience of murderers. Now someone who had a premeditated intent to kill might well decide to visit the scene of his intended crime with a pistol or a revolver or even a knife concealed about his person in the hope that a suitable moment would arise for committing it. But poison? Until just before the lunch break there was no question of Cora drinking out of the champagne glass. Do either of you seriously believe that her murderer has been strolling around the set these past few days – ever since they started making this cursed film – with a flask of poison tucked inside his or her pocket? Eh? And, if not, where would they be expected to lay hands on such a flask in the two hours or so that elapsed between Hanway coming up with his new idea and Cora swallowing the poison? Answer me that.’

  Calvert’s eyebrows registered the logic of the Chief-Inspector’s argument.

  ‘Ye-es, that’s certainly another point we ought to consider.’

  ‘I should think it is,’ said Trubshawe. ‘And what it means is that Hanway surely remains your number-one suspect.’

  ‘All right,’ said Calvert, ‘that makes three we know of, you two and Hanway. Anyone else come to mind?’

  ‘Philippe Françaix,’ suggested Evadne Mount.

  ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

  ‘A French film critic.’

  ‘Nuff said. I don’t have much time for critics myself. All they ever do is criticise.’