He said, “Ah, there you are, Tibbett. I have the key here. I’ll come up with you.”
The curtains in the bedroom were drawn and the windows closed, creating a warm, scented and yet depressing atmosphere, like a deserted love nest. Mavis’s bed had been neatly covered with a clean white sheet, the pillows plumped to remove the indentation where her lifeless head had rested. However, the revolver still lay on the lime-green carpet and so did the angora-cat nightdress case, each still surrounded by blurred chalk marks.
Sir Edward said, “Everything has been left exactly as it was found, Tibbett. That is to say—as it was when I first saw it after my wife’s death. Mr. Holder-Watts was the first to come in and find the body, but there’s no reason to think he tampered with anything. The gun is mine. My secretary noticed earlier in the day that it was missing from my desk drawer, but did not think of remarking on it, as we had been discussing keeping it up here. This you know, of course.”
“I’ve read Inspector Bartholomew’s preliminary reports,” said Henry.
“These marks,” Ironmonger went on, “show where Mavis’s right hand and foot touched the ground. She was lying on her back, on the right-hand side of her bed, with her right arm and leg sprawled over the edge. You see that the gun is in the position where it would naturally have fallen if she had been holding it in her right hand. I’ve no doubt at all that you will find her fingerprints on it. The scene was set with great care. I expect you’ll want to take the gun away with you.”
Ironmonger’s voice was completely impersonal, but Henry had the impression of deep emotion held on an almost impossibly tight rein. He said, “Yes, Sir Edward, I’ll take it eventually. Inspector Bartholomew and I will do some fingerprinting later on, and meanwhile I’ve brought a camera. I’d like to get pictures before anything is moved. For the moment, though, could I take a look in the bathroom?”
“The bathroom?” Ironmonger sounded faintly amused. “Which one?”
“There’s more than one?”
“Yes, indeed. That door over there leads to my dressing room and bathroom. Mavis’s bathroom is through this door here.”
“I’ll look at them both, if I may,” Henry said.
“Of course, my dear fellow. Look at anything you like.” Sir Edward glanced at his watch. “Forgive me, I really must go. Here is the key. Please keep it. Don’t give it to anybody. You understand?”
He handed Henry the big old-fashioned key and went out quickly, closing the door behind him. Henry slipped his small flashbulb camera out of its case, and began to photograph the room systematically—the empty bed, the gun, the nylon cat, the chalk marks. He took great care not to touch anything. Then he went into Lady Ironmonger’s bathroom.
It smelt overpoweringly feminine—scent and bath essence and expensive soap and dusting powder had left their mingled fragrances hanging like smog in the air. The fluffy pink bath mat was rumpled and spattered with talcum powder, and a filmy white negligee had been tossed carelessly onto the carpet. Obviously, Mavis had taken a bath before dressing for the reception, and Henry remembered that she had been late getting downstairs according to Inspector Bartholomew’s report on interviews with the Embassy staff. There had been no chance to clean up the bathroom after her.
Stepping with extreme care so as to avoid the bath mat and the traces of powder on the carpet, Henry reached the hand basin and very delicately, with a handkerchief over his fingers, opened the door of the bathroom cabinet. Not, he reflected, that these precautions were of the least use. Dr. Duncan, that inquisitive old man, had already marched into the bathroom, as a masculine footprint clearly visible in the powder on the mat bore witness. His fingerprints would be all over the handle of the cabinet door, masking any others which might have been useful. Henry had taken a liking to the doctor, and in one way his curiosity had been invaluable. In others, however, it was a great nuisance. The cupboard door swung open.
Inside, on a couple of glass shelves, stood a bottle of aspirin tablets, some Alka-Seltzer, a jar of mouthwash and a supply of contraceptive pills. There were also some assorted face creams and lotions, a spare tube of toothpaste and a bottle of cough syrup. Not only was there no sign of Alcodym, but no sleeping pills, no tranquilizers, no pep pills. The contents of the cupboard suggested a normal, unneurotic woman with no problems other than avoiding unwanted pregnancies and the occasional morning-after headache. The fact remained, however, that a bottle of Alcodym had been removed since Dr. Duncan visited the bathroom—in which case, other things might also have disappeared. Henry took some more photographs and then went downstairs, having carefully locked the bedroom door behind him.
He was greeted in the hall by Dorabella, who did not appear to be in a very good temper. “Mr. Tibbett, I believe you have the key to Lady Ironmonger’s bedroom.”
“That’s right. Sir Edward gave it to me.”
Dorabella gave a little sigh of impatience and annoyance. “He is so absent-minded sometimes. I am supposed to be in charge of that key. May I have it, please?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Miss Hamilton,” said Henry agreeably.
They faced each other—eye to eye. In fact, with her wedge-heeled shoes, Dorabella stood a good inch taller than Henry. He said, “Sir Edward specifically asked me to keep it. I’m afraid I can’t give it to anybody without his consent.” Mentally, he added, “Nor with it, come to that.” Aloud, he added, “I really can’t see that there’s any reason for you to go into that room, Miss Hamilton. Inspector Bartholomew and I will be busy there tomorrow, and nothing must be touched.”
“There are some of her things—”
“When the police investigation is finished,” Henry said, “you’ll be able to go in as much as you like. But not until then.”
Dorabella tossed her head. “Oh, well, if you’re going to take that attitude . . . Sir Edward will be very angry, you’ll see.”
“I don’t think so.”
Dorabella sniffed, and swiveled on her two-inch cork wedges. Henry said, “Tell me about the chalk marks, Miss Hamilton.” Dorabella, who had started on an angry and ostentatious mince back toward the study, suddenly stood still. Then she wheeled to face Henry, and said, “What chalk?”
“In the bedroom,” Henry said. “Chalk marks have been made on the carpet to indicate the position of various objects. I wondered who made them, and when—was it you?”
There was a tiny hesitation, and then Dorabella said, “It’s not chalk. It’s talcum powder. It was all we could find.”
“We?”
“Eddie—I mean, Sir Edward—and me. As soon as Michael . . . told us . . . he—Eddie, I mean—he ran up the stairs on his own. He told me to wait. He must have been in there about two or three minutes. Then he came out and beckoned me to come up.” Dorabella had forgotten her irritation. She was reliving an experience which had moved her deeply. “He said . . . ‘It’s true, Dorrie . . . she’s dead . . . you’d better come up . . .’ I felt sort of numb. I can’t even remember going up the stairs. The next thing, I was just standing there, looking down at her. She didn’t look dead, somehow. Just as though she’d passed out. I thought she’d look ugly, but she didn’t. Not even then.”
Dorabella paused, sniffed, and pulled herself together. When she spoke again, it was in her calm, efficient, secretarial voice. “Sir Edward pointed out that we ought to mark the position of the gun, and so on. He asked me to find something that would make marks on the carpet. So I went into the bathroom and looked in the cupboard—I thought there might be some tinted foundation lotion, or something like that—but Lady Ironmonger didn’t use it. All I could find was the talcum powder, so I brought it, and we outlined the gun, and the nightdress case, and Lady Ironmonger’s hand and foot—the ones that were touching the carpet. Then Sir Edward told me to go and telephone for the doctor.”
“Mr. Holder-Watts hadn’t done so already?” Henry asked.
“No. He was going to, but Eddie—Sir Edward—stopped him. He was quite sharp about it.” He
nry thought he detected a note of satisfaction in Dorabella’s voice. “He wanted to see Lady Ironmonger for himself first. Then he asked me to telephone.”
“And so you left Sir Edward alone in the bedroom?”
“Only for a minute or so. I telephoned the doctor from the study, and Sir Edward came and joined me there even before the number was answered.”
“Miss Hamilton,” said Henry, “when you looked through the bathroom cupboard, what did you see in it?”
“Oh—just the ordinary things.”
“Can you remember what was there?”
Dorabella shook her head. “Aspirin and things. Pills . . . you know.”
“Was there a bottle of tablets marked Alcodym?”
“No, there wasn’t.” To Henry’s surprise, Dorabella answered quickly and decisively.
“How can you be sure?”
“I’d have certainly noticed anything—like that, Chief Superintendent. I can assure you there was no such bottle.”
“How well did you know Lady Ironmonger, Miss Hamilton?” Henry asked.
Dorabella tossed her dark, curly head. “I am Sir Edward’s secretary,” she said. “I’ve never interfered in his private life.”
“But surely here—with the residence and the Embassy all under the same roof—”
“I had been doing a little secretarial work for Lady Ironmonger recently,” Dorabella admitted. “As a favor to Sir Edward, until we could get a social secretary. I explained to Lady Ironmonger that I was far too busy to take on any extra work permanently.”
“You didn’t like Lady Ironmonger very much, did you, Miss Hamilton?” Henry said it with a smile. He got an icy stare in return.
“It was not my position to like or dislike her,” said Dorabella primly.
“All right, skip it. You were at the reception, of course, Miss Hamilton?”
Dorabella made a moue. “You can say that again. I organized it. By the time the guests started to arrive, I was exhausted. It was our first official reception, you know. It was terribly important that it should go well.”
“And I gather that it did,” said Henry. “Up until Lady Ironmonger’s unfortunate outburst, that is.”
Quietly, Dorabella said, “I shall never forgive her for that. Never. I don’t care if she is dead.”
“No, you don’t, do you?” Henry was being deliberately provocative, and Dorabella was provoked.
“I didn’t mean that. I never said I wanted her to die, and if any body says I did, it’s a lie! I simply meant that it would be utterly hypocritical if I now pretended I’d forgiven her for . . . what she did.”
“Just what did she do, Miss Hamilton?”
“You must have heard about it, over and over.”
“No, I haven’t. I’ve only read about it in Inspector Bartholomew’s report. I’d like your first-hand account.”
Dorabella hesitated. “Well,” she admitted, “I wasn’t actually in the room at the time.”
“You weren’t? Where were you?”
“I was in the kitchen. There was some confusion about the serving of the hot snacks—our staff isn’t very experienced, you see. When I came back to the reception, Lady Ironmonger had disappeared. It wasn’t until later that I heard what had happened.”
“Who told you?”
“Mr. Holder-Watts. But as soon as I saw she had gone, I could guess.”
“Guess what?”
“That she was drunk,” said Dorabella, with deep distaste.
“What made you so sure of that?”
“Well . . . look what she did . . . what she said to poor Mr. Finkelstein . . .”
“But you didn’t actually see or hear—”
“No. But it was all around the room in no time. Among us Embassy people, I mean. We tried to keep it from the guests, of course. Anyway,” Dorabella added, defensively, “she was always getting drunk. We were quite used to it.”
“Lady Ironmonger frequently got drunk in public, did she?” Henry asked, just too innocently.
Dorabella froze him with a stare. “I am not public,” she said. “Sir Edward is not public. The Embassy is not public. I said that we were used to it.”
“So,” said Henry, “you think that Lady Ironmonger drank too much at the reception, insulted an Israeli diplomat and was then helped up to her bedroom, where she shot herself with her husband’s gun. Is that a fair statement of your opinion, Miss Hamilton?”
“It is not my opinion, Mr. Tibbett. It is what happened.”
Henry let this go. He said, “To get back to this famous key for a moment. Who has had charge of it or access to it since Lady Ironmonger’s death?”
Promptly, Dorabella replied, “Sir Edward and myself. Nobody else.”
“You’re quite certain of that?”
“Of course.”
“But surely Sir Edward might have handed the key to—” Dorabella glanced ostentatiously at her watch. “It is half-past six, Chief Superintendent. If you will excuse me, I have to close up the official rooms of the Embassy before I go home . . .”
Henry smiled. “Oh, well. In that case—good evening to you. Please tell Sir Edward that I have the key and will take good care of it. Don’t bother to see me out.”
9
Henry’s idea had been to interview the Holder-Wattscs, Winston Nelson, the Otis Schipmakers and the Barringtons, in that order and as soon as possible, but the busy social life of Washington intervened. Michael and Eleanor were attending the same diplomatic function as Eddie Ironmonger. The Schipmakers were gracing a charity ballet performance at the Kennedy Center. Winnie Nelson was representing Sir Edward at the opening of a new civic center in a predominantly black quarter of the city. The only people available for interviewing that evening were Prudence and Matthew Barrington.
Inspector Bartholomew had telephoned the Barrington home earlier from the Embassy, and had been engulfed in a typically warmhearted welcome from Prudence. “Why, Bobby Bartholomew! How are you, dear? We were just looking at your picture in the evening paper, arriving at the airport. My, how you’ve grown! How’s your mother these days? . . . Well, of course, we’re none of us getting any younger, but you tell her from me that she ought to go and see Dr. Duncan, just for a check-up . . . yes, I know what she’s like, dear—stubborn and self-opinionated and she will not take proper care of herself, and you are to go home right now and tell her . . . oh, no, of course, you can’t, can you? . . . How’s the investigation going? . . . Scotland Yard? . . . No, of course I’m not surprised. Naturally Eddie would want to call in the very best people . . . oh, don’t be silly, Bobby, what does independence have to do with it? . . . Oh, does he? I can’t think why . . . What’s the name again? Tibbett? . . . Yes, by all means, tell him we’ll be delighted to see him for supper this evening, around seven-thirty . . . Jean and Homer are coming, but nobody else, just family . . . and you must come and see us soon, Bobby. Muriel will be so pleased to see you. You remember Muriel? . . . And when you write to your mother, dear, remember me to all your brothers and sisters . . . and their fathers, of course . . .”
Henry’s cab made good time out to Chevy Chase, despite the remnants of rush-hour traffic still streaming toward suburbia. He was glad to see that there were no cars in the driveway of the Barrington house, indicating that he had arrived before Jean and Homer—who were, he gathered, the Barringtons’ daughter and son-in-law. With any luck there would be time to talk to the Bishop and his wife alone before the family evening set in.
Matthew Barrington greeted Henry with a glass of sweetish sherry and a rather surprising air of formality which Prudence at once dispelled.
“We’re so very pleased to meet you, Mr. Tibbett, and to know that this sad affair is in good hands. So sensible of Eddie to call in the Yard—he always was a bright boy. You must tell us all about London—dear old London, such a long time since we’ve been there, but we do try to keep in touch—”
“The Chief Superintendent,” said Matthew ponderously, “has not come all
this way to gossip about London, Prudence.”
“Well, perhaps not, but it’s always nice to hear news from home. What a pity your wife couldn’t come over here with you, Mr. Tibbett.”
“As a matter of fact, she did,” said Henry. “We’re both staying with Mrs. Colville.”
“Then you are very naughty not to have told me,” said Prudence. “You should have brought her this evening. Next time, you must promise—”
“Prudence!” Matthew was as brusque as he ever could be. “Please let us get to the point. The children will be here soon.”
“Oh, dear.” Prudence smiled enchantingly at Henry, shedding thirty years with no effort. “I’m afraid Matthew is going to make a speech. Or deliver a sermon. I know the signs.”
Matthew cleared his throat. “My wife exaggerates, like all women,” he said. “Nevertheless, Chief Superintendent, I do wish to—to make a statement. Just for the record.”
“By all means, sir,” said Henry.
“Well . . For a moment, Bishop Barrington seemed at a loss for words. Then he pulled himself together, and said, “I do not wish to be hypocritical, Tibbett. Consequently, I have decided to tell you straight away that I thoroughly disliked Mavis Ironmonger. Not as a person, but on account of her marriage to Eddie. I love Tampica, and I regarded that marriage as no less than a national disaster, which might have had dire consequences for generations of Tampicans as yet unborn. I won’t hide from you the fact that I consider her disappearance as an unmixed blessing. I suppose you find this shocking.”
“On the contrary,” said Henry, “I find it refreshing.”
“Well, I find it disgusting!” Two pink spots had appeared on Prudence’s cheeks, and her eyes were sparkling with anger. “I’m ashamed of you, Matthew. And there’s no need to be so pompous. ‘Generations as yet unborn’ indeed!”
More gently, Matthew said, “I am trying to be honest, my dear. I am thinking of Tampica.”
“And I’m thinking of Eddie, and that poor girl. People don’t kill themselves for no reason, you know.”
Black Widower Page 10