The Riddle of Sphinx Island

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘Perhaps they could be fitted with cardboard “collars” – what they use on dogs’ necks, to stop them scratching?’ Lady Grylls took a sip of coffee. ‘We seem to have not one but two dangerous men on the island,’ she went on in a thoughtful voice. ‘I personally believe Oswald is more dangerous than John, but you will probably disagree … So quiet, isn’t it? Or have I gone completely deaf? My doctor keeps telling me I should get a hearing aid.’

  ‘It is quiet.’

  ‘Not sure I care much for such dead calm … Like the hush before the proverbial storm … Goodness, what was that? Sounds like someone being skinned alive.’

  ‘It’s Mrs Garrison-Gore. She wants us in the library. Today’s Friday, remember? Last instructions, I think.’

  ‘Last rites more like. What a bore that woman is. To tell you the truth, I’ve been having second thoughts. I am not sure we are doing the right thing at all. Poor Hugh and poor Antonia. They’ll probably never forgive me. Wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped speaking to me altogether. I may have miscalculated. Oh well. Too late now. Iacta alea est.’

  ‘Are you all right, Lady Grylls?’

  ‘Never felt better, my dear. The sea air agrees with me. The die is cast. That’s what it means, in case you wonder. Latin, you know. I heard Hugh say it once. I seem to resemble my nephew more and more as I get older. I find the Garrison-Gore a perfect pest. She sets my teeth on edge. Goodness, is that her again? Let’s go, shall we?’ Lady Grylls put down her coffee cup. ‘Where’s my stick? Blasted thing!’

  ‘Lean on my arm, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear, I shall … I am not as young as I was … If Mrs G-G makes her quip about putting one’s best foot forward and not in it, I shall scream … All that horrible heartiness must be a cover for something, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I guess she is worried the murder may not be a success.’

  ‘I don’t think all crime writers are like her,’ Lady Grylls said resolutely. ‘My niece-by-marriage is quite different.’

  Mrs Garrison-Gore cleared her throat, ‘There is a change I would like to make, in view of what happened yesterday …’ Her eyes strayed significantly to the portrait above the fireplace. ‘We must take the shooting into account … They are bound to notice the bullet holes and they’ll ask questions. We could always have the picture taken down and replaced with another one and remove the book altogether, I suppose, but I have a better idea … I’ll explain exactly how it’ll work, so please listen very carefully. This is a corporate effort, don’t let’s forget. So all hands to the mast, as they say. Do let’s put our best foot forward, not in it, shall we?’

  14

  THE PLAYERS AND THE GAME

  Oswald Ramskritt met us as arranged and led us to his yacht. He wore what Sybil had called ‘his rather superior yachting cap’. (Antonia wrote in her diary.) He is a pleasant enough chap with an open, weather-beaten face and intensely blue eyes. I imagine he is in his late fifties, but it is clear he must have been a handsome man in his youth. His eyes, I noticed, were a little bloodshot and at one point he popped an Alka-Seltzer into a glass of water and drank it without waiting for the fizz to subside. (Nights of revelry on Sphinx Island?)

  He rhapsodized about the island. He said he’d always dreamt of possessing an island. He said everybody was enjoying themselves very much indeed and was looking forward to our joining the ‘gang’. Everyone was having a whale of a time. And wonder of wonders, John de Coverley had at last made an appearance! Must be in our honour, Oswald said with a laugh.

  So far John had kept to his room but this morning he apparently surprised everybody by turning up at breakfast, something he’d never done before. John’s demeanour was what one would have expected from an old-world English gentleman. With his eyeglass and spats, he might have stepped out of the pages of a 1930s ‘Society’ novel. John had done something ‘very silly’ the day before and that seemed to be his way of saying sorry to everybody.

  Oswald went on to tell us how much he loved England. One of his remaining ambitions was to become an honorary Englishman. This is what his brother, or rather half-brother, had done. His half-brother was his only living relative and he was more English than the English. His half-brother had suffered a back injury, but that didn’t stop him from treading the boards and chasing the ladies. Oswald gave a knowing look and laughed as though at the best of jokes.

  Hugh pressed him to tell us what John had done exactly, but Oswald only shook his head and smiled. It was nothing serious, he insisted. Nothing at all.

  Oddly enough, Oswald didn’t mind informing us how he had made his fortune. Everybody seemed to think it was extremely difficult, but it wasn’t. He became quite voluble on the subject. He said he had done it by the simple expedient of combining the haphazard methods of the gambler with the less spectacular techniques of the investor. If we ever decided to become millionaires, that was the way to go about it.

  The island has a sinister enough air about it, though, personally, I couldn’t see the Sphinx it is supposed to resemble. It is essentially a grey and bare configuration of rocks. The house is white as a bone and it looks forlorn and empty. It brings to mind a painting by Edward Hopper, that master-blender of loneliness, nostalgia and shadowy foreboding.

  As we got nearer, I was filled with curious sadness. Despite myself, I felt something resembling a sense of loss …

  I mentioned Hopper and the talk turned to painting. Oswald Ramskritt’s favourite artist is Norman Rockwell – such a sunny painter, he said – it is always summertime in Rockwell – smiling moms making apple-pie, healthy-looking boys playing baseball, friendly dogs chasing after them. Simple happiness, old-fashioned charm and self-effacing dignity – those were the kind of things Oswald valued most.

  I may be tempted to use the house and the island as a setting for a novel one day. Setting establishes atmosphere and it can influence plot and character. An island like that would certainly enhance the horror of a murder, especially if the heinous act were to be committed during a storm. The turbulence of the sea would parallel the turbulence of human emotions. Though this is a terrible cliché, it could still be effective, if properly done.

  Strangely enough, the moment I thought about clichés, Mrs Garrison-Gore sprung into view. Of course we didn’t immediately know that she was Mrs Garrison-Gore, not till Oswald Ramskritt introduced her to us after we’d landed.

  Mrs Garrison-Gore had come out of the house and was sitting on a rock, looking out across the sea, incongruously bringing to mind the famous statue of Andersen’s mermaid I’d seen in Copenhagen once. If newspaper reports are to be believed the poor little mermaid had been vandalised a great number of times – head hacked off, red paint splashed over it and, on one occasion, the whole statue was blasted from its base with dynamite. Each time it had been restored. In an odd way this is what has been happening to the literary reputation of Mrs Garrison-Gore.

  Romany Garrison-Gore, my copy-editor informed me, writes pastiches of 1930s whodunnits. Her first novel was moderately successful in terms of sales; though that was mainly thanks to a clever Art Deco cover the book had been given. Her second novel did not sell at all well, neither did her number three. The critical reception she received was scant as it was scathing.

  One critic castigated her novel Mad About Murder for its ‘complete lack of narrative drive, a storyline that is inconsequential, derivative and painfully predictable … its sole dependence on melodrama and coincidence wince-making … characters who seem to have experienced a kind of pre-frontal lobotomy … a mishmash of ominous and cheap thrills … blunders on like a flat-footed dancer … a ludicrous damp-squib of a climax … entire paragraphs held together by comma splices … eminently put-downable’.

  Mrs Garrison-Gore was dropped by Collins and, as a result, seemed to become slightly unhinged. According to one apocryphal story, she started performing conjuring tricks at children’s parties in Kensington and was much admired for her sleight of hand. After an eig
ht-month hiatus, she resumed her literary career. She was taken up by The Severed Head, a much smaller publishing house.

  Then a miracle happened. Her book number five was a hit. It was considered ‘diabolically ingenious’; it might have been written, according to one critic, in the heyday of the Golden Age of the English detective story and The Severed Head managed to sell the television rights for a decent sum of money.

  Mrs Garrison-Gore is probably in her late forties or early fifties. She is short and a little dumpy. Her face is round. Her eyebrows have been carefully, if unwisely, plucked and pencilled and she wears pancake make-up of the peachy variety and cyclamen lipstick. She was dressed in an Irish tweed jacket and skirt in fuchsia hues and she sported a profusion of oriental jewellery. On her head she wore a pork-pie hat.

  Mrs Garrison-Gore had a preoccupied air about her. I imagined she cast one or two wary glances at Oswald Ramskritt, but she assumed a hearty manner the moment she started talking to us. She said she was delighted to meet me. She had heard so much about me from dear Lady Grylls. She didn’t indicate in any way that she was a fellow crime writer.

  It was John de Coverley himself who greeted us at the front door. He has the sly pointed face of an amused lizard. He sported a smoking jacket with silk lapels and a monocle. He is perhaps the only man living in the twenty-first century who wears a monocle that is not part of some fancy-dress. Chaps with monocles invariably project an attitude of contemptuous aloofness, but that is not the case with John de Coverley. He seems to have a problem keeping his monocle in his eye; it makes him scowl ferociously and contort his face.

  ‘And what in faith make you from Wittenberg?’ John de Coverley said. ‘Terribly glad you managed to come after all. We are going to give you tea. You had a pleasant journey, I trust? It’s ages since I’ve been to London. Does the Royal Overseas League in St James’ still stand? Used to meet up with an old girlfriend there quite often. She was involved in charity work. One of those dull but worthy women. I was experimenting at the time. Your aunt has told us so much about your exploits. Come and meet the others. Everybody’s longing to meet you. Everybody is agog.’

  From what Sybil had told us, I had expected her brother to brandish a gun, not quote from Hamlet.

  He led us through a panelled hall into a spacious drawing room. The white and gold Louis Seize chairs were more agreeable to the eye than to the posterior, as I discovered, and had been designed, one might think, to enforce an alertness of posture in an age when it would have been considered a breach of good manners to relax either physically or mentally. The windows are high and open on to a balcony. The curtains are of striped magenta and cream brocade. There is a grey marble mantelpiece with a somewhat mottled mirror over it, an Empire clock and crystal candelabra. The Aubusson carpet is sun-bleached and in places torn. Two of the pictures on the wall are seascapes and seem to be genuine Turners.

  Sybil and a rather striking tall woman dressed in pearly white were presiding over the teatable. The woman was introduced to us as ‘Ella’. Sybil wore a loose embroidered garment of a vaguely Byzantine motif, what I imagine to be a tea-gown, 1920s style.

  ‘Would you like to try the Parma ham sandwiches? Or would you rather have good old-fashioned cucumber?’

  ‘Could I have an egg-and-cress sandwich, Syb? These are seagull eggs,’ John de Coverley explained. ‘Awfully good. I hope everybody agrees. Ridiculous to be squeamish. Awfully good. Taste like no other. Plenty of seagulls around. A positive colony.’

  ‘I would like a fish-paste sandwich,’ Oswald Ramskritt said. ‘I love fishing.’

  ‘The number of things one can do on a minuscule island is a little limited,’ Sybil said. She beamed at her brother. Her face was quite flushed. I thought she looked positively girlish.

  ‘Assam, Earl Grey or Russian tchai?’ Ella asked. There were three silver tea-urns. I had the impression Ella was avoiding looking at Oswald Ramskritt.

  ‘I wouldn’t touch anything Russian with a barge pole. I have had dealings with Russians. I have always found Russians unreliable,’ Ramskritt said.

  ‘Ah, there you are! At long last!’ Aunt Nellie greeted us. ‘I feared you might have got shipwrecked – or been abducted by pirates. Pirates seem to be all the rage these day, isn’t that extraordinary?’ She wore a silk dress in dove grey, a single row of pearls and two brooches pinned to her left shoulder.

  When I kissed her, she whispered in my ear that something damned odd was going on.

  Maisie is a stunningly beautiful girl with a sunny smile who brings to mind Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson. She was clad in a straw-coloured dress whose design looked – but only looked – simple. He manner was eager and attentive, her face uplifted, her eyes alight.

  Doctor Klein is monstrously fat and his skin is of slug-like whiteness. He has sad, wide-spaced eyes and purplish lips. He wore a black suit, white shirt and black tie.

  ‘I understand you are past masters of forensic logistics,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Your aunt tells us that not even the Prince of Darkness himself could outwit you.’

  I found myself wondering if he might be the Riddler.

  ‘I don’t know where my aunt gets these ideas.’ As usual on such occasions Hugh was breezily dismissive.

  ‘I do believe the Devil is also known as the “Son of the Morning”,’ John de Coverley’s monocle flashed.

  ‘What happens if the electricity decides to go AWOL, Sybil?’ Aunt Nellie asked. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you use oil lamps or candles?’

  ‘We are much more advanced than that on Sphinx,’ Sybil said. ‘We have our own electric generator. It’s in the cellar.’

  ‘Oil lamps have a charm of their own,’ Ella said.

  ‘They can cause a fire, I guess,’ said Maisie.

  ‘New lamps for old, eh? Was that in some fairytale or other?’ Oswald Ramskritt looked at Mrs Garrison-Gore. ‘Or was it the other way round? Come on, Mrs G-G, you should know. You are the expert. Old is always best, isn’t it?’

  ‘I believe it’s in Aladdin. I heard that there would be a storm.’ Mrs Garrison-Gore spoke in a very loud voice. ‘They issued a serious warning. The news was on the local radio, only some ten minutes ago.’

  ‘We are having Châteneuf-du-Pape at dinner tonight,’ Sybil said.

  ‘Du Pape – that means the Pope, doesn’t it? But that’s amazing!’ Oswald opened his eyes wide in exaggerated surprise. ‘Did you hear that, Ella? The Pope! That’s perhaps what your brother drinks? Ella’s brother is the Pope’s right-hand man,’ he explained, matter-of-factly.

  Ella said nothing. I thought she looked very pale.

  Oswald started talking to John de Coverley.

  ‘Is old Bonwell still alive then?’

  ‘Oh very much so, very much so, my dear fellow. Ancient as the hills but self-indulgent as ever.’

  ‘That’s swell. I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘Needs constant toning up with gin and Dubonnet – while snacking on warm coddled quail eggs lopped open and dusted with beluga caviar. Regrettable addiction. Set on a suicidal course. Wouldn’t hear of slowing down.’ John sighed. ‘One of these days a treacherous aorta will take him from us, of that I have no doubt.’

  ‘And how is Norah? Does she still maintain I have her eyes?’

  ‘Norah is at a home in Windsor, within a striking distance of the castle, marvellous view, though she says that’s the Reichstag.’

  ‘Forgive me but I have never had a nuanced grasp of European history. Why the Reichstag?’

  ‘She believes she is in Berlin. She is no longer herself, I fear. Practically round the bend. Suspects the nurses of trying to poison her and so on.’

  Tea cups were replenished. More sandwiches were brought in. There were no servants, I noticed. The catering was done exclusively by Ella and Maisie.

  ‘I can never be friends with people whose only redeeming feature is a sort of flaccid amiability,’ Sybil said.

  ‘My bêtes-noires are facile enthusia
sm and excessive earnestness,’ Aunt Nellie said.

  ‘It is fake enthusiasm I abhor,’ Oswald Ramskritt said. ‘Incidentally, I wouldn’t advise anyone to touch the Russian tchai. It is bound to be contaminated by toxic waste. Mismanagement at every level, that’s Russia for you. Mismanagement and corruption.’

  ‘I’ve heard that said about India,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said.

  ‘I’ve heard that said about Italy,’ Sybil said.

  ‘I’ve heard that said about the continent of Africa,’ John de Coverley said. He then turned to Hugh and asked if he could play something called ‘slosh’ and seemed delighted when Hugh said he could. Perhaps they could have a game after dinner?

  It was all rather surreally inconsequential.

  Who was Norah and who was Bonwell? Did they exist?

  I have no doubt now that we are being set up. I could imagine the instructions Mrs G-G had given them. Extemporise, but try not to lose the sense of artifice, or the role will die on you. Remember you are playing yourselves, your names haven’t been changed, but you are not really yourselves.

  We seem to be in the kind of story that wears layers of disguises – no sooner does one mask come off, than another is revealed beneath it.

  But I was also aware of a tension that felt like an electric current in the air, which I thought was quite genuine. Well, we were warned that there was a storm coming.

  15

  THE BROKEN THREAD

  Later on Sybil gave them a tour of the house, which, she explained, was called Mauldeley (pronounced ‘Mudly’), though everybody, without any particular flight of the imagination, insisted on calling it ‘Sphinx House’.

  On the stairs they caught up with Ella Gales, who was carrying a tray with a silver cover. For some reason, on seeing them, she looked flustered. She went up another flight of stairs and disappeared down a gloomy corridor. A fine-looking woman, Payne thought. He sniffed the air. He had caught the whiff of a fried chicken. There had been something of the automaton about Ella’s movements. Something weighing on her mind. As though encumbered with a terrible burden, heavier than a mere tray …