“When was this?”
“At the play. Auntie Deb had dressed Edmund and me and Ganymede and Lucien in our fairy clothes, so while she went into the bedroom to get herself and Uncle Jon ready, I thought I would go into the hall and see whether Signora had got Peasblossom ready, because that was going to be my part until I was given a much better one. I thought I would tell her she might get a bouquet if she did nicely the third time.”
“You think of everything.”
“Yes, you have to, with Edmund, because he is so naughty. Are boys always naughtier than girls?”
“I think they have to be. The onus is on them in so many ways, biologically and otherwise.”
“What’s an onus?”
“According to the dictionary, it’s a duty, a responsibility.”
“Is this year a leap year?”
“Why?”
“Cook says if every year was a leap year there would be a lot more happy marriages and not so many divorces.”
“She may have got something there.”
“Why?”
“Because in leap year women do the proposing.”
“I am going to marry Peter when I grow up. Peter said to Mr Rinkley was he really going to eat that muck just before the show and Mr Rinkley said the orange-looking things had a lot of eye-deen in them. Mummy put eyedeen on a nasty deep cut Daddy made on his hand with a chisel and Daddy danced about and swore.”
“Iodine. Yes, I daresay he did. Did Mr Rinkley eat the whole of the contents of the jar?”
“Oh, yes, with a long pickle-fork Cook lent him. I watched him, but he didn’t see me. He ate the whole jar.”
“No wonder he made himself sick.”
“Ganymede showed me how to make myself sick with two fingers down my throat, but it looked horrid, so I didn’t try it.”
“Did Ganymede try it?”
“Oh, yes, he had to when he showed me, but Auntie Deb didn’t know, because it was right at the end of the garden, so nobody saw Ganymede being sick. He said if you were poisoned it was a good thing to know. Ganymede is going to be a doctor when he grows up, like his mummy and daddy.”
“So, for what it’s worth, if anything,” said Laura to Dame Beatrice over the telephone that evening, “it looks as though Rinkley provided the mussels himself and ate them at an unusual time. Edmund? Oh, he’s all right, lively as a cricket tonight. No, no temperature. Not to worry. Rosamund has been prancing about in a white frock, on to which I sewed a red cross, and I made her a nurse’s cap out of one of Gavin’s handkerchiefs. Yes, he’s been here and is most interested in the murder. No, he doesn’t call it that, but he says it might be as well to get you to look into it and he has got in touch with the Chief Constable down there and suggested that they get you involved.”
“I am involved already. A number of Mr Yorke’s actors—perhaps I should say actresses, since all but one are women—have asked for interviews. The rumours and the newspaper reports are making Mr Bourton’s death into a local cause célèbre and murder with malice aforethought is a theme on everybody’s tongue.”
“Shall you see them?”
“Oh, yes. Mr Lynn wanted to employ me, so I refused the commission, but there is no reason why I should not amuse myself.”
Chapter 12
Six Characters in Search of a Psychiatrist
“Helen, to you our minds we will unfold.”
« ^ »
The first visitor Dame Beatrice received was Barbara Bourton. Her big show, she said, opened in the autumn. Meanwhile there was all this wretched business about Donald.
“I am mobbed, Dame Beatrice, positively mobbed. One might as well be Royalty or the Pope. Everybody wants my opinion as to what happened. As though I should know any more than anybody else! Usually I court publicity because of my art, but this is more like persecution than publicity.”
“Could you leave the neighbourhood for a few weeks? This kind of excitement soon dies down when there is nothing for it to feed on.”
“There are reasons why I can’t go into hiding. There has been a great deal of speculation about my married life and I don’t want to look as though I’m running away from gossipping tongues. Then there is the adjourned inquest. Goodness knows when the police will want to resume it and goodness knows why they wanted it adjourned, but I suppose they know their own business. When it is resumed I suppose I shall be wanted. Another thing is that there is a lot of business to be cleared up in connection with Donald’s turf interests and, of course, his will has to be proved and probate granted.”
“I am interested to hear that you saw no need for the inquest to be adjourned.”
“I was amazed when the police stepped in like that. I am sure the coroner was only too ready to give a verdict of accidental death, because that is all it was.”
“How, then, do you account for the changeover of the daggers?”
“Donald was hasty and careless. It seems to me obvious what happened. The theatrical dagger fell out of the belt when the props were dumped on the trestle tables before the show started and it got kicked under the table when people came milling around to pick up their bits for that last scene. When Donald had to change out of Oberon’s things and get into the white tunic and armour as Pyramus, I suppose he realised there was no dagger in the belt. He saw this extra one on the table and concluded it was the retractable dagger. It wouldn’t occur to him to test it, of course. He always did take things for granted.”
“But there is no evidence that this extra dagger was among the properties. Mr Lynn has declared that it formed no part of his collection.”
“Oh, of course Marcus Lynn will say that now, but at the dress rehearsal he had a whole armoury on show. Why shouldn’t one or two of the things have been gathered up with the rest of the props?”
“Mr Yorke helped to carry the things down from the house to the wings, you know. Would not he or Marcus Lynn have noticed an extra dagger?”
“Oh, Brian Yorke would back up anything Marcus said. He was in the seventh heaven over the money Marcus spilt out on the production, although the play was only meant as a vehicle for poor Emma, the very last woman to want to be in the public eye.”
“Did you feel surprise at being offered the less attractive part of Helena?”
“Oh, that soon put itself right, anyway. No, I didn’t mind accepting Helena. When Marcus first offered it I said that, as a professional, I would have to be paid. He told me to name my own price, which I did, never thinking he would meet it, but he agreed without a quiver. I’d have done him Puss in Boots or the Hunchback of Notre Dame for even half the money, if he’d asked me.”
“I wonder he took the risk of offering you a part which was bound to put his wife in the shade.”
“Oh, I expect he has the most inflated ideas of poor Emma’s capabilities. Dame Beatrice, we are only skating round the reason I asked to come and see you.”
“You used the word ‘persecution’. Was that, perhaps, an exaggerated way of expressing yourself?”
“No, it wasn’t. Apart from being terrified of going outside my own front door because of gaping sightseers, I’ve begun receiving some very personal and unpleasant anonymous letters.”
“Dear me! I sympathise, but that sort of thing is a matter for the police. Turn the letters over to them.”
“I don’t believe they would be interested. The letters contain innuendoes, but not threats. Couldn’t you find out who is sending them and get them stopped?”
“Do they all come from the same person?”
“If I knew that, I could deal with them myself, I suppose. I don’t know whether they all come from the same person, but I don’t suppose they do. I could give you some likely names, but I wouldn’t know which of them to pick out. Donald was quite promiscuous, and there might be people who think they have a right to some of his money. The letters all harp on the way I gain by his death.”
“Forgive my asking, but is there any substance in what the letters suggest?”
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Barbara Bourton shrugged shoulders which had been admired in Restoration comedy. She spread her hands in a gesture which belonged wholly to the stage.
“People will believe anything about an actress,” she said. “The idea that we’re no better than we should be dies hard.”
“I do not think you have answered my question. I am in much the same position as a defending counsel, you know. Unless the client is prepared to tell me the whole truth, my hands are tied.”
“I thought a psychiatrist could deduce the whole truth, whether she were told it or not.”
“If that is a challenge, my dear Mrs Bourton, I do not accept it. Your gage lies on the ground and I shall not pick it up.”
Barbara Bourton shrugged her shoulders again.
“Well, perhaps I’m relieved that you won’t joust with me,” she said. “There is this much truth in the letters. I do inherit everything which Donald had to leave. Who had a better right to it than I? We didn’t see as much of one another as most married people do, as our interests were widely different and often kept us apart. I knew all about his ‘little friends’ and I never made a fuss about what he did or with whom, and he never questioned what I was up to, either. What’s more, he always sent flowers to the theatre on my first and last nights. I appreciated that, and it stopped a lot of tongues wagging, I expect.”
“I cannot understand why the anonymous letters upset you. You say they are not scurrilous and you have given me no reason to suppose that you are being blackmailed.”
“They are hurtful and I want them stopped.”
“Have you kept the letters?”
“Good heavens, no! They disturbed me very much. All I wanted was to get rid of them.”
“If you get any more, you had better let the police see them, as I said. That is the best advice I can give you.”
“I suppose you can’t give me the name of a handwriting expert?”
“Yes, of course I can, but all he would be able to tell you is whether all the letters were written by the same hand. You would have to produce far more written evidence than the letters themselves if a name is to be put to the sender.”
“The letters are typewritten but are all signed in my husband’s name and, if I didn’t know he was dead, I could swear that I recognise his signature. It’s the one he used before we were married and when I suppose we thought we cared for one another. The letters must come from a woman who thinks she was in love with him and expected him to cut me out of his will in her favour. The letters rather harp on the theme that Donald died before he had time to change his will.”
“Have you asked his solicitor whether any such change was under contemplation?”
“No, I never thought of that. It’s a bit two-edged, though, isn’t it?”
“You mean it is just possible that your husband had had some such project in mind?”
“I think it’s as well that I don’t know whether he had or not, but, honestly, I don’t think he would have done the dirty on me. He was a decent sort in his way.”
“How do you regard your husband’s death, Mrs Bourton?”
“How do you mean?”
“You have given me the impression that you think it was accidental, the result of his haste to change his costume at very short notice.”
“What could it have been but accidental? Of course it was! Donald wouldn’t have committed suicide and who on earth would want to murder him? He was a philanderer, but the only person who had any right to object to that was myself, and I certainly never did. So long as he didn’t attempt to interfere in my career, that was all that I cared about. Will you give me the name of the handwriting expert?”
“Yes, but I warn you that he has no official standing. He is, in fact, a retired forger who now makes a living as a not too scrupulous ‘private eye’.”
“Oh, really, Dame Beatrice! I did not come here for you to make a monkey out of me!”
“Nothing is further from my thoughts. Forget all about a handwriting expert. Take my advice and go to the police.”
The next caller was Rinkley. Jonathan was at the front of the house cutting some roses and laying them in the trug which Deborah was holding when the visitor arrived.
“You want to see Dame Beatrice? Is she expecting you?” Jonathan enquired. “Anyway, come in and have a drink. Glad to see you up and about again. When did they discharge you from hospital?”
“Oh, days ago. I didn’t ask for an appointment with Dame Beatrice because I didn’t know until this morning that she was staying with you. Did she see the show, by any chance?”
“Yes, the Thursday performance.”
“Oh, not on the Saturday? I say, Bradley, what a frightful thing! Poor old Bourton! How do you think it happened, for God’s sake?”
“I have no idea. I suppose you know the police have asked for an adjournment of the inquest?”
“I’m not in the least surprised. What happened definitely ought not to have happened. I’m an interested party, of course, because if it hadn’t been Donald, it would have been me.”
“Surely not? The minute you drew it out you would have known you’d got hold of the wrong dagger.”
“I doubt it, you know. I really do. After all, I had struck myself shrewd blows with it on the Thursday and Friday and I think I would have followed suit on the Saturday without a thought. I’ve seen the pictures the police and the media are putting out, and the dagger looks so like the retractable one that anybody would be deceived.”
“No,” said Jonathan, as they went into the house, “the blade was much shorter. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Scotch?”
“Thanks very much.”
“I’ll go and find out whether Aunt Adela is busy,” said Deborah. “She is probably writing up her notes on Barbara Bourton.”
“Barbara? Has she been here?” asked Rinkley.
“Yesterday and stayed to tea, but not until the two of them had had a prolonged tête-à-tête.”
“Good heavens! I wonder what it was about? I haven’t been to see Barbara. Didn’t like to butt in. I expect she’s pretty sore with me because I suppose that if I hadn’t eaten those damned mussels she would still have a husband.”
“Ah, yes, the mussels,” said Deborah. “Do you usually eat them between meals?”
Rinkley, who was about to raise his glass, lowered it again.
“Eat them between meals?” he said.
“I was told that you speared those mussels out of a jar with a pickle-fork while you were waiting to go on stage.”
“Oh, that! As a matter of fact, I was advised to eat the damn things. I caught some kind of throat infection and on Saturday morning I was so thick in the clear, as my old nanny used to call it, that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to take the stage. Well, I went for a gargle to my local and confided in the landlord. He told me I needed either half-a-dozen raw eggs or some oysters just before the performance. I couldn’t face the raw eggs, and I couldn’t locate any oysters, so I stopped at the delicatessen counter in the supermarket and settled for the mussels, with the dire results we all know.”
“Ah, here is Aunt Adela,” said Deborah, on her way to the door just as it opened and Dame Beatrice came in.
“Mr Rinkley, Aunt Adela,” said Jonathan. “Aunt, dear, ‘this man is Pyramus, if you would know’.”
“Whereas this far from beauteous lady is certainly not Thisbe,” said Dame Beatrice, leering hideously at the visitor. “So am I to hear of more anonymous letters?”
Rinkley, who had risen at her entrance, took advantage of the example she set and seated himself as Jonathan and Deborah left them alone together.
“Anonymous letters?” he said. “How did you know I had them?”
“I expect most of the cast have had them by now,” she replied. “It would be the normal thing to expect under the circumstances. Of what do yours accuse you?”
“Well, not of anything in particular.”
“You mean they consist of what the a
spiring journalist told the editor that he was good at?”
“Sorry. I don’t get you.”
“I have contracted a bad habit from my secretary, who is apt to quote from readings sacred, profane, popular and esoteric, and I have caught the virus. The journalist told the editor that he was good at what he called ‘general invective’. I wondered whether ‘general invective’ would describe the contents of the anonymous letters you have received.”
“Oh, well, actually, no. I mean, so far as the wording is concerned, there’s nothing I couldn’t show my maiden aunt.”
“Oh, have you a maiden aunt? I thought they went out of fashion in about the year 1947. Well, if the wording of the letters was not objectionable in itself, of what did the letters complain?”
“They didn’t. They simply asked a lot of impertinent questions. Now, Dame Beatrice, I don’t claim to be a saint—”
“I doubt whether you could sustain the rôle if you did make such a claim. Did you owe money to Mr Bourton?”
“Oh, look here, now! I came in the hope that with my knowing Jon and the lovely Deborah and all that, you would grant me a serious interview. I didn’t owe Bourton anything. I didn’t even know he was to be my understudy. Look here, now, if I sent you the letters, could you trace the writer? It must be somebody who knows me pretty well, and that means I probably know her pretty well. I could give you a list of possible people.”
“Give it to the police. It is not my province to trace the writers of anonymous letters.”
“Oh, well, that’s that, then. One thing everybody knows is that I had nothing against Bourton or anyone else. I haven’t spoken to any of the cast since I came out of hospital, so I know nothing about the inquest except what I read in the papers. Were you present?”
“I was.”
“Do you know why the police asked to have it adjourned?”
“For the usual reasons, I suppose.”
“You mean—you don’t mean they think there was something fishy about Bourton’s death?”
“The fact that the cast are beginning to receive anonymous letters indicates that the police are not the only people who think that a more detailed enquiry into the death is called for—more detailed, I mean, than has been the case so far.”
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