‘Come on, Meli—’
‘He turned off his mobile phone. He is the most pig-headed and pig-like of pigs. So degrading, expecting a pig to love you. He is actually a lousy lover. I now count my married days with Chevret as the happiest in my life. I should never have divorced Chevret. Never.’
‘Chevret was cruel to you.’
‘Chevret possessed the perfect diffidence and unobtrusive reserve which mark a person of high birth and breeding.’
‘He had awful habits. And he made futile little jokes that drove you mad. That’s what you always said.’
‘I do believe you were secretly in love with Chevret, that’s why you talk like that. We should sit in the garden and dine alfresco. Incidentally, the pince-nez has disappeared.’
‘What pince-nez?’
‘The Miss Prism pince-nez. The pince-nez was my lucky charm. It was on my dressing table and now it isn’t. In fact I haven’t seen the pince-nez for some time. It was my lucky charm. Someone’s taken my lucky charm—’
Covering her face with her hands, Melisande burst into tears. Winifred put her arm round her sister’s shoulders and led her into the house. She was aware of tense currents vibrating through Melisande’s body. It felt as though her sister were full of wires that vibrated with electricity.
This is the kind of complication I could have done without, Winifred thought.
Later she noticed that Melisande’s bag contained no shopping.
24
The Case of the Lethal Golfer
‘You seem disappointed it’s me. Who did you want it to be?’ Antonia asked.
‘Tancred Vane, actually. I’ve been expecting him to ring.’
‘You saw him? You talked to him?’
‘I did. Melisande was with him.’
‘At the Villa Byzantine? So Melisande is Miss Hope.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she know you know?’
‘She probably suspects,’ Major Payne said. ‘She saw me through the window. I’ll give you the details later. Vane said he’d call, but hasn’t so far …’
‘You don’t think he’s in danger, do you?’
‘I don’t know. Why doesn’t he ring? I wonder whether to call the police—’
‘Where are you?’
‘At Aunt Nellie’s.’
‘Give her my love, won’t you?’
‘I shall. She is convinced you make pots of money from your books. Did you know that by 1939 Enid Blyton was earning more than the then Chancellor of the Exchequer?’
‘I wouldn’t mind earning more than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Though the current one would be a hard act to follow. The Osborne wallpaper fortune has been estimated at – was it four million pounds?’
‘Where are you? What’s that chirruping sound?’
‘Birdsong. I am in Kensington Gardens. I’m sitting on a bench beside Peter Pan.’
‘You sound as though you are about to embark on some awfully big adventure.’
‘Perhaps I am. Perhaps I already have. I had coffee with Julia Henderson earlier on. Julia Henderson is James Morland’s sister.’
‘You seem to be imbuing the name “Julia Henderson” with extra special significance.’
‘Julia said something very interesting. Stella talked to her the day before she was killed. Stella was keen on making her peace with her daughter. She had a plan. She was about to do something. She hinted there was an irregularity involved.’
‘What kind of irregularity?’
‘I believe she intended to commit a crime.’
‘Are you serious? Would you care to specify the nature of the crime?’
‘Steal Tancred Vane’s sword. My theory,’ Antonia went on, ‘is that Stella meant it as a peace offering. That was the reason why she went to the Villa Byzantine on the morning she was killed. She had already stolen one of Vane’s front door keys during her previous visit. Tancred Vane had told her he would be at the British Library that morning.’
‘Did she go to the Villa Byzantine alone?’
‘No. I have an idea – it is only an idea, mind – that Julia Henderson went with her. I believe Julia might have driven Stella in her car.’
‘You think it was Julia who beheaded her?’
‘You may think I am sacrificing probability to wild speculation, but, you see, Julia does fit the bill. She had a good motive for wishing Stella dead. Julia depended on her brother financially. I got a palpable sense that she hadn’t wanted her brother to marry Stella. Stella considered Julia her friend and confided in her. Julia is a champion golfer, yet she was eager to conceal the fact. She has very strong wrists.’
‘This is all most ingenious, but it doesn’t quite tally with the Melisande-as-Miss-Hope theory, does it?’
Antonia admitted it didn’t – though did it have to?
After she’d rung off, she went on sitting on the bench under the statue of Peter Pan, thinking.
Stella was dead, but her daughter was still very much alive. James Morland was a rich man. If he were to act on his decision and adopt Moon, she would share in his fortune. He had bought a Regency house in Chelsea, which he intended to share with Moon. He had talked about hiring private tutors for her.
Julia Henderson couldn’t be happy about any of this. Of course not. Could Moon be in danger? Moon was still living at Julia’s flat. Was that why Morland had bought a house? To get Moon away from his sister? Was Morland concerned about Moon’s safety? Did Morland suspect that his sister might be behind Stella’s death and that she might try to kill Stella’s daughter as well?
Antonia heard Julia’s voice once more. My Surrey past is catching up with me. Julia had pulled a droll face. What else had she said? Something about … bull-fighting? Not exactly—
I have never stayed at the Corrida Hotel.
The Corrida Hotel. Antonia frowned. She hadn’t imagined it, had she? Bull-fighting. Bulls? Bulls were important somehow. One particular bull?
Something began to stir at the back of her mind …
25
The Tremor of Forgery
‘I don’t think anything’s happened to him. He is a big boy, isn’t he? Or are you saying that royal biographers can’t defend themselves? Do have another crumpet,’ Lady Grylls urged her nephew.
‘No, thank you, darling.’
‘What a shame. You aren’t eating the Patum Peperium sandwiches either. Provost made them specially for you. I read somewhere that second murders were “vulgar”. In detective stories, that is. Do you think they are vulgar?’
‘No, not really.’
‘I am so glad. I like second murders. Prevents boredom from setting in. I have a feeling practically everybody wants to write detective stories nowadays. Goodness, Hughie, you do look worried. Wouldn’t you care for a game of snap? I always find it takes my mind off things.’
‘No, thank you, darling.’
‘Only the other day Constantia was saying – remember Constantia?’
‘Big crumbling house in Norfolk, breeds borzois, unflaggingly jolly?’
‘That’s the one. Constantia was saying she had a clever idea for a detective story. She was wondering if Antonia would be interested in using it. Pay attention now. A character is addressed by other characters, alternately, as Lady Flora and Lady Beaufort – it’s the same character, you see. Those readers who know about such things assume that the author is simply ignorant about the aristocracy, as practically everybody is these days, and is confusing baronets’ wives with earls’ daughters, but, as a matter of fact, that seeming confusion is a vital clue to the killer’s identity.’
Major Payne observed that the tangles of nomenclature in the peerage were so tricky, they could trip up even the initiated.
‘Constantia’s plot hinges on the premise that a knight’s widow is impersonating a peer’s daughter and she commits a series of murders to prevent being found out – a great fortune is at stake – what d’you think, Hughie?’
‘Mind-blowingly ingenious,’ Pa
yne said absently.
The next moment his mobile phone rang.
‘Hello? Hello?’ He hadn’t recognized the number but then Vane hadn’t given him his phone number.
‘Hi, Hugh. That puzzle you set us at the party. The party at Kinderhook. Do you remember?’
‘Good lord, it’s you!’
‘Were you expecting someone else?’ Moon’s voice said. ‘Don’t you remember the puzzle? You set us a puzzle. The music stopped. She died. Explain.’
‘Sounds incredibly silly. Who gave you my number?’ Payne passed his hand across his face.
‘I got your number off James’ mobile. He doesn’t know about it. He’d be very cross if he knew, so don’t tell him, please.’
‘Look here, Moon, I’m terribly busy at the moment. I’m expecting an important call. What the hell is that racket?’
‘We are at the zoo. Don’t ring off, please! Can you hear the monkeys? I love animals, which means I am a good person. James has gone to get me an ice-cream.’
‘I don’t think I set you any puzzles at the party.’
‘You did. There could be more than one solution, you said. Do you want to hear my solution?’
‘I am expecting an urgent call—’
‘Your solution was that she was a blindfolded tightrope walker. The music was her cue to step off. One day, the machine playing the music broke down. She stepped off too early and fell to her death. Right?’
‘I am going to ring off now—’
‘This is my solution now. Pay close attention,’ Moon said. ‘She was a blind swimmer, who swam out from her boat every day. She played a radio in her boat, so she knew where to swim back to – are you following? The transmission suddenly cut out because damp had got into the radio, so she could no longer find her boat and drowned. Cool, eh?’
Payne agreed it was cool and eventually the conversation was brought to an end.
His mobile rang again.
This time it was Tancred Vane. So he was alive and well.
Payne heaved a sigh of relief.
Tancred Vane sat slumped in his chair, a glass of whisky in his hand, a look of extreme dejection on his face.
‘That’s the exact question Stella asked me. Do you know the actress Melisande Chevret? I said no. Then the name slipped out of my mind completely, but of course it came back to me the moment you mentioned it.’
‘Well, it confirms the story Stella’s daughter told me. It proves that Moon did not lie.’ Payne leant back in his chair. ‘Did Stella say anything else about Melisande?’
‘No, she didn’t. She might have done if I’d shown any interest, but I didn’t encourage digressions. I wanted her to get on with her story about her grandmother and life at the royal palace in Sofia.’
They were sitting in Tancred Vane’s drawing room. The biographer had suggested the study or the library, but Major Payne had been eager to see the scene of the crime.
It was a warm room of soft textures and deep rich colours, with amber and maroon striking the predominant note. There seemed to be no hard surfaces, only silk melting into velvet and velvet into brocade. The room basked in the soft glow of indirect lighting and the shimmer of gold leaf. There were several art nouveau lamps in the shape of mermaids, an ottoman and a mahogany baby grand, on which stood a signed black-and-white photograph of Princess Anna of Montenegro wearing a slouch hat. A magnificent volume bound in blue leather embossed with the heraldic fleur-de-lis of Bourbon France lay open on a round malachite table.
Producing a magnifying glass, Payne sprawled on the floor, Sherlock Holmes-fashion, but not even the slightest patch of discoloration was discernible. The blood had gone. Tancred Vane explained that he had had a cleaning crew at the house early that morning; they had spent three hours rubbing and scrubbing away. The window curtains had already been changed. The police had said he could. Where had the sword hung? Vane pointed. The nail was still there, a particularly monstrous nail with a head nearly as big as a ping-pong ball.
‘Stella said her daughter would like the sword. It was the kind of thing her daughter was interested in. She asked how much a sword like that would cost and seemed profoundly shocked when I told her the price I’d paid for it.’ Tancred Vane paused. ‘Is the daughter still under suspicion?’
‘I believe she is, but the police don’t seem to have enough evidence for an arrest. That bloodstained handkerchief now – did they show it to you?’
‘They did. It had the initials MM. I told them I’d never seen it before.’
‘Did you never doubt Miss Hope was the genuine article, Vane?’
‘I must confess I didn’t. Not even after she began to make mistakes – getting names and dates wrong and so on. Not even when she described a non-existent lodge!’ The royal biographer sighed. ‘She kept apologizing for being such a “muddle-headed old ass”. She said she had never been a particular devotee of the French cult of lucidité. She did say droll things. She made me laugh.’
‘You didn’t get any pinpricks of doubt every now and then?’
‘I did – but I dismissed them. I went on believing her. I thought it was her age. Elderly ladies do get confused. I never for a moment imagined she was much younger than that.’
‘Melisande Chevret can’t be any more than fifty-five or six … She made herself look a quarter of a century older because she needed to fit into her historical narrative,’ Payne said thoughtfully. ‘Miss Hope was a girl of fifteen when she became nanny to Prince Cyril’s son – and that was in 1941, you said?’
‘Yes … I suppose it had to be 1941. A year earlier would have made her too young to have been employed at the palace and it couldn’t have been a year later either since in 1942 Bulgaria had already abandoned its neutrality and joined the war as an ally of Germany. The idea of an English girl working for a pro-Nazi German prince would have raised eyebrows. She kept it all on the edge of credibility, I can see that now.’
‘She seems to have thought the whole thing through very carefully. I never thought Melisande was particularly clever,’ said Payne. ‘It seems I was wrong … Miss Hope was a good raconteuse, I take it?’
The royal biographer said that that would have been putting it mildly. There had been something mesmeric about Miss Hope’s tales of life at the palace. She had come up with the most fascinating details, with all kinds of absurdities and amusing trivialities.
Tancred Vane frowned. ‘There were things that didn’t quite add up, things that were somewhat out of kilter – but I never really suspected—’
‘What things? Give me an example.’
‘Um. All right. Would a royal prince in the 1940s have his mistress and illegitimate child living in the palace grounds? Would he have paraded them at royal events? But I never questioned any of it seriously. Miss Hope always managed to end on a cliff-hanger of sorts. It made me long for our next session.’
‘Ah. The Scheherazade effect.’ Payne nodded. ‘She set out to get you hooked and succeeded.’
‘I can’t believe that all along she was after that poor woman. I simply can’t. Makes me sick, thinking about it. And why did she continue coming after Stella’s death?’
‘My aunt asked the very same question.’ Major Payne admitted that the precise reason for the continued visits still eluded him.
‘She is mad – must be,’ Tancred Vane murmured. ‘I have been in thrall to a mad woman.’
‘What exactly did she say when she saw me through the window?’
‘She said something terrible would happen if I let you in. She begged me not to open the front door. Later – after you left – she said she’d made a mistake. She’d taken you for somebody else. She apologized profusely for alarming me. She said she was an old fool. She had problems with her eyes. She said she needed new glasses.’
‘Do you think she managed to eavesdrop on our conversation? I believe I heard the creaking of a floorboard.’
‘No idea. I found her exactly where I’d left her in my study, sitting by the window.
Well, her face was very flushed and I thought she looked a little tense. She did ask who you were, what you wanted and so on … I told her part of the truth – that you’d been asked by James Morland – Stella’s fiancé – to “look into the matter” since he didn’t trust the police.’
‘She left soon after?’
‘Yes. She complained of feeling a little under the weather. Old age catching up with her at long last, she feared. She seemed nearly her old roguish self again – though, come to think of it, she didn’t give me her usual peck.’
‘Did she usually give you a peck?’
‘Yes … on the cheek.’ Tancred Vane blushed. ‘No, I can’t believe she killed Stella … Not with the samurai sword … The whole thing is ridiculous – grotesque! And yet it must be her! Stella looked really frightened the day she met her – she kept staring at her – she then blurted out all those questions! How old was Miss Hope? Where did she live? She then asked me if I knew the actress Melisande Chevret. It all fits in, doesn’t it?’
‘It does, old boy. I’m afraid it does.’
‘Why did she continue coming after she killed Stella? I keep puzzling over it. It makes no sense. What was her purpose?’
‘I am sure the answer will present itself to me in due course. It always does. A near-miracle almost invariably comes my way and it clears and illuminates the path I must follow …’
There was a pause, then Tancred Vane said, ‘How did Melisande Chevret get into the house that day?’
‘I believe she stole one of your keys.’
‘If she was already inside the house, she would have had to go and open the front door when Stella rang the bell, wouldn’t she? They would have come face to face. Would Stella have entered – if she’d been confronted with the one person she feared most? Wouldn’t she have run away?’
Murder at the Villa Byzantine: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation Page 14