Nest of Vipers mb-55

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘That’s what Miss Nutley thought, but, if that’s right, the old lady must have been crazy. Actually, I think she was, a bit. They get bees in their bonnets at that age.’

  ‘And water in their lungs, presumably, Mr Piper. I notice that all the main windows of this house face the park and the lake.’

  ‘Yes. It’s the best view, so I suppose the architect arranged it that way.’

  ‘So the bungalow, which is on the back lawn, would be unnoticed most of the time.’

  ‘The tradesmen would notice it.’

  ‘And the postman, as you have pointed out. I was thinking of your other tenants.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have taken much notice, anyway. As I’m sure I’ve made clear, Miss Minnie was a recluse. She did not go out, I believe, except for occasional shopping and even for that she refused lifts in people’s cars unless Miss Barnes happened to be going her way.’

  ‘So if some ill-disposed person got into the bungalow, overpowered Miss Dupont and dragged her down to the creek and drowned her, especially if this happened at dusk or later, nobody except herself and the murderer need have known anything about it.’

  ‘Except that I should think any old lady so treated would have yelled the place down.’

  ‘Not, perhaps, if she were threatened with a knife or with physical violence, sir.’

  ‘Or if she had a bit of adhesive plaster over her mouth, I suppose,’ I said lightly. He gave me the sort of look which I think must be on the face of a cat when finally it pounces upon the mouse it has been playing with. He signalled to his sergeant, who produced a roll of the plaster.

  ‘Strange you should mention it, but we all make mistakes, especially murderers,’ he said. But they are wrong, Dame Beatrice. I swear they are wrong. I did not kill Miss Minnie and I have not the slightest idea who did. I can only continue to believe that something in her past life brought about her death and that fate or providence or yourself will take a hand in exonerating me. I never wished her or anybody else any harm. Surely they can’t convict me on such evidence as they have? What does it amount to, after all?

  I asked them where they had found the plaster, but they said that I knew, as well as they did, where it had been found. I swear that I had no idea there was a roll of the stuff anywhere on the premises, least of all among my own possessions. Can somebody have framed me? It begins to look uncommonly like it. Nest of Vipers! Somebody, joker or not, knew a thing or two when he gave my house that name!

  Chapter Six

  The New Tenant

  « ^ »

  (1)

  ‘WELL, I do not think there is much doubt about who our murderer could be,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but proof may be hard to come by and we must not build our case upon theories.’

  ‘It must be one of the people who received the anonymous letters Miss Minnie wrote,’ said Laura Gavin, adding an envelope to one of the four neat piles on the breakfast table.

  ‘We have no proof, so far, that Miss Minnie wrote any anonymous letters at all,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out.

  ‘But who else would have written them?’

  ‘That remains to be seen, and the letters may have had no importance. The police do not seem to think they had.’

  ‘What shall you do first?’

  ‘I have rented an apartment at Weston Pipers and I shall talk to the people concerned and then look up those previous tenants who have left the house.’

  ‘Do I go with you?’

  ‘Not at the moment. Somebody must remain here to deal with correspondence. I have arranged for George to stay at the bungalow so that I shall not only have my car at my disposal, but a masculine protector if I need one.’

  ‘That will be the day!’ said Laura. ‘Will George fancy being the tenant of a bungalow which has housed a murdered woman?’

  ‘I have sounded him on the subject and he is eager for the experience.’

  ‘I’d rather him than me.’

  ‘Quite so. I am fortunate in having a factotum who is immune from superstition and who does not believe in ghosts.’

  ‘You’ll be careful, won’t you?’ said Laura rather anxiously. ‘As soon as people know that you don’t believe this man Piper is guilty, the murderer is going to get a bit restless, don’t you think?’

  ‘I shall keep my errand a secret for as long as I can.’

  ‘But you’ll have to ask questions and probe into motives and all that.’

  ‘Ah, well, yes, but I shall go as Miss Dorothy L. Sayers’s – or, rather, Lord Peter Wimsey’s – “lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck”. I shall affect to know nothing of the recent events which have occurred in the house and the bungalow, but merely state that I have answered an advertisement in the local paper. I shall allow it to be understood that I am taking a flat in Weston Pipers as a temporary measure while I am looking for a suitable house of my own in that part of the country.’

  ‘Giving a false name and all that? What fun you are going to have! I’d love to be there and see you in action.’

  ‘That may be sooner than you think, but to begin with I must play a lone hand.’

  ‘Except for George.’

  ‘Except for George. He will take that as his surname. It will be less confusing for both of us if I can continue to refer to him as George, so I have booked him in as William of that ilk, after the famous bookseller.’

  ‘And what shall you call yourself in case I have occasion to write to you or send on any correspondence?’

  ‘You remember my success, perhaps, as Mrs Farintosh at Sir Bohun Chantrey’s Sherlock Holmes party some twenty-odd years ago?’

  ‘I hope you don’t intend to wear that hideous mixed-tartan rig-out and the elastic-sided boots!’

  ‘That would make me appear eccentric.’

  Laura looked at her small, spare, black-eyed, yellow-skinned, beaky-mouthed employer and decided that nature had done all that was necessary to make her look eccentric and that a livelier iris upon the burnished dove would be a redundancy better left unstressed.

  ‘Right. Mrs Farintosh, complete with knitting-needles, it is,’ she said, ‘and I’ll play Sister Ann while you comb through Bluebeard’s castle.’

  ‘As a matter of academic interest only, now that you have read Mr Piper’s account of the events leading up to his arrest, have you come to any conclusions?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘About the identity of the murderer? Well, the verdict at the inquest was death by drowning, so I agree with you. I don’t think Piper is guilty.’

  ‘Interesting. Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because people who have been swimming-bath attendants would never dream of drowning anybody.’

  ‘Surely a sweeping statement?’

  ‘Maybe, but that’s my answer and, of course, it stymies me.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because it also lets out the Niobe woman. Apart from this firm belief of mine, I would have picked her as Suspect Number One.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Oh, the old story of the woman scorned, you know. If you look at Piper’s evidence objectively, there is nothing to show that this Niobe didn’t work the whole thing to bring suspicion on him and land him in the cart as a matter of revenge for his dodging the column and deciding not to marry her.’

  ‘A fascinating theory.’

  ‘But you don’t think it’s worth the toss of a biscuit.’

  ‘On the contrary, I consider it well-reasoned and most plausible. Do people toss biscuits, by the way?’

  ‘To dogs and the birds, perhaps.’

  ‘Rosalind had not one to toss, or, rather, to throw, at a dog. I speak of words, though, not of biscuits. Perhaps she confused the two.’

  ‘And you have not one or the other to throw at a bitch. Is that it? For this Niobe, whether she is guilty or not, is a bitch. I’m certain of that.’

  ‘Must you malign the poor girl before either of us has so much as met her?’

&nbs
p; ‘If she isn’t a bitch, why hasn’t this Piper married her? He seems, by his own account, to have intended marriage when he could afford it. Why would he have ducked out as soon as fortune favoured him?’

  ‘He explains that, I think. While he was a poor man he was safe from the toils. As soon as he became wealthy his bulwark was gone.’

  ‘So we write him off for a heel and join in Niobe’s tears, do we?’

  ‘I have better use for my eyes than to redden them in a lost cause.’

  ‘But you don’t think Piper’s is a lost cause?’

  ‘If I did, I should not be undertaking this enquiry. I propose to begin by supposing that Piper has told the truth and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘But not necessarily the whole truth. Is that the size of it?’

  ‘Nobody would dare to tell the whole truth about anything, even if he knew it,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  (2)

  Weston Pipers, Dame Beatrice thought, when, having stepped out of the car, she surveyed it before ringing the bell, was a gracious, benign old house. It was made of rose-coloured brick with facings of grey stone, long windows and a porch which was pillared, recently repaired and unlikely to have been a feature of the original building. Yet it was not entirely out of place since it was well-proportioned and its grey colouring matched the facings of the house.

  The doorbell was answered by a young woman whom Dame Beatrice rightly took to be the Niobe of Piper’s narrative. She was tall, well-built with a fully-matured figure and, as her half-sleeved dress displayed, remarkably powerful forearms.

  ‘You will be Mrs Farintosh. Do come in,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you straight up to your flat and then I’ll let your man into the bungalow. Not too many stairs for you, I hope? The first-floor flats are occupied, so I’ve had to put you on the second floor, but the rooms are quite large and if you’re nervous about fire – some people are – you will find that an iron fire-escape staircase is just to the right of your door.’

  Dame Beatrice followed her up a broad, beautiful oak staircase and then up a second one which was narrower and less expensively carpeted. The young woman produced two keys. One she handed to Dame Beatrice; the other – a master-key Dame Beatrice supposed – she applied to the door in front of her at the top of the stairs.

  ‘The doors are self-locking, I suppose,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Oh, yes, but if you lock yourself out by accident and have left your key inside, I can always let you in.’

  ‘I hope there are inside bolts on the doors. Twice in my own home I have been troubled with intruders.’

  ‘Oh, dear! Burglars, do you mean?’

  ‘Luckily they did not get away with whatever it was they had come for.’ (Dame Beatrice did not add that on both occasions it had been her life, not her goods, which the intruders had sought to take away.)

  ‘It must have made you very nervous.’

  ‘Well, a little cautious, perhaps.’ She looked at the inside of the opened door. ‘Oh, no bolts, I see.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. We have had people here living on their own, so, in case of emergency – illness, you know – it would be necessary to break the door down to reach them and help them if inside bolts were used. But this house is amply secure. There are bolts inside the back and front doors and patent fastenings on all the downstair windows. We are quite impregnable, I assure you.’

  The flat consisted of a sitting-room, bedroom, small kitchen and even smaller bathroom, but the windows overlooked the park and gardens and the bathroom window, when its frosted casement was opened, gave a view of the front lawn, the bungalow and the tiny inlet.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘I thought you would like it. It is not completely furnished because our long-stay tenants like to bring their own bits and pieces with them, but I think you will be able to manage with what there is, as you will only be here for a week or two.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure I can manage. It all looks very pleasant and comfortable.’

  ‘The last tenants were two girls, so they took quite good care of the furniture except that, as they were both heavy smokers, I had to have all the curtains cleaned when they went, and new chair-covers made to hide the cigarette-burns. I don’t know why women smokers are so abominably careless. I would have seen to it that they paid for the curtains and the damage, but they went off at such short notice, leaving no forwarding address, that the house had to bear the expense.’

  ‘Which meant you yourself, I suppose,’ said Dame Beatrice. Niobe did not answer except with a laugh and a shrug of her powerful shoulders. (‘She certainly is not going to explain that the owner of the house is in prison and awaiting trial for murder,’ thought Dame Beatrice, ‘and small blame to her!’)

  George, waiting at the front door, insisted upon relieving Niobe of Dame Beatrice’s suitcases, and then put the car away before being shown his own quarters. Dame Beatrice joined him and Niobe at the front door of the bungalow, where Niobe was vainly attempting to turn the key in the lock. George tried in his turn, but in vain.

  ‘How strange!’ said Niobe. ‘I had better go back to the house for the key which the police took from the body.’

  When she had returned and let them in:

  ‘Will you be comfortable here, George?’ asked Dame Beatrice, as soon as Niobe had gone.

  ‘Oh, yes, madam, very comfortable. I have had lessons from Henri, madam, and am in a position to cook for you if you will allow me into your apartment for the purpose.’

  ‘I have a better idea, George. I will come over here for my meals and you shall cook for both of us. Your kitchen is larger than mine and has an electric cooker which, if you have been Henri’s pupil, you will know how to handle. It will mean that we can compare notes without appearing to conspire together.’

  ‘Very good, madam. At what time do you choose to dine this evening? I have all the provisions in the boot of the car.’

  ‘At about eight, do you think? Breakfast I will manage for myself, as I require nothing but toast and coffee. Lunch we will take most days at a hotel in the town. I have to keep up a pretence of house hunting.’

  ‘Very good, madam,’ He accompanied her to the front door. She inspected it.

  ‘No bolts, George, I see.’

  ‘No, the place is hardly burglar-proof, madam.’

  (‘Nor murderer-proof,’ thought Dame Beatrice.) ‘If you were moved to drown somebody at the bottom of the lawn, George,’ she said to him, ‘would you take the trouble to carry the body back to this bungalow and then indulge in the pleasure of smashing it over the head?’

  ‘That, in any case, seems unnecessary, madam, if the body was already a dead one. Possibly the murderer would not have been certain that life was already extinct, though.’

  ‘I have an idea that this particular murderer knew all the tests to make sure of that, George.’

  ‘Then the assault on the head seems to have been superfluous, madam.’

  ‘Or merely an act of sheer spitefulness, but, in that case, I wonder why? But it is the risk the murderer took in bringing the body back from the water which has worried me from the beginning.’

  ‘Is it certain that the victim was drowned in the sea, madam? This bungalow has a bathroom with a full-sized bath in it.’

  ‘The body had drowned in sea water. There was sea water (tested) in the lungs and a small piece of seaweed was found on the body. All the same, I am sure you are right. She was not drowned in the sea. Now that I have seen this place I am convinced of that.’

  (3)

  The invitation to take mid-morning coffee with Constance Kent came as a surprise until Dame Beatrice realised that she was to be the recipient of confidences of a kind which could not be disclosed in front of Evesham Evans, Constance’s husband. His temporary absence – he had gone to the bank to draw out some money, his wife explained – gave Constance a chance to unburden herself and she took full advantage of it. The fact of police surveillance, dwelt on with bitter indignat
ion by the torrid novelist, suggested to Dame Beatrice that the case of the police against Chelion Piper was not as strong as they would have liked it to be and that they were half-expecting a Micawber-like something to turn up, a something which might well cause them to revise their first opinion that Chelion was a murderer. Having expressed herself forcibly on the subject of police interference with the rights of British citizens, Constance went on:

  ‘Of course, nobody believes that Chelion murdered that wretched woman.’ At Dame Beatrice’s well-simulated look of surprise, she gave an account of the circumstances which had overtaken Weston Pipers.

  ‘Then why is he under arrest?’ asked Dame Beatrice innocently.

  ‘Well, Evesham thinks it’s just a ruse, you know.’

  ‘A ruse?’

  ‘Oh, my dear Mrs Farintosh, the police are up to all kinds of tricks these days. Evesham says that the real murderer thinks he is perfectly safe and so he’ll do some stupid thing or other and give the game away. Poor Chelion – such a nice, modest, unassuming fellow and so much liked by everybody – is just a stool-pigeon, Evesham says.’

  ‘Your husband appears to have given a great deal of thought to the matter.’

  ‘Well, of course, he was there with Chelion and that sinister man Latimer Targe when they found her body, you know. Targe made off at once on the excuse of telephoning the doctor and the police, but I always think there is something very underhand and unpleasant about a man who earns his living by wallowing in crime.’

  ‘Oh? How does Mr Targe do that?’

  ‘He looks up and writes up real-life murder cases, but, of course, a person of your education and breeding – it’s easy to tell the real sort when you meet them, isn’t it? – would never dream of touching his books.’

  ‘Risqué?’ asked Dame Beatrice in a low and horrified tone.

  ‘Worse, my dear. After all, sex is a perfectly natural thing, whatever strange antics it may get up to, as I try to explain in my novels. Not that I could ever approve or countenance the path pursued by those two young women who left us just about the time of Miss Minnie’s death.’