‘What isn’t true?’ she said.
‘That you spoke to Brian Bryan.’
‘Of course it’s true,’ she said with an air of impatience.
‘Honestly?’
‘I give you my word of honour: there—will that do?’
‘Yes,’ said Cockie. ‘It’ll do very well.’ He flicked the long ash from his cigarette with a nicotined finger-nail.
‘So if you’re suggesting that Brian wasn’t really sitting on his horse…’
‘No, no,’ said Cockie. ‘We’ve gone through all that, he and I. But it’s a funny thing: I could have sworn that you were hedging in your evidence about him…’
‘You’ve just missed the bus a trifle, that’s all,’ she said, with a faintly, just faintly, triumphant glance. ‘And anyway, there’s nothing against Brian, is there? Whatever he might have done to Perpetua Kirk, he couldn’t have killed Isabel Drew. That’s flat.’
‘I know,’ said Cockie. ‘That’s why I don’t want you to complicate things for yourself and us by telling distorted truths.’
A rider bucketed past them along the Row, sitting very upright and conscious on his tawny, varnished horse: bright-ringed hooves kicked up a chuff-chuff-chuff of soft earth. A car approached, ponderous in its shining black magnificence. ‘It’s Mr. Port,’ said Susan Betchley. ‘We’ve all got to go down to Elysian Hall—the Detective Inspector wants us there.’
‘No doubt he’s going to “reconstruct the scene”,’ said Cockie sourly.
Susan Betchley looked at him innocently. ‘Isn’t that a good thing to do?’
‘We don’t do it in Kent,’ said Cockie, austerely. (They had done it in Kent once, it was true, but the less said about that the better.) ‘And anyway it usually comes at the end of a case. This case is about at the beginning, for all I can see.’ He graciously accepted a lift to Elysium, however, when Mr. Port stopped the car near the bench. Motherdear was in the front seat. Cockrill thought he looked dreadfully white and ill. He said: ‘Are you all right, boy? You don’t look too good.’
‘Of course I’m not all right,’ said George, bursting out with it savagely, his miserable young eyes staring ahead of him, through Mr. Port’s windscreen.
Mr. Port drove with nervous care along the broad road through the park. ‘The foolish lad has got it into his head that he’s done me some harm. Something about the colour of my eyes or something.’ He turned his head with a brief, reassuring smile at George, but his face was haggard.
For George Exmouth, after an hour of agonizing examination of conscience, had gone to Mr. Port and told him everything: about the police visit, about his own final word of confirmation. Mr. Port said anxiously: ‘Young George seems to think, Inspector Cockrill, that they actually suspect me. Now, I’m sure that you can—can set his mind at rest…’ Since Cockrill remained unresponsive, he outlined the case against himself. ‘Earl Anderson had blue eyes. He says that the Red Knight, when Isabel was killed, had brown eyes: and I have brown eyes. Now, Inspector—did you ever hear such nonsense?’
It seemed as though a weight had been lifted from Susan Betchley’s heart. ‘Why should it be nonsense? You were in and out of the Assembly room, you could have taken Earl Anderson’s armour: you could have rushed away off the stage and reappeared as yourself. And nobody’d seen you in the meantime. What’s more, only you, of all of us, could have afforded to buy a diamond brooch.’
‘It’s a lie,’ said Mr. Port, his lips trembling, his hands shaking on the driving wheel. ‘It’s a lie. All lies!’
‘And you had a good reason to get rid of Isabel Drew. She was going to tell your wife about your affair with her. She was blackmailing you.’
‘No,’ said Mr. Port, trembling. ‘Not that. Not blackmail. She—she had a delicate conscience: sometimes she used to think that we should—should make a clean breast of the whole thing to my wife…’ His face was the colour of clay, his little hands lay on the driving wheel like weighted gloves. ‘It’s true that—I didn’t want Isabel to say anything to my wife.’ He began suddenly to speak to them about his wife, hardly realizing perhaps that they were there, that he had an audience at all; that every word told against him like a nail in his prison coffin… About her sufferings, about her gentleness and courage and endurance, about her final breakdown when suffering was over, and endurance no longer the need it had been. About Charlesworth’s visit, and the effect it had had: about his own sins against her and the weight upon his conscience because she was suffering anew… ‘What could Isabel Drew mean to me, in comparison with my wife’s well-being…? And yet…’ He burst out: ‘I made a fool of myself with that horrible girl, and now through my wickedness and folly…’ He talked on and on. The car turned into Kensington High Street, and wound its way as though of its own volition, towards the Elysian Hall. ‘If anything happens to her—if she never recovers her true mind—I shall be guilty of her death: the death of her mind.’
Miss Betchley said into the silence: ‘And yet you say you didn’t murder Isabel?’
‘How could I have murdered her?’ he said, desperately. ‘Of course I wasn’t dressed up in any silly armour. I was standing in the body of the hall, looking on.’
‘You haven’t got any alibi, Mr. Port,’ said Motherdear, gloomily. ‘Not for the night before, when Earl Anderson was killed, and not for the whole day before the pageant either; except for the rehearsal in the morning.’
‘Nobody has any alibis for those times,’ said Cockrill, throwing a dash of cold water into the saucepan, lest it boil over before things became really interesting. He was fond of promoting discussion between the suspects: sooner or later something useful almost always emerged. He gazed blandly out of the window at the passing scene. London with her blind grey eyes gazed back.
‘I had things to do all day,’ said Mr. Port stiffly. ‘I spent a lot of time with my wife. The night before, I went to bed early. Everybody did. I told them all to, so as to be fresh for the following evening: now didn’t I? You can bear me out.’
Miss Betchley and Motherdear acknowledged that they had obeyed orders and gone to bed early and so had no alibis either for the time of Earl Anderson’s murder—always supposing it to have been committed during the night preceding the pageant. By this time, however, no one supposed anything else.
‘I was in bed by ten,’ insisted Mr. Port; ‘soon afterwards, Isabel rang me. But of course I can’t prove that now: because Isabel’s dead.’
‘And so is Earl Anderson,’ said Susan Betchley. She leaned forward, one hand over the back of his seat, the other clenched on her knee, and there was nothing now in her face of the aching bitterness that Cockrill had seen there twenty minutes ago: only a sort of grim determination, terrible to see.
Mr. Port suddenly straightened his pudgy shoulders: his hands gripped the wheel, he put his foot down on the accelerator and the car shot neatly between two buses, rounded a corner, and overtook a taxi-cab. He said with a new initiative in his voice: ‘And there you are: Anderson is dead too. And I had no reason in the world to kill Anderson.’
‘Unless it was to borrow his armour,’ said Motherdear.
Mr. Port raised both hands into the air, and brought them down on the wheel with a little exasperated crash. ‘I kill Earl Anderson or any man for such a reason! Don’t be ridiculous! And, anyway, why me? You two are very free with your accusations… Why me? Why not either of you?’ He jerked his head back in the direction of Susan Betchley, sitting behind him in the car. ‘What about you, Miss Betchley: eh? What about you? You loathed Isabel Drew: you thought she was responsible for the death of poor Johnny Wise…’
‘I’ve told you a thousand times, Johnny Wise was just a casual friend…’
‘And she was thick with your precious Brian Bryan, that you’re sick with love for…’
George slewed round to stare into the back of the car. Miss Betchley said savagely: ‘Shut up, you babbling old fool…’
‘And you,’ said Mr. Port to Motherdear, lifting his ha
nd and striking down upon the wheel again. ‘You’re very free too with your accusations and your confirmations and all the rest of it…What about you, my lad? You and your mother had known Isabel a long time: long before any of us knew her… What was Isabel to you, eh? Just tell us that…’
George stared dumbfounded at Mr. Port’s ashen face. ‘I? And Isabel Drew! I—I never—hardly ever even spoke to her. And anyway, if I had…’ He began to gather courage from his very innocence of this monstrous, this ugly, this oddly disturbing charge. ‘Even if I had, what about it? At least I’m—I’m young, and I’m free, I’m not like you… If anybody’s calling anybody names…’
They had reached Elysian Hall. The car stopped, Mr. Port leaned back in his seat. ‘How dare you, you young whippersnapper…?’
‘Well, he has got something there,’ said Susan Betchley, teaming up with George against the base betrayer of her secret passion.
‘Love is not confined to the very young,’ said Mr. Port, lifting an eyebrow. ‘You should be able to support me in that.’
Inspector Cockrill leaned back quietly in his seat, and let the storm rage. Nothing like people having a good set-to: nothing like frayed nerves snapping and old wounds bursting out afresh, to bring out the truth among people too long under restraint. Now and again he contributed a word to bring the embers to a blaze again: but mostly it was unnecessary. Savagely and wantonly they struck out at each other; caring nothing for each other, they yet dragged out old injuries of the spirit, little old, long-forgotten grievances… Ashamed and bitter, they eased their souls of their own niggling secrets: Edgar Port, conscious of his own unworthy passion, jeered at Motherdear’s impotent adoration for Perpetua, at Susan Betchley’s unrequited infatuation: George struck back with ugly names for elderly men who doted on young women, Miss Betchley dragged forth the cause of the injured wife… United against a common foe, she and George Exmouth rallied together, together parried and struck. Mr. Port cried at last: ‘And as for killing Isabel—I no more killed her than you did. For all anyone knows you killed her: either of you or both of you….’
‘Why in God’s name should we kill Isabel Drew?’
‘Heaven knows: but here’s this affair between Perpetua Kirk and Brian Bryan, and after all one of you’s in love with Perpetua, and the other’s in love with Bryan…’ He pushed open the door of the car and got out. ‘Either of you or both of you: there’s nobody else. I don’t care two hoots who killed Isabel Drew: I don’t mind anybody knowing that I’m glad she’s dead. But you’ve accused me; and now I accuse you back.’ He dashed round the car wrenching at the door handles, pulling open the doors. ‘Come on, come on, all get out. All come along to the tower. This thing could have been done: it was done, and it must have been done by one or both of you—and I’m going to prove it…’ He slammed the doors shut after them, and marched before them into Elysium Hall.
The turnstiles at Elysium were clicking merrily away: they shouldered their way through the crowds, and salesmen and demonstrators paused in their exertions to point them out to goggling customers. From the throats of a dozen amplifiers, the tunes of the moment hurdy-gurdied across the air; the atmosphere was heavy with the press of people, urgent with their bustle and eagerness, with the concentrated effort of hundreds of sales demonstrators forcing their wares upon the indifferent or reluctant. But beyond the doors leading back-stage, the sound was subdued to a sort of high-pitched hum; in the Assembly room all was quiet, dusty and bare; only the twelve suits of armour hung from their gibbets, their helmets at dreadful angles on necks that seemed a foot long, on account of the gap between the lower pegs and those on which the helmets hung. Their shadowed eye-sockets stared hopelessly into space. In the centre of the room stood Inspector Charlesworth. He had Brian Bryan and Perpetua with him. He said: ‘I thought it would be convenient if we all met down here. I want to confirm something. One or two things.’ And he crooked a finger at George Exmouth who went over and stood beside him. He said: ‘You told me this morning that you saw the eyes of the Red Knight, just before Isabel fell. Now—do you see those eyes here?’
Such a very small thing to say: such an easy answer to give. And yet on his answer, a life might hang. George stammered, white and shaky: ‘They were brown eyes.’
‘I know. So you said. And who has brown eyes here?’
George looked wretchedly round the little group. Perpetua, Brian Two-Times, Miss Betchley, Mr. Port… Grey eyes, blue eyes: and two pairs of brown eyes. He gave a little defiant, obstinate shrug. The answer was obvious: why put the onus of saying the words on him.
Charlesworth turned slowly towards Mr. Port.
Inspector Cockrill said suddenly: ‘Inspector—Mr. Port has a theory. Perhaps, before you say anything…’
Edgar Port might not have managed the fire-walking stunts back home in the Malay, as Isabel had—how long ago!—suggested: but he had been a member of the local amateur dramatic society and frequently took such parts as that of the General in French Leave for the delight of the members of the Club. He now flung himself into a sort of Ruth Draper performance, dashing to and fro in vivid imitations of Miss Betchley and Motherdear, which would have made Charlesworth die of laughter had it not all been so deadly serious, and which brought a quizzical look to Inspector Cockrill’s beady eye. ‘Miss Betchley and young Exmouth have—have made certain suggestions against me, Detective Inspector. Very well. I make counter-accusations!’ It was all very dramatic, very ‘pompious’ as Brian Two-Times would have said: and yet—the little man was very pale, his eyes were leaden; he was fighting for his life. ‘Half past five: Miss Betchley arrives. She looks through the arch to make sure that the stage is clear, she glances into the tower, she checks up the suits of armour…’ He ran from suit to suit like a dog sniffing out a suitable lamp-post. ‘All O.K.’ His face took on a look of determined pleasure and relief. ‘Miss Betchley takes her place just outside the Assembly room door.’ He stood there for a moment, apparently to establish her squatter’s rights. ‘The knights come in, in ones and twos and threes: they collect their armour and go off, some to the dressing rooms, some to the stalls; they fetch their horses…’ He mercifully left ten of the knights to the imagination. ‘Meanwhile—Mr. George Exmouth arrives.’
‘I arrived at twenty to six,’ said George with tremulous defiance.
‘He comes into the Assembly room,’ said Mr. Port ignoring him, throwing himself into the part of George coming into the Assembly room. ‘He takes his armour. He changes, here or in one of the dressing rooms or in his horse’s stall…’ He beckoned them all out into the corridor, and for a bad moment Charlesworth thought they were to be treated to a pantomime of George changing in dressing room or stall; Mr. Port, however, was content to walk along stiffly from this point, as though clad from head to toe in the phoney armour. ‘He secretes himself in one of the rooms. He calls, “Miss Kirk—please come and help me out of my armour…”’ To their acute discomfort, he called it, imitating George imitating Brian Two-Times’ voice. ‘He ties Miss Kirk up…’ He wrestled with an imaginary Perpetua, frightened and struggling. ‘He joins the other knights in the Assembly room, mounted on his horse.’
Cockrill thought that they had lived through a good deal to learn what could have been said in half a dozen words. He stood patiently, however, while Mr. Port, having seen George safely on to his horse, and in the line of waiting knights, was metamorphosed without warning into Isabel Drew. ‘She comes out of her dressing room. She hurries through the crowded knights…’ He wove his way in and out of thin air, like a fat little sailing ship, tacking before the wind. ‘She goes into the tower. She disappears from us.’ But she reappeared in the shape of Mr. Port hurrying back to become Miss Betchley, still waiting at the door. ‘You think I’m going to suggest that Miss Betchley waited until the knights had gone through, and then followed her and strangled her, while they were on the stage…!’ He challenged them all triumphantly.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Charlesworth. ‘Mr. B
ryan says that he let Miss Betchley in to the Assembly room, after Isabel Drew fell, and that the door was bolted on this side. Whoever bolted it, it would be before the knights rode through to the stage—there was no one to do it after that.’
Mr. Port looked slightly crestfallen. He said, however: ‘Exactly. I didn’t forget that. So what I suggest is this: the knights are all in the Assembly room—they’re packed tight, nobody notices that she moves through them to the tower…’
‘Don’t they?’ said Charlesworth. ‘I thought she always stood at the door. Surely they’d have observed her, suddenly pushing her way through them… Surely someone would have mentioned it? After all, people don’t become blind, deaf and dumb because they’re one of a crowd. She must have passed close to some of them.’
‘You suggested yourself that any of the knights could have moved about freely…’
‘Because they were knights. Because they were in armour. Because the knights were accustomed to seeing people in armour moving about…’
Miss Betchley gave a snort of contemptuous laughter.
‘You’ll have Mr. Port suggesting that I dressed myself up in a suit of armour for this jaunt of mine! There was a spare one.’
‘It would have been a bright idea, wouldn’t it?’ said Charlesworth equably. ‘Then nobody would have noticed you: in fact nobody would have recognized you, you might have been a man or a woman… After all, short of a diving suit, one can’t imagine a better disguise: and if you happened to be caught sight of at the window or anything… Yes, it would have been a good idea. However—what now?’
‘Now we have me creeping up the ladder to strangle Miss Drew,’ said Miss Betchley sarcastically.
‘I’ll be Miss Betchley strangling Miss Drew, Mr. Port,’ suggested Charlesworth, gaily. He moved over and stood in the little doorway of the tower. ‘Is that what you think happened?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Mr. Port firmly: but he was beginning to sweat a little, he was not so sure. ‘I think she strangled the girl and left her propped up against the window in the semi-darkness, before the lights moved up; and I think that she went back and out of the Assembly room door, and Mr. Exmouth bolted it behind her, so that we should all think what we have all thought: and then the knights rode through.’ He shepherded his flock on to the stage, where they stood like a party of sightseers, staring obediently up at the window of the tower. Charlesworth appeared there, and leaned towards them over the balcony. ‘And Mr. Exmouth had the noose arranged and he pulled the body down? Eh, Mr. Port?’
Death of Jezebel Page 13