by Carola Dunn
Daisy smiled at him but was saved from having to answer by Alec’s arrival.
As he moved to the centre of the room, very self-assured and official in his dark suit, he caught Daisy’s eye. She gave him a tiny nod. She hoped Jennifer Gower wasn’t a murderer, but if she was … .
Tom Tring and Ernie Piper followed Alec in and took up positions on either side of the door. Piper took out his notebook.
The sergeant was wearing black again. This time it made him look formidable. The bulk which clad in his usual violent checks appeared to be adiposity was revealed as solid muscle. A match for Marchenko, perhaps. Daisy remembered her impression that Alec had been evasive last night. Did he have something up his sleeve?
“Would you like to sit down, Miss de la Costa?” he said politely as Consuela stalked up to him, spitting in Spanish.
“Why I am here?” she demanded. “I not kill esta maldita, and not care who is murrrtherer. Tonight I rehearse opera. Must have rest!”
“This won’t take long, ma’am. Please sit down.” He waited until she sulkily complied, then went on, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for coming. I’m sure all—most—of you are anxious to hear the results of our enquiry into the death of Mrs. Roger Abernathy, or Bettina Westlea as she was known in musical circles.”
One or two heads nodded. Finch, prompted perhaps by the word death, began to play what looked like a funeral march on his silent organ. Beside Daisy, Roger stared down at his hands, clenched but trembling on his knees. He shouldn’t be subjected to this, Daisy thought as Muriel laid a hand on his arm.
Alec continued remorselessly. “Mrs. Abernathy used to take a cough mixture consisting of an extremely dilute solution of prussic acid, that is, hydrocyanic acid. She was in the habit of taking this medicine in her favourite liqueur. The only way she could have been poisoned by cyanide is if her doctor made an error in dispensing his prescription.”
“How dreadful!” Daisy cried. “One frightful mistake and the poor man will be ruined for ever. What will become of his wife and those poor little children?”
Mrs. Gower looked horrified. But she made no move to speak.
The silence lengthened—to be broken by Roger Abernathy’s voice, low and weary. “It wasn’t cyanide.” With an immense effort he got to his feet and took a step forward. His hands hung at his side, limp, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “It was trinitrin. I killed her.”
Stunned, Daisy stared. Beside her Muriel gave a horrified gasp, the only sound in the stillness.
Alec’s steady gaze was unsurprised. “Why?” he said levelly. “Why now, after all these years? You realize anything you say may be used as evidence.”
Roger did not seem to hear the warning. He spoke in a monotone. “She was ruining her sister’s life. I made the mistake, it was right that I should suffer. I loved her and married her instead of Muriel. To my shame, I gave in to her demand that I not teach Muriel.”
“Oh, Roger!” Muriel sobbed.
Again he seemed not to hear. “And then Muriel met Yakov Levich and Bettina did her best to ruin that, too. I still loved her, but I couldn’t allow it. You must understand, she was always unhappy, discontented, until her great opportunity came with this concert. At last she was satisfied. She thought it was the beginning of a wonderful new life and I hoped for her. But happy as she was, she went on bullying her sister. That day, when she stopped Muriel exchanging a few words with Levich, I knew she’d never change. She’d never have a chance to earn the recognition she craved. She died happy, before the disillusionment … .”
The door burst open, flattening Piper behind it. Half a dozen men rushed in. “Special Branch!” the leader bawled. “Dimitri Marchenko, I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of conspiracy to … .”
“Chort vozmi!” Marchenko bellowed, surging to his feet. He charged towards the door. “Svobodnaya Ukraina!”
Alec, swinging round to protest the invasion, took a fist between the shoulder-blades and went flying. The invaders closed in on Marchenko, who bulled onward dragging them with him, all shouting. Tom Tring slammed the door shut. Consuela screamed, piercingly, again and again. Daisy saw Olivia cross to her and slap her face. The screams abruptly cut off.
“Roger!”
At Muriel’s cry, Daisy turned her head. Not more than a yard from her, Roger Abernathy stood with one hand clapped to his mouth, the other flailing the air. A shudder convulsed his body. He bent double, retching helplessly.
Muriel sprang to his side, tried to support the contorting figure. “Yasha, help! Daisy, his pills. In his inside pocket. Quickly!”
But the little brown bottle lay on the floor. Daisy picked it up. “Empty.”
“It can’t be. I checked. It was full!”
No pills on the floor, and Roger clutched at his throat, writhing in Levich’s grasp. Blood suffused his face. His glasses fell off and his eyes bulged as he fought for breath.
Daisy pulled Muriel away. The dying man’s struggles weakened and Levich gently lowered him, twisting still but more and more feebly. Muriel broke from Daisy’s arms and knelt beside him. She took his twitching hands in hers.
“Roger.” Her voice choked on sobs.
Roger Abernathy lay still at last. Again Daisy pulled Muriel away, and this time Olivia was there to help. Levich closed his staring eyes.
“He never expected, nor wanted, to survive Bettina,” Daisy murmured.
“The ruddy bastards!” Alec stood looking down at the body, his mouth tight with anger. “Miss Dalrymple, Mr. Levich, take Miss Westlea home, please, at once. There’s nothing more any of you can do here.”
Taking the empty pill-bottle from the pocket where she had slipped it, Daisy silently handed it to him. He nodded his thanks. “Piper, find them a cab.”
Ernie Piper sported an incipient black eye. Tom Tring’s wide face was undamaged but for a ruffled moustache. He seemed to be trying to disguise a certain smugness. Marchenko was gone, and with him the Special Branch men. Stepping out into the passage, Daisy saw a ragged phalanx marching away round the curve, the Ukrainian’s shaggy, dishevelled head in the middle, protruding above the rest.
Major Browne watched them go, wringing his hands. “What are we going to do without a bass?” he moaned.
“So there the Major stood,” said Daisy, pulling on her gloves, “with bodies strewn all over the place like in grand opera—well, practically—in despair because his blasted bass was being dragged off in chains. Alec, what did Marchenko do?”
“Conspired.” He grinned, rather sourly, as she glared at him. “I can’t tell you any more. Official Secrets Act.”
“Bosh! Those men who ruined your dénouement were about to announce it when he started roaring about.”
“‘Disrupt the security of the realm,’ they were going to say. Did you see Tom down him when he broke away from them?”
Daisy allowed herself to be distracted. “I thought Sergeant Tring looked pleased with himself! No, I missed it.” Sobered, she waited until the Austin pulled away from the kerb before she went on, “Roger was collapsing by then.”
“I could have prevented that,” Alec said savagely, “if those congenital idiots hadn’t made a mess of it! I’ve had an apology from their Super, by the way. They were supposed to wait until Marchenko left the choir room.”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset, though. You had his confession and that way was better than hanging.”
“They don’t hang dying men. At worst he’d have gone out peacefully in a prison hospital. Don’t forget, though, Daisy, his motive may have been unselfish but he murdered his wife. Whatever she was, she didn’t deserve that.”
Daisy sighed. “No. It’s just so hard to believe that of him. He seemed such a gentle, kind little man.”
“Oh, he was. I don’t doubt it. It was his dismay, his horror, when the daily rags went for Levich which gave me the idea of suggesting the danger to Woodward and his family.”
“Then yo
u were aiming at Roger all along? You led me to believe it was Mrs. Gower!” she said indignantly.
“I didn’t know for sure. It was between her, and Abernathy, and Marchenko, and there wasn’t a damn … dashed thing I could do about him. I’d been warned off by the Special Branch.”
“How madly frustrating. Muriel’s decided she can’t possibly give him back the jewellery if he’s a criminal. He might use the proceeds to blow up Parliament, or Buck House, or 10 Downing Street or something.”
Alec laughed. “He might, at that. Very wise of her.”
“I said she should give it to Mrs. Gower’s clinic, so she’s going to split it between them and the Musicians’ Friendly Society, or whatever it’s called. She’ll just keep enough to send for Yasha’s parents. They’re engaged, you know.”
“Miss Westlea and Levich? That was quick work.”
“She proposed to him last night. She’s got a lot more spunk than I ever gave her credit for. Roger wanted it, she said, and she couldn’t bear that his awful sacrifice and poor Betsy’s death might go for nothing. I’m jolly glad for them, but I must say this whole affair has been frightfully wearing!”
Alec reached across the gear lever and squeezed her hand. “Never mind, you can relax now and enjoy the tea-party.”
“Relax!” Daisy sat bolt upright. The daffodils of Hyde Park were already behind them and St. John’s Wood was no more than three minutes away. “Relax! I’m absolutely terrified! I shan’t be able to eat a thing!”
“You must. Belinda’s baked rock buns and I understand she’s trying her hand at scones. She’ll be devastated if you don’t like them.”
“Oh, then I shall eat lots and lots,” said Daisy stoutly, consigning terror and her waistline to oblivion. “And afterwards I shall ask her to teach me how to make them.”
The Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries by Carola Dunn:
Death at Wentwater Court
The Winter Garden Mystery
Requiem for a Mezzo
REQUIEM FOR A MEZZO. Copyright © 1996 by Carola Dunn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9781466820630
First eBook Edition : May 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dunn, Carola.
Requiem for a mezzo: a Daisy Dalrymple mystery / by Carola Dunn.
—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Women detectives—England—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6054.U537R47 1996
823’.914—dc20
95-41248
CIP
First Edition: February 1996