by Anne Morice
‘Then why cover up? If she suspects him to be capable of such a monstrous thing, why not leave him and have the marriage annulled?’
‘Because if by any chance he were guilty he would understand her reasons for doing that and she would be a bigger danger to him than she is already; therefore to be silenced at all costs.’
‘But this is terrible, Robin! Why haven’t you told me before? How can she be left alone with him in the flat, if her life is in danger?’
‘I don’t imagine it is. As I see it, there is only an even chance that the poison was in the drink, which in turn gives the faint chance that it was intended for Ellen and not Irene. There remains the question of who put it there. Naturally, she would be reluctant to include Jeremy among her suspects, but there may be just enough doubt in her mind to make her even more reluctant to go abroad with him, just the two of them, driving along lonely mountainous roads, to name only one of the possible hazards. The sensible course would be to stay in London until there is evidence to prove Jeremy innocent.’
‘But could one really suspect someone one was in love with of being so vile?’
‘Such things have been known, haven’t they? And Ellen has her feet on the ground. She only met Jeremy a few months ago and there must be vast chunks of his past which are unknown to her, not to mention facets of his character. And you’ve told me yourself you weren’t sure just how overboard she actually was.’
‘I know, Robin, but even so! Even if it’s not a desperate, consuming passion, she must be fond of him, or she would never have married him. The money part wouldn’t enter into it, whatever some people may say.’
‘All the same, she can’t altogether ignore the fact that, if the poison was intended for her, Jeremy was among the very few who had an opportunity to slip it to her.’
‘Though presumably the same thing applies if it was intended for Irene?’
‘No, that would be quite different. In Irene’s case the poison could equally well have been in her pills, which completely knocks out the idea that someone within range of her was necessarily responsible. She could have been carrying poisoned pills around with her for weeks. The police carted away stacks of bottles and phials which they found in her luggage and, according to Alison, she was dosing herself with some drug or other every few hours. She claimed that her nerves were all to pieces because of the road accident, but I should put her down as one who made a regular habit of that sort of thing and, if that was the method, the murderer only needed to bide his time. He could have been thousands of miles away when she actually died.’
‘Well, that’s a cheering thought. So perhaps it was Osgood, after all? Unfortunately, she did yell out that someone had mixed champagne with her whisky, so it must have had a pretty funny taste.’
‘Well, so it would to someone who was expecting one and got the other. I don’t suppose she was choosing her words very carefully.’
‘And how long will it be before they know?’
‘Know what?’
‘Whether it was the pills or the drink that did it?’
‘Short of a confession, never, I imagine,’ Robin said, pulling over to the right-hand lane once more, as the Cromwell Road spread out ahead of us in all its glory. ‘In the first place, they were swallowed simultaneously and, as you know, the glass fell on the ground and was smashed almost to a powder before anyone realised it was serious. If it had only happened indoors, there might have been a patch of carpet to be analysed, remains of the glass too, but no chance of that on well-watered turf, where it had been stamped on and crushed into the ground by half a dozen hefty feet.’
This mention of turf reminded me of something else and I said:
‘But, Robin, isn’t paraquat used as a weed killer?’
‘In diluted form, yes.’
‘So even if there’d only been dregs left in Irene’s glass, wouldn’t it have shown up in the form of dead blades of grass on that spot?’
‘Yes, but unfortunately that wouldn’t have been conclusive. Parkes was interrogated on the point and he keeps a supply of the stuff in his tool shed, in its diluted form, such as anyone can buy over the counter. Of course he dilutes it still further by mixing it in about twenty parts of water and he uses a special watering can with a long spout. The trouble is that he scatters the stuff around all over the place, even on the lawn, if he sees a plantain or daisy rearing its ugly head, specially at this time of year when weeds are at their most prolific. He’d been working flat out, up to late on Friday evening when the marquee went up, to get the garden looking spick and span, and he made numerous journeys across the lawn carrying that particular can and probably not worrying too much if it dribbled some out as he went. So a tiny tuft of dead grass wouldn’t really prove anything.’
‘And it begins to look as though Ellen may have a good long wait before her honeymoon can begin.’
‘Oh, it’s early days yet and a lot may come to light in the next twenty-four hours. Osgood is supposed to be arriving tonight and he may have something to contribute. Do you want to go straight home, or shall I drop you somewhere?’
‘Anywhere round here would do, if you can find a place to stop.’
‘Going for a tour round Harrods?’
‘Not a serious one. Just in by the front door and out by the back.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, give whoever it is my love, and do mind how you go!’
Taking this warning literally, I virtuously trotted up the road to a pedestrian crossing, before darting across to the other side, and then spent several minutes in contemplation of a waxen female in a sheepskin coat, seated on a shooting stick, with a stuffed poodle and a vase of plastic flowers at her feet, as I considered how best to handle the next encounter.
CHAPTER TWO
The front door was off the latch and I pushed it open with one hand, rang the bell with the other and marched inside.
‘Yes, we mostly do leave it unfastened nowadays,’ Jez explained, when I had tracked her down in the kitchen, where all her charts and reference books were spread out on the table. ‘Caspar likes to answer the bell himself, you see, and he can’t reach the handle. Ellen was always so patient about it, but I get madly bored trudging into the hall to do half the job for him, and then disappearing again while he finishes it off. Would you like some coffee?’
‘Yes, please. Where’s Caspar now?’
‘Asleep, so you may speak freely. Did you come to see me, or had you forgotten that Ellen had moved out?’
Having based my strategy on the assumption that Jez was both too lazy and too direct to give a crooked answer to a straight question, I did not hesitate to reply:
‘I am here to ask whether, in your considered opinion, Ellen suspects Jeremy of having attempted to murder her?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you account for the current state of affairs?’
‘Wait until I’ve ground the coffee,’ Jez replied as placidly as though we were discussing the weather, ‘and you shall have my interpretation, but this thing makes a noise like a road drill.’
I waited while she flipped switches and pressed buttons and the scream of the coffee grinder filled the room. Then she tipped the contents into a paper cone, saying gravely;
‘Ellen would never believe that Jeremy could act in any way harmfully towards her. I am not sure that she was so dead set on marrying him, at any rate not so soon. I think she may have got steamrollered into that. His mother wasn’t taking no for an answer and Jeremy, having made his one tiny bid for freedom, which turned out so disastrously, had lost the will to stand up to her. I think it’s this feeling of being jostled along by all the family pressures which has tended to make Ellen a bit jumpy and withdrawn these days, not quite her usual serene self; but that’s not to say that she doesn’t trust Jeremy. She feels very strongly that they are right for each other and if the only way to get him was to marry him, then wedding bells it had to be.’
‘An attitude to which you have contributed your share?
’
‘Well, that’s beside the point, isn’t it?’ Jez said mildly, as she handed me my coffee. ‘I happen to believe they are right for each other too, but it makes no difference where she got the idea from in the first place. You asked me if it was conceivable that she could suspect Jeremy of trying to murder her and I’ve given you your answer.’
‘Which does nothing to explain why they’re now skulking in Hans Place, instead of racing round France and Italy.’
‘I imagine the reason is that there would be no pleasure in it. The shadow is there all right, only it hangs over and not between them. They want to stick around until it’s been shooed away, in other words until it’s established that someone set out to kill the dreadful mother and not one of them. They don’t seem terribly optimistic about it either, which is rather a surprise. Personally, I regard it as a safe bet. The only mystery is how she managed to exist for so long before somebody decided to rid the world.’
‘In that case, wouldn’t it be safer for them to go, rather than stay? Since they don’t suspect each other, they ought to be able to protect each other, even if the murderer were to follow them.’
‘You might think so,’ Jez agreed in her indolent, dreamy fashion, ‘but unfortunately there are complications. In the first place, if you came to the conclusion that someone had been mean enough to want to kill you, you’re bound to start wondering about all the mean people you know and asking yourself which one it could have been. If you also happen to have received some threatening letters, it becomes more fraught than ever.’
‘Implying that she suspects Desmond of putting poison in Jeremy’s champagne? But how? He’d left hours before.’
‘Or, more accurately, no one saw him again, which doesn’t prove a thing. Those hearty lads weren’t to know it, but it’s a great pity that one of them didn’t accompany him all the way to London. Then we could forget the idea that he might have hung around and bribed one of the waiters to swop clothes with him, making out it was all some jolly lark.’
‘Whose idea was that?’
‘I forget. Jeremy’s maybe, or perhaps I got it from Bert. I gather it’s a tale that’s going the rounds.’
‘But if it were true, someone would have recognised him.’
‘Not necessarily, Tess. Very few people actually look at a waiter’s face, only at what he’s serving them. I checked that out with Bert and he agrees with me. Also the light was very dim in that old tent and Desmond has had lots of experience with make-up. I dare say he might have managed it, so long as he kept out of Ellen’s way, which would have been no problem, her being so conspicuously attired on that occasion.’
‘And do you honestly consider Desmond to be capable of such a thing?’
‘Not on his normal days, no; but he does have these ghastly bouts of rage and depression when he’s on the bottle. They don’t last long, as a rule, but it practically amounts to insanity when he’s in them.’
Turning all this over in my mind, I stared down at one of the charts Jez had been working on when I interrupted her. It consisted of a large sheet of white drawing paper and depicted a huge golden sun with spikes sticking out of it, like a bicycle wheel. Between each spoke there were words and symbols, delicately penned in different coloured inks and, surrounding them like satellites, the twelve signs of the zodiac, also finely illustrated. I found it rather beautiful, but totally meaningless and, dropping it back on the table, I said:
‘Do you think it should be followed up?’
‘How?’
‘Well, for instance, it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out exactly what became of Desmond after he was thrown out of the church.’
‘For the police to find out, you mean?’
‘That would be one way. If he had been innocently amusing himself in London there would probably be witnesses to prove it.’
‘I agree with you, up to a point,’ Jez admitted. ‘It might dispose of one complication, but in principle I’m against it.’
‘In principle, or on?’
‘Oh, in, because, you see, it’s not as simple as it sounds. If Desmond couldn’t rake up an alibi, and which of us could on demand, they might easily haul him in for questioning, whether he’s guilty, or innocent as a newborn baby. So even if they then turned him loose again, it wouldn’t do much to help his career or reputation, both of which are pretty dodgy at the best of times. Ellen would have a hard time reconciling herself to the fact that she was to blame for it, specially as she fells partly responsible for the mess he’s in already.’
‘How about if he were guilty?’
‘That really would be the finish of him, wouldn’t it? And she might blame herself even more. Well, you know what she’s like, just as well as I do, Tess. She has this exaggerated protective sense about people she’s fond of. Comes from indulging Toby all her life, I dare say; but they pretty soon find it out and exert a kind of moral blackmail. It’s no good arguing about whether it’s right or wrong. It’s a built-in feature of her personality and she can’t go against it.’
‘I dare say she might learn to, in time,’ I said. ‘It might be less damaging to her personality, in the end, than living with the knowledge that he had once tried to kill either her or Jeremy and could one day take it into his head to do so again.’
Jez shook her head. ‘No, I don’t suppose she believes there’s much danger of that. It’s all very ephemeral with Desmond and his moods never last. Besides, Tessa, one has to think these things through, you know, and there’s one possible outcome which may not even have occurred to Ellen yet, but which could be completely disastrous from her point of view.’
‘What could that be?’
‘Well, supposing it did turn out that Desmond was miles away from Roakes when Irene died, wouldn’t we then have to take it that she really was the one the murderer was after, all the time? It’s rather too much to swallow that there are two people around with a motive for knocking off Ellen or Jeremy.’
‘What’s so terrible about that? Personally, I’d feel highly relieved if it were true.’
‘Then you’re not using your loaf because it would have to mean that someone in that small group around Irene had killed her deliberately and, when I told you that Ellen had implicit faith in Jeremy’s inability to cause her any harm in any circumstances, I meant just that and no more.’
‘So?’
‘So I didn’t say, did I, that she believed Jeremy to be incapable of murdering someone else?’
CHAPTER THREE
1
The inquest was scheduled to open in the Coroner’s Court at Stadhampton on Wednesday morning and the funeral to be held the following day at Reading Crematorium. This would require Osgood to spend at least three nights in England and a room had been reserved for him at the Swan. Early on Tuesday morning, which was the day following my mildly shattering conversation with Jezebel, I did the civil thing and telephoned the hotel to find out if Mr Lewis had arrived and was in need of comfort or assistance.
After the usual delays I was connected to his room and when I had identified myself and expressed my sympathy, I mentioned that I should be lunching in his neighbourhood and could, if he so desired, call in at the Swan for a few minutes around mid-day and fill him in with whatever he might wish to hear concerning the sad event which had brought him to this country.
This was bending the truth a little, but I still considered that the best solution to our problems rested on the premise of Osgood having murdered Irene by remote control and this was as good a pretext as I could think of for setting out to establish it.
He replied in a soft, rather melodious but subdued voice, perfectly in keeping with the emotions of a bereaved husband and also with the demeanour that any husband with a grain of sense would be at pains to adopt if he had happened to drop a lethal dose in his wife’s aspirin bottle, so it was a step neither forward nor backward.
The church clock was booming out the mid-day chimes when I crossed over the bridge into Stadhampton and
from that vantage point I could see a score or so of people sitting below me on the hotel’s unnaturally brilliant green lawn beside the river. However, when I enquired of the receptionist whether I should find Mr Lewis there, he informed me that he had been requested by Mr Lewis to convey his apologies and to ask me to postpone my appointment with him until after lunch.
‘Oh, why’s that?’ I asked. ‘Did he have to go out?’
‘No, madam,’ the reception clerk replied primly. ‘A gentleman called about half-an-hour ago to see him.’
‘So he is still in the hotel?’
‘Yes, madam. The gentleman asked to be shown to a room where they could talk in private. They are in the television lounge, but I have instructions not to disturb them. Perhaps you would care to leave a message?’
‘You don’t happen to know the gentleman’s name?’
‘Couldn’t say, I’m afraid,’ he replied, snapping his mouth shut so firmly that I felt sure he must be fearful of its betraying him and letting the name out before he could stop it. However, two could play at that game and I said:
‘Well, that’s a bore because I’ve come all the way from London and I’m far too early for my next appointment. I’d better clean up a bit and then go and have a drink in your bar. Could you tell me where I’d find the Ladies’?’
‘First floor, turn left and then up three more stairs. You’ll see the arrow.’
‘Thanks very much. Oh, and by the way, please tell Mr Lewis that I’ll be back at two-thirty.’
Reaching the first floor, I turned right and marched down the corridor to the door facing me at the end of it, which was labelled ‘Residents Only’. I opened it and walked inside, then halted in my tracks, wearing the startled look of a Resident who had set out to watch her favourite television programme and found herself intruding on a private discussion. The act was rendered slightly more realistic by the fact that I had been expecting to see two people and in fact there were three, two men and a woman.