Death of a Wedding Guest

by Anne Morice

  ‘All quite clear now?’ the superintendent asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘And you recognise the handwriting?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve told you that. It was written by a man named Desmond Davidson that I used to see a lot of before my marriage. It’s signed with the initial “D”, as you probably saw.’

  ‘And would you mind telling me when this particular letter was written?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have no idea,’ Ellen replied in a startled voice. ‘Was there no date on it? I didn’t notice.’

  The superintendent opened his mouth, then paused to rub the back of his thumb against his chin, while she regarded him with a bright, enquiring look.

  ‘Let me re-phrase the question, Mrs Roxburgh: do you recall when it was you received this letter?’

  ‘I?’ she asked in great astonishment.

  ‘Yes, you. You won’t deny that it was addressed to you?’

  ‘Oh, but I will. At any rate, I never received it and I don’t know why you should imagine that I did. It doesn’t start “Dear Ellen”, or anything like that.’

  ‘True, but then you’ll agree that it is hardly written in the conventional form?’

  ‘Yes, very strange, I do agree with you there,’ Ellen said placidly. ‘But I fail to understand why you should deduce from that that it was written to me. What is the connection?’

  ‘We assumed as much from information received, and I would draw your attention to the fact that the name Jeremy is mentioned several times in connection with various threats and invective. I take it you won’t deny that Jeremy is your husband’s name?’

  ‘No, of course not, but there are hundreds of Jeremys around. I can’t be responsible for all of them.’

  ‘No, only for the one that this Mr Davidson appears to have got his knife into, on grounds of somewhat fanatical jealousy. It would be rather a coincidence, would it not, if there were two separate men who fitted into that category and they were both called Jeremy?’

  ‘Yes, it would, but why should there be two? I feel sure there is only one and you have got the wrong one. My husband and Mr Davidson have always been on excellent terms. They were at school together and, as far as I know, there has never been a cross word.’

  ‘Even when you ended your association with Mr Davidson and became engaged to marry Mr Roxburgh?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. Desmond was delighted. It was he who introduced us, and our association, as you call it, had never included the possibility of marriage.’

  ‘I must ask you to forgive my saying so, Mrs Roxburgh, but I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Ask him!’ Ellen said smoothly. ‘I am sure he will tell you the same thing.’

  Once again the superintendent paused for some chin nibbing before proceeding and his voice, when he did so, had taken on a new note of hostility:

  ‘Yes, no doubt he would. Our informant, I must tell you . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, your informant? You were going to tell me who it was and how you came into possession of that letter.’

  ‘On the contrary, madam. Since you have decided not to cooperate with us, I may as well say frankly that I have no intention of giving you that information.’

  ‘Oh, very well, then I must learn to live without it, but I can’t be expected to make things up just to suit you, can I?’

  ‘No, I confess that I had not expected you to, and if you’ll accept a word of advice, you’ll consider your position very carefully. If you change your mind or get any fresh ideas about this letter, you can always get in touch with me at this number and extension,’ he said, bringing out a card and placing it very deliberately on the table. ‘Don’t get up, we can see ourselves out, but before I go it is only fair to warn you that, whatever your reason for wishing to protect someone, it is likely to lead to the most serious consequences if you persist in taking this obstructive line. Not only for yourself, I must add, but for other people as well. Please remember that.’

  2

  ‘Whereupon she promptly did a genuine faint,’ I said, when describing the interview to Robin. ‘At least, I think it was. She is a great loss to the stage, as you know, but one has to remember that she had a lot on her mind, even before old Powell started handing out ominous threats. On the other hand, of course, she may just have been giving herself a little time to consider what to say to me.’

  ‘And what was that, when she got around to it?’

  ‘Well, first of all, she asked me if it was a criminal offence to withhold evidence.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘That I didn’t think so, as long as she wasn’t under oath, but that she couldn’t expect to get away with it for long. Whatever else Superintendent Powell may be doing, he’s certainly not sitting back in his office, saying: “Curse it, foiled again!”’

  ‘Did she have any ideas as to how he got hold of the letter? I presume it was one she’d received from Desmond?’

  ‘Oh yes, there was no point in keeping up that pretence. For one thing, she’d admitted to me on her wedding day that he’d been sending threatening letters.’

  ‘And was there something specially incriminating about this one?’

  ‘Apparently there was. It was by far the wildest of the lot and included the categorical statement that if she insisted on going through with the marriage he would kill Jeremy and then himself.’

  ‘Although, whether or not he set out to kill Jeremy, he has certainly not yet killed himself.’

  ‘Which is mainly why Ellen is so bent on protecting him.’

  ‘Rather a loopy kind of logic?’

  ‘Not really, because she’s convinced the whole thing was sheer play-acting and the fact that he hasn’t attempted suicide merely confirms that. Whenever Desmond’s not being paid to play a part he has to make one up for himself and he throws as much of himself into it as he would if he were in a theatre, but it has no more reality for him than any other performance. He would be just as likely to murder Jeremy in actual fact as to blind himself with a knitting needle in the wings while waiting to go on as Oedipus. On the other hand, she has no illusions about making the police understand this, and apparently the letter really does make him out to be quite a dangerous sort of lunatic.’

  ‘I think she underestimates them. They are not wholly incapable of distinguishing between guilt and exhibitionism.’

  ‘Well, anyway, it’s a risk she’s not prepared to take. At best, it could be several days and perhaps even a spell in custody before they made the distinction and it could be the end of Desmond. His reputation is sticky enough already, without the suspicion of murder being tacked on to it.’

  ‘So back to my first question: How did the letter land so neatly in the lap of old Father Powell?’

  ‘Why is that so important?’

  ‘Well, someone must have sent it to him and that person either honestly believes Desmond to be guilty, or is going flat out to make it appear so. In which case . . .’

  ‘In which case, that person could very well be the real murderer? I see what you mean.’

  ‘So, from every point of view, it wouldn’t hurt to know.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just ask Powell?’

  ‘Me? You must be out of your mind, Tessa! It’s his case, nothing to do with me, and I’m on particularly shaky ground here, seeing that a number of my relatives are mixed up in it. Besides, what could I do with the information, in the improbable event of his giving it to me? Certainly not pass it on to you or Ellen. Not, that is, unless I had already typed out my letter of resignation.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true, but it does seem a shame that he should know something that we don’t.’

  ‘I doubt if he does. I should say the chances of this informant having identified himself are a million to one. Little snippets of that kind are invariably sent in anonymously, and that applies just as much to true information as to false. Besides, from your description, it doesn’t sound as though Powell was on very sure ground himself.
He seems to have blustered a bit, but not to have made any serious attempt to pin Ellen down or frighten her into telling the truth. Incidentally, didn’t he show any curiosity about the violence of her reaction when he produced the letter? It was hardly a thing to faint about unless she had something to hide.’

  ‘I think that may have been to save himself embarrassment. Perhaps he thought she was pregnant, but also he’d probably sized her up by that time and realised she was perfectly capable of saying she was. I suppose that, combined with the shock of her mother’s death, could have made it seem plausible.’

  ‘Furthermore, despite his solemn warnings, there may even lurk a tiny doubt as to whether she really was lying, so to that extent, at least, you have the advantage of him.’

  ‘Although it’s not a very comfortable one to have.’

  ‘Why? Does it shock you to discover that she’s such a little fibber?’

  ‘No, not at all. She was lying to protect another person, so it doesn’t count. The trouble is, who was she protecting? I assumed it was Desmond, but Ellen’s a very sharp number and she could have jumped several paces ahead of me, during the first fainting spell, and come up with the same answer as you did. If so, the one she was protecting has to be Jeremy.’

  ‘Meaning that he first tried to poison her and is now trying to get the blame shifted on to Desmond? That would be quite neat, because if he were to repeat the experiment he would only need to ensure that Desmond was around at the time and the police would have their guilty party all lined up for them.’

  ‘Yes, but Jez won’t have any of that. She’s convinced that Ellen and Jeremy trust each other implicitly and, with all that intuition and extra-sensory perception to guide her, she could be right. On the other hand, she did hint that Ellen might find it credible that Jeremy could be ruthless enough to kill someone else; only that doesn’t make sense because he couldn’t possibly have had any motives for wanting Irene out of the way. With all her faults, she wasn’t a mother-in-law who would be in and out of the house all day. Oh dear, what a nuisance it is, Robin! What chance have we of finding the murderer when we don’t even know who he meant to kill?’

  ‘I still think he or she might be traced through Desmond’s letter. I have a feeling that may turn out to have been a rash move on someone’s part and that your safest bet is to concentrate on it. By the way, how and when did Ellen receive it?’

  ‘First post, day before the wedding. It arrived at the flat, along with several other letters and some last minute presents.’

  ‘And what was her reaction?’

  ‘What you’d expect. It upset her, naturally; but then she showed it to Jez, who was much inclined to shrug it off, and when they’d talked it over Ellen more or less came round to the same point of view. Immediately afterwards she got caught up in the fuss of wedding preparations, including the fact that her dress was delivered and she didn’t think the final alterations had been properly done. So there was hardly time to give the letter another thought.’

  ‘Nevertheless, she kept it? Whether it was to be taken seriously or not, wouldn’t it have been wiser to destroy it?’

  ‘I asked her about that and it seems she had meant to do so, but Jez advised her to hang on to it.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Just in case Desmond continued to make a pest of himself, started ringing up in the middle of the night and things like that. So then, if it got really so bad that she had to get her solicitors to choke him off, she’d be in a much stronger position if she could wave this letter about.’

  ‘So what did she do with it?’

  ‘Put it inside her address book, along with the other letters and cards that had arrived that morning. Not a very sensible move perhaps, but then I suppose it would have been rather a distasteful thing to carry around in one’s bag. She left the address book in her bedroom at the flat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the Roxburghs were driving her down to the country. She was taking two dress boxes with her and she didn’t want to lumber them with a suitcase as well, so there was no convenient way of carrying the address book. She left it for Jeremy to collect, with some other parcels, later in the day. Perhaps it was a trifle indiscreet of her, but she had a lot on her mind and a girl can’t be expected to be very clear headed when she’s about to float up the aisle. She did take the precaution of telephoning Jez after lunch, to remind her to make sure that Jeremy didn’t overlook the address book, but unfortunately she was too late. He’d already called at the flat by then and the book was still there. Jez brought it down herself the next day.’

  ‘Which doesn’t preclude the possibility that Jeremy had seen it and read the letter?’

  ‘Nor does it preclude the possibility that dear little Caspar had removed the letter and left it lying around for anyone to read.’

  ‘I can’t see why that should matter. Jez must already have known it by heart.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s still Bert, who’s a great old gossip and, contrary to general belief, spends a good deal of time on the premises, although keeping rather irregular hours. Besides, all sorts of people wander in and out of that flat. To make life more convenient for herself, Jez doesn’t even bother to keep the front door properly fastened and when she’s closeted in the kitchen, working on the zodiac, anyone could walk in and poke around in the other rooms without her knowing.’

  ‘Though it’s hard to see why they should bother, unless it was with that special object in view, which would presumably only apply to Desmond himself. But if, having realised how insane he’d been to write the letter and then set out to retrieve it, he is surely not so unbalanced as to have put it in an envelope addressed to Scotland Yard?’

  ‘There is the remote possibility,’ I suggested, ‘that Jez took it herself, as a safety measure and then sent it to the police when Irene died. If so, I doubt very much whether she could be prevailed upon to admit it.’

  ‘All this, of course, hinging on the premise that the letter had gone by the time Ellen finally got her hands on the address book?’

  ‘That’s what she says, but why did you automatically assume it?’

  ‘Only because it would account for her subsequent behaviour; the dazed mood she was in when you went up to help her change, and the decision to postpone the honeymoon trip.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right; and not knowing who had pinched the letter, or for what purpose, would have given rise to all sorts of unpleasant speculations. Naturally, she would have been in no mood for a jolly holiday with all that weighing on her mind. One sees it clearly now.’

  ‘And she has positively no idea who might have taken it?’

  ‘None whatever, so she claims, and if she hasn’t I don’t see what chance there is for anyone else.’

  ‘Well, bend your mind to it,’ Robin advised me. ‘Personally I still regard it as largely irrelevant at this stage to worry about who intended to kill whom and for what reason. Concentrate on who set out to incriminate Desmond and you’ll be half way home.’

  Put like that, it sounded so simple.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1

  A choice between two possible approaches presented itself and one led to Desmond. It was really a matter of clearing the decks by a process of elimination, for I considered it would be as well to dispose once and for all of the theory that he had drifted so far round the bend or become so crazed with the need to draw attention to himself as to have sent his own ridiculous letter to Scotland Yard.

  The method of procedure was not immediately obvious, for although we had known each other casually for several years and had once done a provincial season together we had never had many common interests outside the theatre and I was certainly not in the habit of dropping in at his house in Notting Hill. To have invited him to lunch à deux would have caused the hackles of suspicion to work overtime.

  However, the problem was not insoluble because there was one area of neutral territory, where my own presence would appear normal
and where, with only a grain of luck, it could easily coincide with his, and this was the very same dining club where I had taken Ellen and Jeremy when she brought him along to be introduced.

  Not that Desmond was much in the habit of eating there, specially during his less affluent spells, but there was a small bar on the ground floor where he was liable to drop in any morning of the week. One reason for this was that the club, which was called Le Carillon and known, inevitably, to most of its members as the Carry On, although now situated in a quiet street behind Sloane Square, had started on a more raffish note in the neighbourhood of the Charing Cross Road, at which period practically all the clientèle had been connected in some way with show business. Most had remained loyal to the club after its move up the social ladder, for the minor inconvenience was more than outweighed by its many distinctive advantages. Notable among these were the excellence and cheapness of the food, that it was a clearing house for every stray piece of theatrical gossip, that the most flamboyant and unbridled behaviour was tolerated, so long as it stopped short of setting the premises on fire; but most of all in the personality of its president, manageress and, when occasion demanded, secretary, waitress and bottle-washer. This was a formidable old dragon named Marion Lothrop, who was also a magic dragon.

  No one knew much about her early history, mainly because it went back into the mists of time and Marion, although a great reminiscer by nature, was apt to be reticent about her childhood and early youth, but she had moved in theatrical circles all her adult life and had a single-minded devotion to the profession and to everyone engaged in it. She was a mine of information to those who cared to tap it, a tower of strength to anyone in trouble or distress and was loved and respected by her legion of friends, in which category, when the sun shone and hopes ran high, I ventured to include myself.

  It was therefore in the full expectation of picking up some news of Desmond, if not coming face to face with him, that I dropped into Le Carillon just after midday on Friday. It was before the rush hour and there were only two other people in the bar, sitting apart from each other. One of them was a plump and ruddy man, wearing sporty tweeds, whom I vaguely recognised as an agent and who was seated in a corner near the window, reading Variety. There was a vast trestle table along the wall at right angles to the bar and opposite the fireplace, and it was always stacked with the latest periodicals from all over the world. It was quite an accepted thing for some members to arrive half-an-hour early for their appointments, to save themselves the expense of a subscription to Paris-Match or the New Yorker, and this man was probably one of them, for he did not bother to raise his head when I came in.