Death in the Round

by Anne Morice

  FIFTEEN

  Nothing occurred during the afternoon rehearsal session either to disprove or confirm Kyril’s allegations. It was true that Jamie had chosen this occasion to be present, but, although unusual, this was not unique and it could have been sheer imagination on my part that there was something specially wary and watchful in his behaviour, such as one might expect from a dramatist whose fledgling director was going through an emotional crisis.

  Unfortunately, as I knew from experience, his presence on its own, watchful or otherwise, was enough to precipitate an emotional crisis and the fact that Len continually lost his place in the script, changed his mind from one minute to the next, was querulous and facetious by turns and pulled his hair about until it looked like an old floor mop, did not necessarily indicate that part of his mind was on a funeral service, which was taking place only eight miles away.

  So when this painful session had at last come to an end and Viola and I were on our way home, I decided to try her out on the subject and, with no beating about the bush, asked her whether there was any truth in the rumour that Len and Melanie had been more than just bad friends. It has to be acknowledged that this was in direct contravention to the undertaking I had given Kyril, but I thought very little of that. If what he had said was true, then he cannot have been the only one to have known about it and, although Viola may not have been the most observant woman to be encountered in a day’s march, it was unlikely to come as red hot news to her.

  However, I was prepared to protect Kyril up to a point and when she replied to my question with one of her own, to the effect that she would be interested to hear where I had picked up such an extraordinary notion, I said: ‘Nowhere in particular. Something about the way he spoke of her the first time I met him gave me the idea that he might be slightly bitten. Was I wrong?’

  It seemed to me that I was continually trying to get people to part with information while they were driving cars and that this gave them an unfair advantage. Evidently, they could not be expected to keep up a steady flow of conversation while also required to watch the traffic lights, change gear and wait to see whether that idiot in front was really going to turn right. I could almost hear the thoughts buzzing through Viola’s head as she applied herself to these tasks, but unfortunately there was no way of telling whether her words, which ultimately took the form of yet another question, accurately reflected them.

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you, Tessa, that Len’s tastes lie in a somewhat different direction?’

  ‘I thought he was a bit indeterminate, if you really want to know.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, you know, no hard and fast preferences, capable of falling in love with just about anyone, irrespective of age or sex. For instance, I realise he’s got a slight crush on Jamie, but he was also undeniably potty about Elfrieda.’

  ‘That’s rather different, dear.’

  ‘I know, I only meant that he’s obviously got a great deal of love and affection to fling about, it’s practically spilling over and that a little bit of it might have over-flowed on to Melanie. However, you obviously don’t agree?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ Viola answered, carefully negotiating the turn on to the cliff road. ‘I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms before, but there could be something in it. I do know that he was giving her some coaching at one point. One more or less took it for granted that he was doing it on instructions from Elfrieda, but when you think of it, she would hardly have ordered him to do that. So maybe it was entirely his own idea and the desire to do himself a bit of good with Elfrieda was only incidental. Now, be an angel and open the garage door for me, will you?’

  It struck me as I performed this angelic task that this was the second time in an afternoon that my suggestion of there being some special relationship between Len and Melanie had met first with a stern rebuttal and only minutes later with the admission that, perhaps after all, there could be some truth in it.

  The trouble was that I could not be sure whether this was because I had been clever enough to wring these concessions from both Kyril and Viola, against their better judgement, or whether they had been clever enough to fob me off with a half truth, the better to conceal the whole one. So I decided to seek information elsewhere.

  Enquiries in the town had elicited the news that the Brackley Place Children’s Home had been founded, endowed and, in his lifetime, virtually governed by Elfrieda’s great uncle, Joseph Henshaw. Although nowadays subject to all the rules and controls of the Welfare Department, it was still a registered charity, existing mainly on voluntary contributions.

  In the early days its doors had been opened to sixty orphaned boys and girls, aged from infancy to fourteen years and, with that celebrated Victorian blend of high philanthropy and low cunning, Joseph had laid it down that, along with the three R’s and a heavy dose of religious instruction, every inmate should be trained in domestic service.

  In compliance with modern prejudice, this condition had now been dropped, but there was still a domestic science course open to those who wished to take it and Mrs Banks, of the Green Man, who was my principal informant in these matters, told me that it was probably an above average one. She and her husband had several times taken on apprentices and part time workers from the Home during the summer season and most of them had turned out well.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to remember the Matron’s name?’ I asked her and, luckily, it was unusual enough for her to have no difficulty in recalling it. She was called Mrs Bracegirdle and I rang her up and made an appointment to call on her the following day, introducing myself, just in case she had seen my name in the advance publicity, as Mrs Robin Price.

  Brackley Place, as I then discovered, was set slightly back from the Dearehaven-Dorchester road and, fortunately for me, was on a bus route. This also helped to explain how Melanie had been able to ran away with such regularity.

  From the outside it was unexpectedly attractive, consisting of one medium sized house and six or eight bungalows, each with its own garden, grouped around it and separated from each other by grass and trees.

  It had not taken long to hit on what I regarded as an adequate pretext for this visit and I had explained on the telephone that I was engaged on the official biography of Elfrieda and was in search of material for it.

  Evidently, it had not occurred to Mrs Bracegirdle, who was a stout, fair haired woman with brilliant false teeth, that whichever officials had appointed me had been remarkably quick off the mark and, better still, she showed no curiosity whatever about my previous work in this field. She was intensely proud of her establishment and her single concern was to leave me in no doubt about the non-institutional, free and easy and humanitarian fashion in which it was run, extolling the happy results which had been achieved during her administration by splitting the children into small groups, each supervised by its own house mother and so creating not just one, but half a dozen happy families. After a while one began to feel quite sorry for children who were brought up in ordinary homes by their own parents.

  However, I also had my bus to think about, so I assured her that everything she had told me would be scrupulously reported in the book, but that I was also anxious to place it in relation to the late Elfrieda.

  ‘I daresay you have quite a few personal memories?’ I asked her. ‘Did she often visit you?’

  ‘Well no, not so much in my time. She suffered dreadfully from arthritis, as I expect you know, and I’ve only been here the eight years. Not wishing to boast, there’ve been a good many improvements since then, though I do say it.’

  ‘Yes, I can tell, but Miss Henshaw still took an interest in the place, I gather?’

  ‘Oh, she did indeed, she was a real friend to us. Always giving charity performances at her theatre to raise money for something extra we needed and the children were given seats for the panto every Boxing Day matinée, without fail. She was a real old darling.’

  ‘So you’re
going to miss her?’

  ‘You can say that again! And not only for that sort of thing, either. She was a wonder at finding good foster parents. One or two of them have even come back for more.’

  ‘And I understand she took one of them in herself?’ Mrs Bracegirdle looked puzzled: ‘No, I can’t call to mind her doing that. Not in my time, anyway.’

  ‘I was thinking of that poor girl who was found murdered on the beach the other day. She was one of yours, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, Melanie Jones! Yes, I see what you mean. Miss Henshaw did take her under her wing, that’s true, and much thanks she got for it, by all accounts; but that was a bit different. It was years after Melanie left here.’

  ‘But she was here in your day?’

  ‘For a year or two. She must have been ten or eleven when I first came and, to tell you the truth, Mrs Price, I hate to say this about any kiddie, but I wasn’t all that sorry to see the back of her.’

  ‘So no foster parents there?’

  She sighed: ‘We did our best. She had her chance, same as the others. Two of them, in fact, but the hard truth is that Melanie was one of our few failures.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She had a couple of trial periods. Some families prefer that, you know. They don’t want what you might call permanencies, but they’re willing to take a child for a few weeks and then, if it works out well, they make a regular thing of it. Not always a very satisfactory arrangement, to my mind; a bit unsettling, if you know what I mean, but in Melanie’s case it did a lot more harm than good, on both sides.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because she was Melanie, I suppose. Probably couldn’t help herself, poor kid, but she had such grand ideas. Forever boasting and carrying on to the other children about how she came from a very aristocratic family, and I don’t know what all. Anyway, we thought it might do her good to spread her wings a bit and a nice, middle-aged couple took her in one summer. They had a child of their own, but he was nearly old enough to go to college by then and they liked the idea of having somebody young about the place. Kind, decent people they were, and doing their best, but ordinary, if you take my meaning? He had a chemist’s shop in the High Street. Did very well out of it, too, but that wasn’t half grand enough to suit Miss Melanie Jones, oh dear me, no. You’d never believe how she behaved. Criticising their table manners, turning up her nose at their friends, a proper little monkey she was. I’m sorry to have to say such things, seeing what’s happened to her, but there it is and, naturally enough, they weren’t keen to repeat the experiment.’

  ‘So where did she go the next time?’

  ‘Well, that wasn’t until a year or two later. It was all Miss Henshaw’s doing and it’ll give you an idea of the sort of person she was. “Very well”, she says. “If the silly girl thinks she’s so superior, let’s give her a chance to put it to the test”, and she actually got round some very rich people to take Melanie in one Easter time. Goodness knows how she managed it, because I’m sure they’d never have dreamt of such a thing, left to themselves, but there you are! That was Miss Henshaw all over. Once she’d set her mind on something she usually got her own way. I’m sure a lot of people will tell you that.’

  ‘They already have. So she knew Melanie as long ago as that?’

  ‘Oh well, only by her case history, so to speak. I doubt if there was anything personal in it. We never have less than forty children here and a good number of them are ships that pass in the night. It’s unlikely she’d have been able to put a face to any one name.’

  ‘And I gather this second visit was a flop too? What went wrong this time?’

  ‘That was worse than ever, in a sense. At least, with the others she’d just been silly and showing off, but the second time it ended with her being packed off back here in disgrace.’

  ‘Why? What had she done?’

  ‘Stolen some money, if you please! The lady of the house caught her in the act. I must say that was a real blow. I suppose it was being surrounded by so much luxury which did it, but to be fair I’d never thought her capable of that sort of thing. Naughty and rebellious yes, but not dishonest. Anyway, that was the end of it and we didn’t try again. In fact, it wasn’t long afterwards that she first ran away and what a lot of trouble that led to! Of course she had her good points too, I don’t deny it. She was full of bright ideas, some of them too bright by half, and she was crazy about play acting, always organising the others into getting up entertainments. Quite clever some of them were too, but she always had to be the one to shine and she wanted to keep all the best parts for herself. Proper little show off, as I say.’

  I would have encouraged her to say more, but my bus was almost due and there was still one question to be asked:

  ‘You’ve been so kind,’ I began, ‘and I’m wondering if I dare ask you to help me in just one more way?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Mrs Price, so long as you promise to give us a nice writeup in your book. What was it you wanted to know?’

  ‘I was hoping you might be able to give me the address of those people, the chemist and his wife, who had Melanie to stay? You see, facts and dates and so on are relatively easy to come by, but what I’m digging for is anecdotes. It’s fair to assume that Miss Henshaw interviewed this couple personally, at least once, before the visit was fixed up and it would be awfully useful to hear some of their memories of her.’

  ‘Oh, there now, what a shame!’ Mrs Bracegirdle said, sounding genuinely regretful. ‘Sorry dear, I’m afraid you’ve stumped me this time. They moved away from here a year or two ago and that shop has been pulled down now. It’s all these multiple stores. I suppose you could make some enquiries at the post office? There might be some record of a forwarding address?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, I’ll try that, and in the meantime . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  The other family you mentioned? Are they still around, by any chance?’

  She hesitated, looking dubious for the first time, but then, apparently overcoming her scruples, she said:

  ‘Well, I really can’t see any reason for not telling you. They wouldn’t mind now, after all these years, and you’re bound to come across them, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, am I? Why’s that?’

  ‘Because they’re relations of Miss Henshaw, you see! Mr and Mrs Douglas. Sir Douglas, as he is now.’

  SIXTEEN

  ‘So that was the end of that jolly little masquerade,’ Robin said, having arrived later that evening and heard my description of the visit to Brackley Place, during dinner at the Green Man.

  ‘Looks like it,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t very well go capering over to Dene Cottage and present myself as Mrs R. Price, who has been commissioned to write the official biography. But what do you make of it, Robin? When we had lunch there last Sunday and the subject of Melanie came up, Douglas flatly denied having met her.’

  ‘Probably didn’t make the connection. It was a long time ago, after all, and I daresay he’d hardly given her a thought since then.’

  ‘Even so, I bet you it would have all come floating back when he read about the murder. Melanie Jones is not a name you hear every day of your life, is it? I think it’s more likely that he knew exactly who she was and didn’t want to admit it.’

  ‘So now, I suppose, you are working on a lovely story of the ten-year-old Melanie mastering the combination of the Henshaw safe, clawing around with her baby fingers for bundles of cash and coming across some incriminating documents, which she has been using to blackmail Douglas ever since?’

  ‘Quite right, Robin, that’s exactly what I am doing.’

  ‘Rather young for such sophisticated practices, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Well, it’s only your idea that she was ten at the time. In fact, Mrs Bracegirdle told me that it was soon afterwards that she ran away, so she must have been at least thirteen by then and probably precocious with it.’

  ‘All the same, you’d have a job to prove anything.’ />
  ‘I’ll keep at it.’

  ‘Yes, I expect you will,’ he sighed, ‘but in the meantime there are more pressing matters requiring your attention. Have you been able to lay on some golf for me tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Certainly, I have. It’s all fixed up with Jamie. He’ll take you there in person and introduce you.’

  ‘Jamie’s a member?’

  ‘Not an active one. He joined it so as to be free to march about all over the course whenever he chooses. Also, from a professional standpoint, he likes to sit in the clubhouse and eavesdrop on the playing members’ conversation. He says it can be very weird and fascinating.’

  ‘I must see if I can’t tune in myself,’ Robin said, ‘and bring some home for you.’

  For a beginner he didn’t do badly, but then it must be said that he had more than his share of beginner’s luck.

  In the first place, Jamie, who was famous enough for his company to be eagerly sought in the higher social echelons and knew everyone who was worth knowing, introduced him to Colonel Meyrick, the local Chief Constable, on the assumption that they would have much in common, besides a shared dedication to that footling game.

  Knowing a little by now of Jamie and his methods, I could hazard the guess that he was grinding an axe of his own in bringing them together, but did not object to this, since he was also grinding mine in the process.

  The truth was that, despite my solemn warning to Viola, we had been sadly neglected by the police in the matter of Melanie’s murder. Apart from taking brief statements from everyone at the Rotunda, to establish when he or she had last seen her alive, they had left us severely alone and we were quite in the dark as to what, if any, line of investigation they were pursuing.