‘Oh, no, of course he — I mean, I’m sure Patsy didn’t do anything of the sort,’ I said. ‘Why should she? Carbridge was pretty frightful in a back-slapping, “old boy, old boy” sort of way, and a bit of a nuisance to women, perhaps, but he was utterly harmless, I’m sure. If he was lured into that house and murdered, it had nothing to do with young Patsy Carlow. She is as silly as a wench can be, but —’
‘Then you mean somebody sent Carbridge a note in her name,’ said Laura, ‘and he fell into the trap.’
‘Dear me!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘No wonder Sally’s novels had so little success with the public! Her plots must have been singularly inadequate. Let us hope the story told by the hangman’s hanger-on will prove more profitable to her.’
‘Is there any chance that this Bull’s reminiscences will get published?’ asked Laura. I replied that I would have no idea until I had read them, but that our secretary, a knowledgeable young woman, thought there might be a hope.
‘It depends upon what Miss Lestrange can do with the material and, of course, how much of it the old chap can supply,’ I said. ‘People who don’t know the ropes have no idea how much and what kind of information is needed to make a full-length book. Personally, knowing what I do about Bull, I doubt very much whether Miss Lestrange will find the job worth her while. All the famous murderers have been done to death — well, I don’t quite mean that. I mean, they’ve been written up and their crimes dissected and their trials analysed and goodness knows what-all. I can’t imagine that Bull will have anything fresh to say and, in any case, he was hardly a principal figure, I gather.’
‘I don’t know how they could ever find anybody willing to hang another person,’ said Laura, ‘but I believe I would have hated even more to be the judge who had to pass sentence, than I would to be the hangman.’
‘Both are in the hands of a higher power, to wit, the jury,’ I said. ‘It is the twelve good persons and true with whom the verdict of innocent or guilty rests. The judge merely passes sentence and the hangman merely used to carry it out. Personally I would rather be hanged than serve a life sentence. I’m very sure of that.’
‘You say that now, but only because you are in no danger of either,’ said Laura. ‘You might feel differently if you were in the condemned cell.’
‘The trouble with juries,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘is that they have no conception of what really constitutes evidence. If they had, I, for one, should not be with you today.’
I stared at her, but she cackled, so I concluded that she had not meant what her sinister hint implied. Anyway, I had found out what I wanted to know. Because of the connection Sally had formed with my agency, Dame Beatrice was prepared to take an active part in solving the mystery of Carbridge’s death.
13: Suggestions for a Replay
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It was Laura who kept the ball rolling. ‘It’s a long time since we saw much of Sally,’ she said. ‘She has popped in for an occasional lunch, but she hasn’t stayed here since you both went to Sir Humphry Calshott’s house and she let herself in for hunting a Loch Ness monster at Tannasgan. Do you remember?’
‘It is not an experience to be forgotten,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and, when it was over, Sir Humphry (against his better judgement, I suspect) published Sally’s first novel. Time passes like an ever-rolling stream, but the flotsam it leaves behind stays with us. I wonder what arrangements can be made for Sally and Mr Bull to get together over this autobiography?’
‘I think there is only one course open to them,’ I said. ‘Miss Lestrange is a free agent; Bull is not. It looks to me as though she will have to go to the hall of residence to jot down his reminiscences if she takes on the job. Once term starts, Bull won’t be able to get away from his duties and he lives in.’
‘And all those wild-eyed, frenzied male polytechnic students will be back,’ said Laura. ‘The girl must be chaperoned.’
‘Exactly,’ said Dame Beatrice, leering at her secretary.
‘Ah!’ I said. ‘So that’s it, is it? Well, I’m delighted to hear it. It’s high time someone with an open mind investigated the circumstances of Carbridge’s death.’
‘I had the impression you didn’t like him much,’ said Laura.
‘It’s because of that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the police never really had anything on Bull, and Bingley knew it. He only arrested him as a gesture. Now he’s got to find somebody else to stick the label on. As soon as somebody — probably under pressure — blows the gaff and tells him I knocked Carbridge for six at Crianlarich, I’m in the cart.’
‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you had attacked him. You probably had the best of reasons, but those will not weight the scales of justice in your favour; you were present at the students’ party and it was you who found the body.’
‘I have an alibi from the midday onwards. Carbridge must have been dead long before Hera and I showed up at the party. We shopped, had a late lunch together and went to a cinema. I’m sure I can prove all this. Besides, until I was told of the unlocked back door, the students’ entrance to the hall of residence, I knew nothing about how to get into the house except by ringing the front-door bell.’
‘What?’ said Laura. ‘That plea won’t hold water. Oh, not that I don’t believe you, but the police will argue that you could have heard about a way in by a back door from the students who walked The Way with you. They’ll say they don’t remember talking about it, but things do come out in conversation and seem so trivial at the time that nobody takes any notice unless something blows up later.’
‘Where, in London, is the hall of residence to be found?’ asked Dame Beatrice. I gave her the address and Laura wrote it down. She said that she would get in touch with the warden. ‘I take your point about the autobiography,’ she said. ‘As Mahomet cannot, by reason of his occupation, go to the mountain, Sally must go to Mahomet. But I shall see to it that she does not go alone.’
‘Sally would hardly relish being called a mountain,’ said Laura. ‘I wonder what the warden thinks about this autobiography business?’
‘I wonder how much he knows about the whole project,’ I said.
Next morning at the office Sandy spoke to me on a subject which had crossed my own mind more than once, but which, because of Hera, I had never raised. He came into my room, waited while I finished dictating a letter to Elsa, gave her some envelopes and said, ‘I’ve looked through this lot and some of it needs a woman’s tactful approach. Tell Minster and Wynn that, if they think Tacitus Player will agree to staying on the same advance for his next three books, they’ve got another think coming; and, if Latter and Day don’t pay up soon on that textbook they commissioned from Seppie Leveret, proceedings are jolly well going to be taken which will make them as sick as mud. Put it all in your own winsome way, dear. We don’t want any hard feelings. All the same, tell M. and W. that Player can sell his stuff anywhere nowadays, and that if they don’t want him on their list there’s plenty as does. As for Seppie Leveret, the poor woman has been an angel of patience. She spent two years writing that damn book for them and she has to eat and clothe herself and keep the home fires burning, just like the rest of us. Sock it to them good and proper, but always the kid glove, not the iron gauntlet, on the hand which manipulates the hosepipe.’
‘Don’t he talk lovely!’ said Elsa. She blew him a kiss and went out, taking her sheaves with her. Sandy waved me to a chair, went to a cupboard and took out bottles and glasses.
‘Those letters will keep her busy for a bit,’ he said. ‘I wanted to get her out of the way. Comrie, don’t you think it’s time we offered that girl a partnership?’