Dance to Your Daddy

'I do not think he had that,' said Dame Beatrice.

'That settles it, then,' said Kirkby. 'We shall have to tell the beaks we have no case. The only motive this charlatan could have for getting rid of Mr Willoughby was that the poor gentleman might have given the game away. Take away that motive, and the ground disappears from under our feet. At least, that's the way I see it.'

'The motive would still hold if Romilly thought that Willoughby could unmask him,' Dame Beatrice pointed out.

'Yes, ma'am, I agree, but how are we going to prove that he did think it? If he was (as seems pretty certain) the real Mr Romilly's partner in the coffee plantation out in Kenya, he'd know there weren't photographs sent home, I take it, and he'd know that the nephews hadn't been born when Romilly emigrated. No doubt their father sent the news, and he may have sent photographs of them when they were children, but, as the Reverend Mr Lestrange has just told us, there was no reciprocation. Anyway, it seems to me now that there was no chance whatever that Mr Willoughby could have known that his so-called uncle was an imposter. What do you say to that, ma'am?'

'Several things,' replied Dame Beatrice, 'but perhaps the time is not ripe to say them. I will go so far as to point out, however, that, although it seems more than likely that this Romilly was the real Romilly's partner out in Kenya, even that is not an established fact. Secondly, if this Romilly supposed (mistakenly, as it turns out) that Willoughby could expose him, why did he not suppose that some one or other, or possibly all, of the other young relatives would be in a similar powerful position?'

'Yes, I had thought of that, ma'am, of course, and, so far, we don't know the answer.'

'Well, I have one more question to put to you, my dear Hubert. Is it true that you officiated at your grandfather's funeral?' asked Dame Beatrice.

'I? Oh, dear me, no. I had no idea he was dead until I had a letter from Willoughby to tell me so, and to inform me that we should get our father's share of the money left him in the Will. I was, even then, in Italy, and had been there for a couple of years. My grandfather was buried long before I got Willoughby's letter.'

'Pelion on Ossa,' said Dame Beatrice. 'I understood that you had been in Italy for merely a matter of months. However, it probably makes no difference, as neither you nor your brother was invited to the house-warming at Galliard Hall.'

'Pelion on Ossa?' repeated the Reverend Hubert. 'No, I assure you! My stipend is anything but large. The money came, after probate had been granted, and I was exceedingly grateful for it.'

'That was not what I meant,' said Dame Beatrice.

'What did you mean, ma'am,' asked Kirkby, 'apart from what you said about the house-warming?'

'Only that, if I were Willoughby's murderer, I would be inclined to exclaim, "How all occasions do inform against me!" I am not Willoughby's murderer, but what was a theory of mine is now in a fair way of becoming susceptible of proof. Tell me, Mr Kirkby, why do people lie?'

'From fear, in the hope of gain, for social reasons or just because they're made that way,' said Kirkby.

(2)

'Of course,' said Dame Beatrice to Laura, that same evening, 'we get a different and a more interesting picture if we reverse our point of view.'

'About what?'

'About which party to believe. Led partly by your almost violent antipathy to our fosterling, I long ago examined matters afresh. Let us look at them together. For some little time I accepted Rosamund's story as being true in the main. What if Romilly and, particularly, Judith, are speaking the truth, and Rosamund has been lying?'

'You mean that she is Romilly's wife?'

'That is a possibility, among other things.'

'What other things?'

'Let us go back to the beginning of my acquaintance with the inmates of Galliard Hall. Almost immediately I arrived there, I was given two versions of the same thing. A bevy of relatives had been invited as members of a house-party. Judith informed me that they had been invited by Rosamund. Rosamund insisted that they were Romilly's guests.'

'Well, on that, I should be prepared to accept Rosamund's version. It doesn't seem that she was in a position to invite hordes of relatives to the house.'

'I did accept her version, and I am inclined to continue to do so, but with certain mental reservations. She may not have issued the invitations, but I think she supplied the addresses.'

'So, on point number one, she wasn't lying.'

'On the second point, however, I think she was. She claimed to possess no modern clothes. She insisted that Romilly and Judith caused her to wear nothing but fancy dress so that she could not hope to escape from Galliard Hall without attracting so much attention that she would inevitably be traced and brought back. There is evidence, however, that she had a wardrobe filled with suitable attire which, for her own purposes, she declined to wear.'

'If so, she lied, and the score is one-all, but what makes you think she did lie?'

'There is the fact that I was never allowed to see Rosamund's room.'

'That was at Romilly's suggestion, though, didn't you tell me?'

'Oh, no. It was at Rosamund's own wish. Romilly merely pleaded that the room was very untidy.'

'Well, we'll keep an open mind about the clothes, then, with the balance in favour of a lie by Rosamund, but it's all very sketchy, you know.'

'I realise that. I am not trying to blacken Rosamund's character, but nothing is lost by going over the ground in a critical spirit, and it is always interesting to see what a thing looks like from another angle. Well, then came the rather odd affair of the picture which covered the squint in my bedroom wall. It was Rosamund herself who drew my attention to it.'

'Only because she said it had not been there before you came. You thought you'd been given that particular room because the squint was there, and you deduced that anybody in the adjoining room could hear what passed between Rosamund and yourself while she was having her treatment.'

'Yes, but suppose Rosamund drew my attention to the picture because she wanted me to take it down?'

'But why should she want that?'

'I have not yet made up my mind whether that is what she wanted, but there is something about which I have misled you. When I realised that a rifle-shot, fired through the squint, would have a fair chance of killing anybody lying in my bed, and when I discovered that the bed was clamped to the floor, so that its position could not be altered, I told you that I took the precaution of changing round the bedding, so that my head was out of range of a gunshot. My feet were in no danger, since I am considerably shorter than a full-length bed. Well, the disturbance I mentioned took place in my room.'

'Good Lord! You don't mean somebody did take a pop at you?' Laura looked so horrified that Dame Beatrice cackled. 'Do you know who it was?'

'No. However, I am very much obliged to you for saving my life.'

'When did I do that?'

'Well, as I said before, but for a long and fascinating study of your swashbuckling, romantic nature, I should never have envisaged the possibilities of that squint. Enough of that. Let us proceed. I realised, of course, that if Rosamund really needed psychiatric treatment, the atmosphere in a houseful of guests was the last which I would choose. I suggested to Romilly, therefore, that I should remove Rosamund to my own house and continue the treatment there. To my astonishment he consented, making no conditions and placing no obstacles in my way. I was suspicious of his attitude, I must confess. On the other hand, it hardly coincides with Rosamund's complaint that she was never allowed to leave Galliard Hall.'