‘I still don’t see the point.’
‘You are poisoning Florian, isn’t it?’
‘Willingly — if I could do it without being caught. I don’t like the beautiful boy. He’s a headache.’
‘And to you?’ screamed Rebekah.
‘To me? I knocked his ribs in once, and I can do it again.’
‘So?’
‘So I didn’t murder those silly girls. Why not write that in your memoirs?’
‘You paid too much for that suit!’
‘No, I did not. What will you give me for it?’
‘Twenty-five pounds.’
‘Nothing doing. I like this suit.’
‘You do?’
‘What’s more, what on earth do you think you’re doing here, ruining my reputation with Dame Beatrice?’
‘She is not believing,’ she said, assessing the reactions with accuracy.
‘Of course she isn’t. You’d better let me take you out for a nice ride in my car, with dinner to follow.’
‘Where we are going?’
‘Wherever you like. You say, and that’s where we go.’
‘Marlow?’
‘All right.’
‘No,’ said Rebekah, with decision. ‘I go to where you murdered those pretty girls down in Derbyshire.’
‘O.K., then. Perhaps you’ll tell me where you got the poison, because I didn’t kill them, you know.’
His relative laughed. It was relaxed, delightful laughter and she surrendered herself to it. Dame Beatrice looked sympathetic.
‘So what is it, this laughing?’ demanded Rebekah, coming to. ‘You…’ she pointed to Dame Beatrice, ‘you are psychiatrist, isn’t it? Why am I laughing at a broken heart?’
‘Dame Beatrice,’ said Bernardo, ‘is a specialist, and a world-famous one, my love. Specialists expect to be paid for their professional services. Don’t cadge!’
‘And in name of friendship?’
‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend,’ quoted Bernardo.
‘And friend you are not!’ shouted Rebekah. ‘What way should be your friendship, when you don’t let me ask one small little simple question about broken hearts?’
‘Broken hearts can cost quite big money, my love.’
‘Is a breach of promise case you are meaning?’
‘You are so right, but you’re getting away from the point. I suggest that you stop bothering Dame Beatrice and that we take ourselves off. I’m certain we’re wasting her time. Besides, hotels don’t keep their dinners on all night.’
‘You should get yourself out of here, yes, and before I can say sixty-seven pesetas,’ said Rebekah.
‘Well, can you?’ enquired her grandson. ‘Thixty-theven pethetath doesn’t sound exactly right to me.’
‘Oh, you are English public school,’ yelled his relative. ‘How comes this Florian with all that poison? That is what I ask.’
‘The answer isn’t a lemon, you know,’ said Bernardo, coolly. ‘Bend the brain, dear. You know as well as I do where the poison came from. So does Dame Beatrice, I think. The only problem is to find out which of them actually sent it, and also why. I think I know, but I hesitate to commit myself. Rash statements have an awkward way, like those problem chickens one hears mentioned, of coming home to roost.’
‘When I am a girl,’ said Rebekah, ‘we are finding the hens’ eggs in a silly hedge.’
‘You are not referring to a cuckoo in the nest, by any chance?’
‘If there are cuckoos, they are Derde and Sweyn. What do they make, passing up on their father’s money, the way it is?’ Her tone changed. She turned to Dame Beatrice. ‘You are not letting my Bernie be hanged, you say?’ Dame Beatrice reassured her.
‘A neck God made for other use than strangling in a string,’ quoted Bernardo, to the fury of his grandmother.
‘Ingrateful! Here I am saving you from the hanging.’
‘Ungrateful. Ingratitude. How you can have lived in England all these years and still haven’t managed to absorb the very rudiments of the language, I shall never understand.’
‘I think,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that the time has come for us to put our cards on the table.’
‘A show-down, yes,’ said Rebekah, emphatically. ‘Then we all know where we are, and I go to a grand slam.’
‘I doubt it,’ said her grandson, ‘but it may clear the air a bit. Dame Beatrice, will you take first innings?’
‘So she shall give us ideas we do not have,’ objected Rebekah.
‘You may well be right, Mrs Rose,’ agreed Dame Beatrice. ‘Why should we not write down what we believe to be the truth and so compare notes? As I see it, there are four basic questions to be answered. Where did the poison come from in the first place? Who impregnated the chocolate-cream with it? Did Mr Florian Colwyn-Welch know or guess that the chocolate-cream was poisoned? If he did know this, or guess it, why did he give it to Effie the barmaid? Why not have thrown it away?’
‘Yes, I write my answers to all that,’ said Rebekah, ‘but I am not carrying pencils and paper.’
Bernardo took out a fountain pen and a used envelope. His grandmother twitched away the envelope, read the superscription on it and the date on the postmark, sniffed and handed it back. She gestured at his pen.
‘Fountain pen is old-fashioned,’ she sneered. ‘So you are not with it. Should be ball-point.’
‘This pen was a present from the family, darling, and, by the way, Dame Beatrice is trying to hand you a scribbling block and a silver pencil.’
‘Hall-marked?’
‘Hall-marked,’ Dame Beatrice assured her.
‘At trade price, with diamond in the top, I get you a gold pencil, if you save my Bernie’s life.’
Dame Beatrice did not commit herself to purchasing a diamond-topped gold pencil, even at trade price. She picked up the house telephone and made contact with Laura, who appeared in the doorway.
‘We are going to do a little writing,’ Dame Beatrice explained. ‘When we have answered the questions, I shall require you to help me to scrutinise the answers.’
‘Well!’ exclaimed Laura, when Rebekah and her grandson had gone. ‘So that’s what you were aiming at when you asked all those questions about where the various people spent the war! I suppose Bernardo is as innocent as he seems? The old lady was in a bit of a state when she got here.’
‘She has a persecution complex,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and, of course, the strongest affection for her grandson.’
‘Yes, you were right about that,’ said Laura. ‘Well, now, what about this analysis?’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Analysis of Three Reactions
‘… for the honour of human nature, we should be glad to find the shocking tale not true.’
James Boswell
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Dame Beatrice took up the papers and studied them. She had written her own answers for purposes of comparison with those of Rebekah and Bernardo and she found comparison illuminating. Summarised, to some extent, the papers read:
Question 1
dame beatrice: Likely, but not absolutely certain, that the hydrocyanic acid came from the Colwyn-Welch apartment in Amsterdam, for Binnen had been a member of the Dutch Resistance.
bernardo: No doubt prussic acid could have been obtained by my great-aunt Binnen, who was an undercover agent of some sort during the war.
rebekah: Binnen may have been given means of suicide in case of being captured by (unprintable) pigs of Gestapo. She was helping escapes.
Question 2
dame beatrice: Granted that the chocolate-cream was doctored at, and sent from, Binnen’s home, I doubt very much whether she herself had any hand in, or knowledge of, the matter.
bernardo: Unless Great-aunt turned the poison in when war ended, Opal or Ruby or both could have got at it. Great-aunt would not use it for murder.