“I’ve already phoned mine,” said Matthew. “They’re all right about it but I am going to have to put up with some pretty tiresome jokes about signing up with a marital agency.”
“Me, too,” said Jenny. “Why did you join? Can’t you get a girl on your own?”
“Don’t be rude,” said Matthew huffily. “I’m a pretty common sort of chap but I want to go far and I need a wife with a good social background. What about you?”
“I’m too shy. I got tired of dating and hoping for Mr Right to come along. It seemed an exciting idea. Also I knew I would be meeting men who were in the same boat. I never thought I would land up in the middle of a murder investigation.”
She looked at Matthew. His normally unexceptional face looked sinister in the flickering candle-light and she added suddenly, “Did you really steal that whisky?”
“Of course not,” said Matthew hotly, and then, in the same moment, he was overcome with a desire to tell the truth. “Well, I did,” he said in the next breath. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life before and I could easily have afforded to pay for it. I went down to the bar late and they had forgotten to lock it up. I was going to ring the bell and get someone to fetch me something and then I found myself looking at all those bottles, just lying there. It was like turning a kid loose in a sweetshop. I had pretty poor beginnings and I remember when my mother died, longing for a stiff drink to kill the pain and not being able to afford one. I got an excited feeling, just from pinching it, and then I had the safe knowledge that if I were caught out, I could make some excuse and pay for it. The maids must have seen the bottle in my room, for I never even bothered to hide it. Have you ever stolen anything?”
“No,” said Jenny, and then coloured. “Just the once. I was going out on this date and one of the other secretaries had this marvellous new shade of lipstick. I noticed she had left it on her desk. So I took it. I was to meet my date in a pub in Chancery Lane, so there I was all lipsticked up and do you know, he stood me up. And the next day, the other secretary raised a song and dance about that missing lipstick. I could have said, “Oh, sorry, here it is. I was going on a date and I borrowed it.” But the words stuck in my throat. And she did go on to the senior partner, on and on, and I began to be terrified she’d call the police. I could almost see that lipstick through the leather of my handbag. At lunchtime, I threw the wretched thing into a rubbish bin in the street.”
Matthew raised his glass and grinned. “Partners in crime,” he said.
Jenny did not return the toast. She looked at him seriously. “Who did it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think the police are making a mistake focusing solely on us. Why should it be one of us? Look at it this way. Peta was in a sulk and probably wanted to leave. So she decided to borrow the hotel car and drive to London through the night. But she couldn’t resist eating and so she took a hamper of goodies with her for the journey. But being a glutton, the quarry was as far as she got. She was sitting there, stuffing her face, when some local madman came on her.”
“If only that could turn out to be the case,” said Jenny wistfully.
“Oh, forget the murder. Tell me about yourself.”
Jenny told him about her idea of taking her law exams, and to her surprise and delight, he was enthusiastic. “Of course you should,” he said warmly. “You’re a bright girl. You could go far.”
And as Jenny talked on, he eyed her speculatively. If she got over that shyness and diffidence of hers, she would probably be successful. She looked bright enough. And there was bound to be money in the background. As a pair, they could grow together, go far.
The spaghetti arrived, enormous portions of it, and soothed with carbohydrate and alcohol, they talked on until they found they were the last in the restaurant.
“Time to go,” said Matthew reluctantly.
He drove her back to the castle. He thought it might be a start if he kissed her. Perhaps just before they went into the castle. Then they might have a cosy drink in the bar. Then…who knows?
But as they approached the castle, Superintendent Peter Daviot came out to meet them, his face stern in the half-light. Behind him stood Blair, Hamish, Anderson and MacNab.
“Matthew Cowper,” said the super, “will you come with us to the library? We have some further questions to ask you.”
“No,” said Jenny desperately. “You must have made a mistake.”
Mr Daviot ignored her. “Mr Cowper?”
Head down, Matthew allowed himself to be ushered into the library. “Sit doon!” barked Blair menacingly.
Matthew sat down in a hard-backed chair facing the long desk behind which the detectives and Hamish were ranged. He felt like the little Cavalier boy in that well-known painting, When Did You Last See Your Father?
“Now,” said Mr Daviot, studying a sheaf of notes, “during an extensive interview, you said you did not know Peta Gore, had never known her or heard anything about her.”
“Yes,” croaked Matthew, his small eyes ranging wildly from face to face.
“The brokerage firm for which you work is Waring’s, one of the biggest in the City, is it not?”
“Yes.”
Mr Daviot leaned back in his chair.
“Would it surprise you to know that Peta Gore was one of your firm’s biggest clients?”
Matthew looked at the floor.
“And that she once paid a rare visit to the office and was seen talking to you? Shall we start at the beginning again, Mr Cowper? And try to be truthful this time.”
∨ Death of a Glutton ∧
8
When constabulary duty’s to be done,
The policeman’s lot is not a happy one!
—W. S. Gilbert
“Oh, THAT Mrs Gore,” said Matthew feebly.
“My theory is this,” said Mr Daviot. “You were handling shares for Peta Gore and you embezzled her money and you killed her to silence her.”
Hamish noticed that a look of relief flashed across Matthew’s eyes. “No, that’s not the case,” he said. He dabbed at his mouth with his handkerchief and then leaned back in his chair, as if forcing all his tensed muscles to relax. “Waring’s is too good a firm for anything like that to happen. There are checks and double-checks. Besides, it’s a huge company. I have nothing to do with Mrs Gore’s money.”
“But one of the office juniors distinctly remembers her visiting the office and you talking to her.”
That would be Mandy, thought Matthew bitterly. Always gossiping about something.
“Look, I’ll come clean with you,” he said. “I didn’t know the Peta Gore here was anything to do with a visiting client I met several years ago. She wasn’t as gross then. Had she been, I would have remembered her right away.”
“And when did you remember?”
“It was right after she was killed. It all came back into my mind. But she never had had anything to do with me, so I thought, well, why bring it up?” demanded Matthew with a feeble perkiness. “Can I go now?”
He rose from his chair.
“Sit down,” said Mr Daviot quietly. “We haven’t even started yet.”
Three hours later, Matthew crawled from the room. It had been like some dreadful confessional. They had dragged every bit of his life out of him. How quiet the castle was! The wind had died. He reached his room and stood gloomily in the doorway, surveying the mess. Grey fingerprint dust lay everywhere. His ransacked drawers were open. They were supposed to put everything back the way they found it, or that’s what usually happened in the films. The fact that they hadn’t made him feel like a criminal. He undressed quickly, switched out the light, and stood at the window for a moment. Moonlight bathed the castle gardens. Beyond the gardens were the moors and above them the mountains. It was all so weird, so strange, like being somewhere far from civilization. His shabby Teddy bear, which went everywhere with him, had been propped neatly on the pillow. He could only be relieved that they hadn’t taken it apart.