‘I suppose I might say the same about your job,’ I retorted.
‘True, in a way, sir, but we have to establish actual facts before our imagination (which is to say our theorising) is allowed to come into play. You have no facts whatever to support your theories. It is highly unlikely that a gang of louts put grease on Mr Coberley’s doorstep. That would be merely a child’s thoughtless trick and far more likely to have been carried out by some of his own boys; it is equally unlikely that a gang of young hooligans would have known that Mr Coberley had any interest in the old house. Further to that, we have had no complaints of muggers in this town. Then again, if a gang had stabbed that young woman to death, they wouldn’t have risked picking up the body and bringing it on to Mr Wotton’s premises. They might have tumbled it over a hedge into somebody’s front garden, but after that they would have scarpered, believe you me. Now, sir, is there anything you know — actually know — about this business and which you would like to confide to me? You arrived, I understand, before any of the other guests and you are the only one of them who is still here.’
‘I don’t know a thing which would help you, Inspector, and that’s flat. Anyway, you claim that there is no reason to suspect hooliganism, but what about the burnt-out car found blocking the byroad to the old convent just close at hand?’
‘The car was left — abandoned, of course — by thieves, sir. It has nothing to do with the Mundy case.’
‘That body was never part of the bonfire at the old house, Inspector.’
‘The chief fireman’s evidence at the inquest would seem to indicate that, sir, but what makes you so certain?’
I decided that I had gone far enough, so I said that I thought it a possibility and said nothing more about Gloria’s hair. I added that I thought nets should be cast as wide as possible, that was all. He said that the police always considered a case from every angle and that perhaps I knew very little of the world outside the ivory tower (as he had heard it called) of a novelist. This nettled me. I reminded him that I was also a journalist. I then said, ‘Have you ever heard of a sheila-ma-gig, Inspector?’
‘I can’t say I have, sir.’ Having set me down, as he thought, he was good-humoured again. ‘Is it a kind of jack-in-the-box?’
‘No. You might do worse than study the subject,’ I said. ‘I think Miss Mundy was a bit of a sheila-ma-gig.’
‘You wouldn’t care to explain your meaning, sir?’
‘No. You are much too young,’ I said.
He looked at me, but all he said was: ‘Thank you for your help, sir. I had better see Mr Wotton now. Perhaps you would be good enough to locate him for me. I do not want to bring the servants into this part of my enquiry just yet.’
Before I left Beeches Lawn the three of us discussed the inspector’s visit and revealed to each other what had been said. Whether Anthony and Celia told me all that had passed between them and the inspector and whether Anthony had confided fully in Celia and vice versa, there was no telling.
‘The whole business is complicated because of the accident to Mrs Coberley,’ I said at the end of the discussion. ‘But for that, I would agree wholeheartedly that the murder was committed deliberately by somebody who detested Gloria or was very much afraid of the harm she could do him or her. That the fire was started deliberately to cover up the identity of the corpse can’t possibly be disputed, but I think the burnt-out car explains itself. The old house was a cover-up.’
‘Somebody who hated Gloria or was afraid of her? You’ve got a wide choice there, I fancy,’ said Anthony. ‘She was a real little pot of poison. Did you know about that Italian artist fellow who committed suicide after he got mixed up with her?’
‘You think Rouse ought to cast his net a lot wider than he seems to be doing? That’s exactly what I told him.’
‘I suppose she did turn up here unexpectedly?’ said Celia suddenly and with obvious meaning.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ shouted Anthony. ‘Of course she did! And now will you lay off? Do you want to see me doing a thirty-year stretch for killing her? Stop picking on me, for God’s sake! I thought we’d done with all that!’
I decided, rightly or wrongly, to speak my mind.
‘Look here, you two,’ I said, ‘if you don’t take care, you are going to land one another in the cart if you continue with all this damn silly bickering. Celia, you foolish girl, you must have known, even if he hadn’t told you, that you weren’t marrying a man unspotted by the world. I can’t think what woman would want to marry Sir Galahad. He may have been perfection perfected, but I bet he was the biggest prig on earth and the most blasted, pie-faced boring do-gooder ever to have out-miracled Pollyanna. Why don’t you grow up? Your job is to stick by Anthony and back him through thick and thin. Where’s that “Voice that breathed o’er Eden” gone to?’
‘The voice that breathed o’er Eden was the voice of the serpent,’ said Anthony, red in the face. ‘Get lost, Corin! Drop dead, if you prefer it! One more crack out of you in criticism of my wife and I’ll knock you silly.’
‘Oh, Anthony!’ said Celia. Before she could add, ‘My hero!’ I slid out. My bags were already packed. I left without formal leave-taking, reflecting with some self-satisfaction that Dame Beatrice herself would have been the first to congratulate me on my handling of a domestic situation which, if Celia had been kinder and wiser, need never have arisen between her and Anthony.
I went back to my flat, left some laundry and a note for the woman who ‘did’ for me, re-packed and telephoned the first of the hotels to let the manager know that I should be along early on the following day. They had all been warned by McMaster that I could give only short notice of my visits, so that nobody could say exactly when these would be. The result was that I had been offered various types of accommodation, from an attic room in the staff quarters to a room in an annexe, to a luxurious suite on the ground floor which happened to be vacant at the time of my arrival. I had accepted what was offered without comment, regarding it as the luck of the draw so far as bedrooms were concerned. The food, drink and other amenities had always been beyond praise, so I had nothing to complain about.
The first of the Cornish hotels had been purchased from an old-established family which could no longer afford to keep it up, even by turning it into a tourist attraction. It was somewhat forbidding from the outward view, a very plain-looking Georgian house whose south façade was relieved from otherwise uncompromising austerity by a very fine pillared portico and the addition on either side of twin pavilions, light, graceful and charming.
I sub-edited the brochure for this house, finding little to add or alter, and telephoned McMaster, with whom I kept in touch when I was ready to pass on to the next hotel. When I handed in my key to the receptionist, she produced a letter for me.
As soon as I scanned the envelope I knew that the writing was unknown to me. As it had been re-addressed from my publishers’ London address, I took it for fan-mail, thrust it into my pocket and did not read it until I was in my room at the second Cornish hotel. This hotel was, as a building, the most interesting and unusual of all those which I had surveyed. It had begun as a monastery, had been fortified later by one of its abbots, had passed into private hands in the sixteenth century; from then onwards it had been altered and enlarged until the company of which McMaster was a director had taken it over, demolished its most grotesque and unfortunate features and left it in the form which might have been the intention of the original planners, at any rate so far as its outward appearance was concerned. Inside, like all the other McMaster hotels I had visited, it was almost boringly luxurious.