“You used the word ‘persecution’. Was that, perhaps, an exaggerated way of expressing yourself?”
“No, it wasn’t. Apart from being terrified of going outside my own front door because of gaping sightseers, I’ve begun receiving some very personal and unpleasant anonymous letters.”
“Dear me! I sympathise, but that sort of thing is a matter for the police. Turn the letters over to them.”
“I don’t believe they would be interested. The letters contain innuendoes, but not threats. Couldn’t you find out who is sending them and get them stopped?”
“Do they all come from the same person?”
“If I knew that, I could deal with them myself, I suppose. I don’t know whether they all come from the same person, but I don’t suppose they do. I could give you some likely names, but I wouldn’t know which of them to pick out. Donald was quite promiscuous, and there might be people who think they have a right to some of his money. The letters all harp on the way I gain by his death.”
“Forgive my asking, but is there any substance in what the letters suggest?”
Barbara Bourton shrugged shoulders which had been admired in Restoration comedy. She spread her hands in a gesture which belonged wholly to the stage.
“People will believe anything about an actress,” she said. “The idea that we’re no better than we should be dies hard.”
“I do not think you have answered my question. I am in much the same position as a defending counsel, you know. Unless the client is prepared to tell me the whole truth, my hands are tied.”
“I thought a psychiatrist could deduce the whole truth, whether she were told it or not.”
“If that is a challenge, my dear Mrs Bourton, I do not accept it. Your gage lies on the ground and I shall not pick it up.”
Barbara Bourton shrugged her shoulders again.
“Well, perhaps I’m relieved that you won’t joust with me,” she said. “There is this much truth in the letters. I do inherit everything which Donald had to leave. Who had a better right to it than I? We didn’t see as much of one another as most married people do, as our interests were widely different and often kept us apart. I knew all about his ‘little friends’ and I never made a fuss about what he did or with whom, and he never questioned what I was up to, either. What’s more, he always sent flowers to the theatre on my first and last nights. I appreciated that, and it stopped a lot of tongues wagging, I expect.”
“I cannot understand why the anonymous letters upset you. You say they are not scurrilous and you have given me no reason to suppose that you are being blackmailed.”
“They are hurtful and I want them stopped.”
“Have you kept the letters?”
“Good heavens, no! They disturbed me very much. All I wanted was to get rid of them.”
“If you get any more, you had better let the police see them, as I said. That is the best advice I can give you.”
“I suppose you can’t give me the name of a handwriting expert?”
“Yes, of course I can, but all he would be able to tell you is whether all the letters were written by the same hand. You would have to produce far more written evidence than the letters themselves if a name is to be put to the sender.”
“The letters are typewritten but are all signed in my husband’s name and, if I didn’t know he was dead, I could swear that I recognise his signature. It’s the one he used before we were married and when I suppose we thought we cared for one another. The letters must come from a woman who thinks she was in love with him and expected him to cut me out of his will in her favour. The letters rather harp on the theme that Donald died before he had time to change his will.”
“Have you asked his solicitor whether any such change was under contemplation?”
“No, I never thought of that. It’s a bit two-edged, though, isn’t it?”
“You mean it is just possible that your husband had had some such project in mind?”
“I think it’s as well that I don’t know whether he had or not, but, honestly, I don’t think he would have done the dirty on me. He was a decent sort in his way.”
“How do you regard your husband’s death, Mrs Bourton?”
“How do you mean?”
“You have given me the impression that you think it was accidental, the result of his haste to change his costume at very short notice.”
“What could it have been but accidental? Of course it was! Donald wouldn’t have committed suicide and who on earth would want to murder him? He was a philanderer, but the only person who had any right to object to that was myself, and I certainly never did. So long as he didn’t attempt to interfere in my career, that was all that I cared about. Will you give me the name of the handwriting expert?”
“Yes, but I warn you that he has no official standing. He is, in fact, a retired forger who now makes a living as a not too scrupulous ‘private eye’.”
“Oh, really, Dame Beatrice! I did not come here for you to make a monkey out of me!”
“Nothing is further from my thoughts. Forget all about a handwriting expert. Take my advice and go to the police.”
The next caller was Rinkley. Jonathan was at the front of the house cutting some roses and laying them in the trug which Deborah was holding when the visitor arrived.
“You want to see Dame Beatrice? Is she expecting you?” Jonathan enquired. “Anyway, come in and have a drink. Glad to see you up and about again. When did they discharge you from hospital?”
“Oh, days ago. I didn’t ask for an appointment with Dame Beatrice because I didn’t know until this morning that she was staying with you. Did she see the show, by any chance?”
“Yes, the Thursday performance.”
“Oh, not on the Saturday? I say, Bradley, what a frightful thing! Poor old Bourton! How do you think it happened, for God’s sake?”
“I have no idea. I suppose you know the police have asked for an adjournment of the inquest?”
“I’m not in the least surprised. What happened definitely ought not to have happened. I’m an interested party, of course, because if it hadn’t been Donald, it would have been me.”
“Surely not? The minute you drew it out you would have known you’d got hold of the wrong dagger.”
“I doubt it, you know. I really do. After all, I had struck myself shrewd blows with it on the Thursday and Friday and I think I would have followed suit on the Saturday without a thought. I’ve seen the pictures the police and the media are putting out, and the dagger looks so like the retractable one that anybody would be deceived.”
“No,” said Jonathan, as they went into the house, “the blade was much shorter. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Scotch?”
“Thanks very much.”
“I’ll go and find out whether Aunt Adela is busy,” said Deborah. “She is probably writing up her notes on Barbara Bourton.”
“Barbara? Has she been here?” asked Rinkley.
“Yesterday and stayed to tea, but not until the two of them had had a prolonged tête-à-tête.”
“Good heavens! I wonder what it was about? I haven’t been to see Barbara. Didn’t like to butt in. I expect she’s pretty sore with me because I suppose that if I hadn’t eaten those damned mussels she would still have a husband.”
“Ah, yes, the mussels,” said Deborah. “Do you usually eat them between meals?”
Rinkley, who was about to raise his glass, lowered it again.
“Eat them between meals?” he said.
“I was told that you speared those mussels out of a jar with a pickle-fork while you were waiting to go on stage.”
“Oh, that! As a matter of fact, I was advised to eat the damn things. I caught some kind of throat infection and on Saturday morning I was so thick in the clear, as my old nanny used to call it, that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to take the stage. Well, I went for a gargle to my local and confided in the landlord. He told me I needed either half-a-dozen raw eggs or some oysters just before the performance. I couldn’t face the raw eggs, and I couldn’t locate any oysters, so I stopped at the delicatessen counter in the supermarket and settled for the mussels, with the dire results we all know.”