“How long ago was this?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“Oh, a good many weeks now. Back at the beginning or middle of June, near enough. But may I ask what this is all about?”
“All in good time, if you don’t mind, sir,” said Conway. “You will have gathered that we should not have approached you on a matter of minor importance. If it becomes necessary, would you be willing to swear in court that the two daggers I have just shown you were made from the same rapier?”
“Swear to that? Well, of course I would. The thing one doesn’t mistake is one’s own handiwork, and I take pride in mine.”
“Well,” said Dame Beatrice to Laura, who had not accompanied her to the museum, “I feel certain that there is a connection between the two daggers and the change of understudies for the part of Pyramus.”
“But only the married couples at the cocktail party were told about that.”
“One of the married couples had an adopted son and his name was Jasper Lynn.”
“But Jasper Lynn wasn’t with them at the cocktail party, was he? I thought he was supposed to be swotting for his exams.”
“Connect us with Jonathan over the telephone. Deborah will remember who was present, if he does not. As his father’s son, I think Jasper had an opportunity of handling the properties before the opening of the play, including the third night. Were we not told that he helped to carry them down from the house?”
“I seem to remember hearing that he helped his father and Brian Yorke to carry the ‘props’ down to the trestle tables, yes, but what would he have had against either Rinkley or Bourton, let alone Jonathan?”
Dame Beatrice did not answer. Laura went out to the telephone and then made her report.
“Jasper was not at the cocktail party,” she said, “but Jon says he remembers him helping to carry down the props. The players were issued with their costumes and Jon, Tom Woolidge, Brian Yorke and Donald Bourton got their swords and daggers with their costumes, but young Yolanda and Jasper had theirs put on the table, because they were only supposed to wear daggers in the hunting-scene. Jasper, however, defied the producer on the last night and wore his dagger all the time. Jon says he noticed it because, of course, they were in the first scene together, but Yorke and Lynn didn’t make any fuss as it was the last night. I can’t see that all this matters, anyway.”
“I have said all along that the lethal dagger was put into the belt intended for Pyramus before the play opened on the third night. Jasper was in possession of the two daggers made from the rapier.”
“I see what you mean. Jasper could have done it, but—a schoolboy! It seems most unlikely. Why would he want to kill anybody?”
“I quote Marcus Lynn, who had read (with irritation, one gathers) a notice which Jasper had pinned up in his bedroom. He said, ‘She—whoever She was—buckled it on for him at the last performance.’ Symbolism here shows a shining morning face, does it not?”
“Symbolism? I don’t follow.”
“A knight of old liked to have his sword buckled on by his lady and, as I am not a gentleman, I may be excused for bandying this particular lady’s name. I think we need look no further than Barbara Bourton.”
“But, good Lord, she’s nearly old enough to be his mother!”
“I seem to remember a play called Young Woodley,” said Dame Beatrice. “Besides, as a very charming woman once said to me when we were discussing the subject of demonstrative love: ‘I don’t think age has anything to do with it’.”
“But even if you think Jasper doped Rinkley’s whisky, and even if he had heard from his parents that Bourton was to be the understudy, how did he think getting rid of Bourton would help him? He can’t have thought Barbara would ever marry him!”
“No, he did not imagine for a moment that Barbara would.”
“Then what did he think?”
“That by getting rid of Bourton he would not only free Barbara so that she could marry Tom Woolidge, but he could also ensure that she would be a wealthy woman. I see him as an unhappy, idealistic youth. The urge to become a Buddhist monk is typical. So were his doubts about his appearance.”
“No, honestly, I can’t swallow all this. If what you say is true, who killed Jasper!—and why?”
“Barbara Bourton may be able to tell us. If she will not do so, I shall be compelled, in order to clear up the case, to tell her. I shall see her alone.”
Chapter 18
Threnody
“And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes.”
« ^
How much do you know?” asked Barbara Bourton.
“That is a stock question,” replied Dame Beatrice, “and I will give the appropriate answer. I know all that I need to know. For one thing, I know that Jasper Lynin did not put the fatal dagger among his father’s collection of weapons.”
“You make it sound like an Elizabethan tragedy and I suppose that is what it was.”
“Will you tell me the plot, or shall I tell it to you?”
“Oh, just as you please. I pay you the compliment of believing that by this time you know it all. If you did not, you would hardly have singled me out. There is one thing, though, which I should like to know.”
“Why the anonymous letters suddenly stopped?”
“I see that you are a thought-reader. No wonder you are so successful in your profession.”
“My profession helps, no doubt. The letters stopped because it was fairly obvious who was writing them. I sent her a warning, that is all, and she was sensible enough to accept it.”
“Is it of any use to ask—?”
“I shall name no names. There were two possible candidates, both unattractive, both, at the beginning of rehearsals, unhappy, but, before the letters were written, one had recovered her spirits, the other, I am sure, had not. You may or may not know that Mr Rinkley, as well as yourself and the two young girls, came to me for comfort and advice.”
“Rinkley? Had he received one of the letters?”
“More than one, he gave me to understand.”
“Oh, well, there is only one unattractive woman—you did say she was unattractive, didn’t you?—who would have written nasty letters to Rinkley, and that woman was not Emma Lynn.”
“Shall we leave it at that?”
“What did the letters accuse him of?—not paying his gambling debts to my husband? He should have ignored the letters. You can’t be had up for so-called debts of honour, and, whatever his faults, Donald didn’t employ strong-arm men to frighten or bash people into paying up. A properly conducted turf accountant’s business doesn’t need to go in for that sort of thing. It covers itself as it goes along. So, if the letters were not about gambling, they must have had to do with the play and that means Robina Lester.”
“When did you first realise that young Jasper Lynn was in love with you?” asked Dame Beatrice abruptly.
“Or thought he was. They get over it very quickly and easily, you know, although it can be a nuisance and a responsibility while it lasts—or so I’ve always discovered.”
“But Jasper got over it neither quickly nor easily, did he?”
“You can’t blame me for that. I’m sure I gave him no encouragement.”
“I seldom apportion blame. Let me hear the evidence for the defence. A woman of your experience could have put a stop to the affair as soon as you realised what was happening. Why did you not do so?”
“Oh, please! It never developed into an affair! It wasn’t until the very end that I knew what he was feeling, and then it was too late to do anything.”
“But at the rehearsals—?”
“Oh, those rehearsals! Really, Dame Beatrice, you have no idea how unutterably tedious and boring they were. And to have to use one’s voice all the time in the open air and in the evenings at that, with all the mist coming up from the bay and some idiotic bird trilling away in the trees! If it hadn’t been for Tom, I would have thrown up the part. I only took it on because the play gave us a chance to be alone together occasionally in those woods.”