‘Are you offering that as a serious suggestion, Dame Beatrice?’
‘Well, it is one which ought to be taken into account, as the charge against Mr Piper is a serious one.’
‘This was not a woman’s crime, madam.’
‘I wonder on what you base that assumption?’ Dame Beatrice outlined her theory about the buckets of sea water. ‘Miss Nutley may be tearful and may appear distraught,’ she concluded, ‘but she has the shoulders and the muscular strength of a coal-heaver.’
‘But the motive, Dame Beatrice! It is clear, from our enquiries, that Miss Minnie has good grounds for attempting to upset Mrs Dupont-Jacobson’s will. Money, more often than not, is the motive behind murder, especially the murder of an elderly person. The motive in this case sticks out a mile. With Miss Minnie out of the way, Piper’s inheritance was safe.’
‘And with Mr Piper behind bars and serving a life sentence, Miss Nutley’s thirst for revenge would be partly if not wholly slaked, I think. Did you peruse the document written at my instigation by Mr Piper?’
‘Yes, with great interest, but it did not convince me of his innocence. These novelists have a trick of putting themselves across when they’re given a ball point and sufficient paper,’ said the Chief Superintendent, smiling at his own omniscience.
‘So no sense to be drummed into that blighter’s thick head,’ said Laura disgustedly when they had left the Chief Superintendent’s office. ‘You’d think that even he would have smelt a rat when the police knew that the Nutley woman could get into the rooms (and into the bungalow) whenever she chose.’
‘I believe we have left him with something to think about,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘He is not a stupid man.’
‘He’s got a bee in his bonnet about motive, that’s the trouble.’
‘And, as he says, he cannot see this as a woman’s crime.’
‘I suppose Nutley wept all over Chelion Piper when he was arrested.’
‘The Walrus wept for the oysters, but it did not prevent him from swallowing them,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘My opinion of Miss Nutley is not a high one, but I see her less as a murderer than as an avenging Fury.’
(2)
It was a fairly long drive back to the Stone House on the edge of the New Forest, but, as Dame Beatrice pathetically observed (following the observation with a sardonic cackle of laughter), ‘Now that I have been turned away from the stately mansion of Weston Pipers, I have nowhere to lay my head except in my own home.’
‘We could have stayed at a hotel in Moretonhampstead or Exeter,’ Laura pointed out.
‘There is a good reason for going back to Wandles Parva. My telephone number was on the cards I left with Miss Kennett and the proprietor of the antique shop. I shall be surprised if we do not hear something from the latter before we visit him again. I have very little doubt that he knows we went to the police with his Weston Pipers’ fire-irons.’
But the call came from Billie.
‘If you want to question Elysée, she is with me again. Cassie McHaig trailed them to the hotel where they were staying and staged a ménage à trois. Elysée wasn’t having any of that, so she’s come back. Don’t know really whether I’m glad or sorry. Anyway, she’s here if you want her.’
‘So we can kill two birds with one stone,’ said Laura, who had taken the call. ‘Billie Kennett’s place isn’t all that far from the shop.’
‘Quite. The shop first, I think, and then to find out what Miss Barnes has to tell us.’
But when they reached the grimy little junk shop it was closed.
Chapter Eleven
The Elysian Fields
« ^ »
‘WHAT’S today?’ asked Laura, looking at her watch. They had lunched in Moretonhampstead and the time was just after half-past three. ‘Saturday, isn’t it? So it can’t be early closing.’
‘Some shops do close on Saturday afternoons,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out.
‘We shall have to wait until Monday. Perhaps the sect of which our friend is the leader keeps the Biblical Sabbath.’
‘Oh, well, we can go and see those two girls, so our trip won’t be entirely wasted.’
‘I am anxious to talk to that antique dealer as soon as possible. We will do as you suggest. After that, well, at this time of year the hotels in such a little town as this are unlikely to be full.’
‘Stay a night here, you mean?’
‘Two nights, unless the man opens his shop on Sundays.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. Oh, well, we always keep overnight bags in the boot, so we can manage all right.’
‘Thanks to a splendidly practical arrangement which you suggested a long time ago, yes, we can. So now, with easy minds, to our interview.’
Billie opened the door to them again and said, in a low tone, after she had greeted them: ‘Ellie is a bit shattered, so don’t expect too much from her, poor kid.’
Elysée was standing at the window with her back to the room when they went in. When she turned round, Laura was not struck so much by the fact that ‘shattered’ seemed the appropriate word, as that she was so young and so tall. She came forward and greeted them with controlled composure and added, ‘Billie has told me why you’ve come, but I don’t think I can help you.’
‘Well, we can all sit down and have a drink, anyway,’ said Billie. ‘Will you have this chair, Dame Beatrice?’
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, seating herself as she was directed, ‘and how did you leave Miss McHaig?’
The effect of this question startled everybody but the questioner. Elysée, who was still standing, gave a kind of croak, put a hand out as though she was a blind person groping for something in a strange environment, swayed and, but for Laura’s quick reaction in leaping up and catching her, would have fallen to the carpet.
‘She’s fainted,’ said Billie unnecessarily. She went to Laura’s assistance.
‘Shove her head down,’ said Laura, ‘and let’s get her into a chair.’
‘Right,’ said Dame Beatrice, who had regarded the proceedings benevolently. ‘And now, my poor child, we will have your answer to my question. Shall I repeat it?’
‘No,’ said Elysée, as Billie allowed her to raise her head from between her knees, ‘I know what you said. When I left Cassie she was lying on the bedroom floor bleeding from the head. The hotel people were ringing for a doctor. Polly told them she had tripped over a rug and hit her head, but she hadn’t, of course. He had knocked her down because she’d said things. If she dies, he’ll be a murderer.’
‘Have you rung the hotel to find out how she is?’ asked Dame Beatrice sternly, before hysterical tears could choke her victim’s utterance.
‘Of course not. Polly told me to stay out of it, and I’m going to.’ Elysée put on an air of defiance.
‘How can you stay out of it if you were there with him?’ demanded Billie.
‘I wasn’t with him. We booked in separately.’
‘So you had that much sense!’
‘It was Polly’s idea. He said he and Cassie had stayed there before, and it was the first place she’d come to, and that’s what he wanted, a showdown, and then he’d have done with her for always.’
‘Poor old Cassie!’ said Billie, in such dispassionate tones that Elysée gave her a terrified glance and this time did burst into tears.
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, getting up, ‘since you can tell us nothing helpful about the death of Miss Minnie, we had better take our leave.’