‘So when did you return it?’
‘I forgot it until Billie and I had to put our suitcases in the boot when we left Weston Pipers.’
‘I see. Well now, Miss Barnes, there are one or two points which interest me very much. Of course you are not obliged to answer any of my questions, some of which will not please and may possibly alarm you.’
‘Oh, dear!’ said Elysée, turning pale and appearing alarmed even before the questioning began.
‘Yes. Remember, however, that I am the soul of discretion and that my profession has schooled me to keep secrets a good deal more disgraceful, I am certain, than any of yours can be. In addition, I assure you that I am unshockable, so fear nothing. You gave Miss Minnie fairly frequent lifts in your car?’
‘Yes, I picked her up fairly often,’ agreed Elysée.
‘Why did you not pick her up outside her bungalow?’
‘I suggested it, but she didn’t want it that way. She said she had refused lifts from one or two people and did not want to offend them by taking lifts from me. Actually, as I now know, she didn’t want anybody at Weston Pipers to see us together.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘Yes, I do now. That’s why I wanted Polly Hempseed to seduce me.’
‘I take it you are unwilling to enlarge on that point, so I will not pursue the subject for the present. Did you ever go to the little antique shop on any other occasion besides the one when you tried to return Miss Minnie’s bag?’
‘What if I did?’
‘I see. You did.’
‘I was curious to know why she had gone there and disappeared.’
‘Of course. Did you ever enter her bungalow?’
‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t have dreamt of trying to do that. She wouldn’t have let me in.’
‘You mentioned Miss Kennett’s jealousy. Originally it was not Mr Hempseed of whom she was jealous, was it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean that the jealousy was first sparked off when Mr Piper began to show interest in you. This was some time ago, I believe, and it died what may be called a natural death when Mr Piper was arrested.’
‘Billie never believed that Chelion killed Miss Minnie.’
‘Nevertheless, she was not averse, I take it, to seeing the back of him. Your interest in Mr Hempseed must have shocked her very much.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that.’
‘Oh, come, now! Incidentally, the most wounding letter you received came not from Constance Kent, but from Niobe Nutley.’
‘I told you that.’
‘Tell me, did Miss Minnie never enquire about her lost bag?’
‘Actually, when she left it in the car, that was the last time I ever gave her a lift. Anyway, she never asked about the bag and the next I heard of her she was dead.’
Dame Beatrice caught Laura’s eye and nodded. Laura put away the notebook in which she had been recording the interview and went to the door. Billie came in and went straight up to Elysée.
‘You didn’t tell me you’d married him,’ she said.
‘I had to,’ said Elysée, going to Laura for protection, ‘but not for the usual reason.’
‘Sit down, Miss Kennett,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I gather that Miss McHaig is, at any rate, not dead.’
‘Neither is she Miss McHaig,’ said Billie, her face crumpling up. ‘She’s married to Hempseed.’ She looked at the cowering spectacle of her friend. ‘You utter fool!’
‘I wouldn’t have called Billie Kennett a motherly type,’ said Laura, when they were in the car. ‘Do you really think that she is?’
‘I think that, in partnerships such as theirs, one finds a dominant and a submissive; a protector and a protected.’
‘In this case, the submissive seems to have cut a pretty wide swathe. Act of rebellion or act of despair?’
‘It hardly matters now. Our interests lie elsewhere. I am extremely grateful to Miss Barnes.’
‘For returning to that two down, two up, nest of theirs?’
‘No. For telling Miss Kennett, in front of witnesses, that she had to get married.’
‘And trick that obnoxious Hempseed into bigamy?’
‘Bigamy, in my opinion, does not enter into the matter. Mr Hempseed (to use his pseudonym) has far too much common sense for that, I am perfectly sure. I have no doubt that, to satisfy Miss Barnes, some kind of ritual was carried out which she assumed to be a marriage ceremony. She appears to be a singularly guileless young person, and a very bad liar. As I say, I am convinced that Mr Hempseed is far too wary a practitioner to have contracted a bigamous marriage which Miss McHaig could have exposed for what it was at any moment she chose. Also, Miss Barnes saw far more of Miss Minnie than she admits.’
‘So what’s this “had to get married” argument all about?’
‘The loss of her virginity, no doubt, had some importance for her. One assumes she desired to lose it.’
‘Oh, well, it isn’t fashionable to be a virgin nowadays. How are we going to spend Sunday?’
‘In meditation and prayer, as is seemly and right.’
‘You’re not going to church?’
‘Why not? In the business we are about to undertake, the more of the odour of sanctity we have about us, the more sure are we of successfully resisting the powers of evil. Besides, I always go to church when we are at home.’
‘Yes, but I thought you looked on that as a social gesture, something the village kind of expected of you as the owner of the biggest house in the place.’
‘There is that aspect, of course.’
‘Look, what is all this? And what has Barnes’s virginity got to do with it?’
‘That remains to be seen. We shall know more, I hope, when we have visited that sleazy little antique shop again.’
‘I say!’ said Laura, on a note of enlightenment. ‘Does it all add up? I mean, Miss Minnie being connected with that peculiar sect and being seen by that dim-wit Barnes to go into the junk shop and disappear, and Barnes teaming up with this Hempseed simply for the purpose you mentioned, and Miss Minnie getting drowned and disfigured? Could it make some sort of sense? I suppose it could. But where does Niobe Nutley fit in? Didn’t she murder the old lady, after all?’
‘Monday’s child is fair of face,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘so let us see what its pulchritude can do for us the morn’s morn, as I believe your countrymen express it. Meanwhile, we are in a seaside town at an unattractive time of year. How shall we disport ourselves on a somewhat cheerless Saturday evening?’
‘Go to the pictures,’ said Laura.
The cinema, the only one in the little town, looked drab and unprepossessing from the outside, but, in deference, no doubt, to the summer visitors from whom it derived a good deal of its revenue, the interior was warm and tastefully decorated.
The young woman at the receipt of custom looked them over with a casual glance which hardly travelled beyond the treasury note which Laura was holding out, and said briefly, ‘One senior cit., one full price – where d’ya wanna be?’
Laura opted for the front of the circle and was picking up her change when from a curtain which screened the back of the box-office, a bland, expressionless face peered out and a finger poked the girl in the back.
‘OK,’ said the box-office girl, without turning round. ‘You’ve got time for a quick one, if you hurry, Dadda. Dirty old man!’ she observed in an indulgent tone, when the face had disappeared behind the curtain.
‘Who is he?’ Laura enquired.
‘Name of Bosey. Deputises for me every other Sat’ night and Wednesdays, when I go off.’
‘I think I’ve seen his shop.’