‘Big enough to hold pyjamas and his shaving tackle, if he was going to spend the night somewhere. It’s all my husband brings when he comes to spend a night with me at the Stone House, and quite often he does not bother about the pyjamas,’ said Laura. ‘He can always get into a pair of mine if it’s cold – the trousers, anyway – and I can always lend him a sweater.’
‘Oh, Lord! If he spent the night – or was prepared to – it could have been anywhere, except that he didn’t take his car. I wonder whether somebody picked him up? We’ve tried London Transport and the taxi-drivers.’
Upon arrival at her hotel, which was on a slope above the shores of Ampletide Sands, a small resort on the long inlet which runs past Cartmel out of Morecambe Bay, Dame Beatrice had rung up the Lowsons to ask when (not whether) she might call. She had been invited to come on the following afternoon.
After lunch on that day she went down the long drive of the hotel, through pleasant woods, (the hotel stood in its own grounds), to the sea-front. As she strolled along a concreted promenade made extremely narrow because a railway line ran directly behind it, she surveyed the expanse of shining mud left by the tide and then, stopping to apostrophise an oyster catcher and aware of the warning notices which had been put up all along the sea-wall, she said to the handsome, red-legged bird:
‘Well, wader, scavenging for molluscs, crustaceans and worms, I think the waters here must resemble those of the Solway. Perhaps you remember Sir Walter Scott’s ballad of Young Lochinvar? “Love swells like the Solway and ebbs like its tide”. How true, in so very many cases! I wonder whether it applies in this one? Could it have been malice aforethought which caused poor Colin Palgrave to dedicate his book to his lost love, or was it intended only as a reminder of what may have been “an old passion” and meant only as a tribute to that? More likely, I think. The book is pretentious, but not malicious.’
The bird, suddenly aware of her presence, although not of being addressed, uttered a shrill, protesting klee-eep, klee-eep, ran rapidly across the mud and then, tucking away its long red legs, it took off with low flight and shallow wingbeats, changed its note to a slightly trilling and a shorter call and put distance between itself and the intruder.
Dame Beatrice, with a suspicious look at the distant sea, then focused her attention upon a dark mass on the edge of the deceptively mild-mannered water. She said to the sea: ‘My name is King Canute. Stay where you are!’
The sands (so called in the brochures) were firmer than she had expected. At a surprising pace for so extremely elderly a lady, she crossed them and then knelt at the sodden sea-verge to examine the body. A very brief inspection was enough. It was a dead body and one which she recognised. She made all speed back to the hotel and telephoned the police. They rang back within the hour.
‘Papers of identification on the body confirm your theory, Dame Beatrice, ma’am. There was a suicide note. Took prussic acid, it says, only it calls it hydrocyanic acid. Quick, that’s one thing. Good on you, ma’am, for recognising the body, if you’d only seen him once before, and some time ago and alive, at that. We’ll need you for the inquest, ma’am, I’m afraid.’
‘Come in,’ said Morag. ‘You said something about a book.’
‘Colin Palgrave’s novel. I believe you have a copy of it,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Oh, that!’
‘I also have a copy. From the dedication to M, I deduced that the book was written especially for you.’
‘Good gracious, no! Through here, Dame Beatrice, and then we can look out on to the garden. I don’t suppose the dedication was meant for me at all, although, of course, at one time—’
‘Yes, so I have been told. He wanted me to write a preface to the book. You can help me. The work appears to be autobiographical. Would that be so?’
‘Goodness knows!’
‘And I thought perhaps you could tell me whether it throws any light upon the manner of his death.’
‘But we know the manner of his death. Miranda Kirby sent me a cutting from the local paper. He died of arsenical poisoning, didn’t he? I think poor Colin committed suicide. Arsenic is easy enough to come by. There are weed-killers, flypapers, all sorts of things.’
‘So that is why arsenic was chosen, because it is easy to come by. It is also easily administered. The powdered form can be disguised in a cup of black coffee, especially to a man already under the influence of narcotics, perhaps, or drink.’
Morag had been standing at the window overlooking the garden. She turned round and went across the room to a bookcase from which she took a brown paper parcel.
‘Here is my copy of the book, if that is what you came for,’ she said. ‘Are they going to publish it after all?’
‘Not unless you are willing to admit to a forged letter.’
Morag put the parcel down on to a small table, went unsteadily to an armchair and sat down.
‘So you know,’ she said. ‘How much do you know?’
‘Everything, I think, but I like to check my findings. The signature on the letter is known to have been forged. Mr Palgrave was murdered before he could repudiate the letter and ask that publication should go ahead as planned. Where did you stay on the night of his death? You may, I think, have been somewhere in London. The police are still trying to trace his movements on that night.’
‘They can go on trying. Why should I tell you anything?’
‘There is no reason why you should. If you choose to keep your own counsel, the law must take its course, that is all.’
‘You mean I’ll be charged with forgery? Oh, but it was such a little thing I did! It isn’t like forging a cheque or a will, is it?’
‘I think perhaps it is worse. No doubt Mr Palgrave was proud of his book and was looking forward to seeing it in print and perhaps reading favourable notices about it in the press.’
‘It’s a dangerous book; a harmful book. I had to do what I did. I don’t know how Colin found out, but apparently he did. I suppose that girl told him things.’
‘I think, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice, taking the armchair opposite Morag, ‘that you had better do as I say, and tell me the whole story.’
‘In my own words, leaving out no detail, however slight?’ said Morag, with an attempt at a lightheartedness which obviously she did not feel. ‘Oh, well, if you know I forged the letter, I suppose I can expect trouble.’
‘Not for forging the letter. That can be hushed up, no doubt. Murder, however, cannot be hushed up, and I have come here to talk about two murders. You have admitted to forgery—’
‘What I admit to you in this room is not evidence. I understand why Catholics go to Confession, though, so I will clear my conscience. I’m sorry about Colin, but he shouldn’t have written that book. It had to be suppressed. He knew far too much. The book opened my eyes to all sorts of things I had half wondered about, but had never dared to face. Anyway, I am not sorry about that little blackmailer. I had no idea that blackmail was her game until I read Colin’s book, but, once I’d read it, all sorts of things dropped into place.’
‘I think you give too much credit to Mr Palgrave’s knowledge. You mean knowledge about your own affairs and those of your husband, don’t you? Mr Palgrave thought of blackmail only because the girl had made a threat to blackmail him. I am certain that the story he wrote was based on his knowedge of the girl’s character and not on anything he knew of your affairs.’