‘But the girl and I are both in the book. I asked Cupar what he thought and he agreed with me and we arranged that I should practise Colin’s signature – I had kept his letters to me; they were not, strictly speaking, love-letters, but were all about his first book and the publishers’ contract and what he hoped his agents, the Peterheads, might be able to do for him, so there was nothing much in them that I didn’t want Cupar to see—’
‘Your husband had read the book, then?’
‘Well, I could hardly keep it from him. He was appalled by it. He said it could ruin his career if it were published because there were plenty of people able and willing to put two and two together and make five instead of four.’
‘I hope I have not done the same thing.’
‘Oh, no. You wouldn’t be here if you had. I suppose the fact that I was out walking that night, and that the fact the girl was drowned, pointed to me as her murderer.’
‘Not necessarily. The facts, so far as they were known, pointed even more clearly to Colin Palgrave. Will you tell me about yourself and him? — and why you think you were the chief suspect for causing Miss St John’s death?’
‘Why not? I said I wanted to confess. It all began a long time ago. Well, it seems a long time ago now. Colin and I were engaged. He broke it off. He said it was because he wanted to give up teaching and become a writer. He said that he wouldn’t be able to keep a wife and possible children for years and years, and that nobody ought to marry a writer, anyway. They were impossible to live with, he said. He said a lot more along the same lines, but I thought he was tired of me and did not want to say so, and made all these excuses to be rid of me.’
‘You may have been right, of course.’
‘It did something to me. I had been very fond of him. I could have managed to support both of us until he got established as a writer. I am a trained nurse and I knew I could get a well-paid private job, either with a wealthy invalid or as a doctor’s receptionist and dispenser, but I was too proud and too badly hurt to plead or argue. Eventually I met Cupar and we were married.
‘Cupar was honest with me up to a point. He told me that a patient of his had had a baby by him. I didn’t much mind. I’d had affairs myself before I became engaged to Colin, but I had no idea that Cupar was being blackmailed by the girl. I thought the money he paid out went to support the baby. It wasn’t until I read Colin’s book that the truth dawned on me, although I suppose I had always had a secret fear that, if the girl ever decided to turn nasty, Cupar’s career would be finished. When I had read the book and Cupar had seen it, he had another confession to make. He said his baby had been born, the girl had killed it, and he had written a false death certificate to cover up for her.’
‘That, at any rate, was not in Mr Palgrave’s book.’
‘No, but I was terribly frightened. If people read the book and anybody who had known the wretched girl began to probe, there was no knowing what might come out. We agreed that the book must never be published.’
‘Well, the forged letter to the agents could hardly have solved that problem for very long. In other words, the author had to die. I am more interested, at the moment, in the death of Camilla St John. Will you tell me exactly what happened that evening?’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘It didn’t really begin with the evening. It began when Cupar and I arrived at the cottage to discover that it had been double-booked for the rest of that week.’
‘Such a coincidence that you should have fixed upon the very cottage of which Miss St John was already an inmate.’
‘Oh, well, coincidences do occur and the girl was our bad angel, anyway, so I suppose some supernatural force of gravity was at work and pulled us towards her.’
‘By the way, had you ever met her before?’
‘No, never. Cupar told me who she was as soon as we were alone in the cottage.’
‘Please continue.’
‘Is there really any need?’
‘You said there was virtue in confessing. That is not the reason for my encouraging you to tell me your story. A little later on you will understand why I must hear it. Please trust me. You are not likely to regret it.’
‘Adrian and Miranda Kirby think very highly of you. Very well, then. I forged the letter. Do you want to know how I killed the girl?’
‘And Colin Palgrave, of course.’
‘Colin? Oh, but—’
‘Yes, I know you said it was suicide. The police have proof that it was murder.’
‘Proof?’ Morag at last looked desperately alarmed. ‘But they can’t have proof!’
‘I have talked to them on the telephone. I was in contact with them just before I came here.’
‘I see.’ She got up and walked unsteadily towards the window again. Dame Beatrice’s sharp black eyes followed her. She remained staring out into the garden, but the watcher said nothing. ‘Oh, well,’ said Morag, turning round and resting one tense hand on the wooden ledge, ‘here goes, then, if I must. Better the blame should rest on the right shoulders, I suppose.’
‘Of course it is. You would not want a smear to remain on Colin Palgrave’s memory.’
‘But there isn’t one, in your opinion, is there?’ As though it was difficult to do so, Morag removed her fingers from their grip on the window-ledge and returned to her chair. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Dame Beatrice noted the anxious shadows under them, but felt no compunction in forcing her to talk.
‘Go on,’ she said. Morag opened her eyes and brushed a hand across them.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll feel better when I’ve told you all about it. Well, as soon as Cupar had told me that Camilla was the girl who had had his baby, I saw how impossible the situation was. There was that, and there were Colin and I. It was all such a mix-up that when Colin took us down to the pub that night I thought that a few drinks would help me to decide what to do.’
‘But you did not know, at that point, that Miss St John had been blackmailing your husband. You did not know that until you read Mr Palgrave’s book and tackled your husband about it.’
‘Oh, well, perhaps I had guessed. The drinks didn’t really help, so when we went back to the cottage I wrote a note to Camilla telling her to get out or it would be the worse for her. I took it up to her room and pinned it to the pillow. Then I saw her suitcase, so I packed it with everything of hers I could find, waited until Adrian and Miranda were in their room, and then took the suitcase down to the sand-dunes and buried it.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I don’t know. Just to be thoroughly bitchy to her, I suppose, and to add a little bit to the warning I’d given her in my note.’
‘Ah, yes. Perhaps you had had enough to drink, after all. Where was your husband while all this was going on?’
‘In bed and asleep. He had been putting away double whiskies. Whisky always makes him sleepy.’
‘Double whiskies? Poor Mr Palgrave!’
‘Oh, Colin didn’t pay for them after the first round, and Cupar wouldn’t have gone on drinking like that if he hadn’t been so worried about Camilla’s being at the cottage.’
‘But she did not accompany the party to the public house?’
‘No. She wasn’t with us that evening. I was coming back from planting the suitcase when I saw her go up to Colin’s car. Then they went off over the marshes and I followed them. I didn’t suppose they would hear me, and I took a chance that they wouldn’t turn round and see me. I didn’t really care, though, whether they did or not. I had as much right on the marshes by moonlight as they had.’