Clothilde burst into tears. Sebastian put his arm round her. Marius distressfully pulled his lip and Margaret said anxiously,
‘Oh, Father, can’t you do something? Haven’t you got some shares to sell or can’t you get a bank loan? Or perhaps we could sell this house and get something smaller. You mustn’t let poor Boobs upset herself over something as silly as money.’
‘There is no problem. Your mother has never understood money, my dear. The joint account was never more than a goodwill gesture on my part. Of course I have resources elsewhere, and of course there is no need for my dear wife to upset herself.’
‘There you are, Boobie,’ said her son, squeezing her up against him. ‘We’re not on the breadline yet.’ He looked perplexedly at his father. ‘You’re not holding her acknowledged dottiness against her, are you?’ he asked.
‘Dear me, no,’ said Marius. ‘It is not the first time she has overdrawn that account. It is not that which is worrying me.’
Sebastian searched his father’s face and enlightenment came.
‘Good Lord!’ he said, as his mother broke away from his encircling arm and rushed upstairs. ‘Boobie has quite monumentally boobed this time. You mean she might have been on the island when Aunt Eliza died…’
‘And at whose death I come in for all the money my parents left in trust for Eliza,’ said Marius.
‘That was a queer sort of affair,’ said Laura to her employer. ‘Why should anybody want to strangle a harmless little Ph.D. like Mr Lovelaine? And what are we going to do about it, if anything? I don’t care to think of our guests being set upon on our very doorstep.’
‘We are going to talk to Miss Crimp.’
‘That little creep? What can she tell us?’
‘That we shall have to find out, but first let us review the situation, as you would say, and plot the lie of the land.’
‘Assemble the known facts and see what we can deduce from them?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Right. You shout, and I will make interpolations if necessary.’
‘Very well.’
‘Not losing track of the great thought that the death of Mrs Chayleigh may tie up in some way with our own little job here.’
‘Quite. Well, now, to begin with we have Mr Lovelaine arriving, with his children, to pay a visit to a sister whom he had not seen for very many years.’
‘Yes. Why, I wonder, did he come?’
‘It seems that she invited him. However, when he introduced himself at the hotel, he found that no booking had been made in his name, that his sister was absent and that Miss Crimp, in charge of reception, knew nothing whatever about him.’
‘All the same, she took him in, and also the two youngsters.’
‘That, to my mind, was somewhat surprising, considering that she was expecting an overflow of guests a week later.’
‘These bird-fanciers? Yes, and a mixed bag they are! I’ve met some of them, and if they’re genuine ornithologists I’m the king of Siam.’
‘Interesting,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘But, for the moment, we are concerning ourselves with the Lovelaine family, I thought.’
‘Sorry! Over to you, then, although I’m bound to insist that, if they’re watching birds, it’s time some reputable citizens were watching them. Some of them — the majority, I expect — may be genuine enough, but they’re being used as cover, I suspect, for a minority of evil persons who may be just the people we’ve been sent here to look out for.’
‘I do not doubt it. Well, all in good time we will inform upon them in the proper quarters.’
‘When we’ve got proof, you mean. Ah, well, back to the Lovelaines then, and let’s get their affairs cleared out of the way. You were remarking that it was strange that Miss Crimp—’
‘Took them in, although, according to the hotel system of bookings, there is no record of any correspondence between Marius Lovelaine and Mrs Chayleigh and I find that strange. I would think nothing of it in the ordinary course of events, for I understand that the hotel is rarely full…’
‘But with these bird-watchers looming, and needing all the available accommodation—yes, quite so, indeed. You know what it looks like to me?’
‘I can imagine what it looks like to you. You think that Miss Crimp knew perfectly well that the Lovelaines were expected and that she deliberately mislaid the correspondence.’
‘Why should she do such a thing?’
‘I do not think she did. I think it far more likely that if there was such a correspondence — and we have only Marius Lovelaine’s word for that — it was Eliza Chayleigh who suppressed it.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The absence of any entries in the hotel books. It is easy enough to throw away letters, but to remove an entry from a ledger or a day-book is a vastly different matter. The chances are that anybody doing such a thing would not only dispose of the one entry which it was requisite and necessary to conceal, but other entries which had been entered on the same page. I suggest, therefore, that the Lovelaines’ booking was not entered, and that Miss Crimp knew nothing about it for the simple reason that Eliza Chayleigh had never shown her any of the letters to and from Marius Lovelaine.’
‘But why hadn’t she? What could be the reason? She couldn’t have foreseen that she’d be dead before the Lovelaines turned up at the hotel, and that they’d have to explain themselves to the reception clerk.’
‘Quite. Therefore I say that our next intrusion into the affair must take the form of a conversation with Miss Crimp.’
‘She’ll probably lie.’
‘That remains to be seen. If she does, and we become aware of the fact, it will mean that she has something to conceal.’
‘Such as destroying letters and removing entries from ledgers,’ said Laura, grinning challengingly at her employer. Dame Beatrice leered fiendishly at her and led the way to the front door.
They had taken one or two meals at the hotel to give Henri, the cook whom Dame Beatrice had brought with her, a break from his duties, so, when they entered the vestibule, Miss Crimp regarded them, as they approached the desk, with a smile which, she hoped, combined both welcome and regret. Laura interpreted the smile.
‘It’s all right. I know how full you are. We don’t need a table for lunch,’ she said reassuringly. ‘We only need a drink.’
‘I’ll send Richard to you in the lounge,’ said Miss Crimp. ‘Will Dame Beatrice take sherry, as usual?’
‘Of course, but we want to talk to you,’ said Laura. ‘Dark doings are afoot and you are part of them.’
Miss Crimp regarded her with horror.
‘You want to talk to me?’ she said.
‘About the late Eliza Chayleigh. Dame Beatrice, as I expect you know, was the first doctor to see the body.’
‘She was not called at the inquest.’
‘Her evidence was not needed. The cause of death was perfectly plain. Deceased died of injuries. How she came by those injuries is another matter. What chiefly interests Dame Beatrice, who is, as you may or may not know, a criminologist of repute, is that the last time Mrs Chayleigh was seen alive was when she was on her way to the house Dame Beatrice has rented. There is reason to wonder, therefore, whether Mrs Chayleigh met her death at Puffins and whether her body was put into the sea later.’
‘All this has nothing to do with me.’
‘You mean you decline to discuss it with Dame Beatrice?’
‘Oh, I don’t mind discussing it,’ said Miss Crimp hastily, recognising a threat in Laura’s tones. ‘All I mean is that there is nothing I can say which is not already common knowledge.’
‘Did you know that Mr Lovelaine was attacked the other evening as he was leaving after paying a visit to Dame Beatrice?’