“Excuse me,” I said. “Can I help you?” She was well dressed, her hair done in curls and a string of pearls around her neck. Definitely not a cleaning woman or domestic. So I framed the question the way you do when someone is where they’re not supposed to be. But she took me literally.
“Oh!” she said, giving a start and patting her hand over her heart. “You surprised me, young man. Yes, how nice of you to offer. Could you gather these papers up for me?” She sat down at a table, the only clear spot in the room. “I was looking for a particular document when the whole affair came tumbling down. You are so kind to help.”
“Glad to, ma’am,” I said, handing her a pile of papers. “May I ask what you’re doing in here? This is a naval headquarters, after all.”
“My goodness, where are my manners? I am Mrs. Mallowan, the owner of Greenway House. Along with Max, of course. My husband. He’s in Cairo with the intelligence service. Can’t say any more about that, as I’m sure you understand.”
“Captain Billy Boyle, ma’am. Glad to meet you. It was nice of you to give up your home. It’s quite a setting.” I gathered up the rest of the papers, trying to glance at what was written on them without being too obvious about it. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her, and I hoped some clue would jump out from the jumble of documents.
“Oh, I didn’t give it up. His Majesty’s Government took it for the duration,” she said. “But I don’t mind, what with Max gone. I live and work in London, and I’m glad these nice Americans can enjoy Greenway. They let me have this one room to store my personal possessions. I had to come down from London to find a copy of a contract. Oh, there it is. You’ve found it, Captain Boyle.”
She snatched a stack of papers from my hand, but not before I saw the letterhead. William Collins and Company. Then it hit me. I’d seen this woman last night right before I fell asleep.
“You’re Agatha Christie,” I said.
“There you have me, Captain Boyle. It’s Agatha Mallowan in real life, but in the world of literature, I do confess, I am she.”
“I’m reading Lord Edgware Dies right now,” I said, feeling a little star-struck. “It’s great.”
“Thank you, Captain Boyle. You are most gallant, helping me and paying a compliment at the same time. What is it you do here at Greenway House? I thought it was mainly naval personnel here.”
“Coast Guard, most of them, actually. I’m not stationed here. I’m a detective, or at least I was back in Boston. Now I work for General Eisenhower.”
“What a delight to meet a real detective, Captain Boyle. Has someone been murdered at Greenway House?” She smiled conspiratorially, but the look on my face must have told her that I really was here on official business. “Oh dear, is it true?”
“A lieutenant, name of Peter Wiley,” I said. “Although I doubt he was killed here.”
“Peter!” Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes widened. “What a sweet, talented young man. I saw him painting in the garden the last time I visited, and we struck up a conversation. I remember his delicate hands. So sad. As are all the deaths, of course, but when you know someone is full of promise, it becomes a tragedy twice again, doesn’t it?”
“That’s a good way of putting it, Mrs. Mallowan. He had a lot to look forward to.” His artwork, not to mention a sizeable and unexpected inheritance.
“It’s suddenly very close in here, Captain Boyle. Would you care to walk in the fresh air with me? I would like to hear more about Peter’s death, if you’re willing.”
I was. Who better to consult with than the creator of Hercule Piorot?
We sat on a bench, overlooking the sloping lawn of Greenway House. In the distance, a flight of Spitfires roared their way to the Channel, the snarl of engines echoing off the banks of the River Dart.
“They are so graceful, those devices of war,” Mrs. Mallowan said. “It is sometimes hard to imagine how terribly lethal they are.”
“That applies to people as well,” I said.
“Yes. And of course we make the hardware of war in our own image, don’t we? A combination of beauty, brutality, and efficiency. Now, tell me how young Peter died.”
“First, I need to tell you about his parents,” I said. Her sadness about Peter notwithstanding, I saw a gleam of fascination in her eyes. She understood this would be no ordinary story. I began with Peter showing up at Ashcroft House, shocking everyone with his ring. Went on to Sir Rupert’s request for me to determine if Peter was his son. Then I gave her a sanitized version of Operation Tiger, and asked her to keep mum about what little I did tell her. I described the Sutcliffe clan and Lady Pemberton, told her about Sir Rupert’s death and all that followed, including the revelations at the reading of the will. I finished up with the discovery of Peter’s body among the dead and the missing ring. When I was finished, she remained silent, her brow furrowed in thought.
“The death of Sir Rupert,” she finally said. “Nothing suspicious?”
“It doesn’t seem so. His daughter Meredith was not exactly heartbroken, but there’s nothing to suggest she killed him. The doctor confirmed his heart was bad, had been for a while. He should have been resting, not working.”
“It would seem that there are strong emotions lurking within Meredith,” she said.
“She wasn’t happy being left out of the will,” I said.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Mrs. Mallowan said. “When she was an impressionable young girl, she discovered her father’s betrayal. That left a mark upon her. The proof is that she held on to that letter all these years. What rational reason would she have to do so?”
“To use it against Sir Rupert at some point?”
“No, Captain Boyle. She wanted to keep her anger and hatred alive. Time does heal the wounds of youth, and I’d say Meredith kept that letter to make certain hers never healed. I’d wager she was very close to her mother, which is where her loyalty lay. When her mother died, perhaps she feared a reconciliation with Sir Rupert, which would be a betrayal, and of course betrayal was the very thing she hated her father for. That made it all the more important for her to hold on to her loathing for him.”
“I had wondered if she’d taunted him with it the night he died. It wouldn’t be murder, but close to it.”
“Perhaps the question is, why did she bring it out that night, of all nights?”
“Good question,” I said. “She had told him she’d destroyed it years before, so there had to be a point in bringing it out now.”
“That may be,” she said. “But from the way you described their raised voices, it sounds like a serious argument. And a woman has very few weapons to bring to a fight with a powerful man. Of course, it is easy for me to come up with ideas. That is what I do. The truth, of course, is much more difficult to discern.”
“You’re right about it being an argument,” I said. “She was enraged. I think she said something about not standing for whatever he was doing to her when she stormed out of his office.”
“Perhaps he told her she would inherit nothing,” Mrs. Mallowan said. “But then what good would the letter do? She couldn’t blackmail him with it if he was intent upon acknowledging Peter Wiley as his illegitimate son.”
“Then we’re back to rage and revenge,” I said. “He must have been hurt to know that she’d kept the news from him all those years. But what does any of this have to do with Peter Wiley dead in the Channel?”
“That is a mystery, Captain Boyle,” she said with a pleasant smile. “My detectives always look for the small things. Little inconsistencies that lead to the truth. I’ve no idea how useful that is in a real murder investigation, I must say. But lies are actually quite difficult to maintain, don’t you think?”
“Lies and secrets, Mrs. Mallowan. Like Paris of Troy in Lord Edgware Dies.”