by Anne Morice
“And all the time buying it with stolen money?” Toby asked. “Well, I never did!”
“It needn’t do you for long,” I said, “because that’s not how it was. Much more likely that she acquired most of it by shoplifting.”
Tina said reprovingly: “Oh, come on now, don’t exaggerate. You’ve made out a reasonable enough case, so far, and it’s no special news to me, I might add, but you don’t need to throw in shoplifting as well.”
“How about this, then? According to Mrs. Jameson, who obviously has no idea what her pretty angel gets up to, the only way which occurs to Belinda to earn some money during the holidays is to get taken on by the big stores in their summer sales. Now, I ask you. What more ideal hunting ground for a light-fingered little girl, who also happens to be as sharp as a needle?”
At this point Robin, who is mad for brass tacks, interrupted by asking:
“And does all this lead up to your telling us that Hattie had discovered all these crimes and that Belinda killed her, to prevent the news from spreading?”
“That did occur to me,” I admitted, “but I soon realised that it wouldn’t do. You see, the news already had spread to the only quarter where it really mattered. I must now explain that Connie had been keeping Belinda on at school absolutely free of charge, because she was so promising and so likely, ultimately, to reflect credit on the school. So it was a gamble, in a sense; but, having backed her fancy, Connie didn’t sit back and let the horse do the rest. She kept a strict and vigilant eye on Belinda and towards the end it was becoming painfully clear to her that things were getting into a pickle. So when she came back from London to find that thieves had gone straight to her bedroom, taken cash and jewellery, but completely ignored all the valuable objects with which that part of the house is stuffed, it didn’t take her long to identify the culprit.”
“You honestly believe Connie knew?” Tina asked, sounding startled for once.
“She as good as told me so. That’s to say, I put it to her and she didn’t so much as blink. I also suggested that she had hauled Belinda up for a stewards’ enquiry, if you’ll forgive my continuing with the racing metaphor, and issued an ultimatum.”
“Warned her off, I suppose you mean?” Toby said. “Yes, in other words, told Belinda that she would not be allowed to stay at Waterside after the end of the term, but could remain till then and take part in the drama competition. Furthermore, not a word would be passed on to the police, or Belinda’s mother, or anyone at all, provided she behaved herself. The promise was most readily given, needless to say, but of course the news travelled that she’d got the push and since, ostensibly, there was no crime to account for it, everyone assumed that it was because her mother couldn’t afford the fees, which is rather ironical, when you think of it.”
“So why did Connie change her mind and break the agreement?” Tina asked.
“On the contrary, she didn’t break the agreement, it was Belinda who did that. She really is a worry, that girl. She raided the till just after all the big spenders had been into the shop on Saturday morning. Connie caught her in the act and fired her on the spot. For once in her life, she acted on impulse and you really can’t blame her. She’d had a rotten time, one way and another, and this was the last straw. As we know, she relented later and Belinda survived to kick another leg, but that was because a far worse catastrophe had occurred, which put everything else in the shade. However, that’s not quite the end of Belinda; she still has a walk-on part in the last act.”
“Quite a character!” Toby remarked. “And only sixteen, you say? She must have a great future.”
“Mostly in Holloway, by the sound of it.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Robin. I really hope she does manage to keep out of trouble in future; and, if so, she’s going to be really good news in the theatre.”
“What happens in the last act?” Tina asked.
“It opens with the big question,” I replied. “How did Hattie get to hear about the burglary and how did she know Belinda was the thief? Clearly, she was expert at ferreting out information, and she was also given the run of the place, but she can hardly have been a witness to this particular episode. Furthermore, we’ve all had firsthand experience of Connie’s ability to clamp down on bad news and she’d given Belinda her word that it wouldn’t go any further. Even Patsy never knew who was responsible. But I put it to Connie that she must have talked things over with Billy before coming to a decision and she didn’t deny that either. It wasn’t necessary to ask whether Pauline was present during the discussion, because either she was, or she overheard it. It has to be one or the other.”
“Why does it?” Tina asked.
“Because there’s simply no other way that Hattie could have got to hear about it. And you know so well that it’s exactly the kind of thing Pauline would do. Even in our day she was always running back and forth with bits of news and gossip and trying to curry favour by letting us into little secrets. But the one she would have wanted to curry favour with most of all was Hattie.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember telling me that Pauline was one of the few people who had any time for Hattie? Well, you were right, as usual and it probably began with those taxi rides to Oxford. They took place twice a week regularly for almost a year and in those circumstances you could hardly avoid getting to know your fellow passenger as an individual, although the chances are that Pauline gave out a lot more about her own aspirations and hang-ups than Hattie ever did. But the significant thing is that when I mentioned it to Pauline she flatly denied that they had ever been on any sort of personal footing. Whereas one would have expected her to be quite boastful about it.”
“Why would one?” Tina asked.
I was getting annoyed by these incessant “whys” with which she found it necessary to punctuate practically every statement and I said:
“Oh, use your loaf, or your feet, or something. You know very well Pauline would have basked in the reputation of being Hattie’s special crony. She was Connie’s prize pet, who could do no wrong and any friend of hers would have won great approval, the one thing Pauline longed for and never achieved. You have to hand it to old Connie, incidentally. She may be a snob and a money worshipper, but she worships talent even more. Hence her generosity to Belinda, for which she got no thanks from anyone. However, you put me off with your constant interruptions and now I’m digressing. Where had I got to?”
“You were telling us,” Robin said, “how Pauline had denied having any dealings with Hattie on a personal level.”
“Yes, and she was most positive about it too, which suggested to me that she was probably lying, so I asked myself why, came up with a possible answer and after that there was nothing much to it. Just a question of collating all the known facts and getting confirmation of a few others, as yet unproven, and there we were.”
“Where?” Tina began, but this time I was ready for her:
“I refer, as you’ll have gathered, to the business of establishing beyond reasonable doubt that Pauline murdered Hattie.”
“Okay, go ahead and establish it,” she advised me.
“I have a feeling that was the intention anyway,” Toby informed her. There was a hint in his tone that he did not find Tina’s company the most congenial in the world, but since I had no ambition to marry them off this did not bother me.
“Do you remember,” I asked him, “my telling you and Robin that one of the few sensational events in my Waterside career was when Pauline was carted off by ambulance in the middle of the night? We were told she had acute appendicitis, but we all assumed automatically that she had tried to commit suicide. You must remember it too, Teeny? It was soon after she was eased out of that job with her father’s practice, which she made such a botch of and where also, I should remind you, she had complete access to his dispensary. And thereby hangs another tale, which I’ll come to in a moment. Meanwhile, we now jump forward again to the time when Hattie and Pauline are making their twi
ce-weekly trips to Oxford, a momentous period for Pauline because for the first time in her life she has broken loose from some of her chains and has the freedom to follow her own devices. Inevitably, alas, they lead her into trouble and she goes completely overboard for the first young man ever to show any interest in her, oblivious until too late that he has simply been using her and that he happens to be a confirmed drug-addict. Inevitably too, in my opinion, before the shattering disillusionment came, she would have confided in Hattie that she was in love and soon to be married, with a dear little home of her own. We can be sure that Hattie lent a sympathetic ear, which is why it must have seemed such a terrible betrayal when, two years later, Pauline accompanied her parents round the art exhibition and saw Hattie’s cruel picture. It was my guess that it was this which drove her to homicidal insanity, quite as much as the fear that her earlier crime was about to be resurrected, after believing that after all this time it was safely buried.”
Robin and Toby accepted this pronouncement with puzzled, attentive expressions, but Tina, never at a loss, said in a superior voice:
“Honestly, Tessa, all this conjecture! Are you making it up as you go along, by any chance?”
“No, not at all, it’s the only logical explanation. You see, the picture I refer to,” I went on, turning to the more docile members of my audience, “portrayed a young woman, masked and bound in chains, with a dead man lying at her feet.”
“From which you deduce that Pauline had killed him?” Robin asked. “Then I think I’m on Tina’s side this time. Unless you have left out quite a lot, that does seem to have been quite a jump. I can see how you might associate chains with Pauline, but since the female figure was masked . . .”
“You have every right to be sceptical,” I said, “since neither of you was educated at Waterside, but Tina knows the background as well as I do. Hattie went in for rather lurid but nevertheless apposite titles and this particular one was called ‘Perils of Revenge’. Now, although the first word in that title might not lead you two straight to Pauline, it would certainly have done so for anyone grounded as we all were in the history and classics of the cinema. The picture disappeared, so far as we have been able to narrow it down, between four o’clock and five-thirty on Saturday afternoon, Hattie having been temporarily lured away by the prospect of a whacking great tea at The Lodge. To be greeted on her return, no doubt, by Pauline with her little bottle of infallible slimming pills. Whereupon, Hattie, in a temporary mood of remorse for having tucked in so lavishly to the cake and chocolate biscuits, cheerfully swallows the dose as prescribed by Pauline. To conclude: the other thing that Tina knows is that approximately two years ago a young man in Oxford, known to be a drug addict, died after taking sodium nitrate. That’s not conjecture, it’s a fact, isn’t it, Tina?”
She continued to scowl at me in a fairly frightening way, but for the first time nodded in assent and Robin asked:
“And did Mrs. Bland admit, or fail to deny, that Pauline had once tried to kill herself with sodium nitrate and might, unknown to anyone, have kept a little stock of it hidden away for emergencies?”
“No, I confess I had already gone as far as I dared by then; slightly further, in fact.”
“So unless Pauline confesses, and I really don’t see why she should, none of this can be proved?”
“No.”
“So may one ask what you propose to do?” Tina asked, rallying again.
“Nothing. It’s not in my power to do anything. As you say, I can’t prove it, but so far as I’m concerned it’s the only explanation which covers everything and I thought it might amuse you to hear how I reached it.”
“And it sounds as though telling us will be enough for you,” Toby said. “I do hope so. There appears to be enough unpleasantness already.”
There was still a little more to come, however, for while he was speaking the telephone could be heard ringing in the hall and he went on, without a pause:
“Mrs. Parkes will have retired by now, so one of you had better answer that.”
Unfamiliar with his dementia about telephone callers, Tina looked faintly startled when Robin got up without a word and went indoors. Then, returning her attention to me, she said:
“You claim that you don’t intend to do anything about it, but would you have told us all this if the Sergeant had been here?”
“You’ve got me there,” I confessed, “and this time I’m stumped for the answer.”
“But you must have known whether you intended to or not, when we set out this evening?”
“Not really. I had it in mind to tell Robin and Toby because I never can resist that; you too, eventually, but I’m not perfectly sure whether that would have been the end of it or not.”
“Perhaps you’d have been afraid that an expert would have found all sorts of flaws which you’d overlooked?”
“No, certainly not, I . . .”
“Why don’t you stay the night, Tina?” Toby suggested. “Then you and Tessa can thrash it all out in the morning over a jolly game of croquet?”
“Oh yes, do, Tina, that’s a marvellous idea! Toby has a whole cupboardful of spare toothbrushes, so you’ve no excuse at all.”
Robin came out of the house, saying: “That was Dexter. Very sorry, but he can’t make it. This case he was called out on took him longer than he expected.”
“Oh, what a blow!”
“I suggested he might come over for lunch tomorrow instead,” Robin said, looking round the table. “I knew Toby wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh, lovely! And Tina’s staying the night, so it’ll be mallets for five!”
“I haven’t said . . .” Tina began.
“No, but you will, won’t you? We all want you to. By the way, Robin,” I went on quickly, to deter her from further argument, “what was the case that delayed him so badly? Did he tell you?”
“Yes, and rather a curious coincidence, in view of our conversation just now,” he replied, addressing Tina. “Another fatality at Waterside, I regret to say.”
Since she refrained from asking the obvious question, I did so for her.
“Pauline,” he answered.
“No? Honestly? Not another . . . ?”
“No, not murder, or anything of that kind. In fact, she appears to have died rather heroically.”
“What happened?”
“She was drowned, apparently in an attempt to save the life of a dachshund, who’d jumped or fallen in the river. It seems it was quite old and going a bit blind. They found its brother whimpering on the bank. Pauline couldn’t swim very well and, although you can’t see them on the surface, there are masses of weeds where she went in. She got badly tangled up.”
“For the last, but not the only time,” I remarked, avoiding Tina’s glare.
(2)
“It’s been a real old bag of mixed blessings this time,” I confessed when Robin and I were alone at last. “And in some ways I’m sorry they ever invited me to be a judge. I’ve learnt too many things I’d rather not have known. And to think I spent all those years looking back on Waterside as such a placid, well-ordered place, where the most exciting thing that could happen was for someone to be accepted by the Royal Ballet School.”
“Don’t be sad,” he replied. “Things will soon get back to normal. Your indomitable ex-principal is not one to be put down for long by a few setbacks of this nature.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about Connie,” I assured him. “She has no maternal instinct, or if she has it is all reserved for her richest and most talented pupils. She certainly had very little to spare for Pauline and it would never surprise me if she had said the word to wipe that particular slate clean. She may not have found it prudent to mention this to Sergeant Dexter, but the fact is that Pauline was a very good swimmer. It was one of the few things she did well. But in any case Connie despised failures and I doubt if the memory of a failure is any harder to live with than the reality.”
“So is it Belinda you’re worried abou
t?”
“Not specially. As Patsy so shrewdly remarked, Waterside was such an artificial environment and she probably has a good chance of straightening herself out when she’s competing on what she regards as equal terms.”
“What is the trouble then?”
“Oh, Eddie, mainly.”
“Eddie? But I understood that he and Vera were now completely in the clear?”
“Oh, as to Vera, I wouldn’t like to say. I admit she had nothing to do with the murder, but every one of Hattie’s pictures told a story, and most of them turned out to be true. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d got this one right, as well, and that was why Vera came ricocheting out of the art exhibition as one pursued by a bear. Not that I care a damn about her; it’s Eddie who’s the worry. I dare say Toby was joking, but ever since he came up with that idea of Eddie being a spy I’ve been stuck with it. I’ve always thought he was rather an ass, but such a dear too, and now I know I’ll never feel easy with him again.”
“Just supposing there really were some truth in it, there are spies and spies, you know, Tessa.”
“You mean . . . commercial . . . industrial . . . that kind of thing?”
“No, not that kind of thing at all. Try again!”
I did so and came up beaming:
“Oh yes, I see! You mean, Eddie is on our side? He’s working for us?”
“I shouldn’t think so for a moment, but why not ask him?”
“Oh, what’s the use of that? If I said to him: ‘By the way, Eddie, are you a spy?’ he’d be sure to say ‘Yes’, and I still shouldn’t know whether to believe him. How frustrating!”
“Well, stop feeling frustrated because we end on a happier note. I have two cheering items of news for you. That is, if I can stay awake long enough to pass them on.”
“Make a stern effort, please, because good news has been in rather short supply lately. What are they?”
