Moonflower Murders

by Anthony Horowitz

  ‘Then can you describe which beach you actually visited?’

  ‘No! I don’t remember. You’re confusing me.’ He buried his face in his hands.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come into Exeter with me, Mr Cox. We’re going to continue this interview under caution and with another officer present. You can consider yourself under arrest.’

  ‘Wait!’ All the colour had drained out of Simon Cox’s face. His mouth was opening and closing as he fought for breath. None of them would have been surprised if he had succumbed to a serious heart attack. ‘I’d like a glass of water,’ he gasped.

  ‘I’ll get it for you,’ Miss Cain said cheerfully. She got up and left the room, returning a few moments later with a glass and a jug.

  Cox drank greedily. Miss Cain picked up her notebook. Pünd and the detective chief inspector waited for him to speak. ‘All right!’ he said at last. ‘I lied to you. But I had no choice. This whole business has been a nightmare.’

  ‘It was a nightmare for Melissa James,’ Hare said, showing no sympathy. ‘And for everyone who knew her. Her killer could still be out there. He could strike again. Has that never occurred to you? Or did you kill her? Did you follow her home? Is that what happened?’

  ‘I did go after her.’ Cox refilled his glass and drank more water. ‘You have no idea how bad it was for me, her decision. It will ruin me! I owe thousands of pounds. The Queen’s Ransom! Ha! That is exactly what it is!’

  ‘So you went to her house,’ Pünd said.

  ‘I went to her house. If I had told you this, of course you would think that I murdered her and maybe you would be right. I could have. There was so much anger in my heart. She had broken her promises. She had lied to me. And she had dismissed me without a single thought because I am a nobody, because in her eyes I am a Latvian peasant and I had only my good faith and my entire heart to give to her. Yes, I could well have strangled her. I admit it. But I didn’t. I did not speak to her again.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I found Clarence Keep. It is less than a mile from the hotel and it took me only a few minutes to drive there. I thought that Melissa would have arrived ahead of me so I was surprised that I could not see the Bentley outside. I had certainly not overtaken her so I assumed that she must have gone another way and that she would arrive very soon.’

  ‘Where were you parked?’

  ‘I was on the edge of the road, close to some trees that concealed me. I did not want to be seen by her when she returned. I thought she would only drive away again.’

  ‘When did she arrive?’

  ‘A little after six o’clock.’

  ‘So where had she been for the past twenty minutes?’

  Hare had addressed the question to himself as much as to anyone else, but Cox answered anyway. ‘I have no idea. She drove past me without seeing me and entered the driveway. I saw her get out of the car and enter the house.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I waited a few minutes, trying to think what I would say to her. I was beginning to regret coming there. I knew that she had made up her mind and that there was nothing I could do. Even so, I got out of the car and walked up the drive. I got to the front door, but before I could ring the bell I heard a voice coming from a window that was open a little bit, on the side. It was a woman – not Melissa. She was older and she was angry with someone. She said they were disgusting. She was accusing them.’

  ‘Phyllis Chandler and her son,’ Hare said. ‘They must have been in the kitchen.’

  ‘I don’t know who it was. I couldn’t see them.’

  ‘Did you hear what she said?’

  ‘Some of it . . . yes. But not the exact words. She said something about the Moonflower being crooked and that she’d seen through it.’ He took a breath. ‘And then she said that if Melissa found the truth, they would have to kill her.’

  There was a long silence. Hare was staring at the producer. ‘They threatened to kill her. She’s been strangled. And you chose not to tell us?’

  Cox looked completely wretched. ‘I already explained to you, Detective Inspector. I couldn’t see who was in the room and who she was talking to. And I still don’t know what I heard. Not exactly . . .’

  ‘But you heard her say they’d kill her!’

  ‘I think so.’ Cox took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. There was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. ‘They didn’t want Melissa to find the truth.’

  ‘What did you do next?’ Pünd asked, a little more gently.

  ‘I left the house. I had decided it was a mistake to have driven there in the first place. It was useless. Melissa wouldn’t see me. Why should I humiliate myself again?’

  ‘What time did you arrive back at the hotel?’ Hare asked.

  ‘It was a short while later. I cannot tell you the time exactly and nobody saw me arrive – I’m sorry. The young lady was no longer behind the reception. I went up to my room to have a shower and to change before supper. I came down again at a quarter to seven, when I met Mrs Gardner, the wife of the manager.’

  ‘Did you really have to make up such an elaborate story?’ Hare demanded. ‘A long walk on Gray Sands! From what you’ve just told us, you were only away from the hotel for about half an hour. If you were going to lie to me, you could have just told me you’d stayed in your room.’

  ‘I was seen leaving,’ Cox said, miserably. ‘It is possible that someone saw me on the way to Clarence Keep. It was stupid of me, yes. But the facts are still the facts, Detective Inspector. I had a very good reason to kill Melissa James. We argued before she died and I followed her to her home. It was obvious to me that when all this came out I would be your number-one suspect. I did not think you would even believe me about what I had heard. You would think I had made it up.’

  Pünd glanced at Detective Chief Inspector Hare as if asking his permission and, on receiving a quick nod, said: ‘You should return to London, Mr Cox. It was most foolish of you to lie to the police and you could have done great harm by delaying the investigation. But now that you have told us the truth, there is no need to detain you. We will, however, contact you again if there are any further questions.’

  Cox looked up. ‘Thank you, Mr Pünd. I really am very sorry, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector,’ Hare corrected him. He was finally unable to resist it.

  ‘I’m sorry. Yes . . .’

  Simon Cox got up and left the room.

  ‘So do we believe him, then?’ Hare asked, once he had gone. ‘And if we do, perhaps we should be arresting Phyllis Chandler and her son!’

  ‘We must certainly question them,’ Pünd agreed. ‘But we must also remember that Mr Cox is not in full command of the English language, and moreover, he heard the conversation through a window while he was in an agitated state of mind.’

  ‘I understand the Moonflower is losing money,’ Hare muttered. ‘And it’s clear that Miss James suspected some sort of embezzlement . . .’

  ‘I am sure that Mr Pendleton will be able to give us more information on that matter.’ Pünd turned to his assistant. ‘But before we leave, there is something I must ask you, Miss Cain. I do not remember you mentioning that you had lived in Devonshire when we were discussing your resumé.’

  Now it was the secretary’s turn to blush. ‘Actually, Mr Pünd, I’ve never been here in my life.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Hare couldn’t believe what he had just heard. ‘Are you telling me all that stuff about Gray Sands . . . ?’

  ‘I hope you’ll forgive me, sir. But I’m afraid I made it up.’ She blinked several times, then continued hurriedly. ‘It was obvious that the gentleman was lying to you and it suddenly occurred to me that I might be able to call his bluff, so to speak. I gambled on the fact that he was down here for the first time, so I decided to tell him that the beach he had walked on didn’t exist – at least, not at the time he was there.’ She turned to Pünd. ‘I hope you’re not angr
y with me, Mr Pünd.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Hare burst out laughing. ‘Angry with you? You deserve a medal, Miss Cain. It was brilliantly done.’

  ‘It was indeed very helpful,’ Pünd said.

  ‘The two of you make a perfect team.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pünd agreed. ‘We do.’

  Nine

  Scene of the Crime

  It took Detective Chief Inspector Hare less than five minutes to drive Atticus Pünd and his assistant from the Moonflower Hotel to Clarence Keep. On the night of the murder, it had taken Melissa James more than twenty, meaning that she had at least fifteen minutes that were unaccounted for. What could she have got up to in that time? There might be an innocent explanation. She could have walked to the postbox. She could have met someone in the street and stopped for a chat. But the fact remained that she had then gone home to her death and everything she had done that evening had a significance that might be critical. As Pünd had written in the preface to The Landscape of Criminal Investigation: ‘In some respects, the roles of the detective and the scientist are closely related. The events that lead up to a murder are as closely bound together as the atoms that make up a molecule. It is all too easy to disregard or overlook a single atom, but if you do so, the sugar that you were expecting may turn out to be salt.’

  In other words, the choices that Melissa had made might well have contributed to her murder. Pünd wanted to know everything she had done.

  They drove through the gates of Clarence Keep and pulled up at the front door. The house was immediately impressive, with its veranda and ornate balcony, sitting on an immaculate lawn rising up from the coastal road. Looking back, Pünd took in the entire sweep of the coast, the lighthouse and Tawleigh-on-the-Water just beyond, half a mile to the east. The Bentley was parked on the gravel, now bereft of its owner and somehow, despite its elegance, a little sad. There was a second car, a rather beaten-about Morris Minor, next to it and a bright green Austin-Healey in a bay around the side of the house.

  ‘The Austin belongs to Francis Pendleton,’ Hare muttered. ‘The Bentley, of course, was hers. Not sure about the Morris.’

  Pünd examined the front of the house. Francis Pendleton claimed that he had left Clarence Keep at 6.15 p.m. It was one of Miss Cain’s ten moments in time. Now, Pünd saw that, given the horseshoe shape of the driveway with its twin gates, it would have been quite possible for him to have left the house through the set of French windows that opened onto the bay where the Austin was parked. He could have driven down to the main road, disappearing down the slope, and could have been on his way without anyone noticing. They only had his word for the time he had actually left.

  Meanwhile, Miss Cain had climbed out of Hare’s car and was gazing at the house with what was, for her, unusual enthusiasm. ‘What a lovely house!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I thought the same,’ the detective chief inspector said. ‘You can understand why Miss James would want to live here.’

  ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Must have cost an arm and a leg to run it, though. She was having financial difficulties, by the way.’ These last words were addressed to Pünd. ‘I’ve spoken to her bank manager. She was thinking about putting the Moonflower back on the market to raise funds and she was looking at her other assets too. She definitely needed a new film.’

  They were about to ring the bell when the front door opened and a man in a tweed suit came out, carrying a bulky medicine bag. It would have been obvious who he was even if Hare hadn’t already described him when discussing the investigation. Now he introduced him to Pünd. ‘This is Dr Collins. You’ll recall that he was the one who found Miss James’s body.’

  Atticus Pünd did not need reminding. He smiled and shook hands with the doctor.

  ‘Pünd?’ It took Collins a moment to connect the name. ‘You’re the chap who sorted out that business with the Ludendorff Diamond! What on earth brings you to this neck of the woods?’

  ‘Mr Pünd has kindly agreed to help me with my enquiries,’ Hare explained, slipping into the official language that he had been using for the past thirty years.

  ‘Yes. Of course. How stupid of me. Why else would you be here?’

  ‘You have been treating Mr Pendleton,’ Pünd said.

  ‘That’s right.’ Collins grimaced. ‘I hope you haven’t come out here to talk to him.’

  ‘He is too ill to speak?’

  ‘Well, he’s barely slept since his wife died and I’d say he’s a nervous wreck. I popped in on my rounds this morning, took one look at him and told him that if he didn’t get some proper sleep soon, I’d have no alternative but to admit him to hospital. He didn’t want that so I’ve given him a fairly hefty dose of reserpine.’

  ‘It is a tranquilliser?’

  ‘Yes. An alkaloid extracted from a plant that grows in India. Rauwolfia serpentia. I prescribed a lot of it during the war and it certainly does the job. He downed it in front of me and although it may be a while before it kicks in, I don’t think you’re going to find him completely compos mentis.’

  ‘I am sure you did what you had to, Dr Collins.’

  ‘Are you on your way home, sir?’ Hare asked.

  ‘I’ve just got to look in on Mrs Green at Leavenworth Cottage and young Nancy at the lighthouse and then I’ll be back in plenty of time for lunch. Why? Do you want to talk to me?’

  ‘We might want to have a word, sir. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘I thought I’d already told you everything I know, but I’m happy to go over it again. I’ll ask Samantha to put the kettle on.’

  He walked past them and, stooping low, climbed into his car. It took three attempts to get the engine to fire but then he was off down the driveway and out onto the road.

  ‘I hope I didn’t jump ahead of you there, Mr Pünd,’ Hare said. ‘I assumed you might want to talk to him next.’

  ‘You are quite correct. He is most certainly another atom to be considered,’ Pünd replied, cryptically.

  They rang the doorbell and at once there was a fierce, high-pitched barking from inside. The door opened and a little dog ran out, a ball of red-coloured fur with short legs and a bushy tail curling up over its hindquarters. At the same time, a voice called out, ‘Kimba, come back in here,’ and as the dog obeyed, Pünd found himself facing a rather dishevelled man dressed in a dark suit.

  ‘This is Eric Chandler,’ Hare said, introducing him.

  Pünd examined the servant with interest, wondering if he was looking at a man who, at the very least, had been prepared to commit murder. He thought not. Eric was aged in his forties and somehow childlike, although not in a good way. He was going bald, but he had allowed what hair remained to grow so that it touched his collar. He had a way of standing that was lopsided, giving the illusion that one arm was longer than the other.

  ‘Good morning, Detective Chief Inspector,’ Eric said.

  ‘Good morning, Eric. Can we come in?’

  ‘Of course, sir. I’m sorry about the dog. He always gets excited when there are strangers.’

  The three of them were shown into the hall with oak floorboards and scattered rugs. A staircase with wooden bannisters led up to the first floor.

  ‘You can certainly tell whose house this was,’ Miss Cain said quietly.

  It was true. The hall, which ran from the living room on one side to the kitchen on the other, was very spacious, a room in itself, and it had been decorated throughout with souvenirs of Melissa James’s career, starting with a glass-fronted cabinet that housed a dozen awards, including two Golden Globes. Displayed on twin tables were a strange assembly of objects that included a wicked-looking Turkish dagger studded with coloured stones. Pünd picked it up and was surprised to find that the blade was both real and serviceable. He did not often go to the cinema himself, but Hare had seen and had quite enjoyed Harem Nights, a comedy set in Istanbul. It reminded him now that Melissa, playing an English tourist, had been threatened with that very same knife in the final scen
e.

  Meanwhile, Madeline Cain was examining the various pictures that decorated the walls. They were all film posters, including one from The Moonflower and another from The Wizard of Oz signed ‘To my brightest star, with love, Bert Lahr’.

  ‘I can’t remember her appearing in that one,’ she said, almost to herself.

  Eric overheard her. ‘Mr Lahr appeared with Miss James in She’s My Angel and the two of them became good friends,’ he explained. ‘The Wizard of Oz was one of her favourite films.’ He swallowed hard. ‘It’s a terrible thing what’s happened. We’re all going to miss her more than I can say.’

  The dog had finally decided that the new arrivals were to be trusted after all and had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘We’d like to see Mr Pendleton,’ Hare announced.

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll take you upstairs.’ Eric Chandler moved towards the stairs, his gait uneven, his shoulders swaying slightly. ‘Mr Pendleton is in the spare room,’ he confided. ‘He hasn’t been able to enter the master bedroom since this awful thing happened. You do know that the doctor has been with him?’

  ‘That’s why we want to see him straight away. We’ll talk to him. Then Mr Pünd will want to take a look around the house. And I expect he’ll want to talk to you.’

  ‘I’ll be with Mother in the kitchen.’

  ‘How is your mother, Eric?’

  ‘Still much the same, sir. She’s taken this all very badly.’ Eric shook his head. ‘I don’t know what will happen to us now. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  He led them upstairs to a corridor that ran from one side of the house to the other, with an archway at the far end. A velvet curtain had been drawn back to reveal a second hallway beyond. He pointed at a doorway beside the staircase. ‘That was Miss James’s room,’ he said. ‘The servants’ quarters are on the other side of the arch. Mr Pendleton is this way . . .’

  He turned left and took them to a door about halfway down. He knocked, at first quietly, then again with more force. ‘Come in.’ The voice coming from the other side was almost inaudible.