Moonflower Murders

by Anthony Horowitz

  ‘You think I like being here? You think I’ve enjoyed working with you all these years?’ His chest was heaving. He was on the edge of tears. ‘You’ve never tried to see things my way. You don’t have any understanding what it’s like being me.’

  There was something in his voice that moved her, briefly. But she didn’t go over to him. She didn’t get out of her seat. ‘You shouldn’t have lied to that policeman,’ she said slowly.

  ‘And you shouldn’t have said what you said!’

  ‘Maybe not. But I’ve already told you. They’re going to find out anyway. And what do you think is going to happen then?’ She folded her arms. ‘I’ve made a decision, Eric. When this is over and the police leave us alone, I’m going to move in with my sister. I’ve worked long enough. And you’re right, it’s not healthy the two of us being here together.’

  He stared at her. ‘What about me?’

  ‘You can stay here. I’m sure Mr Pendleton will look after you.’ She glanced in the direction of the main house. ‘Did he speak to you this evening?’

  Eric had taken Francis Pendleton his supper at seven o’clock and had removed the tray an hour later. The master of the house had barely been out of the bedroom all day, sleeping for several hours after the medicine Dr Collins had given him, and then sitting, apparently doing nothing at all, on his own. He had hardly touched the food.

  ‘He didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to talk to him.’

  ‘He won’t keep me on. He won’t even stay here. He’ll sell Clarence Keep and go back to London.’

  ‘Well, that’s your lookout.’

  Eric Chandler’s voice quivered and, to his mother’s disgust, he began to cry. ‘Please, Ma,’ he whimpered. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I am leaving you, Eric. I should have done it years ago. After what you’ve been getting up to here, I never want to see you again.’

  She got up and turned the wireless back on just as the presenter of Record Roundabout introduced ‘The Blue Danube’ by Johann Strauss. Mother and son sat listening, not looking at each other. Phyllis’s face was stone. Eric was weeping silently. The orchestra struck up and the cheerful waltz began.

  VI

  Just down the corridor, Francis Pendleton was lying in the darkness, gathering his thoughts. He was neither asleep nor awake but somewhere in between, trying to separate the nightmare of everything that had happened from the reality of where he was now. He wanted to get up but he could barely move; the drug he had taken that morning was still paralysing his system. Above all else, there was the crushing weight of grief, the loss of Melissa, who had always been, right up until the end, his one true love. When he thought about her, he no longer wanted to live.

  He rolled onto his side and very slowly, like an old man, got to his feet. He was still in the dressing gown and pyjamas that he’d been wearing when the detective chief inspector and that German man had come to see him in the morning. He had forgotten what he had told them and he couldn’t remember their questions either. He hoped he hadn’t given anything away.

  He left the room, emerging into the corridor in his bare feet. The house was almost silent, the darkness almost tangible, as if he would have to brush it aside to continue on his way, but the velvet curtain was drawn back and he could hear, very faintly, the sound of waltz music coming from the servants’ lounge. He wanted to tell them to turn it off but he didn’t have the strength.

  He had no idea where he was going but he wasn’t surprised when he found himself there. He opened a second door and looked into the master bedroom, the room he had shared with Melissa for the four years of their marriage. No. That wasn’t true. Towards the end, she had wanted more and more to sleep on her own. It had become her room, not theirs.

  The moonlight was flooding in through the windows, illuminating the interior, and Francis cast his eye over the bed they had chosen together, the wardrobe that she had found in a little second-hand shop in Salisbury. He glanced at the two ormolu tables and felt a twist in his gut as he realised that the telephone was no longer there. The police had taken it away, of course. Francis stood where he was, framed in the doorway as if pinned there, not daring to go any further in.

  He would sell everything, he decided. He would sell the house and the furniture. He—

  His eyes had travelled round the room and he had noticed something out of place. The chest of drawers between the windows. The top drawer was slightly open. Why should that be? He had been back into the room when the police were there and afterwards, when it had been cleaned. He had looked in only that morning. The drawer had been closed. He was sure of it.

  He forced himself to enter through the doorway, breaking the invisible barrier. He reached down and opened the drawer. This was where Melissa kept some of her most intimate things – her stockings, her underclothes. He looked at the different items, remembering the shape of them and the warmth when she had worn them. And then somehow, in the fog of medication, he saw that one of them had been taken. A white silk negligée decorated with flowers that he had bought her in Paris. It had come from an expensive boutique on the Champs-Élysées. She had walked past and seen it in the window and said she liked it, so after they had returned to the hotel he had run all the way back to get it as a surprise. He reached down and fumbled through the other garments just in case he was wrong. But he knew that he wasn’t. He had seen it, neatly folded, after the room had been restored. It had been on the top of the pile. It had been there.

  Who had taken it? Who had committed this act of desecration?

  Francis listened to the music wafting in through the darkness. He thought of Eric Chandler and the way he had always looked at Melissa. The two of them had laughed about it, but he had often thought there was something wrong. He wanted to go into the living room now. He wanted to confront both of them, the mother and the son. But he wasn’t strong enough. He felt ill. It would have to wait until the morning.

  Francis Pendleton groped his way out of the room and went back to bed.

  VII

  Atticus Pünd had returned to his room after an excellent dinner with Detective Chief Inspector Hare. There were various thoughts turning in his mind and he was not quite ready for bed so he lit a cigarette and stepped out onto the narrow balcony in front of his room. From here he had an uninterrupted view of the sea as it stretched all the way to the horizon, a single line, perfectly drawn by the moonlight. The moon itself was low in the sky and appeared almost as a single eye, watching him from the other side of the world. He listened to the rhythm of the waves and smoked his cigarette. The darkness was telling him something and he knew what it was.

  He should not have taken the case.

  Coming to Tawleigh-on-the-Water had been a mistake, and not just because he had been unable to meet the client who had sent him here. It would have been good to have come face to face with Mr Edgar Schultz and to have discovered his true motivation for hiring a private detective. ‘We want to know what happened. We feel we owe it to her.’ That was what he had said on the telephone, but he had said other things too and they had not been true. There was also something in the letter he had received; a small point, but nonetheless one that had concerned him.

  Had he been too hasty? Although he had not personally seen Melissa James’s films, he knew she had given pleasure to many people in the world and for that she was to be admired. Perhaps that was why he had been so quick to volunteer his services. It was also true that, after a week, the police had made no arrest. Was that the job of the private detective, to bring justice where otherwise it might fail? He did not think so. He did not see himself as an avenger. He was more of an administrator. Here is the crime. Here is the solution. His job was to bring them together.

  He had no solution yet. It occurred to him that most of the people he had so far met had a reasonable explanation for their whereabouts at the time of the crime. Francis Pendleton was on his way to the opera. Phyllis Chandler and her son had been with each
other and it seemed unlikely (though not impossible) that one could have committed the murder without the knowledge of the other. Dr Collins had been in the surgery with his wife. The Gardners had been at the hotel. And so on.

  Simon Cox? He had the opportunity but not, Pünd thought, the cold-bloodedness. Algernon Marsh? He claimed to have been asleep in his room after having had too much to drink. But his sister had said he’d arrived at the house forty-five minutes later than he claimed.

  It was all wrong. Pünd had written about the shape of a crime, about how, in an investigation, events will arrange themselves until they become instantly identifiable. Such-and-such a person must have committed the murder because it is the only way that it makes sense of the overall design. The ten moments in time drawn up by Miss Cain should have illustrated exactly that. They should have presented themselves as the connecting points in one of those puzzles enjoyed by children: join the dots and a picture should appear. But it had not.

  He exhaled smoke and watched it corkscrew in the air and then disappear into the darkness. At that moment he understood that there was an evil presence in Tawleigh-on-the-Water and that he had been aware of it since he had arrived. It was close to him. He could feel it now.

  He went back into the room, closing the door behind him.

  Twelve

  An Arrest Is Made

  ‘Mrs Chandler, I wonder if I might have a word . . .’

  Phyllis Chandler had just boiled the kettle when Francis Pendleton came into the kitchen. He was looking pale and very thin with hollows in his cheeks and dark shadows under his eyes, but there was a sense of determination about him that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘It’s very good to see you up, sir,’ she said. ‘I was just going to bring you some tea and maybe a little toast for breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t want any breakfast, thank you. Where is Eric?’

  ‘He’s gone into Tawleigh. I asked him to pick up some more eggs.’ She knew at once that trouble was coming. She could tell from his tone of voice and from the way he had enquired about Eric.

  ‘There’s something I have to ask you,’ Francis went on. ‘Have either of you been into my wife’s bedroom since . . .’ He couldn’t find a way to finish the sentence. ‘Have either of you been in there?’

  ‘I certainly haven’t, sir . . .’

  ‘Because someone has taken something. I’m not imagining it because they left the drawer open and I know it was there.’

  ‘What have they taken?’ All the colour drained from Phyllis’s face as she waited for the axe to fall.

  ‘It’s a very personal item. A silk negligée. I think you probably know the one I mean.’

  ‘The pretty white one, with flowers?’ She had ironed it often enough.

  ‘Yes. You don’t have it in the laundry room?’

  ‘No, sir.’ For half a second she had considered lying to him but what good would that do?

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have taken it?’

  Phyllis pulled a chair from the table and sat down heavily. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

  ‘Mrs Chandler?’

  ‘It was Eric.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She had whispered so quietly that he hadn’t heard her.

  ‘Eric!’ She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

  ‘But why would Eric . . . ?’

  ‘I can’t answer that, Mr Pendleton. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m so ashamed I could die.’ Now that she had started, the words poured out of her. ‘There’s something wrong with him. He adored the mistress, but he let it go to his head and he couldn’t stop himself. I’ve told him. I’ve already had words with him.’

  ‘You knew about this?’ Francis was shocked.

  ‘Not about the negligée, sir. But I knew . . . other things.’

  ‘He took other things?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Maybe. He’s not well—’

  Francis held up a hand. This wasn’t what he had expected and he didn’t have the strength to deal with it. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then he took a breath. ‘I will be selling Clarence Keep quite soon anyway,’ he said. ‘I had already decided that. I can’t live here any more, not on my own. But I think you and your son should leave at once, by the end of the day. My wife is dead and all he can do is—’ He broke off. ‘I should report him. Maybe I will report him.’

  ‘I tried to stop him, sir.’ Phyllis burst into tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Chandler. I know you’re not to blame. But I want you both out of here. As for your son, when he gets back you can tell him that I don’t want to see him again. He makes me sick.’

  Francis turned round and left the room.

  * * *

  At the Moonflower Hotel, Atticus Pünd had just finished his breakfast when Maureen Gardner brought him a note. It was from Detective Chief Inspector Hare, explaining that, as Pünd had suggested, he was going into Barnstaple to ask further questions about The Marriage of Figaro, and in particular if any audience members had arrived late. The performance had begun at seven o’clock. Even if Francis Pendleton had left the house at 6.15 p.m. as he claimed, he would only just have arrived in time. Any later and it would have been difficult, if not impossible. Certainly, he wouldn’t have had time to sneak back into the house, murder his wife, cover his tracks, get back to his car, wherever he had left it, and then drive into Barnstaple, park and make it into the theatre in time for the overture.

  Once again it all came down to the ten moments in time that Miss Cain had drawn up – the picture that refused to form. Pünd had been unable to get to sleep. It had proved impossible to put the different permutations out of his mind. They had tormented him for much of the night.

  Miss Cain joined him in the living room, but from the moment she sat down she seemed out of sorts. She had taken her breakfast in her room, as before, and began by handing him a sheaf of typewritten pages. ‘These are my notes from yesterday,’ she said. ‘There was a lot to cover and I hope I haven’t left anything out.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Pünd took the documents and quickly glanced through them. There was the interview with Simon Cox, the visit to Clarence Keep, Francis Pendleton, the Chandlers. ‘This all seems to be in excellent order, Miss Cain,’ he said. ‘I did not see that you had packed a typewriter!’ he added, with a twinkle.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Gardner allowed me to use their office.’ Miss Cain flinched, as if there was something she was holding back.

  ‘There is something else?’ Pünd asked gently.

  ‘Well, yes. There is. I hope you won’t think I’ve acted improperly, Mr Pünd, and I suppose it was kind of the Gardners to help me. But after ten minutes, they left me on my own and, remembering what the detective chief inspector said about the hotel’s finances and what might be going on, I decided I might as well take the opportunity to have a look around.’

  ‘My dear Miss Cain!’ Pünd beamed at her. ‘You are the true Sherlock Holmes. Or perhaps it is more Raffles, the gentleman thief, that you resemble. What did you find?’

  ‘They were cheating her, Mr Pünd. There can be absolutely no doubt of it. Poor Miss James, putting her trust in two complete crooks!’

  She produced three more documents, written and signed by Lance Gardner. They were addressed to different suppliers – food, furniture and laundry in Barnstaple, Taunton and Newquay. In each case, they apologised that, due to an error, an overpayment had been made and requested the company remit the difference by return of post.

  ‘It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book,’ she said. ‘I was the personal assistant to the manager of the Savoy in London for eighteen months and he explained the whole thing. You deliberately overpay suppliers, often by ten times the correct amount. It’s easy enough to slip in an extra zero. You then write an apologetic letter, just like these ones, asking for a refund. But look where they’re asking the money to be sent!’

  Pünd examined the top letter.

  ‘L. Gardner, Esq.’ He read it ou
t loud.

  ‘Exactly. That’s his private bank account. So he pockets the difference. There are three letters in your hand and they add up to almost two hundred pounds, and I found lots more tucked away in the files. I couldn’t take any more or they’d have noticed they’d gone missing, but no wonder the hotel is in difficulties. Heaven knows how long this has been going on. They may have stolen thousands.’

  ‘This is remarkable, Miss Cain.’ Pünd checked the other letters. Sure enough, the amounts requested ranged from fifty pounds to over a hundred pounds. ‘We must pass these to Detective Chief Inspector Hare as soon as he returns.’

  ‘I would prefer it if you didn’t mention how you got hold of them, if you don’t mind, sir.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘There is something else . . .’

  Miss Cain bowed her head and Pünd realised that it wasn’t actually the theft of the incriminating letters that had been bothering her when she sat down. There was something else on her mind. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Mr Pünd, but I’ve decided to leave your employ. I will of course work out a month’s notice, but I would like that notice period to start from today.’

  Pünd looked up, genuinely surprised. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘I have very much enjoyed working for you, sir, and I genuinely admire what you do. You are clearly a remarkable person. But as you saw, I became very upset yesterday when you were discussing the murder with the detective chief inspector. The descriptions of the killing I found – well, as I say, I was very upset.’

  ‘You had every right to be, Miss Cain. It was wrong of us to speak so openly in front of you.’

  ‘I don’t blame you at all, Mr Pünd. Far from it. But I’m afraid it made me appreciate that I’m not entirely suited to your line of work. The hotel business, insurance, food manufacture – I’ve been comfortable and, I think, effective in all of them. But young women being strangled, and police officers, and all these people lying to you, that’s quite another thing. I didn’t get a wink of sleep thinking about it last night and by the time the sun came up this morning, I knew that as much as I hate letting you down, this isn’t for me.’