A Moment on the Edge:100 Years of Crime Stories by women

by Elizabeth George

  Jemima’s personal party stopped, but the rest of the celebration went on late into the night, spilling onto the sands, even into the sea, long after the sliver of the moon had vanished. Jemima,

  sleeping fitfully and visited by dreams in which Joseph Archer, Tina, and Miss Izzy executed some kind of elaborate dance, not at all like the kind of island jump-up she had recently been enjoying, heard the noise in the distance.

  Far away on Archer Plantation’s lonely peninsula, the peace was broken not by a steel band but by the rough sound of the waves bashing against the rocks at its farthest point. A stranger might have been surprised to see that the lights were still on in the great drawing room, the shutters having been drawn back once the sun was gone, but nobody born on Bow Island—a fisherman out to sea, for ex-ample—would have found it at all odd. Everyone knew that Miss Izzy Archer was frightened of the dark and liked to go to bed with all her lights blazing. Especially when Hazel had gone to her sister’s wedding and Henry had taken her there—another fact of island life which most Bo’landers would have known.

  In her room overlooking the sea, tossing in the big four-poster bed in which she had been born over eighty years ago, Miss Izzy, like Jemima Shore, slept fitfully. After a while, she got out of bed and went to one of the long windows. Jemima would have found her nightclothes, like her swimming costume, bizarre, for Miss Izzy wasn’t wearing the kind of formal Victorian nightdress which might have gone with the house. Rather, she was “using up,” as she quaintly put it, her father’s ancient burgundy-silk pajamas, purchased many aeons ago in Jermyn Street. And as the last Sir John Archer, Baronet, had been several feet taller than his plump little daughter, the long trouser legs trailed on the floor behind her.

  Miss Izzy continued to stare out of the window. Her gaze followed the direction of the terrace, which led in a series of parterres, once grandly planted, now overgrown, down to the rocks and the sea. Although the waters themselves were mostly blackness, the Caribbean night was not entirely dark. Besides, the light from the drawing-room windows streamed out onto the nearest terrace. Miss Izzy rubbed her eyes, then she turned back

  into the bedroom, where the celebrated oil painting of Sir Valentine hung over the mantelpiece dominated the room. Rather confusedly—she must have drunk far too much of that punch—she decided that her ancestor was trying to encourage her to be valiant in the face of danger for the first time in her life. She, little Isabella Archer, spoilt and petted Izzy, his last legitimate descendant—no, not his last legitimate descendant, but the habits of a lifetime were difficult to break—was being spurred on to something courageous by the hawklike gaze of the fierce old autocrat.

  But I’m so old, thought Miss Izzy. Then: But not too old. Once you let people know you’re not, after all, a coward—

  She looked out of the window once more. The effects of the punch were wearing off. Now she was quite certain of what she was seeing. Something dark, darkly clad, dark-skinned—What did it matter, someone dark had come out of the sea and was now proceeding silently in the direction of the house.

  I must be brave, thought Miss Izzy. She said aloud: “Then he’ll be proud of me. His brave girl.” Whose brave girl? No, not Sir Valentine’s—Daddy’s brave girl. Her thoughts began to float away again into the past. I wonder if Daddy will take me on a swim with him to celebrate?

  Miss Izzy started to go downstairs. She had just reached the door of the drawing room and was standing looking into the decaying red-velvet interior, still brightly illuminated, at the moment when the black-clad intruder stepped into the room through the open window.

  Even before the intruder began to move softly toward her, dark-gloved hands outstretched, Miss Izzy Archer knew without doubt in her rapidly beating old heart that Archer Plantation, the house in which she had been born, was also the house in which she was about to die.

  “Miss Izzy Archer is dead. Some person went and killed her last night. A robber, maybe.” It was Joseph Archer who broke the news to Jemima the next morning.

  He spoke across the broad desk of his formal office in Bowtown. His voice was hollow and distant, only the Bo’lander sing-song to connect him with Jemima’s handsome dancing partner of the night before. In his short-sleeved but official-looking white shirt and dark trousers, he looked once again completely different from the cheerful ragged fisherman Jemima had first encountered. This was indeed the rising young Bo’lander politician she was seeing: a member of the newly formed government of Bow Island. Even the tragic fact of the death—the murder, as it seemed—of an old lady seemed to strike no chord of emotion in him.

  Then Jemima looked again and saw what looked suspiciously like tears in Joseph Archer’s eyes.

  “I just heard myself, you know. The Chief of Police, Sandy Marlow, is my cousin.” He didn’t attempt to brush away the tears. If that was what they were. But the words were presumably meant as an explanation. Of what? Of shock? Grief? Shock he must surely have experienced, but grief? Jemima decided at this point that she could at least inquire delicately about his precise relationship to Miss Izzy.

  It came back to her that he had visited the old lady the week previously,” if Miss Izzy’s rather vague words concerning “Little Joseph” were to be trusted. She was thinking not so much of a possible blood relationship as some other kind of connection. After all, Joseph Archer himself had dismissed the former idea in the graveyard. His words about Sir Valentine and his numerous progeny came back to her: “Don’t pay too much attention to the stories. Otherwise, how come we’re not all living in that fine old Archer Plantation House?” At which Greg Harrison had commented with such fury: “Instead of merely my ex-wife.” The exchange made more sense to her now, of course, that she knew of the position of Tina Harrison, now Tina Archer, in Miss Izzy’s will.

  The will! Tina would now inherit! And she would inherit in the light of a will signed the very morning of the day of Miss

  Izzy’s death. Clearly, Joseph had been correct when he dismissed the claim of the many Bo’landers called Archer to be descended in any meaningful fashion from Sir Valentine. There was already a considerable difference between Tina, the allegedly sole legitimate descendant other than Miss Izzy, and the rest of the Bo’lander Archers. In the future, with Tina come into her inheritance, the gap would widen even more.

  It was extremely hot in Joseph’s office. It was not so much that Bow Island was an unsophisticated place as that the persistent breeze made air-conditioning generally unnecessary. The North American tourists who were beginning to request air-conditioning in the hotels, reflected Jemima, would only succeed in ruining the most perfect kind of natural ventilation. But a government office in Bowtown was rather different. A huge fan in the ceiling made the papers on Joseph’s desk stir uneasily. Jemima felt a ribbon of sweat trickle down beneath her long loose white T-shirt, which she had belted as a dress to provide some kind of formal attire to call on a Bo’lander minister in working hours.

  By this time, Jemima’s disbelieving numbness on the subject of Miss Izzy’s murder was wearing off. She was struck by the frightful poignancy of that last encounter in the decaying grandeur of Archer Plantation House. Worse still, the old lady’s pathetic fear of loneliness was beginning to haunt her. Miss Izzy had been so passionate in her determination not to be abandoned. “Ever since I was a little girl I’ve hated being alone. Everyone knows that. It’s so lonely here by the sea. What happens if someone breaks in?”

  Well, someone had broken in. Or so it was presumed. Joseph Archer’s words: “A robber, maybe.” And this robber—maybe—had killed the old lady in the process.

  Jemima began hesitantly: “I’m so sorry, Joseph. What a ghastly tragedy! You knew her? Well, I suppose everyone round here must have known her—”

  “All the days of my life, since I was a little boy. My mama was one of her maids. Just a little thing herself, and then she died. She’s in that churchyard, you know, in a corner. Miss Izzy was very good to me when my mama died, oh, yes. She was
kind. Now you’d think that independence, our independence, would be hard for an old lady like her, but Miss Izzy she just liked it very much. ‘England’s no good to me any more, Joseph,’ she said, ‘I’m a Bo’lander just like the rest of you.’”

  “You saw her last week, I believe. Miss Izzy told me that herself.”

  Joseph gazed at Jemima steadily—the emotion had vanished. “I went to talk with her, yes. She had some foolish idea of changing her mind about things. Just a fancy, you know. But that’s over. May she rest in peace, little old Miss Izzy. We’ll have our National Museum now, that’s for sure, and we’ll remember her with it. It’ll make a good museum for our history. Didn’t they tell you in London, Jemima?” There was pride in his voice as he concluded: “Miss Izzy left everything in her will to the people of Bow Island.”

  Jemima swallowed hard. Was it true? Or rather, was it still true? Had Miss Izzy really signed a new will yesterday? She had been quite circumspect on the subject, mentioning someone called Thompson—her lawyer, no doubt—who thought there would be “trouble” as a result. “Joseph,” she said, “Tina Archer was up at Archer Plantation House yesterday afternoon, too.”

  “Oh, that girl, the trouble she made, tried to make. Tina and her stories and her fine education and her history. And she’s so pretty!” Joseph’s tone was momentarily violent but he finished more calmly. “The police are waiting at the hospital. She’s not speaking yet, she’s not even conscious.” Then even more calmly: “She’s not so pretty now, I hear. That robber beat her, you see.”

  It was hotter than ever in the Bowtown office and even the papers on the desk were hardly stirring in the waft of the fan. Jemima saw Joseph’s face swimming before her. She absolutely must not faint—she never fainted. She concentrated desperately on what Joseph Archer was telling her, the picture he was recreating of the night of the murder. The shock of learning that

  Tina Archer had also been present in the house when Miss Izzy was killed was irrational, she realized that. Hadn’t Tina promised the old lady she would stay with her?

  Joseph was telling her that Miss Izzy’s body had been found in the drawing room by the cook, Hazel, returning from her sister’s wedding at first light. It was a grisly touch that because Miss Izzy was wearing red-silk pajamas—her daddy’s—and all the furnishings of the drawing room were dark-red as well, poor Hazel had not at first realized the extent of her mistress’s injuries. Not only was there blood everywhere, there was water, too—pools of it. Whatever—whoever—had killed Miss Izzy had come out of the sea. Wearing rubber shoes—or flippers—and probably gloves as well.

  A moment later, Hazel was in no doubt about what had hit Miss Izzy. The club, still stained with blood, had been left lying on the floor of the front hall. (She herself, deposited by Henry, had originally entered by the kitchen door.) The club, although not of Bo’lander manufacture, belonged to the house. It was a relic, African probably, of Sir John Archer’s travels in other parts of the former British Empire, and hung heavy and short-handled on the drawing-room wall. Possibly Sir John had in mind to wield it against unlawful intruders but to Miss Izzy it had been simply one more family memento. She never touched it. Now it had killed her.

  “No prints anywhere,” Joseph said. “So far.”

  “And Tina?” asked Jemima with dry lips. The idea of the pools of water stagnant on the floor of the drawing room mingled with Miss Izzy’s blood reminded her only too vividly of the old lady when last seen—soaking wet in her bizarre swimming costume, defiantly sitting down on her own sofa.

  “The robber ransacked the house. Even the cellar. The champagne cases Miss Izzy boasted about must have been too heavy, though. He drank some rum. The police don’t know yet what he took—silver snuff-boxes maybe, there were plenty of those about.” Joseph sighed. “Then he went upstairs.”

  “And found Tina?”

  “In one of the bedrooms. He didn’t hit her with the same weapon—lucky for her, as he’d have killed her just like he killed Miss Izzy. He left that downstairs and picked up something a good deal lighter. Probably didn’t reckon on seeing her or anyone there at all. ’Cept for Miss Izzy, that is. Tina must have surprised him. Maybe she woke up. Robbers—well, all I can say is that robbers here don’t generally go and kill people unless they’re frightened.”

  Without warning, Joseph slumped down in front of her and put his head in his hands. He murmured something like: “When we find who did it to Miss Izzy—”

  It wasn’t until the next day that Tina Archer was able to speak I even haltingly to the police. Like most of the rest of the Bow Island population, Jemima Shore was informed of the fact almost immediately. Claudette, manageress of her hotel, a sympathetic if loquacious character, just happened to have a niece who was a nurse. But that was the way information always spread about the island—no need for newspapers or radio, this private telegraph was far more efficient.

  Jemima had spent the intervening twenty-four hours swimming rather aimlessly, sunbathing, and making little tours of the island in her Mini. She was wondering at what point she should inform Megalith Television of the brutal way in which her projected program had been terminated and make arrangements to return to London. After a bit, the investigative instinct, that inveterate curiosity which would not be stilled, came to the fore. She found she was speculating all the time about Miss Izzy’s death. A robber? A robber who had also tried to kill Tina Archer? Or a robber who had merely been surprised by her presence in the house? What connection, if any, had all this with Miss Izzy’s will?

  The will again. But that was one thing Jemima didn’t have to speculate about for very long. For Claudette, the manageress, also just happened to be married to the brother of Hazel, Miss Izzy’s cook. In this way, Jemima was apprised—along with the rest of Bow Island, no doubt—that Miss Izzy had indeed signed a new will down in Bowtown on the morning of her death, that Eddie Thompson, the solicitor, had begged her not to do it, that Miss Izzy had done it, that Miss Izzy had still looked after Hazel all right, as she had promised (and Henry who had worked for her even longer), and that some jewelry would go to a cousin in England, “seeing as Miss Izzy’s mother’s jewels were in an English bank anyway since long back.” But for the rest, well, there would be no National Bo’lander Museum now, that was for sure. Everything else—that fine old Archer Plantation House, Miss Izzy’s fortune, reputedly enormous but who knew for sure?—would go to Tina Archer.

  If she recovered, of course. But the latest cautious bulletin from Claudette via the niece-who-was-a-nurse, confirmed by a few other loquacious people on the island, was that Tina Archer was recovering. The police had already been able to interview her. In a few days she would be able to leave the hospital. And she was determined to attend Miss Izzy’s funeral, which would be held, naturally enough, in that little English-looking church with its incongruous tropical vegetation overlooking the sunny grave. For Miss Izzy had long ago made clear her own determination to be buried in the Archer Tomb along with Governor Sir Valentine and “his only wife, Isabella.”

  “As the last of the Archers. But she still had to get permission since it’s a national monument. And of course the government couldn’t do enough for her. So they gave it. Then. Ironic, isn’t it?” The speaker making absolutely no attempt to conceal her disgust was Coralie Harrison. “And now we learn that she wasn’t the last of the Archers, not officially, and we shall have the so-called Miss Tina Archer as chief mourner. And while the Bo’lander government desperately looks for ways to get round the will and grab the house for their precious museum, nobody quite had the bad taste to go ahead and say no—no burial in the

  Archer Tomb for naughty old Miss Izzy. Since she hasn’t, after all, left the people of Bow Island a penny.”

  “It should be an interesting occasion,” Jemima murmured. She was sitting with Coralie Harrison under the conical thatched roof of the hotel’s beach bar. This was where she first danced, then sat out with Joseph Archer on the night of the new moon—
the night Miss Izzy had been killed. Now the sea sparkled under the sun as though there were crystals scattered on its surface. Today there were no waves at all and the happy water-skiers crossed and recrossed the wide bay with its palm-fringed shore. Enormous brown pelicans perched on some stakes which indicated where rocks lay. Every now and then, one would take off like an unwieldy airplane and fly slowly and inquisitively over the heads of the swimmers. It was a tranquil, even an idyllic scene, but somewhere in the distant peninsula lay Archer Plantation House, not only shuttered but now, she imagined, also sealed by the police.

  Coralie had sauntered up to the bar from the beach. She traversed the few yards with seeming casualness—all Bo’landers frequently exercised their right to promenade along the sands unchecked (as in most Caribbean islands, no one owned any portion of the beach in Bow Island, even outside the most stately mansion like Archer Plantation House, except the people). Jemima, however, was in no doubt that this was a planned visit. She had not forgotten that first meeting, and Coralie’s tentative approach to her, interrupted by Greg’s peremptory cry.

  It was the day after the inquest on Miss Izzy’s death. Her body had been released by the police and the funeral would soon follow. Jemima admitted to herself that she was interested enough in the whole Archer family, and its various branches, to want to attend it, quite apart from the tenderness she felt for the old lady herself, based on that brief meeting. To Megalith Television, in a telex from Bow-town, she had spoken merely of tying up a few loose ends resulting from the cancellation of her program.

  There had been an open verdict at the inquest. Tina Archer’s evidence in a sworn statement had not really contributed much that wasn’t known or suspected already. She had been asleep upstairs in one of the many fairly derelict bedrooms kept ostensibly ready for guests. The bedroom chosen for her by Miss Izzy had not faced onto the sea. The chintz curtains in this back room, bearing some dated rosy pattern from a remote era, weren’t quite so bleached and tattered since they had been protected from the sun and salt.