by Anne Morice
“Most likely down tools to a man.”
“And, apart from that, Oliver, the news would inevitably get leaked to the press, wouldn’t you say? I know that, in theory, all publicity is good publicity, but I have a nasty feeling that this story could so easily rebound on us.”
“You’re absolutely right, of course, and so what are we left with? Absolute stalemate, as far as I can see.”
“There might be one alternative.”
“Might there, really? Do tell me!”
“A sort of compromise, in a way. That’s to say, not bringing the police in officially, but . . .”
I tailed off here because Oliver was regarding me with an expression I could not interpret. There seemed to be amusement in it, but wariness too.
“What’s funny?” I asked him.
“Forgive me, Tessa, but I have heard something about your activities in the crime world. I imagine everyone has, after that sensation in Dearehaven last summer. I was just wondering whether you proposed to take this on yourself, a sort of one-woman investigation?”
“No, certainly not. I can just imagine how popular that would make me, can’t you? Besides, I trust it hasn’t escaped your notice that I happen to be working quite hard already, just at present?”
“Yes, indeed, and please forgive me! If only they were all like you . . . Well, tell me then, what kind of compromise had you in mind?”
“I persuaded Philip not to destroy the letters, which was what he wanted to do, but to let me borrow them for a few hours, so that I could show them to Robin.”
“Robin?”
“The man I’m married to. He’s a real detective, as you may already know, not an amateur like me, but a C.I.D. Inspector with heaps of experience. It’s true that I was in a special position to dig out one or two facts in the Dearehaven case, which helped to sort out the goats from the sheep, but I shouldn’t have got anywhere without Robin’s expertise to back it up. So just now, after the Mickletons had gone, I put it to one or two of the others that I should show him the letters and see if there was anything about them that struck him as in any way familiar. They agreed that it would be a terrific idea, but I thought I ought to clear it with you first, in case you had any objection.”
The concluding words had been thrown in for form’s sake because the offer had been received with so much enthusiasm from everyone else that I had expected as much, if not more of the same from Oliver. It was something of a jolt to find it greeted with a tight-lipped silence. He had removed his spectacles too, and was polishing them on one of the pristine, monogrammed handkerchiefs, always a sign of turmoils of indecision raging beneath the urbane exterior.
“Well?” I asked, when he still did not speak.
“I don’t know, Tessa, I do realise that you’re only trying to be constructive and I certainly have no wish to offend you, but quite frankly I do jib at the idea of the word getting around outside.”
“But it will be entirely unofficial and confidential. Surely I made that clear?”
“It’s not that which worries me.”
“What, then?”
“Simply that I feel very strongly that, by taking any action of the kind you suggest, we shall simply be playing into the hands of this lunatic, reacting just as he’d hoped we would. If we accept, as I suppose we are bound to, that he will be just as well informed as everyone else about what you propose to do, that will be one up to him, won’t it? He’ll have got us on the hop. Whereas, if all we innocent bystanders, individually and collectively, can manage to create the impression that we regard the letters as some petty, childish joke, nothing for adult people to get upset about, then he will soon realise that there is no point in going on with the game. I honestly believe that this is the best way to deal with the situation and, if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll come round to my point of view.”
As it happened, I had thought about it already and I was nowhere near coming round to his point of view. In fact, in my opinion, he had gravely underrated the risks in the course he was now advocating and the damage to morale which would ensue if it did not pay off. I had small hope of Robin being able to solve the mystery, or point to the identity of Anon simply by looking at the letters, but I was still convinced that everyone concerned would feel more comfortable if action of some kind could be seen to be taken, whether it brought results or not.
However, like most vacillators, Oliver could be stubborn too on occasion and nothing would budge him from his position, so in the end we reached a rather uneasy compromise. If, during the forthcoming twenty-four hours, no further letters arrived, we should all do our utmost to put the matter out of our minds and carry on as though nothing had happened. On the other hand, if the joke, or whatever it was, were to be prolonged into the following day, I had his full permission to enlist Robin’s help.
I cannot be sure what I should have done if he had then asked me to hand over the letters to him for safe keeping, but, luckily, he did not. It was a rather curious oversight too, in my opinion, for I would certainly have expected such a clever man as he was to guess that I had not the smallest intention of sticking to my side of the bargain.
Chapter Four
I
To my annoyance, the following day began with a victory for Oliver, vindicating his policy of “when in doubt what to do, do nothing,” because there was no letter waiting for Philip and none arrived during the whole of that rehearsal session.
Naturally, I was not disposed to complain about this; the annoyance came from the thought of him preening himself on the success of his tactics, whereas I, who had the power to disabuse him, was prevented by my own duplicity from using it.
As he had pointed out, there could be no doubt that Anon had been as well informed as anyone about my plan to consult Robin and I had credited him with rather more astuteness than Oliver in foreseeing that I should go ahead with it, with or without the management’s blessing, particularly since I had not bothered to mention that such blessing had been withheld. It was my firm opinion that it was not so much the pretence of indifference to his activities which had induced him to give them up as the discovery that, against all the odds, an official from Scotland Yard had been informed of them.
If so, it would no doubt have come as a relief to him to know that Robin’s verdict had been practically worthless, but I did not see fit to mention this either, least of all to Clarrie. Indeed, she would have been the last person I would have confided in, since the single odd feature common to both letters which Robin had drawn my attention to pointed to her as the possible author.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” I asked him.
“Hadn’t you noticed the Biblical touch?”
“Yes, subconsciously, I suppose I had, but isn’t that the kind of language one automatically associates with anonymous letter writers? I had always assumed that it was a way of implying that the message did not come from them, personally, that they were merely acting as instruments of the Almighty?”
“Yes, very likely, in some cases, but we know that this was not the work of some Bible-thumping crackpot. They were sent, you maintain, by someone well known to you all, who is outwardly just as sane as you are, and of all the possible candidates isn’t Clarrie the one who stands out as being on familiar terms with the Bible?”
“Well, that’s true, of course, although nowadays she doesn’t quote from it so often as she used to. I don’t know whether that’s because it started out as an affectation, some childish desire to shock, which she has now grown out of, or whether it was so much a part of the language she grew up with that for a long time it came naturally to her.”
“Whatever the reason, it still might not occur to her what a give-away it was.”
“Well, yes, that may be so, but we seem to be arguing over technicalities and nothing can alter the fact that it’s not in character for Clarrie to do a thing like this. Whatever else, she’s not sly and, besides, what possible motive, real or imaginary, could she have?”
“At least. And by none more thoroughly than Clarrie, I might add.”
“Which could have had a purpose and could have been straightforward, innocent curiosity. The trouble you have here, as so often in the past, is that you’re up against a mob of people for whom life consists largely of pretending to be what they are not and who, over the years, have become rather practised in it.”
“So, if another letter does turn up, what do you advise us to do? And please don’t say we should all play along with Oliver and pretend it isn’t happening. For one thing, her ladyship is not in a mood to co-operate and I wouldn’t put it past her to take matters into her own hands and call the police in off her own bat. That could have catastrophic results and, even without it, there’d be all sorts of worries and tensions to keep us on edge, which is hardly what we need, with the dress rehearsal only twenty-four hours away.”
“Yes, it’s a depressing outlook, I agree; although it does sound from what you tell me that the victim himself remains comparatively unmoved?”
“That’s true. It scarcely seems to have got through to Philip, but that may be just one more sign of encroaching senility, which doesn’t do much to cheer one up.”
“You wouldn’t accept the idea that, unlike the rest of you, he has a shrewd idea of who did send the letters and therefore feels confident that he has nothing to fear?”
“Oh no, that doesn’t sound at all likely. If it were so, why wouldn’t he have tipped off her ladyship and stopped her ranting around and screaming for vengeance?”
“Yes, that’s logical, I suppose.”
“So what do you advise?”
“As far as I can see, you haven’t much choice. You had better take a leaf from Clarrie’s book and put your faith in God to strike down your enemy. Or at least stay his hand.”
I cannot pretend that mine was of the strength to move mountains, so presumably other forces must have been at work in restraining him and granting us a reprieve, for the worst that happened on Tuesday morning was getting seized on by Dolly, who was present when I gave Philip back the letters and commanded me to give her a detailed account of Robin’s reaction to them. I managed to fob her off by saying that, from his experience of these matters, he did not consider that we should take this one too seriously. He had seen a great many communications of this type and had developed a sixth sense, which rarely let him down, enabling him to distinguish on sight between those which posed a genuine threat and the vast majority which came from some harmless lunatic with a misplaced sense of humour. Most of this was twaddle, needless to say, but, although obviously far from satisfied, she consented to abide by this verdict, pending further developments.
II
The next airing of the subject, which was naturally at the back of all our minds, and not so far back either, took place a few hours later between Clarrie and myself and an actor named Anthony Blewiston, who had a walk-on and also understudied Philip.
Clarrie, all agog for Robin’s report, had asked me to meet her for lunch in a pub round the corner, about five minutes’ walk from the theatre. It was an overheated, smoke-laden little place, with a regular and predominantly male clientele, most of whom looked as though they had met there to clinch the final details on some shady racecourse deal, but at least there were no fruit machines or space games to distract them from their business and, as they all talked in undertones, the decibel level was acceptable.
I was only a little late for our appointment and was therefore slightly annoyed to find that Anthony, who had wandered in on his own a few minutes ahead of me, had already been invited to join us. However, I resigned myself to the fact that it was probably asking too much to expect Clarrie to be left sitting on her own in a public place for more than five seconds at a stretch. On the whole, I could consider myself fortunate that on this occasion she had at least pulled a well-mannered and presentable fish into her net.
He was a tall, good-looking, soldierly sort of man, aged about fifty, which of course was far too young for the part of the grandfather and, since it was becoming increasingly likely that sooner or later he would be called upon to play it, this had created an additional obstacle in our battle to survive.
It was not only his comparative youth, either, which was against him, for in fact he neither was, nor appeared ever to have made the smallest effort to be, more than a third-rate actor. Presumably, it was his looks and charm which had encouraged him, or made other people encourage him to take up acting as a profession, but they had not been enough and he, so easy-going and confident in real life, unfailingly turned into a block of boring wood the instant he set foot on a stage. Perhaps, if he had worked on it, he might have improved, but he was unable to take himself seriously enough to rise above the mediocre and he was also totally lacking in ambition. His chief delights in life were hunting, polo and riding in point-to-points, any activity, in fact, which required the active participation of horses, and in spending as much time as was consistent with earning a living on the modest estate he had inherited in Sussex. Presumably, the reason why he obtained enough work throughout the year to indulge himself in this way was that even in middle age his appearance, for an actor, was unusual enough to keep him in demand for character parts with a military or aristocratic background and, perhaps equally important, because he was so modest and amiable as to make him a pleasure to work with.
Inevitably, he was known to some people as Moody Blues, which was easily the most inappropriate nickname ever invented, but this did not appear to worry him in the least and, in my experience, the only thing that ruffled his good nature was when someone addressed him as Tony.
Naturally, he was in no danger of being affronted in this way by Clarrie, who stuck to her self-imposed rule and called him by whatever endearment sprang to mind.
“Well, come on, Tessa! Don’t just sit there, say something!” she commanded me when Anthony had ordered the moussaka three times, with salad on the side.
“Like what?”
“What Robin thought about the letters, fool! Was he inspired?”
“Not at all. Inspiration doesn’t play much part in his approach to these matters. And, in any case his comments, such as they were, are now out of date, since he is no longer in full possession of the facts.”
“Can you make head or tail of this jargon, dearest?” Clarrie asked.
“Neither h nor t. Do stop playing the bobby on the beat, Tessa!”
“Very well, here it is in plain language. When I talked to Robin yesterday evening and showed him the letters there were two of them and now there are three. How’s that for clarity?”
“Three?” she repeated. “Since when?”
“Since about twenty minutes ago. It was why I was late getting here. Number three was waiting on his shelf, exactly like the others. He brought it along to my room and asked me what he should do about it.”
“Why you?”
“Why not her?” Anthony asked. “He thinks she’s the Delphic Oracle and Hercule Poirot rolled into one, everyone knows that. It’s a hangover from dandling her on his knee when she was two years old.”
“Dolly had already left, you see,” I explained. “Gone to a fitting for her ball gown for the first night, I gather. So that clinches it, doesn’t it?”
“Clinches what?”
“The fact that this vendetta is the work of someone very close to us. We can’t any longer pretend it’s some demented stage hand with a long-standing grievance against Philip, who seduced his daughter in nineteen hundred and two. No one of that sort could have known t
hat her ladyship had an appointment with her dressmaker at twelve o’clock and therefore the coast would be clear.”
“Did he show you the letter?”
“Oh yes, he was waving it under my nose. He was in quite a tizzy about this one. Not scared, as far as I could make out, but highly incensed about the invasion of his privacy. He is getting absolutely sick of it, if we want to know.”
“And was it just like the others? What did it say?”
I was glad it was Clarrie who had put this question because it allowed me to study her expression as I replied: “The format was the same. Newspaper clippings pasted on brown paper, as before, but there was a slight change in the prose style. The message this time was: Beware that sleep of death.”
They had both laid down their forks, the better to pay attention and Anthony said: “You mean more specific than the others?”
I was still watching Clarrie, as I answered: “No, that wasn’t what I meant, although it’s true, of course; but the big difference was that this one had a Shakespearian flavour about it, whereas the other two were based on phrases from the Bible.”
“Yes, they were, weren’t they?” she agreed, sounding quite cheerful about it. “I noticed that too. Could you be an angel, darling, and ask them to bring me a glass of their impudent little red? It’s probably fatal, but this tarted up shepherd’s pie really does need a little help. You know, Tessa, when the second letter arrived I began to wonder whether someone was putting those Bible bits in to make it look as though it were me.”
“Robin had much the same idea.”
“Did he now? He’s sharp, that boy of yours, isn’t he? Oh, thank you, darling! And one for Tessa and yourself as well! That makes me feel much less conspicuous and self-indulgent. I suppose he didn’t have any bright ideas about who might be playing such a dirty trick?”
I shook my head, not wishing to interrupt the flow. “Because, I mean, when you get right down to it, why would I want to mount a campaign to scare poor old Philip into a jelly? I do have my faults, as you may or may not know, but no one could call me spiteful. And anyway stirring up trouble has never been my game. He that sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind, which is the last thing I want to reap.”
