by Anne Morice
“Sooner you than me,” he said indifferently. “I’d prefer to put every single memory of that godforsaken play out of my head and never have to think of it again.”
“Understandable, and I can’t say it’s had a lot of happy moments for any of us. I think that must be why Oliver’s giving his party tonight.”
“Oliver? Giving a party, did you say?”
“Yes, at his house. It seems rather macabre, when we have so little to celebrate, but that’s Oliver, always so thoughtful and kind. I’m sure the intention is to give us a tiny bang to go out with, instead of whimpers all the way. It’s really sweet of him, considering he’s been the chief loser in the game.”
“Why haven’t I been invited?”
“Oh, Philip, honestly! What a question! For one thing, you’re not nearly well enough and, for another, I imagine it didn’t occur to him that you’d be in a party mood.”
“No, I’m not and, in the circumstances, I consider it extremely bad taste to give one at all.”
He had drifted back into petulance and once again he had me floored. If my life had depended on it, I could not have sworn whether it was the death of his beloved wife that distressed him most at that moment, or simply the thought of missing a party, although not assuming him to be so witless as to play the hand in quite this way, if he had been the one to kill her.
II
Clarrie and I went together and, like most of the guests who had not been to Oliver’s house before, we arrived later than we had intended.
It was one of four, tucked away behind the King’s Road and evidently converted from the stables of a large private house. It was approached from a side street by an archway, just wide enough for the passage of a car, which opened out into a yard, surrounded by high walls on three sides and our driver went past the entrance twice without recognising it for what it was. There were few pedestrians about at that hour and none of the first three we appealed to had so much as heard of Martingale Close. He had almost convinced us that no such address existed when we were rescued by a woman who stepped out of a taxi which had pulled up in front of ours, who informed us that she lived there herself and that it was practically staring us in the face.
None of this had done anything to improve Clarrie’s temper, which was a pity because it needed all the improvement it could get. The principal complaint was that Pete had not been invited. Space, we had been told, was limited and the invitations restricted to Tim, our director; Natalie Corcoran, the designer; John Somers who was in charge of the lighting; and members of the cast. This, with Oliver and Benjie, added up to the ominous total of thirteen.
“I nearly decided not to come,” she told me, “but then I thought Oliver would imagine I was in a huff or something, so I told Pete I’d just put in an appearance for ten minutes. He didn’t take it at all well.”
“Well, we needn’t hang about. An appearance is what I’ll be putting in myself, seeing that Robin wasn’t invited either. We can make an excuse to leave early.”
“You can do as you like. Personally, I mean to make a night of it, given half a chance. When I said he didn’t take it very well, it was an understatement.”
“Oh, dear! Does that mean you’ve had another quarrel?”
“Certainly not. I’m the most tolerant of women, as you know and no-one understands better than I do what a horrible time he’s been through. I told him he had my deepest sympathy and I should make it my business to be home within the hour.”
“In that case, why are you now proposing to make a night of it?”
“Because the little blighter has gone flouncing off to the country in a tantrum. The excuse was that he wanted to go ahead of me and get the cottage cleaned up and shipshape for my arrival, but I can recognise sulking when I see it. I might add that none of this shipshape business has been necessary in the past and it’s a long time since I saw him with a dishcloth in his hand.”
“He may want to be on his own for a bit. You ought to make allowances, you know, Clarrie.”
“I do make allowances. No-one makes more of them than I do. I’ve told him I shan’t be down till quite late tomorrow, so he can have a nice lie-in and still have time for the shipshape. Oh, hello darling!” she added, addressing the red-haired young man who was hovering on the cobblestones outside an open front door. “Are you looking for someone?”
“Only you,” he replied, kissing her warmly. “Oh, and you’ve brought Tessa! How nice to see you, Tessa!”
“You too, Benjie!”
By midnight, some of the guests were leaving, though none going in my direction and Clarrie was not among them. It was clear that her threat of making a night of it had not been idle chatter and she was getting all the encouragement she needed from Benjie. They had been swaying about on the dance floor, arms entwined round each other’s necks, for what seemed like hours and the last thing she needed was someone to see her home, so I asked Oliver if he would telephone for a taxi. He said it was such a difficult place to find that most taxi drivers gave up in disgust and that, if I did not mind walking a few hundred yards, he would escort me to the King’s Road, were we should find dozens of empty cabs, with drivers eager to do our bidding.
“I’m really surprised by Clarrie,” was his opening remark, as we strolled across the cobbled yard.
“I’d have thought you’d be used to her by now?”
“Oh, I’m not referring to her behaviour, though I do confess to finding that faintly distasteful, in the circumstances. Admittedly, Benjie is just as bad, if not worse, but he doesn’t normally behave like this and at least he has the dubious excuse of being more than somewhat drunk. You were all so late arriving and the truth is that he was already becoming slightly incoherent before the party started. No, what really surprises me about Clarrie is that she came at all. I had to invite her, or she might have misunderstood, but I never dreamt she’d turn up.”
“She was afraid of offending you, just as you were afraid of offending her.”
“Oh, do you believe that? She must have known I shouldn’t have been in the least offended. On the contrary, I find it quite inexplicable that she should have abandoned her young man at a time like this, in order to fling herself into the waiting arms of another one. Incidentally, Tessa, do you happen to know what that business with Pete was all about? She told me he’d been kept under lock and key for a whole day, but she’d no idea why, and he either didn’t know himself, or wasn’t telling. Don’t you find that slightly incredible?”
“She does tend to exaggerate, you know; but I agree with you, it doesn’t quite ring true. I am sure he does know, and isn’t telling.”
“I wondered if it could have anything to do with those anonymous letters?”
We had reached the King’s Road by this time, with not a cruising taxi in sight in either direction, but since the conversation had taken an interesting turn, which I now suspected to have been the object of our excursion, I was ready to fall in with his proposal that we should plod on to Sloane Square.
“Apparently not,” I replied.
“Ah! So you do know all about it?”
“By no means all, but I gather they’ve got hold of the idea that Pete possesses some vital information which, for reasons known only to himself, he has refused to part with, but Robin told me there’d been no mention of the letters. Philip says he gave them to Dolly, who intended to lock them away in a safe place, but she can’t have done so, otherwise they’d have turned up by now. She must have changed her mind and burnt them.”
“I doubt that, you know. In fact, I’d stake my life on it that she kept them.”
“Is that your intuition speaking, Oliver, or do you know it for a fact?”
“A bit of both, perhaps. She told me she’d found out about the fourth letter because Philip, in his cups, had let it out and also that he’d been idiotic enough to throw it away. She was therefore going to hold me to my promise. She would give me until ten o’clock the next morning to call in the police, failing
which she would personally take the other three letters to Scotland Yard and place them in the hands of the Assistant Commissioner, who, as I do not need to tell you, was an intimate friend.”
“I see! And when did this conversation take place? Or don’t you need to tell me that either?”
“Apparently not. As you’ve evidently guessed, it was approximately eight hours before her death.”
“Had you told anyone else?”
“Only Benjie, who I considered had a right to know. Puts me in a rather dicey situation, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Benjie could have put it around all over the place. He’s not so discreet as you and, besides, I don’t see you committing acts of violence. At any rate, not for such a poor motive as that one.”
“Why not?”
“Well, admittedly, it wouldn’t have boded much good for your all-important first night to have the police stumping around backstage, looking for an anonymous letter writer, but on the other hand . . .”
“The death by strangulation of the leading man’s wife would hardly have seemed a very bright alternative?”
“Exactly!”
“As a matter of fact, I did beg her on my knees to put off taking any action, at least until after we’d opened.”
“And she refused, of course; although it’s hard to see why. She must really have had a fixation about this Anon meaning business to have become so single-minded about it, because, on the face of it, she and Philip had more to lose than anyone if the play flopped. Apart from yourself, that is.”
“There you are, you see! You’ve put it into words. I had the strongest motive of anyone for wanting to shut her up”
“What are you trying to do, Oliver? Convince me that you’re guilty?”
“On the contrary, I am trusting that, by being so free, frank and forthright in making out a case against myself, I shall convince you of my innocence.”
He had not made a bad job of it either, in my opinion, for I could not believe that he would have introduced the subject of the anonymous letters in the first place if he had had any hand in their disappearance. Nor had he neglected to draw my attention, in his free, frank and forthright fashion, to the fact that their coming to the attention of the public would have been far less damaging to his prospects than the murder of Dolly Mickleton.
Chapter Nine
I
On Sunday morning I received what was rapidly becoming the regular daily telephone call from Clarrie.
“Did you hear what happened after you left last night, Tessa?”
“No, but I can guess.”
“Oho, very humorous! And quite wrong too. The party ended somewhat differently from the way I, at any rate, had anticipated. Mainly your fault, as usual.”
“Why? What did I do this time?”
“Sneaking off like that and taking Godliness with you. You may be interested to hear that on the way home he got mugged.”
“Not just interested, but appalled. How awful, Clarrie! Where did it happen?”
“Practically on his own doorstep. Just inside the archway.”
“Was he much hurt?”
“Nothing to speak of. A few bruises and his nice clean suit all mussed up. It hadn’t done his temper much good either.”
“Well, I should think not. How many of them set on him?”
“Only one, apparently, but he got away with the lot. Cash, credit cards, everything.”
“Oh, goodness, how awful! And you’re right, I suppose it was partly my fault. I should have known he wouldn’t be safe to walk home on his own. Poor old Oliver, he really is taking the knocks just now. And what a foul ending to his party!”
“Oh, indeed! Although I might tell you that it had become a right shambles long before the host came staggering back.”
“Oh, why? Had something else gone wrong?”
“Enough. It was really on account of his being away for such an age, so chalk that one up to yourself too, while you’re at it. The booze had run out for a start and none of us poor hangers-on were sure whether we ought to drift away, or whether the civil thing would be to wait for the host to come back and be said goodbye to. The awful red-headed person was the worst of the lot.”
“Benjie?”
“That’s the one.”
“What did he do?”
“Got very bellicose because he wanted a drink and, as the cupboard was locked, he couldn’t get it. Just as well, really, because he was already half-stoned, but the frustration had a terrible effect on him and he started telling everyone they’d better go home because it was quite obvious that Godliness didn’t intend to come back and that you and he were most likely sitting in some booze parlour, laughing your rotten heads off. I tried to make him understand that nothing of that kind went on in your blameless little life, but he was past taking anything in.”
“And, quite apart from blameless me, it is hardly the kind of behaviour one associates with Oliver.”
“Well, he was drunk, you see, and it had reached the truculent stage. Finally, he announced that he was going home to open up his own bottle cupboard and, if anyone cared to accompany him, he’d be pleased to drive them there in two minutes flat in his dear old Jag, which was parked right outside. It wasn’t a particularly inviting offer, the state he was in, so no-one took him up on it and off he flounced.”
“And then what?”
“That just left four weary old green bottles hanging on the wall, Tim, Natalie, me and Moody, who thought it would be beyond the pale to leave without saying cheery bye to the host, so we sat around for a bit, saying how ghastly it all was and how were we going to get home, and very lucky we did because we were still at it when he came staggering in. But for that, he’d have spent the night sobbing on the doorstep.”
“His keys had been snatched too?”
“I told you, everything he had on him. That was bad news because it meant we still couldn’t get at the drink. I always think there must be something desperately untrustworthy about people who lock things up. Anyway, Godliness wasn’t bothered at all about us, all he cared about was getting the locks changed and he kept moaning on about how he’d never find anyone to do the job on Sunday. So I suppose the poor wretch is having to spend the next twenty-four hours at home, guarding his property.”
“Well, at least that’s one way I may be able to compensate. I’m sure Robin can use his influence to press some local locksmith into service. I’ll go to work on it right away.”
“Yes, do, but before you hang up on me, Tessa, when will I see you? I’m going to the cottage in a minute, but I don’t know how long I’ll be staying. Pete proposes to take a few days off from work, but they’re not going to be very halcyon days for me, unless the mood has changed since our last meeting. How about you? Any plans?”
“This afternoon we have to drive Philip down to his Old Rectory. They say he’s well enough to manage on his own now and he’s got faithful Mrs. Gale, who’s spent the last twenty years being bossed around by Dolly, to come in every day, so he should be all right. Shopping may be a slight problem because he doesn’t drive any more, but we’re hoping that some of the neighbours will rally there.”
“So you won’t have to stay?”
“No, but I won’t be far off, if he should run into a crisis. After we’ve dropped him, Robin and I are going to spend the night at Roakes with Toby. At least, it’ll only be a one-night stop for Robin. I might stay on a bit longer.”
“Oh good! Then you won’t be far away from me either, if I should run into a crisis.”
“Believe it or not, that wasn’t what influenced me. The inquest is tomorrow, you see. It’ll only take ten minutes, then there’ll be an adjournment and Philip has been let off on medical grounds, but there’s the funeral to be got through on Tuesday. It’s in their church just the other side of the garden hedge, so he’d have no excuse for not turning up at that and I suppose I’ll have to, as well.”
“Well, don’t expect me to accompany yo
u. I haven’t set foot inside a church for ten years and her ladyship would be the last one to break that tradition.”
II
Less than an hour later I was able to telephone Oliver and tell him that help was at hand in the matter of lock changing. He thanked me politely, but people are rarely so ecstatically grateful for these small, but time-consuming services as they ought to be and he was no exception. He seemed less concerned with what I had done than with what I had left undone.
“I’m afraid you’re being a little optimistic in saying this man can be here by twelve, Tessa dear. I rather wish you’d let me speak to him myself. I don’t doubt for a minute that you gave him the right directions, but I am sorry to tell you that it probably won’t be enough. People have the utmost difficulty in finding their way. I’ve often had to wait in for a whole morning for someone who said he’d be here at ten and when they do turn up they’re invariably in a foul temper and bungle the job, to pay me out for living in such an inaccessible place.”
“Have no fear, Oliver! All that has been anticipated and taken care of. Mr. Barksfield’s premises are just around the corner from us and he will call here on his way. I shall then accompany him personally to your place of residence, okay? I felt it was the least I could do,” I added, shovelling on a few coals of fire, “since it was on my account that you have been plunged into this sea of troubles.”
This brought him up sharp, he became quite humble in his expression of gratitude and indebtedness and, by the time Mr. Barksfield and I presented ourselves on the appointed dot, he was abject in his apologies as well. This was only natural, for it had then become as close to a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had left as I had ever come across.
