‘Why did the gel kill Winifred exactly?’ Lady Grylls asked.
‘Winifred was killed in mistake for Melisande,’ Payne said. ‘Stella had told Moon that “Miss Hope” was Melisande in disguise. Moon regarded Melisande as a rival. Melisande had been trying to poison Morland’s mind against her. Morland had complained that Melisande had been ringing him, trying to get him back. Moon admitted she feared Morland might change his mind and go back to Melisande. At one point Morland had expressed misgivings about what he and Moon were doing. Moon said she wanted to make sure Morland stayed with her for ever.’
‘She had been sitting in Morland’s car outside Kinderhook on the morning Winifred set out to destroy the Prince Cyril biography. When she saw “Miss Hope” emerge and hail a cab, she started tailing the cab. She guessed “Miss Hope” was on her way to the Villa Byzantine. She had been looking for an opportunity to kill Melisande, she said.’
‘She also said she meant to make it look as though Tancred Vane was the killer. She has an extremely inflated opinion of her intelligence and ingenuity.’ Payne shook his head. ‘She sounded impossibly smug on that tape.’
‘Hubris leads to Nemesis,’ Lady Grylls said sententiously.
‘Yes, quite. By creating a second mayhem at the Villa Byzantine, the girl had also hoped to distract the police’s attention away from her… She left some notes for the police to find – she is manipulative – uncharacteristic emotional outpourings, quite convincing, apparently – she was innocent, but no one believed her – she related a childhood memory – some rigmarole about seeing a roe deer once and how it made her want to cry.’
‘I suppose she is being assessed by all sorts of loony doctors?’ Lady Grylls said.
‘Well, yes. She likes that.’
‘Do they really believe they’ll be able to straighten out the kinks in her brain? More tea, Antonia?’ Lady Grylls picked up the teapot. ‘What’s happening to Morland?’
‘He is in a bad state. Looks a shadow of his former self. Emaciated – grey-skinned – wild staring eyes – brings to mind one of those warning posters the Department of Health releases every now and then. His sister Julia appears to have taken complete control of his affairs.’ Payne paused. ‘We caught a glimpse of the two of them going into the police station the other day. Julia is the unflappable kind. He had a stick and he was leaning on her arm. She has managed to get him a first-class defence lawyer.’
‘Did Julia know what was going on?’
‘She guessed,’ Antonia said. ‘Apparently, like me, she went to the Corrida Hotel herself and made inquiries. It had occurred to her there was something not quite fatherly about the way her brother kept looking at Moon.’
‘Morland continues to deny that he and Moon were having an affair,’ said Major Payne. ‘The girl, on the other hand, has been eager to provide all sorts of embarrassing details – but everybody agrees she is a compulsive liar as well as a dangerous attention-seeker. That, I imagine, would be the line of the defence lawyer, so Morland might get away with it.’
‘What about the actress woman? She is not dead, is she?’
‘No. It seems Melisande has recovered from her breakdown and is now working on a one-woman show called Lizzie. She says she’s finding the work therapeutic.’
‘I see. An autobiographical kind of show?’
‘No, darling. It’s about the life and times of Lizzie Borden, the axe murderess. By an odd coincidence Tancred Vane has started writing a book about Lizzie Borden. It is quite a departure for him, but he and Melisande have been paying each other visits and comparing notes, so romance may be in the air.’
Lady Grylls nodded. ‘Another extraordinary affair – and one more feather in your collective cap. I’ve ceased to be amazed. Don’t you ever get sick of sleuthing? No, of course not. Pointless kind of question. I expect you relished the symmetry, my dear?’ Lady Grylls turned to Antonia. ‘Two terribly obsessive love affairs, so intricately interwoven? I bet it appealed to your – what do they call it? Sense of form?’
Antonia admitted that the case had indeed appealed to her sense of form.
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Murder at the Villa Byzantine chm-6 Page 21
