In the Teeth of Adversity

by Marian Babson

  “At worst, she’d have had you babbling a confession as soon as you surfaced.” Rennolds was in no doubt about the lady’s ability. “At best, she’d have shaken your confidence to the point where you’d wonder if you really had killed me in a moment of mental aberration. And if you weren’t sure and were behaving suspiciously, it might throw the boys off the scent. At least, sidetrack them until she’d had time to clear out of the country. There are still places in the world where extradition treaties are nonexistent.”

  “Why?” Adele demanded. “Why should she want to kill Tyler Meredith?” The Honourable Edytha had been killed, too, but that wasn’t going to concern Adele.

  “Ah,” Rennolds said. “Once you saw those early handbills for the act, it was all clear. Some of them had pictures. Her partner in the act was Tyler Meredith. In fact, once we knew where to look and what to look for, we found the record of the marriage.”

  “You know,” Gerry said, “that explains something that was puzzling me. Meredith seemed to spend most of his time getting engaged – ‘on spec,’ as it were – to females with money and/or influence. And yet he never seemed to have tried it on with a famous model like Morgana Fane. It wasn’t natural – not for him.”

  “Her own marriage was to have taken place next week. That means” – I was on the trail of the indictable offence – “that she wouldn’t have been legally married to her Lord – not with Tyler Meredith still alive. Unless –”

  “No,” Rennolds said. “There’d been no divorce. It would have been bigamy.”

  “And Tyler Meredith was planning to be a bigamist, too.” Gerry paused to contemplate such awesome amorality. “They must have been a charming couple in the days when they were still together.”

  “Meredith was planning to try to sort out his position,” Rennolds admitted grudgingly. “That was what set it all off. He was serious about a career in politics – he couldn’t go into Parliament with a time bomb like that ticking away in his background. It might be discovered as soon as any journalist wanted an in-depth interview and did his homework properly. He wanted a divorce.”

  “But if he applied for a divorce now” – I saw the flaw in that – “after his wife married again, it would mean branding Morgana Fane as a bigamist. And she’s had a hard enough time landing her Title. Once the Title discovered she’d been playing him for such a sucker, she wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of getting him in front of the Registrar a second time.”

  “Precisely.” Rennolds nodded, and shuddered violently again. “She had to stop Tyler Meredith – and anyone else who got in her way.”

  Pandora sat up in his lap and gave him her sharp opinion of people who couldn’t keep still. He looked down at her in amazement, seeming to notice for the first time that she was there. And that his hand was actually stroking her. He jerked his hand away quickly and stared at her. After a moment, he replaced his hand and looked across at me.

  “They tell me she saved my life,” he said.

  “We saw that drill coming down on you and she flew to the rescue,” I said, maintaining strict accuracy while allowing him to form a slightly different picture of events than had actually been the case.

  “Clever little thing,” he admitted, stroking her with more enthusiasm.

  Pandora grumbled the feline equivalent of Watch it, buster, and settled down again.

  “Kept telling me we’d been playing chess for hours.” The General was grumbling, too. “Harping on it. Chess! Strange obsession. Knew there was something wrong with her then and there.”

  “And you were right, Malcolm,” Sir Geoffrey agreed.

  “My dental chair,” Endicott Zayle brooded. To him, that was the unkindest cut of all. “She murdered two people in my dental chair.”

  “Tyler Meredith had kept the marriage certificate – and it became his death certificate,” Rennolds said. “When the Honourable Edytha found it in his flat, it became her death certificate, as well. She knew too much then. Also” – a thoughtful shudder racked him – “I believe there was an element of jealousy there. Fane didn’t want him herself, but she didn’t like the idea of any other woman having him.”

  “Dog in the manger!” the General snorted, as though he knew all about them. I’ll bet they could be quite tasty, too.

  “She wasn’t hunting for the formula for the new anaesthetic, then?” Gerry was still trying to catch up. “She knew he’d hidden the marriage certificate somewhere?”

  “Hunting for the formula? Why should she want the formula?” Endicott Zayle bristled. “I have it – I’ve always had it. I did a great deal of the work on that formula.” His eyes got that shifty look again. “It’s as much mine as Meredith’s.”

  So that was the way he was going to play it. He might as well. Morgana Fane wasn’t going to have any interest in it. In any case, she couldn’t inherit – there was some kind of law about not being allowed to profit from your own crime. No other next of kin had been turned up for Meredith, and I doubted if fiancées – particularly considering their number – had any claim on an estate without a specific bequest in a will.

  “Always pampering your patients, Endicott,” his father snorted. “I warned you no good would come of it!”

  Trying to work out the logic of this gave us all a few quiet moments. I noticed Adele was holding her husband’s hand. At least that seemed to have sorted itself out. In terms of enlightened self-interest, they were quite well matched.

  “I should have paid more attention to our local MP,” I said, remembering her reference to Tyler and the stage, which I had misinterpreted. “She seemed to know more than anyone about the real position.”

  “She cleared up quite a lot for me,” Rennolds said. “She knew he was trying to sort out an earlier marriage, but not the identity of the woman involved. I believe” – he looked thoughtful – “that all-night sitting in the House might have saved her life. It kept her away from the danger area here, and Fane had gone berserk towards the end.” He took a quiet fit of shuddering – it would have looked like a malaria attack to anyone who didn’t know.

  Pandora was not prepared to make allowances. He’d had his last chance. She jumped to the floor in exasperation and looked around. She was still furious with me, she didn’t trust anyone scented with antiseptic, and no one was paying any attention to her. It was a totally unsatisfactory situation. She went to ground behind Gerry’s ankles and sulked.

  “She kept appearing at such odd times,” Endicott Zayle complained. “Anytime she had half an hour to spare, she popped in – as though I could do the necessary work on her in ten minutes.”

  “An excuse,” Rennolds said. “She knew better than that. Meredith was a dental student when she married him. She knew her way around a dental surgery – and its instruments.” Another shudder. “It let her come in and out when she could and she took the time to search the flat. Did she need that job done at all?”

  “Just because it was cosmetic dentistry,” Endicott Zayle said huffily, “that doesn’t mean it was unnecessary. To someone in her profession, it was a matter of making the most of her assets. It’s a shame,” he reflected, “that we weren’t able to get round to it. I don’t suppose she’ll want it done now.”

  “She has other problems on her mind,” Rennolds agreed. “And it won’t make any difference where she’s going. You might,” he added bitterly, “send her a reminder notice when they let her out in a few years.”

  “It won’t make any difference then, either,” Gerry said expertly. “She’s the type that runs to fat. A few years of prison stodge will finish her.”

  Adele brightened perceptibly at that thought. It takes a woman to appreciate the full extent of such a prospect.

  Penny yawned, Rennolds kept shuddering, and Endicott Zayle still looked fairly glassy-eyed. Whatever other explorations of the subject were to come, they could wait for another day. It was time to break up this party.

  I looked across and signalled to Gerry. He nodded and we both got to our fe
et. We hadn’t time to say anything before Rennolds stood up gratefully.

  “I’ll drop you off,” he said. “I’ve got my own car downstairs.”

  “Let us drop you.” Gerry and I spoke in chorus. Even Endicott Zayle had abandoned contemplation of his own best interests long enough to flinch at the thought of Rennolds’s getting behind a wheel in his condition.

  “We’re getting a taxi,” I said. “We have to take Penny home, anyway. It won’t be any more bother to take you. You can collect your car tomorrow. Er ...” Economy reared its head belatedly. “Where do you live?”

  “Highgate,” the inspector said. Penny lived in Wimbledon. We were still reeling when Sir Geoffrey intervened.

  “I don’t think I can allow that,” he said.

  “Really?” We tried to restrain ourselves from beaming at him.

  “Quite right,” General Sir Malcolm said. “We shall want to convene an inquiry first thing in the morning.”

  Rennolds paled. “Now, see here –”

  “You’d never make it,” Sir Geoffrey said. “Afraid I slipped a little medication into your tea. Don’t want to be carried home, do you? Very hard to explain to the neighbours, a thing like that. Better stay the night here. There’s a whole flat going spare.”

  “But –”

  “Oh, I’ll square it with your superiors first, if you like.” Sir Geoffrey brought up the heavy guns. “Who d’you want me to ring – the Commissioner? The Home Secretary? The –”

  “No, no.” Rennolds collapsed back into his chair. “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll stay. I don’t feel very well.”

  “We’ll be getting along then,” I said cheerfully. “It’s been a pleasure to be your adjutant, Sir Geoffrey. If you ever decide to retire from medicine, you might think of giving PR a whirl. Perkins and Tate could use you.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Sir Geoffrey said modestly. Gerry was helping Penny on with her coat and I looked at Pandora. “Coming?” I asked.

  Pandora seemed to be debating the point. She gave me a long, considering look.

  A dog insists on making a hero out of his master. A cat is even more of a realist than a valet. A cat can face facts. She not only knows the truth, she makes sure that you know that she is coldly aware that she has thrown in her lot with a louse.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  She considered a bit more.

  “Please yourself,” I said. “The rest of us are going home.”

  As I turned, the familiar weight suddenly hit my shoulder, and a wet nose nuzzled my ear.

  “Prryehyow,” Pandora said. I might be a louse, but I was her louse and she was sticking with me.

  What would I want with a dog, anyway? It would be too much to try to live up to.

  On my part, I had a sneaking suspicion that Pandora was not displeased at having been allowed – positively encouraged – to get in a few licks of her own at the hated enemy in the white coat.

  Live and let live. Neither of us was perfect.

  We followed Penny and Gerry, and as the front door closed behind us all, Pandora nestled down on my shoulder and began purring contentedly. We were going home.