by M C Beaton
‘Miss Smythe,’ began the superintendent.
Pruney started violently, her handbag slid off her lap, she bent to retrieve it, and her thick glasses fell off her nose and landed with a clatter on the floor.
Hamish went to help her, but she brushed him away. She snatched at her handbag, which was upended on the floor, and all the contents spilled out. There was a small medicine bottle, a bunch of keys, eight hairpins, an old-fashioned powder compact, a romance entitled Desert Passion, and a tube of wine gums.
‘Now, now,’ said Hamish, gently taking hold of her frantically scrabbling hands, ‘this is not the Gestapo. Chust sit yourself down and let me get these things.’ Pruney retreated to the chair while Hamish carefully replaced all the items in her handbag and then popped her glasses back on her nose. ‘Now, what about a cup of tea?’ he asked.
Pruney gave him a watery smile. ‘So kind,’ she said. ‘Really, it has all been too much for me. Poor Captain Bartlett. Such a fine man. Such a loss. No, I shall do very well now, thank you, Officer. Tea will not be necessary.’
Hamish retreated to his post by the window.
‘I’ve been reading over your statement, Miss Smythe,’ said Chalmers, ‘and it is very clear and straightforward. I see no reason to keep you very long.’
He took her carefully back over her first meeting with the captain at the regimental rifle shoot, and then asked her gently if she had specifically come to the house party to meet him again.
‘Oh, no,’ exclaimed Pruney. ‘It was Mr Withering I wanted to meet. I had seen his play in London, you know, and adored every word. The minute I heard Mary – that’s Mrs Halburton-Smythe – was having him as a guest. I simply pleaded with her to ask me.’
‘You appear to be the only person who has a good word to say for Captain Bartlett,’ observed the superintendent.
‘Indeed?’ Pruney’s round, ingenuous eyes looked at the superintendent and then at Hamish. ‘I found him such a kind man. Mr Withering was unnecessarily sharp with me when I was only trying to be pleasant, and Captain Bartlett was most comforting. That horrible man, Blair, accused me of having an affair with him. Me!’ exclaimed Pruney, although she looked highly gratified.
‘You strike me, Miss Smythe,’ came Hamish’s soft voice, ‘as being the kind of lady who sees only the best in people.’
‘I think that is surely a better attitude to life than always finding fault,’ said Pruney, who was beginning to evince signs of enjoying herself.
‘Aye, but that may mean you might have noticed a lot of useful clues without knowing they were useful,’ said Hamish. ‘What did you think, for example, of that incident at the party when Mrs Forbes-Grant threw her drink at the captain?’
‘I thought she must be drunk,’ said Pruney. ‘Mrs Forbes-Grant loves sweet things. She is always eating cakes and chocolates, and when she drinks alcohol, she drinks awful things like rum and Coke or crème de menthe or sweet champagne, and I read a most fascinating article the other day which said that all that sugar puts the alcohol into the bloodstream quicker. It is not like the old days, you know. Ladies do drink an awful lot at house parties. I was at a party on the borders last year and a lady of my age lifted up her skirt and snapped her garter.’
‘That’s verra curious,’ said Hamish with great interest, while the superintendent glared at him impatiently. ‘I was not aware that ladies wore garters any more.’
‘That’s what I thought!’’ cried Pruney. ‘But a most obliging gentleman at the party told me they sold them in naughty shops.’ Her eyes gleamed behind her thick spectacles. ‘I find gentlemen’s attitudes to the changing fashions in ladies’ underwear most interesting. Only the other week –’
‘Quite,’ said the superintendent repressively. ‘To get back to that point the constable was making, can you tell us anything you might have overheard that struck you as curious?’
Pruney giggled and put her hands to her face. ‘It’s rather like gossiping in the dorm,’ she said. ‘Still, it is a murder investigation. There was just one little thing. I could not sleep and I went downstairs to look for a copy of The Times to do the crossword. I find The Times crossword quite soporific. As I was passing Captain Bartlett’s room, I saw a light under the door.’ Pruney blushed. ‘I was about to knock, thinking he could not sleep either and might be glad of company, when I heard Mrs Forbes-Grant’s voice very clearly. She said, “You can’t have. Not you of all people. I don’t believe a word of it.”’
‘And what did the captain reply to that?’ asked Hamish.
‘I could not hear. The doors are very thick,’ said Pruney regretfully. ‘He said something because there was a sort of masculine rumble. Then I saw Miss Bryce walking along the passage towards me. She gave me a nasty look, as if I had been eavesdropping, which of course I hadn’t, so I went on downstairs. When I came back up about ten minutes later, the light under the captain’s door was out.’
‘Did you hear anything else?’ asked the superintendent.
Pruney wrinkled her brow. ‘No,’ she said at last.
‘Perhaps you might remember something more,’ said Hamish. ‘You strike me as a highly observant lady.’ Pruney preened. ‘If anything comes to mind, tell me or the superintendent here.’
‘I most certainly shall,’ said Pruney, gathering up her handbag. ‘I wouldn’t tell that nasty man, Blair, anything. He is not a silly man, but overambitious. I am glad he has been toppled.’ She smiled at them warmly and scurried out.
‘We had better have Mrs Forbes-Grant in,’ said the superintendent. ‘See if you can find her, Macpherson. The minute that woman comes in here, I shall accuse her of having an affair with Captain Bartlett.’
‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ asked Hamish cautiously. ‘People are no’ ashamed o’ infidelity these days. If you’re kind and sympathetic, she may tell you herself.’
The superintendent shuffled his papers. Then he said mildly, ‘You may be right.’
Hamish let out a slow sigh of relief. He sometimes wondered how many murderers escaped justice because of power struggles in the police department.
There was an altercation outside the door. It appeared that Freddy Forbes-Grant was insisting on being present while his wife was interviewed, and PC Macpherson was firmly refusing permission.
The superintendent was just rising from his seat to go to his constable’s aid when Macpherson ushered Vera in.
She was the only member of the house party to have donned mourning. She was wearing a plain black suit with a necklace of seed pearls. Her thick dyed-blonde hair was simply styled and the severe cut of the suit flattered her figure.
There was a loose pouch of flesh under her chin, and a disappointed droop to her full mouth, but she was still, thought Hamish, a very sexy woman. Her large blue eyes looked pleadingly at the superintendent.
‘I don’t think I can take much more of this,’ she said in her husky voice. ‘The murder’s bad enough without having to be dragged over and over every little bit of it.’
‘We won’t keep you long,’ said Chalmers soothingly. He took her through her statement, and then said mildly he was surprised she had not told Mr Blair about throwing her drink at the captain.
‘I lied to him,’ said Vera defiantly. ‘He kept shouting and shouting at me, so I thought it better to say nothing.’
‘I apologize on behalf of the Strathbane police,’ said Chalmers. ‘No one is going to shout at you. You are a valuable witness. Now, what caused that scene?’
‘Where I threw the drink at him?’
‘Yes.’
Vera bit her full bottom lip. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘he made a nasty remark about my hair. He said my roots were black. I was feeling tired and overwrought. My nerves are not very strong. The minute I had tossed the drink at him, I was so ashamed of having made a scene that I burst into tears and left the room.’
‘And did he also make a remark about Miss Bryce and Miss Villiers?’ asked Hamish.
‘What?’
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br /> ‘Just before you threw your drink at him,’ said Hamish, ‘you were looking up at him and your lips were framing a kiss. He said something. You looked horrified. He turned and looked pointedly at Miss Bryce and Miss Villiers, then he turned back and gave you a knowing look, and he winked. That was when you threw your drink at him.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ cried Vera, an ugly tide of red beginning to crawl up her neck.
‘Mrs Forbes-Grant,’ said Hamish in a soft voice. ‘We are from the police department and not the Moral Rearmament. It would be quite easy, I think, to prove that you had an affair with Captain Bartlett. Now, that is your own business. You are a very beautiful woman and must often be plagued with men chasing you.’
Vera gulped and looked at Hamish, who gave her a charming smile.
‘Freddy doesn’t know,’ she said. ‘Freddy mustn’t ever know.’
‘And he won’t,’ said Hamish, ‘unless it has a direct bearing on the murder. But it would be nice to get it out of the way. The only thing that’s suspicious about it is your refusal to talk. You must see that.’
There was a long silence while Vera looked down at her plump hands on her lap.
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I did have an affair with him a few years ago. I didn’t know he was going to be here. He made me think he still loved me. I visited his room, the night before the party. He said … he said I couldn’t stay the rest of the night or Freddy would find out. I thought he loved me. I was prepared to run away with him. He said … at the party … I hadn’t been the only woman who had been in his room. I told him he was lying. And then he turned and looked at Diana and Jessica, and turned back to me and winked. I knew all in that moment – he’d used me as he’d used me before. I saw red. I must have been mad, because I can’t afford to leave Freddy anyway.’
There was a long silence.
Chalmers said, ‘How long have you been married to Mr Forbes-Grant?’
‘Twenty years.’
‘And he knew nothing of your affair with Captain Bartlett?’
‘Oh, no. Freddy’s quite stupid. But he can make money. That merchant bank of his is one of the most powerful in the country. He’s more or less retired. He wanted to come and live up here and start afresh. The simple life,’ said Vera with a harsh laugh. ‘But he runs the bank by phone.’
‘Where did your affair with Captain Bartlett take place?’ asked Hamish.
‘In London. Freddy was abroad. We keep a flat in Knightsbridge.’
‘And did Captain Bartlett at any time suggest you leave your husband?’
‘No. We were two of a kind. I used to give him money out of my allowance. It sounds awful now. Peter used to say I loved money more than men.’
‘And is that true?’ asked Hamish, genuinely curious.
‘It’s all men are good for in the long run,’ said Vera. ‘Oh, you occasionally meet some fellow and think it’s springtime all over again. But nothing lasts … except money.’
Chalmers cleared his throat. ‘Can you use a shotgun, Mrs Forbes-Grant?’
Vera laughed. Hamish thought she looked like someone leaving the confessional. She had told the worst and now she could relax.
‘No, I can’t,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t take any expertise to blow a hole in someone at point-blank range. I could have done that.’
Chalmers patiently took her over the rest of her statement.
‘You’d better see Freddy now,’ said Vera, rising and smoothing down her skirt. ‘You won’t tell him …?’
Chalmers shook his head. ‘Not unless it becomes necessary.’
‘You mean, not unless one of us did the murder? Don’t worry, Freddy couldn’t kill a fly.’
She drifted out, leaving a heavy aroma of Arpège in the room behind her.
Freddy Forbes-Grant entered the room about a minute later.
It took ages to calm him down in order to get him to say anything coherent at all. But when he finally decided to talk reasonably, his statement had very little to add to what he had already said. Captain Bartlett had insulted his wife on the evening before the murder and had upset her terribly. She was not the only one Bartlett had upset. No, said Freddy, he did not believe in blood sports and never used a gun. They had more or less invited themselves to the Halburton-Smythes when they heard about Henry Withering. Both he and his wife had seen the play in London and thought it a rattling good show. He had written personally to the Secretary of State for Scotland to complain about Blair’s harassment, and would complain again if Chalmers wasn’t more careful and courteous. He, Freddy Forbes-Grant, considered all policemen some lower form of life anyway.
‘He knows about his wife’s affair,’ said Hamish, after Freddy had crashed out.
‘How do you make that out?’ asked Chalmers.
‘Thon is one very frightened man,’ said Hamish. ‘Something’s terrifying him. I could smell him from here – fear-sweat. Angry, blustering, ranting people are usually frightened.’
‘Like Colonel Halburton-Smythe?’
‘Och, no. That one was born a scunner.’
Macpherson, who had left to find another victim, returned to say that no one else was available until the afternoon. They had either gone out or had sent messages via the servants to say they were not to be disturbed. Dr Brodie was with Sir Humphrey Throgmorton, who was in need of a sedative.
Chalmers turned to Hamish. ‘In that case, you may as well tell me what you’ve discovered about the others.’
Hamish prised a small notebook out of his tunic pocket.
‘Captain Bartlett,’ he said, ‘was having an affair with Jessica Villiers four years ago. He met her friend, Diana, and dropped Jessica. He actually became engaged to Diana Bryce for two whole weeks before jilting her. The Helmsdales have reason to hate the captain. He turned up at a ball they were giving in their home near Dornoch with some other army officers. They got drunk and took the place apart. He painted a moustache on a portrait of a Helmsdale ancestor. The portrait was by Joshua Reynolds. The captain refused to pay for any of the damages. He went to sleep drunk with a cigarette burning in his hand and set his bedroom on fire. With the luck of the drunk, he jumped from his window on to the lawn and fell asleep again without warning anyone. The fire spread and burnt down most of the guest wing. It did not become a police matter, because Helmsdale inexplicably refused to prosecute. It came out later in county gossip that Helmsdale had fired a shotgun at the captain and missed. Captain Bartlett said if Helmsdale sued him, then he would sue Helmsdale for attempted manslaughter. It was at that point that Lady Helmsdale, beside herself with rage, punched Captain Bartlett and broke his jaw.’
‘Golly!’ said Chalmers. ‘Don’t tell me old Sir Humphrey has a reason to kill the captain as well?’
‘He might have. He’s a fanatical collector of rare china. He had some people to afternoon tea awhiles back and they brought along their houseguest, Captain Peter Bartlett. The poor old boy had the tea served in a very rare set. He went on bragging about the value and beauty of it. Captain Bartlett dropped his teacup and saucer on the hearth, smashing them and ruining the set.’
Chalmers sat for a long time deep in thought. Then he said, ‘It’s very curious that so many people with reason to hate Bartlett should be gathered together under one roof.’
‘The British Isles is full of other people wi’ mair reason to bump Bartlett off than any of the folks here,’ said Hamish. ‘I wass checking up all around. I am telling you this so’s you will not be surprised when you get my phone bill. If we begin to think the murder was committed by someone outside the castle, then we are going to have a terrible job. There was a wee lassie in London killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills when the captain jilted her, and then there’s a lot of husbands as well who’ve threatened to kill him at one time or another.’
‘Where did he get the stamina?’ asked Chalmers in awe. ‘Look at the evidence we’ve got from old Vera – three women in the one night.’
‘He was supposed to have been one of those people who only need about four hours sleep a night,’ said Hamish. ‘And Captain Bartlett was always known as a Don Juan. Aye, it’s an unfair world when you think of it. If that man had been a woman, he’d have been called a harlot!’
‘Let’s get back to Jeremy Pomfret,’ said Chalmers, shuffling his papers. ‘Did you unearth anything about him?’
‘Nothing sinister,’ said Hamish. ‘He’s rich, got an estate in Perthshire, met Bartlett from time to time on various shoots. Never a friend of the captain’s. He was sure Bartlett was going to try to cheat over this bet they had. He was very hung over when I saw him on the morning of the murder, but he could have been putting that on for my benefit. He had asked me to be at the castle to referee the shooting, but I refused and told him the colonel would probably take it as a personal insult. Still, his very asking me to be there could have been a smoke-screen, for the murder, as we know, took place much earlier.’
‘He appears to have told Blair he loathed Bartlett,’ said Chalmers. ‘The reasons he gave were that Bartlett had pinched his toothbrush and used it to scrub his toes, and evidently the captain had a disgusting habit of shaving in the bath. Makes you wonder what the ladies saw in a man like that.’
‘Och, women are funny,’ said Hamish. ‘Take the case of Heather Macdonald, her that was married to a fisherman. She kept that cottage of theirs so clean, it wasnae human. You had to take off your boots and leave them outside when you went visiting. She wouldn’t allow him to smoke and she starched the poor man’s shirts so stiff, it was a wonder he could sit down in the boat. But she ups and offs last year wi’ a tinker from the side-shows at the Highland games, and he was a dirty gypsy who didn’t have a bath from the one year’s end to the other. I don’t think,’ added Hamish sadly, thinking of Priscilla, ‘that the ladies are romantic at all.’
Chapter Nine
The wild vicissitudes of taste.
– Samuel Johnson
