Lovers Make Moan mb-60

by Gladys Mitchell

  “But surely what happened to Bourton must have been the sheerest accident? Nobody could have foreseen that there would be that mix-up of daggers.”

  “And, of course, Mr Bourton could not have foreseen that you would be taken ill and that he would be called upon to take over your part. You are being disingenuous, Mr Rinkley. Do you or do you not believe that Mr Bourton’s death was deliberately planned?”

  Rinkley stood up.

  “If it was, it must have been planned for me, not him,” he said. “Well, Dame Beatrice, I am sorry to have wasted your time. When I read in the papers that you were in residence here and learned of your official position, I’m afraid I took it for granted that you were here to assist the members of the cast.”

  “But not to look for anonymous letter-writers, Mr Rinkley.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I rather put my foot in it there. I thought, well, psychiatry and all that, you know. Did you notice, by the way, that I spoke of her!”

  “The writers of anonymous letters are more often women than men. You indicated, I think, that the letters asked questions, but did not utter threats. Was there a hint of blackmail in any of the questions?”

  “Blackmail? Good gracious, if there was, I did not recognise it as such. How could anybody attempt to blackmail me?”

  “If you do not know, you can hardly expect me to put forward any suggestions. Did I not hear that your wife has an antiques business?”

  “She isn’t my wife any longer, and if you think there is any tie-up between her shop and that stupid business of the substitute dagger—Oh, hey, now! Wait a minute! That must be what one of the letters was hinting at. Oh, well, it’s quite a ridiculous surmise on somebody’s part. I’ll show the police that particular letter and they can go to the shop and turn darling Veda inside out. That ought to settle matters. The very last thing she would do is to aid and abet me in getting rid of Bourton. Besides, I thought Jonathan was to be my stand-in, so owing money to Bourton wouldn’t enter into it.”

  The next contact which Dame Beatrice had with members of the cast did not take place at Jonathan’s temporary home, but at the house of Brian and Valerie Yorke. After dinner, for which Yolanda, in primrose-coloured silk and a simple gold pendant belonging to her mother, had been allowed a seat at table, the child was packed off and the adults settled down to coffee, brandy and gossip.

  The talk turned inevitably to Bourton’s death and Yorke remarked that Barbara had had a bad time of it, what with police and reporters and the morbid curiosity of everybody who knew her, whether intimately or only by sight.

  “I’ve had a fairly sticky time myself since they adjourned the inquest,” went on Brian. “That’s why Val and I are glad of a word with Dame Beatrice.”

  “We’ve had our share, too,” said Jonathan. “You wouldn’t think people would have the nerve to infiltrate our garden and look for the spot marked X, but they have. I’m thinking of asking for a policeman with a dog. Aunt Adela has had problems, too.”

  “Not problems,” said Dame Beatrice. “I have merely been faced with the necessity for practising a certain amount of Pontius Pilatery.”

  “Washing your hands?” said Valerie Yorke, trying not to look disapproving of this reference to Holy Writ. “But of what?”

  “Anonymous letters. Some of your acquaintances seem to confuse psychiatry with necromancy and imagine that I can summon spirits from the vasty deep and find out from them who writes the letters.”

  “I expect Barbara has had some,” said Valerie. “She gets all the money, you know. May I ask—?”

  “Certainly. I also had a visit from Mr Rinkley.”

  “He came here,” said Brian, “and did everything except actually sob on my neck. Mind you, to be fair to the chap, I’m sure he is genuinely upset by Bourton’s death. The very last thing he would have anticipated, he said, and the dagger which did all the damage could have been intended for him. The awkward part of it is that, disentangling what he said from what I’m sure he meant, there’s a certain amount of backing for his opinion.”

  This opinion, carefully repeated by Brian while Valerie, Dame Beatrice noticed, sat forward in her chair with her hands twisting together, was that the exchange of daggers had been affected by Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome acting in collusion. Both had had good and legitimate reason for approaching the tables which held the properties, both had a grievance against Rinkley for his sharp comments on their acting and against Bourton for his embarrassing advances to them off-stage during the earlier rehearsals. “So they could have plotted against him, I suppose,” Yorke said in conclusion.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Deborah. “Two young office girls? The most they would have plotted was to make Rinkley look a fool when he drew out the wrong dagger and realised he dared not use it on himself the way he had rehearsed. I don’t believe they would have thought even of that, as a matter of fact.”

  “Brian had to speak to Bourton about his conduct off-stage. The girls complained,” said Valerie.

  “They also complained about Rinkley’s comments on their acting,” said Brian. “Mind you, he was justified, in a way. They made very inferior stooges for a man with his dramatic ability. The fellow ought to be a professional. I don’t believe those girls really had anything against Donald. Girls may get scared and rear up a bit when an older man makes a determined pass at them (although I should hardly think it would worry them nowadays), but they must feel a bit flattered, all the same. The sort of reaction they would have when their reading of the script was unkindly knocked by a chap who, after all, was neither the director nor the producer, would be a very different matter and might go very deep indeed. Don’t you think so, Dame Beatrice? I am referring to Rinkley’s comments on their acting.”

  “It might settle the matter if Dame Beatrice would have a word with the girls,” said Valerie. “She may disclaim an ability (which I am sure, all the same, she possesses) to track down the writer of anonymous letters, but I am sure a psychiatrist of her eminence can turn two gormless girls inside out in the space of a single interview.”

  “You flatter me, Mrs Yorke,” said Dame Beatrice, “but now that the police have co-opted me officially—I was informed of this a day or two ago—I have my own reasons for finding a talk with Miss Hythe and Miss Frome desirable. I wonder, Mr Yorke, whether you will assist me in a small matter? First, were the properties arranged on the trestle tables in exactly the same way at all three performances?”

  Brian assured her that they were. He had tried to have no halts between scenes except for what he called ‘the children’s interval’ during which the fairies were taken out of their costumes, dressed in their own clothes and returned by Signora Moretti and her helpers to their mothers, either to sit out the remainder of the performance or to be taken home.

  “So after Bottom returns to Quince’s house (a bit we had to leave out on the last night), the workmen had to snatch up their bits of gear, Pyramus had to make a change of tunic and get his armour on, Thisbe had to get into her skirt and mantle, and the whole set of them had to cross behind the backdrop and get themselves on to the prompt side so that the court party could enter from the O.P. side. Of the court party, only Valerie, as Hippolyta, had to make a complete change of costume out of Diana’s tunic and buskins back to her former Elizabethan trappings, but Emma, Barbara and Deborah were all on hand to help her, and I had done my best to make sure that everything needed was to hand to save delay.”

  Rinkley’s props had been given a table to themselves. There was the ass’s head, as well as the gear for Pyramus. Valerie also had her own table in her woodland tent so that her Tudor garments could be exchanged as expeditiously as possible for the things she wore in the hunting scene and back again for the last scene. The only other articles on her table were the dashing boots which Brian, as Theseus, wore in the same scene. The tables in the wings held the rest of the clutter for the workmen’s play.

  “I had forgotten the donkey’s head,” said D
ame Beatrice.

  “Is it important?” enquired Valerie Yorke nervously.

  “Not in the least, although, as the child said of a gas mask in the last war, ‘it kind of suits some people, don’t it?’ ” Dame Beatrice replied.

  When Jonathan opened the front door for his party on their arrival home that evening, he picked up an envelope which had been pushed through the letter-box. It was typewritten and was addressed to Dame Beatrice. She read the letter inside and observed that it was a cry from the heart. It came from Susan Hythe, and the substance of it was that she and Caroline Frome had read all about Dame Beatrice in the newspapers and would be very grateful indeed if they might come and see her. They were extremely worried by ‘things which are being said about us and the inquest being adjourned and all that, so do please let us come’.

  The girls were left in the hall by Emma Lynn, who had brought them along.

  “They have been given time off from work to come and see you. So kind of you,” said Emma, her plain face flushing and the colour enhancing her looks. “They are extremely worried, poor things, and no wonder.”

  “Anonymous letters?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “No, telephone calls put through to my husband’s local office where they work as typists. The calls are dealt with now by the supervisor, but the girls are still apprehensive. Their lives have been threatened. Marcus dismisses the threats as coming from what he calls ‘some screwball’, and I expect he’s right, but girls of their age are very impressionable and their alarm is very real. We are all still suffering from the shock of Donald’s death and unfortunately the girls had been heard to say that they wished he would drop dead. Not that they meant it, of course. It is just an expression, but people remember these things.”

  “I do not know that I can help them. I have already been approached by Mrs Bourton and Mr Rinkley and have spoken with Mr and Mrs Yorke. There have been some unpleasant anonymous letters, but those are a commonplace under circumstances of this sort. Do the telephone calls come from a man or a woman?”

  “It is difficult to say. The supervisor, who has taken two of the calls, thinks that the voice is disguised.”

  “What do the girls think?”

  “I have not asked them. If the supervisor is right, it means that the girls would recognise the voice if it were not disguised, don’t you think?”

  “One of their workmates playing a cruel practical joke on them?”

  “I hardly think so. Instant dismissal would be the penalty for that, once the joker was unmasked. I think it must be some member of the cast.”

  “It is obviously somebody who knows where the girls are employed, but no doubt a good many people would know that. Cases of murder always throw up these ‘screwballs’, as your husband calls them. They soon give up their fun, but it is very uncomfortable for their victims while it lasts, and young girls are especially vulnerable. I shall be interested to hear what they have to say.”

  So Deborah entertained Emma in the drawing-room while Dame Beatrice interviewed Susan and Caroline in the library.

  Chapter 13

  Cut Down to Size

  “So quick, bright things come to confusion.”

  « ^ »

  Poor kids! It’s a shame that they should be involved. Mind you, they are not the only people to be upset, apart from the recipients of anonymous letters. When the inquest was adjourned, what tickled me was the obvious surprise and displeasure of the coroner. He was all ready with his cosy little verdict of death by misadventure,” said Jonathan. “I don’t suppose this borough has had a case of murder on its books since the old smuggling days, and he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would want to break the record. Did the girls tell you anything useful at all?”

  “No. They suggested—a ploy which must have been agreed on because I interviewed them separately and both of them mentioned it—that I should put them under hypnosis.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “So that they could convince me that they had no hand in Donald Bourton’s death.”

  “Good heavens! Whatever next?”

  “They did convince me of one thing. When Rinkley was taken ill, they fully expected that you, and not Donald Bourton, would take Pyramus upon you. They stressed that, although Bourton had made himself somewhat objectionable to them in certain ways, and Rinkley had done the same in certain other ways, they had nothing against you at all, and certainly had no reason to wish you harm.”

  “Fair enough. Beyond the general greetings at rehearsals and so forth, I doubt whether I ever spoke to them at all, and I don’t suppose they did know that Bourton, and not I, was to stand-in for Rinkley. Why should anybody have bothered to mention it to them? Once our cocktail party was over, I don’t suppose any of our guests gave the alteration another thought until Rinkley was actually laid low.”

  “That brings us to another point. Unless one of the others told him, Rinkley himself did not know that Mr Bourton and not yourself was to be made his understudy. So much I had already had clear in my mind, so what it comes to is that the only people who were present when the change of understudy was suggested and agreed on were Marcus and Emma Lynn, yourself and Deborah, Brian and Valerie Yorke and Donald and Barbara Bourton. Those who were not told at the time and who may or may not have picked up the information later, are Tom and Peter Woolidge, Robina and David Lester, young Jasper Lynn, Rinkley himself, Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome. I leave out the children and am prepared to leave out Peter. The boy could have had no conceivable interest, so far as I can tell, in who would substitute for Rinkley should a substitute be called for, but Jasper may have heard something from his parents, so he cannot be ruled out.”

  “Well, that’s got everybody pegged out on the line,” said Jonathan, “so now, I suppose, you’ll take a closer look at those who knew of the alteration.”

  “Useless, until we get some evidence. I have little hope of the antiques dealers. The purchase of the rapier-dagger may have been made years ago and not necessarily in this neighbourhood. The conversion of the rapier into a dagger may offer more scope. The newspapers now report that it was done recently.”

  “You have taken Peter Woolidge and possibly Jasper Lynn off your list, but what about David Lester? He is only about their age—well, Peter’s age—you know. Doesn’t he qualify to be let off the hook?”

  “I understand from the two young women that his mother had been roughly spoken to by Rinkley and that the young man was also very angry when the girls told him about Bourton’s conduct off-stage with them.”

  “So whether Rinkley or Bourton was the intended victim, you are keeping David very much in the picture. He had reason to dislike both men.”

  “Yes, but he may have thought Jonathan was to be the understudy. However, he was one of the workmen and, as Lion, had access to the tables which held the properties.”

  “Well, so had his mother and the two girls, come to that. I suppose that’s why you have kept them on your list, but I don’t suppose for a moment that they had anything to do with changing over the daggers, you know,” said Deborah. “They wouldn’t nurse that sort of grudge.”

  The next visitor was the Chief Constable of the county. He, too, had received a letter, but not directly and it was not anonymous. It had been sent to the local police station and had been handed to the Chief Constable by the superintendent with the remark, “One for Dame Beatrice, perhaps, sir, now that she has been co-opted on to the strength.” The letter ran:

  “I don’t suppose it’s what you are looking for, as my shop is twenty miles from your town, but I sold a rapier to a young lad about six weeks ago, and the hilt looks a little bit like the hilt of the one in your picture which came on the TV last night after the late news, also an incised letter or two on the blade, but not very distinct in your picture. I do not usually bother with the late news, having seen it earlier and liking an early bedtime, but if I could see the dagger you have I might be able to identify it. I sold it to a young lad as a
rapier which he said was for theatricals. I warned him to be careful, as it was Toledo steel and made for real use. I was surprised he had the money to buy it.”

  The letter was signed Tessa Wells and was sent from an address in the little town of Saxonchurch which was indeed about twenty miles off and lay between broad, lazy rivers which meandered through meadow-lands and past what had been a monastery before the Dissolution. The rivers eventually found their way into the enormous, shallow bay overlooked by Jonathan’s temporary home.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything in it,” said the Chief Constable, referring to the information in the letter, “but in a puzzling case of this kind I suppose we must catch at straws. The Super thinks so, anyway, and so does Conway, I gather.”

  “A puzzling case?” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Yes, because, so far as I can see, it could be a case of accident, suicide or murder. You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

  “Oh, I choose murder. The substitution of the lethal dagger for that with the retractable blade was no accident, although there is a distinct possibility that it did not kill the person it was intended to kill. Suicide, from all that I have been told, seems unlikely. Incidentally, this woman’s reference to theatricals may be important if she identifies the lethal weapon and can describe the customer who purchased the rapier.”

  “It’s a very long shot, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, indeed. However, I shall be interested to meet this shopkeeper. There is only one young man on our books who is still a schoolboy and interested, to some extent, in amateur theatricals, but there are two others, not so much older, who took part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  “But what reason would any of these boys have had to murder Rinkley, Bourton, or your nephew?”

  “No reason at all except, perhaps, for young David Lester. He may have felt resentment at the way Rinkley had insulted his mother’s stagecraft and at the way Bourton had attempted to take advantage of two young women in whom he seems to have taken an interest, his fellow Thespians Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome, both of whom have been to see me.”