“She doesn’t do indecent photographs or anything like that,” said the young man anxiously. “I hope nobody’s been telling you any stories of that kind because it isn’t true. Margot’s very artistic. She does a lot of stage work and studio work. But her studies are terribly, terribly pure—almost prudish, I’d say.”
“I can tell you quite simply why I want to speak to Miss Bence,” said Dermot. “She was recently an eyewitness of a crime that took place near Much Benham, at a village called St. Mary Mead.”
“Oh, my dear, of course! I know about that. Margot came back and told me all about it. Hemlock in the cocktails, wasn’t it? Something of that kind. So bleak it sounded! But all mixed-up with the St. John Ambulance which doesn’t seem so bleak, does it? But haven’t you already asked Margot questions about that—or was it somebody else?”
“One always finds there are more questions, as the case goes on,” said Dermot.
“You mean it develops. Yes, I can quite see that. Murder develops. Yes, like a photograph, isn’t it?”
“It’s very much like photography really,” said Dermot. “Quite a good comparison of yours.”
“Well, it’s very nice of you to say so, I’m sure. Now about Margot. Would you like to get hold of her right away?”
“If you can help me to do so, yes.”
“Well, at the moment,” said the young man, consulting his watch, “at the moment she’ll be outside Keats’ house at Hampstead Heath. My car’s outside. Shall I run you up there?”
“That would be very kind of you, Mr—”
“Jethroe,” said the young man, “Johnny Jethroe.”
As they went down the stairs Dermot asked:
“Why Keats’ house?”
“Well, you know we don’t pose fashion photographs in the studio anymore. We like them to seem natural, blown about by the wind. And if possible some rather unlikely background. You know, an Ascot frock against Wandsworth Prison, or a frivolous suit outside a poet’s house.”
Mr. Jethroe drove rapidly but skilfully up Tottenham Court Road, through Camden Town and finally to the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath. On the pavement near Keats’ house a pretty little scene was being enacted. A slim girl, wearing diaphanous organdie, was standing clutching an immense black hat. On her knees, a little way behind her, a second girl was holding the first girl’s skirt well pulled back so that it clung around her knees and legs. In a deep hoarse voice a girl with a camera was directing operations.
“For goodness’ sake, Jane, get your behind down. It’s showing behind her right knee. Get down flatter. That’s it. No, more to the left. That’s right. Now you’re masked by the bush. That’ll do. Hold it. We’ll have one more. Both hands on the back of the hat this time. Head up. Good—now turn round, Elsie. Bend over. More. Bend! Bend, you’ve got to pick up that cigarette case. That’s right. That’s heaven! Got it! Now move over to the left. Same pose, only just turn your head over your shoulder. So.”
“I can’t see what you want to go taking photographs of my behind for,” said the girl called Elsie rather sulkily.
“It’s a lovely behind, dear. It looks smashing,” said the photographer. “And when you turn your head your chin comes up like the rising moon over a mountain. I don’t think we need bother with anymore.”
“Hi— Margot,” said Mr. Jethroe.
She turned her head. “Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?”
“I brought someone along to see you. Chief-Inspector Craddock, CID.”
The girl’s eyes turned swiftly on to Dermot. He thought they had a wary, searching look but that, as he well knew, was nothing extraordinary. It was a fairly common reaction to detective-inspectors. She was a thin girl, all elbows and angles, but was an interesting shape for all that. A heavy curtain of black hair fell down either side of her face. She looked dirty as well as sallow and not particularly prepossessing, to his eyes. But he acknowledged that there was character there. She raised her eyebrows which were slightly raised by art already and remarked:
“And what can I do for you, Detective-Inspector Craddock?”
“How do you do, Miss Bence. I wanted to ask you if you would be so kind as to answer a few questions about that very unfortuante business at Gossington Hall, near Much Benham. You went there, if I remember, to take some photographs.”
The girl nodded. “Of course. I remember quite well.” She shot him a quick searching look. “I didn’t see you there. Surely it was somebody else. Inspector—Inspector—”
“Inspector Cornish?” said Dermot.
“That’s right.”
“We were called in later.”
“You’re from Scotland Yard?”
“Yes.”
“You butted in and took over from the local people. Is that it?”
“Well, it isn’t quite a question of butting in, you know. It’s up to the Chief Constable of the County to decide whether he wants to keep it in his own hands or whether he thinks it’ll be better handled by us.”
“What makes him decide?”
“It very often turns on whether the case has a local background or whether it’s a more—universal one. Sometimes, perhaps, an international one.”
“And he decided, did he, that this was an international one?”
“Transatlantic, perhaps, would be a better word.”
“They’ve been hinting that in the papers, haven’t they? Hinting that the killer, whoever he was, was out to get Marina Gregg and got some wretched local woman by mistake. Is that true or is it a bit of publicity for their film?”
“I’m afraid there isn’t much doubt about it, Miss Bence.”
“What do you want to ask me? Have I got to come to Scotland Yard?”
He shook his head. “Not unless you like. We’ll go back to your studio if you prefer.”
“All right, let’s do that. My car’s just up the street.”
She walked rapidly along the footpath. Dermot went with her. Jethroe called after them.
“So long darling, I won’t butt in. I’m sure you and the Inspector are going to talk big secrets.” He joined the two models on the pavement and began an animated discussion with them.
Margot got into the car, unlocked the door on the other side, and Dermot Craddock got in beside her. She said nothing at all during the drive back to Tottenham Court Road. She turned down the cul-de-sac and at the bottom of it drove through an open doorway.
“Got my own parking place here,” she remarked. “It’s a furniture depository place really, but they rent me a bit of space. Parking a car is one of the big headaches in London, as you probably know only too well, though I don’t suppose you deal with traffic, do you?”
“No, that’s not one of my troubles.”
“I should think murder would be infinitely preferable,” said Margot Bence.
She led the way back to the studio, motioned him to a chair, offered him a cigarette and sank down on the large pouffe opposite him. From behind the curtain of dark hair she looked at him in a sombre questioning way.
“Shoot, stranger,” she said.
“You were taking photographs on the occasion of this death, I understand.”
“Yes.”
“You’d been engaged professionally?”
“Yes. They wanted someone to do a few specialized shots. I do quite a lot of that stuff. I do some work for film studios sometimes, but this time I was just taking photographs of the fête, and afterwards a few shots of special people being greeted by Marina Gregg and Jason Rudd. Local notabilities or other personalities. That sort of thing.”
“Yes. I understand that. You had your camera on the stairs, I understand?”
“A part of the time, yes. I got a very good angle from there. You get people coming up the stairs below you and you could swivel round and get Marina shaking hands with them. You could get a lot of different angles without having to move much.”
“I know, of course, that you answered some questions at the time as to whether you�
�d seen anything unusual, anything that might be helpful. They were general questions.”
“Have you got more specialized ones?”
“A little more specialized, I think. You had a good view of Marina Gregg from where you were standing?”
She nodded. “Excellent.”
“And of Jason Rudd?”
“Occasionally. But he was moving about more. Drinks and things and introducing people to one another. The locals to the celebrities. That kind of thing, I should imagine. I didn’t see this Mrs. Baddeley—”
“Badcock.”
“Sorry, Badcock. I didn’t see her drink the fatal draught or anything like that. In fact I don’t think I really know which she was.”
“Do you remember the arrival of the mayor?”
“Oh, yes. I remember the mayor all right. He had on his chain and his robes of office. I got one of him coming up the stairs—a close-up—rather a cruel profile, and then I got him shaking hands with Marina.”
“Then you can fix that time at least in your mind. Mrs. Badcock and her husband came up the stairs to Marina Gregg immediately in front of him.”
She shook her head. “Sorry. I still don’t remember her.”
“That doesn’t matter so much. I presume that you had a pretty good view of Marina Gregg and that you had your eyes on her and were pointing the camera at her fairly often.”
“Quite right. Most of the time. I’d wait till I got just the right moment.”
“Do you know a man called Ardwyck Fenn by sight?”
“Oh yes. I know him well enough. Television network—films too.”
“Did you take a photograph of him?”
“Yes. I got him coming up with Lola Brewster.”
“That would be just after the mayor?”
She thought a minute then agreed. “Yes, about then.”
“Did you notice that about that time Marina Gregg seemed to feel suddenly ill? Did you notice any unusual expression on her face?”
Margot Bence leant forward, opened a cigarette box and took out a cigarette. She lit it. Although she had not answered Dermot did not press her. He waited, wondering what it was she was turning over in her mind. She said at last, abruptly:
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Because it’s a question to which I am very anxious to have an answer—a reliable answer.”
“Do you think my answer’s likely to be reliable?”
“Yes I do, as a matter of fact. You must have the habit of watching people’s faces very closely, waiting for certain expressions, certain propitious moments.”
She nodded her head.
“Did you see anything of that kind?”
“Somebody else saw it too, did they?”
“Yes. More than one person, but it’s been described rather differently.”
“How did the other people describe it?”
“One person has told me that she was taken faint.”
Margot Bence shook her head slowly.
“Someone else said that she was startled.” He paused a moment then went on, “And somebody else describes her as having a frozen look on her face.”
“Frozen,” said Margot Bence thoughtfully.
“Do you agree to that last statement?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“It was put rather more fancifully still,” said Dermot. “In the words of the late poet, Tennyson. ‘The mirror crack’d from side to side; “The doom has come upon me,” cried the Lady of Shalott.’”
“There wasn’t any mirror,” said Margot Bence, “but if there had been it might have cracked.” She got up abruptly. “Wait,” she said. “I’ll do something better than describe it to you. I’ll show you.”
She pushed aside the curtain at the far end and disappeared for some moments. He could hear her uttering impatient mutterings under her breath.
“What hell it is,” she said as she emerged again, “one never can find things when one wants them. I’ve got it now though.”
She came across to him and put a glossy print into his hand. He looked down at it. It was a very good photograph of Marina Gregg. Her hand was clasped in the hand of a woman standing in front of her, and therefore with her back to the camera. But Marina Gregg was not looking at the woman. Her eyes stared not quite into the camera but slightly obliquely to the left. The interesting thing to Dermot Craddock was that the face expressed nothing whatever. There was no fear on it, no pain. The woman portrayed there was staring at something, something she saw, and the emotion it aroused in her was so great that she was physically unable to express it by any kind of facial expression. Dermot Craddock had seen such a look once on a man’s face, a man who a second later had been shot dead….
“Satisfied?” asked Margot Bence.
Craddock gave a deep sigh. “Yes, thank you. It’s hard, you know, to make up one’s mind if witnesses are exaggerating, if they are imagining they see things. But that’s not so in this case. There was something to see and she saw it.” He asked, “Can I keep this picture?”
“Oh, yes you can have the print. I’ve got the negative.”
“You didn’t send it to the Press?”
Margot Bence shook her head.
“I rather wonder why you didn’t. After all, it’s rather a dramatic photograph. Some paper might have paid a good price for it.”
“I wouldn’t care to do that,” said Margot Bence. “If you look into somebody’s soul by accident, you feel a bit embarrassed about cashing in.”
“Did you know Marina Gregg at all?”
“No.”
“You come from the States, don’t you?”
“I was born in England. I was trained in America though. I came over here, oh, about three years ago.”
Dermot Craddock nodded. He had known the answers to his questions. They had been waiting for him among the other lists of information on his office table. The girl seemed straightforward enough. He asked:
“Where did you train?”
“Reingarden Studios. I was with Andrew Quilp for a time. He taught me a lot.”
“Reingarden Studios and Andrew Quilp.” Dermot Craddock was suddenly alert. The names struck a chord of remembrance.
“You lived in Seven Springs, didn’t you?”
She looked amused.
“You seem to know a lot about me. Have you been checking up?”
“You’re a very well-known photographer, Miss Bence. There have been articles written about you, you know. Why did you come to England?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, I like a change. Besides, as I tell you, I was born in England although I went to the States as a child.”
“Quite a young child, I think.”
“Five years old if you’re interested.”
“I am interested. I think, Miss Bence, you could tell me a little more than you have done.”
Her face hardened. She stared at him.
“What do you mean by that?”
Dermot Craddock looked at her and risked it. It wasn’t much to go on. Reingarden Studios and Andrew Quilp and the name of one town. But he felt rather as if old Miss Marple were at his shoulder egging him on.
“I think you knew Marina Gregg better than you say.”
She laughed. “Prove it. You’re imagining things.”
“Am I? I don’t think I am. And it could be proved, you know, with a little time and care. Come now, Miss Bence, hadn’t you better admit the truth? Admit that Marina Gregg adopted you as a child and that you lived with her for four years.”
She drew her breath in sharply with a hiss.
“You nosy bastard!” she said.
It startled him a little, it was such a contrast to her former manner. She got up, shaking her black head of hair.
“All right, all right, it’s true enough! Yes Marina Gregg took me over to America with her. My mother had eight kids. She lived in a slum somewhere. She was one of hundreds of people, I suppose, who wrote to any film actress t
hat they happen to see or hear about, spilling a hard-luck story, begging her to adopt the child a mother couldn’t give advantages to. Oh, it’s such a sickening business, all of it.”
“There were three of you,” said Dermot. “Three children adopted at different times from different places.”
“That’s right. Me and Rod and Angus. Angus was older than I was, Rod was practically a baby. We had a wonderful life. Oh, a wonderful life! All the advantages!” Her voice rose mockingly. “Clothes and cars and a wonderful house to live in and people to look after us, good schooling and teaching, and delicious food. Everything piled on! And she herself, our ‘Mom.’ ‘Mom’ in inverted commas, playing her part, crooning over us, being photographed with us! Ah, such a pretty sentimental picture.”
“But she really wanted children,” said Dermot Craddock. “That was real enough, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just a publicity stunt.”
“Oh, perhaps. Yes, I think that was true. She wanted children. But she didn’t want us! Not really. It was just a glorious bit of playacting. ‘My family.’ ‘So lovely to have a family of my own.’ And Izzy let her do it. He ought to have known better.”
“Izzy was Isidore Wright?”
“Yes, her third husband or her fourth, I forget which. He was a wonderful man really. He understood her, I think, and he was worried sometimes about us. He was kind to us, but he didn’t pretend to be a father. He didn’t feel like a father. He only cared really about his own writing. I’ve read some of his things since. They’re sordid and rather cruel, but they’re powerful. I think people will call him a great writer one day.”
“And this went on until when?”
Margot Bence’s smile curved suddenly. “Until she got sick of that particular bit of playacting. No, that’s not quite true… She found she was going to have a child of her own.”
She laughed with sudden bitterness. “Then we’d had it! We weren’t wanted anymore. We’d done very well as little stopgaps, but she didn’t care a damn about us really, not a damn. Oh, she pensioned us off very prettily. With a home and a foster-mother and money for our education and a nice little sum to start us off in the world. Nobody can say that she didn’t behave correctly and handsomely. But she’d never wanted us—all she wanted was a child of her own.”
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 155
