by Mark Place
"I didn't know them as well as you did," said Mrs. Oliver. "And of course at the time of the shooting I was in America on a lecture tour. So I never really heard any details."
"Well, of course, it was a great mystery," said Julia Carstairs. "I mean to say, one didn't know. There were so many different stories going about."
"What did they say at the inquest - I suppose they had an inquest?"
"Oh, yes, of course. The police had to investigate it. It was one of those indecisive things, you know, in that the death was due to revolver shots. They couldn't say definitely what had occurred. It seemed possible that General Ravenscroft had shot his wife and then himself, but apparently it was just as probable that Lady Ravenscroft had shot her husband and then herself. It seemed most likely, I think, that it was a suicide pact, but it couldn't be said definitely how it came about."
"There seemed to be no question of its being a crime?"
"No, no. It was said quite clearly there was no suggestion of foul play. I mean there were no footsteps or any signs of anyone coming near them. They left the house to walk after tea, as they so often did. They didn't come back again for dinner and the manservant or somebody or the gardener - whoever it was - went out to look for them, and found them both dead. The revolver was lying by the bodies."
"The revolver belonged to him, didn't it?"
"Oh, yes. He had two revolvers in the house. These ex-military people so often do, don't they? I mean, they feel safer what with everything that goes on nowadays. A second revolver was still in the drawer in the house, so that he - well, he must have gone out deliberately with the revolver, presumably. I don't think it likely that she'd have gone out for a walk carrying a revolver."
"No. No, it wouldn't have been so easy, would it?"
"But there was nothing apparently in the evidence to show that there was any unhappiness or that there'd been any quarrel between them or that there was any reason why they should commit suicide. Of course one never knows what sad things there are in people's lives."
"No, no," said Mrs. Oliver. "One never knows. How very true that is, Julia. Did you have any ideas yourself?"
"Well, one always wonders, my dear."
"Yes," said Mrs. Oliver, "one always wonders."
"It might be of course, you see, that he had some disease. I think he might have been told he was going to die of cancer, but that wasn't so, according to the medical evidence. He was quite healthy. I mean, he had - I think he had had a - what do they call those things? - coronary, is that what I mean? It sounds like a crown, doesn't it, but it's really a heart attack, isn't it? He'd had that but he'd recovered from it, and she was, well, she was very nervy. She was neurotic always."
"Yes, I seem to remember that," said Mrs. Oliver. "Of course I didn't know them well, but -" she asked suddenly - "was she wearing a wig?"
"Oh. Well, you know, I can't really remember that. She always wore her wig. One of them, I mean."
"I just wondered," said Mrs. Oliver. "Somehow I feel if you were going to shoot yourself or even shoot your husband, I don't think you'd wear your wig, do you?"
The ladies discussed this point with some interest.
"What do you really think, Julia?"
"Well, as I said, dear, one wonders, you know. There were things said, but then there always are."
"About him or her?"
"Well, they said that there was a young woman, you know. Yes, I think she did some secretarial work for him. He was writing his memoirs of his career in India - I believe commissioned by a publisher at that - and she used to take dictation from him. But some people said - well, you know what they do say sometimes, that perhaps he had got - er - tied up with this girl in some way. She wasn't very young. She was over thirty, and not very good-looking and I don't think - there were no scandals about her or anything, but still, one doesn't know. People thought he might have shot his wife because he wanted to - well, he might have wanted to marry her, yes. But I don't really think people said that sort of thing and I never believed it."
"What did you think?"
"Well, of course I wondered a little about her."
"You mean that a man was mentioned?"
"I believe there was something out in Malaya. Some kind of story I heard about her. That she got embroiled with some young man much younger than herself. And her husband hadn't liked it much and it had caused a bit of scandal. I forget where. But anyway, that was a long time ago and I don't think anything ever came of it."
"You don't think there was any talk nearer home? No special relationship with anyone in the neighborhood? There wasn't any evidence of quarrels between them, or anything of that kind?"
"No, I don't think so. Of course I read everything about it at the time. One did discuss it, of course, because one couldn't help feeling there might be some - well, some really very tragic love story connected with it."
"But there wasn't, you think? They had children, didn't they? There was my goddaughter, of course."
"Oh, yes, and there was a son. I think he was quite young, At school somewhere. The girl was only twelve, no - older than that. She was with a family in Switzerland."
"There was no - no mental trouble, I suppose, in the family?"
"Oh, you mean the boy - yes, might be, of course. You do hear very strange things. There was that boy who shot his father - that was somewhere near Newcastle, I think. Some years before that. You know. He'd been very depressed and at first I think they said he tried to hang himself when he was at the university, and then he came and shot his father. But nobody quite knew why. Anyway, there wasn't anything of that sort with the Ravenscrofts. No, I don't think so, in fact, I'm pretty sure of it. I can't help thinking, in some ways"
"Yes, Julia?"
"I can't help thinking that there might have been a man, you know."
"You mean that she?"
"Yes, well - well, one thinks it rather likely, you know. The wigs, for one thing."
"I don't quite see how the wigs come into it."
"Well, wanting to improve her appearance."
"She was thirty-five, I think."
"More. More. Thirty-six, I think. And, well, I know she showed me the wigs one day, and one or two of them really made her look quite attractive. And she used a good deal of make-up. And that had all started just after they had come to live there, I think. She was rather a good-looking woman."
"You mean, she might have met someone - some man?"
"Well, that's what I've always thought," said Mrs. Carstairs. "You see, if a man's getting off with a girl, people notice it usually because men aren't so good at hiding their tracks. But a woman, it might be - well, I mean like someone she'd met and nobody knew much about it."
"Oh, do you really think so, Julia?"
"No, I don't really think so," said Julia, "because I mean, people always do know, don't they? I mean, you know, servants know, or gardeners or bus drivers. Or somebody in the neighborhood. And they know. And they talk. But still, there could have been something like that and either he found out about it..."
"You mean it was a crime of jealousy?"
"I think so, yes."
"So you think it's more likely that he shot her, then himself, than that she shot him and then herself."
"Well, I should think so, because I think if she were trying to get rid of him - well, I don't think they'd have gone for a walk together and she'd have to have taken the revolver with her in a handbag and it would have been rather a bigger handbag if so. One has to think of the practical side of things."
"I know," said Mrs. Oliver. "One does. It's very interesting."
"It must be interesting to you, dear, because you write these crime stories. So I expect really you would have better ideas. You'd know more what's likely to happen."
"I don't know what's likely to happen," said Mrs. Oliver, "because, you see, in all the crimes that I write, I've invented the crimes. I mean, what I want to happen, happens in my stories. It's not something that actually has
happened or that could happen. So I'm really the worst person to talk about it. I'm interested to know what you think because you know people very well, Julia, and you knew them well. And I think she might have said something to you one day - or he might."
"Yes. Yes, now wait a minute when you say that, that seems to bring something back to me."
Mrs. Carstays leaned back in her chair, shook her head doubtfully, half closed her eyes and went into a kind of coma. Mrs. Oliver remained silent, with a look on her face which women are apt to wear when they are waiting for the first signs of a kettle coming to the boil.
"She did say something once, I remember, and I wonder what she meant by it," said Mrs. Carstairs. "Something about starting a new life - in connection, I think, with St. Teresa. St. Teresa of Avila."
Mrs. Oliver looked slightly startled. "But how did St. Teresa of Avila come into it?"
"Well, I don't know really. I think she must have been reading a Life of her. Anyway, she said that it was wonderful how women get a sort of second wind. That's not quite the term she used, but something like that. You know, when they are forty or fifty or that sort of age and they suddenly want to begin a new life. Teresa of Avila did. She hadn't done anything special up till then except being a nun, then she went out and reformed all the convents, didn't she, and flung her weight about and became a great saint."
"Yes, but that doesn't seem quite the same thing."
"No, it doesn't," said Mrs. Carstairs. "But women do talk in a very silly way, you know, when they are referring to love affairs when they get on in life. About how it's never too late."
Chapter 7
BACK TO THE NURSERY
Mrs. Oliver looked rather doubtfully at the three steps and the front door of a small, rather dilapidated-looking cottage in the side street. Below the windows some bulbs were growing, mainly tulips. Mrs. Oliver paused, opened the little address book in her hand, verified that she was in the place she thought she was, and rapped gently with the knocker after having tried to press a bell-push of possible electrical significance but which did not seem to yield any satisfactory bell ringing inside, or anything of that kind. Presently, not getting any response, she knocked again. This time there were sounds from inside. A shuffling sound of feet, some asthmatic breathing and hands apparently trying to manage the opening of the door. With this noise there came a few vague echoes in the letter box. "Oh, drat it. Drat it. Stuck again, you brute, you."
Finally, success met these inward industries, and the door, making a creaky and rather doubtful noise, was slowly pulled open. A very old woman, with a wrinkled face, humped shoulders and a general arthritic appearance, looked at her visitor. Her face was unwelcoming. It held no sign of fear, merely of distaste for those who came and knocked at the home of an Englishwoman's castle. She might have been seventy or eighty, but she was still a valiant defender of her home. "I dunno what you've come about and I -" she stopped.
"Why," she said, "it's Miss Ariadne. Well, I never now! It's Miss Ariadne."
"I think you're wonderful to know me," said Mrs. Oliver. "How are you, Mrs. Matcham?"
"Miss Ariadne! Just think of that now."
It was, Mrs. Ariadne Oliver thought, a long time ago since she had been addressed as Miss Ariadne, but the intonation of the voice, cracked with age though it was, rang a familiar note. "Come in, m'dear," said the old dame; "come in now. You're lookin' well, you are. I dunno how many years it is since I've seen you. Fifteen at least." It was a good deal more than fifteen, but Mrs. Oliver made no corrections. She came in. Mrs. Matcham was shaking hands, her hands were rather unwilling to obey their owner's orders. She managed to shut the door and, shuffling her feet and limping, entered a small room which was obviously one that was kept for the reception of any likely or unlikely visitors whom Mrs. Matcham was prepared to admit to her home. There were large numbers of photographs - some of babies, some of adults. Some in nice leather frames which were slowly drooping but had not quite fallen to pieces yet. One in a silver frame by now rather tarnished, representing a young woman in presentation court dress with feathers rising up on her head. Two naval officers, two military gentlemen, some photographs of naked babies sprawling on rugs. There was a sofa and two chairs. As bidden, Mrs. Oliver sat in a chair. Mrs. Matcham pressed herself down on the sofa and pulled a cushion into the hollow of her back with some difficulty. "Well, my dear, fancy seeing you. And you're still writing your pretty stories, are you?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Oliver, assenting to this though with a slight doubt as to how far detective stories and stories of crime and general criminal behaviour could be called pretty stories. But that, she thought, was very much a habit of Mrs. Matcham's.
"I'm all alone now," said Mrs. Matcham. "You remember Gracie, my sister? She died last autumn, she did. Cancer it was. They operated, but it was too late."
"Oh, dear, I'm so sorry," said Mrs. Oliver.
Conversation proceeded for the next ten minutes on the subject of the demise, one by one, of Mrs. Matcham's last remaining relatives.
"And you're all right, are you? Doing all right? Got a husband now? Oh, now, I remember, he's dead years ago, isn't he? And what brings you here to Little Saltern Minor?"
"I just happened to be in the neighborhood," said Mrs. Oliver, "and as I've got your address in my little address book with me, I thought I'd just drop in and - well, see how you were and everything."
"Ah! And talk about old times, perhaps. Always nice when you can do that, isn't it?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Oliver, feeling some relief that this particular line had been indicated to her since it was more or less what she had come for. "What a lot of photographs you've got," she said.
"Ah, I have, an' that. D'you know, when I was in that home - silly name it had, Sunset House of Happiness for the Aged, something like that it was called, a year and a quarter I lived there till I couldn't stand it no more, a nasty lot they were, saying you couldn't have any of your own things with you. You know, everything had to belong to the home. I don't say as it wasn't comfortable, but you know, I like me own things around me. My photos and my furniture. And then there was ever so nice a lady, came from a Council, she did, some society or other, and she told me there was another place where they had homes of their own or something and you could take what you liked with you. And there's ever such a nice helper as comes in every day to see if you're all right. Ah, very comfortable I am here. Very comfortable indeed. I've got all my own things."
"Something from everywhere," said Mrs. Oliver, looking round. "Yes, that table - the brass one - that's Captain Wilson, he sent me that from Singapore or something like that. And that Benares brass, too. That's nice, isn't it? That's a funny thing on the ash tray. That's Egyptian, that is. It's a scarabee, or some name like that. You know. Sounds like some kind of scratching disease, but it isn't. No, it's a sort of beetle and it's made out of some stone. They call it a precious stone. Bright blue. A lazy - a lavis - a lazy lapin or something like that."
"Lapis lazuli," said Mrs. Oliver.
"That's right. That's what it is. Very nice, that is. That was my archaeological boy what went digging. He sent me that."
"All your lovely past," said Mrs. Oliver.
"Yes, all my boys and girls. Some of them as babies, some of them I had from the month, and the older ones. Some of them when I went to India and that other time when I was in Siam. Yes. That's Miss Moya in her court dress. Ah, she was a pretty thing. Divorced two husbands, she has. Yes. Trouble with his lordship, the first one, and then she married one of those pop singers and of course that couldn't take very well. And then she married someone in California. They've got a yacht and go about places, I think. Died two or three years ago and only sixty-two. Pity dying so young, you know."
"You've been to a lot of different parts of the world yourself, haven't you?" said Mrs. Oliver. "India, Hong Kong, then Egypt, and South America, wasn't it?"
"Ah, yes, I've been about a good deal."
"I remember," said
Mrs. Oliver, "when I was in India, you were with a service family then, weren't you? A General somebody. Was it - now wait a minute, I can't remember the name - it wasn't General and Lady Ravenscroft, was it?"
"No, no, you've got the name wrong. You're thinking of when I was with the Barnabys. That's right. You came to stay with them. Remember? You were doing a tour, you were, and you came and stayed with the Barnabys. You were an old friend of hers. He was a judge."
"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Oliver. "It's difficult a bit. One gets names mixed up."
"Two nice children they had," said Mrs. Matcham. "Of course they went to school in England. The boy went to Harrow and the girl went to Roedean, I think it was, and so I moved on to another family after that. Ah, things have changed nowadays. Not so many ayahs, even, as there used to be. Mind you, the ayahs used to be a bit of a trouble now and then. I got on with our one very well when I was with the Barnabys, I mean. Who was it you spoke of? The Ravenscrofts? Well, I remember them. Yes - I forget the name of the place where they lived now. Not far from us. The families were acquainted, you know. Oh, yes, it's a long time ago, but I remember it all. I was still out there with the Barnabys, you know. I stayed on when the children went to school to look after Mrs. Barnaby. Look after her things, you know, and mend them and all that. Oh, yes, I was there when that awful thing happened. I don't mean the Barnabys. I mean to the Ravenscrofts. Yes, I shall never forget that. Hearing about it, I mean. Naturally I wasn't mixed up in it myself, but it was a terrible thing to happen, wasn't it?"
"I should think it must have been," said Mrs. Oliver.
"It was after you'd gone back to England, a good long time after that, I think. A nice couple they were. Very nice couple and it was a shock to them."
"I don't really remember now," said Mrs. Oliver.
"I know. One forgets things. I don't myself. But they said she'd always been queer, you know. Ever since the time she was a child. Some early story there was. She took a baby out of the pram and threw it in the river. Jealousy, they said. Other people said she wanted the baby to go to heaven and not wait."
