Murder at the Villa Byzantine: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘She would have.’ Payne nodded. ‘But perhaps there was no confrontation? Maybe Melisande left the front door ajar.’

  ‘Ajar?’

  ‘Endeavour to visualize the scene. Stella rings the front door bell. There is no response. She then sees the door is actually ajar. She pushes it – tentatively steps into the hall – calls out. Hello? Mr Vane? A muffled voice comes from the drawing room. Come this way! I am here. Melisande has a deep throaty voice that can easily be taken for a man’s.’

  ‘Miss Hope didn’t have a deep throaty voice.’

  ‘No, of course not. She put on a different voice for you. She is an actress. You don’t expect Mother Courage to speak in the same way as Lady Bracknell, do you, or Ophelia like Mrs Danvers, or a Hounslow hairdresser like Hedda Gabler – yet they could all be played by the same actress.’

  ‘I wonder if she was in love with me,’ Tancred Vane suddenly blurted out.

  26

  Love from a Stranger

  Major Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘In love with you? Did she give any indication that she might have been in love with you?’

  ‘Nothing direct or overt. It was the way she looked at me and some of the things she said. It was also the way she said them. Today, for example. It was quite extraordinary. She started speaking about what matters most in life. She talked about priorities – about knowing oneself. She looked at once solemn and sad. Her eyes were very bright. She – she kept staring at me.’

  ‘You know how the mad come into a room, too boldly, their eyes exploding on the air like roses.’

  ‘I hope you don’t think I have been imagining things?’

  ‘No, not at all, old boy. I don’t think you are the fanciful kind. Do go on.’

  ‘Well, the idea that she might be in love with me kept occurring to me, but each time I dismissed it as absurd. Not at her age. Now you have told me that she – Melisande Chevret – is in fact in her mid-fifties, the whole thing doesn’t seem so terribly absurd. So it’s possible, I suppose? It’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. An amorous obsession is perfectly possible. That would certainly explain why she persisted with her visits … But if Melisande Chevret did kill Stella,’ Major Payne reasoned, ‘it was because she regarded Stella as her rival – as the interloper who stole Morland from her. She cut off her head because she was hoping to win Morland back. She was in love with Morland. One can’t quite reconcile any of it with a simultaneous obsession with a younger man.’

  ‘Wrong psychology?’

  ‘Wrong psychology. On the other hand, it’s not the kind of thing one can explain in rational terms, so one mustn’t always look for logic. People fall in and out of love all the time. There are no rules. In the course of her visits Melisande Chevret may have developed a crush on you.’

  ‘You mean I may have ousted James Morland and taken his place in her affections?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘I must admit I became very fond of her. Though not, perhaps, in the way she might have wanted me to,’ Tancred Vane said. ‘I came to regard her as the aunt I never had.’

  ‘But if she is in love with you – why does she go on pestering Morland? She keeps phoning him. He told me about it. Can she love both of you with equal passion?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible … I must admit I found some of her behaviour bewildering. She – she seemed delighted out of all proportion when she saw I’d moved the flowers she’d given me from the left to the right on my desk. She saw that as some very special sign. Wasn’t there a name for that kind of obsession? I seem to remember reading about it somewhere. About the woman who fell in love with George V?’

  Payne looked at him. ‘Good lord. Yes. You are absolutely right. It’s a famous enough case. The woman was French, and she got a bee in her bonnet that she and George V were soulmates, destined to be united for eternity. The fact that George V was already married to Queen Mary didn’t seem to bother her one little bit. She started hanging around outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, watching out for “signals” from the King. She actually imagined the King was sending her messages by leaving a window open or shut – by drawing the curtains across the windows – or not drawing them.’

  ‘I think there is a medical term for it?’

  ‘Indeed there is. Les psychoses passionnelles. It was a Frenchman, de Clérambault, who coined the phrase. Les psychoses passionnelles usually involve a woman who develops the intense belief that a man is in love with her.’

  ‘How – how do you know so much about it?’

  ‘Oh, I know all sorts of pointless things.’ Payne waved a self-deprecating hand. ‘The “patient” or “subject” may have had little or no contact with the object of her delusion, but what she experiences is the absolute conviction that he is as much in love with her as she is with him. It’s a pathological condition … What’s that on the table?’ Payne pointed. ‘Not her glasses, are they?’

  ‘It’s her pince-nez. Yes. She left it behind.’

  Payne leant over. He held the pince-nez in front of his eyes. ‘Plain glass. This is nothing more than a theatrical prop. May I keep it? Or should I say “them”? Is pince-nez plural? I must admit I find Miss Hope’s divided passions a little difficult to swallow, but perhaps all will be clear after I have talked to her. I think I will pay her a visit tonight.’

  ‘You are going to call on Melisande Chevret? Do you think you will be safe?’

  ‘I am not sure,’ said Payne gravely, ‘so I intend to take my wife with me.’

  27

  The Double Clue

  Antonia didn’t get home until seven in the evening. She found her husband in the sitting room, whisky and soda in hand and pipe in mouth, staring out of the open window into the gathering darkness.

  ‘Such a warm night,’ he said.

  ‘You haven’t eaten, have you?’

  ‘I had a sandwich. And an apple.’ Payne pointed to the sky with the stem of his pipe. ‘A notable nimbus of nebulous moonshine. D’you remember the full moon the night Corinne Coreille died?’

  ‘I do … Not many stars tonight.’

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No, thank you. You poor thing, you must be starving. I am a bad wife. I don’t take sufficient care of you.’ Antonia sighed. ‘There is never any proper food in the house and all we do is sit around having drinks and talking.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘We keep trying to solve mysteries.’

  Payne shrugged. ‘We can’t help it if things happen to us.’

  ‘Do you know any other couples who try to solve mysteries?’

  ‘Not a single one. We not only try, we actually solve mysteries,’ he corrected her. ‘Don’t make us sound futile and eccentric, please.’

  ‘We have an unorthodox lifestyle, by any standards. You must see that. We are different from most other couples.’

  ‘We are rather exceptional, I agree.’

  ‘Perhaps we should try to go out and meet other couples more. We keep getting dinner invitations, which we turn down. I think it’s all my fault. If your mother had been alive, she’d have regarded me with disapproval and contempt.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort. She wouldn’t have.’

  ‘Mothers-in-law don’t like to have daughters-in-law who rush about, being adventurous.’

  ‘My mother would have adored you. She was adventurous herself. I’ve told you!’

  ‘Yes, you have.’ Antonia paused. ‘Bletchley Park, 1944. The Enigma Code.’

  ‘Old Churchill thought extremely highly of my mother.’ Payne held up an imaginary cigar. ‘Not only our youngest and cleverest but our prettiest decoder. Old Churchill gave her a DCB. Old Churchill had a thing about Mama. She covered the family name with glory.’

  ‘Belinda de Broke, Dame Commander of the Bath. It is an unusual, rather striking sort of name.’

  ‘It suited her. She was an unusual, rather striking sort of woman. Pity you never met her. She broke h
er neck driving in the Andes. She was with my second stepfather. Chap called Talleyrand-Vassal. He was twenty years younger than her.’

  ‘Did he survive?’

  ‘No. He broke his neck too. I was glad about that. Talleyrand-Vassal was a rotter.’ Payne rose. ‘Have we got any crushed ice? I want to get you a drink.’

  ‘Nobody mixes a martini like you.’ Antonia sat down on the sofa.

  ‘I mix martinis like a god.’

  ‘Do you know what I did today after we spoke on the phone? You’ll never guess. I went to Earls Court.’

  ‘Why Earls Court?’

  ‘There was something I had to do.’

  ‘Another brainwave?’

  ‘It was Julia Henderson who provided me with the clue. It’s the longest of shots. I’ll tell you all about it when I am sure.’

  ‘How about going on a neighbourly visit tonight?’ Payne consulted at his watch. ‘Or are you too tired?’

  ‘What neighbourly visit? You don’t mean Melisande, do you?’

  ‘I do mean Melisande.’ He told her about his conversation with Tancred Vane.

  ‘Delusional love … You don’t think she will open her heart to us, do you?’ Antonia glanced down at the open book Payne had left on the sofa. ‘Sexual Obsession and Stalking.’

  ‘Got it at the library. On my way back from the Villa Byzantine.’

  She looked down at the open pages and at the bulletshaped pencil that lay between them. ‘You have been underlining. You can’t do that in a library book, you know. They could fine you for defacing. Maladie d’amour,’ she murmured, turning a page.

  ‘Also known as mélancolie érotique. Why do these things sound so much better in French? Look further down. The condition is also known as “old maid’s psychosis”.’

  ‘Melisande is not an old maid.’

  ‘Clearly there are variations … Enigma Variations … Shall we have some Elgar, to set the tone?’

  ‘No, not music. Not now. Can’t concentrate if there’s music. So … The sufferer believes that the subject of their delusion secretly communicates their love by subtle methods, such as body posture, arrangement of household objects and other seemingly innocuous acts.’

  ‘Vane said she kept staring at him. She patted his cheek on a regular basis. She insisted on giving him pecks. She brought him some flowers that looked like human lungs. When he moved them to the right of his desk, she looked enraptured. She turned very pink. She was convinced he was sending her a signal. She took it for a declaration of his love for her.’

  ‘Love via lungs …’

  ‘Did you know that, if stretched out, our lungs would cover an area the size of a tennis court?’

  ‘De Clérambault’s Syndrome …’

  ‘That’s another name for the same condition. Gaetan de Clérambault was head of an institution for the criminally insane. He was attached to the Préfecture de Police in Paris and couldn’t have been entirely compos himself. He shot himself in 1934.’

  ‘Did he?’ Antonia looked up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Makes one wonder. Are loony doctors attracted to their profession because they are aware of some mental kink in their psychological make-up, or does a daily dose of the criminally insane prove fatal in the end?’ Payne glanced at his watch. ‘Would you like another drink before we go?’

  ‘No, not another drink. I intend to be as clear-headed as possible.’

  ‘And I intend to take my old army revolver with me.’

  ‘You aren’t thinking of effecting a citizen’s arrest, are you?’

  ‘Not quite, but we must be ready for a reaction. I rather doubt our probing questions will be welcome. She may become agitated. She may try something. There is a full moon, that’s when awful things tend to happen.’ He waved towards the open window. ‘If it was Melisande who killed Stella, she is probably very strong. She must have been able to lift the sword and swing it.’

  ‘She can’t really be in love with both Vane and Morland, can she?’

  ‘I would have said no … Oh well, perhaps we’ll know soon enough … Has it ever occurred to you, my love, that you and I lead about as extraordinary a life as any two people who didn’t found a religion or didn’t personally lead an invasion of a foreign empire? Let’s push along.’

  As they were crossing the hall, the telephone rang. Major Payne picked it up.

  It was his aunt.

  ‘Hughie!’

  ‘Actually, darling, we happen to be on our way out,’ Payne said. ‘We are off on an important and potentially dangerous mission—’

  ‘I won’t keep you long. Have you managed to have that woman arrested? I mean la fausse Miss Hope.’

  ‘No, not yet. As a matter of fact, we are on our way to her place at this very moment. I don’t know about having her arrested, but we are certainly going to try to persuade her to confess.’

  ‘How perfectly thrilling,’ said Lady Grylls. ‘You must tell me all about it when you come back.’

  ‘We most certainly shall.’

  ‘One more thing. What’s the meaning of the cryptic message you left behind?’

  Payne looked at his watch. ‘What cryptic message, darling?’

  ‘WW. You wrote that on one of my napkins.’

  ‘I never—’ He broke off. ‘Oh. I did. Sorry. I did doodle on the napkin. I had the handkerchief on my mind. The handkerchief the police found at the scene of the crime. It was made of very fine silk. I do apologize, darling. I’d been mulling over those initials. No – not WW but MM. I wrote MM. The initials are Stella’s daughter’s, though the blasted girl swears she’s never used a handkerchief in her life. It’s the one clue that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the puzzle.’

  ‘MM, did you say? Oh yes.’ Lady Grylls laughed. ‘I must be looking at it upside down. What did you say? Speak up, will you? You are mumbling.’

  ‘Upside down … Not MM but WW … Good lord.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’

  ‘Of course what?’

  ‘Aunt Nellie, you’ll never believe this, but you’ve just solved the mystery of the killer’s identity for us.’

  ‘What do you mean, Hughie? I thought you knew that all along. It’s the actress. Melisande Chevret? Isn’t it?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘No,’ Major Payne said. ‘It is not the actress.’

  28

  Enigma Variations

  They were back in their sitting room, reviewing the case in the light of the latest discovery.

  ‘Funny that no one saw it earlier,’ said Payne. ‘The police didn’t. We didn’t see it either. We should have, but we didn’t. Well, it did occur to me that Melisande didn’t quite match the Miss Hope profile. She couldn’t have been in love with two men at the same time. Of course she couldn’t. “Miss Hope” loved Vane and Vane alone. We were actually there when it happened! We were witnesses!’

  Antonia nodded. ‘Yes. She saw his photo and heard church bells … Her gaze became remote … Her eyes seemed to fix themselves on some distant and perhaps glorious horizon. Suddenly – suddenly she looked years younger, almost girl-like … I noticed the change, yet I convinced myself I’d imagined it …’

  ‘She became obsessed with Vane from the word go. Perhaps it had been waiting to happen, that sort of thing. That would explain why she went on visiting him after Stella’s death. The condition is known as “old maid’s psychosis”. Winifred is an old maid. It all fits in. I want to kick myself!’

  ‘We have been looking at the case the wrong end up. Literally. Not MM for Moon Markoff, but WW for Winifred Willard. Winifred is Miss Hope.’

  ‘Stella only met the two sisters once, at that ghastly party at Kinderhook. When she bumped into “Miss Hope” at the Villa Byzantine, she thought that it was Melisande she was seeing. The reason for her mistake is obvious,’ Payne went on reflectively. ‘There is a resemblance between the two sisters. Melisande is the actress. One expects women who are actre
sses to dress up. Melisande’s sitting room was full of framed photos showing her in various theatrical parts. It was a natural enough mistake to make in the circumstances.’

  ‘There was a photo hanging on the loo wall at Kinderhook,’ Antonia said. ‘Did you see it? Of Melisande as Miss Prism or some such preposterous pedagogue-like figure in pince-nez.’

  ‘Of course! Stella probably saw it too!’

  ‘It might have been that very same photo that gave Winifred the idea for her disguise in the first place.’

  ‘There is of course a strong psychological factor that is central to the confusion,’ said Payne. ‘Stella had been feeling guilty. She knew Melisande was distraught when Morland jilted her. She was nervous of Melisande – afraid of her.’

  ‘It never occurred to her she might have made a mistake?’

  ‘No. Why should she think it was Winifred who’d dressed up as Miss Hope? It made little sense. After she moved in with Morland, Stella became paranoid. She believed Melisande was out to get her in some way. Well, she did die a violent death – but it was the wrong sister who delivered the blow.’

  ‘What reason would Winifred have had for wanting to kill Stella?’

  ‘Winifred starts her delusional romance with Vane. She has succeeded in passing herself off as “Miss Hope”, former royal nanny to Prince Cyril’s bastard baby. Everything seems to be going well – till the day Stella turns up at the Villa Byzantine. Winifred and Stella exchange a couple of words. Stella gives every indication of having recognized her. Stella stares at her, then asks Vane questions about Miss Hope’s age and so on. Vane mentions the fact to Winifred – you see?’

  ‘Winifred fears the game is up?’

  ‘Yes! She has no idea Stella has taken her for Melisande. Winifred believes that sooner or later Stella will tell Vane who she really is. She knows that a revelation like that will put paid to her “romance”. Something needs to be done about it. She needs to act fast. Stella has to be silenced. What’s the matter?’