by M. M. Kaye
‘It will be a lesson to me,’ sighed Miss Moon. ‘I shall have to send dear Papa’s collection to the bank. So foolish. Beautiful things should be looked at and appreciated; not locked away in vaults. I think I hear Euridice in the hall. Luncheon will be ready and here I am keeping you talking.’
She hurried away and Amanda bathed and dressed quickly, and having brushed out her tangled hair, rolled it up and bundled the shining mass into a coarse white net in the style that had been fashionable in the days when the young Empress Eugenie had netted her beautiful tresses in a similar manner. Amanda would not let herself think of those desperate moments at Hilarion when her hair alone had saved her from a horrible and disfiguring death, but some frightened instinct would not allow her to pin it securely. She had to feel that it was free and unbound.
She turned to look at herself in the long silvery expanse of looking-glass on the wall. The heavy chignon tilted her head back with its weight and made her face appear smaller and more pointed and her slender neck as long as the stem of a flower. White linen dress. White linen sandals. White linen—a small flat, white linen flower clinging to a rough edge of metal on the chest in the hall …
Amanda caught her lip between her teeth. She had forgotten that sinister little flower. But it couldn’t mean anything! Supposing Anita Barton had been to the Villa Oleander on her return from St Hilarion? Supposing, even, that she was (as her clothes suggested) extravagant and possibly in debt? That still did not make her a thief, any more than her dislike of Monica Ford made her a murderess. Recalling Anita Barton’s relaxed and sleeping face, Amanda was suddenly and comfortingly sure of that.
The police and Miss Moon were right. Some petty thief, snatching the jade and crystal trinkets from the drawing-room cabinets, had been surprised by Monica Ford, and had panicked and killed her.
Amanda applied rose-pink lipstick with a steady hand, made a face at herself in the glass and ran downstairs to join Miss Moon.
The dining-room smelt pleasantly of flowers and fruit and Euridice’s special brand of ravioli, and beyond the open windows the garden was brilliant with sunlight and noisy with the coo and flutter of pigeons and the sound of Andreas chopping wood. Euridice was conducting an excitable conversation with a friend in the kitchen and Miss Moon was as talkative as ever.
‘No,’ said Miss Moon, waving away the barley water: ‘I never drink with meals, dear. So bad for the digestion; it dilutes the gastric juices. Only between meals. Though of course one so often forgets to do that, and then so much of it is wasted. It does not really keep in this weather. Try some of this melon, dear____’
Everything was suddenly safe and sane and ordinary again, and the house no longer held its breath to listen but basked comfortably in the hot sunshine. Colour came back to Amanda’s cheeks and some of the sparkle to her eyes, and with the resilience and optimism of youth she pushed the recollection of the past few days behind her and felt her spirits rise to meet the challenge of the gay, glittering day. She would forget about all the horrible things that had happened. She would not think of them. She was in Cyprus—in Kyrenia—and the sun was shining. She would go out and bathe with Toby and laugh with Persis, and buy embroidered linen in the shops in the town and photograph the harbour as a hundred thousand carefree tourists had done before her.
Her mood lasted until the end of the meal, and it was Miss Moon who shattered it.
Amanda, admiring a Venetian glass fruit dish, had been suddenly reminded of Miss Moon’s stolen treasures. ‘And I never even asked you about them,’ she said remorsefully. ‘How horrid of me. Were they things that you were specially fond of?’
‘Oh, but I have not lost them,’ said Miss Moon placidly. ‘They were all found, you know.’
‘Found? But where? Then they have caught the man!’
‘No dear. It was Euridice who found them this morning. Or rather Katina, Euridice’s cat. Not a very engaging animal. She was playing with something on the path—rolling it about—and Euridice saw it glitter and went to pick it up. It was that crystal egg. The Fabergé egg, you know. And there they all were, in the grass by the path. The thief must suddenly have realized that if he were caught with them it would mean a sentence of death for murder, and dropped them.’
‘The—the Fabergé egg?’ repeated Amanda in a whisper.
‘Yes dear. Such a pretty thing. He made a great many of them. For the poor Czarina, you know. This was a specially beautiful one, and of course the diamonds probably add to its value. There is a jewelled bird in it, that sings. I am not very fond of it. Such a tragic story. It makes one wonder, does it not, if Russians are ever to be trusted?’
But Amanda was not listening. She was seeing again the shadowed drawing-room as she had seen it on the previous evening when, rigid with the terrified conviction that the silent room contained someone besides herself, she had looked about it with panic-stricken eyes. The diamonds on the Fabergé egg had sparkled in the last of the daylight.
The egg had been in the buhl cabinet less than a minute before she had discovered the dead body of Monica Ford. It had not been stolen. Someone had removed it later in the evening, together with a handful of similar small objects, in order to convey the impression that Monica Ford had been murdered by a thief. And quite suddenly Amanda knew who had done it and when.
Steve Howard had sent her out of the room to make a telephone call that he could have made with more speed himself. But it had served a double purpose. He had got her out of the way for at least ten minutes, and it must have been then that he had opened the corner cabinet.
Amanda could see him doing it—moving with that noiseless swiftness that had surprised her. Lifting each small, gleaming object in his handkerchief so as to leave no finger-prints, as he had lifted the small bottle with the red poison label in the cabin of the Orantares.
‘All right—we’ll play it on those lines; it’s your deal,’ the slim, ordinary-looking man with the odd name had said; and the half a dozen or so trinkets from Miss Moon’s cabinet had almost certainly been in his possession as he said it. He had shaken hands with Amanda and gone out into the darkness and had dropped that misleading evidence in the overgrown grass by the edge of the flagged path, to lend colour to the theory that Monica Ford’s murder had been a chance occurrence instead of part of a hidden, ugly pattern that had begun to form in Fayid, and that involved that small group of people who had sailed for Cyprus on the S.S. Orantares—one of whom must have planned the death of Julia Blaine.
14
Amanda did not do any of the things that she had meant to do that afternoon. She ran up to her room instead, and having looked under the bed and inside the cupboards and behind every piece of furniture, she locked the door and wrote three letters. One to her Uncle Oswin, one to her aunt in Fayid, and the third to the shipping company. After which she threw herself on her bed and wept stormily, and had not the least idea why she should do so.
Whatever the reason, she felt considerably better for it; and more than a little ashamed of herself. Presently she heard the clock in the hall strike four and realized that the afternoon had almost gone, and Euridice would be laying tea in the verandah outside the drawing-room.
Amanda sat up and pushed her tumbled hair out of her eyes. She went over to the dressing-table and stopped with a sudden shock of dismay at the sight of her own reflection in the oval looking-glass.
She stood there for a long time, staring at herself. Her hair had escaped from its confining net and had tumbled about her shoulders and half-way down her back in tangled disorder. Her white face was blotched with tears and her dress crumpled and creased.
Looking at herself, she had a sudden and disturbing vision of Julia Blaine, tear blotched and unsightly, giving way to hysteria in the cabin of the Orantares. If she wasn’t careful, she, Amanda Derington, would soon be behaving as Julia Blaine had behaved. There was already something about her tear-stained face that was unpleasantly reminiscent of Julia’s.
A familiar, mocking
voice seemed for a moment to speak in Amanda’s ear: ‘Come on, George Cross Island—pull yourself together!’
Amanda straightened her bowed shoulders with a jerk and set her small jaw, and there was a sudden defiant sparkle in her eyes.
The three letters that she had written lay on the writing table by the window. She picked them up, tore them into small pieces and dropped them into the waste-paper basket, and ten minutes later went down to tea with her head high and her red mouth set in lines of determination.
There were voices on the drawing-room verandah and Amanda suffered a momentary qualm. Could it be the police again?
But it was only George Norman.
Mr Norman, who was holding a tea-cup in one hand and a small plate in the other, stood up hurriedly at the sight of Amanda and instantly dropped a piece of toast butter side down on the matting.
‘Mooney’s been telling me about this terrible business of Glenn’s secretary,’ explained George Norman, stooping to retrieve the toast and spilling his tea in the process. ‘Ghastly show! I can’t tell you how shocked we all were. Told Mooney a thousand times if I’ve told her once that having all that stuff lying round loose was simply asking for it! Ought to be in a bank. Terrible business! Claire’s very upset about it. Couldn’t sleep a wink last night.’
‘Last night?’ Amanda’s voice was startled and incredulous. Did Claire always get bad news ahead of other people? How could she possibly have known last night about Monica Ford?
‘Glenn told her,’ said George Norman, spreading bloater paste on his toast. ‘He telephoned at about half past ten last night. Extraordinary chap. Actually wanted us to go at once and see Anita about something. Seems he didn’t dare go himself. Some silly idea that the police might see where he went. He said he couldn’t ask you because the police were in your house, and that only left us. Well of course we’ve been friends of Glenn’s for years, but there are limits! He knows perfectly well that Claire and Anita never hit it off. And since then Anita has been spreading all that scandal about him and Claire. However urgent the matter was I do not feel that he should have traded on our personal friendship for him to that extent. Anita Barton is a thoroughly bad lot and he is lucky to be rid of her.’
Miss Moon said: ‘I confess I do not understand Anita. I would never have thought her capable of such crudely vulgar behaviour. It does not seem to be at all in keeping with her character. She has changed sadly of late.’
‘Drink,’ said George Norman succinctly.
‘My dear boy!’ said Miss Moon in horrified protest, ‘I am quite sure you are mistaken. Although of course I have heard rumours____’
‘I bet you have! It’s true, I’m afraid. Drinks like a fish. And that’s the girl who never used to touch anything stronger than tomato juice.’
‘Perhaps there is a reason for it,’ said Miss Moon with a small sigh. ‘I cannot help feeling that despite her brazen behaviour Anita is very unhappy. Perhaps she hoped that drink would give her forgetfulness—or courage. “Dutch courage”, my dear papa used to call it.’
‘She deserves to be unhappy,’ said George Norman. ‘Impossible woman!’ He drained his tea-cup and helped himself to a slice of cake.
Amanda said abruptly: ‘What did you all do yesterday? After you left Hilarion?’
‘Eh? Oh yesterday. Nothing much. Came down to the Club, you know. I wanted to see a chap who I thought would be there, but he wasn’t. Hardly anyone there. Lumley dropped in for a minute or two. He’s not a member as a matter of fact. Came up to show a chap some pictures. Claire went off to do a bit of shoppin’ and Alastair went for a stroll, and we all forgathered at the Dome for a drink about eight. Alastair was dining there with Mrs Halliday, and she suggested we all stay, so we did. Didn’t get home until half past ten, and then the telephone went and there was Glenn going on about this appalling business. Couldn’t believe it when Claire told me. Thought the poor chap had finally gone off his rocker.’
Amanda said carefully: ‘What happened to Toby—Captain Gates?’
‘Oh, he fetched up too. I think he dropped Mrs Halliday at the hotel and drove the car back to the chap he hired it off. He joined us for dinner.’
Amanda relapsed into silence. So they had all separated. All or any of them could have come to the Villa Oleander and gone away again without anyone else knowing about it. They had all been within five minutes’ walk of it, and there were three separate entrances to the garden: the front gate, the gate at the far end of the garden that led to the garage, and the small, sun-blistered door in the old Turkish wall that ran the length of the back garden, and which gave onto a narrow secluded lane.
I won’t think about it, thought Amanda. I won’t … It was somebody who broke in to steal … It must have been … Ordinary, nice people—people that you know—don’t do these things. And yet—there was Hilarion. I won’t think of it, Amanda told herself again and with desperation.
Miss Moon was saying: ‘Yes, a great many people have called. To offer sympathy of course. And two of Amanda’s friends came to inquire after her. Lady Cooper-Foot and Mrs Teenley telephoned. Everyone realizes what a shock it must have been to me. But I could not see them all this morning. The police were here you know. And after luncheon dear Amanda went up to her room to rest, so I told Euridice to say that we were “not at home” and to take the receiver off the telephone. So kind of people; but in the circumstances____’
‘Nosey Parkers!’ snorted George Norman indignantly. ‘All the old gossips dying to get the details.’
‘Oh surely not, dear boy,’ protested Miss Moon, shocked. ‘After all, you are here, and although of course we did discuss the whole affair, I am sure that you did not come only for that.’
George Norman’s already ruddy countenance turned a rich shade of puce and he said hurriedly: ‘No, of course not. I mean Claire told me to—I mean____’
He floundered into incoherence and Miss Moon, taking pity on him, offered him another cup of tea and urged him to move his chair a little farther into the shade afforded by the climbing roses.
‘I always like to take tea out here,’ said Miss Moon. ‘The view is so beautiful. Quite uninterrupted. I often sit here to watch the sunset, though facing west, it has its drawbacks. Almost too much sun; it has sadly faded my drawing-room carpet. But then I myself am a sun-worshipper. I do not think—except during the real heat of the day of course—that one can have too much of it. Do you not agree?’
George Norman sighed, and for a moment his face had a wistful look. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘You sound rather doubtful,’ said Amanda, only too anxious to keep the conversation firmly on the weather. ‘Don’t tell me that you prefer grey skies and drizzle to this heavenly climate?’
‘But of course I do,’ said George Norman, surprised. ‘England is my own country. This foreign stuff is all very well for a time, but one gets tired of it. The heat and the smell and jabbering foreign voices, and this damnable sun, sun, sun. No; give me Suffolk on a grey day with the wind blowing over ploughed fields, and chaffinches and yellow-hammers in the hedges, and____’ He broke off with a sharp sigh. ‘Oh well; no good talking about it. It doesn’t suit Claire. If it wasn’t for Claire____’ His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring at the slowly cooling tea in his cup as though he had temporarily forgotten Amanda and Miss Moon, his square, ruddy face suddenly bleak and bitter.
Miss Moon, said: ‘Try a piece of the gingerbread, dear boy. I made it myself. A recipe of my dear grandmother’s.’
George Norman awoke from his meditations with a visible start and said hurriedly: ‘No thank you. I must be getting back.’ He gulped down the contents of his cup and added that he had not meant to inflict himself on her for tea: ‘I really only came to____’
‘I know. To collect the details,’ finished Miss Moon wickedly. ‘Well I hope you have them all. Tell Claire that I am sorry to hear that she is feeling so upset, and that I advise a strong dose of Gregory’s powder. My dear Papa used to say
that it was a sure cure for all imaginary ills. Good-bye, dear boy. So kind of you to call.’
Miss Moon watched him depart and clicked her tongue impatiently.
‘It is frequently a matter of surprise to me,’ she remarked tartly, ‘what some men will put up with. And the nicest men put up with the most. Look at Glenn! As for George, he puts me out of all patience.’
‘Why, Miss Moon?’ Amanda was interested in the Normans. She was interested, with a shrinking, frightened, fascinated curiosity, in every one of that small group of people who had known Julia Blaine and who had picnicked at Hilarion.
‘Because,’ said Miss Moon, ‘he has got into the habit—Claire has seen to that!—of putting his own wishes and desires and convenience second to those of his wife. There is nothing wrong with Claire’s health and George knows it! But he has to keep up the fiction of believing in it for the sake of his own self-respect. It is, of course, a case of “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. The money is Claire’s, and that has put her in a position to dictate. All the same, George is able bodied and reasonably intelligent. There is no reason why he should not be able to obtain some remunerative employment in his own country if he insisted on returning there. With or without his wife!’
Amanda said: ‘But he’s so devoted to her.’
‘Is he? I suppose so. But I have frequently wondered of late if perhaps he might not be almost relieved were she to emulate Anita Barton. Poor Anita: I fear she made a bad enemy when she came up against George’s wife. So foolish of her! But she was always high-spirited and reckless. Anita will always “rush her fences”, as my dear Papa would have said. And that so frequently leads to disaster. Claire is far more subtle. Yes, I am afraid that Claire is a bad enemy.’
Miss Moon sighed and Amanda said: ‘You like Mrs Barton, don’t you?’
