by Simon Brett
Sir Gervaise Montagu dropped to his knees beside the lifeless body. ‘When did the fellow fall like this?’ he demanded of the assembled throng.
‘Only moments ago,’ came the reply. ‘He gasped suddenly, like a throttled dog, and hit the floor.’
‘There’s something queer about this,’ observed Montagu, ‘deuced queer.’
He bent closer to the dead man’s mouth. The smell of brandy which he had detected earlier was still there, but to it now was added the aroma. That of almonds.
The detective nodded, smiled to himself, and gave an almost unconscious ejaculation of triumph. ‘Got it, by blazes!’ he said …
Carole checked her watch. It was after midnight, but she could no more have stopped reading than she could have stopped breathing. She made a note of the location of the last section and pressed on, hungry for the next relevant passage.
The police surgeon’s work was done. He had made his preliminary examination in the billiard room and Count Alexander Frisch’s body was now in a police van on its way towards a post-mortem. The superior officer of the local constabulary was instructing his men to collect up all of the bottles in Threshton Grange, those of the wines that had accompanied dinner, and the ones which had supplied the pre- and post-prandial drinks.
‘I don’t know why you’re finicking about with those,’ said Sir Gervaise Montagu languorously.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the functionary responded, ‘but I know the correct procedure to be followed at a murder scene. We’re looking at a case of poisoning here, sir.’
‘Yes, but by collecting those bottles, you’re going off full cry on a false trail.’
‘I think I’ll be the judge of that, sir. I’ve been investigating murder for nigh on thirty years, and I know the correct protocols. Any student of medical jurisprudence will tell you that, in a case of poisoning, you collect everything that you know the deceased to have drunk from and then you get them all motored off to the laboratory for scientific examination.’
‘All fair and above-board, my dear fellow, yes. But are you sure you’ve found everything that our bird drank from this evening?’
‘I have spoken to all the other gentleman who witnessed his actions, sir. I have consulted the butler, the serving men, the serving maids and the kitchen staff below stairs. There is nothing the late gentleman drank from that will not shortly be on its way to the laboratory.’
‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ cried Sir Gervaise Montagu …
The location reference was again noted. It was nearly half-past one, but Carole read on, spellbound.
His search of Count Alexander Frisch’s bedroom did not take long. Montagu scorned the contents of the dressing room, where the manservant had laid out his dead master’s clothes. He scorned the chest of drawers and the wardrobe, but went straight to the valises which had been stowed on top of the latter.
Donning lavender-coloured gloves before he touched the leather, the amateur detective lowered the luggage down on to the bed. It took only a few experienced twists of buckles and studs to reveal the hidden compartment.
Inside, as he had anticipated, was secreted a silver hipflask.
His gloved hands unscrewed the top and his aristocratic nose was rewarded by the distinctive tang of almonds.
‘Got you, my little beauty,’ Sir Gervaise Montagu breathed to himself. ‘Got you, by Jupiter!’
TWENTY-SIX
In spite of her very short night, Carole was up early the following morning and on the phone at one minute past seven. She reckoned seven o’clock was an hour when anyone should be up and awake. Jude, the recipient of her phone call, had different views on that matter, but got no chance to express them. Carole said she would be round straight away, and arrived seconds later, clutching her laptop. (This was a measure of how excited she was – normally the laptop stayed in her bedroom, as immobile as a desktop.)
‘The woman must be completely out of her mind,’ said Carole excitedly. ‘She definitely got the idea for murdering Burton St Clair from Best Served Cold.’
‘Sorry? Best Served Cold?’ Jude, still swathed in night-clothes, was bleary and hardly awake.
‘The book, Jude! The book Steve Chasen mentioned to us last night.’
‘Oh yes. But what, are you saying you’ve read it?’
‘I stayed up half the night reading it.’
‘How on earth did you get hold of a copy?’
With a slightly smug air of superiority, Carole explained the ready availability of e-books, a technology which her neighbour had not yet felt any need to embrace.
‘So what do we do?’
‘What we do, Jude, is to confront Nessa Perks as soon as possible.’
‘But will she want to speak to us?’
‘She’ll want to speak to us. She’s already piqued that the police haven’t taken advantage of her expertise.’
‘But if she actually is the murderer, surely she’ll try to take evasive action and not talk to us?’
‘I’d be very surprised if she does. People like Nessa Perks think they’re a lot cleverer than anyone else. She’ll agree to talk to us, because she’ll want to find out how much we know.’
‘And if we actually accuse her of murder?’
‘I’m sure she’ll have a strategy worked out to deal with that too.’
‘Hm.’ Jude was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘Don’t you think we should just take the information we’ve got to the police?’
This totally uncharacteristic suggestion was made because she was still shaken from her dealings with Detective Inspector Rollins and Detective Sergeant Knight. She had no wish to antagonize them further.
But Carole was properly contemptuous of the idea. ‘Jude, can you imagine that scene? You – or you and I – go to a twenty-first-century police detective and say that the murder she’s investigating is based on a whodunit written in the 1920s. I don’t know what the penalties are for wasting police time …’
Jude took the point.
‘So, what we’re going to do is …’ said Carole, in full Home Office committee-chairing mode. ‘I will text Professor Vanessa Perks straight away. Then, while I take Gulliver for his walk on Fethering Beach, you will get dressed and read the extracts I’ve selected from Best Served Cold. When I get back, we’ll drive to Clincham and beard the murderess in her den.’
‘And what if she hasn’t got back to us by then?’
‘We will still drive to Clincham and beard the murderess in her den.’
In accordance with Carole’s prediction, Nessa Perks was more than ready to talk to them. As Jude took in the richly loaded bookshelves of her office, the Professor confirmed, a little peevishly, that the police had still not been in touch with her. Once again, she berated the short-sightedness of their ignoring the expert on their doorstep.
‘We’re actually here,’ said Carole, ‘because we heard about the session you did on the Golden Age with the Fethering Library Writers’ Group.’
‘Oh, yes, that was excellent.’ The Professor preened herself. ‘Quite an intelligent lot they were. I gather their meetings have been discontinued.’
‘Yes. Problems of staffing and funding, I think.’
‘Like everywhere else.’ She shook her head, implying comparable difficulties in the academic world.
‘Anyway,’ Carole went on, ‘one of the people in that writing group, Steve Chasen …’
‘I’m not sure that I know the name.’
‘In the Writers’ Group,’ said Jude, ‘I’m sure he would have talked about his own science-fiction writing. And also, he was the one who got very rowdy after Burton St Clair’s talk.’
‘Oh yes, I know who you mean. I just wasn’t aware of his name.’
‘Anyway,’ Carole said, ‘he told us you did a very interesting session on the similarities between Golden Age fictional crime and contemporary real-life crime.’
‘As you know, it’s a matter to which I have devoted a considerable amount of research. I am an expert on th
e subject. In fact, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet …’ (Carole reckoned it was a risk the Professor took all the time – and with great relish.) ‘… I might say I am the expert on the subject.’
‘And at that session,’ Carole went on, ‘you concentrated on one book. Best Served Cold by G. H. D. Troughton.’
‘Yes. The perfect illustration of my thesis.’
‘An illustration whose relevance has only been increased by recent events?’
Nessa Perks nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, yes. Burton St Clair’s murder played it out to perfection. Perhaps I should give you a synopsis of the plot …?
Carole held up a hand. ‘No need. I did actually read the book last night.’
‘Well, I am sure you enjoyed it hugely.’ The Professor uncoiled her long body from her swivel chair and moved unerringly to the right section of the bookshelf. She pulled out the relevant volume. ‘First Edition, 1921. Published by Thomas Nelson and Sons. Same publisher who also did Trent’s Last Case, of which I also have a first edition here. Dust jacket of Best Served Cold a little torn, otherwise excellent condition.’
Carole and Jude exchanged looks. Both were thinking the same thing – that Nessa Perks had actually volunteered the connection between the book and the recent murder. By implication, she must have known that the fatal walnut traces had been in the hipflask rather than a wine bottle. That information had not been released by the police in any of their press conferences. So surely the only way the Professor could have known it was if she had actually committed the murder?
She put the copy of Best Served Cold on her desk and sat back down. ‘This is obviously very exciting for me.’
‘What is?’
‘Well, having my thesis incontrovertibly proved. There have been other instances of real-life murders apparently being inspired by crime novels, but the connection is always a bit vague. I mean, the most commonly quoted one is Agatha Christie’s use of thallium as a murder method in The Pale Horse, and the fact that the notorious Graham Young poisoned his victims with it. There are coincidences there. In 1961, Young was fourteen, and that’s when he started experimenting with thallium. The Pale Horse was published in the same year. But the connection was never proved. Young certainly never said that’s where he got his ideas from.
‘But this case is much better.’ The Professor smiled triumphantly. ‘There is absolutely no doubt that the method of killing Burton St Clair was taken from G. H. D. Troughton’s Best Served Cold.’
Both women were amazed by her words. There was no doubt about her level of academic satisfaction. And she was certainly sufficiently unhinged to discount any moral considerations in the cause of proving her thesis. But would she really take her obsession as far as murder?
Jude decided to go off on a different tack. ‘Do you know a woman called Nemone Coote?’
‘I have encountered her. Local self-published poet. Did a bit of work for the Creative Writing course here, but her contract wasn’t renewed.’
‘That’s her. But do you remember meeting her fifteen years ago when she was Centre Director at the Wordway Trust’s house in Wiltshire?’
‘No.’ Nessa Perks looked genuinely puzzled by the question. ‘I do remember going to Blester Combe as guest speaker on a crime-writing course, but I have no recollection of meeting any of the permanent staff. I’m not saying I didn’t meet her, but she didn’t make any impression. As an academic, travelling to conferences and all that stuff, one does meet a very large number of people.’
‘Of course,’ said Jude.
Carole felt it was her turn to speak. ‘And were you aware that the participants on that course included the Steve Chasen we’ve just been talking about, and Burton St Clair?’
‘Absolutely not. When you do that guest speaker slot you don’t really get to know anyone. I arrived at Blester Combe late afternoon, was plied with a few glasses of wine, then had a rather nasty dinner cooked by the participants. More wine, did my talk, questions afterwards. But I didn’t get the names of any of the people there. Some of them were clearly going to be drinking into the night. I was asked if I wanted to join them, but opted for an early night. And my taxi to the station arrived the next morning before anyone was up.’
What she said sounded totally convincing, but then a liar who had immersed herself in Golden Age crime literature would have mastered the skill of sounding totally convincing.
‘While that particular course was on,’ Jude persisted, ‘there was a television crew at Blester Combe making a documentary about the Wordway Trust. Do you remember that?’
‘Yes, I do. They took some footage of my talk. I saw it when the programme was screened later in the year. And, though I say it myself, I did come across rather well. Not only on top of my subject – which of course I always am – but I looked very engaging too. It was strange. After the programme went out, I had expected to receive offers to front television series, but I suppose the right people didn’t see it. Because some of the so-called academic women they do get as presenters are very inferior intellects. I know I could do a very much better job than them.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ said Carole drily. She was getting rather sick of listening to the woman’s self-aggrandizement and wanted to get on to the business of accusation.
‘Going back to the film crew …’ Jude persisted.
‘Yes?’
‘You talked to them?’
‘Oh, certainly. I asked the director about potential openings in television for someone like me, and he agreed that I was a natural.’
‘And, look, I know you didn’t get the names of any of the participants, but did Rodge actually mention the fact that one of them was allergic to walnuts?’
‘Rodge? Sorry, who’s Rodge?’
‘The director who was making the film.’
‘No, his name wasn’t Rodge.’
‘Oh?’
‘No, funny, I met him again recently, as it happens. His name was Oliver Parsons.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘What do we do?’ asked Carole, as she steered the Renault out of the University of Clincham campus. ‘Go straight round to his place? Fix to meet him somewhere?’
‘We don’t do either yet,’ Jude replied. ‘My dealings with Detective Inspector Rollins have got me worried about how easily the truth gets distorted. I want to be absolutely sure that we’ve got our facts right before we make any accusations.’
‘Very well,’ said Carole, wishing her neighbour would speak a little less gnomically. ‘Where do we go?’
‘We go back to the library.’
So that was where she drove them. Nothing was said on the twenty-minute drive.
Carole parked the Renault in the Fethering Library car park. When they got out, both women wrapped their coats firmly around them. The wind stung their faces as it whistled acidly up from the sea. Carole started towards the library doors.
‘No,’ said Jude. ‘We’re not going there.’
Eveline Ollerenshaw’s house was rather as they had expected it to be. The year 1997 had been the significant one in her life. That was when her husband Gerald had ‘passed on’, and since then no redecoration had taken place and no new furnishings had been brought in. It was a relatively short time ago, less than twenty years, but the place felt as though it was in a time capsule.
Evvie seemed unsurprised to see them. She invited them into her front room and insisted on going to make tea. Though it was still in theory daytime, that Wednesday in Fethering would never properly come alight. Since they’d come into the house, rain had started and was slashing icy diagonals across the window panes.
The front faced out towards the sea. Dunes cut off sight of the beach, but a sullen grey line of horizon showed, only slightly lighter than the grey sky above.
More interesting, though, to Carole and Jude, were the windows facing to the left of the front room. As Evvie had suggested, they provided a perfect viewpoint over the library car park. If they were matched by bedroom windows o
n the floor above, from there surveillance would be even better.
The old lady tottered in with tea and all the trimmings, including a home-made cake. The loaded tray looked very precarious in her thin, veined hands, but the two women knew better than to offer any assistance.
When they had been equipped with cups of tea, when Jude had accepted a slice of coffee cake and Carole had refused one, Evvie settled into her regular armchair, which looked straight out towards the library. ‘Well,’ she said comfortably, ‘I suppose you want to talk to me about what happened the night Burton St Clair died.’
‘That would be very helpful if you wouldn’t mind,’ said Jude.
‘Have the police talked to you about it?’ asked Carole.
‘Oh yes, they did.’ The old lady sounded pleased at having been the centre of attention for a while. ‘They came to see me the next day … well, the day the body was found.’
‘Last Wednesday?’
‘That’s right. Obviously, because of this house’s geographical location, if anyone was going to have seen anything that happened that night, I’d be the one, wouldn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ Jude agreed. And then asked, with some urgency, ‘And did you see anything?’
‘Well, there are really two questions there, Jude.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘There’s the question of whether I saw anything, and there’s the question of whether I told the police that I’d seen anything.’
‘And you’re saying the answers to the two questions are different?’
‘Yes, I am, Jude.’
‘Are you saying in fact that you lied to the police?’ asked Carole, whose loyalty to her former employer, the Home Office, was prone to come up at such moments.
‘I didn’t lie to them so much, as I didn’t tell them the complete truth.’
‘And why was that?’ Carole’s tone was still harsh. ‘Did you have something to hide?’
‘No, no,’ the old lady replied. ‘Someone of my age hasn’t a lot to hide. I just didn’t really want to be involved with the police.’
