The Murder of Busy Lizzie mb-46

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘But it’s not Dame B’s cup of tea,’ she was protesting. ‘You can’t ask her to do your police work for you.’

  ‘I tell you, Laura,’ countered Robert Ian Gavin, ‘if we could think of anyone better we’d contact him or her, but we can’t. Dame Beatrice is much our best bet. You see, we have nothing to go on but rumour, so a policeman going about and asking questions on a tiny island with a population of only two or three dozen people, would be suspected and rumbled in no time, everybody would shut up tight and we wouldn’t get a solitary bleep out of any of them. Most of them are probably doing something illegal, anyway, and would shy like mustangs if they thought the law was involved.’

  ‘That’s a nice thing to say about a lot of innocent villagers!’

  ‘They’re not villagers and I’d take my oath they’re not innocent. There’s no such thing as a village on the island, nothing but a couple of lighthouses, a disused airfield, a farm, a hotel, a deserted quarry, a few farm-workers’ cottages and a small pub. Another thing: the inhabitants are the descendants of wreckers and smugglers, don’t you forget, and I don’t suppose the Ethiopian has changed his skin all that much down the years. All we want is to put an observer there. Dame Beatrice won’t have to do anything. We don’t want to make a move until we can be sure we’re on the right tack. We don’t want anything put down in writing. As soon as she’s got any worthwhile information, we want her to come back with it and give us a hint. Just a tip-off, that’s all we need, but one from an absolutely reliable source. Then we shall know where we are.’

  ‘I suppose you’re in touch with the Home Office about all this?’

  ‘Certainly we are. They are perfectly willing to loan Dame Beatrice to us, subject, of course, to her own approval. They can’t exactly order her about.’

  ‘I should hope not, indeed! She’s not their servant, and she’s a consultant psychiatrist, not a coppers’ nark.’

  ‘Look here, Laura, if there is anything fishy going on, don’t you think that, at a time like this, we ought to go all out to stop it? Lives are being sacrificed and property reduced to rubble. Surely you realise that?’

  ‘Dame B. is too old to go chasing about on perilous seas to faery lands forlorn to do your dirty work for you.’

  ‘She’s not so old that she’s lost the use of her brains and her powers of observation. There won’t be any chasing about. All we want her to do—’

  ‘Besides, she’s busy writing her memoirs.’

  ‘And in what better place than on an island where nobody knows her, where there are no interruptions from lion-hunters, where she’ll live four hundred feet above sea-level in one of the healthiest spots on earth… ?’

  ‘And where the only food, I suppose, will be mutton and potatoes, and where the Atlantic winds blow at gale force all day and all night.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going with her, and I hope you are, you’ll think you’re in your beloved Hebrides, so what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Well, you can ask her, I suppose,’ said Laura reluctantly, ‘but, mind, no argument if she turns you down.’

  ‘Fair enough. No argument. We’ve found a decent house for you to live in, by the way. Taken it for three months from the beginning of July.’

  ‘The devil you have! You think of everything, don’t you?’

  ‘We do our best,’ said Gavin modestly.

  One evening, when June was in its second week, Marius Lovelaine, with a deprecating cough, said, in a tentative tone, ‘I cannot think you mean it, Clothilde.’

  ‘Mean what?’

  ‘Well, we have always gone on holiday together.’

  ‘Nonsense. The children went away on their own last year and the year before.’

  ‘I meant you and I, my dear.’

  ‘Then it is more than time we made a change. Oh, Marius, why on earth do you want to see Eliza? It would be much better to ignore her letter completely. You can never revive the past. Besides, if she really wanted to make friends with you again, she would have extended an open invitation, not expected you to pay your way at top rates. It’s simply a try-on because her rat-infested little lodging-house is half-empty.’

  ‘I have given you my reasons, my dear. My salary is sufficient for our needs, but not for anything more. The children are a great expense, as you know, in spite of grants and so forth, and I shall have nothing whatever to leave them—or you, either, if I should chance to pre-decease you.’

  ‘Your life is insured in my favour.’

  ‘Most inadequately, my dear, with money at its present value and with the way things are tending. But let us not talk about that. What I want to discuss—’

  ‘Is this proposed holiday on Eliza’s island, I suppose, but I do not want to discuss it. My mind is firmly made up. I shall take a little holiday on my own, I expect. I will not even wait to see the rest of you on your way. I shall leave about ten days before you do, I think, Marius. I cannot bear the idea of your going cap in hand to your sister because you think (and against all reason, at that! ) she may have something to leave you.’

  ‘It is not against all reason, Clothilde, as you would know perfectly well if you stopped to think. When Lizzie quarrelled with my parents, they turned her out of the house as soon as she was fit again after Ransome’s birth, but my father settled a sum of money on her to be held in trust until she married. He and my mother were horrified at what she had done and, as there was no possibility of the child’s father being in a position to marry her unless his wife died, they thought the prospect of a dowry might attract a suitor.’

  ‘But apparently it has not done so. Does Eliza benefit in any way from the money?’

  ‘You know she does not. She gets nothing while she remains single, and at her present age there seems little likelihood of her marriage.’

  ‘So what are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘That, at her death, the money—and it must have amounted to something substantial by this time—comes to me. You know all this already.’

  ‘Then why attempt to curry favour with Eliza if you are to benefit, in any case, from her death?’

  ‘It is because I am to benefit, Clothilde. You may be sure that Lizzie knows of this provision and it goes against the grain with me that we should have been at odds with one another, and, I think, because of it. If only we could link up again as brother and sister, I would feel that I was entitled to what she had to leave. As it is—’

  ‘Oh, you are too pure-minded to live! What utter nonsense! No, really, these are scruples gone mad! It is not as though you haven’t done all you could and, in my opinion, more than you ought, for Eliza, since you inherited your father’s estate. Surely you are entitled to anything you can get from her when she goes?’

  ‘I shall feel happier when we are friends again, Clothilde. That’s why I’m so thankful that she herself has made the first move towards a reconciliation.’

  ‘Tchah!’ said Clothilde. ‘Well, I do not intend to be here when you go. I should be too angry. I think I shall go to my cousin for a bit. I imagine you will have no objection to that?’

  ‘To Marie? Good heavens above!’

  ‘I have no other cousin, and it will not hurt her to put me up—free of charge, incidentally!—in return for her visits here with her hanger-on. I do not propose to remain here for a month on my own while you and the children go off on this scavenging expedition to Great Skua. And, talking of that, I may have fish of my own to fry.’

  ‘Is that a threat, my dear?’

  ‘No, neither is it a warning.’ Her wintry expression softened. ‘I only hope we shall both obtain what we want, that’s all, so no hard feelings, Marius.’

  chapter three

  Rooms and Views

  ‘The homely house that harbours quiet rest,

  The cottage that affords no pride nor care,

  The mean that ’grees with country music best…’

  Robert Greene

  « ^ »

  Two weeks later a long train journey
, a rough crossing and a small open boat which smelt strongly of stale fish, brought Marius and his children, on a Wednesday afternoon, to a long wooden jetty which projected beyond the discoloured sands of the beach. Behind the beach rose bare and formidable cliffs up which, as Marius noted without enthusiasm, there climbed in steepish gradients an unmade track-like road. There was only one consolation. He had been informed by his sister, when she answered his letter of acceptance, that there would be porterage for suitcases if those were left on a wooden platform at the foot of the cliffs.

  The island was called Great Skua because of a theory, not particularly borne out by fact, that from the mainland it resembled in shape and general colouring that predatory piratical sea-bird. As Sebastian had surmised, it was nothing more than a vast piece of granite rock, although a faulting of slate had made the landing-place possible, but the island, to the tired and sea-tossed visitors, looked about as welcoming as a prison.

  The steamer from which the passengers, with some difficulty, had been transferred to the odoriferous landing craft, was to proceed further up the mainland coast, but, with Marius, Sebastian and Margaret, five other passengers had been disembarked on to the end of Great Skua’s primitive jetty. One of these was in uniform and was the relief keeper of the island’s north-west lighthouse; two (an older and a younger man whose ages appeared to be in the region of sixty and thirty respectively) appeared to be indigenous to the place; and of the remaining couple one was a very thin, small, elderly woman with sharp black eyes, yellow claw-like hands and a beaky little mouth. This she pursed up in silent condemnation of the scenery before turning to speak to her companion.

  This companion was a far more striking figure, a Valkyrie of heroic proportions, tall, ruddy of countenance, handsome, vigorous, and apparently more favourably impressed by her surroundings than were the rest of the visitors. When the passengers were landed, she carried, with jaunty ease, two heavy suitcases to which were strapped waterproofs, a shooting stick and two hook-handled ashplants. She had a camera slung over one shoulder and a leather-strapped handbag on the other, and she tramped triumphantly across the heavy, dingy sand of the beach like William the Conqueror invading England. She dumped the suitcases on to a wooden platform similar to that provided in country districts for the reception of milk-churns and, with her small, elderly but energetic companion, began to climb the steep cliff-path.

  Marius, carrying his own two suitcases, and Sebastian carrying his own and his sister’s and with a rucksack on his back, followed more slowly across the sands and, having dumped everything except Margaret’s camera and handbag (the only impediments her solicitous brother had allowed her to carry) the Lovelaines began to toil up the cliff-road in the wake of the two women. These had detached the two ashplants from their baggage and were making good use of them as aids to the ascent of the hill.

  ‘Wish we’d thought of walking-sticks,’ said Sebastian. ‘Do you know that old lady, Father? I had an impression, when we were on the steamer, that you thought you did.’

  ‘I know her by sight and reputation,’ Marius replied. ‘I have attended some of her lectures. She is Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office and a criminologist of note.’

  ‘Who’s the Amazon with her? Not her daughter, surely?’

  ‘She has no daughter, so far as I am aware. Her son is Sir Ferdinand Lestrange, the well-known Queen’s Counsel. The younger woman is probably either a travelling companion or her secretary.’

  ‘She’d make a pretty efficient body-guard, too,’ said Sebastian. ‘Gosh! What a pace they’re setting up this confounded hill! It’s enough to kill the old lady.’

  ‘It’s the old lady who seems to be setting the pace,’ said Margaret. ‘I suppose, like us, they are bound for Aunt Eliza’s.’

  ‘As it is the only hotel on the island, I think there is no doubt of that,’ said Marius. ‘I look forward to some interesting conversations with Dame Beatrice.’

  That this aspiration was not to be realised was soon made clear. The cliff road ended in a flight of roughly-hewn steps and, at the top of these, two paths diverged from one another. The small map which formed the two centre pages of Eliza’s brochure indicated that the right-hand path was the one to follow in order to reach the hotel. The left-hand fork dipped to a deep hollow in which a solid, square house faced the sea which could be seen from its upstair windows. Towards this building the two women were directing their vigorous way. Marius and his children took the right-hand path at the end of which they could see a jumble of buildings, one very much higher and larger than the rest, which they rightly took to be Eliza’s hotel and its satellite bungalows.

  ‘Well, Aunt Eliza’s brochure is right about one thing,’ said Sebastian. ‘There will certainly be a view of the sea from most, if not all, of the windows.’

  They mounted three wide steps and turned to look at the view. The mainland, shadowed by a sea-haze, was remote and dreamlike. Between it and the island the sea was broken by small white-capped waves and the travellers had been more than aware of the wind as they climbed the hill. From where they were standing there was no hint of the beach, neither could they see the wide, shallow arc of the bay. Even the square mansion towards which their fellow-travellers had turned was almost out of sight, half-hidden away in its dip.

  Without a word Marius turned and pushed open the revolving door of the hotel. Already he felt that it had been a mistake to come. He marched up to the reception desk and gave his name. It was met with a cool stare.

  ‘Mr. Lovelaine, did you say?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve booked for a four-week stay. My sister is expecting me. Miss-er-Mrs Chayleigh is my sister.’

  The reception clerk turned up a ledger, grudgingly, it seemed, then turned the hotel register round towards Marius.

  ‘You had better sign the book, then,’ she said. ‘Numbers seven, eleven and twelve seem to be vacant. Did you need the porter? He’s off duty.’

  ‘No,’ replied Marius. ‘We left our luggage down below.’

  The receptionist hooked down three keys and pushed them over the counter.

  ‘Afternoon tea, if you require it,’ she said, ‘is served at four and is paid for on the spot.’

  ‘I see.’ Marius turned to his son and daughter who were now inside the vestibule. ‘We had better inspect the three rooms,’ he said, ‘and then we can apportion them. I suppose you’d both like tea?’

  ‘No. You have some,’ said Sebastian, ‘and suit yourself about the rooms. Maggie and I are going to have a look at the island.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ agreed Marius, whom this arrangement suited. He turned to the receptionist. ‘Perhaps you will let my sister know that I am here,’ he said. He picked up the keys. ‘Is there a lift?’

  ‘No. Room seven is on the first floor. Rooms eleven and twelve are in one of the chalets.’

  ‘But that is most inconvenient. I expected that we should all have rooms in the house.’

  ‘Not possible. The chalet is very comfortable.’

  Marius went up the stairs to inspect room number seven and found it greatly to his liking. He supposed he had better offer it to his daughter in the hope that she would refuse it, but he abandoned this thought when he had crossed the short space between the house and the chalets and had looked at the one to which he held the keys. It was of wood and consisted of two very small bedrooms, each of which opened on to the outside air and had an inside door which connected it with a small sitting-room. There was no water laid on, but a notice boldly displayed in each bedroom announced that the bathhouse and toilets were housed in a separate building labelled All Yours which was readily accessible to chalet-based visitors.

  Apart from all other considerations, this, and a fire-extinguisher which occupied a prominent place on the wall of the tiny sitting-room, decided Marius. It was not for him to put up with such inconvenient arrangements. He was prepared to make a fuss with the reception clerk if his children repudiated the chalet, but f
irst of all he would point out to them the advantages of the situation, stressing the privacy the chalet afforded and the delightful privilege of having their own sitting-room, besides the freedom to come and go exactly as they pleased.

  He returned to the hotel, mounted to number seven, washed his hands (thus, apart from anything else, establishing his right to the room) and went downstairs to greet his sister and have some tea. He expected her to offer it in her sitting-room. This would naturally result in his taking a welcome cup of tea without being charged for it. He resented being charged separately for this extraneous little meal when he was paying full board at what (he now agreed with his wife) were unreasonably high prices for what was offered.

  Meanwhile Sebastian and Margaret were carrying out their tour of reconnaissance, but were confining it to the immediate environs of the hotel. These, they soon decided, offered little prospect of entertainment ‘unless’, said Margaret, ‘there’s anybody interesting living in that house down there in the dip, apart from the old witch and the Amazon. I don’t think they’re our cup of tea, do you?’

  They stood on the cliff-top and studied the house. Except for a vast, ancient wistaria which climbed all over the front of the south wing, it was without adornment. One window in the centre block had been bricked up, otherwise the fenestration was plain, Georgian and practical. All the upstair windows were open at top and bottom, indicating that the inhabitants had a liking for fresh air, but, apart from this, the house had the unlived-in appearance of a place which was rented for the summer.

  It was sheltered by a hill of bracken and heather which rose behind it like a wall, but up which a winding path led to the plateau which formed the main floor of the island. In front of the house there were bushes, but, except for a small rose-garden, no attempt at cultivation of any kind had been made. A low stone wall separated the rose-garden from some rough grass and the shrubbery, and to the east of the main building were outhouses and stables. Behind these were the quarries, now overgrown and unused.