Puppet for a Corpse

by Dorothy Simpson

  Thanet explained. It was time to tackle Gemma’s lover, Rowan Lee. Also, the night porter at the Lombard should be questioned, to see if he had noticed the pair return to the hotel in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Lineham would have to go to London alone. If Barson agreed, Thanet wanted to see Gemma Pettifer again in the morning. Afterwards, he would interview Dr Braintree and then, if he could trace her … Here he grew vague, despite Lineham’s evident curiosity.

  Thanet returned to his musing. Gemma Pettifer. She really was an enigma. If only he could make up his mind whether her distress was genuine … Thinking back, he was becoming more and more convinced that it was. In anyone else he would unhesitatingly have diagnosed delayed shock, perhaps even the first stages of a plunge into clinical depression. And if that were true … well, he didn’t understand it. By all accounts she was hard, self-seeking, had married her husband for security rather than love. He would have expected a show of grief, yes, but this …

  With a sigh, he settled down to his reports.

  17

  Thanet rang Dr Barson at a quarter to nine next morning, as early as he felt he decently could. Barson was testy. It was his morning off surgery but he had a number of visits to make. And he wasn’t happy about Gemma Pettifer being questioned until he had seen her again. She was one of the first people on his list this morning.

  “In that case,” said Thanet eagerly, “suppose I meet you there, wait until you’ve seen her. If you think she’s fit, I’ll talk to her, if not, I’ll leave it for today. But frankly, I really do need to see her if it’s at all possible. If you like, you could stay with her while I talk to her, and if you think it’s too much for her, I’ll stop.” He couldn’t, he felt, be much more cooperative or considerate than that.

  Barson grudgingly agreed, muttering that he had better things to do with his time but that, if it was that urgent …

  It was, Thanet assured him, and the matter was settled; they would meet at Pine Lodge in half an hour.

  When Thanet turned in between the white-painted pillars, Barson’s car was already parked in the drive. The doctor had been with Mrs Pettifer for a quarter of an hour or so, Mrs Price said.

  “How is she this morning?”

  Mrs Price grimaced. “Quiet. Wouldn’t eat any breakfast.”

  It was interesting, Thanet thought as he waited in the drawing room for Barson to come down and give his verdict, that Mrs Price was showing this degree of concern. Initially he had been certain that she didn’t like Gemma, was covertly hostile to her. Perhaps Gemma’s rapidly advancing pregnancy was arousing Mrs Price’s protective instincts. But Thanet suspected that it was more than that. If, at some point over the last few days, Mrs Price had had a belated change of heart towards her late employer’s wife, it could only be because she believed her to be genuinely grief-stricken by Pettifer’s death. And if Gemma had convinced a hostile Mrs Price of her sincerity …

  Barson entered the room. “I should think you could see her briefly now, if you must.” Barson was both grudging and disapproving. “She insists she wants to see you anyway.”

  “How is she this morning?” Thanet asked, for the second time.

  “I suppose one could say, as well as might be expected,” Barson said sardonically. “After all, she has just had a severe shock in her husband’s death, and she is pregnant, we must remember that. We don’t want to put the child at risk too.”

  “Believe it or not, doctor, I agree, wholeheartedly. Which is why I rang you this morning. You may think me inhuman, but I am only doing my job, after all. I’m sure that your work too has distasteful aspects, that you sometimes have to do things that you really would prefer to avoid but can’t …”

  Barson looked a little shamefaced. “You’re right, and I’m sorry, Inspector. I know I must have come over hot and strong last night. But you in turn must appreciate that my first concern has to be for my patient.”

  “I do,” Thanet said. “Naturally. And now, having reached some measure of agreement, perhaps we could go up. And I meant it when I said stop me if you think she’s not up to it. She wants to see me, you said …?”

  Gemma was still in bed, leaning back against the piled-up pillows as if exhausted. Her hair had been brushed back and tied loosely at the nape of her neck, accentuating the pallor of her skin and that taut, stretched look about the eyes which Thanet didn’t like one little bit. Privately, he thought she looked worse than last night and was glad that Barson was there. Even now he hesitated. He really did not want a miscarriage on his conscience. But the decision was quickly taken out of his hands. As soon as she saw him, urgency flared in Gemma’s eyes, dispelling that frightening blankness.

  “Inspector,” she said. “I’m so glad you came. There’s something I must tell you. Please …” and she indicated the chair beside the bed.

  Thanet sat down and then watched with amused admiration as she skilfully persuaded Dr Barson that his presence was unnecessary but that she would be grateful if he could wait downstairs for a little while longer in case she needed him. Thanet reminded himself not to underestimate her in the coming interview.

  When Barson had reluctantly left the room she said, “I really am glad you came, Inspector. It’s been worrying me … You see, I haven’t been quite frank with you.”

  So, confession time, thought Thanet, wondering what was coming. He settled down to listen.

  She was frowning, her fingers plucking nervously at the bedspread. “You remember I told you that, when I realised my husband wasn’t well that night, I suggested that I cancel my trip to London, but that he insisted I still go?”

  She waited for Thanet’s nod before continuing.

  “Well I wasn’t very happy about it, as you can imagine, especially as Mrs Price was away for the night, but I had been so looking forward to discussing this new part with my agent—I hardly ever seem to go out, these days—so I said that I would compromise, come straight home after dinner instead of spending the night in town as I’d intended. But he said no, there was no need, a cold was nothing to fuss about and he’d be perfectly all right. Then he suggested that, if it would make me any happier, I could give him a ring about ten o’clock, before he settled down for the night. It wouldn’t disturb him, he said, he had no intention of going to sleep during the evening in case he then wouldn’t be able to sleep through the night.”

  “Well, it seemed a good idea, so that’s what I did. I had dinner, got back to the hotel about ten with … with Mr Lee. We … we didn’t want to be seen going up to my room together, so he went into the bar for a drink and followed me up ten minutes later. Meanwhile I rang Arnold …”

  Her fingers had increased their nervous activity and now she plucked at a thread which had worked loose. “He sounded very strange …”

  “Strange?”

  “Well, urgent. In a state. Most uncharacteristic, I assure you. Arnold was the last man in the world to flap about anything.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “He said, ‘Gemma, for God’s sake get down here as fast as you can.’”

  “Go on.”

  “I asked him what was the matter, but he wouldn’t tell me, said he’d give me the details when I got here. Then he said, ‘You will come, won’t you?’ So I promised I’d leave immediately and he rang off.”

  “Was he speaking clearly?”

  She frowned. “What do you … Oh, you mean, was he already drugged, by then? No, he sounded perfectly coherent.”

  “So what did you do?” Thanet knew, of course, but he wanted to hear the story from Gemma herself.

  “Well, I was frightened, naturally. It was so unlike Arnold to be alarmist. I really thought it must be something serious. But it was too late to catch the ten-twenty from Victoria and I knew the next train wasn’t until twelve-fifteen. If I waited for that, I wouldn’t get home until after two—and if it was that urgent … So I asked Rowan if he would drive me down.” She grimaced. “I know it doesn’t sound very good, getting my lov
er to answer my husband’s SOS, but I really couldn’t think what else to do. I could have taken a taxi, I suppose, but Rowan was there, on the spot, and his car was parked near by and it seemed the obvious solution. He wasn’t very pleased, of course, but he agreed and we left at once.”

  “You checked out of the hotel?”

  “I didn’t bother. I didn’t want to be held up. They know me there, I always use the same hotel when I stay in town, so I knew it wouldn’t matter about the bill, I could always settle up later. So I just stuffed my nightdress and my toilet stuff into my shoulder bag and left. That’s all I ever bother to take when I’m only away for one night. Anyway, we got to Sturrenden about a quarter to twelve. Rowan’s car practically came out of the Ark, so it took longer than I’d hoped. I was on tenterhooks all the way, and when I got here and found that Arnold was out, I was furious, I can tell you.”

  Thanet was astounded. “Out?”

  “Well, that’s what I thought at the time. Now, of course, looking back …” She bit her lip. “He must already have been …” Tears filled her eyes and she dashed them away impatiently. “If only I’d known …”

  Thanet waited for a few moments until she had regained her composure and then said, “Look, if you want to stop there for the moment …”

  “No! I’d rather finish, get it over with. You can’t imagine how I’ve dreaded telling you.”

  Thanet could. And if her story was true … Suspend judgement, he told himself. Let’s hear the rest of it. “If you’re sure, then …”

  “I am.”

  “Well then, let’s go back a little. When you arrived, what did you do, exactly?”

  “Well, when we got here the house was in darkness and I was surprised. I suppose I’d expected lights to be blazing everywhere, a sort of signal of a state of emergency. So I was a bit nonplussed. Rowan said he’d hang around for a little while until he was sure everything was all right, and we arranged a signal, switching the bedroom light on and off twice, if I didn’t need him. He was to wait a quarter of an hour … Anyway, when I got to the front door I found I couldn’t get in. It was locked and bolted on the inside. I tried throwing gravel up at our bedroom window, but nothing happened. So then I went around to the back. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in that way because I didn’t have a key, but I did think that there might possibly be a window open or something … not that I particularly wanted to go crawling through windows in the middle of the night like this,” and she indicated the mound of her belly beneath the bedclothes, “but I wasn’t thinking very coherently … And then I saw that Arnold’s car had gone from the garage. And, as I said, I was furious.”

  “Furious?”

  “Well, I immediately thought that he’d gone out on a night call. At that point, you see, I had no idea that he hadn’t come home in the car that afternoon as usual, that he’d left it at the Centre. So I assumed that he’d done what he always did when he had to go out at night, left the front door locked and bolted and let himself out the back way—it’s much closer to the garage.”

  “But he wasn’t on duty that night.”

  “No, I know. But if there’d been some emergency, if the doctor on duty had already been called out and someone urgently needed treatment … It’s happened before. My husband was a very conscientious doctor, Inspector. He wouldn’t have allowed the fact that he was theoretically off duty to stop him answering a call—or the fact that he was feeling under the weather himself, either. So, as I say, I was livid. To think that he’d dragged me all the way down from London worrying myself sick and then had the nerve to go out knowing I wouldn’t even be able to get into the house …”

  “But didn’t you wonder why he should have done such a thing? I mean, by all accounts your husband was most solicitous for your welfare …”

  “Of course I wondered! I went back and told Rowan what had happened and we … well, we decided there was only one conclusion we could draw …” She broke off, lips trembling.

  Thanet could see what was coming but he said nothing, simply waited.

  She glanced at him uneasily and then said, “We thought that Arnold must somehow have found out about us and that he’d arranged the whole thing on purpose, to punish me.”

  “You mean, he knew before you left, and stage-managed the whole performance—the cold, the phone call …?”

  “Oh, no. Absolutely not. I’d swear to that. When I left him that evening, everything was as usual between us, I’m certain of it. No, we assumed that somehow he’d found out during the course of the evening.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve no idea. A phone call from a so-called well-meaning ‘friend’, I suppose … anything … Anyway, that’s what we thought. So, as you can imagine, I was dreading getting home next morning. I knew he’d be in, it was his morning off. And then, when I found out what had really happened … I was there, don’t you see, at the crucial time. If I’d somehow got in, found him then, it might not have been too late to save him …” She buried her face in her hands, began to weep.

  “I’ll call Dr Barson.”

  “Just a moment …” She lifted a streaming face, put out a hand to restrain him.

  Thanet waited while she took a tissue from a box on the bedside table, mopped at her eyes and blew her nose.

  “I know you don’t think much of me,” she said at last in a low voice. “And I don’t blame you.” Her nose wrinkled in self-disgust. “The ungrateful, unfaithful wife … I’ve played the part so many times on stage it didn’t seem wrong, somehow, to play it in real life. I don’t know whether you can believe it, but I’ll tell you this.” She lifted her head with something like pride. “My husband loved me very much, but I never deceived him in that way—never pretended to love him in return. He said he didn’t mind, he was prepared to wait, that he’d be such a perfect husband that I’d be bound to grow to love him in the end. He made a joke of it. The irony is …” and her composure began to slip again, “that it was true. I had grown to love him … but I never realised, until it was too late.”

  18

  Predictably, Barson was furious to find Gemma in tears.

  “I thought you promised not to upset her,” he muttered angrily.

  “She insisted …”

  “Then you should have over-ruled her,” Barson snapped.

  Gemma lifted a drowned face. “Please don’t blame Inspector Thanet, Charles,” she said. “He wanted to stop, several times, but I just wouldn’t let him. Anyway,” she said, pausing to blow her nose, “it may not look like it at the moment but it’s an enormous relief to have got all that off my chest. I’ll be much better now, you’ll see.”

  If Barson was curious he did not show it, simply said a dismissive goodbye to Thanet, who obediently left the room.

  Downstairs, Thanet hesitated. There was something he would like to ask Barson. He decided to wait.

  Barson came down about ten minutes later. “I thought you’d gone,” he said curtly.

  “No. There’s something I wanted to …”

  “You’re not seeing her again today and that’s that. I refuse to risk it. There’s a limit to what someone in her condition can take.”

  “No, no. It’s you I wanted to see.”

  Barson’s anger had carried them through the hall and across the drive. Now he paused in the act of getting into his car. “Me?”

  “Yes. It occurred to me … You told me you’d known Dr Pettifer a long time. That you were medical students together.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wonder if you could tell me … Would you say that he was a vindictive man?”

  The question took Barson by surprise. Slowly he straightened up and stood with one hand on the car door, the other on the roof. “Vindictive …?”

  Thanet waited.

  “I wouldn’t have said so,” Barson said slowly. “But then, we’ve always been on good terms even if we haven’t been what I’d call close friends.”

  “I know. That’s why I was
wondering about your student days. You must have seen quite a lot of each other then …”

  “There was one incident,” Barson said slowly, with that look of surprise which Thanet had often seen on the face of a witness recalling an incident long buried in the past. “I’d forgotten all about it. There was a character called Taylor, who was a bit of a practical joker—well, I suppose there usually is, in any fair-sized group of students. Arnold of course was totally lacking in any sense of humour. He was very serious-minded, dedicated to his work even then … Look, I’m not sure that I want to go on talking about this.”

  “Dr Barson,” Thanet said softly, “you are an intelligent man. I find myself wondering why you have never questioned the necessity of our repeated visits to Mrs Pettifer.”

  Barson’s eyes slid away from Thanet’s. Then he lifted his hands in a little gesture of defeat. “All right, I’ll confess. I rang Dr Lowrie, to commiserate, that first day. You’d just been to see him and he was still rather shaken. He told me that you weren’t satisfied, that there might even be a possibility of its having been murder. He told me in confidence and I have spoken about it to no one, I assure you.”

  “I see. In that case you must surely understand that I really do have to try to find out all I can about Dr Pettifer. I don’t ask questions just to satisfy idle curiosity, I promise you.”

  Barson studied Thanet’s face for a moment before saying, “I believe you.”

  “In that case, could you go on with what you were telling me just now?”

  Barson sighed. “I suppose so. It just smacks of disloyalty, that’s all. Though why it should feel worse to speak ill of the dead than of the living I can’t imagine.”

  “Perhaps it’s because they can’t strike back.”

  Barson gave a rueful smile. “You’re probably right. So … where was I?”

  “You were saying how serious-minded Pettifer was.”

  “That’s right. Well, he was. So I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later he should have become Taylor’s target.”