Lament for Leto (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

“You would not also call her heartless and selfish?”

  “I do not speak ill of the dead.”

  “Oh, you think she is dead, do you?”

  “What else? And everybody is very glad of it, except, perhaps, you. And although you are not glad, it is only because you have nothing to gain from it. You are outside, uncommitted, free.”

  “With ‘everybody’ you appear to include Mr. Dick.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. He is glad for his own reasons, but what they are I do not know.”

  Dame Beatrice was better informed than Hero. If Dick was glad it was because Megan was freed from her enemies and from the hands of such as hated her.

  The voyage home was uneventful. The ship called at Malta and Tangier and finally docked at Southampton in drizzling rain. Dame Beatrice’s chauffeur was there to meet her, and with him in the car was her son Ferdinand Lestrange, an eminent and busy Queen’s Counsel, who, to her great pleasure, had come to escort her home and dine with her.

  “Ah,” she said, “just the person. After dinner I will a case unfold.”

  “You said something about it in your letters, I think. Did Mrs. Cowie’s disappearance in that odd way spoil the trip for you? If so, what a pity! Greece must be wonderful in the late spring.”

  “Yes, indeed, and her disappearance spoilt nothing, although I think perhaps some of us suffered from a guilty conscience because it relieved our minds and also put an end to our dislike—in some cases, hatred—of the poor woman.”

  “Did you dislike her?”

  “Well,” said Dame Beatrice, “unfortunately one dislikes so many people.”

  “Not you, mother! You’re about the most tolerant person I know.”

  “Tolerance of people does not eradicate dislike of them.”

  “Oh, well, I won’t argue the point.”

  “Will you have time, after dinner, to listen to an intolerably long story?”

  “Oh, yes, I am staying the night. Celestine has made all the arrangements and insists that you will be delighted to have me, so I’ve taken it for granted that you will.”

  She began her story as soon as the coffee-cups had been cleared, but not before Ferdinand had said:

  “Your letters seemed to indicate that Mrs. Cowie is dead.”

  “That is what I want you to decide. Personally, I have little doubt of it, and most members of the party think the same.”

  “But the body was buried under another name, or so you wrote in your last letter. What makes you so sure that a mistake has been made?”

  “I only think it has, and thinking is not the same as knowing. But listen, and you shall hear. To begin with, there are several people who would regard Mrs. Cowie’s death as an unmixed blessing. Chief among these, I suppose, is her niece, Mary Cowie. She was totally dependent upon the aunt and resented this position intensely. I discovered, early on in our acquaintanceship, that she was not above helping herself to what was not her own, but that is not to say that she is capable of murder.”

  “To what did she help herself?”

  “To begin with, she contrived to possess herself of a very valuable necklace of rubies which belongs to one of the cruise passengers. Fortunately, I was able to trace the theft to her and to restore the gems to their owner without much trouble and without publicity. Then, at a late stage in our Greek pilgrimage, she obtained enough money to pay for a car to take her from Patras to Olympia and back. Before that, I was told by Ronald Dick that she had abstracted money from his wallet.”

  “As you said, though, this doesn’t mean that she is a murderess.”

  “There is more to come. Her aunt was to marry Henry Owen.”

  “The botanist?”

  “Yes. It is true that the engagement was broken off, but Mary had every reason to believe that this was a temporary state of affairs.”

  “But wouldn’t the marriage have given her her freedom and an allowance to live on?”

  “Her aunt did not intend this. She was desirous of keeping Mary on as unpaid secretary. The household was also to include boys of seventeen and fourteen, Owen’s sons, with whom Mary was not on good terms. Moreover, if the marriage took place, Mary would cease to be her aunt’s heiress, or so she thought, and no doubt she was right, since Chloe Cowie was young enough to bear children.”

  “You make out a fairly formidable case against her, but motive is not everything, as the courts are well aware.”

  “I am well aware of it, too. But Mary is not the only person who may have wished Mrs. Cowie out of the way.”

  “I imagine that the two boys may not have wanted to acquire a stepmother.”

  “Not only that. She had plans for sending the older boy abroad to take up some sort of social service for a year before he begins his course at a university, and the younger lad was to go to school.”

  “School? Well, wasn’t he at school anyway?”

  “The boys have been educated at home. They have a tutor.”

  “Who would lose his job, I take it, if Mrs. Cowie’s plans took shape.”

  “Yes, he would.”

  “Still, that’s no reason for murdering her. I think you might cross him off your list.”

  “Oh, I agree. I have never seriously considered him. Another suspect, I regret to say, would be Ronald Dick, if I could find that he had had any opportunity to kill Mrs. Cowie, but it seems certain that he had none.”

  “I’ve met him. Surely a less offensive little man never breathed?”

  “Love laughs at other things besides locksmiths.”

  “Please explain what you mean.”

  “Well, I did not mention her in my letters, but Megan Metoulides, who used to be Megan Hopkinson, was living on the island of Leukas while we were in Greece, and was a proscribed person. Her Greek husband had been executed and she herself was considered to have feelings inimical to the régime, so was virtually in hiding. It was she who was identified as the dead woman at Sappho’s Leap, but a mistake was possible, since she closely resembled her niece, Mrs. Cowie.”

  “But the difference in age!”

  “There was not so much difference as you might suppose—nineteen years.”

  “But a competent medical examination would have established what I should call a pretty substantial difference.”

  “I doubt whether anything of the kind was carried out. The cause of death was clear enough and the authorities were satisfied that it was a case of suicide. In addition, the body would have been considerably battered after a fall at Sappho’s Leap. At any rate, suicide was the official verdict. The body must have been buried somewhat hastily and Megan Metoulides written off.”

  “But hadn’t it occurred to anybody on Leukas that the two women were much alike?”

  “If my information is correct, Chloe Cowie had been on the island only a few hours before she disappeared, and if Megan was living very quietly, and in another part of the island, I doubt whether the resemblance would have been remarked upon.”

  “Well, why can’t we take it that the authorities are right, and that the death was a suicide for political reasons?”

  “Well, for one thing, if Chloe Cowie is not dead, where is she?”

  “Possibly in her usual haunts by now.”

  “I shall make enquiries, of course, but I think it is significant that few of the party seem to have any doubt about what has happened.”

  “Including your suspects? One of them—the murderer—is sticking his neck out, isn’t he?”

  “It would look very suspicious if he (or she) was the only person to challenge the opinion of the rest.”

  “So he (or she) doesn’t lack brains.”

  “I said, a moment ago, that Ronald Dick would be among the suspects if I could see that he had had the opportunity to kill Chloe and so marry Megan Metoulides,” said Dame Beatrice, “but I thought that you might have deduced that there could be another person in the picture.”

  “Oh, yes, I have. You refer to Megan Metoulides herself, I think. She is kn
own to have been on the island, she had probably had a message from Dick that her niece, whom she so greatly resembled, was a visitor there, and she might have banked on the fact that the body would be taken for hers. The means was obvious—a good shove from the top of Sappho’s Leap—and the motive, which would have been to get the police off Megan’s neck, abundantly clear. Do we have to go any further?”

  “I think so. We have to establish not only that she knew about Mrs. Cowie’s intention of visiting Sappho’s Leap . . .”

  “She could have learned that in some way, perhaps?”

  “She could have learned it from Ronald Dick. As I have told you, they were in communication with one another. I do not think Dick has ever got over his faithful infatuation for her.”

  “Well, then!”

  “But I do not see how she could have known the actual hour of Mrs. Cowie’s visit to the cliffs. Ronald Dick could not possibly have told her that, any more than he would have told her the name of Chloe’s hotel. The arrangement to visit Leukas was made almost on the spur of the moment, so that the party could not have made a reservation more than an hour or two in advance.”

  “All the same, if Megan went in fear of imprisonment, or even in fear of her life . . .”

  “I know.”

  “You haven’t mentioned the prospective husband, Henry Owen.”

  “At the time of Chloe’s death it is probable that he was no longer the prospective husband.”

  “Then that does away with your suspicions of the two sons, doesn’t it?”

  “I was about to add that the estrangement may have been temporary only, and that my suspects realised that, or, at any rate, feared it.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “You did not know Chloe Cowie. I think she broke the engagement in order to bring Henry Owen to heel. She fully intended to have her own way about retaining Mary in her service. Henry was against this—he did not want the girl in the house because he objected to Chloe’s continuing with her writing after the marriage. He also was not enthusiastic about getting rid of the tutor because this also involved getting rid, in a measure, of the boys.”

  “Well, mother, it’s a pretty enough problem. Why do you want to solve it?”

  “Merely for my own satisfaction. I dislike loose ends. Have you nothing constructive to suggest?”

  “Nothing at all. If it were my problem I would dismiss it from my mind. Except for Mrs. Cowie herself—and, even there, we cannot be sure that she is not better off where she is, whether dead or alive—everybody seems happier without her. Besides, you are assuming that she is dead. You have not proved it.”

  The proof, so far as Dame Beatrice was concerned, came a few weeks later. It took the form of a notice in a national newspaper. The cutting was sent to her by her son. It was to the effect that a marriage had been arranged between Mr. Ronald Arthur Dick and Mrs. Sappho Chloe Cowie, to take place quietly abroad. No further details were given.

  “So there is your poor corpse, very much alive and well,” wrote Ferdinand.

  “I do not think so,” said Dame Beatrice over the telephone. She went to Christchurch to visit Mary Cowie. A smart maid opened the door. The flat was beautifully and (Dame Beatrice thought) newly furnished. Mary was admirably turned out. On her right hand was a magnificent half-hoop of diamonds. She greeted Dame Beatrice with great self-possession.

  “How nice of you to call,” she said.

  “I really wanted to see your aunt and wish her happiness in her marriage,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Oh, well, I’m afraid Aunt isn’t here. She is abroad. I think the wedding is to take place in America.”

  “You think? Are you not invited to the ceremony?”

  “Oh, weddings are not much in my line,” said Mary, losing a little of her savoir faire and giving a nervous laugh.

  “I suppose,” said Dame Beatrice, indicating the ring, “your aunt could hardly wear Mr. Owen’s token when she is going to be married to Mr. Dick.”

  “This is not the engagement ring.”

  Dame Beatrice held out an imperious yellow claw.

  “So she bestowed it on you,” she said, as Mary handed it over without, apparently, realising that there was an inscription inside which gave the lie to her statement. Dame Beatrice continued: “Strange. I should have thought, as she paid for it, or partly paid for it, herself, that she would have thought she was entitled to keep it, even if she did not wear it on the same finger as her wedding ring. She was not, so far as my knowledge goes, usually so generous to you, I believe.”

  “Look,” said Mary, now obviously ill-at-ease, “what are you getting at?”

  Dame Beatrice handed back the glittering trifle.

  “I suppose your aunt left the ring at the hotel when she went to Sappho’s Leap,” she said.

  “How should I know what she did?”

  “And I suppose you were so sure she would not come back that you thought it would be perfectly safe to appropriate it and her money and her traveller’s cheques, and anything else that was hers and of value. I wonder, though, that you care to display the ring so openly.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “Do I not?” asked Dame Beatrice, with gentle grimness. “But, as I look around at these luxurious furnishings and consider your smart maid and your own fashionable and becoming garments, I know that Megan Metoulides, and not Chloe Cowie, is to marry Ronald Dick. Why should your aunt consent to be married quietly abroad? And why should Ronald Dick, in that case, have made certain that the name of Chloe Cowie should appear in our national press? The wedding would not be one of great public interest, and, until now, Ronald Dick has never courted publicity. There must be some good reason for the announcement.”

  “Oh, my aunt insisted upon it, I suppose. Her books were very well known.” Mary looked both frightened and angry.

  “That could account for the notice, of course, but I am perfectly sure it does not. Neither does it account for your present prosperity.”

  “Why should not Mr. Dick have been generous to me? If Aunt is married, I have no hope of her money any more.”

  “No, you have no hope of it, and for the best of reasons. You cannot announce her death, yet she is dead. You killed her at Sappho’s Leap. Those who owe you a great deal are Megan Metoulides and Ronald Dick, for you have given liberty and perhaps life itself to one, and you have committed the other to marrying the woman with whom he has always been in love. No wonder they have been generous.”

  Mary capitulated, and sank down on to a chair.

  “What are you going to do about it?” she asked feebly.

  “Nothing. There is nothing I can do,” Dame Beatrice briskly replied. “You have committed murder, but, then, so did Megan in her time, although I must admit that her motive was not sordid, a statement which can scarcely be applied to your own.”

  “I didn’t kill Aunt for her money. I hated her,” said Mary, beginning to weep with self-pity.

  “Probably as good a reason for killing her as any other, if there is a reason for killing people. However, I foresee future complications, I’m afraid.”

  “You can never prove anything against me!”

  “No. I do not suggest that we dig up that body on Leukas.”

  “Do you suppose Julian knows the truth?”

  “We all know it, and nobody can prove it. The first fact you must live with; the second, of course, has certain advantages for you, since it seems unlikely that you will go to prison.”

  “I suppose you’re sorry about that!”

  “Oh, no, I think you have served your term. It is not only a robin redbreast in a cage which puts all heaven in a rage. Your aunt was not an admirable woman.”

  About the Author

  Gladys Mitchell was born in the village of Cowley, Oxford, in April 1901. She was educated at the Rothschild School in Brentford, the Green School in Isleworth, and at Goldsmiths and University Colleges in London. For many years Miss Mitchell taught hi
story and English, swimming, and games. She retired from this work in 1950 but became so bored without the constant stimulus and irritation of teaching that she accepted a post at the Matthew Arnold School in Staines, where she taught English and history, wrote the annual school play, and coached hurdling. She was a member of the Detection Club, the PEN, the Middlesex Education Society, and the British Olympic Association. Her father’s family are Scots, and a Scottish influence has appeared in some of her books.