by M. M. Kaye
‘Fourthly, fifthly and sixthly, the entire performance plainly called for quick thinking, cool-headedness and a packet of nerve. And though I hate to cast cold water on Copper’s fresh young enthusiasms, even if Stock possesses the necessary mental qualifications, he quite obviously hasn’t the physical ones. So I think we can safely count him out as not being of the stuff that murderers are made of.’
‘And of course you’d know about that,’ said Copper sweetly.
‘Look here, you two!’ snapped Valerie in sudden exasperation, ‘if you feel you must scratch at each other, you can do it later. Just try and remember that this is serious!’
Nick laughed. ‘See what your acidity has let us in for, Copper darling? A public reprimand, no less! That’s the stuff, Val. “Order in court!” Well, what’s the verdict on Leonard? Guilty or not guilty?’
Valerie said: ‘I’m not going to put anyone down as either guilty or innocent without positive proof.’
‘Oh, all right,’ sighed Nick. ‘Charles, be a Boy Scout and pour a stiffish whisky into the nearest glass and merely disturb it slightly with soda … My blessings on you. Here’s to crime!’ He drank deeply. ‘Next prisoner, please.’
‘Hamish,’ said Valerie. ‘Come on, Charles.’
‘Oh, no you don’t!’ said Charles. ‘I’ve done my stuff on Ronnie. This is your headache, young Portia.’
Valerie shook her head determinedly. ‘Sorry. I’m saving myself for Ruby — we’ve got several lines on her that you haven’t heard about yet.’
‘Oh, my God!’ moaned Charles. ‘You women! You cats! You scratchy little hell-cats!’
‘I like that!’ said Valerie indignantly. ‘Here have you and Nick been pointing out half a dozen damning details in connection with John Shilto, Ronnie and Leonard, and did I once rise up and accuse you of being catty?’
‘If you two,’ drawled Nick gently, ‘have a bone to pick, I have it on good authority that there is a Frigidaire in the pantry.’
Charles laughed. ‘He’s got you there, Val. All right. I withdraw. I apologize. I grovel. Anything, in fact, for a quiet life. I will even, in the interests of peace and justice, strive to make out a case against that old Angora rabbit, Mr Rattigan to wit.’
Clutching a whisky and soda in one hand and his brow in the other, Charles collapsed into the depths of his armchair and brooded deeply, but after several minutes he announced himself defeated: ‘It’s no good. In spite of remorselessly racking the brain, I can’t think up a single damn thing against the old cloth-head. Apart from the fact that he is a prominent member of our Ruby’s chain-gang, there is no blot upon his blameless copy-book. And as he doesn’t wear a ruby on his left hand, he couldn’t even have been killed in mistake for____ Oh, that’s the wrong way round isn’t it?’
Charles took a deep draught from his glass and gazed wildly about the room as though seeking inspiration from the walls and ceiling. ‘Go on,’ commanded Valerie remorselessly. ‘You must do better than that. What sort of thing do you think might madden Hamish to the point of murder?’
‘Unpolished buttons,’ said Charles promptly. ‘The old egg nearly busts himself with fury if he spots one of our chaps sporting a button or a belt-buckle that you can’t actually see to shave in. He may look like a fluffy form of rabbit, but when he does lose his temper — happily only about once quarterly — he doesn’t skimp it. Frankly speaking, Hell pops and strong men take cover.’
Valerie frowned, wrinkled the end of her nose, and entered: ‘Debit: Temper’ on the charge-sheet. ‘It’s not much,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Couldn’t you improve on it a bit? Rack the brain a bit more, Charles. Did anything happen on the Harriet picnic that might have made him lose his temper?’
‘That’s no good,’ said Nick impatiently. ‘Half a dozen things might have done that. Ants in the mince pies for instance. It’s got to be something that would make him lose his hair with Ferrers.’
‘I’ve got it!’ said Charles suddenly. ‘See Copper’s brilliant theory re: Leonard, and apply same without loss of time to Hamish. God will, I trust, forgive me for grossly maligning the poor guffin, but as I have already had occasion to point out, anything for a quiet life. Does that let me out?’
Valerie said doubtfully: ‘Well I see what you mean, and if it’s the best you can do____’
‘Best I can do!’ exploded Charles. ‘Isn’t that just like a woman? Copper produces a half-baked theory to the effect that that little pip-squeak, Leonard, may have wanged Ferrers in mistake for Ronnie, basing this incredible fabrication of a fevered imagination upon the tottering foundation of a brace of Woolworth rings. It is received with all solemnity. But when I suggest that it might apply equally well to Hamish, what happens? Do I receive a share of the applause? Not on your life! I am instantly reviled. I resign. I throw in my half-dozen towels — two bath, two face and two mat. Will someone please hand me the brandy. I intend to get tight.’
‘It’s all right, darling,’ said Valerie soothingly. ‘You’re perfectly right, of course. It was very clever of you to think of it. You mean that if Ruby had pitched Hamish a yarn about Ronnie pestering her with improper advances, he might try taking a club to Ronnie?’
‘That was the idea,’ admitted Charles with dignity. ‘The poor poop is plain cuckoo about her. She’s probably the first woman he’s ever fallen for, so he’s beyond the reach of reason where she’s concerned. I believe she could even wheedle him into thinking lightly of the “Glorious Regiment”, let alone mere murder!’
‘Rubbish!’ said Nick shortly. ‘Look here, Val — and you too, Charles — it’s about time we stopped fabricating unnecessary fairy tales. I admit I don’t know much about Rattigan. But you do. Do you honestly mean to tell me that you think that if Ruby Stock had pitched a “persecution” yarn to him, he’d rush off and try and murder Purvis? Not on your life! He’d haul him off by the scruff of his neck and knock him down with all due ceremony behind the squash court!’
Valerie nodded reluctant agreement: ‘You’re right, of course, Nick. Which effectively disposes of Hamish. Anyone got anything to add before I close the score? No? Right: then that brings us to Ruby.’
17
Valerie drew a deep breath: ‘Now listen you two — this is really serious. Copper and I have a few solid clues for you to work on.’
She proceeded to describe in detail Copper’s discovery of the fragment of swansdown on the stairhead, together with Mrs Stock’s reception of the news of Dan’s murder and her surreptitious errand to the rocks. ‘It was all rather frightening,’ she concluded, ‘and I’m leaving it to you to decide if you think there could be anything in it, and if so, what. You see —’ her voice broke unexpectedly and she shivered. ‘You see she – she must have been near the staircase last night. And – and the murderer must have come up those stairs____’
The sentence dwindled into a whisper of pure terror, and in an instant Charles was out of his chair and had caught both her hands in his. ‘I know one thing!’ said Charles violently, ‘and that is that until this thing is solved I’m sleeping at your house, even if I have to take a mattress and camp on the ballroom floor. It’s all right, Val! Don’t look like that, sweetheart. There’s nothing to be scared of at the moment — Army and Navy both in attendance. And now shall we exchange a passionate kiss here, or in the pantry?’
Valerie’s taut nerves relaxed and she laughed tremulously. ‘I’m sorry. I do apologize. A momentary spasm of panic brought on by suddenly realizing that Copper and I were probably sleeping in the same house with an honest-to-God murderer last night.’
Charles dropped a swift kiss on to his fiancée’s head, and seating himself on the arm of her chair remarked: ‘After which brief but affecting interlude, let us return to La Stock. You say you found a chunk of her pink trimmings decorating the stairhead? Well, that presumably means that she was out and about sometime during the night — but not necessarily at half past one. And anyway, it stands to reason that she can’t be the murderer if sh
e was parading about the place in forty yards of pink satin profusely decorated with feather frillings. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Why not?’ demanded Valerie. ‘She might have heard Dan cross the hall and followed to see where he was going. And if she saw him put on the mackintosh cape and go out, she could have run back, changed into something more suitable, sneaked out by the back and rushed down to the Guest House. And I would also like to remind you that Ruby weighs around nine stone seven, stands about five foot nine inches in her stockings, and swings a pretty good golf club and tennis racket. So far as mere muscle goes, I imagine that she would be more than equal to dealing with Ferrers, dead or alive!’
Charles whistled gently through his teeth and abstractedly wound a lock of Valerie’s hair about one finger: ‘Perhaps. But all the same, I don’t believe it. And that’s not merely because I can’t help jibbing at the idea of a woman having done the job, for I imagine that when it comes right down to bedrock, most women are more capable of murder than the average man. But for all that I don’t believe it was Ruby. And you can put that down on the charge-sheet as a large blot, signifying male intuition as opposed to female.’
Valerie jerked her head away impatiently and said: ‘I don’t care how many intuitions you’ve got about her. They don’t alter the fact that she was prowling about the house last night sometime between eleven and half past one, because that bit of swansdown on Hindenburg proves it.’
Nick abandoned his indolent pose and sat up abruptly: ‘By jove! I wonder if she was the person that the sentry saw in the office?’
‘What’s that?’ Both girls turned on him simultaneously.
‘Forgot to tell you,’ said Nick. ‘The sentry produced another piece of information this afternoon. He said he’d seen the Commissioner mucking about in the office as he passed the window when coming on duty last night. I’ve forgotten how he came to mention it, but it was rather odd because the Commissioner denies having been near the office after nine o’clock. He cross-questioned the sentry, and the man said that as he walked down the verandah past the office window he saw there was a light on inside, and as there was a gap in the curtains, glanced in as he went past and saw someone standing by the desk …
‘He assumed that it was the Commissioner working late; which was a fairly usual occurrence. But when we got down to brass tacks it turned out that the light came from a small green-shaded reading-lamp on the desk and that all he actually saw was the silhouette of someone bending over the desk. And when asked to describe what it looked like, he couldn’t swear to any detail of the figure: said he’d only given it a casual glance and was so certain that it was the Commissioner that he hadn’t bothered to think any more about it.’
Valerie said: ‘You mean it might have been Ruby?’
‘It’s possible. If you think for a minute, one thing is bound to strike you. Why should the sentry have been so positive that the person in the office was your stepfather? He couldn’t explain it himself, but it’s fairly obvious that whoever it was or wasn’t, it was a European, and that one fact, in the snapshot view he had between the curtains by the shaded light of the reading-lamp, impressed itself on his mind without his realizing it. And if a European, then naturally Sir Lionel: one’s brain often unconsciously betrays one’s eye, and vice versa. But it could just as easily have been a woman wearing a coat.’
‘I see,’ said Valerie thoughtfully. ‘Ruby might have come to the top of the stairs to see if it was possible to get down unseen, and spotted that old Iman Din was out of play and that the coast was clear. If there was anything in the office that she wanted, she’d be certain to go back to her room and swop that dressing-gown affair for a coat. She’s got a heavy brown tweed one, cut like a man’s overcoat.’
‘Then that may be the solution,’ said Nick. ‘Probably nothing much in it except another “Possible”, to add to a growing list of “Possibles” without a single “Probable” to cheer them up.’
Valerie said: ‘But what on earth would Ruby want out of the office? If it was Ruby?’
‘Heaven knows. Your stepfather went through the entire room with a small-tooth comb, but he said there was not only nothing missing, but that nothing had been moved. So I’m afraid the incident isn’t much use to us, except as providing a possible solution for Mrs Stock’s night wanderings.’
Charles said: ‘What about her day wanderings, comrade? That trip of hers to the rocks smells rather strongly of kippers to me. After all, we haven’t yet found the weapon that was used to kill Dan. What about that as a solution to her proceedings?’
‘You mean she was disposing of the evidence?’ put in Valerie. ‘It did look rather like that, but — surely the weapon that killed Dan must have been pretty solid?’
Nick said: ‘A club, or a coal hammer or something of that description. Yes; I see your point. Even with the mist, and at that range, you would have been able to see it if what she chucked into the sea had been anything hefty.’
‘We didn’t see anything at all,’ said Valerie. ‘And what’s more, I believe that she carried the thing she threw away stuffed down the front of her frock, and it stands to reason that she couldn’t shove a hammer or a kitchen poker down there without it being pretty noticeable if anyone had stopped her.’
Nick uttered a sound between a laugh and a groan and pushed his hands through his hair so that it was ruffled again. ‘God forbid that I should ever meddle with a job like this again! What we need is Scotland Yard and the Ten Best Brains of Britain to cope with this bloody jig-saw puzzle. And I — heaven forgive me! — had an idea that if we dug about we might with luck come across something that would give us a lead. But I didn’t bargain for half a hundred separate leads. Let’s go and tackle that woman about it at once and see what she’s got to say.’
‘No!’ said Valerie firmly. ‘That would be fatal. If we try and bounce her into anything she’ll only deny it hotly. Copper and I will wait for a suitable opportunity, and try and lure her into having a girlish chat when she is slightly less hysterical.’
‘All right. Then let’s get on with the three-ring circus. Who’s next?’
‘Rosamund Purvis. Take over, Nick.’
‘Nothing doing. It takes a woman to prosecute a woman. Take her yourself.’
Valerie chewed the end of her pencil for a moment or two, and then wrote once again in the notebook. ‘How will this do?’ she inquired. ‘ROSAMUND PURVIS. Opportunity: same as everyone else. Motive: possibly the same one as Copper suggested for Leonard, and Charles for Hamish — “Mistaken Identity”, i.e. she killed Ferrers in mistake for Ronnie. Goodness knows she must have wanted to do it pretty often. He treats her abominably, and____’
‘You know,’ interrupted Nick wearily, ‘that theory of Copper’s struck me as pretty far-fetched the first time I heard it — though I will admit that it did seem to be just within the realms of the remotely possible. But with every repetition it appears less and less so. For heaven’s sake let’s scrap it for the moment and try another.’
‘But I can’t think of another,’ complained Valerie plaintively. ‘I must say I’m inclined to agree with you. But if you can think up any reason why Rosamund would want to murder Ferrers, you’re a better man than I am Gunga Din and you can darn well take over the prosecution yourself!’
Nick said irritably: ‘It’s no earthly good asking me to supply reasons. Damn it all, Val, I’ve only been on this flaming island a little over a week, so it’s hardly likely that I’d know much about the character and private lives of the local inhabitants. All I know is that this ring theory is so thin it’s transparent!’
Copper turned swiftly to face him: ‘Is it?’ she said tersely. ‘Then perhaps this may thicken it a bit. Do you remember the afternoon of the Mount Harriet picnic, just after lunch, when we four were in the lorry and someone came up and put a hand on the edge of it?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ inquired Charles impatiently: ‘Of course we remember. It was Ronnie, and____ No
, by God, it wasn’t! It was Ferrers!’
Copper threw Nick a brief, triumphant glance and turned to Charles: ‘What made you so sure at first that it was Ronnie, Charles?’
Charles considered the question, wrinkling his nose thoughtfully. ‘Damned if I know,’ he admitted. ‘But now that you come to mention it, I did think it was him, and I was surprised when it turned out to be Ferrers. I certainly can’t remember noticing any ring, but that could have had something to do with my jumping to the conclusion that Passionate Purvis was in our midst.’
‘Of course it had,’ said Copper. ‘Not many Englishmen wear rings, and the ones that do usually wear plain gold signet rings. But Ronnie wore a ring with a large red stone set in it, and so did Ferrers. And you are so used to seeing Ronnie’s ring that your subconscious mind registered Ronnie when you saw a man’s hand with a red ring on it. And don’t tell me I’m wrong, because I know I’m not!’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Charles, ‘I lack the necessary nerve to contradict you. And I daresay you’re right. In which case I suppose these series of ring-theories must remain on the books for the present; which appears to thicken the general fog to no ordinary extent.’
‘I don’t see why it should,’ said Valerie obstinately.
Charles moaned and closed his eyes: ‘O Woman! in our hours of ease! Listen, my love, think! — ponder! — consider for a brief moment! If we retain this ring business, it would appear that the whole island is swarming with people who were panting to massacre Ronnie, and that the elimination of the late unlamented Ferrers was due to a mere slip of the spanner. It seems to me to add endless vistas of sinister conjecture to a landscape already overstocked with sinister vistas.’
