Nest of Vipers mb-55 Read online

‘That’s an opinion,’ said Cassie, ‘that only a man would hold and it’s most unfair.’

  (4)

  ‘You heard all that, I expect, George,’ said his employer, when the couple had gone.

  ‘Literary ladies and gentlemen seldom lower their voices, madam. I could not help overhearing what was said.’

  ‘Quite. Have you encountered any of the outdoor staff at this place, George?’

  ‘Yes, madam. There is a taciturn but knowledgeable individual who cleans the cars belonging to the establishment and in summer keeps the lawns in order. Other gardeners are employed on a part-time basis, but this man Penworthy is permanent.’

  ‘I wonder whether you could engage him in conversation on the subject of sea-bathing?’

  ‘Readily, madam.’

  ‘So far, you see, it appears that nobody except Mr Piper has used the beach here for swimming, and he only in the summer months.’

  ‘It is not, perhaps, the most attractive of beaches, madam.’

  ‘We are hardly seeing it at its best at this time of year, but even so, I think you are right.’

  ‘Would there be any specific question you want Penworthy to answer, madam?’

  ‘If my far-fetched theory should turn out to be a fact, there will be no need to lead him.’

  Two days elapsed before George was able to make a report. When he did, he prefaced it by asking respectfully:

  ‘Had you anything to go on, madam, in forming your theory?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I suppose so,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘The woman had drowned; the body was fully-clothed; death by drowning in sea water had taken place some time previous to the discovery of the body, and the face had been badly disfigured after death. Well, what have you to tell me?’

  ‘Apart from Mr Piper, who swam every day up to about the middle of October, the only person to enquire about bathing from the beach here was a Miss Kennett, but she never actually took to the water. She and a woman friend, it seems, left the house before the murder was discovered.’

  ‘But not, perhaps, before it had been committed, one is left to infer.’

  ‘As to that, I could not say, madam. It seems that Miss Kennett and her friend ran a small car which Penworthy kept tuned up for them. They used it mainly for business purposes, and he got to know both ladies quite well. Miss Kennett asked about bathing from the beach and confided to him that it was (in her expression) mucky, a description with which he agreed, although he said it was safe enough for swimming.’

  ‘And nobody else swam from the beach?’

  ‘He says not, so far as his knowledge goes, and as he’s always about the place tending the lawn and tidying up those high banks behind this bungalow, I think he would know, madam.’

  ‘He did not mention Miss Niobe Nutley?’

  ‘He did, madam, but only to tell me that she did not fancy the beach here, either. Before Mr Piper took up residence, Penworthy says she used to drive once or twice a week to a beautiful clean beach over on the other side of the bay. She used to say she wanted to get away from all the noise and mess while the workmen were doing the repairs and alterations to the house. This, as I understand, was before Mr Piper returned from France. After he came back she never asked to be taken to the seaside at all and she certainly never bathed from the beach here.’

  ‘But that is not all you have to tell me, or you would not have asked me whether I had anything to go on in formulating my theory. There is one other point. I wonder whether they ever get trespassers? At low tide it must be quite easy for people to walk on the sands and find this bit of beach. Still, a complete stranger would hardly have murdered Miss Minnie. What else?’

  ‘In a word, madam, although the beach here was not used by any of the residents except Mr Piper, Miss Minnie was a great believer in sea water baths. It seems she suffered from rheumatism and she believed that hot sea water baths gave her relief.’

  ‘Ah, splendid! So that accounts for the sea water. I take it that this man Penworthy supplied it to the bungalow.’

  ‘Three times a week, for a small emolument, he was commissioned to bring her four buckets of sea water which she used to let stand for a day to let any sand settle and then she boiled three bucketfuls in kettles and a large iron saucepan kept for the purpose, and the other bucketful was used to cool the hot sea water when she had poured it into the bath.’

  ‘How does he know all this?’

  ‘I deemed it better not to enquire, madam.’

  ‘I suppose he took a peep through the kitchen window. I notice it is uncurtained. He could hardly have peered into the bathroom itself, as the window is of frosted glass. Possibly, of course, she described the process to him. She seems to have been a lonely person and may have been glad of someone to talk to. I suppose he didn’t murder her himself and make off with her money and valuables.’

  ‘He does not strike me as the type, madam,’ replied George gravely.

  ‘I was not entirely serious when I asked the question, George.’

  She left the bungalow and, knowing that Constance was out, went to call on Evesham Evans. She found him frying sausages and bacon and apologised for disturbing him.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Evesham. ‘Make yourself at home. I’m only frying for the need of something to do. Constance has gone up to Town to chivvy her publisher as usual, so, again, I’m on my own. Take a seat if you can find a sitting-room chair that isn’t cluttered, and I’ll bring this panful along. Any good inviting you to join me? I know it’s a bit early in the day, but I’ve got stuck with my book and can’t get on, so I thought I’d cook a bit of lunch while I waited for inspiration.’

  Dame Beatrice said that she had been having cocktails and a snack in the bungalow and was hardly ready for her lunch. She asked whether she might come back later.

  ‘Sure, sure. Glad to see you,’ said Evesham, relieved, she thought, that he had no need to share his meal with her. ‘Come at three. I’ll have the place squared up a bit by then. Did you,’ he added suddenly, as she reached the door, ‘did you call about anything special?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but it may take a little time. I want to know all that you know about the death of Miss Minnie. Perhaps you would be willing to go over the salient facts in your mind while you are eating your lunch.’

  (5)

  ‘Do I take it that you’re a relative?’ asked Evesham, when she arrived at three.

  ‘No, I am not a relative.’ She produced her official card. Evesham put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles which, coupled with two tufts of hair which stuck up like two little ears, gave him the appearance of a tolerant and sagacious owl, and studied the morsel of pasteboard. ‘Lestrange Bradley? Consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office, eh? So they think young Piper’s non compos, do they? I wouldn’t have thought that, you know. Still, I expect Broadmoor or Rampton, or whatever, is a shade preferable to the ordinary gaol, although personally I’d opt to be incarcerated with the thugs rather than with the loonies. All the same, I wouldn’t have thought Piper was either. A very decent, quiet fellow I found him. Not at all the type to resort to violence.’

  ‘Was Miss Minnie the kind of woman to invite violence?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that, either, but I hardly knew her. Kept herself very much to herself, you know. Not exactly one of the gang.’

  ‘Do you look upon yourselves as a kind of family unit, then? Do people like to feel that they are members of a party? Was that, for instance, what made you choose to come here to live?’

  ‘Constance chose to come here. Suits her work, she says, although why she thinks so, when she’s always pinching the car and careering off to London, I can’t understand. Personally, I’d much prefer a flat more in the centre of things. Liverpool, now. I’d like to live in Liverpool. I like to be where there’s some action. I like noise and ships and docks and hordes of people.’

  ‘But your wife prefers Weston Pipers, and you are chivalrous enough to do as she wishes.’

  ‘
Well,’ said Evesham, handing back the card and removing his glasses, ‘she earns about ten times as much money as I do, so she reckons to call the tune. Not that I’d want to write her kind of bilge, mind you. In fact, I doubt whether a man could write it.’

  ‘Mr Hempseed seems to do very well with his page on a woman’s paper, I believe.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but Polly writes tongue in cheek. He’s shown me some of the things he’d like to put in. He’s no end of a lad when you get him on his own. Not that that happens very often. Cassie McHaig keeps him on a very tight rein. I can’t think why he puts up with her. I can’t understand why he ever teamed up with her in the first place. Damn it all, she doesn’t hold the purse-strings, and heaven knows she’s got nothing in the way of looks or even talent to recommend her. Ask me what I think, and I’d say she caught him young and trained him early and now the poor devil can’t call his soul his own and doesn’t have the guts to up and leave her.’

  ‘I believe the theological view is that nobody can call his soul his own. We have elsewhere our sphere.’

  ‘Miss Minnie was some sort of hot gospeller, I believe. I went to the inquest. I was present when the body was found, you know. Some elderly bloke in a gown and a flowing white tie had to identify it. He described himself as Leader, I remember, and said that Miss Minnie was – had been – the editor of his – well, I forget what he called it, but it approximated to his parish magazine.’

  ‘It must have had an enormous circulation.’

  ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, glancing around the handsome apartment, ‘judging by the rent I pay, these flats are hardly what one might call inexpensive. Of course, Miss Minnie occupied the bungalow. That may make a difference. I pay less for my servant than for myself.’

  ‘I don’t know what the others pay, but I know I couldn’t afford to live here on my own. I’ve got a feeling, though, that there must be a scale of charges according to what people can pay. I can’t imagine, for example, how a couple of girls like Billie and Elysée could have managed the rent here and I reckon the same went for Miss Minnie. Targe, I believe, does very well and so does little Shard. Young Irelath Moore is heavily subsidised by his papa in Canada, so he’s well-heeled, but the three females, especially poor old Minnie, must have been given a pretty substantial rebate, I would think, to allow them to live on these premises.’

  ‘Perhaps no other prospective tenant wanted to rent the bungalow.’

  ‘So Minnie got it particularly cheap, you mean? Could be, I suppose. It may be damp, being so near the water.’

  ‘When you saw the body – I understand that you, together with Mr Piper and Mr Targe, broke into the bungalow—’

  ‘Yes, at Piper’s instigation, we did, and that’s a thing I don’t understand and that’s why I think, dotty or sane, he could have done it, hard though I find it to believe. For one thing, being the owner, he must have had a key to the bungalow, you see. What was to stop him opening up and having a look round on his own? Why go to the length of routing out Targe and me to abet him in smashing a window? Only because he knew the body was there and he didn’t want to be on his own when he found it, one would think.’

  ‘You are changing your mind about Mr Piper?’

  ‘Well, no, but one has to look on all sides.’

  ‘So, to finish the question I was about to ask, when you saw the body, what were your first thoughts?’

  ‘I didn’t have any. I mean, I didn’t have any feelings but revulsion and shock. Then Targe beat it back to the house to get to a telephone and left Piper and me on our own. Well, when I had pulled myself together, I realised that Piper couldn’t stand being in the room with the body, but, then, neither could I, for the matter of that, so when he suggested that we adjourn to the sitting-room, I thought it was a very sound idea. It was when I spotted this dirty great poker lying on the hearthrug in there that I—’

  ‘Leapt to the conclusion—?’

  ‘Well, you can’t help thinking things, can you? After all, the poor old dame’s head had been pretty severely battered, so, naturally, when I spotted the poker, it did occur to me to wonder whether I was in company with her murderer.’

  ‘So you picked up the poker?’

  ‘Well, what would you have done? I may write tough books, but I am by no means a tough character and I didn’t like the wild expression on Piper’s face.’

  ‘Don’t you think he was suffering from shock, just as you were?’

  ‘That didn’t occur to me at the time. I only know that I grabbed up that poker pretty damn quick, so that I was in a position to defend myself if he started anything, but all he said was that we might as well have the electric fire on. That’s my point about the poker, you see. Miss M. didn’t need one. It must have been brought there by the murderer.’

  ‘But why was she murdered?’

  ‘Oh, that’s simple enough. The old girl had been having a lot of fun writing nasty unsigned letters to the people who had flats in the house. Of course I don’t suppose anybody really had anything to hide. Writers get to know a lot of things about one another and I’d have heard any scandal that was going.’

  ‘Did you yourself receive one of the letters?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You have not kept it, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I have, and I’ll show it you if you like.’

  ‘By the way, now that you know why I am here, may I trouble you to respect my alias for the time being? I do not want to cause alarm to a possibly guilty party. Now what about your anonymous letter?’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s rather a good specimen of so-called black humour. It says that I live on my wife’s immoral earnings. In a sense it’s so damn true when you know the bilge Constance writes and the sinful amount she gets paid for it. Immoral earnings? Well, they are! And I live on them? Up to a point, I suppose I do!’

  ‘What made you suppose that Mr Piper had a key to the bungalow and could let himself in whenever he chose?’

  ‘Oh, well, he was the landlord, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I understood that Miss Nutley was the possessor of a master-key.’

  ‘Somebody was. Did you hear about our ghost?’

  ‘It seems that Miss Minnie may have been the intruder.’

  ‘That was Niobe Nutley’s idea. Something about a missing will. If there was such a thing, and Piper knew of it, he might have wanted the old girl out of the way. The only thing is that I can’t imagine him smashing up her face after he had killed her. Very nasty, that, you know. Still, if he hasn’t got all his marbles, that might explain it.’

  ‘Black humour?’ said Dame Beatrice thoughtfully. ‘Not a perquisite of elderly women, one would have imagined.’ And her thoughts turned to the elfin Mandrake Shard again. He was a far more likely ‘black’ humorist than Miss Minnie, she decided.

  Chapter Eight

  Niobe, All Tears

  « ^ »

  ‘I HAVE heard some very disturbing news,’ said Dame Beatrice, having opened the door of Niobe’s office in response to a notice which read: Please ring and Enter.

  ‘Oh, really, Mrs Farintosh? I am sorry to hear that. I hope it does not mean that you want to leave us? Your contract, which I modified greatly, at your request, from our usual three-year agreement, has more than a month to run.’

  ‘Oh, I shall honour it so far as the rent is concerned, of course. The question is whether I can bring myself to stay. I consider that you ought to have informed me before I took up my tenancy.’

  ‘Of what, Mrs Farintosh?’

  ‘That the owner of Weston Pipers, Mr Piper himself, is being remanded in custody under suspicion of having murdered one of the tenants.’

  ‘But I thought that was common knowledge, Mrs Farintosh. It has been in all the papers. Besides, Mr Piper is innocent. Nobody who knows him has the slightest doubt about that.’

  ‘But if he did not do this dreadful thing, that only makes matters worse.’

  �
�How so? – oh, do please sit down.’

  ‘The murderer may still be living here. In that case nobody is safe,’ said Dame Beatrice, seating herself and lowering her voice.

  ‘The murderer was a burglar or a tramp. You need have no fear that he is still on the premises,’ said Niobe sharply.

  ‘Then why has Mr Piper been arrested?’

  ‘Oh, there were suspicious circumstances, of course, but I am sure they will all be cleared up at the trial. It is the time of waiting that is so trying. I need – I need your sympathy, Mrs Farintosh, not a threat to leave me. I am having to cope all alone. It is not easy for me, this period of bearing full responsibility. I am accountable to Mr Piper – to Chelion—’ her eyes filled with tears – ‘while he is in this dreadful predicament. So far, I have been able to prevail upon most of the tenants to stay, and Mr Moore and his – er – his wife have even returned from America – he has been on a lecture tour over there, you know – and are taking up their option on their flat.’

  ‘I have met Mr and Mrs Moore, of course. They are a charming couple.’

  ‘He is the distinguished Canadian-Irish poet,’ Niobe wiped her eyes and essayed a smile.

  ‘Is he a descendant of the Thomas Moore who wrote the delightful Irish Melodies and was Lord Byron’s biographer?’

  ‘I could not say, but I should think it very likely.’

  ‘Did the Moores know that murder was committed here while they were away? It might have affected their willingness to return if they did know, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Niobe shortly. ‘The burglar or tramp, or whatever, killed that old lady in the bungalow, not in the house. The house is completely protected.’

  ‘Oh, but I was told that the poor woman was drowned in the sea.’

  ‘Oh, well, yes, of course, but the body was found in the bungalow. That is one of the reasons why the police thought—’ she sniffed dolorously – ‘they thought Chelion had done it. They said that an outsider would have left the body in the sea so that the outgoing tide could carry it away. We have thirty-foot tides here, you see. The water comes almost up to the lawn at high tide and then goes out ever so far.’