'Three members of the same middle-class family murdered with arsenic between April 1928 and March 1929; Edmund Duff, a retired Colonial Civil Servant, his sister-in-law and her widowed mother. In each case the poison must have been administered in food or medicine. It could only have been a member of the household, but the police never made an arrest. It's a fallacy to suppose that a small circle of suspects, all known to each other, makes a case easier to solve. It doesn't; it only makes failure indefensible.'
Failure wasn't a word which Buckley could remember having heard before on Grogan's lips. His euphoria gave way to a small weight of anxiety. He thought of Sir Charles Cottringham even now cooling his heels in the theatre, of the Chief Constable, of Monday's publicity. 'Baronet's wife battered to death in island castle. Well-known actress slain.' This wasn't a case which any-officer ambitious for his future could afford to lose. He wondered what it had been about this room, this victim, this weapon, perhaps the air of Courcy Island itself, which had evoked that depressing note of caution.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then there was a sudden roar and a speedboat rounded the eastern tip of the island and swept a wide curving wake towards the quay. Grogan said:
'Doc Ellis-Jones is making his usual dramatic appearance. Once he's told us what we already know, that she's a female and she's dead, and has explained what we can work out for ourselves, that it wasn't accident or suicide and it happened between one twenty and two forty-three, we can get down to the business of finding out what our suspects have to say for themselves, beginning with the baronet.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was nearly half-past four and Ambrose, Ivo, Roma and Cordelia were standing together on the jetty looking out to sea as Shearwater, taking the cast back to Speymouth, moved beyond the eastern tip of the island and out of sight. Ambrose said:
'Well, they may have been done out of their moment in the spotlight but they can't complain that the day has been dull. Clarissa's murder will be all over the county by dinner-time. That means we can expect a press invasion by dawn.'
Ivo said:
'What will you do?'
'Prevent anyone from landing, although not with the brutal effectiveness of de Courcy at the time of the Plague. But the island is private property. And I'll instruct Munter to refer all telephone inquiries to the police at Speymouth. They've presumably got a public relations department. Let them cope.'
Cordelia, still in her cotton dress, shivered. The bright day was beginning to fade. Soon would come that transitory and lovely moment when the setting sun shines with its last and brightest rays, intensifying the colour of grass and trees so that the air itself is stained with greenness. Now the shadows lay long and heavy over the terrace. The Saturday sailors had turned for home and the sea stretched in an empty calm. Only the two police launches rocked gently against the quay, and the smooth bricks of the castle walls and turrets, which for a moment had glowed with a richer red, darkened and reared above them, ponderous and forbidding.
As they passed through the great hall, the castle received them into an unnatural silence. Somewhere upstairs the police were busy with their secret expertise of death. Sir George was either being questioned or was with Simon in his room. No one seemed to know and no one liked to ask. The four of them, still awaiting their formal questioning, turned by common consent into the library. It might be less comfortable than the drawing-room, but at least it offered plenty of material for those who chose to pretend that they wanted to read. Ivo took the only easy chair and lay back with his eyes turned to the ceiling, his long legs stretched. Cordelia sat at the chart table and slowly turned the pages of the 1876 bound copy of the Illustrated London Mews. Ambrose stood with his back to them, looking out over the lawn. Roma was the most restless, regularly pacing between the bookshelves like a prisoner under compulsory exercise. It was a relief when Munter and his wife brought in the tea, the heavy silver teapot, the brass kettle with the wick burning under it, the Minton tea-service. Munter drew the curtains across the tall windows and put a match to the fire. It crackled into life. Paradoxically the library became at once cosier but more oppressive, enclosed in its shadowed hermetic calm. They were all thirsty. No one had much appetite but ever since the finding of the body they had craved the comfort and stimulus of strong tea or coffee, and busying themselves with cups and saucers at least gave them something to do. Ambrose settled himself beside Cordelia. Stirring his tea he said:
'Ivo, you have all the London gossip. Tell us about this man, Grogan. I confess that, on first acquaintance, I don't take to him.'
'No one has all the London gossip. London, as you very well know, is a collection of villages, socially and occupationally as well as geographically. But theatrical gossip and police gossip do occasionally overlap. There's an affinity between detectives and actors as there is between surgeons and actors.'
'Spare us the dissertation. What do you know about him? You've spoken to someone, I suppose?'
'I admit I did telephone a contact; from this room actually, while you were busy receiving Grogan and his minions. The story is that he resigned from the Met because he was disgusted with the corruption in the CID. That, of course, was before the latest purge. He is, apparently, a proper William Morris man: 'No more now my knight, or God's knight any longer, you being than they so much more white, so much more pure and good and true.' That should reassure you, Roma.'
'Nothing about the police reassures me.'
Ambrose said:
'I suppose I'd better be careful about offering him drink. It could be construed as an attempt to bribe or corrupt. I wonder if the Chief Constable, or whoever it is decides these things, sent him here to fail.'
Roma said sharply:
'Why should anyone do that?'
'Better the incomer than one of your own men. And he could very easily fail. This is a story-book killing: a close circle of suspects, isolated scene-of-crime conveniently cut off from the mainland, known terminus a quo and terminus ad quem. It should be perfectly possible to tie it up – that's the jargon, isn't it? – within a week. Everyone will expect it to be solved quickly. But if the killer keeps his head clear and his mouth shut I very much doubt whether he or she is in real danger. All he needs to do – let's be chivalrous and assume it's a man – is to stick to his story; never excuse, never embellish, never explain. It isn't what the police know or suspect; it's what they can prove.'
Roma said:
'You sound as though you don't want it solved.'
'Without having strong feelings on the matter, I should prefer to have it solved. It would be tedious to spend the rest of one's life as a suspected murderer.'
'It'll bring in the summer tourists though, won't it? People love blood and horror. You'll be able to show the scene of the crime -for an extra twenty pence, of course.'
Ambrose said easily:
'I don't pander to sensationalism. That's why summer visitors don't get shown the crypt. And this is a murder in poor taste.' 'But aren't all murders in poor taste?'
'Not necessarily. It would make a good parlour game, classifying the classical murder cases according to their degree of tastelessness. But this one strikes me as particularly bizarre, extravagant, theatrical.'
Roma had drained her first cup of tea and was pouring a second. 'Well that's appropriate enough.' She added:
'It's odd that we've been left here alone, isn't it? I thought that there'd be a plain-clothes underling sitting in and taking a note of all our indiscretions.'
'The police know the limit of their territory and of their powers. I've given them the use of the business room and, naturally, they've locked the two guest-rooms. But this is still my house and my library and they come in here by invitation. Until they decide to charge someone, we're all entitled to be treated as innocent. Even Ralston, presumably, although as husband he has to be elevated to chief suspect. Poor George! If he really loved her this must be hell for him.'
Roma said:
'My guess is he'd stopped loving her six months after the wedding. He must have known by then that she wasn't capable of fidelity.'
Ambrose asked:
'He never showed the least sign, did he?'
'Not to me, but then I hardly ever saw them. And what could he do, faced with that particular insubordination? You can hardly deal with an unfaithful wife as if she were a recalcitrant subaltern. But I don't suppose he liked it. But if he didn't kill her and I don't for one moment believe that he did, he's probably not entirely ungrateful to whoever did. The money will come in useful to subsidize that Fascist organization he runs. The Union of British Patriots, UBP. Wouldn't you know from the name that it's a Fascist front?'
Ambrose smiled:
'Well, I wouldn't expect it to be full of Trots and International Socialists certainly. It's harmless enough. A Boys' Own Paper mentality and a geriatric army.'
Roma slammed down her cup and began again her resdess pacing. 'My God, you're good at deceiving yourselves, aren't you? It's nasty, it's embarrassing and most unforgivable of all, the people concerned actually take themselves seriously. They really believe in their dangerous nonsense. So let's all laugh at it, and perhaps it will go away. When the chips are down, who do you think this geriatric army are going to be defending? The poor bloody proles? Not likely!'
'I rather hope they'll be defending me.'
'Oh, they will, Ambrose, they will! You and the multi-national corporations, the establishment, the Press barons. Clarissa's money will do its bit towards keeping the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.'
Ambrose said mischievously:
'But don't you get some of the money? And won't it come in useful to you?'
'Of course, money always does. But it isn't important. I'll be glad enough of it, I suppose, when it actually comes, but I don't need it. It certainly isn't important enough to kill for. Come to that, I don't know what is.'
'Oh, come on, Roma, don't be naive! A cursory read of the daily papers will tell you what people find important enough to kill for. Dangerous and destructive emotions, to begin with. Love, for example.'
Munter was at the door. He coughed, rather, thought Cordelia, like a stock butler in a play, and said:
'The pathologist, Dr Ellis-Jones, has arrived, sir.'
Ambrose looked for a moment distracted as if wondering whether he was expected formally to greet the newcomer. He said:
'I'd better come, I suppose. Do the police know he's here?' 'Not yet, sir. I thought it right to inform you first.' 'Where is he, the pathologist?' 'In the great hall, sir.'
'Well, we can't keep him waiting. You'd better take him to Chief Inspector Grogan. I suppose there are things he may need. Hot water, for example.'
He looked vaguely around as if expecting a jug and basin to materialize from the air. Munter disappeared.
Ivo murmured:
'You make it sound like childbirth.'
Roma swung round, her tone was a mixture of the peevish and appalled. 'But surely he's not going to do the post-mortem here!' They all looked at Cordelia. She thought that Ambrose must surely know the procedure, but he too gazed at her with a look of bland, almost amused inquiry. She said:
'No. He'll just do a preliminary examination at what they call the scene-of-crime. He'll take the temperature of the body, try to estimate the time of death. Then they'll take her away. They don't
