'The gentlemen were. I understand from my wife that the ladies were also in bed. Lady Ralston's early tea was taken up later by her maid, Miss Tolgarth. At about seven thirty Mr Gorringe came to tell me that Sir George had arrived unexpectedly, put ashore in the small bay west of the headland by a local fishing boat. I did not myself see him until I set breakfast on the hotplate in the small breakfast room at eight o'clock.'
'But anyone could have got into the house at any time after six five when you opened up the castle?'
'The back door leading to the great hall was unlocked by me at six fifteen. At the time I looked out over the lawn and the path leading to the beach and the coastal walk. I saw no one. But anyone could have entered and done the damage between six fifteen and seven o'clock.'
The rest of the interview was unfruitful. Munter appeared to repent of his loquacity and his answers became shorter. He had no idea that Lady Ralston was receiving poison-pen communications and had no suggestions to offer as to their origin. Shown one of the messages he fingered the paper with fastidious distaste and said that it was the kind he and his wife commonly bought but in cream not white. The castle writing paper had an engraved address and was of a different quality as the Chief Inspector would be able to check by opening the top left-hand drawer of the desk. He had not known that Mr Gorringe had given Lady Ralston one of his Victorian jewel caskets nor had he been told that it was missing. He could, however, describe the casket in question since there were only two in the castle. It had been made by a silversmith of Hunt and Rosken in 1850 and was thought to have been among their pieces shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. It had been considered for use as a prop in the Third Act of the play but the larger and less valuable if more showy casket had been thought the better choice.
Grogan frowned, irritated by this display of irrelevant knowledge. He said:
'There's been murder done here, bloody murder of a defenceless woman. If there's anything you know, anything you suspect, anything that later occurs to you bearing on this crime I expect to be told it. The police are here, and we're here to stay. We may not always be physically present but we'll be around, we'll be concerned with this island, concerned with what happens here, and that means concerned with you, until the murderer is brought to justice. Have I made myself clear?'
Munter got to his feet. His face was still impassive. He said:
'Perfectly, sir. May I say that Courcy Island is used to murder. And the murderers commonly haven't been brought to justice. Perhaps you and your colleagues will have better luck.'
After he had left, there was a long silence which Buckley knew better than to interrupt. Then Grogan said:
'He thinks the husband did it, or he wants us to think that the husband did it. No marks for originality. It's what we're bound to think anyway. D'you know the Wallace case?'
'No, sir.' Buckley told himself that, if he were to continue working with Grogan, it would be as well to get hold of a copy of The Murderers' Who's Who.
'Liverpool, January 1931. Wallace, William Herbert. Inoffensive little insurance agent trotting round door to door and collecting the odd bob weekly from poor sods terrified they wouldn't be able to pay for their own funerals. Taste for chess and the violin. Married a bit above himself. He and his wife Julia lived in genteel poverty, which is the worst poverty of the lot in case you didn't know, and kept themselves to themselves. Then on 19th January, when he's out looking for the address of a prospective customer who may or may not exist, Julia gets her head savagely bashed in in her own front sitting-room. Wallace stood trial for the murder and a sturdy Liverpool jury, who probably weren't entirely unbiased, convicted. The Court of Criminal Appeal subsequently made legal history by quashing the verdict on the grounds that it was unsafe having regard to the evidence. So they let him go and he died of kidney disease two years later a bloody sight more slowly and painfully than he would have done at the end of a rope. It's a fascinating case. Every piece of evidence can point either way, depending on how you choose to look at it' I can lie awake at night thinking about it. It ought to be compulsory study for every detective constable, a warning of how a case can go wrong if the police get it fixed in their minds that it has to be the husband.'
Which was all very well, thought Buckley, but in these cases if the criminal statistics were to be believed, it usually was the husband. Grogan might be keeping an open mind but he had no doubt whose name featured at the head of his list. He said:
'They've got a cosy little set-up here, the Munters.'
'Haven't they just? Nothing to do but fuss around Gorringe while he knocks up his little savouries, polish the antique silver and wait on each other. But he lied about at least one thing. Look back to that interview with Mrs Chambers.'
Buckley thumbed back through his notebook. Mrs Chambers and her granddaughter had been two of the first interviewed since the woman had demanded that she be returned to the mainland in time to cook her husband's supper. She had been voluble, aggrieved and pugnacious, viewing the tragedy as one more trick of fate designed to cause domestic inconvenience. What chiefly concerned her was the waste of food; who, she had demanded, was going to eat a supper prepared for over a hundred? Buckley had been interested, thirty minutes later, to watch her waddling down to the launch with her granddaughter both lugging a couple of covered baskets. Some of the food, at least, would And its way down the gullets of the Chambers family. She and her granddaughter, a cheerful seventeen-year-old, apt to giggle in moments of emotion, had been busy, for the most part together or with Mrs Munter, for the whole of the critical time. Buckley privately thought that Grogan had wasted too much time on them and had resented having to record the woman's spate of irrelevances. He found the page at last and began to read, wondering if the old man was checking up on the accuracy of his shorthand.
'It's disgusting, that's what it is! I always say there's nothing worse than being killed away from home and by strangers. There never was anything like this when I was a girl. It's them mods on their motor cycles, that's who it is. Great crowd of them came roaring into Speymouth last Saturday with their noisy smelly machines. Why don't the police do something about it, that's what I want to know? Why don't you take their machines away and chuck them off the end of the pier, and their trousers too? That'd put a stop to it fast enough. Don't you waste time interviewing decent law-abiding women. Go after them motorcycling mods.' Buckley broke off.
'That's where you pointed out that even mods could hardly motorcycle to Courcy Island, and she replied darkly that they had their little ways, they were that cunning.'
Grogan said:
'Not that part. A little earlier when she was rabbiting on about the domestic arrangements.' Buckley flipped back a couple of pages.
'I'm always happy to oblige Mr Munter. I don't mind coming to the island for the odd day and bringing Debbie if wanted. And it wasn't the girl's fault if the glasses were smeary. They've no right to send them out like that. And Mr Munter had no call to go on at Debbie like he did. It's always the same when Lady Ralston's here. He gets his knickers in a twist when she's about, no mistake. We were here last Tuesday for the dress rehearsal and you never heard such goings on. Asking for this, asking for the other, nothing quite to her ladyship's liking. And forty of the cast for lunch and tea if you please. Everything had to be just so even if Mr Gorringe wasn't here. Took himself off to London Mr Munter said and I don't know as I blame him. Anyone would think she was mistress here. I said to Mr Munter, I don't mind helping out this time but if you're going to be stuck with this palaver next year you can count me out. That's what I said. Count me out. And he said not to worry. He reckoned that this would be the last play Lady Ralston would appear in on Courcy Island.'
Buckley stopped reading and looked at Grogan. He told himself that he should have remembered that piece of evidence. He must have taken it down in a fugue of boredom. Black mark. His chief said quietly:
'Yes, that's it. That's the passage I wanted. I'll be asking Munter for an explanation of that remark when the time's right, but not yet. It's as well to keep a few unpleasant shocks in hand. I've no doubt that Mrs Munter will be equally discreet when she obligingly confirms her husband's story. But we'll let the lady wait. I think it's time to hear what Miss Lisle's -host has to say for himself. You're a local man, Sergeant. What do you know of him?'
'Very little, sir. He opens the castle to visitors in the summer, but I imagine it's a ploy to get tax relief on the maintenance. He keeps himself to himself, discourages publicity.'
'Does he now? He'll get a bellyful of it before this case is finished. Put your head outside and ask Rogers to summon him with, of course, the usual compliments.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Buckley thought that he had never seen a murder suspect as much at ease under questioning as Ambrose Gorringe. He sat back in the chair opposite Grogan, immaculate in his dinner-jacket, and gazed across the desk with bright, interested eyes in which Buckley, occasionally glancing up from his note-taking, thought he could detect a gleam of amused contempt. Admittedly Gorringe was on his own ground, sitting, in fact, in his own chair. Buckley thought it rather a pity that the chief hadn't deprived him of this psychological advantage by bundling the lot of them off to Speymouth station. But Gorringe was too calm for his own good. If the husband didn't kill her, then here for his money was a close runner-up.
Now being formally questioned for the first time, he repeated without discrepancies the facts he had first briefly told them when they arrived on the island. He had known Miss Lisle from childhood – both their fathers had been in the diplomatic service and had been stationed for a time at the same embassies – but they had lost touch in recent years and had seen very little of each other until he had inherited the island from his uncle in 1977. The next year they had met at a theatrical first night and she had been invited to the island. He couldn't now remember whether the suggestion had come from him or from Miss Lisle. From that visit and her enthusiasm for the Victorian theatre had flowed the decision to stage a play. He had known about the threatening messages since he had been with her when one of them was delivered but she hadn't confided that they were still arriving, nor had she told him that Miss Gray was a private detective although he had suspected that she might be when she had confronted him with the woodcut pushed under Miss Lisle's door. It had been their joint decision not to worry Miss Lisle either with that or with the news that the marble limb had been stolen. He admitted without apparent concern that he had no alibi for the crucial ninety-odd minutes between one twenty and the discovery of the body. He had lingered over his coffee with Mr Whittingham, gone to his room at about one thirty leaving Whittingham on the terrace, had rested for about fifteen minutes until it was time to change and had left his room to go to the theatre shortly after two. Munter had been backstage and they had checked over the props together and discussed one or two matters relating to the after-show supper party. At about two twenty they had gone together to meet the launch bringing the cast from Speymouth and he had been backstage in the male dressing-room until about two forty-five. Grogan said:
'And the marble limb? That was last seen by you when?'
'Didn't I tell you, Chief Inspector? By me at about eleven thirty last night when I went to check the tide timetable. I was interested to estimate how long the launches would take on Saturday afternoon and returning to Speymouth that night. The water can run strongly between here and the mainland. Munter saw it in place just after midnight. I found that it was missing and the lock forced when I went to the kitchen at six fifty-five this morning.'
'And all the members of the house party had seen it and knew where it was kept.'
'All except Simon Lessing. He was swimming when the rest of the party were shown round the castle. As far as I know, he has never been near the business room.'
Grogan said:
'What is the boy doing here anyway? Shouldn't he be at school? I take it that Miss Lisle – Lady Ralston – was buying him a privileged education, that he isn't a day boy at the local comprehensive.'
The question could have sounded offensive, thought Buckley, if the carefully controlled voice had held a trace of emotion. Gorringe replied, equally calmly.
'He's at Melhurst. Miss Lisle wrote for special weekend leave. She may have thought that Webster would be educational. Unfortunately, the weekend has proved educational for the boy in ways she could hardly have foreseen.'
'A proper little mother to him was she?'
'Hardly that. Miss Lisle's maternal sense was, I should have thought, undeveloped. But she genuinely cared for the boy within her capacity. What you must understand about the victim in this case was that she enjoyed being kind, as indeed most of us do provided it doesn't cost us too much.'
'And how much did Mr Lessing cost her?'
'His school fees primarily. About ?4,000 a year I suppose. She could afford it. It all began I imagine because she had a conscience about breaking up his parents' marriage. If she did, it was quite unnecessary. The man had a choice presumably.'
'Simon Lessing must have resented the marriage, on his mother's account if not his own. Unless, of course, he thought a rich step-mama a good exchange.'
'It was six years ago. He was barely eleven when his father walked out on him. And if you're suggesting, without much subtlety I may say, that he resented it enough to bash in step-mama's face,
