Scold's Bridle

sandwich in the other, the Daily Telegraph crossword on his knees. 'She's crying again.'

Duncan peered at her over his bifocals. 'It's not our business, dear,' he said firmly.

'But I can hear her. She's sobbing her heart out.'

'It's not our business.'

'Except I keep thinking, suppose we'd done something when we heard Mathilda crying, would she be dead now? I feel very badly about that, Duncan.'

He sighed. 'I refuse to feel guilty because Mathilda's cruelties to her family, imagined or real, provoked one of them into killing her. There was nothing we could have done to prevent it then, and as you keep reminding me, there is nothing we can do now to bring her back. We have alerted the police to possible motive. I think we should leave it there.'

'But, Duncan,' Violet wailed, 'if we know it was Joanna or Ruth, then we must tell the police.'

He frowned. 'Don't be silly, Violet. We don't know who did it, nor, frankly, are we interested. Logic says it had to be someone with a key or someone she trusted enough to let into the house, and the police don't need me to tell them that.' The frown deepened. 'Why do you keep pushing me into meddling, anyway? It's almost as if you want Joanna and Ruth to be arrested.'

'Not both of them. They didn't do it together, did they?' She grimaced horribly, screwing her face into an absurd caricature. 'But Joanna is crying again, and I think we should do something. Mathilda always said the house was full of ghosts. Perhaps she's come back.'

Duncan stared at her with open alarm. 'You're not ill, are you?'

'Of course I'm not ill,' she said crossly. 'I think I'll pop round, see if she's all right, talk to her. You never know, she might decide to confide in me.' With an arch wave she tiptoed off again, and moments later he heard the sound of the front door opening.

Duncan shook his head in perplexity as he returned to his crossword. Was this the beginnings of senility? Violet was either very brave or very foolish to interfere with an emotionally disturbed woman who had, quite clearly, loathed her mother enough to murder her. He could only imagine what Joanna's reaction would be to his wife's naive assertions that she knew more than she'd told the police. The thought worried him enough to force him out of his warm bed and into his slippers, before padding downstairs in her wake.

But whatever had upset Joanna Lascelles was destined to remain a mystery to the Orloffs that night. She refused to open the door to Violet's ringing and it wasn't until the Sunday at church that they heard rumours about Jack Blakeney returning to his wife and Ruth being so afraid to go home to Cedar House and her mother that she had chosen to live with the Blakeneys. Southcliffe, it was said, had asked her to leave because of the scandal that was about to break around the Lascelles family. This time the furiously wagging tongues centred their suspicion on Joanna.

If Cooper was honest with himself, he could see Dave Hughes's attraction for young middle-class girls. He was a personable 'bit of rough,' handsome, tall, with the clean, muscular looks of a Chippendale, dark shoulder-length hair, bright blue eyes and an engaging smile. Unthreatening was the word that leapt immediately to mind, and it was only gradually in the confined atmosphere of a Bournemouth police interview room that the teeth began to show behind the smile. What you saw, Cooper realized, was very professional packaging. What lay beneath the surface was anyone's guess.

Detective Chief Inspector Charlie Jones was another where the packaging obscured the real man. It amused Cooper to see how seriously Hughes underestimated the sad Pekinese face that regarded him with such mild- mannered apology. Charlie took the chair on the other side of the table from Hughes and sifted rather helplessly through his briefcase. 'It was good of you to come in,' he said. 'I realize time's precious. We're grateful for your co-operation, Mr. Hughes.'

Hughes shrugged amiably. 'If I'd known I had a choice, I probably wouldn't've come. What's this about then?'

Charlie isolated a piece of crumpled paper and spread it out on the table. 'Miss Ruth Lascelles. She says you're her lover.'

Hughes shrugged again. 'Sure. I know Ruth. She's seventeen. Since when was sex with a seventeen-year-old a crime?'

'It's not.'

'What's the hassle then?'

'Theft. She's been stealing.'

Hughes looked suitably surprised but didn't say anything.

'Did you know she was stealing?'

He shook his head. 'She always told me her granny gave her money. I believed her. The old bitch was rolling in it.'

'Was? You know she's dead then.'

'Sure. Ruth told me she killed herself.'

Charlie ran his finger down the page. 'Ruth says you told her to steal silver-backed hair brushes, jewellery and valuable first editions from Mrs. Gillespie's library. Similar items, in fact, to what Miss Julia Sefton claims you told her to steal from her parents. Small bits and pieces that wouldn't be missed but could be disposed of very easily for ready cash. Who sold them, Mr. Hughes? You or Ruth?'

'Do me a favour, Inspector. Do I look the sort of mug who'd act as a fence for an over-privileged, middle-class tart who'd drop me in it quick as winking the minute she was rumbled? Jesus,' he said with disgust, 'give me some credit for common sense. They only take up with me because they're bored out of their tiny minds with the jerks their parents approve of. And that should tell you something about the sort of girls they are. They call them slags where I come from, and thieving's in their blood along with the whoring. If Ruth says I set her up to it, then she's lying to get herself off the hook. It's so bloody easy, isn't it? I'm just scum from a frigging squat and she's Miss Lascelles from Southcliffe girls' school. Who's going to believe me?'

Charlie smiled his lugubrious smile. 'Ah, well,' he murmured, 'belief isn't really the issue, is it? We both know