Scold's Bridle

said wistfully. 'My dad took me to watch him and Blackpool win the FA cup in 1953 as a sixteenth birthday present. It was pure magic. I've never forgotten it.'

'I wanted to be Tom Kelley,' said Charlie.

'Who's he?'

The Inspector chuckled as he wiped his fingers on a napkin. 'The photographer who persuaded Marilyn Monroe to pose nude for him. Imagine it. Marilyn Monroe entirely naked and you on the other side of the lens. Now, that really would have been magic.'

'We're in the wrong business, Charlie. There's no charm in what we do.'

'Mrs. Marriott hasn't raised your spirits then?'

'No.' He sighed again. 'I made a promise to her, said we wouldn't use what she told me unless we had to, but I can't see at the moment how we can avoid it. If it doesn't have a bearing on the case, then I'm a monkey's uncle. First, Joanna Lascelles was not Mrs. Gillespie's only child. She had another one thirteen, fourteen months later by Mrs. Marriott's husband.' He ran through the background for Charlie's benefit. 'Mrs. Marriott believed Mrs. Gillespie killed the baby when it was born, but on the morning of the sixth, Mrs. Gillespie told her it had been a boy and that she'd put it up for adoption when it was born.'

Charlie leaned forward, his eyes bright with curiosity. 'Does she know what happened to him?'

Cooper shook his head. 'They were screaming at each other, apparently, and that little tit-bit was tossed out by Mrs. Gillespie as she closed the door. Mrs. Marriott says Mathilda wanted to hurt her, so it might not even be true.'

'Okay. Go on.'

'Second, and this is the real shocker, Mrs. Marriott stole some barbiturates from her father's dispensary which she says Mathilda used to murder Gerald Cavendish.' He detailed what Jane had told him, shaking his head from time to time whenever he touched on James Gillespie's part in the tragedy. 'He's evil, that one, blackmails everyone as far as I can judge. The wretched woman's terrified he's going to broadcast what he knows.'

'Serves her right,' said Charlie unsympathetically. 'What a corrupt lot they all were, and they say it's only recently the country started going to pot. You say she went to see Mrs. Gillespie on the morning of the murder. What else did Mrs. Gillespie tell her?'

'Murder?' queried Cooper with a touch of irony. 'Don't tell me you agree with me at last?'

'Get on with it, you old rogue,' said Jones impatiently. 'I'm on the edge of my seat here.'

'Mrs. Gillespie began by being very cool and composed, told Mrs. Marriott that the whole matter was out of her hands and that she wasn't prepared to pay the sort of money James was demanding from her. As far as she was concerned she didn't care any more what people said or thought about her. There had never been any doubt that Gerald committed suicide and if Jane wanted to own up to stealing drugs from her father, that was her affair. Mathilda would deny knowing anything about them.' He opened his notebook. 'I'm more sinned against than sinning,' ' she said and advised Mrs. Marriott that, in the matter of the baby, things would get worse before they got better. She went on to say that Mrs. Marriott was a fool for keeping her husband in the dark all these years. They had a terrible row during which Mrs. Marriott accused Mrs. Gillespie of ruining the lives of everyone she had ever had contact with, at which point Mrs. Gillespie ordered her out of the house with the words: 'James has been reading my private papers and knows where the child is. It's quite pointless to keep quiet any longer.' She then told Mrs. Marriott it was a boy and that she'd put it up for adoption.' He closed the notebook. 'My bet is the 'private papers' were the diaries and things were going to get worse because Mrs. Gillespie had made up her mind to acknowledge her illegitimate child and spike James's guns.' He rubbed his jaw wearily. 'Not that that scenario really makes a great deal more sense than it did before. We'd more or less decided that whoever was reading the diaries was the same person who stole them and murdered the old lady, and I still say James Gillespie wouldn't have drawn our attention to the diaries if he was the guilty party. The psychology's all wrong. And what motive did he have for killing her? She was far more valuable alive as a blackmail victim. Let's face it, it wasn't just the business of the baby he could hold over her, it was her uncle's murder as well.'

'But he probably couldn't prove that, not so long afterwards, and you're making too many assumptions,' said Charlie slowly. ' 'I'm more sinned against than sinning,' ' he echoed. 'That's a line from King Lear.'

'So?'

'King Lear went mad and took to wandering in the fields near Dover with a crown of weeds on his head because his daughters had deprived him of his kingdom and his authority.'

Cooper groaned. 'I thought it was Ophelia who had the crown of weeds.'

'Hers were coronet weeds,' corrected Jones with idle pedantry. 'It was Lear who wore the crown.' He thought of the epitaph on the Fontwell tombstone. 'By God, Tommy, there's a lovely symmetry about this case. Jack Blakeney's been using a Stanley knife to clean inscriptions in Fontwell.'

Cooper scowled at him. 'How many pints have you had?'

Charlie leaned forward again, his keen eyes scouring Cooper's face. 'I studied King Lear at school. It's a hell of a play. All about the nature of love, the abuse of power, and the ultimate frailties of the human spirit.'

'Just like Hamlet then,' said Cooper sourly. 'Othello, too, if it comes to that.'

'Of course. They were all tragedies with death the inevitable consequence. King Lear's mistake was to misinterpret the nature of love. He gave more weight to words than to deeds and partitioned his kingdom between two of his daughters, Goneril and Regan, whom he believed loved him but who, in reality, despised him. He was a tired old man who wanted to relinquish the burdens of state and live the rest of his life in peace and tranquility. But he was also extremely arrogant and contemptuous of anyone's opinions but his own. His rash assumption that he knew what love was sowed the seeds of his family's destruction.' He grinned. 'Not bad, eh? Damn nearly verbatim from an essay I wrote in the sixth form. And I loathed the flaming play at the time. It's taken me thirty years to see its merits.'

'I came up with King Lear a few days ago,' remarked Cooper, 'but I still don't see a connection. If she'd divided her estate between Mrs. Lascelles and Miss Lascelles there'd have been a parallel then.'