Scold's Bridle

Marriott stored her jealousy for years to have it erupt suddenly in November. So, at the risk of stating the obvious, Mathilda must have been murdered because someone wanted her out of the way.'

Jones had difficulty keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. 'I think we can agree on that,' he said.

Jack stared at him for a moment. 'Yes, but why? Why did someone want her out of the way? What had she done or what was she going to do that meant she had to be killed? That's the question you've never asked, not outside the context of the will at least.'

'Because I don't find it quite so easy, as you apparently do, to ignore it.'

'But it is just a will. Thousands of people make them every week and thousands of people die every week. The fact that Mathilda's was unusually radical becomes completely irrelevant if you absolve Joanna, Ruth, Sarah and me of her death. No one else is directly affected by the way she chose to leave her money.'

Cooper cleared his throat. 'It's a good point, Charlie.'

'All right,' he conceded. 'Why was she killed then?'

'I don't know.'

Charlie raised his eyes to heaven. 'God give me strength!' he growled savagely.

Cooper chuckled quietly to himself. 'Get on with it, Jack, before you give the poor man apoplexy,' he suggested. 'We're all running out of patience on this one. Let's take it as read that the will wasn't the motive and that neither the Lascelles women nor you and your wife were involved. Where does that leave us?'

'With Mathilda wearing the scold's bridle. Why? And why did it have half a hedgerow carefully entwined through it? Isn't that what persuaded you it wasn't suicide?'

Cooper nodded.

'Then the logical conclusion has to be that the murderer never intended you to think it was suicide. I mean we're not talking about a moron here, we're talking finesse and careful planning. My guess is that someone knew Mathilda thought Sarah was her daughter, knew that both Mathilda and Joanna had been conditioned by the scold's bridle in their childhoods, knew that Joanna was a florist and knew, too, that 'scold's bridle' was Mathilda's nickname for Sarah. Hence the contraption on her head and the King Lear imagery. If you put all that together with the fact that Ruth was in the house that day, then the aim must surely have been to focus your attention on Sarah, Joanna and Ruth-Lear's three daughters in other words. And that's exactly what happened, even if it was the will that set you thinking along those lines because you mistook the symbolism for Ophelia's coronet weeds. You mustn't forget how close Mathilda played the will to her chest. As far as anyone knew, Joanna and Ruth were going to share the estate between them. Sarah's possible claim as the long-lost daughter was nothing but a wild card when the murder took place so, for the murderer, it came as a sort of bonus.'

Charlie frowned. 'I still don't understand. Were we supposed to arrest one of them? And which one? I mean, was your wife indicated because of the scold's bridle, was Joanna indicated because of the flowers, or was Ruth indicated because she was there?'

Jack shrugged. 'I'd say that's the whole point. It doesn't matter a damn, just so long as you focus your attention on them.'

'But why?' snarled Charlie through gritted teeth.

Jack looked helplessly from him to Cooper. 'There's only one reason that I can see, but maybe I've got it all wrong. Hell dammit!' he exploded angrily. 'I'm not an expert.'

'Confusion,' said Cooper stoutly, a man ever to be relied upon. 'The murderer wanted Mrs. Gillespie dead and confusion to follow. And why would they want confusion to follow? Because it would be much harder to proceed with any kind of normality if the mess surrounding Mrs. Gillespie's death wasn't sorted out.'

Jack nodded. 'Sounds logical to me.'

It was Charlie's turn to be lost in Cooper's flights of fancy. 'What normality?'

'The normality that follows death,' he said ponderously. 'Wills in other words. Someone wanted the settling of Mrs. Gillespie's estate delayed.' He thought for a moment. 'Let's say she was about to embark on something that someone else didn't like, so they stopped her before she could do it. But let's say, too, that whatever it was could be pursued by her beneficiary the minute that beneficiary came into the estate. With a little ingenuity, you throw a spanner in the works by pointing a finger at the more obvious legatees and grind the process to a halt. How does that sound?'

'Complicated,' said Charlie tartly.

'But the pressure was to stop Mathilda,' said Jack. 'The rest was imaginative flair which might or might not work. Think of it as a speculative venture that could, with a little bit of luck, produce the goods.'

'But that brings us right back to square one,' said Cooper slowly. 'Whoever killed her knew her very well and, if we jettison the four who knew her best, then we're left with-' he pressed his fingers to his eyes in deep concentration, 'Mr. and Mrs. Spede, Mr. and Mrs. Marriott, and James Gillespie.'

'You can do better than that, Cooper,' said Jack impatiently. 'The Spedes are simple souls who could never have dreamt up the Lear symbolism in a million years; Paul and Jane Marriott have avoided Mathilda like the plague for years so probably couldn't have found their way around her house, let alone known where she kept the Stanley knife; and, as far as I understand it, if what Duggan told Sarah is true, rather than trying to delay the processing of the will, James Gillespie is doing the exact opposite and pressing for the controversy to be settled so that he can lay claim to the clocks.'

'But there isn't anyone else.'

'There is, and I proved it this morning.' He hammered his fist on the table. 'It's Ruth's involvement that should have alerted you. Someone knew she was in the house that day and could therefore figure as a suspect. You've been chasing around in circles since you found out about it, but Sarah says you only learnt she was there because you received an anonymous letter. So who sent it?' He slammed his palm on the table at Cooper's blank expression. 'Who tried to rescue Joanna this morning?'

Violet Orloff opened her front door and stared at the piece of polythene-encased paper that Detective Sergeant Cooper was holding in front of him. He turned it round to read it aloud. ' 'Ruth Lascelles was in Cedar House the day Mrs. Gillespie died. She stole some earrings. Joanna knows she took them. Joanna Lascelles is a prostitute in London. Ask her what she spends her money on.