Mrs Pargeter 01; A Nice Class of Corpse

Eulalie Vance looked amazed at this lack of comprehension. “Well, the fact that they existed! There was I, having experienced the greatest love there ever was, and I had nothing to cherish but my memories. And there was she, with a whole set of mementoes of her own anaemic, loveless relationship with the same man.”

“Did she imply that what she had were love letters?”

“Yes.” Eulalie Vance laughed harshly. “Which only goes to make it more ridiculous.”

Mrs Pargeter thought she was beginning to see the picture. Norton Selsby had probably had a perfectly satisfactory physical relationship with his wife. Eulalie had been his ‘bit on the side’. After six months, suffering partly from boredom and partly from risk-fatigue, he had, like so many men before him, decided to quit while he was ahead. So he had ‘gone back to his wife’, who had welcomed him without elaborate ceremony, never having realised he’d been away.

But, though she could easily sketch in the likely scenario of the affair, it was harder to guess at its more recent consequences.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Happened?”

“When you found out about the letters?”

“Well, I…As I said, I am a slave to passion, a creature of impulse. I did something impulsive. It was also… cruel.”

“And that was the thing you were saying you regretted?”

Eulalie Vance nodded, her face set in a tragic mask. “It was just vindictive. At the time I thought it would make me feel better, I thought the shock of what I did would clear the emotions inside me. But now that she’s dead…”

“You feel sorry you did it?”

Eulalie nodded again.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

It was as if the director had told her that this narration would be most effective delivered numbly, quietly, without overt emotion.

“It was about three days before she died…just before you came to the hotel. I went into her room when I knew everyone would be downstairs waiting for tea. She didn’t keep anything locked up. It was easy to find what I was looking for.”

“The letters…?”

“Yes. They were in one of the drawers of her bureau, a thick bunch, tied with a pink ribbon – or perhaps it had been a red ribbon and faded, I don’t know. I knew they were the right ones. Even though Norton never wrote me letters, I knew his handwriting. I took them.”

“And what did you find out when you read them?”

“I didn’t read them. I couldn’t bring myself to read them. No, I’m afraid I did something wicked.”

“Yes…?”

“I took them down to the basement and I threw them on the boiler. I destroyed them.”

Mrs Pargeter left a pause, of which Eulalie’s director would surely have approved, before asking, “And did Mrs Selsby say anything to you about the loss of her letters?”

“No. Not to me. Not to anyone, as far as I know. And two days later she had fallen down the stairs and was dead.”

“Fallen down the stairs? Are you sure she did fall?”

“What do you mean?”

“She could have been pushed.”

“Pushed?” Eulalie Vance looked at her blankly. “Pushed – what do you mean?”

It is easy to tell when someone so theatrical has stopped acting, and Mrs Pargeter could see that Eulalie Vance had just stopped. Her reaction was genuine surprise. The thought that Mrs Selsby might have been murdered had never occurred to her.

Another name was struck off the list of suspects.

Mrs Pargeter comforted her. Mrs Selsby had been so vague and sleepy that she would never have noticed the absence of her letters. Anyway, by then she had been too short-sighted to read them. No, Eulalie shouldn’t worry. It was something she had done in a fit of passion, but it had been an action with no unpleasant consequences for anyone.

At the end of this reassurance, Eulalie Vance rose. “Thank you for saying that. It makes me feel a lot better.”

Mrs Pargeter reflected that it wasn’t what she had said that had made Eulalie feel better; it had just been the talking. Having made the mistake of showing an interest once, Mrs Pargeter realised that she might be letting herself in for a whole lot more confidences about the actress’s purple past.

“I’m going out for a walk, Melita. Clear my head.”

“Good idea.”

“Oh, I found this on the chair.” She held out the diary. “Could you give it back?”

“Whose is it?” asked Mrs Pargeter.

“Well, this is Mr Dawlish’s chair. I assume it’s his.”

? A Nice Class of Corpse ?

41

TUESDAY, 12 MARCH – 1.45 p.m.

I am losing control. This is ridiculous. After last night’s failure with the cyanide, I have now committed the total idiocy of leaving this diary around the hotel!

Just a couple of days ago I felt so confident, and now I am in a state of trembling agitation like a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s study. I must get a grip on myself, and recapture that coolness and detachment with which I planned and executed my two murders. I must not give way to morbid doubts.

God knows what I have unleashed by my carelessness with this book. I sat at lunch looking round the room, wondering who had handled it, and – worse – who read it. That snooper, Mrs Pargeter, certainly had it, and, I don’t doubt, read every word. Then that idiot Eulalie Vance had her paws on it, too. Maybe even others, closer to me, have also looked inside.

The trouble is, this opens everything up so. Until my stupidity of leaving the book around, I thought that all I had to do to feel safe was to get rid of Mrs Pargeter – now I won’t feel secure until I’ve disposed of everyone living under the roof of the Devereux. Any one of them might have read this and be able to incriminate me.

At least I won’t be caught that way again. I’ll never let this book out of my sight – keep it in my pocket at all times in future.

I must keep calm. Take things one at a time. So far no one else has said anything to me. So far the only person I know to be a threat to me is that busybody, Mrs Pargeter. I must get rid of her as soon as possible, and then I can assess calmly whether or not I have to murder anyone else.

I will watch her every movement. If she leaves the hotel at any time of the day or night, I will follow her. And this time I will not make any mistakes!

? A Nice Class of Corpse ?

42

Mrs Pargeter decided that the time had come for decisive action. She had done enough abstract, intellectual investigation; the moment had arrived to draw the murderer out of hiding and confront him.

The annoying thing was she didn’t yet know who he was. She had narrowed the candidates down to the two