chapter eight
A Lamb to the Slaughter
‘ “Let us set out,” said I, “and prepare for some fatigue, for we shall take a longer road than that by which we came.”
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Dame Beatrice found young Coles unshaven, unkempt and in his dressing-gown. He seemed much more depressed than on the previous occasion when she had seen him.
‘Tell you more about Norah? I don’t think I can,’ he said. ‘There’s only one thing you might like to know, although I don’t see that it has any bearing upon what’s happened. I didn’t want us to be married until I’d done with the art school and she’d finished her college course.’
‘And what caused you to change your mind, Mr Coles?’
‘
‘Really? How was that?’
‘I don’t know. She was a lot more forceful than I am. Besides, she was afraid of old Biancini. She hated him. I’m not sure she didn’t hate him more than I do.’
‘She objected to her mother’s marrying again, no doubt.’
‘I don’t think it was only that. I think Biancini was a bit of a wolf, and it scared her. She said she would feel safe if we were married. Of course, she was at home as little as possible. She used to stay with an aunt at Harrafield, a very decent type. I stayed there once or twice myself and didn’t have to pay anything, although it was a hotel—well, a sort of glorified pub with a few bedrooms, actually.’
‘I have visited the place. So Mrs Coles talked you into marrying her before you were quite prepared to do so?’
‘She said—and kept on saying it—that until she was legally married she wasn’t safe.’
‘
‘The marriage of true minds, I suppose,’ said Coles, bitterly.
‘And… she wasn’t
‘I knew he was a wolf.’
‘But I am given to understand that she disliked him and spent as little time as possible at home.’ The conversation appeared to be going round in circles.
‘Well, yes, that’s true enough. But she had to be at home sometimes, for her mother’s sake. She was very fond of her mother,’ Coles explained.
‘The second marriage must have caused her some heartburning, though.’ Dame Beatrice was determined to pursue this point.
‘She was very bitter about it at first, but she got over it. She was really a very well-balanced sort of person. I can’t believe she’s gone. Of course, it’s not as bad as if we’d lived together, but I still can’t realise we never shall.’
He took a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his dressing-gown, lit one and tossed the packet on to the table as he glanced at the clock.
‘You still cannot suggest any reason why anybody should wish her out of the way?’
‘No, I can’t. She hadn’t an enemy in the world, as far as I know. I keep turning it all over in my mind, but it’s just a blank. The police keep nosing around and asking questions, but I can’t tell them any more than I’m telling you.’
‘She could not possibly have come by some knowledge dangerous to another person, I suppose?’
‘The police keep harping on that. All I can say is that I don’t know, but I shouldn’t think it’s at all likely. I mean, there she was, just a student. You don’t pick up dangerous information in a women’s agricultural college, surely?’
‘But she wasn’t in college all the time, was she? There were the vacations.’
‘Yes, but, except for when she was away with me, or staying with this aunt in the north of England, she was at home. The police, naturally enough, I suppose, are gunning for me and Biancini, as the only two men in her life, but, much as I dislike that greasy Eye-tye, I can’t see him killing Norah and certainly not by poison. Poison’s a woman’s weapon.’
‘Armstrong? Palmer? Crippen? Certain Italian noblemen of the fifteenth century?’
‘Italian? Yes, I see. Then you think Biancini might have done it? I don’t agree at all.’
‘I can imagine both more and less likely murderers. Where did you take your wife for holidays when you went away together?’
‘Oh, all sorts of places. She paid for both of us, of course. I’ve got all I can do to pay my fees at the Art School and buy my canvases and paints and sub. up for these foul digs. I couldn’t manage the kind of holidays Norah seemed to like.’
‘What kind would those have been?’
