The Murder of Busy Lizzie

‘What’s that?’ demanded Marius. ‘Have you been listening to Cousin Marie’s gossip? I should never have had that woman in the house!’

‘Well, yes, she did let out a few spiteful things at the Singletons’, Father.’

‘I have never quarrelled with your aunt,’ said Marius stiffly. ‘She was invited to the wedding and she came. Mischief was made between us by the behaviour of your grandmother, your mother’s mother. Lizzie never forgave it and until I received this invitation that we should spend a holiday on Great Skua, she and I have never corresponded.’

‘But you knew she had inherited the hotel.’

‘I heard about it through my lawyers. As you may or may not know, my parents left all that they had to me, cutting off poor Lizzie completely. I arranged, therefore, that a certain sum—small, of course, for I had you children and your mother to think of—should be paid quarterly to my sister. When Lizzie inherited this eccentric Miss Chayleigh’s estate on Great Skua my lawyers informed me of the fact and hinted, in dry and delicate lawyers’ fashion, that it would be quite reasonable for me to discontinue the quarterly payments once Lizzie was amply provided for.’

‘And did you? I hope you didn’t,’ said Margaret. Marius smiled.

‘No, I did not,’ he said. ‘Your mother thought I should and, most illogically, held it against Lizzie that I instructed the lawyers to continue payment.’

‘Good for you, Father. After all, your parents were Aunt Eliza’s parents, too. It was a shame to cut her out of their will.’

‘So I believed, and so I still believe, my dear, although provision was made for her if ever she married. All the same, if this is the return I get for a disinterested action, I begin to have second thoughts upon the matter. It is most ungracious and uncivil of Lizzie to delay our meeting like this. I do not understand it. Her letter of invitation was warm and friendly enough.’

‘We understood from Ransome that the hotel does not do very well, Father. In fact, he told us that Aunt Eliza is in debt. The improvements seem to have cost more than she had to spend.’

‘I would not rely on that source for your information, my dear.’

‘Well, he lives on the island. He ought to know.’

‘Perhaps it is not in his interests to represent the hotel as a going concern,’ said Marius.

chapter six

First Misgivings

‘Where has thou been so long from my embraces,

Poor pitied exile? Tell me, did thy graces

Fly discontented hence, and for a time

Did rather choose to bless another clime?’

Robert Herrick

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Well, I cannot understand it,’ said Marius at the reception desk on the following morning. ‘I really cannot. What on earth is keeping her so long? Of course, Miss Crimp, you know far more about my sister nowadays than I do, but, from what I remember of Lizzie, she was not inconsiderate or ill-mannered, and, really, this absence of hers, when she had specifically invited me, seems in the worst of taste, to say the least of it.’

‘Come into my office, Mr Lovelaine,’ said Miss Crimp, showing her teeth in what might be taken for a smile. ‘It is better not to discuss the matter in public, and these intrusive naturalists are everywhere.’

‘Well, we’ll be seeing you, Father,’ said Margaret. ‘We’re going down to bathe.’

‘Be careful, then, and make sure the tide is not going out,’ said Marius. He passed through the flap which Miss Crimp opened for him and followed her to the back of the reception office to a smaller room where the floor- space was mostly taken up by a large desk and an armchair.

‘Please sit down,’ she said, indicating the armchair and herself taking the swivel chair with which the desk was furnished.

‘Mr Lovelaine, I am deeply concerned that Eliza should absent herself like this if she was really expecting you.’

‘What do you mean—really expecting us? She invited us, as I told you, and asked us to put in a month here.’

‘Yes. Have you her letter with you?’

‘Of course I have not. I merely accepted her offer of accommodation (and at the price she suggested) and threw her letter into the waste-paper basket, so far as I remember. I saw no occasion to keep it, once the arrangements were made.’

‘You say you accepted her offer? By letter, do you mean?’

‘Certainly by letter. How else? She wrote again and confirmed my booking.’

‘I suppose you have not brought that letter with you, either?’

‘Miss Crimp, I do not understand you. Your tone is, to say the least of it, strange.’

‘Well, Mr Lovelaine, I have to tell you that I searched our files after your unexpected arrival, and I can find no trace of this correspondence.’

‘No trace of it? But why should there be any trace of it? Lizzie probably threw away my letter just as I threw away hers. The only letters one keeps, surely, are receipted bills and other such business correspondence.’

‘But this was business correspondence, Mr Lovelaine. I say nothing about Eliza’s first letter to you. That would probably have had no carbon copy attached, as it would have been a private matter, no doubt. But the acceptance you say you wrote should have been filed, since it contained evidence of a definite booking of rooms for a definite date and period, and there should also be a record of Eliza’s second letter in which you say she confirmed the date of your booking. Eliza is not only a busy woman, as anybody who owns a hotel must necessarily be, but she is also a businesslike one, and she would certainly have filed such a letter.’

‘Are you suggesting that the correspondence exists only in my imagination, Miss Crimp?’

‘Oh, certainly not, Mr Lovelaine. Of course I meant nothing of that kind!’

‘Then what, exactly, is the purport of your remarks?’

‘May I be quite frank?’

‘That question usually emanates from someone who intends to be rather rude,’ said Marius, with an uneasy smile.

‘Oh, no, not at all. At least, I hope you won’t think me rude, Mr Lovelaine. I am wondering, quite simply, what made you decide to come here at all. I must believe, since you say it is so, that Eliza invited you, but why did you accept the invitation?’

‘That is hardly your business, Miss Crimp. However, as you ask the question, you shall have an answer. I was pleased and relieved to hear from Lizzie again after all these years. I was not much more than a child when she left home as a result of a quarrel with our parents and became companion to this eccentric Miss Chayleigh, and the next I heard was that Miss Chayleigh had died and had left her this house and a good deal of money. My parents were dead by that time and it fell to me to examine my father’s effects. Among them I found a triumphant, spiteful letter from Lizzie (and I do not blame her for writing as she did, because I think my parents had really treated her very badly in causing her to have to turn out and fend for herself) in which she informed him of her good fortune, said that she was going into the hotel business and listed the improvements she was going to make. I wrote to inform her that our parents were dead, congratulated her on her inheritance and, of course, headed the letter with my own address. This was ten years ago.’

‘And she did not write back to you?’

‘Oh, yes, she acknowledged the letter, but in no very friendly spirit, and I heard nothing more until, round about Easter of this year, I received the letter and brochure which seem to be the main subject of this conversation.’

‘And she actually suggested that you should come here?’