The Murder of Busy Lizzie

promised Laura—her secretary, you know — that we’d let them know what happened at the inquest, and as you mentioned bringing in a private detective, what about your getting in touch with Dame Beatrice? She wouldn’t stir up mud, so, if it would make you any happier—’

‘My dear child, I can’t ask Dame Beatrice to act as a private detective! It would be an insult to suggest such a thing to a person of her eminence.’

‘Of course you couldn’t ask her outright. I realise that. But there wouldn’t be any harm in telling her about the inquest and seeing how she reacts, particularly as she was the first doctor to see the body. She might even want to give you her views when she’s heard what you have to say. Do speak to her, Father. She is bound to be discreet and, if she did decide to look into the thing, it would relieve your mind, you know it would, and you couldn’t have a cleverer person on your side if all that you think about her is true.’

‘I do not need anybody “on my side” as you call it, but perhaps it would not be a bad thing to canvass Dame Beatrice’s views. Very well. I will go along to Puffins as soon as we have dined.’

‘I still think you’d do better to leave things as they are,’ said Sebastian. ‘Pig or no pig, I mean.’

‘Pig? What are you talking about?’

‘You had better ask Dame Beatrice,’ said Margaret.

chapter fourteen

Pursuit of a Vendetta?

‘What’s that to me? I waft not fish nor fowls,

Nor beasts (fond thing) but only human souls.’

Robert Herrick

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Margaret, to her brother’s surprise, had brow-beaten Miss Crimp into giving Marius a room in the house.

‘I did think, Seb,’ she said, ‘that it would be the last thing to have him sharing the chalet, even for a night or two. He was most intrigued about the pig, wasn’t he? As for me, the more I think about things, the creepier they seem to get. Murders and witches and gangsters are all very well in books and on television, but I find I do rather bar them in real life. Anyway, I’m tired of the island. There’s nothing more to do here—’

‘Except find out who killed Aunt Eliza.’

‘I don’t want any part of that. It isn’t as though we knew her, and now there’s been a murderous attempt on Ransome as well, I think we’re better away from it all. What occurs to me is that we’re members of the same family, and people know it.’

‘Oh, nonsense, Maggie! Nobody on the island connects us with Ransome and Aunt Eliza!’

‘Miss Crimp does.’

‘Miss Crimp?’

‘She’s got this partnership in the hotel. She knows The Tutor is Aunt Eliza’s brother. That means she knows we’re related to Ransome. Well, she’s got rid of Aunt Eliza—or somebody has — and my bet is that she’s at the bottom of this business of trying to drown Ransome. She may even think it has succeeded. If it had done, that would have left our family as Aunt Eliza’s only relatives. Of course I know it all depends on Aunt’s will, but apart from any question of money or property, who else would have any reason to murder Aunt Eliza? The Crimp probably hated her. I’m sure she hates us.’

‘Well, there’s something in your argument, perhaps. Let’s wait until The Tutor has spoken to Dame Beatrice. That will probably decide matters, apart from any action the police may take.’

‘Shall we go with him to Puffins?’

‘I don’t suppose he’ll want us tagging along.’

It transpired, during conversation over the dinner table, that Marius had decided to ask his son, but not his daughter, to accompany him, but at this Margaret protested with so much vehemence that her father felt obliged to reconsider his offer.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I do not feel that I ought to inflict three of us on Dame Beatrice, so, my dear, if you feel put out at being left here alone, I will go by myself to Puffins and Sebastian shall stay here with you. Will that be satisfactory?’

‘Yes, thank you, Father.’

‘And, in any case, on second thoughts, Sebastian,’ said Marius, ‘perhaps it will be easier for both parties if I interview Dame Beatrice alone.’

‘Very well, Father,’ said Sebastian; but when their father had left the hotel for the short, downhill walk to Puffins, he turned on his sister reproachfully. ‘You little chump,’ he said. ‘Now bang goes our chance of getting in on the ground floor of this frightful but exciting business.’

‘The Tutor will tell us all about it, and report what Dame Beatrice has to say.’

‘Like hell he will! When did he ever take us completely into his confidence? He still thinks we’re a couple of kids and he’s as secretive as a clam, anyway. He’ll tell us just as much as he thinks it’s good for us to know, and that will be damn all, I can assure you. No, you young fathead, you’ve sold the pass. What on earth was there to be scared of, anyway, so long as you stayed in the hotel? You didn’t need to spend the evening alone in the chalet.’

‘I didn’t say I was scared. I didn’t see why I should be left out of the fun, that’s all.’

‘Oh, well, it’s all done with and settled now, so that’s that, I suppose.’

‘Well, stop complaining, then. I don’t often interfere with your plans. The fact is, Seb, that I don’t like and I don’t trust Miss Crimp, and the thought of being left alone here does scare me. She gives me goose flesh.’

‘Yet you bearded her in her den and made her give The Tutor a room. Oh, well, girls will be girls, I suppose. Perhaps we can pump Laura Gavin when we go for our morning bathe.’

‘Oh, Seb, I’m sorry I interfered.’

‘Say no more about it. What shall we do to pass the rest of the evening?’

‘Are we waiting up for The Tutor, then? There really doesn’t seem much point.’

‘Oh, well, you go to bed, then, but I expect he’ll like to find one of us awake when he gets back.’

‘I say, Seb, you do think Aunt Eliza was murdered for her money, don’t you?’

‘I don’t see what else there is to think. That’s if she was murdered, you know. It seems an open question.’

‘But if it was for what she had to leave, isn’t Ransome in rather a peculiar position?’

‘Well, I suppose he’d be one of the claimants, but, then, so are we, as you rather boldly pointed out to The Tutor.’

‘That’s true, so far as it goes. Why, though, did Ransome tell us Aunt Eliza was in debt? If that’s true, it lets him out.’

‘And us, too, no doubt—not that anybody could suspect The Tutor of murdering anybody. It isn’t his scene.’

‘To go back to Ransome…’

‘Well?’

‘Perhaps it’s only since Aunt’s death that he found out she had nothing to leave but debts.’

‘If we’re going in for wild speculations, the same could apply to Miss Crimp.’

‘But she denied that there were any debts, didn’t she?’

‘Could be camouflage. Anyway, it can be proved that, if Aunt Eliza was murdered, none of our family could have done it. She was dead before we set foot on the island.’

‘That’s a comfort, anyhow. Do you know, I think I will go to bed, if you’re sure you don’t mind.’

‘All right, unless you’d like a knock-up at table tennis first. Among the other (possibly unpaid-for) improvements listed on the brochure, I seem to remember a notice that one of the chalets is listed as a games room. Shall we toddle across and take a butcher’s?’

‘Oh, very well, then. We’d better change our shoes, though. I must, anyway. I can’t play table tennis in my