Fault in the Structure

affected were being sent home and should be met at Waterloo railway station.

Before they left the inspector, Dame Beatrice had obtained from him the name of the concert party which enjoyed Coralie St Malo’s services and Dame Beatrice’s official card sent in at the morning rehearsal brought a beaming Coralie round to the hotel for lunch.

She was somewhat of a surprise. She was a big woman, quietly dressed, and her make-up was discreet; also, although she spoke in a rather strident, self-assertive voice, her manners would have passed muster anywhere. She appeared to be about thirty years old and she gave an impression of toughness and natural self-confidence. She refused a cocktail and drank very little wine with her meal. They took this at twelve-thirty so that she could get back in good time for the afternoon performance.

‘That heel?’ she said, when Dame Beatrice introduced Lawrence’s name. ‘Yes, I met him and we had a drink together. He wanted to re-marry me, but I thought, “Once bitten, twice shy”. He said he was coming into a lot of money and couldn’t we try to make a go of it again.’

‘Re-marry?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Yes, of all the impudence.’

‘You mean that you had been divorced?’

‘I’ll say! I divorced him at the end of the time allowed for desertion. The suit was undefended. That’s why you won’t have heard of it, I expect.’

‘You know, of course, that he had married a Miss Caret?’

‘Told me his divorce from her was pending. Instead, he cut her throat.’

‘There is surely no evidence of that?’

‘Who needs evidence? You’ve only got to know him. My belief is he did in that poor old gentleman, Sir Anthony, too, who was always so good to him.’

‘Oh, you knew Sir Anthony, did you?’

‘Of course not. Thaddy – he didn’t like me shortening his name, but how can you be expected to call anybody Thaddeus? – it wasn’t his real name, anyway. Well, Thaddy wouldn’t ever let me meet Sir Anthony. Kept me dark because I was common, you see. Thought perhaps he wouldn’t get Sir Anthony’s money if the old gentleman found out he’d married somebody on the concert-party stage and, like a fool, I played along with it and let him go off up north where he said he’d send for me when he’d saved enough to put down on a little house. Well, of course, that never came off, so when the time was up I divorced him for desertion and irretrievable breakdown, as they call it, but I didn’t know that in the meantime he’d taken up with this Caret girl. I found that out later.’

‘So his marriage to Miss Caret might have been bigamous if it took place before you divorced him?’

‘I suppose so. I wished her joy of him when I found out, which wasn’t until after my divorce, and much joy she’s had, poor girl, with her throat cut and buried in a nasty, dirty sack!’

‘I am interested in your opinion that Lawrence is a murderer. May I ask what may seem to be an impertinent and very personal question, Miss St Malo?’ said Dame Beatrice. Coralie looked anxious and, for the first time during the interview, her self-confidence seemed to falter.

‘I don’t take offence where there’s no call for it,’ she said, twisting her hands together.

‘Thank you. We – the police and I – were told that after the meeting at the public house near Bicester you invited Mr Lawrence to your lodgings, where he stayed for about an hour.’

‘He drove me home from the Bicester pub, same as he drove me out there, but I never asked him in and he never came in. Who told you he did?’ Her tone was sharper than before.

‘One of the scouts at Wayneflete College. At least, he is no longer in service there. He resigned because of an accusation made against him by Mr Lawrence.’

‘Oh, Alf Bird! He’s a snout and a liar. Everybody knows that. Never happy unless he’s got hold of some tit-bit of muck about somebody. He’s the original Little-Bird-Told-Me. Thaddy took me up to my front door, took my key like the gentleman he always pretended to be, let me in and then handed back the key and drove off. Bird was just spreading dirt, as usual.’

‘Could be true, I suppose,’ said Laura, when Dame Beatrice, brought back to Stone House by her chauffeur George, had given an account of the interview. ‘Shall you see this man Bird?’

‘At this stage it would be useless. He will repeat his story, whether it is true or not. Miss St Malo herself may be lying. Some of the time, in fact, I am sure she was. The next thing, as I see it, is to find that watch. Even if one of the porters did steal it – a matter difficult of credence in the case of men who held a position of such trust – it cannot still be in the possession of either Oates or Wagstaffe.’

‘No. I imagine their hut and their homes have had a pretty fair going-over by the police, and if either of them had sold or popped the watch locally, that would have come out long before this. Are you proposing to go and look for the watch yourself?’

‘No,’ replied Dame Beatrice, pretending to take the question seriously. ‘That would be beyond my scope, I fear. I shall suggest to the Chief Constable that he put it to the inspector that another attempt be made to extract information from old Sir Anthony’s servants. It would not surprise me to learn that the watch was never posted at all, but was stolen from Sir Anthony’s own house.’

‘By Lawrence?’

‘According to Ferdinand’s report of his conversations with the Warden of Wayneflete College, it would be quite in keeping with Lawrence’s reputation. But, to turn to a pleasanter subject, what have you done with my rusticated god-daughter? I expected and hoped to find her here.’

‘Sorry, but I wasn’t sure how much we’d be here ourselves while this business was still going on, so as it is so near her school summer holiday I’ve shipped her up to my brother and his wife in Scotland. She was due to go there in a few days’ time, anyway.’

‘I am sorry to have missed her, but perhaps she is safer out of the way.’