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When Dame Beatrice gave voice to what appeared to be a controversial remark, Laura knew that somewhere behind it there was something to be puzzled over and sorted out. It was of no use to ask for an explanation, so she put her mind to work but could not believe that Dame Beatrice thought Garnet guilty.
She was so silent at breakfast on the following morning that Dame Beatrice asked her how she had slept. Laura replied that she supposed she had enjoyed her usual four hours, which, indeed, was her average period of sleep and all that she appeared to need, and then said plaintively: ‘Won’t you at least give me a clue?’
‘To what, dear child?’
‘To the identity of our murderer, of course.’
‘But I am not able to prove anything. I know who the murderer must be, but that, as you know, is not enough. Of course I can tell you what is in my mind, but I don’t know whether it will convey anything to yours. I learnt, when I visited Mrs Porthcawl and Miss Bute yesterday, that Mrs Leyden’s first name was Romula.’
‘How does that help?’
‘I think it may account for the method which was used to murder her. It appears that her father would have preferred a son and would have named him Romulus. Earlier I had learned from Mrs Bosse-Leyden that Mrs Leyden was less generous in helping her blood-relations than in giving financial aid and sometimes her affection to what one may call the co-opted members of her family.’
‘So that looks as though one of the real family was the murderer.’
‘Except that sometimes people are less grateful for benefits received than the donors think they should be.’
‘In other words, it is more satisfying to give than to receive, leaving blessedness out of it for the moment.
‘But wouldn’t a divorce have cut him straight out of the whatever?’
‘I have thought all along that the method used to kill Mrs Leyden was unnecessarily elaborate. Why, I asked myself, go to all the trouble and take all the risk of preparing a poisoned condiment, digging up, for the purpose, roots from somebody else’s garden, invading Mrs Plack’s kitchen in order to substitute a jar of poison for a similar but innocuous jar—all this when a simple, determined push in the back when she was on one of her cliff walks would have settled the outcome in a matter of seconds?’
‘But somebody did try that, I thought, and it didn’t work.’
‘It didn’t work because it was not, in my opinion, a murderous attempt, but I shall know more about that when I have questioned the person concerned.’
‘And the person concerned was not the person who provided the jar of poison?’
‘I think not, for the simple reason that a similar slight but not really dangerous push seems to have been given to Mrs Bosse-Leyden when she was out with her dogs.’
‘The same person could have it in for both of them.’
‘True. You refer, no doubt, to—’
‘Rupert Bosse-Leyden. According to the gossip we’ve heard, and what with one thing and another, he would have been glad to get rid of Diana and marry Fiona Bute, and he can’t have loved the old lady very much if she threw his illegitimate birth in his face.’
‘He had only to divorce Diana. There was no need to kill her.’
‘But wouldn’t a divorce have cut him straight out of the old lady’s Will?’
‘He had no expectations there, and (mark this, for it is very important) neither had his wife.’
‘But his children were included.’
‘It seems that nobody in the family had ever thought they would be. That may have been the one big surprise contained in the Will.’
‘What about the inclusion of young Gamaliel?’
‘That seems to have surprised nobody. It appears that the old lady had taken a great fancy to the lad. Besides, he is on my list of those who had been co-opted into the family. Included are Fiona Bute, Antonia Aysgarth, Parsifal Leek and Diana Bosse-Leyden. Each of them, in one way or another, seems to have received generous treatment, apart from what was left to any of them in the Will.’
‘Yes, they didn’t come off too well in that, did they? Do you mean that one of them murdered her out of pique?’
‘Not altogether, and certainly not because he or she was not mentioned in the Will. We have it from reliable sources that nobody really knew what the terms of the Will would be, although there seems to have been a considerable amount of guesswork. All the same, pique (or, as I would put it, bitter resentment) did come into the matter.’
‘How are you going to get the proof you need?’
‘Ultimately by the murderer’s own confession, but to extort that confession there are one or two facts we need to know, and here your acquaintanceship with Mattie Lunn may be of help. I would like you to get her to confirm that her brother took Mrs Leyden and Mrs Porthcawl out in the car on the Friday, ask her what he did on the Saturday and whether, on either afternoon, she saw any visitors come to the house, and particularly anybody who slipped in by the side door.’
‘Can do. Maybe she’ll hire me out another horse. That was a fine animal I rode yesterday and down here you don’t need to dress the part, so jeans and a sweater will fill the bill.’
‘One more thing: I want you to find out from Mattie Lunn the name of the person who supplies dairy produce,
