Nest of Vipers

‘No, the place is hardly burglar-proof, madam.’

(‘Nor murderer-proof,’ thought Dame Beatrice.) ‘If you were moved to drown somebody at the bottom of the lawn, George,’ she said to him, ‘would you take the trouble to carry the body back to this bungalow and then indulge in the pleasure of smashing it over the head?’

‘That, in any case, seems unnecessary, madam, if the body was already a dead one. Possibly the murderer would not have been certain that life was already extinct, though.’

‘I have an idea that this particular murderer knew all the tests to make sure of that, George.’

‘Then the assault on the head seems to have been superfluous, madam.’

‘Or merely an act of sheer spitefulness, but, in that case, I wonder why? But it is the risk the murderer took in bringing the body back from the water which has worried me from the beginning.’

‘Is it certain that the victim was drowned in the sea, madam? This bungalow has a bathroom with a full-sized bath in it.’

‘The body had drowned in sea water. There was sea water (tested) in the lungs and a small piece of seaweed was found on the body. All the same, I am sure you are right. She was not drowned in the sea. Now that I have seen this place I am convinced of that.’

(3)

The invitation to take mid-morning coffee with Constance Kent came as a surprise until Dame Beatrice realised that she was to be the recipient of confidences of a kind which could not be disclosed in front of Evesham Evans, Constance’s husband. His temporary absence – he had gone to the bank to draw out some money, his wife explained – gave Constance a chance to unburden herself and she took full advantage of it. The fact of police surveillance, dwelt on with bitter indignation by the torrid novelist, suggested to Dame Beatrice that the case of the police against Chelion Piper was not as strong as they would have liked it to be and that they were half-expecting a Micawber-like something to turn up, a something which might well cause them to revise their first opinion that Chelion was a murderer. Having expressed herself forcibly on the subject of police interference with the rights of British citizens, Constance went on:

‘Of course, nobody believes that Chelion murdered that wretched woman.’ At Dame Beatrice’s well-simulated look of surprise, she gave an account of the circumstances which had overtaken Weston Pipers.

‘Then why is he under arrest?’ asked Dame Beatrice innocently.

‘Well, Evesham thinks it’s just a ruse, you know.’

‘A ruse?’

‘Oh, my dear Mrs Farintosh, the police are up to all kinds of tricks these days. Evesham says that the real murderer thinks he is perfectly safe and so he’ll do some stupid thing or other and give the game away. Poor Chelion – such a nice, modest, unassuming fellow and so much liked by everybody – is just a stool-pigeon, Evesham says.’

‘Your husband appears to have given a great deal of thought to the matter.’

‘Well, of course, he was there with Chelion and that sinister man Latimer Targe when they found her body, you know. Targe made off at once on the excuse of telephoning the doctor and the police, but I always think there is something very underhand and unpleasant about a man who earns his living by wallowing in crime.’

‘Oh? How does Mr Targe do that?’

‘He looks up and writes up real-life murder cases, but, of course, a person of your education and breeding – it’s easy to tell the real sort when you meet them, isn’t it? – would never dream of touching his books.’

‘Risque?’ asked Dame Beatrice in a low and horrified tone.

‘Worse, my dear. After all, sex is a perfectly natural thing, whatever strange antics it may get up to, as I try to explain in my novels. Not that I could ever approve or countenance the path pursued by those two young women who left us just about the time of Miss Minnie’s death.’

‘Oh, dear me! You found their conduct shocking?’

‘Yes, indeed. Such strange goings-on! I believe the Greeks had a word for it, but I simply call it unhealthy. And the names they choose to be known by! Billie, for instance. Why could she not write under the name of Wilhelmina, which must have been how she was christened, if indeed she was christened at all. And the other one, Elysee, when of course her real name is simple, undistinguished Elsie! I wonder she did not call herself Desiree and have done with it.’

‘So you got rid of them?’

‘My dear, I had to insist that Miss Nutley did. They were a most undesirable pair. Besides, Evesham had begun making what used to be called sheep’s eyes at Elysee. Never, Mrs Farintosh, be persuaded to marry a man younger than yourself.’

‘I was not so persuaded and the chance is unlikely to be presented to me now.’

‘Ah, well, I spoke rhetorically. I made that mistake and have regretted it for years. My marriage, Mrs Farintosh, has not been a happy or an easy one.’

Dame Beatrice said she was sorry to hear it, but she supposed that nobody’s life was a bed of roses.

‘You may wonder,’ Constance went rightly ignoring this deplorable cliche, ‘why I write the kind of novels I do. With my undoubted talents I could have done anything, simply anything I chose, Mrs Farintosh.’

Dame Beatrice said that Thomas Gray had been so right, so very right.

‘Thomas Gray? You mean Gray of Gray’s Elegy?’

Yes, Dame Beatrice had meant Gray of Gray’s Elegy. (It sounded like some owner of a stately home open to the public at fifty pence a time, she thought.) She quoted: