Nest of Vipers

Chapter Nine

Billie and the Witch

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‘I EXPECT you yourself can tell me anything I need to know,’ said Dame Beatrice, when the three of them were seated in a tiny room which overlooked a scrap of green hardly large enough to be called a lawn, ‘unless you would prefer to wait until Miss Barnes comes in.’

‘She won’t,’ said Billie, her square face firmly set and her eyes full of misery. ‘She’s left me. She went off yesterday with a man.’

‘Would you rather I came back another day, I wonder?’

‘No, it wouldn’t make any difference. It’s about this business at The Vipers, I think you said. Don’t know that I can tell you much about it. We got out before any of it happened.’

‘So I understand.’

‘Anonymous letters, you know. Why should anybody bother to throw filth about? We had no enemies. We did nobody any harm.’

‘I am surprised that in these days you paid any attention to the letters.’

‘I wouldn’t have done. It was Elysee who couldn’t take what they dished out. I know why, now, of course. She was afraid of losing this bloke she’s gone off with. She must have thought he’d opt out if the facts of our – well, our friendship – came his way.’

‘Did you know, while you were living at Weston Pipers, that this man existed?’

‘Yes, and I’ve always been prepared. What’s your connection with Weston Pipers, anyway? What’s the Home Office got to do with Chelion Piper?’

‘Well, nobody wants a miscarriage of justice, surely?’

‘Personally, I couldn’t care less. I don’t suppose there’s such a thing as justice in this world and, as I don’t believe in the next one, it goes for that, too.’

‘I was referring to the law. It has its own interpretation of the word. From what you saw of Mr Piper during your stay at the mansion, what opinion did you form concerning his character?’

‘Ah,’ said Billie, her sombre expression settling into easier lines, ‘now that’s a question I can answer. I’ve thought about him a lot since he was arrested, and I feel perfectly certain he didn’t drown that old woman. My job is reporting crime, so I tag along to all the big trials. There’s always a public for details of murder, rape, arson and so forth. Same public as screams its stupid head off at dirty little jokes and sexy innuendo, I dare say. How I loathe and despise it!’

‘So you have attended several trials for murder,’ said Dame Beatrice, stemming the flow before it could develop into what she suspected might become a torrent.

‘That’s what I’m saying. I’ve seen a number of murderers in the dock and this Piper ought not to be one of them.’

‘Can you produce chapter and verse?’

‘No. One gets an impression, that’s all. Actually I had very little to do with him. All the business dealings were with the bitch.’

‘With Miss Nutley?’

‘Yes, if you prefer to call her that. My other name for her is Nut Case.’

‘Really? A play upon her surname?’

‘More of a play upon her nature. I called her a bitch just now, but not in the sense that most women call other women bitches. Niobe Nutley was a cringing, whining, please-don’t-kick-me little whelpess who’d attached herself to Piper in the most sickening way you can imagine. Of course, you never saw them together, did you?’

‘No, I had not that affecting experience. My impression of Miss Nutley was of a hard-headed businesswoman with unexpectedly sensitive tear-ducts.’

Billie’s heavy, sardonic expression had vanished. She lifted her head and laughed aloud in an unaffected shout of amusement.

‘I say,’ she said, ‘would you mind if I used that at some time? It’s rather good.’

‘I resign the copyright to you.’

‘Unexpectedly sensitive tear-ducts! Yes, they’re so very sensitive that one suspects the tears may be of the crocodile variety. I mean, it was because of what she told the police that Piper got arrested.’

‘If you were not there at the time, how do you know that?’

‘Through my job. I wasn’t sent along to cover the case, but I knew the chap on our paper who got the assignment. Niobe seems to have spread herself on the subject of sea bathing and Minnie’s expectations under Chelion’s patroness’s will.’

‘Did you see anything of Miss Minnie while you were at Weston Pipers?’

‘No. She was an unsociable old pussycat and didn’t mix with the sinful likes of us. Elysee used to say she was sorry for her, but my view is that you choose your own way of life and, if you aren’t cut out to be a mixer, why try to mix? In a way I envied the old girl her independence. It’s not much fun, really and truly, being a slave to another person, whether it’s lover, husband, elderly invalid, or widower father. I’ve experienced most of all that in my time – except the husband angle, of course.’

‘You must have a strong protective instinct and a very large heart.’