Nest of Vipers

‘Blackmailer?’ Billie had changed colour. ‘How did you get on to that? He tried it on us, you know – on Elysee and me – and, in the end, of course, it got her down and she pestered me to agree that we’d leave and find somewhere else to live.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I was under the impression that you left Weston Pipers because of an anonymous letter. I have the best reasons for believing that I know who wrote it, but it was not Mr Shard that time.’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘No.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t?’

‘Because the author of it confessed to being the writer.’

‘Any use to ask who it was?’

‘No.’

‘Well, did this person write the other letters as well?’

‘I think not. I think the letter you received was – and will be – the only one to emanate from this particular source.’

‘Oh,’ said Billie, ‘I suppose it was that poisonous cat Constance Kent, then. She tried to give me a heart-to- heart once, but I soon showed her the door – with a carving-knife in my hand, I don’t mind admitting. I could soon have sorted her out, anyway. It didn’t need threats. I knew she had had an illegit. kid and murdered it.’

‘Mrs Evans?’

‘None other. I covered the case, so I know. Of course she didn’t know me, but I recognised her as soon as I met her at Vipers. It was a local case and I was only a cub reporter at the time. It was before she married Evesham, of course. They’ve only been married about five years. She got off on the score of diminished responsibility and, anyway, they didn’t really prove that it was a wilful act, so the beaks took the broad, charitable view. She changed her name to the one she uses for her books, but I always thought it was an odd thing to pick as her pseudonym the name of another child-murderess.’

‘There are doubts about the first Constance Kent.’

‘Oh, well, let it go. Is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘Only one thing – and you may not be willing to do it.’

‘You mean I haven’t been of any help, so far, but if I find out where Polly and Elysee are living, you’d like the address. Very well. My personal feelings are of much less importance than that Piper should be cleared. I don’t hold much of a brief for men – I’ve worked with them too long to have many illusions about them – but Piper’s all right and he is certainly no murderer of old ladies.’

‘Did you know that, among all the inhabitants of Weston Pipers, your friend Miss Barnes probably knew Miss Minnie best?’

‘Elysee?’

‘Yes. I understand that, when she had the use of your car, she was accustomed to giving Miss Minnie a lift into the town.’

‘First I’ve heard of it.’

‘Would you have objected?’

‘Of course not. Elysee knew that, or she would have mentioned it.’

‘May I ask a question which, without your permission, I have no right to ask?’

‘If you’re going to ask about my relationship with Elysee—’

‘Oh, gracious me, no! It is only those relationships which lead to crime that concern me.’

‘Love is love,’ said Billie, tritely and unanswerably. ‘You don’t go in search of it. It finds you, and, when it does, you’ve had it – in both senses. Never mind that. What’s your question?’

‘I will put it bluntly. Did you leave Weston Pipers because you could not pay the rent, and not because of anonymous letters?’

‘No. We shared it fifty-fifty, like the housekeeping and holidays. We managed all right. Has anybody suggested we left in arrears?’

‘No, nothing of that sort.’

‘Then why did you ask?’

‘To clear up a small point.’

‘Of course,’ said Billie, ‘there was a scale of charges, you know. Our rent was a good deal less than the first- floor people paid. I say, I rather wish Elysee had just mentioned that she was in the habit of giving Miss Minnie a lift in the car. Seems funny that she didn’t tell me, now I come to think of it. We always told each other everything.’

‘So often a disastrous policy. In any case, I take it that Miss Barnes did not tell you that she intended to elope.’

‘Only at the very last minute, but, as I told you, I wasn’t all that much surprised. The only surprise I felt was that I couldn’t understand her choosing Polly Hempseed.’

‘Perhaps there was no choice.’

‘You don’t mean that in quite the way it sounds,’ said Billie shrewdly. ‘What’s the double