Nest of Vipers

‘I wasn’t alone.’

‘I believe not.’

‘Here is a piece of paper,’ said Niobe, producing a writing-tablet of plain paper. ‘Mrs Gavin,’ she added, ‘wishes to draw a picture she has seen in a junk shop.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Why, Mr Piper,’ asked Laura, accepting the writing-tablet and fishing out a pencil, ‘have you been released before trial?’

‘Oh, at my last remand the beaks came to the sensible conclusion that no case against me would hold water.’

‘Unlike the corpse,’ said Laura, with intentional bluntness. ‘Oh, stop it!’ she added fiercely, as Niobe burst into sobs. ‘I suppose it was the evidence provided by the buckets of sea water which let you out, Mr Piper.’

‘You appear to know things which have not, so far as I am aware, appeared in the newspapers, Madam.’

It was Laura’s turn to shrug her shoulders, and the gesture roused Niobe to tearful, sudden, unexpected and impassioned speech. Piper stared at her, said ‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ and went into his own room, slamming the door.

‘Irelath Moore and Sumatra are a couple apart from the rest of us,’ Niobe was saying, ‘and I’m sure Evesham Evans suspected nothing when Constance paid so many visits to her publishers. And that awful little Shard was always going out to tea—’

‘Cassie McHaig must have had some difficulty in hoodwinking Hempseed,’ said Laura, boldly chancing her arm and seizing up this surprising opening.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Niobe seemed to be regaining her self-control. ‘I had my suspicions of her. She could always make excuses to get out of the house if she wanted to, and Polly had what you might call a static job here and always wrote his sob-stuff letters in his own room. He and Cassie used to have lots of rows and refused to see each other or speak or even go to bed together for days on end.’

‘What made you get rid of Billie Kennett and Elysee Barnes?’ asked Laura. ‘They were harmless, I would have thought, from what I know of them. Anyway, they might have been pleased to be included.’

‘Not Kennett. Besides, the Master only co-opted those whom he could trust. Our band—’ She dropped her voice and glanced at Piper’s closed door.

‘Your band, yes. The other is somewhat different.’ (I am talking through the back of my neck, thought Laura. She only hoped she could get away with what was becoming a gigantic bluff.)

‘Different?’ said Niobe.

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me more?’

‘My drawings will tell you everything you want to know.’

But at this point Niobe seemed to lose her nervousness. She looked narrowly at Laura.

‘If you are what you say you are—’ she began.

‘I have said nothing yet.’

‘Oh, but of course you have! If you are what you claim to be, why have I never seen you before?’

‘Oh, but you have! That is to say, you have seen my familiar. By the way, before I draw my picture, we need a witness.’

‘To what?’

‘To the drawing itself, for one thing, and to make sure you don’t start any funny business, for another, while I am absorbed in my task.’

‘Perhaps you would care to name the witness, since you seem to know some of my tenants so well,’ said Niobe, tearful again, but with a sarcastic edge to her voice.

‘Certainly. Please send for your charwoman.’

So Mrs Smith was summoned and stood by while Laura sketched the picture with which the junk-shop proprietor had refused to part.

‘Yes, fair enough,’ Niobe admitted, ‘but any ordinary shop-customer could have seen that. It is kept hanging on the wall behind the counter.’

‘Just so. I wonder,’ said Laura, turning to the interested and puzzled charwoman, ‘whether you would be good enough to sign my drawing, Mrs Smith?’

‘Who? Me? I don’t sign nothing without I know what I am signing. No small print don’t fool me,’ said the factotum severely. ‘They warns you on the telly.’

‘So they do.’ Laura put the drawing into her handbag and, unsheathing the yataghan, she asked: ‘In your peregrinations round and about this house, have you ever seen this sword before?’

‘No, that I haven’t,’ said Mrs Smith, ‘and would not wish to do. I hate anything of that sort. And now, if it’s all the same, my time is worth money and I’ve still got Mr Targe to do.’ She made a dignified exit. Laura put down the yataghan, but kept it, still unsheathed, under her hand. With the other hand she pointed to a chair in a corner of the room but on its window side, so that, from where she was, she could keep an eye on it and on its occupant.

Niobe took the seat which had been indicated, and, with a few swift lines, Laura sketched the evil-looking object which had taken the place of the picture and dropped some red ink on it from the bottle on the desk. Then she stood up, picked up her naked yataghan and moved a little way off from the desk, indicating, with a wave of the hand and a masterful jerk of the head, that Niobe, who was clearly in a state of ferment, was to approach.