Nest of Vipers

‘Still, he couldn’t have murdered the shopkeeper. He was still under arrest when that happened.’

‘Was he? You made that point earlier, but nobody knows the exact time of that murder, you know. He certainly had not been killed as recently as on the day that you discovered the body.’

‘I suppose the medical evidence will show when he died.’

‘Within limits, yes. Actually, I do not suspect Mr Piper, but we must do our best to find an alibi for him if the medical evidence does not exonerate him. But first for Miss Kennett – not that I expect to get any more from her than some confidences regarding Miss Barnes and those lifts into the town which were given to Miss Minnie. This may give us a lead, or it may not. My chief hope lies with Mr Shard.’

‘Nasty little man!’

‘Little is the operative word. He regards his lack of inches in the light of a physical disability, I think, and that gives him a claim on our charity. This “house of dust” in which we are all imprisoned is of such paramount importance to most of us that any blemish or inadequacy in it is a matter of grave concern.’

‘Seems dotty to me.’

‘Ah, but, you see, your magnificent frame is neither blemished nor inadequate, so you are not qualified to judge the probably misguided but very painful reactions of less favoured mortals, dear child.’

Chapter Fifteen

The Witches and Mr Shard

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(1)

BILLIE KENNETT was alone. So was Dame Beatrice, for she had left Laura behind, divining rightly that Billie (and Elysee, if she happened to be at home) would talk more freely if an observer and shorthand writer were not present. Laura concurred whole-heartedly with this view and was only too thankful to remain at the hotel, feeling (although she did not express the thought) ill-at-ease in the company of two women who were emotionally involved with one another. To Dame Beatrice, Billie was not only willing but anxious to talk.

‘I first noticed a difference in Ellie about four months ago,’ she said. ‘She seemed just as keen on our friendship, but somehow I felt that something had gone wrong with the relationship. She had strange moods and there were occasions when I suspected she might be taking drugs. Once I asked her outright if this was so. She denied it, of course, but I wasn’t really satisfied. Then she began wanting the use of the car more often than she had ever needed it before, but she said she had made a new contact who wanted her to model ski-clothes for him and she was anxious to do it, so I said no more, but let her have the car whenever she asked for it. I never suspected the Minnie angle, or what she was really up to, of course, or I would have stepped in.’

‘And what was that?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. ‘What was she up to?’

‘You know enough to be able to guess that. She had got herself mixed up with these black magic people and I think she had gone too far to be able to extricate herself safely. I really do draw the line at black magic. It’s horrible. Ordinary white witchcraft cults, well, they’re all over the place these days.’

‘I think they always were, but I suppose they were kept underground until the laws were repealed,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘All comes of this breakdown of orthodox religion, I suppose. Anyway, between true witches and the Satanists there’s the same distinction as there is between black and white.’

‘Between white and black, surely?’

‘Same thing.’

‘By no means, but let it pass. So when did you suspect that Miss Barnes had involved herself in undesirable activities? You spoke of four months ago. What happened then?’

‘I saw the Satan-marks on her body. When people live cheek-by-jowl in a couple of rooms, as we did at Vipers, and both had a living to earn, you share the accommodation as best you can because time is precious, especially in the mornings, when you’ve got to get off to work, so if Ellie happened to be in the bath and I wanted to brush my teeth, well, of course, I just went into the bathroom and got on with the teeth-cleaning. One morning I happened to notice some angry-looking marks on her body, one on each breast and one near her navel, so I asked her what on earth she’d been doing to herself.’

‘The Devil’s signs, of course. In the old days the witches were thought to come by the marks through his agency. What did she say?’

‘Passed the marks off as mosquito bites. I was sure they were nothing of the sort, but I had no idea at the time that they were initiation marks. I thought perhaps she had a lover and that they were instances—’ her face twisted in a grimace of angry disgust – ‘of the divine passion. I was jealous and afraid. I’d felt for some time that she was no longer satisfied with our relationship. I loved her and wanted the best for her, so I accepted what I thought was the situation and tried all ways to find out who the man was.

‘I knew she flirted a bit with one or two of the men at Vipers, but I soon dismissed them from my calculations because those of them who could have had any attraction for anybody as beautiful as Ellie were well and truly tied up already, so I wasn’t really afraid I was going to lose her to any of them there.’

‘Mr Piper himself?’

‘Oh, I expect he made a pass or two before they jugged him, but there was nothing in it. I think Chelion is a bit of a monk where women are concerned and I expect he was too thankful to have escaped Niobe’s clutches to tie himself up seriously with anybody else. Anyway, I tried my hardest to find out what was going on.’

‘And then?’

‘Nothing else for a long time, except that Ellie wouldn’t allow me ever to see her in the bath any more. I accepted that, the same as I had accepted her explanation about the mosquito bites. Everybody has the option of privacy, and once, as I thought, she’d got a lover, well, I decided to bow myself out.’

‘You seem to have behaved with great sympathy and self-restraint.’