Nest of Vipers

‘In a sense I suppose she wasn’t so very far wrong,’ I said, ‘when you think of that young goat Hempseed and his wife-swapping nonsense and Targe going all maudlin and making scandalous suggestions to me about you.’

‘Yes,’ said Niobe a trifle frostily, I thought. (Could she have enjoyed the old reprobate’s drunken kisses?) ‘Yes perhaps Miss Minnie wasn’t so far wrong, as you say, but, you know, Chelion, I think Billie Kennett is right. She says nobody could be so secretive and peculiar as Miss Minnie unless she was a woman with a past.’

‘I expect she’s a reformed and retired Madame,’ I said lightly. ‘She has the look of one.’

‘You get the idea from having spent a year in Paris, I suppose,’ said Niobe markedly changing her tone.

‘Not at all. Just my imagination functioning. In France I don’t believe a Madame ever retires.’

‘Anyway, I’m glad Miss Minnie didn’t come to the party. I wish Irelath and Sumatra hadn’t turned it down, though. We could have done with them. The others were a pretty stodgy lot,’ said Niobe, ‘whether they got drunk or stayed sober.’

‘Billie and Elysee,’ I suggested, ‘were lively enough.’

‘They make me sick. You know, I still have old-fashioned prejudices, Chelion.’

‘Live and let live is my motto. They won’t do any harm if they’re left alone,’ I said uncomfortably.

‘I suppose you’d say that about a tarantula or a black mamba!’

‘Why not? – provided it didn’t choose me for its victim, of course, and neither of the girls is likely to do that.’

I hoped she did not know of the rush I had so misguidedly given Elysee, so I changed the subject with what may have been injudicious haste when she said, with a certain emphasis, ‘Neither of the girls?’

‘Why,’ I asked, ‘are you glad that Miss Minnie did not come to the party? Just because some of the company got tight and stepped a bit out of line? She may be a curmudgeonly old harridan, but it seems to me that she must be a pretty lonely one. Do her good to see something of the rest of us, one would have thought.’

‘She sees something of Elysee Barnes,’ said Niobe. ‘That nymph picks her up in their little car when Billie Kennett isn’t using it and runs her into the town for shopping.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I keep my eyes and ears open.’

‘But I thought Miss Minnie had refused all offers of a lift into the town.’

‘From the men, yes. Incidentally, what was in that letter you opened by mistake the other day?’

Well, now, Dame Beatrice, I had better come clean about that letter. It had lain on the hall table for a couple of days without being claimed and it had been postmarked with one of those advertising slogans the Post Office is so fond of. The result was that the name of the intended recipient was almost obscured. Thinking that I had better find out for whom it was intended, I slit the letter open, but as soon as I saw it began: ‘Dear Sister in Pan,’ I guessed for whom it was intended and, as Niobe was about to walk into the village and would be passing near enough to the bungalow, I asked her to drop it in, and remarked that I would tell the postman that any correspondence for Miss Minnie should be left at The Lodge. I slipped a note in with the letter apologising for having opened it in error and suggesting that Miss Minnie make a point of informing her correspondents of her correct address.

‘I have no idea what was in the letter,’ I said, nettled by Niobe’s tone. ‘Have you? You took it over to her.’

‘I do know something of what was in it, Chelion,’ said Niobe, ‘but not because I read it. Miss Minnie herself tackled me about it because the letter had been opened. She was furious about it. “I suppose that upstart thinks I have no claim,” she said, “but this house is mine. He can open all the letters he likes, but one day I shall make my claim good and he can go back to his job as bath-attendant.” ’

I had no idea that Miss Minnie knew of my swimming pool era. I could only suppose that she had instituted some enquiries. I certainly thought she had a bee in her bonnet about my inheritance, so all I said was:

‘If she can prove her claim, good luck to her. Does she think she ought to have Mrs Dupont-Jacobson’s money as well?’

Niobe said, eyeing me without friendliness.

‘I don’t know. I only know that she begrudges the rent she pays. She told me so and gave me the reason. She claims that she was Mrs Dupont-Jacobson’s next of kin and that a later will exists than the one which gave you the property.’

‘You had better refer her to the lawyers. Heaven knows I don’t want to do her out of her rights, if she has any, but I don’t really think she has,’ I said.

‘Of course she hasn’t. If you ask me, she’s just a bewildered, rather nasty old thing with a grudge against you.’

I was not easy in my mind. It had never seemed to me likely that Mrs Dupont-Jacobson had no living relatives. There was every chance that one day (and sooner rather than later) one of them would turn up and contest the will, but the lawyers had been satisfied that everything was in order and I had taken their word for it. Now I began to doubt, as I had done at first, and my mind was not eased by a series of small, but, it seems to me now, significant events which followed my house-warming party.

(4)

The first of these was ludicrous, rather than alarming. At Niobe’s instigation we had decided to re-name the house. So far, it had been called Creek Dupont.

‘It’s an awful name,’ said Niobe. ‘It sounds like a not too choosy country club with a dubious reputation.’

‘Well, that’s what you’ve turned it into, by and large,’ I pointed out. ‘Still, I’d like to get rid of the Dupont angle, ungrateful to my benefactor though it may be to say so. Anyway, what shall we call it?’