The Mudflats of the Dead

‘Everything, I think, but I like to check my findings. The signature on the letter is known to have been forged. Mr Palgrave was murdered before he could repudiate the letter and ask that publication should go ahead as planned. Where did you stay on the night of his death? You may, I think, have been somewhere in London. The police are still trying to trace his movements on that night.’

‘They can go on trying. Why should I tell you anything?’

‘There is no reason why you should. If you choose to keep your own counsel, the law must take its course, that is all.’

‘You mean I’ll be charged with forgery? Oh, but it was such a little thing I did! It isn’t like forging a cheque or a will, is it?’

‘I think perhaps it is worse. No doubt Mr Palgrave was proud of his book and was looking forward to seeing it in print and perhaps reading favourable notices about it in the press.’

‘It’s a dangerous book; a harmful book. I had to do what I did. I don’t know how Colin found out, but apparently he did. I suppose that girl told him things.’

‘I think, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice, taking the armchair opposite Morag, ‘that you had better do as I say, and tell me the whole story.’

‘In my own words, leaving out no detail, however slight?’ said Morag, with an attempt at a lightheartedness which obviously she did not feel. ‘Oh, well, if you know I forged the letter, I suppose I can expect trouble.’

‘Not for forging the letter. That can be hushed up, no doubt. Murder, however, cannot be hushed up, and I have come here to talk about two murders. You have admitted to forgery—’

‘What I admit to you in this room is not evidence. I understand why Catholics go to Confession, though, so I will clear my conscience. I’m sorry about Colin, but he shouldn’t have written that book. It had to be suppressed. He knew far too much. The book opened my eyes to all sorts of things I had half wondered about, but had never dared to face. Anyway, I am not sorry about that little blackmailer. I had no idea that blackmail was her game until I read Colin’s book, but, once I’d read it, all sorts of things dropped into place.’

‘I think you give too much credit to Mr Palgrave’s knowledge. You mean knowledge about your own affairs and those of your husband, don’t you? Mr Palgrave thought of blackmail only because the girl had made a threat to blackmail him. I am certain that the story he wrote was based on his knowedge of the girl’s character and not on anything he knew of your affairs.’

‘But the girl and I are both in the book. I asked Cupar what he thought and he agreed with me and we arranged that I should practise Colin’s signature – I had kept his letters to me; they were not, strictly speaking, love-letters, but were all about his first book and the publishers’ contract and what he hoped his agents, the Peterheads, might be able to do for him, so there was nothing much in them that I didn’t want Cupar to see—’

‘Your husband had read the book, then?’

‘Well, I could hardly keep it from him. He was appalled by it. He said it could ruin his career if it were published because there were plenty of people able and willing to put two and two together and make five instead of four.’

‘I hope I have not done the same thing.’

‘Oh, no. You wouldn’t be here if you had. I suppose the fact that I was out walking that night, and that the fact the girl was drowned, pointed to me as her murderer.’

‘Not necessarily. The facts, so far as they were known, pointed even more clearly to Colin Palgrave. Will you tell me about yourself and him? — and why you think you were the chief suspect for causing Miss St John’s death?’

‘Why not? I said I wanted to confess. It all began a long time ago. Well, it seems a long time ago now. Colin and I were engaged. He broke it off. He said it was because he wanted to give up teaching and become a writer. He said that he wouldn’t be able to keep a wife and possible children for years and years, and that nobody ought to marry a writer, anyway. They were impossible to live with, he said. He said a lot more along the same lines, but I thought he was tired of me and did not want to say so, and made all these excuses to be rid of me.’

‘You may have been right, of course.’

‘It did something to me. I had been very fond of him. I could have managed to support both of us until he got established as a writer. I am a trained nurse and I knew I could get a well-paid private job, either with a wealthy invalid or as a doctor’s receptionist and dispenser, but I was too proud and too badly hurt to plead or argue. Eventually I met Cupar and we were married.

‘Cupar was honest with me up to a point. He told me that a patient of his had had a baby by him. I didn’t much mind. I’d had affairs myself before I became engaged to Colin, but I had no idea that Cupar was being blackmailed by the girl. I thought the money he paid out went to support the baby. It wasn’t until I read Colin’s book that the truth dawned on me, although I suppose I had always had a secret fear that, if the girl ever decided to turn nasty, Cupar’s career would be finished. When I had read the book and Cupar had seen it, he had another confession to make. He said his baby had been born, the girl had killed it, and he had written a false death certificate to cover up for her.’

‘That, at any rate, was not in Mr Palgrave’s book.’

‘No, but I was terribly frightened. If people read the book and anybody who had known the wretched girl began to probe, there was no knowing what might come out. We agreed that the book must never be published.’

‘Well, the forged letter to the agents could hardly have solved that problem for very long. In other words, the author had to die. I am more interested, at the moment, in the death of Camilla St John. Will you tell me exactly what happened that evening?’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘It didn’t really begin with the evening. It began when Cupar and I arrived at the cottage to discover that it had been double-booked for the rest of that week.’

‘Such a coincidence that you should have fixed upon the very cottage of which Miss St John was already an inmate.’

‘Oh, well, coincidences do occur and the girl was our bad angel, anyway, so I suppose some supernatural force of gravity was at work and pulled us towards her.’

‘By the way, had you ever met her before?’

‘No, never. Cupar told me who she was as soon as we were alone in the cottage.’

‘Please continue.’

‘Is there really any need?’

‘You said there was virtue in confessing. That is not the reason for my encouraging you to tell me your story. A little later on you will understand why I must hear it. Please trust me. You are not likely to regret it.’

‘Adrian and Miranda Kirby think very highly of you. Very well, then. I forged the letter. Do you want to know how I killed the girl?’

‘And Colin Palgrave, of course.’

‘Colin? Oh, but—’

‘Yes, I know you said it was suicide. The police have proof that it was murder.’

‘Proof?’ Morag at last looked desperately alarmed. ‘But they can’t have proof!’

‘I have talked to them on the telephone. I was in contact with them just before I came here.’

‘I see.’ She got up and walked unsteadily towards the window again. Dame Beatrice’s sharp black eyes followed her. She remained staring out into the garden, but the watcher said nothing. ‘Oh, well,’ said Morag, turning round and resting one tense hand on the wooden ledge, ‘here goes, then, if I must. Better the blame should rest on the right shoulders, I suppose.’

‘Of course it is. You would not want a smear to remain on Colin Palgrave’s memory.’

‘But there isn’t one, in your opinion, is there?’ As though it was difficult to do so, Morag removed her fingers from their grip on the window-ledge and returned to her chair. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Dame Beatrice noted the anxious shadows under them, but felt no compunction in forcing her to talk.

‘Go on,’ she said. Morag opened her eyes and brushed a hand across them.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll feel better when I’ve told you all about it. Well, as soon as Cupar had told me that Camilla was the girl who had had his baby, I saw how impossible the situation was. There was that, and there were Colin and I. It was all such a mix-up that when Colin took us down to the pub that night I thought that a few drinks would