Lovers Make Moan

“The local papers are bound to go to town in a big way,” said Deborah. “I bet they haven’t had a story like this for years. I almost wish I were a reporter. How I could spread myself on the romantic setting, the perfect summer night, the delightful comedy complete with fairy lore—and then the sudden change, bizarre and terrifying, to tragedy and dire confusion.”

“There wasn’t dire confusion,” said Jonathan. “Dr Jeanne-Marie and Marcus Lynn between them saw to that.”

“Well, anyway, the reporters will make hay. I dread them much more than I dread the police.”

“If I were you,” said Dame Beatrice, “I would go out for the day and leave me to cope.”

“Won’t they think that fishy?”

“Why should they? So far as you two are concerned the death was the result of a completely unforeseen accident.”

“No,” said Jonathan, “we’ll stay. If we try to dodge them today, they will only come back tomorrow. Well are they called newshounds. Once on the trail they never give up, and the more I think about it the more it seems to me that they could be following a very hot scent indeed.”

The reporters, however, were not the menace which Deborah had expected. Before the inquest they had photographed the outside of the house and such parts of the grounds as interested them, so when they did turn up it was to reinforce what had become their theme-song. This can be summarised in the words of a banner headline in the Graphic Newsletter, which screamed from the front page, Where did the lethal weapon come from?

Other papers were asking the same question in the same or similar words, inspired, no doubt, by the police, who, not for the first time, were finding the local newspapers extremely useful. There was also the local radio station, which, like the newspapers, furnished a description of the weapon. There was also a placard outside the county police station. It showed not only a photograph, but accompanied it with an annotated drawing of the dagger and the caption: Have you seen this weapon? The poster was sent to every antiques dealer and junk shop within a radius of fifty miles with a request that if such an object had been sold within the last three months the police would welcome details.

It was the Chief Constable who had suggested the time limit. Police questioning of Lynn and Yorke separately had elicited the information that it was at the March meeting of the dramatic society, held almost at the end of the month, that Lynn, only lately a patron of the amateur players, had asked that the next production should be of The Dream and should be performed out of doors.

He told the meeting (with the disarming frankness to which he owed much of his success, although his detractors averred that this seemingly engaging quality covered Machiavellian manoeuvres of such magnitude that they would turn the gnomes of Zurich to plaster of Paris if ever they became generally known) that he wanted a good part in the play for his wife and was prepared to foot the bills for the whole production if she were given the choice of the women’s roles in the play.

The dramatic intervention of the police in asking for an adjournment before the coroner pronounced his verdict had changed the whole nature of the enquiry. From appearing to be a case of unfortunate although dreadful accident, there now seemed to be every chance that the death of Donald Bourton would be attributed either to suicide or murder. Lynn’s declaration that the death-dealing dagger had never formed part of his collection gave weight to both theories and the first thing which Detective-Inspector Conway wanted to find out was whether Bourton himself had purchased the dagger. If he had, the case was as good as over and a verdict of suicide the appropriate one. If somebody else had purchased it, the case would remain wide open unless malice aforethought could be proved against person or persons (so far) unknown.

“And while you’re making the rounds of the antiques dealers,” Conway was advised, “we’ll get on to Dame Beatrice and ask her to have a good hard look at the people who were in the play. She’s bound to be watching the interests of her nephew and his wife who are occupying the house and grounds where the fatality happened, so I’m sure she will be prepared to co-operate with us.”

“So long as she isn’t watching their interests too closely,” said Conway to his sergeant.

“Sir?”

“Oh, dammit, you know what I mean. How unbiased is she going to be when it comes to the crunch? Bradley and his wife had that house to themselves, except for a couple of womenservants and four tiny kids, on each night the play was performed. I’ve had a look at the cupboard the properties were in. A child of three, given a hairpin, could have picked the lock and we’ve been told there was no love lost between Bradley—who’s a gorilla if ever I met one—and Rinkley, for whom obviously the substituted dagger was intended.”

“The theory seems to be that Rinkley would have detected the substitution, sir.”

“Yes, if it had been made on the first night of the play. We’ve been told that he was a bit chary of using the retractable blade on himself at the early rehearsals. Bear in mind, though, that he had already used the thing three times, once at the dress rehearsal and twice at the Thursday and Friday performances, with no ill effects. To my way of thinking, Rinkley wouldn’t have given the thing a thought on the third night. He admits as much. I’ve had the daggers weighed and although the lethal one is a bit heavier than the theatrical one, there isn’t so much in it as all that.”

This point was being debated elsewhere. Marcus Lynn had come up to the house on ‘demolition day’, as he termed it, to make sure that his workmen under their foreman carried out the task of clearing up as expeditiously, neatly and unobtrusively as possible, and Deborah had invited him to stay to lunch. The day following the inquest she renewed the invitation over the telephone to include Emma. She added the name of the Lynns’ adopted son, but Emma, accepting for herself and her husband, explained that Jasper was in a last frenzy of revision, since his advanced-level examinations started in two days’ time.

It was Dame Beatrice who introduced the topic which was in all their minds after the unexpected adjournment.

“And how, Mr Lynn, do you account for the cuckoo in the nest?” she asked.

“I don’t account for it; I can’t account for it,” he replied. “When the inquest was adjourned and the court was cleared, I was given that dagger to handle. The police had all sorts of questions to ask concerning it. They were very reluctant to believe that I had never seen the thing before. In the end I took them to my house and asked Emma to get the catalogue of my collection of weapons. I don’t only collect cold steel, you see. I’ve got some quite valuable guns of various kinds and such things as maces, lances, spears, pikes and so forth. An entire room is devoted to the collection and I keep the catalogue up-to-date myself. Of course it was only the daggers which concerned the police, and I may tell you that they checked and re-checked the items very carefully indeed. I hoped