Lovers Make Moan

To Emma he exploded, while she, poor soul, wrung her hands and wept.

“You said he ought to have his freedom,” she sobbed, “and now he’s taken it you’re angry with him, but whatever can he be doing?”

“He’s a deceitful, humbugging, double-crossing young hound!” shouted Marcus. “Lies, lies, lies! What’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh! His father was rotten to the core, lord or no lord, and the boy takes after him. Well, he gets nothing more out of me!”

“He isn’t responsible for his father, dear,” said Emma, lifting her head and blowing hard into her handkerchief.

“To dare to tell those people he couldn’t afford the trip! He was loaded with money! My only fear was that with so much on him he might be robbed. He could have had a fortnight at the best hotel in Paris on what I gave him. He’s absconded with the lot, that’s what he’s done. I’m going to keep my eyes skinned, I can tell you! He’ll be signing cheques in my name the next thing you know.”

“Oh, Marcus, of course he won’t! He is just having his little fling after all the hard work he put in for his exams. I expect he has gone off with some girl. I just hope he doesn’t get her into trouble, that’s all. He is far too young to marry.”

“Oh, it won’t come to that,” said Marcus, beginning to calm down. “If he’s gone off with a girl, she can’t be anybody respectable, or we should have heard by now. If he’s made a fool of himself she can be bought off. I’ll do that much, if it’s necessary. It’s the old Adam coming out, as I say, and this business puts the lid on it, but I’ll see he doesn’t ruin his life by marrying her.”

“But we don’t know yet that he has gone off with a girl. That was only an idea. You know how romantic he is, but I do think we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt until we know a bit more.”

Meanwhile an upheaval of a different kind was going on not so very far away. Simon and Penelope Bradley came back from their round-the-world cruise, Rosamund and Edmund were reunited with their parents, Jonathan and Deborah returned to their Cotswold home and Dame Beatrice went back to the Stone House.

“Sorry you’re leaving us,” said the Chief Constable when she called to say goodbye. “Unfinished business, what!”

“I have no intention of leaving anything unfinished, but there is nothing I can do here which I cannot do equally well from my own home.”

“Conway has given up hope of solving the mystery of Bourton’s death. There is talk of re-opening the inquest and allowing the coroner to pronounce the verdict he was prepared to give at the beginning.”

“Death by misadventure? But it was murder, carefully and deliberately planned. It was committed by one of the cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and fairly recently I have been inclined to add another name to my list of suspected persons.”

“Oh? May I ask—?”

“Certainly. Before I leave this neighbourhood I should like to talk to Mr Tom Woolidge.”

“Tom? Good Lord! Tom wouldn’t murder anybody. He’s a particularly decent chap and, incidentally, much too thick to have thought up this rather ingenious business of making a man commit suicide, which is the only other verdict the coroner can think up.”

“Is Mr Woolidge too decent to make love to another man’s wife?”

“You mean Barbara Bourton. Oh, I’m sure Bourton knew all about that and didn’t give a damn. They went their own ways, you know, Barbara being on the stage and all that. Tom is a very personable chap and could get any woman he wanted, but with Barbara he’s more like a lolloping old faithful hound than a gay Lothario. I wouldn’t waste any time over him if I were you. He’s been pursuing Barbara for years. That’s why he’s never married. If Tom had been the murderous type he’d have had a go at Donald long ago, but he’d have shot him or something open and above-board like that. He’s incapable of thinking out this hole-and-corner game of making the man murder himself.”

“But so is everybody else I have interviewed. I was co-opted into this affair as a psychiatrist and I cannot see anybody yet who conforms to the necessary pattern. I need time to mull over my case-notes and find in them some vital clue. From what you tell me, an interview with Mr Woolidge would be a waste of that time and would not assist that thought. There remains this other death, that of the boy found on the foreshore.”

“There’s a tie-up somewhere, but we shall never find out what it is. Apparently he purchased a rapier which may have been cut down to make the dagger which killed Bourton. Somebody decided it was best to put him out of the way, and that somebody may well be Bourton’s murderer. And now we’ve got something else on our plate. Lynn reports his adopted son as a missing person and wants us to trace him.”

“Yes, Deborah told me of Emma Lynn’s anxiety.”

“It seems that, as soon as he had finished with school and while they themselves—the Lynns—were in Italy, the lad was to go on holiday and hasn’t been seen or heard of since.”

“And he was in the play,” said Dame Beatrice thoughtfully, “and that means he was present when Mr Bourton stabbed himself, and that could mean—Look, it’s a very long shot, but why don’t you ask the Lynns for a photograph of their son—”

“Oh, we’ve got one.”

“—and send somebody round to that antiques dealer with it?”

“A long shot indeed, my dear Beatrice. I’m quite sure that young Lynn is off on a toot. His father admits that he had given him ample funds for his holiday. He’s cavorting on the Continent with some species of crumpet, you mark my words, and when he has got through the lolly he’ll blow his cover, come back like the Prodigal Son, brave Marcus’s wrath and Emma’s tearful reproaches, and all will be gas and gaiters once more. I’m not in the least concerned about Jasper Lynn.”

“I hope most sincerely that you are justified, but I still think it would be interesting to see whether Mrs Wells makes anything of young Lynn’s photograph. She was quick to recognise the police photograph of that dead youth who was found on the Ferry foreshore.”