Lovers Make Moan

“Only after you had added some hair to the head, I’m told. I don’t think I’d take her word for much. The lad was only in her shop once. It was a tall order to expect her to recognise what approximated to a death-mask, hair or no hair, don’t you think?”

“As you so rightly point out, there are difficulties.”

“Anyway, thanks for the tip. We can try Mrs Wells with the photograph and see how she reacts.”

Mrs Wells made no difficulty about the photograph. Unprompted, she exclaimed.

“Oh, that’s the boy who bought the rapier! I couldn’t be mistaken. There was that touch of class about him, if you know what I mean. When he said he wanted the rapier for theatricals, well, that was easy enough to believe. It was only the price he was willing to pay which made me wonder.”

“Would you be prepared to swear in court that this is a photograph of the lad who bought the rapier?” asked the inspector.

“Well, I don’t know about that. Still—yes, I would swear to him. Certainly I would.”

“So there it is,” said the Chief Constable to Dame Beatrice later, “and my chaps have now got the job of finding out why Jasper Lynn bought the rapier.”

“And for whom, if he did not buy it for himself,” said Dame Beatrice.

Chapter 16

Parade of Suspects

“Now, name the rest of the players.”

« ^ »

I’m glad to have you back,” said Laura. “You are very restful company after Rosamund and Edmund. Did the round-the-worlders enjoy their cruise?”

“Enormously. I am glad to be here again. The anecdotes and photographs, so precious to the travellers themselves, pall a little on a captive audience.”

“That is an extraordinary story about young Jasper Lynn. What are the police going to do about him?”

“Oh, there is to be what you would call ‘another comb-out’ of the yachting fraternity. The knowledgeable among the local boatmen seem to be convinced that the body was thrown into the bay from a yacht and so well- versed are they in the vagaries of their almost landlocked waters, vast in expanse though these are, that there is general agreement that the jettisoning took place off the uninhabited small bank called Castle Island. Experiments with non-human jetsam will prove the correctness of their view. Of that I have no doubt. The waters of the bay are idiosyncratic and their vagaries need to be known and allowed for, even in the calmest weather, I am told.”

“Yes, you can always go by what the locals have to say about winds and tides. Does it mean that you have taken yourself out of the enquiry into these two deaths? I should have thought it had reached the truly fascinating stage.”

“So it has, and I am still interested in it. There is nothing more that I can do on the spot. I need time for thought. Get the programmes with which we were supplied—and free of charge, at that!—when we attended the first performance of the play.”

Laura did this and scanned her own copy. Then she produced her shorthand pad and waited for instructions.

“I must say I prefer being a secretary to being a cross between a nanny and the Encyclopaedia Britannica,” she said.

“Nevertheless, much of what we know has been gained from Rosamund’s innocent disclosures. Let us take these people in order to programme and see what we know about them.”

The programme was arranged after the usual Shakespearian fashion of naming all the male characters first and finishing with the women.

“Theseus,” dictated Dame Beatrice, “director and producer. No known reason for disliking Rinkley, Bourton or Jonathan. Egeus, adopted son of Marcus Lynn. A schoolboy later found stabbed to death. Purchased rapier later converted into dagger with which Bourton inadvertently killed himself. May well have been the murderer and later committed suicide.”

“What!” exclaimed Laura, her pencil poised in disbelief. “That beardless boy?”

“In the play he was not beardless. Moreover, there appears to be some evidence that he was in love with Barbara Bourton and may have plotted to get her husband out of the way. On the other hand, we cannot be sure at present that the lethal dagger was not intended either for Rinkley or for Jonathan.”

“I think it could have been intended for Rinkley, you know. He doesn’t seem to be a very popular character and, what with the whisky and the indigestible mussels, he would have been entirely off his guard. Normally he would have spotted that he had been given the wrong dagger, but what with his fuddled state and the fact that he had come through the dress rehearsal and two performances quite unscathed, don’t you think he would have chanced things and so done himself in?”

“It is a valid argument and has been produced more than once.”

“On the other hand, Rinkley could have been the murderer. Even if whisky plus mytilus edulis had not made him throw up, it’s easy enough to manage it. I am reminded of another of Rosamund’s disclosures. You know what innocently disgusting beasts little boys can be. She told me that one of the Fitzroy-Delahague kids showed her how he could make himself sick by sticking two fingers down his gullet. I wonder whether Rinkley, having eaten the mussels, found them such uncomfortable customers in his inside that he removed them by the Delahague method. Contrariwise (and more likely) he still thought Jonathan would be the understudy and planned a very nasty revenge on him for that punch in the stomach.”

“There is much in what you say, and we must keep it in mind.”