‘It’s been a long time,’ she said.
‘Only a week, and I have been very busy.’
‘I see they’ve arrested that sour man who has the beautiful wife. The police must be fools if they think he did it. Will you do something for me?’
‘With pleasure, if it is in my power.’
‘Get that Bradley woman on to it. She’ll sort it out in no time.’
‘Dame Beatrice?’
‘Who else? Nothing will come of nothing and Gloria Mundy murdered Gloria Mundy. You tell her that. What are you to tell her?’
‘That nothing will come of nothing and that Gloria Mundy murdered Gloria Mundy.’
‘Swear that you will repeat those words to her. Even
‘I swear. And now stop exciting yourself. Think of your namesake.’
‘What about her?’
‘ “And sikerly she was of greet disport
And fui plesaunt and amyable of port,
And peyned hire to countrefete chere
Of court” ’
I quoted solemnly.
‘Don’t understand a word of it,’ she said.
‘Sikerly, surely, or certainly; disport, cheerfulness; port, bearing or manner; chere, another word for manner. So now what don’t you understand?’
‘Why you’ve come to see me again.’
‘If you are thinking of leaving me a million pounds, or whatever it is, I thought I had better keep in with you.’
‘Have you remembered what you are to say to Bradley?’
‘To Dame Beatrice, yes, but I’ll write it down, if you like.’
‘Yes, do that,’ she said. ‘She’ll know what I mean. We are twin souls, like Kramer and Sprenger.’
The
10
Colloquies
« ^ »
I rang to ask Anthony for Dame Beatrice’s address and telephone number and then I rang up her secretary and asked for an appointment. I said that I had met Dame Beatrice at Beeches Lawn and had been at the house when murder and arson were committed. Two days later I was at the Stone House on the edge of the New Forest and in conference with the eminent lady.
‘So the police have arrested the headmaster,’ she said. ‘I wonder why?’
I gave her the reasons, so far as I knew them and she nodded as I put to her the various points. When I had finished she sent me out to walk in the forest while she mulled them over. In the hall I encountered a tall, well- proportioned woman who asked why I was leaving so soon. I explained that I had been sent off while Dame Beatrice meditated and asked whether I might borrow one of the walking-sticks which I saw in the umbrella stand, as it helped my thinking to whack at heaps of fallen leaves and stinging-nettles and suchlike extravagances of nature when I was out in the country and in a quandary.
‘Help yourself,’ she said. ‘You might take the dogs out as well. George wants to clean the car and I’ve got a raft of correspondence to go through, so it would save us both a job if you would do it.’
‘So you are the voice on the telephone,’ I said.
‘And you are the scribe, but not, I hope, the Pharisee, as my esteemed boss would say. You’re staying for lunch, then, as we had hoped. There will be another guest, and Dame B. says you are already acquainted with him.’
‘Not McMaster?’
‘No. This is a man — youngish, I gather — named William Underedge. He represented her at the inquest.’
‘So that was it! I wondered why he was there. I thought it must have been because his fiancee, Mrs Wotton’s niece, sent him along.,’
‘No. When Dame B. read about your Beeches Lawn murder and the fire and all the rest of it, she thought it was very interesting. She said she had met a very capable and reliable young man at Mr Wotton’s house and bade me page him. I tracked him down, beginning with the London telephone directory and, needing to go no further, got in touch and issued him his marching orders. Apparently, like all people of taste and discernment, he had taken a great fancy to Dame B., short though their acquaintance had been, and he agreed to drop everything and go straight down to Hilcombury, which he knows well because his father used to own a woollen mill down there, and
