Here Lies Gloria Mundy

‘I imagine she came from the railway station, asked for directions to Beeches Lawn and was shown the lane which passes what used to be the convent. I don’t think she had ever been to Beeches Lawn before, you see.’

‘I noticed gardeners at work when I arrived,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘No doubt the police have questioned them.’

‘They have questioned all the servants, I believe, but I expect the gardener and his boy were having their midday meal at the same time as we were having lunch. I doubt whether they would have seen anything of Gloria.’

‘If she had not been to Beeches Lawn before, how did she know about the picture?’

‘My impression is that, at some time while he was having his affair with her, Wotton had told Gloria about the picture and its resemblance to herself, and she went to the old house either to look at it or to steal it. It may well have been the latter since, according to Miss Eglantine, there was no picture to be seen when she herself went over there to take a look at it. My view is that Gloria had already stolen it. I don’t see any reason why she should have taken it upstairs, as she told Aunt Eglantine she had done. I doubt whether she would have risked climbing that staircase, lightweight though she was. She probably hoped, after the soup incident, that Aunt Eg would break her neck on it instead of her leg.’

‘Reverting to the blackmailing photograph, did you obtain any description of the party who had brought the baby along?’

‘Wotton referred to her as a waif, I think, that’s all.’

‘Could the description, so far as it goes, fit Miss Mundy herself?’

‘Well, she was a meagre, skinny little thing, so perhaps it could. I see what you mean. You think the other girl is a myth and that it really was Gloria’s baby. But, if it was, and there was no accomplice present, who took the photograph?’

‘Some obliging and innocent passer-by was pressed into service, perhaps. People are wonderfully kind.’

‘Well, I believe Anthony’s story,’ I said stoutly.

‘Dame Beatrice thinks,’ said Laura Gavin, ‘that Mr Wotton is anything but in the clear and I think the police might do worse than take a look at Celia, who obviously hated Gloria’s guts. One also has to allow for person or persons unknown. Suppose the police are right and there were squatters in the old house? Might they not have objected in a forceful manner to Gloria’s invasion of the premises? They could have been responsible for the bonfire, you know. It wasn’t their own property they were burning down.’

‘You knew of the existence of Miss Mundy before you went to Beeches Lawn, did you not?’ said Dame Beatrice to me.

‘Yes, as I’ve told you, from old Hara-kiri. As soon as she pulled off the cap she was wearing when I first caught sight of her from my bedroom window, I concluded who she must be. That hair was unmistakable.’

‘Brings us back to the wig,’ said Laura, ‘and all the weary work to do again.’

‘Between the time when Anthony and McMaster first fell into her toils and the time of her visit to Beeches Lawn,’ I said, ‘she might have taken to wearing a wig. I mean, some people go grey very early in life and some illnesses lead to premature baldness, don’t they? Wouldn’t either of those explanations account for the wig?’

I was surprised, when I got back to my flat, to find Hara-kiri waiting for me in the caretaker’s little den. I took him up to my rooms and poured drinks.

‘Something wrong with the brochures?’ I asked, handing him his glass.

‘Lord, no! We’re very pleased with them and we particularly like the photographs and the very clear road-maps. You’ve done an excellent job for us.’ He took a deep draught of whisky, stared into his glass, tossed off the rest of the drink and then said, ‘Corin, old lad, would you regard me as a man who was likely to see ghosts?’

I gave him the time-honoured one about that depending upon what other spirits he had been acquainting himself with at the time. Then I recharged his glass. He set it down and said, ‘I’m perfectly serious. I’ve seen the ghost of Gloria Mundy.’

‘You can’t have done.’

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

‘One assumes so.’

‘I mean, there’s been an inquest and the body has been identified as hers.’

‘Wotton and I identified it; not an experience I would want too often.’

‘And the medical evidence was given that she had been stabbed?’

‘You seem to have read your newspapers.’

‘And that the murderer had attempted to cover up the crime by burning the body?’

‘Quite correct, old man.’

‘Well, then, I’ve seen her ghost.’

‘Where?’

‘In Trends, that dress shop. I was in there the other day.’

‘Oh, come, come, come!’ I said. ‘What would Gloria’s ghost be doing in Trends?’

‘Selling evening gowns. She used to work there, you know.’

I looked at him with the deepest concern and asked him whether he had ever had a really bad knock on the head.

‘I expect I got a kick or two on it. You do sometimes when you go down in front of a forward rush, but that was