‘Don’t be absurd.’
‘You’ve never wanted me to be happy. Never! Not even when we were children. Remember Blue-Eyes and the Turkey? Remember Miss Rossiter and the Glass-Eaters?’
‘I remember Miss Rossiter and the Glass-Eaters. I don’t think that was my fault.’
Melisande took a deep breath. ‘As a matter of fact, darling, there has been a development. The status quo has changed. You are, as they say, a bit behind with your facts.’
‘What facts?’
‘By the most incredible quirk of fate, James’ fetters have been removed and he is now what is known as a “free man”. He is in a state of shock, of course, though that will pass soon enough.’
‘Why is James in a state of shock?’
‘There is something you don’t know. Stella is dead.’
‘What?’
‘She died today. It was a ghastly kind of death, apparently. I mean – ghastly. A veritable Grand Guignol. But do let’s try to be positive and rational about it.’ Melisande tugged at her pearl choker. ‘Don’t you see? This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind. These are Miss Prism’s words, not mine. I am going to have a creme de menthe now. Sorry. I suppose you will say I am flippant and heartless?’
‘How did you know Stella was dead?’ Winifred asked quietly. ‘How did she die?’
7
Lethal Weapon
‘She was – beheaded?’
Major Payne felt his skin crawl – a vibration – a pale terror like the mist on an old-fashioned photographic plate.
‘Yes. I still can’t believe it. It’s incredible. It’s an abomination. An outrage. It makes no sense.’ Morland shook his head. ‘What kind of person would want to do a thing like that?’
‘What indeed… Let me get you another drink… You poor chap… Would you like something to eat? Sorry, I should have suggested it sooner. I’m not much good without Antonia, I’m afraid, but I could rustle up something – an omelette, perhaps?’
‘No. Nothing to eat. Thanks awfully, Payne, but I couldn’t touch a thing. I’d be sick if I did.’
‘Do go on, if you don’t mind… She was lying on the drawing-room floor at the Villa Byzantine? It was Tancred Vane who found her?’
‘Correct. She’d been to the Villa Byzantine twice before, you see. I know she rather liked it, but it’s a damned peculiar place-’
Villa Byzantine. Without the definite article, Major Payne reflected, it could be the name of a nightclub singer, a racehorse or a secret wartime operation. It was the kind of name that conjured up the intrigue and mystery of oriental adventures.
‘I thought it looked like a miniature Albert Hall,’ he said, remembering the photo on Stella’s mobile phone. ‘Is the interior awfully sumptuous?’
‘A Carrollian staircase. Lots of curios and draperies and antiques on every possible surface. Curved daggers and glass cases full of giant butterflies on the walls. Silver and crystal. A harmonium, if you please… Stella – her body – was in the drawing room – on the floor – between the french windows and the fireplace. Her head-’
‘Yes?’ Shouldn’t be ghoulish, Payne chided himself.
‘Her head was on the floor – near the window – it had almost rolled out of the window.’
‘The french windows were open?’
‘Yes… Such a bloodbath – it must have pumped out with great force from the neck. The rug in front of the fireplace was soaked with blood. There was some on the curtains too, I think, unless that was the pattern-’ Morland broke off. ‘Oh God – it was terrible – terrible!’
Payne wondered what he knew about beheadings. The Queen of Hearts in Alice – Salome kissing the head of John the Baptist – Islamic terrorists – Charles I – the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado – Polanski’s Macbeth – Marie Antoinette. Wasn’t there a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh called Off With His Head? About a beheading during some kind of rural dance? He seemed to remember a mildly comic German folklorist character called Mrs Bunz. Actually, Ngaio Marsh’s victims often came to gruesome ends…
Major Payne hated violent crime stories. Antonia’s never were. He had never been able to understand the great following bloodthirsty authors enjoyed. Patricia Cornwell – Mo Hayder – Val McDermid – all women, as it happened – but, he believed, it was the creepy Thomas Harris and his cannibal chronicles that had started the trend…
‘No signs of struggle, the inspector said. Nothing broken. None of Tancred Vane’s objets seemed to be missing either,’ Morland was saying. ‘They asked him to check.’
Royal biographers, Payne reflected, tended to be a rum lot. And hadn’t Tancred Vane wanted to buy Stella’s precious letters and diaries for fifty pounds? Moon had referred to Tancred Vane as ‘weird’ and a ‘crook’…
The obvious suspect of course was Moon. Moon had said that she liked beheadings. Moon had displayed an unhealthy obsession with blood. Moon had also boasted that if she were to commit a crime, she would never be caught…
‘What was the murder weapon exactly?’ Payne asked. ‘Sword of some kind?’
‘A samurai sword. Twelfth-century, I think. It was lying on the floor by the body. It had been hanging on the wall beside the fireplace. One of Vane’s most treasured possessions, apparently. A single chrysanthemum in a vase on a table had also been decapitated – as well as one of the curtain tassels.’
‘Really? How curious… One possible explanation is that the killer decided to test the sword’s sharpness before delivering the lethal blow,’ Payne mused aloud.
Had the killer played with the sword perhaps? Swoosh-swoosh. Again, the kind of thing a maladjusted demi- adult would do.
‘What’s Tancred Vane like?’
Morland frowned. ‘Youngish… mid-thirties, I imagine. I found him perfectly civil, though he was in a bad state. Shaking like a leaf… Extremely spruce… Wore a bow-tie… Described himself as a “scattergun collector, but one of the utmost discrimination”. Chinamen are his passion.’
‘Chinamen?’
‘Porcelain figurines. He collects them. Has a cabinet full of them in his library. All an inch high. Smooth, luminous, smiling – something inhuman and sinister about them. I found myself puzzling whether the ferocious pleasure in their expressions was really the oriental artist’s idea of unqualified good humour, or whether the Chinese were not, after all, rather a cruel breed.’
Payne wondered whether what he had just heard revealed something about Tancred Vane – or about Morland. Morland, judging by this latest observation, wasn’t such an uncomplicated chap after all… Ferocious pleasures, eh?
‘Vane produced some brandy. Good high-quality stuff. I needed it,’ Morland went on. ‘We sat in the library. He was white as a sheet. Kept tugging at his bow-tie. A bit hysterical. Insisted on showing me the owl he’d bought that morning.’
‘A real live owl?’
‘No, no, not a live one. A Victorian doorstop fashioned like an owl – wrought iron – he’d got it at some antique shop, he said. Rather a comic face. He said it reminded him of Miss Hope, that’s why he bought it. He kept saying mad things like that. He said he was terribly worried about Miss Hope. He kept looking at the clock. He said he expected Miss Hope to turn up at any moment.’
‘Who is Miss Hope?’
‘No idea. Never occurred to me to ask.’
‘Did she turn up?’
‘No. Not while I was there. She might have done later on.’
‘How did the police know where to contact you?’ Major Payne asked after a pause.
