‘Yes… on the cheek.’ Tancred Vane blushed. ‘No, I can’t believe she killed Stella… Not with the samurai sword… The whole thing is ridiculous – grotesque! And yet it must be her! Stella looked really frightened the day she met her – she kept staring at her – she then blurted out all those questions! How old was Miss Hope? Where did she live? She then asked me if I knew the actress Melisande Chevret. It all fits in, doesn’t it?’
‘It does, old boy. I’m afraid it does.’
‘Why did she continue coming after she killed Stella? I keep puzzling over it. It makes no sense. What was her purpose?’
‘I am sure the answer will present itself to me in due course. It always does. A near-miracle almost invariably comes my way and it clears and illuminates the path I must follow…’
There was a pause, then Tancred Vane said, ‘How did Melisande Chevret get into the house that day?’
‘I believe she stole one of your keys.’
‘If she was already inside the house, she would have had to go and open the front door when Stella rang the bell, wouldn’t she? They would have come face to face. Would Stella have entered – if she’d been confronted with the one person she feared most? Wouldn’t she have run away?’
‘She would have.’ Payne nodded. ‘But perhaps there was no confrontation? Maybe Melisande left the front door ajar.’
‘Ajar?’
‘Endeavour to visualize the scene. Stella rings the front door bell. There is no response. She then sees the door is actually ajar. She pushes it – tentatively steps into the hall – calls out. Hello? Mr Vane? A muffled voice comes from the drawing room. Come this way! I am here. Melisande has a deep throaty voice that can easily be taken for a man’s.’
‘Miss Hope didn’t have a deep throaty voice.’
‘No, of course not. She put on a different voice for you. She is an actress. You don’t expect Mother Courage to speak in the same way as Lady Bracknell, do you, or Ophelia like Mrs Danvers, or a Hounslow hairdresser like Hedda Gabler – yet they could all be played by the same actress.’
‘I wonder if she was in love with me,’ Tancred Vane suddenly blurted out.
26
Love from a Stranger
Major Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘In love with you? Did she give any indication that she might have been in love with you?’
‘Nothing direct or overt. It was the way she looked at me and some of the things she said. It was also the way she said them. Today, for example. It was quite extraordinary. She started speaking about what matters most in life. She talked about priorities – about knowing oneself. She looked at once solemn and sad. Her eyes were very bright. She – she kept staring at me.’
‘You know how the mad come into a room, too boldly, their eyes exploding on the air like roses.’
‘I hope you don’t think I have been imagining things?’
‘No, not at all, old boy. I don’t think you are the fanciful kind. Do go on.’
‘Well, the idea that she might be in love with me kept occurring to me, but each time I dismissed it as absurd. Not at her age. Now you have told me that she – Melisande Chevret – is in fact in her mid-fifties, the whole thing doesn’t seem so terribly absurd. So it’s possible, I suppose? It’s possible, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. An amorous obsession is perfectly possible. That would certainly explain why she persisted with her visits… But if Melisande Chevret did kill Stella,’ Major Payne reasoned, ‘it was because she regarded Stella as her rival – as the interloper who stole Morland from her. She cut off her head because she was hoping to win Morland back. She was in love with Morland. One can’t quite reconcile any of it with a simultaneous obsession with a younger man.’
‘Wrong psychology?’
‘Wrong psychology. On the other hand, it’s not the kind of thing one can explain in rational terms, so one mustn’t always look for logic. People fall in and out of love all the time. There are no rules. In the course of her visits Melisande Chevret may have developed a crush on you.’
‘You mean I may have ousted James Morland and taken his place in her affections?’
‘Precisely.’
‘I must admit I became very fond of her. Though not, perhaps, in the way she might have wanted me to,’ Tancred Vane said. ‘I came to regard her as the aunt I never had.’
‘But if she is in love with you – why does she go on pestering Morland? She keeps phoning him. He told me about it. Can she love both of you with equal passion?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible… I must admit I found some of her behaviour bewildering. She – she seemed delighted out of all proportion when she saw I’d moved the flowers she’d given me from the left to the right on my desk. She saw that as some very special sign. Wasn’t there a name for that kind of obsession? I seem to remember reading about it somewhere. About the woman who fell in love with George V?’
Payne looked at him. ‘Good lord. Yes. You are absolutely right. It’s a famous enough case. The woman was French, and she got a bee in her bonnet that she and George V were soulmates, destined to be united for eternity. The fact that George V was already married to Queen Mary didn’t seem to bother her one little bit. She started hanging around outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, watching out for “signals” from the King. She actually imagined the King was sending her messages by leaving a window open or shut – by drawing the curtains across the windows – or not drawing them.’
‘I think there is a medical term for it?’
‘Indeed there is. Les psychoses passionnelles. It was a Frenchman, de Clerambault, who coined the phrase. Les psychoses passionnelles usually involve a woman who develops the intense belief that a man is in love with her.’
‘How – how do you know so much about it?’
‘Oh, I know all sorts of pointless things.’ Payne waved a self-deprecating hand. ‘The “patient” or “subject” may have had little or no contact with the object of her delusion, but what she experiences is the absolute conviction that he is as much in love with her as she is with him. It’s a pathological condition… What’s that on the table?’ Payne pointed. ‘Not her glasses, are they?’
‘It’s her pince-nez. Yes. She left it behind.’
Payne leant over. He held the pince-nez in front of his eyes. ‘Plain glass. This is nothing more than a theatrical prop. May I keep it? Or should I say “them”? Is pince-nez plural? I must admit I find Miss Hope’s divided passions a little difficult to swallow, but perhaps all will be clear after I have talked to her. I think I will pay her a visit tonight.’
‘You are going to call on Melisande Chevret? Do you think you will be safe?’
‘I am not sure,’ said Payne gravely, ‘so I intend to take my wife with me.’
27
The Double Clue
Antonia didn’t get home until seven in the evening. She found her husband in the sitting room, whisky and soda in hand and pipe in mouth, staring out of the open window into the gathering darkness.
‘Such a warm night,’ he said.
‘You haven’t eaten, have you?’
‘I had a sandwich. And an apple.’ Payne pointed to the sky with the stem of his pipe. ‘A notable nimbus of nebulous moonshine. D’you remember the full moon the night Corinne Coreille died?’
‘I do… Not many stars tonight.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
