Immediately recalling the literally incendiary circumstances of Alastair Farjeon’s death, however, he realised how ill-chosen that last phrase of his had been.
‘I do apologise. I’m afraid I expressed myself rather badly. No pun intended, I promise you.’
‘And none taken, I’m sure,’ she replied sniffily. Then she fell silent again.
‘But you haven’t answered my question.’
‘What question is that?’
‘I have been led to understand, Mrs Farjeon,’ Calvert said in a voice now so pitched as to call attention not only to his put-upon patience but also to the fact that it was fast running out, ‘that when your husband made his films here at Elstree you yourself would always be present in the studio. But your husband is no longer with us. So why have you continued to journey down here when this film, If Ever They Find Me Dead, is being made by someone else?’
‘Alastair would have wanted me to.’
‘Alastair would have wanted you to? But why would he have wanted you to? Precisely what purpose do you serve?’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand what I’m about to say, Inspector, but Alastair always liked to have me near him on the set as a sort of good-luck charm – he was an extremely superstitious man – and, if I’ve kept coming, it’s because I feel I represent a silent guarantee of fidelity to his vision. After all, it worked in the past. Why shouldn’t it work now, even if it’s no longer Alastair himself who’s directing the film?’
A real answer. Even a rather intriguing one.
‘And why are you here today? The picture, after all, has been closed down.’
‘Till further notice, yes.’
‘Do I take that to mean you don’t believe the project has been abandoned?’
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘But Miss Rutherford’s murder …?’
‘The fact that Cora Rutherford is dead alters very little.Her part was relatively unimportant. There are dozens of actresses in this country who could play it just as well. If you must know, the main reason for my coming to Elstree today was to discuss with Rex Hanway just who we might consider offering it to.’
‘Oh, I see, I see!’ Evadne erupted with her habitual precipitation. ‘Poor Cora not yet in her grave and already you’re thinking of who will replace her!’
‘Naturally, we are. This is a business. Our obligation is to the living, not the dead. Upward of sixty people were employed on If Ever They Find Me Dead. Surely it would be more humane to try and save their jobs than to spend valuable days, even weeks, mourning Miss Rutherford’s death, unfortunate as it is.’
‘If I may change the subject, Mrs Farjeon,’ said Calvert, nipping back in before the novelist had time to remount her hobby-horse, ‘I understand that, if Mr Hanway was commissioned to take over the direction of the film, it was because you found a particular document among your husband’s papers?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You wouldn’t have that document on you, I suppose?’
‘Of course not. Why should I? When I came here this afternoon, I had no idea I was going to be questioned by the police. Even if I had, I doubt it would have occurred to me to bring it along.’
‘I trust, though, it’s still in your possession.’
‘Naturally.’
‘And there’s no doubt at all that it was written by your husband?’
‘None whatever. I ought to know Alastair’s handwriting.’
‘When you were going through his papers, was it that specific document you were looking for or did you come across it by chance?’
‘I could scarcely have been looking for it. I didn’t even know of its existence.’
‘What were you looking for?’ Evadne Mount asked.
Hattie Farjeon’s withering tone, when she answered, conveyed the impression that she was so utterly undaunted by the novelist’s discourtesy she couldn’t even be bothered to take offence.
‘If it really is any business of yours, I was looking for Alastair’s will.’
‘Ah … his will,’ said Calvert. ‘Did you find it?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘No unpleasant surprises?’
This time the implication was visibly upsetting to her.
‘Certianly not. Alastair and I drew it up together. And may I say I find that an impertinent question to be asked, Inspector.’
‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t intended to be. But to come back to this strange document – from what I’ve been informed, it stated that, if anything were to happen to your husband which might prevent him from shooting the film, the direction was to be handed over to Rex Hanway. Was that the gist of it?’
‘It was not only the gist, it was all there was to it. Just that one statement. And Alastair’s signature, of course.’
‘H’m. Did your husband go in fear of anything, Mrs Farjeon? His life, maybe?’
‘What a preposterous idea.’
‘Why, then, would he entertain such a queer hypothesis?’
‘To be honest with you, Inspector, it wouldn’t at all surprise me to discover that Alastair had drawn up a similar document before each and every one of his earlier films. Naturally, I cannot say for sure since, if he had, he’d doubtless have torn it up it once the film was completed. My husband was a brilliant man but, like many brilliant men, he simply couldn’t cope with the real world. He was, as I already told you, childishly superstitious. And my own belief is that, by committing such a statement to paper, he was actually hoping to outwit Fate. You know, by what they call reverse psychology? Or perhaps what I mean in Alastair’s case is reverse superstition. By pretending to Fate that he feared something dreadful might happen to him, he hoped that Fate, being as contrary as we all know it to be, would then make sure it didn’t. I realise how infantile that must sound – but then so, in many respects, was Alastair himself.’
‘That’s interesting, really most interesting,’ said Calvert, who couldn’t mask his surprise at having received such a detailed response to one of his questions.
‘None the less,’ said Trubshawe, taking advantage of the momentary silence, ‘it would be useful for us to know if your husband actually did have any enemies. Or, should I say, given his power and prominence, if he had many enemies.’
‘Childish as Alastair could often be,’ his widow replied after a moment of reflection, ‘he was at least shrewd enough to make friends of those with power and enemies of those without.’
There was suddenly a faint, thin-lipped trace of menace in her voice.
‘I was the sole exception to that rule.’
And on that chilling note the interview was brought to its end.
After Hattie Farjeon’s departure the three friends glanced at one another.
‘That woman,’ Trubshawe eventually remarked, ‘knows more than she’s prepared to let on.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Calvert.
*
Calvert began his questioning of Françaix, as he already had with his previous interviewees, in a blandly conversational mode. He assured the Frenchman that the interrogation to which he was about to submit himself was no more than a formality, that all he sought of him was that he relate whatever knowledge he had, no matter how trivial it might initially have struck him, of the circumstances surrounding Cora Rutherford’s death.
‘Mais naturellement. I will tell you everything I know.’
‘Then just let me first run over a few of the chief points. Your name is …?’
‘Françaix, Philippe Françaix.’