“Ah, here is Aunt Adela,” said Deborah, on her way to the door just as it opened and Dame Beatrice came in.
“Mr Rinkley, Aunt Adela,” said Jonathan. “Aunt, dear, ‘this man is Pyramus, if you would know’.”
“Whereas this far from beauteous lady is certainly not Thisbe,” said Dame Beatrice, leering hideously at the visitor. “So am I to hear of more anonymous letters?”
Rinkley, who had risen at her entrance, took advantage of the example she set and seated himself as Jonathan and Deborah left them alone together.
“Anonymous letters?” he said. “How did you know I had them?”
“I expect most of the cast have had them by now,” she replied. “It would be the normal thing to expect under the circumstances. Of what do yours accuse you?”
“Well, not of anything in particular.”
“You mean they consist of what the aspiring journalist told the editor that he was good at?”
“Sorry. I don’t get you.”
“I have contracted a bad habit from my secretary, who is apt to quote from readings sacred, profane, popular and esoteric, and I have caught the virus. The journalist told the editor that he was good at what he called ‘general invective’. I wondered whether ‘general invective’ would describe the contents of the anonymous letters you have received.”
“Oh, well, actually, no. I mean, so far as the wording is concerned, there’s nothing I couldn’t show my maiden aunt.”
“Oh, have you a maiden aunt? I thought they went out of fashion in about the year 1947. Well, if the wording of the letters was not objectionable in itself, of what did the letters complain?”
“They didn’t. They simply asked a lot of impertinent questions. Now, Dame Beatrice, I don’t claim to be a saint—”
“I doubt whether you could sustain the rôle if you did make such a claim. Did you owe money to Mr Bourton?”
“Oh, look here, now! I came in the hope that with my knowing Jon and the lovely Deborah and all that, you would grant me a serious interview. I didn’t owe Bourton anything. I didn’t even know he was to be my understudy. Look here, now, if I sent you the letters, could you trace the writer? It must be somebody who knows me pretty well, and that means I probably know her pretty well. I could give you a list of possible people.”
“Give it to the police. It is not my province to trace the writers of anonymous letters.”
“Oh, well, that’s that, then. One thing everybody knows is that I had nothing against Bourton or anyone else. I haven’t spoken to any of the cast since I came out of hospital, so I know nothing about the inquest except what I read in the papers. Were you present?”
“I was.”
“Do you know why the police asked to have it adjourned?”
“For the usual reasons, I suppose.”
“You mean—you don’t mean they think there was something fishy about Bourton’s death?”
“The fact that the cast are beginning to receive anonymous letters indicates that the police are not the only people who think that a more detailed enquiry into the death is called for—more detailed, I mean, than has been the case so far.”
“But surely what happened to Bourton must have been the sheerest accident? Nobody could have foreseen that there would be that mix-up of daggers.”
“And, of course, Mr Bourton could not have foreseen that you would be taken ill and that he would be called upon to take over your part. You are being disingenuous, Mr Rinkley. Do you or do you not believe that Mr Bourton’s death was deliberately planned?”
Rinkley stood up.
“If it was, it must have been planned for me, not him,” he said. “Well, Dame Beatrice, I am sorry to have wasted your time. When I read in the papers that you were in residence here and learned of your official position, I’m afraid I took it for granted that you were here to assist the members of the cast.”
“But not to look for anonymous letter-writers, Mr Rinkley.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I rather put my foot in it there. I thought, well, psychiatry and all that, you know. Did you notice, by the way, that I spoke of her!”
“The writers of anonymous letters are more often women than men. You indicated, I think, that the letters asked questions, but did not utter threats. Was there a hint of blackmail in any of the questions?”
“Blackmail? Good gracious, if there was, I did not recognise it as such. How could anybody attempt to blackmail me?”
“If you do not know, you can hardly expect me to put forward any suggestions. Did I not hear that your wife has an antiques business?”
“She isn’t my wife any longer, and if you think there is any tie-up between her shop and that stupid business of the substitute dagger—Oh, hey, now! Wait a minute! That must be what one of the letters was hinting at. Oh, well, it’s quite a ridiculous surmise on somebody’s part. I’ll show the police that particular letter and they can go to the shop and turn darling Veda inside out. That ought to settle matters. The very last thing she would do is to aid and abet me in getting rid of Bourton. Besides, I thought Jonathan was to be my stand-in, so owing money to Bourton wouldn’t enter into it.”
The next contact which Dame Beatrice had with members of the cast did not take place at Jonathan’s temporary home, but at the house of Brian and Valerie Yorke. After dinner, for which Yolanda, in primrose-coloured silk and a simple gold pendant belonging to her mother, had been allowed a seat at table, the child was packed off and the adults settled down to coffee, brandy and gossip.
The talk turned inevitably to Bourton’s death and Yorke remarked that Barbara had had a bad time of it, what with police and reporters and the morbid curiosity of everybody who knew her, whether intimately or only by sight.
“I’ve had a fairly sticky time myself since they adjourned the inquest,” went on Brian. “That’s why Val and I are glad of a word with Dame Beatrice.”
“We’ve had our share, too,” said Jonathan. “You wouldn’t think people would have the nerve to infiltrate our garden and look for the spot marked X, but they have. I’m thinking of asking for a policeman with a dog. Aunt Adela has had problems, too.”
“Not problems,” said Dame Beatrice. “I have merely been faced with the necessity for practising a certain amount of Pontius Pilatery.”
“Washing your hands?” said Valerie Yorke, trying not to look disapproving of this reference to Holy Writ. “But of what?”
“Anonymous letters. Some of your acquaintances seem to confuse psychiatry with necromancy and imagine that I can summon spirits from the vasty deep and find out from them who writes the letters.”
“I expect Barbara has had some,” said Valerie. “She gets all the money, you know. May I ask—?”
“Certainly. I also had a visit from Mr Rinkley.”
“He came here,” said Brian, “and did everything except actually sob on my neck. Mind you, to be fair to the chap, I’m sure he is genuinely upset by Bourton’s death. The very last thing he would have anticipated, he said, and the dagger which did all the damage could have been intended for him. The awkward part of it is that, disentangling what he said from what I’m sure he meant, there’s a certain amount of backing for his opinion.”
This opinion, carefully repeated by Brian while Valerie, Dame Beatrice noticed, sat forward in her chair with her hands twisting together, was that the exchange of daggers had been affected by Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome acting in collusion. Both had had good and legitimate reason for approaching the tables which held the properties, both had a grievance against Rinkley for his sharp comments on their acting and against Bourton for his embarrassing advances to them off-stage during the earlier rehearsals. “So they could have plotted against him, I suppose,” Yorke said in conclusion.