‘I believe the theological view is that nobody can call his soul his own. We have elsewhere our sphere.’
‘Miss Minnie was some sort of hot gospeller, I believe. I went to the inquest. I was present when the body was found, you know. Some elderly bloke in a gown and a flowing white tie had to identify it. He described himself as Leader, I remember, and said that Miss Minnie was – had been – the editor of his – well, I forget what he called it, but it approximated to his parish magazine.’
‘It must have had an enormous circulation.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, glancing around the handsome apartment, ‘judging by the rent I pay, these flats are hardly what one might call inexpensive. Of course, Miss Minnie occupied the bungalow. That may make a difference. I pay less for my servant than for myself.’
‘I don’t know what the others pay, but I know I couldn’t afford to live here on my own. I’ve got a feeling, though, that there must be a scale of charges according to what people can pay. I can’t imagine, for example, how a couple of girls like Billie and Elysée could have managed the rent here and I reckon the same went for Miss Minnie. Targe, I believe, does very well and so does little Shard. Young Irelath Moore is heavily subsidised by his papa in Canada, so he’s well-heeled, but the three females, especially poor old Minnie, must have been given a pretty substantial rebate, I would think, to allow them to live on these premises.’
‘Perhaps no other prospective tenant wanted to rent the bungalow.’
‘So Minnie got it particularly cheap, you mean? Could be, I suppose. It may be damp, being so near the water.’
‘When you saw the body – I understand that you, together with Mr Piper and Mr Targe, broke into the bungalow—’
‘Yes, at Piper’s instigation, we did, and that’s a thing I don’t understand and that’s why I think, dotty or sane, he could have done it, hard though I find it to believe. For one thing, being the owner, he must have had a key to the bungalow, you see. What was to stop him opening up and having a look round on his own? Why go to the length of routing out Targe and me to abet him in smashing a window? Only because he knew the body was there and he didn’t want to be on his own when he found it, one would think.’
‘You are changing your mind about Mr Piper?’
‘Well, no, but one has to look on all sides.’
‘So, to finish the question I was about to ask, when you saw the body, what were your first thoughts?’
‘I didn’t have any. I mean, I didn’t have any feelings but revulsion and shock. Then Targe beat it back to the house to get to a telephone and left Piper and me on our own. Well, when I had pulled myself together, I realised that Piper couldn’t stand being in the room with the body, but, then, neither could I, for the matter of that, so when he suggested that we adjourn to the sitting-room, I thought it was a very sound idea. It was when I spotted this dirty great poker lying on the hearthrug in there that I—’
‘Leapt to the conclusion—?’
‘Well, you can’t help thinking things, can you? After all, the poor old dame’s head had been pretty severely battered, so, naturally, when I spotted the poker, it did occur to me to wonder whether I was in company with her murderer.’
‘So you picked up the poker?’
‘Well, what would you have done? I may write tough books, but I am by no means a tough character and I didn’t like the wild expression on Piper’s face.’
‘Don’t you think he was suffering from shock, just as you were?’
‘That didn’t occur to me at the time. I only know that I grabbed up that poker pretty damn quick, so that I was in a position to defend myself if he started anything, but all he said was that we might as well have the electric fire on. That’s my point about the poker, you see. Miss M. didn’t need one. It must have been brought there by the murderer.’
‘But why was she murdered?’
‘Oh, that’s simple enough. The old girl had been having a lot of fun writing nasty unsigned letters to the people who had flats in the house. Of course I don’t suppose anybody really had anything to hide. Writers get to know a lot of things about one another and I’d have heard any scandal that was going.’
‘Did you yourself receive one of the letters?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘You have not kept it, I suppose?’
‘Yes, I have, and I’ll show it you if you like.’
‘By the way, now that you know why I am here, may I trouble you to respect my alias for the time being? I do not want to cause alarm to a possibly guilty party. Now what about your anonymous letter?’
‘Oh, well, it’s rather a good specimen of so-called black humour. It says that I live on my wife’s immoral earnings. In a sense it’s so damn true when you know the bilge Constance writes and the sinful amount she gets paid for it. Immoral earnings? Well, they are! And I live on them? Up to a point, I suppose I do!’
‘What made you suppose that Mr Piper had a key to the bungalow and could let himself in whenever he chose?’
‘Oh, well, he was the landlord, wasn’t he?’
‘I understood that Miss Nutley was the possessor of a master-key.’
‘Somebody was. Did you hear about our ghost?’
‘It seems that Miss Minnie may have been the intruder.’
‘That was Niobe Nutley’s idea. Something about a missing will. If there was such a thing, and Piper knew of it, he might have wanted the old girl out of the way. The only thing is that I can’t imagine him smashing up her face after he had killed her. Very nasty, that, you know. Still, if he hasn’t got all his marbles, that might explain it.’
‘Black humour?’ said Dame Beatrice thoughtfully. ‘Not a perquisite of elderly women, one would have imagined.’ And her thoughts turned to the elfin Mandrake Shard again. He was a far more likely ‘black’ humorist than Miss Minnie, she decided.
Chapter Eight
Niobe, All Tears
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‘I HAVE heard some very disturbing news,’ said Dame Beatrice, having opened the door of Niobe’s office in response to a notice which read: Please ring and Enter.
‘Oh, really, Mrs Farintosh? I am sorry to hear that. I hope it does not mean that you want to leave us? Your contract, which I modified greatly, at your request, from our usual three-year agreement, has more than a month to run.’
‘Oh, I shall honour it so far as the rent is concerned, of course. The question is whether I can bring myself to stay. I consider that you ought to have informed me before I took up my tenancy.’
‘Of what, Mrs Farintosh?’
‘That the owner of Weston Pipers, Mr Piper himself, is being remanded in custody under suspicion of having murdered one of the tenants.’
‘But I thought that was common knowledge, Mrs Farintosh. It has been in all the papers. Besides, Mr Piper is innocent. Nobody who knows him has the slightest doubt about that.’
‘But if he did not do this dreadful thing, that only makes matters worse.’
‘How so? – oh, do please sit down.’
‘The murderer may still be living here. In that case nobody is safe,’ said Dame Beatrice, seating herself and lowering her voice.
‘The murderer was a burglar or a tramp. You need have no fear that he is still on the premises,’ said Niobe sharply.
‘Then why has Mr Piper been arrested?’