At Death's Door (19 page)

This had been one of the keynotes of Isobel's newspaper interview. Clearly she was ignoring any suggestions that Cordelia was in the clear, if only because that diminished her own role earlier in the evening. Meredith, for his part, was not greatly interested in the row any longer. He was more concerned with what happened later. He said:

“You didn't go upstairs again later on? After that second time?”

“Oh, no.” Her hand fluttered to her breast. “I felt . . . well, snubbed, if you want the truth. By her husband. Though now I feel rather proud that I did what I did, however useless it turned out to be.”

“I believe you introduced yourself to Dame Myra earlier in the evening, is that right?”

“Yes. There is a con
nec
tion, you see.”

“You'd never met her before?”

“No—of course,
never.
In the circumstances.” Isobel seemed to be trying to give the impression that, with her
wide acquaintanceship with the great and famous, a meeting with Myra would otherwise have been inevitable.

“The circumstances being the fact that your father had had an affair with her!”

“Well, obviously. No secret about that—Myra saw to it that there never could be. Spread it over the sort of paper the servants read. I would hardly have wanted to meet her.”

“Yet on Monday night you went up and introduced yourself.”

“Oh, well—
now.
After so many years. And with Father practically a vegetable.” She screwed up her face into an unattractive
moue.
“Really, it's a pity in his case there's no life-support system to be switched off!”

“You were not close to your father?”

Isobel bridled. “Oh, I don't know about that. But Father was never what I'd call a
family
man. Being an only child himself, I don't think he really appreciated what a close family could
be.
I was as close to him as any daughter was likely to be, granted that we saw so little of him.”

“You never tried to be closer—never lived with him for any length of time?”

“Oh,
no.
I wouldn't have wanted to. I'm not very fond of arty people, you know. And Mumsy and I were very close.”

“So you never resented Myra?”

“Oh,
no
! Why should I?”

“Or Cordelia—his other daughter?”

“Heavens no! I was grown up by then.” She leaned forward, the greedy, excited look in her eyes. “If she
is
his daughter, of course.”

“You question whether she is?”

“Well, nobody can know who their father is, can they? Unless their parents were alone on a desert island at the time. And the things you read about Dame Myra's morals . . .”

She overheard the bit about the Cameron Highlander, thought Meredith. But he was suspicious of Isobel's constant insistence on matters connected with Cordelia.

“You mentioned your mother. Tell me about your family.”

“Oh—Mumsy came from solid business people. Her family had a pottery factory in the Midlands—solid, respectable, quite well known. And of course the Cotterels are very distinguished. You can trace the family back to the Second Zulu War.”

Meredith looked at her incredulously. Could she be as stupid as she sounded? She gazed back, satisfied she had impressed, quite unconscious of having said anything ridiculous. Suddenly he guessed how it could have happened. Her father, in her childhood, had heard somebody boasting that they could trace their family back to the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses. And he had claimed in jest to be able to trace his back to the Second Zulu War. And Isobel had gone on claiming it, on and off, ever since. She must indeed be a stupid woman—and a decidedly ill educated one, a fact that reflected little credit on her father.

“I meant really your family life at home.”

“Oh—well, as I said, there wasn't a great deal of it, not as far as my father was concerned. I believe Mumsy and Father were very happy at first. Father had been married before, for about five minutes, so I think the second time round he did try to make a go of it. But Roderick always says he wasn't naturally mon—mon—”

“Monogamous?”

“Yes. So that by the time I was growing up, there wasn't much family life involving Father at all.”

“There were just you two children?”

“That's all. Mumsy brought us up. She was very brave, and she made a beautiful job of it. She'd become a Catholic, so there was no question of divorce.”

“And I suppose you both benefit when your father should die?”

“That's right. I get the house, and Roderick and Caroline get all the rights to the books. I must say I don't think that is a fair distribution! I think they
played
on him, using Becky. It would almost serve them right if people lost interest in the books, wouldn't it?”

Meredith left a pause, wondering whether by gesture or word Mrs. Allick would show that she was ashamed of what she had just said. There was no such sign. Meredith sighed, very quietly.

“You mentioned just now that your father had been married twice. Could you tell me about the first marriage?”

“Goodness, no. It was before I was born.”

“Yes, I realize that. Did you never hear talk of it?”

“Not much. Roderick would know. They have all the papers up there at the Rectory—and are no doubt planning to get a
great
sum for them when he dies.” She wrinkled her forehead. “I believe it was about 1925 or '26—some chorus girl or flapper, or something of that kind. Boy-and-girl romance, or not much more. She went on to marry some lord or duke or other, and they were both killed in the war.”

“Ah, she's dead.”

“Oh, yes, long ago.”

“And no children by your father?”

“Oh, no, certainly not.” She looked at him, trying to puzzle something out. “I really don't understand these questions about Father's wives and possible children. It's Myra who was killed, isn't it? And I don't see why you need try to find
more
children, Chief Inspector.”

“I'm sorry, I don't get— Oh, I see. You mean there's Cordelia.”

“Well, but naturally.”

“But I'm afraid that at the time the murder shot was fired, Cordelia Mason was on her way up from the beach.”

“Oh, but it's obvious that was some kind of trick, isn't it? I mean,
surely
 . . . She must have shot her with a silencer earlier on. Perhaps that later shot
was
a car backfiring. I'm sure a clever man like you will work out how it was done. It's so obvious that it must be her. Everyone knew they were working up to an almighty row, they
had
the almighty row, because I heard it, and heard Cordelia attack her mother. Obviously the row ended with Cordelia shooting her.”

“Dame Myra by this time having got into bed and lain there calmly waiting to be shot? No, I don't think so, Mrs. Allick.”

But when she had gone, exuding an air of dudgeon and apparently believing that she had handed him the solution to the case on a plate and had it rejected, he did reflect on one thing she had said.

“Everyone knew they were working up to an almighty row . . .”

But that was not in fact true, was it? The Mason group had all no doubt expected something of that sort, but they had put up a reasonably good front for the guests at the Red Lion. The people who could best have counted on the meeting between Myra and Cordelia ending in a row were the people who knew most about the situation between them. And that, surely, meant the Mason party itself. And of course Roderick and Caroline Cotterel.

“W
E'VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD
to our chat,” said Daisy Critchley, as if Chief Inspector Meredith had come to discuss arrangements for the horticultural show. She ushered him and Flood through the hall and threw open the door of the sitting room with an air of saying: “Not everyone gets shown in
here
.”

“Sit you down,” said the commodore in his hearty old sea-dog voice, gesturing toward a pink plushy armchair in which one sank as into a fleshy, overintimate embrace.

The Critchleys just remembered to nod at Sergeant Flood, who took an upright chair in which he was a good deal more comfortable than his boss. While the Critchleys fussed around them, offering them drinks that they could not accept and ashtrays that they did not need, the two men had a chance to take in the room. The furniture was all plush and tassel, in lustrous shades, and the room was beset with lampstands and ornaments and Regency stripe. It looked as though the furniture had been bought at an expensive shop at sale time, for the visitor got a subtle
sense of none of it cohering, of things having been bought in spite of the colors not being quite right. The room was not large enough to take them all, for the house, on the outskirts of Maudsley, was a dreadful modern parody of Queen Anne, put up by a well-known building chain at the upper end of their design range. Apparently the Critchleys followed the prime minister in their taste for expensive architectural tat.

“Now,” said Commodore Critchley as he and his wife sank into the sofa, looking like twin fetuses in a womb that they were going to have great trouble getting out of, “we're at your service, old chap. Where do you want us to start? Night of the murder, or before that?”

“Because we met one of the . . . participants—no, two—before Dame Myra was killed,” said Daisy Critchley. “We were actually up at the Cotterels' when Cordelia Mason and her . . . gentleman friend arrived.”

She gave the impression that she would be eternally grateful to Roderick and Caroline for, as it were, letting them in on the ground floor of the case. Meredith decided to play them with a loose line.

“What was your impression of the pair?” he asked.

“Sweet little thing,” said the commodore. “The girl. Doesn't make the best of herself.”

“Hardly
little
,” said Daisy. “Distinctly overweight.”

“I mean as people,” said Meredith.

“Nervous, unsure of herself,” said the commodore. “No self-assurance at all. Not what you'd expect in the daughter of an actress. Used to having people round her all the time, or so you'd suppose.”

“Neurotic, if you want my impression,” said Daisy in her hard, downright fashion. “Fidgeting with her hands the whole time and pulling a handkerchief apart.”

“And the young man?”

The commodore screwed up his face and looked at his
wife. “Hardly noticed him, tell you the truth. Quiet, dreamy type. Not the sort I'd want any daughter of mine to marry. Not the sort I'd want under my command, come to that. He'll mooch his life away.”

“A lot younger than her,” contributed Daisy Critchley. “I don't think it ever does, do you? It creates confusion about who's boss.”

Meredith suppressed a tiny smile. He suspected there was no confusion in the Critchley household as to who was boss. He shifted position in his chair, and the pink monster released one buttock and sucked in another with cannibal relish.

“I see,” he said. “I suppose you must have had a little chat with them, when you met them at the Cotterels'?”

“That's right. About her mother, what we'd seen her in, and so on.”

“So that when you saw them at the Red Lion, in a party with their mother and her new husband, it seemed natural to go up and introduce yourselves?”

“That's right,” said Daisy. “Of course, we'd mentioned to several people that we'd met the great Myra Mason's daughter.”

That, Meredith knew, was certainly correct. The Critchleys had talked of that first meeting both in the Red Lion, which was their local, and in other hostelries with a middle-class clientele in a twenty-five-mile radius of Maudsley. Just as, since the murder, they had driven around the same establishments again, giving an account of their involvement in the deed that all the tabloids were shrieking about. It was not boasting exactly, or drinking out on the topic, since presumably they had no need to cadge drinks. Rather it was, or so it seemed, a need to establish their connection with the notable or the notorious, their small but vital place in events that were thrilling the nation. It was a near universal urge, capitalized
on by reporters and television interviewers. And the Critchleys were, of course, retired people with time on their hands.

“—so that when we saw them there together, we just had to go over and pay our small tribute.”

“I see.”

Meredith knew that the imminent arrival of Dame Myra had been well advertised in advance in Red Lion circles. He had no doubt that the Critchley presence there during her stay was no accident.

“And was she gracious?”

“Oh, perfectly,” said the commodore expansively. “We felt a little bit pushy, of course, but actors are used to fans, aren't they? Fans are their
raison d'être
, in a way.”

“I just wondered, because Dame Myra has been known to be difficult.”

The commodore shook his head airily. “Not with us, I assure you.”

“Then you had dinner at the Red Lion?”

“That's right.”

“Do you dine there often?”

“Actually it was the first time,” said Daisy, outfacing Meredith's obvious implication. “But we'd been promising ourselves a meal there for ages.”

“And was your table near the Myra Mason table?”

“No,” said Daisy, managing to keep the regret out of her voice.

Meredith shifted position in his chair again and wondered if next time he would go down for the last time.

“Now,” he said, “when the Myra Mason party finished their dinner—”

“We'd already had ours,” said Daisy rather quickly. “Had less to talk about, I suppose, and the service was first-rate. We were already back in the bar when Granville Ashe came in with Pat. They came to sit next to us.”