Choice of Evils (11 page)

‘You're thinking of hospitals, are you?’

‘Well, suppose she'd been knocked down by a car, or something like that?’

‘As she herself thought possible, if you remember.’

‘You don't sound very convinced.’

‘Because at the moment we've no evidence at all as to what's happened to her.’

T wonder if Clarke and the cast actually know.’

‘I've a feeling they don't, but I could be quite wrong.’

They had begun to move towards the exit.

‘I'll take you back to the Dolphin/ Peter said, 'then I suppose I'd better get back to Amory's place. I don't suppose the police expected me to be away for so long. I wonder if they've been looking for me.’

But when he and Andrew arrived back at the hotel they were told that no one had come looking for them. When he had made sure of this Peter returned to the car and drove off, while Andrew went back to the bar and ordered another whisky. After it, he went into the dining-room and ordered dinner. He had only just begun it when Nicholl came in.

As a matter of courtesy he came to Andrew's table and sat down facing him. He began to speak at once.

'She's still missing.’

‘I'm very sorry,’ Andrew said. ‘Haven't you any idea what's happened to her?’

Like Peter, Nicholl said, 'She could have met with an accident. We've been on to the police about it, and we've been ringing all the hospitals. There are only three in the neighbourhood, and if she's been in an accident, it won't have been far away, as she was simply out walking. But none of them have any news of her. The police have taken particulars, but they seem to be much more involved in that murder up at Amory's than a mere missing person. God, Basnett, I'm worried! It's so unlike her.’

'She's normally very conscientious, is she?’

‘Lord, yes! She'd never have let those people at the theatre down unless something really serious had happened. And an accident is the only thing I can think of. Some bastard knocked her down and left her lying there. Drove on and never thought of getting her to a hospital. Or she could have been taken ill, I suppose, had a heart attack or something, only she's physically as sound as a bell, or so we've always thought. And it isn't like her not to let me know what had happened to her, if she was
capable of it. You may have got a wrong idea of her because of that scene she made with Amory. She did that just to annoy him.’

‘They're old enemies, are they?’ Andrew said.

A faint smile flitted across Nicholl's skull-like face.

‘That's a word for it. Of course, they were lovers once, but that's years ago. I know hardly anything about it. I haven't wanted to know. We're married, you know, though she kept her own name for professional purposes. Not that it is her own name. That's Mary Baker. Yes, we're married. Have been for years, and it's been really good. Everything I ever dreamed of. And she's never let me down like this, so all I can think of is that she's been in an accident. Don't you think so yourself? Can you think of any other explanation?’

The flow of speech stopped for a moment, and Nicholl gazed at Andrew with eyebrows questioningly raised. He was talking feverishly, like someone who hardly knows what he is saying. Andrew felt that it was probably a very unusual thing for the man to do. He remembered Nicholl's total silence at the time of his wife's meeting with Amory. That was more characteristic of him, Andrew thought, than this desperate need to talk.

‘I wish I could help,’ Andrew said, ‘but I think you're probably right.’

‘Of course, it might not have been a car accident,’ Nicholl hurried on. ‘If she'd gone walking on the cliffs here, and slipped. I haven't been up on them myself, so I don't know how dangerous they are.’

‘I was up on the cliff on the far side of the town only this morning,’ Andrew said, ‘and if she stuck to the path there I shouldn't say it was dangerous at all. On this side, as far as I can remember, there's a strip of beechwood between the road and the edge of the cliff. The wood doesn't go right to the edge, and the path beyond it is quite open and navigable.’

‘No, no, I'm sure it was a car, only I can't think where it could have happened without someone having found her and reported it to the police or a hospital.’ Nicholl looked at the food that had just been put down in front of him as if he could not think how it had got there. Like Andrew, he had ordered an omelette, but he did not look as if he intended to eat it. ‘I never wanted to come on this expedition, you know,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be a waste of time. But Magda was very keen on it, and I'm inclined to think it was partly because she knew Amory was involved in this festival affair. I've a feeling she wanted to let him see just what she'd become as an actress. But I'm only guessing. We didn't talk about it. I think he was one of the bad things that happened to her in her life. In fact - you'll think this is ridiculous - I can't help wondering if he's had something to do with her disappearance. Balls, you'll say to me, and I know you're quite right. Only he did show his hatred of her yesterday evening, didn't he, and hatred like that sometimes has to express itself?’

He picked up a fork and jabbed at his omelette. Andrew had about finished his.

‘Tell me what you really think,’ Nicholl went on earnestly. ‘Do you think Amory could have had anything to do with Magda's disappearance?’

‘I believe Amory spent most of the afternoon with Miss Todhunter, playing chess,’ Andrew replied. ‘It's something they do every Saturday afternoon/

‘Even when he's got guests? He'd your nephew and Rachel Rayne. It hardly seems like the behaviour of a perfect host.’

‘But it's apparently what he did.’

Nicholl managed to swallow a mouthful of his omelette, then pushed his plate away, muttering, ‘I don't want this. I'll just have some coffee.’ He looked round for the waiter and gave an order for coffee. As he did so a change came
over him. He seemed to be stiffening himself, carefully erasing the expression from his face and gazing not at Andrew, but just past him at some spot on the wall. ‘I hope you'll forgive me for burdening you with my worries,’ he said in a flat, lifeless voice. ‘Probably very embarrassing for you and all to no purpose. Not the sort of thing I usually do.’

‘But entirely understandable in the circumstances,’ Andrew said.

It was plain that Nicholl regretted having talked as he had, for he became quite silent and as soon as he had drunk his coffee said a terse good night to Andrew and left him.

Andrew had cheese and biscuits after his omelette. It irritated him very much that as soon as he was left to himself his mind became filled with the rhyme:

He knew that this afflicted him only because he did not know what else to think about, and that if only he could bring his mind to bear, say, on the problem of why and by whom Rachel Rayne had been murdered, or on the mystery of the disappearance of Magda Braile, he would be freed from this nonsensical way of occupying it. But the problems were too big for him to be able to grasp them and he was very tired. The habit of mumbling doggerel rhymes to himself was always at its most obsessive when he was tired. And there was no avoiding the fact that lately he had found himself getting tired far more quickly than only a year or two ago. He was getting forgetful about things too. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence he would find that he had forgotten what he had started out
to say. When he had drunk his coffee he went up to his room.

Going up the stairs he made the rather satisfying discovery that the bishop of Rum-ti-Foo had been defeated by another quotation, and one with somewhat more dignity.

It was not really surprising that he should find this filling his mind, since it was the most famous line in the play which he and Peter had failed to see that evening. But Rachel Rayne had not been so very young when she had died. Thirty-five at least. And Magda Braile, in the accident in which she had almost certainly been involved, if it had been fatal, had been somewhat older. Not that that would have been apparent when she was on the stage. What with make-up and skilful lighting, it would have been easy to make her appear young. But thinking about that in no way helped to explain either calamity. It did not even give a hint as to whether in some strange way the two incidents might be connected. There was no reason to suppose that they were, except that they had happened on the same day, and that probably meant nothing.

Andrew slept soundly that night, sheer fatigue over-coming him as soon as he got into bed. He had meant to start reading
Death Come Quickly
, but it remained unread on the table by his bed. In the morning he awoke in a puzzled state, feeling that something that he ought to know about had gone wrong. For a moment he could not think what it was. Then he remembered. Murder. Mysterious disappearance. Yes, certainly things had gone wrong the day before. His mind cleared, to find the maid trying to place his breakfast tray on his knees. Coffee, toast and marmalade, and then of course a slice of his own cheese. After that, shaving, a shower and getting dressed,
and feeling more or less awake and normal by the time that his telephone rang.

He assumed that it was Peter calling him, but it was Detective Inspector Mayhew with a request that Andrew should meet him in the police station for a discussion of some odd things that had come up. Andrew arrived at the police station at about ten o'clock and was received by the inspector in his office, a small, clinically tidy room, in which he was sitting at a table on which some neat piles of papers were arranged. He rose to his feet when Andrew was shown in and shook his hand, then gestured to him to be seated in a chair that faced him across the table. His large, square face with the small features in the middle of it looked freshly shaved and considering that he had probably spent not very much of the night asleep, surprisingly alert.

With one of his small, tight-lipped smiles, he said, ‘You understand, Professor, this is unofficial. If you can help me, I'll be grateful, but I realize you may be reluctant to answer one or two of the questions I want to ask you, and I'm not going to try to put pressure on you. It's your advice I want, as much as anything.’

‘I hope then I can help,’ Andrew replied.

‘I want to ask you first,’ Mayhew went on, ‘whether to your knowledge, your nephew, Mr Dilly, had ever met Miss Rayne before this Friday.’

‘To my knowledge, no,’ Andrew said. ‘Also, to the best of my belief, no. But I understand why you think I may be unwilling to answer your questions if they're all like that one.’

‘Just so.’ The distrustful little smile still puckered Mayhew's small mouth. ‘But murder is a serious matter, even if one's nephew might be suspected. One might be ready to part with a little information concerning him. Sometimes even closer relatives will talk, parents about
children, children about parents, husbands and wives about each other.’

‘Are you telling me that you seriously suspect my nephew of this murder?’ A hot little flame of anger stirred in Andrew's brain.

‘No, no, only clearing the ground,’ Mayhew answered. ‘You're telling me that to the best of your knowledge and belief, Mr Dilly had never met Miss Rayne until the day before she met her death?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Can you tell me then what brought him as a guest to Mr Amory's house? I understand that his reason for coming to Gallmouth was to take part in the Arts Festival, but why is he staying with Mr Amory? They don't seem to be special friends.’

‘All I know about that,’ Andrew said, ‘is that they met at a literary luncheon and Mr Amory suddenly invited him to take part in the festival, and to spend the weekend with him. Then the official invitation from the committee arrived a few days later and my nephew accepted it as well as Amory's to stay with him. But I agree the relationship doesn't seem to have ripened into friendship. My impression is that Amory is a somewhat difficult man. I imagine he gave the invitation on an impulse and has since regretted it.’

‘For any specific reason?’

‘For none that I know of. May I
ask you
a question now? Has anything been found out yet about the disappearance of Magda Braile?’

A small frown wrinkled the inspector's high, smooth forehead. It looked as if he disliked the question. ‘Nothing yet,’ he said.

‘There's no trace of her?’

‘The last that's been seen of her, according to our pre-sent knowledge, is when she left that hotel where you're staying, stopping for a moment to speak to the receptionist
and say that she was going for a walk. Then she went off down the drive to the main road and vanished.’

‘At what time was that?’

‘About quarter past four.’

‘You've no witnesses to where she went or what direction she took after that?’

‘None have come forward yet.’

'She's after all a fairly well-known figure.’

‘Perhaps not in Gallmouth. We're rather off the beaten track here.’

‘Well, it's very disturbing.’

‘Almost as disturbing as murder, one might say. Now, I wonder if you'd take a look at this.’

With a quick little gesture Mayhew tossed across the table to Andrew a small book with a cover of bright red plastic. Picking it up, Andrew saw the word, ‘Addresses’ printed on it in gold. He opened it and flicked the pages over. They were fairly full of names, addresses and tele-phone numbers, written in a small but sprawling hand. Then he suddenly put it down.

‘Ought I to have handled it?’ he asked.

‘It's all right, it's been tested for fingerprints,’ Mayhew said. 'There are a few very old and very smudged ones, and some of Mr Amory's. It was found in a drawer of the desk in the summerhouse. But it isn't Mr Amory's address book, it's his wife's. And I'd be grateful if you'd look through it carefully and tell me if anything special strikes you about it.’

Andrew considered it.

‘You want me to do that now?’ he said.

‘If you would, but take your time,’ Mayhew said. 'There's no hurry.’