The Case of the Gilded Fly (18 page)

‘Well?'

‘Don't you see? It means I've got no alibi. They'll say –'

‘My dear, they're not going to arrest everyone in Oxford who hasn't got an alibi. You must simply tell them, that's all. Believe me,' Robert added grimly, ‘if they start anything where you're
concerned, I'll have every forensic jackal in London on their tails.'

She looked so worried that he went over and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Bless your heart,' he said, ‘don't worry. Personally, I shan't attempt to conceal the fact that I shall be more than delighted if they never find out who did it.'

He returned and sat down again. ‘Thank heaven
Metromania
is going well: it will go better now, though I says it as shouldn't. You know I have an idea for a successor? Male chief character this time. Shotover or Giles Overreach stature – though again I says it as shouldn't.'

‘I suppose,' said Rachel, ‘that means you're going to shut yourself up again as soon as this is over? Really, I think you're outrageous.'

Robert chuckled. ‘I know – aren't I? And it's not as if I enjoyed it.' He regarded her quizzically. ‘I don't know whether it affects other people that way, but I find I get so bored with my own mind. Writing a new play is like having a baby or going swimming: it's only pleasant when it's over.'

Nigel ate his breakfast alone, the meantime carrying on what he imagined to be a sane and objective survey of the facts. Sanity and objectivity, however, were impotent; no spark of enlightenment entered his head. What primarily puzzled him was the business of the ring: what possible reason could a murderer have had for putting it on Yseut's finger after she was dead? His mind wandering, a number of Heath Robinson contraptions based on this fact peered over the mental threshold, and were hastily dismissed. Was Robert telling the truth when he said he had not been with Yseut on Wednesday night? Nigel thought not, but then it was really impossible to say. Why had Donald seemed so little surprised to hear of Yseut's death? What was the significance of the radio? Of the fact that Yseut had been killed in Donald's room? What had she been looking for there? Had Jean taken the gun, and if so, did that prove she was a murderer? Nigel realized that this internal catechism, faintly reminiscent of the dialogues between body and soul so popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was totally valueless, and abandoned it in order to contemplate what
possibilities there might be in Fen's professed intuitive method. He concentrated on intuiting, allowing desultory impressions to invade his mind without order or sequence, and as a consequence felt more confused than ever. For a moment, indeed, he did think he had hit on some obvious single element which bound the whole business into a plausible pattern; but he was evidently intuiting so hard that it failed to penetrate his consciousness, and he was quite unable to recapture it. Sighing, he abandoned the attempt.

The first thing, in any case, was to go and see Helen. Rehearsal was not until eleven that morning, and she ought still to be at her rooms. He collected a mackintosh and set off through the rain towards Beaumont Street.

As he approached No. 265 he observed two vaguely familiar figures coming towards him. The mists of distance dissipating, they were revealed as Inspector Cordery and Sergeant Spencer, evidently bound on the same errand as himself. He met them, in fact, at the door.

The Inspector was in high good humour. He greeted Nigel with the patronizing benevolence of St Peter admitting one of the minor evangelists to eternal bliss. ‘Well, well, Mr Blake, it's a small world!' he opined tediously. ‘I dare say you're on your way to see Miss Haskell, as we are?'

‘Of course, if I shall be in the way – ' mumbled Nigel, unwilling to abandon the precedence which he felt a short head over the police had gained him.

‘Well, sir, come up with us if you feel inclined. Only I must ask you to let us handle this our own way, and not to do any interrupting, while we're there.'

Nigel solemnly expressed his approval of this arrangement, and they went in and upstairs, Nigel and the Inspector jostling uneasily for first place on the narrow staircase.

Helen was in her room, writing letters. It was a large room, light, airy, and meticulously clean and tidy, and although most of the furniture and ornaments were not hers, she had succeeded, as women always can, in impressing on them the stamp of her own individuality without any striving after effect. Beyond that, Nigel noted, there was also the generic aspect: it was unmistakably a woman's room, the reason being – thought Nigel,
succumbing to the masculine habit of analysis – the number of
small
objects which it contained. Unmistakably feminine – he thought of Chaucer's description of Cressida –

But alle her limes so well answeringe

    Weren to wommanhode, that creature

N'as nevere lasse mannissh in seminge.

As Chaucer rejoiced in the transcendental, the surpassing womanliness of Cressida, so he rejoiced in that of Helen. He looked at her grave, child-like face, the soft waved silk of her hair, and was lost. He made noises of greeting in the back of his throat, to which she replied solemnly.

Even the Inspector, Nigel noticed with ridiculous pride, was manifestly taken with Helen. His manner became as soothing as his rather bird-like physiognomy permitted. To Nigel's surprise, it was with a charming natural courtesy that he expressed his regret for what had happened, and his apologies for troubling Helen so early.

‘I knew you'd be wanting to get off to rehearsal, miss,' he said, ‘so I thought we'd get this troublesome business over with as soon as possible. A good deal of it's routine, you'll understand.'

Helen nodded and motioned them to sit down. ‘I'm afraid you'll think me a little callous, Inspector,' she said. ‘But Yseut and I never got on well – never knew each other well, in fact – and she was after all only my half-sister. So although naturally this appalling business has been a shock, I can't honestly pretend I feel it as a very personal loss.'

The Inspector, after a moment's consideration, appeared to find this view comprehensible; doubtless standards acquired in childhood by the reading of fairy tales, in which half-sisters are invariably flies in the ointment, still remotely affected his outlook. ‘Well, that's none of our business, miss,' he said, and added illogically: ‘though naturally we shall have to ask one or two questions about it. I wonder, now, if you'd mind giving your fingerprints to Spencer here?'

‘Again a matter of routine, Inspector?' asked Helen mischievously. The Inspector ventured a responsible-looking smile. ‘That's right, miss,' he said.

Spencer, who had on entering cast a desperate glance at the formidable battery of cosmetics laid out on the dressing-table, became apologetic. ‘I'm afraid this is going to make a bit of a mess on your fingers, miss,' he said.

‘Go ahead, Sergeant,' said Helen. ‘As an actress I'm used to having horrible things painted on all over me.' The remainder of the proceedings went through in silence.

‘Now, miss,' said the Inspector, ‘we shall have to have a look at your sister's room.'

‘Oh, yes. Next door to here, on the left. She always kept everything unlocked, so you shouldn't have any difficulty. Shall I come?' She half rose.

‘Er – thank you, no, miss. In point of fact, Spencer was sent round here last night to lock it up until we could have a proper look at it. You didn't, I suppose, try to enter your sister's room at any time last night or this morning?'

‘No, Inspector, I didn't, so you won't find any of my fingerprints on the knob.'

‘Ah – exactly. Spencer, go and take a look round. You know what we hope to find, don't you?' he added sinisterly.

Spencer, who had not the least idea, grinned affably and went out. The Inspector said casually:

‘So your sister was going to alter her will?'

Nigel looked quickly at Helen, but she replied with perfect calm: ‘So she told me at the party the other night. She was to have gone up to see her solicitor today. I believe Nick Barclay was eavesdropping at the time, and I guessed he'd tell you.' The Inspector looked so crestfallen that she hastened to add: ‘Not that I wouldn't have done in any case.'

‘In the circumstances, miss, it looks a bit queer.'

‘I quite agree,' said Helen tranquilly. Nigel, mindful of his vows of silence, projected a burst of telepathic applause in her direction.

The Inspector, a little taken aback, tried a new tack. ‘Do you know who was to be the new legatee?'

‘I really haven't the faintest idea. She had no close relations besides myself, and very few friends. What always astonished me was that she didn't alter it before, considering how little love there was between us. Not that it mattered as far as I was
concerned: I've no particular desire for more money than I can earn, and I'd no reason to expect that she'd die before I would, anyway. She only told me about it out of sheer malice – which somewhat misfired for the reasons aforesaid.'

‘The question of the will will have to be confirmed, of course. But I'm right in saying you are now a comparatively rich gi – woman, Miss Haskell?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Ah. Do you know the name of your sister's solicitors?'

‘Not the faintest idea. We never talked about money. She never offered me any, and I never tried to borrow any.'

‘Doesn't it strike you as curious,' said the Inspector, ‘that your sister didn't live – well, a little more up to her means? That she didn't take a house here, for example, or live in an hotel?'

‘I don't think even Yseut would have had the cheek to do that with me about the place,' said Helen drily. ‘She made herself pretty comfortable here, of course; but I think she must have enjoyed hoarding money, considering she spent most of her time industriously milking young men with incomes about twenty times smaller than her own.'

‘Come, come, Miss Haskell!' said the Inspector. But he said it absently; it was obvious that his mind was on other things. After a while he took from an envelope the ring that had been on Yseut's finger and showed it to Helen. ‘Did this belong to your sister?'

‘That? Heavens, no. It be— What has that got to do with Yseut's death?'

‘To whom does it belong?'

Helen was reluctant. ‘If you must know,' she said, ‘it belongs to Sheila McGaw, our producer. It's always been a standing joke in the theatre, it's such a grotesque and appalling thing. But—'

The Inspector nodded sagely. ‘Just wanted confirmation on the point, miss. Miss McGaw has already admitted to ownership of the ring. Says she left it two days ago in one of the dressing-rooms. It seems,' he added heavily, as though the assertion required some peculiar extension of the powers of belief, ‘that anyone, inside the theatre or out of it, could have walked in and made off with it.'

‘I suppose so,' said Helen. ‘There's no stage-door keeper, you know.'

‘Just so. If Miss McGaw is telling the truth,' the Inspector added kindly to Nigel by way of exegesis, ‘that means we're exactly where we were before.'

‘For heaven's sake!' said Helen. ‘What's the ring got to do with it?'

‘It was found on your sister's finger, miss. And the evidence suggests that it may have been put on after death.'

‘Oh!' Helen was suddenly and unaccountably silent.

‘And now, Miss Haskell, can I have a brief account of your movements between six and nine last night?'

‘Movements. Well, there weren't many. I left here to go to the theatre about half-past six, made up, went on at the beginning of the play – that's at a quarter to eight – was off again about ten minutes later, sat in my dressing-room and read, went on again about a quarter to nine—'

‘Just a minute, Miss Haskell: do I understand you to say that you weren't on the stage between 7.55 and 8.45?'.

For the first time Helen looked frightened. Nigel had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach; there was every reason – psychological, factual, evidential – why Helen should not have committed the murder – in his wildest dreams the thing would have been inconceivable – and yet he could not repress it.

‘Yes; that's right,' said Helen.

‘And do you share your dressing-room with anyone?'

‘Yes, in the normal way; but not this week; the girl I share with isn't in the play. You mean I could have – slipped out without anyone knowing? I suppose I could. I can only say I didn't.' She recovered a little of her self-confidence. ‘Certainly it would need a motive at least as strong as murder to make anyone take off make-up and put it on again half-an-hour later.'

It was at this point that Spencer returned, but his information was meagre; he had found no papers except a few personal letters of no importance and an address-book containing the address of Yseut's solicitor (which the Inspector pocketed).

‘Apart from that,' he said, ‘only the usual feminine artillery – begging your pardon, miss.' Helen gave him a smile in which
humorous appreciation and mild flirtatiousness were mingled in exactly the right proportions.

The Inspector got to his feet. ‘Well, I think that's all, Miss Haskell, thank you very much,' he said. ‘Will you be wanting to see your sister at all?' Helen shook her head. ‘Ah. Well, in the circumstances I think you're wise. You'll be required to identify the – her at the inquest, I'm afraid. That will be next Tuesday: we can't have it before because the coroner
and
the deputy-coroner have succeeded in being away at the same time.' He smiled sweetly at these happy evidences of incompetence in high places. Then, turning to Nigel, said in a lower voice: ‘I don't mind telling you, sir, that the bullet which killed the young lady has been identified as coming from the gun we found.' Nigel contrived to look suitably impressed at this useless piece of information; if Yseut had been murdered, then the murder seemed equally impossible from whatever gun the bullet had been fired.