The Wrong Rite (27 page)

“Yes, I was, and Madoc knows all about it. I had met my parents for drinks and dinner. I had to be in Munich for rehearsal the following day, so I left them about half-past nine and spent the night on the train to Munich. After I’d checked into my hotel, I telephoned Gwen in London, and that was the first I knew of Arthur’s death.”

“Gwen even telephoned me at the studio,” Tom broke in, “which was more than anybody else bothered to do. I was out of my office at the moment, as it happened, so I didn’t get to speak with her, but I remember thinking it was awfully decent of her to leave the message. Sorry, old boy, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Dafydd’s studied calm had come unstuck, he was halfway to the boil by now. “In short, Iseult, I did not murder Arthur Ellis: firstly, because he was someone I liked and respected; secondly, because I would not have wished to cause Lisa grief; thirdly, because I was not then and am not now an amateur cracksman; and fourthly, because I simply wouldn’t have had the time.”

Iseult still wasn’t giving up. “Oh, but you would, if you’d flown to Munich instead of going by train.”

“I’m well aware of that, thank you, and so is Madoc.”

“How nice for both of you.”

This was too much for Janet. “You were in Marseilles yourself that night, Iseult.”

“I was not!”

Iseult had packed enough temperament into her scream to have kindled another Beltane fire, but she wasn’t fazing Janet a whit.

“Oh yes, you were. You walked past a restaurant not far from where the body was found, about half-past ten that same night. You were wearing very high heels and a tight miniskirt, and carrying a transparent bubble umbrella with a green band around it. What made you tell such a silly lie this morning, Iseult?”

“I didn’t lie to you! Why should I? Where did you get this faradiddle? From Dafydd?”

“No, I got it from Lady Rhys. After they’d put Dafydd into a taxi, she and Sir Emlyn had stayed on at the restaurant. They’d finally got ready to leave and were out under the awning trying to hail a cab for themselves when you walked by. They didn’t speak to you because some man standing next to them made a rude remark. You had your face so plastered with makeup that he evidently took you for a streetwalker, and you know how Dafydd’s mother feels about his father’s position. I should add in fairness that they both assumed you’d been performing and hadn’t taken off your stage makeup.”

“How charitable of them. It’s all rot, of course. Whatever that woman may have been, she certainly wasn’t I. Lady Rhys had better get her lorgnette adjusted.”

“My mother has excellent eyesight,” said Dafydd. “She never forgets a name or a face, she never gets people mixed up, and she is not a malicious liar. Where in Marseilles were you performing that night, Iseult?”

“Et tu, Brute?”
Iseult pushed back her chair and stood up. “If this is the liveliest entertainment you have to offer, I think I’ll stroll back down to the Gas and Gaiters and seduce the village idiot. One does need to keep in practice. Coming, Tom?”

“If Madoc’s quite through with his inquisition. One doesn’t want to flout his authority. Not that he really has any to flout, Uncle Huw to the contrary notwithstanding. Do you, old boy? Why don’t you go back to Canada and try it on the Esquimaux?”

Madoc was not at all ruffled. “I’ve been deputized to help Cyril Rhys because Uncle Caradoc prefers to keep the investigation in the family as far as possible. If you’d prefer to have the chief constable call in Scotland Yard, I expect that could be arranged.”

“Oh, don’t trouble on my account. What about it, Williams? You’re not family, come join the grilling session. Cousin Madoc wants to know why you blew up Cousin Mary last night.”

“Oh? Why does anybody blow up anybody? That reminds me, Mrs. Ellis, I have a message for you. Your daughter wanted me to say that she’d got the constable’s bicycle back without being pinched and she’s going to stay and help hunt the handbag. Is that another old Welsh custom?”

“No, the Welsh custom is for ladies to keep a very tight grip on their handbags,” said Tom. “Right, Lisa?”

“Quite right. Thank you for telling me, Mr. Williams.”

“Not at all. Sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. By the way, I’d planned to drive Iseult back to London today, but I’m told we aren’t allowed to leave. For how long, does anyone know?”

“Until you’re either blown up or carted off to the jug,” Tom replied. “Which would you prefer?”

“The jug, please. At least I might be able to get some work done there. Regardless of all that about Arthur Ellis, it must have been the brother who killed her, don’t you think? Motive incestuous lust, I hope. Incest’s rather high on the list just now in what we scriptwriters laughingly refer to as our profession. Insanity’s passé, and money’s so trite. Did she have any, by the way?”

“Money, or unnatural yearnings?”

“Ridiculous question. Money, of course.”

“Pots of it. Too bad you missed your chance, Reuel old chap. Where were you when the lights went out?”

“In the dark, as I so often am. Who gets the oodle: the brother, the nephew, or you?”

“I should be so lucky. Bob, of course. He has a natural affinity for money, however come by. Madoc’s going to arrest him as soon as we’ve finished our game of cops and robbers. Aren’t you, old boy? Or do you incline to the loaded pistol in the library, since it’s a matter of saving the family honor?”

“Good question, I haven’t quite decided. How long have you and Iseult known each other, Mr. Williams?”

“Too long, I sometimes think. About—what, Iseult? Four years? Four and a half? Shortly after I got back from the States, anyway.”

“And how long were you in the States?” Madoc’s voice was still mild.

“Almost twelve years. I’d got tired of writing documentaries; that one I did with the late Miss Rhys was the first of far too many. I’d become locked into that particular slot, you see, and I wanted out. I knew any chap with a British accent would be leapt upon with cries of joy in Hollywood, not because of our skill with the language but because we add such a nice touch of class to the producers’ wives’ indiscretions. Anyway, I decided to try it long enough to redefine myself as a scriptwriter, so over I went. The climate was appalling but the money was good, so I stayed on, as one does, you know. Got married and all that. When the marriage broke up, I decided it was time to come home. Not very interesting, is it?”

“You did come back for visits, however, or on special assignments?”

“Lord, no. I don’t make visits unless somebody pays my way, and Hollywood film moguls wouldn’t dream of sending Brits to Britian. That would be far too obvious. We got shipped off to Malaysia or the Sea of Okhotsk, places like that, suffered nasty afflictions from the native foods, and came back to tacos and guacamole. I believe what really precipitated my return to the homeland was that I’d developed an overwhelming yen for a plate of bubble and squeak.”

“Naturally one would. This was about five years ago, you say?”

“Yes, that’s right. I sailed back on the
QE2
to give myself a few days’ worth of image-polishing, and passed my fortieth birthday sicking up in the Newfoundland Basin. I’m forty-five now, God help me, so that does it, doesn’t it? Anyway, I got a job at Goldilox Flix on the strength of my American accent. Iseult was there on loan from Curvaceous Cinema at the time, her script wasn’t right, and I was given a go at fixing it. That worked out, so Iseult moved over to Goldilox and it got to be more or less taken for granted that I’d be doing her scripts. So back I am in another rut. At least this one’s drier than the Sea of Okhotsk. Part of the time, anyway.”

“And there’s no dearth of bubble and squeak,” Madoc replied understandingly. “Did you ever meet a gem buyer named Arthur Ellis?”

“I had a lovely time in Caracas once with a girl named Stefanya Ellis, only I’m not sure that’s how she spelled it. No relation, I don’t suppose?”

“Probably not. Have you ever been to Marseilles?”

“Oh yes, quite often when I was in my documentary period. I was there again just a few weeks ago, as a matter of fact, for the first time since I got back to the old sod. Had a rather touching encounter, by the way. I dropped in at a place over near the Cannebière that I’d frequented as a golden-haired stripling, and the old girl who runs it remembered me. She stood me a bottle of awful champagne and we got quite matey, reminiscing about the dear dead days of long ago. She asked what I was doing these days, and when I said writing for the flicks, she opened another bottle. Seems she’d had this gorgeous
rousse
working there for a while, who’d gone on to become a famous film star. She appeared to take this as a personal triumph, she’d even kept a scrap-book. It wasn’t something she showed to everybody—one had to be discreet, after all—but with an old friend like me and one actually in the business,
eh bien, pourquoi pas?
So we had quite a cozy time looking at the photos, and it didn’t cost me a cent. Madame Fifine, she calls herself.”

“God damn you to hell, Reuel Williams!”

It was a shriek to shatter windows. Reuel Williams gazed across the table with an air of polite dismay. “What’s the matter, Iseult? Have I said something inappropriate?”

“S
O THAT’S WHY MARY
Rhys was blackmailing you.”

Tom made it a statement, not a question. Madoc wasn’t standing for interference.

“Let me handle this, please, Tom. Mr. Williams, did Madame Fifine tell you, or were you able to determine from material in the scrapbook, exactly when this gorgeous redhead was employed in her establishment?”

“It was only for a short period, not more than a few months. I could put through a call to Madame Fifine if you think it’s important.”

“I didn’t realize you despise me this much, Reuel.” Iseult spoke not resentfully but wearily, the fight gone out of her. “Actually it was more a matter of weeks than of months. I was researching a part, trying to get the feel of—oh, hell, what’s the use. I’d been let down over a job, I’d dropped what little money I had trying to win back my fare home, and it was a matter of take what you can get. In France they’re more civilized about such things.”

“Nobody’s judging you, Iseult.” Lisa sounded worn-out too. “We just want to get at the truth for once. Were you in Marseilles on the night of April twelfth eight years ago, as Lady Rhys claims you were? You might as well say. Madoc will find out anyway.”

“Thanks to my pal here. I know. Yes, I was there. When Lady Rhys saw me, I was out for a stroll with one of Madame Fifine’s regulars. She didn’t allow anything really kinky, she was quite the gentlewoman in her way, but this chap had a relatively harmless little thing about trotting along behind a girl and pretending to pick her up. He was a bit on the prissy side, he wouldn’t have dreamed of approaching anyone to whom he hadn’t been formally introduced. I didn’t mind, it made a change. Anyway, he trailed me back to the house and business continued brisk from then on, so you see I have an involved alibi. I didn’t kill poor old Arthur because, like Dafydd, I simply wouldn’t have had the time. Not that I would have anyway, he was such a pet.”

“When did you find out Arthur was dead?” Madoc asked her.

“It was after daybreak, I know, because I was just getting to bed. Unaccompanied, that is to say. My room faced out on the alley. I heard a bit of commotion and looked out the window, as one naturally would. A couple of
flics
were down there, bending over a man who was lying on the ground. I could see a wallet and a few calling cards or some such scattered around him, it was fairly obvious he’d been beaten to death and robbed. Then one of the
flics
stepped aside and I got a look at the man’s face. I recognized Arthur Ellis immediately and decided that this was not the place for me.”

“So what did you do?”

“I knew Madame would be up and about; she never missed a trick in more senses than one; so I went and told her I’d got another job and must leave for Paris
tout de suite.
She knew I was lying, but she also knew I hadn’t killed the man in the alley. Anyway, she didn’t want a scandal any more than I did, so she paid me off, told me there’d always be a bed waiting should the new job not suit, and wished me bon voyage.”

“That was sweet of her,” said Reuel. “I’m sure you were sadly missed.”

“I shall see to it that you wind up writing documentaries again,” Iseult replied through clenched teeth. “Preferably in Okhotsk.”

“You don’t know how Arthur happened to be just there?” Madoc persisted.

“No. Arthur definitely had not been one of Madame Fifine’s customers, neither she nor any of the other girls recognized him. The police assumed he’d been pushed into the alley as he walked by, or else struck down on the sidewalk and dragged in there to be searched and robbed. Madame Fifine was of the opinion that he’d been killed somewhere else and brought there by one of her competitors to make her look bad. I had to listen to a tirade before she got round to counting out my money. It was rather nerve-wracking; I did want to be off.”

“Where did you go once you’d left the house?”

“I took a bus to Cannes. That was Madame’s idea, actually. She thought it might look too obviously like flight if I went scuttling off too far too fast. As usual, she knew best, Cannes turned out to be the best stroke of luck I’ve ever had. I met a producer from Curvaceous Cinema on the beach, and my career took off.”

“Along with a few other things, no doubt,” drawled Reuel.

“Too bad your scripts aren’t so clever as your repartee. Can’t you arrest him, Madoc?”

“I may. We’ll see. When did you first hear from the blackmailer?”

“Just about the time advance publicity for my first really big film began to appear. It was a note, clumsily printed in purple ink on cheap paper, all correct and according to protocol. It started with a modest request for fifty pounds, along with a threat to divulge not only my short career as a lady of the evening but also my connection with the death of Arthur Ellis if I didn’t pay up. I wasn’t about to risk any unfavorable publicity then, of all times, so I paid. The following month, I got a polite thank-you note and a request for another fifty pounds. And so it went. The amounts were bearable, so I kept on paying. As my career burgeoned, the price went up.”