Assassins at Ospreys

19

The Vanishing

‘Your hair’s not done. What happened to your hair-dresser’s appointment?’ Colville asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

‘Oh, don’t ask!’ Beatrice flapped her hands. ‘The most awful calamity. Honestly! You won’t believe this, darling, but they suddenly found themselves without any electricity!’

‘Without electricity?’

‘Yes! There was a loud crack as I was entering. Some kind of short-circuit or power cut or something. Can you imagine? Alessandro didn’t know where to look – so terribly embarrassed, poor boy. Then I ran into Cressie. D’you remember Cressie de Villeneuve? Oh no, you wouldn’t. She and I used to be great chums but had rather lost touch. She’s come back from Brazil – where her husband’s our man – brown as a nut! We were at finishing school together, in Switzerland. The last time she saw me, I was in my wheelchair, so she didn’t recognize me at first. There was a lot of catching-up to do. She wanted to hear all about you.’

‘She did?’

‘Yes! Her people apparently knew your people. We went to have lunch at a place called Tiddly Dolls – such fun – the most divine Spanish omelette I’ve ever had – I completely lost track of the time! Then we went shopping – Cressie needed to buy a handbag and she wanted my opinion.’

She prattled on. It was half past four now. It turned out she had lost her mobile phone too; she had absolutely no idea where her mobile had disappeared, that was why she hadn’t been able to ring him. (A likely story! How could she have lost her mobile?) She had meant to ring, honestly. (A contradiction, surely? A moment earlier she had said she had lost track of time. He kept catching her out. She wasn’t really taking care, was she? She must have a very poor opinion of his intelligence. Didn’t she realize that all he needed to do was phone Alessandro’s and check whether there really had been a power cut?)

‘You haven’t been worried, have you? My poor darling, you do look terrible! Has anything happened?’

‘Nothing’s happened.’

‘You look different somehow. You look tired. Years older.’

‘Rubbish,’ he bristled. She had been with some young man, that was why he appeared older to her now. She was seeing him with ‘new eyes’. Or she had lain in the arms of somebody who looked younger and was more vigorous than his years – was it Payne?

‘Is it the heat? You aren’t awfully good in the heat, are you?’ She reached out and touched his forehead. Her fingertips felt cool. He shivered. Her power over him continued undiminished.

‘It must be the heat,’ he said.

‘Is Ingrid back?’ Beatrice heaved a deep sigh and shook her head when he said no.

Something rustled in his pocket. His fingers closed on the folded sheet of paper he had found in the pocket of the mink coat Ingrid had abandoned on the landing upstairs. The coat belonged to Bee. Ingrid had worn it until the weather had turned, as part of the Beatrice disguise. Ingrid had drawn a plan of Ospreys on it – it showed Ralph Renshawe’s french windows, the terrace and the wishing well in the garden. The police would certainly be interested in it. He wondered whether to show the draw-ing to Bee.

He saw her pull something out of her bag. It was an oblong in scarlet, black and gold: a Tiddly Dolls menu. Making a silly face, what she called her ‘duck face’, Beatrice waved the menu under his nose. ‘In case you don’t believe I had lunch there.’

Why had she brought the menu with her? She had stolen it from the restaurant. She had panicked. She felt he needed convincing – she had been worried he might not believe her. She wouldn’t have done it if she had been innocent. No. She didn’t realize that the menu was proof of her guilt. ‘Cressie de Villeneuve’ was an invention. Well, Bee might well have had lunch at Tiddly Dolls – in the company of her lover.

Was it Major Payne?

Two days later, at one o’clock in the afternoon of November 28th, Major Payne sat at the kitchen table, a whisky and soda in his hand, his unlit pipe lying on the table before him, his attention divided between watching his wife make salad, playing Patience Solitaire with a pack of cards and leafing absently through an early edition of London’s Evening Standard. It was another very warm day and the kitchen window was wide open.

‘So, plenty of olive oil but no garlic? You sure about the garlic?’ Antonia said.

‘Absolutely. No garlic,’ Major Payne said firmly. ‘You don’t have to follow Miss Elizabeth David so slavishly. We don’t want to feel more Mediterranean than we already do, do we?’

‘I wouldn’t mind. I’d rather be hot than cold.’

‘So would I.’ He squinted at the row of Antonia’s cookery books. ‘I bet you don’t know what Mrs Beeton’s first name was.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Isabella.’

‘I would never have thought it possible. She doesn’t sound like an Isabella at all, if her recipes are anything to go by. Do you remember the pink blancmange?’

‘Vividly. The pink blancmange should never have been attempted. The whole Victorian dinner idea was a mistake from start to finish. I nearly died of indigestion that night.’

‘The oyster soup wasn’t too bad. Do you find Beatrice Ardleigh attractive?’

‘There we go again. Not in the least.’

‘That’s what Colonel Christie must have said when Agatha asked him the very same question about Nancy Neale,’ Antonia said with a smile. She then went on to say that perhaps detective story writers should not marry military men. It didn’t seem to work.

‘What absolute rot,’ Major Payne said.

‘If I were to disappear for twenty-six days, you would know why.’

‘I’ll lead the search party straight to the Harrogate Hydro.’

‘Do they say when this “front” is going to leave these shores?’ Antonia asked after a pause.

Payne looked down at the paper. ‘No… People have been splashing about in the fountains in Trafalgar Square and members of the Queen’s mounted guard have been seen hosing down their horses in an attempt to cool them. Good lord,’ he exclaimed as he reached page four.

‘What is it?’

There was a pause. The newspaper rustled in his hands. ‘I am not making this up, Antonia. Mysterious disappearance of a Catholic priest. The alarm was raised after Father Lillie-Lysander, 40, failed to keep an appointment with his bishop and there was no response to any of the calls made to his landline or his mobile phone. Father Lillie-Lysander was last seen on the morning of November 26th at Ospreys, a country house in Oxfordshire, the property of Mr Ralph Renshawe.’

‘Are you trying to say Ralph’s father confessor has dis-appeared?’ Antonia stood very still, a lettuce leaf in her hand.

‘That’s what it says here, it must be him. A second priest on the scene would be de trop.’

Antonia put her head to one side. ‘You are making this up.’

‘I am not. Golly. Wait. There’s been a second disappearance!’ Payne cried. ‘It’s reported on the very same page! They always report disappearances on the same page… Only a couple of lines… No, this is too much. You won’t believe this,’ he said again. ‘Listen.. . The police are very concerned about the whereabouts of Ingrid Delmar, 50, who has been missing from her home since the morning of November 26th.’

‘You are making this up. We did talk about it, Hugh.’

‘I am not making anything up! Miss Delmar, who has had a history of depressive illness, lives in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. She shares a house with friends of hers, Mr and Mrs Colville. It was Mrs Colville who contacted the police. A search is under way.’

Antonia continued staring at him. ‘This is another of your jokes.’

‘I see why you should think that, but it isn’t another of my jokes. Well, see for yourself.’ He tossed the paper across the table.

Wiping her hands on a tea towel, she picked up the paper.

He was gratified to see her expression change. He saw her turn the paper over and scrutinize the front page as thought to convince herself this was indeed today’s paper, an authentic paper, and that he wasn’t playing some trick on her. One could produce a fake newspaper, as part of some elaborate hoax, he supposed. There was a place somewhere in London, where they did that sort of thing, he was sure. Somewhere near Covent Garden?

‘Incredible.’ He heard Antonia say. ‘Sorry, Hugh. I can’t believe this…’

‘What was the technical term for the doctrine of chance?’ Major Payne picked up his pipe.

‘What doctrine?’ She lowered the paper.

‘We were talking about it last night.’

‘The Calculus of Probabilities?’

‘That’s it. Well, according to the Calculus of Probabilities,’ Payne said slowly, ‘coincidence in these particular circumstances is not very likely. You agree?’

‘I don’t see how it could be coincidence.’ Antonia frowned. ‘Two disappearances – on the very same day – both missing persons with links to Ospreys and Ralph Renshawe. Something – something must have happened to them. People don’t just – disappear.’

‘Omnia exeunt in mysterium,’ Major Payne said. ‘Everything dissolves in mystery… Perhaps there is some human Bermuda triangle encompassing Ospreys?’ He put his pipe in his mouth and produced a match.

‘No, not in the kitchen, Hugh, I’ve told you.’

‘I need to smoke,’ he said. ‘Helps me to think.’

‘Oh very well, but only this once.’ She sat down slowly. ‘Where have they gone? Something must have happened.’ ‘Maybe the padre and Ingrid decided to elope and set up house together? Emotionally labile people attract one another. Plenty of examples. Bonnie and Clyde. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton – they got married, then got divorced, then remarried, then got divorced again. Hinge and Brackett – young men masquerading as old women. The Papen sisters -’

‘The Papen sisters were sisters, Hugh. They couldn’t have attracted one another.’

‘Wasn’t there a touch of incestuous lesbianism about them? Garbo and Gilbert.’

‘Gilbert and George?’ Antonia said despite herself.

‘Absolutely. See? The list is endless.’

‘Why would Father Lillie-Lysander and Ingrid want to elope?’

‘Because of the padre’s vows… Um… They need time to think ahead – plan the future – think of the best way to break it to the cardinals -’

‘For a man whose intelligence has been described as subtle, Hugh, you do talk a lot of nonsense.’ Antonia frowned. ‘Are you sure Gilbert was emotionally labile? I mean Garbo’s Gilbert?’

‘He thought he was the greatest actor who ever lived. He drank himself to death.’

‘We don’t know if Father Lillie-Lysander was emotion-ally labile.’

‘Well, he’s been listening to strangers describing their unspeakable fantasies for heaven knows how long. Through a grille. Try to imagine what that could do to a chap. Don’t you think the grille is a form of peephole to one’s most private peep show?’

‘No, I don’t. Really, Hugh -’

The next moment the telephone started ringing. Payne felt delighted at the interruption – he didn’t at all like the expression on Antonia’s face. ‘I’ll get it.’ Jumping up from his seat, he picked up the kitchen extension.

‘Oh, hello, Beatrice.’ He grimaced at Antonia. ‘Actually, we just read it and were talking about it. Yes, terrible thing to happen… I can imagine… What? Now? I see. I don’t know – um – Oh, I am sorry. Just a moment. Let me ask Antonia.’ Putting his hand over the receiver, he whispered, ‘She wants us to go to her place. Now. She is in a state. She’s had a row with Colville and he’s dashed out of the house. She’s been abandoned by everybody. She is in floods of tears. .. hysterical.’

‘Oh dear.’ Antonia glanced down at the salad bowl. ‘I suppose we’d better go.’

She was not sure whether she said yes out of concern for Beatrice Ardleigh, or because she was curious about the amazing turn of events. The latter, she admitted to herself. A double vanishing was most certainly worth investigating. Beatrice, on the other hand, was perfectly capable of coping on her own. Beneath that vulnerable fluttery exterior Beatrice was actually quite tough, Antonia felt sure. Why indulge her unduly? And it wasn’t as though they were her oldest – or her best – friends… Beatrice was after Hugh… Beatrice had probably been hoping she would be able to get Hugh on his own…

‘Doesn’t Poe refer to the Calculus of Probabilities in The Mystery of Marie Celeste?’ Payne said as they were getting into the car.

‘You mean The Mystery of Marie Roget.’

‘Do I? Oh, of course. Association of ideas. Marie Celeste was the ship from which everybody disappeared mysteriously and without a trace

…’