Here Lies Gloria Mundy

9

Chaucer’s Prioress

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I was so well up to time that I decided to go and see Aunt Eglantine before I tackled the hotel in Dorset. As that was my last assignment I thought I could expect VIP treatment in the matter of a room so long as I let the manager know, some days beforehand, that he was to expect me. I felt that it was only civil to let Celia know when I proposed to visit her aunt, so I telephoned and asked when the visiting hours were. She replied with cordiality and a warmth which surprised me and invited me to lunch with them, as hospital visits were restricted to the early evenings except for patients on open order.

‘And you must come back for dinner and the night,’ she said. ‘Longer, if you can spare the time.’

‘How about Anthony?’ I asked. She understood me and replied that Anthony would also look forward to seeing me again.

‘We both took your words very much to heart,’ she said. ‘It was good of you to speak out the way you did. We were making fools of ourselves, but it’s perfectly all right now.’

‘Is Rouse bothering you again?’

‘Not for more than a week now; in fact he has only called on us once since you left and that was to ask Anthony whether he was sure he had identified the corpse correctly. We thought it was a very odd question, but, of course, in a police investigation I suppose there has to be no doubt about whose death is being looked into. From what I hear, he’s now busy harassing all the people who were staying or had stayed here at what he calls “the crucial time”. Anyway, we’ll tell you all about it when we see you. When will that be?’

‘Would a week from now be all right?’

I put in another couple of nights at the hotel in Cornwall, completed my amendments to the two Cornish brochures and sent them off to McMaster with a note to tell him that I was on the last lap of my course. Then I went back to my flat for another change of clothes and to deal with a crop of correspondence and stayed there until I went again to Beeches Lawn.

There was no doubt about the genuineness of Anthony’s welcome and Celia kissed me when I arrived, which was very pleasant. By what appeared to be mutual agreement, although it was unspoken, we avoided any reference to Gloria Mundy or Detective-Inspector Rouse and, after a lazy afternoon terminated by a cup of tea, Anthony drove me to the hospital, which was not in the town, and took me up to Aunt Eglantine’s room.

‘I don’t want you,’ she said to him. ‘Come back for this young man in an hour’s time.’

‘I’m glad you’ve got a room to yourself,’ I said, when Anthony had left us.

‘The nurses aren’t,’ she said, her plump, purple-veined old face creasing into an impish gleam of amusement. ‘I keep ’em on their toes, you know. Well, what have you come to see me about?’

‘I thought you had called me to your side by white witchcraft, dear Madame Eglantine,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ she said, looking pleased, ‘you remembered that I am named for Chaucer, not Shakespeare.’

‘Yes, but Shakespeare’s “sweet musk roses” seem to partner you well enough.’

She gave a girlish little giggle.

‘I suspect flattery,’ she said. ‘You just behave yourself. Are you surprised to find that I am not under arrest?’

‘But you didn’t kill Gloria Mundy, did you?’ The words slipped out involuntarily, but I could not recall them. However, she received them with great good humour.

‘I thought of it,’ she said, ‘but I decided she wasn’t worth a life sentence — not that it would have lasted very long in my case. I give myself about another five years of life, that’s all. The law is very unjust in certain respects. They would have awarded me thirty years, I suppose, but I should have slipped out of their hands in five, whereas a boy of twenty, even with a remission for good conduct, would not have got away with that, would he? Did they show you the body?’

‘Yes, Anthony and I both saw it.’

‘I read about the inquest in the papers. They said that nothing but the hair was recognisable. Is that so?’

‘Well, yes. Still, it made identification a very simple matter.’

‘That hair was a wig, of course. It was two-coloured to create an effect.’

‘It was not a wig.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Naming no names, I know a man who used to wash her hair for her.’

‘She bore Anthony a child. Did you know that?’

‘Dear Madame Eglantine, you are romancing.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘it is quite true. I know. I listen behind doors, you see.’

‘You are a disgraceful old party, then.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘listening behind doors is an art.’

‘No, it isn’t. You mean a craft. That’s where the word ’crafty‘ comes from. Originally it was used to describe people who listened behind doors.’

‘You are making that up. Anyhow, it is an art, and one not unlike your own. You invent stories and so do I. I invent them for when the door opens suddenly and I am caught out. Well, what have you been doing with yourself since I saw you last? Nothing very creditable, I’ll be bound.’

‘You tell me about Gloria’s baby and then I’ll tell you all about my wicked deeds. What did you get hold of when you listened behind doors?’

‘You first,’ she said; so I described the two Cornish hotels and added a couple of stories straight out of Rabelais concerning my doings in each. She laughed and laughed.

‘I must tell the nurses,’ she said. ‘It will keep them happy for weeks.’

‘I expect they’ve heard better ones from the young doctors,’ I said. ‘Now it’s your turn.’

‘Why haven’t you married, personable young man?’

‘No money to get married on at the time, and now I’ve let the chance go by.’

‘Nonsense. I prophesy that you will meet her again before long. Are you any good at picking up stitches?’

‘No, nor threads. Come on, play fair.’

‘Oh, yes, you want to know what I heard. First, that girl did not turn up out of the blue.’

‘She didn’t?’

‘No. Anthony Wotton asked her to come.’

‘You’ve got the story wrong.’

‘I never get stories wrong.’ I thought of Rubens and the portrait in the old house and said nothing. Encouraged or else irritated by my silence, she went on, ‘She came to blackmail him on the strength of the baby.’

I said sternly, ‘You really must not tell these awful whoppers, Madame Eglantine.’

‘Chaucer spelt it with an “e” and a “y”, whereas my misguided parents preferred Shakespeare’s rendering. What kind of flower is eglantine? Did your teachers tell you that?’

‘Eglantine is the old word for the sweetbrier. That’s why Oberon connected it with musk roses, I suppose,’ I told her.

‘I must remember to spell it Shakespeare’s way in my will. I shall leave you a competence. I am a very wealthy woman. Write both spellings down for me. Underline the one and run a light stroke neatly through the other.’

I took up the writing-pad which was on her bedside locker and printed in my best capitals EGLENTYNE and EGLANTINE.

‘Which is to be underlined and which is to have a line drawn through it?’ I asked.

‘Don’t ask stupid questions!’ she snapped at me. I drew a faint line through the first name and underlined more thickly the other. I deduced that she was getting tired, so I rose to go. She was having none of that, and ordered me to sit down again. She drew the writing-pad towards her and smiled.

‘I shall never get out of here alive, you know,’ she said. ‘They are witches and they meet at Hetty Pegler’s Tump.’

‘I’ve been there,’ I said, anxious to avoid the discussion of the Malleus Maleficarum which seemed imminent, ‘but I didn’t crawl inside.’

‘The Neoliths must have lacked stature,’ said Aunt Eglantine. ‘Did you ever visit Grime’s Graves?’

This subject lasted us for the remainder of my visit. A warning bell sounded and a nurse came in and told me that visiting hours were up. I bent over and kissed Aunt Eglantine.

‘You must come again,’ she said, ‘before they finish me off.’

I left the hospital and crossed the road to where Anthony had parked the car. He lowered the book he was reading and then tossed it on to the back seat.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you stayed a lot longer than I thought you would.’

‘I did make one attempt to leave because I thought I was tiring her, but she wouldn’t have it. I suppose she gets bloody bored in there.’

‘Did she mention Gloria?’

‘Yes. She told me two things about her, both of them sheer invention, I feel sure.’

‘Did she get on to the Malleus?’

‘No. Hetty Pegler intervened and we also talked about Grime’s Graves.’

He started the engine. I stared out through the windscreen and hoped he would not ask what Aunt Eglantine had said about Gloria’s hair and her child, not that I believed either story. When the remark came, it was not a question but a simple assertion.

‘She has a bee in her bonnet about my having given Gloria a child,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later she tells everybody so. I suppose you got it, too.’

‘Yes, she did rather throw the information at me. I took it for what it was worth — sheer balderdash.’

To my astonishment he said he would tell me the truth, as he might need the help of a true friend later on. I realised, not for the first time, that he was desperately afraid of what Detective-Inspector Rouse might ferret out concerning his former relationship with Gloria and I realised, too, that he was far more concerned with the effect which possible revelations would have on his marriage than fears for his own personal safety.

The last thing on earth that I wanted was to become any more deeply involved in his affairs than I already was, but noblesse oblige, as, in its blackmailing way, it usually does, so I said something trite about doing anything I could. There was a long silence until I remarked that surely we were going rather a long way round to get back to Beeches Lawn.

‘Oh, Celia won’t be expecting us just yet,’ he said. ‘I told her you would probably need a pick-me-up in a pub after spending an hour solo with Aunt Eglantine. Anyway, I was going to tell you about the baby.’

‘Good Lord! So the story was true! I thought she was making it up because she dislikes you,’ I said.

‘She doesn’t dislike me personally. She simply thinks that I’m not good enough for Celia. That may be so, but Celia accepted me of her own free will, so our marriage is our business and not the business of that frustrated old demonologist.’

‘Did you know Aunt Eglantine before your marriage?’

‘No, thank goodness. She had to be invited to the wedding, but that was the first time I had met her.’

‘She told me some cock and bull story — ’

‘About that baby? It wasn’t mine, of course, and, to give you some idea of what Gloria was like, I must tell you the whole story. It happened while I was still having this damn silly affair with her and, of course, before I began to rumble her. She had this friend who had got herself mixed up with some extraordinary sect in America and desperately wanted to free herself from them and come to England. The scheme was for me to take Gloria to meet her at the airport and motor them both back to Gloria’s flat.

‘I couldn’t see any harm in that, so I did it. The friend turned out to be a waif-like creature with (what had not been told me, although I don’t suppose it would have made any difference at the time I agreed to meet her) a two-month-old baby. Well, now, Corin, the next bit is a blur in my memory, but when we got to the car I found the baby dumped in my arms, Gloria with an arm over my shoulders and the skinny Lizzie taking the photograph, complete with giggles.’

‘What photograph?’

‘My photograph holding the baby, of course, with Gloria’s arm round both of us and the two girls laughing their heads off. I took it as a joke at the time, fool that I was.’

‘Sounds like the makings of a promising farce,’ I said. ‘Stock situation, what?’

‘May sound like that to you, but to me it’s been a nightmare. I’ve lived on the edge of a volcano these last years, and when she turned up here I was scared out of my wits and I’ll tell you this, old man: I never had a better moment in my life than when we both identified that dead girl as Gloria Mundy. What other rubbish did old Eg hand out to you?’

‘That Gloria’s red and black hair was a wig.’

We covered the miles between the hospital and the house before we spoke again. He turned in at the lane which led up to his garage, parked the car, locked the shed behind us and then, as we walked through the kitchen garden, I said, ‘That puzzles me, you know. It was the only thing we had to go by in recognising Gloria. Why wasn’t it destroyed in the fire along with the rest of her?’

‘I would rather not think about it. That awful body is something I want to forget.’

‘Yes, I know. Strange, though, that Miss Brockworth should have made such a remark.’

‘Very strange,’ he agreed. ‘Please don’t let Celia pump you too much about the visit to the hospital. She’s a devil at worming things out of people. I convinced her long ago that there was nothing but the mildest of shipboard flirtations between Gloria and me — at least, I thought I had — but Gloria’s death has stirred up old doubts in Celia’s heart, so, for my sake, watch your step, if you don’t mind, old man.’

‘Fear nothing,’ I said. ‘You are walking beside the man who lied himself black in the face to the magistrates in Pontyprydd after that rugger match. Remember?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Oh, come on now! Don’t you realise that I sacrificed my immortal soul on your behalf on that auspicious occasion?’

‘Oh, well, thanks,’ he said, and we were both cheerful when Celia herself opened the door to us.

‘So Aunt Eglantine didn’t treat you to a dissertation on the Malleus, or you wouldn’t be so happy,’ she said. ‘Marigold Coberley’s here, but she won’t stay for dinner.’

Marigold was sitting in an armchair by the fire and looked lost in that huge drawing-room. I was relieved to note that there was no trace of her tumble down the butterslide steps. Her face was quite unmarked and she was as beautiful as ever. Evidently, there had been no need for plastic surgery. All the same, there was something very wrong somewhere, for I could see that she had been crying. I took her hand, not to shake it but because I wanted, suddenly and urgently, to have some physical contact with her. Her fingers gripped mine and I knew that she understood the sympathy I did not express in words. She said, ‘The police have arrested my husband, Corin. What am I going to do?’

‘What? Why on earth arrest Cranford?’ demanded Anthony, as Marigold released my hand and huddled into the armchair with her fists pressed against her eyes.

It was Celia who answered. ‘Rouse or somebody else at the police station has had a letter,’ she explained. ‘It was anonymous and in the ordinary way they might not have taken it so seriously as they have done, although, of course, they do get anonymous tip-offs which have to be investigated. Unfortunately what was in the letter only confirmed Rouse’s own suspicions. The police think they have found the murder weapon, and it points straight at Cranford. That, and Marigold’s accident, have convinced them.’

‘So what was in the letter?’ I asked.

‘The writer claimed to have seen a young woman with red and black hair kneeling on the schoolhouse steps. The inference that she was responsible for Marigold’s accident was too obvious to be ignored.’

‘So what was that about the murder weapon?’ asked Anthony.

‘That’s the devastating part of it. When the police sifted through all the ashes and rubble of the burnt-out old house they found the remains of a long dagger. Of course, at the time they could not connect it with anybody and the fact that they had found it they kept a closely guarded secret until they could trace the owner. When they received this anonymous letter they showed the dagger to Cranford and Marigold.’

‘And Cranford recognised it and said so,’ said Marigold, looking up and speaking with intensity and with no hint of further tears. ‘He told them that he had impounded it from one of the boys and had put it with other bits and pieces that the boys had collected. The various things were in a wooden crate in the old house. He would never have admitted that he recognised the dagger if he had used it to kill that girl, would he? I should have thought that would establish his innocence, if anything could.’

‘Did they know he had the key to the old house?’ I asked.

‘Yes, they did,’ said Anthony, ‘but that couldn’t really have told against him because there was the broken window at the back.’

‘So all they have to go on is his own admission that he recognised the dagger.’

‘Well, not quite,’ said Marigold. I waited, but she added nothing further. Celia renewed an offer which she had made before our return from the hospital, but Marigold refused to stay for dinner and left. Anthony saw her home. When he came back he said that here was a pretty kettle offish.

‘It will absolutely ruin the school,’ he went on. ‘Even if Cranford is acquitted, nobody is going to leave a boy at a school where the headmaster has been had up on a charge of murder and arson.’

‘What do you suppose Mrs Coberley meant when she said that the dagger was not quite the only thing the police had to go on?’ I asked.

‘I think I know what she meant,’ said Anthony. ‘Do you remember my telling you what a tiger Coberley can be when anything happens to upset him in connection with Marigold? Well, this won’t be the first time he has seen the inside of a gaol. When she herself was acquitted of murder, an acquaintance of his wrote an insulting and vitriolic letter, and Coberley went round and half killed the chap. Coberley had a good lawyer and received a light sentence on a plea of diminished responsibility owing to unreasonable provocation and insupportable emotional stress. The letter was produced in court, but the journalists were told that it was not to appear in their reports of the trial because of the damage it would do to Marigold, who, after all, had been acquitted of the murder she had been charged with.’

‘I wonder how he managed to start a school with a charge of grievous bodily harm against him,’ I said.

‘Oh, he changed his name, of course.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Oh, it’s wonderful what you hear when an ordinarily abstemious man gets enough of the right stuff sloshing about inside him. One thing — I’m sure he has no idea that he told me the tale.’

‘Do you think he killed Gloria Mundy?’

‘I don’t know. I wonder who it was who tipped him off that it was she who buttered the steps and then called out to Marigold?’

‘One of the servants at the school, I guess.’

I stayed the night. The next day I went to my Dorset hotel to begin work on the last of the brochures. Exactly a week later I sent the rest of my notes and alterations to Hara-kiri and went to see Aunt Eglantine again. At Anthony’s house I had told him and Celia, over dinner, of the old lady’s boast that she was a wealthy woman and of her statement that I was to benefit under her will.

‘Of course she isn’t wealthy,’ Celia had said, ‘but it would be quite likely that she had taken a fancy to you and decided to put you in her will.’

‘Great expectations!’ I said, laughing. So it was with no avaricious intentions that I went to see Aunt Eglantine again.

‘It’s been a long time,’ she said.

‘Only a week, and I have been very busy.’

‘I see they’ve arrested that sour man who has the beautiful wife. The police must be fools if they think he did it. Will you do something for me?’

‘With pleasure, if it is in my power.’

‘Get that Bradley woman on to it. She’ll sort it out in no time.’

‘Dame Beatrice?’

‘Who else? Nothing will come of nothing and Gloria Mundy murdered Gloria Mundy. You tell her that. What are you to tell her?’

‘That nothing will come of nothing and that Gloria Mundy murdered Gloria Mundy.’

‘Swear that you will repeat those words to her. Even she cannot make bricks without straw. And don’t forget that burnt-out car. Celia told me about it when she came to visit me. Swear?’

‘I swear. And now stop exciting yourself. Think of your namesake.’

‘What about her?’

‘ “And sikerly she was of greet disport

And fui plesáunt and amyable of port,

And peyned hire to countrefete chere

Of court” ’

I quoted solemnly.

‘Don’t understand a word of it,’ she said.

‘Sikerly, surely, or certainly; disport, cheerfulness; port, bearing or manner; chere, another word for manner. So now what don’t you understand?’

‘Why you’ve come to see me again.’

‘If you are thinking of leaving me a million pounds, or whatever it is, I thought I had better keep in with you.’

‘Have you remembered what you are to say to Bradley?’

‘To Dame Beatrice, yes, but I’ll write it down, if you like.’

‘Yes, do that,’ she said. ‘She’ll know what I mean. We are twin souls, like Kramer and Sprenger.’

The Malleus lasted us for the rest of my visit.