Lovers Make Moan

Chapter 16

Parade of Suspects

“Now, name the rest of the players.”

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I’m glad to have you back,” said Laura. “You are very restful company after Rosamund and Edmund. Did the round-the-worlders enjoy their cruise?”

“Enormously. I am glad to be here again. The anecdotes and photographs, so precious to the travellers themselves, pall a little on a captive audience.”

“That is an extraordinary story about young Jasper Lynn. What are the police going to do about him?”

“Oh, there is to be what you would call ‘another comb-out’ of the yachting fraternity. The knowledgeable among the local boatmen seem to be convinced that the body was thrown into the bay from a yacht and so well-versed are they in the vagaries of their almost landlocked waters, vast in expanse though these are, that there is general agreement that the jettisoning took place off the uninhabited small bank called Castle Island. Experiments with non-human jetsam will prove the correctness of their view. Of that I have no doubt. The waters of the bay are idiosyncratic and their vagaries need to be known and allowed for, even in the calmest weather, I am told.”

“Yes, you can always go by what the locals have to say about winds and tides. Does it mean that you have taken yourself out of the enquiry into these two deaths? I should have thought it had reached the truly fascinating stage.”

“So it has, and I am still interested in it. There is nothing more that I can do on the spot. I need time for thought. Get the programmes with which we were supplied—and free of charge, at that!—when we attended the first performance of the play.”

Laura did this and scanned her own copy. Then she produced her shorthand pad and waited for instructions.

“I must say I prefer being a secretary to being a cross between a nanny and the Encyclopaedia Britannica,” she said.

“Nevertheless, much of what we know has been gained from Rosamund’s innocent disclosures. Let us take these people in order to programme and see what we know about them.”

The programme was arranged after the usual Shakespearian fashion of naming all the male characters first and finishing with the women.

“Theseus,” dictated Dame Beatrice, “director and producer. No known reason for disliking Rinkley, Bourton or Jonathan. Egeus, adopted son of Marcus Lynn. A schoolboy later found stabbed to death. Purchased rapier later converted into dagger with which Bourton inadvertently killed himself. May well have been the murderer and later committed suicide.”

“What!” exclaimed Laura, her pencil poised in disbelief. “That beardless boy?”

“In the play he was not beardless. Moreover, there appears to be some evidence that he was in love with Barbara Bourton and may have plotted to get her husband out of the way. On the other hand, we cannot be sure at present that the lethal dagger was not intended either for Rinkley or for Jonathan.”

“I think it could have been intended for Rinkley, you know. He doesn’t seem to be a very popular character and, what with the whisky and the indigestible mussels, he would have been entirely off his guard. Normally he would have spotted that he had been given the wrong dagger, but what with his fuddled state and the fact that he had come through the dress rehearsal and two performances quite unscathed, don’t you think he would have chanced things and so done himself in?”

“It is a valid argument and has been produced more than once.”

“On the other hand, Rinkley could have been the murderer. Even if whisky plus mytilus edulis had not made him throw up, it’s easy enough to manage it. I am reminded of another of Rosamund’s disclosures. You know what innocently disgusting beasts little boys can be. She told me that one of the Fitzroy-Delahague kids showed her how he could make himself sick by sticking two fingers down his gullet. I wonder whether Rinkley, having eaten the mussels, found them such uncomfortable customers in his inside that he removed them by the Delahague method. Contrariwise (and more likely) he still thought Jonathan would be the understudy and planned a very nasty revenge on him for that punch in the stomach.”

“There is much in what you say, and we must keep it in mind.”

“Well, I know you thought the intended victim was Bourton, but we’ve no evidence that Bourton and Rinkley had ever fallen out.”

“True, but you are going on the assumption that Rinkley himself changed over the daggers. That has not been proved.”

“He would have had the best opportunity.”

“Not so. There were others who had an equal opportunity. Robina Lester and her son, David, Caroline Frome and Susan Hythe, even Marcus Lynn with his scroll as Prologue, had every good reason for approaching the trestle tables and fiddling with the properties. The only thing is that unless all of them were in collusion (and that seems most unlikely, as Marcus Lynn was one of them) nobody could have changed over the daggers without being seen to do so, since all would have picked up their properties at about the same time.”

“What if the bold plotter, whoever it was, took advantage of the confusion caused by Rinkley’s collapse and changed over the daggers while the company was at sixes and sevens? I feel sure there is something in that. I suppose there must have been tumult and shouting, Dr Jeanne-Marie being called for, the audience warned of a stage wait, people tearing up to the house to telephone for an ambulance, Bourton being divested of that ornate Oberon outfit and getting into the Pyramus tunic and no doubt surrounded by a bodyguard of men to preserve the decencies, as there were ladies present. Anything could happen with a hoo-ha like that going on. How about that for an explanation?”

“It may be the right one. Let us keep it in mind.”

“If the dagger was intended for Bourton, it’s easy to see who benefits by his death, unless it was an act of revenge?”

“From what I hear, Mrs Bourton becomes a rich widow, yes, indeed. It seems that Donald Bourton left a considerable amount of money and all of it goes to her.”

“An amende honorabile for all his philandering?”

“Maybe, or maybe he had nobody else he desired to benefit. Well, we still have two unknown quantities to deal with and, except for the fact that both were in the play and that they are brothers and bachelors, we have no information about them whatsoever.”

“You mean the Woolidges, Tom and Peter,” said Laura, referring to the programme. “Tom Woolidge played Lysander and Peter Woolidge was the most enterprising and athletic Puck I’ve ever seen. My heart warmed to that lad. Moreover, Rosamund has announced her intention of marrying him.”

“The older brother breeds bloodhounds.”

“Is that significant?”

“No.”

“Well, we’ve lined up a few of the characters. Now there is this business of Jasper Lynn. You do think he went off with a girl, don’t you?”

“It is difficult to imagine that he would have exchanged one set of male companions for another without telling his parents of his change of plan. The fact that they know nothing of where he went, or with whom, does suggest the need for secrecy on his part.”

“So what do we actually know about him? He was illegitimate and he was adopted. Beyond being given a good education and, I suppose, a start in life when he left University, what had he to expect from Marcus Lynn? We know he bought the rapier, we know somebody turned it into a dagger, and we know that dagger killed Bourton. Where is the tie-up? I can’t see one, unless—”

“Unless?”

“Unless the girl he went off with was either Caroline Frome or Susan Hythe. If one of them had got it in for Bourton, she might have talked a young hot-head of Jasper’s age into doing something very foolish and very wrong, and then dared not leave him alive to tell the tale later. Well, if we cut out Tom Woolidge—oh, we can’t, though. On Rosamund’s evidence he was inclined to sport with Amaryllis in the shade. In other words, he and Barbara Bourton met for what the innocent little snooper called ‘rehearsals’ in the woods.”

“Oh, yes, Mr Woolidge must remain on our list and so must Mrs Bourton. Jonathan comes next in the programme, but I think we may ignore him.”

“Also the nine-year-old Yolanda Yorke. That brings us to the workmen and you’ve more or less dealt with them privately, you told me, so we need not go over them again, need we?”

“There remain Helena, Hippolyta and Titania. Deborah is out of it for the same reason as Jonathan, and we may ignore, I feel, Mrs Yorke and also Mrs Lynn.”

“Brings us back to Barbara Bourton and really it does seem as though she had the strongest motive of all. To get rid of a faithless husband and come in for all his money must have been a great temptation to an ambitious woman.”

“Yes, you are right. The difficulty in her case, though, is the same as in all the other cases. When would she have had any opportunity to change over the daggers?”

“When all the clearing-up was done after the second performance, perhaps.”

“Marcus Lynn appears to have kept a jealous eye on the costumes and properties, but there may be something in what you say. I am still convinced that the daggers were changed over before the third performance began.”

“Well, we don’t seem to have cleared the decks, do we? I wonder what happened to the lower half of that rapier? The rest of the blade must be somewhere, as we said before. Suppose Jasper Lynn was stabbed with it by whoever sent him into the shop to buy the rapier? Is that a far-fetched idea?”

“Not in the least, and I have already considered the suggestion. However, I think Jasper bought the rapier on his own behalf, as the antiques dealer thought at the time. Still, if we could find the rest of the blade it might help.”

“I have a hunch that I know where it is. What’s wrong with having a look round Castle Island?”

“Nothing is wrong with it, if that will please you.”

“I think the locals are right and the body was dumped from a boat.”

“I suppose that is as likely as my own theory that it was taken by car to the spot where it was found.”

“Islands are always fun. Do let’s go. By the way, isn’t there a suspect we haven’t mentioned?”

“Is there? Of whom do we speak?”

“Didn’t you tell me there was an Indian chap who brought his little boy to be the changeling child?”

“I dismissed Narayan Rao from my calculations when I discovered that he left the scene long before Rinkley’s illness and Bourton’s death. It is true that he was in sight of the tables which held the properties, but I see no way in which he could have tampered with the daggers without being seen to do so. Moreover, he had seen neither of the previous performances and could not possibly have known which belt held the theatrical dagger, neither could he have provided a lethal weapon which resembled it, since he could not have known beforehand what it looked like.”

“I am greatly impressed by your metal detector,” said Dame Beatrice.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to test one of these things. This island will be the very place.”

The boat which they had hired, ran gently into shallow water. Laura stepped over the side into a couple of feet of rippling, innocent little waves and held out her arms to Dame Beatrice and carried her ashore before the placid local boatman could offer his help. She returned to the boat for the metal detector. Her shoes were round her neck. She sat down on deep dry sand, unfastened the laces and put on the shoes.

Behind the dunes the land rose a little and soon they were among trees. In clearings they came upon two very shallow but fairly extensive ponds and around these were traces of footpaths. Laura followed one of these, Dame Beatrice another. Their paths crossed and they met again after they had passed each other at the side of a small wood. They then found themselves in sight of the dunes and the mainland again.

“This,” said Dame Beatrice, “is opposite the road which runs between the Old Town and the ferry.” She led the way down the sandy slope to the shore. “Go to your left and I will go to the right.”

Laura demurred. The deep, soft, dry sand made very heavy going. She said:

“No point in both of us ploughing through this stuff. I’m going to make for that belt of trees. I’m all agog to try the metal detector up there. I shouldn’t think it could locate metal down here. I don’t really expect to find anything worth while, but I must say that this is rather fun.” She ploughed upwards. Dame Beatrice seated herself on the warm, dry sand and gazed at the opposite shore. A constant procession of cars was using the road over there, coming and going between the town and the ferry, and she realised, even more clearly than she had done before, the risks that would have been run by anybody planting a body on the strand at any time before about one o’clock in the morning, for not only was the traffic to and from the ferry very heavy, but the road passed through one of the most desirable residential districts of the place, and even though the ferry closed down each evening, the local cinemas, theatres and concert halls, as she had known previously, did not, so there would be cars along the road until after midnight. There were also the numerous houses, flats and bungalows which overlooked the bay. During the small hours, however, anybody prepared to take a chance might have driven on to the grass verge and tumbled a dead body down on to the mud, hoping, perhaps, that the receding tide would carry it away. Tyre marks, if any had been left, would count for nothing. On grass the treads would be indistinguishable from those of other cars which had used the verge as a parking place. There were two cars standing on the grass verge already and a third was pulling up alongside them.

She decided that there was no reason to change her mind. She still felt certain that the body had been dumped from a car, not thrown into the water from a boat. The police had not only made an exhaustive search of yachts and cruisers for bloodstains or other crucial evidence, she was also certain that the presence of boats lying off the island had been carefully checked. Even if one had gone out at night, she felt convinced that it would have been reported by somebody or other, by a fisherman, perhaps, or from the ever-watchful coastguard station.

She sat there for the better part of an hour until Laura came bounding and slithering down the slope towards her.

“Fun, but no dice, not so much as an old tin can,” Laura said. “All the same, I’m going to produce a fifty-pence coin to show the boatman. I’ve put some dirt on it. That ought to convince him I’m not as dotty as he thinks I am. I observed a sly Dorset smile when he eyed the metal detector.”

“You think of everything,” said Dame Beatrice.

“I only wish I could think where the lower half of that weapon is.”