Murder at the Villa Byzantine

15

Feast at Midnight

‘Moon’s been outside since half past two,’ Antonia said brightly. She was wearing her blue dressing gown.

‘Dangerous, being out so late,’ Payne said, placing the tray on the low table between the sofa and Moon’s chair. He stole a glance at the mantelpiece: his great uncle’s snuff box was still there. ‘A girl, on her own… London can be a dangerous place… How old are you exactly?’

‘Fifteen and three months. D’you think I am very young?’

‘I do. Morland said you were sixteen and a half.’

‘Who’s Morland? Do you call James Morland? That’s funny! He is such a fool.’ She laughed. ‘He’s fat. He needs to exercise. I hate fat men. He hates me. James and my mother were locked in a lewd and lascivious cohabitation…’

Payne glanced at the clock. ‘Weren’t you afraid to be out so late?’

‘Nope.’ Moon picked up her cup. ‘God hasn’t given me the spirit of fear, but of love and power and a sound mind. That’s what they said at my boyfriend’s church in Pennsylvania… My ex-boyfriend… See what I’ve got here.’ She pushed her hand inside her shinel and drew out a piece of lead piping.

‘An offensive weapon, eh?’ Payne’s eyebrow went up. ‘If the police were to find it on you, you’d be in trouble.’

‘It’s for self-defence. It’s dangerous to be out so late, you said that yourself. I’m already in trouble. The police think I killed my mother. I’m always in trouble.’ Moon sighed. ‘They kicked me out of my first school because they caught me bunning a zoot. Then I was kicked out of my second school.’

‘Why was that?’

‘That was because I used to write letters to teachers I liked. I know it makes me look like a psycho, but I’m totally normal. The police think I killed my mother. They never actually said it – I guess it’s totally against the law to make accusations without any proof.’

‘And what was your midnight vigil in aid of?’ Payne sat down on the sofa beside Antonia.

‘I’ll tell you, but you must promise not to tell the two witches.’

‘If by witches you mean Melisande and Winifred, that’s not a very nice way to talk. They were very kind to you,’ Antonia said.

‘You drank all their Coke and ate most of their sandwiches and cake,’ Payne put in.

‘You are right. I guess I’m not a very nice person. But there are things you don’t know.’

‘Oh? What things?’ Antonia asked. She took a sip of coffee.

‘Weird things. Crazy things. Things no normal person would think of doing.’

‘Really? As bad as that?’ Payne said. ‘This sounds terribly interesting.’

Moon nodded and smiled. She clearly enjoyed being the centre of attention. ‘Yep. I know it is interesting. You’d never believe it if I told you what I know. Anyhow, I need to check something first. At the moment I have no real evidence, but I will get some very soon.’

Was she showing off – dramatizing herself? In all fairness, Payne reflected, Moon’s behaviour was infinitely better than it had been at the party.

‘I have a very good reason for doing what I do,’ Moon went on. ‘If you think I like to hang around outside people’s houses in the middle of the night and snoop, you are wrong. Anyway. I’ll tell you about it some other time. Not now.’

Payne said, ‘Is the “check” you mentioned in any way connected with your mother’s death?’

‘Of course it’s connected. Why else should I want to put my life in danger?’ Moon sniffed.

‘Have a biscuit.’

‘Thanks. OK. It was something my mother said. At first I didn’t pay attention, my mother often talked a lot of rubbish, but then it suddenly came to me – what this was all about. It was kinda interesting – kinda weird – kinda spooky. So I decided perhaps my mother hadn’t gone crazy, not completely crazy. I asked her to explain. At first she pretended she didn’t want to, but then she told me the whole story. She was sucking up to me, I guess.’

‘What did she say?’ Payne asked.

‘I see you are interested. You’ve done detective work, haven’t you?’

‘We specialize in strange cases,’ Payne said, deliberately important.

‘That’s tope. This is a strange case, make no mistake.’

‘What’s tope?’

‘Tope? Tope’s tope. OK, cool.’ She looked at Payne fixedly. ‘Perhaps I could teach you American slang sometime?’

‘I assume it’s one of those portmanteau words one finds in Lewis Carroll. Like brillig and mimsy… What’s tope a blend of? Dope and something else?’

‘Yeah, dope’s cool. I mean it means cool. The other word you want is tight, I guess, which also means cool. That’s how you get tope. It sounds so dumb explaining what tope means… Can I have another biscuit? Thanks. I love words, actually. I mean, totally. When I haven’t got anything better to do, I read the dictionary. When I’m not busy killing people.’ She smiled. ‘Do you know what “polymorphously perverse” means?’

‘Why have you taken against Melisande and Winifred?’

‘Actually I think Winifred is OK. Nothing against her. It’s the other one that bugs me. Melisande. She keeps bothering James, you see. She keeps ringing him and stuff. He says she used to boss him around. He hates her now. Melisande is dangerous. If you only knew how dangerous.’

‘In what way dangerous?’

‘I guess she is crazy. I need to protect myself.’ Moon produced the piece of piping once more.

‘Give me that,’ Payne ordered.

‘If you really want it, you will have to take it from me by force. Only kidding. Here you are.’ She handed him the lead piping. She was smiling. ‘You can keep it, if you like.’

Antonia stirred uneasily. What were they doing, talking to a girl like this? In their house – in the small hours of the morning? It was unwise and foolish, to say the least. Moon might come up with all sorts of scurrilous allegations later on – if, for some reason, she happened to take against them. She might say she’d been abducted, held captive, enslaved, beaten, abused. The papers were full of such stories…

Moon took a sip of coffee, sniffed and said, ‘I was planning to get into Kinderhook tonight.’

‘That’s called breaking and entering. It happens to be a criminal offence,’ Payne pointed out.

‘That handkerchief the police found,’ Antonia said. ‘You sure it wasn’t yours?’

‘You mean the hankie near my mother’s body? Of course it wasn’t mine. I’ve never used a hankie in my life.’ She sounded completely truthful. ‘The police are so dumb.’ Moon sniffed again and her hand went up to her nose.

‘Would you like a handkerchief?’ Antonia offered.

‘You’re trying to catch me out now, aren’t you?’ The girl grinned. ‘I’ve never used a handkerchief in my whole life.’

‘Hardly something you should be proud of. Here’s a tissue… As a matter of fact, we do think something funny might be going on at Kinderhook. We believe there’s a mysterious third sister,’ Antonia said on an impulse. ‘An elderly lady who looks like Melisande and Winifred. We’ve both seen her. But Melisande insists there are only two of them – that she has only one sister.’

A sudden rush of blood coloured the girl’s cheeks. ‘An old woman who looks like Melisande? So – so you’ve seen her? That means my mother was right! Was the old woman wearing glasses – what do you call those funny old-fashioned glasses that have no handles?’

‘Pince-nez?’ Payne frowned. ‘The old woman did wear some kind of glasses. I wasn’t near enough to see what they were… What do you mean, your mother was right? Right about what?’ His heart had started beating fast. Something told him this was the breakthrough. ‘Would you care to explain?’