Murder at the Villa Byzantine

26

Love from a Stranger

Major Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘In love with you? Did she give any indication that she might have been in love with you?’

‘Nothing direct or overt. It was the way she looked at me and some of the things she said. It was also the way she said them. Today, for example. It was quite extraordinary. She started speaking about what matters most in life. She talked about priorities – about knowing oneself. She looked at once solemn and sad. Her eyes were very bright. She – she kept staring at me.’

‘You know how the mad come into a room, too boldly, their eyes exploding on the air like roses.’

‘I hope you don’t think I have been imagining things?’

‘No, not at all, old boy. I don’t think you are the fanciful kind. Do go on.’

‘Well, the idea that she might be in love with me kept occurring to me, but each time I dismissed it as absurd. Not at her age. Now you have told me that she – Melisande Chevret – is in fact in her mid-fifties, the whole thing doesn’t seem so terribly absurd. So it’s possible, I suppose? It’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. An amorous obsession is perfectly possible. That would certainly explain why she persisted with her visits… But if Melisande Chevret did kill Stella,’ Major Payne reasoned, ‘it was because she regarded Stella as her rival – as the interloper who stole Morland from her. She cut off her head because she was hoping to win Morland back. She was in love with Morland. One can’t quite reconcile any of it with a simultaneous obsession with a younger man.’

‘Wrong psychology?’

‘Wrong psychology. On the other hand, it’s not the kind of thing one can explain in rational terms, so one mustn’t always look for logic. People fall in and out of love all the time. There are no rules. In the course of her visits Melisande Chevret may have developed a crush on you.’

‘You mean I may have ousted James Morland and taken his place in her affections?’

‘Precisely.’

‘I must admit I became very fond of her. Though not, perhaps, in the way she might have wanted me to,’ Tancred Vane said. ‘I came to regard her as the aunt I never had.’

‘But if she is in love with you – why does she go on pestering Morland? She keeps phoning him. He told me about it. Can she love both of you with equal passion?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible… I must admit I found some of her behaviour bewildering. She – she seemed delighted out of all proportion when she saw I’d moved the flowers she’d given me from the left to the right on my desk. She saw that as some very special sign. Wasn’t there a name for that kind of obsession? I seem to remember reading about it somewhere. About the woman who fell in love with George V?’

Payne looked at him. ‘Good lord. Yes. You are absolutely right. It’s a famous enough case. The woman was French, and she got a bee in her bonnet that she and George V were soulmates, destined to be united for eternity. The fact that George V was already married to Queen Mary didn’t seem to bother her one little bit. She started hanging around outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, watching out for “signals” from the King. She actually imagined the King was sending her messages by leaving a window open or shut – by drawing the curtains across the windows – or not drawing them.’

‘I think there is a medical term for it?’

‘Indeed there is. Les psychoses passionnelles. It was a Frenchman, de Clerambault, who coined the phrase. Les psychoses passionnelles usually involve a woman who develops the intense belief that a man is in love with her.’

‘How – how do you know so much about it?’

‘Oh, I know all sorts of pointless things.’ Payne waved a self-deprecating hand. ‘The “patient” or “subject” may have had little or no contact with the object of her delusion, but what she experiences is the absolute conviction that he is as much in love with her as she is with him. It’s a pathological condition… What’s that on the table?’ Payne pointed. ‘Not her glasses, are they?’

‘It’s her pince-nez. Yes. She left it behind.’

Payne leant over. He held the pince-nez in front of his eyes. ‘Plain glass. This is nothing more than a theatrical prop. May I keep it? Or should I say “them”? Is pince-nez plural? I must admit I find Miss Hope’s divided passions a little difficult to swallow, but perhaps all will be clear after I have talked to her. I think I will pay her a visit tonight.’

‘You are going to call on Melisande Chevret? Do you think you will be safe?’

‘I am not sure,’ said Payne gravely, ‘so I intend to take my wife with me.’