The Murder Of Gonzago

9

Lady Grylls frowned. ‘He had a heart attack, didn’t he? That’s what the Times obituary said. Goodness, my dear, you look as though you doubt the Times obituary! You think there is something fishy about his death?’

‘As a matter of fact I do. I have the unshakable conviction that there is something very wrong indeed.’

‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,’ Payne quoted.

‘I believe they all know what happened. The Hunters, Clarissa’s aunt, Dr Sylvester-Sale, Glover. I couldn’t help noticing that when the coffin disappeared into the furnace, they seemed incredibly relieved.’

‘You think Roderick might have been murdered like the character he played in the dumbshow staged at Hamlet’s request? What was it all about, Hughie?’ Lady Grylls turned towards her nephew. ‘All that Gonzago business. What was the reason for it?’

‘Well, Hamlet suspects his uncle Claudius of having killed his, Hamlet’s, father, in order to replace him on the throne and marry his, Hamlet’s, mother, after whom Claudius has been lusting.’

‘Oh yes. The evil uncle. It was the ghost who told Hamlet, wasn’t it? The ghost of Hamlet’s father. Remember Olivier’s Hamlet? I had a big crush on him, you know – so tantalizingly indecisive and blond. I had quite a thing about indecisive blond men at one time.’

‘Claudius pours poison into his brother’s ear as the King lies sleeping in the garden. Well, Hamlet needs proof, so he gets a troupe of itinerant actors to stage a play that shows Gonzago being killed in precisely the same manner. Claudius is in the audience and he gets up and leaves abruptly, which Hamlet – who’s been watching his uncle closely – interprets as a guilty reaction.’

‘How awfully ingenious. I don’t suppose such a person as Gonzago ever existed, did he?’

‘He did exist. The murder of Gonzago is believed to have been a reference to a real sixteenth-century murder. A Luigi Gonzaga murdered the Duke of Urbino. It seems to be generally accepted by Shakespearean scholars that Shakespeare’s plot was founded on an Italian original. The dumb players have been identified as a commedia dell’arte troupe. Well, Italians of noble birth did poison each other. They were Machiavels at heart, poisoners like the Borgias, and libertines like the Venetians.’

Lady Grylls nodded. ‘Broadening the intellectual basis of any discussion is something my nephew excels at. How he does it I have no idea, but he makes it look so terribly easy!’

Payne gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘My forehead positively bulges with useless information.’

‘Going back to what you were saying, my dear.’ Lady Grylls addressed their hostess. ‘Do you actually suspect your brother-in-law was poisoned?’

‘I don’t know if he was poisoned,’ Felicity said, ‘but I don’t believe he died of natural causes. Well, since he’s been cremated, we’ll probably never know how exactly he died.’

‘Must be the doctor. The doctor seems implicated, wouldn’t you agree? It was the doctor who bent over the divan and held a glass to Roderick’s ear.’

‘That’s what his part required him to do, darling. He was playing the regicide,’ Payne reminded his aunt.

‘It all fits in perfectly. Doctors know about poisons. Doctors are used to death. They take it in their stride. And this Sylvester-Sale had a good motive for wishing Roderick out of the way. He was having an affair with Clarissa – who is now a terribly rich widow. The doctor is a libertine, as you said.’

‘I never said Sylvester-Sale was a libertine. I said Venetians were.’

‘He is dark and handsome, therefore it is not inconceivable that he should have Venetian blood. He might have had a Venetian grandmother. We saw him bend over Roderick with the glass of poison in his hand. All terribly straightforward and simple. He killed Roderick while pretending to be killing him. That was the cleverness of it. It is only in murder mysteries,’ Lady Grylls concluded, ‘that things are never straightforward and simple.’

‘Why did I choose to write murder mysteries? I don’t really know. It’s so difficult to explain.’ Antonia frowned. ‘I always wanted to be a writer and that seemed to be the only type of story I was drawn to writing. As it happens, detective stories were my favourite form of reading in my adolescence. Most people grow out of detective stories but I didn’t seem to.’

‘Did you only read murder mysteries of the classical kind?

‘Mostly. I liked the idea of suspicion falling on all the characters, even on the most unlikely. It seemed to suit my sceptical and somewhat paranoid imagination.’

The owlish young man cleared his throat. ‘I believe you were involved in a real-life crime – about the time you were writing your first detective novel – is that correct?’

‘I was,’ Antonia admitted. At once she wished she had held her tongue.

How could her interviewer know about it? As far as she was concerned, no one but she and Hugh knew about the murders at Twiston. [2] That murderer, as it happened, had got away with it. Could the murderer have confessed and been arrested without her knowing about it? No – it would have been in all the papers. Could the murderer have confided in someone? Antonia thought it highly unlikely, but then one never knew.

‘Did your involvement in a real-life murder have any effect on your development as a detective story writer?’

‘I am not sure. It may have done. I believe it served to cure the writer’s block from which I happened to be suffering at the time.’

‘Do you agree with the assertion that the whodunnit is an extremely artificial form and that it obeys rules as rigid and ridiculous as those of North Korean formation dancing?’

Antonia gave a little shrug and said she knew next to nothing about North Korean formation dancing. ‘Isn’t all fiction artificial? What is fiction but the selection of the writer’s internal compulsions, preoccupations, passions, fears and external experiences distilled in a form which he or she hopes will satisfy the reader’s expectations?’

‘Do you read much modern crime fiction?’

‘No, not much.’

‘Are you familiar with the names of Martina Cole and Dreda Say Mitchell?’

‘I am not… Should I be?’

‘Do your books conform in any way to Henry James’s definition of the purpose of a novel? To help the human heart to know itself. Or do you write exclusively for entertainment purposes?’

‘I write exclusively for entertainment purposes,’ Antonia said in a firm voice.

‘Do you ever try to enlist the reader’s support for views and theories of your own?’

‘No, I don’t. Sometimes my characters express opinions of books or authors which happen to be my own. On the whole, I am careful to keep my views as inconspicuous as possible.’

‘Do you exercise complete control over your characters?’

‘Complete and absolute. I like playing God to the page,’ Antonia said gravely. She tried to keep a straight face. She had started to enjoy herself.

‘Do you regard plotting as the most fascinating aspect of detective story writing?’

‘I suppose I do. But I also like to balance setting, characterization and plot, so that all three are interrelated and contribute to the whole. The kind of story I write,’ Antonia went on, ‘might have been written in the 1930s or early 40s, though I do make some concessions to modernity.’

‘Mobile phones and the internet play an active part in your novels, don’t they?’

‘They do… No, I must admit I know very little about police procedure, forensic medicine or the intricacies of the law. I write extremely old-fashioned detective stories… “Propulsively readable”? Who said that? Really? Are you sure?’ Antonia smiled. Must tell Hugh, she thought. ‘I had no idea… My detectives depend exclusively on their capacity for noticing things. My detectives are obsessively observant.’

‘How important is setting to you?’

‘Important enough. Though I try not to overdo it. Some writers tend to overdo the setting. Settings establish atmosphere and they can also influence the plot and the characters. Settings can enhance the horror of murder, sometimes by creating a contrast between the outward peace of the scene and the turbulence of human emotions.’

‘How would you describe your books?’

‘Do I have to? OK. I’d describe them as unpretentious celebrations of reason and order. Oh, and of logic as well. Logic is very important.’

‘E. M. Forster once wrote something like, The husband died, then the wife died is a story. The husband died and the wife died of grief is a plot. The wife died for no apparent reason is a mystery, a higher form. Can you improve on that? Can you come up with a definition of a murder mystery?’

Antonia scrunched up her face. ‘How about, The wife died and everyone thought it was of grief until – um – until they discovered the bullet hole in the back of her head?’

‘But if he did do it,’ Lady Grylls said, ‘there must have been a cover-up. You are absolutely right, my dear. They must have agreed to keep mum. All six of them, which is not as extraordinary as it may appear. Conspiracies are said to be a part of everyday life. Perhaps they were bribed by Clarissa to form one of those spectacular pacts of silence?’

‘Yes. That’s what I think,’ said Felicity. ‘They all had a conspiratorial air about them at the crematorium. They looked guilty as hell. Gerard pooh-poohed it. He says I imagined it.’

Lady Grylls shook her head resolutely. ‘You aren’t the fanciful sort. So let’s see what happens. The dashing doctor poisons Roderick and of course he is only too eager to sign the death certificate. Clarissa bribes everybody into keeping mum. The official version presented to the authorities will be that Roderick died of a heart attack. That is how it is to appear in The Times.’

‘There have to be two doctors’ signatures on the death certificate,’ Payne pointed out.

Lady Grylls waved her hand. ‘They managed to rope in another doctor. Couldn’t have been difficult, persuading a local chap to sign on the dotted line and so on, given that Clarissa now owns the island.’

‘I doubt somehow that Dr Sylvester-Sale killed Roderick by pouring poison into his ear,’ Felicity said.

‘Why not?’

‘In front of everybody else? Using a highly theatrical black glass decorated with a skull and crossbones? On camera?’

‘Perhaps they were all in on it from the start and the dashing doctor was their appointed executioner,’ said Lady Grylls. ‘Maybe they all hated Roderick so much, they put their heads together and came up with the idea of getting rid of him? Like in Julius Caesar or – or on that stranded Orient Express.’

Felicity Remnant conceded that it was an intriguing theory – but would they have filmed the killing?

‘I don’t see why not. People do the oddest things,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘Years ago I used to play bridge with a woman – her husband was in the diplomatic corps – our man in Vaduz, I believe – and she would do anything to avoid bidding diamonds.’

‘That must have been somewhat limiting. Did you ever find out why?’

‘I did, my dear, yes, eventually. She was rather coy about it at first, but in the end it turned out she stuttered very badly on the letter d.’

‘I don’t believe my brother-in-law was meant to die on camera. It was obvious that it just – happened. Clarissa seemed to want the camera switched off at once. She looked extremely agitated. What do you think, Hugh? You are very quiet.’

‘The doctor couldn’t have poured poison into Lord Remnant’s ear since the glass was empty,’ said Payne. ‘There was nothing in it. He only pretended to be pouring.’

‘How can you be sure the glass was empty?’ Lady Grylls said.

‘Well, he was holding it upside down.’

‘Upside down? Are you sure, Hughie? I never noticed!’

‘I didn’t notice either,’ Felicity Remnant admitted.

‘It’s the kind of thing I tend to notice. You see, I am one of those obsessively observant people. I seem to possess what is known as “sensitivity to visual impressions”.’ Payne spoke in apologetic tones. ‘Let’s play that bit again, shall we? I’ll show you. Lady Remnant, would you be so good as to rewind? There it is – stop. Look. Look.’

There was a pause.

‘Goodness, yes. How extraordinary,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘You are perfectly right, Hughie. Yes. It happens very fast. He’s holding the glass upside down and then he realizes it looks silly and turns it over quickly and handles it properly! The glass is empty, that’s as plain as the nose on your face… Does that mean Roderick wasn’t killed after all?’

‘If he was killed, it was done in some other way.’

Felicity said, ‘The anonymously sent videotape showing the precise moment of my brother-in-law’s death suggests that there was something wrong about it, wouldn’t you say?’

Payne nodded. ‘Yes. I believe it does. Though it isn’t immediately clear from watching it how Lord Remnant died. The tape was sent to Lord Remnant’s brother, the present Earl Remnant… The sender is most likely to be one of the people who was there when Lord Remnant died. Some poor soul tormented by a guilty conscience or – or someone intent on stirring up miching mallecho.’

‘I’d be grateful if you spoke plain English, Hughie.’

‘Mischief, darling. Trouble. Miching mallecho is the phrase Hamlet uses… Did the tape sender mean to plant a suspicion or suggest a line of inquiry? Does the recording perhaps contain something which we should have seen but didn’t?’

‘I thought we saw everything there was to be seen,’ said Lady Grylls.

‘The bit where Lord Remnant dies – I’d like to see it again. If Lady Remnant doesn’t mind. It may be my imagination, but-’ He broke off.

‘You saw something? What is it? Out with it!’ Lady Grylls cried.

‘I want to see that bit again… If I am right,’ said Payne, ‘you will see it too.’