When Andrew returned to the Davidges’ house he found that Ian had returned before him, and that he had Sam Waldron with him in the sitting-room. Mollie was in the kitchen, busy with the lunch. Sam Waldron had the tiredness in his face that afflicted everyone whom Andrew had seen that morning. He thought it likely that neither of the Waldrons had been to bed at all the night before. The police had probably been in their home all night.
Sitting down, more tired himself than he had realized that he would be when he set out, he asked, ‘Has anything at all been discovered yet about what happened last night?’
Sam made a grimace in answer.
‘I think they’ve come to the conclusion that neither of the Bartletts had anything to do with it. And I think they believe the Bartletts that neither Mollie nor I gave them any special instructions about putting any particular cup down in front of Singleton. That was one of the bright ideas they had, you see—that we put cyanide into a cup in the kitchen, then instructed one of the Bartletts that that cup was to be given to Singleton. That would have made things nice and simple, wouldn’t it? I think they’ve given it up now. They’ve found nothing useful in the way of fingerprints on Singleton’s cup, or anywhere else, and all they’ve got is a small crop of motives, of which, of course, Audley’s is the best. Only they don’t pretend to be able to guess how someone sitting at the far end of the table, as Audley was, could have dropped anything into Singleton’s coffee. It would have had to be done by magic. And talking of magic, they’re fairly interested in Brian, because they know in a small way he’s a so-called magician, and he did reach out across the table, I’m told, to pick a flower out of that arrangement on it, and might have done something tricky in the way of sleight of hand. If Brian had known the hours Anna took creating that arrangement, he might not have done anything so thoughtless, and would be saving himself some trouble now. But what I’d particularly like to know about that is whether Miss Clancy saw anything. If she did, she’s keeping very quiet about it.’
‘You know where she was sitting, then,’ Ian said.
‘Oh yes, the police have made a map of where everyone was sitting and I was given a copy of it, to see if it stimulated any ideas in my head. But I’ve really only one idea, you know, and that is that I’ll never be able to look Parson Woodforde in the face again. To have tried to lay on a dinner in his honour, and have it turn out as it did! I think his diary will go back on to my bookshelf and stay there for a long time to come.’
Andrew was wondering if anything special had brought Sam Waldron to visit the Davidges that morning, or if it was something that might happen at any time without any special reason.
‘I’m interested in why you should particularly want to know what Miss Clancy may have seen,’ he said, ‘rather than Dr Mace. She was actually sitting next to Singleton, Miss Clancy had the Inspector between her and him.’
Sam Waldron nodded, looking thoughtful.
‘You’re quite right, of course,’ he said, ‘and I suppose the only reason why I’m a bit suspicious of Miss Clancy is that I don’t know her. I’ve known Felicity Mace for several years and I feel she’s a person of complete integrity. But except that Miss Clancy once taught my wife lacrosse and cricket, and how to vault over horses in the gym and do clever things on horizontal bars, I don’t know a thing about her. I think Anna once had a bit of a crush on her, but that doesn’t mean she had the least understanding of her. What do you actually know about her, Ian?’
‘Very little,’ Ian answered. ‘We put an advertisement in the local paper that we’d a cottage to let, and she answered it, then came to look it over and said she’d take it. She didn’t argue about the rent or make trouble of any kind. She gave the headmistress at the school where she used to teach as a reference and moved in, and she’s been a very good neighbour. She brings us homemade chutney and jam and she’s taken our photographs and she gives me advice about the garden. Mollie likes her.’
‘But you don’t,’ Sam said.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Ian replied. ‘We’ve nothing much in common, but I should say she’s an admirable person.’
Sam nodded again, as if Ian’s answer only confirmed what he had just said. He turned to Andrew.
‘You haven’t been very fortunate in the time of your visit,’ he said. ‘I assure you we haven’t had another murder here in living memory. I’d like to invite you up to our house for a quiet drink, but I don’t see much hope of quiet for the present.’
‘Thank you,’ Andrew said. ‘You’ll have plenty of visitors shortly, I imagine, without having me there to complicate things. Haven’t the press descended on you yet?’
‘By telephone, and that’s partly why I came out. They were threatening to appear in person. Tell me, Professor, what’s your impression of Eleanor Clancy?’
Andrew gave a shrug of uncertainty.
‘I can’t say why it is,’ he said, ‘but I’ve a feeling that there’s something odd about her, apart, I mean, from her obvious eccentricities, which she rather likes to show off. Actually, I find myself in agreement with you that she may have seen something last night about which she’s chosen to keep quiet. A dangerous thing to do. But I really don’t know why I feel it. I may be totally wrong.’
‘Yes, we may both be wrong,’ Sam said, ‘but I’m interested that you should have the same feeling as I have. Ian, do you know if she’s wealthy?’
‘Far from it, I should say,’ Ian replied.
‘I only thought …’ Sam began, then stopped himself.
‘Were you wondering if she might make use of her knowledge?’ Andrew asked.
‘What, blackmail, d’you mean?’ Ian looked extremely startled.
‘I only thought it might be what Waldron had in mind,’ Andrew said.
‘Well, for a moment I did think …’ But Sam paused again. ‘No, on our almost non-existent knowledge, it’s outrageous to make such a suggestion. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. Ian, I’ll be going now. I left Anna in bed, with her door locked against possible intruders, and the Bartletts to protect her, but I’d better see how she is. She got no sleep at all and she’s not very strong. I’m worried about her. We’ll see each other again soon, I expect.’
Ian saw him to the door.
Returning, he said, ‘I think we’ll have some sherry. Mollie—’ He went to the hall and called, ‘Mollie, we’re going to have some sherry. D’you want to join us?’
There was no suggestion in his voice that he and Mollie had been close to a quarrel earlier, which had been avoided only by his deciding to go out for a walk. If he guessed what Mollie might have said to Andrew while he was gone, he gave no sign of it.
But that might be because he did not dream that Mollie would talk about her private feelings to Andrew. In answer to his call she came into the room and Ian poured out sherry for the three of them. She was looking her normal self, with no trace of tears on her face.
‘What did Sam want?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry I disappeared, but I felt I couldn’t stand another dose of hashing up this murder. I suppose it was what he wanted to talk about.’
‘What I thought he seemed to want,’ Ian said, ‘was to put it into our heads that Eleanor saw how Singleton was poisoned and is keeping her knowledge to herself in order to be able to blackmail whoever it was who did it. You know her a great deal better than I do. Would you say that’s possible?’
‘Eleanor?’ Mollie gasped. ‘Blackmail!’ She began to laugh. ‘Oh, she isn’t that sort of person at all.’
‘You think you know what sort of person a blackmailer is?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever actually met one,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what was there for Eleanor to see? No one’s come up yet with a reasonable suggestion about that. I’m beginning to think that after all, Luke Singleton committed suicide, and deliberately did it in a way that would get his death maximum coverage in the press. I wonder what his religious beliefs were. He may have thought he’d a chance of looking on while that was happening.’
‘I doubt if anyone’s ever committed suicide with that in view,’ Andrew said. ‘But he may have had reasons we know nothing about for doing it. Suppose he’d discovered he’d got an incurable illness. AIDS, for instance.’
‘Or finally failed with some woman with whom for once he was really in love, and felt he couldn’t face the humiliation,’ Mollie suggested. ‘Oh, it isn’t difficult to find motives for suicide, any more than it is to find motives for his murder among the people who were in the room that evening. But the question remains, how was it done, unless it was done by one of the Bartletts.’
Ian nodded thoughtfully. ‘I doubt if the police have really made up their minds about them yet, whatever they may be saying about them. Andrew, have some more sherry.’
‘Thank you.’ Andrew held out his glass. ‘Now I want to ask you something, and I want you, please, to be absolutely honest in your answer. If the police don’t want me to stay around, would you sooner I went home? It’s a very disastrous thing that’s happened to you, and you might feel better if you didn’t feel you had to bother about me.’
‘Oh no!’ Mollie cried with a note of shrill alarm in her voice. ‘I mean, unless you want to. If you do, of course, you must go home. But really it feels so helpful to have you around. You keep your head so well, you’re a tremendous help.’
It was Mollie’s view of the matter that Andrew had really wanted to know, for there was more than a possibility, he had thought, that by now she might be sorely regretting her confidence to him earlier in the morning. But he noticed that Ian had not answered.
‘Are you sure?’ Andrew said. ‘You aren’t going to hurt my feelings if you say you’d sooner be alone.’
Ian answered then with a kind of reluctance. ‘You’d hardly be human if you didn’t want to go, but Mollie’s right, having you here is helpful.’
‘If you’re sure then …’ Andrew said.
‘Oh, we are,’ Ian replied.
Andrew left it at that. It was more or less what he had expected, in spite of his uncertainty about Mollie, and he did his best to tuck away to the back of his mind a slight regret that he had not been given leave of absence.
What he himself would have felt in their position he did not know. Probably, he thought, he would have eagerly seized the opportunity of not having to cope with a visitor, but then he had become so used to solitude that it seemed to him a normal thing to desire. However, his real use at the moment to the Davidges, he thought, in spite of what he had thought Mollie’s feelings might be, was as a sort of buffer between them, because the problem of Brian Singleton was coming to a head. Ian, he thought, knew all about it and was deeply depressed. Mollie was almost desperate, scared and insecure in the grip of stronger emotions than she had ever felt before. What Brian felt was something that Andrew knew nothing about, and he did not much want to know any more about it. He reflected that in the afternoon he might call on Eleanor Clancy and ask her to show him some of her great-grandfather’s photographs.
But after lunch he decided to lie down for a little while before setting out, and he had no sooner lain down than he fell sound asleep. The lack of sleep in the night had really caught up with him, and it held him now, deep and dreamless, and when he woke he had to spend a little while trying to remember where he was. There seemed to be no reason for a window to be where it was, or a dressing-table to be in the corner of the room, or for its walls to be pale grey. Then memory returned with a jerk and he sat up hurriedly, thinking of his intention of visiting Eleanor Clancy. But looking at his watch, he saw that it was half past five. He had slept for about three and a half hours, and a visit at this time seemed inappropriate. He got up, combed his hair and went downstairs.
He was only half way down them when he became aware, from voices in the sitting-room, that the Davidges had a visitor. It was a man’s voice he heard, and thinking that it might be Brian, he considered returning to his room and taking refuge in Agatha Christie. But something about the voice convinced him that it was not Brian, and he continued downstairs. The visitor was Ernest Audley.
It sounded as if he had only just arrived, for he was explaining to the Davidges why he had come.
‘I thought to myself, I’ll call in on the Davidges,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll find out if they’ve been badgered by the police as much as I have. To the best of my belief you don’t keep a supply of cyanide on the premises, as I do.’ He saw Andrew at the door and immediately stood up. ‘Good afternoon, Professor,’ he said. ‘I was just telling Ian and Mollie that I’ve been most infernally troubled by the police today, and all because I still happened to have kept one or two of the killing bottles my father used to use when he went out after his butterflies. They insisted on removing them, I can only assume to check whether there were any signs of some of the stuff having been abstracted. Would they be able to find that out, do you think? And you’re a scientist. Can you tell me if the stuff would have retained its potency, or by this time have become innocuous?’
‘I rather think it would still be pretty poisonous,’ Andrew replied, ‘but I can’t speak with any authority. It’s a matter I never had any reason to investigate.’
They had both sat down. Mollie was in a chair by the window, where the remaining light of the early evening fell on some embroidery in a frame, on which she was working. Ian was standing with his back to the empty fireplace, his hands in his pockets.
‘I’m the prime suspect, of course,’ Audley went on. ‘I hated the bastard from the bottom of my heart and if I were to meet the murderer I’d shake him by the hand. But motive and means aren’t sufficient for an arrest. There’s got to be opportunity too. And even our brilliant Inspector Roland hasn’t managed to come up yet with any theory as to how I could have lobbed cyanide from where I was sitting near the bottom of the table to where Singleton was sitting. Have you any theories of your own, Professor, as to how it could have been done?’
‘None,’ Andrew said.
‘My own view is the simplest one,’ Audley said. ‘Generally the simpler a theory is, the more convincing it is. It’s that the Bartlett sisters aren’t what they seem. I doubt if any motive they might have had for killing Singleton would have been sexual. Wide-ranging as his tastes were, I doubt if those worthy elderly sisters would have appealed to him. But he might have damaged someone to whom they were devoted and who was more his type. That seems to me quite probable. The damage might have been emotional, physical, economic, social. The police will certainly be looking into all that. Because it stares one in the face, doesn’t it, that it would have been the easiest thing in the world for one of the sisters to drop a little poison into Singleton’s cup while she was serving him? How she acquired any cyanide I don’t presume to guess, though I’m certain it wasn’t from me. Concerning that, however, I’ve wondered about our dear Miss Clancy. You know she photographed the sisters, don’t you? She thought the two of them, side by side, so dignified, so precise and decorous, made a splendid subject. And she had cyanide connected with her ancestor’s photographic work and they might have had a chance to help themselves to some while they were in the cottage. So there you are, a solution to the whole mystery.’
Andrew had not remembered, from his previous meetings with Audley, that he spoke with such pomposity, but a good deal of it now was assumed, Andrew thought, with a note of irony in it. Audley really made very little effort to conceal the fact that he felt a certain pleasure in the murder, and it amused him to blame the least likely persons for having committed it. There was an animation in his pale, blotchy face that was not usually there. His light blue eyes under their thick lashes gleamed.
‘I know you aren’t taking me seriously,’ he said, ‘but can any of you come up with a better solution?’
‘I don’t think you want us to,’ Ian said. ‘I think you’ll be very pleased if this murder is filed away among unsolved crimes.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ Audley agreed. ‘I don’t see why anyone should be too concerned if it is, except for his publishers. They’ll be the only people I know of who’ll have a truly sincere regret for Singleton’s death. My ex-wife will probably cry a little about it. Even after he deserted her she nursed an absurd amount of affection for him.’
‘Have you and she ever thought of joining up again?’ Ian asked. ‘Will Singleton’s death make any difference to that?’
‘Most unlikely, I should say.’ Audley said it emphatically and quickly; a little too quickly, Andrew thought, for it to sound entirely convincing. Was it possible, he wondered, that Audley’s satisfaction at Luke Singleton’s death was not wholly due to his simple hatred of the man, but had in it an element of hope that if the man was finally lost to her, his wife might return to him?
When Audley had left, which he did a few minutes later, Andrew asked Ian if he knew what sort of woman Mrs Audley had been.
‘We never met her,’ Ian said. ‘The whole affair happened before we came to live here, but I know she was a friend of Felicity’s and I think she sometimes hears from her.’
‘I wish we could work out a way Ernest could have done the murder,’ Mollie said. ‘He’s got such an excellent motive for it, and he actually likes to parade it. He’s very sure, isn’t he, that he simply can’t be suspected—’ She broke off as the telephone rang.
Ian went into the hall to answer it. The call was brief and when he came back into the room there was a very strange expression of bewilderment on his face.
‘That was Sam,’ he said. ‘Of all crazy things to happen, the Bartletts have disappeared.’
It was not until next morning that the Davidges and Andrew heard how the disappearance of the sisters had happened. They heard it from Inspector Roland, who called in on them at about ten o’clock, accompanied by a young man whom he introduced as Sergeant Giles. Mollie once more offered them coffee, but it was again refused. The two men did not even sit down. They seemed in a hurry.
‘I don’t expect you to be able to help us,’ Roland said, ‘but we’re asking everyone along this road, as it’s the road to London, if they saw anything of the two women in an old red Mini drive past some time between two and four yesterday afternoon. That’s when they must have left the Waldrons’ house. Mrs Waldron had been in bed all day, and only saw Enid Bartlett, the older of the two sisters, when she brought up a tray with her lunch. Mr Waldron had his lunch served to him in the dining-room, then went to lie down for a rest, and says he heard the sisters moving about—there was a lot of clearing up to do after the trouble the night before—until he fell asleep, which he thinks happened about two o’clock. He woke up about four and presently went downstairs to make sure some tea would be taken up to his wife, but there was no sign of the Bartletts. He was surprised, because it was unlike them simply to go out without making sure beforehand that it was convenient, and even though it was a Sunday, and their usual afternoon off, he’d assumed that after the events the night before they wouldn’t have gone. However, he didn’t worry much about it until about six o’clock when a married sister of theirs who lives in the village rang up to ask if they were all right, because they hadn’t gone to see her as they usually did on their Sundays off. She’d heard about the murder, of course—who hasn’t?—and she thought their not coming to her must have something to do with that. But they didn’t come back to the Waldrons at all that evening, and about eleven o’clock Mr Waldron got in touch with us about it. And they still haven’t appeared. We’re to blame, of course, for having made it possible for the women to have got away like that without being stopped, but it’s too late now to worry about that, the main thing is to find them.’
‘Why do you think they went to London?’ Ian asked.
‘Their sister seemed to think it was probable,’ Roland replied. ‘They’ve another sister there, a widow, who runs a boarding-house in Finchley, and she thought that they might have gone to her. But inquiries in London haven’t led to anything. Apparently they haven’t been in touch with that sister, or she swears they haven’t. However, London’s an obvious place to go to if you want to disappear.’
‘But why should they want to disappear?’ Mollie asked.
‘I think they must have been scared that they’d come under suspicion,’ Roland answered. ‘They must have realized they were the only people who could easily have given the poison to Singleton.’
‘But did you suspect them?’
Roland gave a slight shrug. ‘We couldn’t say it wasn’t possible they’d done it, could we? As long as we can’t find any other way that the poison could have been administered to Singleton, we’ve got to think about them.’
‘But if you do,’ Andrew observed, ‘then isn’t Mr Waldron the most likely person to have arranged for them to do it?’
‘And no one is more aware of that than he is himself,’ Roland said. ‘He’s very anxious for us to find them.’
‘The red Mini’s their own, is it?’ Andrew asked.
Roland nodded and told them the number of the car.
‘Well, I’m sorry, but we’ve seen nothing of them,’ Ian said. ‘But we were all sleeping it off ourselves yesterday afternoon, and wouldn’t have seen them even if they’d passed.’
‘Well, no doubt they’ll be found soon enough,’ Roland said. ‘I doubt if women like that will really know how to conceal themselves, even in London. They may even have second thoughts and come home of their own accord. Meanwhile, it’s just making a bit of extra trouble for us.’ He gave Andrew a long look. ‘You haven’t had any special ideas about what’s happened, have you, Professor?’
Andrew shook his head.
‘You had some good ideas the last time we met,’ Roland persisted.
‘If I have any this time, you shall be the first to hear them,’ Andrew promised.
‘Good. Well, good morning. Sorry to have troubled you.’
Roland and the sergeant took their leave.
When they had gone, Ian said that he felt like making some of that coffee that the detectives had refused and went out to the kitchen to do it. Mollie sat down at her embroidery frame.
‘You’ve really met that man before, have you, Andrew?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I was on the spot when an unfortunate man called Sir Lucas Dearden was blown up by a bomb,’ Andrew answered, ‘and I think Roland rather overestimates the help I gave him. That’s a very lovely piece of embroidery you’re doing, Mollie.’
‘Would you like it?’ she said. ‘I could get it framed for you or made into a cushion.’
‘Would you really do that?’
‘Of course, if you truly like it. Which shall it be?’
Andrew thought of his sitting-room and of how the embroidery would look in it.
‘A cushion, I think,’ he said.
‘You shall have it. But, Andrew …’
‘Yes?’
‘This isn’t your first experience of murder?’ ‘Not quite.’
‘And do you believe either of the Bartletts could have done it?’
‘Not really.’
‘Have you any suspicions of anyone who was at that dinner?’
‘Probably no more than you have. Do you suspect anyone in particular?’
‘I do, as a matter of fact, only it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Ernest Audley?’
‘No.’
‘Then who?’
She bent her head over her work, apparently concentrating on it and thinking of nothing else. Then after a moment she said, ‘No, I don’t think I’ll say. It isn’t really serious, and it might just make trouble.’
‘You’re probably wise.’
That seemed to spur her into wanting to tell him more.
‘All the same, if the Bartletts had anything to do with it, then that makes it possible, doesn’t it, that just about anyone who was at that dinner might have been at the back of it? As you said, it’s Sam who looks the most probable, but what about Eleanor, for instance? She’s admitted she used to know Luke Singleton, and whether that was just a bit of boasting and exaggerating, or whether she really knew him very well and was playing it down, we don’t know, do we? And she probably had cyanide and might have arranged to pay a Bartlett to do the job for her. Then there’s Felicity.’
‘Is she the person you really suspect?’ Andrew asked.
But before she answered, Ian came in with coffee for the three of them and as he poured it out, silence fell on them. Mollie resumed her embroidery and except for muttering something about it being impossible that the Bartletts could have had anything to do with it, Ian withdrew into himself, looking ill-tempered, as if he found the events of the morning particularly outrageous.
Andrew was grateful not to be expected to talk. He had an uneasy feeling that Mollie at least might have started to think of him as an expert on murder, when he happened for the present to be feeling entirely uninspired. Wondering what to do, he thought of making the call that he had abandoned the evening before on Eleanor Clancy, asking to be shown some of her treasured old photographs, because an idea concerning them had begun to form in his mind. He needed an occupation, now that his work on Robert Hooke was done. As his nephew, Peter Dilly, had said, he needed a hobby. And might it not be possible, if Eleanor would give him access to the letters and the negatives that her great-grandfather had left behind him, to write his life? Might it not be quite interesting? It was true that she had seemed to be thinking of doing this herself, but Andrew felt that this was one of the projects that was unlikely ever to be more than a project. Yes, he thought, he would call on her.
Without telling the Davidges what he actually had in mind, but only saying that was going out for a breath of air, he let himself out into the road and started along it.
But he did not stop at Eleanor Clancy’s cottage. The fresh, bright morning gave him the feeling that what he needed was simply a walk, and passing the cottage, he went straight on. His idea of writing the life of a long ago Clancy began to feel quite unrealistic. For one thing, it would almost certainly mean having to have a fair amount of contact with Eleanor herself, and he had not really taken much of a liking to her. It would also mean spending a good deal of time in Lower Milfrey, and that was a thing he thought that he would never be able to contemplate with pleasure. Quite apart from the murder and its consequences, his relationship with the Davidges had been most unhappily damaged; Mollie’s confidences to him about her feelings for Brian Singleton had made it almost impossible for him to maintain his old relationship with Ian. He did not know whether to be sorry for him, or critical of him, or even contemptuous of him. The one thing that seemed impossible, unless Ian should choose to confide in him too, was to be simple and honest with him.
Just then, perhaps because he had been thinking of Ian, he noticed that the sky seemed to be full of swallows. They were swooping in every direction in swift, beautiful curves. Were they preparing for their journey south, he wondered. He stood still, watching them, and as he did so a car that had been coming towards him stopped near him and Felicity Mace leant out.
‘Good morning, Professor,’ she called out. ‘Are you going anywhere special? Can I give you a lift?’
He was about to reply that he was merely out for a short walk, when a sudden idea occurred to him.
‘I was thinking of a walk,’ he said, ‘but if you feel like driving me to the nearest pleasant pub and coming in for a drink with me, I’d very happily give up the idea of the walk.’
‘Let me think,’ she said. ‘The nicest pub, I think, is the Wheatsheaf, and it won’t take us more than a few minutes to get there. Get in.’ She leant across the car and opened the door for Andrew to climb into the seat beside her. She then turned the car and drove off in the direction from which she had come. ‘I’ve just been to see a patient out this way,’ she said, ‘and was going home for my lunch, but that can wait for a little while.’
‘I’d like to suggest we have lunch in the Wheatsheaf,’ Andrew said, ‘but Mollie and Ian will be expecting me.’
‘It’s all right, I’ve an excellent Marks & Spencer lunch waiting to go into my microwave,’ she said. She had a friendly smile on her lively oval face and seemed really glad to have met him. ‘My microwave has revolutionized my life. It’s the perfect answer for busy people who live alone. Have you got one?’
‘No, but then I’m not a truly busy person,’ Andrew answered.
‘All the same, you should try it.’
They chatted about microwaves and the problems of cooking for yourself if you lived alone until they came to a building that stood by itself at a crossroads which turned out to be the Wheatsheaf. It was a solid-looking, square brick building with a slate roof and a large car park beside it, in which there were a surprising number of cars, considering that the pub appeared to have no village near it. It was plainly popular enough for people to come to it from some distance away. Inside, it was cheerfully comfortable in an unpretentious way, and had a fair number of customers in it already. Felicity and Andrew went to a small table by the window and Andrew went to the bar to order their drinks. They each had a half pint of lager.
As he sat down at the table facing her, she gave him her friendly smile again and said, ‘Well, what is it you really want to ask me?’
‘It’s as obvious as that, is it?’ he asked.
‘It certainly seemed probable. Not that I don’t enjoy being picked up by distinguished visitors. But I thought there might be strings attached to it.’
‘You make me wish there weren’t,’ he said. ‘I’d really like you to talk about things like the holiday you had this year, and the one you’re planning for next year, and anything that has nothing to do with the murder. I keep telling myself that the one thing I want is to stop thinking about it, but of course, that isn’t true. It’s going to obsess me until it’s solved.’
‘Perhaps I can help you more than you’d expect,’ she said. ‘That’s to say, I can tell you a little about my summer holiday, and just connect it up a little with our murder. My holiday was in Russia, a trip by ship on the inland waterways from Moscow to St Petersburg, and very wonderful it was, and I’d love to go on talking about it. But what you’ll want to hear, I think, is a little about the friend I went with. It was Jane Audley.’
He showed his surprise. ‘Ernest Audley’s wife?’
‘His ex-wife.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. And actually, she was one of the people I wanted to ask you about. Someone told me you’d known her.’
‘We’re very close friends. We met when I first settled here and we’ve kept in touch ever since she left. We generally go on holiday together.’
‘So you’d have some idea if there’s any possibility, now that Luke Singleton’s dead, that she’d return to Audley. I know Singleton deserted her after the divorce, but it seemed to me possible that she might have nursed a hope that he’d come back to her in the end, and now that that most certainly can’t happen, she might see if she could return to Audley.’
She shook her head. ‘Not a chance of it. The marriage was pretty well on the rocks before Luke showed up. If it hadn’t been Luke, it’d have been someone else. She told me once she regarded the years she’d spent with Ernest as utterly wasted. He’s a terrible old bore, you know, and very demanding, and she married him for all the wrong reasons. She was very young for one thing, and very eager to get married and have a home of her own and a position in our society here. And then, of course, children. Having lived nearly all her life in Lower Milfrey, she thought of him as a man of distinction and consequence, you see, and it took her a little while to find out that he isn’t exactly either. And the children didn’t come. So Luke was the escape she’d been looking for, and I’m not sure that she was passionately devoted to him or that it mattered to her too much when he left her. There’ve been one or two other men in her life since he did, but what really keeps her going is a job she’s got as assistant editor on a women’s magazine. She’s very talented in her way and very hard-working.’
‘So even if Audley had an idea that with Singleton dead she might come back to him, you’d say he was quite wrong.’
‘Oh, utterly.’
‘But do you think he might have such an idea himself?’
She gave him a quizzical look, then drank some of her lager.
‘So you want to make out that he’s the murderer, even though it’s completely impossible that he could have done it, sitting where he was?’
‘You’ve heard, of course, that the Bartlett sisters have disappeared?’
She nodded. ‘And if they were the instrument that administered the poison, then Ernest, or almost anyone in that room could have been the real culprit. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even have to have been someone in that room. It could have been pretty well anyone in the wide world. That’s an idea that ought to keep you occupied for a nice long time.’
But it did not keep Andrew occupied for very long, for that evening the Bartletts were discovered. They were staying with their widowed sister in Finchley after all. They had been there when the police had gone to her house to inquire for them, but had insisted on remaining in hiding, and she had denied that they were with her when they were upstairs in her attic. But not long afterwards their red Mini had been discovered in a car park only a few streets away from her home, and the police had then returned to it and been a good deal more insistent in their questioning. The widowed sister by then had been working on the two Bartletts to let the police know their whereabouts. With a houseful of lodgers it was hardly practical for her to keep a couple of strange women concealed from them all, particularly as the newspapers had made a good deal of their disappearance, even hinting that a reward might be given for information leading to their discovery. However, they did not return to Lower Milfrey, but for the time being remained in Finchley. They would have to return for the inquest, they were told, but for the moment were left in peace. Inspector Roland, who told all this to the Davidges and Andrew, whom he called in on again later that evening, said that the women had truly been afraid that they were suspected of the poisoning of Luke Singleton and had had a wild idea of borrowing money from their sister and escaping to South America. They had very little knowledge of such matters as passports and visas and had simply been in a state of hopeless panic.
Nevertheless, their attempt at escape did them good service. The next morning, when without any doubt they were in a room that happened to be vacant in a boarding-house in Finchley, Ian, as he so often did, set out in the early morning with his binoculars to see if anything interesting in the way of waders recently arrived from the north had appeared in the mud around the lake on the common, but what he saw for once put all thoughts of birds out of his mind. For tucked among the reeds near the little bridge that crossed the stream that made its placid way out of the lake, he happened to catch sight of a pair of shoes. And the shoes were on a pair of feet. And the feet were those of Eleanor Clancy, floating in deathly stillness in the water.