I clear my throat and say that the knowledge her ladyship has chosen to impart has given me an idea for a different and much more serious motive for murder that could be attributed to Lord Collingwood.
‘Are you implying you’ve got another stellar plot up your sleeve, Bedaux?’
‘More of a nouveau scenario, m’lady. I wonder what you will make of it. A gentleman of noble birth, the scion of a family of great distinction and antiquity, has an affair with his young secretary. He then learns that the girl is actually his daughter by a former mistress. He realises he has had an affair with his own daughter.’
‘Ah, the incest motive. You mean it could be made to look as though Rupert’s feelings of shame were so intense and devastating that he killed his daughter?’
‘That’s what I mean, yes. His mind suffered a lethal aberration which resulted in Lord Collingwood killing his daughter – before taking the honourable way out. A remorseful death. A kind of an Oedipus Rex in reverse. What does your ladyship think?’
‘The honourable way out … Yes … I like that … It’s terribly clever … I don’t see why not.’ She suddenly becomes brisk and business-like, ‘It must be done before he gets the idea of changing his will once more. The draft I found in his desk remains just that, a draft. I phoned his solicitor who’s an old flame of mine and asked some probing questions and he assures me the old will still stands, the one in which I am named as Rupert’s principal legatee. But he and I are not on good terms and now that Joan’s dead, he may decide to leave his fortune to – to some gardening society or heaven knows who else! So we must hurry. I can’t bear the thought of being cheated out of what is rightfully mine, Bedaux.’
‘An understandable sentiment, m’lady.’
‘But I do so hate the idea of blood or any kind of mess!’
‘There doesn’t have to be a mess, m’lady.’
‘Nothing too lurid or too sensational please. Can Rupert suffer a broken neck?’
‘Indeed he can, m’lady.’
‘Or take an overdose? He takes some absurd tablets for his Black Dog. He’s a manic depressive.’
‘Indeed he can, m’lady.’
‘I feel rather inspired talking to you, Bedaux. I think that we should meet and work out the details as a matter of some urgency? It would be imprudent to try to do it over the phone. Any objection to a tête-à-tête?’
‘No objection at all.’
She asks if I can come over at once.
I tell her I could be with her in less than an hour.
‘There is a delightful little place just round the corner. A patisserie of a rather exclusive kind. Chez Charlus. It is authentic French. It boasts the best pastry-cook in Europe. It may sound a bit louche, to the cognoscenti, though it is a perfectly respectable place. I think it would be much safer for us to meet on neutral ground.’
It is forty minutes later and we are sitting in Chez Charlus, partaking of a selection of sugary concoctions, which I find I enjoy.
‘Oh who would have thought it would come to this?’ Lady Collingwood sighs wistfully over her cup of jasmine tea. ‘When I married Rupert I didn’t see how anything could possibly go wrong. Rupert was every young widow’s dream. He had all the Bs, you know.’
‘All the bees, m’lady?’
‘Background, breeding, blue blood, bank balance … But he turned out to be a beast … And as they say, the beast must die … There is a novel of that name, isn’t there?’
‘We must prepare the ground for his suicide. Set the wheels in motion, if you’d permit the cliché, m’lady. I believe you said Lord Collingwood talked in his sleep?’
‘He does. He shouts and screams. He is not a well man. He is prey to nightmares. I often hear him through the wall.’
‘That would be perfect. You will say that you heard Lord Collingwood make a confession in his sleep: “Joan, my little girl, what have I done? I had no idea.” Something on those lines.’ Even though all the neighbouring tables are empty and no waiter is within earshot, I continue to speak sotto voce. ‘He will also say that he can’t possibly go on living with himself.’
She twists her face and moans in the manner of a soul tormented by toothache. ‘Joan, Joan! My little girl! What have I done?’
‘You don’t have to mimic Lord Collingwood’s voice, m’lady. It is not as though you will ever be expected to impersonate him.’
‘Who will be my “audience”, Bedaux? Not Scotland Yard, I hope?’
‘No, m’lady. There is no question of Scotland Yard being involved at this point. I have been giving the matter some serious consideration and I think you should approach Antonia Darcy, m’lady. In my opinion, Antonia Darcy will make the perfect witness. She is a detective-story writer and, according to one critic, she displays a fondness for “outlandish premises”. I came across the phrase on the Internet. There is a great deal about her on the Internet. I am sure she’d want to listen to you. You said you knew her?’
‘I only know her husband. How I wish I could have been married to someone like Hugh Payne! Rupert went on about how happily married Hugh and Antonia were. Their marriage seems to have been made in heaven, with angels as witnesses and St Peter as best man.’
‘Do you think you could engineer a meeting with Antonia Darcy, m’lady?’
Lady Collingwood takes a delicate bite of a millefeuille, which is also known as the Napoleon of pastries and says, ‘I’ll do my best. I consider myself a good actress, you know. I excel at charades. Writers as a rule tend to be impractical and fanciful, don’t they? They’d believe things ordinary mortals wouldn’t. Six impossible things before breakfast and so on. Detective-story writers, someone said, are the worst. Their cleverness is of a particularly synthetic kind.’
‘That strikes me as a fair assessment, m’lady. It of course applies exclusively to the purveyors of the more old-fashioned type of whodunit.’
‘Of which Antonia Darcy is one!’
I glance around, at the purple peacock-patterned wallpaper, lotus-shaped tables and gilded chandeliers of Chez Charlus, then I watch Lady Collingwood swallow a tablet, which she informs me is one of her ‘little Aconites’. She says it has no taste and is perfectly harmless. She never suffers any side effects. She might have been taking an aspirin, really. Then she swallows a second Aconite.
Suddenly I am filled with misgivings. My ‘stellar plot’ is a bit on the overcomplicated side. I have also remembered the way Antonia Darcy stood at the top of the stairs at the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School looking down at me …
I clear my throat. ‘May I suggest that you exercise caution, m’lady? Please, do not underestimate Antonia Darcy.’