“And her husband wasn’t having an affair with someone else?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Mrs. Bantry. “I only saw him at the party. He looked like a bit of chewed string. Nice but wet.”
“Doesn’t leave much, does it?” said Dermot Craddock. “One falls back on the assumption she knew something.”
“Knew something?”
“To the detriment of somebody else.”
Mrs. Bantry shook her head again. “I doubt it,” she said. “I doubt it very much. She struck me as the kind of woman who if she had known anything about anyone, couldn’t have helped talking about it.”
“Well, that washes that out,” said Dermot Craddock, “so we’ll come, if we may, to my reasons for coming to see you. Miss Marple, for whom I have the greatest admiration and respect, told me that I was to say to you the Lady of Shalott.”
“Oh, that!” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Yes,” said Craddock. “That! Whatever it is.”
“People don’t read much Tennyson nowadays,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“A few echoes come back to me,” said Dermot Craddock. “She looked out to Camelot, didn’t she?
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The Mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The curse has come upon me,’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.”
“Exactly. She did,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“I beg your pardon. Who did? Did what?”
“Looked like that,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Who looked like what?”
“Marina Gregg.”
“Ah, Marina Gregg. When was this?”
“Didn’t Jane Marple tell you?”
“She didn’t tell me anything. She sent me to you.”
“That’s tiresome of her,” said Mrs. Bantry, “because she can always tell things better than I can. My husband always used to say that I was so abrupt that he didn’t know what I was talking about. Anyway, it may have been only my fancy. But when you see anyone looking like that you can’t help remembering it.”
“Please tell me,” said Dermot Craddock.
“Well, it was at the party. I call it a party because what can one call things? But it was just a sort of reception up at the top of the stairs where they’ve made a kind of recess. Marina Gregg was there and her husband. They fetched some of us in. They fetched me, I suppose, because I once owned the house, and they fetched Heather Badcock and her husband because she’d done all the running of the fête, and the arrangements. And we happened to go up the stairs at about the same time, so I was standing there, you see, when I noticed it.”
“Quite. When you noticed what?”
“Well, Mrs. Badcock went into a long spiel as people do when they meet celebrities. You know, how wonderful it was, and what a thrill and they’d always hoped to see them. And she went into a long story of how she’d once met her years ago and how exciting it had been. And I thought, in my own mind, you know, what a bore it must be for these poor celebrities to have to say all the right things. And then I noticed that Marina Gregg wasn’t saying the right things. She was just staring.”
“Staring—at Mrs. Badcock?”
“No—no, it looked as though she’d forgotten Mrs. Badcock altogether. I mean, I don’t believe she’d even heard what Mrs. Badcock was saying. She was just staring with what I call this Lady of Shalott look, as though she’d seen something awful. Something frightening, something that she could hardly believe she saw and couldn’t bear to see.”
“The curse has come upon me?” suggested Dermot Craddock.
“Yes, just that. That’s why I call it the Lady of Shalott look.”
“But what was she looking at, Mrs. Bantry?”
“Well, I wish I knew,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“She was at the top of the stairs, you say?”
“She was looking over Mrs. Badcock’s head—no, more over one shoulder, I think.”
“Straight at the middle of the staircase?”
“It might have been a little to one side.”
“And there were people coming up the staircase?”
“Oh yes, I should think about five or six people.”
“Was she looking at one of these people in particular?”
“I can’t possibly tell,” said Mrs. Bantry. “You see, I wasn’t facing that way. I was looking at her. My back was to the stairs. I thought perhaps she was looking at one of the pictures.”
“But she must know the pictures quite well if she’s living in the house.”
“Yes, yes, of course. No, I suppose she must have been looking at one of the people. I wonder which.”
“We have to try and find out,” said Dermot Craddock. “Can you remember at all who the people were?”
“Well, I know the mayor was one of them with his wife. There was someone who I think was a reporter, with red hair, because I was introduced to him later, but I can’t remember his name. I never hear names. Galbraith—something like that. Then there was a big black man. I don’t mean a negro—I just mean very dark, forceful looking. And an actress with him. A bit over-blonde and the minky kind. And old General Barnstaple from Much Benham. He’s practically ga-ga now, poor old boy. I don’t think he could have been anybody’s doom. Oh! and the Grices from the farm.”
“Those are all the people you can remember?”
“Well, there may have been others. But you see I wasn’t—well, I mean I wasn’t noticing particularly. I know that the mayor and General Barnstaple and the Americans did arrive about that time. And there were people taking photographs. One I think was a local man, and there was a girl from London, an arty-looking girl with long hair and a rather large camera.”
“And you think it was one of those people who brought that look to Marina Gregg’s face?”
“I didn’t really think anything,” said Mrs. Bantry with complete frankness. “I just wondered what on earth made her look like that and then I didn’t think of it anymore. But afterwards one remembers about these things. But of course,” added Mrs. Bantry with honesty, “I may have imagined it. After all, she may have had a sudden toothache or a safety pin run into her or a sudden violent colic. The sort of thing where you try to go on as usual and not to show anything, but your face can’t help looking awful.”
Dermot Craddock laughed. “I’m glad to see you’re a realist, Mrs. Bantry,” he said. “As you say, it may have been something of that kind. But it’s certainly just one interesting little fact that might be a pointer.”
He shook his head and departed to present his official credentials in Much Benham.
Nine
I
“So locally you’ve drawn a blank?” said Craddock, offering his cigarette case to Frank Cornish.
“Completely,” said Cornish. “No enemies, no quarrels, on good terms with her husband.”
“No question of another woman or another man?”
The other shook his head. “Nothing of that kind. No hint of scandal anywhere. She wasn’t what you’d call the sexy kind. She was on a lot of committees and things like that and there were some small local rivalries, but nothing beyond that.”
“There wasn’t anyone else the husband wanted to marry? No one in the office where he worked?”
“He’s in Biddle & Russell, the estate agents and valuers. There’s Florrie West with adenoids, and Miss Grundle, who is at least fifty and as plain as a haystack—nothing much there to excite a man. Though for all that I shouldn’t be surprised if he did marry again soon.”
Craddock looked interested.
“A neighbour,” explained Cornish. “A widow. When I went back with him from the inquest she’d gone in and was making him tea and looking after him generally. He seemed surprised and grateful. If you ask me, she’s made up her mind to marry him, but he doesn’t know it yet, poor chap.”
“What sort of a woman is she?”
“Good looking,” admitted the other. “Not young but handsome in a gipsyish sort of w
ay. High colour. Dark eyes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Bain. Mrs. Mary Bain. Mary Bain. She’s a widow.”
“What’d her husband do?”
“No idea. She’s got a son working near here who lives with her. She seems a quiet, respectable woman. All the same, I’ve a feeling I’ve seen her before.” He looked at his watch. “Ten to twelve. I’ve made an appointment for you at Gossington Hall at twelve o’clock. We’d best be going.”
II
Dermot Craddock’s eyes, which always looked gently inattentive, were in actuality making a close mental note of the features of Gossington Hall. Inspector Cornish had taken him there, had delivered him over to a young man called Hailey Preston, and had then taken a tactful leave. Since then, Dermot Craddock had been gently nodding at Mr. Preston. Hailey Preston, he gathered, was a kind of public relations or personal assistant, or private secretary, or more likely, a mixture of all three, to Jason Rudd. He talked. He talked freely and at length without much modulation and managing miraculously not to repeat himself too often. He was a pleasant young man, anxious that his own views, reminiscent of those of Dr. Pangloss that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds, should be shared by anyone in whose company he happened to be. He said several times and in different ways what a terrible shame this had been, how worried everyone had been, how Marina was absolutely prostrated, how Mr. Rudd was more upset than he could possibly say, how it absolutely beat anything that a thing like that should happen, didn’t it? Possibly there might have been some kind of allergy to some particular kind of substance? He just put that forward as an idea—allergies were extraordinary things. Chief-Inspector Craddock was to count on every possible co-operation that Hellingforth Studios or any of their staff could give. He was to ask any questions he wanted, go anywhere he liked. If they could help in anyway they would do so. They all had had the greatest respect for Mrs. Badcock and appreciated her strong social sense and the valuable work she had done for the St. John Ambulance Association.
He then started again, not in the same words but using the same motifs. No one could have been more eagerly co-operative. At the same time he endeavoured to convey how very far this was from the cellophane world of studios; and Mr. Jason Rudd and Miss Marina Gregg, or any of the people in the house who surely were going to do their utmost to help in anyway they possibly could. Then he nodded gently some forty-four times. Dermot Craddock took advantage of the pause to say:
“Thank you very much.”
It was said quietly but with a kind of finality that brought Mr. Hailey Preston up with a jerk. He said:
“Well—” and paused inquiringly.
“You said I might ask questions?”
“Sure. Sure. Fire ahead.”
“Is this the place where she died?”
“Mrs. Badcock?”
“Mrs. Badcock. Is this the place?”
“Yes, sure. Right here. At least, well actually I can show you the chair.”
They were standing on the landing recess. Hailey Preston walked a short way along the corridor and pointed out a rather phony-looking oak armchair.
“She was sitting right there,” he said. “She said she didn’t feel well. Someone went to get her something, and then she just died, right there.”
“I see.”
“I don’t know if she’d seen a physician lately. If she’d been warned that she had anything wrong with her heart—”
“She had nothing wrong with her heart,” said Dermot Craddock. “She was a healthy woman. She died of six times the maximum dose of a substance whose official name I will not try to pronounce but which I understand is generally known as Calmo.”
“I know, I know,” said Hailey Preston. “I take it myself sometimes.”
“Indeed? That’s very interesting. You find it has a good effect?”
“Marvellous. Marvellous. It bucks you up and it soothes you down, if you understand what I mean. Naturally,” he added, “you would have to take it in the proper dosage.”
“Would there be supplies of this substance in the house?”
He knew the answer to the question, but he put it as though he did not. Hailey Preston’s answer was frankness itself.
“Loads of it, I should say. There’ll be a bottle of it in most of the bathroom cupboards here.”
“Which doesn’t make our task easier.”
“Of course,” said Hailey Preston, “she might have used the stuff herself and taken a dose, and as I say, had an allergy.”
Craddock looked unconvinced—Hailey Preston sighed and said:
“You’re quite definite about the dosage?”
“Oh yes. It was a lethal dose and Mrs. Badcock did not take any such things herself. As far as we can make out the only things she ever took were bicarbonate of soda or aspirin.”
Hailey Preston shook his head and said, “That sure gives us a problem. Yes, it sure does.”
“Where did Mr. Rudd and Miss Gregg receive their guests?”
“Right here.” Hailey Preston went to the spot at the top of the stairs.
Chief-Inspector Craddock stood beside him. He looked at the wall opposite him. In the centre was an Italian Madonna and child. A good copy, he presumed, of some well-known picture. The blue-robed Madonna held aloft the infant Jesus and both child and mother were laughing. Little groups of people stood on either side, their eyes upraised to the child. One of the more pleasing Madonnas, Dermot Craddock thought. To the right and left of this picture were two narrow windows. The whole effect was very charming but it seemed to him that there was emphatically nothing there that would cause a woman to look like the Lady of Shalott whose doom had come upon her.
“People, of course, were coming up the stairs?” he asked.
“Yes. They came in driblets, you know. Not too many at once. I shepherded up some, Ella Zielinsky, that’s Mr. Rudd’s secretary, brought some of the others. We wanted to make it all pleasant and informal.”
“Were you here yourself at the time Mrs. Badcock came up?”
“I’m ashamed to tell you, Chief-Inspector Craddock, that I just can’t remember. I had a list of names, I went out and I shepherded people in. I introduced them, saw to drinks, then I’d go out and come up with the next batch. At the time I didn’t know this Mrs. Badcock by sight, and she wasn’t one of the ones on my list to bring up.”
“What about a Mrs. Bantry?”
“Ah yes, she’s the former owner of this place, isn’t she? I believe she, and Mrs. Badcock and her husband, did come up about the same time.” He paused. “And the mayor came just about them. He had a big chain on and a wife with yellow hair, wearing royal blue with frills. I remember all of them. I didn’t pour drinks for any of them because I had to go down and bring up the next lot.”
“Who did pour drinks for them?”
“Why, I can’t exactly say. There were three or four of us on duty. I know I went down the stairs just as the mayor was coming up.”
“Who else was on the stairs as you went down, if you can remember?”
“Jim Galbraith, one of the newspaper boys who was covering this, three or four others whom I didn’t know. There were a couple of photographers, one of the locals, I don’t remember his name, and an arty girl from London, who rather specialises in queer angle shots. Her camera was set right up in that corner so that she could get a view of Miss Gregg receiving. Ah, now let me think, I rather fancy that that was when Ardwyck Fenn arrived.”
“And who is Ardwyck Fenn?”
Hailey Preston looked shocked. “He’s a big shot, Chief-Inspector. A very big shot in the television and moving picture world. We didn’t even know he was in this country.”
“His turning up was a surprise?”
“I’ll say it was,” said Preston. “Nice of him to come and quite unexpected.”
“Was he an old friend of Miss Gregg’s and Mr. Rudd’s?”
“He was an old friend of Marina’s a good many years ago when she was mar
ried to her second husband. I don’t know how well Jason knew him.”
“Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise when he arrived?”
“Sure it was. We were all delighted.”
Craddock nodded and passed from that to other subjects. He made meticulous inquiries about the drinks, their ingredients, how they were served, who served them, what servants and hired servants were on duty. The answers seemed to be, as Inspector Cornish had already hinted was the case that, although anyone of thirty people could have poisoned Heather Badcock with the utmost ease, yet at the same time anyone of the thirty might have been seen doing so! It was, Craddock reflected, a big chance to take.
“Thank you,” he said at last. “Now I would like, if I may, to speak to Miss Marina Gregg.”
Hailey Preston shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am sorry but that’s right out of the question.”
Craddock’s eyebrows rose.
“Surely!”
“She’s prostrated. She’s absolutely prostrated. She’s got her own physician here looking after her. He wrote out a certificate. I’ve got it here. I’ll show it to you.”
Craddock took it and read it.
“I see,” he said. He asked, “Does Marina Gregg always have a physician in attendance?”
“They’re very high strung, all these actors and actresses. It’s a big strain, this life. It’s usually considered desirable in the case of the big shots that they should have a physician who understands their constitution and their nerves. Maurice Gilchrist has a very big reputation. He’s looked after Miss Gregg for many years now. She’s had a great deal of illness, as you may have read, in the last four years. She was hospitalized for a very long time. It’s only about a year ago that she got her strength and health back.”
“I see.”
Hailey Preston seemed relieved that Craddock was not making anymore protests.
“You’ll want to see Mr. Rudd?” he suggested. “He’ll be—” he looked at his watch, “—he’ll be back from the studios in about ten minutes if that’s all right for you.”