Death of a Mystery Writer (23 page)

The ex-promising poet slid his glass in Meredith's direction. There was on his face a look of considerable self-satisfaction. He had established his story, and was intending to stick to it. If there was more to the relationship that he could tell (and Meredith was sure there was) he would doubtless have told it to the
Daily Clarion,
for money. Unless he could get something on Darcy himself, that was all he was going to be vouchsafed for this interview.

Meredith pushed the half bottle of gin across the table and abruptly took his leave. Darcy Howard hid the bottle of gin in the cupboard under the sink, and pottered off to the pub—late but not (these days) unwelcome. He felt he'd had a good morning.

The general hospital where Miss Thorrington was lay near the seafront, and as the West Indian nurse led Meredith along the corridors of the second floor he could see from the windows elderly couples walking on the promenade, greeting each other reservedly, or sitting in deck chairs on the shingle, contemplating the horizon.

It was in this genteel, old-fashioned community that Miss Thorrington had lived since she left the employ of Oliver Fairleigh, husbanding her limited means and attending to the observances of her religion. It was to the hospital here that she had been brought to die of cancer with such dignity as she could muster and in such haste as she could. She was, the nurse said, not far now from death.

Her little room was hardly more than a cubicle, but Meredith imagined she valued the cramped privacy of it. The nurse drew back the curtains to let the sunlight in, but the old body on the bed did not stir. Meredith studied the face. It was long and strongly marked, the face of a woman of character: it was, in fact, not unlike Lady Fairleigh's, but whereas her face had the unbeautiful individuality which bespoke Family, Miss Thorrington's face only told of firm middle-class principles of duty, reticence, and keeping up standards—principles long held and not found to fail. He was not surprised that this woman had stood up to Oliver Fairleigh.

When, after a minute or two, she stirred and opened her eyes, the nurse said very quietly: “This is Inspector Meredith, Miss Thorrington, come to have a little word with you. I told you about him last night, if you remember.”

Her eyes found it difficult to focus on anything for any length of time, and after registering Meredith's presence she closed them. But an expression of doubt flitted over her face. “An inspector. Oh, dear. I don't know how lucid I can be. I think you shouldn't really rely on anything I might say. It's the drugs, you know. They make you so unsure of everything.”

“I promise you I won't rely on it,” said Meredith.

“Then get down to it quickly, please. I'm best when I wake. Did she tell me what you wanted? I don't remember.”

“It's about Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs,” said Meredith, quickly but clearly. “You were his secretary for nine years, is that right?”

“That's right. I hope there isn't anything wrong at Wycherley Court.”

“Sir Oliver was murdered last Saturday evening.”

“Dear me. I didn't know. I
try
to keep up with events . . . with the wireless . . . but I must have missed it, or forgotten. Poor Lady Fairleigh.” Something almost like a smile flitted over her face suddenly. “But how
horribly
appropriate.”

“Do you remember the books you took down and typed while you were his secretary?”

“Oh, yes. Or I could—before this. I'm really rather proud of them, as if they were partly mine. I've often discussed them with people here—he's very popular.” A wicked glint appeared in her clouded eyes. “I
liked
them, you know. It doesn't do to say so, but I
enjoyed
them. I don't like detective stories that pretend to be real novels. And I don't like all those scientific details. ‘Damn forensic science,' he used to say. I think he was right. People liked Oliver Fairleigh because his books were good entertainment, good fun.”

“But did you like him as much as his books?”

“Oh,
he
was another matter,” said Miss Thorrington.

“Did you take down a book called
Black Widow?”

“Yes, I did. It was the last I did take down. I never got to clean-type it.”

“How did the murder in that one take place?”

“It was nicotine poisoning. I remember quite well because I've told a lot of people here. That's rather naughty, of course, but they were interested, knowing it wouldn't be published till after his death. Someone soaked a cigar in alcohol, and got enough poison to kill someone.”

“What were the circumstances of the murder, do you remember them?”

Miss Thorrington creased her brow with effort. “I think it was a big businessman was killed at an important dinner. It may have been the Lord Mayor's Banquet, or something like that. Sir Oliver rather went in for that sort of occasion.”

“Do you remember any more details?” asked Meredith. “How it was done, who did it?”

“Oh, dear. It was very ingenious and not very convincing as I remember it. I think the wife did it, but I couldn't swear. I think it was one of those where it was proved in advance that she couldn't have done it, because she was too far away—at the other end of the table, or not there at all, or something—but then it turned out that she did. But details—no—I'm sorry.”

“That's enormously helpful. Would you like to tell me how it was you didn't come to clean-type it? Why you left Sir Oliver's?”

“I'd
much
rather not say,” said Miss Thorrington, her voice firmer than it had been so far.

“There was no pressure put on you by anyone? No—blackmail, for example?”

“Goodness me, no. I am
not,
Inspector, the sort of person susceptible to blackmail. Whatever can have put that into your mind?”

“It's something that's sort of in the air. I've heard stories about one member of the family.”

“Terry, I suppose.” The voice suddenly lapsed into tiredness. “Be careful of Terry, Inspector. I liked Mark: he put up with more than a child should have to. Even Bella, sometimes . . . But Terry . . . Terry was a
wicked
boy.” Then, pulling herself together with an almost physical effort of her frail body, she said: “That's rambling, Inspector. Ignore that.”

“I will,” said Meredith. “But I think you should tell me why you left Oliver Fairleigh.”

Miss Thorrington again seemed to be trying bodily to pull herself together. Meredith decided she was one of those people for whom the prime imperative was to do what was right. But the flesh was very, very weak, and its weakness made the decision more difficult. “Why?” she said remotely, at last. “It will have died with him.”

“Perhaps,” said Meredith. “Will you let me judge? If it is not to the purpose, I promise nothing that you say will go any further.”

“So difficult,” said Miss Thorrington, still, seemingly, a long way off. “He was a bad man, a cruel, unfeeling one.... But one owes one's employer loyalty—even after one has left his employ. So I have always felt.” Then, with what little strength she had, she seemed to come to a decision. “But of course you are right. In a matter like this . . . murder . . . I
must
tell you, in case it should be relevant.” She swallowed, and fingered her coverlet in some distress. “He liked to shock. To wake people up, hoping they'd make some sort of scene. You must know that by now. Over the years I cultivated . . . indifference. Unshockability, they say nowadays. But then, one day, he had a phone call. He told me to stay . . . deliberately, knowing who it was, and what it would be about. He had that look on his face, as if to say . . . ‘This will make you sit up.'” The voice, becoming very, very weak, at last faded almost to nothingness as Miss Thorrington sank into the drugged state which is the last blessing of the incurably ill. Meredith bent very close to her lined face, and caught a few more words.

“A woman . . . He said—dreadful things . . . disgraceful . . . ‘Your bastard' . . . ‘I've helped you enough.'”

The whispers withered away to nothing. Meredith stood up, drew the curtains to, and respectfully slipped out into the corridor. Down below on the beach the old people sat and slept and strolled, as if life were infinite, and death could be warded off with care and sensible clothing.

 • • • 

Down once more in the police car, Meredith suppressed his constable's desire to get started, and sat shuffling through the sheaves of reports on Mark Fairleigh's activities. Finally he found the one he wanted—the report on the witnesses of Mark's disgraceful outburst at the Prince Albert, Hadley. It was not a pub Meredith had patronized more than once or twice, having too Welsh a concern for the quality of the beer. He did not know any of the patrons, and he studied their names and the notes on them with great interest. He knew the constable who had done that particular piece of footslogging. PC Thorpe, a bright tom-sparrow of a boy, with a sharp eye and a sense of humor. His reports were not quite the official thing, and all the better for it.

Scanning the list, Meredith noted by the name of one of the bar-proppers the succinct summary “flabby windbag.” He paused, then shook his head. Not quite what he wanted. That type never noticed much—too busy waiting to get their word in. Then his eye caught one of PC Thorpe's inimitable abbreviations: “t.h.l.o.d.” It stood by the name of Mrs. Jessie Corbett, and it meant—as Meredith knew from previous reports of the same constable—“talks the hind leg off a donkey.” That was more the type. She had been in the Prince Albert that night two Saturdays ago now, with her husband, her elderly mother, and her teenage daughter. Just the thing: a family party where everyone had long ago said everything there was to say to each other and could sit back and watch the rest of the customers. He got on to Hadley on his radio phone.

“Tell her,” he said, in an inspired touch, “I'll meet her tonight at eight-thirty, at the Prince Albert.”

 • • • 

Mrs. Jessie Corbett, unused to going out for a drink without her husband, settled her substantial self (purple-rinsed and navy Crimplene suited) behind a table in the Prince Albert saloon bar, fingered her vodka and tonic, and said: “Well, this is better than
Softly, Softly.”

And her round, noticing eyes seemed to say: And you're better-looking than Barlow, and all.

Chief Inspector Meredith, raising his pint, said: “Cheers. To you!”

The atmosphere being so effortlessly cozy, Meredith got straight down to business (wiping the bottled light ale from his mouth on his sleeve) by asking her about her family party of two weeks before.

“Well, there was Mum, she usually comes with us of a Saturday, though George—that's my husband—always says couldn't we leave her at home, and for all the fun and laughter we get out of her we might just as well, then there was George, same as usual, not saying very much, and then there was Vanessa, that's our youngest, and she was in a foul mood and all, because she wanted to go to the disco, and George wasn't having any, says he knows what they get up to there—though
how
he knows
I
don't—and says he doesn't want her with a bundle of unwanted trouble before she's seventeen, though heaven knows that's how we got married, but perhaps that's what he means.”

She came to a breathy pause, sipped her vodka and tonic, and looked at Meredith. I'm a very good bargain, taken all round, she seemed to be saying.

“Now,” he said, “I want you to tell me exactly what happened when young Mark Fairleigh threatened his father. You've probably told it so often by now the odd little detail has crept in that's not really what you saw.” Mrs. Corbett did not take offense, and her bright wide eyes told him she understood exactly what he meant. “I want to hear just what happened, with no melodramatics. Okay?”

It was a test that Jessie Corbett passed with flying colors. She described Mark rather well (“the sort you wouldn't mind your daughter bringing home, but you'd want to look at a bit if it looked like getting serious”), described the two couples talking at the next table to her (“some people do talk”), described Mark glowering and drinking, and finally erupting unsteadily at the next
table, where he and his father were being talked about. There was nothing about manic fury, or brandished knives, or any of the ludicrous details that had crept into other people's versions. It was admirably done—it was the basic version, as Meredith had extracted it from all the variations of the different reports. That was the test. Now came the serious bit.

Meredith led her on to the other customers in the bar. It was also an area that PC Thorpe had been over with her before, but Meredith had the advantage over him of being on the identical spot. He made her place each person she mentioned where they stood, and he forced her to conjure up the expressions on their face, and their reactions to the scene. It was a real exercise in total recall.

“There was that Colonel Redfern, standing at the bar, always here of a Saturday night, and most other nights from what I hear, all paunch and blarney he is, and he was drinking it in, along with the others, because anything for a good story, anything to be the center of attention, then next to him was Albert Courtle, garage-man, bit of a crook like they all are, but quite nice with it, then there was . . .”

And so on, through the pub, from table to table, from group to group around the bar. As she went on, the pictures in her mind's eye became more vivid, and more detailed:

“Then right in the corner, there was a man and his wife, never seen them before, didn't talk much, just sat and drank shorts. Oh, yes, then behind them on the bench, didn't remember him before, was a chap on his own, reading the paper—”