Hamish Macbeth 02 (1987) - Death of a Cad (12 page)

“Macbeth!”

Hamish came back to reality with a bump.

“Have you any questions to ask?”

Hamish shifted uncomfortably. “Well, Miss Halburton-Smythe,” he said, not meeting Priscilla’s clear gaze, “I wass, as you know, at the party afore the morning the murder took place. I am surprised you have not mentioned in your statement that Mrs Forbes-Grant threw her drink at the captain.”

Priscilla flushed and looked uncomfortable. “You must admit, when it came to women Peter was enough to try the patience of a saint,” she said. “I assumed at the time he had made one of his off remarks. Earlier in the day, he told me my home was the most pretentious, uncomfortable slum he had ever had the ill luck to be billeted in. I nearly slapped his face. I suppose you could describe him, on the face of it, as a man who could hold his drink in that he never fell over or was sick over your shoes or anything like that. But when he’d had a couple, he would turn immediately from being a very charming and attractive man to a downright nasty one.”

“Had you known him particularly well before this visit?” asked the superintendent.

“If you mean, was I ever one of his victims, the answer is no. As I said in my earlier statement, I had met him from time to time during the shooting season at other people’s houses.”

“And do you know how to handle a gun?”

“A shotgun? Yes.”

“And would you describe yourself as a good shot, Miss Halburton-Smythe?”

“Oh, no, Superintendent.” Priscilla suddenly smiled at Hamish. “I’m certainly not in Hamish’s class.”

“Hamish being…?”.

“Police Constable Macbeth.”

One watery blue eye swivelled curiously in Hamish’s direction. Hamish folded his arms and looked at the ceiling.

“That will be all for the moment,” said Chalmers, turning back to Priscilla. “Do you know who’s volunteered to be next?”

“Pruney…I mean Miss Prunella Smythe. She wants to get it over with so that she can go down to the village and buy some things.”

“Very well. Send her in.”

“I suppose you’re looking for a pair of gloves?” asked Hamish.

“Yes, we can’t eliminate the guests simply because they passed the forensic test. There is evidence that our murderer was wearing gloves,” said Chalmers.

Pruney fluttered in and sat down, crouched in the chair in front of the superintendent, and stared at her shoes—which were of the Minnie Mouse variety—as if she had never really seen them before.

“Miss Smythe,” began the superintendent.

Pruney started violently, her handbag slid off her lap, she bent to retrieve it, and her thick glasses fell off her nose and landed with a clatter on the floor.

Hamish went to help her, but she brushed him away. She snatched at her handbag, which was upended on the floor, and all the contents spilled out. There were a small medicine bottle, a bunch of keys, eight hairpins, an old-fashioned powder compact, a romance entitled
Desert Passion
, and a tube of wine gums.

“Now, now,” said Hamish, gently taking hold of her frantically scrabbling hands, “this is not the Gestapo. Chust sit yourself down and let me get these things.” Pruney retreated to the chair while Hamish carefully replaced all the items in her handbag and then popped her glasses back on her nose. “Now, what about a cup of tea?” he asked.

Pruney gave him a watery smile. “So kind,” she said. “Really, it has all been too much for me. Poor Captain Bartlett. Such a fine man. Such a loss. No, I shall do very well now, thank you, Officer. Tea will not be necessary.”

Hamish retreated to his post by the window.

“I’ve been reading over your statement, Miss Smythe,” said Chalmers, “and it is very clear and straightforward. I see no reason to keep you very long.”

He took her carefully back over her first meeting with the captain at the regimental rifle shoot, and then asked her gently if she had specifically come to the house party to meet him again.

“Oh, no,” exclaimed Pruney. “It was Mr Withering I wanted to meet. I had seen his play in London, you know, and adored every word. The minute I heard Mary—that’s Mrs Halburton-Smythe—was having him as a guest, I simply pleaded with her to ask me.”

“You appear to be the only person who has a good word to say for Captain Bartlett,” observed the superintendent.

“Indeed?” Pruney’s round, ingenuous eyes looked at the superintendent and then at Hamish. “I found him such a kind man. Mr Withering was unnecessarily sharp with me when I was only trying to be pleasant, and Captain Bartlett was most comforting. That horrible man, Blair, accused me of having an affair with him. Me!” exclaimed Pruney, although she looked highly gratified.

“You strike me, Miss Smythe,” came Hamish’s soft voice, “as being the kind of lady who sees only the best in people.”

“I think that is surely a better attitude to life than always finding fault,” said Pruney, who was beginning to evince signs of enjoying herself.

“Aye, but that may mean you might have noticed a lot of useful clues without
knowing
they were useful,” said Hamish. “What did you think, for example, of that incident at the party when Mrs Forbes-Grant threw her drink at the captain?”

“I thought she must be drunk,” said Pruney. “Mrs Forbes-Grant loves sweet things. She is always eating cakes and chocolates, and when she drinks alcohol, she drinks awful things like rum and Coke or
creme de menthe
or sweet champagne, and I read a most fascinating article the other day which said that all that sugar puts the alcohol into the bloodstream quicker. It is not like the old days, you know. Ladies do drink an awful lot at house parties. I was at a party on the borders last year and a lady of my age lifted up her skirt and
snapped her garter
.”

“That’s verra curious,” said Hamish with great interest, while the superintendent glared at him impatiently. “I was not aware that ladies wore garters any more.”

“That’s what I thought!” cried Pruney. “But a most obliging gentleman at the party told me they sold them in naughty shops.” Her eyes gleamed behind her thick spectacles. “I find gentlemen’s attitudes to the changing fashions in ladies’ underwear most interesting. Only the other week—”

“Quite,” said the superintendent repressively. “To get back to that point the constable was making, can you tell us anything you might have overheard that struck you as curious?”

Pruney giggled and put her hands to her face. “It’s rather like gossiping in the dorm,” she said. “Still, it
is
a murder investigation. There was just one little thing. I could not sleep and I went downstairs to look for a copy of
The Times
to do the crossword. I find
The Times
crossword quite soporific. As I was passing Captain Bartlett’s room, I saw a light under the door.” Pruney blushed. “I was about to knock, thinking he could not sleep either and might be glad of company, when I heard Mrs Forbes-Grant’s voice very clearly. She said, “You can’t have. Not you of all people. I don’t believe a word of it.” ”

“And what did the captain reply to that?” asked Hamish.

“I could not hear. The doors are very thick,” said Pruney regretfully. “He said something because there was a sort of masculine rumble. Then I saw Miss Bryce walking along the passage towards me. She gave me a nasty look, as if I had been eavesdropping, which of course I hadn’t, so I went on downstairs. When I came back up about ten minutes later, the light under the captain’s door was out.”

“Did you hear anything else?” asked the superintendent. Pruney wrinkled her brow. “No,” she said at last.

“Perhaps you might remember something more,” said Hamish. “You strike me as a highly observant lady.” Pruney preened. “If anything comes to mind, tell me or the superintendent here.”

“I most certainly shall,” said Pruney, gathering up her handbag. “I wouldn’t tell that nasty man, Blair, anything. He is not a silly man, but overambitious. I am glad he has been toppled.” She smiled at them warmly and scurried out.

“We had better have Mrs Forbes-Grant in,” said the superintendent. “See if you can find her, Macpherson. The minute that woman comes in here, I shall accuse her of having an affair with Captain Bartlett.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” asked Hamish cautiously. “People are no’ ashamed o’ infidelity these days. If you’re kind and sympathetic, she may tell you herself.”

The superintendent shuffled his papers. Then he said mildly, “You may be right.”

Hamish let out a slow sigh of relief. He sometimes wondered how many murderers escaped justice because of power struggles in the police department.

There was an altercation outside the door. It appeared that Freddy Forbes-Grant was insisting on being present while his wife was interviewed, and PC Macpherson was firmly refusing permission.

The superintendent was just rising from his seat to go to his constable’s aid when Macpherson ushered Vera in.

She was the only member of the house party to have donned mourning. She was wearing a plain black suit with a necklace of seed pearls. Her thick dyed-blonde hair was simply styled and the severe cut of the suit flattered her figure.

There was a loose pouch of flesh under her chin, and a disappointed droop to her full mouth, but she was still, thought Hamish, a very sexy woman. Her large blue eyes looked pleadingly at the superintendent.

“I don’t think I can take much more of this,” she said in her husky voice. “The murder’s bad enough without having to be dragged
over
and over every little bit of it.”

“We won’t keep you long,” said Chalmers soothingly. He took her through her statement, and then said mildly he was surprised she had not told Mr Blair about throwing her drink at the captain.

“I lied to him,” said Vera defiantly. “He kept shouting and shouting at me, so I thought it better to say nothing.”

“I apologize on behalf of the Strathbane police,” said Chalmers. “No-one is going to shout at you. You are a valuable witness. Now, what caused that scene?”

“Where I threw the drink at him?”

“Yes.”

Vera bit her full bottom lip. “Look,” she said, “he made a nasty remark about my hair. He said my roots were black. I was feeling tired and overwrought. My nerves are not very strong. The minute I had tossed the drink at him, I was so ashamed of having made a scene that I burst into tears and left the room.”

“And did he also make a remark about Miss Bryce and Miss Villiers?” asked Hamish.

“What?”

“Just before you threw your drink at him,” said Hamish, “you were looking up at him and your lips were framing a kiss. He said something. You looked horrified. He turned and looked pointedly at Miss Bryce and Miss Villiers, then he turned back and gave you a knowing look, and he winked.
That
was when you threw your drink at him.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” cried Vera, an ugly tide of red beginning to crawl up her neck.

“Mrs Forbes-Grant,” said Hamish in a soft voice.

“We are from the police department and not the Moral Rearmament. It would be quite easy, I think, to prove that you had an affair with Captain Bartlett. Now, that is your own business. You are a very beautiful woman and must often be plagued with men chasing you.”

Vera gulped and looked at Hamish, who gave her a charming smile.

“Freddy doesn’t know,” she said. “Freddy mustn’t ever know.”

“And he won’t,” said Hamish, “unless it has a direct bearing on the murder. But it would be nice to get it out of the way. The only thing that’s suspicious about it is your refusal to talk. You must see that.”

There was a long silence while Vera looked down at her plump hands on her lap.

“All right,” she said at last. “I did have an affair with him a few years ago. I didn’t know he was going to be here. He made me think he still loved me. I visited his room, the night before the party. He said…he said I couldn’t stay the rest of the night or Freddy would find out. I thought he loved me. I was prepared to run away with him. He said…at the party…I hadn’t been the only woman who had been in his room. I told him he was lying. And then he turned and looked at Diana and Jessica, and turned back to me and winked. I knew all in that moment—he’d used me as he’d used me before. I saw red. I must have been mad, because I can’t afford to leave Freddy anyway.”

There was a long silence.

Chalmers said, “How long have you been married to Mr Forbes-Grant?”

“Twenty years.”

“And he knew nothing of your affair with Captain Bartlett?”

“Oh, no. Freddy’s quite stupid. But he can make money. That merchant bank of his is one of the most powerful in the country. He’s more or less retired. He wanted to come and live up here and start afresh. The simple life,” said Vera with a harsh laugh. “But he runs the bank by phone.”

“Where did your affair with Captain Bartlett take place?” asked Hamish.

“In London. Freddy was abroad. We keep a flat in Knightsbridge.”

“And did Captain Bartlett at any time suggest you leave your husband?”

“No. We were two of a kind. I used to give him money out of my allowance. It sounds awful now. Peter used to say I loved money more than men.”

“And is that true?” asked Hamish, genuinely curious.

“It’s all men are good for in the long run,” said Vera. “Oh, you occasionally meet some fellow and think it’s springtime all over again. But nothing lasts…except money.”

Chalmers cleared his throat. “Can you use a shotgun, Mrs Forbes-Grant?”

Vera laughed. Hamish thought she looked like someone leaving the confessional. She had told the worst and now she could relax.

“No, I can’t,” she said. “But it doesn’t take any expertise to blow a hole in someone at point-blank range. I could have done that.”

Chalmers patiently took her over the rest of her statement.

“You’d better see Freddy now,” said Vera, rising and smoothing down her skirt. “You won’t tell him…?”

Chalmers shook his head. “Not unless it becomes necessary.”

She drifted out, leaving a heavy aroma of Arpege in the room behind her.

Freddy Forbes-Grant entered the room about a minute later.