The Riddle of Sphinx Island (21 page)

‘He was poisoned,’ Lady Grylls said.

‘He was holding his glass, then – then he put it down – then he picked it up again. Then he drank it off fast. I can see him. I only have to shut my eyes. I think it’s all some ghastly mistake but of course it’s nothing of the sort. We can’t stay here, can we?’ Sybil glanced round. ‘
Not
with the body?’

‘Payne? What’s the form?’ Feversham asked.

‘We’ll have to move,’ Payne said.

‘First the library, now the drawing room,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘It’s like playing musical chairs with rooms.’

‘Papa used to say I was terribly good in a crisis, but I am not. I am worse than useless. I don’t think papa knew me at all well.’ Sybil sighed. ‘Oswald said he would buy the island but now of course he won’t be able to, will he?’

‘I am afraid not. Your brother will be in the seventh heaven,’ Feversham said. ‘Your brother will be holding celebrations with gun salutes.’

‘My brother is a fabulous monster. One of those creatures that creep out of the sea and assume human shape.’

The awfully silly things people said when they were in shock, Antonia reflected.

They trooped out of the drawing room and Payne turned the key in the lock.

Maisie was crying.

‘The conservatory at the back
used
to be my favourite place,’ Sybil said. ‘It was my hidey hole when I was a child. There are palms and wicker chairs and things. It looks a bit like a mini Palm Court, I always thought. Memories of the Ritz, you know.’

‘How delightful,’ Feversham said.

‘All it needs is a trio of grey-haired ladies in black silk dresses, playing
Stormy Weather
on their violins and cellos, but the roof leaks horribly.’

‘The question is, are we safe?’ Lady Grylls said. ‘That’s the really important question. What if Oswald’s death is only the beginning? I am sure I am talking rot, but it’s suddenly hit me that this may be only the beginning.’

‘
One
choked his little self and then there were Nine.
I hope that’s not what Lady Grylls means,’ Feversham said. ‘Sorry. Awfully bad form. Don’t know what possessed me.’

‘How about the dining room?’ Payne suggested, though he no longer felt hungry.

‘An excellent idea,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘There’s something solid and immovable about a dining room.’

Some five minutes later they sat around the mahogany table in the dining room.

Antonia turned to Sybil. ‘What was the terribly peculiar thing Ella did?’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? She hurled her empty champagne glass out of the window.’

The telephone was not working and there was no internet. No network either, so their mobiles were useless. Outside, the storm continued raging. Even if it stopped, they had no means of getting to the mainland. There was the launch
Cutwater
and Oswald Ramskritt’s yacht, but only Oswald had been able to operate those.

‘My brother considers himself a great sailor and he may be right, though I think it would be imprudent to entrust our safety in John’s hands,’ Sybil de Coverley said.

They used to have a servant whose sole function had been managing the launch but Sybil had dismissed him – together with the other two servants. They hadn’t been much good, she said. They either snooped about or drank the sherry or sneered. Besides, Mrs Garrison-Gore had suggested that ten people on the island would be the ideal set-up for the Anniversary Murder Mystery. An echo of that other more famous multiple murder mystery – now, what
was
it called?

‘It’s like the war all over again,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘Only then we knew
why
we were sacrificing things.’

Feversham inclined his head. ‘We are in deep water and at the mercy of the elements. We are completely cut off.’

They listened as the wind slammed the house with unusual force, making it shake once more.

‘We might have to compose ourselves for a protracted haul, without any guarantee of a recompense for the agonies we’ve been enduring,’ Sybil said. ‘There is enough food in the house. Tins, mainly.’

‘As soon as contact with the outside world has been established, we’ll call the police.’ Payne looked grim.

‘I could do with some coffee,’ Feversham said.

‘Coffee would be just the ticket,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said.

Maisie rose. ‘I’ll make it. And I’ll go to see if Ella’s all right.’

‘What a nice child you are,’ Lady Grylls said.

‘The coffee’s Kopi Luwak,’ Sybil said with a deep sigh. ‘It was a present from poor Oswald. He was telling me about it. It comes from Sumatra and the beans are made of animal droppings, apparently. It’s a most wonderful story. The native palm civet, a cat-like creature that eats ripe coffee cherries but can’t digest the hard centres and excretes the beans on the forest floor. Only
450
lb of the rare beans are harvested per year. It’s absolutely marvellous, incredibly frothy. It seems to cost seventy pounds per cup, if you have it at the Savoy and Planet Hollywood and places like that.’

Antonia was thinking.

They had never been
quite
in this kind of situation before. She had stopped wondering why things like this happened to them. It seemed they simply did.

Who
was
the killer? The ingénue who had nearly been ravished by the victim? The tragic former mistress who always spoke with such soft sadness? The bumptious authoress of mysteries? The vague hostess? Feversham, the gentleman actor? Doctor Klein, formerly Fraulein Freddie?

No, not Lady Grylls. The real John de Coverley should also be exempt since he had simply
not been there
.

The most obvious suspect was of course Doctor Klein. Ramskritt had destroyed the lives of the two Hansen sisters, one of which Doctor Klein had been. Doctor Klein’s behaviour in the lead-up to the murder had been very strange indeed. At the other end of the spectrum there was Sybil de Coverley, the least likely suspect. Sybil had been eagerly looking forward to selling the island to Ramskritt, which now she wouldn’t be able to do. She had everything to lose and nothing to gain from his death.

But how
was
Oswald Ramskritt poisoned? There wasn’t any cyanide in his glass. Unless –

What was Feversham doing? He had put on the green and yellow tartan gloves which Sybil had given him as a present. Feversham twiddled his fingers, then executed a couple of boxing moves. He then put up his eyeglass. All too absurd for words. Maybe that was his way of coping with the crisis. Of letting off steam?

Ella Gales also had a good reason for wishing Ramskritt dead. Ramskritt had treated her appallingly, if what Antonia had overheard him say to her was anything to go by.

One couldn’t really see Maisie as a cold-blooded poisoner, but the fact remained that Ramskritt had caused her considerable distress and a sleepless night after he had tried to get into her bed and then threatened not only to dismiss her but also make her unemployable.

As for Mrs Garrison-Gore and Feversham, Antonia couldn’t think of a rational motive that could be attributed to either of them – at least not at the moment.

But there might be factors of which she was not aware …

Major Payne had started speaking.

‘How was he poisoned? Well, that’s fairly obvious, I should think. I was puzzled like all the rest of you, but I managed to work it out. Ramskritt’s glass contained cyanide all right. No, there’s no trick. The glass I examined wasn’t his glass. As simple as that, yes. That was Ella’s glass. Ella picked up Ramskritt’s glass and she managed to carry it out of the room. Did she do it on purpose? Well, yes, I firmly believe so. I can’t conceive of any other reason for her performance, for throwing herself across his body, for dropping her glass beside the body and so on, can you? The glass she carried out of the room and disposed of so neatly later on was Ramskritt’s glass.’

‘I am, as they say, ’reft of speech,’ Feversham said.

‘She was trying to get rid of the evidence, though of course it wouldn’t have been much good,’ Mrs Garrsion-Gore said thoughtfully.

‘Poor Ella. Does that mean she killed Oswald?’ Sybil asked.

‘Not necessarily. I have an idea she switched round the glasses because she believed it was Doctor Klein who poisoned Ramskritt’s champagne. I think she wanted to protect Doctor Klein. She was wearing gloves, so there wouldn’t have been any fingerprints on her glass.’

‘Oswald Ramskritt’s fingerprints wouldn’t be on the glass either. The police, when they come to examine it, would immediately know that that’s the wrong glass,’ Mrs Garrsion-Gore said.

‘Indeed they would. You are absolutely right.’ Payne nodded. ‘Ella didn’t think it through. She had no time. I think she acted a little too spontaneously. But to go back. Ramskritt drank his champagne and died in the drawing room, though the poisoning of the champagne might already have taken place in the library. He put his glass on a side table, beside Doctor Klein’s glass, as it happened. Then the window got smashed and all hell broke loose – everybody’s attention was diverted – there was the rain and the wind howling and things flying around.’

Mrs Garrison-Gore said,
‘I believe it was only Maisie who went near him in the drawing room, wasn’t it? Oh and Ella stood beside him for a moment, didn’t she?’

‘I think so,’ Antonia said.

‘Ella carried a purse that matched her dress. Maisie’s skirt has pockets. What I mean is that either of them could easily have had cyanide on their person.’

‘These two girls are wonderful, simply wonderful,’ Sybil said. ‘How they do it, I have no idea, but they keep the house in splendid order. They manage to polish everything that needs to be polished to the highest sheen, they launder the curtains, they cook and they arrange all the
objets
with perfect precision. And between them they hoover the rooms. I pay them nothing. It would be wrong to pay them as they happen to be my guests.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said, ‘
anyone
could have poisoned Oswald’s glass in the library – and remained completely unnoticed – yours truly included.’ She poked her forefinger at her voluminous bosom. ‘Or Feversham. I am sure I passed by the table with Oswald’s champagne glass – so did you, Sybil, I do believe?’

‘Did I, Romany?’ Sybil said vaguely.

‘Yes. You were holding your bejewelled little box in your left hand, I couldn’t help noticing.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘The
cyanide could have been inside,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore explained. ‘I’m not saying it was. Merely observing that you had the opportunity, like all the rest of us.’

Feversham held up his monocle. ‘I think it was Doctor Klein who did it. He was actually sitting beside the foresaid table. He hardly moved, even after the window got smashed. Ella seems to think it was him, as Payne pointed out so astutely. It would be a waste of time considering other possibilities. It’s not as though we are playing the Murder Game. Doctor Klein had both the motive
and
the opportunity.’

In the pause that followed their coffee arrived.

It’s over, Doctor Klein thought. He had a feeling of anti-climax. But also of great peace.

Peace at last … .

He could hear the sea.

A memory floated into his head, which was also her head.

Green smoke coming down steadily from mysterious openings in the ceiling, as if expelled from the mouth of a theatrical dragon. Dancing couples. Music. The club was called Fun Under the Sea. There had been a sailor, clasping at her wasp waist
.
He had tried to kiss her.
At first deep sub-aqueous silence, then a song.
Wenn Der Sommer Wieder Einzieht
. It was known in English as
A Little on the Lonely Side
. She had seen her face reflected in the mirror walls: round, greenish, enigmatic, the face of a mermaid, her mouth black and slit like a wound from a knife, her blonde hair waving like weed in a cold green current. The sailor had become rather urgent in his attentions. How she had laughed!

All a long time ago. A different world.

Doctor Klein sat on his bed.
Wenn Der Sommer Wieder Einzieht.
Humming, he slowly eased himself and lay down on one side. He still wore the dress.

He had no idea what had he had hoped to achieve. He was not sure. The embroidered reticule was beside him. The bottle with the cyanide was inside the reticule. Only he hadn’t been able to use it. Too slow, too clumsy, his mind not functioning properly …

Or perhaps he
had
used it – Oswald had been poisoned – perhaps it had been him?

He was getting a little confused.

Ella … Dear Ella … Perhaps he had done it for Ella … Ella was free now, free as a bird, that’s all that mattered …

It was some time since he had had proper sleep. He was feeling … a little on the lonely side? He tried to still his thoughts.

He shut his eyes.

The best thing about an island was that once you got there, you couldn’t go any farther … You’d come to the end of things …

He couldn’t imagine a life
after
the island.

A little on the lonely side?

He didn’t want to leave the island – ever.

Ella had reappeared and she and Maisie were now pouring out coffee.

Major Payne’s eyes were fixed on Ella, whose face was once more devoid of any expression. He believed that Ramskritt’s murder had been that peculiar mixture of the premeditated and the spontaneous. Someone had brought cyanide to the island and had been waiting for their opportunity – which came when the window, overpowered by the wind, smashed into smithereens …

Sybil observed that Fate was famously fickle, its caprices notorious, and that it would be pointless to kick against the kind of cards Fate chose to deal us. ‘I’ve come to believe in pre-destination. Awful things have been happening to members of my family with sinister regularity. Papa’s father decamped to Monte Carlo with his mistress. I kept finding fault with my suitors. My brother was attacked by seagulls. Perhaps I am not meant to sell the island after all. Perhaps I will be saddled with it till the Terrible Day of Judgement. Perhaps all I’ll ever have is Fool’s Gold.’