The Riddle of Sphinx Island (7 page)

‘You thought the idea far-fetched.’

‘No, not far-fetched at all. Of course Mrs Garrison-Gore’s presence on Sphinx Island may prove to be purely fortuitous – she may be John de Coverley’s latest mistress – or Sybil’s oldest and dearest school chum. Or she may turn out to be a loony ufologist who’s writing a thesis on the alien invasion of Sphinx Island in the fifties. That’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘Sybil wouldn’t refer to her as “Mrs Garrison-Gore” if they’d been at school together,’ Antonia pointed out.

‘That may be some kind of a private joke between them. A chap I was at school with was called Puckler-Muskau, but he became generally known as “Pickled Mustard”. He was an Austrian Prince who could trace his lineage back to the days of the Holy Roman Empire. But we are digressing.’

‘It’s you who’s digressing … Actually, Sybil said Mrs Garrison-Gore was a “friend of a friend”, but that was clearly a fib concocted on the spur of the moment. I think she was trying desperately to distance herself from her.’

‘What did your copy-editor say about Mrs Garrison-Gore exactly?’

‘It was only a passing remark. I don’t think it was particularly nice.’ Antonia scrunched up her face. ‘Something about Romany Garrison-Gore being the ultimate nightmare to edit.’

‘Decidedly not nice … It was that one word, “clichés”, that reminded you of her, wasn’t it? That’s when things clicked?’

‘Yes … How do I look?’

‘You look marvellous … A little to the left … That’s it … Perfect … Clichés … The lady novelist with a penchant for lethal clichés … Could we assume that Romany’s
romans policiers
are little more than hackneyed rag-bags of disparate ideas pinched from other people’s books?’

‘For some reason I have the impression she writes under an assumed name.’

‘‘‘Garrison-Gore” sounds like an assumed name to me. Somehow one
expects
the pen of a murder mystery writer to be dipped in gore. Which ties up with the letter. I said that looked like blood, didn’t I? One must never underestimate the power of subliminal suggestion … Names are funny things … I believe President Reagan had a spokesman called “Speakes”, didn’t he?’

‘Shall I buy this hat then?’ Once more Antonia was looking at her reflection in the mirror.

‘I think you should. It has the wow factor.’ Payne put his head to one side. ‘
Yes
. You will be the queen of Sphinx Island.
Facile princeps
and
ne plus ultra
 … Oswald Ramskritt and Doctor Klein will be impelled to fight a duel over you whereas John de Coverley will throw himself at your feet and beg to kiss the hem of your gown.’

‘I don’t intend to wear the hat on Sphinx Island.’

‘I think you should. It would be a mistake not to.’

‘Perhaps
you
should wear it,’ said Antonia. ‘It may deter you from saying one too many silly things?’

‘I think you should pump your copy-editor for more details regarding
la
Romany,’ Payne said. ‘Or would she consider bitching about the authors she is paid to serve unprofessional?’

‘I like the hat very much. I am going to buy it,’ Antonia turned to the shop assistant. ‘I am so terribly sorry. We’ve been keeping you waiting. We’ve been exceedingly thoughtless. You’ve been extremely patient.’

‘No, not at all, madam.’ The shop assistant gave a little bow and said that it had been a pleasure.

Antonia watched him place the hat in a luxurious box made of jade-green silk. ‘Hugh, would you –?’

‘Yes, of course, my love.’ Payne produced his wallet.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The shop assistant bowed again and asked whether there would be anything else he could do for them.

‘I hope you won’t think my question awfully peculiar,’ said Payne, ‘but are you at all familiar with what goes on at Murder Weekends?’

‘I attended a Murder Weekend once,’ said the shop assistant. ‘It took place at a very pleasant moat hotel in Surrey. It was my wife’s idea. We enjoyed the food and the view but not the actual detection.’

Antonia looked at him. ‘Oh? Why not?’

‘Some of our fellow participants indulged in noisy and frequently ill-natured disagreements. As a matter of fact, two ladies nearly came to blows over a bronze statuette representing a ruminative monkey. One lady insisted the monkey was a red herring, while the other argued that it was a clue.’

‘Which one was it?’

‘Neither. As it turned out, the bronze monkey played no part in the Murder Game. It was merely part of the hotel
décor
. It had been given to the manager as a present by a Nepalese tourist, as we subsequently discovered. The odd thing was that we’d convinced ourselves the two ladies were actresses and that the fracas was part of the script, which of course they were obliged to follow.’ The shop assistant shook his head. ‘People are
so
competitive.’

‘I don’t think we’ll have any competition where we are going,’ Payne said. ‘We believe we’ll be the
only
people who will have to guess whodunnit. You see, we strongly suspect the whole thing’s being staged for us and us alone as it is our tenth wedding anniversary.’

‘Your tenth wedding anniversary? May I offer you my warmest congratulations, sir – madam?’ The shop assistant bowed for the third time.

‘We may be wrong of course. It may prove to be – um – something completely different altogether.’

‘You aren’t by any chance contemplating the possibility of a real murder, sir? That ploy has been used in several books already, I believe. A Murder Game ending in real murder.
Not
a particularly original idea – if I may venture an opinion.’

‘Don’t you sometimes wish that we possessed the kind of temperament that has been described as “sublimely uninquisitive”?’ Antonia said as they left the shop and stood looking for a taxi.

‘No, never.’

‘We’d have been
so
much happier.’

‘I rather doubt it.’

‘Oh don’t let’s go, Hugh!
Please
. It’s bound to be an awful bore.’ She clutched at his arm. ‘Some silly Murder Game, which, for your aunt’s sake, we’ll have to pretend to enjoy!’

‘My aunt would be terribly disappointed if we didn’t go … Oh there’s a taxi.’ Payne held up his rolled umbrella. ‘Eight people on Sphinx Island,’ he went on after they got in. ‘There will be ten, when we go.’

‘
If
we go,’ said Antonia.

‘Ten people on an island, one of whom is quite cranky and has murder on the mind.’

‘I very much hope it won’t be
that
scenario.’

‘The cast of
dramatis personae
promises to be an interesting bunch … Who do we imagine will kill whom and why?’ Payne asked.

‘I don’t know and I don’t care, though for some reason I see Mrs Garrison-Gore as the victim … While working out the details of the Murder Game, she does research and discovers something discreditable about one of her fellow guests.’

‘Ah. The Mystery of the Murdered Muckraker. Excellent … Which fellow guest?’

‘It’s
got
to be the rich American as he is the one character who is immediately associated with high stakes. Oswald Ramskritt has a skeleton in his cupboard … Behind every great fortune there is a crime …’

‘Who said that? Donald Trump? The Duke of Kent?’

‘Balzac, actually.’

‘Let’s decide on the crime … 
Bone in mixed byre that goes with corruption.’

‘You sound like the Riddler now.’

‘Perhaps I
am
the Riddler,’ said Payne. ‘Perhaps this is all my doing.’

‘How many letters?’ Antonia asked.

‘Seven
.
’

‘Seven? Rib, I believe, is anagram of “byre”, sort of. Am I on the right track?’

‘You are.’

‘Oh it’s easy. Bribery – bribery and corruption?’

‘Bribery and corruption it is. Ramskritt was once in jail. He has bribed some person in a high place in return for having his criminal record destroyed. Or records. He may have more than one. An extremely likely contingency since he is an American. He may have been involved in organised crime. Ramskritt’s reason for killing Mrs Garrison-Gore will be to prevent her from blurting out his guilty secret.’

That evening, after they had packed their bags and were sitting down to a light supper of roast duck, peas and new potatoes, Payne said, ‘What if this whole thing is
not
a product of Mrs Garrison-Gore’s diabolically illogical imagination? What if Sybil’s story of a would-be murderer on her island is
bona fide
after all? What if N. Nygmer does exist?’

‘Then we’ll need to proceed with the utmost caution and infinite circumspection,’ Antonia said. ‘And I will take that hat with me, if you insist.’

‘Sybil assured us no one else knew about her suspicions, yet the very next day we receive us a letter signed “N. Nygmer”, confirming that there
is
going to be a murder on Sphinx Island. N. Nygmer says he is expecting us.’ Payne paused. ‘How
did
N. Nygmer know we were going to arrive at the island on
17
th April, Friday?’

‘N. Nygmer overheard the conversation between Sybil and your aunt?’

‘
Yes
. Which means the killer is aware that Sybil knows his secret, also that she has been to consult us about it … The killer is terribly eager to cross swords with us, hence the personal missive and the promise of riddles … You see what the implications for old Sybil are, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do. As the only person who knows the Riddler’s identity, Sybil de Coverley may be in mortal danger.’

‘I hope we don’t arrive too late,’ Major Payne said.

It was Lady Grylls who told Sybil de Coverley what had happened in her absence.

John had entered the library carrying his gun and looking most peculiar indeed and he fired two shots at Oswald Ramskritt. The first bullet had hit the portrait above the fireplace which showed a seventeenth-century de Coverley, a portly gentleman in a powdered wig. The second bullet had whizzed past Oswald Ramskritt’s temple and hit one of the library shelves, embedding itself in a
1914
edition of Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ Sybil said. ‘I do feel responsible. Something’s
got
to be done about John … Do go on, Nellie.’

‘Oswald remained rooted to the spot, but he turned incredibly pale, which was hardly surprising. The Garrison-Gore woman and Maisie started asking him how he was. They clutched at his arms. They seemed to be checking for bullet holes. He remained completely unresponsive. You wouldn’t believe it, my dear, but it was I who managed to disarm John!’

‘You disarmed him?’

‘Yes! I addressed him by the special name your darling mother had for him, you see. I remembered how it always used to calm him down. It was clever of me, wasn’t it? I may even have mimicked her voice a little, I am not sure, but it seemed to do the trick. It had the most extraordinary effect. It brought him to his senses at once. It made me feel like one of those Indian snake charmers.’

‘John adored mama. She was the only one who “understood” him and she certainly indulged him. I remember her saying once that he would end up either a Chancellor of the Exchequer or in Colney Hatch … But weren’t you at all frightened, Nellie?’

Lady Grylls said that at her age there were very few things that frightened her. ‘Actually I didn’t stop to think. John stared back at me in a glazed kind of way. I know he might have shot me. He might have let rip. You might have found me lying in cold storage resembling the proverbial sieve. But I didn’t stop to think. I ordered him to submit the gun
at once
– which he did – he hung down his head – he suddenly looked confused and terribly sheepish.’

‘What did you do with the gun?’

Lady Grylls explained that she had handed it over to Doctor Klein, who had locked it in the tall Chinese cupboard in the library. ‘He did it most resolutely and with startling agility. He’s got
such
small hands, have you noticed?’

‘I have. As dainty as a geisha’s. Most peculiar. What happened next?’

‘Oswald Ramskritt went on sitting in his chair. Maisie and the Garrison-Gore went on fussing over him. I believe he asked for a bottle of champagne. Feversham got hold of John’s arms and marched him off to his room. John went like a lamb. I followed them. I wanted to make sure things were done properly.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘Only that he’d seen it as his duty to protect his property. I believe he referred to Oswald Ramskritt as “that blasted interloper” and said something about Oswald being wrong if he imagined he could ever rule over Sphinx. He then said he wanted to wear his father’s tartan gloves and would we go and look for them? He said his father’s tartan gloves imparted special powers to whoever put them on, or words to that effect.’

‘He’ll never have papa’s gloves, never!’ Sybil cried.

‘Then Ella suddenly appeared and she was holding a syringe. It seems she’s got some nursing qualification or other, which came as another surprise. She gave him an injection, some powerful sedative, and it seemed to take an instant effect as he keeled over and went to sleep. We then locked him in, to be on the safe side, and that, as they say, was that.’ Lady Grylls produced the key. ‘Here you are, my dear. Now you are in charge.’

Sybil said she really didn’t know what was to be done about John.

‘Why don’t you have him certified and put away?’

‘It’s a frightfully hard thing to do, apparently. I did consult with a doctor chum of mine. Notions of madness aren’t what they used to be.’

‘I couldn’t agree more. You only have to turn on the box and out pop utterly unstable people with common accents and names like Norton, Russell and Ross. We live in dangerous times.’ After a pause Lady Grylls asked if Sybil had been successful in her mission. Were Antonia and Hugh coming?

‘I believe so,’ Sybil said abstractedly.

‘I told you they’d find the prospect irresistible, didn’t I? You don’t think we should call the whole thing off, do you? I mean – in view of what happened?’