The Riddle of Sphinx Island (16 page)

‘Jaded?
Jaded?
’ Payne turned towards Antonia. ‘Have we ever felt jaded?’

Mrs Garrison-Gore said she had decided on a plot involving a conglomerate of recognisable clichés. She had done it quite deliberately. ‘The clichés were meant to amuse you – to make you feel superior – but also to intrigue you.’

‘You will be pleased to know that you succeeded. We were intrigued all right,’ Payne said. Actually, she is by no means a fool, he reflected.

‘It was the Riddler’s letter that decided us,’ said Antonia. She had an idea her presence might be making Mrs Garrison-Gore a little self-conscious.

‘Ten people on a peculiarly shaped island. A house with a mysterious history. Warring siblings. A provocative epistle. The woman who knows too much. Bluffs and counter-bluffs. A plot which was to be as artificial as anything
commedia dell’Arte
has produced –’ The next moment, without any warning, tears sprang from Mrs Garrison-Gore’s eyes and coursed down her cheeks.

Payne rose and asked if she would care for a drink. Some brandy? Mrs Garrison-Gore declined.

‘I spent
ages
getting every little detail right, absolute ages! And for what? Sleepless night after sleepless night, scribbling away. I believed I was doing something worthwhile but I was deluding myself. I was doing it for the money, of course.’ Mrs Garrison-Gore sobbed. ‘Smoke and mirrors, that’s what detective stories are – ephemeral piffle – nothing to do with literature – all so
pointless
. I have been wasting my time, my mind, my energies! I have achieved nothing in my life, nothing at all!’

‘People love reading murder mysteries,’ Payne tried to reassure her.

Mrs Garrison-Gore went on to claim that she could have done better things. She could have helped mankind. She could have tried to improve the human condition. She could have become a teacher or a missionary. Or a nurse! She could have been a nurse at some leper colony in Honolulu or Honduras. She could have been primping the curls and buffing the cheeks of black babies. Instead of which she had been writing detective stories! She spat out the words with infinite disgust. ‘Edmund Wilson was right!’ She shook her forefinger. ‘Edmund Wilson couldn’t have put it better!’

‘You don’t mean the notorious Roger Ackroyd quip, do you?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean. Nobody should care who killed Roger Ackroyd!’ Mrs Garrison-Gore cried. ‘Why should they? Readers should start boycotting these so-called “entertainments”. Bookshops should refuse to stock detective stories. Detective stories are bad for public health!’

‘This strikes me as a somewhat extreme view …’

‘It’s a perfectly balanced view!’

‘Detective stories have been with us for more than a hundred years and have always been vastly popular.’

‘They give unbalanced individuals ideas. The world is full of unbalanced individuals. Look at the people at this house, I mean at
us
. Look at us, just look at us! Are we all perfectly balanced?
Are
we? I mean us – not
you
– us! Look at us! We set you up! We played a game with you! Is that responsible adult behaviour?’

‘You were accomplices in a conspiracy of histrionics,’ Payne murmured.

Mrs Garrison-Gore beat at her ample bosom with her fist. Her costume jewellery rattled. ‘I killed Sybil de Coverley! As good as! It was my idea that she should be the victim. Poor Sybil! I killed her! I am a killer! I
must
be arrested!’

Oh dear. Antonia bit her lip. She remembered something else her copy-editor had told her, namely that Romany Garrison-Gore was a past mistress of the unexpected and extravagant emotional response.

‘You are clearly upset,’ Payne said. ‘Perhaps we should have a break?’

Mrs Garrison-Gore shook her head. ‘No, no breaks. That’s all right. I am fine. Hysterical reaction, that’s all. I do apologise. Hate myself when it happens. Nerves torn to shreds. Overworked, that’s the trouble. Not enough sleep. Living in a world of my own. You can ask me any questions you like. The least I can do is answer your questions.’ She produced a handkerchief and blew her nose rather noisily. ‘Shoot.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Shoot.’

There was a pause. Payne held his chin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Where were you between ten and quarter past? Do you remember?’

‘Of course I remember. That’s when I popped up to see how Doctor Klein was,’ she said promptly. ‘He was lying on his bed, poor man. He said he was OK, though he looked far from OK. Terrible colour and so
limp.
Put me in mind of a beached whale. Then I went downstairs looking for Feversham. Wanted a word about Sybil’s make-up. I found Feversham in the dining room talking to Oswald. Then I went looking for Sybil. That was a couple of minutes later …’ She sniffed.

‘Do go on, please.’

‘It was time for her make-up, you see. I was getting nervous. Feversham was going to apply it. Feversham knew how, being an old pro. He’d brought his make-up kit from London. I went into the library and I saw Sybil lying there. At first I thought he had already applied the make-up. I remember looking at my watch and thinking Sybil had got the time wrong since it was too early for her to take her position in front of the fireplace … I called out to her … I thought she was shamming … Only she wasn’t … I touched her hand … She was dead … I believe I screamed. I screamed, didn’t I? I have the uncanny feeling she’ll walk in any minute and say it was all a joke!’

‘Any idea as to who might have strangled her?’ Payne asked.

‘No, no idea at all,’ Mrs Garrison-Gore said. ‘I really wouldn’t want to speculate. I can but I won’t. It would be wrong. I’ve done enough harm as it is.’

Ella Gales had the clearest ice-blue gaze which Antonia had ever seen. It was like glass.

‘Yes, that’s correct. My story would have been that I’d been passing by the library door. I was to say that the library door was closed but I’d heard Sybil’s voice and that she was talking to someone.’ Ella held her hands clasped on her lap. ‘I was to tell you that Sybil had sounded agitated. That’s why I’d stopped and listened since it wasn’t at all characteristic of Sybil to show emotion of any kind. As it happens, I never left the kitchen. I only came out when I heard Mrs Garrison-Gore screaming … Between ten and quarter past? In the kitchen, I told you. I was with Maisie. There was so much to do –’

‘I was
meant
to interrupt you in the library. That was according to the script. I was to barge in just as Sybil was about to show you the “evidence”,’ Oswald Ramskritt explained. ‘My manner was to be brusque and jarring. Sybil was to allow herself to be led away like the proverbial lamb to the slaughter. Mrs G-G asked us to rehearse the scene several times. She kept cracking the whip. I felt like a circus animal being put through his paces. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I believe I managed to shepherd Sybil out in suspicious enough manner, didn’t I?’

‘That was in fact only a red herring …’

‘The “lead-up to the murder”, that’s what Mrs G-G called it. Mrs G-G’s purpose was to exercise your little grey cells.’ He tapped his forehead, then twirled an imaginary moustache. ‘Shouldn’t joke, really. Sorry. This is a terrible business.’ There was an odd expression on his face. He didn’t really look sorry, Antonia thought.

‘The breaking open of the desk drawer then was also part of the plot?’

‘Yes. I did that myself. Sybil said the desk was only an imitation Sheraton. There was nothing in the drawer – only old theatre programmes, dinner party menus, odds and ends, one of those pens fashioned out of a silver bullet, which, as it happens, Sybil gave to Mrs G-G as a present. To protect her against evil.’

‘A real silver bullet?’

‘I believe it is, yes. Sybil said one of her ancestors went vampire hunting in Transylvania. It happened at the time of the Boer War. He was meant to go to Tans
vaal
, but apparently got on the wrong train. I don’t know if any of it is true. Sybil was in a skittish mood last night and no mistake. She probably made it up. She seemed to be in an odd state altogether.’

Antonia spoke. ‘What sort of state?’ She told herself she didn’t really trust this man.

‘There’s a word for it, I think.’ Ramskritt frowned. ‘A feeling of exalted happiness that precedes disaster –’

‘Fey?
’

He slapped his knee. ‘
That’s
the one! She was all flushed – girlish – positively girlish – laughing – giving people presents – she gave me a Victorian antimacassar – she gave Doctor Klein an ivory cigarette holder – she gave Feversham a pair of tartan gloves that had belonged to her late father. I do believe she was sweet on the actor, Feversham. That might explain it; yes … She was acting like a girl in love … As though she was standing on the very threshold of ecstasy.’

Lady Grylls shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe it. Poor Sybil. Lying dead in an ugly heap in the library. Thank God her dear mother is no longer with us. I can’t help feeling guilty. The police could take ages, couldn’t they? Goodness, one o’clock – can that clock be right? It seems it’s already tomorrow.’

‘Yes, it’s already Saturday,’ Antonia said.

‘
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
,’ Payne said. ‘Shakespeare meant this line to convey the relentless beat of time.’

‘You poor things! So much for your wedding anniversary!’

‘The murder of Sybil de Coverley has nothing to do with the Murder Game,’ said Payne in a thoughtful voice. ‘We don’t think the killer was inspired by it or anything of that sort, do we, my love?’

‘No. He would probably have done it anyway,’ Antonia said grimly.

Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘
He?
Do you mean you know who killed Sybil?’

‘We believe we do.’ Payne produced his pipe. ‘All of Sybil’s guests seem to have alibis. Feversham was in the dining room looking for a cufflink and he was joined by Oswald Ramskritt who confirmed it. Mrs Garrison-Gore looked in on Doctor Klein – we managed to have a brief word with him – then she went to the dining room and found Feversham and Ramskritt there, so that’s alibis for all three – Ella and Maisie confirmed they were in the kitchen till they heard Mrs G-G scream. Unless they are all in it, everybody seems to have an alibi for the time during which we believe Sybil was killed.’

‘People walked up and down the corridor past the library door, so the killer couldn’t have got to Sybil that way without being observed,’ said Antonia.

‘But how
did
he get to her? Who
is
the killer?’

There was a pause.

‘Sybil was clutching a monocle on a torn ribbon,’ Payne said. ‘She appeared to have ripped it off, which suggests a struggle. Sybil seemed to have tried to fight her killer back. Monocles are usually attached to the lapel or are worn round the neck –’

‘Feversham!’ Lady Grylls cried. ‘It was Feversham, wasn’t it?’

‘Feversham’s monocle is intact.’

‘He may have had a spare.’

‘That’s certainly possible, but, as it happens, we have a somewhat different theory,’ Antonia said. She wished she didn’t keep thinking it was all too easy. ‘Apart from Feversham, there is one other person in this house who wears a monocle. John de Coverley.’

‘The
real
John de Coverley,’ Payne said. ‘Earlier on I paid him a visit, you see. I went up to his room.
His hands are bandaged.
I may be wrong, but I think the bandages are suggestive –’

‘Oh but it can’t be John. A virtual impossibility. He’s been kept under lock and key.’ Lady Grylls spoke dismissively. ‘John is under house arrest. He couldn’t have got out of his room and gone to the library.’

‘As a matter of fact he could have. There is a concealed door in the library wall which leads to John de Coverley’s room.’

It was all too easy. Too easy, too soon. But then wasn’t that how things happened in real life? Antonia knew she was being irrational but she couldn’t help an acute sense of an anti-climax. She kept thinking something was not right. She blamed her mindset, which was that of a crime writer first and a normal human being second. How tedious that made her sound.

She found it hard to accept it was all over. Her sense of structure and pacing, if she had to be perfectly honest, were offended. Denouements, she reflected, do not happen as early as that. Not so soon after the finding of the body. If she ended a story at this point, it would be sent back to her with a request to make it longer. It wouldn’t have been the right length.

She was dismayed to find she felt close to tears. I am as bad as Mrs Garrison-Gore, Antonia thought. I write the same kind of rubbish. They say I give it a post-modern twist, they say it’s a ‘clever take’, they say that I tease both the detective story genre and its audiences, but it’s the same kind of rubbish. The normal recreation of noble minds indeed. Guedalla didn’t know what he was talking about. It’s nothing of the sort.

I keep thinking it can’t be John. We are
meant
to think it’s John. But it isn’t him. Too simple, too obvious. So easy to frame someone like John, to create a trail of clues that lead to him …

‘A secret door?’ Lady Grylls said.

‘Yes. A door camouflaged as bookshelves. Sybil pointed it out to us while she was showing us round the library. All you have to do is push in Proust’s
Sodom and Gomorrah
,’ Payne explained. ‘The door opens onto a staircase – a jolly narrow one, the precipitous, corkscrew variety – which winds up to John de Coverley’s room, or rather his dressing room. I checked. About twenty minutes ago I went up. On his side the door opens into his wardrobe, Narnia-fashion. The wardrobe is in his dressing room. I found John de Coverley in his room. He was sitting at his desk chewing blotting paper.’

‘He didn’t try to shoot you, did he?’

‘I don’t think he cared for the sight of me emerging from his dressing room, but he remained quite calm. He said he had no idea there was a door at the back of his wardrobe; his bloody sister had never told him about it. I was struck by the fact that his hands were bandaged. When I asked him what had happened, he said he’d been pecked by a seagull. A seagull had perched on his window sill and he tried to catch it. He managed to get hold of one of its legs and the gull pecked him … As he wasn’t wearing his special gloves, it was really bad. It drew blood … He let the seagull go …’