Three Little Maids (28 page)

‘I know you’ve got it hidden away somewhere I can tell,’ Thora said when her search revealed nothing.

What could she do about it? Nothing at all. Unless her sister co-operated. What would their dear father, the Colonel, have said if he knew the dire trouble Alice had brought on them? It had caused her so much anxiety during the last few years. It was the little things that attracted her. Alice had the sharp eyes and the habits of a magpie. Usually, Thora could control this by making her sister turn out her handbag and pockets on return from any shopping trip. Luckily
, supermarkets didn’t come into it. Alice was not interested in such a mundane thing as food. All their daily needs were supplied by the hotel. And they were so fortunate, that through the kindness of the proprietor, Mrs Frost, to be allowed special rates all year round.

Alice usually did as she was told except for occasional lapses in Charity shops. Where an apologetic Thora retrieved and replaced her sister’s light
-fingered fancies under the pretence of absent mindedness in old age before they left the premises. But this was different. Thora knew that Alice had managed to evade her sister’s ever watchful eyes. And it had happened sometime on the weekend. Soon after this she started to show by her childish behaviour that she’d picked something up, and managed to keep it from her.

Like a naughty child, she enjoyed keeping her secret from her sister. She was smiling serenely now. She was pleased with herself. Why was that? It must be something special. And she’d stumped Thora for the time being. It was a lost cause without her full co-operation.

Thora was desperate. Feeling by now sick with worry. One of these days, Alice was going to pick up something really valuable that Thora couldn’t excuse her for. The disgrace that would follow if the police were brought in she couldn’t bear to think about. Perhaps this was about to happen now.

‘You can stop smirking, Alice. I shall find it. Wherever you’ve hidden it. You can’t keep it out of sight forever.’

Alice said nothing. She obviously thought silence was her best weapon. She lay back against the pillows. This was a tussle of strong wills. And Thora knew that this time, if she couldn’t find the object, Alice would hold out on her. She sighed heavily.

She decided to let it drop for a
while. Alice must be pretty sure of herself. She usually gave up her acquisition straight away. She wondered if it was anything of Esmeralda’s. The clairvoyant, since she’d been staying at the hotel, had given Thora some real cause of alarm.

Esmeralda liked to show off some valuable ivory and jade Netsuke pieces to anyone interested but refused to put them in the hotel safe. Instead she kept them in the capacious tapestry bag she carried around with her. And Esmeralda liked to handle them often. It calmed her, she said, during a trying day. A tiny carved jade figure of a mouse fell beneath her chair on one occasion in the TV room. Alice pounced on it. Thora breathed a sigh of relief when her sister handed it back to Esmeralda immediately.

Had she taken a fancy to one of these small treasures? Thora wondered, studying her sister’s small flushed face against the pillows. Had she taken a Netsuke when the bag had perhaps been left unattended by Esmeralda in the TV room? Alice had never deliberately stolen anything valuable before. But there was always a first time. And it could be Alice’s last. She had a mental picture of Alice appearing in the dock in court and trembled. It was all too much for her at that moment.

The fear that Thora was experiencing brought on an asthma attack. She left the room abruptly, went next door and took out her puffer out of the drawer. She used it and sat down on the bed slowly recovering. This was doing neither of
them any good. She almost felt like risking a chuckle over it. They were two silly old girls quarrelling like school children. But this was serious. If she was prepared to wait a while longer, Alice might give herself away. But then again she might not.

If Alice had hidden it so well it could mean it was somewhere else. In her room for instance, where she thought her sister wouldn’t think of looking for it.

Thora smiled. If she searched the room carefully then she would find it. She let her eyes glance over the large wardrobe. Her hat boxes were tucked tidily along the top. She had been thinking earlier about the Carey girl’s funeral. She hadn’t worn her black straw for ages. She noticed now that the lid was not set on it properly. Thora was fussy about letting in the dust on her hats; especially on the straw models. She clicked her teeth with annoyance.

She reached up and got it down, lifted out the hat to check it out and gasped. There it was. Alice’s hidden treasure. A gold anklet. ‘Oh dear! What have you done, Alice?’

She could understand her sister’s strong attraction to it. But this simply could not be allowed. Where had she found it? Had she stolen it?

She breathed in deeply, pulled herself together and marched into her sister’s room, holding up her find triumphantly. ‘So
- what’s this? Where did this come from?’

‘O-oh, dear!’ Alice smothered her gasp of alarm with a trembling hand.

‘You’d better tell me now. And I don’t want any more fibs.’

‘You’re bullying me-e,’ Alice whimpered. ‘Father wouldn’t allow it. You’re cruel and hateful.’

‘Nonsense! Stop behaving like a baby. What am I going to do with you? Father would be so ashamed and angry if he knew about this. Picking up things just because you take a fancy to them. It doesn’t belong to you. So tell me where did you get this?’

She held up the slender gold chain. Alice shrank back in the bed. ‘Come on now. We’ve got to return it. Straight away. You can’t keep it.’

Alice sniffed and muttered. ‘I-I found it in the chapel on Sunday after the evening service.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I found it in the chapel,’ she insisted.

‘Where in the chapel? On the floor?’

Alice shook her head. ‘No. When we had a cup of tea in the meeting room. I saw it sticking out of the side of the sofa when I sat on it and was drinking my cup of tea.’

‘And?’

‘And you were talking to Frances Leach. I brushed my hand against it. I saw it glinting and pulled it out. It’s so pretty,’ she wailed.

‘It doesn’t matter. You should
have given it to me, or Aiden Ludlam, straight away. Someone has lost it. So it’s lost property. The owner must be wondering where it is right now.’

Alice was crying. ‘I’m sorry, Thora.’

‘I’ll give it to Aiden Ludlam. And I’ll say we forgot to hand it in. It’s better late than never. I’ll make our most abject apologies. All right? And promise me never to do anything like this again.’

Alice nodded tearfully. ‘Yes. I promise.’

60

‘Esmeralda Corrie here. I wish to speak to Inspector Kent immediately. Please get him on the phone for me. Tell him it’s most important. And it has to do with Yvette Marceau.’

Kent picked up the phone, listened carefully, and within the hour was taking action in the Incident room. His team at first received the information from him with incredulous looks, laughter and some disbelief registered in their voices, as they questioned the reliability of his informant. But they went along with it. And it was proved right when shortly afterwards the letter was found amongst the school work; just as Esmeralda had seen it.

‘Mrs Sherlborne, may I speak to you in confidence. Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.’ Thora Wilberforce looked anxious when she approached Viviane in the library. ‘I must talk to someone.’

Viviane thought quickly. ‘Come into the office a moment, Miss Wilberforce. We won’t be disturbed there.’

Thora had come into the library without Alice and this was most unusual. Was her sister ill?

She wasn’t left in doubt for long. ‘Mrs Sherlborne you’ve known my sister and I for some years now.’ Thora paused delicately. ‘Alice, how can I explain it- has not been at all well lately. She has- these desires, you see. She likes pretty things. Small trinkets. She’s attracted and-and she takes a fancy to them sometimes.’

‘I see.’

‘I don’t think you do.’ Thora took a deep breath and patted a thread of hair back under her cream straw boater. ‘To be truthful, my sister Alice is a kleptomaniac.’

‘Miss Wilberforce.’ Viviane hoped it didn’t show on her face how shaken she was by this. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘I’ve avoided thinking of it like this before. But I have to face up to it.’ Thora sighed. ‘She takes things that don’t belong to her, Mrs Sherlborne. Which so far I have managed to return. I-I have to keep an eye on her. She’s in bed this morning. She says she has a sore throat. But I think she is still sulking. She doesn’t like the thought that I’m telling someone what she does. But I have to do this. I can’t keep it to myself any longer.’

‘Why are you telling me this, Miss Wilberforce?’ Viviane said with an eye on the clock. ‘She needs help. Are you really worried about her
behaviour lately?’

‘It’s something she has managed to keep from me during this past day or so. We never keep secrets from each other. Not as a rule. She usually comes clean after a short while. It’s a childish game to her. I always keep a weather eye out and return things to their owners.’

Viviane recalled the worried look that she’d seen on Thora’s face as they walked around the stalls at the Antique fair on the pier.

‘I can’t stop her from looking around at things in sales or shops but it is difficult keeping an eye on her. She is so sorry when I have to scold her. And this time I was really angry.’ Thora took another deep breath and closed her eyes for a second or so.

‘What is the matter, Miss Wilberforce? What has she done?’

‘She has found something which I think now is pertinent to one of the murders.’

‘She’s found something important?’

‘Yes. I’m sure it is. Alice was especially cunning this time. She must have taken a real fancy to it. She hid it in under my black straw in my room. When I felt that she was hiding something from me I searched her room carefully. It was only when I thought of the Carey girl’s funeral. And my black hat for that sad occasion.’ She paused delicately for a moment. ‘That was when I found the anklet in the hat box. She couldn’t deny she’d put it there.’

‘An anklet?’

‘A delicate gold chain anklet and it has a name inscribed on it. Yvette.’

‘The French girl?’

‘Yes
- I think it belonged to her. So what was it doing down the side of the sofa in our chapel rest room? That’s what I would like to know, Mrs Sherlborne? And I have been so worried about it.’

‘So where is it now?’

‘I gave it to Mrs Ludlam straight away. That was yesterday. It was property lost in our chapel. And apologized for not doing it sooner. But now, in the light of the investigations, I think I ought to have told the police, shouldn’t I? But how do I explain my sister’s weakness; her bad habits to them without getting her into further trouble? So I thought of you.’

‘But why me, Miss Wilberforce?’

She coloured up with embarrassment. ‘Yes. Well, I understand that the Police Inspector is staying with you. And if you could explain to him how my sister found it then he might be more understanding. Coming from you.’

‘He’s my tenant, Miss Wilberforce. Not my guest. So when did your sister actually find it? Did she tell you?’

‘Last Sunday evening after the service. While we were having a cup of tea upstairs in the committee room. But I only got hold of it yesterday.’

The day after Yvette was killed. And nearly a week gone by. ‘And you say that Gwynith took it from you
yesterday?’

‘Yes. I asked her to give it to Aiden to hand into the police station.’

‘So you could have left it at that.’

‘Yes, I know. But I couldn’t sleep last night. Alice is so upset. She won’t discuss it with me. I’ve never scolded her so much before. I feel terrible. And she is so overwrought with guilt now that she
realises that it belonged to the dead girl. She had a fit of hysterics when I explained to her the importance of finding it.’

‘Don’t let it worry you anymore. Tell your sister that it was lucky she found it even if she took her time handing it over. You could tell her it might help to catch the wicked man who killed the girl,’ Viviane fibbed. Her heart sank the more she thought of it.

If only it had been handed to the police immediately after Alice found it. It could have advanced solving the case. It had to be someone with a key to the chapel. It could focus on the previous suspects; Tom Berkley, Welbeck, Ludlam, even Carey? They all had keys.

Miss Wilberforce left the library looking considerably more relieved than when she first came in. Viviane knew she had to get this information to Jon Kent as soon as possible. She phoned the station and asked to speak to Inspector Kent.

She explained as quickly as she could the quandary Miss Wilberforce had been in before talking about her sister’s taking ways. ‘She’s really out on a limb. She’s scared stiff that her sister will be brought in for questioning. Now you’ll have to find out how it came to be found in the chapel meeting room. What do you think, Jon?’

‘The anklet could have come off in a struggle. And her murderer never noticed it. So it proves she was there in the chapel before her death. And we’ve just discovered a letter in Yvette’s case amongst her school work. It’s purported to come from Tom Berkley, who says he never sent it. Says he never wrote to ask Yvette to meet him on the Saturday night in their chapel. We asked Berkley to come in this morning to give us some prints. His are not on the letter or envelope.’