“Seconds out of the ring,” murmured Jammy, and hit the rim of his glass with his fingernail so that it made a light “ping.”
But there was to be no fight. Clements provided a distraction.
“What I want to know,” he drawled, “is not what Lydia found in the stars but what the police found at Westover.”
“What I want to know is who did her in?” Judy said, taking a large bite of sandwich.
“Judy!” Marta protested.
“Oh, bunk!” said Judy. “You know we’re all thinking the same thing. Going round the possibles. Personally I plump for Jason. Has anyone any advance on Jason?”
“Why Jason?” Clements asked.
“He’s one of these smouldering types, all passion and hot baths.”
“Smoulder! Jason!” Marta protested. “What nonsense! He simmers. Like a merry kettle.” Grant glanced at her. So she was sticking up for Jason? How much did she like him? “Jason’s much too volatile to smoulder.”
“Anyhow,” Clements said, “men who take hot baths don’t commit murder. It’s the cold-plungers who see red. They are possessed by a desire to get back on life for the suffering they have endured.”
“I thought masochists were rarely sadists,” Grant said.
“Whether or not, you can put Jason out of it,” insisted Marta. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Oh, wouldn’t he,” Judy said, and they all paused to look at her.
“What exactly does that mean?” Clements asked.
“Never mind. My bet’s on Jason.”
“And what was the motive?”
“She was running out, I suspect.”
Marta interrupted sharply. “You know that’s nonsense, Judy. You know quite well that there was nothing between them.”
“I know nothing of the sort. He was never out of her sight.”
“A bitch thinks all the world a bitch,” murmured Jammy into Grant’s ear.
“I suspect”—it was Lydia’s turn to break into a growing squabble—“that Mr. Hopkins knows much more about it than we do. He’s been down at Westover today for his paper.”
Jammy was instantly the center of attraction. What did he think? What had the police got? Who did they think had done it? Were all these hints in the evening papers about her living with someone true?
Jammy enjoyed himself. He was suggestive about murderers, illuminating on murder, discursive about human nature, and libellously rude about the police and their methods, all with a pleased eye on the helpless Grant.
“They’ll arrest the boy she was living with,” he finished. “Take it from me. Tisdall’s his name. Good-looking boy. He’ll create a sensation in the dock.”
“Tisdall?” they said, puzzled. “Never heard of him.”
All but Judy Sellers.
Her mouth opened in dismay, stayed that way helplessly for a moment, and then shut tightly; and a blind came down over her face. Grant watched the display in surprised interest.
“I think it’s utterly ridiculous,” Marta was saying, scornfully. “Can you imagine Christine Clay in a furtive business like that! It’s not in the part at all. I’d as soon—as soon—I’d as soon believe that Edward could commit a murder!”
There was a little laugh at that.
“And why not?” asked Judy Sellers. “He comes back to England to find his adored wife being unfaithful, and is overcome with passion.”
“At six of a morning on a cold beach. Can’t you see Edward!”
“Champneis didn’t arrive in England till Thursday,” offered Hopkins, “so that lets him out.”
“I do think this is the most heartless and reprehensible conversation,” Marta said. “Let’s talk of something else.”
“Yes, do,” said Judy. “It’s a profitless subject. Especially since you, of course, murdered her yourself.”
“I!” Marta stood motionless in an aura of bewildered silence. Then the moment broke.
“Of course!” Clement said. “You wanted the part she was due to play in the new film! We’d forgotten that!”
“Well, if we’re looking for motives, Clement, my sweet, you were raving mad with fury because she refused to be photographed by you. If I remember rightly, she said your works were like spilt gravy.”
“Clement wouldn’t drown her. He’d poison her,” Judy said. “With a box of chocolates, Borgia-wise. No, come to think of it, Lejeune did it, in case he’d have to act with her. He’s the virile type. His father was a butcher, and he probably inherited a callous mentality! Or how about Coyne? He would have killed her on the Iron Bars set, if no one had been looking.” She apparently had forgotten about Jason.
“Will you all kindly stop this silly chatter!” Marta said, with angry emphasis. “I know that after three days a shock wears off. But Christine was a friend of ours, and it’s disgusting to make a game of the death of a person we all liked.”
“Hooey!” said Judy, rudely. She had consumed her fifth drink. “Not one of us cared a brass farthing for her. Most of us are tickled to death she’s out of the way.”
7
In the bright cool of Monday morning Grant drove himself down Wigmore Street. It was still early and the street was quiet; Wigmore Street’s clients do not stay in town for week-ends. The flower shops were making up Saturday’s roses into Victorian posies where their errant petals could be gently corseted. The antique shops were moving that doubtful rug to the other side of the window out of the too questioning gaze of the morning sun. The little cafés were eating their own stale buns for their morning coffee and being pained and haughty with inconsiderates who asked for fresh scones. And the dress shops took Saturday’s bargains out of the cupboard and restored the original prices.
Grant, who was en route to see Tisdall’s tailor, was a little disgruntled at the perversity of things. If Tisdall’s coat had been made by a London tailor it would have been a simple matter to have the button identified by them as one used by them for coats, and for Tisdall’s coat in particular. That wouldn’t clinch the matter but it would bring the clinching appreciably nearer. But Tisdall’s coat had been made, of all places, in Los Angeles. “The coat I had,” he explained, “was too heavy for that climate, so I got a new one.”
Reasonable, but trying. If the coat had been made by a London firm of standing, one could walk into their shop at any time in the next fifty years and be told without fuss and with benevolent politeness (provided they knew who you were) what kind of buttons had been used. But who was to say whether a Los Angeles firm would know what buttons they put on a coat six months ago! Besides, the button in question was wanted here. It could not very well be sent to Los Angeles. The best one could do was to ask them to supply a sample of the buttons used. If they remembered!
Grant’s main hope was that the coat itself would turn up. An abandoned coat which could be identified as Tisdall’s, with one button missing, would be the perfect solution. Tisdall was wearing the coat when he drove away the car. That was Sergeant Williams’s contribution to the cause of justice and due promotion. He had found a farmer who had seen the car at the Wedmarsh cross-roads a little after six on Thursday morning. About twenty past, he reckoned, but he hadn’t a watch.