Grave Mistake. Ngaio Marsh

be, that’s what you’ve done.’

      ‘I didn’t know then what I know now, Miss Preston.’

      ‘What do you know now?’

      ‘I didn’t like to mention it before. It’s not a nice thing to have to bring up. It’s about the person who rang earlier. It was – somehow I knew it was, before he said – it was the police.’

      ‘Oh lor’, Mrs Jim.’

      ‘Yes, miss. And there’s more. Bruce Gardener come in for his beer when he finished at five and he says he’d run into a gentleman in the garden, only he never realized it was Mr Claude. On his way back from you, it must of been, and Mr Claude told him he was a relation of Mrs Foster’s and they got talking and –’

      ‘Bruce doesn’t know –? Does he know? – Mrs Jim, Bruce didn’t tell him where Mrs Foster can be found?’

      ‘That’s what I was coming to. She won’t half be annoyed, won’t she? Yes, Miss Preston, that’s just what he did.’

      ‘Oh damn,’ said Verity after a pause. ‘Well, it’s not your fault, Mrs Jim. Nor Bruce’s if it comes to that. Don’t worry about it.’

      ‘But what’ll I say if the police rings again?’

      Verity thought hard but any solution that occurred to her seemed to be unendurably shabby. At last she said, ‘Honestly, Mrs Jim, I don’t know. Speak the truth, I suppose I ought to say, and tell Mr Claude about the call. Beastly though it sounds, at least it would probably get rid of him.’

      There was no answer. ‘Are you there, Mrs Jim?’ Verity asked. ‘Are you still there?’

      Mrs Jim had begun to whisper, ‘Excuse me, I’d better hang up.’ And in loud, artificial tones added, ‘That will be all, then, for today, thank you.’ And did hang up. Charmless Claude, thought Verity, was in the offing.

      Verity was now deeply perturbed and at the same time couldn’t help feeling rather cross. She was engaged in making extremely tricky alterations to the last act of a play which, after a promising try-out in the provinces, had attracted nibbles from a London management. To be interrupted at this stage was to become distraught.

      She tried hard to readjust and settle to her job but it was no good. Sybil Foster and her ailments and problems, real or synthetic, weighed in against it. Should she, for instance, let Sybil know about the latest and really most disturbing news of her awful stepson? Had she any right to keep Sybil in the dark? She knew that Sybil would be only too pleased to be kept there but that equally some disaster might well develop for which she, Verity, would be held responsible. She would be told she had been secretive and had bottled up key information. It wouldn’t be the first time that Sybil had shovelled responsibility all over her and then raised a martyred howl when the outcome was not to her liking.

      It came to Verity that Prunella might reasonably be expected to take some kind of share in the proceedings but where, at the moment, was Prunella and would she become audible if rung up and asked to call?

      Verity read the same bit of dialogue three times without reading it at all, cast away her pen, swore and went for a walk in her garden. She loved her garden. There was no doubt that Bruce had done all the right things. There was no greenfly on the roses. Hollyhocks and delphiniums flourished against the lovely brick wall round her elderly orchard. He had not attempted to foist calceolarias upon her or indeed any objectionable annuals, only night-scented stocks. She had nothing but praise for him and wished he didn’t irritate her so often.

      She began to feel less badgered, picked a leaf of verbena, crushed and smelt it and turned back towards the house.

      I’ll put the whole thing aside, she thought, until tomorrow. I’ll sleep on it.

      But when she came through the lime trees she met Prunella Foster streaking hot-foot up the drive.

      IV

      Prunella was breathless, a condition that did nothing to improve her audibility. She gazed at her godmother and flapped her hands in a manner that reminded Verity of her mother.

      ‘Godma,’ she whispered, ‘are you alone?’

      ‘Utterly,’ said Verity.

      ‘Could I talk to you?’

      ‘If you can contrive to make yourself heard, darling, of course you may?’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said Prunella, who was accustomed to this admonishment. ‘I will try.’

      ‘Have you walked here?’

      ‘Gideon dropped me. He’s in the lane. Waiting.’

      ‘Come indoors. I wanted to see you.’

      Prunella opened her eyes very wide and they went indoors where without more ado she flung her arms round her godmother’s neck, almost shouted the information that she was engaged to be married, and burst into excitable tears.

      ‘My dear child!’ said Verity. ‘What an odd way to announce it. Aren’t you pleased to be engaged?’

      A confused statement followed during which it emerged Prunella was very much in love with Gideon but was afraid he might not continue to be as much in love with her as now appeared because one saw that sort of thing happening all over the place, didn’t one, and she knew if it happened to her she wouldn’t be able to keep her cool and put it into perspective and she had only consented to an engagement because Gideon promised that for him it was for keeps but how could one be sure he knew what he was talking about?

      She then blew her nose and said that she was fantastically happy.

      Verity was fond of her god-daughter and pleased that she wanted to confide in her. She sensed that there was more to come.

      And so there was.

      ‘It’s about Mummy,’ Prunella said. ‘She’s going to be livid.’

      ‘But why?’

      ‘Well, first of all she’s a roaring snob and wants me to marry John Swingletree because he’s a peer. Imagine!’

      ‘I don’t know John Swingletree.’

      ‘The more lucky, you. The bottom. And then, you see, she’s got one of her things about Gideon and his papa. She thinks they’ve sprung from a mid-European ghetto.’

      ‘None the worse for that,’ said Verity.

      ‘Exactly. But you know what she is. It’s partly because Mr Markos didn’t exactly make a big play for her at that dinner-party when they first came to Mardling. You know,’ Prunella repeated, ‘what she is. Well, don’t you, Godma?’

      There being no way out of it, Verity said she supposed she did.

      ‘Not,’ Prunella said, ‘that she’s all that hooked on him. Not now. She’s all for the doctor at Greengages – you remember? Wasn’t he an ex-buddy of yours, or something?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Well, anyway, she’s in at the deep end, boots and all. Potty about him. I do so wish,’ Prunella said as her large eyes refilled with tears, ‘I didn’t have to have a mum like that. Not that I don’t love her.’

      ‘Never mind.’

      ‘And now I’ve got to tell her. About Gideon and me.’

      ‘How do you think of managing that? Going to Greengages? Or writing?’

      ‘Whatever I do she’ll go ill at me and say I’ll be sorry when she’s gone. Gideon’s offered to come too. He’s all for taking bulls by the horns. But I don’t want him to see what she can be like if she cuts up rough. You know, don’t you? If anything upsets her applecart when she’s nervy it can be a case of screaming hysterics. Can’t it?’