Gary Alexander - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 86, No. 6. Whole No. 511, December 1985

“Mrs. Ongar?” echoed MacGregor.

“Across the entrance hall,” said Mrs. Wilkins crisply. Turn left. First on the right. Knock before you go in.”

Mrs. Ongar was in bed. Propped up amongst her pillows, she gave an impression of frailty and vulnerability, belied only by a formidable jaw line of which the late Benito Mussolini would not have been ashamed.

Two chairs had been placed in readiness and Dover sank gratefully into the nearest. This hot weather played hell with his feet. When a few moments later Mrs. Wilkins marched in with coffee and biscuits, the chief inspector was almost happy. Munching rhythmically, he stared with some curiosity at the woman who single-handedly had put toilet rolls on the map. Mrs. Ongar handed a sheet of paper to MacGregor. “The name of the murderer is on that list.”

MacGregor tried to look grateful.

“It contains the names of the five people who were staying in the house as my guests last night.”

“For your birthday party, eh?” asked Dover, wondering if there’d been a cake.

Mrs. Ongar had got Dover’s measure as soon as he entered the room. She continued to address herself to MacGregor. “They are the sole surviving members of the family, on my side and on my late husband’s. Three of them — Christine Finch, Daniel Ongar, and young Toby Stockdale — would like to think of themselves as potential heirs to the Ongar empire. I don’t believe in rule by committee and it has always been my aim to leave the entire concern to one person. Since I own ninety-eight percent of the shares, whoever I appoint as my heir will get the lot.”

“It sounds more like a motive for your murder than for your great-nephew’s,” said MacGregor diffidently.

Mrs. Ongar’s nostrils flared. “If I might continue without interruption... Some years ago I made a will leaving everything to my great-nephew, Michael Montgomery, in Australia. I have had ample time to study my other relations and none of them is fit to run a multi-million-pound business. Daniel Ongar. Toby Stockdale, and Christine’s husband. Major Finch, have all been given jobs in the firm and their achievements have been no more than average. If they hadn’t been members of the family. I should have dispensed with their serviced long ago.”

Dover shifted unhappily in his chair. Having drunk his coffee and eaten all the biscuits, he was beginning to find time hanging heavy on his hands. His gaze wandered idly about in search of diversion. Mrs. Ongar’s bedroom was on the ground floor and had a bathroom en suite. Dover envied her that convenience. Not that it stopped the old biddy keeping an old-fashioned chamber pot under her bed. In fact, Mrs. Ongar seemed to be a real belt-and-braces character. Everything had a back-up system. On the bedside table there was not only an electric bell-push but a large handbell as well, to say nothing of a police whistle dangling on a ribbon from the headboard of the bed. And she’d got two wheelchairs, one manual and one battery-driven.

Mrs. Ongar was still telling MacGregor about her family. “Toby Stockdale is a junior sales representative — in other words, a commercial traveler. David Ongar, my late husband s younger brother, is Chief Personnel Officer, when he can tear himself away from the golf course.”

“And Major Finch, madam?”

“He is in charge of security. After an undistinguished career in the Army, he seemed well suited for the position. There is,” observed Mrs. Ongar drily, “comparatively little crime in the toilet-paper industry and, as far as industrial espionage is concerned, I myself safeguard the formula for our ink.”

Dover was losing interest in the desultory inventory he’d been making of Mrs. Ongar’s possessions — an electric torch and a candle, wires denoting an electric blanket on the bed and a rubber hotwater-bottle on one of the chairs, a pair of stout walking-sticks and one of those Zimmer frame things. His eye slipped indifferently over a single red rose drooping terminally in a vase. Security officer at Ongar’s? That didn’t sound a bad job. The sort of thing an experienced ex-copper should be able to do with his eyes closed.

“What’s the screw?”

Mrs. Ongar blenched, but she hadn’t got where she was by letting trifles like Dover throw her. Quite calmly and dispassionately she studied the crumpled suit, the dandruff epaulettes on that disgusting overcoat, the unspeakable bowler hat, the pale podgy face with the mean little eyes, the motheaten moustache. Then she took a deep breath and put the whole sordid spectacle right out of her mind.

“You must realize,” she said, addressing herself exclusively to MacGregor, “that while Christine Finch is actually my niece, her husband — the major — and her daughter have just as good reasons for killing poor Michael. They would both benefit if I were to leave Ongar’s to Christine.”

“Oh, quite,” said MacGregor.

“One of the reasons, you know, that I made poor Michael my heir was that I thought he would be safe, far away in Australia, from the murderous machinations of the rest of the family, safe from their greed and jealousy. You can imagine my feelings” — Mrs. Ongar raised a lightly starched handkerchief momentarily to her eyes — “when the poor boy just walked in. It was a terrible shock. And when I saw the hatred on their faces — I blame myself. I should have known they would kill him the moment they had the chance.”

MacGregor tried to lower the emotional tension by asking a few routine questions. Predictably, Mrs. Ongar was of little help.

“Last night was my birthday party,” she reminded MacGregor. “A happy day, but a tiring one. I didn’t get to bed until after eleven and then I slept like a log. All the noise and the excitement and the rich food. .” She relaxed back deeper into her pillows. “Oh, well, it’s not every day that one reaches the age of seventy-five, is it?”

There seemed little point in prolonging the interview. Mrs. Ongar seemed very tired and so, if the sagging jowls and the drooping eyelids were anything to go by, did Dover.

MacGregor smiled sympathetically at Mrs. Ongar. “Well, we’ll leave you to get some rest,” he murmured.

“Rest?” Mrs. Ongar’s head jerked up. “There’s no rest for me, young man.”

“No?”

“I have to draw up a new will. I’ve already sent for my solicitor.”

“A new will?”

Mrs. Ongar looked cross. “Haven’t you realized that it’s my life that’s in danger. Michael was killed for my money.”

“But if you leave your money to one of the others—”

“Precisely! And if I don’t make a will, my niece, Christine, will inherit everything. Suppose it was one of the Finch family that murdered Michael? Do you think they would hesitate to kill me in my turn?”

MacGregor tried to suppress the thought that a second murder in the Ongar household might make it a good deal easier to solve the first. “What are you going to do, then?”

“That’s my secret!” snapped Mrs. Ongar. “But you can rest assured that I shall take every precaution. In the meantime I want Michael’s murderer found without delay. And I also want all the remaining members of my family out of this house as soon as possible. My safety must be your prime concern.”

Dover and MacGregor retired to the dining room, which had been set aside for their use. Dover propped his elbows on the highly polished mahogany table and glowered disconsolately at Mrs. Ongar’s list of potential murderers. “We’re never going to solve this one.”

MacGregor tried to take a more positive attitude. “Oh, I expect we’ll get to the bottom of it, sir.”

Dover pushed the list away and reached for the packet of cigarettes MacGregor had laid out on the table as a sweetener. “Not a single bloody clue for a start,” he grumbled as he accepted a light from MacGregor’s elegant gold lighter. “This joker creeps downstairs in the middle of the night, stabs What’s-his-name with his own bloody bayonet, and creeps back to bed again. No fingerprints, no footprints, no bloodstains, didn’t drop anything, and a motive that’s shared with half a dozen other people. We’re on a hiding to nothing.”