Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake

Verity heard herself called and found she was nervous. She was taken over the earlier ground and confirmed all that Prunella had said. Nothing she was asked led to any mention of Bruce Gardener’s and Claude Carter’s arrivals at Greengages and as both of them had been fended off from meeting Sybil she did not think it incumbent on her to say anything about them. She saw that Bruce was in the hall, looking stiff and solemn as if the inquest was a funeral. He wore his Harris tweed suit and a black tie.

Poor Syb would have liked that. She would have probably said there was “good blood there” and you could tell by the way he wore his clothes. Meaning blue blood. And suddenly and irrelevantly there came over Verity the realization that she could never believe ridiculous old Syb had killed herself.

She had found Dr. Field-Innis’s remarks about Sybil’s appearance disturbing, not because she thought they bore the remotest relation to her death but because she herself had for so long paid so little attention to Sybil’s ailments. Suppose, all the time, there had been ominous signs? Suppose she had felt as ill as she said she did? Was it a case of “wolf, wolf”? Verity was miserable.

She did not pay much atttention when Gideon was called and said that he had returned briefly to Mrs. Foster’s room to collect Prunella’s bag and that she had seemed to be quite herself.

The proceedings now came to a close. The coroner made a short speech saying, in effect, that the jury might perhaps consider it was most unfortunate that nothing had emerged to show why the deceased had been moved to take this tragic and apparently motiveless step, so out of character according to all that her nearest and dearest felt about her. Nevertheless in face of what they had heard they might well feel that the circumstances all pointed in one direction. However — at this point Verity’s attention was distracted by the sight of Claude Carter, whom she had not noticed before. He was sitting at the end of a bench against the wall, wearing a superfluous raincoat with the collar turned up and was feasting quietly upon his fingernails.

“—and so,” the coroner was saying, “you may think that in view of the apparent absence of motive and not withstanding the entirely appropriate steps taken by Dr. Schramm, an autopsy should be carried out. If you so decide I shall, of course, adjourn the inquest sine die .”

The jury after a short withdrawal brought in a verdict along these lines and the inquest was accordingly adjourned until after the autopsy.

The small assembly emptied out into the summery quiet of the little village.

As she left the hall Verity found herself face to face with Young Mr. Rattisbon. Young Mr. Rattisbon was about sixty-five years of age and was the son of Old Mr. Rattisbon, who was ninety-two. They were London solicitors of eminent respectability and they had acted for Verity’s family and for Sybil’s unto the third and fourth generation. His father and Verity’s were old friends. As the years passed the son grew more and more like the father, even to adopting his eccentricities. They both behaved as if they were character-actors playing themselves in some dated comedy. Both had an extraordinary mannerism: when about to pronounce upon some choice point of law they exposed the tips of their tongues and vibrated them as if they had taken sips of scalding tea. They prefaced many of their remarks with a slight whinny.

When Mr. Rattisbon saw Verity he raised his out-of-date city hat very high and said, “Good morning,” three times and added, “Very sad, yes,” as if she had enquired whether it was or was not so. She asked him if he was returning to London but he said no, he would find himself something to eat in the village and then go up to Quintern Place if Prunella Foster found it convenient to see him.

Verity rapidly surveyed her larder and then said: “You can’t lunch in the village. There’s only the Passcoigne Arms and it’s awful. Come and have an omelette and cheese and a glass of reasonable hock with me.”

He gave quite a performance of deprecating whinnies but was clearly delighted. He wanted, he said, to have a word with the coroner and would drive up to Keys when it was over.

Verity, given this start, was able to make her unpretentious preparations. She laid her table, took some cold sorrel soup with cream from the refrigerator, fetched herbs from the orchard, broke eggs into a basin and put butter in her omelette pan. Then she paid a visit to her cellar and chose one of the few remaining bottles of her father’s sherry and one of the more than respectable hock.

When Mr. Rattisbon arrived she settled him in the drawing-room, joined him in a glass of sherry and left him with the bottle at his elbow while she went off to make the omelette.

They lunched successfully, finishing off with ripe Stilton and biscuits. Mr. Rattisbon had two and a half glasses of hock to Verity’s one. His face, normally the colour of one of his own parchments, became quite pink.

They withdrew into the garden and sat in weather-worn deck chairs under the lime trees.

“How very pleasant, my dear Verity,” said Mr. Rattisbon. “Upon my word, how quite delightful! I suppose, alas, I must keep my eye upon the time. And if I may, I shall telephone Miss Prunella. I mustn’t overstay my welcome.”

“Oh, fiddle, Ratsy!” said Verity, who had called him by this Kenneth Grahamish nickname for some forty years, “what did you think about the inquest?”

The professional change came over him. He joined his fingertips, rattled his tongue and made his noise.

“M’nah,” he said. “My dear Verity. While you were preparing our delicious luncheon I thought a great deal about the inquest and I may say that the more I thought the less I liked it. I will not disguise from you, I am uneasy.”

“So am I. What exactly is your worry? Don’t go all professionally rectitudinal like a diagram. Confide. Do, Ratsy, I’m the soul of discretion. My lips shall be sealed with red tape, I promise.”

“My dear girl, I don’t doubt it. I had, in any case, decided to ask you: you were, were you not, a close friend of Mrs. Foster?”

“A very old friend. I think perhaps the closeness was more on her side than mine if that makes sense.”

“She confided in you?”

“She’d confide in the Town Crier if she felt the need but yes, she did quite a lot.”

“Do you know if she has recently made a Will?”

“Oh,” said Verity, “is that your trouble?”

“Part of it, at least. I must tell you that she did in fact execute a Will four years ago. I have reason to believe that she may have made a later one but have no positive knowledge of such being the case. She — yah — she wrote to me three weeks ago advising me of the terms of a new Will she wished me to prepare. I was — frankly appalled. I replied, as I hoped, temperately, asking her to take thought. She replied at once that I need concern myself no further in the matter, with additions of a — of an intemperate — I would go so far as to say a hostile, character. So much so that I concluded that I had been given the — not to put too fine a point upon it — sack.”

“Preposterous!” cried Verity. “She couldn’t!”

“As it turned out she didn’t. On my writing a formal letter asking if she wished the return of Passcoigne documents which we hold, and I may add, have held since the barony was created, she merely replied by telegram.”

“What did it say?”

“It said ‘Don’t be silly.’ ”

“How like Syb!”

“Upon which,” said Mr. Rattisbon, throwing himself back in his chair, “I concluded that there was to be no severance of the connection. That is the last communication I had from her. I know not if she made a new Will. But the fact that I — yah — jibbed, might have led her to act on her own initiative. Provide herself,” said Mr. Rattisbon, lowering his voice as one who speaks of blasphemy, “with A Form. From some stationer. Alas.”