Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake

“Yes. So much for Greengages. Now for Claude, the Black Alexander and the famous plan.”

Verity listened with her head between her hands, making no further interruptions and with the strangest sense of hearing an account of events that had taken place a very, very long time ago.

“—so Claude’s plan matured,” Alleyn was saying. “He decided to go abroad until things had settled down. Having come to this decision, we think, he set about blackmailing Gardener. Gardener appeared to fall for it. No doubt he told Claude he needed time to raise the money and put him off until the day before the funeral. He then said he would have it by that evening and Claude could collect it in the churchyard. And I think,” said Alleyn, “you can guess the rest”

“As far as Claude is concerned — yes, I suppose I can. But — Bruce Gardener and Sybil — that’s much the worst. That’s so — disgusting. All those professions of attachment, all that slop and sorrow act — no, it’s beyond everything.”

“You did have your reservations about him, didn’t you?”

“They didn’t run along homicidal lines,” Verity snapped.

“Not an unusual reaction. You’d be surprised how it crops up after quite appalling cases. Heath, for instance. Some of his acquaintances couldn’t believe such a nice chap would behave like that.”

“With Bruce, though, it was simply for cash and comfort?”

“Just that. Twenty-five thousand and a very nice little house which he could let until he retired.”

“But he’d have got them anyway in the long run.”

“They were about the same age. She might well have outlived him.”

“Even so—. Yes, all right. So he knew the terms of the Will?”

“Oh, yes. He handed it over to Mrs. Jim, who noticed that the envelope was groggily gummed up. Mrs. Jim knew Mrs. Foster was given to afterthoughts: reopening and inefficiently resealing her correspondence and thought nothing of it. And there were only the Rattisbon and Prunella prints on the Will. Who do you think had removed Mrs. Foster’s and Johnson’s and Marleena Briggs’s? And his own.”

“Still,” Verity said. “He’d have been sitting pretty at Quintern if Sybil had lived.”

“Not if Dr. Schramm knew anything about it. They had a row and he intimated to Gardener, almost in so many words, that he’d get the sack.”

After a long pause, Verity said: “What about the stamp?”

“The Black Alexander? He knew about it. Captain Carter had talked about it. Bruce Gardener,” said Alleyn, “is in some ways the most accomplished villain I’ve come across. He’s never told me a lie when it wasn’t necessary. Over a long, long span, probably from his boyhood, he’s developed the persona that has served him best: the honest, downright chap; winning, plausible, a bit of a character with the added slightly phoney touch of the pawky Scot. By and large,” said Alleyn, “a loss to the Stage. I can see him stealing the show in superior soap.”

“The stamp?”

“Ah, yes. He hasn’t admitted it but I’ve no doubt he knew perfectly well that his sister lived in his captain’s village and that the stamp had never been found. Hence the multiplicity of asparagus and mushroom beds.”

“And then — Claude?”

“Yes. And along comes Claude and Claude’s found a map with a point marked X and while heart-stricken Bruce is digging his kind and generous lady’s grave Claude has a go in the fireplace and strikes it rich.”

“Oh, well!” said Verity and gave it up. And then, with great difficulty, she said: “I would be glad to know — Basil Smythe wasn’t in any way involved, was he? I mean — as her doctor he couldn’t be held to have been irresponsible or anything?”

“Nothing like that.”

“But — there’s something, isn’t there?”

“Well, yes. It appears that the Dr. Schramm who qualified at Lausanne was never Mr. Smythe, and I’m afraid Schramm was not a family name of Mr. Smythe’s mama. But it appears he will inherit his fortune. He evidently suggested — no doubt with great tact — that as the change had not been confirmed by deed poll, Smythe was still his legal name. And Smythe, to Mr. Rattisbon’s extreme chagrin, it is in the Will.”

“That,” said Verity, “is I’m afraid all too believable.”

Alleyn waited for a moment and then said: “You’ll see, won’t you, why I was so anxious that Prunella should be taken away before we went to work in the churchyard?”

“What? Oh, that. Yes. Yes, of course I do.”

“If she was on the high seas she couldn’t be asked as next of kin to identify.”

“That would have been — too horrible.”

Alleyn got to his feet. “Whereas she is now, no doubt, contemplating the flesh-pots of the Côte d’Azure and running herself in as the future daughter-in-law of the Markos millions.”

“Yes,” Verity said, catching her breath in a half-sigh, “I expect so.”

“You sound as if you regret it.”

“Not really. She’s a level-headed child and it’s the height of elderly arrogance to condemn the young for having different tastes from one’s own. It’s not my scene,” said Verity, “but I think she’ll be very happy in it.”

And at the moment, Prunella was very happy indeed. She was stretched out in a chaise-longue looking at the harbour of Antibes, drinking iced lemonade and half-listening to Nikolas and Gideon, who were talking about the post from London that had just been brought aboard.

Mr. Markos had opened up a newspaper. He gave an instantly stifled exclamation and made a quick movement to refold the paper.

But he was too late. Prunella and Gideon had both looked up as an errant breeze caught at the front page.

BLACK ALEXANDER

Famous Stamp Found on Murdered Man

“It’s no good, darlings,” Prunella said after a pause, “trying to hide it all up. I’m bound to hear, you know, sooner or later.”

Gideon kissed her. Mr. Markos, after making a deeply sympathetic noise, said: “Well — perhaps.”

“Go on,” said Prunella. “You know you’re dying to read it.”

So he read it and as he did so the circumspection of the man of affairs and the avid, dotty desire of the collector were strangely combined in Mr. Markos. He folded the paper.

“Darling child,” said Mr. Markos. “You now possess a fortune.”

“I suppose I must.”

He picked up her hands and beat them gently together. “You will, of course, take advice. It will be a momentous decision. But if ,” said Mr. Markos, kissing first one hand and then the other, “ if after due deliberation you decide to sell, may your father-in-law have the first refusal? Speaking quite cold-bloodedly, of course,” said Mr. Markos.

The well-dressed, expensively gloved and strikingly handsome passenger settled into his seat and fastened his belt.

Heathrow had passed off quietly.

He wondered when it would be advisable to return. Not, he fancied, for some considerable time. As they moved off the label attached to an elegant suitcase in the luggage rack slipped down and dangled over his head.

Dr. Basil Schramm

Passenger to New York

Concorde

Flight 123

The End