“Have you come to ask me a lot more horrible questions? Like that local inspector did.”
“I hope they won’t be too horrible, Miss Brewster.”
“Oh, but I’m sure they will be, and I’m sure the whole thing must have been some terrible mistake.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes. It’s all such nonsense. Do you really mean that someone tried to poison Marina? Who on earth would poison Marina? She’s an absolute sweetie, you know. Everybody loves her.”
“Including you?”
“I’ve always been devoted to Marina.”
“Oh come now, Miss Brewster, wasn’t there a little trouble about eleven or twelve years ago?”
“Oh that.” Lola waved it away. “I was terribly nervy and distraught, and Rob and I had been having the most frightful quarrels. We were neither of us normal at the moment. Marina just fell wildly in love with him and rushed him off his feet, the poor pet.”
“And you minded very much?”
“Well, I thought I did, Inspector. Of course I see now it was one of the best things that ever happened for me. I was really worried about the children, you know. Breaking up our home. I’m afraid I’d already realized that Rob and I were incompatible. I expect you know I got married to Eddie Groves as soon as the divorce went through? I think really I’d been in love with him for a long time, but of course I didn’t want to break up my marriage, because of the children. It’s so important, isn’t it, that children should have a home?”
“Yet people say that actually you were terribly upset.”
“Oh, people always say things,” said Lola vaguely.
“You said quite a lot, didn’t you, Miss Brewster? You went about threatening to shoot Marina Gregg, or so I understand.”
“I’ve told you one says things. One’s supposed to say things like that. Of course I wouldn’t really shoot anyone.”
“In spite of taking a pot-shot at Eddie Groves some few years later?”
“Oh, that was because we’d had an argument,” said Lola. “I lost my temper.”
“I have it on very good authority, Miss Brewster, that you said—and these are your exact words or so I’m told,” (he read from a notebook)—‘That bitch needn’t think she’ll get away with it. If I don’t shoot her now I’ll wait and get her in some other way. I don’t care how long I wait, years if need be, but I’ll get even with her in the end.’”
“Oh, I’m sure I never said anything of the kind,” Lola laughed.
“I’m sure, Miss Brewster, that you did.”
“People exaggerate so.” A charming smile broke over her face. “I was just mad at the moment, you know,” she murmured confidentially. “One says all sorts of things when one’s mad with people. But you don’t really think I’d wait fourteen years and come across to England, and look up Marina and drop some deadly poison into her cocktail glass within three minutes of seeing her again?”
Dermot Craddock didn’t really think so. It seemed to him wildly improbable. He merely said:
“I’m only pointing out to you, Miss Brewster, that there had been threats in the past and that Marina Gregg was certainly startled and frightened to see someone who came up the stairs that day. Naturally one feels that that someone must have been you.”
“But darling Marina was delighted to see me! She kissed me and exclaimed how wonderful it was. Oh really, Inspector, I do think you’re being very, very silly.”
“In fact, you were all one big happy family?”
“Well, that’s really much more true than all the things you’ve been thinking.”
“And you’ve no ideas that could help us in anyway? No ideas who might have killed her?”
“I tell you nobody would have wanted to kill Marina. She’s a very silly woman anyway. Always making terrible fusses about her health, and changing her mind and wanting this, that and the other, and when she’s got it being dissatisfied with it! I can’t think why people are as fond of her as they are. Jason’s always been absolutely mad about her. What that man has to put up with! But there it is. Everybody puts up with Marina, puts themselves out for her. Then she gives them a sad, sweet smile and thanks them! And apparently that makes them feel that all the trouble is worthwhile. I really don’t know how she does it. You’d better put the idea that somebody wanted to kill her right out of your head.”
“I should like to,” said Dermot Craddock. “Unfortunately I can’t put it out of my head because, you see, it happened.”
“What do you mean, it happened, nobody has killed Marina, have they?”
“No. But the attempt was made.”
“I don’t believe it for a moment! I expect whoever it was meant to kill the other woman all the time—the one who was killed. I expect someone comes into money when she dies.”
“She hadn’t any money, Miss Brewster.”
“Oh well, there was some other reason. Anyway, I shouldn’t worry about Marina if I were you. Marina is always all right!”
“Is she? She doesn’t look a very happy woman to me.”
“Oh, that’s because she makes such a song and dance about everything. Unhappy love affairs. Not being able to have any children.”
“She adopted some children, didn’t she?” said Dermot with a lively remembrance of Miss Marple’s urgent voice.
“I believe she did once. It wasn’t a great success I believe. She does these impulsive things and then wishes she hadn’t.”
“What happened to the children she adopted?”
“I’ve no idea. They just sort of vanished after a bit. She got tired of them, I suppose, like everything else.”
“I see,” said Dermot Craddock.
IV
Next—the Dorchester. Suite 190.
“Well, Chief-Inspector—” Ardwyck Fenn looked down at the card in his hand.
“Craddock.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I hope you won’t mind if I ask you a few questions.”
“Not at all. It’s this business at Much Benham. No—what’s the actual name, St. Mary Mead?”
“Yes. That’s right. Gossington Hall.”
“Can’t think what Jason Rudd wanted to buy a place like that for. Plenty of good Georgian houses in England—or even Queen Anne. Gossington Hall is a purely Victorian mansion. Where’s the attraction in that, I wonder?”
“Oh, there’s some attraction—for some people, that is, in Victorian stability.”
“Stability? Well, perhaps you’ve got something there. Marina, I suppose, had a feeling for stability. It’s a thing she never had herself, poor girl, so I suppose that’s why she always covets it. Perhaps this place will satisfy her for a bit.”
“You know her well, Mr. Fenn?”
Ardwyck Fenn shrugged his shoulders.
“Well? I don’t know that I’d say that. I’ve known her over a long period of years. Known her off and on, that is to say.”
/> Craddock looked at him appraisingly. A dark man, heavily built, shrewd eyes behind thick glasses, heavy jowl and chin, Ardwyck Fenn went on:
“The idea is, I gather, from what I read in the newspapers, that this Mrs. Whatever-her-name-was, was poisoned by mistake. That the dose was intended for Marina. Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s it. The dose was in Marina Gregg’s cocktail. Mrs. Badcock spilt hers and Marina handed over her drink to her.”
“Well that seems pretty conclusive. I really can’t think, though, who would want to poison Marina. Especially as Lynette Brown wasn’t there.”
“Lynette Brown?” Craddock looked slightly at sea.
Ardwyck Fenn smiled. “If Marina breaks this contract, throws up the part—Lynette will get it and it would mean a good deal to Lynette to get it. But for all that, I don’t imagine she’d send some emissary along with poison. Much too melodramatic an idea.”
“It seems a little far-fetched,” said Dermot dryly.
“Ah, you’d be surprised what women will do when they’re ambitious,” said Ardwyck Fenn. “Mind you, death mayn’t have been intended. It may have been just to give her a fright—Enough to knock her out but not to finish her.”
Craddock shook his head. “It wasn’t a borderline dose,” he said.
“People make mistakes in doses, quite big ones.”
“Is this really your theory?”
“Oh no, it isn’t. It was only a suggestion. I’ve no theory. I was only an innocent bystander.”
“Was Marina Gregg very surprised to see you?”
“Yes, it was a complete surprise to her.” He laughed amusedly. “Just couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw me coming up the stairs. She gave me a very nice welcome, I must say.”
“You hadn’t seen her for a long time?”
“Not for four or five years, I should say.”
“And some years before that there was a time when you and she were very close friends, I believe?”
“Are you insinuating anything in particular by that remark, Inspector Craddock?”
There was very little change in the voice but there was something there that had not been there before. A hint of steel, of menace. Dermot felt suddenly that this man would be a very ruthless opponent.