A Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple 15)

‘He was carrying it in his coat pocket,’ the inspector declared. ‘This gentleman put us on to him.’ He indicated James.

In another minute James was being warmly congratulated and shaken by the hand.

‘My dear fellow,’ said Lord Edward Campion. ‘So you suspected him all along, you say?’

‘Yes,’ said James. ‘I had to trump up the story about my pocket being picked to get him into the police station.’

‘Well, it is splendid,’ said Lord Edward, ‘absolutely splendid. You must come back and lunch with us, that is if you haven’t lunched. It is late, I know, getting on for two o’clock.’

‘No,’ said James; ‘I haven’t lunched – but –’

‘Not a word, not a word,’ said Lord Edward. ‘The Rajah, you know, will want to thank you for getting back his emerald for him. Not that I have quite got the hang of the story yet.’

They were out of the police station by now, standing on the steps. ‘As a matter of fact,’ said James, ‘I think I should like to tell you the true story.’

He did so. His lordship was very much entertained.

‘Best thing I ever heard in my life,’ he declared. ‘I see it all now. Jones must have hurried down to the bathing-hut as soon as he had pinched the thing, knowing that the police would make a thorough search of the house. That old pair of trousers I sometimes put on for going out fishing, nobody was likely to touch them, and he could recover the jewel at his leisure. Must have been a shock to him when he came today to find it gone. As soon as you appeared, he realized that you were the person who had removed the stone. I still don’t quite see how you managed to see through that detective pose of his, though!’

‘A strong man,’ thought James to himself, ‘knows when to be frank and when to be discreet.’

He smiled deprecatingly whilst his fingers passed gently over the inside of his coat lapel feeling the small silver badge of that little-known club, the Merton Park Super Cycling Club. An astonishing coincidence that the man Jones should also be a member, but there it was!

‘Hallo, James!’

He turned. Grace and the Sopworth girls were calling to him from the other side of the road. He turned to Lord Edward.

‘Excuse me a moment?’

He crossed the road to them. ‘We are going to the pictures,’ said Grace. ‘Thought you might like to come.’

‘I am sorry,’ said James. ‘I am just going back to lunch with Lord Edward Campion. Yes, that man over there in the comfortable old clothes. He wants me to meet the Rajah of Maraputna.’

He raised his hat politely and rejoined Lord Edward.

Chapter 20

Swan Song

‘Swan Song’ was first published in Grand Magazine, September 1926.

It was eleven o’clock on a May morning in London. Mr Cowan was looking out of the window, behind him was the somewhat ornate splendour of a sitting-room in a suite at the Ritz Hotel. The suite in question had been reserved for Mme Paula Nazorkoff, the famous operatic star, who had just arrived in London. Mr Cowan, who was Madame’s principal man of business, was awaiting an interview with the lady. He turned his head suddenly as the door opened, but it was only Miss Read, Mme Nazorkoff’s secretary, a pale girl with an efficient mïïanner.

‘Oh, so it’s you, my dear,’ said Mr Cowan. ‘Madame not up yet, eh?’ Miss Read shook her head. ‘She told me to come round at ten o’clock,’ Mr Cowan said. ‘I have been waiting an hour.’

He displayed neither resentment nor surprise. Mr Cowan was indeed accustomed to the vagaries of the artistic temperament. He was a tall man, clean-shaven, with a frame rather too well covered, and clothes that were rather too faultless. His hair was very black and shining, and his teeth were aggressively white. When he spoke, he had a way of slurring his ‘s’s’ which was not quite a lisp, but came perilously near to it. It required no stretch of imagination to realize that his father’s name had probably been Cohen. At that minute a door at the other side of the room opened, and a trim, French girl hurried through.

‘Madame getting up?’ inquired Cowan hopefully.

‘Tell us the news, Elise.’ Elise immediately elevated both hands to heaven.

‘Madame she is like seventeen devils this morning, nothing pleases her! The beautiful yellow roses which monsieur sent to her last night, she says they are all very well for New York, but that it is imbecile to send them to her in London. In London, she says, red roses are the only things possible, and straight away she opens the door, and precipitates the yellow roses into the passage, where they descend upon a monsieur, très comme il faut, a military gentleman, I think, and he is justly indignant, that one!’

Cowan raised his eyebrows, but displayed no other signs of emotion. Then he took from his pocket a small memorandum book and pencilled in it the words ‘red roses’.

Elise hurried out through the other door, and Cowan turned once more to the window. Vera Read sat down at the desk, and began opening letters and sorting them. Ten minutes passed in silence, and then the door of the bedroom burst open, and Paula Nazorkoff flamed into the room. Her immediate effect upon it was to make it seem smaller, Vera Read appeared more colourless, and Cowan retreated into a mere figure in the background.

‘Ah, ha! My children,’ said the prima donna, ‘am I not punctual?’

She was a tall woman, and for a singer not unduly fat. Her arms and legs were still slender, and her neck was a beautiful column. Her hair, which was coiled in a great roll half-way down her neck, was of a dark, glowing red. If it owed some at least of its colour to henna, the result was none the less effective. She was not a young woman, forty at least, but the lines of her face were still lovely, though the skin was loosened and wrinkled round the flashing, dark eyes. She had the laugh of a child, the digestion of an ostrich, and the temper of a fiend, and she was acknowledged to be the greatest dramatic soprano of her day. She turned directly upon Cowan.

‘Have you done as I asked you? Have you taken that abominable English piano away, and thrown it into the Thames?’

‘I have got another for you,’ said Cowan, and gestured towards where it stood in the corner.

Nazorkoff rushed across to it, and lifted the lid. ‘An Erard,’ she said, ‘that is better. Now let us see.’

The beautiful soprano voice rang out in an arpeggio, then it ran lightly up and down the scale twice, then took a soft little run up to a high note, held it, its volume swelling louder and louder, then softened again till it died away in nothingness.

‘Ah!’ said Paula Nazorkoff in naïve satisfaction. ‘What a beautiful voice I have! Even in London I have a beautiful voice.’

‘That is so,’ agreed Cowan in hearty congratulation. ‘And you bet London is going to fall for you all right, just as New York did.’

‘You think so?’ queried the singer.

There was a slight smile on her lips, and it was evident that for her the question was a mere commonplace.

‘Sure thing,’ said Cowan.

Paula Nazorkoff closed the piano lid down and walked across to the table, with that slow undulating walk that proved so

effective on the stage.

‘Well, well,’ she said, ‘let us get to business. You have all the arrangements there, my friend?’

Cowan took some papers out of the portfolio he had laid on a chair.

‘Nothing has been altered much,’ he remarked. ‘You will sing five times at Covent Garden, three times in Tosca, twice in Aida.’

‘Aida! Pah,’ said the prima donna; ‘it will be unutterable boredom. Tosca, that is different.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Cowan. ‘Tosca is your part.’

Paula Nazorkoff drew herself up.

‘I am the greatest Tosca in the world,’ she said simply.

‘That is so,’ agreed Cowan. ‘No one can touch you.’

‘Roscari will sing “Scarpia”, I suppose?’

Cowan nodded.

‘And Emile Lippi.’

‘What?’ shrieked Nazorkoff. ‘Lippi, that hideous little barking frog, croak – croak – croak. I will not sing with him, I will bite him, I will scratch his face.’

‘Now, now,’ said Cowan soothingly. ‘He does not sing, I tell you, he is a mongrel dog who barks.’

‘Well, we’ll see, we’ll see,’ said Cowan.

He was too wise ever to argue with temperamental singers.

‘The Cavardossi?’ demanded Nazorkoff. ‘The American tenor, Hensdale.’

The other nodded.

‘He is a nice little boy, he sings prettily.’

‘And Barrère is to sing it once, I believe.’

‘He is an artist,’ said Madame generously. ‘But to let that croaking frog Lippi be Scarpia! Bah – I’ll not sing with him.’

‘You leave it to me,’ said Cowan soothingly.

He cleared his throat, and took up a fresh set of papers.

‘I am arranging for a special concert at the Albert Hall.’

Nazorkoff made a grimace. ‘I know, I know,’ said Cowan; ‘but everybody does it.’

‘I will be good,’ said Nazorkoff, ‘and it will be filled to the ceiling, and I shall have much money. Ecco!ó8’

Again Cowan shuffled papers. ‘Now here is quite a different proposition,’ he said, ‘from Lady Ruston-bury. She wants you to go down and sing.’