The Killing of Olga Klimt (7 page)

No, it didn’t. It was all impossible – fantastic – idiotic – completely insane, in fact.

Having outlined his plan, Charles Eresby had been violently sick all over her lovely cushions, after which he had passed out.

Fenella went on sitting at her desk, deep in thought. She jumped up when the door opened.

‘Mr Bedaux,’ her secretary announced.

‘Who? Oh yes. Mr Eresby’s manservant. Do show him in.’

A minute later Fenella was addressing the tall dark man with the carefully brushed hair who stood impassively before her. ‘I am sorry, Mr Bedaux, but Mr Eresby was taken ill and we thought it prudent to call an ambulance. Mr Eresby passed out.’

‘Most regrettable but I can’t say I am surprised. Mr Eresby has rather a weak head for drink, I fear.’

She took this as criticism for she bristled a bit. ‘It was only sherry. Anyhow. Mr Eresby was taken to –’ She gave her visitor the name of the hospital. ‘I wanted to phone you, but couldn’t get a number. I looked under “Eresby”.’

‘We are ex-directory.’

‘The paramedics didn’t think it was anything very serious. They said Mr Eresby was dehydrated and his blood pressure seemed to be a little low. They are confident he will make a full recovery.’

Bedaux’s face remained expressionless. ‘That is most gratifying.’

‘He will be properly examined by a doctor and may have to spend some time at the hospital.’

Bedaux gave a little bow. ‘I must thank you but also apologise for all the trouble we have caused you.’

‘No trouble at all! Happy to have been of assistance. Oh wait a mo –’ she called out as he started retreating towards the door. She opened a drawer. ‘Must give you something. This is Mr Eresby’s wallet. I found it on the sofa upstairs. It is his wallet, isn’t it?’

‘This is his wallet, yes.’

‘It must have slipped out of his pocket.’ She handed the wallet to Bedaux and watched him put it into his pocket.

The next minute he was gone. Her secretary appeared at the door.

‘A cup of tea, Fenella?’

‘Yes, thank you, Isobel.’

‘What a day, eh?’

‘You can say that again. It’s been a very … strange day … A dream-like feel about it … Is my poor snuggery fit for human habitation again?’

‘I believe it is. Mrs Mason has cleaned up and we have kept all the windows open. Mrs Mason’s removed the sofa cover and the cushions and taken them away to be washed.’

‘Good show. Please, convey my thanks. I’ll thank her personally when I see her.’

Fenella remained sitting at her desk. It felt like a dream, yes. Nightmare, rather. She remembered the way the biscuit heir had nodded and said, ‘Don’t you see? We are in the same boat. So how about it? I do yours, you do mine.’

No, none of it had happened. It couldn’t have. People didn’t go about exchanging – exchanging – she couldn’t even bring herself to say the word!

Fenella shook her head.

The next moment she frowned. There was something she had to do, only what was it? She glanced round. Oh yes. Her scribblings! What she had written on a piece of paper earlier on, before Charles Eresby had been brought, before the arrival of Antonia Darcy and little Eddy Rushton. She had been feeling quite low, desperate, actually. It was a bloody stupid thing to have done – mad!

She had been willing her aunt to die …

Where was the blasted thing? Fenella Frayle’s hand shook a little as she opened the top drawer of the desk and started rummaging inside. There it was! Thank God. How absurd to feel so relieved about it. ‘Aunt Clo-Clo must die. Aunt Clo-Clo must die.’

Incriminating evidence, she murmured. It had been lying on her desk earlier on, then she’d pushed it into the drawer. She
crumpled up the paper and thrust it into her pocket. She was going to burn it and she was going to flush the ashes down the lavatory. She was overreacting a bit.
Most
unlike her. How absurd to feel guilty!

By the time he had sobered up, she reflected, the biscuit heir would have forgotten all about his crazy scheme.

She started when Miss Cooper re-entered the room and placed a cup of tea on her desk.

‘Little Viscount Esquilant has been caught telling lies again,’ Miss Cooper said in a low voice.

‘That boy will never learn,’ Fenella said. ‘What was it this time?’

‘He told the other children his father was a housing agent.’

‘His father is in the House of Lords. Wonder if we are dealing with a case of inverted snobbery. Make a note to mention it to the educational psychologist when she comes on Friday. Meanwhile, what’s been done about it?’

‘His lines have been doubled.’

‘Jolly good. That’ll teach him. It’s very wrong to tell lies.’ Fenella raised the teacup to her lips. ‘We must discourage anything that smacks of the underhand.’

Her thoughts turned to Charles Eresby’s wallet. She had examined its contents the moment she discovered it wedged between two sofa cushions. Apart from various credit cards, she had come across a photograph of a rather strikingly beautiful girl. The photo was inscribed ‘From Olga to Charlie, with all my love’. Fenella had also found a piece of paper with Olga’s name and an address in Fulham written on it.

Which meant she now knew not only what the perfidious Olga Klimt looked like, but also where she lived.

‘It’s the most the remarkable coincidence. In detective stories, of course, remarkable coincidences are regarded as cheating – a lazy way of linking up important plot elements. Discerning readers feel their intelligence has been insulted and they tend to turn against the author. I do my best to avoid them in my books.’ Antonia shook her head. ‘I still can’t quite believe that you and I, independently of each other and on the
very same day
, should have got involved with the same set of people!’

‘Remarkable coincidences do happen,’ Major Payne said.

‘I meet Charles Eresby and his manservant at the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School – while you – at the Military Club, of all places – sit drinking coffee with Charlie’s stepfather and hear how, as a result of the manservant’s machinations, Charles Eresby deserted his girlfriend and started an affair with Olga Klimt.’

‘Small world, eh?’

‘Staggeringly small.’

It was the evening of the same day and Antonia and Hugh Payne were at home in Hampstead.

‘But perhaps today’s extraordinary events prove we are meant to get involved in the Olga Klimt affair?’

‘They prove no such thing,’ Antonia said. ‘Coincidences are precisely that, coincidences. Besides, there is no affair to speak of.’

‘No, not yet, but there may be. Joan Selwyn has threatened to kill her. She is said to have got over it but what if she hasn’t? What if she is still obsessed with Charlie? Perhaps she was merely trying to pull the wool over Collingwood’s eyes? Aren’t you tempted to weave one of your dauntingly devious plots round this particular group of characters?’

‘I am not. Besides, they are not characters. They are people.’

‘They are too good to be true. They should be in a book,’ Major Payne said firmly. He produced his pipe. ‘The neurotic young heir to a biscuit fortune, the manipulative manservant, the Aconite-addicted mama, the luminous blonde, jilted Joan Selwyn … Then there’s old Collingwood with his scribbling ambitions and peculiar preoccupation with bad blood …’ Payne reached out for his tobacco jar. ‘I have a confession to make. I am haunted by that name. I can’t get it out of my head.’

‘What name?’

‘Olga Klimt. It’s the kind of name one might find among Freud’s gruesome case histories, wouldn’t you say? “The Case of Olga K.” Freud’s case histories are full of frustrated desires, devious thinking and savage urges, perhaps you’ve noticed?’

‘I have noticed.’

‘Same as in detective stories, actually –’

‘Can’t we talk about something else, Hugh? I don’t feel like talking about detective stories. There’s more to life than detective stories.’ Antonia smiled. ‘Eddy was very funny this morning. He kept asking Miss Frayle questions but then decided he didn’t like her. He doesn’t like to be teased. She is very nice, mind, in a reassuringly bluff, no-nonsense kind of way … Are you looking for your matches?’

‘How do you know I am looking for my matches?’

‘What other reason could there be for patting your pockets, with your pipe clenched between your teeth, your features twisted into a ferocious grimace? You are clearly looking for your matches … They’re by your elbow.’

‘Thank you, darling.’

‘See? We can talk about other things as well, like other people.’

‘You know perfectly well we are not like other people.
The Mystery of the Luminous Blonde
. Sounds like the title of an Ellery Queen story, doesn’t it? I know you don’t care much for Ellery Queen. Um. How about
The Killing of Olga Klimt
? That’s better, isn’t it? Pleasantly alliterative. It’s got a ring to it, what do you think? For some reason, I seem to think of Olga Klimt as no longer for this world. Odd, isn’t it?’

‘Very odd.’

‘A lot of very beautiful women die young, I can’t help noticing. Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana. All blondes, as it happens. What is it about blondes that makes them so special?’

‘Gentlemen prefer them … Diana wasn’t a real blonde … You only have to look at those early photos.’

‘Did you know Jean Harlow was actually decapitated? Sorry, darling. I seem to be in a peculiarly morbid mood tonight.’

‘You are in a particularly annoying mood tonight. It wasn’t Jean Harlow who was decapitated. It was Jayne Mansfield.’

‘Of course it was. She was also a blonde! Another blonde! Who do you imagine is most likely to kill Olga Klimt?’

‘No one is going to kill her. I find speculations like that tedious and distasteful.’

Payne looked surprised. ‘Since when? It’s the sort of thing we do all the time. You used to relish thinking up scenarios about people we met on planes and cruises and at hotels and so on.’

‘I don’t any longer. I have grown out of it,’ said Antonia.

‘No, you haven’t. Do let’s assume Joan hasn’t got over Charlie. She told Collingwood that she intended to kill Olga, which makes it look a bit too obvious, but maybe proclaiming her murderous intentions to the world is only part of her cleverness? She says she’s going to kill her, she does kill her, but no one believes it because it’s too obvious?’

‘This has been done before.’

‘You are right, it has. In fact this particular plot-line has the crashing predictability of something produced by a Women’s Institute writing circle.’

‘It isn’t as bad as that, actually. It all depends on the approach …’

‘Let’s consider the valet. Bedaux the blackguard. Though why should he want to kill Olga? You saw him. What’s he like?’

‘I don’t know. I saw him only briefly. Inscrutable. The type that preserves the impassivity of a Madame Tussaud waxwork.’

‘Collingwood’s got his knife into him. Says the fellow’s a scoundrel who deserves to be drawn and quartered, some such thing. Well, Bedaux may be regarding the future Mrs Eresby as a threat, couldn’t he? Wives often take exception to their husbands’ valets and have them sacked. Bedaux may also be a bit in love with his master, so there may be a green-eyed-monster element to his motive as well.’

‘Bedaux may actually be in love with Olga,’ Antonia said.

‘Indeed he may. It was he who introduced her to Charlie, so he’s known her for some time. Jealousy again! Charles Eresby himself should not be excluded from the list of suspects. OK, he is in love with Olga, but what if she has been double-crossing him? A femme fatale like Olga is bound to have an extensive circle of admirers … Incidentally, Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, isn’t it? Not Riga?’

‘No, not Riga. It’s Vilnius. They have the coldest winters out there. I wonder what it’s like to skate out in the open,’ Antonia said dreamily.

‘Lady Collingwood may also have a motive. She may be strongly opposed to her son marrying a foreign adventuress. She doesn’t seem to mind but that may be a front. Or we could have Joan Selwyn
and
Lady Collingwood locked in a murderous partnership. It would be a most unlikely pairing. I know you have a penchant for unlikely pairings. I don’t think there have been many murders committed by female tandems. I mean in books … Have there?’

Antonia thought. ‘No, not that many. There are the two women in Ruth Rendell’s
A Judgement in Stone
… Genet’s
The Maids
is also a possibility, though that’s not exactly a detective story … What about Lord Collingwood? Could he have a motive?’

‘He’s been thinking of calling on Olga and he may kill her in the course of his visit.’

‘I thought he was fascinated by her.’

‘Oh he is. Very much so. He is dazzled by the very idea of her. That may be his undoing.’ Payne nodded portentously. ‘This is how it happens. He goes to the house in Fulham. All he wants is to take a look at Olga, to see how his mental image of her compares to the reality. He introduces himself as her boyfriend’s stepfather and she lets him in. Collingwood finds her impossible to resist and makes a pass at her but is rebuffed. He attempts to ravish her – she fights back – he flies into a rage and hits her – she falls down, bangs her head on the fender and is instantly killed.’

‘That would be a sordid case of manslaughter … Why do they call that kind of story “witty, civilised and amusing”, I simply can’t imagine. It is nothing of the sort,’ Antonia said with an exasperated sigh.

‘I used to be terribly fond of Rupert, perhaps I still am,’ Lady Collingwood said wistfully, ‘but I have decided to face the facts. Rupert imagines things which are not there. He has constructed an image of me, for example, which he is only too eager to present to the world – but that image, to put it bluntly, is more or less counterfeit.’

Joan Selwyn frowned. ‘Counterfeit?’

‘Yes! Rupert takes pleasure in attributing to me opinions which I have never given voice to – stances I have never taken – attitudes I have never assumed. I usually learn about it when some well-meaning soul reports it back to me. I have no idea what exactly he hopes to achieve. It is not as though we are going through divorce proceedings or anything like that. I believe opinions are largely a matter of temperament, don’t you?’