The Riddle of Sphinx Island Page 4

  His headache was worse now, so he reached out for the rosewood box that lay on the desk before him. Taking out a sheet of blotting paper, he tore out a large piece, crumpled it up between his fingers and popped it into his mouth. Then another.

  The trick was to concentrate and chew slowly. Once the blotting paper was transformed into paste, he would insert it between his front teeth and the upper lip and thus prevent the vibrations of the skull which caused the shooting headaches.

  The voices in the library were becoming louder. He was a perfectly reasonable man, but if they went on like that, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. Should he get his gun and fire a warning shot in the air?

  He could actually hear what was being said. Nellie Grylls asking when Sybil was coming back. He knew her voice well enough. Once, years ago, he and Nellie Grylls had sat next to each other at dinner. He then heard the chap with the hearty American accent – the chap who coveted his island – ask the girl called Maisie to sit beside him. Damned presumptuous of him.

  John put down his cup. He heard a door open and then there was a sudden hush.

  Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises. Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

  He didn’t see himself as Caliban, but the Bard might have had Sphinx Island in mind when he wrote The Tempest. I wouldn’t mind a Miranda, John thought. Or for that matter, a Maisie. It was some time since he had enjoyed female company of the right sort. That American girl would be quite perfect.

  He glanced out of the window. L’isle, c’est moi, he murmured. Sybil and her American could go to hell. He believed the skies would be clear tonight. There was going to be a moon – a full moon?

  The next moment a voice started speaking. It was a schoolmarm-ish sort of voice. Some bossy middle-aged woman. Really, the people his sister mixed with!

  What was it the woman just said? John sat up. No, ridiculous, he couldn’t have heard properly. The teacup shook slightly in his hand and tea spilled in the saucer.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to John de Coverley!’

  6

  INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

  Immediately he saw what was happening. Everything had fallen into place. This was a conspiracy. His sister intended to sell the island to the American fellow in the yachting cap. His sister hated the island. His sister had been receiving glossy brochures from various estate agents. He’d seen them when he came out of his room at night, neatly stacked on the coffee table in the drawing room. St John’s Wood. Bayswater. South Kensington. Sybil was mad about South Kensington. He’d heard her on the blower the other day, talking to someone. Really, darling, South Ken is heaven, my idea of heaven. Well, he would rather live in South Korea than in South Ken. Wild horses wouldn’t drag him to South Ken.

  He tended to forget that the island belonged to Sybil. Papa had left it to her. Papa had never had a good opinion of John, for some reason. Papa had been a notoriously poor judge of character. Papa had been in the habit of wearing tartan gloves, John remembered. Green and yellow tartan. These gloves impart special powers to whoever wears them. That’s what papa told him once, when John was a little boy. It was again to Sybil that papa had bequeathed the gloves.

  There was a reason why his sister had filled the house with people. The guests were part of the plan. Sybil intended to make things difficult for him. It was always harder for someone to put up a fight if there were a lot of people around. All the guests had been carefully selected. They were all on Sybil’s side. And was it a coincidence that one of the men, the fat Teuton, was a medico? The fat Teuton was a member of Oswald Ramskritt’s entourage. Not an ordinary medico, oh no. The fat Teuton was a loony doctor. John had gathered as much from a conversation he’d overheard between him and the tall woman called Ella Gales –

  John knew exactly what was happening. His sister intended to have him certified and put away somewhere – no, not certified – having him certified would be too much trouble – Sybil wouldn’t want her smart friends to talk about it – he was to be killed.

  John ran his hand over his face. Yes. Sybil intended to have him killed. Killed and disposed of. They would do it the civilised way of course – they wouldn’t smash his skull with a croquet mallet nor would they strangle him with the cord of his monocle – oh no – a tiny prick on the side of the neck would be enough. That’s where the medico came in.

  They would drop his body in the sea. They would probably use the paperweights from the library, the large triangular ones with the Etruscan motif, to weigh him down. He would be gone in a jiffy. He would never be found. He might never have existed. The fish would have a feast. The seagulls would rejoice.

  Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to John de Coverley.

  It all made perfect sense now. His sister intended to have him replaced. She had already found a replacement. His replacement was downstairs. It would have to be someone who looked like him, though the resemblance didn’t have to be too great. Very few people knew the precise details of John de Coverley’s physiognomy. He had been, as they say, out of circulation for, oh, for quite a bit. One tall, distinguished-looking middle-aged man with grey hair carefully brushed back, looked very much like another.

  All the chap had to do was put on an old shooting jacket with leather patches, wind a Paisley scarf around his neck, stick an eyeglass in his eye and – voila!

  He knew how his sister’s mind worked. What Sybil wanted was a brother who didn’t embarrass her, who refrained from sneaking out of his room at the dead of night on one-man battues. A brother who observed les convenances, who came down to tea, brimming over with vacuous bonhomie, who haw-hawed and how-do-you-do-ed and spouted well-bred banalities.

  Aren’t we having marvellous weather? Would you like me to show you round the garden? It’s a bit soggy after last night’s rain but we have galoshes galore. We get Admirals and Painted Ladies regularly vying for supremacy over the honeysuckle. The Painted Ladies invariably win.

  Sybil liked Society too much. She enjoyed gallivanting. Calling on people. Staying with people. Dining out. Attending matinees. Eating violet creams. Having tea at Brown’s. Going to the Chelsea Flower Show. Filling the house with crowds of people.

  If Sybil had managed to bag a husband, it would have been the husband who made the expert small talk and poured the drinks – but that, alas, wasn’t to be. Too late now – poor old Syb was the sexual equivalent of one of those 240-volt electric kettles plugged into a 110-volt socket – doomed never really to come to the boil.

  The woman with the booming voice was probably a matron on loan from some psychiatric institution. She certainly sounded the kind that imagined they knew exactly what was to be done about the toff fou.

  John pulled at his lip as he sat considering his next step.

  He could always barricade himself in his room. He was, after all, a soldier; being under siege was something soldiers took in their stride. Or he could write an SOS note, shove it in a bottle and throw it into the sea. As soon as the police found his message, they would send a chopper and have him rescued. But that would mean leaving the island and once he left, it might be a little difficult to get back. By the time he did manage to get back, the man in the yachting cap might already be in residence. That was something he should never allow to happen …

  ‘I don’t want to leave the island,’ John de Coverley said in a defiant voice. ‘Ever.’

  For a moment or two he remained deep in thought. Then, putting up his monocle, he turned his head and gazed at his gun.

  It was extremely important, Romany Garrison-Gore said, that everybody should act in a coordinated but natural enough manner, even when performing trivial and seemingly irrelevant acts, like opening a paper or asking the time, adding cream to a cup of coffee or complimenting someone on the freshness of their complexion.

  She appeared to be in complete control of her audience, but she wasn’t truly at ease. There was something in the air. She was awar
e of certain vibes. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew she wasn’t imagining it. She had always been sensitive to atmosphere, ever since she was a girl. Where were vibes coming from?

  Not from Oswald Ramskritt, she didn’t think. She rather liked Oswald. Something engagingly boyish about him and he had a vast fortune, which was again something she admired … Ella Gales looked composed and dignified as she always did, and she was holding her head high – that’s what Queen Christina must have looked like – if the Greta Garbo film was anything to go by … Little Maisie Lettering was smiling her artless smile – butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth – a Daisy Miller kind of figure – ten minutes in Maisie’s company and Romany felt like being suffocated by candyfloss … Doctor Klein brought to mind a giant balloon that had been inflated to bursting point and was about to rise at any moment … Lady Grylls had fallen into a doze again. Really, the upper classes were so terribly rude … Feversham was the picture of gentlemanly nonchalance, very smart, yet very languid, which was so English, smiling in an amused fashion as though at a joke which only he had understood. His eyeglass wasn’t exactly like John de Coverley’s – it was tortoiseshell-rimmed, while John’s was silver-rimmed, she couldn’t help noticing. Not that it mattered.

  They probably thought she was enjoying haranguing them, but that was far from being the case. Like the characters that populated her books, Romany Garrison-Gore was not what she seemed. What most people took for breathtaking conceit was actually a cover for a deeply seated sense of insecurity. She was frequently tormented by a dreadful sense of approaching danger, by a feeling of imminent disaster – even of encroaching death!

  I mustn’t become too anxious, she thought. When I become too anxious, I make snap decisions, which are not always the right decisions.

  The next moment she gave a little gasp. It was Doctor Klein who was causing her unease. The vibes were coming from him. Yes. She didn’t know exactly how she knew, but she did. It was her intuition. She was curious about Doctor Klein. She felt with absolute certainty that Doctor Klein had become Oswald Ramskritt’s doctor for the wrong reasons. It was her gypsy blood. Sometimes it allowed her to see things.

  She was curious about all of them, actually …

  Was Maisie aware that she had started leaning against Oswald Ramskritt’s arm? Was Ella really the epitome of decency? Was Feversham going to be any good? Why couldn’t Lady Grylls make the effort to stay awake?

  If she ever saw their thoughts written out, would she be able to match them to their faces?

  The door suddenly opened and a voice spoke.

  ‘What’s this, a wake?’

  It was John de Coverley. Startled, they stared back at him. His face was red. His monocle glistened.

  In his hand John de Coverley was clutching a gun.

  7

  WARNING TO THE CURIOUS

  Sybil de Coverley had come to see them on Wednesday afternoon.

  The letter arrived the following morning, Thursday, about half an hour before the Paynes sat down to breakfast.

  ‘Well, that’s that. The die is cast. I don’t imagine they dress up for dinner, or perhaps they do. We could always phone and ask.’ Major Payne poured himself some coffee.

  ‘We made a terrible mistake,’ Antonia said. ‘We should have said no.’

  ‘We did say no.’

  ‘Yes, but then we changed our minds and said yes. It was the wrong decision. We allowed ourselves to be won over.’

  ‘Unless the talk is about cancer tests, it’s always better to be positive than negative. Let’s think of it as an adventure, shall we?’ Payne helped himself to some bacon and eggs. ‘We’ve never been on an island before. Think of it that way.’

  ‘Of course we have, Hugh. We live on an island. It’s our wedding anniversary on Saturday. We could go to the Caprice and have fun or we could fly to Capri and have fun … Why oh why didn’t we say no?’

  ‘Toast, my love?’

  ‘Yes, thank you … No, no marmalade … I suppose we could always ring her and say we have reconsidered the matter – or plead a prior engagement, which, I’ll say, we’d completely forgotten? I can lie really well if I put my mind to it. How about it?’

  ‘We wouldn’t have any peace if we didn’t go to Sphinx Island. We’d be eaten away by curiosity.’

  ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ said Antonia.

  ‘I don’t suppose you would go so far as to describe us as pathologically curious, would you?’

  ‘I would,’ she said firmly. ‘We like nothing better than sticking our forks into other people’s dinner.’

  ‘You make us sound perfectly hideous.’

  ‘We become restless and intense and we feel wretched and irritable if our curiosity is not gratified. We suffer withdrawal symptoms and when that happens we are hell to be with. That’s why people hate us.’

  ‘Nobody hates us. You are being neurotic.’

  ‘Our friends are very careful when they talk to us. They think we suspect them of having things to hide.’

  ‘How do you know what they think? Have they told you?’

  ‘No, of course not. But it’s written on their faces.’

  ‘You are imagining things. Writers have a permanent need for fantasy.’

  ‘Once we become curious, there’s no stopping us. And we have started craving instant gratification, which I regard as a sinister development. At the moment we feel restless and out of sorts because we have allowed the riddle of Sphinx Island to take possession of our minds.’

  ‘I don’t think I am feeling particularly restless,’ said Payne. ‘And I am most certainly not irritable.’

  ‘You raced through The Times. Earlier on you snapped at the milkman.’ Antonia took a sip of coffee. ‘You shooed Dupin off the sofa.’

  ‘I always shoo Dupin off the sofa. The milkman is a fool. He doesn’t seem to know the difference between half fat and full fat … There is nothing wrong with craving instant gratification, nothing at all. Children crave instant gratification. So did Ava Gardner and J.F. Kennedy. Joan Collins craves instant gratification, if an article in the Enquirer is to be believed. It’s a common enough condition. I am surprised that you should be making such a song and dance about it.’

  ‘I had no idea you read the Enquirer.’

  Payne picked up the letter from the top of the pile that lay on the table between them. ‘Look at this. Major and Mrs Payne. When was the last time we got a letter addressed to both of us? Written with a pronounced old-world formality with a stylo that looks as though it’s been dipped in blood.’

  ‘Let me see … This isn’t blood. Can’t be … It’s some purplish ink, isn’t it?’

  ‘Looks like blood to me.’ Payne held the letter close to his nose and sniffed at it.

  ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘No sender’s address. Looks ominous. May be anonymous. I don’t recognise the writing – do you?’

  ‘No. Looks like someone who’s been taking calligraphy lessons and is showing off.’ Antonia put down her cup. ‘Why don’t you open it? Come on, open it.’

  Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘Instant gratification, eh?’

  ‘Very well, don’t open it then.’ Antonia started buttering a piece of toast.

  There was a pause. Payne picked up The Times. ‘I can’t understand the way the crossword man’s mind works. Yesterday one clue read, “This turn is rather offensive” – four letters – and the solution given today is “star”!’ He looked up. ‘How and in what way can a star turn be offensive?’

  ‘A star turned becomes “rats” … We don’t get many letters these days, have you noticed?’

  ‘Would I be stating the obvious if I pointed out that’s because we conduct all our personal correspondence via email?’

  ‘We get bills of course. The Inland Revenue seem to be particularly interested in me. They seem to suspect I am earning millions from my books, which I am not.’ Antonia’s eyes kept going back to the letter, which Payne had propped
up against the silver sugar bowl. ‘I wish I were. I am not popular enough.’

  ‘Popular taste is not to be encouraged. Down with Brown and Rowling, says I.’

  ‘Do you think my books are an acquired taste?’

  ‘Your books seem to divide public opinion if a website called brillread.com is anything to go by. Some of the so-called readers who leave postings on it give the impression of being markedly deficient in flair or literary taste altogether. You do have some discerning aficionados, though.’

  ‘Not many. Not enough.’

  Payne reached for the letter and held it up, squinting at the stamp. ‘Posted in Torquay … How very interesting … That’s not too far from Sphinx Island … So the killer is on the island … Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I wouldn’t. I don’t believe there is a killer. I think you should open the letter now. We might as well see what it’s about. It may be a fan letter. Someone who is fascinated by our detective work, if one could call it that.’

  Payne slit open the envelope and took out a single sheet.

  He stroked his jaw with his forefinger as he read.

  His expression changed. He lowered the sheet.

  ‘What is it, Hugh?’

  ‘I’d rather you saw for yourself. Otherwise you’ll say I am making it up. I am sick and tired of being accused of making things up.’ Payne tossed the letter across the table. He crossed his arms.

  Antonia read aloud:

  Dear Major and Mrs Payne,

  I fancy you consider yourselves experts at solving murder mysteries that are too subtle and intricate for our thick-headed police? Let us see, clever Major and Mrs Payne, just how clever you can be. Perhaps you will find this particular riddle not too hard to crack? Actually, there are two riddles. Who is going to kill whom and will you be in time to prevent the murder? I look forward to meeting you in two days’ time, 17th April, on Sphinx Island.

  Yours expectantly,

  N. Nygmer

  Payne said, ‘Anything about that name strike you as a trifle unusual?’