The Curious Incident at Claridge's Read online

  No, they were not. What absolute rubbish. Jesty flexed his fingers. He was imagining things. He should have his head examined. He should go and get drunk and forget all about her. She was no good. She was trouble. She was the devil. He cursed the moment he’d set eyes on her. He shouldn’t have touched her with a barge pole. Let her go to France. Let her stay there indefinitely. That would be fine by him. Out of sight, out of mind. Je vais te porter disparu. Yes, quite. Bon voyage, ma chère. Goodbye and good riddance.

  You’d forget her in no time, the old Captain Jesty went on whispering in his ear. Console yourself with what you’ve got. It’s only injured pride that’s making you react like this. Phone Xandra. Phone Christine. Phone Leonora. Phone Petunia Luscombe-Lunt. Your call would make them happy. They would greet you with open arms. They would take your mind off her.

  But the very thought of Christine and Xandra made Jesty squirm. He hadn’t seen Petunia for a long time, but till a year ago she had been showering him with gifts—she’d kept ringing him at all times of day and night—asking him to go over—making arrangements for holidays together. Petunia adored him. She hadn’t minded him calling her ‘Pill’—she had taken the nickname as proof of his affection for her. Where had Petunia disappeared to? It was unusual for her to be silent for so long—

  No, he didn’t want Petunia either. He wanted Penelope. He wanted Penelope. No one else would do.

  Suddenly he had the strong feeling, nay, the absolute certainty, Penelope was sitting beside him in the car …

  What a perfect profile she had … He let his fingers encircle her arm just above the elbow. He increased the pressure gently, then drew her to him. He didn’t kiss her at once. He watched her lips part—a sensual ungluing marked by a soft sound. Her lips were supple and pliant and rich in colour. Magenta. Blood and mud. When he eventually kissed her, her body felt as taut as a bowstring to start with, but then she grew weak and curiously fluid in his arms. He heard her soft voice. Do with me as you please.

  He had no idea how much time had passed. When his eyes opened, he felt dazed and disoriented. A sick feeling in his stomach. He was shivering. The passenger seat was empty and it felt cold to his touch. She had never been there. No, of course not. He had become enthralled with her to the point of allowing any form of rational judgement to abandon him. Penelope was on her way to the South of France. She was fleeing, moving out of his orbit. He could find her if he put his mind to it, he supposed; it wouldn’t be an unsurmountable problem, but what would be the use if she didn’t want him?

  Outside the sky was still overcast. The rain appeared to have stopped. It was very quiet. Where was he? Why was he sitting in his car? What a terrible building. A monastery? A figure appeared. Somebody coming from the direction of the building. Chap in a bowler hat, swinging a rolled-up brolly? Seemed familiar …

  It wasn’t Payne, was it? Good grief. It was Payne. Jesty couldn’t believe his eyes. Payne again! Payne had the knack of turning up when least expected. Payne had started playing at sleuths. Payne was intent on cracking the conundrum of the contaminated capsule. It was all a game to Payne. Annoying sort of chap, Payne. A damned meddler, in fact. Payne had followed the scent—all the way from Claridge’s!

  Jesty didn’t particularly want to see Payne. He watched him covertly through the car window.

  Payne was walking rather slowly. He appeared lost in a brown study. Jesty saw him shake his head. Had Payne unearthed something? Had he perhaps seen Sir Seymour’s body?

  I need to know, Jesty thought. He remembered where he was and why he had come. Payne had stopped beside a car and was patting his pockets. It was Payne’s car, of course. Another minute and he’d be gone. Jesty wound down the car window and called out his name. How odd his voice sounded. Not like his voice at all. Hoarse and feeble.

  A minute later Payne was peering down at him. ‘My dear fellow. What’s happened? You don’t look well.’

  ‘I am shot all to hell, Payne,’ Captain Jesty managed to say.

  ‘I do believe you are in need of a slug of something chilled and remedial. Let’s go and have a drink somewhere. We’ll find a pub in Dulwich.’

  15

  This Sweet Sickness

  ‘You poor fellow,’ Payne said some half an hour later. He had heard the first half of Jesty’s tale.

  They were starting on their second scotch.

  ‘I’d never have imagined I had it in me to act like a besotted idiot, but there you are. And I haven’t so much as touched her, that’s the amazing thing, Payne. We never even shook hands. Our hands never brushed when I passed her the menu across the table. There was—nothing. And look at me! Ridiculous, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, there’s never a rational explanation for a thing like that,’ Payne said philosophically. He lit his pipe only to be told by a smiling, Polish-sounding waiter with flaxen hair that, unless the gentleman extinguished his pipe at once, he faced a hundred-pound fine.

  ‘This is an outrage,’ Payne said.

  ‘I do wish I could forget her.’ Jesty covered his face with his hands. ‘I don’t even dare say her name aloud, it hurts me so.’

  ‘Penelope,’ Payne said automatically. ‘Sorry, old man.

  Didn’t do it on purpose.’

  ‘It’s the kind of name that conjures up the image of some staid matron. Don’t you think? I tell myself things like that in the hope it would put me off her. Common sense, what I’ve got left of it, tells me I will get over her eventually, but at the moment I feel as though it’s the end of—of everything. The end of the world, as far as I am concerned. Awful rot, I know, but there it is. Is that love, Payne? Great love? Is it? Do tell me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call this “great love”, no. I am afraid you are suffering from a serious bout of amour fou.’

  ‘I only want her to love me. Is that too much to ask?’

  ‘As a matter of fact it is. One can’t really make anyone love one.’

  ‘I feel like killing myself. Or killing her.’

  ‘I very much hope you will do neither.’

  ‘I know this will strike you as awfully peculiar, Payne, but I have never been in love. Not even when I was a boy. I’ve never really cared for any woman. No, honestly. That’s God’s truth. For my ex-wives least of all. My third wife, I remember, had some jolly biting things to say on the subject of my monstrous ego and my—what was it?—my incapacity for self-knowledge. She used big words like that. Bloody stupid woman. Called me some awful names. Duplicitous scoundrel—suave voluptuary—dangerous sociopath. Bloody awful, isn’t it? You don’t believe I am any of these things, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not … “Suave voluptuary” is not that awful, actually.’

  ‘I never loved any of my wives. I was attracted to them. For a while. I desired them. I had fun with them. But then suddenly it was all over. I started hating them. Came to a point when I couldn’t stand the sight of them. No one should ever get entangled with a wife.’ Jesty took a gulp from his glass. ‘Don’t tell me you love your wife.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I do. Very much.’

  ‘I can’t get Penelope out of my head. I tell myself I hate her, I tell myself I am better off without her, but that’s not true. I am only trying to deceive myself. I love her. I love her. Can’t help myself. I am frightened, Payne. This is so unlike me. Why am I so frightened? Look at me, I’m shaking!’

  ‘Well, a sudden onslaught of self-knowledge is always a little scary. For the first time you have found yourself on terra incognita. You are not used to acting out of character and you are out of your depth—’

  ‘I’ve had an awful lot of affairs as well as flings, you know. Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of affairs. Sometimes several affairs on the go. At one time I had a number of commitment rings specially made, all identically inscribed on the inside. “No one but you”. I thought that such a neat touch.’

  ‘Awfully neat,’ Payne agreed. Though the inscription should have read, ‘No fool like you’, he tho
ught.

  ‘I’ve had to deal with angry husbands and angry boyfriends and furious fathers and—and absolutely livid girlies—livid because they’d caught me cheating,’ Jesty explained. ‘Frequently with their best friends. Or with their younger sisters. Or with their mamas. Last year I had an affair with a girlie, with her mama and with her maiden aunt as well. Don’t know what possessed me. Still, quite a coup. Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Most decidedly.’

  ‘What I mean, Payne, is that I’ve been in some jolly tricky situations, the stickiest of wickets, you may say, but I’ve never once batted an eyelid. Never once. That’s what makes this whole thing so bloody extraordinary.’

  ‘Simenon is said to have made love to a thousand women. As it happens, he also wrote nearly as many books.’

  ‘Who the hell is he?’

  ‘A French writer of detective stories. The funny thing is that Maigret is the most faithful of husbands.’

  ‘What I want to know is why it’s hit me so hard, this thing. Why do I feel as though it’s the end of pretty much everything? Why can’t I say, so what—the best of luck to her and good riddance? Why can’t I laugh it off?’

  ‘Have your advances never been turned down before?’

  ‘Have I been given the raspberry? Of course I have. Good grief. Millions of times. It’s never affected me. I may have moped about for a bit, but I’ve never shed a single tear over a woman. Now I can hardly hold back the water-works. I feel like howling. I can’t get her out of my head. It’s not me, Payne.’ Jesty thumped his chest with his fist. ‘It’s not me.’

  ‘Perhaps Lady Tradescant cast some sort of a spell over you?’ Payne suppressed a yawn. He was getting a bit bored.

  ‘A spell?’ Jesty scowled over his glass. ‘The thought did occur to me, actually, so you may be right. I keep getting the oddest ideas. Either that she’s here, sitting beside me—her body pressed against mine—or else that she’s just gone off temporarily, to powder her nose, but is coming back any moment.’

  ‘Is that why you keep looking at the door?’

  ‘You noticed it? Mad thing to do, isn’t it? She looked lovely today. You should have seen her. It’s not only that she is attractive. There’s something about her. Something. Her lips are the colour of filth and blood. I can’t explain it, but it’s got hold of me, this thing, and won’t let go!’

  ‘La belle dame sans merci,’ Payne murmured.

  ‘Is that the same as femme fatale?’

  ‘Worse, I think.’

  ‘Perhaps this is my punishment for the reckless and irresponsible way I’ve treated so many women?’ Jesty shook his head. ‘What utter rot I talk.’

  ‘Hasn’t the scotch made you feel a little better?’

  ‘Not really. I am sorry to disappoint you, Payne, but I still feel very much the same. Bloody awful.’ Jesty’s eyes were bloodshot. He looked feverish. ‘What I feel is a kind of hunger mixed with agony. Does that make any sense? I can’t see myself going on living without her. I want her, Payne. I want her.’

  ‘You started telling me about the poison capsule. About the explanation Lady Tradescant gave you. She told you you’d got the wrong end of the stick altogether—that it was the other way round?’

  For a moment Jesty looked as though he had no idea what Payne was talking about, then he waved his hand dismissively. ‘Oh, that. Yes. Those were her exact words. Can’t say I believe any of it. D’you think I should have?’

  ‘You haven’t given me any details yet.’

  ‘It all makes perfect sense, actually. The reckless moment and so on. That’s what she called it. The reckless moment. Anyhow. Sir Seymour is not dead, is he? Of course he is not. You’d have told me at once if he was. There would have been police cars and so on.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t able to establish whether Sir Seymour is dead or alive.’

  ‘You mean he may be dead?’

  ‘Or he may not be … Who was it who said he must apologize for being such a long time in dying? Charles the First or Charles the Second? I always forget.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Payne?’

  ‘Is he dead, or isn’t he? If he is dead, where is he?’

  ‘You make it sound like some bloody game.’

  ‘The Dying Game?’ Payne murmured. ‘Do forgive me, Jesty. This is no jesting matter. I am being an ass.’

  ‘Can’t you stop speaking in riddles and explain what you mean?’

  ‘Let’s swap stories. You go first. Tell me what it was Lady Tradescant did or didn’t do, or rather what she said she did or didn’t do. I’ll go second. It would help if we kept events in their chronological order.’

  16

  The Reckless Moment

  ‘She happened to pass by the open door of Sir Seymour’s dressing room at the precise moment the capsules were being switched round. If she had been five minutes late or five minutes early she wouldn’t have seen anything. It was fate, she said. The box with the capsules had been inside one of the pockets of Sir Seymour’s jacket. Sir Seymour’s suit had been laid out on his bed, in readiness for his departure. Sir Seymour was having a bath at the time. Apparently he is fond of hot baths.’

  ‘Lady Tradescant saw the person who swapped the capsules? The poisoner is a member of Sir Seymour’s household?’

  ‘She is—or rather was.’

  ‘She? A woman? Not Sir Seymour’s sister?’

  ‘No. It was one of the staff. Their housekeeper, actually. A Mrs Mowbray. Mrs Mowbray and Sir Seymour had had a row earlier on, sometime after breakfast. Sir Seymour caught her cooking the accounts and he gave her the sack. Told her to pack and clear out of the house. Well, Penelope described Mrs Mowbray as dishonest and devious. Also, as vindictive. There had been problems with her before. What happened that morning was the final straw. Mrs Mowbray was clearly in a deranged state of mind, because after swapping the capsules, she went up to the top floor of the house and chucked herself into the abyss. She was killed outright.’

  ‘Lady Tradescant had no idea Mrs Mowbray intended to kill herself?’

  ‘No. Of course not. It was only when she heard the commotion that she realized what had happened.’

  ‘I believe there was something about it in the paper this morning. House in Mayfair. Suspected suicide. I was looking for news of Sir Seymour’s death.’

  ‘I saw it too. Of course I had no idea there was a link between her and the Tradescants.’ Jesty took another gulp of whisky. ‘Where was I? Oh yes. Mrs Mowbray swapping the capsules. Penelope said she suspected poison at once, though of course she had to be sure, so, after Mrs Mowbray left the dressing room, she walked in and took the snuff-box out of Sir Seymour’s pocket. There were two capsules inside the box. She opened each one in turn and she sniffed at the contents. She discovered bona fide antibiotic in one capsule. The other capsule contained nicotine.’

  ‘Nicotine?’ Payne glanced at his pipe. If this doesn’t put me off smoking, nothing will, he thought.

  ‘Yes. She knew it was nicotine because of the powerful smell of tobacco. She says she has no knowledge of poisons but she knew at once it must be highly poisonous. She knew her husband would die if he swallowed the capsule. She felt excited at the thought. She put the capsule back into the box and the box back into her husband’s pocket. It was a snap decision. She said she wanted him to die.’

  ‘She had no misgivings or reservations?’

  ‘No. Penelope described it as her “reckless moment”. She’d been wishing her husband dead for months. She hated and despised him. She wanted to be rid of him. She’d never actually considered killing him herself—but she would be damned if she prevented someone else from killing him. That was her chance to be free—as well as fabulously rich. She left the dressing room without looking back. Sir Seymour was still in the bathroom. Outside in the corridor she spotted a capsule on the floor and she picked it up. It was the antibiotic. Mrs Mowbray seemed to have dropped it. Penelope put it in her bag. It was something she did automaticall
y. She didn’t want it to be found, she said.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Well, Mrs Mowbray’s body was discovered, the police came along and they questioned everybody in the house. They went to Mrs Mowbray’s room. They were looking for a suicide note, it seems. They found a bottle of liquid nicotine in Mrs Mowbray’s chest of drawers. They assumed that initially Mrs Mowbray had considered poisoning herself with it. Penelope had no idea such a bottle existed but she said she was rather pleased about the discovery.’

  ‘She realized it was Mrs Mowbray who would be incriminated when it was discovered that Sir Seymour had died as a result of nicotine poisoning?’

  ‘Yes! Penelope said she couldn’t believe her luck. Sir Seymour had already told the police that he’d sacked Mowbray. Well, Sir Seymour was on his way to Mayholme Manor but he had been unsettled by Mrs Mowbray’s death, so he suggested that they went to Claridge’s for coffee. He needed diversion. Penelope didn’t want to go, but he insisted that she accompany him. After he had his coffee, Sir Seymour produced the snuff-box and took out one of the two capsules—’

  ‘Lady Tradescant couldn’t have known which one.’

  ‘No, Payne. She couldn’t have. It was one or the other. The antibiotic or the poison. She watched him swallow the capsule. The next moment it hit her—the enormity of it. She said she started shaking. She hid her hands under the table. She felt sick. She said she felt thoroughly disgusted with herself. She is not, she said, a cold-blooded murderess. She hasn’t got the mentality. She was in a state of absolute horror. Would he die or wouldn’t he? He had started talking about his sister, how Bettina wasn’t going to get a penny out of him, how he intended to cut her out of his will and so on. A minute passed. Then another. He seemed to be fine. Eventually he got up and toddled off to the loo. He left the silver box with the remaining capsule on the table. Well, she said she saw her chance then—’

  Payne leant forward. ‘Her chance for redemption?’

  ‘Yes. How funny. “Redemption” was the very word she used. She took the remaining capsule out of the box and replaced it with the one with the antibiotic. She no longer wanted her husband to die. She wanted him to live! Of course it occurred to her that the nicotine might simply be taking longer to dissolve in his stomach. So her agony continued. She thought how undignified it would be if Sir Seymour collapsed and died in the lavatory at Claridge’s, but then—then he reappeared. He seemed all right, not at all ill. She felt enormous relief. She said she nearly kissed him.’