Death of a Gentle Lady - M. C. Beaton [39]
What about that female in the phone box? Did Mark have an accomplice? Kylie Gentle was tall and thin.
He decided to go to the Tommel Castle Hotel and talk it over with Priscilla. Her cool common sense usually put things in proportion.
He took his cat and dog and left them in the hotel kitchen, where he knew they would be pampered and fed.
Mr Johnson told him that Priscilla was in the lounge with Harold Jury. Hamish strode in and without preamble said, ‘I would like a word with you, Priscilla.’
‘Do you mind?’ demanded Harold. ‘We were just going through her part.’
‘I need a break,’ said Priscilla, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll get back to it later.’
‘If you go on like this,’ said Harold, ‘I’ll need to find someone else for Lady Macbeth.’
‘Do that very thing,’ said Priscilla coldly.
‘I didn’t mean …’ Harold began to babble, but Priscilla was already walking off with Hamish.
‘Can we go somewhere quiet?’ asked Hamish.
‘I still have my sitting room. My parents always keep my rooms in the hope I’ll come back.’
‘And will you?’
‘It’s all right for a bit and then I just want to get to London again.’
Why? wondered Hamish. Who’s there to pull you back?
But he said nothing, only following her into her small, pleasant sitting room.
‘I suppose you want coffee,’ said Priscilla.
‘That would be grand. And maybe a sandwich?’
She picked up the phone and gave the order. ‘Now,’ she asked, ‘what’s all this about?’
Priscilla was wearing a blue cashmere sweater over a blue cashmere skirt. Her hair was as smooth and golden as ever. Hamish wondered whether she had started to tint it and hoped she had. He felt he would feel more comfortable with a slightly flawed Priscilla.
He told her what had happened, only breaking off when the coffee and sandwiches arrived, and then continuing on.
‘So what is troubling you?’ asked Priscilla.
‘First, the woman in the phone box. Mark is not tall and slim. Second, he may have said all that in the heat of the moment. People do, you know. If his alibi is broken, then they will definitely charge him with murder.’
‘What you are trying to say,’ said Priscilla, as Hamish reached out the long arm of the law for another sandwich, ‘is that it doesn’t feel right. You think that if Mark had really committed the murder, then you would feel relief.’
‘That’s it,’ said Hamish eagerly. ‘I think that if it’s not him, then we’ll still have a murderer on the loose.’
‘If Irena taped that bit of conversation and tried to blackmail Mark, then it looks as if Mark might have killed Irena. There might be two murderers. And why just that little bit of tape? She must have had something on Mrs Gentle to make her pay for the reception and ten thousand pounds as well.’
‘There was no wedding car to take her to Inverness, and none ordered,’ said Hamish.
‘So,’ said Priscilla, ‘if Irena taped that little bit from Mark, doesn’t it stand to reason she might have had something on Mrs Gentle?’
‘Probably. But then, once Mrs Gentle paid up, she would get the evidence back.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s not like a blackmailer to let whoever it was she or he was blackmailing off the hook. Hamish, what on earth came over you? It’s not like you to be so taken in.’
‘She was beautiful and genuinely seemed to be in distress,’ said Hamish. ‘I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought, here I am still unmarried. She said she was a lesbian.’
‘Oh, Hamish!’
‘I planned to marry her and then we’d get a divorce later. I suppose she wasn’t even a lesbian. She could have been lying about that. But the real reason was that I knew if I told Daviot I was to be