Here Lies Gloria Mundy

‘I know from William Underedge, who kindly attended the inquest for me, that you and Mr Stratford were called upon to identify the body,’ she said to Anthony, ‘and that it was the parti-coloured hair alone which aided you. Would you, Mr Wotton, have been equally sure of your identification if you had been shown the whole body of the deceased?’

Considering what, presumably, had been Anthony’s previous relationship with Gloria, I thought this was an outrageous question. Anthony did not look at Celia, but he answered Dame Beatrice steadily and seriously enough.

‘I don’t see what difference it would have made,’ he said, ‘because I suppose the body wouldn’t have been recognisable, either by me or by anybody else, if it had been burnt as badly as the face was burnt.’

Dame Beatrice turned to me.

‘Mr Stratford, from what you have told me, I gather that you were the first person to see Miss Mundy arrive at Beeches Lawn.’

I looked out of the window at the trees and shrubs which bisected the garden and, turning again to Dame Beatrice, I agreed and added,

‘She came along the front of the house, where we are now. I saw her from my bedroom window.’

‘So much I remember. She came in from the direction of the playing-field. To do that, would she have had to pass a convent which was mentioned to me in connection with quite another matter?’

‘It’s no longer a convent,’ said Celia. ‘You are talking about that car which was burnt up?’

‘And Miss Mundy arrived here on the Sunday I left?’ went on Dame Beatrice.

‘On the Sunday, yes. Some local craftsmen use the building now, but they wouldn’t have seen Gloria go past the place,’ said Anthony. ‘The old convent is empty at weekends.’

‘Splendid,’ said Dame Beatrice. I thought I knew the reason for her satisfaction. All the same, I wondered how Gloria could have known that the convent building would have been deserted on the Sunday of her arrival. Dame Beatrice, who appeared to be able to read my mind without asking questions of me, said calmly, ‘She asked what the building was, I suppose, and one of the local people or perhaps one of the schoolboys told her.’

‘I wonder whether she saw that burnt-out car,’ said Celia. ‘I don’t think the police knew about it until the lessee of the convent building reported it, though. It probably wasn’t there when Gloria came that way.’

‘I do not see how it could have been,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Does your gardener work on Sundays?’

‘Certainly not. I’m a churchwarden,’ said Anthony, ‘and am in honour bound to keep the fourth Commandment.’

‘Except in the case of cook and her scullery maid,’ said Celia. ‘There are limits to his pious observance of the Sabbath. He does love his midday Sunday dinner, although we do have a cold meal at night.’

11

A Conference with the Accused

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The next question was put to me personally. Dame Beatrice asked me whether I wrote shorthand, adding that as, among my other activities, I was a newspaper reporter (or so William Underedge had told her), no doubt I numbered shorthand among my accomplishments. Wondering what this was leading up to, I admitted that this was so.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘You shall accompany me upon my mission.’

‘And we hope,’ said Laura Gavin, ‘that shades of the prison-house will not begin to close upon the growing boy.’

‘You mean you want me to sit in on your interview with Coberley?’ I said. ‘He won’t like that very much.’

‘Did you not get on well with him when you met?’

‘Oh, I saw very little of him, but he did show me over the old house one morning.’

‘Well, he can refuse to talk to me in front of you, but I think he would prefer you to Laura. He may even feel he has a friend at court when he sees you with me.’

So off we went. Apparently she had made all the arrangements beforehand, for we were taken straightaway to the governor’s office, where Dame Beatrice was received with deference.

‘You had better see Coberley in here,’ said the governor and he sent off the prison officer who had brought us into his presence to conduct Coberley to the sanctum. ‘I told him that we were expecting a visit from you and that he could have his lawyer present at the interview if he so wished, but he said that he had met you and needed no other help.’

Coberley looked better than I had expected. He was well-shaven and was wearing a good suit. His demeanour was cheerful. In fact, he looked fresher and more alive than he had appeared at Beeches Lawn. I think he had shed the image of the headmaster and had reverted to that of the business tycoon who, no doubt, had been in tight places before and had come out of them unscathed. He greeted us with an impartial, ‘Very good of you both to come,’ shook hands with us and the governor, and then the prison officer left us and we, so to speak, settled down, myself at the desk ready to take notes, the other two in chairs adjacent to one another.