Here Lies Gloria Mundy

Whether it would be of any use whatsoever to get in touch with her again and try to find out whether she would be prepared to change her story, I did not know. I thought I would ask the advice of Dame Beatrice about that. All I got over the telephone, though, was a cackle of laughter and her sardonic good wishes for the success of my efforts.

Reading this as advice not to trust either Aunt Eglantine’s moral sense or her memory, I went to see McMaster.

‘Good Lord! Of course I saw her,’ he said. ‘I saw her as certainly as I saw her in that dress shop.’

‘But you didn’t speak to her on either occasion, did you?’

‘What does that matter? You had not spoken to me when you recognised me at Kilpeck church that day, yet you had no doubt, even from a back view, who it was. I only saw Gloria over the top of some bushes in Wotton’s grounds, it’s true, but I could not have been mistaken, I assure you.’

‘But she didn’t attempt to hide from you, did she?’

‘My dear fellow, she was off like a surprised snake. One flicker and she was gone. That happened in Wotton’s grounds and again in Trends. Look here, what is all this?’

‘Only that I think somebody ought to play devil’s advocate. As things are, Gloria Mundy stands in all our minds as the murderess of that bewigged woman who was found burnt and dead in the remains of the old house in the grounds of Beeches Lawn. I don’t think the evidence is good enough, that’s all.’

‘But what more do you want? The woman was got up to impersonate Gloria. Right?’

‘Quite right.’

‘Well, who would have wanted an impersonation of Gloria except Gloria herself?’

‘Somebody who wanted to murder Gloria a bit later on, perhaps. Once she was presumed dead and her remains supposed to be in the grave, nobody was going to bother what happened to her after that.’

‘Then why not have killed her there and then at Beeches Lawn?’

‘Because the murderer may have been known to have been on the premises at about the same time as Gloria was there.’ As I said this, I could see what an insubstantial argument it was, but I let it stand, although I wanted to add a bit to it in an attempt to justify it. He forestalled me.

‘Oh, dash it all, Corin,’ he said. ‘The murderer must have known that, with forensic medicine at its present high level of knowledge and skill and all the facilities it has for the scientific study of dead bodies and the injuries which they have suffered, the substitution of another body for that of Gloria was bound to be discovered. The fact that the head was unrecognisable, whereas the wig was only badly scorched, was such a significant clue that the experts were bound to be suspicious and to make the most thorough investigation.’

‘Perhaps you’ve got something there,’ I admitted.

‘Of course I have. It comes back to the same thing. Gloria Mundy murdered that woman and chanced her arm that a mistake would be made in identifying the corpse, as, apparently, it was at first, but it’s rectified now, so her hunch has not come off.’

There was no denying this. I thought of tackling Roland Thornbury again, but shelved this in favour of getting in touch with Kay Shortwood. I got her address from Celia and telephoned Kay to ask for an interview, suggesting that we might have dinner together somewhere.

‘Not unless Roland comes, too,’ she said primly. ‘I don’t go out with unattached men now that our engagement has been announced.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring my fiancée. Will that clear the decks? We’ll make a foursome of it.’

It proved to be a very expensive outing, but I got a private session with Kay because Roland loved dancing and Kay was not up to his standard but Imogen was, and he took the floor with her not once but four times, and left the two of us to talk.

‘I really shall have to polish up my ballroom stuff,’ Kay said. ‘I don’t intend to let this sort of thing go on much longer. It’s either that, or weaning Roland off dancing, and I don’t think that would be a very wise move.’

‘Better ballroom dancing in the warm than watching rugger matches in the cold,’ I said, thinking of Celia and Kate. ‘Look, Kay, we haven’t got a lot of time. I want to talk about Gloria Mundy. You and Roland saw her that evening you ditched your car. You saw her at the window of the old house. Can you be sure it was Gloria you saw?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why of course?’

‘Because we recognised her hair and, from all that has come out about the murdered woman wearing a wig, the wig couldn’t have been put on her head until she was dead and the bonfire had done its work on the body.’

‘You know, I ought to have realised, when the police took me to the mortuary, that they had something up their sleeves. They knew the red and black hair was a wig, but at that stage they were not giving anything away. They just wanted my reactions.’

‘Do you think that at that point they suspected Gloria of murder?’

‘I don’t know, but they must have suspected that it was to somebody’s advantage to have it thought that Gloria was dead.’