Page 123 of Marble Hall Murders

‘Fine.’

I moved the sheet of paper between us.

‘Miriam Crace is obviously Margaret Chalfont. They have the same initials, they were both matriarchs who had been married twice and they were both ill with heart disease. If Eliot’s accusations are true, then they were also both poisoned. It’s interesting that Margaret is a much nicer character than Miriam. Almost everyone in the family had a motive to kill Miriam – I’ll come to that as we go along – but there was no reason at all to kill Margaret. Elmer makes exactly that point. So does Jeffrey and so does Lola. It seems to me that the whole plot of Eliot’s book depends on it – and at the end of the first section, Atticus Pünd says something very strange. James Fraser asks the same question again. “Why murder a woman who is already dying?” And Pünd replies: “Because, my friend, it does not matter.” It’s a neat chapter end, but what does it mean?Whodoesn’t it matter to? Andwhydoesn’t it matter?’

‘Yes. I wondered about that,’ Blakeney said. ‘It’s strange because Lady Chalfont was about to change her will and the whole family needed her money. So you’d have thought that killing her to stop her doing that would be very important indeed.’

‘Unless the will had nothing to do with it.’

‘I’m pretty sure the will had everything to do with it. But go on.’

‘Jeffrey Chalfont seems to be modelled on Jonathan Crace, if only because of the ginger hair. They’re also both elder sons. Jeffrey inherited the Norfolk estate and Jonathan got the management of the Crace Estate: the books, the TV series and all the rest of it. It’s worth remembering that Miriam Crace was thinking of selling the Little People to an outside interest. Jonathan Crace would have done anything to stop that happening.’

‘Including killing her?’

‘He’s not a very attractive man.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily make him a killer.’ Blakeney glanced at the list. ‘I take it Jonathan’s wife, Leylah, becomes Lola.’

‘Apart from the fact that she wanted two thousand pounds to support her return to the theatre, Lola Chalfont doesn’t seem to have any reason to kill her mother-in-law in the book. It’s difficult to be sure, because there are at least twenty thousand words missing.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because Eliot couldn’t have delivered a manuscript under seventy thousand words, and anyway, it’s my job. I always have a feel for this sort of thing. Atticus Pünd hasn’t done nearly enough investigating. I think there may be a whole plot segment that Eliot never got around to writing.’ I checked the last pages of the batch that Blakeney had brought. There were just the eighteen chapters. ‘You didn’t find any more pages?’

‘No. Eliot has a notebook and we’ll talk about that in aminute, but otherwise he seems to have worked directly on his laptop.’

‘Like most writers.’ I sighed. ‘I’m the only person I know who still likes paper.’

‘I’ve noticed. Anyway, I had my tech department look through his files, but there was nothing else there.’

‘The denouement would have run to five or ten thousand words. All the suspects lined up in the library or whatever. But that still leaves a big hole.’ I was annoyed that I had never asked Eliot for details of what was coming next. WithMagpie Murders, there had only been one chapter missing. It was much more difficult this time.

‘What about Leylah Crace?’ Blakeney asked.

‘I met her at the Savoy and she didn’t have anything bad to say about Miriam Crace. “She never did any harm to me.” Those were her exact words. Of course, she could have been lying,’ I went on. ‘Her mother-in-law used to make racist jokes about her. And it’s always possible that Leylah might have blamed Miriam for the death of her daughter, Jasmine. She killed herself under a train. But if there is anyone in the family Leylah really hates, it’s her husband, Jonathan.’

‘No love lost,’ Blakeney muttered. ‘I noticed that too.’

I went back to the list. ‘In the world of the book, Elmer Waysmith is the main suspect,’ I said. ‘Margaret found out he was involved in the sale of art stolen by the Nazis and she called the solicitor to talk about her will. James Fraser set it all out at the start of Chapter Sixteen, and although the sidekick is nearly always wrong, all the clues seem to be pointing to him. He was the man in the pharmacy …’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘White hair. American accent. And Harry Lyttleton said he saw him in the Place Masséna at half past twelve. He was in a hurry. It was as if he’d just got changed at the hotel and he didn’t want to be late for the meeting with his son.’

‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’

I glanced at him. ‘You sound like Atticus Pünd,’ I said. He didn’t smile and once again I knew that something had happened since I’d last seen him and he was keeping it from me. ‘Elmer Waysmith and Edward Crace both have white hair, and the way Eliot saw it, they were both difficult fathers,’ I went on. ‘There was no love lost between Eliot and Edward either, but even if Edward had decided to kill his mother, it’s hard to believe that he would have it in him to come back to England and run over his own son.’

‘I agree.’

‘So now we come to Roland, Julia and Eliot himself, and this is where it gets a bit tricky. Julia is obviously Judith Lyttleton. They’re physically the same and Julia’s a geography teacher in real life. Eliot’s turned her into an ethnologist with a thing about Peru.’

‘What about her husband, Harry Lyttleton?’

‘I wondered about him too. He isn’t anyone I’ve met. But I’ve worked out where he came from. Julia is single, but in the book, Eliot has married her to one of the Little People. Harry Little has become Harry Lyttleton. I suppose it’s a private joke.’

‘Not a very funny one.’

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