A Mysterious Affair of Style by Gilbert Adair

Author:Gilbert Adair [Gilbert Adair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571319770
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The following afternoon, at two o’clock, Calvert was sitting behind Rex Hanway’s massive mahogany desk, its in-box piled high with dog-eared typewritten scripts, its out-box empty. Directly opposite him sat the first of the suspects to be invited to submit to his questioning, Hanway himself. Stiffly flanking the director, to right and left of his own desk, seated on a matching pair of upright chairs of an uncompromisingly metallic and modernistic design, were Evadne Mount and Chief-Inspector Trubshawe. Sergeant Whistler stood discreet guard near the door.

That morning Calvert had given his two unofficial colleagues confirmation that, according to the medical report which he had just received from the lab, Cora Rutherford had indeed been poisoned. The police surgeon had discovered traces, both in the actress’s empty champagne glass and inside her own body, of a widely and legally available type of cyanide, one with numerous industrial applications, notably in printing, photography and electroplating. As he had already intimated, when on the set itself, death would have been extremely painful, but also, thankfully, all but instantaneous. The inquest was to be held three days hence, but neither Evadne nor Trubshawe were required to attend. A purely formal stage in the process, it would very speedily be adjourned by the Coroner.

Now the young police officer was ready to direct his full attention to Rex Hanway.

‘Well, Mr Hanway,’ he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind my trespassing in this way. It was Mr Levey’s kind suggestion that I borrow your office.’

‘That’s quite all right, Inspector. It’s my office only in the sense that I happen – happened – to be working on a picture next door. I can’t help feeling that, given the way things have been going, it’ll become some other director’s office before too long.’

‘Yes, yes, I do know what you mean. Thank you, nevertheless. So just let me explain to you what this is all about. I felt it might be useful to put to you – you and a few others, I should add – some preliminary questions about this dreadful business while all the details were still fresh in your mind.’

‘I’m not likely to forget them in a hurry. But I can quite see how meaningful to you one’s immediate impressions might prove. May I ask, however …?’

‘Yes?’

Hanway turned to look at the two other seated occupants of the room.

‘Forgive me for being blunt, but who exactly are these people? Surely they’re not also police officers?’

‘No, they aren’t. That’s to say, this gentleman’ – he indicated Trubshawe – ‘is an ex-police officer, Chief-Inspector Trubshawe, formerly of Scotland Yard, and this lady’ – he extended his arm in the novelist’s direction – ‘is Miss Evadne Mount, the author, you know.’

Hanway nodded politely at the novelist.

‘Of course, of course. I noticed you on the set yesterday afternoon and actually wondered where I could have seen you before. You were a good friend of Cora’s, I believe?’

‘I was, yes.’

‘My commiserations. This must be especially unpleasant for you.’

Calvert took charge again.

‘Since

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