Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

again. The knife of destruction was always pricking me. The sublime of love lies in that knife-point and the belief in the thrust which doesn’t come.’
    ‘But the knife slipped a little with Beryl Rogers.’
    ‘The knife destroyed me. It was intended.’
    ‘And destroyed her.’
    ‘She came between us. I know that now. Clytemnestra was right.’
    She leaned back with closed eyes, her pale face dragged and flat.
    ‘Clytemnestra was in part to blame,’ she said. ‘She would go over to Paris alone. She had a friend there, I don’t doubt, or some hireling who pleased her. I’ve never stood in Clytemnestra’s way. I loved her too much for petty jealousy. But I missed her, that was what led to it, I was so miserable and lonely; and then I saw Beryl wearing a green costume, and something snapped, and I knew it must be. I made her drunk and took her home and the poor slut was almost grateful. And I was blind with infatuation. I even put some of Clytemnestra’s clothes on her. Oh, I committed every blasphemy; when Clytemnestra came, the knife went home.’
    ‘In effect, Miss Rogers was falsely accused.’
    ‘I don’t know what happened. I was sent away.’
    ‘You know what part this necklace played in it.’
    ‘Yes. I had to know why Clytemnestra wore it.’
    ‘And you have no more feelings for Beryl Rogers, Mrs Bannister?’
    ‘No more feelings. That self was destroyed.’
    ‘So if I rang this bell and she walked through the door, you would scarcely bother to turn your head.’
    Her eyes sprang open, but she didn’t turn her head. She glared at Gently. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You have found the necklace, and you know what it means. Am I permitted to know where you found it?’
    ‘Don’t you know already, Mrs Bannister?’
    ‘Is that what you think?’
    Gently said nothing.
    ‘That I – that I took the necklace from Clytemnestra – and killed her – because – because . . . ?’
    Their eyes held for a moment silently.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you do think it! And you’re right to think it, because it’s so credible. So inexorably credible.’
    ‘Did you take the necklace?’ Gently asked.
    ‘Yes. In dreams a hundred times. And the dividing line is so thin, isn’t it, between reality and dreams. So perhaps I did take it in reality, though it seems to me like a dream; and the rest of it too, I may have dreamed that, or it may have been real, and I killed Clytemnestra. But it’s a vivid dream, if it’s a dream, and I can see it must be convincing – much more convincing, for instance, than that poor weak Siggy should ever nerve himself to homicide.’
    Gently sighed. ‘Mrs Bannister,’ he said, ‘did you in fact take the necklace?’
    ‘In fact?’
    ‘In fact.’
    ‘No, Superintendent. You will hardly believe me, but I didn’t.’
    ‘Did you see it at any time on Monday?’
    ‘I saw her with it before lunch. I went to fetch her down to cocktails. She was just unwrapping it from the tissue.’
    ‘Where did she put it?’
    ‘In her jewel-box, which is on the dressing-table in the dressing-room. She toyed a little with it first. She always liked me to see her handling it.’
    ‘What time was that?’
    ‘Ten minutes to one.’
    ‘Did she lock the box?’
    ‘Its lock is broken. She may have locked the flat when we went down. It has a spring dead-lock on the door.’
    ‘Who has a key for it?’
    ‘Siggy, myself. I don’t think Mrs Lipton has one. But that’s not very important, is it? Siggy wasn’t there, and I was with Clytemnestra.’
    ‘You didn’t dream of an excuse for stepping out during lunch.’
    She closed and opened her eyes. ‘I was serving lunch, remember? And I was already dreaming of going back with her and killing her. Slipping out for the necklace would have been superfluous.’
    ‘So who do you think took it?’
    ‘Is a burglar too banal?’
    Gently nodded. ‘Not inexorably credible.’
    ‘Well, it wouldn’t have been Siggy, I don’t believe that either. Nor Mrs Lipton. So it has to be me.’
    ‘But suppose Beryl Rogers was back in London?’
    Mrs Bannister shivered. ‘No, she’d never have come back here. Besides, after five years it’s too improbable. She’ll have married some sheep-farmer and be having ten kids.’
    ‘She had a big score to settle with Mrs Fazakerly.’
    ‘But the improbability! She has nothing to do with it.’
    ‘To her, the necklace was more than a necklace.’
    ‘Nothing will convince me. The idea is too