Sylvia Sinclair
The Star
‘Down, Herbie!’
He has leapt up at the French detective, claws scrabbling at his lap.
He’s only doing what others would love to: the fella is quite something.
As I sit down in the armchair opposite, I give him the full Silver Screen Movie Goddess Spectacular: chin tilted up, eyes nearly closed, lips set in a pillowy pout, the kind a man wants to rest his weary face on.
Funny thing is, the closer I get to losing ‘it’, the more I feel the power of it, you know?
Like an old half-lame soldier who’s got to being the best shot in the whole damn army.
But does it work now? Difficult to tell: he’s got a good poker face, this one.
And what a face! Those eyes. Phewy! Time was I’d have eaten him up with a spoon.
But I don’t go in for boyish types these days and he is all boy.
I do love that accent though. French has to be the best, doesn’t it?
Though he probably speaks English better than I do.
I walk over to the cigar cabinet and find myself a nice big Cuban, slide it between my lips and light up.
‘You want one, honey? Or you two?’ I ask the little old lady and the younger one with the typewriter who’s been watching me with her eyes narrowed.
She looks sharp as a Gillette blade. All of them shake their heads.
‘Did you ever do any film work?’ I ask the Frenchie. ‘You would be perfect. You know if you wanted me to, I could pull a couple of strings, I’ve heard they’re looking for a more European sort now.’
He smiles. ‘I happen to like my chosen profession, Madame. Do you know, I think I’m rather good at it. And I’m sure I would be a terrible actor.’
‘It’s not that hard, darling,’ I tell him, waving the Cuban.
‘There’s all this mystique made about it, just like there is with anything people want to keep to themselves.
And I guess it justifies the pay. All this nonsense about The Method and all that.
But really, anyone can do it. If little old me from nowheresville Montana with no schooling to think of can do it, so can anybody.
’ It’s true, I don’t have ego about such things.
‘You learn on the job. Or you find someone to teach you.’ I do The Bit on him again.
‘I’ve taught others! I’d be very willing.
Bet you’d make a quick study. To be honest, though, I’m not sure it’s worth your while.
Sometimes I’ve been thinking fame is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Not when one has the temerity to not look how one did at twenty-one.
It’s enough to make a girl want to run off to Illinois or …
or Istanbul, or you know just anywhere a person can properly disappear and just grow old in peace …
’ I laugh. ‘Hark at me, coming over all Garbo!’
He coughs. ‘I’d like to start, Madame, by asking about your relationship to the deceased.’
‘The deceased?’ I shiver. ‘Oh, I don’t like that.
I don’t like that at all. Say, would you like one of these?
’ I ask, offering the box of chocolates I have on the side.
‘From Maxim’s in Paris. Had them brought down from my room.
One of my very favourite spots … maybe you know it?
’ He shakes his head, at either the chocolates or Maxim’s or both.
‘And for you, Ma’am?’ This to the little old lady.
I barely even noticed her at first. I have absolutely no idea what she’s doing here, but I like the look of her: that fleecy white hair and that pretty pink and white face, like some faded English wildflower pressed in an old book.
Wonder if she’ll ask for my autograph, after this.
Maybe that’s why she’s here. Watched a few of my flicks, maybe, or – more likely – read about me in the magazines while getting her hair set.
Some of these old dears turn out to be the most ravenous fame-hounds.
‘Oh,’ she says, per the chocolates. ‘How kind of you, but no, I couldn’t possibly. Such a charming box, though.’
‘You like to knit?’ I ask. ‘You know, I was once part of a sewing circle myself.’
The French detective clears his throat again. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he says, ‘I’d like to get started.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. I just couldn’t help myself! Please. Do your thing. Where were we?’
He clears his throat again. Have I got under his skin?
There’s no more delicious feeling than getting under someone’s skin.
‘Your relationship to Monsieur Narracott,’ he says.
‘There was a … scene, in the restaurant last night,’ he says.
‘The martini. I wonder if you could … elaborate on what happened.’
‘Oh, baby, we don’t need to make a mystery about it! No use in being coy, it’s 1950 after all.’ I suddenly remember the old sweetheart – Miss Marvel? ‘Unless you mind?’ I ask.
‘Oh,’ she says, seeming a little flustered. ‘No, not at all.’
‘I sense there is little you could say that would shock my companion,’ the inspector says. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Madame Marple?’
‘No, indeed,’ she says, prim as you like but I’m sure I spot a gleam in her eye.
‘Well, we’re all adults then. He and I were lovers: there it is.
Why should I deny it? It isn’t shameful to me.
Frankly, I’m bored of pretending to play by the so-called rules.
Not my fault if he couldn’t find what he needed at home.
We had fun for a while. Life’s too short not to have fun.
Tony was my lover. I was his piece, however you like to put it.
How do you say it in French? Ma?tresse, yes, I like that. Almost regal!
‘Anyway, that prissy little wife found out. Something about an earring. I’m so careless!
And she didn’t take too kindly to the idea of it.
But she should have looked to her own house.
Thing is, if a man’s satisfied with his car he don’t go shopping for another, you know?
Actually,’ I chuckle, tap some ash, ‘scratch that. Some men want lots of cars. Some for everyday use, some for special occasions. Some they hardly ever use, just want them sitting pretty in the garage making them feel good about themselves. So perhaps that wasn’t quite the right metaphor. ’
‘We’ve spoken to his wife,’ says the pretty Frenchman. ‘And she claims that her husband told you it was over. That you might even have left that earring out of spite, to … well, to stir up trouble, just when things had finished between you.’
‘Oh, that’s what she said, is it?’ I laugh.
‘Ah, well, you know what, I’m impressed!
Doesn’t look like she’d have any fight in her, does she?
And I suppose every woman must have her pride.
But that’s not how it was, baby. Not at all.
Quite the other way round, in fact: he was going to leave her.
Sure, he might have said what she wanted to hear, but of course he did.
The man’s a politician, have you ever known them to speak much truth?
‘He was expecting to come into a bit of money; he’d be a free man.
He could leave his little wife and politics too, if he chose to, and take up with me.
I know I look like money but I look that way because I spend it and leave nothing to gather dust and he was the same.
He married her because her daddy was rich, though maybe less rich than he thought.
Anyway, he didn’t need her money any more …
though in all honesty, I think he’d spent what was left of that.
’ I take another drag on my cigarette. ‘I can see it, actually. Her as a poisoner. Can’t you?
Walking past that – what was it – coffee flask?
With a face like butter wouldn’t melt. It’s always the quiet ones. ’
‘Madame Sinclair,’ the inspector says, sitting forward in his seat, rounding those beautiful broad shoulders just a little (he could give Rock Hudson a run for his money there).
‘Madame Narracott says that she was in the spa all morning. More than that, she gave your name as someone who had definitely seen her in there.’
‘Oh …’ I frown. ‘Huh.’
‘You did see her?’
‘She was in there, yes. Lordy, and she was such a little prude! Towel up to her chin in the hammam like this!’ I mime with the neckline of my dress: not so easy to yank it about a mile up.
‘The hammam?’ the little old lady asks.
‘That’s the one.’
‘I do wonder if it might be a cure for my rheumatism,’ she says. ‘I do suffer, and especially here, with the cold, you know. Only … I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try. But, you know, perhaps you have just convinced me. Thank you.’
‘It’ll fix any ache you’ve got,’ I tell her. ‘Heart, body or mind. And then a trip to the ice room afterwards.’
‘Oh goodness,’ she twitters. ‘No, I couldn’t do that. I really can’t abide the cold. And it affects one so much more, as one ages.’
‘Did anyone see you in there?’ the inspector asks.
‘Oh, plenty of people. But mainly I saw the little wife in the spa itself and I saw the dame on the Reception when I went in. She was not a fan of poor old Herb here!’
‘Thank you, Madame,’ the inspector says. ‘I think that’s everything.’
‘If you’re sure. But do let me know’ – I smoulder at him – ‘if I can be of any further help. I’m all yours.’ I uncross my legs. I’m not wearing underwear underneath this silk skirt. (Learned that one from my old drinking buddy Tallulah Bankhead. Hitch had forty fits on Lifeboat.)
I blow another smoke ring. ‘But what’s the thing they say?
It’s always the husband … or the wife! I know I saw her in the spa but I wouldn’t put it past her to have killed him some way or somehow.
Ask her again about her trust fund! If I were her, I’d have been feeling pretty nose out of joint about the whole thing. Pretty murderous, you might say.’