Ellis Peters - George Felse 06 - Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Heart by Ellis Peters Page A

don’t need that kind of publicity, I can’t use it. I’ll keep it quiet, don’t worry. What can I tell you?”
    ““You were going on one of these coach-trips, I gather, originally. What made you change your mind?”
    “I thought I could use my time better here. There’s no chance to talk seriously to anyone at this sort of affair, with seventy or eighty people milling around in a communal spree. And there was someone I wanted to talk to. And she didn’t go, so I didn’t go.”
    “Liri Palmer?”
    “That’s right. I thought there might be a good opportunity of cultivating her company while the place was virtually empty.” He was being very frank, very open; an honest man would have looked less eager, and sounded a good deal less forthcoming. “I like Liri. She’s wasting herself on a heel like Lucien Galt, whether she loves or hates him. I wanted to tell her so, and get some sense into her. I don’t know whether they’ve told you what’s in the background between those two, or what happened last night?” He didn’t wait to be answered, he told it anyhow; no one could do it better. Maybe he wanted it on record officially that someone, and not himself, had threatened Lucien Galt’s life; if, that is, you cared to take that impromptu revision of a song as a serious threat. He liked Liri Palmer – or did he? – but he liked Dickie Meurice a lot better.
    “I see you don’t exactly love Galt, yourself,” observed George.
    “That’s no secret. Why should it be? He’s treated Liri badly, and the rest of his profession didn’t christen him Lucifer for nothing. But I didn’t set eyes on him all this afternoon,” he said firmly. “The last time I saw him was at lunch.”
    “But you did see Liri?”
    “Yes, I hung around in the gallery until she went out, and gave her five minutes start. Just after two o’clock, that would be. She made for that artificial ruin on the hillock across the park, and I came along shortly afterwards and found her there. I tried to get her to write off Galt and spend her attention on something better worth it – me!” A gleam of apparently genuine self-mockery shone in his eyes for an instant; it was the nearest he had come to being likeable, but in all probability he was merely experimenting to find out what attitudes would recommend him to George.
    “Was she amenable?” asked George, with a wooden face.
    “Metaphorically speaking, she spat in my eye. Nobody was going to put Liri off her grudges or her fancies.”
    “And which was this?”
    “At that stage, I’d say practically all grudge. She’d been badly hurt, and she can be an implacable enemy. I saw I was getting nowhere, so I gave up and came away. There was hardly anybody about, I’m afraid, I can’t bring witnesses, but I give you my word I was back in the walled garden soon after three o’clock, and I didn’t leave there until I came in to tea. There are archery butts there. I was practising all by myself until four, and then I came indoors to wash. And that’s all. Not a very productive afternoon.”
    “And you left Liri there at the tower. When would that be?”
    “Maybe about twenty minutes to three. She was sitting there alone, nobody else in sight that I noticed.”
    “You wouldn’t see very much of the river’s course from there?”
    The winsome blue eyes lit with a flare of intelligence that was not winsome at all. “Well, not from the ground, that I do know. There are tall trees in between, all you see is a gleam of water here and there. But there’s a stairway up that tower,” he added helpfully. “I haven’t been up there, but I should think you’d get a pretty good view with that added height. Not that she showed any signs of making use of it,” he concluded fairly, “while I was there.”
    “Well, thank you, Mr. Meurice, you’ve been very helpful. If we should have any difficulty in filling in the details of the afternoon, I’m sure you’ll do your best for us again. And