Suspicious Circumstances by Patrick Quentin

expression changed slightly and became spiritual as if she were having a vision of Norma’s enthusiastic reception at the Pearly Gates. Ronnie was making peculiar stuttering sounds like an almost frozen tap and then at last managed,
    ‘Anny … I can explain … please … the car … please’
    Very gradually Mother returned from the beautiful reverie. She gave her head the faintest shake, drew my arm from around her and patted it gently.
    ‘What a charming man that Inspector seems to be, Nickie. How sweet of him to have a little chat with you. Excuse me, Ronnie dear, what did you say?’
    ‘Anny, for pity’s sake, the car … come …’
    ‘The car? Ah, oui, c'est tout accompli ici, n'est-ce pas?’ Mother gave me a tender smile and looped her arm through mine. ‘Dear Nickie, you and I will take poor Ronnie home with us and try to cheer him up.’
    Ronnie threw an anguished glance from Mother to me. ‘But, Anny, how can I explain when that terrible boy … I mean, when Nickie …? Anny, we’ve got to be alone.’
    But Mother converted that into One Of Those Things She Hadn’t Heard. She let the gentle smile shift to Delight. ‘Darling, find Pam and Gino and Uncle Hans. Go first to Ronnie’s in the limousine and then Gino can drive you home in the Mercedes.’
    With that, she drew me down the cemetery path and there was nothing Ronnie or I could do. We made, I’m sure, a lovely somber picture as we departed with Mother bowing and nodding to various illustrious friends who, out of respect for Ronnie’s grief, didn’t actually accost us but merely bowed and nodded back.
    Since Ronnie had reverted to speechlessness, it was Mother who, with a great deal of charming eyelash batting, instructed the chauffeur to drive to our house rather than to Ronnie's. Then we were all three in the back seat, with me, placed, very deliberately, by Mother, like a buffer, in the center of the group.
    There weren’t any mobs outside the gates. Norma’s drawing power didn’t seem to have stretched as far as the cemetery. The limousine purred silently off through gracious palms and eucalyptus which had been planted to make a sort of No Man’s Land between the Dead and the Living.
    As we proceeded into a section of perfectly hideous Desirable, Convenient, Lower-Income-Bracket Homes, Ronnie exploded like an over-inflated balloon.
    ‘Yes, dear.’
    ‘I couldn’t help it.’
    ‘Help what?’
    ‘For pity’s sake, you know what.’
    ‘Tell us, Ronnie dear — just quietly and simply.’
    ‘Sylvia,’ he spluttered. ‘I couldn’t help it about Sylvia.’
    ‘About Sylvia playing Ninon?’ Mother, whose magnificence had seldom soared to so exalted a peak, merely raised and lowered the lashes and gave him a Good Old Friend smile. ‘But, Ronnie dear, why not? That I should do it was only a notion — a casual idea. As the producer, you have every right to change your mind if you feel that a British Ninon…’
    ‘Oh, God.’ Ronnie clutched both his hands to his head. ‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.’
    ‘Nickie, dear,’ said Mother. ‘Help Ronnie. Don’t you see he needs help?’
    All I could think of to do was to offer him the handkerchief with which Mother had obliterated Sylvia La Mann. He pushed my hand savagely away and moaned, ’Oh, God ,’ again.
    Then, whirling around and leaning across me towards Mother, he said, ‘Do you honestly think I want her? Do you think I don’t realize she’ll be as cataclysmic as Norma? It’s just …’
    He gave up then. ‘Just — what, dear?’ asked Mother.
    ‘That monstrous female! With Gloria standing there and that lurking, grinning policeman! What could I do? My hands were tied, bound, shackled, manacled for the Firing Squad.’
    When he said ‘monstrous female’, Mother got to look more human and also faintly curious.
    ‘But what is it, Ronnie darling? How can you expect poor Nickie and me to understand when …’
    ‘She . . Sylvia ... Sylvia ... In the name of mercy,