“He was high, and that’s Dom’s fault, isn’t it? And it was Montrose, and you know Montrose published that awful article about him just last month. And Montrose was spying on Dom and on Gladys, and if word got out about Dom, Ronnie would lose his supplier, and I don’t think he could survive that.”
I imagined that Crispin nodded, with what was no doubt a very pained expression on his face. I felt pain of my own, too. Everything Hutchison said was true. It made sense. And it made me feel horrible for Ronnie Blanton. But it didn’t excuse murder. Not of Montrose, and certainly not of Gladys Long. Whatever the situation had been Saturday night, or in the early hours of Sunday morning, Ronnie hadn’t been high yesterday afternoon. Gladys’s murder had been committed by someone thinking coldly and clearly, who had made the decision to do it and then gone through with the plan.
“He didn’t realize what he was doing,” Hutchison said again, persuasively. “He was laughing, St George. And now he doesn’t remember doing it. If you ask him, he can’t remember hitting Montrose. He thought it was all a nightmare until your cousins showed up yesterday and asked him about it.”
“That’s awful,” Crispin said, sounding awful himself.
“We can’t let him go to prison for something he doesn’t even remember doing.”
Crispin took a breath. And another one. “That’s all well and good, Hutchie,” he said, “but if Dom didn’t do it, is it really fair to?—?”
“It’s his fault that Ronnie did it, isn’t it? It’s his fault that Ronnie is the way he is. He started him on the dope, St George. Whether he ends up in prison for being a dope-merchant or for being a murderer, does it really matter? He deserves prison, doesn’t he?”
“I suppose he does,” Crispin admitted reluctantly. “But Gladys, Hutchie… if Ronnie killed Gladys?—”
“He didn’t,” Hutchison said.
“How could he not? Whoever killed Monty surely killed Gladys. And it made sense when I thought Dom did it. But if Ronnie doesn’t even remember killing Monty, why would he attack Gladys? He wouldn’t have had any idea that she’d seen him, would he?”
Hutchison didn’t answer, and Crispin added, “If Ronnie didn’t do it, who did? It couldn’t have been Dom. Not if he and Gladys were together when Ronnie killed Monty. And it wasn’t the same kind of murder, Hutch. Ronnie might have whacked Monty in the heat of the moment and under the influence of dope. But whoever attacked Gladys did it deliberately. Whoever it was waited until I had left and then he went into her place and killed her. It wasn’t a crime of passion.”
“Gram,” Hutchison said, and Crispin went silent. I imagined his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s, although that might have been just in my mind.
“Ogilvie?” he managed, finally. “Graham Ogilvie killed Gladys?”
“Makes sense,” Hutchison said, “doesn’t it?”
“But—” I imagined more of the fish-imitation. “Why?”
“He and Ronnie are close,” Hutchison said. “Close, you know?”
It was followed by a sort of pregnant pause, expectant and a bit heavy. Then Hutchison added, “Gram’s a little… twisted up where Ronnie’s concerned.”
“Twisted up?” Crispin echoed.
“Gram’s queer,” Hutchison said bluntly. “And he’s in love with Ronnie. And Ronnie…” He trailed off.
“Isn’t?” Crispin suggested.
“I don’t think anyone knows what Ronnie is or isn’t. Not even Ronnie. He goes hot and cold. Drives Gram mad. One day they’re happy as turtledoves, and then Ronnie gets a letter from his old man, and he won’t talk to Gram for a week. He holes himself up in his flat and dopes himself to the gills, and then he comes out of it and comes back and cries and begs Gram’s forgiveness, and the whole thing starts over again. He doesn’t have the courage to tell his father to stuff it so he can live his own life the way he wants to, but he can’t bring himself to let go of Gram, either.”
“It isn’t always easy to stand up to your parents,” Crispin said. “If yours are happy to let you live your own life the way you want to, consider yourself lucky.”
I imagined Hutchison shrugging. He might not have, but it fit the general tenor of the conversation. “I’m fairly certain Gram went for Gladys,” he said, without responding to the bit about parents. “We talked about it in the car last night, how she must have known what had happened. She was rocky that night.”
“She was rocky yesterday morning,” Crispin said. “She showed up at Kit’s and Philippa’s looking like she hadn’t slept. And when I drove her home, she asked me whether I thought there was ever a good reason to keep quiet about something like murder.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That we were all keeping quiet about murder,” Crispin said. “And that I planned to continue to keep quiet about it, since I didn’t fancy going to prison.”
After a second he added, “Although that was before the police started looking at me. I think she’d understand if I didn’t keep quiet at this point. Don’t you?”
“Just as long as you stick to the plan,” Hutchison said coolly. “Dom did it. He had motive and opportunity, and after Gladys saw him kill Montrose, he had to get rid of her. You said that you saw a red Morris Oxford near Ellery Mews. It might have been his.”
“I assume it was really Ronnie’s? And Ogilvie was driving it?”
“I think it might have been Dom’s,” Hutchison repeated, with rather heavy emphasis. “It makes sense that it would have been, really. Much more so than anything else.”
