Murder in the Title by Simon Brett

countered.
    â€˜Ah, well, sorry, a mistake. When I say cormorant, I did not mean, er . . .’
    â€˜I don’t think you’d recognize a cormorant if one flew in your face. Or any other bird, come to that. I don’t think you brought your recording equipment and cameras for bird-watching at all. I think you re more interested in the top-secret army research establishment in the pine forest.’
    â€˜No, I –’
    â€˜I think you’re a spy, Professor Weintraub. And I think my father recognized you as such. You may not know it, but my father was Head of British Intelligence during the last war!’
    Professor Weintraub looked around the assembled company with panic in his eyes. ‘But I never knew this, I never knew it.’
    â€˜I think my father invited you here to expose you, to show you up for the dirty little spy that you are!’
    â€˜No, it is not true!’
    The ensuing pause was ended by Miss Laycock-Manderley with an utterance which, surprisingly and for the first time in the play, was not reminiscent of Cassandra. ‘If we’re looking back to the last war,’ she said with a dryness that James De Meaux envied, ‘we might do worse than investigate Colonel Fripp’s record.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜He was in the Signals. One of the top boffins in Communications.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yes. Best known for his development of a new form of field telephone.’
    â€˜Good heavens!’
    â€˜Where is Colonel Fripp?’ Felicity Kershaw asked suddenly.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Lady Hilda replied with an elegant but redundant gesture of a silk-clad arm. ‘I haven’t seen him all afternoon.’
    â€˜Nor have I.’
    â€˜No, nor me.’
    â€˜Wilhelmina, have you seen Colonel Fripp this afternoon?’
    â€˜Not since tea, milady. He said he wanted to take a good long look at the Titians in the Long Gallery.’
    â€˜Oh. Well, would you see if he is still there, Wilhelmina?’
    â€˜Yes, milady.’
    Wilhelmina moved across to the double doors on the opposite side of the set from the fireplace.
    Up in the front row of the Circle, Leslie Blatt’s hand gripped the thigh of the fifteen-year-old he had picked up in the Wimpy Bar. ‘You’ll enjoy this bit,’ he hissed. ‘Give you a real thrill.’
    Wilhelmina swung both doors open. Framed in them was the dangling figure of Colonel Fripp.
    â€˜Oh no!’ screamed Lady Hilda, and then, perhaps thinking the play was on radio, ‘It’s Colonel Fripp! He’s hanged himself!’
    At this point, to justify James De Meaux’s next line, the body was meant to swing round with its back to the audience. But the body wasn’t behaving at all in the way it had at rehearsal. It was twitching and struggling, but it didn’t turn round.
    James de Meaux said his line anyway. ‘Not hanged
himself
, mater. Not with his hands tied behind his back!’
    Colonel Fripp continued to twitch and struggle as the curtain fell on Act Two. There was nothing amateur or unconvincing about the performance he was giving that night. He was giving the performance of his life.
    Or perhaps, as the noose tightened around his neck, it would be more appropriate to say
for
his life.

Chapter Seven
    â€˜THE TROUBLE WAS the rope was too short.’
    Nella Lewis seemed quite happy to go through the accident again for Charles although she had presumably had to give her version to the police and other curious members of the company. She wasn’t making a big production of it, just telling helpfully because he asked. She really was a very nice girl, he reflected. And astonishingly pretty. Wasted on Laurie Tichbourne.
    But before any lecherous intent could form, the thought of Frances, like a trapped nerve, stopped him. Now that she was presumably off his scene, the thought of her was far more inhibiting to him than it had been when there