And then without any preliminaries, she was there. The young Lucretia von Wolff, her face flickering and erratic and her movements slightly jerky because of the hand-cranked camera of the day. But smoulderingly charismatic and chockfull of sex appeal. Lucy realized afresh how incandescently sexy her grandmother had been.
When Inspector Fletcher suddenly leaned forward and said, ‘Could we just freeze that frame?’ several people jumped.
‘Certainly,’ said the projectionist, and there was a loud click. Lucretia, reclining Cleopatra-like on a sumptuous, absurdly unmonastic chaise-longue, preparing to be seduced by the convent’s music-master, regarded the world from insolent slanting eyes, half predatory, half passionate. Her curtain of dark hair swung silkily around her face, and the actor playing the music-master knelt adoringly at her feet.
‘Oh, Grandmamma,’ murmured Lucy, ‘why couldn’t you crochet sweaters and join ladies’ luncheon clubs, or take up gardening like other people’s grandmothers?’
‘It’s a perfectly respectable scene, though,’ said Liam, his eyes still on the screen. ‘Your man’s still got one foot on the floor.’
‘The old censor’s law,’ said Lucy, amused.
‘Of course. You can’t get up to much if you’ve got to leave one foot on the floor.’
Edmund frowned, as if he thought this to be another remark in questionable taste, but the others grinned.
‘She was a stunning-looking lady,’ said Liam thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t realize what a knock-out she was. In fact—’
‘Yes?’
He frowned. ‘Oh, I was only thinking that the reputation’s suddenly very understandable. Wasn’t she supposed to have had a fling with von Ribbentrop shortly before the outbreak of World War II? Or is that another of the rumours?’
‘Nothing would surprise me,’ said Lucy. ‘Ribbentrop was a champagne salesman before World War II, wasn’t he? And Lucretia was never especially discriminating, and she did have a taste for champagne.’ Sorry, Grandmamma, but you did bring this kind of conversation on yourself. Fairness made her add, ‘The spying rumours were never proved, of course.’
‘I don’t know about spying, but with looks like that I wouldn’t be surprised if she took the entire Third Reich to bed on the same night,’ remarked Liam.
Edmund made a tsk sound of impatience, and the inspector glanced over her shoulder to where the projectionist was waiting. ‘Thanks, we can go on now if you would. I just wanted to check the faces.’
As the film rolled on again, Lucy saw Edmund set his coffee cup down and lean back in his chair with an air of bored resignation.
Edmund was bored and resigned in about equal measures. He had not been in the least apprehensive about this afternoon’s outlandish experiment, because he knew he had nothing to worry about; there was nothing anywhere to link him to Trixie’s death, and it was patently clear that this female, this Detective Inspector Jennie Fletcher, was simply casting around in the dark. Looking for clues within the film – which she would not find, because there were none there. He would be glad when the charade was over and he could catch his train home, although it was a pity that he would not be having that cosy alluring meal with Lucy.