The grandson
The man who had been sitting at the table next to Alan Conway that night and who might or might not have overheard the conversation was called Mathew Prichard. It was very curious. His name may not be familiar to you but I recognised it at once. Mathew Prichard is the grandson of Agatha Christie. He was famously given the rights to The Mousetrap when he was nine years old. It feels odd to be writing about him and it may seem unlikely that he should have been there. But he is a member of the Club. The offices of Agatha Christie Ltd are a short walk away, in Drury Lane. And, as I’ve already mentioned, The Mousetrap is still showing at St Martin’s theatre, which is just down the road.
I had his number on my mobile. We had met two or three times at literary events and a few years ago I had been in negotiations to buy his memoir, The Grand Tour. It was a very entertaining account of a round-the-world trip his grandmother had made in 1922 (I was outbid by HarperCollins). I called him and he remembered me at once.
‘Of course, Susan. Lovely to hear from you. How are you?’
I wasn’t quite sure how to explain myself. Again, the fact that I was involving him in a real-life mystery that I was investigating struck me as bizarre and I didn’t really want to go into all that on the phone. So I simply mentioned the death of Alan Conway – he knew all about that – and said there was something I wanted to ask him about. That was enough. As it happened, he was close by. He gave me the name of a cocktail bar near Seven Dials and we agreed to meet there for a drink that evening.
If there is one word I would use to describe Mathew it is affable. He must be about seventy and looking at him, with his ruffled white hair and slightly ruddy complexion, you get the sense that he has lived life to the full. He has a laugh that you can hear across the room, a raucous, sailor’s laugh that sounds as if he has just been told the filthiest joke. He was looking immaculate in a blazer and an open-neck shirt as he wandered into the cocktail bar and although I offered, he insisted on paying for the drinks.
We talked a little about Alan Conway. He expressed his sympathies, said how much he had always enjoyed the books. ‘Very, very clever. Always surprising. Full of good ideas.’ I remember the words exactly, because there was a nasty part of me that was wondering if it might be possible to slip them onto the back cover: Agatha Christie’s grandson endorsing Alan Conway’s work could only be a good thing for future sales. He asked me how Alan had died and I told him that the police suspected suicide. He looked pained at that. A man so full of life himself, he would find it hard to understand anyone who could choose to do away with theirs. I added that Alan had been seriously ill and he nodded as if that made some kind of sense. ‘You know, I saw him a week or so ago – at the Ivy,’ he said.
‘That was what I wanted to ask you about,’ I replied. ‘He was having dinner with his publisher.’
‘Yes. That’s right. I was at the next table.’
‘I’d be interested to know what you saw – or heard.’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I have. Charles has told me a certain amount but I’m trying to fill in the gaps.’
‘Well, I wasn’t really listening to the conversation. Of course, the tables are quite close to each other but I can’t tell you very much of what was said.’
I found it rather endearing that Mathew hadn’t asked me why I was interested in what had happened. He had lived much of his life in the world created by his grandmother and the way he saw it, detectives asked questions, witnesses answered them. It was as simple as that. I reminded him of the moment when Leigh had dropped the plates and he smiled. ‘Yes, I do remember that. As a matter of fact, I did hear some of what they were saying just before it happened. Raised voices and all that! They were talking about the title of his new book.’
‘Alan delivered it that night.’
‘Magpie Murders. I’m sure you’ll understand, Susan, I can’t hear the word “murder” without my ears pricking up.’ He chortled at that. ‘They were arguing about the title. I think your publisher chap made some comment and Mr Conway wasn’t at all happy. Yes. He said he’d planned the title years ago – I heard him say that – and he banged his fist on the table. Made the cutlery jump. That was when I turned round and realised who he was. It hadn’t actually dawned on me until then. Anyway, there was a moment’s silence. A couple of seconds, perhaps. And then he pointed his finger and he said: “I’m not having the—”’
‘The what?’ I asked.
Prichard smiled at me. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, because that was when the waiter dropped the plates. It made an absolutely terrible din. The entire room came to a halt. You know how it is. The poor chap went quite red – I’m talking about the waiter now – and started clearing up the mess. I’m afraid I didn’t really hear any more after that. I’m sorry.’
‘Did you see Alan get up?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I think he went to the loo.’
‘He talked to the waiter.’
‘He might have done. But I don’t remember anything more. In fact, I’d finished my meal by then and I left shortly afterwards.’
‘I’m not having the—’
That was what it boiled down to. Four words that could have meant anything. I made a mental note to ask Charles about it the next time I saw him.
Prichard and I talked about his grandmother as we finished our cocktails. It had always amused me how much she had come to hate Hercule Poirot by the time she finished writing about him. What had she famously called him? ‘A detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric little creep.’ Hadn’t she once said that she wanted to exorcise herself of him? He laughed. ‘I think that, like all geniuses, she wanted to write all sorts of different books and she got very frustrated when her publishers only wanted, at one stage, for her to write Poirot. She got very impatient when she was told what to do.’
We got up. I had ordered a gin and tonic and it must have been a double because it made my head spin. ‘Thank you for your help,’ I said.
‘I don’t think I’ve been much help at all,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll look forward to seeing the new book when it comes out. As I say, I always liked the Atticus Pünd mysteries – and Mr Conway was obviously a great devotee of my grandmother’s work.’
‘He had the complete collection in his office,’ I said.