Hasty Death (21 page)

‘No, no,’ said Harry airily. ‘Go about your business.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Harry waited until the door had closed behind the servant and then began to search. He was just beginning to think that perhaps Tristram had taken the box to his bedroom when he suddenly saw a
window-seat and went and lifted the lid. There on the top was the box of cigars. A box of Romeo Y Julietas, the cedar-wood box nailed shut and sealed with the familiar green-and-white label.

Harry felt disappointed. He would have nothing to report to Lady Rose. He was about to put it back when he noticed a thin slit along the label. He held it up to the light. Was it possible it had
been opened and nailed shut again?

He tucked the box under his coat and made his way quietly out, lifting his card from the salver on the hall table and hoping the manservant would not remember his name.

He motored back to Water Street. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said to Becket. ‘I think it’s been opened already.’

‘I’ll get a chisel,’ said Becket.

‘No, perhaps we should leave it like this until we see the ladies. Then we can all examine it together.’

‘If you will forgive me for saying so, sir, perhaps it would be better to open it here in case it contains items of an insalubrious nature.

‘You’re right. Bring the chisel.’

Harry waited impatiently until Becket returned. Then he slid the chisel under the lid and prised it open.

‘By all that’s holy, Becket,’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve struck gold. What have we here?’

He lifted out four letters tied with pink silk ribbon. He untied the ribbons and started to read. The letters were addressed to Lord Alfred, passionate, yearning love letters describing their
affair in detail and signed ‘Your Loving Jimmy.’

‘Dear me,’ said Harry. ‘I don’t think the ladies should see these. Very graphic. No wonder Lord Alfred paid up. What else have we? Photographs.’

One was a photograph of Lady Jerry in a passionate embrace with a young man in footman’s livery. It looked as if it had been taken beside the Thames. The couple were lying on the grass,
the remains of a picnic beside them.

There was only one more photograph. It was of Angela Stockton in an open-air restaurant, also by the river. Beside her a waiter was in the act of carving thin slices of roast beef, although
Angela’s plate was already piled high and the photographer had captured a look of anticipatory greed on her face.

‘So our famous vegetarian, Becket, caught in the act.’

‘It’s not a crime,’ said Becket.

‘This would frighten her. She has set herself up to promote vegetarianism. People pay to join her society. She has even given lectures in America. It looks as if Mrs Jerry decided to go to
the police and one of them killed her.’

‘Are you going to take this to Kerridge?’

‘No, let me think. They should be given a chance to explain themselves. What if the blackmailer is Tristram, who knew what was in the box and decided to make some money for
himself?’

Rose and Daisy waited anxiously in the ante-room. Then they heard the front door open and the next moment Harry and Becket entered the room.

‘You’re a clever girl,’ said Harry to Rose. ‘The blackmailing stuff was in the box.’

‘What is it?’ asked Rose, reaching for the letters.

‘No, don’t read those,’ said Harry sharply. ‘They are letters to Lord Alfred from a young man with whom he had been having an affair. If the police got hold of these, he
could go to prison and this Jimmy with him. You can look at the photographs.’

Rose exclaimed, ‘Oh, do look at Mrs Stockton, Daisy. Positively salivating over roast beef. And Mrs Jerry! How disgusting. But our criminal must be Lord Alfred.’

‘It could be Tristram,’ said Harry. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘Oh, dear, what are we going to do?’

‘I will see Lord Alfred tomorrow.’

‘And I will see Mrs Stockton,’ said Rose.

‘How can you get out of the house?’

‘I will just go,’ said Rose. ‘I will be in trouble again.’

‘Well, I cannot see Angela Stockton shooting and drugging and strangling over roast beef. But you are not to give her the photograph until she tells you who was blackmailing her. I believe
someone knew the contents of this box and took over the blackmailing from Mr Pomfret.’

‘And then do we go to the police?’

‘If it should prove to be either Tristram or Lord Alfred, yes, certainly.’

‘Kerridge will charge you with withholding vital evidence.’

‘I believe Kerridge will be only too grateful to have the case cleared up.’

Rose hardly slept that night. What would Angela say? How would she react? The next morning she fretted that her mother would insist on her making calls and so she sent Daisy to
say she had a headache. Lady Polly was feeling well disposed towards her daughter because she guessed that Rose was about to thaw and accept Tristram’s hand in marriage and so she contented
herself with telling Daisy to bathe her daughter’s forehead in eau de cologne.

The countess went off to make her calls while her husband slept by the fire. At three in the afternoon, Rose and Daisy went quickly out of the house. The lady’s maid, Turner, had promised
not to tell anyone they had gone out without permission.

Rose and Daisy giggled over the forthcoming confrontation. It seemed hilarious to them that anyone would pay such a large sum to a blackmailer because they had been caught out eating roast
beef.

As they approached Angela’s house, Daisy suddenly burst into song:

Rose burst out laughing and had to stop and mop her streaming eyes.

‘Oh, Daisy,’ she gasped, ‘how are we ever going to get through this without laughing?’

‘She
won’t find it funny,’ said Daisy.

‘No, she won’t,’ agreed Rose, suddenly sober. ‘Here’s her house. I’m suddenly beginning to wish she weren’t at home.’

Angela’s butler disappeared with their cards. Daisy was very proud to have her own case of visiting cards.

He reappeared and asked them to follow him to the drawing-room. Rose shivered. Although the day was warm, inside seemed to hold all the chill of winter.

Angela rose to meet them as they were ushered into the drawing-room. She was wearing a black-and-gold Turkish turban of a type favoured by ladies almost a hundred years ago. Her long loose gown
was of deep purple velvet trimmed with gold embroidery.

‘How very kind of you to call,’ she fluted. Her American accent sounded peculiar because over the years Angela had tried to replace it with an upper-class English one, but her voice
seemed to be permanently stuck somewhere in mid-Atlantic, neither one nor the other.

‘Do be seated. I was about to have some fennel tea. May I press you to some?’

Daisy stifled a giggle, having had a sudden vision of both of them being pressed to a teapot.

‘No, thank you,’ said Rose. ‘We are here on serious business.’

‘Dear me. Nothing to do with that frightful business at Farthings?’

‘Yes, it has.’

Angela got to her feet and went and closed the double doors of the drawing-room.

She returned and perched on the edge of a chair and looked at them inquiringly.

‘A photograph has come into my possession,’ said Rose, not feeling like laughing any more. ‘I believe it was this photograph which Mr Pomfret was using to blackmail
you.’

‘Do you have this supposed photograph with you?’

‘No,’ said Rose. ‘I left it at home.’

‘Then why are you here? You cannot need money.’

‘I need to know the name of the person who was blackmailing you. If you tell me that, I assure you I will destroy the photograph.’

‘Why, it was Freddy Pomfret, the ghastly little counter jumper.’

‘I think someone knew what the blackmailing material was and approached you at Farthings. I think Mrs Jerry threatened to go to the police and that was why she was murdered. Did you know
why Mrs Jerry and Lord Alfred were being blackmailed as well?’

‘Yes, Mr Pomfret took great delight in telling me.’

‘So who approached you at Farthings?’

‘It was Lord Alfred. Now, are you satisfied? Go and get that photograph.’

‘Captain Cathcart is at present interviewing Lord Alfred. If Lord Alfred confesses, I will return the photograph.’

Angela clutched the arms on her chair so tightly that her knuckles stood out white.

‘I am not going to have my life’s work destroyed,’ said Angela, staring straight ahead. She seemed almost to be talking to herself.

‘I was brought up near Fairfax, Virginia. We were good family but we never had any money. Father gambled and Mother kept telling me how plain I looked. And then I met Mr Stockton at a
cotillion ball in Richmond. To my delight, he started courting me. I knew him to be very rich. He had clawed his way up from a poor family and thought that by marrying me it would give him class.
He only survived a year of our marriage. The doctor diagnosed a heart attack.

‘I came to London and set out to make myself known. I knew I was psychic and I had read the works of Mr Steiner. I set up my vegetarian society. I lectured all over Britain, and the
States, too. I was someone at last.

‘And then that Pomfret creature threatened to destroy me. Have you told the police?’

Rose shook her head.

‘But your parents know about this.’

‘No,’ said Rose, ‘they do not even know I am here.’

‘Good, good, let me think.’

‘There’s nothing to think about,’ said Rose sharply. ‘As soon as I hear that Lord Alfred has confessed, you may have your photograph.’

Angela rose and paced the room, muttering, ‘Must think, must think.’

Rose got to her feet as well. ‘Now that you know the situation . . .’ she was beginning when Angela strode to the book-shelves and lifted out an ugly-looking pistol and levelled it
at Rose.

‘Sit down,’ she barked.

Rose and Daisy sank back in their chairs. Daisy remembered throwing herself in front of Rose last year to protect her from a bullet. Somehow, she didn’t think she would ever have the
courage to do that again.

‘I detest flittery little débutantes like you, Lady Rose, smug in your own beauty, poking your nose into other people’s business. That fool, Mrs Jerry, said that she
couldn’t take any more and was going to the police. I was not blackmailing her for money, but I wanted her to join my society and work for me. I lied and said I had my own photograph back but
had kept the one of her. She laughed in my face. So I doctored that champagne and put it in her room and then strangled the old bitch while she lay unconscious.’

‘So no one other than Freddy Pomfret was trying to blackmail you?’

‘No.’

Rose moistened her dry white lips. ‘So it was you who shot Freddy?’

‘Yes, and I enjoyed doing it. I ransacked his flat but couldn’t find anything. Where did you find it?’

‘He had put the material in a cigar box and given it to Tristram Baker-Willis for safekeeping.’

Angela gave a harsh laugh. ‘Amateurs, blundering greedy amateurs out to destroy my reputation. Do you know that the Duchess of Terford has just joined my society? A duchess!’

‘Please do put down that gun,’ said Rose, striving to keep her voice level.

‘No, must think, think, think. Ah, you, Levine, you will go back and fetch that photograph and if you are not here with it after an hour, I will shoot your mistress.’

‘I ain’t leaving her!’ said Daisy.

‘Go, Daisy,’ said Rose. ‘You know what to do.’

Daisy looked at her for a long moment and then got up and hurried from the room.

Harry was seated in front of Lord Alfred. He slowly drew the bundle of letters from his pocket.

‘How much?’ demanded Lord Alfred.

‘I am not here to blackmail you. In fact, if you can tell me one thing, I will give them to you.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Did you shoot Freddy Pomfret?’

‘No, I swear on my life I didn’t. I wanted to. I knew I would go to prison if those letters were ever made public’

‘How did he get hold of them?’

‘I met a young artist called Jimmy Portal. He was not a very good artist but he was very beautiful. He pursued me and I was seduced. Then I was terrified of it coming out, knowing I would
be sent to prison. I returned his letters. He waited for me outside The Club one evening. He thrust his letters at me and said I must keep them forever. I told him harshly that I wanted to have no
more to do with him. Pomfret told me afterwards that he had witnessed the scene from the window of The Club. He saw me hurrying off and saw Jimmy throwing the letters in the gutter. He nipped out
and got them.

‘He bragged that it was the letters that gave him the idea of being a blackmailer. He was a keen amateur photographer and said he had compromising pictures of Mrs Jerry and Mrs Stockton.
He said he had just realized a way of getting money to buy a title. I paid. Of course I paid.

‘Then when I went to Farthings and saw you there along with Mrs Stockton and Mrs Jerry, I was afraid.’

‘Did anyone else try to blackmail you while you were at Farthings?’

‘Yes. Mrs Stockton whispered that she had destroyed the photograph of her but had kept the letters. She said I must work for her society and travel with her. Then she told me that Mrs
Jerry was going to go to the police. I was prepared to flee the country, but then she died. I knew Mrs Stockton had probably done it, but what could I do? You know what happens to fellows like me
in prison.’

Harry felt a spasm of dread. Lord Alfred’s voice held the ring of truth.

He had sent Rose blithely off to see Angela Stockton, and Angela was a murderess.

‘Excuse me.’ Harry got to his feet and rushed from the room.

Lord Alfred looked at the letters lying on the table. He picked them up and took them to the fireplace. He took out a silver box of vestas and struck one and held it to the edge of the packet
until a flame took hold and then he threw the burning packet into the fireplace.

He sat down again and covered his face with his hands and wept.