Hasty Death (18 page)

Daisy was the most decorous in her grey silk. Rose was wearing lilac silk, but with a dark purple shawl about her shoulders. Maisie’s maid had stitched black edging on a lime-green gown
and Frederica had embellished her white gown with a tartan sash as if for a highland ball, thinking that a show of native Scottishness showed enough respect for the dead.

Everyone began to drink more than usual. The acidulous Sir Gerald Burke was the first to give tongue. People said he had become nastier after that business of extricating himself from the
clutches of a middle-aged American lady. Gerald had wrongly assumed the lady to be an heiress and, on finding she was not, had proceeded to retreat, followed by her loud and public
recriminations.

‘I don’t know why we are all being kept here,’ he complained. ‘It’s all your fault, Jerry.’

‘What, me? I didn’t murder her, old chap.’

‘You wanted rid of her. Why not just own up and let us all go home?’

Harry decided to see if he could shake them. ‘I don’t think it could possibly be Jerry,’ he said. ‘I mean, he was four sheets to the wind last night. His hand
wouldn’t have been steady enough to inject the drug into the champagne bottle.’

All eyes turned on him. Angela Stockton, resplendent in acres of black velvet and a black cap, looked like an actress playing Hamlet’s aunt. ‘You’re being ridiculous,’
she said. ‘Isn’t he, Peregrine?’

‘Talking tosh,’ mumbled her son. ‘We’ve got to get out of here or we’ll all go mad.’

He had reason to be worried. The night before, when Mrs Jerry was choking out her last breath, he had been busy seducing a buxom kitchen maid. The girl had cried afterwards and said she had
sinned and he was terrified she would tell Lady Glensheil before he had a chance to put some miles between himself and the old battleaxe.

‘No,’ said Harry calmly. ‘Mrs Jerry did not struggle before she died. There was an empty champagne bottle beside the bed. The cork was in the wastepaper basket and it had a
fine hole pierced in it.’

There was an alarmed silence. The general consensus of opinion of everyone except Rose and Daisy was that the much-goaded Jerry had lost his rag in a drunken rage and throttled his wife and they
didn’t blame him one bit. ‘Would have done it myself if I’d been married to a bullying horror like her,’ Neddie Freemantle had said earlier.

‘I do not like everyone shouting across the table,’ said Lady Glensheil. ‘Kindly confine your conversations to the people on your right or on your left.’

No one paid any attention to her.

‘You know what I think?’ asked Tristram Baker-Willis ponderously.

‘No, we don’t,’ snapped Sir Gerald. ‘None of us thinks you
can
think.’

Tristram ignored him. ‘I think it’s all balderdash and tosh about poor old Freddy being a blackmailer.’ He fastened his gaze upon Rose. ‘You never liked him. That’s
why you started this rumour about blackmail.’

‘That’s not true!’ said Rose. ‘How do you explain three people paying him ten thousand pounds each and now one of them is murdered?’

‘We all know Jerry strangled his wife,’ said Tristram.

‘I say, steady the buffs.’ Neddie Freemantle.

‘Enough!’ shouted Lady Glensheil. ‘We will now talk about something else!’

That evening she was wearing a small jewelled cap embellished with ostrich feathers and those very feathers appeared to bristle with outrage.

They all felt silent, poking at their food like bad children and covertly studying one another.

There was a general feeling of relief when she rose to lead the ladies to the drawing-room. They were crossing the hall when a small kitchen maid curtsied and addressed Angela Stockton.
‘Mum, I got to speak to you.’

‘What are you doing abovestairs, Miss Whatever-your-name is?’ barked Lady Glensheil.

‘I got to be done right by,’ whined the maid. She pointed at Angela. ‘Her son done took my cherry.’

‘What has this to do with fruit?’ demanded her ladyship.

‘I’ll deal with it,’ said Angela hurriedly.

She stepped forward and took the girl by the arm and hustled her into an ante-room.

‘What’s this about, girl?’

‘Your son bedded with me last night.’

‘You must have led him on!’

‘Not me, mum. I feel I ought to go to the perlice. After all, a fellow who ruins a poor girl like me must be up to worst.’

Angela slumped down in a chair.

‘What’s your name?’ she demanded.

‘Alice Turvey, mum.’

‘How much?’

‘I don’t rightly understand, mum.’

‘You want money, don’t you? How much?’

Alice put her apron up to her face to dab her dry eyes while figures ran through her head. ‘Two hunner’ guineas,’ she finally gasped out.

‘You shall have it,’ said Angela wearily.

‘When?’

‘Now. Come to my rooms. But you must leave this house.’ Angela always carried a great deal of money with her.

Alice bobbed a curtsy and followed her. Ten minutes later she ran down the stairs to the servants’ quarters and signalled to the pot-boy, who followed her out the kitchen door.

‘Did you get it?’ he asked.

‘Two hunner’ guineas,’ said Alice triumphantly.

‘Told you she’d pay up. When d’you get the money?’

‘I got it.’

‘Good. I’ll steal what I can and we’ll get out of here tonight. It’s off to ’merica for us.’

‘But the police might stop us.’

‘Easy. You’ve been fired, that’s what you’ll say, and I’m helping you with your bag.’

Kerridge started the interviews all over again the following day but his researches were interrupted as various guests came in to complain they had been robbed. Lord Alfred
said his gold cigarette case was missing, Lady Glensheil could not find a silver buttonhook, Maisie screeched that her pearl necklace had gone, Tristram Baker-Willis said he had been robbed of
twenty pounds which he had left in his dressing-table drawer and the others complained of expensive trifles that had been taken from their rooms. Only Rose’s and Harry’s rooms had been
left untouched.

It was quickly established that both the kitchen maid and the pot-boy were gone. A shame-faced policeman on guard outside the gates to keep the press at bay said he had questioned the couple
when they left the estate but they both said they had been dismissed and the young girl had cried most touchingly.

Irritated, Kerridge started the hunt for the missing couple.

And Lady Rose Summer received a proposal of marriage.

She was walking in the gardens to take the air. The morning’s rain had cleared but the clouds were still thick overhead and a stiff wind was blowing. Daisy had just
grumbled that it was too nasty to be outside and Rose had sent her away.

She heard someone calling her name and turned round. Tristram Baker-Willis came up to her. ‘Lady Rose, I have been trying to have a word in private with you.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Rose. ‘Is it something to do with these murders?’

‘No. And such a pretty lady as yourself should not be troubling your head with such awful things. I blame Captain Cathcart. He’s always whispering to you. Is there something between
you?’

‘Nothing at all,’ snapped Rose.

‘You see – this is jolly difficult – I’ve fallen most awfully terribly in love with you and I want you to be my wife.’

Rose stared at him in amazement. ‘Why?’

‘I just told you,’ he said in tones of exasperation. ‘You’re making this awfully difficult for a chap.’

‘Mr Baker-Willis,’ said Rose, ‘I fear the fright of these murders is making you behave in a strange way. My parents have told me to return to London as soon as possible. But
although you should have asked my parents’ permission first before proposing to me, I can give you my answer. I barely know you and, no, I do not wish to marry you or anyone else
here.’

He kicked moodily at the sodden earth of a flower-bed. ‘I may be your last chance.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know you’re called the Ice Queen and chaps say you talk like an encyclopedia. I don’t mind all that, but most chaps would.’

‘I am getting cold, Mr Baker-Willis. I find your proposal unflattering. If you will excuse me . . .’

She hurried away from him round the house and nearly collided with Harry.

‘Whoa!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s all the rush?’

‘Mr Baker-Willis has just proposed marriage to me.’

‘Has he, by Jove? Why on earth would he do that?’

‘Get out of my way, you stupid man,’ shouted Rose. She pushed past him and stalked into the house.

‘And Captain Harry
dared
to wonder why anyone would propose to
me
,’ raged Rose to Daisy a few minutes later.

‘It does seem odd.’

‘Not you, too!’

‘I mean,’ said Daisy, ‘it’s not odd that a gentleman should propose to you. Only if the gentleman happens to be Mr Baker-Willis. He hasn’t been making sheep’s
eyes at you. Why the sudden interest?’

‘I have a very large dowry,’ said Rose in a small voice, her anger evaporating.

‘That’s probably it. A lot of those fellows are always looking for an heiress. And a title draws them like a magnet.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Rose. ‘I called Captain Harry stupid. I thought he was saying I was too ugly to attract a proposal from anyone, including himself.’

Harry and Becket were summoned to the estate office to face an angry Kerridge.

‘Sit down, both of you,’ said Kerridge heavily. ‘I had a man on the gate last night. You pair drove out past him. He said he didn’t stop you or question you going or
returning because the idiot assumed you had my permission. I distinctly told him to let no one past. But, oh, no, he touched his helmet as you go off and then he lets two thieving servants away as
well.’

Anxious to divert Kerridge’s attention from themselves, Harry said, ‘There was evidently some fuss last night when the ladies left the drawing-room. Becket here says it was the talk
of the servants’ hall. Peregrine Stockton had seduced a kitchen maid. Angela Stockton led her off into a side-room. I would assume she paid her off. She and the pot-boy obviously decided to
help themselves to a few trinkets as well while we were all the in the drawing-room.’

But Kerridge was not to be distracted. ‘So where did you go last night?’

‘I motored to London to pick up my letters and came straight back. I did not think I was a suspect.’

‘Everyone’s a suspect, even you,’ said Kerridge nastily. ‘Don’t ever leave here again until this investigation is finished. We have wired all worried parents and
relatives to stay away. If I cannot find anything out today, I will need to let them all go.’

To Rose’s distress, Tristram seemed to have come to the conclusion that his proposal had been too abrupt and so he set about courting her. His method of doing this was to
praise her fulsomely and throw her languishing glances.

She could only be glad that her parents had decided to stay in London, having been informed by the police that she would only be required to stay at Farthings for, perhaps, another day. Rose
felt sure that if they had arrived on the scene and if Tristram had asked their permission to pay his addresses, and
if
she proved to have turned down another eligible gentleman, they would,
she knew, be furious.

What the newspapers were saying about it all, no one knew, Lady Glensheil having stopped the delivery.

No one wanted to chat or socialize or play croquet any more. Suspicion hung like a black cloud over Farthings.

Guests and staff were painstakingly interviewed over and over again. More detectives arrived, discreetly dressed, to search the whole house.

‘They won’t find anything,’ said Daisy to Rose. ‘I bet our murderer, if he took any blackmailing evidence, has got it neatly hidden somewhere in London.’

‘Mrs Stockton and Lord Alfred really must be sticking hard to their stories about paying Freddy ten thousand pounds out of the goodness of their hearts,’ said Rose. ‘I only saw
them talking together once and eavesdropped. It seems that Lady Glensheil is so determined to put an end to all this that when Kerridge got permission to search their homes in London, they could do
nothing to stop it, because she has more influence in high places than either of them. But although they seemed furious at the intrusion, neither of them seemed particularly worried that the police
would find anything.’

‘When I was growing up in the East End,’ mused Daisy, ‘there never was any privacy. And one day after the show at Butler’s, this stage-door Johnny gave me a box of
chocolates. I knew if my brothers and sisters saw that, I’d never get any. So I hid it up the chimney. Wouldn’t you know it? Next day was a cold snap and Ma lit a fire and the whole box
tumbled down into the flames.’

Rose stared at her. ‘Daisy, I wonder if the police searched up the chimneys?’

‘Let’s go and put it to Kerridge.’

‘No, wait a bit.’ Rose was desperate to prove to Harry that she was better at detecting than anyone else. ‘The police would announce they were searching the rooms again. One of
the servants would see them searching up the chimneys and the news would go around like wildfire. I know, at dinner tonight I’ll suddenly say I feel faint. You help me out of the
room.’

‘I’ll help you make up to look pale,’ said Daisy eagerly.

‘Not white lead. I do not know why women will still use that cosmetic. So many of them die of lead poisoning.’

Harry fretted over the soup at dinner. He kept stealing glances at Rose. She was so very white and there were blue shadows under her eyes.

Then he heard Rose mutter an excuse and rise from the table. She left the room, supported by Daisy. Harry, being neither relative nor husband, had to remain where he was and resist the impulse
to run out of the dining-room to find out what was wrong with her.

‘Now,’ whispered Rose as they made their way up the stairs. ‘Mrs Stockton’s room first.’

There was no electricity laid on at Farthings, nor gaslight, and so they had taken one of the bed candles from the hall table to enable them to read the names on the cards on each door.

‘Here we are,’ said Rose at last. ‘Let’s hope her maid is in the servants’ hall.’