A Gentleman's Murder

by Christopher Huang

  “The Knights of the Round Table. Yes, I know all about it.”

  “I think Fitzwilliam Peterkin’s the last founding member to still have family in the club.”

  Eric blinked, coming abruptly back to the present. Nighttime, 1924, damp grass soaking the seat of his trousers. Somewhere, an owl let out a forlorn hoot.

  There had always been Peterkins at the Britannia, and Eric was the last. A Peterkin had been a founding member of the Britannia. The Britannia was fundamentally a Peterkin concern: what happened to the club, happened to the Peterkins. Why, then, was he being shut out of things? His inclusion as a referee for Wolfe’s wager with Benson had been a pleasant surprise, but perhaps it was really because he was the only person in the group to not be involved—included!—in the bet. He’d been dismissed as a suspect, and his concerns about Parker had been similarly dismissed, because he lacked credibility in the eyes of those around him.

  And what was he being shut out of? His mind went back to Benson, standing over his vault box with the determined look of a knight on the eve of a battle. Benson might not have fought, but there was no doubt in Eric’s mind that it was not for lack of courage; he was a gentleman, and he deserved better than to be swept under the carpet. The key to what had happened lay in the four items in Benson’s box, which were as mysterious to Eric as the items paraded before Sir Percival in the hall of the Fisher King. Eric couldn’t let that go either. Benson had been trying to correct some past injustice, and Eric was damned if he let that quest die along with the man.

  All right, then. He owed it to Benson to finish what he’d started, and he owed it to himself to prove his worth. He’d do this thing, and present the authorities with such a good, clear-cut case that they couldn’t dismiss him again if they wanted to.

  Eric stood up, brushed off his trousers, and said, “Thanks, Dad.”

  He glanced over at his mother’s headstone. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Yes, that was strangely appropriate. “Thanks, Mum,” he added, before turning back to his father’s headstone and its inscription. Matthew 10:39 … What was that passage? He couldn’t remember. He’d have to look it up sometime. But for now, he had work to do.

  Eric drove back to London the next day in the family motorcar—a Vauxhall D-Type originally intended for the Army as a staff car. The vehicle was generally more useful to Penny in the country, but Eric had an idea that he might want a more personal means of transport than the trains for his upcoming investigations.

  Penny didn’t mind. She was to spend the next weekend visiting with some old school friends out in Cambridge, but she could take the train. “You’ll owe me a favour,” she said. “A night out, at least. I’ll be stopping into London on the way, and you’ve got to promise me something a little better than two hours of watching Avery see doom and destruction in our tea leaves. I simply won’t allow you to spend your every waking minute sunk into this … this quest you seem so set on. That will be Thursday evening—what’s the play at the St. James this season?”

  Eric had no intention of taking his sister to the disaster on the St. James Theatre stage, and as far as he knew, every theatre in London was playing something with a similarly menacing Mandarin. “I’m sure I’ll find something suitable for Thursday,” he said. One of these days, he thought. One of these days, someone would have to write a story, perhaps even a detective story, featuring a Chinese hero. The world needed this as much as a house needed a key.

  “Ask around at the club,” Penny told him. “Didn’t you say that this Patrick Norris was a musician? Musicians always know the best entertainment in town. Besides, what’s the point of having a club if you can’t ask your fellow club members for help?”

  What indeed. Well, there was probably no harm in it … as long as Norris didn’t decide to join them wearing nothing but a towel.

  SOTHEBY MANOR

  CONVINCING AVERY TO JOIN HIM, Eric found, was startlingly easy. But what with having to explain the situation twice over and suffer through a vastly pointless Tarot reading, it wasn’t until the next morning, Monday, that they actually set out on their quest.

  They were driving down the country roads of Sussex. They’d just passed through Bruton Wood and were now emerging onto the downs. The Vauxhall kicked up fallen leaves in its wake, leaving behind a plume of swirling gold. Above, the sky was a clear, shocking blue, and the rolling downs were like waves of green velvet. This was England at her finest, and Eric was glad to have ditched his manuscript in favour of a country drive.

  Flanders had never been anything like this, Eric thought as he leaned to catch the full blast of the cold, clean air in his face. The battlefields had been an abomination, but this! This was the world as it was meant to be. This was what he’d fought for and prayed nightly to come home to. A flock of migrating long-tailed ducks soared overhead; fields and hedgerows whipped by as he drove, and the chill of late October invigorated him.

  Avery huddled in his seat with his scarf wrapped tightly around himself, trying to avoid the draught from the car’s open top. He would have preferred, Eric knew, to remain in London and spend the day curled up in the back of the Arabica with an endless supply of coffee.

  Pulling down his beret, Avery said, “All right, then, just so I’m clear: You have one fellow who was actually in the club at the time, one fellow who found a way to break in with no one the wiser, and one more who has a key to the back door. So, instead of looking at them, you’re choosing to focus your attention on the police inspector who’s investigating the case. Makes perfect sense. When’s this Inspector Parker’s birthday, do you know?”

  Avery often declared that there was nothing in the newspapers that he could not divine himself from the stars. Since leaving the Arabica, he’d asked after the birthdays of each and every one of the personages introduced in Eric’s account of the murder, and Eric rather irritably replied, for the seventh time, that he had no idea, before ploughing on. “Benson had proof of something involving Inspector Parker, and now that proof is gone. He removed something from Benson’s room, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a hand in lifting the contents of Benson’s box as well. I don’t know how, but it stands to reason.”

  “He does sound like a thoroughly bad hat, and that Victoria Cross was probably never meant to be his to begin with. But he’s in London, so tell me again why we’re heading into the rural wastelands of Sussex?”

  The Vauxhall plunged into one of those narrow stretches of road where the tall hedges on either side came practically onto the road itself, and the overarching trees blocked all but a few intermittent flashes of blue sky. The light dappled the road and flashed over their heads, and every so often, the seemingly solid hedges would break to reveal a gate with a house standing amid surprisingly well-tended lawns beyond. The scent of freshly mown grass blended with the smoke of burning leaves. They might have been in an underground tunnel between discrete pocket worlds, and Eric slowed down lest he run over some traveller.

  “We’re driving into Sussex,” he said, “because Benson used to work as an orderly at a war hospital around here. Sotheby Manor, according to Wolfe. It won’t be a hospital now, of course, but someone there might know something. Inspector Parker was hospitalised there, and I’m guessing all the items from Benson’s box originated there as well. Ten to one, the key to the mystery lies in Sotheby Manor.”

  “It seems to me like you’re expending an awful lot of energy for a fellow you knew all of one day.” The car shot out from the tree cover into the bright sunlight, and Avery, groaning, pulled his battered old beret over his eyes. “I honestly don’t see why this is any concern of yours. Aren’t your gentlemen’s clubs supposed to be hotbeds of dreadful conspiracies? As long as this Parker doesn’t decide that you’re the guilty party, I don’t see why you should care.”

  Eric gave Avery as much of a disapproving glance as he could without losing sight of the road. “You know, you could probably walk home from here, if you wish. I’m certainly not turn
ing back, but if you’d really prefer to have no part in this, I won’t stop you from getting out now. The journey on foot shouldn’t take you more than a day.”

  “Fine, fine. Have it your way, Sir Palomides. In the end, it may just turn out that there is no mystery, and that the butler did it.”

  “The Britannia doesn’t have a butler.” They did have attendants, though, and there was Old Faithful; but, as Eric had already explained, all of them had vouched for one another.

  “You know,” said Avery after a while, “I could simply do a Tarot reading for you and find your murderer that way. I have my cards in my pocket right now.”

  Eric rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Avery, but I think I’d much prefer to rely on cold, hard logic.”

  “Your cold, hard loss.”

  “I’m sure I’ll survive.” Eric brought the car to a sudden halt. “And, incidentally, here we are. The village of Wexford Crossing. Sotheby Manor should be somewhere close by.”

  Avery sat up, pulled back his beret, and peered around at the squat, flint-walled buildings gathered about the crossroads. There was a quaint little church, a public house, and a post office; ivy grew thick on their walls, and curled up the church steeple to grasp at the cross above. The village green, its grass short and well tended, occupied the fourth quadrant; a willow arched over a duck pond in one corner, and there was already a cleared circle in its middle where a bonfire might be lit for Bonfire Night. A sign by the post office gave the departure times of the motor coach service running to Chichester, the nearest large town. Around the green, the thatch-roofed cottages of the local residents could be made out, discreetly tucked away behind their garden hedges. It all seemed quite idyllic, but Avery said, “Are you sure this miserable little huddle of houses qualifies as a village?”

  Eric ignored him, studying his road map.

  “We could ask for directions,” Avery continued hopefully. “But I expect you’d prefer to solve the mystery of this manor house’s location by yourself.”

  “I would. Especially as the old gentleman in front of the pub has been giving us the evil eye ever since you called this place a ‘miserable little huddle of houses.’ Your voice does rather carry, you know.”

  Avery swivelled around in his seat and doffed his beret apologetically. The old gentleman in question sniffed and looked away. Meanwhile, Eric, having found his bearings, started the car up again and set off in the direction of Sotheby Manor.

  Sotheby Manor was a rambling Georgian structure in red brick, with white limestone quoins and the occasional Greek Revival element for accent. Like many such mansions, it rambled in a symmetrical fashion, and Eric could make out a pair of lesser wings to the main house beyond the screen of poplars, one to either side, and connected by means of a single-storey passage. Both wings were boarded up. The overgrown front drive and a network of scaffolding over one side of the main house rather spoiled what was otherwise a grand approach. In the distance, beyond a line of trees, the rolling South Downs extended onwards to the silver-grey ribbon of the English Channel.

  Eric pulled up before the Greek columns of the front portico, leapt out of the car, and hauled at the bell pull. The door was answered a few minutes later by an elderly maid, who afforded Eric barely a glance before turning her attention to Avery. Clearly, she took Eric for Avery’s valet. Eric quickly introduced himself before Avery could spoil anything. He’d had a glance at the baronetage before making the journey, and he knew whom to ask for. “Is Sir Andrew Sotheby available?”

  The maid’s already stony expression grew stonier still, and she continued to address her words to Avery. “Sir Andrew is unlikely to be available before the last trump.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Apparently, his copy of the baronetage was a little out of date. There hadn’t been a Lady Sotheby since before the War, but Eric seemed to recall mention of a daughter … “Is Miss Sotheby available, then?”

  “Yes. Miss Sotheby is at home.” There was a peculiar emphasis on “Miss,” and the maid continued to address herself to Avery. “Who shall I say is calling?”

  Eric handed her his card. “Eric Peterkin. From the Britannia Club.”

  The maid took the card and briskly led Eric and Avery through the entrance hall to a sitting room, there to wait while she went to fetch her mistress. This was a gracious chamber with white-painted wainscoting and wallpaper striped in shades of yellow and golden brown. Tall windows looked out to the gravel front drive over misshapen bushes, and a pair of sofas and a low table were gathered beneath them. The intention was a light cheeriness, but, with the windows shut tight against October, the room felt empty rather than airy. Compared to the tighter living arrangements in the city, the proportions were almost majestic, and the spartan furnishings made it seem larger still. One’s footsteps echoed on the parquet flooring; Avery moved instinctively to the carpet, while Eric went to explore the framed photographs ranged across the mantel of the unlit fireplace.

  “Someone’s been letting the dog onto the furniture,” Avery remarked. He wrinkled his nose and picked a hair off a sofa cushion. “Or else the staff has been getting slack. Or both.”

  “I fancy this room doesn’t see much use,” Eric said mildly, “and I’m not sure the Sothebys keep as many servants now as before the War. They’ve probably economised a great deal.” His interest was fully focused on the framed photographs. Most of them had been taken during the house’s stint as a war hospital: groups of wounded soldiers, attended by nurses, smiled up from them. The nurse from the birthday party photograph in Benson’s vault box was in constant evidence, more than any of the others. There was a gap in the arrangement too, where it appeared that a picture might have been removed: if, as Eric suspected, this was where Benson had obtained that birthday party photograph, he must have been here recently.

  Another framed photograph caught his eye, and he took it down for a closer look. This was a group of men, several of them in casts, on a lawn with Sotheby Manor in the background. Benson himself was among them, leaning on a crutch; this must have been immediately after his return from Flanders and before he’d been officially posted here as an orderly. But what was most interesting was the woman standing next to him: it was the same Chinese woman whose portrait he’d had in his room, and which Inspector Parker had so surreptitiously removed.

  A loud bark interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to see the very same woman from that birthday party photograph, now in a black crepe dress that might have belonged to her mother. Benson had identified her as his wife, Helen, Eric remembered, and one assumed, under the circumstances, that she was also the Sotheby daughter whom the maid had gone to fetch.

  Helen Benson had grown only more attractive over the years since that photograph was first taken, Eric thought. Her dark hair, which had been long and pinned up in the photograph, was now fashionably bobbed and parted to one side, with a sinuous, curling wave weaving over her forehead. It sat oddly with the old-fashioned dress, but there was a regal dignity to her posture that Eric hadn’t noticed from the photograph. A hint of red about her eyes and a dusting of fresh talcum powder on her nose suggested that she had been crying just minutes before.

  A white bull terrier with a brown patch over one eye stood close beside her, its tail whipping against the fabric of her skirt. It let out another bark. Helen Benson gave it a nudge with her calf, and held out her hand to Avery. “Mr. Peterkin, I presume?”

  “Oh, I’m not Mr. Peterkin,” Avery said, taking a wary step away from the bull terrier. “My name is Ferrett—Avery Ferrett. Eric Peterkin’s my friend here. You must be Miss Sotheby.”

  “Mrs. Benson.” She eyed Eric with some curiosity. “My maid told me … I mean …”

  Eric smiled wryly. “It isn’t the first time someone’s made that mistake.”

  “My apologies, then.” Mrs. Benson sat down on the sofa and gestured to the chairs across from her. The bull terrier leapt up into the cushions beside her and curled up with its nose in her lap and a wary ey
e on the two men. “You don’t mind dogs, I hope? Glatisant is more Albert’s dog than mine, but under the circumstances …”

  Eric and Glatisant peered at each other until the latter decided the former was of no interest after all, and snuggled closer to his mistress.

  Avery remarked, “Glatisant. What a curious name!”

  “From the Beast Glatisant, the Questing Beast of Arthurian legend,” Mrs. Benson told him. “Because he’s a beast who won’t do as he’s told for love or money or even soup bones.” Glatisant let out a loud sigh, and his belly gave an even louder rumble. “And because he will insist on making the most awkward noises in polite company. Honestly, it’s as though we starve him, and he’s fat enough as it is.” She shook her head indulgently, then turned to her guests. “You mentioned you were both from the Britannia Club? Oh, just you? I wasn’t aware … I mean, were you with the Chinese Labour Corps?”

  “I wasn’t—” Eric began, then bit back his usual retort. It wouldn’t do to blow up at the young widow, not if he wanted any answers. More calmly, he told her his regiment, mentioned his father, and confirmed that he was indeed here from the Britannia Club.

  It did occur to Eric that if Benson had been admitted on the strength of his service as a stretcher-bearer, then there ought not to be any objection to the noncombatant Chinese Labour Corps, either.

  The maid returned to set a tea tray on the low table before them, a little too brusquely it seemed to Eric, and Mrs. Benson began to pour. “I suppose Mr. Bradshaw must have sent you,” she said, handing the teacups to her guests. “It really wasn’t necessary. When we met on Sunday, I thought we’d said everything we needed to say. We’ve had some recent business dealings with Mr. Aldershott; I expect it was his influence that gave Albert the idea of joining the club.”