DEATH IN THE HOUSE
Born in 1893, Anthony Berkeley (Anthony Berkeley Cox) was a British crime writer and a leading member of the genre’s Golden Age. Educated at Sherborne School and University College London, Berkeley served in the British army during WWI before becoming a journalist. His first novel, The Layton Court Murders, was published anonymously in 1925. It introduced Roger Sheringham, the amateur detective who features in many of the author’s novels including the classic Poisoned Chocolates Case. In 1930, Berkeley founded the legendary Detection Club in London along with Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Crofts and other established mystery writers. It was in 1938, under the pseudonym Francis Iles (which Berkeley also used for novels) that he took up work as a book reviewer for John O’London’s Weekly and The Daily Telegraph. He later wrote for The Sunday Times in the mid 1940s, and then for The Guardian from the mid 1950s until 1970. A key figure in the development of crime fiction, he died in 1971.
DEATH IN THE HOUSE
ANTHONY BERKELEY
THE LANGTAIL PRESS
LONDON
This edition published 2010 by
The Langtail Press
www.langtailpress.com
Death in the House © 1939 Anthony Berkeley
ISBN 978-1-78002-018-1
Contents
1. Death in the House
2. Cabinet Pudding
3. Brown Sauce
4. Much Ado and More Talk
5. A Minister Rises
6. A Minister Falls
7. Suspicion at the Board of Trade
8. Assassination Is Not So Dull
9. A Conscience in Labour
10. Inside Information
11. Introducing Our Mr Lacy
12. Thorny Problem
13. Scent and Sensibility
14. Danger in Downing Street
15. Bombshell in Whitehall
16. Agitation of a Home Secretary
17. Financial Fade-out
18. Chat in the Chamber
19. A Minister Shows His Mettle
20. The Bill Is Presented
21. Postscript to Politics
chapter one
Death in the House
‘The House will hardly expect me to recapitulate the long story of troubles which have occurred in that unhappy country during recent years. The tale would even be tedious, for before a piling of tragedy upon tragedy the intelligence revolts, and finds tragedy itself tedious. But of late matters have reached a head. I need hardly refer to the disastrous attack a few weeks ago upon the Viceroy himself. The details will be fresh in every memory. But this I do emphasise, with all the power at my command: that outrage is deplored by responsible Indian opinion of every shade no less than it is deplored here.
‘And that brings me to the crux of my remarks. It is precisely in response to the demands of that opinion, not to mention the urgent pleas of the rulers of the native Indian States, that His Majesty’s Government has determined to introduce this Bill. We are resolved no longer to tolerate an agitation fostered and fomented not by the legitimate aspirations of the natives of India themselves, but by outside interests (and by this I mean national as well as individual interests – so much I may say, candidly and advisedly) in direct antagonism to the interests of India herself. Against these sinister activities India appeals for our aid. We cannot deny that aid.’
The Secretary of State for India grasped the lapels of his coat in the characteristic attitude which had been the joy of a hundred cartoonists and swept, with a stern, impersonal eye, the crowded benches before him.
The House of Commons seemed to be holding its breath. There had been notable, even epoch-making, Bills introduced before, but never had a speaker been accorded such a breathless, almost fearful attention. It was as if every member were personally dreading some devastating catastrophe, with that extraordinary gloating horror by which impending catastrophe is so often accompanied, as if a last-minute averting of the disaster would be almost a disappointment.
No sound but that of heavy breathing could be heard as Lord Wellacombe, after a brief pause, prepared to resume his speech.
‘The Government has been accused, in quarters perhaps not altogether disinterested, of a certain weakness in its foreign policy. There will be no weakness here. Opposition to this will be strong and bitter. Mistaken idealists will find themselves ranged, in the name of liberty, with the most shameless self-seekers who see in the Bill a threat to their own personal advantages. But so long as it holds the confidence of this House, the Government is determined to carry it through in the teeth of all antagonism; and, once passed into law, it will be effectively and ruthlessly administered, without respect to person or people. It must be passed into law!
‘Perhaps I can best explain the effect that we anticipate by the following illustration. The high-class Hindu is – is – the high-class Hindu…’
The steady, confident tones faltered for a moment. A little gasp went round the House, like a long, in-drawn ‘A-a-ah… !’
The Secretary of State for India lifted to his lips the glass of water in front of him, and those who were nearest noticed that he did not set it down squarely upon the table again, but tilted it at a slight angle so that part of its contents was spilled. The action was curiously like that of a short-sighted man, which Lord Wellacombe was certainly not.
As if refreshed, he began to speak again.
‘The high-class Hindu is in this peculiar position, that he –’
Lord Wellacombe’s voice ceased abruptly. He rocked unsteadily on his feet for a moment or two; then his knees seemed to fold up beneath him and he fell full-length on the floor with a horrid crash.
In an instant all was confusion.
The other occupants of the front bench sprang forward and turned the fallen man upon his back. He was quite conscious, and seemed to be trying to rise. The others gazed at him helplessly in the inevitable way of the layman, be he dock labourer or Minister of the Crown, when confronted with sudden, inexplicable physical disaster. Other members, pouring down over the benches, made a rapidly growing circle round the prostrate man and then stood, gazing speechlessly and, to all appearances, no less vacantly than the apparently half-witted spectators at any street accident.
‘Give him air,’ commanded the member for West Watford importantly, and elbowed aside the President of the Board of Trade to loosen the fallen man’s collar and tie.
‘I’m all right,’ muttered the Secretary for India, weakly.
The member for St John’s Wood pushed his way from a very back bench to the centre of the circle.
‘Excuse me,’ he murmured to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was sympathetically but ineffectively chafing Lord Wellacombe’s hands. ‘Excuse me; I’m a doctor.’
The Chancellor made way for him thankfully, and even the member for West Watford withdrew before professional competence.
The newcomer made a swift but experienced examination.
‘Well?’ said the Home Secretary, fussily. ‘What’s the matter with him?’
The member for St John’s Wood looked up sharply. He did not like the Home Secretary, although they were on the same side of the House.
‘The matter with him?’ he repeated slowly, as if debating a fitting answer to this curious question. ‘Why – I can’t say.’
‘You can’t say?’ echoed the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His tones did not carry a question; it was as if he had but received confirmation of a private conviction.
‘Well, what do you think?’ demanded the Home Secretary.
The member for St John’s Wood gazed thoughtfully on Lord Wellacombe’s distorted features. ‘As a pure shot in the dark,’ he hesitated, ‘I should say he’d had a stroke. But
I don’t know. That is, unless – ‘He broke off.
The Home Secretary was exchanging a significant glance with the Foreign Secretary.
‘I told the Prime Minister,’ he began.
‘Yes, but not now, I think, Beamish,’ interrupted the other, with an almost imperceptible motion of his head towards the Press Gallery.
‘I mean, someone will have to go and tell the Prime Minister,’ the Home Secretary turned off his indiscretion lamely.
A youngish, clean-shaven man in the forefront of those clustered round the body, nodded to the Home Secretary. ‘I will,’ he said, and turned at once to make his way out of the group.
The Home Secretary murmured: ‘Thanks, Arthur.’
‘Well, no good standing here like a lot of dummies,’ remarked the First Lord of the Admiralty, briskly. ‘Someone had better have a word with the Speaker. He’ll have to suspend the sitting. And we’d better send for an ambulance at once and have the poor chap taken home.’ He turned to one of the messengers who had come hurrying in immediately the collapse of the Secretary for India had become apparent.
‘Yes, and who’s going to break the news to his wife?’ demanded the Home Secretary, almost peevishly.
In the Press Gallery the reporters were feverishly scribbling: ‘Lord Arthur Linton, Under Secretary for India, hastened away from the distressing scene to acquaint the Prime Minister personally with news of the tragedy.’
The temporary object of the reporters’ attention felt his mind racing in time with his body as he hurried across to Downing Street. The swiftness of the disaster, so far from numbing his perceptions, seemed to have intensified them. During the speech his eyes had never left his Chief for a moment, and he felt as if he could remember every minute intonation, gesture and mannerism.
‘Damn it,’ he muttered to himself, ‘the doctor must have been right. It must have been a stroke. Anything else is too fantastic.’
But he remained unconvinced.
There was a curious sense of responsibility weighing on him, too. Somehow, he could not help feeling, he ought to have been able to avert the tragedy… the rectification of some omission… the adoption of some unforeseen precaution… but what could he have done that the others had not thought of doing? He reminded himself that Sir Hubert Lesley was reckoned to be the most efficient Commissioner of Police of the decade; certainly Lord Wellacombe himself had had full confidence in him. And yet Sir Hubert had not succeeded.
But how could Sir Hubert have succeeded against a seizure? That, of course, was an impossible contingency.
The front door of No. 10 opened in response to his ring.
‘I want to see the Prime Minister, Dean,’ he told the butler, somewhat breathlessly. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘The Prime Minister’s still in bed, my lord,’ the butler replied, doubtfully. ‘His influenza, you know. He’s better today, but I don’t know whether – ’
‘He’ll see me,’ Lord Arthur broke in impatiently. ‘Please tell him that I’ve come from the House and that something very serious has occurred.’
‘Very good, my lord. If you will step in here…’
Less than two minutes later Lord Arthur was being shown into the bedroom.
The Prime Minister, an elderly, white-haired man with incongruously cherubic pink-and-white features, was sitting up in bed, a dressing-gown round his shoulders. A look of acute anxiety replaced the usual placid serenity of his expression.
‘What is it, Arthur?’ he asked, before the door had even closed behind the butler. For that matter Dean had been in the Prime Minister’s service for nearly thirty years, and there were some who opined that he knew more about his master’s intentions than the Cabinet itself. ‘You don’t mean…?’
‘Lord Wellacombe,’ began Lord Arthur, awkwardly.
‘Good God! Not…?’
Lord Arthur shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Just a collapse. But right in the middle of his speech. Without any warning. His legs… well, they just seemed to give way.’
The Prime Minister sank back on his pillows. And for a moment there was silence.
‘It’s – it’s incredible,’ he muttered at length. ‘You mean, he just collapsed?’
Lord Arthur turned from the window out of which he had been staring. ‘Yes. But Davidson was there – St John’s Wood, you know. He’s a doctor. He diagnosed a stroke.’
‘A stroke – yes!’ The Prime Minister fastened eagerly on the explanation. He raised himself on his elbow and fixed his eyes on the other’s face. ‘It must have been a stroke, of course.’ It was as if he were arguing against an invisible opponent.
‘Of course, sir,’ agreed Lord Arthur, tonelessly.
‘There was nothing to indicate… well, a shot, or anything like that? No blood?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘The galleries? They were crowded, of course?’
‘Yes, but Sir Hubert was to have them packed with his men, you remember. He absolutely guaranteed there would be no danger there.’
Again there was silence.
‘I shall have to come downstairs,’ said the Prime Minister, with something like a return to his usual energy. ‘What about Beamish and Allfrey and the others?’
‘I left them in the House, sir. They were going to see about an ambulance. I expect they’ll be round here as soon as arrangements have been made.’
The Prime Minister nodded. ‘Yes, sure to. Beamish certainly will. Yes, I must come down. We must have a Cabinet meeting at once.’
‘Is it wise, sir?’
‘You mean, from the health point of view. Prime Ministers can’t afford to be ill like ordinary people, Arthur. And I’m sure Sir Gregory would have a fit if I called a Cabinet meeting in my bedroom.’ Sir Gregory Lane was the Foreign Secretary, and a notable stickler for procedure. ‘I’ll wrap up, of course. Just push that bell beside the fireplace, will you? Thanks. Now you’d better go down. Mollison will be somewhere about. Tell him to get hold of Sir Hubert and ask him to come round here at once. And send Verreker up to me here.’ Mollison and Verreker were two of the Prime Minister’s private secretaries. ‘Oh, and you’ll probably find Isabel in the drawing-room. I wish you’d break the news to her for me. She and Lady Wellacombe are fond of one another. She’ll want to go round and see her.’
Lord Arthur nodded and made his way to the door. As his hand touched the knob, the Prime Minister spoke again.
‘Arthur.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It must have been a stroke. This business got on his nerves more than we ever imagined. When it came to the point, the suggestion was too strong for him. A kind of self-hypnosis, one might say. That’s the only logical explanation.’
‘Absolutely, sir,’ Lord Arthur agreed.
Nevertheless, as he made his way downstairs he knew that the same thought had been in both their minds: that Wellacombe, dry, precise, yet with a burning enthusiasm for India and India’s welfare, was undoubtedly the last person to suffer from nerves or to practise, however unwittingly, any form of self-hypnosis. That Lord Wellacombe could have ‘suggested himself into a stroke’ – for that in plain language was what the Prime Minister’s words amounted to – was just as incredible as the other explanation, which neither man had voiced, was fantastic.
Lord Arthur hurriedly executed the Prime Minister’s commissions, and the sound of a piano playing a Bach prelude showed him that the latter’s guess as to his daughter’s whereabouts had not been wrong. As he entered the room Isabel Franklin rose quickly from the piano-stool.
‘Oh, thank goodness someone’s come. I was strumming to show where I was. Arthur… is everything all right?’
Isabel Franklin was in the early thirties, half a dozen years younger than Lord Arthur; the two had known each other from childhood. She was not pretty; indeed, when bored she could look positively plain; but when her interest was roused and her intelligence or emotions engaged, there was an attractive piquancy in her face, with its high cheekbones and wide, mobile mouth, suc
h as a woman whose prettiness is her only asset can never achieve. Her father was a widower, and for the three years during which he had been in office Isabel had acted as hostess for him and as housekeeper of No. 10. Two months ago her engagement had been announced to the First Lord of the Admiralty – a bachelor, in spite of his breeziness. The match was considered an excellent one, but Lord Arthur had not shared the Prime Minister’s pleasure in it, any more than he shared the Prime Minister’s opinion of the First Lord. So far as he knew Lord Arthur had never thought particularly about Isabel; he had taken her for granted as an old friend, and his political career, undertaken at the urging of the Prime Minister himself whose discovery he was well known to be, had kept him too busy for any other interests. The vehemence of his conviction that Isabel was far too good to be thrown away on any showy mountebank (for such he privately considered the First Lord of the Admiralty to be) had quite surprised him.
‘No,’ he answered her now, with the bluntness of an old friend. ‘Everything isn’t all right. You’d better prepare yourself for a shock, Isabel.’
‘Lord Wellacombe’s dead?’ said the girl instantly.
Lord Arthur gave her a short account of the scene in the House, and emphasised the probability of a stroke.
‘No.’ Isabel was pale, but she spoke quietly. ‘It wasn’t a stroke. You know that as well as I do, Arthur. Oh, poor father! And Lady Wellacombe. She’s devoted to him, you know. Has anyone gone to break the news to her?’
‘I expect so, by this time. They were talking about it when I left the House.’
‘Oh, talk,’ said the girl, contemptuously. ‘That’s all half of them ever do. They’re probably still talking, each trying to push an unpleasant job on to the other. I’d better go round and do it myself.’
She walked quickly to the door, but Lord Arthur stopped her.
‘Isabel, I don’t think you’d better go just yet. This has been a shock to your father too, of course, and he’s talking about getting up at once. In fact, he’s calling a Cabinet meeting right away. Wellacombe’s collapse will make a first-class political crisis, as I need hardly tell you. And if he does die… well, we’ve got to face the probability. But do you think your father ought to get up? Couldn’t you persuade him to hold the meeting in his bedroom? There’s precedent for it. I believe Gladstone did.’
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