by Carola Dunn
“Do you know anything that might help?”
“Not that I can think of. Oh Lord, here comes Rupert.”
The new Lord Fotheringay was tall, broad-shouldered, with the sweeping moustache and the ramrod-straight swagger expected of a Household Cavalry officer. The crown and star of a lieutenant colonel adorned his khaki battle-dress, presumably donned for the regimental manoeuvres he had abandoned to rush home. He was young for the rank, but so many officers of the Life Guards had died in Flanders that those who survived advanced rapidly.
“Do you know him, Daisy?” asked Flora, watching in disgust as Sally ran to her husband and flung herself into his arms, sobbing.
“I met him when I came to visit with Lucy from school. We thought he was the last word in dashing young men. I’d be surprised if he remembered me.”
Rupert bowed his head to speak softly in his wife’s ear. When he looked up, his great-uncle Montagu was bearing down on them. With an impatient gesture, Rupert said something to the old gentleman, then steered Sally out of the room with a hand under her elbow.
Montagu turned away, flushed and crestfallen. Daisy was surprised to see him after his distraught state in the morning. He seemed to have recovered his equilibrium, so much so that she couldn’t help wondering whether his earlier shock and horror had been real. Suppose he had been so assiduous at passing on his club gossip to Lady Eva only because she was blackmailing him?
Daisy wished she had access to Ernie Piper’s notes, just so she could narrow down the field of suspects. For all she knew, the murderer could be absolutely anyone who had been in the house last night.
“Rupert is the absolute pink limit!” said Flora, exasperated. “I’d better go and see if I can smooth Uncle Montagu’s ruffled feathers without suggesting my brother’s rudeness is my fault.”
As Flora left, several possible murderers converged upon Daisy.
Nancy: no, she couldn’t believe Lucy’s sister-in-law had a guilty secret she’d kill to protect. Tim was probably still providing his suddenly widowed aunt Maud with the consolations of religion.
Lord and Lady Carleton: Daisy still hadn’t worked out just what their relationship to the Haverhills was. She was simply not well enough acquainted with them to hazard a guess as to whether they might have any guilty secrets.
Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft: as Lady Eva’s granddaughter and grandson-in-law, they must be high on Alec’s list, but they claimed not to have expected an inheritance. Daisy disliked Mrs. Bancroft because of her scorn for her sister Angela, but her dislike was not enough to brand the woman a murderer, alas. How easy that would make a murder investigation!
Jennifer Walsdorf reached her first. “Lord Gerald says he’s going to stay the night. I take it your husband will share your room?”
“If he’s not up all night interviewing people.”
“What about the sergeant and the young man who just arrived? Mrs. Maple, the housekeeper, has never had to provide accommodations for the police before and she’s twittering about where to put them.”
“They usually stay at the nearest inn.”
“Oh, I’m sure Lord Haverhill would want to give them a bed.”
“Then consider Mr. Tring on a level with a visiting valet, I should think, and DC Piper as a footman. Though I don’t suppose they’d mind sharing a room.”
“A valet wouldn’t lower himself to share with a footman!” Jennifer said with an effortful smile. “But in any case, they can have a room each. We’ve plenty of space as John has managed to stop most people turning up. Those who arrived in time for lunch have already buzzed off again, with the permission of the police.”
“John’s very efficient.”
“I wish Rupert would recognize that fact. Still, we’ve always known we couldn’t stay here forever. Poor Uncle Aubrey’s death has just hastened the inevitable.”
Nancy Fotheringay had come up in time to hear Jennifer’s words. “You and John and the baby will always be welcome at the vicarage,” she said tranquilly. “It’s a huge old place, far bigger than we need.”
“We don’t want charity.”
“We’re not too far from London. John is bound to find work quickly. And you can help me with the children and the parish work, if you like. There is always too much to do.”
“You’re an angel, Nancy!” Jennifer kissed her on the cheek. “It will be a big relief to have somewhere to lay our heads, however temporary, when the moment comes. Now, I know you want to talk to Daisy, and I must go and confer with Mrs. Maple.”
“Will Rupert really turn them out when he inherits?” Daisy asked Nancy as soon as Jennifer was out of earshot.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. Rupert has a mean streak in him. But Timmy would say I’m being un-Christian. Daisy, Tim asked me to ask you whether your husband can say with any certainty whether Uncle Aubrey died a natural death or not. It might be some consolation to his poor aunt to know that he was not cut off before his time.”
“Alec doesn’t tell me much,” Daisy said cautiously, “and he won’t commit himself till he has the post-mortem results, but I believe he has evidence that points to murder.”
“Oh, we’re none of us safe!” Lady Carleton moaned. The others had crowded around by now, and Nancy slipped away. “Denzil, you must insist that the police let us take Ursula home.”
“Mr. Fletcher might be persuaded to let us have Tomkins drive her home,” said Lord Carleton, a sallow, long-faced man at least twenty years older than his wife. “We’ll have to stick it out, though, old girl.”
Her ladyship’s lips pursed, whether at this form of address or at the notion of letting her daughter go off with their chauffeur. “I suppose you don’t care if I’m murdered,” she said sulkily.
“What we must do,” said Peter Bancroft, “is stick together. Never go anywhere alone, then the devil can’t get you.”
“The devil is one of us, old boy,” Lord Carleton reminded him.
“It must have been an intruder,” said Veronica Bancroft petulantly. “The police ought to have found traces of someone breaking in by now.”
“One murder might have been an intruder, Ronnie.” Angela and her faithful shadow had joined the group. “Two must be one of us.”
“I keep telling you not to call me Ronnie! And if it’s one of us, you have the best motive I know. You only care about those wretched curs of yours, not about people. I wouldn’t put it past you to murder Grandmother to get her money for the horrid beasts.”
“Now, Veronica!” Peter remonstrated weakly.
Astonishingly, Tiddler summoned up the courage to snarl at his rescuer’s sister, from his safe haven behind Angela’s ankles.
Veronica backed away. “Get rid of it!” she shrilled.
Teddy Devenish, arriving, stooped to give the little dog an approving pat. “Know thine enemy,” he said with a grin. “Clever little scrap, Angie.”
“Peter!” Veronica appealed to her husband.
“Nothing to do with me. He’s your brother.”
The Carletons and Daisy abstracted themselves from the brewing sibling strife. Daisy was immediately pounced upon by Lucy’s mother.
“Daisy dear, do you know where Lucinda is? I simply can’t find her anywhere.”
“Yes, Aunt Vickie, she’s with Alec.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Fotheringay turned white. “Oh no! They’ve arrested Lucinda?”
When Lucy entered the library, Alec was annoyed. He hadn’t yet had a chance to telephone Teddy Devenish’s friends in Hampshire, and if he was ever granted a moment’s peace to study Ernie’s list of names, he’d want to interview those on it, not Lucy, whom he’d already seen. She had not been cooperative, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she had now come with a complaint. He wasn’t at all sure he could summon up the politeness to deal with her as he ought.
“What can I do for you?” he asked impatiently.
“I’ve come to see if I can do anything for you,” she said with her customary aplomb. “You didn’t really ask me any que
stions before.”
Because she had walked out, as Alec managed to refrain from saying. “You had a rendezvous with your intended.”
“Who found Uncle Aubrey. Aunt Eva was one thing—you may think we’re all frightfully callous, but no one mourned her much. Uncle Aubrey was different. Besides, two murders … Suppose there’s a third? So if answering your questions will help you find out who it was, ask away.”
While they spoke, Ernie Piper had reached for his list and turned to the second page. Now he replaced it on the desk in front of Alec, his finger pointing at a name. Alec glanced down.
“What’s that?” Lucy demanded. “You know now I’m not the murderer. I was with you when Uncle Aubrey died.”
“Lord Gerald was with him.”
“But Binkie wasn’t here when … Oh Lord, you think we’re hand in glove? That I killed Aunt Eva and he killed Uncle Aubrey?”
“I have to consider the possibility. Why did he turn up today when he was not expected until Friday?”
“I telephoned and asked him to come.”
“You see, you could have told him you were afraid Lord Fotheringay knew something which might lead us to suspect you.”
“But I didn’t. I just wanted to tell him something I couldn’t say over the phone.”
“What?” Alec asked bluntly.
Lucy bit her lip. “If you must know, that I wasn’t going to marry him after all.”
Startled, Alec made a quick recovery and shot back, “Why not?”
“Because with Aunt Eva’s legacy, I’ll be able to …” Her voice tailed off and she pressed her fingers to her lips.
“To live comfortably without him?”
“Yes,” she whispered, but with a defiant lift of her chin. Then she caught sight of her fingertips and stared in horror at the lip-rouge smeared there, the bright crimson of blood.
Alec forebore to state the obvious, that her admission confirmed a financial motive for Lady Eva’s death. “Lord Gerald is devoted to you,” he said, “and when he arrived at Haverhill, he didn’t yet know of your change of heart.” He paused, but she made no comment. He picked up the list of Ernie’s gleanings from Lady Eva’s files. “I have here evidence of an additional reason for your wishing to rid yourself of your great-aunt.”
“Oh? What’s that?” Lucy leant forward, interested, unalarmed.
“Something you most certainly wouldn’t have wanted broadcast to the world.”
“It wasn’t Aunt Eva’s way to broadcast scandal to the world. I haven’t done anything desperately wicked, and she never mentioned anything to me. What is it?”
Ernie bowed his head over his notebook. Tom took a sudden interest in his fingernails.
“You spent a night with Lord Gerald in his rooms.”
A tinge of pink crept into Lucy’s cheeks, the first time Alec had ever seen her blush. “Well? This is 1924, not 1884. We’re … We were going to be married shortly.”
“Were. I rather doubt you’d want your parents or grandparents informed.”
“Oh, as to that, Mummy would have been upset, but everything I do upsets her. Grandfather would have refused to finance a grand wedding. I never wanted one.”
“You claim Lady Eva never spoke to you about her knowledge?”
“She didn’t. I suppose, compared to some of the things she dug out about people, it was a minor peccadillo.”
“Because you were going to be married shortly. But you changed your mind. She might have written you out of her will.”
“I didn’t change my mind until after she died. Oh hell, Alec, you don’t really believe I killed her? Just to avoid marrying Binkie? I’m actually quite fond of him.”
Alec sighed. “It’s not for me to believe or disbelieve. The evidence is all that counts. All I can say is that you’re not the only person with more than one possible motive. What do you know about the plants in your uncle’s conservatory?”
“Not much.” Lucy looked slightly puzzled, not at all alarmed. “I took the tour whenever I came to stay, but just to please the old boy. I’m afraid I paid very little attention.”
“So you didn’t know that some of the plants are poisonous.”
“Oh, yes. It was drummed into us very thoroughly as children, by Uncle Aubrey, nannies, parents, aunts and uncles. No one who visited as a child could possibly fail to know. But I’d be surprised if many of us remember which particular plants are poisonous. I certainly don’t. Was Uncle Aubrey poisoned with his own greenery? How vile! It seems crass, somehow.”
“Murder is always vile and generally crass, whether the victim is an inoffensive person like Lord Fotheringay or …”
“Or an offensive person like Aunt Eva. She really was a nasty old busybody, wasn’t she?” Lucy said with an air of detachment. “I wonder how she found out about me and Binkie. It’s not terribly surprising someone got fed up enough to stop her prying for good.”
“Your room is close to hers. Did you hear any sounds in the night—footsteps, a cry, a door opening or closing?”
“Not a thing. I’ve been sleeping badly, because of this blasted wedding, and Mummy was worried I’d look haggish on Saturday so she made me take a powder last night.”
“Great Scott, Lucy,” Alec exploded, “why the deuce didn’t you tell me right away?”
“That I took a sleeping powder? Oh, I suppose I couldn’t have been creeping around murdering great-aunts after taking a bromide.”
“Did your mother watch you swallow it?”
“She mixed it with milk and practically poured it down my throat.”
At last a chance to knock one suspect off his list. Alec jumped up. “Right-oh, you stay here and answer Mr. Tring’s questions while I find Mrs. Fotheringay.”
“Mummy’s known as Mrs. Oliver here,” corrected Lucy obligingly. “Too many Mrs. Fotheringays.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Where is Mrs. Oliver likely to be?”
“The drawing room or upstairs, I expect.”
Alec strode across the hall and entered the drawing room to find a crowd in the middle of the room, the outer members craning to see over the shoulders of those in front. Amidst a confused babble, someone said clearly, “Stand back, for heaven’s sake, and give her air.”
His heart stood still. Another murder?
13
“What’s going on here?”
Daisy heard the question, recognized Alec’s voice, but at the same time she was patting Aunt Vickie’s hand while Binkie—no, Gerald—fanned her with a magazine, beseeching, “Daisy, Fletcher hasn’t really arrested Lucy, has he?” Oliver knelt on the floor on the other side of the chair where the limp, white-faced woman slumped, patting her other hand.
“I keep telling her,” Daisy said, “she went to see him entirely off her own bat.”
The crowd parted and Alec came through.
“Thank heaven!” said Daisy. “Aunt Vickie, here’s Alec now. Darling, tell her you haven’t arrested Lucy!”
“Mrs. Fotheringay, I have not arrested Lucy. I have one question to put to you.” With his dark, fierce eyebrows lowered in one of his most forbidding frowns, he gazed around the faces all agog surrounding them. “Privately.”
The surplus population melted away, going to stand about the room in twos and threes muttering together with many a sidelong glance.
“I shall stay with my wife,” declared Oliver, rising creakily from his knees.
“By all means, sir.”
“Daisy!” said Mrs. Oliver faintly, gripping Daisy’s hand.
“I shan’t leave you, Aunt Vickie.” Daisy looked up at Alec with a lively interest mixed with a trace of concern. He had not arrested Lucy, but that didn’t mean he was not about to.
Alec raised his eyebrows at Gerald.
“Oh, righty-ho,” said that gentleman in confusion, and retreated to hover in no-man’s-land.
“Mrs. Fotheringay, did you go to your daughter’s bedroom last night?”
“Why, yes.” A tinge of colour was r
eturning to Aunt Vickie’s face, to Daisy’s relief. Nancy appeared with a glass of brandy, pressed it into her hand, and discreetly retreated. “Lucinda hasn’t been sleeping well, you see, so I got a powder from my sister-in-law—”
“Your sister-in-law?”
“Oliver’s sister-in-law, really. Marjorie, Henry’s wife. She suffers from neuralgia—hardly surprising, the way those girls of hers squabble—and always has bromides by her in case she can’t sleep. I took one to Lucinda, and a glass of warm milk. She didn’t want to take it, but I mixed the powder into the milk and made her drink it, to the last drop.”
“What did you do with the glass?”
“I rinsed it at the basin in the bathroom and left it there.” She sniffed the brandy, wrinkled her nose, and handed it to Oliver, who took a gulp.
“I saw it this morning!” said Daisy. “I share a bathroom with Lucy. I was going to use it to brush my teeth but it looked sort of murky, you know, the way a milk glass does if it’s not washed thoroughly. Darling, this means you can cross Lucy off your list.”
“I must have a word with Mrs. Henry. Is she here?”
“Yes, I’ll fetch her over, shall I?” Oliver offered.
“No, point her out to me, if you don’t mind.”
Alec went off to confirm the story.
“Does this mean he doesn’t suspect Lucinda any longer?” Aunt Vickie asked, hopeful yet fearful.
“He just has to ask Mrs. Henry about the dosage and that sort of thing. You’re all right now, aren’t you? I’d better go and put poor Gerald out of his misery.”
Gerald was on tenterhooks. “Fletcher doesn’t really believe Lucy’s involved in this beastly business, does he?” he demanded.
“What he believes has nothing to do with it. He has to look at the facts, and Lucy is one of Lady Eva’s heirs. He’s delighted to clear her, I promise you.”
“She’s in the clear, what?”
“As good as. I doubt Alec’s suspicions would stretch as far as a conspiracy between Lucy, Aunt Vickie, and Mrs. Henry.”
“Must have suspected Lucy and me of conspiring,” Gerald pointed out. “Lucy couldn’t have killed her uncle. I couldn’t have killed Lady Eva.”