by Carola Dunn
“It wouldn’t surprise me. He has an awful lot of people to interview and I’m sure he’ll want to speak to everyone tonight while their memories are fresh. The second murder confused everything. If I were you I’d warn Baines that people may be coming and going, so that he can make arrangements to keep their dinners hot. Are Rupert and Sally aware of what’s going on? It’s really for them to work out what to do, isn’t it?”
“They’ve certainly taken over quickly enough,” Jennifer said resentfully. “I suppose they’re in charge as long as the Haverhills are incapacitated, but don’t expect them to do anything that requires any effort. And if I go and explain the situation to them, Sally will say it’s all my fault.”
“I don’t see why you should have to. Surely it’s for Baines to ask them what they want him to do.”
Jennifer’s face lit up. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? I’m so used to being an intermediary between him and Mrs. Maple on one side and Lady Haverhill and Aunt Maud on the other, I hadn’t thought. You know, we’ve been very comfortable here and I’m terribly grateful to Aunt Maud and the Haverhills, but in a way it will be wonderful to leave and make a life of our own.”
“That’s the spirit!” said Daisy.
John Walsdorf joined them. “For so long,” he said, linking his arm through Jennifer’s, “I have heard about the Scotland Yard detectives, how clever they are. I look forward to see for myself.”
“I have no doubt you’ll get your chance, Mr. Walsdorf. Alec’s bound to want to see everyone, at least briefly.”
“I’m not looking forward to it,” said Jennifer with a shiver. “John, I must go and speak to Baines.”
“Be sure Sally does not watch, Herzchen.” For a moment Walsdorf looked almost malignant.
“I will. I’m just going to tell him to ask her what to do about dinner.”
“Excellent.” He turned back to Daisy. “Jennifer’s cousin Rupert and his wife do not like us. My country was invaded by the Germans and occupied throughout the War, yet Rupert considers me as a German. Sally, she resents that Lady Fotheringay and Lady Haverhill rely on Jennifer. Please, it is true, as Jennifer tells me, that the Reverend Timothy offers us to stay at his house while I seek for a position? I cannot speak to him in case that she has misunderstood, but you were present, I believe?”
“Yes, Tim and Nancy will give you a place to lay your heads if you have to leave Haverhill.”
“These are very good, excellent people! I must go and give to them my thanks.”
As he scanned the room, Daisy saw Lord Carleton come in, scowling. Behind him came Baines, who spotted Walsdorf and came over. “Mr. Fletcher, the detective officer, wishes to see you in the library, sir.”
“My turn for the high jump, as the English say,” Walsdorf observed to Daisy, “or perhaps your husband wishes only to know what arrangements I have made to stop the guests who will otherwise arrive for the wedding.” He bowed and went to the door. There he met his wife. They exchanged a word and he patted her on the shoulder before going out.
The butler had continued on his stately way to Rupert and Sally. Daisy saw Rupert nod. At the same moment she became aware that Lord Carleton was bearing down upon her in no amiable frame of mind.
To her relief, Binkie—Gerald—reached her first, and Baines immediately announced that dinner was served. Gerald was far too gentlemanly to insist on talking about Lucy at table, whereas Lord Carleton, for all she knew, might have insisted on giving her his opinion of Alec over the soup. She and Gerald joined the procession through the Long Gallery to the dining room.
“Dash it,” he said in a low, gloomy voice as they entered the dining room, “I’d forgotten the conservatory opens out of this room. Do they keep up that silly business of the ladies withdrawing to leave the fellows to drink port here?”
“The Haverhills do. I don’t know about Rupert and Sally.”
“Still the custom in the officers’ mess. When they have ladies to dine, I mean.”
“If so, we’ll have to wait till everyone’s gone. I don’t suppose anyone will linger long tonight.”
“Servants’ll be buzzing about afterwards. Tell you what, you wait in the drawing room and I’ll come in when it’s all clear. Then you can join me there.”
“Right-oh,” said Daisy, “as soon as I can get away from whomever I’m talking to when I see you.”
“You’re a jolly good sport, Daisy,” he muttered in her ear as he seated her at the table.
He was not the only silently gloomy diner. Rupert, in his grandfather’s chair at one end of the table, kept a conversation going around him, though in the circumstances it could not be expected to be lively. Sally, at the other end, was less adept but managed to rouse Montagu Fotheringay to one of his interminable anecdotes. The club-man had revived somewhat from the shock of his sister’s death and, between sentences, he managed to eat with a good appetite.
So did Daisy. She had missed tea.
Soup and fish had been cleared away and footmen and maids were handing around veal with roast potatoes, asparagus and new peas by the time John Walsdorf reappeared. Jennifer had saved him a place beside her. Everyone watched as he sat down and they conferred anxiously together in an undertone. Daisy remembered Lucy’s father’s suggestion that Lady Eva might have discovered evidence that Walsdorf had been a German spy during the War.
Meanwhile, Ernie Piper had come in and spoken briefly to Baines. The butler went to Montagu Fotheringay. Though unable to hear, Daisy knew exactly what Baines was saying: “Mr. Fletcher, the detective officer, wishes to see you in the library, sir.”
Paling, Montagu expostulated. He gestured to his plate, which already contained veal and potatoes and was only waiting for vegetables. Baines was firm. He reached down and removed the plate. More than one mouth fell open, among diners and servants, at this unprecedented action by a normally irreproachable butler.
Baines had nailed his colours to the mast. He was clearly on the side of the police. No doubt, thought Daisy, he had been sincerely devoted to Lord Fotheringay.
Montagu Fotheringay struck his colours. He lumbered to his feet and every eye followed him out of the room.
16
Alec, Tom and Ernie, expecting the dull, skimpy sandwiches which were usually their lot in similar situations, had been agreeably surprised by the contents of the tray a footman bore into the library. Fragrant steam rose from generous slices of pork pie. Each plate was adorned with a heap of colourful pickles: onions, beetroot, cucumber, cauliflower and carrot. A bowl of cherries and a sponge cake awaited their pleasure. A pitcher of lemonade and several bottles of beer completed the provisions.
Ernie Piper, about to go in search of Lord Carleton, sat down again and rubbed his hands together.
“That’s something like!” said Tom approvingly.
“Cook says there’s plenty more where that came from, Mr. Tring.” The footman turned to Alec. “And Mr. Baines said to ask you, sir, would you be wanting wine with your dinner?”
“Thank you, no, this will do us very well.”
“These big places,” said Ernie, “they usually seem to think coppers live on air.”
“We don’t hold with police in the house,” the footman informed him, “but no more don’t we hold with murdering Lord Fotheringay, as pleasant and harmless gentleman as you could ask for. ’Sides, anyone can see Mrs. Fletcher’s a real lady.”
“The best,” Ernie agreed blithely, reaching for his plate. “Always right, Mrs. Fletcher is.”
The footman looked interested and hopeful.
“That will be all, thank you,” Alec said firmly. “Piper, in precisely five minutes you will be going to fetch Lord Carleton.”
“Yes, Chief!” said Ernie, his fork already on its way to his mouth.
Denzil, Viscount Carleton was married to a niece of Lord Haverhill. According to Lady Eva’s papers, he did not take his marriage vows very seriously.
He was nothing loath to admit as much. “Oh yes, I have a m
istress. Charming woman I’ve kept for many years. Should have married her years ago and be damned to the bloodlines, but by the time I realized I ought to be thinking of providing an heir, she was a bit past child-bearing. So I married Adela, and she’s given me children. Thing is, she hasn’t a thought beyond them. I’m not complaining, mind. These days, my dear friend provides companionship and not a lot of the other, if you know what I mean.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have minded Lady Eva making your liaison public, sir?”
“I’d have been extremely angry,” Carleton said coolly. “All she’d have accomplished would have been to humiliate both my wife and my friend. But, to do Lady Eva justice, I don’t believe she’d have done it. I’ve never heard of a rumour emanating from her. She’s … she was like one of those inland seas—everything goes in and nothing comes out.”
“You couldn’t be certain of that.”
“No, but if you’re suggesting I killed her to stop her talking, you’re wide of the mark. I didn’t know she knew. Since, apparently, she did, I can’t imagine why she should publish the news now after holding her tongue for decades.”
“She found out quite recently.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” For the first time, the viscount lost his lackadaisical air. “That new maid of Mabel’s! I said she had a sly look. I wonder how—”
“However Lady Eva’s discovery came about, you claim she never spoke to you on the subject?”
“Not a murmur, and her manner towards me yesterday was no different from the last time we met, which, I may say, we did rarely. She had many nieces and nephews and no especial feeling for my wife. Poor Adela is much too dull to have caught her interest.”
On this point Alec could not shake him, and questions on his whereabouts at the times of the two deaths yielded nothing either to damn or to exculpate himself or anyone else.
As Carleton stood up to leave, he said, “I’m sure I can count on your discretion. What I have told you is in confidence and must not reach my wife.”
“We shall do our best, but I can make no promises.”
“But—”
“I need hardly remind you, sir, that this is a murder investigation. And that our information came in fact from Lady Eva, not from you. I shall not reveal it to your wife unless it proves absolutely necessary.”
“Under what circumstances … ?”
“I cannot foresee possible circumstances,” Alec said firmly. “Again, thank you for your help, Lord Carleton.”
The look the Viscount gave him was acrimonious, but he left without further protest.
Piper did not. “Have a heart, Chief, just a quick bite of cake! Sarge’ll’ve finished it before I get another chance.”
“You watch your cheek, young fella-me-lad,” Tom advised him indulgently.
Alec relented. Since the second murder he had been driven by a sense of urgency, a dread that yet another victim would perish beneath his nose, but Ernie was working hard and the ninety seconds it would take him to scoff a slice of cake was neither here nor there.
“What d’you reckon, Chief,” said Tom, “did he know she knew?”
“I think not. But I think he’d be capable of turning quite nasty if she had threatened him in any way.”
“Yes, he started off as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but he was definitely hot under the collar when he left. Still, he seemed to me too to be telling the truth. And you never know, what he said about who he talked to at tea-time may help when we put it together with what the rest say.”
Ernie, having demolished his cake in thirty seconds flat, quickly returned escorting John Walsdorf. A small, slight man, he gave an impression of neatness despite ill-fitting and slightly shabby evening dress. His eyes, behind steel-rimmed glasses, were wary. Alec did not regard the wariness as a sign of guilt. He had dealt with plenty of honest, well-behaved foreigners who feared the police, often with good reason: either the police in their own countries were repressive and violent or they had had an unfortunate experience with a xenophobic British officer.
“For the record,” he said, “your name is John Walsdorf?”
“For the record, my name is Johan Walsdorf. I have not legally changed.”
“Call yourself what you want, sir,” said Tom, in much the same indulgent tone he had used to Ernie Piper. “It’s a free country.”
Walsdorf flashed him a smile of singular charm. Perhaps that was what had attracted Lady Fotheringay’s niece to the penniless refugee, Alec reflected. Which wasn’t to say the man had no other good qualities, nor that the shortage of young men in England since the War had no part in her decision to marry him. Alec had long ago faced the probability that Daisy would never have given a middle-aged, middle-class copper a second glance if so many young men of her own class had not been killed in the trenches.
He started with the usual questions about sounds in the night.
Walsdorf explained that he and his wife slept up at the top of the house, near the nurseries, as Jennifer liked to be near their daughter. “Also, because we are not quite family, you understand. It is better to be out of the way. Thus it is not likely we will hear someone who goes to Lady Eva’s room. I sleep soundly always and get up early.”
“At what time, sir?”
“At six-thirty.” Too late to see anything useful. “At seven I go downstairs.” He hesitated, and Alec was sure he was pondering whether to give or withhold some piece of information. “In this house,” he went on, “the library is not much used, especially when the weather is good, but I like to write letters while all is quiet. I did not know of the death of Lady Eva until Mrs. Fletcher came to the library to telephone to the police.”
“I gather you helped her with that, for which I thank you.”
“It is nothing. Such is a job for a man, I think.”
A sentiment Daisy would have heartily disagreed with though Alec suspected she might have been glad of it in practice.
Walsdorf had not come down to tea. He had still not succeeded in notifying all the wedding guests of the changed circumstances, so he had stayed in Lord Haverhill’s study making phone calls and sending wires. Lucy, at the instrument in the butler’s pantry, had broken in upon one of his calls to send for the doctor, when Lord Fotheringay was taken ill.
“I cannot believe one would be so foolish as to kill Lord Fotheringay,” Walsdorf said angrily. “To me is unconceivable—is this correct?—is not possible to want Rupert in place of his father, who was a sympathetic, innocent—no, no, this is the wrong word—a harmless man. If you find next Rupert dead, you may arrest me. Lord Fotheringay I would never hurt. For Lady Eva, I do not care one fig.”
“Lady Eva seems to have been interested in you, however.”
“Lady Eva was interested in everyone, but in me not much, because I am not of the society.”
“Nonetheless, she made a note of your having been born in Germany.”
Walsdorf looked at him in astonishment. “But how the deuce did she know this?”
“It’s true?”
“It is true,” he said quite calmly. “My mother was not well. My father took her to Baden to try the waters and there I was born. My birth was registered in Germany, then my parents returned to Luxemburg and registered my birth there also. I am a citizen of Luxemburg. I have lived always in Luxemburg. Yet when the Germans invaded my country, they wanted to make me fight for them. This is why I have come to England.”
“Lady Eva could have made it very awkward for you if she’d told people you were born in Germany.”
“During the War, perhaps. Some might have imagined that I was a spy—this is why I told no one but Jennifer. Now it matters little. To the English, a foreigner is a foreigner. In any case, Lady Eva has not told. Someone would have mentioned to me.”
“Lady Eva never mentioned to you that she knew?”
“Never a word. I wonder how she found out? It is very strange, this.”
“It is odd,” Alec agreed. “Piper,
any hint of how she found out?”
“I think she got it from some diplomat, sir, but it wasn’t very clear.”
“Your Foreign Office investigated all aliens in England during the War,” said Walsdorf. “This is natural, but it is wrong that they gossip. The police are more careful, no?”
“Much more careful, though in a murder case we cannot promise to keep secrets. I’m afraid you will be uncomfortable if word of your country of birth gets about.”
Walsdorf shrugged. “Now it is nothing. We cannot stay here longer with Rupert and Sally giving the orders. The Reverend and Mrs. Timothy offer to us a home, Jennifer and Emily and me. I do not think they will withdraw only because I was by chance born in a German spa town. These are good people.”
Alec wondered whether to enquire about the antagonism between Walsdorf and Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Fotheringay. He decided to wait and see if Daisy could elucidate. If it was genuine, it gave Walsdorf a strong motive for not murdering the late Lord Fotheringay.
Walsdorf innocent might be a good source of information. As an outsider with an inside view, and a shrewd kind of chap, he must see the family more clearly than its own members could. His present disgruntlement made him the more likely to talk. But Alec decided to postpone that, too, until he had spoken to everyone and formed his own impressions. He sent Walsdorf off, followed by Piper in search of Mr. Montagu Fotheringay.
As soon as the door closed behind the two, Tom said, “He’s shielding Mrs. Reverend Timothy.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Remember, Chief, we were a bit puzzled about her turning up outside the victim’s bedroom—as Mrs. Fletcher reported—seeing she slept on the floor above—according to Mrs. Walsdorf—and likely couldn’t hear the maid screaming. I know you noticed Mr. Walsdorf hesitated when he talked about coming down here early. It’s my guess he saw her then. If she was up and about, she could have heard the racket, and maybe it was a guilty conscience kept her up and about. Then she bribed him to keep quiet about seeing her by offering him and his family a home.”