A Mourning Wedding

by Carola Dunn

  “Thank you. He’s a gregarious soul and might let something slip in front of the wrong person. Here comes your specimen.”

  Ernie Piper came racing down the stairs with a strip of blue-and-white striped ticking in his hand. He gave it to the doctor, who went for a last look at his patient before going back to the mortuary to finish off the autopsy. Alec went upstairs, hoping he remembered the way to the family wing.

  He wasn’t at all happy about facing Lord Haverhill. The Earl had every right to be annoyed, not to say furious, that since he called in Scotland Yard, one murder had become three. Not quite three. Bincombe still clung to life. Should Alec tell Lord Haverhill that Dr. Philpotts by no means despaired of his recovery? Better not. The fewer who knew, the less likely that the murderer would hear and perhaps decide to try again.

  Alec came to what he thought was the family sitting room. A footman lounging against the doorpost straightened as he approached.

  “I’m s’posed to keep people from bothering his lordship, sir,” he said uncertainly.

  “Have many people tried to bother him?”

  “Lots. Lady Carleton and—”

  “That’s all right, I don’t need their names just now, but if you could write them down for me, I might find a use for them at some point.”

  The footman spread empty hands. “I don’t have nothing to write on, sir.”

  “I’ll bring you a piece of paper and a pencil from in there. Lord Haverhill asked to see me.” Alec knocked, opened the door without waiting for a response, and went in.

  Lord and Lady Haverhill sat on either side of the hearth, where a small fire burned. They both looked round when Alec entered, and the Earl started to rise, stiffly, levering himself with both hands on the arms of his chair. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes hooded as if the effort to keep up his eyelids was more than he could manage.

  “Mr. Fletcher …”

  “Please don’t get up, sir.” Alec moved forward as the old man sank back.

  “How is Lord Gerald?” asked the Countess anxiously. She looked in better shape than her husband, but her eyes were red-rimmed. She had wept for her quiet, eccentric, amiable son.

  “Not good, I’m afraid, ma’am. He’s still unconscious and may remain so.”

  “That such a thing should happen to a guest in my house!” exclaimed Lord Haverhill. “I hardly knew what to say to Tiverton. The Tivertons are coming, of course, first thing in the morning. They were on their way, in any case, for the wedding.”

  “Poor Lucy! She must be heart-broken.”

  Alec assumed Lucy’s decision not to marry Bincombe had not reached her grandparents’ ears. He had seen her only briefly since the attempted murder and she had looked tense but not heart-broken. Daisy said she was in a “funny mood, blaming herself.” He couldn’t pass that on to her grandparents.

  He said, “I’m afraid events keep overtaking me. No sooner have I begun to work out how to tackle the case than a new disaster presents itself. However, we have accumulated considerable information, though we’ve had no time to analyse it, and I expect what I learn this evening to narrow the field of suspects.”

  “All members of my family,” the Earl said unhappily. “I can scarcely credit the whole business. I keep expecting to wake up and find it’s been a nightmare.”

  “Do you expect anyone else to be assaulted, Mr. Fletcher?” Lady Haverhill asked with more than a touch of acerbity.

  “My dear, how can Mr. Fletcher possibly know?”

  “Assuming our reasoning to be correct, I doubt it. I’m confident that I know the reasons for the first and third attacks. The second puzzles me.”

  “You’re convinced now that Aubrey was murdered?”

  “I have no proof until I hear from the pathologist, but the attempt on Lord Gerald’s life …”

  “Yes, of course. He saw something.”

  “Or the murderer was afraid he had seen something.”

  “But how could Aubrey have posed a threat to Lady Eva’s murderer?”

  “That’s the question. I suppose he wasn’t in the habit of leaving his room at night, perhaps to check on his plants or make sure the conservatory doors were closed, or something of the sort?”

  “Certainly not,” said Lady Haverhill. “He was engrossed in his plants, not obsessed.”

  “Whatever he learnt, however he learnt it, we’ll never know now. But why didn’t he come to you with the information, Mr. Fletcher, after Eva’s death?”

  “People have all sorts of reasons for not telling us things, sir,” said Alec. “Often they don’t realize the significance. Sometimes they just don’t like to talk to the police. Or they decide to ask the person they suspect for an explanation. Perhaps that’s what Lord Fotheringay did.”

  “That doesn’t sound at all like Aubrey,” said his mother.

  “No,” Lord Haverhill agreed, “but this is idle speculation and we are keeping you from your investigation, Mr. Fletcher. If there is anything at all we, or the household, can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Thank you. I have one more question for you. Were the Reverend and Mrs. Timothy with you at tea-time and after dinner?”

  “With us and with Maud,” Lady Haverhill said, adding disapprovingly, “My daughter-in-law is under sedation.”

  “You can’t suspect Timothy and Nancy!”

  “It’s my job to suspect everyone, Lord Haverhill. Can you give me times for their visits to you?”

  Consulting each other, the Earl and Countess provided times which excluded Timothy from both attacks and Nancy from that on Bincombe, though she had visited their children in the nursery at tea-time. So Nancy could have put the oleander in the teapot. However, Alec couldn’t conceive of her conspiring with anyone but her husband—nor with him, come to that! He had been sure enough of his judgment to leave her to watch Bincombe. Now he was ready to cross them both off his list.

  He went downstairs to tackle Daisy’s and Lucy’s lists. The vast house was so still, every footstep sounded loud in his ears as he crossed the hall. If Sir Leonard had managed to gather everyone in the drawing room, they were too subdued for the sound of their voices to carry. So much the better. Alec had rather expected more vociferous complaints.

  In the library, Tom and Ernie had put together a list of those who could not have been in the conservatory when Bincombe was attacked.

  “Both Miss Lucy’s parents,” said Tom.

  “Thank heavens!” said Alec.

  “Erica Pendleton and Julia Lasbury—they’re the two bridesmaids who came early, before their parents.”

  “I suppose the parents will turn up any moment, to complicate matters.”

  “Lady Ione—but she was already out of it—and Miss Flora F. Mrs. Rupert F. Mrs. Walsdorf. All four Henry Fotheringays: ma, pa, and two bridesmaid daughters. Edward Devenish, who was here with us. And that’s it, Chief. Miss Lucy has a feeling there was someone else, a couple, in the further reaches of the drawing room, but she didn’t notice who.”

  “Pity. But that’s a good lot knocked out. Which leaves?”

  “Lady Devenish,” said Piper. “Mrs. Fletcher spotted her skulking about outside the library after dinner, waiting for sonny-boy.”

  “Yes, she told me.”

  “But she needn’t have stayed there,” Tom pointed out. “She could have gone to the conservatory and come back.”

  “Daisy didn’t notice her when she came to tell us about Lord Gerald?”

  “She didn’t say so, Chief, but she wasn’t in a state to do much noticing.”

  “True.”

  “I wouldn’t have said Lady Devenish was strong enough for a blow like that. I could be wrong, though.”

  “Never, Sarge!”

  “You watch your lip, my lad! I was just thinking, Chief, ladies aren’t the delicate plants they were in my young day. All this tennis and golf and whatnot. I’ve heard they even play cricket and hockey at some schools for young ladies!”

  “Not
Lady Devenish.”

  “No, I s’pose not,” Tom said reluctantly. “The younger ladies.”

  “Most of the younger ladies seem to be accounted for. I’ll include Miss Angela—she could easily have finished him off while she was alone with him. We’d never have managed to prove she could have saved him.”

  “Pity. I bet she could hit a ball for six. Cricket bat or not, we’re going to have to search the place for the weapon, right, Chief?”

  “Not you and I, Tom.” Alec grinned at Piper’s horrified face. “The CC has sent for some extra constables and Ernie shall organize them. The house is huge, but being Victorian, not mediaeval, it’s comparatively simply laid out. They can start on the public areas as soon as everyone has gone to bed and if necessary search the bedrooms tomorrow after everyone’s up.”

  “Chief,” said Piper, suddenly excited, “the murderer wouldn’t take the weapon to his bedroom, would he? Don’t you reckon there must be a cupboard somewhere where they keep bats and balls, and croquet stuff, tennis racquets, all that sort of stuff? If it was a cricket bat, wouldn’t he’d stick in in there with all the rest?”

  “Good point, young ’un.”

  “Yes,” Alec said, “good idea, Ernie. I must be tired. Go and find out, from a servant, not one of the family. And then go and look.”

  Piper dashed off.

  Alec and Tom returned to the lists. “What about Sir James Devenish?” Alec asked. “He can’t claim to have been with his wife if she was seen alone in the hall.”

  “No,” said Tom with grim satisfaction, “and he strikes me as almost as likely as young Teddy. He’s certainly strong enough.”

  “But is he clever enough?”

  “Clever enough to hang on to the purse-strings. I can’t see him using poison, though.”

  “Hmm. Out of character, perhaps, but in spite of Smith and his brides in the bath, a multiple murderer can’t be counted on to behave in a normal fashion, even normal for himself. What about the other daughter, Mrs. Bancroft, and her husband? They may be the nameless couple Lucy thought she saw in the drawing room.”

  “Someone will know. Mrs. Walsdorf’ll know, I expect. Mrs. Fletcher said she was pouring coffee.”

  “She must have noticed everyone, then. Good.”

  “Walsdorf was out and about though. I wouldn’t put poisoning past him.”

  “Because he’s a foreigner?” Alec asked dryly.

  “No, Chief! Because he’s a smooth, mild, soft-spoken sort of chap, like Dr. Crippen.”

  “Not at all the sort, in fact, to hit someone over the head.”

  “You’ve got me there, Chief. I’ll give you Sir James poisoning Lord Fotheringay if you’ll give me Mr. Walsdorf bashing Lord Gerald.”

  “Fair enough. Who’s left?”

  “The Carletons. Unless they were the couple Miss Lucy saw. How about he did in Lady Eva because of the mistress, and she did in Lord Fotheringay to protect him so her darling daughter’s daddy wouldn’t be hanged, and he tried to do in Lord Gerald because if she was caught, so’d he be.”

  “Ingenious!” Alec said admiringly. “And not beyond the bounds of plausibility.”

  Tom preened his moustache. “Then there’s the Honourable Montagu Fotheringay. Personally, I agree with Miss Lucy he’s not up to the physical exertion required, but Mrs. Fletcher fancies him. He came to talk to her in her room just before I was up there.”

  “She didn’t let him in!”

  “Yes, but Miss Lucy was standing right behind her with a poker.”

  Alec laughed. “Lucy brandishing a poker! I wish I’d seen it.”

  “She told me the maids are forbidden to go into Mr. Montagu’s room alone. So the maid who took up his tea-tray wouldn’t have seen him. He might have answered when she knocked. I didn’t ask.”

  “What makes Daisy suspect him?”

  “Oh, just that he was one of the last out of the dining room, so he’d have known pretty near when Lord Gerald would go to the conservatory and that he wouldn’t have long to wait.”

  “It’s a point. The longer the murderer hung about in the conservatory, or watching to see when Bincombe left the dining room, the more chance he’d be missed or seen. Is that the lot?”

  “Well, there’s always Mr. Baines.”

  “The butler?” Alec asked in surprise.

  “He had the key to the servants’ wing door,” Tom pointed out defensively. “And he’s always buzzing about. The nobs wouldn’t notice him or think twice if they did. I’m not saying he’s likely, mind, but he’s possible.”

  “Quite right, we must take him into account. Now, before we have anyone in, let’s go over the people in Lady Eva’s notes. With any luck, Ernie will return bearing a cricket bat with blood on one end and a nice, clear set of fingerprints on the other.”

  Before they had finished running through the suspects with known motives for killing Lady Eva, Ernie Piper returned. He bore in triumph a cricket bat, holding it carefully with a handkerchief wrapped around the upper part of the blade.

  “Blood on the end all right,” he announced. “And soil stuck to it. There’s a big closet—more like a box-room—down that corridor behind the conservatory, between the gun room and the billiard room. Full to busting of tennis stuff, croquet, cricket, golf clubs, badminton, anything you can think of. Pushed in right at the back, this was.”

  “Well done, young ’un.” As he spoke, Tom extracted his fingerprint kit from the Murder Bag. “Let’s hope he was too rushed to think of wiping off the dabs.”

  But the bat bore not a single fingerprint, old or new.

  “Pity,” said Tom, “but at least I shan’t have to take the dabs of a couple of dozen nobs all screaming blue murder.”

  22

  Jennifer Walsdorf came into the library warily, like a mouse hoping the cat is not in the kitchen. Piper directed her to where Alec stood behind the big desk at the far end. He had decided to leave Lucy’s mother to Tom, being himself rather too close for comfort to that branch of the family.

  While Tom, with impeccable courtesy and his most reassuring manner, seated Mrs. Oliver Fotheringay at the long table, Alec watched Mrs. Walsdorf approach down the long room. Her black frock looked slightly out of date and as if it had been made for someone else. Of course, all the female guests were wearing makeshift mourning, but she was a poor relation, probably making do with cast-offs at the best of times. Very likely she wore cheap artificial silk stockings. Under pressure of events, Alec had neglected to follow up the artificial silk stocking.

  Anyone could have bought a pair, he reminded himself, bowing slightly to the anxious young woman. “Do take a seat, Mrs. Walsdorf,” he said. “I believe you’re in an excellent position to help us.”

  “John didn’t kill anyone! That business of his being born in Germany, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know why Lady Eva wrote it down.”

  “He told you about that.”

  “Oh yes. He told me before we were married that he was born in Baden-Baden, and he told me today that Lady Eva knew. He only found out this afternoon, from you. It really wouldn’t have made any difference to us if she’d told people.” She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. “Some people already dislike and distrust him just because he’s a foreigner, and the others don’t care exactly where he was born. There’s simply never been any reason to mention it. After all, he left Germany when he was only a few days old. He hates the Germans for invading his country.”

  “Who can blame him? Actually, what I want to ask you about is whom you saw in the drawing room after dinner, where, I gather, you were pouring coffee?”

  Mrs. Walsdorf confirmed all the names Daisy and Lucy had provided, and added Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft. “John didn’t come,” she said reluctantly. “He didn’t want to stay and drink port with Rupert, of course, but he still had one or two letters to write and then he was going to take them to the letter-box. He went up to Lord Haverhill’s den again, as you were in here. Surely Lord Haverhill
must have seen him.”

  Alec hadn’t thought to ask. Anyway, he doubted the Haverhills had been in any state to notice. “Did any of the others come in late?” he asked.

  “Just Rupert and Lord Gerald, and Lord Gerald didn’t stay for coffee. Is he … is he going to die?”

  “I’m afraid the doctor thinks he’ll just slip away without regaining consciousness.”

  “It’s awful! Who’s doing it, Mr. Fletcher? Is it a maniac? He might kill any of us next. I’m so afraid for Emily!”

  “Your child? I don’t think you need be, Mrs. Walsdorf. These are not random murders.” Alec could only hope he was right. The last thing he wanted was a house full of panic-stricken people. They had held up pretty well so far, he acknowledged. For the most part, the “nobs” were being stiff-upper-lip, while the servants went on with their work as if none of the horrors had anything much to do with them, in which belief they seemed to be justified. So far. “What about tea-time?” he asked. “Where were you then?”

  “Pouring! In the drawing room. We usually have it on the terrace in the summer, or in the Long Gallery if it’s not nice out, but Lady Haverhill sent word to serve it in the drawing room.”

  “Why is that?” So that she was less likely to be seen going to the conservatory? No, surely Lady Haverhill had not strangled her sister-in-law, poisoned her own son, and hit a noble guest over the head!

  “Because of what had happened. Because it’s more formal. I’d expected Sally to want to play hostess, but she sent a maid to tell me to pour. Not that I mind pouring. I always do it for Lady Haverhill. But that’s because her wrist and hand tire easily and she doesn’t want Aunt Maud to get ideas about taking over. I’m sorry if that sounds catty, but it’s true. Poor Aunt Maud has been looking forward for decades to being Countess of Haverhill, and now she never will. Of course, Sally just enjoys telling me what to do and watching me do it. Never mind, it won’t be much longer.”

  “Tell me whom you remember coming to tea.”

  Almost all the guests had turned up at tea-time. Unfortunately, there had been considerable coming and going, and Mrs. Walsdorf couldn’t remember who had come when, nor how long they had stayed. “I’m sorry, but there are three doors,” she pointed out, “to the hall, the Long Gallery, and the French windows to the terrace. I couldn’t have watched them all even if I’d known it was important. I was kept pretty busy, too.”