Death on Doomsday

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  “Did you take any calls on Tuesday evening?” he asked.

  “Only one.” Reluctantly she capitulated under his steady interrogative gaze. “Sir James Mallaby rang about the time he was bringing the American lady and gentleman over. Except for a wrong number,” she added grudgingly.

  “A wrong number? That’s a well-known dodge of criminals to find out if a house is empty, you know,” Pollard told her.

  Mrs. Pringle looked startled, and then relieved. “It was somebody wanting Mrs. Giles. It often happens. The numbers are the same except for the last figure. You can hear her phone across the courtyard when the windows are open. It rang straight away.”

  “It might also have been somebody checking up on that part of the house, mightn’t it? You may have told me something very important by mentioning these calls, Mrs. Pringle,” he went on, playing up to her. “I’m sure you realise that it mustn’t be mentioned to anyone else at present.”

  She bridled slightly. “I’m not one for talking.”

  “I’m quite sure you’re not. What time was this wrong number call?”

  Her small face puckered with concentration. “Just after half-past nine, it was, when Sir James rang. I always put the time on the pad. I’d hardly sat down when the phone went again. Say twenty to ten.”

  Pollard made a note.

  “You had the dogs with you, I understand? From what I saw of them last night they seem good watchdogs. Did they bark at all during the evening?”

  “I won’t stand for their hullabaloo, and they know it,” replied Mrs. Pringle briskly. “Snowball — that’s Mr. Emmett’s dog — began to bark about half-past ten, and they must join in, of course, but I soon put a stop to that. I expect that heathenish Siamese cat of Mrs. Giles’s jumped up on the Emmetts’ window ledge, and set him off.”

  ‘Did you let the spaniels out for a run before you went to bed?”

  “No, sir.” There was a fractional pause between the two words. “His lordship sees to that when he comes in. When I went up just on eleven they settled on the mat inside the front door, and not a sound till the car came back.”

  “Did you hear anything in the least unusual during the night?”

  “Nothing, sir, and I’m a light sleeper.”

  Pollard made another note.

  “I don’t want to bother Lady Seton any further,” he said. “I wonder if you would take me round this wing of the house? I’d like to see how far it can be watched from the passage outside the miniatures room, among other things.”

  Mrs. Pringle rose promptly and led the way. Although he examined the lock of the front door with care, Pollard’s main objective on the ground floor was the kitchen. On entering it he glanced at the sink and saw the pair of rubber gloves he had half expected to find. After standing at the window and contemplating the back of the Elizabethan house for a few moments he turned to her.

  “I want to try a little experiment. Would you sit just where you did on Tuesday evening? Thank you, that’s fine. Now just pretend you hear the telephone ringing. Go and answer it, and imagine it’s that wrong number call. Deal with it exactly as you did then, and come straight back. All right?”

  Looking mystified, she darted off. Pollard took some quick strides over to the sink, pocketed the rubber gloves and returned to his former position. Mrs. Pringle reappeared to find him studying his watch.

  “Thank you,” he said, making an entry in his notebook. “Now, may we go up to the first floor?”

  Having arrived there he concentrated on the lie of the land. The Setons’ bedroom was in the eighteenth-century part of their private wing, facing west. Immediately opposite, a room which overlooked the courtyard had been subdivided to make a dressing-room for Lord Seton, with a bathroom on its north side. Emerging from the dressing-room and turning left, one arrived at the locked door into the public part of the house, which Inspector Diplock had pointed out to him the night before.

  From the dressing-room window he looked across to the open window of the passage outside the miniatures room, and through it to the closed door of the latter. But surely the dressing-room curtains would have been drawn late on Tuesday night? On the other hand, the windows would probably have been open, and Lord Seton’s attention possibly aroused by some sound. One thing was clear enough. He could have gone through to the miniatures room without passing the bathroom. The corridor was well carpeted. His wife, relaxed and somnolent in her bath, need not have heard a sound.

  “I suppose Lady Seton’s daughters are still away at school?” he asked for the sake of making conversation, as he followed Mrs. Pringle out of the dressing room.

  “Lady Amanda is, sir. She’s only fifteen. Lady Caroline’s been learning French in a family. She’s rising eighteen. Coming home this evening, and her bed not made up yet with all this dreadful upset.”

  “I won’t keep you any longer,” he said. “Thank you for all your help. Now I want to go back to the hall.”

  “We’ll have to go down to the ground floor, to get through to the old house: I haven’t a key for the door here.”

  She escorted him to the screens passage. When he turned to say goodbye Pollard saw that her face was flushed, apparently with indignation.

  “It’s shameful, such a thing to happen here, in her ladyship’s house,” she burst out angrily. “Let rag, tag and bobtail come in, tramping all over the place, and see what comes of it. It never should’ve been.”

  She shot off so abruptly that Pollard was left to speculate as to whether she was referring to Raymond Peplow’s demise or the opening of Brent to the public. He rather thought the latter. Heavy footsteps on the main staircase announced the reappearance of Toye, Strickland and Boyce, and the team repaired briefly to the car in the forecourt.

  “I nicked these from the kitchen sink,” Pollard said, producing a pair of bright blue rubber gloves. “Any tie-up with the dabs on the panel and show case?”

  Strickland pounced, but immediately shook his head.

  “Different type, sir. These are Grabtites. It’s a popular brand for washing up — my wife has ’em. See the little raised studs to improve the grip? The dabs were made by thin gloves with a smooth surface. Got that blow-up you did, Boyce?”

  “Pity,” Pollard observed, handing back the photograph. “Did you get anything from the newel staircase?”

  “Lovely. There’s a nice layer of fine dust on the treads in the middle part, and the prints of those patterned soles of Peplow’s shoes were clear as daylight. We took a sample of the dust, and Boyce got a picture. And Peplow’s dabs were on the inside and outside handles of the door from the gallery into the passage.”

  “Quite simple for him to slip along to the priest’s hole while the caretaker was closing up the rooms at the other end of the house. Any trace of a second chap having hidden up?”

  “Nix,” replied Toye. “Not a sign of marks on the carpet under the beds, or hairs or threads caught up underneath. Nor behind the bigger bits of furniture. We even took a look behind the altar frontal in the chapel.”

  “All the same, I reckon a chap could’ve dodged the caretaker easy, and never left a trace, keeping on his feet,” said Strickland, in the tone of a man baulked of his legitimate prey. “Look at all those rooms upstairs leading out of each other. And ’tisn’t likely the caretaker’d let on if he didn’t give the place much of a once-over Tuesday evening.”

  “True. Or a chap could have come in after the house was closed, if he’d managed to get hold of keys, or had a pal inside. Grilling Emmett seems to be the next major job, but we must drop in on Lord Seton first, Toye. You boys had better get back to Crockmouth so that Boyce can do his stuff with the photographs. You’re busting with curiosity, Boyce. What’s biting you?”

  “That hair, sir, having seen the lady.”

  “The lady,” Pollard said, “vigorously denied ever having been in the priest’s hole, and showed strong distaste at the mere idea.”

  He returned to the secretary’s office with Toye
to find Peggy Blackmore in a state of obvious agitation.

  “Lord Seton’s engaged for just a few minutes,” she said. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  As she turned to him again Pollard saw that her eyes were full of tears.

  “So sorry,” she said, hastily scrubbing with a handkerchief. “It’s just that everything’s so ghastly. That wretched man being killed by somebody. And now, on top of it all, Whitesisters! I think Maurice Corden’s a traitor!”

  “Whitesisters? Maurice Corden?” asked Pollard, bewildered.

  “He’s the consultant we had, and now the Ormistons at Whitesisters have called him in, right on our doorstep, and he’s got the nerve to come over here pretending to sympathise. Whitesisters…”

  She broke off hastily as Lord Seton came in, followed by a thin dark man with pronounced features and observant eyes whom he introduced rather cursorily to Pollard as Mr. Corden of Stately Homes. The latter proceeded to deplore the increase of country house robberies with overtones of social ease. He became professionally reassuring.

  “I’ve just been warning Lord Seton, Peggy, my dear, that you’ll be invaded when Brent reopens. A violent death in historic surroundings is right up the great British Public’s street. Now I must dash back to Whitesisters. By the way, and between these four walls, it almost certainly won’t be a viable proposition.”

  Peggy Blackmore looked unwillingly relieved, and Lord Seton keenly interested.

  “I’m not surprised,” he remarked. “It’s an attractive setting, but the house isn’t a good specimen of its period, and the whole place has rather run to seed.”

  “You’re telling me,” replied Maurice Corden. “It’s positively seedy. The Ormistons would have to sink a packet in it to make an opening a commercial proposition, and frankly they haven’t got it, and aren’t in a position to raise it.”

  “Of course they’ve got some pictures,” Lord Seton said reflectively. “One or two in the five-figure class at present values, I should think. I only hope they’re being kept under proper conditions. Still, if those went, Whitesisters would be even less of a draw. It’s really very small, too.”

  “That needn’t matter, other things being equal. Look at Greenover Manor, for instance…”

  Pollard listened to this conversation with some surprise. Was it possible that a man personally involved in a violent death in his own house could be so absorbed in business matters?

  “I managed to get down on schedule,” Maurice Corden was saying, “and did my usual local snoop before going over to the Ormistons. I dropped in on the coach people — Blennerhasset’s — and the chap in charge there said emphatically that Whitesisters wouldn’t be on in the face of your competition here, however much it was tarted up.”

  Suddenly recalling Pollard’s presence, Lord Seton apologetically brought the conversation to an end.

  “I must simply fly,” Maurice Corden said, making for the door, “but I just had to look in. Great to be here again, and I’m utterly convinced that all this brouhaha’ll pay off in the end. No, of course I can see myself out…”

  He vanished.

  “Come into the office,” Lord Seton said as the door closed.

  Leading the way into the room beyond, he seated himself at his desk, indicating chairs to the others. There were fatigue lines at the corners of his eyes, but Pollard noted with interest that he was far less tense than on the previous night. He told him that investigations in the house itself were now complete and that Brent could be reopened, and he watched him become at once the experienced business man dealing with an unfortunate contretemps.

  “Just a word to my secretary, if you don’t mind, Superintendent.”

  An emotional gasp of relief from Peggy Blackmore was audible over the intercom. Lord Seton pushed a typewritten list across his desk.

  “I assumed this would be wanted,” he said, “and we got it out this morning. A list of everyone on duty on Tuesday afternoon, and in residence here on Tuesday night.”

  “Thank you.” Pollard put the list into the case file. “That’ll be a useful time-saver. Last night,” he went on, “we examined the possibilities of getting out of what I’ll call the public wing without leaving a door or window open. I’d like now to discuss the matter of someone being in unauthorised possession of keys, both for getting in and leaving again. With four households here, I expect quite a few people have keys of one kind or another?”

  He sensed at once that this question had been expected, and wondered if Lord Seton’s categorical rejection of the loophole was deliberate policy. He learnt that when the multiple occupation of Brent was first mooted, all members of the family had been opposed to any idea of communal living. The various households were entirely separate, and none possessed keys to any other. Lord and Lady Seton each had keys to the two doors from their private wing into the public rooms. Mrs. Giles Tirle, being responsible for the guides, had a key to the door connecting the first floor of the public wing with her own apartments. Her husband and Lady Arminel Tirle merely had their own front door keys. Emmett was in charge of the keys of the front door, the north gate and the door from the screens into the courtyard. An emergency set of all keys, including those of the show cases, was kept in the office safe.

  A glance showed Pollard that this was of an efficient modern make. He sat for a few moments considering the facts he had just been given. That there was a pointer to Emmett was plain enough. Then he enquired about any incidents of lost or mislaid keys. Lord Seton extracted a key ring from an inner pocket.

  “This is my lot,” he said, “with the car keys and the safe key — there’s a duplicate safe key at the bank. At night I put them in a drawer in my dressing room. They’ve never been missing, and I’ve never heard of my wife losing hers. Or my brother or sister-in-law for that matter either, and I’m quite sure that I should have heard.”

  Pressed about the safe, he insisted that it had never been left unlocked during his absence from the room.

  “It’s a new safe,” he said, leaning back in his chair with hands thrust into his trouser pockets. “We put it in when we opened, and some of my wife’s jewellery is kept in it, including family pieces. I can fairly say I’m punctilious about it. Another thing I want to say is, Superintendent, that to the best of my knowledge and belief Emmett is a perfectly sound reliable chap. He’s been here for ten years.”

  “I’m glad to have your opinion of him, and shall keep it in mind,” Pollard replied. “Just one more question. You’ve given us a useful list of everyone sleeping on the premises on Tuesday night. Were any regular members of the various households away?”

  “Yes. My brother is on a lecture tour in the States. His wife could probably give you his precise whereabouts. His eldest son, an Oxford undergraduate, is in Greece, as far as I know, and his younger boy and my younger daughter are at boarding school. My elder daughter has been with a French family in Paris since Easter, and comes home today.”

  “Thank you,” said Pollard, glancing at Toye who was noting down these particulars. “I don’t think we need take up any more of your time at the moment.”

  Before they reached the door Peggy Blackmore was being summoned to resume her secretarial duties. Outside in the courtyard Toye turned and raised an interrogative eyebrow.

  “Playing it cool, this morning, his lordship, isn’t he?” Pollard remarked. “He doesn’t want any truck with my helpful suggestions of somebody having got at keys, or Emmett being involved. Either he knows that he’s as safe as houses, or he didn’t boot Peplow down those steps. I don’t think he can have, you know. It’s so hopelessly unconvincing psychologically.”

  “Look at him last night,” persisted Toye.

  “Might have been suffering from shock. Discovering a stiff in one’s home is a bit disconcerting. Or perhaps he thought — wrongly, according to that chap Corden — that all his business would choke off the public. It’s all very rum. We’d better go and get something to eat before the inquest at two. I
t’ll be adjourned, of course, and then we’ll come back and have a bash at Emmett. I’d like to ring the Yard from a kiosk, and have them just check up on this Giles Tirle in the States. A lecture tour sounds watertight, but you can’t be too thorough. One of the newshounds had got on to it, actually. Thanks.”

  Pollard stepped through the wicket in the north gate held open for him by Toye, and came face to face with a slim, dark-haired woman in slacks and an open-necked shirt, with a dachshund at her heels. Her resemblance to the originals of many of the family portraits in the hall was beyond question.

  “Good morning,” he said. “May I introduce myself? Detective-Superintendent Pollard of the C.I.D., in charge of the enquiry here. I think I must be speaking to Lady Arminel Tirle?”

  “You are.” She gave him a very direct look. “Do you want to see me? You’ll be wasting your time: I’m right off the map here.”

  “It’s routine, I’m afraid,” Pollard replied. “We are seeing everyone who was on the premises on Tuesday night. Is it convenient for you to spare a few minutes now, or shall we come back in the later part of the afternoon?”

  “As you’re here you may as well come in now,” she said briskly, and slipped a latch key into a lock. Some letters were scattered on the mat, and she stopped to pick them up and glance at them. “Go straight up, will you, while I just drop this in on the Emmetts: the postman’s delivered it here by mistake. My sitting-room door’s open.”

  The sitting-room of the flat was at the north-west angle of the house, with views over the gardens and open country beyond. Looking about him Pollard recognised the same combination of business activity and comfortable relaxation as in Lord Seton’s office. There was a light quick step on the stairs, and Lady Arminel came in.

  “Sit down,” she said with preamble, and took a chair by a window, an alert and upright figure.

  “We need only take up a few moments of your time,” Pollard said, realising that a direct conciseness was required. He briefly summarised the known facts about Raymond Peplow and his movements on Tuesday.