by Jack Treby
I coughed with embarrassment, trying not to look at Mrs Smith.
‘Anyway, he made a quick search of the front of the house, but there was no sign of Sinclair, so at about four am he decided to head back to the servants’ quarters. He passed through here, heading for the servery, and being a solid chap, he noticed one of the chairs on the dining room table was misaligned. Naturally, he went over to straighten it out, but when he did, it banged against something underneath the table. And when he looked down he found the body of Anthony Sinclair. Which was something of a shock, I should imagine.’
‘I’ll say!’ Lettie Young agreed.
Mrs Smith was aghast. ‘The body was under the dining table?’ She looked down in horror. ‘This table?’
‘I’m afraid so, my dear.’
‘It’s a bit bloody much, serving breakfast on it if some poor bugger's been killed in the same room,’ Mr Smith thought. ‘’Scuse my language dear,’ he apologised to his wife.
It was Doctor Lefranc who answered that. ‘Ah, but he wasn’t killed in this room, Monsieur. We believe Anthony Sinclair died in the drawing room on the other side of that wall.’ The doctor gestured across to a mahogany fireplace just to the right of the exterior doors. It had a shared chimney stack with the fireplace in the drawing room on the opposite side. ‘Mr Townsend found a small dent on one of the wooden pillars in that room. He also uncovered some traces of blood in the lounge hall. We believe the body was dragged from there to here. Judging by the wounds on Mr Sinclair’s head, it seems he was struck by an iron poker from the fireplace and then fell against the pillar. Examination of the cranium suggested that it was the second blow that proved fatal.’
Mary Smith let out another cry.
‘Pardon me, Madame,’ Lefranc apologised. ‘I did not mean to be so graphic. Perhaps, Colonel, Mrs Smith should retire to her room? This may be a little too distressing for her.’
‘No, no,’ Mrs Smith insisted, wiping her eyes. ‘I am perfectly capable of dealing with a little unpleasantness. My husband is from Yorkshire. It’s just rather shocking when it’s on your own doorstep.’
The Colonel was all concern. ‘If you’re sure, my dear?’
She nodded unhappily.
Lettie Young was impatient to find out what had happened next. ‘So what did you think, when you’d found him?’
‘Well, Miss Young, it was a bit of a blow. Dashed awkward, I have to say. It looked like it might have been some kind of accident. Bit of a row that got out of hand, you know the sort of thing. And I remembered Latimer here telling me that Sinclair had had a blazing row with Miss Jones just before midnight.’
Harry confirmed this with a nod.
‘You don’t think Felicity had anything to do with it?’ Lettie asked. ‘She wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’
‘Perhaps not, my dear,’ the Colonel admitted. ‘Nonetheless, it was my first thought. It was the amateurishness of the crime, more than anything. I mean to say, dragging the body from one room to the next and then hiding it under the dining room table. Damn queer thing to do.’
‘Aye, you’re right there,’ Mr Smith agreed. ‘What kind of bloody fool batters someone to death and then leaves their body in plain sight for any idiot to stumble across?’
Of all the many things I had expected to hear around the breakfast table that morning, criticism of my disposal technique was not one of them. But I was hardly in a position to contest Mr Smith’s evaluation. I was lucky I had even managed to maintain my composure, with things the way they were. There was one question, though, which I desperately needed to know the answer to.
‘If you found the body under the table, why has it been moved?’ I kept my voice calm. It was a reasonable question to ask, but I didn’t want to seem over-critical. ‘Why not leave it here? Surely interfering with a crime scene is a crime in itself? Shouldn’t everything be left untouched?’
The Colonel scratched his moustache. ‘In the ordinary course of things, Butler, that would be true. But you must understand. I was concerned about the possible ramifications. Miss Jones is the daughter of a prominent ex cabinet minister. If she had attacked and killed someone as well known as Anthony Sinclair and the news became public, it would be the biggest scandal of the decade. A journalist murdered by a politician’s daughter! Our involvement couldn’t be kept out of it.’
Harry grinned. ‘You were going to cover it up.’
‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ John Smith said. ‘You can’t cover up the death of someone like that.’
‘Not his death,’ the Colonel agreed, ‘but perhaps the circumstances of his death. MI5 cannot afford a scandal, not with the government we have just now. The Labour Government,’ he added. Ramsay MacDonald, the new Prime Minister, had already proved deeply suspicious of the security services. ‘After Doctor Lefranc had examined the body, we had Sinclair shifted to one of the workers’ cottages.’ And put him underneath a shroud for me to find. Now I understood. ‘We didn’t want any of the other servants stumbling across the body. Would have been a bit tricky to explain.’
‘My valet helped Mr Jenkins and Mr Townsend to move the deceased,’ Doctor Lefranc added, by way of explanation.
They had unlocked the exterior doors and carried the corpse out onto the carriage turnabout, just as I had intended to do.
‘And then I went upstairs,’ the Colonel continued, ‘to have a quiet word with Miss Jones.’
Suddenly, things were beginning to fall into place. And so far, there was no indication that the Colonel had connected me with the first murder.
‘That, of course, was when I stumbled across the body of Miss Kilbride. I knocked on her bedroom door, but there was no reply. Given the seriousness of the situation, I had no choice but to enter the room unannounced.’
Mrs Smith was confused. ‘I thought you said you were looking for Miss Mandeville Jones?’.
The Colonel nodded. ‘That’s right. Bit of a mix up over the rooms.’
‘That was our fault.’ Lettie Young laughed. ‘Me and lover boy here. We were putting Dottie to bed, but we got the rooms the wrong way round. We put Dottie in Felicity’s bedroom.’
‘That’s right,’ I admitted, with some embarrassment. ‘We were all a bit tight, I think.’
‘I didn’t have a clue we’d got it wrong,’ Lettie confessed. ‘Not until I bumped into Felicity – Miss Jones – when I was coming back out. “What were you doing in my bedroom?” she said. I said “I thought it didn’t look right.”’ The woman laughed again. ‘I never could tell me left from me right. One room either side, what do you expect?’
It was my turn to frown. ‘Wait a minute. Your bedroom’s the one in the middle?’
‘’Course it is. All girls together. Three in a row with Mr and Mrs Smith just round the corner at the far end.’
Mary Smith pursed her lips with distaste.
Harry had already grasped the implications of this rather trivial mix-up. He had made the same mistake, after all. ‘So you must have knocked on Felicity’s door,’ he guessed, addressing the Colonel, ‘but found Dorothy Kilbride.’
‘Bleedin’ hell!’ Lettie exclaimed, also catching on. ‘That must have been a right old shock.’
‘Rather,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘My poor secretary, lying dead there, in bed. Shot with a revolver of all things.’ That got another gasp from those who were not in the know. ‘I called up Doctor Lefranc, of course, and he put the time of death at between half past three and four o’clock. Probably only a short while after most of you went to bed.’
‘What time did you find the body?’ Harry asked.
‘About a quarter to five. Still warm, sad to say.’
‘Hang on a mo,’ said Lettie. ‘I was in the room next door to her. I’d have heard a shot.’
‘We believe a silencer may have been employed.’
Harry tried not blink while the group took this in. What silencer, his face seemed to say.
Professor Singh had been following the conversation carefully. ‘T
his is most perplexing,’ he said, displaying his usual gift for understatement.
That was too much for Mr Smith. ‘Perplexing? That poor bloody woman’s shot in the head and you call it perplexing?’
‘I was merely reflecting on the peculiarity of the situation. It is most strange, do you not think?’ Professor Singh clasped his hands together. He seemed to regard the whole affair as some kind of intellectual exercise.
‘Nothing bloody strange about it,’ Mr Smith responded. ‘Some bloody madman breaks in here, batters Sinclair then goes up and shoots Miss Kilbride. It was probably a burglar.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘Have you checked your jewellery, love?’ She shook her head.
‘There was no sign of a break in,’ the Colonel countered. ‘The doors were all locked and the murders took place about four hours apart, which makes it rather unlikely that anybody from the outside could have been responsible. A chap couldn’t wander about the house for four hours without being seen, not even at that hour. No, I’m pretty sure it was somebody already on the premises.’
‘Perhaps one of the staff?’ I suggested. What had Jenkins really been doing, creeping around the house at four am?
‘Aye.’ Mr Smith liked that idea. ‘Or one of them band members. That trumpeter with the moustache looked right peculiar.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ laughed Lettie. ‘They were playing all evening. They couldn’t have killed anyone.’
‘Is it perhaps possible,’ Professor Singh asked, ‘that we are dealing with two entirely separate incidents here? The death of Mr Sinclair could well have been an accident. As you have said, it does not seem to have been premeditated. Whereas the murder of Miss Dorothy Kilbride, it seems to me, demonstrates a degree of calculation which renders it quite unlike the first killing.’
A short silence descended while everyone attempted to digest the professor’s words. The man spoke like a walking textbook.
‘There’s certainly something in that,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘If Miss Jones was somehow involved with Sinclair...’
‘Felicity wouldn’t harm a fly,’ Lettie protested. ‘She wouldn’t have battered him to death with a...what was it?’
‘A poker,’ Doctor Lefranc chipped in.
‘A poker. It’s not her style.’
‘I wasn’t aware that you knew her,’ Mrs Smith observed coldly. ‘So I hardly think your opinion of her character carries much weight.’
‘We’ve got to know each other, these last couple of days.’
That would certainly be true, I thought, if Lettie really had been sleeping in the room next door.
‘Anyway,’ the Colonel concluded, ‘it’s a damned queer business all round, but we will sort it out. I’ve asked my chap to search all the rooms, as I've explained. See if we can find the murder weapon. And in the meantime, I’d ask everyone here if they can stay put for the next few hours.’
‘Confined to barracks?’ Harry asked with a grin.
‘Until this afternoon at least. Feel free to wander the grounds, though. Don’t feel like you’re imprisoned.’
‘Mr Smith and I were planning to attend the local church service at half past ten,’ said Mary Smith.
‘Of course, my dear. Feel free. Just so long as we know where you are. Don’t want anyone deserting us just yet. Townsend and I will want to have words in private with everyone, just to determine where you all were at the time of each murder. So if you can make sure we know where to find you?’ He shook his head. ‘A bit of a rum do, this. But don’t concern yourself, ladies, gentlemen. We’ll catch the blighters. You have my word on it.’
The Colonel’s valet arrived from the lounge hall and cleared his throat. ‘We’ve searched the rooms, sir,’ he announced solemnly. ‘And I believe we may have found the murder weapon.’
Chapter Sixteen
A state of confusion pervaded the breakfast table as the Colonel departed to consult with his valet and one or two of the other servants who had helped conduct the search. I had no idea whether they had uncovered anything else of significance, or indeed where the murder weapon had been found, but doubtless we would find out in time. I was more concerned about the ease with which the Colonel had managed to deceive everyone, particularly regarding the discovery of Anthony Sinclair’s body. He had known about the corpse under the dining room table when I had spoken to him at half past five in the morning, but he had said nothing. His assertion that he wished to speak to Felicity Mandeville Jones before making the news public had some credibility, if he really thought she might be responsible for Sinclair’s death. But the fact that the Colonel had managed to deceive me so completely was a little dispiriting. I pride myself I am usually rather good at detecting falsehood. But I suppose if the head of MI5 doesn’t know how to keep a secret, then nobody does. It wasn’t just the Colonel, however. His valet Townsend had known about Sinclair, as had Doctor Lefranc. And if the three of them had managed to keep quiet about that, what else might they be hiding? Had someone observed me killing the journalist? Had the Colonel noticed my nervous glances at the carpet underneath the occasional table when we’d had our little chat in the drawing room? And even if the man hadn’t suspected me initially, might I have done something since then to give myself away? If not with the Colonel, then perhaps with Doctor Lefranc. The Frenchman, I knew, was a shrewd judge of character and he was already aware that I had secrets to hide.
It had been a mistake for me to stay at Bletchley Park this long. Better to abscond now, while I still had the chance. It would mean going into hiding, of course, but that was a small price to pay to avoid several decades in prison. Elizabeth wouldn’t mind, so long as there was no scandal. Hargreaves could fetch the car from the garage and we would be off before anyone even noticed. He had already packed the luggage, after all.
The luggage! Lord, even that would look suspicious. The Colonel had ordered the valets to search all the bedrooms. In the ordinary course of events, it would have been perfectly natural for me to have my belongings packed up ready to leave, but not before breakfast, in the aftermath of a murder, when it would be quite clear that no one would be going anywhere any time soon. If the Colonel did have any suspicions of me, this would only serve to strengthen them.
That decided it. I would cut and run at the earliest opportunity.
One small matter had been eating away at me, though, since I had first found out the truth about Anthony Sinclair. If Sinclair had not been involved with Felicity Mandeville Jones, then who was the shadowy figure I had seen lurking in her bedroom on Friday evening? And, come to that, which damned blackguard was responsible for those injuries to her face? Only one person could answer these questions, and she was sitting next to me at the breakfast table.
Lettie Young pushed back her chair. ‘I’m going to pop up and check on Felicity,’ she announced, rising to her feet. ‘Poor little bleeder. What she must be thinking...?’
‘I’ll join you, if I may,’ I said, brushing a few breadcrumbs from my shirt before I stood up so that I didn’t seem too eager. ‘I wanted to have a word with Lady Fanny,’ I added, by way of explanation. That wasn’t strictly true, though I was curious to know how the grand old dame had taken the news. If anyone could cope, it would be Lady Fanny. She was that kind of woman. But it was Lettie I really wanted to talk to.
She gave me her arm and we swept out of the dining room together, with Mrs Smith’s disapproving glare burning into our backs.
‘You don’t think Felicity had anything to do with the death of Mr Sinclair, do you?’ she asked, as we made our way through the lounge hall.
‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘Though I did hear them arguing when I came down the stairs last night. And Harry told me there’d been a hell of a row.’
Lettie dismissed that with a shrug. ‘He was just playing the father figure. Him and her dad are as thick as thieves. There was nothing going on between them two, believe me.’
‘Oh, I do believe you. But do you think Miss Jones might have been the target for the second mur
der?’
‘I dunno.’ Lettie frowned. ‘Nobody knew about the mix up over the rooms, did they? Apart from you and me. And Felicity.’
‘And Harry,’ I added.
‘Oh, you heard about that, did you?’ She laughed. ‘Dirty buggers, the pair of them.’ We were in the hallway now, moving towards the main stairs. ‘The bedsprings were still going at six o’clock this morning.’
I stopped. ‘You’re in the room next door to her, aren’t you? The middle room.’ It was as well to get straight to the point.
‘That’s right. Should have heard everything last night. But the walls are pretty thick and I was out like a light.’
I was more concerned about the previous evening. ‘So when I knocked on that door the night we arrived, that was your bedroom, was it?’
Lettie grinned. ‘It certainly was.’
‘Even though it was Miss Jones who answered the door?’
She beamed. ‘We were having a bit of a night cap. That’s when I first got to know her, really.’ Lettie moved onto the stairs and I followed behind. ‘The two of us started chatting on the way up to bed. Rather like now.’ She smiled again, a warm lopsided smile. ‘I was teasing her about throwing that game of billiards. You remember?’
‘I should say. The damn woman cost me five guineas!’
We had paused midway up the staircase. The balustrade on the first floor stood opposite and a large frosted window spanned the wall to our left.
‘It was worth it just to see Sinclair’s face. Anyway, Felicity came into my room and we had a right old chin-wag. You know her dad’s trying to marry her off to some middle-aged sod she can’t stand?’
‘I’d heard something about it. Some minor royal, wasn’t it? A cousin of Prince Edward. I can’t remember the details.’ Society gossip was Elizabeth’s forte, not mine.
‘She was quite upset about it. Sinclair was taunting her during the drinks. Him and Sir Hugh go way back, but she can’t stand the sight of him.’
‘So that’s why she humiliated the fellow on the billiards table?’
‘One thing he didn’t know she could do. Served him bleedin’ well right. Oh. I suppose I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’