The Curious Death of Henry J. Vicenzi (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 5)

by R. A. Bentley

  'Nappies, then, teething rings, feeding bottles, spoons and pushers, all those essential accessories to modern motherhood. Or something quite else — a new hat perhaps? One each, obviously. In fact, ideally you should visit a variety of departments. Feel free to spend.' He hesitated. 'Well, perhaps not too free. Polly might baulk at a pram or something. The important thing is that you cultivate the staff, make friends with them. I'm after information and you shall be my beautiful spy. Spies, rather. Now listen carefully . . .'

  *

  'I was growing quite to like young Lewis until he mentioned the sacking,' said Felix, returning to the study.'

  Rattigan, now behind his typewriter, nodded. 'They always try to pin it on a servant, don't they?'

  'Sadly they do. We need to tread carefully with Jessup though. He can hardly be our man and he may yet be useful to us. However, it perhaps explains your misgivings about him; he'd have known how it would look to us once we found he'd got the elbow.'

  'Perhaps,' said Rattigan noncommittally. 'Coming back to Lewis. He could easily have returned this morning and done it. He'd have known, if anyone does, just what was required in order to slip in and out unseen.'

  'Yes he would. And Henry would have thought nothing of his own son standing behind him, which the murderer would have had to do. And we've only got his word for it that Andrew Vicenzi actually has gone, or went first thing. He could equally well have done it. I managed to get Drake by the way. He said he'd call in. I've also arranged for a visit to Pumfreys by our female undercover agent.'

  'Oh yes? A lofty blonde by any chance?'

  'Posing convincingly as a mother-to-be, and with money to burn, yes. They'll never guess.'

  'How do you plan to get that past Polly?'

  'It'll be me that's paying. She'll be more inclined to spend if she thinks the department is footing the bill, and we'll need the stuff anyway. Daisy is going with her.' He glanced at his watch. 'The other maids next, I suppose.'

  *

  'Your name is Ida Turner, you're seventeen and you work here as a tweeny,' read Felix. 'Been here long?'

  'Three years, sir, since school.'

  'Like it?'

  'It's all right.'

  'Do you live in?'

  'Yes, sir. I share a room with Mary.'

  'And did you happen to hear Mr and Mrs Andrew and Mr Lewis leave here this morning?'

  'I did actually sir. I was lighting the kitchen range and I heard them go off.'

  'What time was that?'

  'It would've been about six-fifteen.'

  'Did you actually see them go?'

  'No, but there's no-one else gone, is there? And I heard Mrs Vicenzi say something.'

  'What did she say?'

  'She said a naughty word, sir.'

  Felix leaned conspiratorially towards her. 'And what was that?'

  '"Damn," sir.'

  'Wicked of her. Did she sound cross?'

  'I suppose so, a bit. You usually do, don't you, when you say damn?'

  'I suppose you do. How do you know they went out? Did you hear the front door closed?'

  'Yes I did, and locked. There was no car went off though.'

  'Anyone else up at the time?'

  'Mrs Entwistle might've been. She keeps funny hours. She sometimes gets me to make her a cuppa really early. She didn't come in this morning though.'

  'You can make sense of her then?'

  'Mostly I can. She talks a lot of nonsense but it's because she don't hear you I think.'

  'What does she do with herself all day?'

  'Sleeps a lot, and listens to her wireless set, with the headphones. Then at night she gets up and wanders about.'

  'That's interesting. Does anyone else wander about at night?'

  Ida appeared to hesitate. 'Not that I know of, sir.'

  'Sure?'

  'Yes, sir. I just had to think about it a bit.'

  'All right, Ida, thank you. I understand Miss Pickles has visited you, in the servants' hall. Do you like her?'

  'Yes, we all do; she's smashing. We're hoping she'll marry Mr Lewis and stay.'

  Mabel Armitage was a big, broad-hipped, comely woman who emanated brisk good sense. Unlike the nervous Mary she was not the sort to be intimidated by policemen but sat squarely in front of them with her hands calmly in her lap.

  'You're the senior maid,' reiterated Felix, 'and you've been with the Vicenzis nine and a half years. You must like it here.'

  'Yes, sir, I do. They're a nice family. They don't deserve all this.'

  'Any tensions and troubles among them that you know of?'

  Mabel's expression gave nothing away. 'I don't feel it's my place to comment on that, sir, if you don't mind.'

  'Fair enough. Let's move on to what happened this morning. One of our problems, as you will know, is to discover how the murderer got into the house and out again without being seen. I therefore need your fullest account of what you did, and what you saw, around the time Mr Henry was shot. Sergeant Rattigan will take down your statement and we'll get you to sign a copy later, assuming you're happy with it. Can you recall where you and Mr Jessup were, when you heard the shot?'

  'Perfectly, sir. I was in the hall, arranging the flowers. I shan't forget that in a hurry.'

  'Is that an everyday task?'

  'Not every day, sir. Only when they need changing. The ladies like to see flowers on the big table as it looks a bit bare without.'

  'And what was Mr Jessup doing?'

  'He was outside, talking to the postman.'

  'Were you able to see the postman yourself? Can you be sure it was him?'

  Mabel smiled. 'No, I didn't actually see him but I'm quite sure it was Jim. That's Jim Clark, sir: he's got a funny, squeaky voice. And I heard his bike, which sounds just like him.'

  'All right. And are you quite sure no-one else could possibly have slipped past you, while you were doing the flowers?'

  'I am really, sir. We've talked about it over and over but I don't see how they could have. I was actually facing the door most of the time, and they'd have had to get past Mr Jessup before me.'

  'So let's go through this. What happened first? The postman rang the door bell?'

  'Yes, sir. We were both in the kitchen, and George – that's Mr Jessup, sir – said it was probably Jim and he'd go up. It's only three steps but we call it go up. I followed straight behind him because I was going anyway, with the flowers.'

  'Don't you have a flower room for that?'

  'Yes we have, but I like to arrange them nice while they're on the table.'

  'So what was happening when you arrived in the hall?'

  'Mr Jessup was already at the door, talking to Jim.'

  'Actually at the door, not outside?'

  'Not then, sir, no. He was on the threshold, I suppose you'd say. But then he stepped outside and started to walk with Jim down the drive. I'd scarcely begun when there was this big bang behind me, and Mr Jessup ran back in and said it sounded like a pistol shot, so we rushed to the back of the house and looked in the drawing room and the breakfast room, which were empty—'

  'Sorry to interrupt. Are you quite sure of that?'

  'Yes, sir, I think so. There's nowhere to hide in the breakfast room and Mr Jessup went round the sofas and things in the drawing room while I stood in the small hall – that's what we call the bit outside here, sir – so I'm sure no-one could have got past me there. Then Mr Jessup peeped in at the study door and saw Mr Henry was dead.'

  'Did you see him dead too?'

  'Yes, just for a moment. But Mr Jessup said not to come in but to telephone to the police, so I did.'

  'And what did Mr Jessup do?'

  'He stayed in the study.'

  'Did he lock the door?'

  'I don't know. He might have done. No-one came out anyway. I know that because I'd have seen them from where I was on the telephone.'

  'Yes, I suppose you would. Was Mr Jessup long in the room?'

  'Not really. I shouldn't say
more than five or six minutes. I'd just finished with the police when he came out. But he'd seen Mrs Entwistle and Miss Pickles by then.'

  'Thank you, Mabel. That was nice and clear. Tell me, did you like Mr Henry? The servants generally, I mean.'

  Mabel considered this. 'I don't think any of us exactly liked him, sir, but I don't think anyone hated him either, not to want to murder the poor man. We wouldn't have stayed here if we had.'

  'And what about Mrs Entwistle? She's made her feelings clear enough.'

  Mabel smiled. 'Well, you know, sir, I've always said that hating him kept her going. It gave her an interest as you might say, what with finding ways to needle him like she did, and grumbling about him. I wouldn't mind betting she'll miss him, in a way.'

  'Well it's a point of view,' smiled Felix. 'Thank you very much, Mabel. That'll be all.'

  Halfway to the door, however, she stopped and produced a white silk handkerchief. 'Sir, I nearly forgot, Ida found this on the cloakroom floor this morning. I expect it's Mr Curry's. It's got his initials on anyway.'

  Felix examined it. 'Hmm. Looks quite clean, no dust or footprints. Been there long, do you think?'

  'I shouldn't have thought so, sir. You'd hardly miss it and Ida didn't see it when she cleaned in there. I asked her.'

  'When does she do it, usually?'

  'About eight, sir. But I told her to check it again when the police doctor arrived, and that's when she found it. What with everything else, it slipped my mind.'

  Mabel safely dismissed, Felix buried his head in his hands. 'How by all that's holy did I manage to forget the cloakroom, Teddy? I deserve to be busted to sergeant for that.'

  'It's not just you, sir,' said an equally embarrassed Rattigan. 'We've all used it and never given it a thought. I didn't anyway.'

  'That just makes it worse — four purblind policemen! We should be made to muck the cells out for a week.'

  'Do we tell them: Mabel and Jessup? It's not going to make us look very good.'

  Felix considered this. 'No, I have an idea. Think about it: Cedric must have dropped that hankie either just before or just after his meeting with Henry. If it was afterwards, it's possible he was in there when the murderer was on the loose. It must have been pretty close anyway. It would also mean he was fibbing, as he said he went straight out of the house, following Miss Vicenzi; which I'm a little suspicious of frankly.'

  'You're thinking being that if he was in there, the murderer couldn't have been. Unless they were getting pretty chummy together.'

  'Quite so. We need to eliminate him.' He went to the door. 'Jessop, we're just popping out for half an hour. The others are here. Oh, and by the way, you'll be getting a constable to look after the place, when we've cleared off for the night.'

  *

  'This must be the place,' said Felix, pulling up outside a private lodging house. 'If he's lucky, he'll be here and not at the church. I'm going to be a little bit naughty, I'm afraid.'

  'Thought you might.'

  'You can wait here if you like.'

  'Not in the mood you're in I won't.'

  'Whatever do you mean, Sergeant?'

  'You had best come in,' said the Reverend Curry, allowing them into his monastic-looking little room. 'What is it? I was just going out.'

  'Another committee meeting eh, Mr Curry? What a busy man you are. This won't take long.'

  'It's not breach is it? Because if it is, I'll contest it.'

  Felix was briefly baffled. 'Breach of promise is a civil matter, Mr Curry, it has nothing to do with us. You told me that after your dismissal by Henry Vicenzi you followed Miss Vicenzi out of the house and into the road. That wasn't quite true, was it? You didn't follow her immediately.'

  Curry looked nervously from one large policeman to the other. 'I needed to visit the cloakroom, that's all, after which I did indeed follow her.'

  Felix breathed a secret sigh of relief. 'And which of you actually left the study first?'

  'It . . . I did. I was very upset.'

  'And you went straight into the cloakroom?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then how do you know that Miss Vicenzi ran out of the house, if you were in the cloakroom?'

  'Because I joined her in the road, so she must have done.'

  'What was she doing exactly?'

  'Walking back towards the house. She thought she'd missed me.'

  'Mr Curry,' said Felix loudly, 'at about the time you claim to have been relieving yourself in the cloakroom, the shot was fired that killed Mr Vicenzi. Was it you that murdered him?'

  Curry leapt to the door and closed it. 'Can't you keep your voice down? No, it was not! I was where I said I was! Of course it wasn't me; I'm a priest!'

  'Priests are not immune from sin, Mr Curry.'

  It wasn't me! It couldn't have been me! I heard the shot while I was in there, in the cloakroom. I didn't know what had happened. I was terrified! I looked out and the butler and maid ran by. They ran into the breakfast room and I fled.'

  'And let me repeat my question of our last meeting. Did you see anyone else, apart from those two, either in the house or the front garden?'

  'No! No-one! No-one at all. I was very afraid. I thought you would accuse me and that's why I ran away from your interview. I can't be mixed up in murder, not in my position. It would mean ruin!'

  'And did you tell Miss Vicenzi that you'd heard a shot?'

  Curry had the grace to look embarrassed. 'No, I didn't. I didn't know what it was. I'd never heard a gunshot. There was no point in worrying her with it.'

  'And you didn't even bother to find out what had happened?'

  'It was none of my business!'

  'So you passed by on the other side, like the Levite.' Felix stood glaring at him as Rattigan finished his notes. 'You have been a great deal of trouble to us, Mr Curry. You have materially delayed this investigation. And since there were no witnesses to what you tell me, I'm afraid you will now remain a suspect. You will report daily to your local police station until this business is resolved. In the meantime what you have just said to me will be added to your statement, which one of my sergeants will bring to you to sign.'

  'The police-station! But suppose someone sees me?'

  'Then you'd better hope we find the murderer soon, hadn't you? Good afternoon.'

  'Suppose he'd insisted he'd dropped the hankie earlier?' asked Rattigan as they drove the quarter mile back to the house.

  'I'd have looked foolish, and serve me right,' admitted Felix. 'I just hoped that if he did go in there afterwards, which I had a hunch he did, he'd be too rattled to lie about it. His hearing the shot was a bonus.'

  'We still have the same problem though,' said Rattigan. 'How did the beggar do it?'

  Felix punched the steering wheel in frustration. 'Yet somehow he did. Murderers do not appear by a process of spontaneous generation or disappear in a puff of smoke.'

  *

  'Inspector, I'm so sorry,' said Esme. 'Whatever must you think of me? I'm Esme Vicenzi.'

  'Miss Vicenzi, how do you do?' said Felix, coming to greet her. 'There is no need to apologise; you've had the worst of shocks. Do sit down. This is Sergeant Rattigan.'

  'Hello, Sergeant,' said Esme. 'I suppose murder always is a shock but it's made even worse by the manner of our parting. I'm afraid my father and I had the most terrible falling out this morning, and then to come home and find him dead . . .' She took out her handkerchief. 'It's very hard to bear.'

  'You don't have to speak to us now if you're not ready to, Miss Vicenzi,' said Felix. 'You might prefer to leave it until tomorrow.'

  'No, I want to,' said Esme, blowing her nose. 'And I'm quite sure you want me to. From what I gather we could have been the last to see Father alive. That's important, isn't it?'

  'It may be, yes. At the moment we're trying to find out who was here at the time and whether anyone could have got in from outside. It's a bit of a mystery how they did; and how they got out again.'

  'It seems to me that v
ery few people were here,' said Esme tartly. I can't imagine what Andrew and Stella think they're playing at. Wherever do they think they're going to go? And what about the shop? It's enough to send one mad.'

  'Have you spoken to Lewis Vicenzi at all?' asked Felix.

  'Yes, before he went to work. He wouldn't tell me anything. In fact, I don't think he knows.'

  'Does he know why they've gone?'

  'If he does, he's not telling me. I've never seen him so tense and worried, which is hardly surprising. He kept pinching my cigarettes and he's not much of a smoker normally. I must say, I'm a little surprised to see Miss Pickles still here, not that I haven't been glad of her support; he's treated her appallingly.'

  'Do you know why they fell out?'

  'I didn't know they had; though again I'm not surprised. He disappeared for most of my birthday party, leaving the poor girl stranded, only to push off again with no explanation before we were even up! Do you want my statement, about this morning?'

  They went through the usual catechism before moving on to Esme's interview with her father. 'It wasn't a good time for it,' she said, 'I knew that. There was never going to be a good time. I loved my father, which may surprise you, but I had no illusions about the sort of man he was. He was selfish and peremptory and thought he owned me. My brothers too, but at least they had the illusion of freedom and could hope to inherit the business. It was our own fault, of course; we should have stood up to him. Anyway, I'd simply had enough. Even marriage to Cedric seemed preferable to that, so we marched in and told him. Of course, he reacted exactly as I'd expected. He was right about one thing, though, Cedric is a useless little worm and if I never see him again it'll be too soon.'

  Felix smiled sympathetically. 'Can you remember what time it was when you entered the study?'

  'Yes, it was ten o'clock.'

  'And when you left?'

  'I'd say about five past. It certainly wasn't long.'

  'How did you leave your stepfather? What was he doing?'

  'Sitting where you are now.'

  'Getting on with his work?'