by Jack Treby
‘Of course, sir.’
Briefly, I outlined my efforts to get the body out of the house and the reasons for leaving it under the table. None of it sounded remotely sane in the cold light of day. I let out a sigh. ‘Dreadful mess, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
There was an embarrassed pause. I didn’t know quite what else to say. ‘I’m thinking of running,’ I managed eventually, heaving another long sigh. ‘It might be my only option.’
Hargreaves considered this for a moment. ‘It wouldn’t be easy, sir. There’d be no going back. Your life could never be the same again.’
‘I know that! But what choice do I have? I don’t want to go to prison.’
Hargreaves sat down on the bed. Ordinarily, I would have chastised him for his effrontery, but I didn’t have the energy to complain. ‘It might not come to that, sir. Perhaps if you were to speak to the Colonel. Tell him the truth.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He couldn’t let something like that go.’
‘If it was an accident, sir...?’
‘It makes no difference, Hargreaves. A crime is a crime.’
‘But as I understand it, the Colonel is keen to avoid a scandal. That’s what he said to the servants, sir. He wouldn’t want a public trial.’
I shook my head. ‘There were two murders, man. If he lets me get away with one, does he let the other murderer go free?’
‘That’s different, sir.’
‘Is it? I’m not so sure that it is.’ I sighed again. ‘I think I may just have to cut and run. Do you fancy another trip to France?’
‘If that’s what you want, sir.’ Hargreaves did not sound enthusiastic, though I knew he would do whatever I asked.
I glanced at the bedside table. ‘Pour me a drink, will you? I could do with one.’ My bladder was full, but my throat was suddenly feeling rather parched.
Hargreaves reached over and poured out some whisky from the bottle on the table. He passed the tumbler across and I gulped it down in one.
‘You’re a good fellow, Hargreaves.’ I coughed.
‘I...try to be, sir.’ He placed a gentle hand on my leg. It was an attempt at reassurance, but it was going too far. I growled at him and he removed the hand at once.
‘I will need to speak to the Colonel before I go.’ I stood up and handed the tumbler back. ‘See if we can’t shed some light on this other matter, before I head for the hills.’ I was too involved now not to want to find out what was going on. I could probably afford to stay at Bletchley for another half hour, at least until the men from London arrived.
‘He’s down in the morning room, sir. The Colonel. With Mr and Mrs Smith.’ So the interviews had started already.
‘I’d better get down there,’ I said. ‘And you’d better see to the car. Get the luggage packed away. Make sure Harry really did fill up the tank.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Another thought struck me as I headed for the door. ‘You don’t think I had anything to do with the murder of Dorothy Kilbride, do you?’
My valet was unequivocal. ‘No, sir. Definitely not.’ There was a ghost of a smile on his lips. ‘I put you to bed myself. You were in no fit state to murder anyone.’
Chapter Eighteen
As I came down the stairs – with my bladder now blissfully relieved – my attention was caught by the shrill warble of the telephone in the hallway. I ducked back into the entrance hall and pulled out my pocket watch. It was ten past nine on a Sunday morning. Who on earth could be phoning at this time? I let the telephone ring for a moment, but then a horrible thought struck me: it might be Anthony Sinclair’s people. They could be calling back with more details about my private life. I would have to answer it and put them off.
I hurried across and lifted the receiver. ‘Hello, Bletchley Park.’
There was a nervous voice on the other end of the line. ‘Good morning. May I speak to Mr John Smith, please?’
I breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing to do with me. Now where the hell was Mr Smith? Ah, yes. He was in with the Colonel. ‘Who’s calling please?’ I asked.
‘Mr Butterworth. Sidney Butterworth. His chief clerk.’
‘All right. Just a moment, Mr Butterworth. I’ll see if I can find him.’ Taking a message on the telephone would normally put me in a foul mood. Having to deliver it to some fat idiot might make me lose my temper altogether. But this was a good excuse to interrupt proceedings in the morning room and I wasn’t going to waste it. I placed the receiver down on the table and made my way along the hall.
The morning room was off to the right, along a short corridor that also gave access to the library. Lady Fanny Leon’s suite was directly above it. I knocked politely on the door, but entered without waiting for a reply.
The Colonel was sitting with his back to the window. The morning room was a bright, cluttered space, smaller than the library, but lined with book-filled cabinets and various items of decorative crockery. Edward Townsend, the Colonel’s valet, was sitting to his master’s right, scribbling notes in a small black book. Mr and Mrs Smith were opposite them, in front of the door.
I brought a hand up to my face, to shield my eyes. There was far too much light flooding into the room. A set of large bay windows had been installed deliberately to catch the morning sunlight. The Colonel had the right idea, I thought, sitting with his back to the damn things.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I said. ‘There’s a telephone call for Mr Smith. A Mr Butterworth?’
Smith nodded. ‘I’d better take it, Sir Vincent.’ He rose to his feet.
The Colonel waved a hand. ‘I think we’re finished with you for now. Thank you for your time, Smith. Mrs Smith.’
I stood back from the doorway as the married couple departed.
The Colonel smiled at me. ‘As you’re here, Butler, you might as well be next.’ He gestured to the recently vacated seats. ‘Close the door, will you? Take a chair.’
I did as I was instructed. The Colonel’s man looked up from his notes as I settled myself down, his face an unreadable block of stone.
‘Bad business, this,’ the Colonel observed.
‘I’ll say.’
‘Townsend and I are just going through the times, working out where everybody was when the murders took place.’
I nodded. That seemed a sensible thing to do.
‘Let’s start with Sinclair. Now most of us were in the ballroom when he was killed. Mr and Mrs Smith. Professor Singh. Doctor Lefranc. Lady Fanny Leon, of course. And the band. And most of the servants. The only exceptions were yourself, Latimer, Miss Young and Miss Jones.’
I blanched. ‘And Dottie. Er...Miss Kilbride.’
The Colonel’s expression darkened. ‘Yes, and poor Dottie.’
‘Miss Young and I were helping her up to her room. Or what we thought was her room. That was at about, what, half past eleven? A quarter to twelve?’
‘Something like that,’ the Colonel agreed.
‘I had a bit of a chat with Miss Young. Then I came downstairs and was heading back to the dance floor when I heard a bit of an argument going on in the drawing room. A man and a woman.’
‘Did you hear what was said?’
‘No. I was just passing by.’
‘But you think it was probably Miss Jones and Anthony Sinclair?’
‘I believe so.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘Well, I was feeling a little sick, to be honest. I’d had a bit too much to drink and I needed to visit the little boy’s room. Unfortunately, the cloakroom was occupied, so I snuck through the house to the servants’ quarters and used the facilities there. Then I bumped into your man Townsend on the way back to the main hall.’
Townsend acknowledged the truth of that. ‘You were a little bit the worse for wear, Sir Hilary, if you don’t mind me saying.’
I glared at the valet for a moment. It was hardly his place to comment. But given the circumstances I decided to let it go. ‘I had drunk quite a
lot,’ I confessed.
The Colonel laughed. ‘I’ll say! Poor old Mrs Smith. Ha ha! Didn’t know what hit her.’
‘Yes, well...’ I coughed with embarrassment.
‘And of course you were fast asleep at the time of the second murder. Heard you snoring away when I found the body,’ the Colonel explained. ‘And you’d hardly have woken up, killed her and gone back to bed, now would you?’
‘Er...no.’
‘But the first murder. Have to be scrupulous here, Butler. There were a few minutes there where you might have got into a fight with Sinclair.’
‘You surely don’t think...?’
‘Have to explore every possibility. Nothing personal, old chap. You didn’t see Latimer at all?’
‘Not until I got back to the ballroom. But Harry wouldn’t kill anybody. Except perhaps in self-defence.’
The Colonel frowned. ‘I’m not so sure, Butler. He’s always been a rather shady character. Of course, the girls have no real alibi either. But I spoke to Miss Jones at some length before breakfast and I don’t think she can have had anything to do with it. She’s quite a child, that one. Don’t think she could have faked her reactions.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘She does seem rather wet behind the ears.’ Felicity Mandeville Jones was barely twenty-one years old. ‘Seems a bit young to be involved with the Security Services,’ I observed. ‘What does she do? A bit of typing?’ MI5 had always made a point of placing young aristocratic women in junior roles. It was a standing joke that most of the organisation’s typists were of a higher social status than the people they reported to.
‘Translation, actually,’ the Colonel replied. ‘Speaks fluent German. Can be jolly useful. Her uncle was the British Ambassador to Berlin.’ He adjusted his monocle. ‘And as for Miss Lettie Young...well. I’ve known her since she was a baby. She’s a little minx. No better than she ought to be, as Mrs Smith would say. Ha ha! But I don’t believe she would bludgeon someone to death, even in anger. So that just leaves Latimer and you.’
I nodded quietly. I had been so busy defending Harry and the others that I had all but laid the finger of suspicion on myself. Perhaps Hargreaves was right. Maybe now was the time to confess and throw myself on the Colonel’s mercy. Then at least we could concentrate on the identity of Dorothy Kilbride’s murderer. I clenched my hands uncertainly, but the moment passed before I could bring myself to say anything.
‘The thing of it is, Butler,’ the Colonel continued. ‘You don’t have any motive that I can see. But Latimer, well, I could quite see him getting into an argument with Sinclair about Miss Jones.’
‘Did she tell you about...?’
‘About Latimer spending the night with her? Oh, she told me. In the strictest confidence, of course. Foolish girl. Letting herself be led astray like that.’
‘Harry can be very persuasive.’
‘Yes. It’s him I blame. He could charm the legs off a billiard table, that one. Ha ha! I suppose he boasted about it to you, did he?’
‘We’re...old friends.’
‘Hardly an excuse. He’s a bit of a devil, that one. No two ways about it. And I’m sorry to say it, Butler, but he is the most likely suspect, at least where Sinclair is concerned. But innocent until proven guilty and all that. I’m rather more concerned about the second...’ A knock at the door cut the Colonel off in mid sentence. ‘Seems rather a morning for interruptions,’ he said. ‘Come!’
To my surprise, it was Thomas Hargreaves. ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. He was supposed to be smuggling my luggage out to the Morris Oxford. But perhaps he had been side-tracked.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but Lady Fanny sent me. She’s about to address the servants down in the kitchens and she wondered, Sir Vincent, if you would be able to spare Mr Townsend for a few moments?’
‘Of course,’ the Colonel replied, gesturing to his valet. ‘Capital idea. I said she ought to have a word with them. Make sure there’s no gossip. Got to keep a lid on things.’
‘What time are the regular staff due back?’ I asked.
‘Not until this evening, thankfully. We’ll have to get Sinclair moved before then. Don’t want the head groom stumbling over the corpse when he returns to his little cottage. Be a bit of a shock, what?’
‘I’ll say!’
Townsend rose to his feet. He handed the notebook to the Colonel. ‘I’ll be back shortly, sir,’ he said, following Hargreaves out the door and closing it politely behind him.
Sir Vincent and I were left alone in the morning room.
‘Useful fellow that,’ the Colonel declared, glancing down at the notebook. ‘Awful handwriting though. ’
‘You said he was a policeman during the war?’
‘That’s right. Left under a bit of a cloud, actually. Trade unionist, you know. Got the sack for going on strike.’
I laughed. ‘And you think he’s the right man to investigate a murder?’
‘Oh, he’s as solid as a rock. Been with me for years. None finer. And everyone’s allowed the odd mistake.’
‘What happened to the other fellow?’ I asked. When I’d first known Sir Vincent, before the war, another man had served him as valet. ‘Cameron, was it?’
‘Oh, yes. Sad story. Got blown to bits, poor chap. May 1915.’
‘In the trenches?’
‘No. He was visiting his mother in Stepney. A Zeppelin came over and flattened the house.’
‘Good lord.’
‘Awful bad luck. Mind you, he was always unlucky, that one. Had a leg blown of at Mafeking.’
‘I remember he had a limp.’
‘That damn tin leg.’ The Colonel laughed. ‘Could hear it a mile off. Useless for cloak and dagger work. Ha ha! Had another chap working for me through the rest of the war, but he retired in 1922. And Townsend’s been with me since then. Actually, we’re lucky to have him this weekend. By rights he should be visiting his sister. She’s a bit poorly at the moment, so I gather. But he didn’t want to let me down, what with the reunion.’
‘Does Townsend have a set of house keys?’ I asked.
The Colonel nodded. ‘The butler left him all the keys on Friday afternoon. And there’s another bunch in the office. Why do you ask?’
‘I was just thinking...you heard about Harry’s revolver?’
The Colonel’s expression darkened. ‘Yes. From Doctor Lefranc. Another matter I need to raise with our American friend.’
‘The revolver was kept in a holdall in Harry’s bedroom and the door was always locked. So whoever stole it and shot Dottie must have had a key to get in.’
‘Doesn’t follow. Anyone could pick a lock, Butler. You’re not suggesting my man had anything to do with it?’
‘No, of course not. I’m just saying...we can’t rule out the servants. Any one of them could have grabbed those keys from the butler’s office.’
‘Even your man Hargreaves,’ the Colonel suggested.
I laughed at the idea. ‘He’s no more a murderer than I am.’ It was only after I had said this that I realised the absurdity of it, but I managed to cover my embarrassment. ‘Mind you, none of the servants would know about the mix up over the rooms.’
‘That’s true. Or about that revolver. But you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Have to consider these things, Butler. No one is above suspicion.’
Even the Colonel was a legitimate suspect, according to Doctor Lefranc. ‘So where were you at half past three,’ I enquired, ‘as a matter of interest?’ I couldn’t resist asking, though I no more suspected Sir Vincent of murder than I did my own valet.
The Colonel chuckled. ‘A fair question, Butler. Ha ha! As it happens, I was in the ballroom at half past three, talking to the Johnnie Hazelwood Orchestra as they were packing up. Then I went down to the kitchens to make sure the caterers had left a bit of food out for them before they headed off. The band came along and we had a bit of a chinwag there. An extended night cap, you know the sort of thing. I was just about to head off to bed when the whole Si
nclair thing kicked off.’
‘You didn’t get any sleep at all?’
‘I can do without sleep. I’m not going to rest until this business is cleared up.’
That I could believe. ‘Your man Townsend said at breakfast that Harry’s gun had been found.’
‘That’s right. And the silencer that went with it. Never seen one attached to a revolver before.’
‘And you’re sure it’s the weapon that was used to kill Dottie...Miss Kilbride?’
‘No doubt about it. Two shots fired within the last few hours and one of the bullets recovered from the headboard matches it precisely.’
‘Have you tested the gun for fingerprints?’
‘Not yet. But we’ve got it under lock and key. When my chaps get here from London, they can examine it properly.’ He glanced at a clock. ‘They should be here within the hour.’
‘You didn’t say where the gun was found.’
The Colonel frowned. ‘No. It was a bit tricky with everyone there at breakfast. Didn’t want people throwing accusations around. I can trust you not to blab, though.’ He leant forward. ‘It was found underneath a pillow in Professor Singh’s bedroom.’
‘Good lord. Professor Singh?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
I blinked. That was the last place I’d have expected to find it. ‘So...do you think he was the murderer?’
‘Difficult to say. Singh’s an intelligent chap. Seems a bit daft, leaving a weapon for someone to find in your own bedroom. As the man himself said, this second murder was obviously premeditated. The killer must have had some plan to dispose of the weapon.’
‘Perhaps it’s a double bluff,’ I suggested.
‘He’s not that clever, Butler.’
‘But would he have any motive? For killing Dottie, I mean. Doctor Lefranc said he did some work for you in India.’
The Colonel nodded. ‘A case officer. Not a terribly good one, it has to be said. Bright chap, but academic, not good with people. And the intelligence he provided was distinctly low grade. Called it a day after a year or two.’