Death at Wentwater Court

by Carola Dunn

  ‘What is it?’ Daisy demanded, her heart in her mouth. ‘Who were you talking to?’

  Startled, he looked up. ‘Dr. Renfrew, miss, the pathologist.’ He was bursting with news. ‘I got him to tell me in ord’n’ry words this time. That bruising and bleeding? You was right about that. Seems the gash on Astwick’s forrid and the bruise on his chin . . . ’

  ‘He had a bruise on his chin?’ Daisy recalled the horribly blotched face of the drowned man.

  ‘That’s what he says, miss. Seems they didn’t look right for if Astwick got dumped in icy cold water right away, so Dr. Renfrew did some more tests, like I told you last night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And’ – Piper paused dramatically – ‘he found stuff in Astwick’s lungs as looks to him like soap and bath-salts.’

  ‘Soap and bath-salts!’ She sank onto the nearest chair. ‘So he couldn’t have drowned in the lake, could he?’

  ‘Reckon not, miss.’

  ‘He drowned in the bath, and his body was carried down to the lake.’

  ‘That’s the way I sees it, miss.’

  ‘To make it appear to be an accident.’ Daisy shuddered and, with the utmost reluctance, acknowledged, ‘But he can’t have drowned accidentally in his bath or someone would have found him and reported it, not moved him. It must have been murder.’

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘I wish the Chief was here,’ Piper groaned.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Daisy dragged her mind from contemplation of the awful fact of murder. ‘Did Dr. Renfrew ring up Winchester?’

  ‘No, miss, he said he’s too busy to go telephoning all over the country leaving messages with morons.’

  ‘How rude!’ She was growing quite fond of Ernie Piper and didn’t care to have him insulted. Besides, she was glad of the distraction from her imaginings.

  ‘He didn’t mean me, miss. He said so. The bloke he talked to at Winchester last night was’ – frowning, he consulted the notebook – ‘a congenial idiot.’

  ‘Congenital, I expect.’

  ‘Could be. Anyways, I wish he told me yesterday. D’you think the Chief might not’ve got that message?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering why he hadn’t come back yet.’

  ‘So’ve I, miss. I ought to’ve rung up meself, I know I ought.’ The young detective looked ready to weep.

  ‘Too late to worry about that now, but you’d better call up the police station at once with the latest.’

  Eagerly Piper turned back to the telephone. Without consulting his notebook he gave the operator the Winchester police number.

  Daisy listened intently to the cryptic half of the conversation she could hear, trying to guess what was being said on the other end of the wire.

  ‘Hullo? Hullo, give me Chief Inspector Fletcher. It’s urgent . . . Detective Constable Piper here. Where did he? . . . He did? . . . You don’t . . . Couldn’t you send a messenger after? . . . I can’t tell you what’s so . . . No, I haven’t, but . . . Yes, I know the numbers . . . Yes, I will, but if they comes back or calls up, you better be bloody sure you ask the Chief to give me a ring! Operator? Operator!’

  He gave the exchange another number, and then a third, asking each time for the Chief Inspector. At last he hung up the receiver and turned back to Daisy, his face disconsolate.

  ‘You can’t find him?’

  ‘I tried his hotel, miss, and Lord Flatford’s place, on the offchance. The copper on duty at the station says Payne’s come clean and the Chief and Sergeant Tring went off after them jools – Inspector Gillett, too – but he don’t know zackly where. He won’t send someone to find ’em acos I won’t tell what’s so urgent.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Daisy approved. ‘It’s to be kept from the local force as long as possible.’

  ‘I’ll have to go after ’em meself, miss. The Chief’ll want to know right away, for sure. Will you tell him what’s what if he telephones?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But don’t you let on to anyone else, miss. We don’t want to warn the bloke who done it and have him scarper. ’Sides, it might be dangerous if he knows you know there’s a murderer in the house.’

  Daisy discovered she had lost her appetite. As the constable went off to get the police car from the garages, she started up the stairs. She’d ask Mabel to bring her tea and a bit of buttered toast in her room, and try to get some work done.

  A murderer in the house! Who was it? Bits and pieces began to come together in her racing mind.

  Stephen Astwick had been drowned in his bath, not long after dinner. Why had he taken a bath in the evening, since he was accustomed to two, one cold and one hot, every morning? Was he preparing for a seduction?

  He had shared a bathroom with Geoffrey. Suppose he had failed to lock the connecting door to Geoffrey’s bed room. Geoffrey had left the drawing-room shortly after Astwick and might have accidentally walked in while he was in the bath. But Daisy simply couldn’t imagine Geoffrey cold-bloodedly pushing him under the water and holding him there while he struggled, blew bubbles, and finally grew limp.

  In hot blood, then? Could Astwick have boasted about his intention of seducing Annabel, taunting the youth, perhaps, until Geoffrey attacked in a fit of overwhelming fury?

  That was a more likely scenario. Not unlikely, in fact, yet Daisy sought for other explanations. She liked Geoffrey and didn’t want to believe he was a murderer.

  Astwick might not have bothered to lock the other doors. Perhaps someone else had entered the bathroom, through the door to the corridor or through his bedroom. Someone who knew he was there and went deliberately to confront him, if not intending to kill.

  James, for instance, might have wanted to press him to reveal Annabel’s secret and have been angered when he refused to speak. It seemed an inadequate motive for murder, however, even for the loathsome James. Worse, Daisy had to admit that he couldn’t have done it. He’d been in the drawing-room that entire evening, playing bridge with his aunt.

  Phillip and Wilfred had gone to play billiards. How much time had passed between Astwick’s leaving the drawing-room and their return? Long enough for Astwick to draw a bath and get into it, and for one of them to drown him? How long did it take to drown a man? Daisy wasn’t sure.

  Either Wilfred or Phillip could have excused himself from their game for a few minutes without the other thinking to mention it. It hadn’t been important as long as Astwick was supposed to have died in the morning. They could even have been in collusion, Phillip cheated, Wilfred blackmailed, finding a common grievance. But neither had been in the drawing-room when Astwick retired. They didn’t know he’d gone upstairs.

  Conceivably both or either might have gone up to his bedroom, expecting to find it empty, with some sort of mischief in mind, and seized the chance to dispose of him. Not that Daisy believed for a moment that Phillip was guilty. As for Wilfred, was he strong enough to hold down a man who prided himself on his fitness, and then to carry his body all the way to the lake?

  The same argument applied to Annabel. She had motive and opportunity; though Daisy was sure she’d never voluntarily go to Astwick’s bedroom, he might have forced her; but surely she hadn’t the strength to carry a body all that way!

  Which left Lord Wentwater: alone in his study or upstairs drowning his rival?

  Without conscious volition, Daisy’s footsteps had carried her past the end of the passage leading to her room. Lost in speculation, she passed the Wentwaters’ suite, turned the corner, and found herself before the door to the fatal bathroom. She turned the handle.

  Locked. She hadn’t meant to come, but since she was here . . .

  She glanced quickly around. No one in sight. The wall behind her had two doors. One, she worked out, must be to Annabel’s bathroom, for use when the house was full of guests. The other was to the back stairs. A maid or footman might pop out at any moment.

  Daisy ducked into Astwick’s bedroom, closing the door swiftly and silently behind her. The room looked just
as it had when she’d seen it before: the bed made up with a chocolate-and-cream-patterned coverlet, a gentleman’s toilet articles arranged on the chest-of-drawers, a couple of chairs, the wardrobe where Piper had found passports and tickets. He and Sergeant Tring were neat, efficient searchers, or else a housemaid had tidied after their search.

  There was the door to the bathroom. On tiptoe, holding her breath, Daisy made for it. A moment later she was contemplating a vast Victorian bath with brass taps in the form of the heads of a lion and a lioness. Were they the last things Astwick had seen as water filled his lungs?

  Tearing her gaze from the gruesomely fascinating sight, she noted the jar of bath-salts on a low shelf above the tub. The crystals were green – pine or herbal for the gentlemen instead of flower scents. Within easy reach of a bather, a heated towel rail bore an assortment of thick, white towels, matching the bath mat that lay on the green linoleum floor. A rubber-footed and -topped stepstool stood in one corner, a cork-seated wooden chair in another.

  It was just like the bathroom she had shared with Fenella, an innocent setting for a horrible crime. She turned her attention to the doors.

  None of the three doors had keys in the keyholes. The one to the corridor was fastened shut with a bolt, but neither of the connecting doors to the bedrooms had a bolt. Geoffrey had easy access at any time. Things looked black for the chivalrous young man.

  Daisy frowned as an overlooked snag struck her. Astwick had a jagged gash on his forehead and, according to the pathologist, a bruise on his chin. The latter had immediately reminded her of the bruise on James’s chin after its unexpected encounter with his brother’s fist. But a blow used to fell a standing opponent made no sense against a man in a bathtub.

  She returned to the bath and stood gazing down into it, trying to picture the scene. Even if Astwick had sat up rather than reclining in the hot, scented water, his shoulders would scarcely have cleared the rim of the deep tub. Biffing him on the chin seemed a peculiar thing to do, especially for a tall chap like Geoffrey. His nose would have made a more obvious target.

  Still, Daisy knew nothing about boxing. What about the laceration? She didn’t see how either Geoffrey’s fist or the smooth, enamelled bathtub could have caused an irregular wound. Probably the ice had done it, when Astwick’s body was dropped into the hole. Dr. Renfrew had implied that it was caused before death, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised if Piper had misunderstood his . . .

  Click. The latch of the door behind her. The hinges gave a faint squeak as the door opened. Daisy froze.

  ‘Miss Dalrymple!’ Geoffrey’s voice, startled, not threatening. Not yet.

  Turning, Daisy summoned up a bright smile. ‘Hullo! This is your bathroom, too, is it? I just asked the way to the one Astwick used. Mr. Fletcher wanted me to . . . to check that his . . . his missing boots hadn’t somehow hidden themselves in here.’ Of all the feeble excuses! ‘I expect the maid would have taken them away by now, though. I can’t see them, can you?’

  ‘No.’ He glanced around distractedly, his normally ruddy face pale. ‘His boots! I forgot . . . ’

  She took a step backwards.

  His voice shook. ‘You think I killed him, don’t you?’

  The dangerous words escaped her against her will. ‘Did you?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to!’ he cried, slumping against the doorpost and covering his face with his hands. ‘I didn’t mean to! It was like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.’

  There was no anger in him, only despair. Daisy no longer feared him. She crossed the bathroom to lay a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

  ‘The police will find out anyway, won’t they?’ he said drearily.

  ‘If I can work it out, you can be sure Mr. Fletcher will.’

  ‘The boots . . . I forgot he couldn’t have walked down to the lake in skates.’

  ‘It seemed unlikely.’ She didn’t tell him that particular error had led the detectives nowhere. ‘But there’s also new evidence, from the autopsy. Astwick died soon after dinner, and he drowned in his bath, not in the lake.’

  ‘Not in his bath. Not in here.’

  ‘Where else?’ Daisy asked, bewildered. If Astwick hadn’t drowned in this bathroom there was no reason to suspect Geoffrey more than anyone else – except that now he had practically confessed.

  He stared at her in horror. ‘You think I just walked in here and drowned him in his bath? Without provocation? In cold blood?’

  ‘No, I was sure he must have provoked you,’ she assured him. ‘I mean, with something more immediate than his general nastiness. What happened? If it wasn’t here, where was it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. I’ll explain it all, but I . . . The detective hasn’t come back yet today, has he?’

  ‘The Chief Inspector? Not yet,’ said Daisy warily. ‘He’s expected at any moment.’

  ‘Let me tell you, before he comes. But I want Father to hear, too. Please!’

  ‘Of course. Let’s go and see if he’s in his study.’

  Without speaking, they traversed the corridors together. Geoffrey had regained his self-control, though his face remained colourless. Daisy thought it had grown thinner since she first met him.

  At the top of the stairs, he paused and said in a low, pleading voice, ‘Will you explain to Mr. Fletcher for me? I don’t think I can bear to tell the story twice. If he already knows, he can simply ask questions.’

  ‘I will if you’d like me to, but I can’t promise he won’t want to hear the whole thing in your own words.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to wait till he arrives?’

  ‘No! I can’t let Father find out from someone else.’ His gaze beseeched her. ‘And . . . and I’d rather you were there when I tell Father.’

  ‘I shan’t desert you.’ Whatever he had done, now he was just an unhappy, defenceless, motherless boy. Her heart filled with pity.

  They went on down the stairs and across the unoccupied Great Hall. The earl’s study was empty, but for Landseer’s retrievers gazing down from the wall with aristocratic indifference. No one was in the library next door. Geoffrey turned to Daisy with a lost look.

  ‘There’s no need to get any servants involved,’ she said firmly. ‘You wait here and I’ll go and find Lord Wentwater.’

  Nodding dumb acquiescence, he crossed to the window and stood staring out at the drizzling gloom beyond the glass.

  As the study door shut behind her, she hesitated. She hadn’t wanted to ring the bell in the earl’s private study and have a footman find herself and Geoffrey there obviously wishing to speak to his father together. Not that the servants wouldn’t eventually find out everything – Alec had made her very much aware of that – but the later the better.

  On the other hand, to hunt all over the house for Lord Wentwater would raise eyebrows and pique curiosity. No one would think twice if she enquired for him and then requested a private word. She hurried to the hall.

  The footman on duty was making up the fire in the vast fireplace. He stood up as he heard her footsteps approaching. ‘Can I help you, miss?’

  ‘Do you know where Lord Wentwater is?’

  ‘In the estate office, miss.’ His eyes gleamed inquisitively in his otherwise impassive face. ‘Can I take a message to his lordship for you?’

  ‘Thank you, I’ll go myself, if you’ll be so kind as to direct me.’

  In her haste, the corridors seemed endless. She preferred not to leave Geoffrey in suspense any longer than necessary. Aside from his misery, he might get cold feet and decide not to confess. She had a feeling that in the end everyone would be best served if she knew the whole story before Alec returned to Wentwater Court.

  She found the office at last. The door was ajar and she heard the earl’s voice. When she knocked, he called, rather impatiently, ‘Come in!’

  The small room reminded her of her father’s estate office at Fairacres. Shelves contained an ord
erly jumble of agricultural books and magazines, prize ribbons and cups, and account books. Maps hung on the wall. On the desk lay a pile of papers and a spike of paid bills, an open ledger between them. A man she didn’t know sat behind the desk. The two chairs on the near side were occupied by Lord Wentwater and his eldest son. They all rose to their feet as she entered.

  James gave Daisy an uncertain smile. She ignored it. For him she felt no pity.

  ‘Lord Wentwater, may I have a word with you?’

  His grave eyes, searching her face, grew sombre. ‘Of course, Miss Dalrymple.’ He rose and accompanied her into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

  What on earth was she going to say to him? Was there any way to prepare him for the frightful shock to come? Daisy’s mind was a blank.

  ‘Will you come to your study, please? Right away?’

  He gasped. ‘Not another body?’

  ‘No!’ Filled with remorse, she touched his hand, ‘No, nothing like that. But I think you’d better come.’

  ‘Very well.’ He returned momentarily to the office to tell his heir and his agent to carry on without him. Then, in silence, he and Daisy made their way back to the hall and on to the study.

  Geoffrey still stood by the window, a drooping figure, his forehead now resting wearily against the glass pane. He swung round, straightening, as his father followed Daisy into the room.

  ‘Sir, I . . . ’ His voice wavered. ‘I have something to tell you.’

  ‘My dear boy!’ Forgetting Daisy, the earl strode past her, his hands held out to his youngest child in a gesture almost of entreaty.

  They clasped hands, two proper English gentlemen incapable of giving each other the embrace both needed. Then Lord Wentwater led Geoffrey to the maroon-leather wing chairs by the fire, made him sit down, and poured him a glass of brandy from the tantalus on a corner table. He took the other chair. Daisy retreated to a ladder-back chair by the desk. Turned away from her, the earl seemed unaware of her continued presence, but Geoffrey’s eyes sought her out before he took a swallow from his glass.