Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  ‘I’ll fetch Mrs Windsor and make some hot milk, my lady,’ Louisa said, and exited quickly, both thankful to get out of there and desperately anxious that she could not talk to Dulcie. Louisa was sure she couldn’t have committed the murder but was there some other part she had played in it? Did she trick Adrian into going to the church tower somehow, knowing he’d meet his death? But if she had, why would she have arranged to meet him earlier in the house? Nothing made sense.

  In her sitting room, Mrs Windsor had fallen asleep in an undersized and overstuffed armchair, her mouth wide open, her book dropped to the floor, a light snore trembling her top lip. Louisa shook her awake by the shoulder and explained what had happened, so far as she could tell.

  ‘Mr Curtis? Dead?’ exclaimed the housekeeper.

  Louisa nodded. ‘They’re all in the drawing room, waiting for the police. I’m going to make some hot milk for them. There’s breakfast all ready but I don’t think anyone will much fancy eating.’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs Windsor, as she stood, brushing stray hairs off her face, the other hand groping for her cap. She looked as if she was trying to summon from memory the page of a book that explained how to look after one’s lord and lady immediately after the sudden death of a guest. It wasn’t obvious that any answer came to her.

  By the time Louisa and Mrs Windsor returned to the drawing room with the steaming mugs, together with some biscuits and a fruitcake they had found in the larder, there was a policeman in the room. Another policeman, they overheard, was in the churchyard, inspecting the body.

  Clara was sitting on the window seat, her knees under her chin and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She took the mug from Louisa gratefully. Louisa dared to talk to her. The American had always been friendlier to her than the others. ‘What’s happened?’ she whispered.

  Clara looked at the group by the fire. Lady Redesdale had an arm around Pamela’s shoulders, who had stopped hiccupping and now looked merely frightened and exhausted. Sebastian was staring into the fire, his hands in his pockets, and Charlotte was next to Nancy, who seemed very much out of her depth as the young woman cried and cried beside her. Ted, divested of his Dracula cloak, was talking quietly to a serious-looking Lord Redesdale. Although the fire had been well stoked, there was a chill in the room. Louisa could feel the cold creep into her fingertips. She realised Dulcie wasn’t there.

  ‘They’ve taken the maid off for questioning,’ said Clara. ‘Looks as if she did it. Can you imagine?’ She stopped to take a gulp of milk. ‘I mean, she was Charlotte’s chaperone, her mother’s maid. They’ve had a murderer living under their roof.’ Her big eyes grew wider. ‘They fed her. They paid her.’ She shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut, as if hardly able to believe what had gone on right before her. Though of course, she hadn’t seen it. Nobody had.

  Louisa nearly dropped the tray.

  ‘She didn’t do it!’

  It was out before she could stop herself.

  Clara looked up at her in surprise and there was movement by the fire as one or two heads turned in their direction.

  ‘Beg pardon,’ gasped Louisa. She put the tray down on a side table and fled, without a thought as to where she was running or even exactly what she was running from.

  Only a few steps into the hallway she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Come with me, miss,’ said the policeman. ‘Our detective inspector would like a word with you.’

  Louisa turned around, rolling her shoulder so that he would take his hand off. Old habits died hard. He was a young policeman, his hair cut so short behind his ears there was a pink line around the edges. He looked both a little afraid of her and equally determined she would not slip away from him. Something of her old insouciance came back, a memory of an instinct that had never been far from the surface all those years ago.

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ she snapped. ‘I was only going to the kitchen.’

  ‘Follow me,’ he said, and turned. It was infuriating that he knew she would obey.

  ‘You don’t know the way,’ she said. ‘I presume we’re going to Lord Redesdale’s study?’ If there was a detective inspector carrying out interviews, she knew that’s where he’d have been sent. She pushed past him and marched quickly, ignoring his protests before he fell into a sullen silence as they walked down the passage, across the hall and along further corridors before reaching the sturdy door of the Child-Proof Room. Here, she stood to one side. She had no wish to orchestrate the next step.

  Dulcie’s words from their last conversation rang in her head: ‘It’s always us lot they suspect first.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Inside the room, a man Louisa assumed was the local detective inspector was sitting behind Lord Redesdale’s desk, which as usual was covered in the detritus of his household accounting, newspaper clips and fishing paraphernalia. The winter months were when Lord Redesdale spent his time untangling lines and re-tying feathers onto hooks. There was a small desk lamp with a green glass shade that had been switched on, its definite arc throwing his eyes and forehead into shadow. All she could see was a magenta bulbous nose, pocked like the moon, overhanging a neat moustache and fleshy lips. He sat with his arms folded, leaning back as far as he was able on the wooden chair. Lord Redesdale was not a believer in comfort while work was being done.

  In front of the desk was a spindly chair that usually had nothing heavier than a few copies of Country Life resting on it but now bore the weight of Dulcie Long. Louisa could see her shoulders tensed, her back straight. Every hair on her head seemed to be alive to the atmosphere but she did not turn when the policeman and Louisa came in. Dulcie seemed unable to take her eyes off the moustache opposite her, like a rabbit caught in headlights.

  ‘This is Miss Louisa Cannon, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘She’s the live-in maid, the one who was with the party when the body was discovered.’

  ‘Thank you, Peters,’ said the lips in the spotlight. ‘You’d better return to the group in the drawing room. Make sure nobody leaves.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Peters, and left.

  Louisa stood behind Dulcie. She could almost feel the body heat coming off her and longed to be able to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. But if she did that, she couldn’t save her own skin. One of them had to get out of here.

  The detective inspector leaned forward and Louisa saw his red-rimmed eyes. He’d been called out late, most probably had had to get out of bed for it, and he wasn’t looking too thrilled. Still, the effort had been made for a death. It deserved his proper attention. His eyes narrowed and focused on Louisa.

  ‘Do you know this woman?’

  Louisa thought back to that night in the Elephant and Castle. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He made an impatient click and spoke again. ‘How well do you know her?’

  ‘Not very, sir. We met when I accompanied Miss Pamela to a supper in Mayfair last month, at Lady Curtis’s house.’ Each formal word was another brick in her fort.

  ‘And did you meet again?’

  ‘Tonight, sir. She came in through the back door, which I was expecting. It had been previously arranged with Lady Redesdale that she would accompany Miss Charlotte back to the Watney house. Hooper was to drive them back.’

  The inspector made another attempt to lean back, failed and cracked his knuckles instead. He looked first at Dulcie and then at Louisa, each stare a shade too long for comfort. No movement came from Dulcie, though there was a faint creak from the chair.

  ‘What time did Miss Long arrive?’

  ‘I couldn’t be sure, sir. It was late, the party had almost finished and there were just a few of them left.’

  ‘You were alone in the kitchen when she arrived?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mrs Stobie, that is, the cook, had gone to bed. The maids had gone home and Mrs Windsor was in her sitting room.’

  ‘Did you show her to a bedroom upstairs?’

  Louisa wasn’t sure where this was le
ading – did he know that Dulcie and Adrian had had a meeting? That she had helped this happen? Surely not. Dulcie had given her word that nobody would discover that Louisa was a part of it, or they would both lose their jobs. She took the risk that Dulcie had not given her away.

  ‘No, sir. I left the kitchen when she arrived, to go and clear away any empty glasses from the party. I assumed she would remain there to wait until it was time to take Miss Charlotte back to the Watneys.’

  ‘Where were you when Miss Long was heard screaming outside?’

  ‘I’d gone back to the kitchen and was getting the breakfast ready,’ said Louisa.

  ‘And was Miss Long there?’

  Louisa hesitated for the briefest second. ‘No, sir. I assumed she had already gone to fetch Miss Charlotte.’ She hoped this wasn’t giving Dulcie away but what else could she do?

  The inspector leaned forward onto the desk. He lifted a cloth like a waiter revealing steak au poivre beneath a silver dome but what Louisa saw was a glinting collection of jewellery: a long string of pearls, a sapphire and diamond bracelet, a few rings, pairs of earrings. Louisa almost jumped with the shock. Had Dulcie stolen these things? She felt betrayed and yet … She knew Dulcie had been one of the Forty Thieves, didn’t she? And she, Louisa, had let her into the house. She had knowingly let a thief into the house and shown her to an empty bedroom, with the assurance that she would have at least half an hour undisturbed in there. What else might that make her guilty of? Louisa’s heart hammered and she could feel her breath getting shorter. She needed to concentrate on staying calm, and innocent. Whatever happened, she was innocent of murder.

  ‘You see, what I can’t understand is how Miss Long came to have these in her pocket when she was due to collect Miss Charlotte,’ began the inspector. ‘Not only did she have time to go to Miss Iris Mitford’s bedroom, but she apparently chanced upon a room that was safely empty. Yet Miss Long has never been to this house before.’ His voice was calm. He spoke with all the assurance of a professor who has concluded a mathematical equation in minutes that had bewildered the students for days. He knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was absolutely right.

  Louisa knew that Pamela would tell the inspector about the argument she had overheard between Mr Curtis and a woman, who could only have been Dulcie. Dulcie’s eye had been blackened by Mr Curtis, she had been found with a pocketful of stolen jewels and was standing by the body when seen for the first time by the rest of the party. She made a decision quickly and could only pray that she wouldn’t come to regret it.

  ‘I can’t explain that to you, sir,’ she said. ‘After I left the kitchen I didn’t see her again until I heard the screams from outside and … well, you know the rest.’

  ‘Seems I do,’ said the inspector, and Dulcie’s shoulders began to shake. ‘You can go now, Miss Cannon, but I don’t want you going anywhere, you understand? Nobody is to leave this house.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shortly after breakfast was over, served at eight o’clock sharp as usual – wild horses and murder unable to drag Lord Redesdale from his daily routine – everybody who had gone out to the churchyard the night before was gathered in the library at the request of Detective Inspector Monroe, as he had now introduced himself. Louisa, as one of the witnesses to have seen Dulcie by the body of Adrian Curtis, was included. The few guests that had slept through everything had either left early, in horror probably, or were taking coffee in the morning room.

  The blue-tinted winter sun shone through the wide bay window. Remains of the party had been cleared from the night before but for an ashtray that had been left carelessly on a high shelf and not spotted by Ada who had been in at dawn to sweep and dust. The sofa had been pushed back into the centre of the room and the wooden chairs for the chaperones had been stacked and moved. With borrowed jerseys worn over their costumes, wigs and props discarded long ago, the guests were pale imitations of their borrowed personas. Pamela’s eyes were red but she was hardly alone: nobody bore the effects of a refreshing night’s sleep. Aside from the inspector’s interviews that carried on through the night, there hadn’t been enough beds made up and any empty room would have been too cold, so most of them had kipped on armchairs or sofas in the drawing room with scratchy woollen blankets.

  Louisa scanned the library and saw Lord Redesdale standing by the chimneypiece, tapping out his pipe into a saucer. Nancy, Clara and Charlotte sat together on the sofa, slightly apart, with the bereaved sister smoking a cigarette, no longer bothering with the long silver holder she had had the night before. Phoebe had her leg propped up on a low stool, while Sebastian sat on a small armchair, legs crossed, also smoking. Ted was standing by the piano and Oliver Watney sat on the stool, ashen, his hands shaking as he pretended to flick through sheets of music. He could hardly be planning to give a recital.

  Lady Redesdale, her sister-in-law Iris and Pamela sat on the window seat, not touching and not looking at each other. Dulcie was not in the room.

  ‘Thank you all for gathering this morning,’ Monroe started, ignoring a huff from Lord Redesdale. ‘I understand some of you are keen to get away back to London but it was important that I talk to you all together first. I’m sure I don’t need to explain why. You’ll be relieved to hear that I think we have already found our culprit.’

  He gave a small cough, as if suppressing a look of pleasure. Louisa’s heart started thumping like a rabbit’s back foot.

  ‘All of this will of course have to be submitted to the coroner’s office for their report, but I have arrested Dulcie Long for both the theft of a significant amount of jewellery and the murder of Mr Adrian Curtis.’

  Louisa reeled at this but had to contain herself and not let anyone see her shock. The knowledge – and the guilt – that Dulcie had stolen from the bedroom had been more than enough to bear last night. Hearing the detective say he had arrested Dulcie for murder felt like a kick to her stomach. She had been as naive as Pamela, and she had had the vanity to call herself worldly. Oh God.

  Charlotte started to weep again and Clara took her hand. Louisa noticed Charlotte snatch it away without interrupting the rhythm of her tears.

  ‘It seems that there was an argument between Mr Curtis and Miss Long shortly before his death, when he followed her into the bedroom of Miss Iris Mitford. We can surmise that he saw her stealing the jewels and confronted her over it.’ He glanced around the room, as if to be sure he held his audience, before carrying on. ‘Miss Pamela overheard their argument, as well as the sound of what we believe was Mr Curtis hitting Miss Long, from which she sustained a severe black eye.

  ‘Miss Curtis has discreetly informed me that there had been, shall we say, a relationship of a certain kind between Mr Curtis and Miss Long in the recent past and it is my contention that she lured him to the bell tower of the church with the promise of a further liaison.’ He coughed, this time to cover up embarrassment, and Lord Redesdale went almost puce with repressed fury. Lady Redesdale simply looked away.

  ‘There, using the element of surprise, she succeeded in her ultimate aim and pushed Mr Curtis out of the high gap, from where he fell to what we believe would have been an almost instant death. Miss Long then ran out and in the realisation of what she had done began the screams which alerted the rest of the party, and that is when most of you came out to the churchyard to discover both the victim and the culprit.’

  Monroe looked around again and took out a large handkerchief to give his nose – no less brutally purple in the cold light of day – a long, slow wipe. There was complete silence.

  Louisa felt dazed. She hadn’t suspected Dulcie of coming to the house to steal but she had been completely wrong. She’d told herself that they shared something similar, understood each other in a way that made them sympathetic. But she realised now that that didn’t mean she really knew who Dulcie was. In short, she had to face the probability that Dulcie had done it and betrayed her, too.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Guy had tak
en the conversation at the Cross Keys pub as a warning not to try and go near the dangerous-sounding fences, if, as he suspected, they were drawn from the Elephant and Castle lot. So they were back to trying to find the women, the Forty Thieves. To this end, he and Mary Moon (he couldn’t help but call her by her full name, even in his head), had devised a system which he found rather pleasing at first. He would walk alone into a shop, perhaps a furrier’s or a jeweller’s, the sort of place they imagined would appeal to a Forty thief, and engage the most senior member of staff in a detailed conversation about their wares. Thus, any passing Forty member would be tempted into theft because they would believe that the very person who might otherwise notice their tricks – Guy knew he’d be suspicious as a plain-clothes policeman, being a man in a woman’s shop – was distracted. Mary was to come into the shop five or so minutes after Guy had entered and would be able to observe easily any sign of a fellow customer helping themselves to goods with no intention to pay.

  Well, that was the plan. But in two days of loitering around the small shops of Great Marlborough Street Guy had suffered lengthy monologues of information on the manufacturing history, design points and price value of a number of items, including – but not limited to – ladies’ dress watches, fox-fur stoles, a dog collar studded with paste jewellery and a set of crystal glasses. So far the closest they had got to danger was the moment when Guy had almost bought the dog collar for Socks. There had been absolutely no sight of any thieving while he and Mary were on the lookout. In fact, he had the distinct sensation that it was the two of them that were beginning to be eyed suspiciously by the shopgirls.

  At the end of the previous shift, news had reached Guy that a third arrest had been made. There was no confirmation as yet of any connection with the Forty but there had nonetheless been several pints drunk in the pub around the corner from Vine Street station in the evening. Even Cornish had dropped in for a glass of whisky and a congratulatory slam on the back of the arresting officer. Guy had left after two pints and walked most of the way home, grateful for the cold night air on his face as if it could blow away the storm clouds that gathered somewhere behind his forehead.