Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  Nancy had been fretful and bored, tetchy with all her siblings except Tom, who always seemed to have a pass for grace and favour. Pamela was the only one who looked happy, having spent a long day out hunting. The fact that her hair permanently suffered from being squashed under a hat and that her thigh muscles burned only added to her sense of contentment. She had told Louisa that she had no desire to return to London, where the shine of the nightclubs had long worn off and she wanted only to ride until it was time to get out into the garden and sow vegetable seeds.

  Nancy and Louisa had rehearsed the next part together; their hope was that the ambush would make it too difficult for Lord and Lady Redesdale to stop their plan.

  ‘Beg pardon, m’lord,’ began Louisa, ‘but there’s been a further development that I need to let you know of.’

  Lord Redesdale looked at her sharply and his wife put down her book. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘You see, Sergeant Sullivan strongly suspected Billy Masters had committed the murder of Adrian Curtis but he denies this.’

  ‘I should think he did, that awful maid did it,’ said Lady Redesdale, as if she had been both judge and jury.

  ‘We don’t think she did,’ interjected Nancy.

  ‘We?’ muttered her father, but he didn’t stop her from continuing.

  ‘Several things don’t make sense for her to have done it. Why would she have arranged to meet him in the bell tower again, when they had already met, and had a row?’

  ‘Because she wanted to get her revenge,’ said Tom, who had been listening quietly from the sofa.

  ‘Even so, why would he have gone to the bell tower to meet her?’ carried on Nancy. ‘He must have thought he was meeting someone else there.’

  Louisa spoke up now. ‘In the interview, Billy Masters confessed to a number of other crimes but denied the murder—’

  ‘That’s hardly a surprise, is it? These ruffians aren’t going to admit to something like that,’ scoffed Lord Redesdale.

  Louisa politely ignored this. ‘He said he had arranged to meet Dulcie Long, to take the stolen jewellery from her. But he’d got to the church earlier than arranged and heard a row in the bell tower. Two male voices, and then a silence before one man ran off. He just saw him though it was pitch black and he was wearing a sort of hooded cloak.’

  ‘What are you saying, Louisa?’ Lady Redesdale’s concern was etched in the deep lines at the sides of her mouth.

  ‘Sergeant Sullivan would like to come here, your ladyship. He’d like to meet the persons who were here that night as part of his investigation into what happened.’

  ‘But that local bobby, Monkton? What’s his name?’ Lord Redesdale was practically spluttering.

  ‘DI Monroe,’ said Louisa.

  ‘That fellow. I mean, this is his patch. Surely if he thinks the maid did it, and she’s in prison waiting for trial, what earthly good can it do to have Sullivan up here trampling all over everything?’

  ‘That’s just it, Farve,’ said Nancy. She’d stood up now, agitated by her excitement. ‘He’s not really supposed to but it’s clear Dulcie didn’t do it and we think Sergeant Sullivan can solve it. But he can only do it if everyone’s here. So that’s why I’ve invited everyone back here for a New Year’s Eve party.’

  ‘What? And I suppose you’ve already talked to Mrs Windsor and Mrs Stobie about this?’ Lady Redesdale’s fury wasn’t hard to miss. ‘It means a lot of extra work for them.’

  ‘No,’ stammered Nancy, knowing she’d been caught out. ‘They wouldn’t agree without your knowing about it.’

  ‘Quite bloody right too!’ shouted Farve, slamming his hands down on the sides of the chair and making Unity and Decca sit up from their prone positions on the sofa like a pair of jack-in-the-boxes.

  ‘The fact remains, Farve, that everyone is coming, including Sergeant Sullivan who will interview them.’

  ‘Are you really saying that you think one of your friends committed this terrible act?’ said Iris. ‘That’s rather a leap.’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Nancy, getting pinker with impatience. ‘He just wants to ask everyone again about what they saw that night, in case something was missed.’

  To everyone’s astonishment, Pamela stood up and said, ‘I wouldn’t be so certain about that, Koko,’ before she walked out.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ piped up Diana, who had been completely silent, her body taut with tension as she listened to every thrilling word. ‘We’ve got a murderer coming to stay.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Guy took the train from Paddington to Shipton on New Year’s Eve with some trepidation. In spite of reassurances from both Louisa and Miss Nancy that he was welcome, he couldn’t quite believe it. Louisa had told him that the eldest Mitford sister had been only too happy to have an excuse to have another party, though she did admit that Miss Pamela had been more reserved. His biggest concern, however, was not whether he would spoil the party but that the local detective inspector, who had overseen the murder case, would be far from delighted if he found out that Guy had been down to Asthall Manor to ask questions of witnesses. It might be deemed unethical at best, sackable at worst. For this reason, he hadn’t felt he could include Mary Moon, although he felt guilty that he was leaving her behind when they had done so much work together. At the same time, he could be within touching distance of solving this and if he did, his career would be made. No more watering the plants in the station or directing the traffic at Piccadilly Circus.

  Just to be safe, however, he had decided to travel down out of uniform and then he could claim to have been there as a friend of Louisa’s and not as a policeman. Louisa told him she would book a room for him to stay in the village pub and, other than that, he could do no more to prepare himself.

  The question was: who did he suspect?

  Guy had managed to see the court records from the inquest, which included a statement by DI Monroe summing up the whereabouts of the guests at the time of the murder – as it had been estimated – and when the body had been discovered. He decided to pull out the notes he had made but had to do this with some difficulty. The carriage was busy and Guy was fairly squashed up against an end wall by a large lady in a vivid pink coat with matching hat. She had a handbag on her lap and every two minutes reached in for another mint, her elbows jabbing into Guy’s side as she did so. Her sucking noises were no less intrusive either. When Guy wriggled to get his pencil out of his jacket pocket, close to his neighbour’s plump hip, she looked at him and glared as if he was being a nuisance. Guy remembered why he preferred to walk everywhere.

  He looked at his notes again, taken from police records and things Louisa had mentioned to him.

  Clara Fischer

  No alibi, in the dining room alone when DL’s screams were heard.

  Motive: she had ‘history’ with AC. Revenge? Keeps a knife in her bag (but she’s an actress). Shares a secret with Lord DC about her whereabouts that night?

  Billy says he saw a man running away, albeit in a cloak with a hood – she could have disguised herself?

  Lord De Clifford

  No alibi, in the boot room alone.

  Motive: Was AC threatening to expose his fiancée’s links with Billy? Potentially hired Billy to kill AC? Treasure hunt was initially his idea. A man with a cloak and hood was seen running away – his costume for the party that night was Dracula.

  Phoebe Morgan

  Original alibi – sprained ankle – since confessed to be false. Second alibi: she was in the drawing room with SA. Could she have slipped out when he left the room?

  Motive: Revenge. She was rejected by AC. A former dancer at the 43, she could have known BM and hired him to do it?

  Oliver Watney

  No alibi, alone in the telephone room.

  No motive. Ruled out.

  Nancy Mitford

  Alibi: In the morning room with Charlotte Curtis.

  No motive. Ruled out.

  Charlotte Curtis

 
Alibi: In the morning room with Nancy Mitford.

  No motive. Distress visible at the time. Ruled out.

  Sebastian Atlas

  Alibi: In the drawing room with Phoebe Morgan. In statements, Charlotte Curtis saw him leave the room but he was seen a few minutes later by PM when he gave her the present, then returned to the drawing room.

  Motive: None clear and was a close friend of AC’s. Ruled out.

  Pamela Mitford

  No alibi, was alone in the smoking room.

  No motive and character assessment rules her out.

  Over and over again, Guy read his notes. By the time Hooper came to collect him from the station, when the afternoon light had begun to fade to its wintry dusk, Guy knew who his man was. And now he was going to get him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Louisa was in the kitchen when Guy arrived, Debo at her feet as she fetched her a glass of milk. He knocked hesitantly on the door and when nobody called out, stepped inside, his London shoes clicking on the flagstone floor.

  ‘You’re here,’ said Louisa, smiling and walking towards him. ‘Hooper collected you with no trouble then?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d say that quite,’ chuckled Guy. ‘He muttered darkly about having to make several trips to the station this afternoon but I’m here in one piece, aren’t I? No complaints from me.’

  ‘Sit yourself down and I’ll get you a cup of tea, kettle’s just boiled. You’ve arrived at a good time. Mrs Stobie’s with Mrs Windsor in her sitting room, planning the supper, and Ada’s up in the nursery. I was just about to take Miss Deborah out for a walk around the garden.’

  Guy set his overnight bag down and pulled up a chair. ‘Hello, Miss Deborah,’ he said to the little girl, who shyly put out her hand for him to shake.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. Then she turned to Louisa, ‘Who’s this man?’

  Louisa laughed. ‘He’s a friend, Sergeant Sullivan.’

  Debo said nothing to this but climbed up on to a chair beside him and began to drink her milk in tiny sips, like a cat.

  Louisa put the cup and saucer on the table, with a jug. ‘Have you had any news of Daniel, and Marie?’ he asked.

  ‘Just the one letter but they’re fine. They’re in Johanna Street still. She says they’ve never lived anywhere else and they’re not going to be frightened off. Anyway, with Alice Diamond and the rest of them locked up, they’ve not got the worry any more. Daniel’s settled with them. All we need to do now is get his mother back to him.’

  ‘I know,’ said Guy. ‘I promise I don’t think of much else.’

  ‘Drink your tea and join me and Miss Deborah for our walk. It would be good to talk to you before they all get here, and you can see your room in the pub when I have to get back to the nursery.’

  ‘That,’ said Guy with a wide smile, ‘would be perfect.’

  * * *

  It was cold outside but not raining at least, and with coats on they could keep out the chill easily enough for a half-hour amble around the garden. Guy couldn’t help himself: as he watched them walk a little further ahead, Debo’s hand tucked inside Louisa’s, the thought of what might be pulled at his heart. Quickly, he caught up with them and they started to walk around the side of the house, but when they approached the gate in the wall that led to the churchyard, Guy and Louisa headed towards it in silent agreement.

  ‘Go and count the angels for me, Miss Deborah,’ said Louisa to her young charge, and the girl skipped off on a familiar route around the tombs and gravestones.

  ‘So this is where it all happened,’ said Guy.

  ‘Yes, right here.’ They were standing almost exactly where Adrian Curtis’s body had fallen. Guy looked up at the bell tower and the glassless window through which he had been pushed. The sky was slate grey behind it, doing little to leaven the mood.

  ‘I think it was Lord De Clifford,’ said Guy. ‘He has no alibi because he was alone at the time the murder must have happened. More importantly, you said the treasure hunt was his idea when they first discussed it in London. And he has the strongest ties to Billy Masters. They could have cooked it up between them.’

  ‘You think Billy was an accessory then?’

  ‘It’s possible. But even if Billy wasn’t a part of it, from what you described of Lord De Clifford’s reaction at the seance, it’s possible Adrian Curtis was threatening to expose Dolly Meyrick’s connection with him. There’s a connection, at the very least, and one that he finds frightening.’

  ‘And Charlotte Curtis said that her brother was very against his engagement to Dolly Meyrick. That might have upset him.’

  ‘How did they get Adrian Curtis to the bell tower though? That’s the piece in the jigsaw I can’t fit,’ said Guy, still staring at the ledge. It was definitely high enough to kill a man that was pushed off it, even a robust one.

  ‘Have you seen the items he had on his person when his body was recovered?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s nothing there. I copied the list from the inquest records,’ said Guy.

  Deborah was still on her trail of angels. She looked up and saw Louisa looking at her. ‘Seven!’ she called out happily.

  ‘Well done!’ Louisa called back. ‘Keep going.’

  Guy had his notebook out. ‘There are the details of what he was wearing, a bit odd of course because he was in costume as a vicar. But in his pockets he had: a handkerchief, a box of matches, a silver cigarette case engraved with his initials and containing six cigarettes, a silver toothpick holder and a piece of paper with the typed words, “Come here to find the cross and pray I don’t toll for thee.” That’s it.’

  ‘Say that clue again,’ said Louisa.

  ‘Come here to find the cross and pray I don’t toll for thee.’

  ‘There’s something wrong with that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Guy, scrutinising his notebook again, as if the words could yield a deeper secret. ‘It’s obvious the answer is the bell tower.’

  ‘That’s my point,’ said Louisa. ‘All the clues had objects as their answers. Everyone had to contribute a clue for which the answer would be an object that would be commonly found. Because a number of them would be playing it, they’d all have to be able to find it and then take it back to Mr Atlas and Miss Morgan in the drawing room, before they could get the next one.’

  ‘So there were eight players and they all had eight clues each?’

  ‘Nine clues, because Phoebe Morgan was supposed to have been playing. They all played a different clue at any one time. Nancy explained it to me – it was so that you didn’t have all the players looking for egg cups or whatever at the same time.’

  ‘Egg cups?’

  ‘What can I say?’ said Louisa. ‘Upper-class people do very strange things for their entertainment. I’ve learned that here, if not much else.’

  Guy smiled at this. ‘But you were saying about this clue.’

  ‘With this clue, the answer is a place. It’s not a thing to collect. What if only Adrian Curtis had that clue? What if he was deliberately given a clue that no one else had, one that would send him to his death?’

  At that moment, Deborah came running up to Louisa and clamped her arms around her legs and lifted her head up to her beloved nursery nurse. ‘Nine angels, Lou-Lou! I found all the angels, there are nine. And guess what? I found one devil too.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  At eight o’clock on New Year’s Eve, Nancy stood in the library in front of the fire dressed in a long black gown of draped satin, with her purple-buttoned gloves and a borrowed necklace from Lady Redesdale of rubies and diamonds set in yellow gold spikes that fanned out around her slim white neck. Her hair had been waved and the bob recently cut so that it stopped just below her ears, showing her neat chin and narrow nose to great effect. Her eyebrows were expertly arched and her lips dark red. She looked, in short, like the chatelaine of a great house. Louisa knew that the surprise she was about to spring on her guests was, for her, the pinnacle of her social life: it
would far outweigh any childish games or fancy-dress parties that the London crowd would doubtlessly be indulging in on this night. It was also the reason Nancy had requested that her guests wear white tie.

  ‘Grown-up sophistication is the dress code,’ she had said to Louisa sagely, while getting ready earlier, which had almost made Louisa giggle, but Nancy was twenty-one years old now and her country friends were starting to get married. Perhaps she thought she should be, too.

  However, it was the hidden theme of the night that was, of course, why Louisa and Guy Sullivan were standing behind the door that led to an anteroom, as they waited for everyone to arrive. The long table had been set up at the end of the room by the bay windows, laid with a tablecloth and ready for the dinner that Mrs Stobie had begrudgingly agreed to cook, appeased by the news that Lord and Lady Redesdale would go out and not need anything themselves. They were due to dine with the Watneys but had told Nancy they would have a drink with her guests before they left for the evening. Pamela followed closely behind in the dress that Mrs Brewster had made for her; it had already been put to good use at two hunt balls – which Nancy had declined to attend – and though it would suffer eventually from overuse, on this night it looked fresh and pretty, hiding Pamela’s unfashionably large bosom. The deep pink sash mirrored her plump lips and her eyes shone their brightest blue after a whole day spent outside on her horse. Diana had been allowed to come down for the drink, though she was to leave when the dinner began. Her flaxen hair was long and thick, her eyebrows still untamed but her figure had already developed into that of a lean young woman so that even in her short-sleeved yellow dress the poise and drama of the beauty that would soon be unleashed was highly visible. Nervous now, she perched on the edge of the sofa, her hands fidgeting with the tassels on the cushions.

  Next into the room was Sebastian with Charlotte. A perfectly aligned pair in height and figure, they stood together like young birches in the wood, with Sebastian wearing a white jacket and trousers, Charlotte in silver. He looked reluctant but whether that was to do with being at Asthall Manor or alongside Charlotte, Louisa couldn’t say. Despite the rumour of their engagement there had been little sign of affection between them. Phoebe and Clara had been put in a room together, so naturally came down at the same time. Phoebe’s dancer figure was beautifully showcased in a long silk dress of champagne gold; Clara was in her trademark chiffon, this time in sky blue with a silver plaited rope that hung loose around her hips. Lord De Clifford – Ted – was the last one down from his room, an elegant silhouette as usual, his evening dress the best tailored in the room, but his dark eyes bore the bruising of insomnia and his skin looked wan beneath his almost black hair, smoothed back and gleaming with brilliantine. Louisa wondered why he had agreed to come this evening, given that his fiancée, Dolly Meyrick, had pointedly not been invited. But when she saw him go straight to Charlotte as he entered the room, she wondered if that was part of the answer. Whether it was brotherly love, given the many summers they had spent together in childhood, or something more ardent, she sensed his protectiveness over her.