by Rhys Bowen
“I’d never hire anyone who wore her skirts this length,” I said, laughing. “It’s for a fancy dress ball. I’m a French maid. What do you think?”
“Rather fetching,” he said. “But you need fishnet stockings and high heels to complete the picture.”
“Good idea. I’ll go out and buy a pair today.”
“It’s for the Mountjoys’ do, I suppose.”
“You know about the Mountjoys’ house party?”
“Rather. I’ve been invited too.”
“I didn’t realize you knew the Mountjoys.”
“It’s obvious, really, with their place only a stone’s throw from Eynsleigh. I used to play with the Mountjoy sons.”
“The Mountjoys have sons?” This weekend might turn out to be quite promising after all.
“Both away, so I gather. Robert is in India and Richard is at Dartmouth.” (These came out as “Wobert” and “Wichard,” naturally.) “Navy family, you know. I came to ask you if you’d like a wide down to their place tomorrow. I’ve managed to borrow a car.”
“How very kind of you. Thank you very much. I was wondering how I’d get there.”
He beamed, as if I’d just given him a present. “That’s splendid, then. About ten all right for you? I’m afraid it’s only a little runabout. Couldn’t rustle up a Rolls.” (Which of course sounded like “wustle up a Wolls.”)
“Perfect. Thank you again.”
“Maybe we could stroll over to Eynsleigh together and relive old times.”
“As long as you don’t want me to run through any fountains with you.”
He laughed. “Oh, goodness me, no. How embarrassing.” His face grew serious. “I thought I should call on you because I realized you must be fwightfully upset about your brother. What an awful thing to have happened.”
“Yes, it is pretty shocking,” I said. “Binky’s innocent, of course, but it’s not going to be easy to prove. The police seem to be sure that he’s guilty.”
“The police are idiots,” he said. “They always get it wrong. Look, I don’t have to be back in the office for an hour or so. I could do what I promised and show you around London a bit, to cheer you up.”
“It’s very sweet of you, Tristram, but frankly I don’t think I’d take anything in today. I’ve just too much on my mind. Some happier time, maybe.”
“Quite understand. Beastly rotten luck, I say. But how about a cup of coffee? I’m sure there must be a café somewhere nearby and I’d certainly like a cup before I have to go back to work.”
“There are plenty along Knightsbridge, including a Lyons.”
“Oh, I don’t think we have to descend to a Lyons. Let’s go and see, shall we?—After you change your clothes.”
“Oh, yes.” I smiled, glancing down at my outfit. “Do come in and wait in the morning room. It’s the only room that’s suitable for guests at the moment.” I led him up the stairs to the first floor. “Take a seat. I won’t be long. Oh, and my sister-in-law is in residence, so don’t be surprised if a strange woman wants to know who you are.”
I changed quickly and came down to find Tristram sitting with such a strained expression on his face that I knew he had encountered Fig.
“Your sister-in-law is a bit of a stickler, isn’t she?” he muttered as we left the house. “She said she had no idea you’d been entertaining gentleman callers unchaperoned and that was no way to behave when they’d been so generous in letting you stay in the house. She positively glared at me as if I were Don Juan. I mean to say, do I look like Don Juan?”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “More trouble. I can’t wait to get away tomorrow and go to a place of peace, quiet, and jollity.”
“Me too,” he said. “I can’t tell you how utterly dreary it is working in that office. Filing, copying lists, more filing. I’m sure if Sir Hubert had realized what it was like he’d never have sentenced me to be articled there. He’d never have stuck it for two minutes. He’d have gone mad with boredom.”
“How is he?” I asked. “Is there any news?”
He bit his lip, like a little boy. “No change. Still in a coma. I’d really like to go over to be with him, but there’s nothing I could do, even if I could afford the fare. One feels so helpless.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“He’s the only person I have in the world. Still, these things happen, I suppose. Let’s talk about more cheerful subjects. We’ll have a rattling good time at that fancy dress ball. Will you dance with me?”
“Of course, if you can bear my standard of dancing.”
“Mine too. We’ll both say ‘ow’ in unison.”
“What are you going as?” I asked.
“Lady Mountjoy said she has some costumes we can borrow. I thought I’d take her up on her kind offer. I don’t really have the time or money to visit the costume shops in the West End. She mentioned a highwayman and I must say that rather caught my fancy. Swashbuckling, don’t you know.”
We laughed as we reached the busy thoroughfare of Knightsbridge. We soon found a quiet little café and ordered coffee. A large woman was seated at the next table. Her face was too obviously made up, and a fox fur grinned at us from around her neck. She smiled and nodded to us as we sat down.
“Lovely day, isn’t it? Just the right sort of day for young people like you to go walking in the park. I’m just off to Harrods myself, although they are not what they were, are they? Catering to the masses nowadays, I always say.” She broke off as the waitress put a cup in front of her, and then gave us our coffees. “Ta, love,” she said, “and don’t forget the cream slice, will you? I must have my cream slice to keep up my strength.”
“I’ll get it for you,” the waitress said.
Tristram glanced at me and grinned.
“Sugar?” Tristram dropped a lump into his coffee, then offered me the bowl.
“No, thanks. Don’t take it.”
I felt a tap on my back. “Excuse me, miss, but could I borrow your sugar? There doesn’t seem to be any on my table. Really, standards are getting so lax these days, aren’t they?”
I took the bowl from Tristram and handed it to her, noticing that her pudgy hands were covered in rings. She dropped several lumps into a coffee cup then handed the bowl back to me, looking up expectantly as the cream slice arrived. I had scarcely turned back to my own coffee when I heard choking noises. I looked around. The fat lady was turning almost purple, her hands waving in the air in panic.
“She’s choking.” Tristram leaped up and began slapping her on the back. The waitress heard the commotion and rushed out to help. But it was no good. The woman’s choking turned to a gurgle and she collapsed onto her plate.
“Get help, quickly!” Tristram shouted. I stood there in a state of shock as the waitress ran out screaming.
“Can’t we do something?” I demanded. “Try and remove what’s choking her.”
“Whatever she swallowed is too far down or it would have come up by now. I’m scared I’d only wedge it more firmly if I tried anything.” Tristram looked ashen white. “How awfully horrible. Shall I take you home?”
“We should stay until help gets here,” I said, “even though I don’t see what we could do.”
“I’m afraid she asked for it,” he said. “Did you see the way she was cramming that cake into her mouth?”
Help arrived in the shape of a policeman and a doctor who had happened to be passing. The doctor set to work instantly, then took her pulse.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” he said. “She’s dead.”
We gave our statements to the policeman and tiptoed home. Tristram had to go back to work and I tried to pack for the house party. Fig was off somewhere, probably annoying Scotland Yard again. I wandered around the empty house, trying to shake off a feeling of dread that just wouldn’t go away. If this had been my first brush with death, it would have been different. But within one week to have found a body in my bath, been dragged off a boat, then almost pushed under a trai
n made this death almost too much of a coincidence. A disturbing thought crept into my head that the same killer had been aiming for me once again.
The sugar bowl—the woman had asked to borrow the sugar and I had handed her our bowl. Was it possible that someone had poisoned the sugar? The only person who could have done that was Tristram. I shook my head. That was impossible. He hadn’t touched the sugar bowl until he took a lump himself and then offered it to me. He couldn’t have known in advance where we were going because I had been the one that suggested Knightsbridge and chose the coffeehouse. And as far as I knew, Tristram hadn’t been on the boat last Sunday.
Then I remembered something that made me feel cold all over. That first meeting with Darcy in Lyons. He had made a joke about being poisoned by their tea and how they carried out the dead customers. And Darcy had been on the boat last Sunday. I was very glad that I was getting away from all this to the safety of the country. Roll on tomorrow.
Chapter 25
Farlows
Near Mayfield, Sussex
Friday, May 6, 1932
I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Yesterday’s incident could be no more than a greedy woman choking to death, and yet it had happened after I handed her my sugar bowl. I was now almost ready to believe that there was a clever conspiracy against my brother and me. Perhaps Darcy and Belinda, maybe even Whiffy Featherstonehaugh were all in it together. It was just possible that Tristram was part of it too, although I didn’t think he had been on the boat on Sunday. The only thing I couldn’t come up with was a motive. Why would anybody want to kill me?
So it was with some apprehension when I climbed into the little two-seater beside Tristram and watched him strap my suitcase to the boot. He caught me looking and gave me a jaunty smile. How ridiculous to suspect him, I thought. But it was just as ridiculous to suspect Belinda or Whiffy. I didn’t want to suspect Darcy either, but with him I couldn’t be sure. At any rate Tristram would have two hands on the wheel, all the way to the Mountjoys’.
Fig had decided that traveling alone with a young man, especially one she had never heard of until this moment, was quite unsuitable. I practically had to wrestle the telephone from her grasp as she attempted to call a cab to take me to Victoria Station.
“Fig, I am over twenty-one and you and Binky have made it very clear that I am no longer your responsibility,” I snapped. “If you wish to reinstate my allowance and pay for my household staff, then you can start trying to order me around. If not, then my activities and choice of companions are none of your business.”
“I have never been spoken to like that before in my life,” she spluttered.
“Then it’s about time.”
“I must say that your lack of breeding on your mother’s side comes out now,” she sniffed. “I’ve no doubt it will be one unsuitable young man after another, just like her.”
I gave her a serene smile. “Ah, but think of the fun she’s had doing it.”
She couldn’t come up with an answer to that one.
So now we were puttering merrily along. City gave way to leafy suburbs as we joined the Portsmouth Road. Then suburbs turned into true countryside with spreading chestnuts and oak trees in fields, horses looking over gates. I felt the weight of the last days gradually lifting. Tristram chatted merrily. We stopped at a bakery to buy some sausage rolls and Chelsea buns and then we puttered up one flank of the Hog’s Back and pulled off at the top to admire the view. As we sat on the verge beside the road eating our impromptu picnic, I gave a contented sigh.
“It’s good to be out in the country again, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. Do you dislike the city as much as I do?”
“I don’t dislike it, in fact it could be rather fun if one had money, but I’m a country girl at heart. I need to ride and walk along the loch and feel the wind blowing in my face.”
He stared at me for a long while before saying, “You know, Georgie, I wasn’t joking the other day. You could always marry me. I know I don’t have much now, but one day I’ll be very comfortably off. Perhaps we could live at Eynsleigh and get those fountains going again.”
“You really are sweet, Tris.” I patted his hand. “But I already told you that I plan to marry for love. You feel more like a brother to me. And I won’t ever marry for convenience.”
“All right. I understand. Still, a fellow can always hope to make you change your mind, can’t he?”
I got to my feet. “It’s pretty here, isn’t it? I wonder if there is a view through the trees.”
I started walking down a little path. It was amazing how quickly the car and the road vanished and I was in the middle of the wood. Birds called from the trees, a squirrel raced in front of my feet. I’d been an outdoor girl all my life. Suddenly I sensed that the wood had gone quiet. It felt tense, as if everything were listening and watching. I looked around me uneasily. I was only a few yards from the car. I couldn’t be in any danger, could I? Then I remembered a crowded tube platform. I turned and hurried back to the road.
“Ah, here she is,” said a hearty voice. “We wondered where you’d got to.”
Another car had parked beside us, this one driven by Whiffy Featherstonehaugh and containing Marisa Pauncefoot-Young and Belinda, who were now spreading out their own picnic mat on the grass.
“Where are you heading for?” I asked and was greeted with merry laughter.
“Same as you, silly. We’re the rest of the house party.”
“Come and sit down.” Whiffy patted the mat beside him. “Marisa’s mum has rustled up some spiffing food from Fortnum’s.”
I sat and joined them in a far better picnic than our own, but I couldn’t really enjoy the cold pheasant or the Melton Mowbray pies or Stilton, because I couldn’t shake off the thought that the very people I was trying to avoid were now going to be with me in the country.
We set off again. I stared at their Armstrong Siddeley as it drove ahead of us. Could it possibly be my Celtic sixth sense that made me feel uneasy the moment they arrived?
This was all so ridiculous. These were people I had known for most of my life. I told myself that I was overreacting. All those accidents this past week had been accidents, nothing more sinister. I had read more into them because of the body in the bath and because I was alone and out of my element. I was now going to have a few days of ease and fun and try to forget what had happened to poor Binky and me.
The more powerful Armstrong Siddeley left us behind and we puttered along leafy byways. At last Tristram slowed the car and pointed. “There, through the trees. That’s Eynsleigh. Do you remember it?”
I looked down a long graceful driveway lined with plane trees. Beyond was a rambling Tudor mansion in red and white brick. Happy memories stirred. I had ridden up that driveway on a fat little pony called Squibs. And Sir Hubert had made me a tree house.
“I can understand why you love it so much,” I said. “I remember it as a very happy place.”
We drove on and were soon approaching yet another lovely house. This one was Farlows, home of the Mountjoys. It was Georgian, with elegant lines, its balustrade crowned with classical marble statues. There was a colonnade of more statues along the driveway.
“Quite an impressive showing, don’t you think?” Tristram said. “There is obviously money in the arms game. There’s always a war somewhere. Even the statues look violent, don’t they? Even more alarming than that fierce angel at your place.”
We passed an ornamental lake with fountains playing and came to a halt beside a flight of marble steps, leading to the front door. Liveried servants came out immediately, murmuring, “Welcome, m’lady,” as they whisked away my luggage. At the top of the steps I was received by the butler. “Good afternoon, my lady. May I be permitted to say how sorry I was to read of His Grace’s current plight. Lady Mountjoy is awaiting you in the long gallery if you’d care to take tea.”
I was back in a world where I knew the rules. I followed the butler through to the long g
allery, where Whiffy and his party were already attacking the crumpets with Imogen Mountjoy. Several older people were seated together. I recognized Whiffy’s parents among them. Lady Mountjoy stood up and came to greet me.
“My dear, so good of you to come at such an unsettling time. We all feel for your poor, dear brother. Such a travesty. Let us hope they get to the bottom of it rapidly. Come and meet Imogen and our American guests.”
Imogen pretended to be thrilled. “Georgie. How lovely,” she said. We kissed the air somewhere near each other’s cheeks. I glanced around, expecting to see Mrs. Simpson, but the Americans turned out to be a Mr. and Mrs. Wilton J. Weinberger.