Up to now they had probably been busy looking for possible sources of poison in the food. They would not, he hoped, have got round to a room by room search of the house. Perhaps they would have to ask permission or get a search warrant to do that. It was possible that if he acted now, at once –
He visualised the house clearly in his mind's eye. It would be getting towards dusk. Tea would be brought in, either into the library or into the drawing-room. Everyone would be assembled downstairs and the servants would be having tea in the servants' hall. There would be no one upstairs on the first floor. Easy to walk up through the garden, skirting the yew hedges that provided such admirable cover. Then there was the little door at the side on to the terrace. That was never locked until just before bedtime. One could slip through there and, choosing one's moment, slip upstairs.
Vivian Dubois considered very carefully what it behove him to do next. If Fortescue's death had been put down to a seizure or to a stroke as surely it ought to have been, the position would be very different. As it was – Dubois murmured under his breath, "Better be safe than sorry."
II
Mary Dove came slowly down the big staircase. She paused a moment at the window on the half landing, from which she had seen Inspector Neele arrive on the preceding day. Now, as she looked out in the fading light, she noticed a man's figure just disappearing round the yew hedge. She wondered if it was Lancelot Fortescue, the prodigal son. He had, perhaps, dismissed his car at the gate and was wandering round the garden recollecting old times there before tackling a possibly hostile family. Mary Dove felt rather sympathetic towards Lance. A faint smile on her lips, she went on downstairs. In the hall she encountered Gladys, who jumped nervously at the sight of her.
"Was that the telephone I heard just now?" Mary asked. "Who was it?"
"Oh, that was a wrong number. Thought we were the laundry." Gladys sounded breathless and rather hurried. "And before that, it was Mr Dubois. He wanted to speak to the mistress."
"I see."
Mary went on across the hall. Turning her head, she said: "It's tea-time, I think. Haven't you brought it in yet?"
Gladys said: "I don't think it's half-past four yet, is it, miss?"
"It's twenty minutes to five. Bring it in now, will you?"
Mary Dove went on into the library where Adele Fortescue, sitting on the sofa, was staring at the fire, picking with her fingers at a small lace handkerchief. Adele said fretfully:
"Where's tea?"
Mary Dove said: "It's just coming in."
A log had fallen out of the fireplace and Mary Dove knelt down at the grate and replaced it with the tongs, adding another piece of wood and a little coal.
Gladys went out into the kitchen where Mrs Crump raised a red and wrathful face from the kitchen table where she was mixing pastry in a large bowl.
"The library bell's been ringing and ringing. Time you took in the tea, my girl."
"All right, all right, Mrs Crump."
"What I'll say to Crump tonight," muttered Mrs Crump. "I'll tell him off."
Gladys went on into the pantry. She had not cut any sandwiches. Well, she jolly well wasn't going to cut sandwiches. They'd got plenty to eat without that, hadn't they? Two cakes, biscuits and scones and honey. Fresh black market farm butter. Plenty without her bothering to cut tomato or foie gras sandwiches. She'd got other things to think about. Fair temper Mrs Crump was in, all because Mr Crump had gone out this afternoon. Well, it was his day out, wasn't it? Quite right of him, Gladys thought. Mrs Crump called out from the kitchen:
"The kettle's boiling its head off. Aren't you ever going to make that tea?"
"Coming."
She jerked some tea without measuring it into the big silver pot, carried it into the kitchen and poured the boiling water on it. She added the teapot and the kettle to the big silver tray and carried the whole thing through to the library where she set it on the small table near the sofa. She went back hurriedly for the other tray with the eatables on it. She carried the latter as far as the hall when the sudden jarring noise of the grandfather clock preparing itself to strike made her jump.
In the library, Adele Fortescue said querulously, to Mary Dove.
"Where is everybody this afternoon?"
"I really don't know, Mrs Fortescue. Miss Fortescue came in some time ago. I think Mrs Percival's writing letters in her room."
Adele said pettishly, "Writing letters, writing letters. That woman never stops writing letters. She's like all people of her class. She takes an absolute delight in death and misfortune. Ghoulish, that's what I call it. Absolutely ghoulish."
Mary murmured tactfully, "I'll tell her that tea is ready."
Going towards the door she drew back a little in the doorway as Elaine Fortescue came into the room. Elaine said:
"It's cold," and dropped down by the fireplace, rubbing her hands before the blaze.
Mary stood for a moment in the hall. A large tray with cakes on it was standing on one of the hall chests. Since it was getting dark in the hall, Mary switched on the light. As she did so she thought she heard Jennifer Fortescue walking along the passage upstairs. Nobody, however, came down the stairs and Mary went up the staircase and along the corridor.
Percival Fortescue and his wife occupied a self-contained suite in one wing of the house. Mary tapped on the sitting-room door. Mrs Percival liked you to tap on doors, a fact which always roused Crump's scorn of her. Her voice said briskly:
"Come in."
Mary opened the door and murmured:
"Tea is just coming in, Mrs Percival."
She was rather surprised to see Jennifer Fortescue with her outdoor clothes on. She was just divesting herself of a long camel-hair coat.
"I didn't know you'd been out," said Mary.
Mrs Percival sounded slightly out of breath.
"Oh, I was just in the garden, that's all. Just getting a little air. Really, though, it was too cold. I shall be glad to get down to the fire. The central heating here isn't as good as it might be. Somebody must speak to the gardeners about it, Miss Dove."
"I'll do so," Mary promised.
Jennifer Fortescue dropped her coat on a chair and followed Mary out of the room. She went down the Stairs ahead of Mary, who drew back a little to give her precedence. In the hall, rather to Mary's surprise, she noticed the tray of eatables was still there. She was about to go out to the pantry and call to Gladys when Adele Fortescue appeared in the door of the library, saying in an irritable voice:
"Aren't we ever going to have anything to eat for tea?"
Quickly Mary picked up the tray and took it into the library, disposing the various things on low tables near the fireplace. She was carrying the empty tray out to the hall again when the front-door bell rang. Setting down the tray, Mary went to the door herself. If this was the prodigal son at last she was rather curious to see him. "How unlike the rest of the Fortescues," Mary thought, as she opened the door and looked up into the dark lean face and the faint quizzical twist of the mouth. She said quietly:
"Mr Lancelot Fortescue?"
"Himself."
Mary peered beyond him.
"Your luggage?"
"I've paid off the taxi. This is all I've got."
He picked up a medium-sized zip bag. Some faint feeling of surprise in her mind, Mary said:
"Oh, you did come in a taxi. I thought perhaps you'd walked up. And your wife?"
His face set in a rather grim line. Lance said:
"My wife won't be coming. At least, not just yet."
"I see. Come this way, will you, Mr Fortescue. Everyone is in the library, having tea."
She took him to the library door and left him there. She thought to herself that Lancelot Fortescue was a very attractive person. A second thought followed the first. Probably a great many other women thought so, too.
III
"Lance!"
Elaine came hurrying forward towards him. She flung her arms round his neck and hugged him with a
schoolgirl abandon that Lance found quite surprising.
"Hallo. Here I am."
He disengaged himself gently.
"This is Jennifer?"
Jennifer Fortescue looked at him with eager curiosity.
"I'm afraid Val's been detained in town," she said. "There's so much to see to, you know. All the arrangements to make and everything. Of course it all comes on Val. He has to see to everything. You can really have no idea what we're all going through."
"It must be terrible for you," said Lance gravely.
He turned to the woman on the sofa, who was sitting with a piece of scone and honey in her hand, quietly appraising him.
"Of course," cried Jennifer, "you don't know Adele, do you?"
Lance murmured, "Oh yes, I do," as he took Adele Fortescue's hand in his. As he looked down at her, her eyelids fluttered. She set down the scone she was eating with her left hand and just touched the arrangement of her hair. It was a feminine gesture. It marked her recognition of the entry to the room of a personable man. She said in her thick, soft voice:
"Sit down here on the sofa beside me, Lance." She poured out a cup of tea for him. "I'm so glad you've come," she went on. "We badly need another man in the house."
Lance said:
"You must let me do everything I can to help."
"You know – but perhaps you don't know – we've had the police here. They think – they think –" she broke off and cried out passionately: "Oh, it's awful! Awful!"
"I know." Lance was grave and sympathetic. "As a matter of fact they met me at London Airport ."
"The police met you?"
"Yes."
"What did they say?"
"Well," Lance was deprecating. "They told me what had happened."
"He was poisoned," said Adele, "that's what they think, what they say. Not food poisoning. Real poisoning, by someone. I believe, I really do believe they think it's one of us."
Lance gave her a sudden quick smile.
"That's their pigeon," he said consolingly. "It's no good our worrying. What a scrumptious tea! It's a long time since I've seen a good English tea."
The others fell in with his mood soon enough. Adele said suddenly:
"But your wife – haven't you got a wife, Lance?"
"I've got a wife, yes. She's in London ."
"But aren't you – hadn't you better bring her down here?"
"Plenty of time to make plans," said Lance. "Pat – oh, Pat's quite all right where she is."
Elaine said sharply:
"You don't mean – you don't think –"
Lance said quickly:
"What a wonderful looking chocolate cake. I must have some."
Cutting himself a slice, he asked:
"Is Aunt Effie alive still?"
"Oh, yes, Lance. She won't come down and have meals with us or anything, but she's quite well. Only she's getting very peculiar."
"She always was peculiar," said Lance. "I must go up and see her after tea."
Jennifer Fortescue murmured:
"At her age one does really feel that she ought to be in some kind of home. I mean somewhere where she will be properly looked after."
"Heaven help any old ladies' home that got Aunt Effie in their midst," said Lance. He added, "Who's the demure piece of goods who let me in?"
Adele looked surprised.
"Didn't Crump let you in? The butler? Oh no, I forgot. It's his day out today. But surely Gladys –"
Lance gave a description. "Blue eyes, hair parted in the middle, soft voice, butter wouldn't melt in the mouth. What goes on behind it all, I wouldn't like to say."
"That," said Jennifer, "would be Mary Dove."
Elaine said:
"She sort of runs things for us."
"Does she, now?"
Adele said:
"She's really very useful."
"Yes," said Lance thoughtfully, "I should think she might be."
"But what is so nice is," said Jennifer, "that she knows her place. She never presumes, if you know what I mean."
"Clever Mary Dove," said Lance, and helped himself to another piece of chocolate cake.
Chapter 12
I
"So you've turned up again like a bad penny," said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance grinned at her. "Just as you say, Aunt Effie."
"Humph!" Miss Ramsbottom sniffed disapprovingly. "You've chosen a nice time to do it. Your father got himself murdered yesterday, the house is full of police poking about everywhere, grubbing in the dustbins, even. I've seen them out of the window." She paused, sniffed again, and asked, "Got your wife with you?"
"No. I left Pat in London ."
"That shows some sense. I shouldn't bring her here if I were you. You never know what might happen."
"To her? To Pat?"
"To anybody," said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance Fortescue looked at her thoughtfully.
"Got any ideas about it all, Aunt Effie?" he asked.
Miss Ramsbottom did not reply directly. "I had an Inspector here yesterday asking me questions. He didn't get much change out of me. But he wasn't such a fool as he looked, not by a long way." She added with some indignation, "What your grandfather would feel if he knew we had the police in the house – it's enough to make him turn in his grave. A strict Plymouth Brother he was all his life. The fuss there was when he found out I'd been attending Church of England services in the evening! And I'm sure that was harmless enough compared to murder."
Normally Lance would have smiled at this, but his long, dark face remained serious. He said:
"D'you know, I'm quite in the dark after having been away so long. What's been going on here of late?"
Miss Ramsbottom raised her eyes to heaven.
"Godless doings," she said firmly.
"Yes, yes, Aunt Effie, you would say that anyway. But what gives the police the idea that Dad was killed here, in this house?"
"Adultery is one thing and murder is another," said Miss Ramsbottom. "I shouldn't like to think it of her, I shouldn't indeed."
Lance looked alert. "Adele?" he asked.
"My lips are sealed," said Miss Ramsbottom.
"Come on, old dear," said Lance. "It's a lovely phrase, but it doesn't mean a thing. Adele had a boy friend? Adele and the boy friend fed him henbane in the morning tea. Is that the set up?"
"I'll trouble you not to joke about it."
"I wasn't really joking, you know."
"I'll tell you one thing," said Miss Ramsbottom suddenly. "I believe that girl knows something about it."
"Which girl?" Lance looked surprised.
"The one that sniffs," said Miss Ramsbottom. "The one that ought to have brought me up my tea this afternoon, but didn't. Gone out without leave, so they say. I shouldn't wonder if she had gone to the police. Who let you in?"
"Someone called Mary Dove, I understand. Very meek and mild – but not really. Is she the one who's gone to the police?"
"She wouldn't go to the police," said Miss Ramsbottom. "No – I mean that silly little parlourmaid. She's been twitching and jumping like a rabbit all day. 'What's the matter with you?' I said. 'Have you got a guilty conscience?' She said 'I never did anything – I wouldn't do a thing like that.' 'I hope you wouldn't,' I said to her, 'but there's something worrying you now, isn't there?' Then she began to sniff and said she didn't want to get anybody into trouble, she was sure it must be all a mistake. I said to her, I said, 'Now, my girl, you speak the truth and shame the devil.' That's what I said. 'You go to the police,' I said, 'and tell them anything you know, because no good ever came,' I said 'of hushing up the truth, however unpleasant it is.' Then she talked a lot of nonsense about she couldn't go to the police, they'd never believe her and what on earth should she say? She ended up by saying anyway she didn't know anything at all."
"You don't think," Lance hesitated, "that she was just making herself important?"
"No, I don't. I think she was scared. I think she saw something or he
ard something that's given her some idea about the whole thing. It may be important, or it mayn't be of the least consequence."
"You don't think she herself could've had a grudge against Father and –" Lance hesitated.
Miss Ramsbottom was shaking her head decidedly.
"She's not the kind of girl your father would have taken the least notice of. No man ever will take much notice other, poor girl. Ah, well, it's all the better for her soul, that, I dare say."
Lance took no interest in Gladys's soul. He asked:
"You think she may have run along to the police station?"
Aunt Effie nodded vigorously.
"Yes. I think she mayn't like to've said anything to them in this house in case somebody overheard her."
Lance asked, "Do you think she may have seen someone tampering with the food?"
Aunt Effie threw him a sharp glance.
"It's possible, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes, I suppose so." Then he added apologetically, "The whole thing still seems so wildly improbable. Like a detective story."
"Percival's wife is a hospital nurse," said Miss Ramsbottom.
The remark seemed so unconnected with what had gone before that Lance looked at her in a puzzled fashion.
"Hospital nurses are used to handling drugs," said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance looked doubtful.
"This stuff – taxine – is it ever used in medicine?"
"They get it from yewberries, I gather. Children eat yewberries sometimes," said Miss Ramsbottom. "Makes them very ill, too. I remember a case when I was a child. It made a great impression on me. I never forgot it. Things you remember come in useful sometimes."
Lance raised his head sharply and stared at her.
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