“We should get these sandwiches in, I can come back for the tea,” Chantal said as she loaded up a tray. “But I do want to say something to you about Harry.” Her face was turned slightly away from me—and that perfect profile could still rile me. “I can understand your shock at discovering the truth about him, but misguided or not, he—”
“I don’t want to listen to anything about Harry.” Her making excuses for him put me on the outside of their closeness. How long had I had this headache? It was a pressure on the top of my skull, so powerful that I was sure my forehead must look like corrugated paper.
“Did you ever listen to him, or were you too busy sobbing out your tales of woe? I listen”—her lips moved into a slow self-mocking curve—“when he talks about you. I love him. I’ve loved him for a long time; didn’t I say that gypsies are good at patience? So be warned—when you have driven him away, I will be waiting for him.”
“In his bed, I suppose. Oh, I’m sorry; I was forgetting our little truce.” The furrows in my brow were now deep enough for the planting of seeds, as Fergy would have said. If only I could see her, see Dad; but most of all I wished I could see Mum—hold on to her and tell her all about Harry.
“I wasn’t forgetting our truce,” said Chantal. “A week ago I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I almost like you, and I want to be fair with you.” Brushing stray bread crumbs into the sink she handed me a tray, picked up another, and without further talk we went out into the hall.
Harry was coming towards us past the portrait gallery, and I seethed as he took Chantal’s tray. “Don’t speak.” I glared as he elbowed the sitting room door open for me. Chantal returned to the kitchen to make tea. “You might break a blood vessel in your tongue.”
“Know something, Tessa?” He looked tired. “I’ve spent a long time loving you, and I guess I’m finally bored with the whole stupid business.”
My lips pried apart. “Suits me.”
“Splendid. But should you ever chance to change your mind, you will have to be the one who comes running with the ring in the velvet box. All right, sweetheart?”
Never. I would never grovel. Especially to a man I didn’t want anyway. And he needn’t stand there like one of those damned Regency heroes glowering down his arrogant nose at me. Those dark blue eyes of his couldn’t throw me into a fit of the transports or convince me that my life would be total emptiness without him. I had Dad, I had Fergy, and I would have my mother. She would fill any void. I was sure I was right in what I suspected. I would talk to Maude; she would tell me the truth. But what if ... what if my mother’s life had no voids? Would she want a stranger bursting in upon her world? In giving me a new life, hadn’t she earned one for herself?
“A shallow pair, aren’t we? intruding our personal disputes into the midst of murder and mayhem?” Harry edged my tray to one side and set his down.
“Considering you are the walking definition of the word shallow—” I began, but mayhem was re-emerging with the opening of the sitting-room door. Hyacinth, Primrose, and the other witnesses had been congregating in the parlour, assuming that was where luncheon was to be served. But when I explained that Chantal and I had automatically returned here, Primrose absently patted me on the arm, saying that informality was much cosier.
The mood wasn’t cosy. Butler was still incarcerated in the library, or so we believed. Barely had Chantal appeared with an assortment of teapots and we had begun filling our plates than Inspector Lewjack ambled into the room with Constable Watt in tow.
My mind focussed on incidentals. The wrinkles in Maude’s blue dress, Mr. Deasley’s red nose, Hyacinth’s earrings hanging motionless against her neck, Godfrey still holding the volume on art, Mrs. Grundy opening up her sandwich to peer inside, Bertie ... What had he wanted to tell me?
“Mr. Jones has agreed to accompany us down to the station to clear up a few remaining points,” announced the inspector.
Jones! My surprise was not that Butler was being taken away, but that his name was Jones.
“Oh, but surely we haven’t made you feel so unwelcome that you have to rush away,” protested Primrose. “The library is at your disposal for as long as you wish, and as for Butler, I cannot see that he could possibly be of the least use to you in your enquiries.”
“Miss Tramwell is right, you know,” decreed Mrs. Grundy. “I’m sure you won’t get a word out of him at the police station. He’ll get lockjaw, remembering what it’s like behind bars.” That woman!
“Just doing our job,” said Constable Watt.
Ten minutes after the official departure, the luncheon party broke up. We all gravitated to the hall, informal departures by way of the French windows being socially inappropriate in a house of death. Hyacinth and Primrose were both grey with fatigue. Neither looked at the other as, echoing general farewells, they went up to their rooms. Harry was standing talking to that other gay blade, Mr. Deasley. Godfrey disappeared to use the phone, and his mother fished in her bag for change to pay for the call. Maude, buttoning her cape at the neck, came up to me.
“I am glad the Misses Tramwell are going to get some rest. Too much for them, all this, at their age. Terrible. The memories it must bring back of Lily’s death. Police in the house then, too—and that dreadful inquest! They never talk about it, but ...” Bertie had sidled up and was clinging to her hand, whispering something. “Shush,” she admonished gently. “I know you want to talk to Miss Fields, dear, so do I—when there are less people around. Remember the man who died was her friend.”
Would Maude’s talk deal with the immorality of feigning illness? What had the Tramwells told her? A hammer started beating inside my head. Bertie had said she had asked him if I reminded him of anyone. Did she mean a man or a woman? But I couldn’t wonder about my father now—I wasn’t up to it.
“What is said about Lily’s death?”
“Nothing much now. Gossip fades.” She touched back that strand of hair that kept falling over my forehead. “You should get some rest yourself, dear, or you won’t be of use to anyone, and I do think you are the best therapy for those two ladies. Nothing like someone young about the house.” She smiled down at Bertie.
“You take care of yourself and Bertie. Do you have someone he can stay with while you are working?” I was tired. I felt like crying.
“I’m going to take him on my rounds for the rest of the day, and the Tramwells did say we could spend the night here if I think there is any likelihood of my being called out. Very kind of them, I thought.”
“Very kind,” I said.
Bouncing up and down against Maude’s arm, Bertie oohed, “Can we really stay here?” Not a boy consumed with fear that the murderer might seek to silence him before he remembered who fitted that murderous shadow in the walk. But if I were Maude, I would not sleep until the case was closed. For that matter I doubted the murderer would get much rest knowing that Bertie’s very vital subconscious—Fred—might come alive at any minute. Of course, it was possible that the net was already being drawn over the murderer’s head ... that Butler was the one ...
Only Mr. Deasley displayed signs of a struggle in making his departure. He was still casting anguished bassett-hound glances up the staircase as he followed the Krumpets and Grundys out the door. A week ago I wouldn’t have believed that an elderly man could be passionately in love with anyone, but I myself had aged a lot. I thought of Dad and Vera’s sister, hoping that Fergy would put her foot down—and yet I did want him to be happy. Nothing could change the way he felt about Mum.
Harry’s farewell to me was brief—a mere pause in his offering to give Chantal a lift into the village in the Tramwell hearse on his way home. The motorbike was temporarily out of commission, and my heart almost softened towards him when I heard him telling Chantal that he had hitchhiked here last night. Then I asked myself why she was leaving the house. Only one good reason sprang to mind, and I hoped the horses rushed to welcome Harry back by biting off huge chunks of his anatomy.
Someone had to prepare the evening meal. I discovered a pork roast and shoved it, surrounded by onions, leeks, and potatoes, into a slow oven. Would Butler be home for dinner? The clock on the wall dauntingly informed me that it was after four. Could listing his aliases be what was taking so long? I closed the doors on the Welsh dresser from which I had taken the casserole dish, and looked at the step-ladder leaning beside it. Had Butler stood upon it yesterday morning and listened with his ear to the hatchway to what Angus was saying? The same could be true of Chantal. She would then have had to go through the garden and enter the library via a window. Had I been foolish to begin to trust her where Harry was not concerned?
Minnie scratched at the door and I let her in. “If you weren’t such a close-mouthed female, you could tell us a lot.” I broke up left-over sandwiches and tossed them into her Chinese bowl. “This is an incongruous house—the Tramwells gambling for a livelihood yet here you sit, you revolting hound, gobbling up your grub from a vessel most people would lock away behind glass doors.” The bowl reminded me that I had not yet finished reading that elevating book, The Tramwell Family, and that I did want to know more about Sinclair.
As I went by the portrait gallery, I thought about the picture I had seen in the attic, looked up, and met Tessa’s eyes. Today, they seemed sad, as if she knew all that had happened and wished to comfort me.
I found the volume where I had left it in my room and settled down for a read. Make that tried to settle. My head still ached dully. I found the chapter on Sinclair, but he did not fit my image of swashbuckling pirate leaping from a chandelier to steal a giant ruby out of some maharajah’s turban. No, indeed! He had replanted twenty elms and sired seven children. (Was that in order of importance? Yawn.) He had given money to the church even though he had not attended regularly, due to his travels. (And an allergy to prayer books, I’ll bet!) On those travels Sinclair had attempted to impart the joys of English civilization to the heathens. Another yawn and the book ruffled shut—but I mustn’t fall asleep reading it as I had done last time. The roast might shrivel.
Reopening it, I retraced to the line where I had stopped. “A deep appreciation of art and ancient dynasties ...” Wouldn’t he and Angus have got on splendidly together, ambling through The Heritage discussing the early Ming dynasty? I must have been half asleep, because I was seeing double. Angus dying in the walk and Minerva at her Chinese bowl. The book fell from my hands as I sat up slowly. That was it! Hadn’t Harry said it was odd, Angus referring to Minnie by name? And to think I had stood minutes ago gabbing to that spoiled dog about her Chinese bowl! Angus had not agonizingly struggled to say “The dog’s got the weapon,” or “The dog’s chasing my assailant.” What he was trying to tell me was: The dog’s bowl is Ming!
Unable to sit still, I climbed off the bed and sat on the swing. The gliding motion helped me think. Angus’s expertise was his destruction. His impulsive, impassioned enthusiasm. He had confided in someone about his discovery—no, suspicion—for if Angus had been certain, he would have told the Tramwells at once. He must have said he would go back to London and confer with other specialists in the field; then, if the news was good, return to Flaxby Meade. And the person in whom he had confided must have nodded, smiled, said how nice for the Tramwells, whilst secretly thinking, How nice for me if I can prevent you opening your mouth.
The most promising candidate for the role of confidant was Mr. Deasley. He dealt in antiques and to have such a prize as this fall into his lap ... but in his favour was the fact that he was highly trusted by the sisters. They were apparently in the habit of selling to him, so he would have had little difficulty in wheedling that bowl out of them, or, better still, could have swapped it for something similar. Or, easier yet, walked off with it under his arm along with the silver teapot. I thought again about Angus’s missing watch.... A pity about Mr. Deasley. He had his alibi of sorts ... but Primrose could have fallen asleep. No—the risk of her waking and finding him gone would have been more dangerous than no alibi at all.
Who else might Angus have spoken to before catching the London train? Chantal had been leaving the house as I went in, but I would have heard the sound of the Tramwell hearse if she had taken off after Mr. Deasley and Angus— meaning the only way she could have caught up with them would have been by thumbing a lift from a passing motorist and doing the same on the return trip. Could she have made it back in time to serve lunch? I supposed it was possible. I had spent a good deal of time poking around upstairs. But Angus wasn’t a fool. He would have thought it extremely strange, her appearing beside him on the platform. How could she have explained that? Let me tell your fortune, sir?
The watch. It would have been silver. All Angus’s watches were silver. Whoever had taken it had either craved it or been afraid of it. Butler ... If Chantal could have followed Mr. Deasley’s car, he could have done the same. But again, how could he have explained his reason for pursuing Angus? That left Maude and the Grundys. I forced myself to imagine Maude pedalling up to the station as Angus entered, and ... no. My imagination simply wasn’t good enough to make me believe she would care two hoots whether that bowl was Ming, or one of Woolworth’s seconds. Unless ... revenge for past wrongs? Her father had not got on with old Mr. Tramwell. The swing travelled upwards and my mind went with it to the Grundys. Mother and son. Godfrey ... Angus would despise him—feel greater anger towards him than the Tramwells. What if Angus had telephoned or met him, and said, “You can wave goodbye to your card-sharp operation? Those two elderly ladies have been sitting, or rather tripping, over a gold mine.” Admittedly, Cheynwind oozed all the trappings of wealth, but for all I knew it was up to its roof in second mortgages.
Forget Ethelreda Grundy. She might be as loopy as a wire spring but Godfrey was a far better candidate. He had displayed the same kind of cunning in luring card players to Cloisters that had been used to lure Angus to Abbots Walk. Patience, Chantal had said, and anyone living with Ethelreda Grundy would have learned a great deal about patience.
My headache was quite gone. If I were right about the Chinese bowl, Hyacinth and Primrose would have had every reason to bless the day Angus entered their lives rather than viewing him with anger or fear. Relief surged as I scraped my feet along the floor, then ... down to earth in a grinding halt. They were only in the clear if he had dropped some hint of his suspicion. And I felt strongly that he had not, because, although Hyacinth had seemed very much as usual after Angus’s visit, Primrose had grown increasingly distracted. More than distracted ... troubled.
How horribly ironic if one of them ... No, I wouldn’t think along those lines. I was still prepared to face up to the truth—whatever it might be. I would ferret it out. But the sisters had taken me into their home. I had grown fond of them, I had adopted them. Impulsive? Not especially. Mum and Dad had made up their minds about taking me on in under five seconds. The Tramwells weren’t the only gamblers. Mum and Dad were gamblers, too, of a different kind—and I was their daughter.
I slid off the swing. It was time to look at the Chinese bowl and confirm my belief that it was the focus of someone’s greed. The house, dimly shadowed, was very still as I went down to the kitchen, to be confronted by Chantal coming in through the back door.
“Had a pleasant afternoon?” I asked with genuine goodwill. But for her having gone out and my starting dinner ... blast! Minnie was sitting guard over the bowl. My hand inched forward in a fake pat and shot backwards. Glib thoughts of risking all for the cause were all very fine, but
I wasn’t prepared to risk three of my favourite fingers. I was saved—not by the bell but the cat. It appeared from under the table, hissed, and Minnie was off after it.
As I staggered up from my knees clutching my prize, Chantal slipped off her black cardigan and laid it over the back of a chair. Idly I tossed undevoured scraps in the rubbish bin and tilted the bowl over.
“Thank you for getting dinner started,” she said.
“What have you been doing?” I asked automatically. The bottom of the bowl was stamped “Hong Kong.” My brilliant theory blown to dust. Up close, this bowl wasn’t as fine a sample of Oriental ware as the one in our china cabinet at home. The Tramwells were not as unobservant or Minnie as privileged as I had dreamt. And, if I had been thinking straight, I would have realized it was highly unlikely Angus had ever entered the kitchen or any room other than the sitting room. Oh, it was such a shame! If the bowl had been Ming, it would not only have helped solve Angus’s murder but would have solved all the Tramwells’ monetary problems.
Chantal was checking on the roast. “I stopped at the village school to talk to the headmaster, so he could warn the children to be careful walking to and from school. And I asked him if any of the boys was named Fred. I didn’t think it was likely, as it is so old-fashioned, but I wanted to be sure.”
“But I thought you understood that Bertie’s friend is imaginary,” I said. She must have spent her time doing something other than visit the school if she had only just returned.
A funny, persistent buzzing sound came from the hall. I had left the kitchen door open, but if the house had not been so silent I doubt that we would have realized the phone was ringing. Chantal dropped her oven cloth and brushed past me. “Butler, that has to be Butler.” They’re friends, I thought. Not just fellow employees.
Better perform some useful work, like basting the roast. I had just closed the oven door when Chantal returned.
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