Murder at the Castle

by Jeanne M. Dams

  She sniffed and blew her nose. ‘This trip was supposed to be fun. Music, travel, the chance to go places we’d always wanted to see. Now all I want to do is go home.’

  ‘May I talk to Alan?’

  She gave me a dreary little nod. ‘Everything’s awful anyway. I don’t suppose it could get worse.’

  Probably fortunately, I had a lot more experience than she of just how much worse things could get. This wasn’t the time to tell her so.

  ‘Go wash your face, then. Or no, wait.’ I rummaged in my large handbag and found a packet of moist towelettes. ‘Here, use these. The loos will be jammed, and you don’t want to run into anyone looking like you’ve been crying. But you’d better hurry, because you mustn’t miss whatever Sir John wants to say to you all.’

  I gave her a pat to shoo her on her way. Then I took a deep breath and went to look for Alan.

  I found him standing at the back of the assemblage of musicians, who had gathered, somewhat impatiently, to hear what Sir John had to say to them. I touched him on the shoulder. He turned, and I opened my mouth, but just then Sir John began to speak, and Alan put a finger to my lips.

  ‘Wait,’ he mouthed.

  I shook my head and pulled him away. ‘It can’t wait,’ I murmured. ‘Come around the corner.’

  He raised his eyebrows and followed me behind one of the stone buttresses that, though crumbling, still blocked a good deal of sound.

  ‘You need to talk to Larry,’ I said rapidly. ‘Before he leaves here, if you can. I’ve just had a talk with his sister, though you mustn’t tell Larry that. She’s quite sure he knows something important about this whole situation. He might know where Pat and James are.’

  ‘Got it,’ he said, fading into the crowd that was now beginning to move toward the exit.

  Bless the man for not asking questions!

  I wondered, as I mingled with the musicians trying to find Nigel and Inga, what excuse Sir John had come up with to keep the musicians around for the extra hour. I was soon to know.

  ‘I keep on losing everyone,’ said Nigel, coming up from behind me.

  ‘Oh, you startled me! I was looking for you, too. Where’s Inga?’

  ‘Still collecting gossip, I suppose. I’ve not seen her since the end of the concert. I thought she might have come round when Sir John dismissed us, but . . .’ He gave a little ‘who knows’ shrug.

  ‘What did he say to you, anyway? I was talking to Alan. I hope he made it sound important enough to keep you all here another hour.’

  ‘Actually, it was important. He’s added a piece to tomorrow’s programme. An “In Memoriam” sort of thing, the Webber ‘Pié Jesu’. Do you know it?’

  ‘I certainly do! It’s beautiful. Who’s doing the solo?’

  Nigel looked at his feet. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Nigel! Congratulations! I’ll bet what’s-her-name, the soprano, is ready to strangle you with her bare hands.’ I deeply regretted the phrase the moment it was out of my mouth.

  ‘Yes . . . well . . . of course it ought really to be a treble, but Sir John didn’t want to try to find one at the last minute, so . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be wonderful. Sorry I was stupid about it.’

  He made the kind of ambiguous gesture that can mean anything at all, and we stood in an awkward silence until Inga appeared out of the rapidly thinning group of musicians.

  ‘You look like two strange cats. Your fur is bristling. Have you had a row?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, it was something I said, so stupid I won’t even repeat it.’

  ‘You’re tired,’ said Inga with a sigh. ‘We all are. The afternoon has not been wasted, though. I would a tale relate, but I want to wait until we’re all together. I saw Alan just now, deep in conversation with that American singer Larry. He, Alan I mean, said to tell you to come home with Nigel and me, and he’ll follow.’

  So we plodded off to Nigel’s car, quiet and more than a little subdued. I realized that Inga was absolutely right. I was more than tired. I was discouraged, frustrated, and angry.

  Angry? That one stopped me in my tracks. Surely not angry!

  But yes. My mind, sorting out my emotions, had hit on the right combination. This lovely holiday in Wales, centred around the music we all loved, and in that most romantic of settings, a medieval castle, had become a nightmare not only for my small party, but for almost all the musicians involved. And poor Sir John! It must be worst of all for him. This labour of love had turned into a calendar of horrors.

  He was quite right. It had to stop.

  But how were we to accomplish that?

  INTERLUDE

  ‘But what’s being done about it, darling?’

  Lady Cynthia’s voice was calm and controlled, but her hand shook a little as she poured a measure of whisky for her husband. The twins, asleep in the next room, had put up a struggle about bedtime tonight, perhaps feeling their mother’s tension. It had taken both her and the au pair to get them settled, and with the au pair off duty for the night, Cynthia was anxious lest they awaken again. She lowered her voice another notch and changed her question slightly. ‘Is no one doing anything to . . . to find out who’s responsible for these horrors?’

  Sir John took a sip of his drink and then put it down. ‘The police have apparently dismissed both . . . events as accidents. Unless something else happens, I don’t think they’ll take any further action.’

  ‘But they must!’ Cynthia’s voice rose a trifle, and a small protesting whimper sounded from the next room. Both parents froze, willing the child back to sleep. After a hushed period of waiting, with no further sounds of discontent, John lifted his glass again and Cynthia leaned over to pour herself some mineral water.

  ‘Try not to worry too much, darling,’ John said, reaching over to touch her hand. He was careful to speak in soothing tones that might reassure not only Cynthia, but any child who still hovered near the edge of wakefulness. ‘We’re doing all we can to get to the bottom of it all. I told you about the chief constable and his wife, and their friends are helping. It’ll be all right in the end.’

  ‘The end,’ said Cynthia, ‘is tomorrow.’ Her voice was steady again, but her hand still trembled. ‘John, we can’t leave here without knowing. You know we can’t.’

  He shook his head, without speaking. There was nothing he could say to help her.

  She lowered her voice still further. ‘John, I know about her.’

  He looked at her, alarm in his face.

  ‘I knew the moment I saw her. You had described her to me, of course, but it was the look on your face that told me. You looked like . . . like the Lady of Shalott.’

  ‘“The doom has come upon me”.’ His face now was grey, and he hid it in his hands. ‘I didn’t want you to know, ever.’

  ‘John, it didn’t matter. Not then. It didn’t matter at all. We are legally married, and I know that, and I know you . . . that you and I . . .’ Her voice was trembling now.

  He raised his head and put out a hand. ‘Cynthia . . .’

  ‘No, let me finish. I’m all right. It’s only that, if they never find out who did this, you will always be under suspicion. You, or I, or both of us. And I . . . I couldn’t bear it!’

  Her voice broke, finally, and with her tears came a wail from the next room, and then another.

  ‘Mummy! Daddy!’

  ‘It’s all right, kittens. Daddy’s here.’

  He stood and gave Cynthia a hard hug before going to his children. Cynthia dashed away her tears and followed him. ‘Now what are my bad kittens up to now?’

  When the twins were finally soothed and settled, when hugs and drinks and teddy bears had been administered, without a word spoken the parents picked up the children and nestled with them, all four in the big bed together. This was a time for cuddling, for closeness, for comforting.

  PART THREE

  TWENTY

  Alan came in as the three of us were sitting in the lounge, for once with nothing to
eat or drink in front of us. We’d had our fill at the party, and we were too tired in any case to make any effort even at refreshment.

  ‘You’re a lively group,’ he commented, surveying us as he walked into the room.

  ‘We were waiting for you. Inga says she has some news, but she wouldn’t tell us until you were here.’

  ‘And here I am, and with news of my own. Ladies first,’ he added, bowing toward Inga.

  She nodded. ‘I could tease you with it, but I won’t. I think no one’s in the mood for games. I know who Delia’s lover was. Or who everyone says he was.’

  No one spoke.

  ‘His name is Ben Peterson. He’s the concertmaster.’

  It was a complete surprise, and, as we considered the implications, a severe blow. ‘But . . .’ I stammered. ‘But if he murdered her . . . the festival . . . Oh, I suppose we shouldn’t think about that, but . . .’

  ‘The festival can’t go on without the concertmaster,’ said Nigel flatly. ‘Almost anyone else can be replaced, but not him. He’s in the top rank. Only someone like him could hold together a pick-up orchestra like this, and there are damn few like him. I admit I’d wondered why he’d agreed to be part of this. The Royal Phil is more up his street. But, if this is true . . .’

  ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ said Alan. ‘Inga, how sure are you of your information?’

  ‘Pretty sure. With gossip one never knows, of course, but I had it from several sources, not all of them spiteful. The women, as one might expect, were inclined to scratch and spit a bit – don’t look at me that way, Nigel, I meant it metaphorically. With the men it was more nudge, nudge, wink, wink. They didn’t like Delia, but they wouldn’t have minded a bit of what Peterson was apparently getting.’

  ‘He’ll have to be interviewed,’ said Alan. ‘The festival’s made it hellishly tricky, though. Sensitive musicians who mustn’t be put off their stride and all that. I’m getting damn tired of sensitive musicians! Present company excepted, Nigel.’

  ‘I’m not a musician. I’m a techie. I don’t count.’

  Well, of course we all protested at that, and the atmosphere lightened a little.

  ‘What does a man have to do,’ said Alan, ‘to get a drink in this place?’

  ‘We have an assortment upstairs,’ I said to the room at large, ‘if someone younger than I would care to bring down whatever they’d like. I wouldn’t mind some bourbon myself.’

  Inga, who had helped her father at the bar of the Rose and Crown when she was a bit younger, did the honours efficiently, and we settled back very much more at ease.

  ‘Now, Alan,’ I said presently. ‘You had some news for us as well.’

  ‘I do indeed, though I’ve no idea how it’s going to mesh with what Inga’s rootled out. The trouble with this case,’ he went on, his mood expanding as his whisky disappeared, ‘is that nothing seems to fit with anything else. It’s as if someone’s dropped two jigsaw puzzles on the floor and muddled them up together.’

  ‘Or three, or five,’ I said. ‘Never mind. Tell us. We’ll sort it all out sooner or later.’

  ‘It had best be sooner,’ Nigel growled. ‘May I remind you that in less than twenty-four hours the festival will be over, and everyone gone?’

  ‘I don’t think any of us has forgotten, Nigel. But what I’ve learned may be one of the important pieces of the puzzle, or puzzles. I talked to Larry Andrews. His sister was right, Dorothy. He does know something of importance, and suspects more.’ Alan sipped at his drink. ‘He told me that James hated Delia with a white passion, because he – James – thought Delia killed Daniel Green. And Larry thinks James somehow arranged Delia’s death.’

  ‘And that’s why James has disappeared!’ I said excitedly, waving my glass in the air and nearly spilling bourbon on Mairi’s lovely carpet. I set my glass down. ‘But what about Pat? Maybe we’re wrong about the two of them going off together. I thought James and Pat were supposed to be at odds, James jealous of Pat and so on.’

  ‘Ah, but that was before Dan died,’ Alan went on. ‘After that happened, according to Larry, the two were somewhat united in grief. Pat left the chorus, you’ll remember, but James stayed on. Larry and several of the other singers thought that a bit odd, since James was as upset as Pat, and more demonstrative about it. He’s Irish, of course, and they tend not to clamp a lid on their emotions the way we chilly English do. Probably healthier, but it can be rather trying to live with.’

  ‘Rather,’ said Nigel drily. ‘James was raising pretty fair hell most of the time backstage, and putting away a good deal more drink than was good for him.’ Nigel regarded his own modest glass of sherry, and put it down. ‘I could easily believe him capable of the desire to do murder. But the problem remains, the one we’ve had all along. Delia simply could not have been murdered! All of you keep forgetting that I was there. I know no one was near enough to push her. I know she simply went mad and fell.’

  ‘But why did she go mad? What caused that frenzy? I still think,’ I said stubbornly, ‘that it was engineered somehow.’

  ‘How?’ Nigel asked the question, but it came, essentially, from everyone in the room. And I had no answer.

  ‘And what, if anything, did Ben Peterson have to do with it?’ That was from Alan. ‘If Delia was threatening to leave him . . . No, that won’t work, will it? He might have thumped the other man, if there was one, but he’d hardly have killed Delia and thus made quite sure that she left him.’

  ‘Especially,’ said Inga, ‘as it wasn’t that sort of relationship. Ben Peterson is no fool – even if he is, Alan, one of your “sensitive musicians”. He wasn’t in love with Delia, not a bit of it. The women who talked to me thought she’d have liked to entangle him in her web as she had so many men, but with Peterson it was apparently just plain, uncomplicated sex. Good fun, but no emotional complications.’

  ‘I’ve figured it out,’ I announced. All eyes turned in my direction.

  ‘How she was killed?’ Alan inquired. ‘Who did it?’

  ‘No. I’ve figured out what we’re dealing with here. There’ve been hints of it before, but now I’m sure. It isn’t a puzzle at all. It’s a grand opera plot, with hatred and revenge and lust and murder all over the stage. Donizetti would feel right at home, but I’m tired of dealing with it right now. Is anyone else hungry?’

  We had a quick meal at a nearby pub, but when we repaired back to Tower, I firmly set all the bottles aside and sent Inga upstairs for the tea trays, kettle and all. ‘Because what we need now is some clear thinking. Coffee is called for.’

  It was instant, but it wasn’t awful, and thanks to the extra packets I always travel with, we could have enough to keep us awake all night if necessary.

  ‘Now,’ I said when we were all settled with steaming cups. I had pulled my little notebook out of my handbag. ‘We need to get organized.’

  ‘More lists?’ Alan wasn’t smiling, exactly, but his voice was.

  ‘It’s the way I think. All right. Alan, were you able to get a list of the boat passengers that day?’

  ‘Yes. There were seventeen from the festival, not counting Nigel. The ones we’re interested in, Delia, Dan, and James, and others whose names meant nothing to me, but whom we can question if necessary. There were no orchestral members among them, and none were absent from rehearsal that day.’

  ‘So we can cross out the orchestra. Not that they were ever under much suspicion. Question number one, then. Do we agree with James’s supposition that Delia pushed Dan off the boat?’

  ‘What we have been told was James’s supposition,’ Alan interposed. ‘We have only Larry’s word for it.’

  ‘All right, but let’s assume for now that Larry’s right. I repeat, do we agree with James?’

  ‘Why?’ Inga was sitting in the ‘Thinker’ position, one foot up on the couch, elbow on knee, chin propped on elbow. ‘Granted that she could have done it. Almost anybody could have done it, what with the crush at that door. But why would she
?’

  ‘We may never know that,’ said Alan. ‘They’re both dead. From all we know about Delia, she was the complete egomaniac. If Daniel stood in the way of something she wanted, she might very well have seized the opportunity to rid herself of him.’

  ‘I wish we could find Pat. Daniel might have said something to her that would give us a clue.’ I shifted discontentedly and drank some coffee.

  Alan pulled out his mobile, found Pat’s number, and punched it in. I, sitting closest to him, could hear a voice at the other end, but it was followed by a beep.

  ‘Ah, Pat,’ Alan said in clear tones. ‘Alan Nesbitt here, from the music festival. We’ve been quite worried about you and would like to know that you’re all right. Please ring me back, at any hour.’ He gave the number of his phone, while holding out his hand for mine. ‘Or you can also try my wife, on . . .’ He pushed the right buttons for my phone to reveal its number, and quoted it to Pat. ‘Do call, won’t you?’

  ‘She’s taking messages now,’ I said with some satisfaction. ‘That’s a good sign. Do you suppose she’ll call?’

  ‘It will depend on whether she thinks I’m a threat to James. Assuming James is in fact with her. Assuming James did in fact contrive somehow to murder Delia. Assuming James and she are still in a state of détente. A plethora of assumptions, with very little basis for any of them. However . . .’ He spread his hands.

  ‘Well, she’ll call or she won’t. Meanwhile my question remains. Even without knowing her motive, do we think Delia pushed Dan?’

  Inga spoke. ‘Always assuming – there’s that little snag again, Alan – assuming that she had a motive, I think I believe it.’ Inga was still ‘Thinking’. ‘It fits everything we know about the woman, and it fits with a lot of the other things we’ve learned. It’s a large chunk of the puzzle falling into place, or a large piece of the plot, if you prefer, Dorothy.’