by Amy Myers
‘To some old army general who’s away in Mesopotamia most of the time. She gets bored.’
‘How do you know that?’
It was an idle question but Lady Sophy went pink. ‘It’s common knowledge,’ she said almost defiantly. ‘Anyway, she could have killed Charlie. She was in the first group and she rushed away before or as soon as you found the body and all the brouhaha began. Perhaps she had blood on her.’
Nell’s attention quickened. ‘Did she come by motor car?’
‘Yes, she drove herself. The Warminsters don’t have a motor car – they have to have several. She has a chauffeur and someone else who usually drives her when she comes to Wychbourne. Her Ladyship fancies herself as another Gertrude Jekyll, so she comes here to cross-examine Mr Fairweather and the other gardeners about what they’re doing in our gardens.’ She hesitated. ‘That’s her Delage.’ Lady Sophy pointed to a motor car parked in the roadside. ‘She likes driving herself sometimes, though, because people won’t know where she’s going.’
‘You seem to have noticed,’ Nell said mildly.
‘That’s only because she was here and could have killed Charlie,’ Lady Sophy muttered defensively.
‘Did she know him? Had she met him at Wychbourne before or does she visit London clubs?’ That was a thought. Was she one of Mr Charles’s cast-offs and killed him in revenge? Nell wondered.
‘No, she might have met him here before but I don’t think so, and she wouldn’t dare go to London clubs in case her husband found out. He’s old school. He’d cut her allowance off and maybe divorce her, and she isn’t silly enough to risk that.’
‘Is this common gossip,’ Nell enquired, ‘or are you guessing?’ Blithering beetroot, she noticed, the girl’s gone bright red again.
‘Yes, just gossip,’ Lady Sophy muttered, scrambling to her feet. ‘I must go. Helen isn’t looking well.’
Nell agreed with that. Miss Harlington looked as though she was the Queen of the Night with her kohl-lined eyes and dark blue chiffon frock, but Lady Helen seemed to have lost several nights’ sleep. Emotions could get muddled at such times. Some people can’t help laughing at funerals, some cry at weddings. Was it the murder itself upsetting her or was there something more?
Just as Lady Sophy was leaving, Mr Beringer came up to greet her then he turned to Nell. ‘Miss Drury, I’ve admired your cuisine greatly, so now I can thank you personally.’
‘That’s nice of you, Rex,’ Lady Sophy replied before Nell could answer from her disadvantaged position on the ground. ‘If you were like Charlie, though, you’d have said something crass like “and now I can admire you”.’
‘Fortunately,’ he replied gravely, ‘I’m not like Charlie.’
‘I was going to see if Helen’s all right,’ Lady Sophy said to him. ‘You should go instead, though, Rex.’
‘I’ve just tried. She doesn’t want me around,’ he said gloomily.
‘No, but she needs you. Have another go.’
Thus reassured, he set off again, and Lady Warminster was the next to greet Lady Sophy while pointedly ignoring Nell. ‘Dear child,’ she cooed.
‘I’m nineteen,’ Lady Sophy pointed out crossly.
‘So young, with the future stretching out before you. Unlike dear Charlie.’ A lace handkerchief was extracted from her silk handbag and briefly touched her face. Not the carefully pencilled-in eyebrows, though, Nell noticed as she reluctantly got to her feet.
‘My condolences,’ she continued, still ignoring Nell. The white georgette frock shivered with her. At last, it was Nell’s turn. Lady Warminster studied her briefly. ‘Who are you?’
‘The chef at Wychbourne Court.’
A silence, then: ‘But you found the body, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’
‘What was a cook doing on the ghost hunt?’
Nell decided to take this literally. ‘I led the second group. You were in the first.’
‘Was I? How strange. I really can’t recall.’
‘Aunt Clarice says you were,’ Lady Sophy chimed in.
‘Ah, yes, I do remember now. I had to leave the party early. Like Cinderella.’ She gave a tinkly laugh. ‘I always leave balls at midnight in case an ugly sister might take her revenge.’
Could she have meant that apparently light-hearted remark deliberately? Nell was appalled, given that Lady Sophy hardly fell into society’s standard of beauty. To those who looked no further, she was no Nancy Cunard or Clara Bow. Those who did saw an intelligence and attractiveness that might not pass muster in Mayfair but anywhere else in the world was far preferable. Lady Warminster, Nell decided, was one of those women whose thinking lagged far behind their speech.
‘Your chauffeur seems to want you, Cinderella,’ Lady Sophy said flatly.
Nell looked up and saw him getting out of the Delage, and Lady Warminster looked over towards him. There was something familiar about him, Nell thought.
‘Not my chauffeur, dear child. Merely my under-gardener. A rough sort but he drives well.’
With that, Lady Warminster departed. Nell could see that she had seriously upset Lady Sophy who then hurried away, murmuring that she should join Lady Helen. Nell resumed her place on the ground and reached for the sandwiches. She wasn’t alone for long, however.
‘At last. You’re a popular lady, Nell.’ To her annoyance, Guy sat down at her side. ‘And do stop looking so crossly at the grass. Are you gathering ingredients? You always did love nettle soup, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, and making daisy chains, but I grew out of that,’ she snapped.
‘As you did of me?’
‘We went in different directions, Guy.’
‘And now we’ve collided again.’
‘Nothing has changed, Guy. You’re a rover, I’m a chef.’
She thought he would say that chefs could be both, and once – for a brief day or two – she had wanted nothing more. But love is a deceiver and where Guy was concerned she had thought it real when only its pale shadow had been present. Thankfully so far today Guy had not declared that chefs could be both and she was glad.
‘I daresay you were right,’ he said. ‘Still, now I’m back you could at least smile. You always used to say a chef without a smile was like a soup without stock.’
That made her laugh. ‘Are you coming back for the inquest?’
‘I might stay here. I’ve had my orders from the police not to go far away.’
‘Just you?’
‘No. A bunch of us, I believe. Miss Elise is under inspection from the police magnifying glass, as is Rex Beringer, not to mention a lot of folk much nearer home, is my guess. Anyone who was on that ghost hunt.’
‘But you weren’t,’ she pointed out.
‘I turned up, though. It’s the same thing. I thought it would be fun but I didn’t know the fun was going to include murder. I didn’t even know about this ghost joke as I’m not one of the elite. I didn’t join a group. If you recall, when you switched routes at half-time in the great hall I decided just to tag along with yours.’
‘Just for fun?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘No, I wanted to see you, Nell. Later, I said on Saturday. I wasn’t going to let you get away without that talk.’
‘We didn’t have it.’
‘Not then. We’ve just had it and plenty more to follow.’
Her heart sank. ‘But nothing’s changed, Guy.’
‘I’ll just hang around until it does then,’ he said amiably. ‘Lady Warminster is hiring my band for a party, and you never know. Like ice cream, you may grow softer, my frozen lady.’
‘I’m told this is the chef’s room, Miss Drury,’ he said to her politely as he came in – uninvited – through the open door.
There he was: Inspector Alexander Melbray in all his impudent glory and smart grey suit. Nell fumed. This was usually her time for devoting to studying recipes. After today’s inquest – or lack of it, however – she was using it to concentrate on the ‘why’ of Mr Charles’s m
urder. Either way, she was thinking and planning in her operations room.
‘Are you here to interview me?’ she asked coldly.
‘I’d have called you to the morning room if I did. That’s where we’re conducting the formal interviews.’
‘What is this then?’
‘I don’t know – yet. May I sit?’
‘Please do.’ It would be better than having him looming over her shoulder. He positioned himself, she noted, in a chair where the light would fall on her face. What was he expecting? A confession?
‘In that case, may I choose what we talk about first?’ she asked belligerently when he showed no signs of breaking the silence.
‘By all means.’ He sat completely at ease, studying her – or so she thought.
She couldn’t stand this much longer. ‘Why have you delayed the inquest? What are our guests to do?’ she asked, trying to sound less aggressive but failing.
‘To answer your second question: that’s not for me to say. I hope that if guests stay on it does not make too much additional work for you?’
Trust him to make her seem in the wrong. ‘And the first question?’ she asked.
‘That’s harder to answer.’
‘But does that mean that every guest who stays on and we who live here are suspects? We all expected the jury to deliver a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown. You don’t think that Mr Parkyn-Wright’s death was an accident, do you, or that he killed himself?’
‘No.’
‘Well then, to me that verdict would have seemed the right one, instead of inflicting all this waiting on us. Why the wait?’
‘Tests, Miss Drury.’
‘On what?’
He did not reply for a minute or two. One hand rested on her table and that diverted his attention from her, to her relief. Then his eyes turned straight back to her. ‘Does the name Chang mean anything to you? “Brilliant Chang” to be more accurate.’
‘No – yes, I think so,’ she stumbled, taken by surprise.
‘He was an educated gentleman living at the time of his arrest last year in London’s East End, in Limehouse. He was a dealer in cocaine, heroin and opium, which he kept at his house, though it defied all our attempts to find it. For the previous few years he had been the leader in the heavy drug traffic we then had. He had owned a London club until our raids forced him to move east and he had been a frequent visitor to other clubs including Mrs Meyrick’s Forty-Three Club.’
He paused, perhaps because of her no doubt mystified expression. ‘We did finally find cocaine at his home,’ he continued. ‘Chang was imprisoned but is shortly to be released, after which he will be deported. So far no one has taken his place as a supplier to the same extent and the drug problem has vastly reduced. Every so often, however, someone tries very hard to emulate him and dealers are beginning to reappear. That has happened recently and we were closing in on one of the most successful dealers in illicit drugs. He died here last week, Miss Drury.’
‘Mr Parkyn-Wright?’ she whispered aghast. ‘Dope?’
‘Yes, Miss Drury. Drugs were Charlie’s dance.’
SEVEN
Illegal drugs at Wychbourne Court? For a moment Nell’s mind felt like scrambled egg but then it began to focus. Why had the inspector come to her with this? Did he think she was involved in this dope scandal? Her defences began to stiffen in readiness but she tried to calm down.
First, she needed to know more. ‘Did Mr Parkyn-Wright use Saturday’s party at Wychbourne just for his business – if that’s what one calls dealing in drugs? Is that why he came here?’
‘I believe so.’
‘He was one of the weekend guests.’ That could have meant, Nell thought, merely that he wanted a relaxing day or two in the country or that his business hadn’t been intended to end with one party. She was aware that the inspector was still watching her closely. Perhaps he did think she had killed Mr Charles or that she was an accomplice. No, she told herself. As he had said, he wouldn’t be interviewing her here if so. She relaxed a little.
‘He almost certainly had clients at the dance on Saturday night,’ the inspector continued. ‘Chang’s method of attracting new and well-off customers was often to approach them at clubs through a carefully composed letter of admiration – his clients were mainly young ladies and he would have the letter delivered to their table. That was particularly easy at his own club, of course. Chang built up a high-class clientele – as, we believe, did Parkyn-Wright, another frequenter of the Forty-Three Club.’
Nell was still struggling with the fact that the wonderful Wychbourne dance to which she’d looked forward so much had been partly a front for something far different. ‘Charlie’s dance, you said. Is that what he called it?’
‘I can’t say. It was how his clients referred to it. Think of it. A dance would be a good way of transacting goods and payments without attention being drawn to it. A romantic withdrawal to a balcony or terrace perhaps or just a clasping of hands while a small bottle of powder was exchanged. You may remember the Freda Kempton case a few years ago. She was a dance hostess who killed herself with an overdose of cocaine. At the inquest Chang was heavily implicated.’
Nell shivered. ‘Do you know how many clients Mr Parkyn-Wright had here on Saturday night?’
‘As yet, we don’t.’
‘Guests or—’ She broke off. How could she ask: is the Ansley family under suspicion? She quickly changed direction: ‘Servants?’ she finished the question. ‘Is that why you’re here? You think we’re involved?’
‘That’s not the reason, Miss Drury. Lady Ansley—’
Her shock was too instinctive to hide and the inspector allotted her a rare smile. ‘Neither Lady Ansley nor you are currently under suspicion.’
Thank you. Nell gritted her teeth at the ‘currently’.
‘In fact, I’ve come to explain the situation at Lady Ansley’s request,’ he continued. ‘I should mention, however, that although Lady Ansley trusts you, you’ll understand that I’m under no obligation to do so.’
Nell flushed. ‘Of course,’ she muttered as graciously as she could.
‘She felt I should tell you that apart from Lord and Lady Ansley and now yourself no one has been informed by the police about Parkyn-Wright’s drug trafficking.’
‘Why did you sanction my knowing?’ she asked curiously.
‘Because, Miss Drury, I’m wary about placing all my eggs in one basket. In this investigation it seemed to me there was a risk in having one basket full of eggs which could be easily cracked. Wychbourne Court has two baskets, however, one of which is relatively empty.’
Nell saw where this was leading. ‘The servants’ basket,’ she said flatly, ‘and you have thrown me into it.’
He managed a smile. ‘That is one way of looking at it. The other way is that Lady Ansley is placing a great deal of trust in you. And so, therefore, am I. It is a risk.’
‘I’m grateful,’ she said, wondering whether gratitude was actually called for. ‘Should I be?’
‘That is a moot point. Only you can decide that, since the risk is also on your side. The more you are involved, the more the danger to you.’ He paused. ‘May I give you some advice, Miss Drury?’
‘By all means give it, Inspector.’ Whether she would take it was quite another matter. Serious this conversation might be but it sounded as though they were taking part in an Adelphi melodrama, she thought. Nevertheless, the word ‘danger’ brought what had hitherto only lain at the back of her mind startlingly to the fore.
‘I am sure that many people from both Wychbourne Court baskets are talking to you about this case,’ he said quietly. ‘Put your trust in no one, Miss Drury – or perhaps more accurately believe no one without questioning it. Except perhaps myself. You might see me as a useful yardstick. Anyone can mislead, often unintentionally.’
‘Or alternatively I might be able to use my own judgement and you might be talking hogwash,’ she retorted angrily.
; ‘I might,’ he agreed. ‘There is, however, a murderer at large. Perhaps my second piece of advice should be to follow my first.’
‘The dinner menus, Lady Ansley.’
Still smarting from the previous night’s encounter with the inspector, Nell presented her with her choices for Thursday. This used to be a matter of great tension: would Her Ladyship approve of the stuffed cucumber? What were the guests’ likes and dislikes? Lord Richard disliked curry but did that extend to curry butter? Lady Sophy had decided she was no longer of the vegetarian persuasion but still could not be reconciled to kidneys. One could not provide a meal to make everyone happy but it was usually an exciting challenge to steer a path through the maze of avenues open to her. Not today.
‘I’m told we still have ten guests, Lady Ansley,’ she continued. ‘Is Miss Harlington among them?’
Lady Ansley sighed. ‘Unfortunately, yes. Perhaps Elise may be unwelcome at her own home. Her parents live in Hampshire, I believe – not a great distance for her to travel either there or to her London address, but she claims that she needs to be near to where Charlie died.’
Nell trod carefully. ‘Perhaps her parents do not approve of her performing Charlie’s dance.’
‘Ah, I gather that Inspector Melbray has spoken to you, Nell.’
‘He has.’ She was fully aware that she had been stupid to flare up at him yesterday evening. It wasn’t like her and she wondered why she had been so much on edge. After all, both of them wanted to find Mr Charles’s killer if for somewhat different reasons, so why had her self-control snapped so suddenly?
‘This is a terrible time, Nell, and I’m glad I can talk to you freely,’ Lady Ansley said. ‘The murder was terrifying, but even though I suspected something was wrong this revelation about Wychbourne Court being used for drugs makes me think that I don’t know my own home. I’ve asked Rex Beringer to stay on and to my relief he has accepted. He will be better company for Helen than—’
‘Miss Harlington?’
‘Indeed, though I fear Richard does not agree. Oh, Nell,’ she burst out. ‘How can I tell him about this? The inspector does not want the news to spread further but Elise is probably one of Charlie’s clients. I don’t know what to do for the best. I can’t kick the girl out – Richard would never forgive me. He’d be terribly quixotic and rush after her with a diamond ring. Nor could I tell him the reason just in case it isn’t true.’