by Amy Myers
‘Will your husband be among them?’
‘But of course.’ Lady Warminster looked hurt at the mere suggestion he should be omitted. ‘It is a welcome home party for him, the darling.’
It occurred to Nell that if she had been an ageing husband coming home from Mesopotamia or Persia after many months or years away, a cosy dinner à deux might be preferable to a party for sixty.
‘My butler will escort you to the kitchens shortly. As for the menu—’ Lady Warminster continued but then broke off. ‘Haven’t we met before?’
‘After the inquest and at Wychbourne Court, just before the ghost hunt,’ Nell explained patiently. ‘I was leading the second group.’
‘A cook leading it? How quaint.’
‘Cooks,’ Nell explained with a straight face, ‘are said to be very good at divining the presence of ghosts because ghosts sense the food they’re missing in the other world.’
‘Oh.’ Lady Warminster looked blank. ‘I didn’t know that. How super. I didn’t see any ghosts, though. We marched round and I heard a groan and so on, but nothing creepy. I was so bored but I couldn’t leave because it was dark and I didn’t know where we were until we were back in the hall. My new shoes were hurting too. By the time I returned to the ballroom the dancing had stopped, so I left.’
‘That would be when Mr Parkyn-Wright’s body was discovered?
‘Probably. I heard some screaming and everyone rushed back to the hall. So I went home.’
‘It must have been horrible for you,’ Nell sympathized, tongue in cheek. ‘Even worse if the police interviewed you because you were in the first group.’
‘Oh, yes, that duckie Inspector Melbray. He can’t keep away from me. My husband wouldn’t like his behaviour at all but the inspector does seem bemused by me.’ One hand clutched the diamonds to underline their presence.
Bemused by her? Was he indeed? Nell thought savagely. So the great inspector was a ‘duckie’ kind of man attracted by babylike far-from-innocents like Her Ladyship.
The menu took little time to discuss as Lady Warminster merely glanced at the ones that Nell had brought with her, pointed to the most expensive and rang the bell for the butler. He seemed as bored with life in Stalisbrook Place as Her Ladyship was, but probably he was merely giving his own interpretation of a superior being worthy of this great mansion.
The servants’ hall to which he ushered her was in the midst of serving lunch. Faces stared back at her blankly. It didn’t – admittedly at first glance – seem a happy gathering. She did recognize one face, however. From his general build he could have been Lady Warminster’s driver on the day of the inquest but it couldn’t have been there that Nell had seen him at quite close quarters. Strange. He looked like someone one might see at the pictures – a Hollywood Douglas Fairbanks.
She tried to imagine this man sitting stolidly at the table doing anything as dashing as that tasty dish. No fear of that. On the contrary, the only dish this man seemed interested in was his lunch. He was studying his plate with great devotion, which was strange since only one carrot remained on it – and even that looked overcooked.
‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’ Nell said politely, stopping for a moment. ‘At Wychbourne?’
His face instantly paled in a way that Douglas Fairbanks would never have permitted. ‘No,’ he managed to stutter. Then seeing his neighbours staring at him, he added in desperation, ‘The gardens there. Not the house.’
‘That must be where I’ve seen you,’ Nell agreed. But it hadn’t been there. She was sure of that. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland had remarked.
In the absence of Lady Ansley and Lady Helen, the task of approving menus at Wychbourne had devolved on Lady Sophy, whose interest in the food she consumed was slight. When Nell returned from Stalisbrook Place she was nowhere to be found, until Mr Peters told her she was somewhere in the gardens. Nell could find no sign of her at first, until she eventually tracked her down to a remote bank by the lake, where she was sitting under a tree reading.
‘Menus,’ Nell said cheerfully.
Lady Sophy sighed and put the book aside and glanced at the menus. ‘All smashing,’ she immediately pronounced.
‘Excellent. That’s just what Kitty’s been preparing, Lady Sophy.’
‘I suppose I must still be Lady Sophy to you or Helen will nag me when she gets back,’ she sighed. ‘I hope she’s cured, Nell. I hate it when she’s ill.’
‘It may take some time,’ Nell warned her. ‘It depends how long she’s been taking the drug.’ Too late, she remembered Lady Sophy might not yet know the cause of her sister’s illness, but it became obvious that she did.
‘I don’t think that’s very long. She’s only begun getting keen on Charlie for the last few months. He was just one of the crowd before he turned into Mr Wonderful.’ She picked up the book again. ‘Have you ever read this? I found it in the library. Recipes from a Roman cook.’
‘Yes. Apicius. He poisoned himself because he ran out of cash to spend on good meals.’
‘I’ll never be poor then. But I do want to learn to cook,’ Lady Sophy said vehemently. ‘I think I should, don’t you? I’ve already been learning from Mr Fairweather about how to grow vegetables and fruit.’
How strange that Lady Sophy had little appreciation of the finished products of the recipes, but plenty of their history and in knowing how they worked. ‘I’d be happy to teach you,’ Nell told her.
‘Would you? Oh, Nell, none of those stuffy other chefs would. None of them liked me being in the servants’ wing. You’d think they owned it. But that’s all tommy rot nowadays. I mean, there’s you and there’s me. Why should there be a wall between us just because my parents pay your wages?’
‘No reason except established tradition.’
‘Not that established. I think those socialist people in Russia are on the right lines. Look at history: we know all about the sirs and madams but when did you last read a gallant tale of a medieval kitchenmaid – not one who married a lord but one who married the village woodturner? There’s that tame ghost of Aunt Clarice’s, though. She was a cook. She dates from the eighteenth century when women could go into their own kitchens without their chefs throwing them out.’
‘I promise never to do that,’ Nell said gravely.
‘Good. It’s only the stuffy Victorians who set all these rules about housemaids not being seen in the main house after midday. Ridiculous. You can dress anyone up in a dinner suit and tails and he looks no different from a duke.’
‘Got it!’ Nell cried. She remembered where she had seen that familiar face at Stalisbrook Place before. ‘It was him, wasn’t it?’ she exclaimed. ‘He was your guest at the dinner that night. He works for Lady Warminster.’
Lady Sophy went very pink. ‘That was Hugh Beaumont, not William Foster.’
Nell laughed. ‘You’ll never win a game of poker. How did you know which of her servants I was referring to?’
Lady Sophy giggled. ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you, Nell? It was all a joke to see if anyone would notice, but then it went wrong.’
‘Because Mr Parkyn-Wright died?’
‘No, worse than that. Worse for William, anyway. Lady Warminster arrived and we didn’t know she was coming until the last minute. I didn’t check the guest list until too late. William’s her under-gardener and his father’s the head gardener. William was off duty that evening and didn’t know she was coming to Wychbourne. She drove herself here and William took his father’s van. I’d met William when I was with Mr Fairweather one day. William comes here to talk to him about garden design because he wants to do more than just mow lawns and boring things. So in May I drove him up to the Chelsea Flower Show in London. He was worried about it at first, my being a lady and so on, but I told him that was rubbish. This is a new age and we’re all on the same level now, like Russia. It’s only clothes and jobs that make us seem different.’
‘And how did he come to be at the Wychbourne dinner, Lady So
phy?’ Nell enquired grimly.
‘My idea,’ she confessed. ‘My parents are so stuffy about my ideas, and I thought it would be a great joke if they didn’t notice any difference if he was all dressed up and chatty. And it would have been funny, if it hadn’t been for everything else. He was so worried about Lady Warminster being suspicious that it was him. We began dancing together so that she couldn’t get near him. Then we crept off into the gardens. I thought he might kiss me and I’d wanted to know what that’s like, but he didn’t even bother. He was terrified of Her Ladyship finding us and decided he would leave as soon as he could. I knew she’d follow him or go looking for his van, so I went over to Aunt Clarice and told her loudly in that woman’s presence that my guest would be coming with me on the ghost hunt. As soon as the lights went out in the hall and we knew Her Ladyship was safely on the hunt herself, I told William and he had gone by the time of the changeover in the hall.’
‘Why was he so scared she would catch him?’
‘If he got clean away he could say that she’d made a mistake and he’d been home all the evening. She couldn’t have proved he wasn’t, so she wouldn’t be able to give him the boot. That would mean his having to leave his tied cottage and perhaps his father too.’
Nell was still puzzled. ‘Why would she want to sack him, though? A dressing-down, perhaps, or a complaint to Lord Ansley would do.’
‘General Warminster wouldn’t like it,’ Lady Sophy explained simply. ‘He’s a stickler for protocol.’
And yet, Nell mused, he had married Lady Warminster who, according to his standards, was hardly out of the top drawer. She was still mulling this over when Lord Richard strolled up looking disgruntled, which undermined the nonchalant effect of the Oxford bags he wore.
‘There you are, Sophy. I’ve been hunting everywhere. Good afternoon, Miss Drury,’ he added stiffly.
‘Don’t glare at Nell, Richard,’ Lady Sophy reproved him. ‘She’s on our side, aren’t you, Nell?’
‘Of course,’ Nell replied. ‘Provided I know what the side’s all about.’
‘Getting this awful murder solved, isn’t it, Richard?’
‘I don’t see how Nell can help,’ he muttered. ‘Not unless one of the servants is involved.’
‘That’s possible,’ said Nell quickly before Lady Sophy could restart her campaign for communism. ‘We in the servants’ hall want to get it solved just as much as you do. We see ourselves as a humble part of the greater house community.’ She thought she had gone too far in smoothing feathers but Lord Richard didn’t seem to think so, though Lady Sophy was trying not to giggle.
‘It must have been one of the guests,’ he compromised graciously. ‘Of course I don’t see our servants committing murder.’
‘Plenty of murders here in the past, according to Lady Clarice,’ Nell pointed out.
‘Not nowadays, though. Poor old Charlie,’ Lord Richard added. ‘He invited all those people from London and his killer must have been among them.’
‘Is that the police’s line?’ Nell asked.
‘It should be. They must have the evidence. Must have been fingerprints on that dagger unless they were wiped off by his murderer.’
‘Unlikely,’ Nell pointed out. ‘There wouldn’t be time in such a public place. The killer would want to get away.’
‘Poor old Charlie,’ Lord Richard repeated. ‘He didn’t deserve that.’
To Nell’s ear that struck a distant tone; it wasn’t best chums’ talk.
‘All this stuff about drugs is hogwash,’ Lord Richard continued. ‘He told me that himself. I’d heard these rumours months ago and so I talked to him man to man.’
‘And you believed him?’ Lady Sophy enquired.
‘My dear girl, I went to school with him. It’s a matter of honour.’
OK, Lord Richard had asked for it, Nell decided. ‘He didn’t seem to consider his honour when he carried on dancing with Miss Harlington who had promised to dance with you.’
‘She’s right, Richard,’ Lady Sophy crowed.
‘What would you know about it, Sophy?’ he asked crossly.
‘I have eyes,’ she snapped. ‘I could see Helen was just as furious as you were. She was keen on Charlie.’
‘Yes, and not because he was a dealer,’ he threw back at her. ‘Wherever Helen got that dope it wasn’t from him.’
‘It was from him. Charlie’s dance, Richard. Not Another Person’s dance. And where’s your beloved Elise this sunny afternoon? At a low, is she? No supplies?’
Taken by surprise, Lord Richard looked suddenly very young. ‘Elise?’ he said. ‘Are you telling me she’s on dope too? That’s all my eye. Come off it, Sophy. Do you really think that someone as elegant, as talented, as beautiful as Elise needs drugs to buck her up?’
‘Why not? You only have to look at the way she behaves. And anyway, Helen’s beautiful and she’s on drugs.’
‘She only took it the once, she told me,’ Lord Richard retorted. ‘And anyway, Sophy, we shouldn’t be discussing this in front of her.’ He jerked his head towards Nell.
‘Nell knows more about life than you ever will, Richard,’ Lady Sophy replied scornfully.
‘I’m sorry, Nell.’ He looked abashed. ‘It’s this awful business. I can’t think who would want to kill Charlie. There are people who fell out with him, but kill him? Never. Old Peters had an exchange of words with him after dinner that night but he wouldn’t go and stab him to death, would he? That bandleader had a dust-up with him too round about the same time.’
Just as Robert had told her, but now it was evident that what happened was more than just an exchange over the music or coffee. ‘Did you hear what it was about?’ Nell asked, trying to sound offhand.
‘No. I asked Charlie about it later and he said the band was proposing to play all ragtime or this new Charleston or something, but he wanted to canoodle with—’ Lord Richard came to a sudden stop.
‘With Elise,’ Lady Sophy finished sweetly. ‘That’s when he was passing the dope. You’re the dope, Richard, for not believing it.’
‘I still don’t,’ he shouted, almost crying.
‘That’s very loyal of you,’ Nell said gently. ‘But don’t be too surprised if it all comes out at the inquest.’
‘Are you giving evidence?’ he asked, calming down with some effort. ‘Must have been rotten for you, finding him like that. I miss him, old Charlie.’
‘I don’t,’ Lady Sophy chimed in. ‘He was nasty all round. To you and Helen and that nice Rex, and even Mr Fontenoy.’
‘Why him?’ Nell asked sharply. ‘What had he done to stir Mr Parkyn-Wright up?’
‘How should I know?’ Lord Richard said. ‘Some old scandal, I imagine. Mother mentioned one once.’
Nell gulped. Is that why Arthur had talked of a house full of secrets? Once Mr Charles’s murderer had been found secrets could lie undisturbed again – and perhaps it was better that way.
‘Anyway, Fontenoy wasn’t on the ghost hunt until later,’ Lord Richard continued. ‘And Sophy and I were in that first group, Nell. It was dark, but if someone had tried to slip away or stay behind we would have noticed.’
‘Not if they were at the back of the group,’ Lady Sophy said. ‘Tell her who was, Richard.’
There was a silence, then he replied sulkily: ‘Helen and I were. We wanted to be at the rear so that we could slip away to carry out the Pepper’s Ghost joke in the library. At one point we nearly did. We argued about it but Helen said it was too early, so we stayed on until the changeover. But none of us three killed him, Nell,’ Lord Richard concluded anxiously.
‘We could have done,’ Lady Sophy amplified. ‘But we didn’t. Anyway, Helen would never have killed Charlie. She was cuckoo about him, no matter what he’d done.’
Lord Richard looked relieved. ‘So it seems, Nell, as though the guests and the servants’ wing are back in the picture. I told you old Peters was having a dust-up with him as well as that bandleader. Peters has a thing or two
to hide, if you ask me.’
‘I am asking,’ Nell said lightly.
‘Lips sealed,’ he said mysteriously.
‘Oh, come on, Richard,’ Lady Sophy said crossly. ‘In a murder case you can’t seal your lips.’
‘Nell isn’t Scotland Yard,’ he pointed out.
‘No, she’s better than them. She’ll know if it’s important or not. She can help.’
He surrendered. ‘I don’t know the full story but there was something during the war that happened. Noel knew about it. You were only a child, Sophy, and he told Kenelm and me when he was on his last leave.’
‘Did your father know?’ Nell asked.
‘I spoke to Pa when he hired Peters and he said he knew the story perfectly well. So you see, there’s nothing to it.’
‘There is,’ Lady Sophy said immediately, ‘because Peters might not have known they knew. And somehow Charlie did. How, Richard?’
He blushed. ‘I might have mentioned it to Charlie – just for fun. He liked teasing the old boy.’
TEN
Here, on Tuesday, 7 July were the same people in the same place, the upper room at the Coach and Horses, but to Nell there was a sense of urgency that had been lacking during the brief earlier inquest hearing nearly two weeks ago. The jury was being sworn in, including Mrs Brown, who ran the sweet shop and tobacconist in the village and was visibly proud of her new status. The witnesses were present, save for one empty seat, and they inevitably included Inspector Melbray. In the main part of the hall there were now two rows full of newspaper reporters and behind them in the public seats sat the Ansleys, save for Lady Helen, not apparently a witness now. Nell could see Lady Warminster too, no doubt being ogled from afar by Inspector Melbray (or ‘duckie’ as Her Ladyship termed him). What a blister he was. Her Ladyship was doing her best to look like a femme fatale and Guy was at her side. Could it be he was an admirer of Her Ladyship’s charms? she wondered. No, he was far too sensible.
The missing witness must be the Honourable Elise Harlington. She had been a far-from-ideal guest over the last few days, unpredictable in mood, punctuality and demands. True, that was from the servants’ hall perspective, but Nell suspected she was no more popular with Lord and Lady Ansley. At times she had been sweetness itself, at others the reverse. Mr Beringer, on the other hand, had proved a model guest throughout.