‘Cedric really needn’t look at me like that,’ complained Lavinia. ‘I am wearing a black dress after all and no diamonds. But I tell you, Rose, I absolutely draw the line at not dressing for dinner. Particularly when one has guests.’
Rose opened her mouth to issue a word of reproach, but thought better of it.
‘Now where is Count Fernand?’ continued Lavinia. ‘I haven’t seen much of him at all today, have you? I really do think I need to be flattered and amused tonight. It is all going to be so deadly dull.’
‘Lavinia, really! I don’t think you are half as awful as you make out.’
‘Then you have a better opinion of me, Rose, than I do of myself.’ Lavinia turned around to survey the room. ‘Oh, have you seen the way Jemima is looking at Vera? If looks could kill! Although perhaps I shouldn’t say that in the circumstances.’
‘Unfortunately the inspector let slip that it was Vera who enticed Emmeline to go to the maze. I expect Jemima holds her partly to blame for Emmeline’s death.’
‘Well I never! I wouldn’t have thought Vera would have had it in her. If I’d have been in her shoes, I think it would have been Theo I’d have given a good talking to, not Emmeline. Now where is Max? Really, it’s too bad. Manning will be calling us to go into dinner any minute.’
‘By the way, has the inspector interviewed you yet?’ asked Rose. She was rather curious as to what the two of them would have made of each other.
‘No, he hasn’t. Horrible little man! He isn’t a patch on your Inspector Deacon.’
‘He isn’t my Inspector Deacon, Lavinia. But does that mean you’ve met Inspector Bramwell?’
‘Yes. And I didn’t like him one little bit. He was frightfully rude to me, you know. I went in to see him just before I went up to dress for dinner. I told him that I thought it was rather too much that he’d kept me waiting so long.’
‘I can imagine that went down rather well!’ Rose said, smiling in spite of herself.
‘He told me in no uncertain terms that he would summon me when he wished to interview me and not before, and that I should run off and get some dinner while I had the chance. And what is more,’ Lavinia said indignantly, ‘I could have sworn that Sergeant Lane, who up until then I did think was quite a nice man, was trying his hardest not to laugh.’
Lavinia’s attention was diverted by the entrance of a man both girls barely recognised, his attire being so very different to what they had become accustomed to him sporting.
‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Lavinia. ‘That can’t be Max, can it? Whatever is he wearing? It looks like an ordinary wool tweed suit to me!’
Count Fernand did indeed look uncomfortable and out of place in the gathering. He was looking around the room rather apprehensively, as if he were afraid that any moment he would be asked to leave or to take his dinner in the servants’ quarters.
Rose went over to him and smiled reassuringly. She then proceeded to speak to him in a voice barely above a whisper.
‘I want to ask you a question, and I need you to answer me truthfully. Will you?’
‘That would depend on your question, Miss Simpson,’ replied Count Fernand, cocking an eye at her quizzically. Rose noticed that all traces of a foreign accent had vanished from his voice.
‘Did you put Emmeline’s jewellery box in Jemima’s room?’
‘I’m not sure I will answer that question. I don’t think it is in my interests to do so.’
‘I beg to disagree. I think it is very much in your best interests to do so. But the very fact that you haven’t denied placing it there answers my question.’
‘I am not a jewel thief, whatever that inspector might think.’
‘I never said you were. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you are. But please do answer my question. Did you put that box in Jemima’s room? Was it because someone had placed it in your own room?’
‘Yes,’ replied Count Fernand, wearily. ‘How did you know? I found it in my room first thing this morning when I woke up. The lock had clearly been tampered with. It worried me that the necklace was still there. I wondered whether it was a fake. I thought someone was trying to implicate me in a theft. The thought even crossed my mind that it might be his lordship. I know he doesn’t approve of me and is suspicious of my intentions towards his sister. I thought he might have been trying to discredit me in her eyes.’
‘Cedric would never have done such a thing!’ cried Rose.
‘You are right, of course. I did him a disservice when I thought it was him. But at the time I thought it was only a question of theft.’
‘So you decided to put it in Jemima’s room?’
‘Yes. I thought she was the one person who could not be implicated in the theft. She had a key to the jewellery box. Emmeline had told me so herself. Jemima had no reason to tamper with the box when she could open it with the key.’
‘Unless she wanted to divert suspicion from herself,’ said Rose.
The count sighed. ‘As soon as it was discovered that Emmeline had been murdered, I realised the situation was much more serious than I had first imagined it to be. Someone was trying to implicate me in the girl’s death. Hello? I think we’re going into dinner.’
‘I just have one more question to ask you,’ Rose said quickly. ‘When you looked at Emmeline’s necklace under your jeweller’s loupe, did it occur to you that the diamonds might be fake?’
‘As it happens that thought did cross my mind. But it didn’t seem to make any sense so I dismissed it. I say, the policeman asked me the same question. I was at a loss how best to answer. Tell me. Do you think Emmeline’s necklace was genuine?’
‘No,’ said Rose. ‘I think it was a paste replica. I think the real necklace never left Scotland.’
That night Rose found it difficult to get to sleep, which she considered hardly surprising given the circumstances. For one thing, she was sleeping in a different bed than usual. Lavinia had decided that she did not wish to sleep alone with a murderer at large. She had therefore requested that Rose sleep in her dressing room, which joined Lavinia’s bedroom by way of a connecting door. The decision had been taken to keep this door open, which was proving far from satisfactory from Rose’s perspective. For, somewhat to her surprise, she had discovered that Lavinia had a propensity towards snoring loud enough to shake the house.
Although tired, Rose found that most annoyingly she was fully awake. She lay in her bed thinking how mercilessly she would tease Lavinia in the morning. In the meantime, while sleep eluded her, she gave up her mind to reviewing the events leading up to the murder and its subsequent aftermath. The more she thought and remembered, the more everything seemed to blur into one with sentences and scenes, no matter how separate and disjointed, appearing as if from nowhere, jumbled together and overlapping like a badly put together jigsaw puzzle.
Vera saying how Emmeline behaved like a child in a sweetshop … Emmeline and Jemima walking side by side, a little removed from the others, their heads bent towards each other as if they were sharing a secret … Emmeline giggling and laughing with Theo while Vera looked on ... Cedric carefully and deliberately cleaning the candlestick, and Felix crying out for him to stop what he was doing ... Count Fernand comforting Jemima and leading her out of the maze ... Jemima frightened, always frightened, and anxious and wanting to be back at home ... Vera asking spitefully about the kidnap attempt and Emmeline and Jemima going to pieces over it ... Emmeline’s diamonds being hurriedly passed around and around the room. Everyone peering at them except for Jemima and Vera standing apart and alone, as if ostracised … Vera’s confession that she had written the note that had summoned Emmeline to meet her fate ... Jemima’s evasiveness even when being interviewed.
It all went round and round in Rose’s head. Everything swirling together with the odd sentence or scene coming into focus before disappearing into the fog. How long it went on like this, Rose did not know. Later she wondered whether she had been conscious of the shift. For the mist had grad
ually appeared to get less dense until it cleared. And suddenly Rose knew. She knew the missing link that would unlock the door and let the light in. The light that would reveal once and for all who the murderer was.
If she settled back among her pillows and allowed her exhausted mind to sleep, she was confident that by the morning she would know the identity of the murderer. She sighed, and the sleep that had eluded her for so long at last overtook her in a rush. Lavinia’s snores seemed no more than the noise of the wind whistling through the trees.
‘Sir! Sir! Wake up!’
‘Huh? ... Eh? ...What?’
The inspector somewhat reluctantly gave in to the incessant shaking of his shoulders that thrust him into the land of the conscious. Begrudgingly he half opened bleary, still sleepy eyes and found himself staring at his sergeant. This spectacle in itself was enough to cause him to rouse fully, let alone that he could not at first remember where he was. It was only as his watery eyes began to focus, to take in the strange curtains and unfamiliar dimensions of the room, that he remembered he was at Sedgwick Court.
‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly six o’clock, sir.’
‘What in …’ the inspector sat up and glared at Sergeant Lane, before an awful thought struck him, which had him clinging on to his subordinate’s shirt collar, pulling the man down to his level.
‘Don’t tell me there’s been another murder! Not while we’ve been sleeping under their roof. That really would –’
‘No, sir. Nothing like that,’ said Sergeant Lane reassuringly.
‘Then what’s the meaning of waking me up like this? We no doubt have a long day in front of us. I need all the sleep I can get. I’m not getting any younger, you know.’
‘If you remember, sir, after we interviewed Miss Wentmore yesterday we thought there was a possibility that Miss Simpson’s theory that she was an impostor might prove correct after all.’
‘Well, Miss Wentmore was certainly damned evasive,’ admitted Inspector Bramwell grudgingly. ‘And pretty shaken up at the idea of coming face to face with old Montacute.’
‘That’s just it, sir. It got me to thinking. I telephoned the station last night and asked them to arrange for a constable to speak with that secretary fellow, Stapleton, and get a physical description of Miss Montacute and Miss Wentmore.’
‘Well?’
‘To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about it until this morning when I myself was rudely awakened from my slumber a half hour ago by a rather annoyed Mr Manning. Apparently the constable obtained a description of the two young ladies last night and intended to telephone us with the information later this morning.’
‘Well, what made him change his plans?’
‘Stapleton telephoned the station an hour or so ago. Apparently he’s received a telephone call from Montacute. The fellow had decided to come home earlier than intended. Would you believe it, his ship docked yesterday. He stayed the night in some hotel or other. Stapleton’s a quick fellow. Thought on his feet and hid from his master the panic he was feeling. He told him to come straight here.’
‘Good God! Did he tell him why?’
‘No. Not the real reason. He just said that Miss Montacute and Miss Wentmore were staying here. He didn’t mention anything regarding the murder.’
‘Do you know what time he’s likely to arrive?’
‘Stapleton said it put the wind up Montacute when he discovered Miss Montacute wasn’t at home. He wouldn’t put it past the old man to have set off for Sedgwick at once.’
‘If that’s the case –’
‘He should be here within the hour, sir.’
Inspector Bramwell showed again how surprisingly agile a man of his physique could be by scrambling out of bed and proceeding to pull on his clothes in a haphazard fashion.
‘I’m afraid that’s not all, sir.’
‘What? There’s more? Out with it, Sergeant.’
‘The descriptions of the two ladies, sir.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘They don’t match our Miss Montacute and Miss Wentmore.’
‘What –’
‘See here, sir. The real Miss Wentmore is above average height with hair that is dark in colour, so Stapleton says. A striking woman, he called her.’
‘That’s hardly our dowdy Miss Wentmore,’ cried Inspector Bramwell. ‘A plain, drab little thing she is. Can’t see what that fellow Thistlewaite sees in her.’
‘It proves, sir, that the woman purporting to be Jemima Wentmore is not her.’
‘It does indeed. It just goes to prove I was right, Lane. She’s nothing but a jewel thief. No doubt she was trying to ingratiate herself with Lady Lavinia so she could steal some of her jewels.’
‘You think she killed Miss Montacute? Or should I say the woman claiming to be Miss Montacute?’
‘I do. The woman was more than likely her accomplice in crime. They no doubt had a falling out over the spoils. Those types always do.’
‘Mr Montacute is coming here expecting to see his daughter and her companion,’ Sergeant Lane reminded the inspector.
‘So he is. We’ll have to head him off. And whatever happens don’t let anyone tell him about the murder. The last thing we want is for someone to tell him his daughter’s dead.’
‘Sergeant Lane. What are you doing here? It’s awfully early in the morning for you to start your interviews, isn’t it?’ said Rose, encountering the sergeant outside Jemima’s room, which was opposite both her own and Lavinia’s.
‘Sorry to wake you, miss.’ Rose noticed that the policeman was looking a little awkward, as if he did not wish to advertise his presence outside Jemima’s room. Either that or he was embarrassed at catching sight of her in her night attire, she decided.
‘What is happening, Sergeant?’
Sergeant Lane looked anxiously at Jemima’s closed door before moving forward a pace or two. He then proceeded to speak in a whisper.
‘You were right, miss. Jemima Wentmore is not Jemima Wentmore. And Mr Montacute is due to arrive any minute now.’
‘Mr Montacute,’ said Rose rather loudly, ‘is due to arrive any minute now?’
‘Ssh! Keep your voice down please, miss. You’ll wake the young lady pretending to be Miss Wentmore. The inspector is afraid she’ll try and make a run for it if she knows Montacute is on his way. He’ll be able to unmask her for the impostor that she is, you see.’
They heard the sound of bolts being pulled back and a key being turned in a lock. A moment later, Jemima’s bedroom door was flung open and the girl herself appeared. Her face was white and her insipid hair was flowing. This, coupled with her wearing a nightdress in a muted shade, gave her an almost ghostly appearance.
‘Mr Montacute is coming here? Now?’ She demanded urgently.
‘Yes,’ said Rose firmly, conscious out of the corner of her eye that the sergeant was glaring at her.
Jemima immediately closed the door and slid back the bolts.
‘Now you’ve gone and done it, miss, and no mistake. She’ll be climbing out of her window unless we stop her.’
Rose retreated into her own room as the sergeant ran downstairs to make his way outside. She kept her door ajar. As soon as the policeman was out of sight, Rose ran to Jemima’s door and tapped on it rapidly.
‘Quickly! Unbolt this door! They think you’re trying to escape out of your window. They’ll be going to get ladders and all sorts. If you hurry, you can hide in my room. They won’t think of looking for you there.’
After a moment’s hesitation, the bolts were once again pulled back from the door, the door unlocked and Jemima emerged fully dressed. Without a word she followed Rose into her room.
‘You can hide in the wardrobe, if you want to,’ said Rose.
‘Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?’
‘Because you need a friend, and ... well … I know who you are.’
‘Do you?’ Jemima looked scared.
‘Don’t
be frightened. You can trust me. You could trust Sergeant Lane too, you know.’
‘No!’
‘All right. As you like. They’ll be banging on my door in a minute to find out if I’ve seen you. Quickly. Climb into the wardrobe or under the bed.’
But, before Jemima could do anything of the sort, they heard a commotion in the hall below.
‘Is it …?’
‘I’ll go and see. You wait here.’
Rose opened her door as silently as she could and crept along the landing so that she was in a positon to look over the bannisters to the hall below. An elderly man in a well-cut suit was in deep discussion with the inspector who, even at this distance, Rose could see was hot and flustered. It was obvious from the elderly man’s raised voice and Inspector Bramwell’s agitated state that the men were having a disagreement of some kind. Rose took the opportunity to creep back to her room unobserved.
‘Come on, quickly,’ she said to Jemima.
The girl followed her out until they were at the top of the great staircase peering down.
Everything then seemed to happen very quickly and all at once. Sergeant Lane appeared in the hall. At the same time, Inspector Bramwell happened to look up and caught sight of Jemima cowering behind Rose.
‘There she is! Quickly, get her Lane, before she escapes.’
‘No!’ cried Rose. ‘You don’t understand. She’s –’
‘Father!’ exclaimed Jemima.
The elderly man looked up, his eyes squinting behind thick lenses.
‘Emmeline!’ he cried.
Chapter Twenty-nine
‘Perhaps, Miss Simpson, you would be good enough to explain things to me,’ said Inspector Bramwell, sighing. He looked exasperated and tired, his plump face red and blotchy.
It was some half an hour later and Rose, having abandoned her night attire for a sensible tweed ensemble, was sitting in the study, facing the inspector across the huge polished desk. Besides the policemen, the only other occupant in the room was Cedric, who was sitting beside her, his eyes never leaving her face. Mr Montacute and his daughter had decamped to the library, where Emmeline was acquainting her father with all that had occurred while he had been abroad.
03 - Murder at Sedgwick Court Page 28