Dance to Your Daddy mb-42

by Gladys Mitchell

  'You mean because of the way the Will of her grandfather is worded. But does she know who you are? Anyway, it's a bit of an outside chance that you'd ever inherit, the way I read the provisions.'

  'She may have reached the stage when anybody named in the will seems a potential threat to her inheritance. I do not imagine that she is particularly well-versed in these matters.'

  'And the next, or equal, subject is Romilly himself, I suppose?'

  'Well, not necessarily. It is true that he, Rosamund and Judith-not forgetting Romilly's sinister and dour manservant Luke, who may also have known that Romilly's room had been changed and that I had been given it-all knew where I was sleeping, but there are other considerations. I did not feel it would be fitting to tell you, in front of Rosamund, of Romilly's extraordinary treatment of his guests, but it turned out that he had brought them to his house under false pretences by promising them benefits which he was unable to bestow. The details do not matter at the moment-although I have some plans which I may be able to carry out later on-but the point is that, as some of them had visited Galliard Hall at some previous time, they might have thought that Romilly was still in occupation of the same room...'

  'And could have taken a pop at showing that they were displeased with him,' said Laura. 'That sounds much the likeliest theory, I should say. Well, thank goodness they didn't do it-at least, not through the hole in your wall.'

  'Of course, it was not until the day after this disturbance that Romilly told his relatives of his April Fool jesting.'

  'That does rather knock my theory on the head, then.'

  'Therefore we may shelve it, and read our letters,' said Dame Beatrice, reflecting upon how relatively simple it is to use truthful words to give an entirely wrong impression of the truth.

  (2)

  It was one of Laura's tasks, as secretary, to deal with the morning's correspondence. She collected it from the table in the hall and left there any letters which were addressed to the servants. The rest she sorted at the breakfast table, for most of Dame Beatrice's official correspondence was sent direct to her London clinic and dealt with there. For the rest, Laura sorted out her own letters and passed on, unopened, anything of a personal nature sent to Dame Beatrice. A telegram came addressed to her employer that morning so she handed it over without comment. Dame Beatrice read it and handed it back.

  'Hubert and Willoughby were not at the gathering,' she said. 'The inference to be drawn from this telegram is that Hubert has been murdered, but who would want to murder an inoffensive clergyman?'

  'Do you intend to go along?'

  'I was not particularly attracted to Judith, but she may be in need of help.'

  'May I come with you? I mean, Eiladh doesn't really need me and I need a little diversion. Babies are all very well, but, having pleased my husband and my son by giving up nine plus eight months of my rapidly-vanishing life to the procreation and maintenance of one that I didn't particularly want, I do now want some fun. Please let me come.'

  'Of course you must come. I will telegraph Judith to expect us this afternoon.'

  'What about the girl Rosamund?'

  'Celestine can take charge of her for a few hours, I think. I will warn her not to allow her to wander away.'

  They arrived at Galliard Hall at half-past three. This time there was nobody on the terrace. Luke, in his butler's garb, answered the door, his customary hang-dog glumness replaced by an equally hang-dog expression of fear and anxiety.

  'The master's in the small drawing-room, madam, if you'd come this way,' he said.

  'Is he alone?' Dame Beatrice asked.

  'Except for Mrs Judith, yes, madam. The police have gone.'

  Judith was lying on a settee with the drop-end down. Romilly rose from an armchair when the visitors were announced and managed to smile, although he looked haggard and appeared not to have shaved. The high colour had gone from Judith's cheeks, her eyes were lustreless and she looked extremely ill. She raised herself on one elbow and then lowered her feet to the ground, sat up and held out both hands to Dame Beatrice.

  'How good of you to come,' she said simply. 'We're in the most dreadful mess.'

  Dame Beatrice introduced Laura, to whom she then gave a small notebook.

  'Now,' she said, when they were seated and Laura had produced a ball-point pen, 'to business. What's it all about?'

  (3)

  'Uncle Romilly and I found the body,' said Judith. 'After you had taken Trilby away yesterday he was very restless and...'

  'I was worried about her,' put in Romilly. 'I wondered whether, after all, I'd done the right thing in letting her go. In her condition I thought she might be better in an environment she knew, than among comparative strangers and in unfamiliar surroundings. By the way, did Tancred get to Shaftesbury all right?'

  'Oh, yes, and on the way he entertained Rosamund by reciting his poems to her. Are Corin and Corinna still here?'

  'They will be returning this evening. They know nothing, so far, about Hubert's death. They went off to rehearsal as soon as they had breakfasted. Luke and I had returned from depositing Humphrey and Binnie at the railway station. The twins, as you are aware, are not early risers, so we were back in time for Luke to take them to Wareham to catch the Bournemouth train. They were to lunch there, and their act-whatever it is-is timed for three o'clock in the afternoon and eight o'clock each evening. They will have to find their own way back. I cannot keep on providing transport. As it is, I am saving them a good deal of money by entertaining them here for the week.'

  'The police will want to question them,' said Judith. 'We were asked whether anyone else was staying in the house.'

  'Where is Giles?'

  'He hasn't come back from the New Forest yet. I expect his friends who were members of the Hunt have asked him to stay. We had to mention him, too, of course, and we had to tell the police that you, Tancred and Trilby, and also Humphrey and Binnie, had been staying here.'

  'How did Giles get to the meet?'

  'Oh, a friend with a horse-box picked him up and will bring him back-a young man who lives at Lyndhurst and is a follower of the Hunt. I suppose we shall have to ask Giles to stay for dinner, but I do hope he won't expect to be put up for the night again. Perhaps he could stay with the people he stayed with last night, instead of with us. It's no time to have casual visitors in the house,' said Judith. She had regained something of her usual colour and animation.

  'Suppose we begin at the beginning,' suggested Dame Beatrice. 'Having disposed of the rest of us, you two were left here alone, except for the servants. Please go on from there.'

  'We had lunch at half-past one,' said Judith, 'and then, as it was a fine day and Uncle Romilly seemed restless, as I said, I thought it might be a good idea to go out for a short drive, leave the car at a convenient spot and take a stroll. I drove, and it was left to me to choose the route, so we went to Lulworth Cove and parked the car on the grassy common there, where everybody parks in the summer, but, of course, at this time of year, it's too early for visitors, so we had the parking space pretty much to ourselves.'

  'Judith wanted to walk over Dungy Head to Durdle Door,' said Romilly, 'but it is a steep climb and I thought the path might be slippery, so I suggested going down to the Cove and then returning to the car and continuing our drive. We did this, and from Lulworth we took the road to Steeple and then it occurred to me to show Judith where I had found Trilby when she drowned the cat and the monkey...'

  'And the life-sized baby doll,' put in Dame Beatrice, who, after her sessions with the girl, no longer believed a word of this story.

  'Exactly,' agreed Romilly, with suspicious alacrity. 'And the life-sized baby doll. Well, as you probably know, there is no very direct route from Steeple to Dancing Ledge. We had to go through Church Knowle to Corfe Castle and then branch off for Kingston and go a good part of the way towards Langton Matravers. We left the car at the nearest possible point and took a path to make the
rest of the way on foot. Dancing Ledge is not entirely a natural formation. The cliffs have been ridded (as it is called in these parts) by blasting, in order to quarry the stone, and then galleries have been driven into the rocks. Long platforms of stone have been left, and on these, at this particular spot, the waves do appear to dance, and on the Ledge itself a bathing place was blasted out for the use of schoolboys at the end of last century.'

  'Uncle Romilly has a poor head for heights,' said Judith, taking up the tale, 'so he did not linger long on the nearby cliff-top, only long enough to say to me, "I can't stay here, my dear, I must retreat. But your eyes are younger than mine. Isn't there a man lying out on Dancing Ledge?" I looked as he pointed, before he walked away, and, of course, it was as he had said.'

  'I went to the coastguard station as soon as we got back to the car,' said Romilly, 'and told them I feared someone had fallen over the cliff, but, of course, we never dreamed it was Hubert. The police obtained my address from the coastguards and they've been here since yesterday harassing and harrying us.'

  'Has anything been heard of Willoughby, the brother?'

  'Not a thing. He has not written and he has not come. I wondered whether I should mention to the police that he seems to have disappeared, but it is somewhat early days to suggest that.'

  'Disappeared?'

  'Well, I would not think of using such an expression had it not been for this dreadful business about Hubert.'

  'You had no difficulty in identifying the body, then?'

  'Well, the head and face were greatly disfigured, I suppose through contact with the rocky ledge, but I had little doubt.'

  'Why should the police have thought that you might know who the dead man was?'

  'I have myself to thank for that. I was greatly upset when I first spotted the body on the ledge, and I blurted out something at the coastguard station about Hubert and Willoughby having failed to turn up at my house, and, of course, that got passed on to the police. It's the most terrible thing! They seem prepared to treat Hubert's death as a case of murder!'

  'So I gathered from Judith's telegram. Have they anything to go on?'

  'I have no idea. They tell one nothing; they merely put interminable and very searching questions. I suppose they are inclined to rule out suicide, as Hubert was in holy orders, but I think they have ruled out the possibility of accident, too. Their questions suggest as much. Now you, my dear Beatrice, have had a wide experience in these matters. I told you that I had fears for my own life, and now I am beginning to wonder whether Hubert could possibly have been mistaken for me. What do you think about that?'

  'Well, I can hardly say, but it seems to me very unlikely. How old would Hubert have been?'

  'Yes, I see what you mean. Nobody knowing me can have thought that so young a man-yes, yes, I take your point, of course. But it seems inexplicable. Besides, what was he doing in the neighbourhood of Dancing Ledge? It really is nowhere near this house. He could not have been on his way to us, could he, if he made so stupid a detour as that?'

  'When is the murder supposed to have taken place?'

  'Oh, if the police know that-as, I suppose, they must do, near enough-they are keeping it to themselves. You know what they are! They never tell you anything if they can possibly help it.'

  (4)

  'I could bear to go and take a look at Dancing Ledge,' said Laura, when they had thoroughly discussed this latest visit to Galliard Hall. 'Is there any reason why I shouldn't?'

  'I do not suppose so. The police will have completed their on-the-spot investigations by the time we go, I should imagine, and the place ordinarily must be open to the public, or Romilly and Judith could not have gone there. Get out the Ordnance maps and let us decide upon the best way to get to the Ledge from here.'

  Laura did as she was told. Dancing Ledge was clearly marked. Behind it the hills rose steeply for about a quarter of a mile, and after that the slope was more gentle. Working inland from the cliffs, nothing but a footpath was marked until the map showed the secondary road which ran between Kingston and Langton Matravers and finished at Swanage.

  'Bournemouth and Sandbanks for us,' said Laura, 'and then over the ferry, don't you think? Looks a bit of a scramble to get down to the Ledge. Is Romilly capable of it?'

  'I shall know better when we have explored the terrain for ourselves. I wonder whether Rosamund would care to come with us? The invitation would come better from you than from me, I think.'

  'Is that an order?'

  'Yes,' said Dame Beatrice thoughtfully, 'I think it is. I should like to know how she reacts to the suggestion. Approach the matter bluntly. Simply tell her we are going to Dancing Ledge, and ask her whether she would like to accompany us.'

  'Does she know about the body?'

  Dame Beatrice favoured her secretary with a crocodile grin.

  'Oh, I'm sure she does,' she replied. 'There is an account of it in the newspaper which arrived this morning and I am perfectly sure that she has read it.'

  Laura found Rosamund in the library and issued the invitation in the forthright manner advised by Dame Beatrice.

  'Dancing Ledge?' said Rosamund, turning away from the bookshelf she had been studying. 'Why should I want to go there?'

  'For the sake of an outing, that's all.'

  'Oh, no, thank you, I'd rather stay here. Henri is going to teach me to cook. I am to help get tonight's dinner ready.'

  'Oh, well, keep the arsenic well away from the soup,' said Laura lightly, glad that they were not to have Rosamund's company on the expedition. She reported the brief exchange to her employer.

  'Didn't turn a hair at the mention of Dancing Ledge,' she said. 'Just said she'd rather stay here because Henri was going to teach her to cook. Do you suppose her childlike appearance and innocent air have bewitched the staff?'

  'I think they feel sorry for her. I gave them an account of her orphaned condition-that was for Zena's benefit-and dropped a hint to Henri that she was a patient of mine who was suffering from melancholia and must be taken out of herself as much as possible. I took Celestine more fully into my confidence, for she is intelligent enough to realise that there is nothing melancholic about Rosamund. Well, let us be off. The days still draw in very early, and we have to allow ourselves time to cover the ground after we have reached our objective. Tell Henri to put us up some sandwiches, and perhaps it would be best for us to use your car, and for you to drive it.'

  'Fine! I suppose you want to leave George at home to help keep an eye on Rosamund.'

  'I want George to stay behind to keep an eye on the other car. If he were to drive us in mine, there is just the chance that Rosamund, if she can drive, might take it into her head to go off in your car and then she might run into some sort of danger. As I have taken her out of Romilly's sphere of influence, an accident to her might place me in an invidious position.'

  'You do think she's irresponsible, then?'

  'I did not care much about the Ophelia exhibition. It was most extravagant and unnecessary. Irresponsible, however, is not the word I would have chosen. The point is that, having, one might almost say, abducted her, I must exercise the greatest care to see that she comes to no harm and that Romilly has no opportunity to contact her.'

  'There's something you're not telling me,' said Laura.

  'My suspicions are possibly unfounded, unkind, and unworthy of me,' Dame Beatrice replied, 'so we had better leave it at-that.'

  (5)

  The trackway to Dancing Ledge, indicated by an unofficial signpost easily missed unless one was looking out for it, was a roughly-made little road much too narrow to allow two cars to pass. It led to a large house with outbuildings, and for a short distance the road was better surfaced, presumably by the owners of the house, for it deteriorated again beyond it. So far it had been bordered by trees and ragged hedges, but suddenly it ended on open pasture and some farm buildings came in sight, together with a notice which forbade parking on the verges but
offered facilities for this at the farm.

  Laura had driven with extreme caution over the very rough parts of the road, and, in any case, she had to pull up when she reached the farm gate. A comely young woman emerged from the building, smiled, asked a shilling for a parking fee, and indicated where they might leave the car.

  After that, it was country walking. There were gates to be opened and shut, fixed wooden barriers to duck under, and a stile, consisting of two iron bars, to be climbed. Dame Beatrice, thin and wiry, and still remarkably agile considering her years, made nothing of these obstacles, and needed no assistance from Laura. On the far side of the last barrier they had to begin the steep descent which they had seen indicated by the contour lines on the map. It was rough and difficult in places, and they took their time.

  'Better keep on the grass,' suggested Laura. 'The path is on chalk, and is bound to be slippery this time of year.'

  From the top of the slope they had already seen the sea. The countryside was gloriously open, but stone walls and wire fences marked off the various pastures. To the right was Saint Aldhelm's Head, and beneath their feet, when at last they reached the grassy top of the cliff, lay Dancing Ledge, a long, flat platform of rock parallel with the almost straight line of the coast.

  'I suppose the body was found out there on the Ledge itself,' said Laura, pointing to where the sea, in the calm air (for it was an almost windless day, unusual on that coast at that early time of the year), lapped lazily in tiny cream-topped ripples. 'How about if I beetled down and took a closer look?'

  Knowing that she wanted to do this, Dame Beatrice agreed, and watched her as she made the scrambling descent. The cliff, at this point, was not high, and, in spite of the fact that the way down, worn smooth by the shoes of summer visitors, was very slippery, Laura negotiated it without difficulty and was soon standing on the broken ground where the cliff face, in former times, had been quarried away.

  She soon returned, and announced that there was nothing more to be seen than could be descried, perhaps better, from where Dame Beatrice was standing. Then they began the steep climb back to the farm.