“But you left the bottle after you opened it, isn’t that right?”
Panic tore through the man once more and he glanced at me at the side of his vision, perhaps hoping I would be able to soften my grandfather’s resolute tone.
“No, that’s…”
“Tell me the truth, man.” Lord Edgington’s temper flared like a spitting bonfire. “You opened the champagne then left the room, why?”
I’d never seen Fellowes look anything but cocky and self-assured but I swear that he was shaking right then from the pressure. I was not the detective of course and couldn’t tell you one way or another whether this was a sign of guilt or merely his fear of landing in the soup.
“I heard a voice.”
Those spectacularly expressive white bushes on grandfather’s brow twitched higher. “A voice?”
“Well, a sound at first. A tapping on the window and then I thought I heard my name being called so I…”
A tapping on the window of the drinks room which is twenty feet off the ground? Something about his story didn’t add up. I felt sure our superlative investigator would jump on such an inconsistency, but he remained calm.
“You went out to see who it was.” Grandfather’s eyes fixed themselves on a point in the middle distance and I had to assume he was taking mental case notes to pass on to the police when they arrived.
Fellowes was quick to drum up an explanation. “I had plenty of time still, Milord. You see, I’d opened the bottle a little earlier than necessary. It was still five to nine when I popped the cork so I figured I had time to see what was going on.”
Lord Edgington attempted to reassure the man with a gentle look, even as he asked another key question. “And who did you expect to find, out in the gardens?”
The butler breathed out heavily. “Well, the gardeners of course. I thought it was Driscoll and Danny. They’re always playing jokes and I reckoned I’d be able to get my own back on them if I snuck out through the petit salon and caught ‘em in the dark.”
“Once you got outside, what did you find?”
The trusted butler of Cranley Hall tensed his muscles and pursed his lips. Despite his reputation amongst the other staff for being a slippery customer, he was not a skilled liar. His forehead glistened with sweat, though the air in the sombre dining room was tinged with ice.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I mean, no one.” He shrugged his shoulders like a boxer gearing up for a fight and I was reminded of my black eye, which stung with the memory. It also forced me to question where Marmaduke Adelaide had gone before the toast.
My grandfather maintained an impressively unimpressed tone. “You mean to say there was no one outside when you got there?”
“Yeah. I mean… yes, Milord, that’s right. After I’d spent a good five minutes checking the gardens, I returned to the drinks room, poured enough champagne for the eleven members of the immediate Cranley family and wheeled them into the ballroom for the toast.”
“Did you see anyone on your way?” Both men turned to look at me. To be honest, I hadn’t planned to say anything, I’d been perfectly happy with my mouth locked shut, watching the expert at work. For whatever reason, though, my own thoughts had become manifest.
Grandfather narrowed his eyes a fraction but repeated my question back to our witness. “Yes, did you see anyone on your way?”
Fellowes glanced up at the ceiling, reliving that fateful moment from a mere fifteen minutes prior. “No, no I didn’t.”
Lord Edgington tilted his head from side to side in a curious fashion. It was hard to say what he was thinking, but he offered no further remark and seemed content to contemplate Fellowes in this silent manner.
“Very well, you can go about your duties.”
Fellowes looked even more surprised than I was. “That’s it?” He almost smiled, then remembered himself and sat prouder in his chair.
“Unless you have anything more to tell us?”
He shook his head. “No, Milord, nothing else. I swear, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.” Pulling his chair back noisily, he rose to standing. “Thank you, Milord.” With an uncharacteristically low bow, he stepped away from the table and left us.
On the great panel of bells just outside the room we were in, the largest and loudest rang profusely – presumably signifying the arrival of the police at the front door. Grandfather made no sign of having heard, but peered out of the window and allowed the stillness to seize the dim space we were in.
“What a sad, strange case.” Was all he had to say at first, but I didn’t want to hurry him so I bent down to stroke Delilah and waited for him to elaborate. “I have so many questions and so few people I trust to answer them.”
I dared a comment then, and immediately felt stupid for pointing out the obvious. “You do realise that there are very few suspects who could have put the poison in the champagne?”
“And who would they be?” The sentence rose to a high interrogative point before fading out.
I needed time to make the list. There were too many people in the ballroom to be sure of course but, through a process of elimination, I could rule out a good number who were not involved.
“Cora for one, she was the last to arrive for your toast. Well, Uncle Maitland was last and then her actually, but he wouldn’t have killed his own sister.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
These two words cut deep within me. Not only was it difficult for me to imagine anyone doing such a thing, coming from the man’s own father, the accusation was yet harder to swallow. I stumbled over my answer and failed to make anything more than a moan which Delilah joined in with.
“And why would you assume that he was only trying to kill his sister?” He paused for me to answer, but I had nothing more to say. “From what I can tell, the whole bottle of champagne was poisoned. Perhaps you’re right and someone wanted to kill Belinda, or maybe they were after me, but one thing is for certain; they were willing to murder the whole lot of us to achieve their ambition.”
A bitter smile crossed his lips then, and I was forced to reflect on the true savagery of the crime.
“You see, Christopher.” He leaned in closer to speak in a whisper. “If the killer had his way, we wouldn’t be here to search for evidence and uncover the truth. You and I would be keeled over on the floor of the ballroom, with our last breaths long since expired.”
Chapter Eleven
As we trailed back through the house to the front of the property, I ran through the names of those I was confident had not been present in the ballroom at five minutes to the hour, when Fellowes had opened the champagne.
My school bully: Marmaduke Adelaide.
My second cousin: Cora Villiers.
Her grandmother (my great-aunt): Clementine Cranley.
My uncle: Maitland Cranley, the Earl of Croydon.
And our butler: Mr Reginald Fellowes himself.
Walking alongside me, with Delilah at his heels, my grandfather interrupted my thoughts.
“No, no, Christopher. It’s really not that simple.” He looked down at me with great judgement in his eyes. “You’ve already decided on the suspects, but there are things I witnessed which you can’t have seen. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”
He’d really knocked me for six then and I struggled to respond. “How the devil did you know what I was thinking?”
Delilah let out an equally impressed bark as if demanding an explanation herself.
Grandfather replied with nonchalant breeziness to his voice. “I saw your eyes skimming across the portraits of our ancestors on the walls. You paused over certain paintings – the old lady beside the kitchen, of course, the hunter with his gun and brace of rabbits. I can only imagine you’ve reduced your suspect list to a mere five names, but I’m afraid you’re getting ah
ead of yourself.”
I could not hold back my admiration for this impressive feat, and it poured out of me. “Did you learn how to do that in your time at Scotland Yard?”
We’d been practically running along the endless corridor. It was easy to forget that my grandfather was halfway through his eighth decade on the planet, and he paused for a moment to catch his breath and regain his strength.
“Not at all. I learnt it from Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’. It’s no exact science; nothing more than a parlour trick, really. It seldom leads to solid evidence, but it’s handy for impressing people.” He didn’t smile or change his expression, but I could tell he was happy that the technique had worked on me.
When we got outside, the only car to have arrived was the local bobbies’ and they seemed content to wait for the head man to appear before getting mixed up in something they couldn’t handle.
“Are you going to tell me the names of the other suspects?” I wrapped my arms around myself as springtime in England isn’t all sunshine and flowers. It can get quite nippy at night. “Please, feel free to amaze me once more.”
I got the impression that, for all his surface calm, my grandfather was struggling to maintain his composure. He’d fallen back into familiar behaviour from his days in the Metropolitan Police. He was investigating now and the light-hearted back and forth we’d engaged in was all part of that. And yet, I felt sure he was reliving the scene in the ballroom; his own daughter coughing through her last breaths and the fear-stricken faces of every onlooker.
He winced and had to pause before continuing. “You may have seen me,” he said when this shudder had passed. “As I came into the room, I scanned those around me. I made a note of each person there, not because I suspected foul play, but as that’s what I have done for most of my life. It helps in a number of ways, both professionally and socially. This evening though, it enabled me to keep a record of who was present at that key moment. When I took to the stage for my toast and again after Belinda had died, I performed a similar task.”
“You know exactly who was in the room and when? That’s remarkable.”
He once more attempted to play down his achievements. “No, not at all. It is just another trick. Like the game children play at parties with a tray and a selection of objects. I keep an image in my mind of before and after, then compare the differences. I assure you that anyone can do it.”
“So who did you notice was missing when you entered the ballroom?”
“I would have expected you to work it out.” His eyes were fixed on the gate at the far end of the drive. “It was a man so many love to hate.”
The only name that came to mind was Fellowes, but then we already knew where he was. I waited for Grandfather to elucidate.
“Why, George, of course.”
My playboy cousin, who had made such an entrance to the ball, had apparently slipped back out without me noticing.
“He was there for the toast, though,” I pointed out. “He came up to the stage with everyone else. He was there when his mother died.”
“That’s true, but, when I mounted the stage, I can assure you there was no sign of him. He slipped in from the corridor after Fellowes arrived with his trolley. He could quite easily have gone to the drinks room and spiked the champagne. The police will be all over him, considering what he stands to gain if I had gone the way of his mother.”
George Trevelyan was the second in line to the Cranley family inheritance, this much I already knew. It was an open secret that Grandfather had ripped up tradition and planned for his elder daughter Belinda to inherit the bulk of his wealth. This meant that the estate would go to George now that his mother was out of the way.
Perhaps I was too innocent, but all this talk of murder in the family had set me on edge. A pair of headlights shone through the gate and the guard on duty opened it to admit a black Triumph two-seater. I was glad of the distraction and Grandfather walked across the drive to welcome our new arrival.
I was rather disappointed when the man who stepped out of the vehicle looked just about as far from my image of a crack detective as you could get. He was short, shabbily dressed and had stains down his blue, woollen pullover.
“Edgington,” he said in a grunt, and I didn’t need to hear anything more to know that the two men did not get along.
“Blunt!” It took me a moment to realise that this was not an observation my grandfather was making, but the policeman’s name,. “It’s been a long time.”
They did not shake hands but stood glaring at one another. The sight of a subordinate showing such open hostility to the legendary superintendent surprised me. My mother had only ever told me tales of her father’s bravery and prowess. I had never imagined that he’d have enemies within the police.
“Christopher, this is Sergeant Isambard Blunt of Scotland Yard. Blunt, this is my grandson who will be assisting me with the investigation.”
The officer made a loud snort to clear whatever muck was in his nose. “It’s Inspector Blunt now, as I’m sure even an old fella like you must have heard. And furthermore, this is not your investigation. You are not a serving member of the police and I’d recommend you keep your nose out of it.”
Lord Edgington did not appear to be intimidated. “We’ll see about that, old chap. You do what you have to and we will tread our own path.”
The little man marched towards us then, his sausagey finger pointed like a pistol. “No doubt you can call up your mates in the top brass and get it all smoothed over, but I’m telling you now, I’m going to treat you like any other suspect.”
I surprised myself then by answering the fiery inspector back. “My grandfather had nothing to do with the murder and I think it shows an awful lot of cheek to talk to him in such a disrespectful manner.”
“Oh yeah? I thought I’d been unusually polite.” Barely looking at me, he curled his lip and thundered past us to shout orders at his underling constables.
The owner of the estate that the vile little man had just invaded watched him go with a mix of annoyance and amusement shaping his face.
“He can’t talk to you that way, Grandfather.”
“Yes, he can.” He hesitated, as if he needed time to accept the truth of this himself. “And he’s right, I am a suspect, like anyone else. I’ve been at locked horns with Belinda and her brother for weeks and Fellowes wasn’t in the drinks room when I wandered past. It only makes sense to consider my guilt.”
“Oh, please!” I’m normally a rather placid individual. I don’t know whether it was my grandfather’s temper rubbing off on me, or my innate reaction to Inspector Blunt, but I was suddenly fuming with rage. “That would mean you were willing to kill your whole family and leave Cranley to some distant relative for the sake of a petty argument? The very idea is absurd.”
“The question of absurdity rarely comes up in a criminal investigation, Christopher.” He gripped my arm and led me back towards the house in the footsteps of the officers. “I am a suspect until I can prove that I had neither the inclination nor opportunity to carry out the crime.”
“I can accept that, but why was the inspector so rude to you?”
As we crunched down the gravel path, he did not immediately answer but stroked the long white hair on his chin.
“I can’t say for certain, my boy. I suppose he just doesn’t like our sort. Most people I worked with accepted me as one of their own, but Blunt only ever sees rank and class. He started in the force when I was an inspector and assumed that I got to where I had because of my family’s wealth. He could be commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and he’d still be angry that I was a lord.”
“I always thought that it was wealthy folk like us who were supposed to be the snobs.”
He laughed a little and waited by the entrance for me to walk past him into the house. “Oh, no, Christopher. In this w
orld, anyone can be anything.”
Chapter Twelve
More officers arrived from the villages around the traditional Hundred of Edgington, but it was Inspector Blunt’s operation to run. He launched himself down the corridor and into the ballroom, determined to stamp his mark on the proceedings.
“Has anyone left this room since the body was found?” the Inspector demanded of Todd, who was on duty at the entrance to the room.
“Only those who have returned, Sir.”
“Did anyone try to resuscitate the deceased?” His eyes swung about the group of guests whose grand gowns and formal attire now looked frivolous and self-indulgent.
No one spoke, so my grandfather sighed and delivered his answer. “I checked her pulse; she was already dead. It happened extremely quickly and there was nothing we could do for her.”
Blunt didn’t reply, but his eyes traced a path across the room to where my aunt had slumped over.
The new heir to Cranley Hall was sitting on the floor beside his mother’s stiffening corpse. All the fizz and bravado George Trevelyan had brought with him had disappeared. From the red streaks in his eyes it was clear he’d been crying. I didn’t blame him. I was glad that I’d been allowed to walk around the house instead of being trapped in the ballroom.
“Who are you?” Blunt spat as he approached my cousin.
When he spoke, George was a faint, spectral version of the young man I knew. “She was my mother.”
I found his phrasing rather unusual. The fact he’d already put her into the past tense seemed too soon, too sudden. And instead of answering the inspector’s question directly, he’d reframed the information.
“All right.” Blunt signalled to his subordinates. “Put him in another room and cover up the body. We’ll need statements from anyone with anything worth hearing. It’s going to be a long night.”
George was pulled up to standing by one of the uniformed officers and then he stumbled towards the corridor with a futile glance over his shoulder. Though I’d assumed he was now resigned to the inspector’s authority, my grandfather rushed forward to stake his claim to the case once more.
Murder at the Spring Ball: A 1920s Mystery Page 7