Impressed, I commented, “My word, Isabella, you are well informed. Do you read the police reports?”
“No,” she said. “Detective stories. Cheap and trivial, but they pass the time on long sea voyages. It seems to me that this is a case in which opportunity may be more indicative than motive.”
“My thought exactly,” said I. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“If you kindly pour me another Madeira.” She held up a finger. “I mean nothing else, Bertie. I can drink this stuff and stay sober till kingdom come.”
I said as I collected the decanter, “I’m the Prince of Wales, my dear. It’s my destiny to wait for kingdom come.”
When she’d taken a sip, she said, “Opportunity, then. Queenie Chimes, it appears, was poisoned. Something, presumably, was added to one of the dishes she had at dinner. Who was in a position to poison her food?”
“Someone in the kitchen. The waiters. The dinner guests.”
“Can you recall who was sitting on either side of her? I think one was Jerry Gribble.”
“Who was the other? I know—Claude Bullivant! By George, he was, and doing his best to frighten us all by saying there was a ghost in the house. Frighten us, or distract us, I ask myself.”
She moved on without showing much respect for my observation. I had already noticed that she was rather partial to Bullivant. “Then there was the shooting of Jerry Gribble. Was opportunity a factor there?”
“Less so,” I said. “He’d been dead some time when we found him.” I tossed in my bit of medical jargon as if I was constantly using the term. “Rigor mortis had set in. My estimate is that he died shortly after breakfast, before we started the shoot. Almost anyone could have fired the fatal shot—servants, beaters, people from the village, or any of the party.”
“Probably not one of the kitchen staff, however,” said Miss Dundas astutely. “After breakfast they must have been fully occupied preparing the picnic lunch.”
“Which brings us back to the guests,” I mused. “And the third murder. Whoever stabbed Osgot-Edge succeeded in doing it under cover of darkness as we were playing Sardines. There shouldn’t have been any servants about. It points emphatically to someone involved in the game.” I clicked my fingers. “Who was it who suggested Osgot-Edge should hide first?”
“Not I,” said Miss Dundas. “I suggested your wife, Her Royal Highness, if you remember, and she declined.”
“Yes, and then Bullivant suggested me, and Alix made some comment about a trail of cigar smoke. Do you know, I think it was Amelia who put Wilfred’s name forward?”
“It was.”
The full import of this took a moment or so to digest. I fingered the top button of my nightshirt. “And it was Amelia who drew up the guest list and invited us here in the first place.”
CHAPTER 11
My suspicions of Amelia may strike the reader as deplorable. She had gone to no end of trouble and expense to provide a good week’s sport, welcomed us warmly to her house and put the best rooms at our disposal, and now I was willing to regard her as a modern Lady Macbeth. I can only say in mitigation that if the wretched King of Scotland (his name escapes me) who came to stay with the Macbeths had been as circumspect as I, then he would have survived and Shakespeare could have put his talent to better use. Too many of the Bard’s plays are about the untimely ends of kings and princes for my liking. Personally, I find more to admire in Gilbert and Sullivan, but that’s to digress.
Back to Amelia. If our hostess had been planning the demise of several ladies and gentlemen of her acquaintance, she was well placed to do it. She had issued the invitations, subject to my approval, of course, planned the menus, allocated the rooms and she, better than anyone, knew the house, its corridors and staircases, entrances and exits. The poisoning of Miss Chimes, the shooting of Jerry Gribble and the stabbing of Osgot-Edge were all within her capability, given that she was better placed than anyone else to choose the appropriate moment and make good her escape from the scene of the crime.
Was I being uncharitable? You will have an opportunity to judge.
Meanwhile, I prepared to stay awake seated in the armchair, waiting for the murderer to spring the trap. In my right hand was the length of sashcord I would pull at the critical moment. Across my knees lay the poker I had brought from Alix’s room.
Miss Dundas said, “Would you mind if I blow out the candle?”
I gave my consent and promised to remain alert, adding the wish that she would sleep soundly. To be frank, I hadn’t the slightest expectation that she would. It amazed me soon afterwards to hear her breathing lengthen and take on the regular tempo of slumber. What self-possession, I thought—to be capable of sleep when a murderer might enter the room at any moment! Quite extraordinary. I could only put it down to habituation, the many times she must have bedded down in her tent in the Amazon jungle while untold dangers lurked outside. Or because she felt safe with me as her protector.
Quite soon the armchair began to be uncomfortable. Pins and needles spread up my left leg even though I shifted my position several times. Moreover I was wrestling mentally with the knowledge that only half the bed was occupied and the probability that Miss Dundas was only pretending to be asleep in an effort to suppress her natural excitement at my physical proximity. I found myself wondering whether I could work the man trap from a recumbent posture.
Of course it was out of the question and I didn’t seriously entertain it. I took my responsibility seriously, which was just as well, because presently I heard a sound, muffled, but not to be dismissed. Outside, close to the bedroom, something had moved. I tightened my grip on the poker and watched the door.
Miss Dundas stirred. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“Let them step right in before you pull the cord,” she cautioned.
I held my breath.
Another sound came, a thud, too heavy to be a creaking floorboard. I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. You see, the sound didn’t come from outside the door. It came from the French window. Someone was on the balcony. Slowly and with stealth, the handle was being turned.
There was I, seated with my back to it, waiting to trap someone at the door. Reader, I did the only sensible thing—dropped the sashcord and ducked behind the bed.
I heard the curtains flap. I was conscious of a draft from the window and with it a distinct whiff of scent. Everything I had deduced was coming true except the means of entry. The only uncertainty left was the weapon Amelia proposed to use. I decided against raising my head to find out.
You may imagine the shock it was to hear a masculine voice say in a curiously unthreatening tone, “Isabella, are you awake?”
To say that I was taken by surprise is an understatement. I was dumbfounded.
He repeated her name and I was too stupefied to recognize his voice until he said, “Bit of a liberty, eh? Didn’t like to think of you alone in here, not after some of the looks you gave me. You’re a damned fine looker, if you want to know.”
I boiled inwardly. The voice was Bullivant’s.
“Be a peach,” he went on in this disgraceful vein, “Say you’re gasping for me. Don’t hold it in. I brought you these. Picked by moonlight.”
He’d filched the last roses from the garden, the blighter, which explained the perfume I’d noticed.
Miss Dundas said, “Kindly keep your distance, Mr. Bullivant. I am holding a knife.”
“I’ll be jiggered!” said Bullivant on a high note of indignation. “You’re not afraid, are you? Good God, I wouldn’t take a lady by force. That’s not the ticket, not the ticket at all. I wouldn’t say a kiss and a cuddle is the summit of my ambition, but if that’s as far as you care to go on this occasion, Isabella, I’m your man.”
You may imagine my outrage at this unseemly declaration. It too
k a moment to satisfy myself that Bullivant wasn’t bent on murder, but when I fathomed that his boorish behavior was meant to win the lady’s favors I was almost as appalled as if he had meant to kill her. In the nature of things one doesn’t normally hear how other fellows broach the question, but if this was typical of the English gentleman then all of us might as well go back to painting ourselves with woad and clubbing any passing lady we admire. Whatever became of old-fashioned chivalry, sweet nothings and honeyed words? One bunch of roses stolen from someone else’s garden didn’t impress me much—nor Miss Dundas it seemed, who said acidly, “You’re not my man, Mr. Bullivant, and you won’t be anybody else’s if you so much as touch me.”
To which he said, “Fiddlesticks. What have you got to lose, my beauty? Surely not your Sunday School certificate?”
This was more than I could stomach. I stood up, no, sprang up, and said, “That’s unforgivable, Bullivant.”
He uttered my name as if a fire had broken out.
Fairly flinging my words across the bed, I continued, “If I hadn’t been speechless with disgust I’d have stopped you earlier. How dare you molest this lady?”
“Sir, I didn’t know you were here,” he protested lamely.
“That’s immaterial,” I told him.
“I didn’t molest her,” he said, more confident now.
I said, “You did worse. You insulted the lady. You molested her verbally, cast an aspersion on her reputation. I heard it.”
“You weren’t meant to.”
“You’d better apologize at once.”
“Sir, I do, most humbly.”
“To the lady, Bullivant, to the lady.”
Miss Dundas surprised us both by striking a match to light the candle at her bedside. She said, “No apology is necessary, or desired. There has obviously been a misunderstanding for which I must bear some responsibility, at least. Mr. Bullivant and I have had several conversations in the last few days and it is not impossible that he gained the impression that I was amused by his blandishments. Not that I had in mind a visitation by night, I hasten to add.”
Her statement silenced us both, so she went on, “Three unexplained deaths in the house are not conducive to romantic trysts, I would have thought. And with all those servants standing guard in the corridors—”
“That’s why I climbed over the balcony,” said Bullivant. He turned to me, the blighted hopes still lingering on his features. “But if I’d known you were here, sir, I wouldn’t have ventured from my room. Frightful gaffe.”
I pointed out firmly, “I was engaged in investigating the crimes.”
“Ah.” Bullivant sounded as if a doctor were examining his tonsils. As an expression of belief it failed to carry conviction.
“What is more,” I informed him, “my detective duties require me to remain here for the rest of the night.”
Bullivant seemed to understand this, even if he didn’t altogether appreciate it. He said, “You’d like me to return to my room, sir?”
I nodded. “By the same route you entered, and you can take the roses with you. They’re covered in greenfly.”
CHAPTER 12
You may wonder how I felt towards Isabella Dundas after that unseemly incident with Bullivant. After all, she had admitted to the possibility that her light behavior had encouraged the man. I had been led to assume that she was indifferent to my own good looks and winning ways. Well, not to mince words, I was peeved. I’d gone to her room from the highest motives, ready to deal with a murderer. I hadn’t bargained on a lover. All this, of course, was trivial compared to the matter under investigation, but one has one’s pride. I resumed my armchair vigil in a chastened mood. It improved towards morning, about 5:30 a.m., when the lady offered to change places with me. She’d slept sufficiently, she told me, and now I deserved a turn in the bed. I didn’t decline the offer.
Nobody else disturbed us until the maid came with tea and bread and butter. Miss Dundas had stepped deftly around the trap to take the tray in at the door. She offered me the cup (there was only one), but since I prefer cold milk to tea in the morning, I took what was in the jug and used the glass tumbler beside the bed.
All things considered, I felt agreeably refreshed. In one sense the chance to snatch some sleep had been a blessing, but it was all time that I could ill afford from my investigations. The murderer remained at large and the threat to Miss Dundas was not removed. If my judgment counted for anything, she would be in mortal danger for the rest of Thursday. I told her firmly that I wouldn’t be leaving her side until Inspector Sweeney reported for duty.
Madam said with a click of the tongue, “That’s going to be inconvenient.” But as she had already dressed by this time, it was clear that the inconvenience would be mainly on my side. She said, “Would it simplify matters if I packed my things and left?”
“Went home, do you mean? No, no,” I told her. “That’s no guarantee of safety. Come along to my rooms while I get into some clothes.”
She rightly pointed out that we ought to dismantle the trap in case the chambermaid became enmeshed in it. “What an anticlimax,” she remarked as we untied the cords. “You were the only catch all night.”
Everyone had gone to breakfast by the time we emerged from her room, so we were spared any embarrassment. I’m not unused to being caught out, as they say, but I would resent winks and nudges after a night of what the lady aptly, if unkindly, characterized as anticlimax.
Whilst I dressed with the door ajar, she leafed through a magazine in the adjacent sitting room, turning the pages with a quickness that conveyed her ill humor. She called out to me, “Really it’s no different from the so-called savages of the Amazon.”
“What?” I said, caught hauling up my trousers. I looked to see if some mirror was embarrassingly positioned.
“These pictures of fox hunting in—what is it called?—Fur and Feather.”
I said, “You’re not comparing what goes on in the jungle with the hunt?”
“Why ever not?” she answered. “The meet is a tribal ritual, after all—the Master of Foxhounds and the stirrup cup and the horn and the ‘Tallyho’ and the ‘View Halloo.’”
“That’s sport.”
“Dressed up to the nines to chase a verminous animal across country, catch it, kill it, cut off its tail and blood the novices? The only difference I can see is that the Amazon hunters catch their prey to eat. You stuff it and call it sport.”
“You’re talking like a blasted socialist,” I told her testily.
She started to laugh and then stopped abruptly with a sharp intake of breath.
“What is it?” I said. It was a horrid moment. Dreadful possibilities flitted through my brain.
Then I heard a too-familiar voice ask stiffly, “Is the Prince of Wales through there?”
Alix didn’t wait for a reply. She stepped into my dressing room and said, sounding depressingly like my mama, “Bertie, I have been waiting for you to accompany me to breakfast. It’s five past nine already. Everyone must be waiting downstairs.”
“My word,” I said, recovering my wits. “Is it so late? I overslept, my dear.”
“You were supposed to have been preventing another murder.”
“Oh, I did,” I answered. “Miss Dundas has come through the night safely, as you see. I guarded her room while she slept. Took a nap towards morning, when I was satisfied that the immediate danger was past. How are you this morning, Alix? Did you manage to get some sleep yourself?”
Ignoring that, she asked, “How do you propose to pass the day—taking care of Miss Dundas?”
I told her with dignity that I would be delegating that responsibility to Sweeney at the earliest opportunity. “I must start my inquiries in earnest. I shall interview everyone.”
“You’ll have to hurry, then,” she said. “The Holdfasts are
about to leave, if they haven’t gone already. Their carriage is at the front door and their trunk has been loaded. I saw it from my window.”
“I can’t allow that,” I said. “Damn them, they can’t! Stay with Miss Dundas, would you?” and with that, I fairly stormed downstairs.
Sir George Holdfast was in the entrance hall, already in his overcoat saying goodbye to Amelia. When I demanded what the deuce was going on he gave a feeble shrug and blamed his wife. “Moira is extremely agitated, Bertie. She hardly slept at all last night. She is resolved to leave.”
I said adamantly, “You must tell her that I cannot allow it. As I made clear last night, I have instituted an inquiry into these regrettable deaths. You will each be required to make a statement about your movements and what you remember of the circumstances leading up to the murders.”
He said in a shocked voice, “You don’t regard Moira and me as suspicious persons?”
“George,” I answered slowly, spacing out my words, “it would look suspicious if you defied my instructions and left the house.”
I had him collared and he knew it. “I’ll speak to Moira,” was all he said.
Having weathered that crisis successfully, I went in to breakfast, where everyone waited ravenously for morning prayers. I gave them a profuse apology. One short prayer from the Chaplain and we all dipped in the trough, so to speak. After the first pangs were satisfied, I thought I had better take precautions in case anyone else had ideas about leaving. I ordered them to assemble in the morning room at half past ten, a measure of my resolve considering that it restricted breakfast to a meager hour.
Subdued and ill at ease, they filed in.
“It isn’t more bad news?” Amelia asked me in confidence. She was still my principal suspect, but I have to admit that her concern sounded genuine enough.
I shook my head and gestured to her to sit down. “Are we all assembled?” I asked. “We seem to be short of several people.”
Marcus Pelham grinned unpleasantly. “Haven’t you heard?”
Bertie and the Seven Bodies Page 11