Bertie and the Seven Bodies

by Peter Lovesey

“A few stocks and shares, sir. Not enough to survive on.”

  “You’re being uncommonly frank.”

  “I’ve seen the way certain people are looking at me. I don’t mind being unpopular, but I dislike being under suspicion. I want you to know why I’m here, and it isn’t to murder the guests.”

  “You know on which side your bread is buttered.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And at the same time you can observe what progress, if any, her lovers are making.”

  He gave me a surprised look. “Now you’re being uncom­monly frank, sir.”

  “Isn’t that a fair comment?”

  “Well, yes.”

  I said, “Let’s speak plainly, shall we? We both know that your sister has a liking for masculine company.”

  He muttered resentfully, “You could put it more plainly than that.”

  “That’s plain enough. We’re gentlemen, when all’s said and done. My point is this. Any lover of Amelia’s who is not a married man must be considered a potential threat to your income, isn’t that so?”

  He picked a Brussels sprout off its stalk and tossed it at the wall. “Not necessarily.”

  Unmoved, I went on, “Freddie conveniently died. But there were others lining up to replace him. Jerry Gribble was a widower and Osgot-Edge a bachelor. You may well have decid­ed to protect your future by killing them both.”

  He made a show of being amused. “Jerry and the poet—to stop them marrying my sister? That’s rich!”

  I waited for the bluster to subside.

  It took a moment or two for the gravity of the charge to penetrate. Then he said more earnestly, “Before you put a noose around my neck, sir, there’s an obvious flaw in this. What about the other victim? Why should I have killed Queenie Chimes? She was Jerry’s mistress. If what you say is true, I would have wanted Queenie to stay alive and keep Jerry out of Amelia’s skirts.”

  I mulled it over for a few paces. “That has a certain logic, I grant you. However, a really cunning murderer knows that logic will defeat him, so he commits an illogical crime. One more death is neither here nor there to a man who is resolved to murder twice. He kills Miss Chimes to obscure the pattern of his crimes.” This ingenious theory sprang practically unbidden from my lips. I found it so persuasive that I said, “You’d better give an account of yourself. Where were you sitting at the table that first evening when Queenie collapsed?”

  Perhaps it was the chill of the air, but I fancy that the color rose to his cheeks now that he sensed how serious I was. His tongue flicked nervously across his lips. “The Chaplain was on my right and the Princess of Wales on my left. If you want to know who sat on either side of Queenie it was Jerry and Claude Bullivant,” he added.

  “That is of small consequence,” I pointed out. “Anyone could have tampered with the food before it was served.”

  “Only if they visited the kitchen. I did not.”

  “Then the poison could have been placed in the drink she had in the anteroom.”

  “You had better speak to Colwell about that. He served the aperitifs.”

  “I have every intention of doing so,” I said, slightly ruffled, wishing I’d thought of this before.

  A certain smugness spread across his features. “When all’s said and done, Colwell is just a glorified butler. Have you con­sidered the possibility that the house steward did it? Perhaps he has a grudge against the upper classes.”

  I ignored the observation and pressed on. “Let us consider Jerry’s murder. It was perfectly possible for you to have fired the fatal shot on Tuesday in the hour between breakfast and the start of the shoot.”

  “It was perfectly possible for any of us to have fired it, not excluding the ladies. And as for the stabbing last night,” he said, anticipating my question, “the same holds true. We were all there in the dark. It wasn’t my suggestion to play Sardines, by the way, Your Royal Highness. I dislike the game. The only game I suggested all evening was Spinning the Trencher, and if that incriminates me, what hope is there for any of us?”

  This, I thought, was too bumptious by far, so I com­mented, “You may not want a noose around your neck, Pelham, but you sound increasingly like the counsel for your defense. Have you been rehearsing?”

  His lower lip protruded sulkily. After an interval I asked, “Do you happen to remember who did suggest Sardines?”

  “My sister.” To this unbrotherly admission he saw fit to add, “Anyone might have made the suggestion, given that we’d promised to play some form of Hide and Seek.”

  “Quite.” I didn’t need reminding that the Hide and Seek had been Alix’s suggestion.

  He said, “I don’t think Amelia is capable of killing anyone. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  We had reached the limit of the vegetable garden, so we returned by a second path, a decision we might have reconsid­ered had we known that it led past the pigsties. I said wryly, “You were speaking of flies?”

  Pelham pulled a face and said, “It’s offensive. She’ll have to get rid of them.”

  I remarked, “I happen to have quite a healthy respect for pigs. We rear them on the Sandringham estate. Highly intelli­gent creatures. You can train them, you know. And they make few demands. They’ll eat anything you give them. Anything. You could put a dead sheep in there and not a bone would remain.”

  “I’m obliged to you for the information, sir, but I definitely don’t kill sheep,” said Pelham.

  I gave him a sharp look and his eyes glittered in amuse­ment. It was amusing in a morbid way, and I was forced to smile as well. If he supposed my suspicions were any the less, he was mistaken. As soon as we reached the fresher air of the flower borders, I brought up the vital question of the guest list. “When did you first see it?”

  “Towards the end of May, I should think.”

  “Five months ago. Were you consulted about the choice of guests?”

  “No, sir. My sister showed me the final list after you had approved it.”

  “But you were given the names as early as last May?”

  “Amelia had persuaded me to act as host. The least she could do was tell me who had been invited.”

  “Had you met any of them before?”

  He thought for a moment. “All of them except yourself and Her Royal Highness.”

  “Every one—including the three who are dead?”

  He nodded.

  “Queenie Chimes?” I said in surprise. “Where did you meet her?”

  “The first time? On the landing outside my rooms in Chelsea. She dropped her umbrella down the stairs and I opened my door and picked it up. She sent me a ticket for the Lyceum and we had supper after the play.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last winter. January, I think. The play was Julius Caesar and she was in the crowd scenes.”

  “‘Friends, Romans, countrymen . . . ’?”

  Ignoring my apt quotation, he went on, “As it happens, she was impossible to spot in the costumes they wore, but of course in Romano’s afterwards I praised her performance to the skies. She was easily pleased. I saw her in something else on another occasion—Much Ado About Nothing. She played a gentlewoman then. I wasn’t so flush that week, so we had a one-and-sixpenny supper in Kettner’s and walked home. In case you care to know, sir, there was never anything improper between us.”

  “A pretty girl like that? Surely you didn’t take no for an answer?” Leaving that aside, I turned to the interesting impli­cation of what he had just told me. “It emerges, then, that you knew Queenie before Jerry did. They met at a cricket match a mere six months ago—something about tombola tickets.”

  “Queenie told me, yes.”

  “So you knew she was Jerry’s mistress?”

  “I gathered as much, and my sister confirmed it when she showed me the guest list.”

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nbsp; “Weren’t you infuriated? I’m sure I would have been.”

  He shook his head. “As I tried to explain just now, my association with Queenie amounted to nothing more than a few visits to the Lyceum, followed by supper. One doesn’t turn down the chance of seeing Irving. Queenie was gracious enough to invite me, so I treated her to supper. That’s all. I wasn’t jealous of Jerry Gribble and I wasn’t angry with Queenie.”

  “You don’t need to raise your voice,” I told him. “The point is taken.”

  He said, “From the way you spoke, sir, I thought you were still accusing me of murder.”

  “Everyone is under suspicion except me, laddie,” I told him. “And I want to know more about the guest list. Quite obvi­ously, the whole case hinges on it. You got the names from your sister in May, you said? Did you discuss them with Queenie Chimes?”

  “Naturally, when I knew she was included. She was curi­ous to know who else was coming and I told her. It didn’t mean much to her. I don’t think she’d met any of us except Amelia, Jerry and me.”

  This young man and his sweeping statements! I was forced to put him right. “On the contrary, I suggest that a list like that would mean a great deal to any young lady capable of reading the newspapers. She must have heard of Miss Dundas, the explorer, and probably Osgot-Edge. George Holdfast’s name appears on just about every list you see of subscribers to charitable causes. And I haven’t even mentioned the Princess of Wales and myself.”

  That silenced him, which hadn’t been my intention. We were fast approaching the house again and I still had a crucial question to put to him about the guest list. To gain a few min­utes, I asked, “What’s that small building at the end of the rose arbor?”

  He took it for a trick question. “I wouldn’t know, sir. As I told you I’m almost a stranger here.”

  “Of course. Shall we find out?” As we stepped out, I said, “Does the name of Colonel Roberts mean anything to you?”

  “The V.C.?”

  “Evidently, it does. Do you know the man?”

  He was bright pink again. “No, sir. I heard from my sister that you struck him out of the original guest list, that was all.”

  “You wanted to know why, no doubt?”

  “I was curious, yes.”

  “Thinking perhaps that Roberts was a social pariah for some unsavory episode in his past? You were wrong, then. It was simply a matter of reducing a list of thirteen names to twelve. I happen to be superstitious.”

  “I see.”

  Looking at the wood and stone structure ahead, I said, “I believe it’s a well.”

  “So it is.”

  “Did you mention Colonel Roberts to Queenie Chimes?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He’s a local man, isn’t he? Is it likely that he would have heard that his name was put forward and rejected?”

  “I don’t know, sir. You had better ask my sister.” Pelham may have added something else. If he did, I have no record of it. My attention had switched to something quite different, and much more arresting. On the low brick wall surrounding the well was a scrap of newspaper weighted down with a stone. I moved the stone aside and picked up the piece of paper.

  Do I need to tell you the word that was ringed there?

  CHAPTER 14

  “Thursday?” Puzzlement was writ­ten large on Marcus Pelham’s features and horror much larger on mine. He shook his head. “What can this possibly mean?”

  I rattled out an order. “Get some men here with ropes and grappling hooks. Hurry!” Even as I spoke I was striding with all speed towards the house. In the morning room, five anxious faces, alerted by the urgency of my approach, stared at me: Alix, the Holdfasts, Sweeney and—I was heartily relieved to see—Isabella Dundas.

  Explanations had to come later. I told them simply that I believed someone had fallen down the well.

  Predictably, Moira Holdfast whimpered and sank facedown into her husband’s lap. The others stood up and fairly showered me with questions: how did I know and where was the well and was it an accident and was the person alive and shouldn’t we call for help?

  I appealed for silence and asked, “Has anyone seen Amelia since she went upstairs?”

  The clamor ceased.

  She spoke from behind me, and gave me quite a start. “I’m here.” She had followed me in. She said, “It isn’t Marcus, is it?”

  I shook my head. Pandemonium returned.

  Shortly after, however, utter silence reigned as we stood around that stupid well like characters in a nursery rhyme, except that it was a human being down there and a grappling hook was being lowered. Marcus had rallied the head game­keeper and three of his men. From the way coil after coil of rope dropped out of sight it was evident that the well was exceeding­ly deep. The chance of anyone surviving a fall was negligible.

  At length, the gamekeeper gave the order to stop unfurl­ing. The end of the rope was passed across the windlass and two of the men commenced to haul it up. “It’s no good,” said one. “There’s no weight on the end.” So they lowered it again. They had no better success. This procedure must have been repeated a dozen times. Then they brought the hook to the surface and discovered nothing more on it than mud.

  An hour passed. Alix complained of the cold and returned to the house with Amelia. Most of the others followed soon after, but I remained, and so did Pelham. In desperation more hooks were lowered. The clash of steel carried up to us faintly, depressingly faintly. Three hooks proved to be no more productive than one. In fact the ropes became entangled and hindered the oper­ation.

  In the next hour a hamper of lunch was sent out to us and the men ate and worked the ropes by turns. Nobody had the temerity to suggest that I might have been in error, but the com­ments each time an empty hook was brought to the surface became increasingly despairing. It wasn’t a matter of offensive language or outright defiance. The skepticism a man can put into the simple word “no” is quite sufficient to express his feel­ings. I was left in no doubt that if I had relaxed my vigil and left them to their work I could expect no result whatsoever.

  I don’t exaggerate when I say that almost four hours elapsed before I was proved to be correct. An evening mist was closing in on us when one of the men announced, “It feels like something.”

  We all moved closer and peered into the void.

  “Careful, now,” I cautioned. “Don’t snatch at the rope. Bring it up gradually, hand over hand.” To be just, they did their best. For a few seconds they appeared to be raising a consider­able weight. Then the rope slackened abruptly.

  “Bloody hell!” said Pelham, and I think he spoke for everyone.

  At my insistence they hauled the grapnel to the surface, and a good thing, too, for one of the flukes had a torn scrap of fabric attached to it, a strip of silk, maroon in color, patterned with small white stars. It was some three inches long, tapering to a point. Clearly it had been ripped from a garment, for there was a buttonhole at the wider end that I observed had been torn at the edge, presumably when the weight of the body was taken up. I eased the piece of material over the point of the fluke and examined it. Then I passed it to Pelham, who remarked that from the size of the buttonhole it appeared to have come from a waistcoat.

  “Yes, but do you recognize it?” said I.

  He did not. He muttered something about clothes having no interest for him.

  I said, “I shall show it to Alix. She is acutely observant of people’s dress. She will certainly know if she’s seen it before.”

  And Alix did, when I returned to the house and showed it to her. Without hesitation she told me, “It’s from Claude Bullivant’s waistcoat. I know the pattern. He wore it on Tuesday evening. Bertie, how dreadful!”

  I answered cryptically, “Yes . . . and no.” I had better men­tion here that I hadn’t passed those hours beside the well in a state of
passivity. From the moment I had seen who was left alive in the morning room I had concluded that the body down there could be no one else but Bullivant’s. After that I had set my mental powers the more demanding task of accounting for his death. The explanation had not come quickly, but when it did, it had all the simplicity of the truth. And, as I indicated to my dear wife, my conclusion was not wholly pessimistic.

  I decided to communicate my findings to the company; they had not had much to cheer about. When they were assem­bled in the drawing room, comfortable in their chairs, teacups in hand, I took up a position beside the fire. “My friends, I propose to tell you a story. Bear with me, please. It has a particular rele­vance to things I wish to tell you later. Some years ago I heard of a sportsman, a shooting man, who was unwise enough to spec­ulate heavily on some venture in the Stock Market that failed. He was ruined, irredeemably. So he put on his Norfolk suit and collected his shotgun and whistled to his favorite retriever and spent the day on his estate contentedly bagging game until the sun set. Then he returned to the house and took his bag book off the shelf and entered his tally. I believe it amounted to some fifty wildfowl and a dozen rabbits. Finally he added his own name to the list. Then he blotted the ink, replaced the book on the shelf and shot himself.”

  I smiled, so George Holdfast took the cue and chuckled, encouraging some of the others to titter self-consciously. No doubt the story would have gone down better after a good din­ner when the ladies had left the table.

  “What is more, there was an inquest and they brought in an open verdict.” I capped it with all the aplomb of a music hall comedian. “Nobody had thought to look in the bag book.”

  After an uneasy silence Alix asked, “And what is the point of the story, Bertie? Does it have a moral?”

  “I was about to come to that,” I said. “First, I must offer a small apology to most of you. In the course of my investigation of the shocking events of this week I thought fit to keep certain information to myself. The murderer left some clues.”

  Moira Holdfast dipped down and gathered her skirt against her ankles. Swarms of clues still infested her fevered imagination.