Death at the Wychbourne Follies

by Amy Myers

  ‘I cannot think why you wish to talk to us, Chief Inspector,’ Mr Jarrett began querulously. ‘You yourselves have charged Tobias’s killer with murder. What more is there to say?’

  ‘A great deal, I hope,’ Inspector Melbray replied. ‘The Department of Public Prosecutions would be knocking on my door if I neglected to present available evidence to the defence as well as the prosecution. Especially in this case. The motive for the killing stems back to the days when Mrs Palmer was married to Mr Rocke and was also dresser to a lady whose disappearance was subject to a Scotland Yard investigation that involved him. I refer of course to Miss Mary Ann Darling.’

  Nell was torn between relief that the inspector was indicating that Mary Ann was a definite factor in the case and pity for Lady Ansley who looked distraught. Lord Ansley had a face like thunder.

  ‘Really, Melbray,’ he barked. ‘I fail to see how this can possibly be relevant to Mr Rocke’s death. As you said, you consider that the motive for that is clear enough – Ethel Palmer was bigamously married to John.’

  ‘Even so, it’s my duty to examine all avenues.’

  ‘Including Miss Darling’s murder?’ Mr Trotter piped up excitedly.

  ‘If relevant to Mr Rocke’s death,’ Inspector Melbray replied.

  ‘Surely,’ drawled Mrs Reynolds, ‘we all suspect that Tobias Rocke killed her?’

  Nell felt like a batter pudding being vigorously beaten. So did everyone else judging by the uproar that took place.

  ‘No, Lynette, we did not,’ Lady Kencroft declared loudly.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Miss Maxwell shouted, red in the face with anger, ‘you are quite right, Lynette. Mary Ann was terrified of him. She came to me for help.’

  ‘And I agree with Lynette too,’ snapped Mr Jarrett, pink with emotion. ‘He was pushing himself on her constantly, the poor girl.’

  Their polite society masks are falling off, Nell thought, her head still whirling. Just as the inspector had hoped perhaps?

  ‘It’s entirely possible he killed her,’ Neville Heydock agreed. ‘It’s what we were all privately thinking. Tobias hung around the stage door in Wellington Street to see her arrive or leave.’

  ‘You’re all wrong,’ cried Constance. ‘I did not like Tobias but he adored Mary Ann and I do believe he might have known who did kill her. He was the keeper of secrets and—’

  ‘Let me speak, Constance,’ her husband thundered. ‘Mary Ann was indeed fearful for her life, and certainly it was Tobias of whom she was scared. She made a practice of never walking alone through the stage door and then she regularly took a cab home to Cheyne Gardens as well as taking one to the theatre. Oh yes, Tobias was her killer. She rejected his advances – who would not? – and that was his revenge.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Lady Kencroft cried. ‘I agree with Constance. Tobias was our friend and Mary Ann’s friend.’

  ‘Muddied waters indeed,’ Inspector Melbray broke in dispassionately. ‘Mr Rocke couldn’t have been murdered for knowing who killed Mary Ann and because he killed her himself.’

  ‘He did,’ Miss Maxwell shouted angrily. ‘She hated him.’

  ‘I cannot believe this is Tobias you are talking about,’ Lady Ansley faltered, but the quarrelling continued.

  Jumping jellies. Nell was appalled. Had Alex Melbray planned this? Those masks were well and truly down now.

  ‘Perhaps you should ask yourselves what kind of person Tobias Rocke was,’ the chief inspector said, as the noise began to die down. ‘He was the keeper of secrets so what might that tell us? Perhaps that he might also have been a murderer, but what else?’

  What did that mean? Was anyone going to answer? Nell wondered. Could anyone answer?

  It was Mrs Reynolds who broke the silence with a burst of laughter. ‘It might be of interest, Chief Inspector, to enquire how dear Tobias used those secrets. Surely no one here will deny that Tobias, our darling friend, was the gentlest, nicest, most implacable blackmailer one could ever dread to meet?’

  Blackmailer? Just now he was a murderer. Who was this man? Nell took a deep breath. She’d seen him only a few days earlier, chubby cheeked, cheerful, pleasant – and now this. She was an outsider of course, so was it even true? Judging by their faces some at least thought so. There was a stillness in the room caused by more than bewilderment.

  ‘Blackmailing the killer of Miss Darling?’ Chief Inspector Melbray asked briskly.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lynette Reynolds replied, not smiling now. ‘Or perhaps his net caught other fish too. All sorts of fish swarmed around the Gaiety, and there might have been some swimming here. What do you think, Mr Trotter?’

  NINE

  Even Chief Inspector Melbray looked startled. All eyes had turned on the unfortunate Mr Trotter, and it seemed to Nell there was a general air of relief. Imagination, she told herself firmly, and yet her own doubts about Mr Trotter’s activities reared up again.

  ‘How dare you, madam!’ Mr Trotter stood up, trembling. ‘How could I possibly be connected with Mary Ann Darling’s murder? I had the privilege of communing with her spirit last Friday, as you all know, but I had no previous contact with the lady.’

  Lynette Reynolds lifted one eyebrow. ‘I said Tobias had many other fish, Mr Trotter,’ she replied coolly. ‘Perhaps he fried you. He delighted in winkling out secrets from the most reticent of people and then tormenting them with his knowledge thereafter.’

  ‘I still cannot believe it of Tobias.’ Lady Ansley looked outraged.

  ‘I can, Gertrude,’ Neville Heydock said briskly. ‘Several people – none here today of course – have suffered greatly.’

  ‘I confided no such secrets to him,’ snapped Mr Trotter.

  ‘I did see Mr Rocke coming out of your darkroom, Trotter,’ Lord Richard commented. ‘Perhaps he’d been checking out your credentials, old chap. Studying your glass plates, for instance.’

  Before Nell could add her pennyworth, Lady Clarice entered the fray.

  ‘Richard,’ she cried, ‘you speak ill of a guest. Mr Trotter has the highest credentials. You have seen for yourself the splendid results of his work.’

  ‘I have indeed,’ Lord Richard replied in amusement. ‘And Miss Drury noticed that your spirit photograph, Trotter, is identical with the postcard of Mary Ann displayed in the Great Hall. Isn’t that so, Miss Drury?’

  ‘It is,’ Nell confirmed.

  ‘I popped inside the darkroom to see what was what,’ continued Lord Richard. ‘Most interesting.’

  Mr Trotter was spluttering with rage. ‘Are you impugning my integrity, your lordship? If the photograph looks the same as other pictures of Mary Ann, it merely means she liked that pose, that’s all. You imply I am some kind of trickster, but I, sir, am a spirit medium.’

  ‘There was that William Hope business last year,’ Lord Richard pointed out. ‘He faked pictures with double exposures, combining the originals with existing images. He had enough tricks to rival Houdini.’

  ‘Mr Houdini is a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is of the opinion that Hope is a first-class spirit medium, as am I,’ Mr Trotter shot back.

  Richard laughed. ‘You a first-class spirit—’

  ‘Enough, Richard,’ Lord Ansley intervened. ‘This is no place for such exchanges. We have guests, you are upsetting your aunt and we have a chief inspector of police with us investigating a murder.’

  ‘Quite,’ his son instantly shot back. ‘That’s why we need to know more about what Rocke was up to. But my apologies, Father.’

  ‘If I may speak,’ Chief Inspector Melbray said quietly. ‘If anyone in this room was being blackmailed by Tobias Rocke, I wish to know. I should stress that at this point details are not required.’

  ‘It’s hard to see how anyone here could have suffered,’ Lord Ansley said. ‘This reunion was held because we rarely if ever meet each other, and although many of you are still active on the stage, meeting Tobias during the thirty years that have passed must have been an equally infrequent occurrence.
It is unlikely therefore that any systematic blackmailing could have been in progress, as Lynette has suggested.’

  ‘Blackmail is such an ugly word,’ Mrs Reynolds pointed out, ‘and an elastic one. Very elastic as far as Tobias was concerned. One doesn’t have to meet people in order to blackmail them. Does one?’

  ‘Lynette is right,’ Mr Heydock said abruptly. ‘But Tobias wasn’t a blackmailer in the sense you would presume, Chief Inspector. Money was not always involved, not in cash payments anyway. He liked power. Power over people. The more people who confided in him, as I suppose many of us did in the old days, the more powerful he felt.’

  ‘Oh, darling, how true,’ Mrs Reynolds drawled. ‘He gleaned information from his victims and then ensured they were always aware that he might spill the beans at any moment. He’d give a knowing wink or there’d be talk of a chat, or let’s take luncheon together.’

  ‘This conversation is making me feel quite ill,’ Mr Jarrett complained. ‘However, I should speak. As Tobias was a character actor, his career rarely coincided with mine, but nevertheless I believe what you say to be correct, Lynette. Wouldn’t you agree, Alice?’

  Miss Maxwell turned an icy stare on her bête noire. ‘As it happens, I would. I’ve already mentioned Miss Darling’s terror of him. I believe he blackmailed her and then killed her. I have never had the respect for Tobias that others seem to have held.’

  ‘Once again, I really can’t agree with this,’ Lady Kencroft exploded in anger. ‘He was always so kind to us, wasn’t he, Gertie?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lady Ansley said stoutly. ‘He supported us. He was our friend. It’s true I had nothing to hide though, and nor did you, Katie.’

  ‘Except an undying passion for Charles,’ Lady Kencroft managed to laugh – obviously in an effort to diffuse the situation, Nell thought.

  What was Chief Inspector Melbray making of all this? Nell wondered, glancing over at him. Everyone was talking as though he wasn’t in the room and regardless of who else was. He had certainly listened very carefully and now drew the discussion to a close.

  ‘Miss Drury,’ Inspector Melbray called, as she was leaving, her mind whirling between the needs of her dinner schedule and the notion of Tobias Rocke as a blackmailer. ‘May I have a word?’ he asked politely, coming over to her.

  ‘By all means,’ she said formally. She could hardly commandeer the drawing room. It would have to be the Cooking Pot for their meeting. With its recipe books, files, photographs and pads of paper, she was proud of her room, but it was small and so perhaps she’d made a mistake in bringing him here. He was too close for her to think clearly about what she had to tell him – and vice versa. He leaned towards her, their knees almost touching where she sat in her chair at the table.

  This isn’t a personal discussion, she told herself. It’s business.

  ‘That meeting opened up rather more than I had bargained for,’ he said.

  ‘It didn’t help John Palmer much,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘In a roundabout way, it did. I always try to look at the character of the victim, his or her upbringing, circle of acquaintances, etc. In this case, if one rules out a random attack – and with the weather conditions here last weekend we can do so – then the character of Tobias Rocke and his life do become important. No doubt Mr Heydock was right about the blackmail being in the form of power, but what matters is how much he threatened to use it.’

  ‘As with Mr Trotter perhaps?’

  ‘Quite.’ He paused. ‘Rocke could have seen John Palmer as another opportunity, I’m afraid. There’s strong evidence—’

  ‘From a poacher,’ she snorted before she could stop herself.

  ‘A poacher with a lot to lose if he lies in a case in which Lord Ansley is involved.’

  ‘You’re right – Alex.’ Shouldn’t it be ‘inspector’ if this was business? No, don’t fuss, Nell, she told herself. Instead she told him about Jethro’s claim that someone had left by the side entrance about eleven o’clock. And she had a feeling there was something else interesting that had been said recently, something she could no longer identify.

  ‘Assuming that’s true,’ Alex Melbray said, ‘it could have been a perfectly harmless mission by anyone in the Court.’

  ‘Not anyone. It is officially only for the family and guests. Are you looking at them more closely now that the blackmail issue had arisen?’

  ‘Same old story, Nell. I can’t discuss that officially. I’d be a fool to ignore it, though.’

  ‘Even though Tobias Rocke hadn’t asked for money?’

  ‘We don’t know he didn’t. And regarding the power issue, there are some things that are highly sensitive to talk about in company. Sex, for instance. Naturally enough your Wychbourne guests weren’t going to announce their peccadilloes and preferences to all and sundry this afternoon.’

  ‘Speaking as another all and sundry,’ Nell said, ‘do these peccadilloes also tie in with Mary Ann Darling’s death?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’ll follow it up though and Mr Trotter. What’s this about Mary Ann’s spirit photograph?’

  ‘I’ll fetch that and the postcard from the Great Hall.’ On her return, she found the inspector studying her childhood copy of Alice in Wonderland, and he hurriedly put it down.

  ‘Look,’ she said, laying both photographs on the table.

  He stared at them for a while. ‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘It’s the same image. It has to be.’

  ‘Similar doubts over William Hope’s photographs don’t seem to have affected his career, though, so perhaps this doesn’t mean that Mr Trotter is a complete fake.’

  ‘You’re too kind-hearted, Nell. It’s time we took a closer look at Mr Trotter.’

  ‘We?’

  He smiled. ‘The CID, Scotland Yard, on that one. About Mary Ann Darling, though. Her family were apparently non-existent, which suggests that might have been a stage name. You could enquire.’

  ‘How?’ she asked, taken aback.

  ‘Ask Signor Antonio Murano.’

  She blinked. ‘Who the sizzling sausages is he?’

  ‘He works at the formerly highly fashionable and romantic Romano’s in the Strand. He looks after the grill-room bar on the lower floor, where Romano’s kitchens used to be once upon a time. Before that he worked under the great Romano himself and then with his successor Luigi. But it’s Mr Murano you want. He was there in the 1890s when our folk were at the Gaiety. I took the liberty, Nell – with Lord Ansley’s permission – of saying you’d visit him tomorrow. He would, I think, respond more easily to your interest in the Romano story than to a Scotland Yard interview. About three is the best time, after the lunch rush is over. Unfortunately, it’s not so much of a rush these days so far as Romano’s is concerned. It’s a relic of a former age and so are most of its customers.’

  Nell laughed, highly pleased at this suggestion. ‘Tell me what I want to find out, please.’

  ‘As much as you can about the Gaiety actors and actresses who were here today and on the night of Mary Ann’s disappearance.’

  She whistled. ‘One night more than thirty years ago?’

  ‘A night that would be stamped on Murano’s memory. He won’t have forgotten even if the story has become twisted a little over the years.’

  ‘But can’t Lord Ansley tell you all that?’

  He looked at her. ‘Not necessarily in view of the fact that he was a frequent visitor to the Gaiety before he met Lady Ansley and that he was with Mary Ann Darling on the night she disappeared.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ She longed to ask him if he had spoken to Lord Ansley about that evening but did not dare. A step too far at the moment.

  ‘Did you hear about his visits from him or from his father’s friend, Mr Fontenoy?’ he asked.

  Nell grinned. They had crossed swords before over him. ‘Arthur Fontenoy,’ she replied. Then she realized what Alex was implying. ‘Do you mean Lord Ansley might have been one of Mr Rocke’s blackmailing victims because he wa
s with Mary Ann at Romano’s the evening she disappeared?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Obviously that question arises. Particularly as he is, I gather, reticent on the subject.’

  ‘Have you asked him about it?’

  ‘I have. He was reticent on the subject.’

  Dismayed, Nell pulled herself together. ‘But I can’t see Lord Ansley either submitting to blackmail or murdering Tobias Rocke.’

  ‘I can’t see it either, but why not?’

  ‘Because …’ she cast around wildly for an explanation, ‘… Mr Rocke was a guest in the house.’

  She caught his eye, bit her lip and then burst into laughter, as did he.

  ‘Oh, Miss Drury,’ he said, still shaking with laughter, ‘I fear the rules of etiquette are sometimes ignored in such circumstances.’

  ‘Never,’ she said solemnly, ‘never in Wychbourne Court.’

  London. Once this city had been her home. She’d been born in its East End, worked in the Carlton, then on Monsieur Escoffier’s retirement taken a job in Hampstead and finally moved to Kent and Wychbourne Court. Did she miss London? Sometimes, Nell remembered those early years with her costermonger father at Spitalfields market in the early dawn and her later visits to Covent Garden market for the Carlton. Oh, the smells of all those fresh vegetables and fruit, brought in from far and wide. They were surely what had first kindled her love of good food, the spark that began her determination to use them as the basis of her own recipes.

  The sheer sense of being part of London had overwhelmed her as she stepped off the train at Charing Cross. Would she exchange Wychbourne for it, though? Never. She’d been at Wychbourne for over a year and loved it. She loved the kitchen garden, the pigs of Home Farm, the smell of sawdust in the carpenter’s shop, the sails of the mill flying majestically around, the smell of mown grass on the cricket pitch, the pit-pat of tennis balls. She loved it all – even at such terrible times as this when murder clouded its skies.