Death at the Wychbourne Follies

by Amy Myers

  Her cooking? Nell instantly thought. That was ridiculous. How could arsenic have crept into any of her dishes, without poisoning other people too? Reason asserted itself. ‘What about the sandwich tea at the Coach and Horses? And where did he eat luncheon?’

  ‘An early one at his home, which is of course being checked, but I gather the prompt initial reaction time to arsenic makes that less likely than the tea at the pub or, unlikely though it is, dinner here. That means, I’m afraid, that we face another invasion by Scotland Yard. The chief inspector will be arriving shortly with his men, so I must ask you to take a few steps beforehand. Dishes from Monday evening will obviously long since have been washed – though should there be any with leftover food in the larders then they must be retained where they are. Any other food prepared for that night must be kept for examination, and the whole place searched for traces of poison. All ingredients used for Monday night’s dinner will need to be checked and none of them used for current cooking.’

  Nell was dizzy with shock. ‘All the ingredients?’ Sugar, butter, flour … Her heart sank.

  ‘The lot. A precaution only, I’m sure. How could any of the communal dishes have been tampered with here? We would all have suffered.’

  Nevertheless, her food under suspicion? She mentally raced through the menus, then the china used, leftovers, food bins, larders and all the many dishes she had served. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ she promised. ‘What about the food bin for the animals?’

  ‘I’ll speak to Ramsay about that and everything else for which he’s responsible.’

  Mr Ramsay was in charge not only of the motor cars and garages but also the outhouses and the yards with their dustbins and waste bins.

  ‘Obviously the main thing the police must establish,’ Lord Ansley continued, ‘if you’ll forgive me, Nell, is whether the food could have been tampered with in our kitchens or at the table. If not, then we are ruled out and the Coach and Horses would seem to be the source.’

  ‘It has to be.’ Nell fervently hoped so. ‘It couldn’t have been here.’

  ‘The other angle is whether the arsenic could have been obtained from our flypapers or rat poison.’

  ‘But no one in our servants’ hall would want to kill him,’ Nell pointed out in anguish.

  ‘I agree, but in theory it would be relatively easy for anyone here to gain access to such sources, unlikely though that is. I’m told it takes time to extract poison from flypapers, and not everyone would know where to find rat poison on the premises – if indeed we have any. It would certainly seem to rule out our guests, although again in theory they could surreptitiously have stirred poison into Hubert’s food at the table. Highly unlikely, though. Nevertheless, plain arsenic is a white powder, so, once again in theory, it might blend into some of your dishes, Nell.’

  ‘Or easily be popped into a sandwich at the Coach and Horses,’ Nell added, remembering too late that some of her staff had been involved in the sandwich preparation. It was too late to haul her words back now, and in any case, she thought dismally, they were true.

  ‘To me,’ Lord Ansley said firmly, ‘the Coach and Horses has to be the likely source. Let us hope the chief inspector agrees.’

  Nell returned to the kitchens, trying to wrestle with the new situation. There was no time to lose. She had to organize her staff before a pack of invading police descended on the kitchen and scullery. Every cupboard, every larder, all the jars and storage pots had to be identified for the police, as had every scrap of waste or leftover food.

  Full of concern, Mrs Squires assured her that she could see no way the sandwiches that she had helped make with her team at the Coach and Horse could have been tampered with. True, she added to Nell’s alarm, a lot of the ingredients had come from Wychbourne Court. Still, Nell reasoned, none of them could have been poisoned in advance since the poison had reached one person only.

  ‘Mrs Hardcastle was in charge,’ Mrs Squires explained anxiously. ‘We took some cakes from here but we made up the sandwiches down at the pub. We piled them on those large plates on the side tables and filled the small ones with them for taking round to people as they were chatting.’

  That’s how she remembered it. Nell recalled the occasional voice rising about the general hum of conversation and calling out ‘eggs and anchovy’ (one of Monsieur Escoffier’s favourites) or ‘cod’s roe on toast’, sounding like the old London street cries she had loved. She relaxed. What a relief. There had been plenty of opportunities for the poison to have been added then. Risky, but possible. Her hopes began to rise. Her food indeed.

  ‘There wasn’t no plan about it,’ Mrs Squires continued anxiously. ‘Some of the people from the funeral were just taking platefuls to offer round themselves.’

  Servants’ hall lunch was a hasty one. The impending visit of the police was producing a numbed silence in some and ill-concealed excitement in others. When the pack of invading policemen Lord Ansley had warned her about arrived, however, only Chief Inspector Melbray eventually came to the kitchens to find her. He was at his most professional and a long way from the Alex with whom she had shared eclairs the previous day.

  ‘I gather, Miss Drury, that the servants here have been told not to touch any food served on Monday or anything relating to it,’ he said to her formally. He stumbled over the ‘Miss Drury’ so perhaps he was finding this difficult too.

  ‘They have,’ she said proudly. ‘Dustbins, food waste, leftovers and ingredients are all ready for your inspection.’

  ‘Thank you. My men will be along shortly.’

  ‘The sandwiches,’ she told him, adjusting to his formality, ‘are surely the most likely source and they were made at the Coach and Horses, albeit with some of our ingredients.’ She confidently went on to tell him about the sandwich service and the smaller plates, but his only comment was: ‘How about the icing on the cakes? I’m told your kitchens produced several cakes for the day.’

  Nell inwardly groaned. Mrs Fielding wasn’t going to like suspicion falling on them.

  ‘Why would the housekeeper or her staff want to poison one of the guests?’ she asked, trying her best to sound impartial.

  ‘I don’t know – yet. But as some of your staff were present at the Coach and Horses to help out, we have to consider it. Hubert Jarrett dined here that evening. That is also a factor.’

  ‘And Mr Trotter was staying there,’ she whipped back. Then she felt guilty for picking on him by name.

  Impasse. Steely eyes met hers. ‘We’ve already searched the outside larders and are about to do the same here. A tin of rat poison might be missing from one of the outhouses, although no one seems sure of that.’

  He was surely implying that the Wychbourne Court staff were lax, to say the least. ‘The servants have checked in here,’ Nell told him firmly.

  The steely eyes informed her that country house servants were not to be compared with the efficiency of Scotland Yard, and especially not female ones.

  ‘I recall,’ he said, ‘that at that funeral gathering plates were being handed round frequently by people weaving their way through the crowd. It’s unlikely therefore that anybody would remember what Hubert Jarrett took or who presented it to him. His wife does tell us, however, that he had a fondness for seafood.’

  ‘There were creamed shrimp sandwiches,’ Nell said quickly, ‘and egg and anchovy ones.’

  ‘They might be the answer. The post-mortem report will confirm whether arsenic was present or not.’ A pause and what might have been a smile. ‘As regards the icing of the cake, I’m inclined to dismiss that.’

  Relief. ‘Why?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘It would have required prior planning to get poison into the icing, which doesn’t sit easily with the haphazard method of handing round plates of sandwiches and hoping the target picks the right one.’

  He seemed to relax because he added quietly, ‘Your theory about Jarrett might still hold, Nell. But in that case why was he killed?’

  ‘Per
haps he knew who killed Tobias Rocke,’ she said impulsively. Too impulsively because she rushed on to say, ‘Lady Clarice held a Ouija board session at Arthur Fontenoy’s home last night.’

  He looked at her in disbelief. ‘You went?’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked defensively. ‘I thought I might learn something.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes, that there might be another death. And there has been.’

  He made an instinctive move towards her, but checked himself, and said gently, ‘You’re letting this case overwhelm you, Nell. Don’t.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to my wife over the telephone, Miss Drury.’ Lord Ansley stopped her as they passed in the Great Hall. ‘She plans to return on Friday – and possibly with Mrs Jarrett.’

  ‘Doesn’t Mrs Jarrett need to be at home?’ Nell was amazed, given everything she must be coping with.

  ‘She’s naturally distraught, but journalists have seized hold of the story, scenting that there might be even more to it than the sudden death of a great actor. To have Lord Northcliffe’s troupe constantly on the doorstep and telephoning is not what Constance needs at present. She asked to come here, perhaps thinking it might help. So far, the newspapers haven’t made the connection between Tobias’s death and Hubert’s and indeed there may be none to make. But if there is, it could be that he did indeed take his own life. I fear I did not find Hubert an easy guest, but we must support his wife as best we can.’

  He looked hopefully at Nell. ‘Suicide is just possible, if Hubert thought that the police had discovered he was responsible for the death of … He paused. ‘I almost said Mary Ann Darling, for I fear her shadow lies over us still, but I meant to say Tobias’s death.’

  ‘Because he was being blackmailed by Mr Rocke?’

  ‘That seems the most likely explanation, but everything looks possible at the moment. We seem to be floundering, Nell.’

  She agreed. ‘When will the inquest be?’

  ‘Very shortly, I gather. It will be in London of course, once the post-mortem is done. But Wychbourne isn’t going to escape the eagle eye of the law. The outhouses are under inspection now, in case the rat poison came from us. Many people have access to that particular outhouse, though.’

  ‘Not many of them had reason to kill Mr Jarrett, though.’ Nell could have kicked herself for speaking frankly. Now was not the time.

  Lord Ansley blenched. ‘That’s something we have to face.’

  Returning to the east wing seemed a daunting task. It seemed to Nell that a malaise had fallen over the servants’ hall and main house alike and the police search, although concluded, had only worsened it. Perhaps it had begun with John Palmer’s arrest, or was it stemming from herself? Had she picked it up from Lord and Lady Ansley? Their home had been overshadowed with doubt and darkness, despite John Palmer’s arrest, and Mr Jarrett’s death with all its question marks had been the final straw. For once, despite the good meals she produced, they had not brought a solution. Salt marsh mutton and tansies can only go so far in remedying malaise.

  Her mind was a blank about how to put the pep back into Wychbourne Court. The Follies seemed to have resulted not in happy unity at the Court, but in the opposite and she was at her wits’ end as to how to turn the tide. Only the solving of Tobias Rocke’s murder, and now perhaps Hubert Jarrett’s, might do that and Nell felt little further forward in her attempts to bring that about, despite her delving into Tobias Rocke’s past.

  She was greeted by a mutinous silence as she entered the kitchen. There they all were, Kitty and Michel among them, standing in a group doing nothing by the door into the scullery. Even Mrs Fielding was there, and for a change Miss Smith too. The police search had finished but there were no signs of preparations for dinner, or even tea come to that. Nell hazarded a guess that they had been questioned by the police none too politely and taken exception to it. Now they were glaring at her as though it were her fault.

  For once words deserted her. This situation needed more than just a jollying along. Then help came from an unexpected source. Mr Briggs rose to his feet. He’d been sitting by himself on a chair by the window and as so often staring into space. In all the time she had been at Wychbourne Court he had spoken very little other than the now familiar ‘G/26420, Corporal Briggs, sir.’

  But today he began to sing, first a croon and then louder and louder. ‘The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling,’ he bawled out time after time.

  Taken aback at first, Nell suddenly caught his message and joined in, singing lustily:

  ‘The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling

  ‘For you but not for me.’

  Mrs Fielding was the next to join in, then Michel, then Muriel, Kitty, the kitchen maids, the scullery maids and Jimmy, the lampboy. Mr Briggs then struck up with another ditty:

  ‘When this blasted war is over

  ‘O how happy I shall be.

  ‘When I get my civvy clothes on,

  ‘No more soldiering for me.’

  ‘G/26420, Corporal Briggs, sir.’ And with that, Mr Briggs sat down.

  If soldiers on their way to the trenches had sung that (or their own versions thereof) then so could Wychbourne Court, Nell vowed, as the rest of the staff continued singing or humming as they returned to their stations. Order re-established itself remarkably quickly, and the prospects for fillets of sole, mutton and tansies finding their way to the Ansley table rapidly improved.

  The Ansleys could do with a dose of Mr Briggs’s medicine, Nell thought as she made a flying visit to the serving room. It seemed gloomy in the dining room without Lady Ansley there, and without the dowager, even if that did mean Arthur could join them. Even so Lord Ansley did not wish to change the custom of years and indicated Helen should take her mother’s place at the far end of the table.

  Lady Helen refused. ‘Too foolish, Pa,’ she said languidly. ‘I really can’t shout at you all from this distance. Too utterly boring.’

  That would bring even more gloom, Nell realized, as she hurried back to the kitchen. Lord Ansley had looked highly displeased. What next? she wondered in desperation. Should she organize a cancan? She had a fleeting image of Mrs Squires and Mrs Fielding throwing up their frilly skirts and flashing their legs for the entertainment of the family. Be serious, she told herself. A magic lantern show? Lord Richard had been good with that until the unfortunate occasion when he decided to go in for phantasmagoria and had persuaded his Aunt Clarice that the Wychbourne ghosts had been captured on moving magic lantern slides. It had ended in disaster when, thanks to Lord Richard, the second marquess appeared to be embracing the fourth marquess’s murdered wife. Lady Clarice had taken strong objection to it, and Lord Richard had been forbidden to present any repetition.

  Tonight, Nell found to her relief when later she returned to serve coffee in the drawing room, Lord Richard had a far more sensible idea. ‘We’ve eaten, we’ve drunk, so let’s now dance and be merry.’ He strolled over to the gramophone and within moments ‘Tea for Two’ was playing at high volume. Lady Helen leapt up, so did Lady Sophy, even Lady Clarice and Arthur Fontenoy rose to their feet. Lord Ansley did not.

  ‘This is not the time, Richard,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Wrong. It’s just the time, Father. There’s Miss Drury watching us, feet itching to have a go, I’m sure. Come along, Nell.’

  She needed no urging, coming to join them as they all now danced madly, captured by Lord Richard’s enthusiasm. Even, reluctantly, Lord Ansley took part as ‘Tea for Two’ blared out on the gramophone. Nell was only just aware of the main front door bell ringing far away. A few minutes later the drawing room door opened and Mr Peters stood there.

  ‘Chief Inspector Melbray, your lordship.’

  The dancing came to an abrupt halt, as Nell saw Alex gazing round in astonishment. Then he pulled himself together. ‘I came to warn you, Lord Ansley, that the London journalists are gathering at the Coach and Horses.’

  ‘I’m grateful for your telling us, Chief Ins
pector,’ Lord Ansley replied grandly. ‘We are, as you see, doing our best to fight off the blues. From what you tell us, battle will recommence tomorrow. Tonight is our own, however, and you are very welcome to join us.’

  For a moment Nell thought he was going refuse, but then Alex Melbray smiled.

  ‘Thank you, Lord Ansley. Shall we dance, Nell?’

  Wychbourne Court was, however briefly, itself again.

  THIRTEEN

  Resolutions are easy to make but carrying them out is tricky. Nell knew that only too well. Yesterday evening she had rejoiced that Wychbourne Court was proving itself strong enough to withstand the nightmare it was suffering, but on Thursday morning that confidence was fast evaporating. Lady Clarice’s ghosts had an easy time of it. They might have their personal tragedies to lament, but they didn’t have to do anything, whereas it was crystal clear that she must. But what? The police had searched the house for evidence, and there was nothing she could do about Mr Jarrett’s death. The second murder this month to haunt Wychbourne.

  The first journalists had duly arrived at the Court’s front entrance and been courteously but efficiently repelled by Mr Peters.

  ‘I told them his lordship cannot be disturbed until later this morning,’ he told Nell. ‘“Oh,” says one of them, “we’ve already spoken to Chief Inspector Melbray, who’s told us all about it.” “Then you won’t need to bother his lordship,” says I and smartly closed the door.’

  Nell doubted very much whether Alex had told them anything at all, but almost immediately he himself appeared in the kitchen to find her.

  ‘A word, if you please, Miss Drury,’ he asked, looking around him with interest at the overalled and aproned staff scuttling round the kitchen and scullery beyond.