Death at the Wychbourne Follies

by Amy Myers

  She paused then and Chief Inspector Melbray stood up. Perhaps he had seen, as Nell had, that Mrs Jarrett was in tears.

  ‘One moment, if you please, Inspector, before we leave,’ Alice Maxwell said calmly. ‘I wish to tell you about Tobias Rocke.’

  ‘That is not advisable, Alice,’ Lord Ansley said anxiously. ‘A solicitor should be present.’

  ‘Not necessary, thank you, Gerald. I shall deliver one of the great speeches of my life – and for once it is my own. Do please let me enjoy it, Chief Inspector. The Old Bailey may not allow me such latitude. There are times when women such as Medea, St Joan and myself come to their full power, Medea having slaughtered her children, St Joan at the stake, and I, no doubt less dramatically, now. We women have our strengths and we have our weaknesses. In my case, Tobias Rocke was foolish enough to disregard the former and play to the latter. He took every opportunity over the years to remind me that my private life is not an orthodox one, however long its pedigree. Its joys were sung by the poetess Sappho in the Isle of Lesbos but have been ignored since. I have been blessed by them. One word of my private life, however, and my career would have vanished. Neville is in the same position.’

  ‘But think of me, Alice, you killed my husband,’ Constance Jarrett choked.

  Nell shuddered. Alice Maxwell was pitiless, engrossed in her own life and career above all. And yet something wasn’t adding up, she realized. Alex had talked of a crime of passion, but what Alice Maxwell was describing was a crime of fear, caused by the blackmail.

  ‘There was more to it than his blackmail, wasn’t there?’ she heard herself blurting out.

  Alice Maxwell turned the cold eyes of Medea on her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So much more.’

  Nell couldn’t stop now. ‘You killed Mr Rocke in passion because of Mary Ann Darling.’

  Alice Maxwell’s impassive face changed to raw emotion. Would the inspector stop her now? Nell wondered. No. He made no move.

  ‘Tobias Rocke constantly tormented Mary Ann,’ Alice Maxwell said, ‘and threatened her not only that he would reveal her true name, but that he would boast of having possessed her body. Until I came to Wychbourne, I had no idea that he had murdered her too, although I had always hated him because she was indeed scared of him. I had thought that he was also the ghoul who pursued her so fervently to and from the theatre. That was Hubert, I learned, but that made no difference.’

  ‘But you killed him, my husband,’ Mrs Jarrett screamed at her.

  ‘I did. Between them they ruined Mary Ann’s short life. Shortly after I arrived at Wychbourne Court, I accused Tobias of this and of murdering her. He jeered at me, pointing out that even if he did track her down and strangle her I could prove nothing. He took great pleasure in telling me so. I knew I had no choice then just as I had no choice over Hubert once I discovered what he had done to Mary Ann. I had to avenge her death and the great suffering she had endured.’

  ‘Everyone has choice,’ Lady Ansley said.

  Alice turned on her. ‘I am not everyone,’ she said simply. ‘And, Chief Inspector Melbray, my dear Doris played no part in this. I killed Tobias, I put the poison in Hubert Jarrett’s sandwich.’

  ‘I began this,’ Lady Ansley cried, ‘with my thoughtless mention of Mary Ann. Why, oh why, did you mind so much about her plight?’

  Alice Maxwell smiled. ‘We cannot all have the person we truly love, and that is the misfortune that many of us bear. As I did. She did not reciprocate, but Mary Ann was the great love of my life.’

  ‘Crimes of passion, Nell.’ Alex had asked her to wait until the formalities were carried out and the police motor cars had left for Sevenoaks police station. The Wychbourne party, including Mr Trotter, had departed for the Court, and Nell had been grateful to see Alex again when he at last appeared looking worn out. That empty room upstairs had been a lonely place.

  ‘Did you know it was Alice Maxwell?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Many reasons. I looked at her carefully because she and Doris Paget were the last to leave, hence no risk of anyone observing them from behind. Then, so their statements said, after a brief appearance in the supper room for Miss Maxwell they retired to their beds where no guests could be asked to verify that, unlike those who adjourned to the billiard or drawing rooms. There’s much stronger evidence of course, which will be presented at the trial. More importantly, Nell, you provided a fresh eye on the case; you told me about the footprints, you brought me your conclusions on the blackmail, but there was far more than that. You pointed me in the direction of what kind of crime this was. A crime of passion.’

  ‘For Doris Paget too?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’m sure they acted together. Poor Miss Paget’s passion was for Alice.’ He paused. ‘It’s been a long morning, Nell. You’ve had to listen to all these emotions and terrible stories from the past and must have wondered how I could sit there so calmly waiting to trap my victims. So at this moment I’m sure you don’t like me very much. I’m so tired I’m not even sure I care about being liked. This is the work I do, this is the life I lead. The motor cars have left for Sevenoaks now, and I have to go there too, before going back to the Yard. But Nell, before I leave Wychbourne, I just want to be sure—’

  ‘Whether jolly Sir William is still hanging around in the Great Hall?’ she interrupted flippantly. He looked solemn and that scared her.

  ‘No. Whether passion is—’

  She didn’t hear whether there was more because his lips were on hers, his arms around her, and her body trembling with life within. Her arms seemed to moving without her permission and her lips responding. She’d forgotten that feeling – it had been a long time since she was in a man’s arms and now she wondered why.

  When he pulled away, she had to cling on to his arm to steady herself. She heard herself stammering, but the only words she could manage to say were ‘Passion, Alex. I seem to have rapped twice for yes.’

  She saw him swallow hard, above his stiff collar. ‘Or was that me? Does it matter?’

  ‘No.’ And this time she took the lead.

  SEVENTEEN

  How much longer? Four days since Alice Maxwell’s arrest and no more news of what was happening. Nell was tired of listening to the continuous and often inaccurate chatter on the subject both in the servants’ hall and even among the Ansley family. Lady Helen tended to raise a world-weary eyebrow whenever the matter was mentioned, Rex Beringer had left for London (to Lady Sophy’s disappointment, Nell suspected), but Lord Richard and Lady Sophy had had much to say about the silence that had fallen over the arrest.

  ‘Not cricket,’ Lord Richard had grumbled to Nell. ‘The Follies was my idea and yet we haven’t a clue as to what’s going on.’

  ‘But it was Mother’s plan to invite them all in the first place,’ Lady Sophy had pointed out. ‘It’s not cricket to blame her either. How was she to know? Imagine – suppose we all met in fifty years’ time and discovered we’d secretly been murderers and blackmailers?’

  ‘Kenelm would cast us to the dogs if he’d inherited the stately pile by then,’ Lord Richard had observed. Nell had never met Sir Kenelm, the Ansleys’ eldest son, because owing to his service abroad in the Colonial Office he rarely visited Wychbourne.

  The unrest in the Ansley family was echoed in the servants’ hall. The commotion over Alice Maxwell was bad enough, Nell thought as she finished her breakfast, but for her there was the added frustration that she was longing to hear the full story from Alex.

  A new mystery in the servants’ hall had arisen since Monday, however. The Strange Disappearance of Miss Smith. Like Mary Ann Darling, she had simply vanished three days ago without a word to them. Then she had reappeared yesterday morning and blithely taken up her duties as though nothing had happened.

  Given the family’s silence on the matter and a sheepish look on Lord Richard’s face, Mrs Fielding had with great relish voiced the general opinion that ‘something was up’. Mr Briggs in
particular had been confused by her loss, looking round at mealtimes with a look of puzzlement. When Nell had tackled her in Pug’s Parlour after curiosity reached breaking point, Miss Smith had announced cheerily that Lord Richard had ‘tried it on’. On returning from a trip to the seaside in his motor car, a carefully staged flat tyre had resulted in the need to stay in a hotel overnight. Miss Smith had informed Lord Richard that he would be sleeping in the motor car while she took the hotel room that by coincidence he had already booked. She had then commented that the whole experience had been ‘jolly good fun’.

  At last, just before luncheon, the call Nell had been waiting for came. Lord Ansley wanted to see her in his study.

  ‘I’ve heard from Chief Inspector Melbray, Miss Drury,’ Lord Ansley said, and her hopes rose. News at last. Something would be happening. ‘He would like you to accompany us to London tomorrow,’ he continued, ‘and for us all to dine at Romano’s with him. An appropriate venue, he points out, even if its cuisine might not be comparable with yours.’

  Real action. What should she wear? she immediately wondered, then guiltily pushed that subject to one side for later.

  ‘He wants to tell us more about these appalling cases,’ Lord Ansley explained. ‘Alice Maxwell has been charged, and Doris Paget too, I’m afraid, despite Miss Maxwell’s valiant efforts to take all the blame on herself. For Paget, the price of love has proved bitter.’

  Nell thought back to Monday’s events, after her initial glow of pleasure at the invitation had been carefully stored away. The price of love, Miss Maxwell and Doris Paget, Hubert Jarrett and Mary Ann Darling, Tobias Rocke and his obsession with power: she reflected on all these until her thoughts slid sideways. What would Scotland Yard have made of the great Chief Inspector Melbray clasping a witness in his arms? After all, she might be a witness in the case and would be seeing Alex at the Old Bailey. Then it would be back to teas and picnics.

  She tried to convince herself that the problem of Alex would slowly diminish over time, but that didn’t please her either. You’re not usually so hen-witted, Nell Drury, she told herself. What do you want? The moon perhaps? Wychbourne and Alex Melbray? Impossible. They’d been through all that. He had his job, which he couldn’t share with her and she had hers, in which she suspected Chief Inspector Melbray was not highly interested. Regrettably, she put him down as eat-to-live, not a live-to-eat man. Not that she approved of the latter either. Oh, how complicated life was.

  She pulled herself together. ‘Thank you, Lord Ansley. I’d be delighted to come.’

  ‘We’ll take the Rolls-Royce and stay overnight at the Waldorf Hotel if that would suit you.’

  ‘Thank you, Lord Ansley,’ she replied, her mind slipping back to what she could wear. Did she even have a dress posh enough for dining at Romano’s? The old black? The blue? It would be evening dress, she remembered. Neither would suit. It would have to be the pink chiffon again.

  Corking cobnuts, she thought, as she sat in state in the rear seat of the Rolls-Royce, sharing the warm rug over her knees with Lady Ansley. This was living in style. The Phantom Rolls-Royce had been a rare step last year into glamour for the Ansleys. Their family fortunes, like those of every other estate owner in the country, had been much depleted by the war and the high rates of income tax, currently swinging between four and five shillings to the pound. Nearly a quarter of everything that came in from the estate was paid in tax, though the estate was swallowing up more and more in costs.

  As they motored along the Strand, Nell compared it with her earlier visit to Romano’s when she had scuttled along the pavement in the rain under her umbrella. Today a doorman stepped out smartly to open the motor car door for Lady Ansley and, goodness gracious, for her, Nell Drury. The chauffeur winked at her; it was Mr Ramsay today, as he’d insisted to the regular chauffeur that this trip was his turn. He would be taking the Rolls-Royce to the Waldorf after this and he no doubt had his own plans for a free evening and morning in London.

  At first she could see no sign of Alex, while they were handing their coats to the attendant in the entrance hall. No, she was wrong. There he was, just turning away from that magnificent flower stall and bearing two roses – yes, roses, at this time of year – which he presented to Lady Ansley and herself. His eyes briefly met hers, which sent a tremor through her, which she tried to ignore. It was business as usual when he spoke however.

  ‘We have a room set aside for us on this floor so that we can talk over what has happened, and then we shall dine upstairs,’ he explained.

  Lord Ansley did not comment and Nell knew he must be thinking of that other night so long ago when he had dined here upstairs in a private room.

  ‘I haven’t come here since my Gaiety days,’ Lady Ansley remarked, peeping into the restaurant as they were conducted to the room they were to use. ‘How very sensible – just look at that gallery at the far end. That’s new. And all these Arabian Nights murals. I’d quite forgotten them.’

  Nell was delighted to see Signor Murano, awaiting them with a tray of cocktails when they reached the comfortable anteroom they were to use. No alcoholic cocktail for Alex Melbray, underlining the fact that he was working. But there would be a little pleasure too, she hoped. This Hanky Panky cocktail was just the sort of modern drink Peters would have disapproved of – and no doubt the ghost of Gilbert the butler would share that sentiment. It was delicious.

  ‘You’ve heard that Alice Maxwell has been charged,’ Alex began, ‘and Doris Paget too, of course. She was eager to take all the blame. They had been lovers for many years, though publicly she retained her position as servant. Regrettably, neither devotion to one’s lover nor employer guarantees immunity from the law.’

  Devotion to one’s employer? Is he thinking of me and Wychbourne too? Nell wondered fleetingly. Nonsense, she told herself briskly. This was business for him and must be for her too.

  ‘You’ll want to know what happened,’ he continued. ‘Miss Maxwell and Miss Paget made no bones about giving us the whole story. Doris Paget became Miss Maxwell’s dresser some years after the Gaiety period, but she did know Tobias Rocke and was puzzled when Miss Maxwell agreed to his accompanying them on a holiday to Cannes when she knew very well that Miss Maxwell disliked him intensely. It took some time, she told us, before Miss Maxwell confided in her, perhaps the point at which they became lovers. Incidentally, a similar situation occurred with Mr Heydock and his “Jeeves”, when Rocke became aware of their relationship. You may be pleased to hear, however, that Mr Heydock and Mrs Reynolds are to remarry, an arrangement that perhaps suits them both. Mrs Reynolds will regain a spouse and social acceptance and Mr Heydock a wife which given the current laws on his private life is a great advantage.’

  Nell realized too late that she was staring at him, once more thinking of last Monday’s astonishing end, but before she could switch her gaze he caught her eye and, dabbling damsons, she knew she was blushing.

  ‘To continue,’ the inspector said quietly, ‘Alice Maxwell had realized that Tobias Rocke might well be at Wychbourne and was prepared for his playing his usual game of cat and mouse with her. As soon as she arrived he agreed to have a chat, then said he really hadn’t time, or perhaps he might at some point. They did indeed meet. What she was not prepared for was Tobias Rocke’s airy claim that not only was he involved in Miss Darling’s disappearance but that he had killed her great love, knowing that she could do nothing about it. As you recall, she told us that he’d jeered that even if he did strangle Mary Ann, there was nothing that could be proved now. That, together with his refusal to deny murdering her, settled his fate. It was one mocking step too far. Miss Maxwell decided he was not going to ruin any more lives as he had Mary Ann’s. Compared with her love for Mary Ann, Miss Paget’s undying devotion to her, emotional and physical seems to have been disregarded. Now belatedly, Miss Maxwell has, I believe, realized it.

  ‘They used the knife,’ the inspector continued, ‘that Alice Maxwell had brought to the Coach and Hors
es from the Court, intending to use it in her Medea speech at the Follies, but in the event she did not use it at the actual performance, probably because she knew by then that she had another use for it. After the attack on Tobias Rocke, it was returned to the props bag they used for the Follies and although we searched her luggage as well as that of the other guests, we missed it because Doris Paget kept that with her. Miss Maxwell and Doris had intended to be the last to return to Wychbourne after the show’s end; they would begin the walk back with Tobias Rocke and attack him in the bushy area by the churchyard fence. Most of those walking, I gathered, had pocket torches to help the dim lights on the driveway. Miss Maxwell and Miss Paget duly waited for Rocke until about ten thirty – though their statements claimed they left ten minutes earlier than that. Unfortunately for them, Rocke went home with the Palmers, which meant that plans for his murder had to be hastily changed. Knowing Rocke would be returning in due course, Miss Paget made her way with the knife through the bushes to the far end so that she could see when Rocke came down Mill Lane. That’s where Jethro heard her.’

  And the rustling in the bushes I heard as I left, Nell thought, must have been Doris Paget beginning to make her way to the far end of the churchyard.

  ‘Having hurried back to Wychbourne Court to establish her presence,’ the inspector explained, ‘Alice Maxwell left again by the side entrance, as noted by our friend Jethro, and rushed back down the drive. It would be easy enough to manufacture a reason for returning should she be unlucky enough to meet anyone. In fact, she didn’t and she reached the church porch just as Tobias left the lychgate and walked past the porch, with Miss Paget unnoticed hot on his tail.

  ‘Alice Maxwell called out to him, he looked surprised but, in turning to reply to her, he gave Miss Paget the opportunity to strike. You know what happened then. Rocke managed to stagger through the gate, which was blocked open by the snow, and collapsed on the green. Doris Paget rushed after him, picked up the stone and made sure that this time he would not be staggering anywhere. There was plenty of blood, but they had provided for that possibility, as they could not afford to leave such an ornamented and probably therefore identifiable knife in the wound. Realizing that they could not risk blood being found on either of them, Miss Paget had slipped into Sevenoaks late on Friday and, as it was she who had volunteered to stab Rocke, she acquired one of those new ultra-light mackintoshes, the one we later found in the bushes.’