The great man himself was waiting for us on the landing in the great hallway of the house, along with his wife and Lord Goring. Sir Robert had finely sculpted features, a firm chin and dark eyes, and an air of great dignity tempered somewhat by world-weariness. Gertrude, Lady Chiltern, matched him well, a beauty significantly younger than her husband but no less solemn, like a classical statue in modern dress.
They greeted us with punctilious politeness but some reserve. Sir Robert thanked Inspector Gregson for his service in the police force, the details of which he recalled with the ease of a man briefed recently by an excellent secretary.
He then said, ‘Mr Holmes, I know that you have often been of service to the state as well as to the police, often with Dr Watson’s help, and I thank you both for it. However, I am at a loss to account for your involvement in this tragic case of the death at the Moncrieffs’. I quite understand why Inspector Gregson must speak to my sister on the matter in his official capacity, but speaking for myself, I would prefer to have her troubled by as few people as possible.’
With a sigh, Lord Goring said, ‘We’ve been through this already, Robert. I myself invited Mr Holmes’s interest in the case, as I feel it is in Mabel’s best interests.’ He wore a morning-suit as exquisite as his evening dress of the night before, with a fresh carnation at the lapel.
‘You speak as her husband, Arthur,’ Sir Robert said with a frown, ‘but I must think of the whole family’s reputation.’ I had not realised that the viscount shared a Christian name with Lord Arthur Savile, but it was not, after all, a particularly rare one.
‘By which you mean your career,’ Lord Goring replied calmly.
Lady Chiltern interjected. ‘The fortunes of the family are tied up inextricably with Robert’s career. If his sister is wrongly accused of a crime, naturally it will damage that career. Were she to be wrongly convicted, it would destroy it.’
‘That is not what I mean, Gertrude,’ protested Sir Robert. ‘If Mabel became the victim of such a miscarriage of justice, I should make it my business to spend my every waking hour righting that wrong, and so, I am sure, would you. No doubt it would affect my career, but it would affect our home life far more severely. We still have hopes of—’ He seemed suddenly to recall that Holmes, Gregson and I were there. ‘Well, never mind that for now.’
Holmes bowed and said, ‘Sir Robert, your reputation holds you to be a man of honesty and rectitude. Mine, such as it is, is that of one whose skills lie in discovering the truth. In that respect we are both on the same side.’
Lord Goring said, ‘Mabel is innocent, Robert. You don’t doubt that, I am sure. We have nothing to fear from the truth, only from error. I admire Inspector Gregson’s record as much as you do, but Mr Holmes’s speaks for itself. The chance of such a miscarriage as you mention is greatly reduced by his involvement, and that is all that should be important to us.’
‘Unless…’ said Lady Chiltern abruptly, and stopped.
‘Unless what, Gertrude?’ Goring asked gently. ‘Unless my wife is guilty? It is true that those we love turn out sometimes to be less blameless than we believed. But you cannot suppose it of Mabel, surely?’
‘No,’ she said at once, then shook her head. Resolutely, she repeated, ‘No, I cannot.’
‘It is settled, then,’ said Sir Robert shortly. ‘My sister is upstairs in the Octagon Room, Inspector, Mr Holmes. You will question her in the presence of my brother-in-law, please.’
Lord Goring led the way to a large and sumptuous room, eight-cornered and two-storeyed, with its own internal staircase leading up to further reception rooms. Its chandelier was surrounded by four light-wells which filled it with morning sunlight. A tapestry above the stairs reproduced a painting I vaguely remembered seeing other copies of, nymphs and cupids disporting themselves déshabillé in the sea-foam next to some hazardous-looking rocks.
Mabel, Lady Goring, sat on a sofa that I guessed must date to one of the Louis’s reigns, cradling an infant. Despite this pose of a Madonna, she looked something like a nymph herself, with the same pink cheeks and sunshine hair that the artist had evidently admired in his models. She was a slight figure and very much younger than her brother, barely half his age, as I thought, and I could see why he and Lady Chiltern felt so protective of her. The child, an infant only a few months old, she handed over to a nursemaid as we arrived.
‘Mr Holmes,’ she said to my friend, with a perfectly charming smile, as the nurse and baby left us. ‘How delightful to meet you. You look so like Dr Watson’s descriptions of you! And these worried-looking gentlemen must be Dr Watson, who so rarely describes himself, and Inspector… Gregson, was it? Won’t you please sit down, all of you?’
The three of us sat in the chairs arranged nearby, while Lord Goring crossed to stand behind the sofa and put a protective hand on his wife’s shoulder. She covered it with her own.
Holmes said, ‘We are pleased to meet you, too, Lady Goring, but I am afraid that pleasure is not the reason for our visit today.’
‘We need,’ said Gregson, exerting his authority as the official police presence without much grace, ‘to ask you some questions, Lady Goring. About the death last night.’
‘Yes, I’m quite prepared to answer them. What a horrid business that was!’ she exclaimed. ‘It made me feel quite wretched for the poor man’s family. Have they been told?’
‘Not yet, my lady,’ Gregson replied. ‘We’re still trying to identify him at present. Did you talk to him at all last night?’
Mabel Goring shook her head emphatically. ‘No, I didn’t see him at all. I spoke only to Mr and Mrs Moncrieff’s other guests, and to a few of the servants. Then I heard that a tradesman of some sort had fallen from a balcony and died.’
‘You are quite sure about that?’ Gregson asked, frowning.
‘Of course I am,’ she replied firmly. ‘If I had spoken to a strange tradesman during a society ball, I should certainly have remembered such a novelty. It would have been such a refreshing change.’
I thought that our hostess of the previous evening would probably agree about the novelty, but might find other words to describe it than ‘refreshing’. I asked, ‘How well do you know the Moncrieffs, Lady Goring?’
She smiled. ‘Oh, fairly well. Gwendolen is an old schoolfriend of Gertrude’s, so she and her mother, Lady Bracknell, used to visit our family often. Then, at around the same time I was engaged to Arthur, Gwendolen and Ernest became affianced too, and so did Algy, who I knew a little, and Cecily, who I met only after their engagement was announced but liked immensely. Cecily is very near my own age, and we saw a great deal of each other when we were planning our weddings.’
Mabel Goring reminded me somewhat of Cecily Moncrieff, I thought. But whereas Cecily had all the sophistication of a girl brought up in the countryside, Mabel was a natural, unspoiled city lass.
I sighed inwardly. After spending even such a little time with Lord Goring and the Moncrieffs, I too was beginning to think in paradoxes.
Holmes asked, ‘What is your opinion of the Moncrieff brothers?’
‘They’re both very sweet,’ she said. ‘Ernest can be quite irritable, but Algy will needle him so. But they are both perfectly obedient to their wives, exactly as a husband ought to be.’ She patted her own husband’s hand fondly.
Embarrassed by the show of affection, Gregson fumbled in the carpetbag he was carrying and extracted the torn shawl, which he held up in one plump hand. ‘Were you wearing this shawl last night, Lady Goring?’
‘Oh, but it’s filthy!’ she exclaimed in dismay. ‘And torn, too.’
‘But it is yours?’ he persisted.
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I arrived wearing it.’
‘And was this brooch attached?’ Gregson asked, producing it in turn.
Mabel gave a delighted gasp. ‘Oh, I thought it must be lost! And Arthur would have been so understanding about my losing it, it would have driven me quite distracted. May I have it back?’
‘Well, I c
an see no reason why not,’ said the inspector a little doubtfully. ‘There’s probably nothing more it can tell us down at the Yard.’
‘I am obliged to you, Inspector,’ said Lord Goring as Gregson passed his wife the brooch.
‘Please don’t mention it, my lord. And were you wearing – by which I mean you, Lady Goring…’ Gregson inspected his notebook warily, ‘…a midnight-blue satin ballgown with a pompadour neck and—’
‘And various other frills and fripperies?’ Mabel smiled again. ‘Yes, Inspector, I was.’ Gregson marked a large tick in his notebook. ‘I intended to wear a perfectly ravishing frock in eau de Nil, but my maid was rather careless as I was dressing and spilled scent on it, so I had to change.’
Holmes asked, ‘Lady Goring, the shawl and brooch parted company with you, and with one another, during the course of the evening. Do you recall when that might have happened, and why?’
She considered carefully. ‘Well, let me see… I believe I became too warm when I was in the music room, and removed the shawl then. I didn’t consider at the time that the brooch was still pinned to it. When I came to look for it later, I couldn’t see it, and neither could any of the servants.’
‘Did you wonder then whether the brooch had been stolen?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it didn’t cross my mind. I thought it must have been tidied away somewhere, and I could send round for it today.’
‘You left in rather a hurry, as I understand it, rather soon after the body was discovered,’ Gregson said. ‘You had gone by the time my men arrived.’
Mabel leaned forward confidingly. ‘To tell you the truth, Inspector, I would have felt perfectly comfortable in staying, but Arthur felt it his duty as a husband to protect me from distress. Men are the more emotional sex, and we women must always consider their feelings.’ She leaned back, patting Lord Goring’s hand once again.
Holmes asked, ‘During the course of the evening, Lady Goring, did you enter the library at all?’
She seemed surprised. ‘I did, but not for very long. After I felt too warm, I went upstairs to the library for a moment. I might have stayed there five minutes, but no longer.’
‘Were you alone there?’ Holmes asked.
‘Yes, there was nobody else.’ Mabel Goring gave the impression of perfect sincerity.
Inspector Gregson said, ‘Do you remember what o’clock this was?’
‘Not really, but I recall that Lady Caroline Pontefract was leaving just as I came downstairs again, so I was able to bid her goodbye.’
Gregson thumbed through his notebook, and I remembered that Lady Caroline’s imminent departure had distracted Peter the pageboy from telling Ernest that Bunbury was waiting for him in the library. I knew from experience, though, that a certain type of woman could maintain the state of imminently leaving a party for a surprisingly long time.
Mrs Nepcote had put Lady Goring’s ascent of the stairs at half past ten. By that time Bunbury had supposedly been settled in the library for a quarter of an hour, and the maid, Dora Steyne, had seen Bunbury and a woman on the balcony around then. Either time might have been imprecise, of course, and conceivably while Mabel was in the library Bunbury had been prowling elsewhere in the house, perhaps collecting the brooch and shawl on his travels, returning to the library and meeting his end only after she left. But the explanation that Mabel Goring was lying about meeting him would, I knew, strike Gregson as at least equally likely.
The inspector said, ‘So, to be clear, you didn’t see this Mr Bunbury in the library, nor any other person?’
She frowned. ‘No, Inspector, I did not. I am beginning to think that your questions have an import which, while I find it quite exciting, my husband and my brother will not appreciate. Could you tell me plainly what you suspect, please?’
‘In good time, my lady,’ said Gregson awkwardly. I could sympathise with his discomfort. Whatever his superiors’ views of the waning influence of her relatives, it went against the grain to accuse any member of the aristocracy of such a serious crime, let alone one so young, pleasant and personable as Lady Goring. But Gregson was a dogged policeman, and not one to let personal sentiment get in the way of his job. I feared that Sir Robert and Lord Goring might indeed disapprove of what he had in mind.
He said, ‘Can you account for your shawl being found in a tree, Lady Goring?’
Mabel laughed. ‘In a tree? How extraordinary! No, I am afraid I can’t. I suppose it must have been thrown there, unless someone climbed up to place it there. Why anyone should have done either, I have no idea.’
Gregson said, ‘And the brooch? Are you aware that it was found clutched in the hands of the deceased after he fell to his death from the balcony outside the library?’
Lady Goring gasped in dismay, and dropped the brooch on the floor. ‘I was not,’ she whispered.
Lord Goring said coldly, ‘I had understandably kept that detail to myself, Inspector, to spare my wife’s feelings.’
‘You can hardly expect me to do the same, my lord,’ said the policeman stoutly. ‘Lady Goring, can you account for the facts that I have outlined?’
Mabel said quietly, ‘No, I can’t. I know nothing of what happened to the shawl or the brooch after I took them off in the music room.’
Gregson persisted. ‘You said that you felt too warm in the music room, but going into the library would not have helped with that. There had been a fire burning all afternoon. The air was close and stuffy.’ I saw Holmes’s eyebrows twitch, and I wondered whether he had expected that the policeman would not detect this inconsistency.
Mabel seemed surprised. ‘Really? I am afraid I didn’t notice.’
‘Come, Lady Goring. If you felt heated the library would only have been warmer still, as you must have realised from the moment when you entered. Why did you really go in there, and stay for five whole minutes?’
She paused. ‘I thought,’ she said tentatively, ‘that perhaps it was not just the temperature, but that I was perhaps feeling oppressed by being surrounded by so many people. Such a thing would be quite unlike me, I admit, but that only means that I am not really sure what the sensation would feel like. As it was, five minutes were all I could bear before I started to feel lonely again.’
‘You sat there alone in a hot room for five minutes, simply to try out the sensation of being alone?’ Gregson repeated sceptically.
‘It must sound absurd, Inspector. I expect it was absurd of me. But yes, that is what I did.’
‘Were you already aware that the library has a balcony?’ Gregson asked.
She thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I remember stepping out there with Gwendolen one afternoon last summer. I didn’t suppose that it would be unlocked on such a chilly evening, though.’
‘Did you not think to check? The fresh air would have quickly cooled you down.’
Mabel smiled again. ‘I am sorry, Inspector. I obviously lack your admirable common sense.’ In Gwendolen Moncrieff’s mouth the comment would have been a cutting one, but Mabel delivered it as charmingly as she had everything else.
‘Indeed,’ said Gregson heavily. ‘It would have been common sense to cover your tracks, my lady.’
‘Ah,’ said Lady Goring a little sadly. ‘Now I suppose we will come to it. Do go on, Inspector.’
Gregson said sternly, ‘It is clear to me that you met this Bunbury in the library, despite what you have said. Either you stepped out onto the balcony and found him already there, or you and he stepped out together. Whether you were already acquainted I don’t know, and nor do I know what you quarrelled about, but whatever it was, you pushed him over the balustrade onto the plinth below. He grasped your brooch before falling to his death, and tore your shawl, which you threw away in disgust, as hard as you could, so that it got stuck in that tree. And then you went back to the party and tried your hardest to pretend to yourself, as murderers sometimes do, that the whole business had never happened.’
Lady Goring had been shaking her head all this w
hile, her rosy cheeks turned pale as paper. She whispered, ‘It’s not true,’ and stared at Holmes, and then at me, in mute appeal.
I had nothing to offer. Holmes’s objections of the night before had been paper-thin, and Gregson’s accusation had thrust its way brutally through them. The case was far from proven, of course, but with her brooch in the victim’s hand and the testimony of the two witnesses, it was perfectly clear that it must be answered.
Lord Goring said icily, ‘I assure you that you will regret this very much, Inspector.’ The hand that was not holding his wife’s was clutching his cane very hard.
‘I shouldn’t be in the least surprised, my lord,’ Gregson acknowledged. ‘But regretting it is not the same thing as being wrong, is it? I dare say we will find out in time. For now, Lady Goring, it is my solemn duty to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of one Mr Bunbury, address unknown. I must ask you to accompany me at once to Scotland Yard.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ELUSIVE MR BUNBURY
‘That was a most upsetting scene,’ I said after we left the Grosvenor Square house. The Gorings had left with Inspector Gregson, and in their absence Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern had not made us welcome. Indeed, Sir Robert had been proposing as we left to take a cab directly to the office of the Commissioner of Scotland Yard and to demand his sister’s immediate release.
‘Distressing but necessary, Watson,’ Holmes replied.
‘She has a child!’ I exclaimed. ‘Indeed, she is scarcely more than a child herself.’
Sherlock Holmes--The Spider's Web Page 6
