Death by the Book

by Deering, Julianna

  At the mention of his name, the little white kitten came trotting into the room, head held high, dwarfed by the feather duster he had stolen from parts unknown and was dragging alongside. He stopped to furiously shake his prey, rolling over with it and kicking it. Then he carried it off to his secret lair under the sideboard.

  Drew merely shook his head. “I suppose I’ll go telephone Birdsong now, seeing Chambers is occupied.”

  “Good idea. I expect Mr. Padgett is waiting for me as it is. Shall I let Mrs. D know about the feather duster? I expect one of the girls will be wondering where it’s gotten to by now.”

  “Yes, do that, Nick, and give old Padgett my best.”

  “Righto. Let me know what the chief inspector tells you, as well.”

  As soon as Nick had gone, Drew rang up Birdsong’s office.

  “You again, eh?” Birdsong grumbled when the desk sergeant put him through. “What is it now?”

  “A bit of information you might well thank me for, I daresay.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “May well be nothing of course, but we had discussed the possibility of Miss Allen having a young man she was seeing before Montford.”

  “You mean Alfred Begbie from Ault Hucknall in Derbyshire?”

  “Ah. You know about him already, do you?”

  “We have our little ways, Detective Farthering.” Birdsong’s tone was smug. It always was when he knew something Drew didn’t. “We’ve been at this a bit longer than you have, you know.”

  “Naturally, naturally. At any rate, Mr. Dennison and I—Nick Dennison, I mean—were discussing our little problem and wondering if this Alfred chappie might not have taken offense at seeing his girl taking up with someone else.”

  “You can forget that idea, sir. This Begbie was born in Ault Hucknall and, to hear him tell it, will die there. And in between, he’ll stay there. He’s a bit of a local character, my man found out. They claim he’s not been more than five miles from the village green in all his life. His family has been farriers in Ault Hucknall since Cromwell’s time and before, and he sees no reason to be anything or anywhere else. No doubt the whole village would come out for the spectacle were he ever to leave.”

  “Little wonder he wasn’t pleased to have the object of his affection move to Hampshire.”

  “Indeed. According to the people there in the village, he had made some sort of agreement with her father and was quite put out when the old gentleman died and the girl refused to stay on with him.”

  “I suppose he could have hired the murder done if he felt strongly enough about it, couldn’t he?” Drew asked.

  “Might do,” the chief inspector agreed, “but for one thing. The constable who interviewed him says that, finding the young lady’s personal conduct a bit lacking even before the recent publicity, he’s washed his hands of her.”

  “The story’s got as far as Ault Hucknall already?”

  “I’m afraid so. Evidently he’d had rather a fixed idea about her since she left the village, determined yet that she’d come back to him, but this last has been the death of it.”

  “Ah, well, at least we know. Oh, one thing you don’t know, Chief Inspector. The girl’s staying at Mrs. Chapman’s cottage for the time being. You remember the one.”

  “I’d hardly forget.”

  “We thought it was the ideal place, since you didn’t seem too keen on her going to stay with her aunt.”

  “Why couldn’t she just stay where she was?” Birdsong complained.

  “For one thing, the reporters and gossipmongers wouldn’t let her alone where she was. For another, she’s been dismissed from her job and hasn’t money enough to stay there now.”

  “I see. And so it’s Detective Farthering to the rescue once again.”

  “It’s little enough. And yes, I do know she’s still a possible suspect.”

  “She is. But thank you for keeping us informed of her whereabouts. You might prove useful yet.”

  “We live in hope, Chief Inspector. We live in hope.”

  Once he had rung off, Drew wandered out of the study and back into the dining room, prepared for an in-depth review of the case with Mr. Chambers. Unfortunately he found the little beggar sprawled on his round belly, his head buried under the feather duster, obviously fast asleep.

  “I suppose I’m on my own then, eh, Chambers old man?”

  After a brief walk in the garden to clear his head, Drew returned to the study and sat down at the desk. He found a freshly sharpened pencil and a note pad and wrote SUSPECTS at the top in bold letters. Then he began listing names:

  “Jack”

  Thos. Hodges (caddy)

  Margaret Allen

  Alfred Begbie

  Mrs. Montford

  Daniel Montford

  Roger Morris

  Delivery Boy (florist)

  He paused before adding one more:

  Person/Persons Unknown

  He tapped his chin with the pencil and then, leaning back in his chair, caught sight of Mr. Chambers’s mother, Minerva, sunning herself in the study window.

  “Hullo, my lovely.”

  “Hello.”

  He smiled when he saw Madeline standing in the doorway. Holding a wide-brimmed hat, she looked fresh and breezy in her mint-green dress and crisp white gloves.

  “Hullo, darling, and yes, you are quite lovely. I thought you and your aunt were off to London.”

  She came over to him and kissed his cheek. “Not quite yet. She has a letter she wants to put in the mail this morning, and she’s not done with it.”

  “That important, eh? Telling the home folks what a monstrous place it is, this England?”

  She giggled and sat on the edge of the desk, reading his list over his shoulder. “That last one is helpful.”

  He gave her a grin. “We can’t ignore the possibility that the actual killer is someone we haven’t yet thought of. Unhelpful as the designation is, it wouldn’t do to confine our theories only to the people I’ve already listed.”

  “I suppose not. But what have you come up with so far?”

  “Well, we have the mysterious ‘Jack.’ Is he actually a suspect or just a motive?”

  She frowned. “Does he even exist?”

  Drew shrugged. “Hodges seems a rather unlikely choice at this point, though it is possible that he carried off an elaborate scheme where he pretended to be called away, disguised himself, and returned to the club to kill Dr. Corneau.”

  “That seems a little farfetched even for an Agatha Christie novel.”

  “I’m afraid so.” He smiled when she slipped her hand into his. “Besides, in addition to having been seen in Inverness and on the train there and back, he had no motive for Corneau’s murder, much less Montford’s or Clarice’s.”

  Once again, she peered at his list. “Margaret Allen doesn’t seem like the type to kill anyone.”

  “That’s neither here nor there at this stage of the game. The question is, might she have. She certainly had motive.”

  There was pity in Madeline’s eyes. “I feel so bad for her.”

  He squeezed the hand he still held. “So do I, darling. It’s not a pretty story, is it?”

  She only sighed, and he went on.

  “Begbie seems out of the running, mostly because of the distance between Hampshire and Derbyshire.”

  She nodded. “He might have a motive for making away with Mr. Montford, but I don’t see any connection between him and Dr. Corneau or Clarice. Same with Mrs. Montford or her son.”

  “Right,” Drew said. “She’s a bit like Miss Allen, I think. Not the murdering type.”

  Madeline gave him a sly little smile.

  “And not just because she’s a woman.” He shook his index finger at her. “And don’t be smug.”

  “All right, but I think I agree with you anyway about her. I’m not as sure about Daniel.” There was sympathy in her expression as she looked at the list once again. “What about Roger Morris?”

&nbs
p; Drew sighed. “Poor Rog. I can’t imagine him having the nerve to kill anyone. And it seems that, along with everyone else on the list, he might have motive for one murder, but not all three. Yet clearly the three murders are connected.”

  She frowned, thinking. “The delivery boy for the florist?”

  “The boy who delivered the flowers,” Drew corrected. “We don’t know he was actually connected to any florist at all.”

  Drew wrote a note on the pad: Find out if the Empire knows which shop sent the flowers.

  “Anything else come to mind, Madeline?”

  “I’m afraid not. Sorry.”

  “Very well, we’ll try a different route.”

  He slashed his pencil across the middle of the page, dividing top from bottom. At the top of the lower half, he wrote Messages.

  “What do we have so far?”

  “The first one,” she said. “Mr. Montford. ‘Advice to Jack.’”

  He wrote it down.

  MONTFORD: Advice to Jack. “First thing, kill all the lawyers.”

  “Montford was a lawyer,” Drew observed. “Were the others killed because of their professions?”

  She could only shrug. “What about the second one? The doctor?”

  He added to his list.

  CORNEAU: Kentish wisdom would have him paid so.

  “I’m a bit stumped on this one.” He wrinkled his forehead. “Jack Cade who wanted to kill all the lawyers was from Kent.”

  “What about other references to Kent in Shakespeare?” she asked. “Or to doctors?”

  “Do the other notes necessarily refer to Shakespeare? Perhaps ‘Kentish wisdom’ is a reference to something completely different. Kentish folkways or something.”

  She shook her head. “You’d know much more about that than I would.”

  He tapped his pencil against his chin once more and then added the third murder to his list.

  DESCHNER: Mismatched, hot-tempered, simply waiting for greatness to be humbled, she, but for the scandal, might have been queen of them all.

  “What is or was mismatched?” Madeline asked, picking up the note pad. “That necktie?”

  “It certainly didn’t go with that dress she was planning to wear.” He chuckled and then considered the words of the note. “What greatness is or was to be humbled? And why wait? For what?”

  “And what was the scandal?” Madeline added. “Are you sure Roger couldn’t tell you anything about that?”

  Drew could only shake his head. “And of whom might she have been queen?”

  “Drew, if this has something to do with people being murdered over their careers, what was Clarice’s?”

  “Still haven’t a clue on that one, darling.”

  Drew frowned at the page and then added something to the list of suspects: Clarice’s lover(?) And under his note about the florist, he added: Ask Rog who Clarice might have been seeing. Have police interviewed her family, if any?

  Madeline tilted her head to one side, thinking. “Didn’t Roger know any of her—”

  “Madeline! Come on, the morning’s wasting!”

  Madeline grinned sheepishly, hearing her aunt’s voice. “—family?”

  “Not that I heard of.” Drew stood and gave her a quick kiss. “Now hurry along. We don’t want any international incidents.”

  “But Drew—”

  “I promise I’ll tell you all of my brilliant deductions once you come back. Now chop-chop.”

  She gave him a pout and then another kiss. “Behave yourself while I’m gone.”

  “I always behave.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “In one fashion or another.”

  She giggled and hurried off. He took a moment to jot down notes about what he and Madeline had discussed, and then he considered how he might best spend the rest of the morning. He could pop up to Winchester, talk to Birdsong and visit Roger to see who his mystery rival may have been. Or he could pull out his volume of Shakespeare’s plays and see what references to Kent he might find. Or references, perhaps, to humbled greatness and scandals.

  Smiling to see Mr. Chambers still sprawled out under his pilfered feather duster, he went over to Minerva again. She favored him with a slow blink of her green eyes.

  “You must speak to your little boy,” he told her as he stroked her velvet ears. “He’s taken to petty theft, and it will be the ruin of him if he’s not taught to mend his ways.”

  She merely closed her eyes and stretched out her tabby-striped legs, purring.

  “Yes, I know,” he soothed. “He hasn’t any father about to set him straight.”

  The thought of fathers brought Daniel Montford to Drew’s mind, and he went back to the desk. Inheritances were often motive for murder, but was Daniel the sort to carry out something like that? He certainly seemed overly upset by the idea of anyone looking into his father’s death. Surely there was more to that than a desire to protect his mother.

  What about his mother? She certainly seemed the epitome of gentle womanliness, but her husband had betrayed her trust and his vows to her. Was there a murderess beneath that soft exterior?

  Drew shook his head, not liking that possibility. Still, he rummaged in his pocket for the telephone number to the Montford home. It wasn’t long before he was being shown into Mrs. Montford’s dainty sitting room.

  “Mr. Farthering, how nice of you to come. Do sit down. May I ring for tea?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Montford, but I really must come straight to the point. I want you to tell me about Daniel.”

  “Daniel?”

  “The day your husband was murdered, where was Daniel?”

  “I told the police already. He was in his bedroom. He had some sort of paper he had to write for his literature class. Why do you ask?”

  Drew took the chair she had offered and sat for a moment studying her face. She’d already lost her husband. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to protect her son. Even so, there was nothing for it now but the absolute truth.

  “Is there any possibility, any possibility at all, that he may have left his room sometime during that day?”

  “Left it? No. Why would he have left it? He was there all day. He told me he was.”

  “But do you know for certain?”

  “I wasn’t in there with him, no, but I never saw him leave. Why? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened, not for certain. It’s just that Daniel is roughly the sort of fellow we think might have killed your husband and the others.”

  Mrs. Montford’s dark eyes filled with tears, and she sat shaking her head, her full lips trembling. “No,” she whispered. “No, no.”

  “I know this must be very difficult for you, but I must ask. What were relations like between him and your husband? Did they, as a rule, get along well?”

  “Have you told the police your suspicions?”

  “Not actually suspicions at this point. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  She blinked away her tears. “You can’t think he’s responsible. Not Daniel.”

  “Were relations between him and his father . . . difficult?”

  She looked down at her soft, white hands. “He would never kill anyone. He couldn’t.”

  “Did he and Mr. Montford quarrel?”

  “Oh, Mr. Farthering.” She looked up, smiling pitifully. “Don’t all fathers and sons have their differences? Daniel loved his father, and Quint doted on him. Of course, a young man learning to make his way in the world doesn’t always agree with what’s laid out for him. Surely, it was no different with you and your own father.”

  Drew smiled a little. “My father died when I was twelve. I never really had the chance to get past the hero-worship stage.”

  “Daniel . . .” She closed her eyes, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “Daniel wanted part of the money his grandmother left for him in trust. Quint wouldn’t allow it. He was to have been trustee until Daniel reached twenty-five. They had been rowing over it for weeks.”

  “What did he want the mon
ey for?”

  “I don’t know. He’d only say the money was his and he should have at least some of it.”

  “Tell me what you did when the police told you Mr. Montford had been killed.”

  “I . . . I couldn’t believe it. I suppose I just sat here, where I am now, for a long time. Then I thought I’d better tell Daniel.”

  “Where was he then?”

  “I went up to his room, but when I didn’t find him there, I rang for Meadows, our butler. He said he’d just seen Daniel in the kitchen and sent him up to me.”

  “Does Daniel usually spend his time with the staff?”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “Did he say why he was there that day?”

  She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “I didn’t even think about it. How could I when I’d just been told my husband had been murdered?”

  “Did you ever ask about it later?”

  “No. I still don’t think it means anything. So he was in the kitchen. What harm could that be?”

  “Who else was there when he was?”

  “I don’t know. Cook, I suppose. The scullery maid. Whoever else is usually there.”

  He stood up. “May I have your permission to ask Meadows and Cook myself?”

  “I suppose,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “If you like. I’ll ring for Meadows.”

  “Actually, if you don’t think it too irregular of me, I’d much rather go down to the kitchen. Alone, if you don’t mind.”

  She lifted her chin, and her eyes were firmly on his. “What is it you don’t want me to know?”

  “Mrs. Montford, I assure you—”

  “Mr. Farthering, my husband has been murdered. There’s scarcely anything I could hear that would be worse, unless it’s that my only child is the one who killed him.”

  “We don’t by any means know that.”

  “But you think it. Why else would you be asking?”

  What a wretched little mess in which to be mired. “To be perfectly honest, I hope I can rule him out. Wouldn’t you want to know positively?”

  She closed her eyes and seemed to sink into herself a little bit. Then she nodded. “If you go out this door and turn to your left and then, at the end of the hallway, go through the door and down the stairs, you’ll find the kitchen on your right. If Meadows isn’t down there, have Cook send for him.”