Sheer Folly

by Carola Dunn

  With a doubtful shake of her head, the girl took the constables away.

  The junior detectives were eyeing Alec askance.

  “This is Mr. Fletcher. He’s a guest here. As he’s . . . connected with the police, he’s lending a hand. Unofficially.” Boyle went on to explain to DS Gaskell that he wanted him to go over with the servants their statements about the household’s movements that morning. He was to make sure they not only made sense but didn’t contradict each other. “And see what they can tell you about the victim’s chauffeur, the bloke that was caught in the collapse,” he added.

  “Pity we can’t talk to him yet,” Alec said as Gaskell departed.

  “That doctor’s a bit quick with the sedatives, if you ask me! It’ll be interesting to see if the servants agree with what the nobs told you about what they were doing when,” Boyle remarked to Alec. To the detective constable, he said, “I hope your shorthand is up to scratch. I want a verbatim record of the interviews I’m going to be doing. Got plenty of pencils and an extra notebook?”

  Alec thought regretfully of DC Piper, his usual note-taker, who was never caught without a supply of well sharpened pencils. He could only hope Gaskell got on half as well with servants as Tom Tring, the massive and superlatively competent detective sergeant who was his right arm.

  Pritchard came in. He moved more slowly than earlier and looked tired, but he asked with unabated courtesy, “What can I do for you now, gentlemen?”

  “First,” said Boyle, “I’m looking for a bit more information about all these people you’ve got together in your house. It’s what you might call a mixed bunch, if you don’t mind me saying so, and I don’t properly understand how they fit together, so to speak, or what they’re doing here.”

  “I’m not surprised you’re confused,” Pritchard said with a weary smile. “I’m none so clear on the subject myself. But let’s see if I can help. It all starts with my sister-in-law, I suppose.”

  “Mrs. Howell. She’s been living with you for a long time?”

  “Several years. Her husband, my partner, died soon after my wife and I moved to Appsworth Hall, and naturally Glenys invited her to stay while she decided what she was going to do next. Daffyd left his half of the business to Owen, his only son, but Winifred got their house and a good deal of money.”

  “She told us she wasn’t living on your charity.”

  “Well, not from necessity. But after she sold the house for a pretty penny, she couldn’t decide where she wanted to live so she stayed on. Then Glenys died—and Winifred stayed on.” He shrugged wearily. “I like having Owen about the place, and his mother’s a capable manager, so . . .”

  Alec wondered how much the inestimable Barker had to do with Mrs. Howell’s capable management.

  Boyle finished Pritchard’s incompleted sentence. “So Mrs. Howell is what you might call a permanent resident? You’re on good terms?”

  “Good enough. Most of the time. The reason I’ve gone into all this is that she’s responsible for the presence of some of my guests. Not that she’d invite anyone without consulting me.” His tone suggested a sudden doubt as to whether it was just a matter of time before his sister-in-law overstepped this particular boundary. “Owen went up to London over this government contract business, meetings at the Ministry of Health and so on. Sir Desmond kindly invited him to dine at his house, and there he met Lady Ottaline, of course. Lady Beaufort and Miss Beaufort were also dinner guests. He wrote to Winifred about them. She was all agog to meet them—”

  “Why was that, sir?”

  “She’s a bit of a . . . She fancied the notion of entertaining titled people. In the normal way, she has to make do with the vicar, the doctor, our solicitor, business associates, a few old biddies from the village—that sort of people. Of course I wouldn’t have presumed to invite them to stay just because Owen had casually made their acquaintance. Then it turned out that Sir Desmond had to come down to take a look at the works. It seemed easiest to keep Winifred happy by saying we’d be delighted if he brought his wife. To tell the truth, I was surprised when she accepted. I suppose she just happened to be at a loose end this weekend.”

  Boyle grunted.

  Alec thought it more likely that Lady Ottaline had heard about Lord Rydal’s pursuing Miss Beaufort to Appsworth. “What about the Beauforts?” he asked.

  “I’m not entirely clear about them, though I’m very glad they’re here. Delightful guests. As is Mrs. Fletcher,” he added, with a nod to Alec, who noted with amusement the omission of Lucy. Lady Gerald Bincombe could be a prickly companion. “I only wish Lord Rydal hadn’t offered to drive them down. Once he was here, I felt I had to offer hospitality for the night—it was a foggy evening—and he seemed to assume he’d been invited to stay as long as they did.”

  “Mrs. Howell didn’t kick up a fuss about an unexpected guest?” Boyle asked, possibly with memories of Mrs. Boyle’s feelings in like circumstances.

  “What, with a genuine earl under her roof? Even if it’s actually my roof. . . . No, she was thrilled. So thrilled she put up with rudeness—. Well, if the Czar of Russia treated his peasants and workers like that, I for one don’t blame ‘em for having a revolution. I can tell you, if I spoke to my factory hands that way, I’d have ’em out on strike within the hour.”

  “Bad language?”

  “No, not that. It was more as if he’d learnt by heart all the rules about acting the gentleman but didn’t really grasp what it was all about. I can’t explain properly. Maybe Mrs. Fletcher, being a writer, can describe what he was like. I’d’ve kicked him out—asked him to leave—a dozen times if it wasn’t that Winifred wouldn’t have it.”

  “She didn’t mind how he behaved?”

  “Far as she was concerned, he was a lordship so whatever he did was all right by her, right up until it came to meeting his fancy woman in the grotto. That she wouldn’t stand for. I’ll say this for Winifred: She’s a snob, but she was brought up Chapel, and she’s never turned her back on it, no matter that all the nobs go to Church. She’ll have the vicar to dinner, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “Not . . .” Alec hesitated, trying to word his question tactfully, then decided there really wasn’t a tactful way to put it. “You wouldn’t say there was a touch of religious mania?”

  “Certainly not.” Inevitably Pritchard took affront. “I’m Chapel myself.”

  Boyle made no attempt at tact. “Yet you put pagan statues in your grotto, and some Papist idol Mrs. Howell was carrying on about. An evil place, she called it.” He glanced for confirmation at Alec, who nodded.

  “Evil?” Pritchard was startled and worried. “She never liked it, but she’s never said anything like that before. It does sound as if she’s got some sort of bee in her bonnet. Sounds to me as if the explosion and Lord Rydal’s death have been too much for her nerves. I wonder if I should call the doctor to her?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” said Boyle, “unless she takes it into her head that you’re conspiring against her.”

  “Conspiring?” Now he seemed bewildered.

  “To get her out of the way. She made a serious accusation—”

  “Against me? Surely she can’t imagine I blew up my own grotto! If you knew the time and effort I put into restoring it—to say nothing of the money—and the fun I had, the fun I’ve had showing it off, too! All those years of perfecting and peddling plumbing—not that I regret a moment, plumbing’s important, but the grotto was . . . artistic. I don’t suppose any real artist would think much of it, but it was my own creation. And Winifred claims I blew it up? She must’ve gone round the bend!”

  “Unless she was trying to protect her son,” Boyle proposed, his face more than usually blank.

  “No, that’s going too far! I’d as soon believe I did it myself, walking in my sleep, as Owen. He helped me build it, and he’d no cause to want to murder Lord Rydal, neither. If that’s what Winifred thinks, she’s even madder—. But she wouldn’t have told you that. You’
ve made it up out of your own head.” He gave Alec a reproachful look. “Heads.”

  “We have to explore every possibility, Mr. Pritchard, especially when an allegation has been made.”

  “Well, if Winifred’s suddenly convinced herself the grotto’s evil, and on top of that it was being used for immoral purposes, maybe she did it herself!”

  “That’s another possibility we have to explore.”

  “Come to think of it, she never did like the hermit business. She never could see it was just a bit of fun. If it wasn’t popery, she’d say, it was sacrilege. I never could persuade her it was either both or neither.”

  “That’s another thing I haven’t quite got the hang of,” said Boyle. “This hermit business. You hired the Canadian just to play hermit in your grotto?”

  “Not exactly.” Pritchard showed a sudden unexpected touch of shiftiness. “In the summer I hire someone from the village to play the part. You’d be surprised how many visitors we get. I don’t usually bother before Easter, but when . . . Armitage wrote to ask permission to take a look at the old documents in the muniments room, I told him he could come and stay and pay for his keep by dressing up as the hermit in the grotto if anyone happened to turn up to see it.”

  “There’s the curious coincidence of his name, too,” said Alec.

  “What? Oh, yes, quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “The name?” Boyle asked, genuinely blank this time.

  Pritchard seemed disinclined to answer, so Alec explained, “The name Armitage is derived from the word hermitage, I believe.”

  No police detective could let such a fishy coincidence pass without question. “I hope you asked him for references,” Boyle said.

  “Certainly.” Pritchard recovered his composure. “I’m a businessman, Inspector. He showed me his passport and a letter from his university. Perfectly satisfactory, I assure you. He’s been here for several weeks, apart from occasional trips to London to look things up in the big libraries.”

  “Could he have met Lord Rydal in London?”

  “He wasn’t interested in high society. ‘A great waste of time,’ he told me more than once. Frankly, I should’ve thought Rydal had much the same opinion of libraries. It doesn’t seem likely they’d meet, but they might’ve run into each other somewhere.”

  “Neither of them acknowledged having met before when Lord Rydal arrived here?”

  “Not by a flicker of an eyebrow.”

  “Was Lord Rydal ever insulting to Mr. Armitage?”

  “What you have to understand,” Pritchard said patiently, “is that he insulted everyone, though I must say Lady Gerald gave as good as she got. Except I never heard him being rude to Lady Beaufort. After all, he wanted to marry her daughter.”

  “What about Miss Beaufort herself? Surely he wasn’t rude to her!”

  “But he was. Very odd I thought it, when he was courting her.”

  “Odd! I’d call it downright peculiar. Are you sure?

  “Yes. The young ladies were giggling about it.”

  “Oh, then they were just joking about,” Boyle said large-mindedly. “The nobs have their ways.”

  “I don’t think so.” Alec remembered what Daisy had said. He hadn’t taken it very seriously at the time, but he was once again reminded that dismissing her theories was frequently a mistake. “My wife told me Rydal simply didn’t realise how offensive he was.”

  Boyle nodded. “Mrs. Fletcher said to me she thought he had never been taught to consider anyone else’s feelings. I don’t suppose you know anything about his childhood, Mr. Pritchard?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “If he acceded to the earldom at an early age,” said Alec, “it could be that he was brought up by servants and perhaps dependent relatives, who were afraid to cross him.”

  The inspector was scornful. “Sounds like something one of those psycho-doctors would say. I can’t see it makes any difference one way or the other. If someone goes around offending people, they’re not going to worry about whether he’s doing it on purpose or can’t tell the difference.” He reached for Alec’s notes on the dinner-table alibis. “Let’s see here. You claim you were alone in here for half an hour this morning.”

  “That’s right. I had some accounts to make up. I came straight here after breakfast and was here when Mrs. Fletcher and Lady Gerald came to fetch me to give them a tour of the house.”

  “Mrs. Howell said she was alone in her bedroom all morning and saw you walking towards the grotto.”

  Pritchard sighed. “Then I don’t know whether to hope she was hallucinating or making it up. Either way, it’s a sad state of affairs.” He sat there with his hands on his knees, looking tired and worried. “I don’t know what I’m going to say to Owen.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t discuss this with anyone for the moment, sir.” Boyle glanced at Alec. “Any more questions, sir?”

  “Not for the moment. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Pritchard. I hope this will prove a momentary aberration on the part of your sister-in-law.”

  The moment the door closed behind Pritchard, Boyle said, “I don’t think he did it, do you? But this Mrs. Howell’s another kettle of fish. Sane or not, she had it in for both Mr. Pritchard and Lord Rydal, not to mention the grotto itself. Then there’s this Armitage fellow. Something dodgy about him being here in the first place, if you ask me. All the way from Canada to look at some fusty old papers! Out walking with Miss Beaufort, he claims. Walking out, more like, I shouldn’t wonder. After her money.”

  “Miss Beaufort is an extraordinarily beautiful young woman,” Alec informed him, “and I have a vague memory of my wife mentioning that she and her mother are far from well off.”

  “Oh,” said Boyle, disconcerted. He rallied. “At any rate, Armitage wanting to marry her, him a professor—if he’s telling the truth about that!—and her courted by a rich lord. Stands to reason he’d want to get his rival out of the way.”

  “But Miss Beaufort also says they were walking the entire time. Why would she back his story if he’d destroyed her chance of an excellent marriage?”

  “Because Lord Rydal insulted her. Strange, that. What do you reckon to this theory of Mrs. Fletcher’s, sir?”

  “About Lord Rydal’s upbringing? I think she may well be right, and you may well be right that it doesn’t make any difference to us. Except insofar as it’s always useful to understand the victim.”

  “I daresay.” Boyle sounded unconvinced. “Seems to me it’s more important to know he was rude to everyone than why. It gives us a lot of people with reason to dislike him, but the ones with the best motive and opportunity are Armitage, with or without Miss Beaufort as accessory; Mrs. Howell, assuming she’s batty; and Lady Ottaline Wandersley, that he wanted to throw over for Miss Beaufort, as your good lady told us.”

  The door opened, and Alec’s “good lady” appeared.

  “Darling, I’ve been thinking,” she announced.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Daisy shut the door and advanced into the room. She didn’t recognise one of the three men who rose to their feet. He must be a new arrival.

  Perhaps his presence explained why she didn’t hear the groan with which Alec usually greeted any declaration of hers that she had been thinking. It was too much to hope he at last realised the value of her thoughts.

  “Is this urgent, Daisy? We’ve got a lot of people to interview this evening.”

  She sat down, and they followed suit. “It might be urgent. I was thinking about Lady Ottaline. I assume she’s near the top of your list of suspects?”

  DI Boyle answered. “She seems to have had a strong motive, though we’ve not got much to go on yet besides your word for it, Mrs. Fletcher. Same goes for opportunity. I’m waiting for DS Gaskell to bring me the servants’ reports on that. He and DC Potter here arrived at long last from Devizes.”

  Daisy smiled at the large young man. “It’s a good job you’re here. You’re the very person to guard Lady Ottaline.
”

  “What?” Alec and Boyle exclaimed together.

  “The thing is, it’s all very well—in a manner of speaking—if Lady Ottaline blew up Rhino. But supposing she didn’t? Whoever did probably intended to blow her up, too. Isn’t it quite likely they’d have another go? Possible, at least. There she is, alone and helpless under the influence of whatever powders Dr. Tenby gave her—”

  “Daisy, do you know something you haven’t told us?”

  “No, of course not. At least, not consciously. I have a feeling there’s something I’ve missed. Oh, and I heard Sir Desmond ask Barker to move him to a separate room, because he’s a noisy sleeper—presumably he snores—and he doesn’t want to wake his wife. They have separate rooms at home, I expect. He’ll have to have Rhino’s room. It’s the only good room unoccupied. Either he doesn’t realise, or he’s not afraid of ghosts!”

  “Daisy!”

  “Well, it means she’ll be alone all night. Unless you’ve found out enough to be sure she’s safe, I really do think she ought to have a guard, just overnight.”

  “You’re right,” said Boyle, clearly pained him to have to admit it. “We can’t risk it, and you’re the only one we can spare, Potter. Off you go. Ask the butler which is her room. If there’s a connecting bathroom with another door, make sure it’s bolted from the inside.”

  “But sir, I can’t do that without going through the lady’s room!”

  “Use your initiative, man. Take her maid with you or something. And give me your notebook before you go. Mrs. Fletcher,” he went on sourly, “I’m going to have to ask you to stay and take notes again, until Gaskell finishes with the servants. He shouldn’t be much longer.”

  Daisy sighed. Though Alec wouldn’t be deceived, with luck Boyle would believe she was doing him a favour. “Oh, all right. Devizes didn’t send you enough men. I haven’t brought my notebook, though. May I use DC Potter’s?” Perhaps she’d have time to skim Potter’s notes of the interview with Mr. Pritchard. She hoped his writing was easily legible.