Hasty Death

by M C Beaton

  ‘We have just been paying Lord Alfred Curtis a visit,’ began Kerridge. ‘Judd, what did he say?’

  The detective opened his notebook, flicked the pages and then repeated what Lord Alfred had said about Tristram being present when Freddy had asked for that loan.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Tristram. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Do you mean that Mr Pomfret went straight up to Lord Alfred and said, “Lend me ten thousand pounds?”’

  ‘Yes, something like that. I said, “Hey, Freddy! What are you doing?” Lord Alfred had taken drink. He wrote out that cheque with such a shaky hand, I thought Freddy would never be able to cash it.’

  ‘Well, he did. Mr Pomfret was also paid ten thousand pounds by two other people.’

  ‘Good heavens! Good old Freddy. Wish I had his talent for getting money out of people. Do you mean two other people paid him ten thousand each?’

  ‘That is so. Do you know if it is possible that Mr Pomfret was indulging in blackmail?’

  ‘Hey, he was a friend of mine. Stout fellow. Wouldn’t harm a fly.’ Tristram leaned forward and said earnestly, ‘Look here, Inspector . . .’

  ‘ Superintendent.’

  ‘Superintendent. You usually deal with the lower classes and it has given you a warped view of life. Such as we do not go around blackmailing people.’

  ‘Had Mr Pomfret any enemies?’

  ‘No, everybody liked Freddy. I liked Freddy. Best friend I ever had.’ Tristram took a handkerchief out of his sleeve and blew his nose loudly.

  ‘So,’ said Kerridge heavily, ‘my inspector has a note of your evidence. I gather you would be prepared to stand up in court, kiss the Bible, and say the same thing?’

  ‘Court! It’ll never come to court.’

  ‘Why not? It’s murder and I intend to find the murderer.’

  Tristram kneaded the handkerchief between his fingers and scowled at the floor. Then his face cleared. ‘Ah, but only if Alfred is the murderer, and that is ridiculous.’

  ‘That will be all for now,’ said Kerridge. ‘If you would be so good as to call at Scotland Yard tomorrow, we will take your statement, type it up, and you may sign it’

  Tristram looked to right and left as if seeking a way out. ‘Can’t,’ he said finally. ‘Going to the country tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I suggest you come with us now.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ said Tristram. ‘I must warn you that I have friends at the Palace.’

  ‘Mr Baker-Willis, unless you are prepared to make an official statement, I must assume you are lying.’

  Tristram stared at him for a long moment. Then he shrugged. ‘May as well get it over with. I’ll come now.’

  Later that evening, armed with a letter of introduction from an old army friend, Brigadier Bill Handy, Harry visited the late Freddy’s father. Colonel Hugh Pomfret read the letter carefully. Then he said, ‘Of course I want to find out who murdered my son. But what can you do that the police cannot?’

  ‘I have more freedom to go about in society than the police and to find out what enemies your son had.’

  ‘Very well. Go ahead.’ Then, with a slight edge of contempt in his voice. ‘I suppose you want paid for your services.’

  ‘No, because I came to you and not the other way round.’

  ‘Very good of you,’ said the colonel gruffly.

  ‘Did your son keep any letters or correspondence with you?’

  ‘No, the only time he came here was to ask for money, and when he got it or didn’t get it, he would leave. He came to the family place in the country at Christmas. Apart from that, we barely saw him.

  ‘My wife is distraught. Like all mothers, she remembers him as a small boy now, but truth to tell, our son had become a nasty, jeering sort of person whenever we saw him. He didn’t like the fact that I haven’t a title. He hung around the fringes of the Kensington Palace set. He wanted me to buy him a title. That was in January. When I told him I had not that kind of money and if I had I would not spend it on such rubbish, he stormed out.’

  So that’s what he wanted the money for, thought Harry. Who would have thought that such a lightweight young man could be so ferociously ambitious?

  ‘So you let them send you away?’ Lady Polly demanded of the quaking Humphrey.

  ‘I couldn’t do otherwise, my lady. It’s my nerves.’

  ‘You know, Humphrey, I am tired of those nerves of yours. Mrs Cummings was telling me that there is a very good nerve doctor.’ She rummaged in a capacious reticule and found a small notebook and flicked it open.

  ‘Here we are. Dr Thomas McWhirter. He’s in Harley Street. Get Jarvis to phone and make an appointment for you and then perhaps we’ll hear less about your nerves.’

  Lady Polly felt quite noble. She believed in looking after her servants. She did not know that she was setting in train a course of events that would put Rose in danger.

  The following afternoon, Rose and Daisy visited Angela Stockton. Rose was disappointed to find Mrs Stockton’s son, Peregrine, there as well. Fennel tea was served and some jaw-breaking biscuits.

  ‘I found your lecture very interesting,’ said Rose, averting her eyes from Peregrine, whose hot gaze was fastened on her face.

  ‘Oh, go on with you,’ laughed Peregrine. ‘Pretty creature like you. Got better to do with your time, hey?’

  Angela put down her cup with an angry little click. ‘Peregrine, I wish to talk to these ladies alone.’

  ‘I’ll tootle off, then. Don’t know how you can drink that muck.’

  Peregrine left the room and Rose heaved a sigh of relief. ‘You must forgive Perry,’ sighed Angela. ‘Such a naughty boy. So handsome, don’t you think?’

  ‘Mmm,’ murmured Rose, not wanting to encourage her. Then it suddenly dawned on her that if there was nothing about Angela that made her vulnerable to blackmail, there might be something about her son, and surely a rich and devoted mother would pay anything to suppress a scandal about him.

  ‘But you were asking about my lecture,’ Angela went on. ‘Mr Steiner is of peasant stock, which makes him more in touch with the earth, the soil, the birds and the bees. But the point of vegetarianism is that it cleanses the body and leaves us free to contact the spirit world. Animals have souls, too. Think of all those poor sheep, pigs and cows slaughtered to feed us.’

  ‘But if we all stopped eating meat,’ said Rose, ‘all those animals would have to be slaughtered, apart from a very few which would be kept in zoos. Samuel Butler said that if you carry that argument to its logical conclusion, then we would all end up eating nothing but cauliflowers which had been humanely put to death.’

  Rose tried not to look at Daisy, who was surreptitiously pouring her tea into a potted plant.

  ‘And,’ Rose went on, ‘the perception of female beauty would need to change. One is really required to be plump to be considered a beauty.’

  ‘But you see, you are talking of things of the world,’ said Angela eagerly. ‘We, in my Vegetarian Society, eschew such frivolities.’

  ‘What do the spirits say to you?’ asked Daisy. ‘I mean, is it like ghosts?’

  ‘No, no.’ Angela gave a patronizing titter. ‘I shall quote the great Mr Steiner. “Common sense which is not led astray can decide of itself whether the element of truth rules in what anyone says. If someone speaks of spiritual worlds, you must take account of everything: the manner of speaking, the seriousness with which things are treated, the logic which is developed, and so on, and then it will be possible to judge whether what is presented as information about the spiritual world is charlatanism, or whether it has foundation.”’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Rose put in quickly. ‘This is fascinating. Is your son a vegetarian as well?’

  ‘Alas, no. But he will come round. We females mature very quickly and can grasp metaphysical concepts much better than gentlemen can. May I hope you will join our society?’

  ‘
I should like that very much.’

  ‘The subscription fee is two guineas.’

  ‘I will get my father’s secretary to send you the money,’ said Rose.

  ‘You want Jarvis to do what?’ roared the earl at dinner that night.

  ‘It’s a very interesting concept, Pa. I think we would all be better off eating vegetables.’

  ‘If you are interested in her son, I would drop that interest now,’ said Lady Polly. ‘Mrs Barrington-Bruce telephoned me to ask how you were and I told her you were visiting Mrs Stockton. “Keep her away from that place” is what she said. “The son is not to be trusted.”’

  ‘But I promised!’

  ‘Then un-promise.’

  The earl glared at his daughter. He felt he was almost beginning to dislike her. She was so beautiful and yet all she did was run around behaving in a weird way and putting her reputation at risk. He signalled to the butler. ‘Nothing but vegetables for Lady Rose and Miss Levine from now on.’

  ‘Very good, my lord.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mad, bad, and dangerous to know

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  Three weeks went past without Harry finding a single clue. Rose went to parties and the theatre, wondering all the time what Harry was doing and why he had not tried to contact her.

  Lady Polly had not hired a lady’s maid for her, saying that Humphrey would help out. Everywhere that Rose and Daisy went, Humphrey went too, watching, always watching.

  It was useless to complain. Lady Polly was delighted that her daughter was at last behaving like a débutante, and as Humphrey was quick to claim the credit for this, she praised her lady’s maid and urged her on to further effort.

  She did not know that Humphrey had a sinister reason for watching her daughter closely.

  Humphrey had been attending the consulting rooms of Dr Thomas McWhirter in Harley Street. He was a handsome middle-aged man with thick white hair and a square, tanned face. He had very piercing blue eyes which Humphrey felt could look into her very soul. She had poured out all her resentment against Daisy and the ‘strain’ of keeping an eye on Rose. She was encouraged to talk about Rose.

  At her last consultation, Dr McWhirter had said in that deep, attractive voice of his, ‘I think Lady Rose may be insane, cleverly insane. I think she needs treatment.’

  ‘Do you mean Lady Rose should consult you?’

  ‘No, she would be too cunning. I have an asylum, more a refuge, for members of society. It is more like a country house. Lady Polly should be persuaded that it would help her daughter immensely to be confined for, say, a few months. After that, I promise you, she would be a model of society.’

  ‘If I suggest such a thing to her ladyship, I think she would fire me,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘But you say your charge gets into serious trouble. Wait for the next episode and seize the chance.’

  Rose was not aware she was being courted. A baronet, Sir Richard Devizes, was frequently at her side. As Sir Richard was nearly fifty, the nearly twenty-year-old Rose never for one moment considered his attention to be other than fatherly. And so she allowed him to escort her to his box at the opera and sat with him at soirées and parties.

  Daisy tried to caution her but Rose only laughed and said he kept the other men away and he was too old to be romantically interested in her.

  It came as a shock to her on the fourth week since Angela Stockton’s lecture when her mother and Humphrey burst into her room where she was reading and told her she must put on her best gown because Sir Richard had something important to say to her.

  Lady Polly was elated. Sir Richard had asked to pay his addresses to Rose. He was handsome and fabulously wealthy. Certainly he was a bit old, but the guidance of an older man was just what Rose needed. It would also mean that she and the earl could stop worrying about their wayward daughter.

  ‘Why does he want to see me?’ asked Rose as Lady Polly and Humphrey fussed over her.

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ said Lady Polly.

  With a sinking feeling in her heart, Rose went downstairs, her silk petticoats rustling beneath a gown of blue taffeta. She missed Daisy, but Daisy had gone to Hatchards to buy her some more books.

  Lady Polly pushed her daughter into the drawing-room and left her to face Sir Richard alone.

  ‘Sir Richard,’ said Rose nervously, ‘why have you called?’

  He pulled out a large handkerchief and placed it on the floor and then knelt on it. ‘Come here,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you kneeling on the floor?’

  ‘Because I am going to propose marriage to you, you lucky, lucky child.’

  ‘Please rise, Sir Richard. I do not wish to get married.’

  He struggled to his feet and looked at her in amazement. Then he smiled. ‘Ah, you are teasing me. Your sex was always wilful.’

  ‘Sir Richard, I have enjoyed our friendship, that I admit, but I did not think for a moment that your feelings were of a warmer nature.’

  He looked at her in amazement. ‘Do you mean you are actually refusing me? It would restore your damaged reputation.’

  ‘I do not have a damaged reputation.’

  ‘Anyone who has supported the suffragettes has a damaged reputation.’

  The previous year, Rose’s photograph, taken at a suffragette rally, had appeared in the Daily Mail.

  ‘Sir Richard, I do not wish to be unkind. I find your proposal flattering. But there is a great difference in age.’

  ‘What do you mean? I look like a man in his thirties.’

  ‘It is pointless to stand here arguing,’ said Rose. ‘I am so very sorry, but I must refuse.’ She dropped him a curtsy and hurried out of the room.

  Lady Polly and the earl and Humphrey were standing outside the door. Rose rushed past them and up the stairs.

  Sir Richard emerged. ‘Your daughter is mad,’ he pronounced. And Humphrey saw her chance.

  ‘No, no, my dear Lord and Lady Hadshire,’ said Dr McWhirter later that day. ‘It is not an asylum. It is for people with nervous disorders. Two months under my care and your daughter would be restored to obedience and sanity. The place is called The Grange, just outside Barnet. Like a country house.’

  The earl and countess faced him, each thinking that two months without worrying about Rose would be a treat. They could get rid of Daisy Levine, of whom they had never approved.

  The earl cleared his throat. ‘We could have her back for the beginning of the season, hey?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But she would never go.’

  ‘You do not tell her where she is going. Simply tell her you want her to make a call on an old friend of yours. Shall we say tomorrow morning? I shall be there personally to receive her.’

  ‘I’d feel better if we told Cathcart what was happening,’ said the earl.

  ‘We’ll phone him when we get home.’

  So the earl phoned but Miss Jubbles said that Captain Cathcart was not in his office but she would tell him as soon as he returned.

  Harry came out of his office just as Miss Jubbles was putting the phone down.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

  ‘Just someone who wanted you to find her lost dog. I told her you were not taking any cases at the moment.’

  ‘Quite right. I’m off to Scotland Yard.’

  ‘No further forward,’ said Kerridge gloomily.

  ‘Not traced the owner of the pistol?’

  ‘There are so many arms around after the Boer War and this one was used in the Boer War, as far as we know. It’s a German-made Mauser, Model 1896. You know that weapon?’

  ‘Of course. It was called the “Broomhandle”. Clumsy thing but deadly. Carries ten 7.63mm rounds in its magazine. It’s a more dangerous weapon than the normal six-shot Webley. Hardly a ladies’ weapon.’

  ‘I told you I got that statement out of Baker-Willis which gives Lord Alfred an alibi.’

  ‘Where were they all when Freddy was shot?’

  ‘I
went back and got statements from them all despite their threats to have me removed from my job. Lord Alfred was dining with – guess who?’

  ‘Tristram Baker-Willis.’

  ‘Right’

  ‘And Mrs Stockton?’

  ‘Giving a lecture in a side room at the Café Royal.’

  ‘Mrs Jerry?’

  ‘No alibi. Says she can’t remember what she was doing. I sometimes wonder if the three of them were in it together. I’d like to see how they act.’

  ‘I think I might find a way to arrange that,’ said Harry. ‘Lady Glensheil owes me a favour. I could get her to invite all three to a house party.’

  ‘Where? In Scotland?’

  ‘No, in Surrey. She has several residences.’

  ‘Wish you could get me an invitation as well.’

  ‘Not possible. But I could get Lady Rose and Daisy invited. She knows Mrs Stockton.’

  ‘Go ahead with my blessing,’ said Kerridge. ‘I’m blessed if I can find a single clue.’

  Daisy was feeling uneasy. At dinner that evening, to her surprise, neither the earl nor countess referred to Sir Richard; in fact, they seemed quite affectionate towards their daughter.

  But she sensed an underlying apprehension coming from them; and why, earlier, had Humphrey kept shooting triumphant glances in her direction?

  ‘My dear,’ said Lady Polly, to her daughter over the floating island pudding, ‘I want you to visit an old friend of mine who is poorly. I would like you to go tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Humphrey will go with you. Daisy may stay here. I have certain chores I wish her to perform.’

  Rose felt so guilty at disappointing her parents that she would have agreed to pretty much anything.

  Next morning, Daisy stood at the window and watched Rose and Humphrey being taken away in the earl’s carriage. Lady Polly summoned her.

  ‘I want you to pack up my daughter’s clothes and things. She will be staying with this friend of mine for a couple of months.’