Hasty Death

by M C Beaton

  ‘Yes,’ said Kerridge, ‘but that assumes that the murderer is someone other than the two of them. But we’ll check anyway. Now, Lady Rose, before I start to question you on this case, you haven’t seen anyone suspicious lurking around?’

  ‘What other case?’

  ‘Dr McWhirter.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rose exchanged a glance with Harry and said quickly, ‘No, not a sight of the man.’

  She suddenly remembered McWhirter as he had stood pointing the gun at her and then the sight of his dead body. She turned pale, gave a choked little sound, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and ran from the room.

  Kerridge leaned back in his chair and studied Harry’s face. ‘I’ve always known Lady Rose to be exceptionally brave, but when I mention McWhirter she nearly faints.’

  ‘I think she’s suffering from delayed shock,’ said Harry. ‘The fact that her parents put her in an asylum was a terrible fright. It distressed her no end.’

  ‘If you say so. Never take the law into your own hands, Captain Cathcart, or I will treat you like a common criminal.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Harry blandly. ‘Are we all confined to the house?’

  ‘Yes, until I finish my investigations. Why?’

  ‘I wanted to go up to my office to see if there are any messages for me.’

  ‘Got someone there on a Sunday to take them?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry, defeated. All at once he regretted having told Miss Jubbles about Rose and hoped against hope she would keep her mouth shut. But he was determined to find a way to get back to where he had put the body and the car in the Thames to make absolutely sure no one could see anything from the river bank.

  Old Mrs Jubbles lived in a perpetual rage. Her daughter, Dora Jubbles, of whom she had held such high hopes, had announced her engagement to the baker, Mr Jones.

  She had proceeded to make her daughter’s life as much of a living hell as she could manage and Miss Jubbles had retaliated by leaving home to live in sin with the baker until the wedding in several weeks’ time.

  Miss Jubbles had moved out that very Sunday morning. Mrs Jubbles sat alone, all her hatred turned against Lady Rose Summer. It was that society bitch who had turned the captain against her Dora. If it had not been for her, Dora would never have stooped so low as to marry a mere baker. In her choler, Mrs Jubbles forgot that she had entertained hopes of marrying Mr Jones herself.

  And then her anger left her as she saw a plan of action. She would take a hansom down to the Daily Mail offices in Fleet Street and tell them the whole story about how Lady Rose had been working as a common typist.

  She summoned Elsie, the maid of all work, to help her dress in her best. Despite the warmth of the day, she put on her squirrel fur coat and her new lavender dogskin gloves.

  At the newspaper’s front desk, she only told them that she had a society scandal to tell the editor. She was told to take a seat.

  Mrs Jubbles waited. It was very warm. She opened her coat and saw to her dismay that there was a milk stain on the front of her best gown and hurriedly closed it again.

  At last she was ushered up. The news-room seemed to be hectic with excitement. Mrs Jubbles did not know that one of the villagers had wired the paper about the murder at Farthings.

  She was escorted in to see the editor. ‘I believe you have a story for us.’

  ‘How much?’ she demanded.

  ‘It depends what you story is . . . Mrs Jubbles,’ added the editor, consulting a slip of paper with her name on it which had been sent up from the front desk. ‘May we offer you some tea and may I take your coat?’

  ‘I would like tea, yes, but I’ll keep my coat on.’

  The sun was streaming in through the windows of the office. Sweat began to trickle down Mrs Jubbles’s face.

  The editor waited until tea was brought in and then said, ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

  ‘It’s about that . . . that . . .’ Mrs Jubbles clutched her throat.

  ‘Madam, I fear the heart is making you ill. Do let me take your coat.’

  ‘No, no. It’s that awful girl. My daughter, oh, my daughter.’

  And unconsciously echoing Shylock, Mrs Jubbles suffered a massive heart attack and fell from her chair and then lay as dead as the animals which had gone into the making of her best fur coat.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ sighed Kerridge when the last interview was over. ‘Unless the servants tell Garret, who’s interviewing them, something interesting, we’re no further forward. All the guests and Lady Glensheil claim they were fast asleep. No one ordered a bottle of champagne. No syringe found in the rooms anywhere. Maybe Cathcart or Lady Rose can come up with something.’

  ‘If you will forgive me for saying so, sir,’ ventured Judd, ‘it surprises me that you should share the investigation with amateurs.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why. It’s because amateurs are lucky. I sometimes think they could get away with murder.’

  With Becket driving, Harry guided him to the place where they had shoved the car with the body of Mr McWhirter into the river. The grey light of dawn was spreading across the country-side despite the banks of clouds building up over their heads and the dawn chorus was starting up.

  Philip had left no tell-tale tracks. Rather, he had returned and driven the tractor up and down the river bank to obscure any motor-car tracks. A stiff wind was blowing, whipping up waves across the river.

  They stood on the edge of the bank and looked down. But the water was so turbulent now that they could not see a thing.

  ‘There you are,’ said Harry with relief. ‘See how black the water is?’

  ‘It’s going to rain,’ said Becket, looking up at the black clouds. ‘I wonder what it’s like here on a calm, sunny day.’

  ‘Never mind. I assure you there’s nothing to see. We’ve gotten away with it.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  It is a mistake to suppose that eating and drinking stimulate conversation at the moment. We know that not until the champagne has gone at least twice round the tables are our tongues loosened; and this unlocking process is not a pretty one.

  Macmillan’s Magazine, 1906

  Dinner that evening started off silently. Even Lady’s Glensheil’s tongue was silent. Her black gown was decorated with so much jet that it glittered like the skin of some primeval reptile.

  The men were wearing black armbands and the ladies had looked out their darkest clothes. For the young women of the party, Rose, Daisy, Maisie and Frederica, it had been hard to find anything suitable to wear, débutantes usually being attired for evening in white or pastels.

  Daisy was the most decorous in her grey silk. Rose was wearing lilac silk, but with a dark purple shawl about her shoulders. Maisie’s maid had stitched black edging on a lime-green gown and Frederica had embellished her white gown with a tartan sash as if for a highland ball, thinking that a show of native Scottishness showed enough respect for the dead.

  Everyone began to drink more than usual. The acidulous Sir Gerald Burke was the first to give tongue. People said he had become nastier after that business of extricating himself from the clutches of a middle-aged American lady. Gerald had wrongly assumed the lady to be an heiress and, on finding she was not, had proceeded to retreat, followed by her loud and public recriminations.

  ‘I don’t know why we are all being kept here,’ he complained. ‘It’s all your fault, Jerry.’

  ‘What, me? I didn’t murder her, old chap.’

  ‘You wanted rid of her. Why not just own up and let us all go home?’

  Harry decided to see if he could shake them. ‘I don’t think it could possibly be Jerry,’ he said. ‘I mean, he was four sheets to the wind last night. His hand wouldn’t have been steady enough to inject the drug into the champagne bottle.’

  All eyes turned on him. Angela Stockton, resplendent in acres of black velvet and a black cap, looked like an actress playing Hamlet’s aunt. ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he, Peregrine?’

&nbs
p; ‘Talking tosh,’ mumbled her son. ‘We’ve got to get out of here or we’ll all go mad.’

  He had reason to be worried. The night before, when Mrs Jerry was choking out her last breath, he had been busy seducing a buxom kitchen maid. The girl had cried afterwards and said she had sinned and he was terrified she would tell Lady Glensheil before he had a chance to put some miles between himself and the old battleaxe.

  ‘No,’ said Harry calmly. ‘Mrs Jerry did not struggle before she died. There was an empty champagne bottle beside the bed. The cork was in the wastepaper basket and it had a fine hole pierced in it.’

  There was an alarmed silence. The general consensus of opinion of everyone except Rose and Daisy was that the much-goaded Jerry had lost his rag in a drunken rage and throttled his wife and they didn’t blame him one bit. ‘Would have done it myself if I’d been married to a bullying horror like her,’ Neddie Freemantle had said earlier.

  ‘I do not like everyone shouting across the table,’ said Lady Glensheil. ‘Kindly confine your conversations to the people on your right or on your left.’

  No one paid any attention to her.

  ‘You know what I think?’ asked Tristram Baker-Willis ponderously.

  ‘No, we don’t,’ snapped Sir Gerald. ‘None of us thinks you can think.’

  Tristram ignored him. ‘I think it’s all balderdash and tosh about poor old Freddy being a blackmailer.’ He fastened his gaze upon Rose. ‘You never liked him. That’s why you started this rumour about blackmail.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ said Rose. ‘How do you explain three people paying him ten thousand pounds each and now one of them is murdered?’

  ‘We all know Jerry strangled his wife,’ said Tristram.

  ‘I say, steady the buffs.’ Neddie Freemantle.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Lady Glensheil. ‘We will now talk about something else!’

  That evening she was wearing a small jewelled cap embellished with ostrich feathers and those very feathers appeared to bristle with outrage.

  They all felt silent, poking at their food like bad children and covertly studying one another.

  There was a general feeling of relief when she rose to lead the ladies to the drawing-room. They were crossing the hall when a small kitchen maid curtsied and addressed Angela Stockton. ‘Mum, I got to speak to you.’

  ‘What are you doing abovestairs, Miss Whatever-your-name is?’ barked Lady Glensheil.

  ‘I got to be done right by,’ whined the maid. She pointed at Angela. ‘Her son done took my cherry.’

  ‘What has this to do with fruit?’ demanded her ladyship.

  ‘I’ll deal with it,’ said Angela hurriedly.

  She stepped forward and took the girl by the arm and hustled her into an ante-room.

  ‘What’s this about, girl?’

  ‘Your son bedded with me last night.’

  ‘You must have led him on!’

  ‘Not me, mum. I feel I ought to go to the perlice. After all, a fellow who ruins a poor girl like me must be up to worst.’

  Angela slumped down in a chair.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she demanded.

  ‘Alice Turvey, mum.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I don’t rightly understand, mum.’

  ‘You want money, don’t you? How much?’

  Alice put her apron up to her face to dab her dry eyes while figures ran through her head. ‘Two hunner’ guineas,’ she finally gasped out.

  ‘You shall have it,’ said Angela wearily.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. Come to my rooms. But you must leave this house.’ Angela always carried a great deal of money with her.

  Alice bobbed a curtsy and followed her. Ten minutes later she ran down the stairs to the servants’ quarters and signalled to the pot-boy, who followed her out the kitchen door.

  ‘Did you get it?’ he asked.

  ‘Two hunner’ guineas,’ said Alice triumphantly.

  ‘Told you she’d pay up. When d’you get the money?’

  ‘I got it.’

  ‘Good. I’ll steal what I can and we’ll get out of here tonight. It’s off to ’merica for us.’

  ‘But the police might stop us.’

  ‘Easy. You’ve been fired, that’s what you’ll say, and I’m helping you with your bag.’

  Kerridge started the interviews all over again the following day but his researches were interrupted as various guests came in to complain they had been robbed. Lord Alfred said his gold cigarette case was missing, Lady Glensheil could not find a silver buttonhook, Maisie screeched that her pearl necklace had gone, Tristram Baker-Willis said he had been robbed of twenty pounds which he had left in his dressing-table drawer and the others complained of expensive trifles that had been taken from their rooms. Only Rose’s and Harry’s rooms had been left untouched.

  It was quickly established that both the kitchen maid and the pot-boy were gone. A shame-faced policeman on guard outside the gates to keep the press at bay said he had questioned the couple when they left the estate but they both said they had been dismissed and the young girl had cried most touchingly.

  Irritated, Kerridge started the hunt for the missing couple.

  And Lady Rose Summer received a proposal of marriage.

  She was walking in the gardens to take the air. The morning’s rain had cleared but the clouds were still thick overhead and a stiff wind was blowing. Daisy had just grumbled that it was too nasty to be outside and Rose had sent her away.

  She heard someone calling her name and turned round. Tristram Baker-Willis came up to her. ‘Lady Rose, I have been trying to have a word in private with you.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Rose. ‘Is it something to do with these murders?’

  ‘No. And such a pretty lady as yourself should not be troubling your head with such awful things. I blame Captain Cathcart. He’s always whispering to you. Is there something between you?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ snapped Rose.

  ‘You see – this is jolly difficult – I’ve fallen most awfully terribly in love with you and I want you to be my wife.’

  Rose stared at him in amazement. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just told you,’ he said in tones of exasperation. ‘You’re making this awfully difficult for a chap.’

  ‘Mr Baker-Willis,’ said Rose, ‘I fear the fright of these murders is making you behave in a strange way. My parents have told me to return to London as soon as possible. But although you should have asked my parents’ permission first before proposing to me, I can give you my answer. I barely know you and, no, I do not wish to marry you or anyone else here.’

  He kicked moodily at the sodden earth of a flower-bed. ‘I may be your last chance.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know you’re called the Ice Queen and chaps say you talk like an encyclopedia. I don’t mind all that, but most chaps would.’

  ‘I am getting cold, Mr Baker-Willis. I find your proposal unflattering. If you will excuse me . . .’

  She hurried away from him round the house and nearly collided with Harry.

  ‘Whoa!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s all the rush?’

  ‘Mr Baker-Willis has just proposed marriage to me.’

  ‘Has he, by Jove? Why on earth would he do that?’

  ‘Get out of my way, you stupid man,’ shouted Rose. She pushed past him and stalked into the house.

  ‘And Captain Harry dared to wonder why anyone would propose to me,’ raged Rose to Daisy a few minutes later.

  ‘It does seem odd.’

  ‘Not you, too!’

  ‘I mean,’ said Daisy, ‘it’s not odd that a gentleman should propose to you. Only if the gentleman happens to be Mr Baker-Willis. He hasn’t been making sheep’s eyes at you. Why the sudden interest?’

  ‘I have a very large dowry,’ said Rose in a small voice, her anger evaporating.

  ‘That’s probably it. A lot of those fellows are always looking for an heiress. And a tit
le draws them like a magnet.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Rose. ‘I called Captain Harry stupid. I thought he was saying I was too ugly to attract a proposal from anyone, including himself.’

  Harry and Becket were summoned to the estate office to face an angry Kerridge.

  ‘Sit down, both of you,’ said Kerridge heavily. ‘I had a man on the gate last night. You pair drove out past him. He said he didn’t stop you or question you going or returning because the idiot assumed you had my permission. I distinctly told him to let no one past. But, oh, no, he touched his helmet as you go off and then he lets two thieving servants away as well.’

  Anxious to divert Kerridge’s attention from themselves, Harry said, ‘There was evidently some fuss last night when the ladies left the drawing-room. Becket here says it was the talk of the servants’ hall. Peregrine Stockton had seduced a kitchen maid. Angela Stockton led her off into a side-room. I would assume she paid her off. She and the pot-boy obviously decided to help themselves to a few trinkets as well while we were all the in the drawing-room.’

  But Kerridge was not to be distracted. ‘So where did you go last night?’

  ‘I motored to London to pick up my letters and came straight back. I did not think I was a suspect.’

  ‘Everyone’s a suspect, even you,’ said Kerridge nastily. ‘Don’t ever leave here again until this investigation is finished. We have wired all worried parents and relatives to stay away. If I cannot find anything out today, I will need to let them all go.’

  To Rose’s distress, Tristram seemed to have come to the conclusion that his proposal had been too abrupt and so he set about courting her. His method of doing this was to praise her fulsomely and throw her languishing glances.

  She could only be glad that her parents had decided to stay in London, having been informed by the police that she would only be required to stay at Farthings for, perhaps, another day. Rose felt sure that if they had arrived on the scene and if Tristram had asked their permission to pay his addresses, and if she proved to have turned down another eligible gentleman, they would, she knew, be furious.