‘Come upstairs,’ he repeated. ‘Lord Dunford’s been murdered. In your study.’
Standing nearby, Joanna York dropped her glass, its shattering tinkle mingling with her muted scream; only her husband noticed. Darby stared at him as if he had cracked a distasteful joke.
‘Alister, are you drunk?’ he demanded.
‘Just come with me,’ York replied grimly, stepping to one side and implicitly inviting Darby to go up first. Darby hesitated for a moment, looking at York’s face closely, then crossed towards the door leading to the stairs.
‘Just wait here, dear,’ he called back to his wife. ‘I’ll sort this out.’ He gave the clear impression that he simply did not believe what York had told him.
‘I’m going too,’ Maltravers murmured as the two men went out of the kitchen. ‘See if you can find Luke Norman anywhere.’
‘What for?’ Tess asked.
‘I sent Simon up to the study because Luke wanted to talk to him. Just see if he’s around.’
As Maltravers entered the study, York and Darby were standing on the far side of the desk staring at the floor. Darby knelt down and was feeling in vain for a pulse in Dunford’s wrist as Maltravers crossed the room and saw for himself. As he took in the shock and ugliness of the crushed head, he was struck by the suggestion that there was something about the body that was wrong, something…he was still trying to identify it as Darby stood up.
‘He’s dead. Good God.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’ll call the police…I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Alister. How long ago did you find him?’
‘Only a few minutes. I came straight down to tell you.’
‘And how did you happen to find him?’ Maltravers asked quietly and saw the spurt of anger cross York’s face before he replied.
‘My wife and I were about to leave and I was looking for him to say goodnight,’ he replied curtly, making it clear he did not think it was Maltravers’ place to question him. ‘I couldn’t see him downstairs so I came up here because I knew people had been using this room during the evening.’
York drew in his breath and looked straight at Maltravers, challenging him to probe further.
‘That doesn’t matter at the moment,’ Darby interposed. ‘I’ll lock this room and call the police from the phone downstairs.’
‘And we’d better make sure nobody else leaves the house,’ York added. ‘I don’t think this happened very long ago.’
Maltravers and Darby looked back at the body where the still-throbbing blood emphasised York’s comment—and this time Maltravers grasped what did not make sense.
‘Where’s his tie?’ he asked.
‘Was he wearing one?’ Darby said.
‘Oh, yes. It was his Vincent’s tie. I commented upon it earlier.’
Darby shrugged. ‘He probably took it off because it was warm.’
‘And left his top shirt button fastened?’ Maltravers objected. ‘That hardly makes sense. Is there any sign of it anywhere?’
As all three men turned and looked round the study, the front door opened downstairs and Oliver Hawkhurst slipped away into the night.
‘Just a minute!’ exclaimed Darby. ‘The ball’s gone! That must be what…They’ve both gone!’
He gestured towards the top of the desk where both the plinths for the pair of cricket balls now stood empty.
‘Trevor, we’re not here to play detectives,’ York said impatiently. ‘Call the police and I’ll go and stand by the front door to make sure that nobody leaves.’
‘What about the garden?’ Maltravers asked. ‘I understand there’s a way out into the churchyard…It’s all right, leave that with me.’
The immediate oddities of Dunford’s murder rattled about Maltravers’ mind as he dashed downstairs, grabbed Tess and took her out with him into the garden to stand at the top of the terrace steps where they could see anyone who left through the back of the house.
‘Any sign of Luke Norman?’ he asked urgently.
‘Not that I can see. Unless he’s upstairs.’
‘Possibly, but I don’t think so. And if he’s left the house then I think he’s going to have some explaining to do. He was in the study when I spoke to him before you and Simon came back from the church…What time is it? Nearly twenty past one…so it must have been under an hour ago. When you came back, I told Simon he was there and wanted to talk to him. Now he’s vanished. It looks very persuasive.’
‘Then Simon really is dead?’ As Maltravers turned to Tess he could see sudden shock and grief gathering in her eyes.
‘Yes, I’m afraid he is,’ he said gently, putting his arm around her and drawing her close to him comfortingly. ‘I’m sorry. I liked him as well.’
‘How was he killed?’
‘He was hit very hard on the head, apparently with a cricket ball. The odd thing is that two of them appear to be missing which doesn’t make much sense…and there’s something else that’s curious as well.’ He explained about the Vincent’s tie.
‘He certainly had it on when I was with him,’ said Tess. ‘Why should he have taken it off?’
‘You’re assuming that he did. Supposing the murderer removed it?’
‘What on earth for?’
Maltravers lit a cigarette, expelling the smoke slowly and thoughtfully. ‘A souvenir of an old affair? These foolish things remind me of you and all that.’
Tess shuddered. ‘That’s sick! Would Luke Norman do something like that? Would anybody?’
‘We don’t know what Luke Norman was like, we only met him this evening and hardly spoke to him,’ said Maltravers. ‘But if he was jealous or possessive enough to murder Simon so that nobody else could have him, let’s not start looking for rational behaviour anywhere else. From what we know, it doesn’t take much imagination to suppose that Luke Norman had a motive for killing Simon and he certainly had the opportunity. Now he’s vanished. All circumstantial, but very heavy indeed. The business of the tie makes a perverted sort of sense if that’s the case.’
‘And I suppose we have to tell the police all this?’ Tess appeared hesitant.
‘Too right,’ said Maltravers firmly. ‘This is no time for woolly liberal ideas about forgiving crimes of passion or not making accusations without proof. Simon was a nice man and I want to see whoever it was nailed for his murder. I’m not saying it was Luke Norman, but it looks very much that way.’
Distantly, from the direction of the New Town, they heard the two-note blare of a police siren, dramatic but unnecessary on empty night roads, fading and growing again as it weaved into Old Capley and howled up Bellringer Street before dying away; like Chesterton’s wood, the garden was suddenly full of two policemen. Trevor and Evelyn Darby’s final party had ended and something hideous had begun. As the police rounded up the guests—including the befuddled young man in the lavatory who had slept though the commotion—and herded them together in one room, Maltravers noticed there was no sign of Luke Norman. As they all waited uncomfortably, trying to catch what the police were saying out in the hall, it also occurred to him that he could not see Oliver Hawkhurst either.
The police realised very quickly that the situation facing them was both delicate and complex. Delicate because, while Death ticks off the names of down-and-outs and millionaires with equal indifference, the body of an aristocrat with his head murderously smashed in is not the same thing as a dipsomaniac tramp found stiff in a ditch. Complex because there were twenty-seven people in the same house as the corpse. Statements had to be taken from them all as the scene-of-crimes officer began his meticulous examination, collecting the fragments of possible evidence—many probably irrelevant—which could form the underpinning of an arrest and charge. As photographs were taken, adhesive tape pressed on the study carpet to collect dust, fingerprints searched for and all the minutiae collected, the guests were asked what they could remember about an evening during which they had had no reason to notice what was going on. Unless they were offered an emotional confessio
n on a plate, the police were concentrating on the two natural questions: opportunity and motive. The first was impossible. Guest after guest could only give the vaguest indication of their movements at any time of the evening and it rapidly became clear that virtually any one of them could have slipped upstairs and committed almost any number of murders. But investigation into motive was more interesting—and pointed in two different directions.
People were summoned one at a time into the two rooms the police had taken over for questioning the guests as more officers arrived at the house. As Maltravers was led through to the sitting room, he saw a man who he supposed was the doctor being let in the front door and taken upstairs. He gave his name and address and a brief account of his own movements during the party as far as he could recall them over more than four hours.
‘There is something else I want to tell you,’ he added. ‘Although I must stress that I have no proof whatever that it may be significant. I am pretty certain that Lord Dunford may have been having a homosexual affair with a man called Luke Norman who was here earlier. I also think that Lord Dunford wished to end the relationship and Mr Norman was angry about it. I spoke to Mr Norman in the study sometime after midnight and he asked me to send Lord Dunford up there. About an hour later, when I saw Lord Dunford again, I told him.’
Detective Sergeant David Parry, one of the first CID officers to arrive at the house, looked at him thoughtfully.
‘And do you know where Mr Norman is now?’ he asked.
‘No—and I have not seen him here since Lord Dunford’s body was discovered. As far as I know, he is staying at Edenbridge House for the weekend and I rather think you will find that he drives a white MG.’
Parry excused himself and left the room, giving Maltravers time to consider the implications of what he had said. It was an uncomfortable feeling to have suggested that a man he did not know—to all intents, a complete stranger—could be a murderer, but he could not see that he had any alternative. Luke Norman was the last person Maltravers had seen in the study; Dunford had been killed there; Maltravers strongly suspected that Luke Norman had motive and now he had disappeared. If Norman turned out to be innocent, Maltravers would feel guilty about this suggestion, but if he said nothing and Norman got away with it he would feel worse. It was not a happy position to be in. Parry, who had sent two officers to Edenbridge House to see if they could find Luke Norman, returned.
‘I appreciate that what you have told me is supposition on your part,’ he said. ‘However, I would like you to repeat it for an official statement. I would also like to know how well you personally knew Lord Danford and Mr Norman.’
‘Hardly at all. I met Lord Dunford for the first time last night after the concert at Edenbridge House, although I knew of him from his cricketing career, of course. We played together in the cricket match between the Estate and Town teams and I spoke to him at the party—which is where I met Mr Norman for the first time.’ Maltravers smiled comprehendingly. ‘I take the point of your question, Sergeant, but I’m not a very likely suspect, am I?’
‘We have to keep an open mind, sir,’ Parry replied flatly. ‘However, as long as you tell us where we can contact you again if necessary, I don’t think we need detain you after you have given your statement and been searched.’
‘May I wait until you’ve finished with Miss Davy?’
‘Yes—unless we have reason to detain her of course.’
‘I don’t think you will, although she may be able to add to what I have told you. We’re both staying with Mr and Mrs Penrose across the road at number ten for the next few days. If this matter isn’t cleared up by the time we leave, I’ll let you know where you can contact us.’
Maltravers gave his statement, then was taken out into the hall where a policeman carried out a north-to-south search of him, an elementary operation in the hunt for the murder weapon being taken with all the guests before they were allowed to leave. He was told he could wait for Tess in the hall, and as he sat beneath a signed photograph of Bradman he saw Alister York being taken through to give his statement. After a few minutes, Parry reappeared out of the interview room and spoke to an officer standing near Maltravers, who just overheard the name of Oliver Hawkhurst before the policeman left the house. Craning his neck as discreetly as he could, Maltravers looked through the window on his left and saw him using the radio in one of the police cars parked outside. Back in the interview room, York was enlarging on what he had said.
‘You will almost certainly discover this for yourselves in any event. The simple fact is that Mr Hawkhurst is in considerable financial difficulties over which Lord Pembury—and I believe Lord Dunford—had refused to assist him. With Lord Dunford’s death Mr Hawkhurst becomes the heir to the title, Edenbridge House and everything that goes with it.’
‘And Mr Hawkhurst was at the party?’ Parry confirmed.
‘He was. He spoke to me—and that conversation, incidentally, was connected with his financial problems and the possibility of Lord Pembury helping him—then I noticed him talking to a woman in the hall sometime after midnight. I do not know when he left the house.’
‘Who was the woman?’ Parry asked.
‘A Mrs Harper…I think her first name is Harriet. She lives somewhere towards the bottom of Bellringer Street but I’m not certain which number.’
‘Mrs…Harper,’ Parry repeated as he swiftly read through the list of the guests the police had found in the house. The name was not on it. ‘And when was Mr Hawkhurst due to leave Edenbridge?’
‘As far as I know, on Monday morning.’
‘Thank you, Mr York. Another officer will take your statement.’
Parry left the room and radioed CID headquarters from his car with a message for Chief Superintendent Keith Miller who would be in charge of the inquiry.
‘Inform Mr Miller that there are two possible leading suspects, neither of whom are in the house,’ he said. ‘Efforts are being made to locate them.’
Neither the Vincent’s tie, nor either one of the missing cricket balls, nor anything else that might have been used as a weapon emerged as the guests were searched; and when Parry learned that neither Norman nor Hawkhurst had returned to Edenbridge, the process of people being allowed to leave speeded up. With uncomfortable words of sympathy for their shattered host and hostess, the guests hurried away, anxious to escape the stunned atmosphere. Apart from the first police siren, the murder had caused little disturbance in Bellringer Street which remained silent as dawn seeped into the eastern sky. As Maltravers and Tess crossed the road to the Penroses, the song of an early blackbird bubbled through the early-morning quietness from a tree in the churchyard. They let themselves in by the kitchen door and Tess started to make a cup of tea.
‘I don’t feel like bed,’ she said. ‘And anyway, we’d better stay up and tell Peter and Susan what’s happened. When did they leave?’
‘While you and Simon were at the church,’ said Maltravers. ‘Sometime after eleven I think. Pity we didn’t go earlier as well, it would have saved a lot of hassle.’
‘Well, at least we were able to put the police in the picture about Luke Norman,’ said Tess, peering into a collection of tins on the work surface to discover where Susan kept the tea bags.
‘Yes, but are we right? Somebody else—and I’m fairly positive it’s Alister York—may have brought cousin Oliver into the picture. Remember him at the match?’
Tess, who had just had one surprise when she discovered that tea-bags lived in a tin marked mustard, turned to him inquiringly.
‘It was only something I half overheard,’ Maltravers explained. ‘But that chap Parry appeared to be giving instructions to find Oliver. And that ties in with something Simon told me: on his death, Oliver is next in line.’
‘Are we wrong about Luke then?’
‘Possibly. After all, we could only tell the police what we knew which, on the face of it, seems highly persuasive. But there was no sign of cousin Oliver anywhere about the pla
ce after Simon’s body was discovered and—’
‘Yes there was,’ Tess interrupted. ‘I saw him when I was looking for Luke Norman after you went upstairs. He was just going out of the front door.’
‘Was he, by God? Well, well, well.’ Maltravers rocked back on the kitchen chair and gazed at the ceiling. ‘He actually left the house just after Alister York said he had found the body.’
‘Yes, but he might not have known about it,’ Tess objected. ‘We only knew because we happened to be in the kitchen with Trevor and Evelyn when York came down. The word was beginning to spread but not that fast.’
‘Nonetheless, Simon had not been dead for very long when York found him—I know that from seeing the body myself— so it is quite possible that Oliver did it. York didn’t say to Trevor or me that he had seen anybody near the study…but perhaps he told the police that he saw Oliver. Interesting.’
Tess squeezed the tea bags against the sides of the mugs with a spoon, deep in new thoughts.
‘If it was Luke, he did it for love…or jealousy,’ she said. ‘If it was Oliver he did it for money.’
‘Classic motives all round,’ observed Maltravers.
‘Unless there’s somebody else of course.’
‘Three potential murderers in one house? Don’t you think that’s overkill? Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be funny.’
For the next hour they sat in the kitchen discussing the murder and trying to conjure up theories about the stolen tie and why both cricket balls should have disappeared. Outside, from across the road, they heard the occasional sound of the Darbys’ front door opening and closing and faint footsteps as people made their way down Bellringer Street. Beneath the limp calm of the morning the shockwaves of bloody murder were spreading with uncanny softness, a trickle of snow accumulating relentlessly towards an avalanche. Old Capley did not know the horror it would wake up to. It was seven o’clock when the silence of the house was distantly pierced by the brisk cheeping of an alarm clock, cut off after only a few seconds, before there was the sound of movement from the bedroom above their heads. Maltravers and Tess looked at each other uneasily as footsteps descended the stairs and Peter appeared in the doorway.
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