Death at Wentwater Court

by Carola Dunn

  ‘Call her Annabel. She just asked Wilfred to. Yes, you could say we’re chummy.’

  ‘Will you tell her I don’t hold her to blame because Lord Stephen liked her better than me? I know I acted as if I thought she was trying to take him away from me, but he never really wanted anything to do with me even before he came down here. He was . . . he was rather a scaly character, wasn’t he?’

  ‘A real snake in the grass,’ Daisy agreed. ‘Won’t you tell her yourself?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t!’

  ‘Try. She’s not very happy and it might cheer her up.’

  ‘She must be in a fearful huff at me.’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘I think you’ll find she understands. She’s not much older than you. Go on.’

  A few minutes later she had the satisfaction of seeing Marjorie and Annabel embrace each other. Marjorie, like Wilfred, was turning out to be not half such a blister as she had made herself out to be. The trouble was, the more her resentment had been directed at Lord Stephen rather than Annabel, the more likely that she had decided to give him a ducking.

  Daisy slipped out of the room. She wanted to think about what she was going to tell Alec. It was beginning to dawn on her that, whoever was responsible for Astwick’s death, the whole family was going to be dragged through the courts. Her increasing liking for Annabel made her quail at the prospect.

  However, her duty as a citizen to cooperate with the police was unchanged. Besides, what they didn’t learn from her they’d probably dig up anyway, perhaps with more disruption of everyone’s feelings. Alec was a good detective who would leave no stone unturned. Even exhausted by lack of sleep, he had jumped on a coincidence of names leading to the recovery of a fortune in stolen gems!

  Where was he? She was dying to know what Astwick’s ferret-faced manservant, Payne, had to say about the burglaries.

  As she reached the Great Hall, a footman came towards her. ‘The detective’s back, miss. I was just coming to tell you he’s asking for you.’

  ‘In the Blue Salon again? Thank you.’ Daisy was taken by surprise by the lightening of her heart. Alec was back, and he wanted to see her – purely for professional reasons, she reminded herself.

  ‘The Blue Salon?’ Phillip had overheard as he arrived in the hall, Fenella in tow. ‘The Chief Inspector’s here? It’s bally well about time, too.’ He and Fenella followed Daisy to the Blue Salon, where he instructed his sister to wait outside.

  Alec, flanked by Tring and Piper, glanced up and smiled as Daisy entered. He looked as if he had slept well, his eyes restored to brightness, no longer hollow beneath the fierce eyebrows.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Dalrymple. Ah, Mr. Petrie.’ The eyebrows rose, giving him a sardonic air. ‘I understand you wish to leave us.’

  ‘Not me, my dear chap, my sister. My people want me to take her to her aunt’s, near Reading. It’s an infernally awkward situation, here, don’t you know.’

  ‘It is indeed,’ said Alec gravely, but Daisy would have sworn he was hiding a smile. ‘I take it you’re referring not only to my investigation but to Miss Petrie’s broken engagement.’

  ‘How the blazes do you know about that already?’ Phillip was properly impressed by this evidence of omniscience. ‘Hang it all, one can’t keep much from you chaps. Yes, that’s right. Deuced uncomfortable for the poor old thing being stuck in the same house with the blighter she’s handed his papers.’

  ‘You don’t feel the same discomfort?’

  ‘What, me? By Jove, I’ve been in worse holes, I can tell you. You were up above it all, I see.’ He nodded at Alec’s Flying Corps tie. ‘Ever meet von Richthofen?’

  ‘I never had that honour.’ Alec patiently returned him to the point. ‘I gather you intend to return to Wentwater Court after leaving your sister with your aunt?’

  ‘Oh yes, can’t leave Daisy – Miss Dalrymple – in the lurch. Have to keep an eye on her. Dash it, I’ve known her since she was no higher than my knee.’

  ‘What rot, Phillip! You’re only two years older than me. I was higher than your knee when I was born.’

  ‘No, you weren’t, old bean. Not until you were old enough to stand up,’ said Phillip triumphantly.

  Sergeant Tring managed to turn a guffaw into a muffled snort. Ernie Piper frankly grinned.

  Alec preserved his countenance. ‘May I have your word on that please, Mr. Petrie?’ His lips twitched at Phillip’s blank stare. ‘No, not on the height of your knee, on your return to Wentwater.’

  ‘My hat, I believe you still suspect me!’ Phillip fidgeted under Alec’s suddenly piercing gaze. ‘Yes, confound it, you have my word.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Petrie. I regret to say that so far only Miss Petrie and Miss Dalrymple have been eliminated from my enquiries. Everyone else at Wentwater Court is still under suspicion of having caused Lord Stephen Astwick’s death.’

  CHAPTER 10

  With a subdued ‘toodle-oo,’ Petrie departed. Alec sent Tom Tring off to the servants’ quarters to ask the questions they had discussed on the drive from Winchester, then he turned to Daisy.

  ‘I must thank you, Miss Dalrymple, for supporting Piper this morning.’

  All the same, he thought, he must have been more tired than he had realized yesterday to put such trust in her, to treat her almost as another police officer under his command. Had he really called her Daisy, or was it a dream? He had been too happy to see her when she walked into the room a moment ago. He must keep reminding himself that she was the Honourable Miss Dalrymple and he was merely a middle-class copper, doing his job.

  ‘I’m sure Phillip didn’t do it,’ she said, her smile becoming uncertain as if she recognized his withdrawal, ‘but I reckoned if he walked out you’d be mad as a wet cat. Do you really still suspect him?’

  ‘I must. The lodge-keeper’s statement together with the skates Astwick was wearing virtually rule out an outside agency connected with his financial shenanigans or the jewel robberies.’

  ‘Have you found out anything more about the robberies?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Has Payne talked? I suppose the man you picked up in the Lanchester really is Payne?’

  ‘Chummie admitted to being Astwick’s “personal gentleman,” and that’s about all we got out of him. He only admitted that much after we told him we’d found the loot, the passports, and the tickets to Rio, and had arrested his lordship.’

  ‘Arrested!’

  ‘One of our little tricks that often works. They’re so keen to put the blame on the other fellow that they spill the beans.’

  ‘I can’t imagine Lord Stephen claiming his servant was the brains of the show,’ said Daisy. ‘Too, too humbling.’

  ‘Nor can Payne, apparently. He remained unmoved. Still, a few more hours behind bars and we’ll see what news of Astwick’s death does to his tongue. In the meantime, there are blocks on the roads around the area where he was found lurking, and half the Hampshire force combing the countryside. That business is under control. I wish I could say the same of this. Have you anything new to tell me?’

  ‘If you know about Fenella’s engagement being broken, then you know about James’s outburst, which means you know about Geoffrey sloshing him. I take it Piper found out from the servants . . . ’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ young Ernie confirmed proudly.

  ‘. . . though I’d swear none of them was in the room at the time and I can’t think how they found out.’

  ‘The footman on duty was just about to go in to make up the fire, miss, when it all happened.’

  ‘What did I say about servants and sneezes?’ Alec teased, momentarily forgetting his good resolution. ‘Still, I’d like to hear the story from you to make sure what I heard is accurate.’

  The tale she told was essentially the same as Ernie’s report, and once again Alec marvelled at the servants’ espionage system. One difference caught his attention.

  ‘You say Geoffrey cast a heartbreaking glance at Lady Wentwater as he left the drawing-room. What exactly
do you mean by that?’

  She hesitated. ‘I wish I hadn’t said that. After all, I might have imagined it. One can’t draw conclusions from a passing expression.’

  ‘Not conclusions, but inferences, or my job would be impossible. Tell me.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ she said with a sigh, ‘or at least show you something which seems to confirm my inference. A photograph. It’s in the darkroom.’ She started to rise.

  ‘Can you describe to Piper where to find it? Good.’ He sent the constable off to fetch the photo. ‘We’ll leave the subject of Geoffrey until he comes back. I understand Lady Marjorie has emerged from seclusion. Have you talked to her?’

  ‘Yes.’ Again Daisy seemed reluctant to continue. ‘Or rather, she talked to me. She wanted me to tell Annabel she doesn’t really believe Annabel tried to take Lord Stephen away from her.’

  ‘Which suggests she realizes that Astwick was the villain of the piece.’

  ‘She called him a scaly character,’ Daisy admitted.

  Clearly she recognized – and deplored – the strengthening of Lady Marjorie’s motive. ‘I’m sure James did it,’ she hurried on. ‘If you’d heard his beastly attempt to put the blame on Annabel . . . ’

  ‘He’s already tried that on me, remember, and I’ll be speaking to him again. I assure you, he’s high on my list.’

  ‘Good! Wilfred’s turned out to be a bit of a brick, you know. Besides standing up for Geoffrey last night, he made a special effort to be friendly to Annabel this morning.’

  ‘He’s low on my list.’ Alec smiled at her. ‘Didn’t we decide he’d more to lose than to gain from making Astwick mad as a wet cat?’

  ‘Yes, like Annabel,’ she agreed with a grateful smile. ‘I’m so glad Annabel is out of it. I’ve been talking to her a lot and I like her awfully.’

  Alec didn’t disillusion her. True, Lady Wentwater had had nothing to gain from angering Astwick, and she knew it, but would she have considered that in a passion of desperate hate and fear? Or might she not somehow have ensured that the ducking should end in drowning?

  Except that he couldn’t think how.

  ‘She didn’t say anything helpful?’ he asked.

  ‘Helpful to you? No.’

  ‘To you?’

  Daisy nodded, a haunting sadness crossing her face. If Lady Wentwater had said something to comfort her, Alec prayed fervently that her ladyship would not be implicated.

  Piper returned, breathless, with a stack of photographs. Skimming through them, Daisy picked out four, discarded three, and handed Alec the fourth. ‘I shot it just as Annabel and Astwick came into the hall together.’

  ‘A family group, yet Lady Wentwater wasn’t included?’ He took out his magnifying glass.

  ‘I’m not sure whether she was left out on purpose or by accident. I think it was a misunderstanding.’

  The figure in the centre of the photo, her boldly patterned dress standing out, was a young woman he recognized only as a type. Her boyish figure, marcelled bob, and sharply defined lips were the current uniform of fashion. ‘So that’s Lady Marjorie? A bright young thing bent on grabbing the limelight.’

  ‘It’s a bit thick, isn’t it? I was pretty fed up when she bobbed up wearing that frock, but she’s really quite sweet.’

  ‘And there’s Geoffrey.’ He studied the large youth’s face. ‘Good Lord, don’t tell me the lad’s in love with his stepmother!’

  ‘That’s what it looked like to me,’ Daisy agreed. ‘And if he loves her, he wouldn’t have wanted to hurt her by getting Astwick in such a dudgeon he’d make trouble for her.’

  ‘He might not have thought so far ahead,’ Alec pointed out, scanning the rest of the photographed group, ‘or he might not even have realized Astwick was threatening Lady Wentwater with . . . Great Scott! To think I put Wentwater down as one of those stoic gentlemen incapable of violent emotion! He’s practically foaming at the mouth.’

  ‘Yet just a moment later, when I looked up, he seemed as unruffled as ever. He came to the darkroom to talk to me last night. I’d done a bunk after all the fuss and bother,’ she explained apologetically.

  ‘I don’t blame you. It must have been a deuced awkward situation.’ In her place most girls would have fled the house, like Fenella Petrie, but Daisy soldiered valiantly on, doing her best both to aid the course of justice and to protect her friends. Alec wished he had never enlisted her, dividing her loyalties. It was his job, though, to make use of anything and anyone who could help him solve the case. ‘What had Lord Wentwater to say to you?’

  ‘He wanted to convince me that he trusts Annabel.’

  ‘So he has already assured me,’ said Alec cynically.

  Daisy chuckled. ‘He advised me in his most earlish manner not to bother to pass it on to you as repetition wouldn’t make a believer of you.’

  ‘Then why . . . ?’

  ‘I think he came to me for Annabel’s sake, in case James’s beastliness had influenced me against her. He swore he hadn’t realized what James was up to. I’m almost sure he also hoped to persuade me not to pass on the slander to you. When I said James had already flung the dirt, he was absolutely appalled.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. If I don’t nab that young brute for manslaughter, I sincerely hope he’ll get his comeuppance from his father.’ He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘Wait a minute, didn’t you tell me Sir Hugh insisted on sending for the police? I was in a bit of a fog yesterday and I didn’t catch the significance, but I assume that means the earl himself objected to calling us in.’

  ‘Only because he didn’t want the Chief Constable poking his nose in. He and Colonel Wetherby are at daggers drawn, I gather. Didn’t the Commissioner explain?’

  ‘He just said to keep the local people out of it as much as possible. I didn’t realize Wetherby himself was the problem. They’re incredibly lucky that I was down here in Hampshire already, you know. No one from the Yard could have come without a request from the Chief Constable, or at least his consent.’

  ‘I don’t think Sir Hugh can have known that. He did say something about not being sure of the protocol.’

  ‘Had it turned out to be an accident, the Commissioner might have been able to hush it up, I dare say. As it is, the only reason I haven’t had to notify Wetherby yet is the connection with the case I’m already working on.’

  ‘He’ll have to know eventually?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’ll get a copy of my report. It can’t be kept from the press forever, either. Tring and Piper are good men and haven’t breathed a word to the local chaps. Only Gillett, the Inspector knows my whereabouts or you’d have had swarms of reporters here by now.’

  ‘Too ghastly!’

  ‘Fortunately they’re quite happy at present. The conservative papers want to know when the police are going to start protecting delicately bred ladies from the scum of the earth. The left-wing rags are inveighing against the poverty that drives men to steal the purely ornamental wealth flaunted by the fashionably useless.’

  ‘You haven’t told the press about recovering the gems?’

  ‘No, partly because of the link with Astwick’s death, mostly because I’d like to keep it out of the papers until we’ve recovered the latest haul. Too many people know, though. I give it twenty-four hours at most, and then another twenty-four before they’re onto Astwick.’

  ‘Golly, forty-eight hours before ravening hordes of reporters descend on Wentwater Court?’

  ‘At most.’

  ‘Don’t tell Lord Wentwater!’

  ‘Don’t you, either,’ he recommended, smiling. ‘Well, unless you have anything more to report, I’d better go to work on Lady Marjorie to start with. Thank you, Miss Dalrymple. I’ll see you later. Are your pencils sharpened, Ernie?’

  Daisy left the Blue Salon with mingled disappointment and relief. Alec had no need of her shorthand today. Though she disliked being excluded after feeling herself part of his team, she was also quite glad to be spared the
second interview with James. Besides, she hadn’t done a stroke of work on writing her article yesterday. It was her only excuse for staying at Wentwater, and she wanted to stay until everything was cleared up.

  On the way to her room, she met Geoffrey on the stairs, togged out in riding kit. She didn’t think he’d defy his father so he must have been released from confinement. He stopped three steps above her, his tall, solid-muscled frame looming over her.

  She wouldn’t want to make him angry, but his violence was the violence of a hot temper. Though Geoffrey would strike out in a fury, she simply couldn’t imagine him coolly planning a nasty trick.

  ‘Miss Dalrymple – Daisy – I must apologize for the dustup last night,’ he said, shamefaced.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Daisy told him warmly. ‘James was asking for it.’ Finding herself with a choice of craning her neck or addressing his waistline, she continued up the stairs, halting a few steps higher.

  He turned to face her. ‘I shouldn’t have started a rough-house in the drawing-room. I didn’t think, I just wanted to stop him spouting such filth. You don’t believe what he said, do you?’

  ‘Certainly not, and your method was jolly effective, if not quite the thing. Are you going riding? I don’t think you should, you know. Mr. Fletcher’s going to want to talk to you.’

  ‘To me?’ Geoffrey blanched. ‘Again?’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry, I don’t expect he’ll have you up for assault,’ she said with a smile. ‘Why don’t you ask if he can see you right away, then you can ride afterwards.’

  He nodded, but in the moment before his stolid mask shut down, Daisy saw that her words had not reassured him. Despite his size and strength, he was awfully young and vulnerable.

  How perfectly ghastly for the poor prune to be in love with his stepmother!

  When Daisy reached her room, Mabel was dusting. ‘I haven’t touched your papers, miss,’ the maid assured her. ‘I’m that sorry I’m not done yet but things is all at sixes and sevens what with the p’leece in the house and all.’