Death at Wentwater Court

by Carola Dunn

  ‘He is in love with you.’

  She flushed. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to him.’

  ‘He told you . . . ?’ The brief colour fled from her face, leaving two patches of rouge on her high cheekbones. She clasped her slender hands to her breast. ‘You mustn’t tell Henry! Oh, please, you won’t tell Henry?’

  ‘Not unless it becomes unavoidable, which I don’t foresee.’ He was interested to discover that Lady Wentwater, like Geoffrey, was afraid of the earl’s reaction. Lord Wentwater must be a formidable man when roused. Alec hoped against hope that he himself was not going to be the one doing the rousing.

  He might at least be able to knock her ladyship off his list of suspects. He continued, ‘Nor do I see any need to pass on to your husband any disclosure you may make to me regarding your relationship with Astwick.’

  ‘You want to know what he was holding over me? I cannot see that it matters.’

  ‘Probably not, if there actually was a secret. You do realize that if in fact you were enjoying an amicable affair with him, your motive for wishing him dead would vanish?’

  ‘I suppose it would,’ she said despairingly. ‘Since I’m caught between Scylla and Charybdis, I might as well stick with the truth. I was never his mistress. I hated him.’

  With that, Alec had to be satisfied. Lady Wentwater preferred to be suspected of causing Astwick’s death rather than to be revealed as an unfaithful wife. He admired her for it.

  He had to wait until after lunch to see her husband. Alec and Piper were provided with veal-and-ham pie, coffee, and bottled beer, and after eating Alec ventured to light his pipe. As he went over his notes of yesterday’s interview with Lord Wentwater, he decided he must stop holding back in deference to the earl’s social status. Certain questions needed asking. If his lordship chose to complain to the Commissioner, so be it.

  Alec was knocking the dottle from his pipe into the grate when Lord Wentwater arrived. Piper hastily tossed his Woodbine into the fire and retreated to the window seat.

  Once the earl was seated with the light from the window on his face, Alec spent a moment studying him. No sign of the passionate emotion of Daisy’s photograph showed on those aristocratic features. Even his eyes met Alec’s with calm gravity. Alec felt he’d never get anywhere unless he could shake the man’s self-possession.

  ‘I understand you and Lady Wentwater do not have separate bedrooms,’ he opened.

  ‘That is neither a secret, nor unusual.’ Lord Wentwater seemed faintly amused.

  ‘However, you have been known to sleep in your dressing-room. Did you do so the night before Astwick’s body was found?’

  ‘If you want an alibi, I have none.’ The trace of amusement was gone. ‘As it happens, I learned that my wife had retired early that evening, so I did not disturb her.’

  ‘Astwick also retired early. You claim to trust her, yet you must have wondered why she made no vigorous effort to repel his advances.’

  ‘Not at all. I am sure you are aware that my wife’s life for some years was somewhat . . . Bohemian. She is still unused to the role of hostess to a house party and undoubtedly feared insulting a guest.’

  ‘And that was the only reason?’

  ‘It was sufficient.’ If Lord Wentwater had had any inkling of blackmail, he didn’t betray it by so much as the flicker of an eyelid.

  ‘Are you so sure Astwick’s pursuit was unwelcome? I’m not suggesting, at present, that there was any question of her permitting him to seduce her, but the most respectable of ladies may enjoy a light flirtation.’

  ‘Respectable in some eyes, perhaps,’ he said coldly. ‘It was perfectly obvious that my wife neither encouraged nor enjoyed the scoundrel’s attentions.’

  ‘Then why did you not intervene to protect her?’ Alec rapped out.

  A faint tinge of pink coloured the earl’s cheeks but his voice was still more frigid. ‘I suppose I am obliged to put up with your prying. However, this was a matter of some delicacy which I doubt you would understand.’

  Alec fought to suppress his annoyance. ‘I may not understand the gentlemanly code that obliges you to entertain a scoundrel,’ he said pointedly, ‘but I’m not entirely insensitive, I hope. Try me.’

  ‘I felt she might interpret any interference on my part as a lack of trust.’ Though his positive tone expressed belief in the rightness of his course of action, or rather inaction, his form of words suggested uncertainty.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Alec conceded, but he envisioned the unhappy young wife feeling herself abandoned to the unscrupulous snares of a vengeful blackmailer. If she was indeed innocent, he pitied her with all his heart. He found himself pitying the earl, too, for all his wealth and position. ‘You did nothing, yet you must have been distressed and angry.’

  The flash of anger in Lord Wentwater’s eyes could have been remembered wrath or offence at Alec’s suspicions. ‘Not so angry as to descend to playing a childish trick upon Astwick, I assure you,’ he said dryly.

  ‘You knew his habit of skating at dawn.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Your valet recalls mentioning it to you.’

  ‘Chief Inspector, I don’t listen to, let alone remember, whatever nonsense my valet may babble when he’s shaving me.’

  ‘A pity. You might have caught wind of Lord Beddowe’s persistent spite towards Lady Wentwater.’

  And now the façade briefly cracked. For just a moment, fury, hurt, and despair chased each other across his face. Then he regained command of his features and spoke with icy calm. ‘My son’s conduct was unforgivable. You may be sure I bitterly regret not having been aware of it.’

  ‘You give no credence to his accusation, I take it?’

  ‘That Annabel was responsible for Astwick’s drowning? If you knew her, Mr. Fletcher, you’d not ask. My wife is the gentlest of souls. She hesitated to repulse him verbally, so how can you imagine she’d resort to violent measures to discourage him?’

  ‘Stranger things have been known. Has it crossed your mind that Lord Beddowe might have engineered the accident in order to blame his stepmother?’

  Lord Wentwater’s calm shattered with a cry of aghast incredulity. ‘No! Oh God, no!’ He dropped his head into his hands. ‘If I ever obtain the slightest evidence of that, you shall have it on the instant.’

  Which was precisely what Alec wanted. Though he regretted the effect of his question, it told him a good deal. In his experience, men who successfully hid their feelings were rarely capable of dissimulation once forced to reveal them. Lord Wentwater loved his wife; and he’d not have shown such horror at the possibility of his son’s guilt had he himself caused Astwick’s death.

  Yet Alec could not quite write him off the list. ‘We’re always grateful for evidence, of course,’ he said, ‘but I own I’m a bit surprised by your offer of assistance. You strongly objected to calling in the police, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did.’ Once again the earl quickly recovered his dignity. ‘I was satisfied that it was an accident. In fact, I’ve yet to hear of any proof to the contrary, though I presume you are convinced of deliberate intent to cause harm if not death.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘But believing it an accident, I saw no need to have the local constabulary prying into Astwick’s business at Wentwater Court. Whatever the truth, inevitably innuendos would fly. No doubt you’ve heard that Wetherby, the Chief Constable, and I are not on good terms.’

  ‘“At daggers drawn,”’ Alec quoted Daisy.

  ‘Near enough,’ his lordship said with a wry smile. ‘Now if you had found Wetherby dead in the hall with Queen Elizabeth’s dagger in his back . . . Naturally, when Menton persuaded me that the police were inevitable and offered to consult Scotland Yard, I accepted.’

  Unable to credit that anyone could think the Met less likely than a mere county force to solve a crime, Alec was inclined to believe him. On the other hand, he might have counted on being able to sway Men
ton’s friend at the Yard, whereas Colonel Wetherby was beyond his influence. Lord Wentwater remained on the list.

  James Beddowe still topped it, a matter of wishful thinking for want of evidence. Alec sent for him.

  The earl’s heir was by no means the cocky, vitriolic young man he had appeared yesterday. He came in with a hangdog air, accentuated by the purplish bruise on his chin, and slumped into the seat Alec indicated.

  Alec wasted no sympathy on him. ‘Do you wish to add to or amend your statement?’ he enquired.

  ‘Statement!’ James looked distinctly rattled. ‘Here, I say, what I told you yesterday was pure speculation. If you’re calling it a statement, I’ll withdraw the whole bally thing. Tear it up.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, though I’ll note that you have changed your mind since last night.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve heard all about last night,’ James said sulkily, fingering the bruise.

  ‘I understand you more or less accused Lady Wentwater to her face, in your father’s presence, of having murdered her lover. Is that correct?’

  ‘I was kidding! If Geoffrey hadn’t cut up rough, no one would’ve taken what I said seriously because Astwick’s death obviously wasn’t murder. It was an accident. People are always falling through weak ice. The silly ass should have checked it, and it’s sheer folly to go skating alone, anyway.’

  ‘The ice was firm, and overnight temperatures were well below freezing.’

  James managed a sneer. ‘Ice varies in thickness, you know. Astwick hit a thin patch. Just bad luck. It was an accident.’

  ‘An “accident” which you attempted to blame on your stepmother. An “accident” which you caused in order to blame it on your stepmother?’

  ‘Good gad, no! You can’t believe that!’

  ‘I have evidence that the ice was tampered with.’

  ‘Not by me! You must be mistaken. It was pure chance.’

  Alec shook his head.

  ‘Then how can you be sure she didn’t do it? I didn’t, I swear it. I had no motive for harming Astwick.’

  ‘Except to lay the blame on Lady Wentwater,’ Alec pointed out inexorably.

  James reverted to insisting that the police had misinterpreted the evidence, that Astwick had simply struck a weak patch of ice. ‘It might have happened to anyone,’ he maintained.

  ‘Phillip Petrie, for instance.’

  He grimaced at the mention of his ex-fiancée’s brother. ‘Or me. But someone would have been there to pull us out.’

  So he hadn’t heard Petrie’s boast. Another mark against him. On the other hand, he had taken Fenella skating with him when he found the body. Was he so callous he’d subject the inoffensive girl to such an experience? His behaviour to his stepmother argued that he was.

  Alec took him again through the story of the discovery of Astwick’s drowned body, hoping for a slip of the tongue indicating prior knowledge. He learned nothing new.

  Wilfred was next. Breezing into the Blue Salon, he said at once, ‘You mustn’t believe what my brother’s been saying about Annabel. Jolly poor show, I’m afraid. The poor old pater’s pretty shattered.’

  Alec found himself liking the natty young man, who was unashamedly relieved by the removal of the threat Astwick had presented to him. Unless he was very devious indeed, it seemed unlikely that he had had a hand in that removal. Nonetheless, he could not be crossed off the list.

  Nor could the Mentons, though a second interview with them gave no new cause for suspicion. Altogether, though the weight of Alec’s suspicions had shifted somewhat, the list remained unchanged. Even a full night’s sleep had shed no light on the confusion. He requested Daisy’s presence.

  When the footman knocked on her bedroom door, Daisy was gazing out of the window. The sky was overcast and a few drops of rain were beginning to fall. By morning, she guessed, the snow would be gone, the grim evidence of the hole in the ice a thing of the past.

  She hurried down to the Blue Salon.

  Greeting her with flattering pleasure, Alec said, ‘I’m hoping you can straighten out my thoughts, which are going round and round in circles.’

  ‘So are mine,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve hardly done any work on my article. Yet at the same time, I’m beginning to find it hard to believe anything really happened. How I wish it hadn’t!’

  ‘If you’d rather not . . . ’

  ‘Oh no, I’ll help if I can.’

  ‘Thank you. Let’s go back to Marjorie, for a start. She feigned hysteria well enough to convince the doctor, but I’d swear her embarrassment was real when she told me why. Surely it’s impossible to blush deliberately?’

  ‘Heavens no. Lucy, the friend I share a house with, can blush at will just by turning her mind to something frightfully embarrassing. She claims it’s an essential part of flirting. It doesn’t work for me,’ Daisy added mournfully.

  ‘So even that could have been acting, which makes me think she left off her cosmetics in order to look the part of an innocent.’

  ‘She might have, but if you ask me, she just felt too wretched at the prospect of having to face everyone to bother.’

  ‘Maybe. Lady Wentwater did the opposite, trying to disguise with make-up that she’d been crying.’

  ‘That was on my advice.’

  ‘Oh. All the same, it’s odd that she’s so miserable when she no longer has anything to fear from Astwick.’

  ‘She’s not miserable, she was crying because Lord Wentwater was so kind to her.’ She wrinkled her nose at Alec’s sceptical face. ‘I don’t expect kindness makes men want to cry, but I assure you . . . ’

  ‘All right! The earl was especially kind to his wife and it made her cry. Does he know Geoffrey is in love with her?’

  ‘I can’t see that that’s relevant.’

  ‘Who knows? I’m at a loss and clutching at straws.’

  ‘Well, I wondered myself. He didn’t see Geoffrey’s look at Annabel in the drawing-room, nor the photograph. The earl could well suppose that Geoffrey attacked James just from a general sense of chivalry, towards Annabel or even towards their father. After all, James’s accusations hurt him, too.’

  ‘True. Did – does – Lord Wentwater know Astwick was blackmailing his wife, or was his violent emotion in the photo caused simply by jealousy?’

  ‘I don’t know. He did say Annabel was withholding something from him, but as far as I could tell he didn’t appear to guess that it might be a secret from her past. Certainly he was more sad and worried than angry with her, as if he wished she’d bring herself to confide in him.’

  ‘To trust him as much as he trusts . . . ’ Alec broke off as the door opened and the footman’s head appeared. ‘Yes? What is it?’

  ‘A call for you on the telephone, sir. It’s from Inspector Gillett in Winchester.’

  ‘Thank you, I’ll come at once.’ Alec sprang to his feet. ‘Ernie, go and tell Tom I want him in the Great Hall. If this is what I think, we’ll be off.’

  Daisy trailed after him to the hall and waited at a discreet distance to find out whether he was about to leave. He listened, spoke briefly, listened again, then hung up the receiver as his sergeant and the constable came in.

  ‘Gillett told chummie Astwick’s dead and he’s ready to talk. Let’s hope we can get there before he changes his mind, Tom. Ernie, you’re on duty here as last night. Miss Dalrymple, thank you for your help. We’ll be back.’

  He and Tring strode off by the back way to the garages. Daisy stepped out onto the front porch for a breath of fresh air, and a few minutes later watched the yellow Austin Seven disappear down the drive into the rainy dusk. When she returned to the hall, the disconsolate Piper was still there.

  ‘I expect you’d like to be in on Payne’s interrogation,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, miss, wouldn’t I just.’

  ‘You’re needed more here, or Mr. Fletcher wouldn’t have left you,’ she consoled him. ‘Have you worked with him before?’

  ‘Not on an
out-of-town case, miss.’

  ‘Is he sent out of town often?’

  ‘Pretty often, miss. He’s been in charge of all these jool burglaries, besides other cases where there’s nobs involved. He’s got a degree, see, he knows how to talk to them sorts of people.’

  Daisy gathered that Piper no longer numbered her among ‘them sorts of people.’ Fishing for information about Alec, she remarked casually, ‘It must be hard on his family, having him away from home so much.’

  ‘All coppers has irregular hours, miss,’ he told her, unintentionally unhelpful, ‘and it’s worse for us detectives. My girl, she knows what she’s in for.’

  Before Daisy had to pretend to a polite interest in his girl, the telephone bell rang and Drew appeared as if by magic to answer it. ‘For the Chief Inspector,’ he announced.

  ‘He’s left,’ said Daisy, dismayed.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Piper said importantly, taking the apparatus from the butler, who disappeared as magically as he had appeared. ‘Hullo, hullo, this is Detective Constable Piper, C.I.D.’

  The receiver squawked at him in an irascible tone, cutting off his attempted explanation of his superior’s absence. Piper felt in his pocket and produced his notebook and pencil. Daisy removed the elastic band holding it shut and opened it for him. He scribbled desperately for a few minutes.

  ‘Yes, sir, I think I’ve got that but . . . Hullo, operator? Bloody hell, he’s gone!’ He blushed. ‘Beg pardon, miss.’

  ‘Oh, never mind that, who was it? What did he say?’

  The constable studied his notes with an air of bemusement. ‘It were Dr. Renfrew, miss, the pathologist. Best I can make out, he’s saying the deceased drowned not more’n two hours after he ate his dinner.’

  CHAPTER 12

  Daisy and Detective Constable Piper stared at each other. ‘So Astwick died that evening?’ Daisy said. ‘Not in the morning?’

  ‘That’s what it sounds like to me, miss. Everyone seems sure he didn’t eat no breakfast, and anyway, by what I heard them doctors can tell pretty much what a body’s ate recent by what’s in the stomach.’