Death Sits Down to Dinner

by Tessa Arlen

  “Good heavens, I’m not interested in Kipling and Elgar!” Clementine was calculatedly brusque; she must push Lady Ryderwood into a revelation. “I simply don’t understand why you killed Sir Reginald.”

  “It’s quite simple; I was merely doing my job.”

  Clementine laughed, it was a shaky laugh, but the best she could do. “Your job? Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

  “I will explain since your imagination only takes you so far. Unlike you, I never had the advantages of birthright. I came from a humble family. My father died when I was fifteen, leaving my mother and me with nothing. I had a natural talent and I worked hard to make it pay; you have no idea how grueling it is to train the voice. Hours of practice require physical stamina and dedicated patience; there is never a day off. I was employed at the Munich Opera House…”

  “You are Velma Moser,” Clementine couldn’t help herself as she remembered her conversation with Lady Ripon at the theatre. “You are the Queen of the Night!” The pitiless cruelty of the role was far better suited to this new Lady Ryderwood than the timid and gentle Butterfly. It was an inspired guess, and Clementine was rewarded for it. She had touched on conceit and now Lady Ryderwood or Velma Moser, or whoever this woman really was, was eager to tell her story.

  “Yes, I am Velma Moser.” And being the diva she was, the woman preened. “My most successful role was the Queen of the Night; no one can sing that aria as well—I was barely twenty years old when I first sang it in Munich. Twenty!”

  “But this doesn’t explain…”

  “Then do not interrupt, Lady Montfort.” Lady Ryderwood was warming to her story now. “It was in Munich that I met Sir Francis Ryderwood. He fell in love with me, and took me away from the exhausting life of an underpaid performing artist. For the first time I knew what it was like not to worry about money, to eat well and wear beautiful clothes, and with the allowance he gave me I was able to keep my mother in some comfort until she died. Unfortunately, Sir Francis patriotically decided that he would return to his old commission to fight in the second Boer War. No, Lady Montfort, I was not concerned for his safety, but I did manage to persuade him to marry me before he left.

  “My concern was for my mother’s two younger sisters, my aunts Katryn and Andrea, the kindest, gentlest women I ever knew when I was a little girl. They had gone to live in southern Africa in the late 1890s. Many young Dutch girls emigrated to the Transvaal to marry Boer cattle farmers. The men were happy to have young wives from the old country: strong, willing, working-class farmers’ daughters, who wanted the opportunity of a new life with hardworking husbands who would give them big families. When the Witwatersrand Gold Rush fomented even more discord between the Dutch Afrikaners of the Transvaal and the British settlers in the Cape, your government decided it was time to intervene, on behalf of the British immigrants of course. It was a long and bloody struggle and the Boers fought bravely for their freedom to the bitterest of endings.

  “When my war-hero husband returned severely crippled from his war wounds, I did not feel that this was sufficient reparation for the lives of my aunts and my little cousins who had died such terrible deaths in British camps. They just disappeared like that!” Veda Ryderwood snapped her fingers in the air and her face was as cold as stone as she continued. “I was alone and in despair when I heard how my aunts were taken from their farms and corralled, along with thousands of other Dutch Afrikaner women and children. With the Boer women and children incarcerated, the British set about the destruction of their farms: burning homesteads and poisoning wells to deprive the Boer rebels of food and shelter, while their families starved to death in those camps. Yes, I can see that you have perhaps heard of Lord Kitchener’s shameful scorched-earth policy. It was successful; it certainly brought the last of the Boer rebels to heel.”

  “The British army didn’t intend for them to die.” Clementine felt the story was a little one-sided; at least she hoped it was. “They put them in camps because they were alone on their farms with no one to protect them.”

  Lady Ryderwood’s laugh was bitter as she shook her head, “They starved to death in those camps.

  “Even though Francis was in a wheelchair, I knew I could not continue with him. I had to make a plan. Bad investments had reduced his fortune and we had to live inexpensively in Ibiza, so there was nothing to be had from him. I wrote to my old voice teacher, Franz Schmidt, as I knew I would have to earn my living again. He immediately came to visit me in Ibiza and he did something far better than return me to the stage of the Munich Opera House. He persuaded me to work for the German government, to gather useful information and cause chaos within the British government in the event we went to war. Francis was dying anyway, but his title and position in society would be of greater use to me if he were dead.”

  “You killed your husband? You killed Sir Francis?” It finally came to Clementine just how ruthless this woman was, and she instantly regretted her outburst. When my time comes, she thought, she will show no mercy.

  “I agreed to his death. I have never felt such freedom as I did that day.”

  Clementine shuddered; the woman was a monster, and she had been stupid enough to fall for her gentle charm and her lies. But this did not explain why she had killed Sir Reginald. And then it came to her. Veda Ryderwood had come through a window into a room lit by candlelight, and from behind her victim, seated at the top of the table, she had seen the heavy, balding head sunk down between broad, slouching shoulders. Sir Reginald even smoked the same cigars as Winston Churchill. This woman had intended to assassinate the First Lord of the Admiralty. That was why, when Winston breezed in on her aria, she had beheld his arrival with such an intensity of surprise. It had not been annoyance that he had blundered in on her nearly finished song. Veda Ryderwood had understood in that moment that she had made a tremendous mistake.

  “You killed the wrong man, didn’t you? You meant to kill Mr. Churchill!”

  “Yes, it was unfortunate, I killed the man who was invited to stay on in the dining room after dinner. It was the footman who gave my note to the wrong man. I don’t make mistakes.”

  Clementine was amazed that Lady Ryderwood had the impudence to call the English arrogant, but another revelation dawned: This is exactly like The Bruce-Partington Plans after all!

  “You are nothing but paid spies, you and your Clumsy Footman!”

  “No, Lady Montfort, I am an assassin. My partner, the footman, is the spy.” She made it sound as if murder required far superior skill than theft, and if Clementine had not been so thoroughly frightened she would have laughed. “My partner was planted at the Sopwith factory to obtain copies of their designs, and when he had them he came here to help me with my task. It did not work the first time, but it will now. Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk his being recognized by your son after I found out about Lord Haversham’s involvement at the Sopwith factory, which is why he is not here to help me tonight.”

  “I knew there was something wrong with the Clumsy Footman,” said Clementine. “I could never put my finger on it. His coloring was all wrong for that jet-black hair, pale eyes, and freckled skin. Good heavens, he was a natural redhead. My son even told me he was!”

  “Yes, yes, you are so clever, Lady Montfort. So there is a brain in that dull little English head of yours. But you are a bit too late, I’m afraid.” Lady Ryderwood jerked on the cord that secured the heavy curtains away from the window. “You will wait here behind the screen with me. And when Churchill comes through that door I will have my chance again—one bullet for him and then one for you, after you have served your purpose as my hostage.”

  Clementine took a step backward, away from Lady Ryderwood, and now she fervently hoped that Ralph would not come into the room, as if he did he would most certainly be shot. She took another step back and as she did so she tripped over the mounded-up ladder that lay on the floor, bruising her bottom on the lead weight as she went down. Sprawled on her back, she watched in paralyzed fear as Lady Ryderw
ood, gun in hand, came and stood over her.

  “You are so frightfully clumsy, Lady Montfort. Now get up.” Veda Ryderwood pointed her gun. And Clementine thought, That’s right, make her shoot you now, the sound will bring everyone upstairs and she will be caught. A heroic and selfless gesture, to be sure, but then she had a far better idea.

  She reached underneath her as Lady Ryderwood motioned with her gun that she stand up. “Get up, or I’ll pull you up by your hair.” Things were getting nasty, Clementine thought as her hand closed over the lead weight.

  “I may not be able to sing above a top C, Lady Ryderwood,” she said in a reasonable and conversational voice. “But”—she lunged forward as Lady Ryderwood stood over her—“I can do this…” And she slammed the lead weight down as hard as she could on Lady Ryderwood’s foot and heard the most sickening crunch.

  “Even if my Italian is pretty patchy…” Clementine leaped to her feet, accompanied by Lady Ryderwood’s shrieks of pain; she was a little off-pitch, Clementine thought, “and I don’t know Verdi from Puccini … I am still pretty steady on my feet.” Lady Ryderwood, staggering off-balance in a circle, shot a hole in the ceiling.

  Clementine was off across the room; she slipped the key out of the lock and whirled through the door as Lady Ryderwood fired her gun after her.

  “And,” she shouted back through the door as she slammed it and turned the key in the lock, “the reason we have a world empire is because we always keep our heads in a crisis.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Standing outside the salon door on the upper landing, Clementine became uncomfortably aware that she had shouted her last remark at the top of her voice and in doing so had secured the fascinated interest of the small crowd gathering below her in the hall. She looked down over the balustrade and saw several startled faces gazing up at her. Her hair was halfway down her back, her gown in ruins. But the upturned faces now frozen in horror were not because of her rough appearance, or her shouted words, but because of the continuing gunfire from the salon.

  In a moment her husband had come up the stairs and was at her side. Better late I suppose than never, thought Clementine as her legs started to wobble. He was followed by Mrs. Jackson, who, in answer to Clementine’s muttered words, turned and called down the staircase to White, who was determined to maintain composure at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by the Chimney Sweep Boys looking rather sweet in powdered wigs.

  “Mr. White, telephone for Detective Inspector Hillary if you please, and tell him to get here as quickly as he can and to bring plenty of police constables.” Mrs. Jackson’s voice cut across a rising babble of conjecture and exclamations from those below them in the hall.

  As her husband walked Clementine down the stairs and into the library, Hermione stepped forward, regal in her lilac gown, and followed them into the room.

  “My guests will be arriving at any moment, Clementine. The dowager queen Alexandra, the Princess Esterhazy, and Lady Ripon will no doubt be among the first. We simply do not have time for any unpleasant behavior and there must be no further interruptions to the evening. Adelaide! Make arrangements to contain that woman, and please tell Inspector Hillary when he arrives that I do not have time to talk to him. I suppose we will have to scrap the duets.” And Hermione swept out of the room, leaving Lord and Lady Montfort, Aaron Greenberg, Adelaide Gaskell, Macleod and Herne, and what amounted to the entire staff of servants of Chester Square and all the menservants of Montfort House, to relieve the salon of the veritable tigress that was rampaging up and down it, having shot all the bullets in her gun into its walls and the ceiling.

  * * *

  “Well, Lady Montfort,” said Detective Inspector Hillary, having escorted a grimly silent Lady Ryderwood, supported between two policemen, out of the scullery door of Chester Square and up the area steps into a waiting Black Maria parked outside, to the delighted interest of several guests who were walking up the front steps to the house, “if this would be a good time, I would really appreciate it if you would tell me how you made this discovery.”

  “It was a complete accident, a coincidence,” said Lord Montfort, rather too quickly in his wife’s opinion as she turned to him and gently laid a hand on his arm. “Darling, might I have a brandy or something? I have asked Mrs. Jackson to join us; we have plenty of time to fill Inspector Hillary in before supper.” Hermione’s guests were now all settled upstairs in the salon and the first strains of music reached their ears from upstairs and then the exquisite power of Nellie Melba’s voice. The door opened and Mrs. Jackson came into the room, looking quite immaculate in her best bombazine silk dress, as if nothing in the world had occurred that evening.

  “Have you met Mrs. Jackson, Inspector Hillary? No, I didn’t think you had. This redoubtable woman is responsible for your making the arrest of the person who murdered Sir Reginald, and who was planning the assassination of Mr. Churchill.” Clementine smiled at her housekeeper as she said, “Jackson, do you realize this one only took us the better part of five days?” She pretended not to hear a long-suffering sigh from her husband and realized that perhaps she was showing off.

  A near brush with death and the better part of two glasses of a sixty-year-old Napoleon brandy had left Clementine almost euphoric, and it was in this condition that Winston Churchill found her as he burst into the room, arms open as if he were about to enfold her in his embrace. It appeared that Mr. Churchill always managed to avoid the business of sitting down and listening to other divas.

  “Clever and resourceful, Lady Montfort!” he cried, and Clementine turned and positively beamed at her husband. The Earl of Montfort and his Countess did not approve of grandstanding and making too much of a business about things, but at this moment Clementine was feeling positively reckless with elation that she had, after all, avoided being shot.

  “It was nothing, Mr. Churchill, just some moments that we noticed,” she gestured toward Mrs. Jackson, “and later put together to form a picture of the evening. It was—”

  “I am utterly and completely in your debt, always will be. If there’s—” Mr. Churchill glowed at her even as she interrupted.

  “It was Mrs. Jackson who actually found Lady Ryderwood’s portable ladder, the one she used to climb down to the dining-room window. And her accomplice is no doubt waiting for her at her address in Mayfair—if you search the house you will be able to find the plans he stole from Tom Sopwith.”

  No doubt Churchill had been thoroughly briefed by Vetiver, for he swanned over this scrap of intelligence; even now he would not be lured into any disclosures. His eyes were shining, effortless accolades tripping off his tongue.

  “All immediately … in hand … dear lady. England will be … forever in your debt,” Churchill intoned, his pudgy hands flying out to the world that was England.

  Mr. Churchill’s grandiose regard of his wife saving Britain did nothing to mollify Lord Montfort, who with an exhalation of irritation had turned to the brandy decanter for solace.

  Surrounded by the sweet, innocent people who had featured as suspects in their murder inquiry—Mr. Greenberg, Adelaide Gaskell, Trevor Tricklebank, who had also joined them as an alternative to an evening of opera, and Mr. Churchill’s punctilious right-hand man, Captain Vetiver—Clementine couldn’t help but tease out the last untidy little loop and knit it up neatly to resolve everything that had gone before. Life rarely provided such opportunities.

  “Mr. Greenberg, please let me be the first to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss Gaskell,” she murmured to him, as he came over to refill her empty glass. “Oh, please don’t look so surprised. You gave yourself away the other evening. When we were still … were still … “She caught Jackson’s eye and remembered in time not to go into that unfortunate business at Kingsley House. “If only you had both made your regard for each other known a little earlier, as well as providing each other with an alibi…” she turned and reached out her hand to her housekeeper, nay her friend, her clever and fearless fr
iend, Edith Jackson, “you might have saved Mrs. Jackson a considerable amount of work.”

  * * *

  “What is to become of the Chimney Sweep Boys, m’lady?” Mrs. Jackson was standing in Clementine’s room early the next morning, as Pettigrew directed the footman to take the last of the luggage down to the hall.

  “Well, without remotely referring to what Sir Reginald had been up to for years, because that will remain her secret forever, Miss Kingsley of course appointed Mr. Greenberg to become chairman of the board of governors for the charity. And since he is to marry Adelaide, then she will help him run the charity while he waits around for his knighthood or, even better, a peerage. Miss Kingsley, bless her heart, now all this unpleasantness has been resolved, has had a complete about-face. She has put Mr. Tricklebank back into her will—after all, he’s all she has—and invited the new Mrs. Tricklebank for luncheon, which should be a very interesting experience for her. Things couldn’t have turned out better.”

  “And the other business?”

  “Ah yes, the other business. Well I’m afraid that Lady Ryderwood is for the high jump for espionage, murder, and attempted assassination. Her accomplice, and his name by the way is Gordon, Alexander Gordon, is for the high jump too.”

  “Awful people; what drives them to such extremes, I wonder,” Mrs. Jackson said rather grimly as Pettigrew helped Clementine into her coat, before leaving to make sure the footman put the luggage into the back of the motorcar in the correct order.