A Fête Worse Than Death

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Sir Philip frowned. ‘Why did she go about it in such a complicated way, Jack? Surely if she suspected Lawrence was Tyburn, she could have killed him without involving Whitfield? After all, even though it makes me cold to think about it, once Tyburn was dead she’d have nothing to fear from Whitfield any more. Whitfield could have married Marguerite –’ he glanced apologetically at the girl – ‘because although I deplored his behaviour at the party, I know I would have eventually let you have your own way, my dear.’

  ‘You’d think that’d be the size of it, wouldn’t you?’ Haldean lit his cigar and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. ‘But she looked at it from our point of view. If Lawrence, as we then knew you, sir, was murdered, who would the police look to first? Why, Whitfield, of course. And we’d have had a good circumstantial case against him. After all, Lawrence was the one who was preventing his marriage to Marguerite and Whitfield was in such a state I doubt if he’d have been able to stand up to any prolonged or serious questioning. But if she murdered Whitfield in such a way that Lawrence appeared to be guilty, that was a different kettle of fish. Mr Lawrence’s dislike of Whitfield was well known and she had arranged for them both to be at the same spot at the same time without witnesses. She got Whitfield to write a letter asking to meet Lawrence. It would be, she probably told Whitfield, a good opportunity for him to find out what Lawrence really did know.’

  ‘I fell for it,’ said Tyburn grimly. ‘I must admit I welcomed a meeting with Colonel Whitfield with nobody else around. I intended to offer him money to leave Marguerite alone and I would’ve been very surprised if that hadn’t done the trick. If it didn’t, I thought an odd hint about his VC would have worked. I had a whole story planned, about how I had bumped into a German way up the Peace River who had dished the dirt, but I never got a chance to say a thing. Even now I can’t see how she did it. If you’re telling me a woman like Mrs Verrity can land a punch like a prize-fighter, then I’m going to have to dissent, Major Haldean.’

  Haldean grinned broadly. ‘She didn’t. And do, please, stop calling me Major. I feel as if I’m on parade.’ He held his hands wide. ‘She knew you’d be at the barn by eleven o’clock and probably a bit sooner. She must have arranged to meet Whitfield there earlier. By that time he was in such a state of nerves he’d probably want her moral support fairly badly and he’d also want her to hear what Mr Lawrence had to say. So, at about twenty-five to eleven at a guess, she put her plan into operation. I think she drugged him first. She used ethylchloride on me in the tunnels, and I bet she used it on Whitfield as well. You might have had it at the dentist’s. It produces instant unconsciousness for about two minutes or so. She made it look as if he’d been in a fight by walloping him with the spade handle. Then she shot him, arranged his body as if he’d committed suicide, and waited by the door for you, Mr Tyburn. Do you remember how dark the barn was after the sunshine outside? When you came in, blinking, she slugged you with the spade. We saw the blood on it. You went down and she completed the good work by applying the ethylchloride. That gave her up to two minutes and she must have gone like the clappers. She’d previously wiped the gun, of course, and it wouldn’t take her long to put your fingerprints on it. Then she placed the gun in Whitfield’s hand, roughed you up a bit, made sure your prints were on the spade as well, and scooted off across the road to the garden gate of Thackenhurst, where, once safely behind the wall, she fired the shot with her other revolver which brought me hurtling up the road. I was an added bonus, of course, but she did want there to have been a shot. It would have looked grim enough anyway, but she must have been delighted to find that I’d heard a gun go off at eleven o’clock. Well, you know what happened next. We went across to Thackenhurst to be met with a fine display of grief and the statement by Norah the maid that at eleven o’clock her mistress had just rung for her morning coffee.’

  ‘And how did she manage that?’ demanded Gregory Rivers. ‘Magic?’

  ‘Not a bit of it. She put the clock back. As simple as that. It’d chime the half-hour again, of course, but that would be mistaken for the quarter if anyone was listening. In through the french windows, which she’d prudently left open, adjust the clock, ring the bell, and there’s Norah ready to swear that at eleven o’clock her mistress was deep in coffee without a care in the world. Not actually being there I can’t prove that’s what she did, but it’s by far the easiest way. Good, eh? It was risky, like Boscombe’s murder, but she brought it off brilliantly. She must have been highly amused in the days which followed to see my industrious efforts to land poor Mr Tyburn still deeper in the soup. Once Stafford had identified him as Tyburn she could breathe again. But fortunately we ran into little Sally Mills. I hope she got her tea-set, Belle. If ever a little girl deserved one, she did. Anyway, this excellent and meritorious child pointed me in the right direction. I badgered myself to death for the best part of the afternoon, went to see Ashley and by the end of the evening we had a plan.’

  ‘A dangerous plan,’ grunted Ashley.

  ‘A successful one,’ countered Haldean. ‘And once you’d secured the co-operation of the French police and Greg had weighed in on my side, I stopped worrying. You see, it was one thing being certain in our own minds what she’d done, but proving it was quite another matter. We had to draw her out somehow and so I paid Mrs Verrity a visit. Having so publicly appointed herself as Whitfield’s champion she more or less had to go along with me. She certainly didn’t want to take me down the tunnels, but I dropped so many hints about what I hoped to find that she must have thought I was crackers. Because, on the face of it, what on earth could there be? She’d never read Boscombe’s book. She’d only read Petrie’s diary and, as I remember saying before, you had to read both of them to spot the flaw. I made references to a mysterious Mr X – she must have thought I was chasing moonbeams – and told her my intention of going with or without her. I was almost certain she’d buy it. After all, she thought she was safe but I managed to raise enough of a question mark in her mind for her to ensure she was. And if I did, by some weird chance, find anything, she wanted to be on the spot.

  ‘And so we went to the Chateau d’Augier. It’s a dismal place. Not nice at all. Not any more. What she didn’t know was that in the tunnel, arrayed in his old battledress, was my long-suffering cousin, Gregory Rivers.’ Haldean raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, old pal. It must have been a grim vigil.’

  ‘It was,’ said Rivers with feeling.

  ‘And, in the cellars, were, of course, Ashley and three officers of the French police. Now what I didn’t know was that she’d helped herself to a grenade from the stack of weapons that French farmer, Rimet, had. However, I did notice her bag seemed jolly heavy.

  ‘It nearly went wrong at the outset. She noticed a footprint at the cellar entrance, but I fobbed her off with a tale of peasants looking for free bricks. She was as jumpy as a cat all the way down. She sensed someone was watching. And honestly, Ashley –’ here Haldean broke off to gaze severely at his friend – ‘I could have done without all the scuffling in the cellars as we were going down the steps into the tunnel.’

  ‘We were getting ready,’ said Ashley. ‘I half-expected her to whack you over the head and shut the trap-door on you.’

  ‘Yes . . . it occurred to me as well. However, I insisted she went first because the thought of her behind me was not pleasant. Once in the tunnel I wanted to get the layout. Once I’d seen that, put together with what I already knew and suspected, it was clear what had happened to you, Mr Tyburn. It gave her a real shock when I made the accusation. She’d gone from being wary of me to thinking I must be loopy. I kept up a flow of inane chatter, which she could be forgiven for wanting to murder me for, to tell everyone where we were. At one point I let rip with a shout to tell you we were coming, Greg.’

  ‘I heard it,’ he said with a grin. ‘That was the signal to get my head down.’

  ‘And, as you know, she confessed all. She was perfectly safe, you see. As far as she knew, there
weren’t any witnesses for miles and it must have given her some considerable pleasure to boast about how clever she’d been. She’d already decided I was going to have an accident. The ethylchloride took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized at that stage she must have drugged you in the barn, Mr Tyburn. I thought she’d simply thumped you with the spade. I should have known she’d want to be a lot more certain than that. She couldn’t shoot me, of course. My body was almost bound to be recovered, even though she intended to chuck a bomb at me to bring the house down. However, I believe she was caught in the act of clubbing me with the butt-end of her gun.’

  ‘I’ve never moved so fast,’ said Rivers. ‘I’d come as close as I dared to hear what she was saying, but you went out like a light and she raised that damn gun . . . It was a nasty moment, Jack.’

  ‘It was,’ agreed Haldean warmly. ‘But you gave her a nastier one. When you rose up in front of her, I thought she was never going to stop screaming. She must have really thought the dead had walked. And, although I don’t want to be vindictive, I can’t help thinking it served her right. After all, she’d helped to kill them.’

  ‘They were my men,’ said Tyburn sombrely. ‘I shall have their bodies brought out and decently buried. It seems the least I can do. I’d like to think they had a proper memorial and a grave. They were good men. Decent men.’

  ‘That’s the most any of us can hope to be,’ said Haldean quietly. He raised his glass. ‘To the dead.’

  They drank the toast in silence, then Tyburn raised his glass once more with a broad smile. ‘You can’t drink this, Haldean, or you, Superintendent Ashley, or you, Captain Rivers. Because this is for you. I’ve got two priceless things returned to me which I thought were gone for ever; my reputation and my daughter. What was the toast of the RFC?’

  ‘My favourite one was “Happy landings”,’ said Haldean.

  ‘Happy landings,’ repeated Tyburn. ‘It’s been a tough flight. But here’s to the pilot.’