by M C Beaton
No one wanted to chat or socialize or play croquet any more. Suspicion hung like a black cloud over Farthings.
Guests and staff were painstakingly interviewed over and over again. More detectives arrived, discreetly dressed, to search the whole house.
“They won’t find anything,” said Daisy to Rose. “I bet our murderer, if he took any blackmailing evidence, has got it neatly hidden somewhere in London.”
“Mrs Stockton and Lord Alfred really must be sticking hard to their stories about paying Freddy ten thousand pounds out of the goodness of their hearts,” said Rose. “I only saw them talking together once and eavesdropped. It seems that Lady Glensheil is so determined to put an end to all this that when Kerridge got permission to search their homes in London, they could do nothing to stop it, because she has more influence in high places than either of them. But although they seemed furious at the intrusion, neither of them seemed particularly worried that the police would find anything.”
“When I was growing up in the East End,” mused Daisy, “there never was any privacy. And one day after the show at Butler’s, this stage-door Johnny gave me a box of chocolates. I knew if my brothers and sisters saw that, I’d never get any. So I hid it up the chimney. Wouldn’t you know it? Next day was a cold snap and Ma lit a fire and the whole box tumbled down into the flames.”
Rose stared at her. “Daisy, I wonder if the police searched up the chimneys?”
“Let’s go and put it to Kerridge.”
“No, wait a bit.” Rose was desperate to prove to Harry that she was better at detecting than anyone else. “The police would announce they were searching the rooms again. One of the servants would see them searching up the chimneys and the news would go around like wildfire. I know, at dinner tonight I’ll suddenly say I feel faint. You help me out of the room.”
“I’ll help you make up to look pale,” said Daisy eagerly.
“Not white lead. I do not know why women will still use that cosmetic. So many of them die of lead poisoning.”
♦
Harry fretted over the soup at dinner. He kept stealing glances at Rose. She was so very white and there were blue shadows under her eyes.
Then he heard Rose mutter an excuse and rise from the table. She left the room, supported by Daisy. Harry, being neither relative nor husband, had to remain where he was and resist the impulse to run out of the dining-room to find out what was wrong with her.
“Now,” whispered Rose as they made their way up the stairs. “Mrs Stockton’s room first.”
There was no electricity laid on at Farthings, nor gaslight, and so they had taken one of the bed candles from the hall table to enable them to read the names on the cards on each door.
“Here we are,” said Rose at last. “Let’s hope her maid is in the servants’ hall.”
Rose had a stab of worry that the door might prove to be locked, particularly after all the petty thefts, but to her relief it opened. Oil lamps were burning in the little sitting-room, so she blew out the candle.
“I’ll look,” said Daisy. “If anything’s hidden, it’ll be on the little ledge above the hearth.”
“These are Tudor chimneys,” Rose pointed out. “They probably go straight up. Don’t take off your evening gloves, Daisy. If there’s anything there, we don’t want to leave fingerprints.”
Daisy crouched down on the hearth and reached up into the chimney. She felt around. “Nothing,” she declared, sitting back on her heels. She tried the bedroom chimney, but there was nothing there either.
“Let’s hurry and try Lord Alfred’s chimney.”
Another search along the old twisting corridors until they found Lord Alfred’s room.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” said Daisy. “I don’t want that manservant of his returning and finding us. He frightens me.”
Again, she knelt down to search up a chimney.
“Nothing here either.” She then searched the bedroom chimney. Nothing but soot.
“It was a mad idea anyway,” said Rose. “I know, let’s try Mr Jerry’s room, or rather, his wife’s bedroom. If the killer was in a hurry, he might have hidden it there.”
“Hurry, hurry,” urged Daisy. “Don’t want to get caught.”
Rose felt a frisson of fear as she opened the late Mrs Jerry’s bedroom door. Of course the body had been removed, but somehow the air still smelt of the patchouli that Mrs Jerry liked to spray on herself.
Daisy went quickly to the chimney. Again, her searching fingers couldn’t find anything. “Let’s get out of here,” she urged.
Back in their sitting-room, Daisy stripped off her sooty gloves. “Turner will wonder what I’ve been up to.”
“Just tell her you dropped a brooch in the grate and you were looking for it.”
“She’ll wonder why I didn’t just unbutton them at the wrist and peel them back like we do in the dining-room.”
“Forget Turner. Let me think. Of course. The killer would hardly stand in front of her and inject whatever drug it was into the champagne bottle. He, or she, would take the bottle to their room. People don’t normally carry syringes around with them. So whoever it was must have come prepared. But why? Did Mrs Jerry threaten the murderer in London?”
She went to the window and looked out. “If he – let’s assume it’s a he – threw the syringe out of the window it would land in one of the flower-beds below. But I’m not thinking clearly. Whoever it was would not need to get rid of the syringe right away. He would only do it later after Captain Cathcart made his announcement in the dining-room about the champagne bottle. Unless it was actually in his pocket – no, it wouldn’t be there. A servant might find it. So he goes up to his room as soon as he can. He must have had it hidden somewhere very clever because the police had already searched the rooms.”
“He might not have thrown it out of the window,” said Daisy. “If he leaned out, he could hide it in that thick wisteria.”
“Well, we can’t start climbing up ladders to look for it without occasioning comment,” said Rose. “If we got up at dawn, the sun strikes full on the front of the house and we might see the rays shining on the glass of the syringe. I’ll tell Turner that we are leaving for a walk very early and we can dress ourselves.”
There was a knock at the door. Daisy opened it. Harry stood there with Becket.
“I came to see how you were feeling, Lady Rose,” he said.
“Oh, I’m fine now,” said Rose airily. “It was the heat in the dining-room.”
Daisy was disappointed. Rose was obviously not going to tell them about the search for the syringe, so they would not be joining the early-morning hunt.
“As long as you are well,” said Harry. His eyes moved to the sooty pair of gloves Daisy had left on a side table. “Someone been cleaning out the fireplace with evening gloves on?” he asked.
“Silly of me,” said Daisy, not meeting his eye. “I dropped a brooch in the grate and scrabbled about for it.”
Harry’s eyes moved to the grate. Because of the warm weather, the fireplace had been cleaned and was now decorated with leaves and pine cones.
“I found it,” Daisy went on hurriedly.
♦
“They’re up to something,” said Harry as he and Becket walked down the stairs. “Why would Daisy’s gloves be covered in soot?”
“Miss Levine may have been searching up the chimneys looking for the blackmail material. I had forgotten, people sometimes hide things up chimneys when the fires are not being lit.”
“I’ll suggest that to Kerridge tomorrow. But why did she not tell me? Lady Rose will put herself in danger if she decides to detect on her own.”
♦
Rose had a restless night. She was frightened of oversleeping. But as soon as they pale grey light of dawn filtered in through the curtains, she got up and roused Daisy.
They dressed and made their way down the stairs. “I hope there is sun this morning,” whispered Rose. “It was overcast yesterday.”
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They stood together on the lawn and waited. The sky was clear, with only a few wisps of cloud, which turned pink in the rays of the rising sun.
Their eyes swept along the thick wisteria which covered the front of the house.
“There!” whispered Rose, clutching Daisy’s arm in excitement. “There’s something sparkling amongst the leaves half-way up. Let’s tell Kerridge.”
“He’s at The Feathers and the policeman at the gate won’t let us past,” said Daisy. “The press are probably still lurking about. He usually comes here at eight in the morning. Not long to wait.”
Daisy suddenly grasped Rose’s arm. “I think someone was watching us, I saw a curtain twitch.”
“Let’s get back inside and wait for Kerridge,” said Rose, looking uneasily up at the windows. “I can’t see anything.”
♦
Harry went in to see Kerridge just after eight o’clock and found Rose and Daisy already there. “These young ladies,” said Kerridge, “had the idea that our murderer may have dropped the syringe into the wisteria. You were right about the drugging. The preliminary autopsy confirms that she was drugged with a powerful sleeping-potion. I’ve sent my men to get ladders. Come with me, Lady Rose, and point out exactly where you think you saw something shining in the leaves.”
Harry was furious. Rose had lied to him. He followed them out, angrily reminding himself that he had never really liked her anyway.
As Harry stood apart from her, his hands behind his back, and his brows down, Rose felt ashamed of herself. She went up to him. “I would have told you the truth but I thought you would think my idea silly.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said curtly. “You wanted to prove that you were better at detecting than I.”
He walked a little way away from her.
“I thought you might have told me,” said Becket to Daisy.
Daisy shrugged. “If she won’t, I can’t.”
Rose pointed to where she had seen something shining. Kerridge told the policemen to put the ladder up against the house at that point and begin the search.
Rose kept glancing at Harry’s set face. She knew in that instant that anything he found out about the case he would keep to himself in future.
The policeman on the ladder gave a shout. “I see it!”
“Lift it with your hankie,” shouted Kerridge. “Don’t want your prints on it. Is it a syringe?”
“Yes.”
Kerridge turned to Rose. “Good work, my lady,” he said. “We should have you on the force.”
Then he turned to Harry. “Let’s go inside. I want to discuss this.”
He waited until the policeman had climbed down the ladder and then he and Harry walked off together, followed by Becket and Inspector Judd.
“Just look at them!” raged Rose. “I find their evidence, but because I’m a woman they never think that I should be part of their rotten discussion. When I return to London I shall contact the suffragettes and support them once more.”
♦
“I’ll get my men to search this place from top to bottom,” Kerridge said to Harry in the estate office. “Then I’ll need to let them all go. Lady Glensheil has tried to help, but I am now being leaned on heavily from above. Oh, yes, they want me to solve the case but without upsetting the nobs. And this old place has so many nooks and crannies.”
Come the revolution, thought Kerridge, this would make a good orphanage and this lot would be out there working in the kitchens and gardens. He had a vision of Lady Glensheil scrubbing the pots in the kitchen with a piece of sackcloth as an apron tied round her waist.
“Mr Kerridge,” said Harry sharply.
“Eh, what? Oh, yes, I don’t suppose there will be prints on that syringe.”
A policeman entered. “Whose window was it under, lad?” asked Kerridge.
“It was under the window on the first-floor landing.”
Kerridge sighed. “So any one of them could have thrown it out as they went up or down the stairs. Blast! Are you sure, Captain Cathcart, that neither Mrs Stockton nor Lord Alfred have been particularly friendly?”
“Not that I have seen. None of them are particularly what I would call friendly, except perhaps Tristram Baker-Willis, who has proposed to Lady Rose. Probably after her title and money.”
Kerridge looked amused. “Why do you jump to that conclusion? Lady Rose is very beautiful.”
“Lady Rose is irritating and unfeminine.”
“I would have said you both had a lot in common.”
“Tommy-rot!”
♦
The fact that they were all told they could leave on the following morning had lightened spirits considerably and an air of relief pervaded the dining-table.
Only Rose felt unhappy because Harry would not look at her and Tristram kept breathing compliments in her ear.
She was glad when Lady Glensheil finally rose to lead the ladies to the drawing-room. Maisie and Frederica spoke of the coming season. Maisie said that if she did not ‘take’ at this, her second season, she would be sent to India. Frederica said roundly that she had half a mind not to get married at all. There weren’t any decent chaps on offer. Lady Glensheil said loftily it was the duty of every young miss to marry. There was no other future for a lady.
Rose protested and said that a number of ladies these days were earning their living.
“Not ladies,” said Lady Glensheil dismissively.
When they were joined by the gentlemen, the card tables were set up. Harry sat down with Lady Glensheil, Tristram and Sir Gerald and did not once look in Rose’s direction.
Rose excused herself and followed by Daisy went up to her room. “The captain is angry with me,” she said.
“You should maybe have told him,” ventured Daisy.
“I don’t care what he thinks,” said Rose angrily.
♦
Harry and the rest of them left for London the following morning. Harry went straight to his office and looked at the pile of mail waiting for him. He decided to employ another secretary. He drafted out an advertisement to appear in The Lady magazine and sent Becket off with it.
He felt guilty about Miss Jubbles. He should have noticed she had fallen in love with him. And he had told her all about Lady Rose working at the bank!
∨ Hasty Death ∧
Eleven
When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Rudyard Kipling
Two weeks had passed since the return from Farthings, and Rose felt she had entered again into a type of luxurious convent. Once more she had to change at least six times a day and make calls with her mother or various ladies of society. She had to remember all the trivial things not to do, such as never opening a door herself, never looking round when she sat down – one had to assume a footman would be there to place the chair – and never to sit down on a chair still warm from a gentleman’s bottom.
Daisy, too, was bored and restless. She tried to console herself by remembering the hard times in the business women’s hostel. Now that it seemed as if Captain Harry was determined never to see Rose again, Daisy knew that meant she would not get a chance to see Becket.
The only freedom the pair had was when they were allowed go out on their bicycles in the park, and that was because the earl had taken the precaution of furnishing two of the footmen with bicycles and making sure they accompanied Rose and Daisy when they cycled.
And then, to make life really horrible, Tristram called and asked the earl’s permission to pay his addresses and that permission was granted. Rose refused him again and was in deep disgrace.
Perhaps her parents would not have been so angry had they known that Rose had actually refused with a certain amount of reluctance this time. She was beginning to realize
that the only hope of freedom for a lady of her class was to marry a complacent husband. She would have her own household. Her husband would presumably spend most of his time at his club or in the country killing things.
Daisy had told her about Harry’s advertisement for a secretary and she wished he had asked her. He never called and he never attended any of the long, boring society events where she sat and fretted and counted the hours until she could return home to the sanctuary of books and privacy.
♦
Harry was finding it hard to engage a suitable secretary. He did not want to make another mistake.
But at last he settled on a Miss Ailsa Bridge, daughter of Scottish missionaries. She was tall and thin with a long nose and pale hooded eyes. She was in her late thirties and had travelled extensively to the Far East with her parents to convert the heathen. Ailsa had excellent shorthand and typing. She came with a reference from Brigadier Bill Handy, who said that while she had been abroad she had provided the British government with useful intelligence about various situations in Burma.
She proved to be neat, efficient, and, above all, impersonal.
What he did not know because Ailsa did not consider it important enough to tell him was that two days after she had started work and while Harry was out of the office, she had sustained a visit from Miss Jubbles.
Miss Jubbles announced that she was the captain’s former secretary and said that the china in the cupboard was her property. Armed in her new status of affianced lady, Miss Jubbles was ready to do battle, but Ailsa said mildly that she should go ahead and take her china.
“Very kind of you,” said Miss Jubbles gruffly. She had brought a box and tissue paper with her and she packed the china lovingly, glancing around occasionally at what she had considered to be her ‘sanctum’ for signs of change. There were new box files in different colours. The windows had been cleaned and sparkled in the late-spring sunlight. Other than that, it all looked heart-breakingly the same.
While she packed, Ailsa continued to type at great speed, keys rattling like a Gatling gun.
“Thank you,” said Miss Jubbles when she had finished. Ailsa raised her hands from the keys and put them in her lap. “I’ll be going, then.”
