Murder at the Castle

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘I don’t see that that’s any business of yours.’

  ‘Oh, but it is, you see. It bears on an investigation I have undertaken at the request of Sir John Warner. I understand that you knew who the lady really was, and that she discussed with you some plans for . . . embarrassing Sir John, to put it mildly.’

  Peterson opened his mouth, but Alan held up a hand. ‘You needn’t bother to deny it. You were seen, and overheard, and recognized, and I can produce a witness to that effect if necessary.’

  ‘Why should I bother to deny it? The lady never carried out her plans.’

  She did too, I wanted to answer. She tried to blackmail Sir John, and caused him and his wife great distress, and if this man thought that was nothing, he could think again! But I kept my mouth shut while Alan continued.

  ‘I’m not particularly concerned with that aspect of the problem just now, though there might be an interesting point of law at issue. However, my question is this: exactly when did you post a letter for Madame?’

  ‘There’s no law against posting a letter!’

  ‘Not unless it contains a threat. When did you post it?’

  ‘A few days ago. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Before or after Delia – to use her proper name – before or after she died?’

  ‘After! And I had nothing to do with her death! How could I, when I was sitting here playing first fiddle in front of a hundred other people?’

  ‘And that,’ said Alan, turning to me, ‘disposes of the letter.’

  ‘Delia wrote it herself.’

  ‘Of course she did. It was meant to soften up Sir John before she started her blackmail, only Mr Peterson forgot to mail it.’

  ‘Fortunately. But it said he killed his wife. That makes no sense. When she wrote it, she was obviously alive.’

  ‘The letter said he had destroyed his wife and family. Delia was referring to his present wife and children, who, she thought, would be destroyed if it were learned that she was still alive.’

  I shook my head in disbelief. ‘She really was a piece of work, wasn’t she? I wish I could be sorry she’s dead, but I can’t find it in my heart.’

  ‘A thoroughly nasty person,’ Alan agreed. ‘She could sing like an angel, though.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse her, any more than . . .’ I didn’t finish the sentence, but I glared at Ben Peterson’s back as he stalked off, his violin under his arm.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘He’ll pay for it,’ said Laurie, who had heard part of the conversation. ‘Whatever he tried to do to Sir John, word will get around that he’s trouble. Yes, he plays a fine violin, but he’s already had a few problems with temperament. That’s why he doesn’t have a permanent job with a good orchestra. I can’t stand him, myself, and there are a few others in the orchestra who think he’s an arrogant son of a . . . gun. Now when the scuttlebutt goes around that he tried to sabotage Sir John, he’s going to find it harder and harder to get good jobs. Trust me. I’ll be the first to make sure it gets to Chicago.’

  Larry, who had been lurking unhappily nearby, came up to Alan. ‘Sir, I don’t know what you want with me. I don’t know any more than I’ve told you. I don’t know where James O’Hara is.’

  ‘That’s not what interests me at the moment. We think we may know where to find him. What I need from you now is a little more information about your conversation with him. He gave you cause for concern. Why?’

  Larry shuffled his feet and bit his lip. ‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but is this really your business? You’re not the police.’

  ‘No, I’m not, not now, though for many years I was. But Sir John has asked me to find the reasons for the terrible events that have so interfered with this festival, and if possible name the person or persons behind them. In order to do that, I must ask questions you may find intrusive. And may I remind you that we have very little time before everyone leaves the area, and even, in some cases, the country?’

  Larry made a face and spread his hands. ‘Okay. Shoot.’

  ‘I want you to tell me what passed between you and James O’Hara. Exact words, please, so far as you can remember them.’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget.’ He took a deep breath. ‘See, it was on the Saturday, the first full rehearsals after that awful boat ride and the accident.’

  Alan nodded. ‘The day before she died.’ He glanced at his watch.

  ‘Okay, I’ll hurry it up. Anyway, some of us went out afterwards for drinks, and James was drinking quite a lot more than other people, and carrying on about Dan, getting pretty loud. And . . . well, I guess I’d had a little too much, too. Anyway, I got sort of maudlin, and I said . . .’ He paused and swallowed. ‘I said what a great thing it would have been if somebody had pushed Gracie in the drink, instead of Dan.’

  ‘Larry!’ It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  ‘I know, I know! Do you think I haven’t kicked myself around the block about it? I was sorry I’d said it even then, but I never thought . . . But then when she fell the next day I got to wondering. She was awfully close to Dan on the boat; I saw her. What if James thought she’d pushed him? What if I’d planted an idea in his head? He was so furious about Dan’s death. I tried to talk to him, find out what he was thinking, but he was drinking way too much and never made much sense. And then you started nosing around and making everybody wonder if she really was murdered somehow, though none of us could see how. And then when he and Pat disappeared together . . .’

  Larry ran down, and Alan looked at his watch again. ‘All right, that’s been very helpful, and it’ll have to do for now.’ He addressed the small group around us. ‘Go get ready to perform. I won’t ask you to forget about this; that’s not possible. But use the hurt or anger or whatever you’re feeling and turn it into music.’

  ‘That,’ I said, linking my arm with my husband’s, ‘was one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard you say.’

  ‘It’s the only thing to do with negative emotions, isn’t it? Use them to make something positive.’

  And that simple philosophy, I thought as we strolled around the castle waiting for the rehearsal to finish and the performance to begin, could do away with terrorism and most other crime in a heartbeat, if more of the world would adopt it.

  But we couldn’t do it. I, for one, couldn’t do it. If I could take all the worry and fear and anxiety and doubt I’d experienced this week, all my loathing for Delia’s selfishness and Ben’s callousness, if I could roll them up into a ball of positive energy, I could light up all of North Wales with it. But no. I had to hug those feelings to myself, cherish them, feed on them, poisonous though they were.

  But then, I wasn’t an artist. Artists, of whatever stripe – painters, musicians, actors – had an outlet. They could take whatever was boiling inside them and make it into something meaningful. And for the rest of us, perhaps, I thought as the lovely strains of the Pié Jesu reached my ears and my heart – perhaps that was part of what the Christian rite of confession was all about. Get rid of all the negativity, all the poison, lay it in the hands of him who could transform it into something positive, something wonderful.

  In that rather exalted mood I followed Alan into the pavilion to claim our seats for this last of the festival concerts.

  The orchestra took their seats. The chorus filed in and sat down. The concertmaster walked on. Applause, applause, applause, in which I pointedly did not join. There I was, hugging my resentment. Mea culpa, I whispered to myself, but Alan heard, and smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. The concertmaster nodded to the oboe, who sounded the A, and the orchestra did their final tuning.

  Then Sir John entered, and this time I joined in the applause whole-heartedly. He bowed and then held out his hands for silence.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as we have come to the last concert of our music festival, I want to thank you very sincerely for your support of our efforts. We have raised a goodly sum for the benefit of the RNL
I, and I’m sure they thank you, too.’

  Applause.

  ‘Many of you know,’ he went on, ‘that we have been saddened by the death of two of our musicians in the course of this festival. In their memory, therefore, we would like to offer tonight, as a special tribute, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pié Jesu.’

  Without giving time for anyone to applaud, he turned and raised his baton. Nigel, seated next to the concertmaster, rose, as did the choir, and the gentle, lovely strains of the violins began.

  I’ve said before that music often makes me cry. Even the ragged dissonances of an unrehearsed high school band playing ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ at a July 4th parade will make my throat close up. So when a group of professional musicians, under a superb director, performed one of the loveliest of contemporary music works, I was hard put not to sob.

  Pié Jesu, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem . . . Blessed Jesus, who takes away the sins of the world, grant them rest . . .

  At some point Alan took my hand and squeezed it hard, and handed me his handkerchief when my tissues proved inadequate.

  ‘That was perfect,’ I croaked over the applause, blowing my nose one last time. ‘Just what we all needed.’

  ‘Better now?’ said Alan. It wasn’t really a question.

  There was a brief interlude while the musical forces regrouped for the major work of the evening, which requires a huge orchestra, a team of percussionists, two pianos and a celesta, and a boy choir, along with the usual choir and four soloists. Resetting all that took a little time.

  ‘We’re almost there, aren’t we?’ I asked Alan quietly.

  ‘All except for the one little detail of who killed Delia, and how.’

  ‘You think it was James, don’t you?’

  ‘I would think so, if I had one single shred of evidence that she was murdered at all.’

  ‘We both know she was.’

  ‘Knowing it and being able to prove it are two very different things.’

  ‘It’ll work out,’ I said serenely.

  He studied my face. ‘You really are feeling better, aren’t you?’

  ‘The music. And the words. I’m not worried any more. I’ve given it up.’

  Not many people would have understood. That I am married to someone who nearly always does understand is one of the great blessings of my life.

  ‘Have you had any word about James?’

  ‘No. I’m hoping they’ll find him and get him here before we leave tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter very much. It doesn’t even matter if I question him or leave it to Inspector Owen. It’s his case now, anyway. I can make a full report to Sir John without . . . And here we go.’

  Carmina Burana is a long and tempestuous vocal-orchestral work that defies description. If you know the piece, you know what I mean. If not, nothing I could say could begin to convey the flavour. Actually, it’s a bit like trying to describe a flavour. You can say of a fruit that it’s both sweet and tangy, with a little bite to it, but none of those words evoke pineapple. At any rate, we all sat back to enjoy the bombast and the lyricism, the glee and the poignancy, and for over an hour we revelled in the musical fireworks.

  At last it was nearly over. The last few minutes rose to an almost frenetic conclusion, with the full forces employed fortissimo, drums and cymbals clashing, voices soaring to a triumphant climax.

  It was no wonder, then, that in that instant before the audience burst into applause, I thought I was hearing an echo. Surely that wasn’t an anguished shout from somewhere outside the castle.

  ‘NO!!’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘Let’s go.’ Alan half-pulled me from my seat.

  ‘What . . .?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The rest of the audience was on their feet, applauding and cheering. We pushed our way through them, earning a few glares.

  ‘Was that really someone shouting?’ I asked, panting in Alan’s wake.

  ‘Yes.’ He was saving his breath.

  I stumbled over one of the cables, but Alan caught me and hurried on. I had no breath left for questions.

  I don’t suppose it was actually more than a minute or two before we reached the exit, though it seemed longer. And there, standing just under where the portcullis used to be, was one James O’Hara, struggling in the firm clasp of two burly policemen.

  ‘NO!!’ he shouted again. ‘It was meant to be a joke! I only wanted to frighten her. She was a right bitch, and she killed me best mate, and I’m glad she’s dead, but I never killed her!’

  ‘The Inspector said you wanted to question him. Sir.’ The last was added in a tone that narrowly skirted insolence, and I saw that the officer was my least favourite sergeant.

  ‘I do,’ said Alan, ignoring the disrespect. ‘But this isn’t the place to do it. Several hundred people will be streaming out of here in a moment. And for heaven’s sake take your hands off the boy! He’s not going anywhere!’

  ‘We was told to keep him under control. Sir.’

  ‘And he is now under my control. Quickly, Mr O’Hara. This way, unless you want to be trampled to death.’

  Alan led him into the gift shop, just in time, as the first of the joyful horde flooded out of the castle. They were in a bit more of a hurry than usual, I thought, because the sky was now definitely threatening. I hoped we could get home before the storm, and then forgot about the weather as I followed Alan and James, the two policemen close behind.

  ‘Now then,’ Alan said calmly to the two clerks on duty. ‘Ladies, I believe you deserve a tea break.’ He handed one of them a twenty-pound note. ‘I’m afraid we need this room for a few minutes.’

  ‘But we can’t – the till – we’re not allowed . . .’

  ‘As you see, the till is well protected.’ Alan gestured toward the policemen. ‘And I will take personal responsibility in case your supervisor is upset. Now go and have yourselves a lovely tea, and come back in . . . shall we say forty-five minutes?’

  ‘Well, I suppose . . .’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  Alan eased them out the door and then pulled one of their chairs out from behind the cash desk and gestured to James.

  I took a good look at him. He was good-looking, in a flamboyant sort of way. Lots of black hair, lots of muscle, very blue eyes and a very florid complexion. He seemed almost a stage Irishman. And he did, as someone had remarked, smoulder.

  ‘You might as well make yourself comfortable,’ said Alan. ‘How did you get here so quickly? I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.’

  ‘Flew me here in a bloody helicopter, didn’t they? Mindin’ me own business, havin’ a drink or two with me mates, and two feckin’ coppers haul me away before I can even finish me pint! And who the bloody hell are you, if you don’t mind me askin’, me lord?’

  His Irishness was even more pronounced and, I thought, just a trifle exaggerated. I also revised my opinion about his looks. When he opened his mouth, where there should have been a flash of white, he displayed instead teeth that were broken, stained and, in some cases, missing. A pity, I thought, because otherwise he really was handsome. Except in manner, that is.

  ‘I don’t mind your asking,’ said Alan, ‘though I’d prefer you moderated your language a bit. There is a lady present. My name is Alan Nesbitt. This is my wife, Dorothy Martin.’

  The punctilious courtesy damped James’s bellicosity somewhat. He mumbled an acknowledgement of the introductions. ‘But what the bloody . . . I mean, what are you doing here? What do you have to do with all this? You’re not a copper.’

  ‘No, not any more. I was a policeman for many years, but I am now retired. Sir John requested that I look into the deaths of Daniel Green and Madame de la Rosa, events which disturbed him profoundly.’

  ‘They did, did they? Well, Dan’s death disturbed me profoundly! He was me best mate, and that bitch killed him! She deserved anything she got!’

  ‘Why do you think that Madame de la Rosa killed Daniel?’<
br />
  ‘I saw her, didn’t I?’ James wiped his hand across his mouth. ‘There wouldn’t be anything to drink around this place, would there? A man gets dry, doin’ all this talkin’.’

  ‘Dorothy, would you mind getting Mr O’Hara something to drink?’ He held out an assortment of coins and gestured toward the vending machine. ‘Would you prefer water or a soft drink?’

  James looked at him, aghast. ‘Never mind. Get on with it, mate.’

  ‘You say you saw Madame de la Rosa kill Daniel Green. I’d like to know more about that.’

  ‘I was on that bl—that boat. I saw the bitch crowding up next to Dan. I saw him go over. I couldn’t get to him. Oh, God!’

  He buried his face in his hands and wept.

  Killer though I was sure he was, I felt sorry for him. He was in genuine pain. I wondered briefly if he and Daniel had been lovers, and decided it didn’t matter. Whatever the nature of their relationship, plainly James had loved Daniel, and was devastated by his loss.

  Alan gave him time. When James had recovered somewhat, Alan reached for a handkerchief and realized he had given it to me. I found a packet of tissues on a rack, opened it, and gave a handful to James.

  ‘Ta,’ he said, and blew his nose.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alan, and meant it. ‘I know this is hard for you. But when did you start to believe that Madame had pushed Daniel? Right then, when it happened?’

  ‘No, it was later. I heard a lot of talk about her the next day. See, I hadn’t known she was with the festival. She hadn’t bloody bothered to show up on time. And when she came and started acting like she owned the place, and people started talking about her, I started to wonder. And then Ben Peterson – the first violin, y’know? – said something to her, and she laughed and said not to worry, that she’d solved a problem. And somethin’ about the way she said it . . . I knew. And I knew I had to do somethin’ about it.’