A Death at a Gentleman's Club

by Caroline Dunford

  ‘Ah, yes, for now,’ Bertram said, trying to take control. Wilkes exited, and Bertram sat down. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his head. ‘Not too bad, hmm?’ he said. ‘Did you get the notes down?’ As I was still scribbling at this stage I didn’t answer immediately. ‘Odd chap, reminds me of someone,’ said Bertram.

  ‘Who is Parry sending in next?’ I asked, finally laying down my pencil.

  ‘I wish it was brandy,’ said Bertram. ‘I’ll never be hard on a police inspector again. They have the rottenest jobs. I mean, we’re one of them, and look how they are treating us!’

  The door opened, ‘Mr Gordon Chapelford,’ announced Parry.

  ‘Good Gad! That female is still here!’ This was uttered in a sort of klaxon cry, but when the steward simply shut the door behind him instead of forcibly removing me, Chapelford sat down. He gave no pretence at politeness. He clearly disapproved of us. ‘What’s this all about then?’ he said.

  ‘So, what do you do?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I am a chartered accountant to the great and good of this land. Who, might I ask, are you?’

  ‘An agent of the Crown,’ said Bertram.

  ‘And what pray is an agent of the Crown doing in The Holby Club. It’s not like this a is top-drawer establishment. After all, the buggers let me in.’ I felt the blood rush to my face. Quickly, I looked down at my notepad, but I was too late. ‘That’s why we shouldn’t let females in here. Too ruddy delicate,’ said Chapelford.

  Bertram shuffled some papers, which I knew were blank. Clearly, the manner in which the gentlemen were entering did not fit with the script he had prepared, and it was throwing him. I kept my tongue behind my teeth. I knew I would be doing Bertram no favours if I interjected in this interview. Wilkes, I had sensed, had no intrinsic objection to women. He had acknowledged me politely on entrance, the very opposite of this heathen.

  ‘What was your relationship with Killian Lovelock?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I didn’t have a bloody relationship,’ said Chapelford. ‘Barely knew the man. I come here to eat a good dinner and have a decent smoke. Not interested in any chitter-chatter. Plenty of that at home, ha!’

  I looked up through my eyelashes and considered the man. Gravy stains on his clothing, teeth rotting in his mouth, and the hair on his head resembling some form of chronic mange – if he had a wife, as he implied, I truly pitied the woman. That a woman should be in thrall to such a vile creature as this brought forth all my suffragette sympathies. But, however loathsome he might be as an individual, I knew that did not make him a murderer. I waited impatiently for Bertram to ask his next question. However, he seemed quite as taken aback as me to think this man had a mate.

  ‘You’re married?’ he blurted out.

  ‘Yes, what’s it to you?’

  ‘Do you spend a lot of time at the Holby?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I just told you I’m married.’ He gave a hoarse braying laugh. ‘Of course I ruddy well do. Why would I want to be at home with all those brats whining?’

  Dear God, it was worse. He’d not only married, but he had bred. I felt my gorge rising. Those poor children.

  ‘Would I know your wife?’ I asked as calmly as I could.

  ‘Doubt it,’ said Chapelford. ‘Expect we move in different circles, besides, you’re what, twenty-four? She is nineteen. Married me at sixteen and a half.’

  Neither Bertram nor I could find the words.

  ‘That it?’ said Chapelford. ‘Waste of bleeding time.’

  He had half risen before Bertram managed to say, ‘Lovelock’s memoirs, did you ever see them?’

  ‘What? That pile of papers that he carried around with him? Yes, I saw them. Never read any of them. More interested in figures. Of both kinds,’ he said with a sneer at me.

  When he had gone, Bertram said, ‘Did he want us to hate him?’ He was mopping his head with handkerchief again.

  ‘He was the very character of loathsomeness,’ I said.

  ‘More like a caricature of himself than a real person,’ said Bertram thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think we should believe a word he says.’

  ‘Even about the memoirs?’ I said.

  Bertram shook his head. ‘I know these gentlemen are trying for their own amusement to make my life as difficult as possible, but Chapelford said what everyone one might expect of him. I’d like to think I was a fine judge of character, but honestly, Amy could have predicted every word that came out of his mouth.’

  ‘I hope not!’

  Bertram laughed. ‘Well, not every word. But something along the lines of scruffy, smelly, rude, bad man.’

  ‘Pretty much. How on earth do you think he convinced that girl to marry him?’

  ‘If it’s true - and I say if - I imagine it was some kind of business arrangement. Someone needed him to sort out the books and he needed a wife. He’s fifty if he’s a day. I think we rule out a love match.’

  ‘Good Lord, yes,’ I said. I sighed. ‘Maybe he shows a different side of himself to his wife.’

  ‘I hope it’s a cleaner side anyway,’ said Bertram. ‘We’ve another three to go. Do you fancy a cup of tea? I could do with a break.’ He held up his damp handkerchief. ‘And a new handkerchief.’

  Chapter Ten

  Bertram and I Do Our Best to Recover

  ‘We don’t know if Lovelock was writing on paper or in a notebook,’ I said, dropping my third lump of sugar in my tea. Parry was keeping the hordes away while we sat in the little chamber and drank our tea. Neither of us wanted to run into members of our respective families.

  Bertram glanced up. He had half a macaroon in his mouth. He crunched it hurriedly and then swept the crumbs off his waistcoat. ‘You won’t let me turn into a Chapelford, will you?’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘I would shoot you first.’

  ‘Very comforting,’ said Bertram. ‘I can believe it. Try and get Fitzroy to teach you to aim straight if you do.’

  ‘You mean keep it painless, like people do for old dogs?’

  ‘You’d shoot a dog?’ said Bertram, horrified.

  ‘Of course not,’ I said.

  ‘But you’d shoot me?’

  ‘That’s different,’ I said.

  Bertram gave me a defiant glare and reached for a second macaroon. ‘I see what you mean. We don’t know if we can trust Chapelford. Saying he saw papers might have been no more than a guess.’

  ‘I can’t see why he would want to throw us off the scent.’

  ‘He wants us out of the club,’ said Bertram miserably. ‘Probably thinks any kind of scandal that comes near him will affect business.’

  ‘Especially if you were right and he did amend someone’s accounts for them,’ I said and took a sip of tea.

  ‘Hang on, Euphemia! We were joking around. I didn’t accuse the chap of being dodgy.’

  ‘But suppose you were right, and he does arrange financial affairs for people. You know, making it look like they have slightly more money than they do, to get a loan or some such thing.’ I sighed. ‘I admit I don’t know much about that world, but there are occasions when people - and businesses - want their accounts to appear different to how they are.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bertram. ‘Never wanted to go into the family bank, but Father made me learn about it all the same. So, yes, accountants that can hide transactions and that kind of thing are highly sought after by a few.’

  ‘It’s illegal?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Bertram. ‘If you’re caught in a fraud of some kind then you’re liable to lose not only your liberty, but your possessions and your reputation.’

  ‘So, the last thing he wants is anyone investigating people here,’ I said. ‘I’m betting he sought membership of the club to find the right contacts.’

  Bertram shook his head. ‘I think it’s more likely his contacts got him in. I mean, look at the man, who’d vote to admit him.’

  ‘I agree, when you stand him alongside Prendergast or Wilkes he looks like a tramp,’ I said.


  ‘I think we are agreed we can discount most of what he says,’ said Bertram. ‘He’s trying to get us away from here for various nefarious reasons and so he will object, obscure, and, as a last ditch, agree with anything we say as long as it makes us leave. Phew. How would Fitzroy deal with a character like that?’

  I bit into a small fancy iced cake. ‘Probably torture,’ I said through a mouthful of delightfully light and moist sponge.

  Bertram’s eyebrows rose in alarm. ‘Did you ever think you would condone such a thing while eating cake?’ he demanded.

  ‘I never said I condoned it,’ I said. ‘But I suppose I am capable of considering things a little more cold-bloodedly than when I first met you. Mind you, the first thing Richenda ever asked of me was to help her move a corpse.’

  Bertram leant a little nearer to me. ‘I’ve been thinking, Euphemia, when we’re married, don’t you think it might be an idea to leave all this stuff behind?’

  ‘What stuff in particular?’ I asked warily. I knew we would have to spend much of our time in the Fens at White Orchards, but I had hoped that the occasional London visit was not out of the question.

  ‘Fitzroy, murder, spies, assassins and all that.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ I said. ‘Yes, if you wish. We’ve done more than our bit for the country. Much more than most private citizens.’

  Bertram nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, time to let someone else have all the fun.’

  I smiled at him. ‘Some of it has been fun, and it let us find each other.’

  Bertram reached over and laid his hand over mine. ‘Only reason I will never regret it,’ he said.

  ‘Mind you, it’s all very well deciding what we want to do,’ I said. ‘Fitzroy is the one we will have to convince.’

  ‘Does that mean we should do this investigation well or badly?’ said Bertram.

  ‘Bertram! We will, as ever, do our best to see that justice is done.’

  ‘Yes, Euphemia,’ said Bertram sadly. ‘I expect we had better get back to it.’

  I flicked through my notes on the pad. ‘There were a couple of things I noticed,’ I said. ‘Prendergast, we know, has a violent temper, and made it clear earlier that he disliked civil servants.’

  Bertram’s eyes lit up. ‘And Wilkes said Lovelock was some kind of civil servant. Normally I’d say that wasn’t sufficient grounds to murder someone, but that chap has a short fuse if what he did, or at least tried to do, to the porter is anything to go by.’

  ‘But he didn’t take up your challenge,’ I said. ‘Do you think he is the type of man who only berates his inferiors?’

  ‘Yellow-bellied, you mean,’ said Bertram. ‘But then there is that club rule about members not brawling on the premises. He might be the sort that lives for those sorts of rules. From what I can gather, being an Hon Sec is a mightily dull and tiresome task. Lots of lists of names and writing down what was said at meetings that everyone says is wrong afterwards and then contests.’ His brows lowered.

  ‘Could it be you were Secretary for a club at school?’ I asked.

  ‘Three clubs,’ said Bertram. ‘Worst year of my life. I mean, you think you know a chap and then you report what he says ever so slightly wrong and the rotter rats you out to the beak at every opportunity.’

  I didn’t bother to ask what he meant; the day was wearing on. ‘So, he would refrain from attacking a fellow member, though not a porter,’ I said. ‘That still doesn’t sound like the kind of man who would break the law, least of all for the serious crime of murder.’

  ‘I see your point,’ said Bertram. ‘But we can’t discount his temper.’

  ‘Apparently something happened to him in Africa,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard people hint at it, but no one will say - or no one knows - what caused his volatile temperament.’

  ‘I say,’ said Bertram. ‘If he was cool as a cucumber before he went out, and now he’s a raging rhinoceros, then that’s a jolly good case for mental instability. Which would make him a fine contender for being our murderer.’

  ‘Raging rhinoceros?’

  ‘Alliteration, for effect,’ said Bertram. ‘Only this minute remembered it. Must have been that talking about school that did it.’ He shivered slightly.

  ‘But the thing is,’ I said, ‘we don’t know if it was murder or if Lovelock simply took too much heroin. We don’t even know if the memoirs were real.’

  ‘Pretty much back where we started,’ said Bertram.

  ‘I would be inclined to say that it is all a storm in a tea-cup. But…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Well, when you spoke to Fitzroy did he seem odd to you?’

  ‘He always seems odd to me,’ said Bertram. ‘But I get what you mean. He was rather stern.’

  ‘Really? He was quite kind to me.’

  Bertram uttered a noise that can only be described as a growling grunt.

  ‘What was he stern about with you?’

  ‘Finding the memoirs.’

  ‘So, he definitely believes they existed? He didn’t say if they’d never existed or anything like that?’

  Bertram paused to think and ate another macaroon. ‘No, he didn’t infer they weren’t real.’

  ‘Well, that’s odd. If this fellow was nothing but a minor civil servant all this life.’

  Bertram fiddled with a lump of sugar. ‘Would you call what Fitzroy does being a civil servant?’

  ‘I suppose you could,’ I said. ‘He always claims he works for the Crown. Oh, are you suggesting that Lovelock was another Fitzroy?’

  ‘I imagine Fitzroy’s memoirs would be rather -’

  ‘Spectacular,’ I finished.

  ‘I was going to say embarrassing,’ said Bertram. ‘To lots of people in high places. That man brims with other people’s secrets.’

  ‘If only I’d got a better look at the body,’ I said. Bertram started. ‘Well, you know how Fitzroy keeps himself in excellent shape…’ I continued.

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ said Bertram in surprisingly cold tones.

  ‘A lot of what he does is physical, I believe.’ ‘I couldn’t say,’ said Bertram.

  ‘I imagine it becomes a habit, so I would think it likely that Lovelock would have kept himself in good shape despite his age - or for his age. I mean we don’t even know if he was in active service.’

  ‘You know all the language, don’t you?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I’ve picked it up as we’ve gone along,’ I said. ‘You seem annoyed. Was it something I said?’

  ‘No,’ said Bertram, going to the door to summon Parry. But I noticed he had left a macaroon on the plate. Bertram is as eager for macaroons as Richenda is for cake. I would like to think that my beloved had sprung new willpower where sweet things were concerned, but from the state of the sugar bowl that seemed unlikely. I wondered who had upset him. I should have to have words with them.

  Chapter Eleven

  Interviews, Second Sitting

  Prentice Davenport sat forward in his chair, a bundle of nervous energy. ‘Anything I can do to help,’ he said. ‘It’s all about his missing papers, isn’t it? That’s what Chapelford said. He suggested that old Killian must have some salacious secret up his sleeve. Not that I would know what that is. Heart attack, was it? Only the others were - well - saying things. Wouldn’t be nice for those to get out if it wasn’t true.’

  Mentally, I kicked myself. I wrote on a piece of paper We should have got Parry to put them in different rooms after we have interviewed them, so they couldn’t confer and passed it across the table to Bertram.

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ said Bertram aloud. He recovered quickly. ‘What are your fellows suggesting?’

  ‘That Killian was a bit of a user of drugs - you know, opium and that kind of thing.’ He fidgeted in his seat. ‘Cole-Sutton was even saying he might have done himself in - excuse me, miss. I know that’s not a nice thing to say, especially of a dead man, but I need to be as open and honest as I can be with your employer.’

  Out of the corner o
f my eye I saw Bertram’s lips twitch. ‘It is very important you tell the truth, Mr Davenport,’ I said. ‘My sensibilities must come second to justice.’

  ‘Right-o,’ said Davenport. ‘Thing is, Killian never married, as far as we knew, but when he was in his prime he supposedly was rather fond of the weaker sex. He got very drunk recently and hinted to me of a terrible scandal in his past.’

  ‘When was that?’ said Bertram quickly.

  ‘Oh, a couple of nights ago. Let me think. Wednesday, because we had plum duff.’ He turned to face me. ‘There’s always plum duff here on Thursday. It’s rather good.’

  ‘Wednesday or Thursday?’ I asked.

  Davenport slapped himself on the forehead. ‘If it’s not written down I’m a martyr to my memory,’ he said. ‘Never could get my head round mathematics at school.’

  ‘What is it you do for a living, Mr Davenport?’ I asked.

  ‘I have a little import and export business. Poor Pa popped off quite suddenly. He was in the process of training me up. Then it would have been all fine and dandy, but it wasn’t to be. Nasty thing, having a dodgy ticker. Never know when that dreadful chappie with the scythe is going to come calling.’

  ‘Wednesday or Thursday?’ said Bertram coldly.

  Davenport shook his head. ‘Terribly sorry, old thing, but I really couldn’t say. Not to put my hand on my heart and all that. Definitely the same day as the plum duff though. So if you ask the kitchen they’ll be able to tell you.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that,’ I said, hoping we could now move on from puddings.

  ‘Did you ever see Mr Lovelock’s memoirs?’

  ‘Yes, that is to say no,’ said Davenport.

  ‘Which?’ said Bertram, who was beginning to sound more and more like Fitzroy the vaguer Davenport became. The problem was the sterner Bertram was, the more Davenport appeared to want to help him and the more flustered he became.

  ‘I saw him carrying around a briefcase that he said he kept his scribblings in.’

  ‘But you never saw inside,’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Lovelock leave the briefcase lying around?’ I asked. ‘Could someone less scrupulous than yourself have got a glimpse at the contents?’