A Death at a Gentleman's Club

by Caroline Dunford

  ‘Oh, I don’t think any of the members would do something like that,’ said Davenport.

  ‘If you could please answer my colleague’s question,’ said Bertram.

  ‘Well, I suppose they might have done. The lock on it was very simple. You’d only need a cocktail stick to pick it.’

  ‘So, he sometimes left the case unattended?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, never,’ said Davenport.

  ‘But if he had, you could have picked the lock?’ said Bertram.

  ‘Yes. Well, I could have done. Bartle, a boy at school everyone hated, such a swot, used to carry around a briefcase like that. I picked the lock and we filled it full of custard just before prep with Growler Grimes. Ah, school days. They really are the best days of your life, aren’t they?’

  Beside me I could feel Bertram growing tenser and tenser. ‘Why did you join Holby’s?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m a heritage member,’ said Davenport. ‘Pa popping off so early, they passed his membership on to me. Jolly good sorts here. I think they knew I’d need a bit of help making contacts for the business. Got two sisters and Ma to support. It’s not like I’m the son of a publishing magnate, like Sean Wilkes up at Oxford, having a ball by all accounts.’

  ‘Is that Sebastian Wilkes’ son?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s the chap,’ said Davenport. ‘Do you know him?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Really? I thought everyone had. Such a prankster! Liable to only get a Third, but what does that matter? He’s meeting all the right fellows, and he’s got his Pa’s newspapers waiting for him when he comes out.’ He sighed. ‘If Pa hadn’t popped off I was meant to go to Cambridge.’

  ‘And read what?’ I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  ‘Classics,’ said Davenport. ‘I presumed it would mean listening to a lot of old music. Could have been a jape.’

  After he closed the door behind him Bertram said in a very strained voice, ‘Latin and Greek.’

  ‘Probably just as well Pa popped off when he did then,’ I said, struggling and failing to contain my laughter.

  ‘That is not funny,’ said Bertram chuckling. ‘Not funny at all. His poor wife and daughters. Leaving them to the mercy of that clueless imbecile.’

  ‘He seemed a nice clueless imbecile,’ I said. ‘Do you think he was feigning it, like we think Chapelford was?’

  ‘Sadly no,’ said Bertram. ‘I think that really was all Pa had to work with.’

  ‘Might be why he popped off early,’ I said.

  We were both in the throes of merriment when Parry showed in Alistair Cole-Sutton. Now that I saw him standing, I realised he was of no more than average height, but there was a heaviness about him that gave him a stolid presence. ‘Have I missed a moment of amusement on this sad day?’ he said.

  Bertram and I stopped laughing as effectively as if he had poured cold water over us. Cole-Sutton sat down and gave us a big grin. ‘Sorry, could not resist,’ he said. ‘It’s been a damn trying day. Wouldn’t be surprised if the situation wouldn’t have got the better of me under the same circumstances. If you don’t laugh, you’re not alive, eh? Never know when the Grim Reaper is going to come a calling. Live each day, eh, that’s my motto.’

  I immediately thought that living each day was preferable to any other alternative, but I kept quiet. I feared for whatever reason I was verging on the edge of hysteria. Perhaps Bertram was right, and it was time for both of us to bow out of this life. Would I miss it? I truly didn’t know. It had been better than living at home with Mother on the pig farm and far, far better than being a chamber maid, but how would it compare to the quiet of country life? A waterlogged country life?

  ‘…not much I can tell you about Killian Lovelock,’ Cole-Sutton was saying. I took my pencil and attempted to focus. ‘He kept himself to himself for most part. You’ll know he had soup brought to his writing room every day. That is how I believe they worked out something was wrong. The old gent loved his soup. I certainly saw him carrying his briefcase about. Always tucked under his arm. Tatty old black thing it was. Can’t say I ever saw him open it. The rumour was he was writing his memoirs. But you know these older gentlemen, they’re coming to the winter of life and they think their family would like something to remember them by - or worse still, posterity does, so they get this idea that they will write a memoir, or a family history, or another version of the battle of Trafalgar. Gives them something to focus on rather than sitting around picking out their coffins and funeral hymns.’

  ‘You think Mr Lovelock was of this type?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I’m guessing, I admit,’ said Cole-Sutton. ‘But the man had apparently spent his whole life pencil-pushing. Now, if that was me, I would be off on my horse the moment the retirement bell rang. Wife says I will die of a broken neck trying to jump a shrub when I’m ninety-two, because that will be all I will be able to manage by them. Great joker, Mrs Cole-Sutton. You would like her, my dear. Everyone does.’

  ‘Pencil pusher?’ said Bertram.

  ‘Right, keep to the business. Plenty of time for the social later. Still, that said, wife does a lovely hog roast. You should both come around, bring your mister and missus. We love meeting new people, the wife and I.’

  Bertram say nothing. He glowered.

  ‘Right. Right. All I’m saying is, once a pencil pusher, always a pencil pusher. I doubt the man knew what to do with himself when left his office. So that is what he created here. Another little office with plenty of paperwork to do so that there was no chance of him finishing.’

  ‘There has been a comment about him having a reputation as a favourite of the opposite sex when he was younger,’ said Bertram. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Cole-Sutton. ‘I can’t imagine that. But then I have only been a member for two years. Finally let me in when a certain person needed to borrow money and my bank obliged.’

  Bertram and I must have looked taken aback, because Cole-Sutton gave a wry smile. ‘Not out of the top drawer myself. Wife is as genteel as you please, but she took a few steps down marrying me. Not that we aren’t happy and, if I say so myself, the bank is beginning to thrive. All this talk of war - well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does it will make British banks a lot of money. I say it as one who shouldn’t, and woe be to any man who prefers coin over life, but it’s the truth. There’s a lot of people around who are eyeing this war with greedy eyes.’

  ‘Including you?’ said Bertram.

  ‘Not me,’ said Cole-Sutton. ‘I’ve got three boys and I don’t ever want to see them marching off in a soldier’s uniform. Caught a bit of the Boer War myself. Can’t say I’d recommend war as a pastime to any man.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cole-Sutton, you have been most helpful,’ said Bertram.

  ‘Right-o. I will stick around while things get sorted. Call me back any time.’ Then he gave a chuckle. ‘Almost forgot you locked us in. I won’t be going anyway until you say, will I? You devil!’ He pointed at Bertram when he said this, but he also gave a huge belly laugh.

  After he had left Bertram said, ‘What an extraordinary man.’

  ‘I couldn’t help think that he looked like Richard,’ I said. ‘But he is nothing like him.’

  ‘You know, when this is all over, I am almost tempted to take up that invitation for a hog roast.’

  ‘We would have to watch out. His wife is a joker.’

  I sighed and leaned back in my seat. ‘Only one more to go, and I remain uncertain about everything.’

  ‘You would have thought Fitzroy would have made it here by now. At this rate they’ll have to find rooms for us all to sleep in.’

  ‘Do you want to go over the last two interviews?’ I said.

  Bertram shook his head. ‘I have left him to last, but I need to get the Prendergast interview over.’

  He had barely said this before Parry opened the door and Prendergast strolled in. He took
a seat, crossed his long legs and sat back totally at his ease.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I trust you have uncovered the murderer by now.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Bertram and I Deal with a Difficult (ex-)Diplomat

  ‘There has been no mention of murder,’ said Bertram firmly.

  ‘I was in the service,’ said Prendergast. ‘I know a diplomat when I see one. Killian Lovelock might have claimed to be a secretary to some unimportant official, but once you got a few brandies in him that man could discuss and explain complex world events better than any minister I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a few.’

  ‘Service?’ I queried.

  ‘Diplomatic service,’ said Prendergast. ‘What did you think I meant?’

  ‘I am merely surprised,’ I said. ‘You do not strike me as a gentleman overflowing with tact and diplomacy.’

  ‘The question for me is, why did a gentleman of such obvious talent end up in a backwater position. I have no doubt that his last few years were spent in relative obscurity.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Bertram.

  Prendergast sneered. ‘I am not without resources. If he had still moved in the upper diplomatic circles I would have heard of him. In much the same way as I know neither of you work for the Foreign Office. Indeed, the idea of having a woman involved in such things is beyond ridiculous. I recognise you for what you really are.’

  To Bertram’s credit he did not miss a beat. ‘So, you are saying that Lovelock was once a senior diplomat, but that he somehow fell from grace?’

  Prendergast nodded slightly. ‘That would fit the situation. Of course, he is - was - far older than I, so I cannot tell what happened to him. Presumably it would have been in his memoirs.’

  ‘You think this is why he was killed?’ I said.

  Prendergast turned his whole body to face only me. ‘I have no interest in the affair. I left the diplomatic service after my time in Africa. I did my duty and it brought me nothing but disadvantage.’

  ‘But you said you retained contacts within the service,’ said Bertram. ‘Either you left, or you did not. You cannot be both in and out.’

  Prendergast gave a harsh bark of a laugh. ‘But that is exactly what I am. Or, rather, what I do. I run an import and export business, much of which is about supplying our overseas embassies with the delicacies of home. In return they help me import some of the more exotic treasures from the further reaches of our empire.’

  ‘You feel you are owed, after what happened in Africa?’ I said.

  Prendergast again nodded very slightly. ‘That is not for me to say, but certainly there are fellows who believe that I have been unfairly treated.’

  ‘Perhaps you should behave more like a gentleman than a hooligan,’ said Bertram sharply. ‘You may be answering our questions now, but our earlier acquaintance with you has not shown you in the best light.’

  I will not say our subject’s eyes glowed red, or that an infernal black smoke arose around him, but there was a change in his demeanour that I would be hard put to quantify, except that I knew his ire rose within him. The knuckles of the hand with which he held his cane went white and his jawline sharpened. I realised he was gritting his teeth. Bertram seemed unaware the man was now as tense as a coiled cobra.

  ‘Why are you answering our questions?’ I asked in an attempt to distract him.

  ‘Because I wish to leave this establishment and rescue as much as I can of my business meeting, which should have got under way an hour or so ago.’

  I switched tack again, hoping to keep him off guard. ‘Did you ever see Lovelock’s memoirs, or hear him talk of them?’

  ‘Everyone heard the old fool talk about them. If he wasn’t locked in his little room, he would tell all and sundry - even the damn page boys - about the great work he was undertaking.’

  ‘Did he say what he was writing about?’ said Bertram.

  ‘His life. That is what a memoir is.’

  ‘We mean,’ I said, ‘ did he ever mention any details?’

  ‘Nothing worth killing him for if that is what you mean. He could talk at length of the wonders of embassy gatherings. The meals. The ladies in their finery. Moving among Europe’s elite. I believe he once spun a tale of being sent to Russia. All troikas and caviar. I was not a rapt member of his audience. I come here to relax, and I have no wish to be reminded of my time in the service.’

  ‘But no stories of any great import?’ persisted Bertram.

  ‘Not that I heard.’

  ‘Did you ever see the manuscript?’ I asked.

  ‘He carried a nasty, tatty little briefcase with him everywhere. Black with a faded gold crest that had almost vanished. What he had inside, apart from his heroin, I could not say.’

  ‘You knew he was a frequent taker of the drug?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I suspected. He was of the right age and temperament to wish to relive his youth, and also to have been prescribed the medicine. Perhaps he heard, as I had, that the prescription of heroin is to cease shortly, and he did not wish to live without the euphoria it induced.’

  ‘You know this how?’ said Bertram.

  Prendergast merely sniffed.

  ‘His ubiquitous contacts,’ I said to Bertram. ‘The question remains, if Lovelock had been involved in an incident that would shame either the service or certain individuals, had he actually written it down? Considering his use of heroin, did he retain the faculties to be able to do so?’

  At this our subject laughed loudly. ‘Now that would be priceless,’ he said, once he had recovered from his mirth. ‘Lovelock killed for something that did not even exist.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, he was an old man. There are worse ways to die than to go out on a wave of drug-induced euphoria.’ He brushed down his right sleeve with his free hand. ‘Are we done? I cannot think of anything else I know that would be of interest to you.’

  ‘You did not kill him?’ said Bertram.

  ‘I had no reason to,’ said Prendergast. ‘As I have previously explained, our times in the service did not overlap. Whatever he thought he knew could not harm me.’

  ‘But perhaps one of the people with whom you remain in touch might have asked for your assistance in getting the papers,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you even found Lovelock, already having overdosed himself, by design or accident, and merely removed the incriminating evidence.’

  Prendergast got to his feet. ‘I would never do such a thing,’ he said. ‘I am a gentleman and have the moral code of a gentleman. I am not a dirty little spy.’

  Bertram and I failed to answer this insult. Both of us, I believe, were taken aback by the vitriol that dripped from his voice. ‘Tell your masters my name and they will tell you that my character is well known. It is impossible for me to behave in such a low manner.’

  With this he exited the room. My only condolence was that he took little joy in berating us.

  ‘Couldn’t get away from sharing the same air with us fast enough,’ said Bertram as the door slammed behind him. ‘I’ll lay odds that Fitzroy probably does know a thing or two about him.’

  ‘He knows a thing or two about most people,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is where on earth is he? I am beginning to believe he could not have been in the country when he first telephoned us.’

  ‘That is all too possible,’ said Bertram sourly.

  ‘And we are merely to wait at his convenience?’ I said.

  Bertram reached out and patted my hand. ‘Man’s a blighter,’ he said calmly. ‘We know that, but I feel certain he will be happy for us to truss up the right man and lock him in a cupboard somewhere. We can get a couple of policemen to stand guard. There are always a few around this area.’

  ‘It seems we may have to finish this thing alone,’ I said sighing. ‘I wish we knew whether or not the manuscript existed.’

  ‘Why? It is enough that the killer thought it did.’

  ‘Wilkes said no sensible man would think Lovelock capable of writing his life story,’ I said slowly.
r />   ‘And…’ said Bertram, sensing I had more on my mind.

  ‘We could ask among the staff what they thought of Lovelock,’ I said, ‘but let us suppose for a moment that he may be right.’

  ‘So, it could be that he did accidentally overdose.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Several people have mentioned he carried a black briefcase with him. That there is no sign of it suggests to me this is murder.’

  ‘You mean the killer did not take the time to check what was in the case?’

  ‘Why take the risk?’ I said.

  ‘If Lovelock was under the influence of the drug by his own hand then he might not have noticed,’ said Bertram, playing devil’s advocate.

  ‘The room was small,’ I said. ‘Very small. I am happy to say I have never taken heroin, but if it is as has been described…’

  ‘He would be more likely to tackle someone going through his things than lie there in a dreamy state,’ finished Bertram for me. ‘But that would mean the killer was familiar with the effects of the drug.’

  ‘Most of the members appeared to be so,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it is more widespread at establishments like the Holby than we have given thought to. Perhaps what Lovelock was doing was, if not encouraged, not discouraged.’

  ‘A safe place to partake,’ said Bertram thoughtfully. ‘There is something in that. But if there was a chance there was nothing in the briefcase, what does that say about our murderer?’

  ‘Ah, that was what I was coming to,’ I said, ‘It suggests to me that whoever this man may be, he is very afraid of the memoirs being released. So afraid of whatever Lovelock might write that he was prepared to take the life of a gentleman who the club staff all described as amiable.’

  ‘I don’t know about amiable,’ said Bertram. ‘But in our experience, it has always taken a strong motivation for someone to kill another human being.’

  ‘Except for your brother.’

  ‘Oh yes, him,’ said Bertram. ‘Well, he’s not normal, is he? Most people don’t want to kill. Or that is what I believe. You need a damn good reason to get yourself worked up enough to snuff out the life of a fellow being.’