Dancing with Death

by Amy Myers

  ‘As you probably all know by now,’ he continued, ‘the coroner refused speculation on those who might have had reason to kill Mr Parkyn-Wright but the jury’s verdict was that somebody most certainly did. It’s my job to find out who and I need your help for this.’

  She had been right, Nell thought. What was this going to involve?

  ‘Distressing though it might be to relive that night,’ the inspector continued, ‘I’d like you all to walk through your movements again, whether or not you were in the first ghost hunt group. Take it from twelve o’clock and at the same pace as you did before, even though it won’t be as dark. It may be that something might occur to you that you have previously forgotten. Any detail, any noise or movement I want to know about. I’ll be here waiting in the great hall.’

  Those who weren’t on the hunt were asked to stand near where they were that night, or at the nearest door to the hall if they were further away in the supper or drawing rooms.

  ‘I do have a question,’ Lady Clarice asked anxiously. ‘How can we re-enact that night? There will be no ghosts and they are the essential factor.’

  ‘Only for the ghosts themselves,’ the inspector replied seriously, ‘and none of them is likely to be around at teatime. But I do need to know about any sightings or sounds that took place in connection with the ghosts.’

  She’d be touring the house on her own, Nell realized with dismay as they began to assemble in the great hall. No one else from the second group was still at Wychbourne, save for Guy and Arthur, who had both appeared later. She was glad that Mr Charles’s parents had remained in the drawing room with Lord Ansley. At least they would not be put through more agony.

  ‘What do I do when I reach the screen door?’ she blurted out.

  ‘As you did then, please,’ the inspector replied calmly.

  Nell could see that no one seemed happy about the task ahead of them as they waited for the inspector to begin the proceedings, and it was a relief when he looked at his watch and gave them the signal. Guy had already walked off to the door nearest to the supper room, unwillingly followed by a stony-faced William Foster. Miss Checkam and Mrs Fielding had disappeared to the entrance nearest the servants’ wing and Mr Peters remained in the hall by the doorway closest to the gallery stairs.

  ‘I’ll go round the west wing on my own then.’ Nell tried not to make it sound like a plaintive cry for help.

  ‘I’ll go with you, Nell.’ Arthur stepped up.

  The inspector glanced from one to the other. ‘I’d prefer not. My sergeant will come with you, Miss Drury.’

  ‘Why?’ she all but snapped back. She had already managed to tell Arthur that this evening’s meeting would have to be postponed so there was no logical reason she should object, but she did.

  The inspector did not answer that. ‘Would you leave now, Miss Drury,’ he said instead. ‘Mr Fontenoy, you can join her at the point you did before.’

  Off Nell set to march up the grand staircase to the west wing, feeling somewhat ridiculous with a lantern in her hand and the sergeant behind her. She forced herself to stop where she had done so on the Saturday night but the sergeant decided to do without her explanation of the ghosts that she should, according to Lady Clarice, have encountered on the way, each snugly confined to its own cold area. Coming back through the library, however, she hesitated. The curtain, glass and mirrors in place that night had of course vanished, but the sergeant watched without comment as she flicked her hand mid-air, having judged roughly where the curtain had been concealing the mirrors.

  When that ordeal and the changeover period had been surmounted, she took a deep breath. It would be time to face that gallery again. At least Arthur and Guy would be joining her here. She was beginning to see what the inspector might be looking for: the gaps in timing when the murder could have taken place, exactly where Mr Peters was standing and how much he would have been able to see of the gallery.

  Conscious that she was being closely watched from below by the inspector, she climbed the stairs furthest from Mr Peters’ position and made her way along the gallery. She was alone now because the sergeant’s presence, the inspector had decreed, was no longer necessary. She hadn’t even been conscious of Arthur and then Guy joining her until she felt their presence. She was concentrating once again on that screen door and her heart was pounding. Suppose the inspector had put a dummy behind that door just to make this reconstruction more real? Her hand hovered, but telling herself not to be such a fool she pulled it. Nothing fell out to her relief, but even so it took courage for her to kneel down once more. Arthur and Guy were pressing her from behind now. Then mercifully the whistle blew – the signal for everyone to return just as the screams had brought them back that Saturday night.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Drury,’ the inspector called to her. ‘You can all come down now.’

  With relief she joined the group gathering again in the great hall, just as Lady Clarice was telling the inspector imperiously: ‘There was something wrong. I had one person fewer that night when Lady Dorcas was about to greet us. Someone had disappeared.’

  ‘Must have been a ghost,’ Lord Richard said lightly.

  ‘Lady Dorcas is a ghost. It was not a ghost who disappeared,’ Lady Clarice said reprovingly.

  Lord Richard glanced at Lady Sophy. ‘Helen, Sophy and I left, Aunt Clarice, when we reached the great hall for the changeover. We had something to do,’ he added airily.

  Lady Clarice fortunately dismissed this impatiently. She might have taken Mr Charles’s rendition of Sir Thomas reasonably well but Pepper’s Ghost floating across the library balcony would have been quite a different matter, Nell feared.

  ‘It was earlier,’ Lady Clarice insisted.

  ‘That could,’ Lady Warminster said airily, ‘have been myself, Inspector. I have a sensitive nature and the ghostly tales of murder were beginning to upset me. I did leave as we reached the change point or perhaps just before.’

  ‘You told him, Nell,’ Lady Sophy said reproachfully as the last of the party departed from Wychbourne Court, even, thankfully, the police – or so Nell hoped.

  ‘I had to do so.’

  Lady Sophy sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told the inspector myself, I suppose, but it would have caused trouble for William and he had nothing to do with this at all. I wouldn’t put it past Lady Warminster to be involved, though.’

  ‘Because she has an eye for the men?’

  ‘Both eyes, if you ask me.’ Lady Sophy laughed. ‘She does have the reputation of being a man-eater, and if Charlie found that out she would be terrified out of her Chanel boots with her husband due to come home shortly. I bet Charlie did know.’

  Nell almost pitied Inspector Melbray if he had been lured by Lady Warminster’s charms, whatever they were. But what about William Foster? Supposed he’d been lured and succumbed? That could be why he was so scared when he saw her at the dinner. It wasn’t just his being there that would have annoyed Lady Warminster, it would have been seeing her fancy-man cavorting around with Lady Sophy. He was two-timing her, as the Americans phrased it at the pictures. And that would definitely have led to his getting the sack, especially with her husband returning shortly.

  The inspector was next to delay her return to the east wing. ‘I’m sorry to have put you through that ordeal, Miss Drury.’

  ‘It’s your job.’ Surprised at what seemed a sincere apology, her reply was more stilted than she had intended.

  ‘Also, I want to thank you.’

  Thank her? This was indeed a new approach. ‘What for?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘For your theory about this case. It has been most helpful. I can’t tell you any more than that, and this charade – as you no doubt consider it – has been of use. It was necessary given the evidence this morning.’ He hesitated. ‘One point about—’

  ‘Yes?’ she asked encouragingly when he broke off.

  ‘No matter.’

  Dinner was not over until ten o’clock, with the r
esult that the kitchen was so disrupted that Nell was helping out in the scullery, to Mrs Fielding’s delight. Lady Helen had twice refused anything to eat in her room and then changed her mind at ten thirty. Mr Peters was in an unusually snappy mood, and for once Nell fell into bed not caring what she would put on the menu for tomorrow. She awoke at dawn, as so often, not through choice but because the cocks were crowing. They never took any notice of how late you went to bed, she thought crossly. She managed to doze off again before she reluctantly had to leave her bed and begin dressing.

  Still in her brassiere and panties, she became aware of an unusual amount of noise outside and peered down through the window to see people shouting and running through the kitchen yard, some into the stable yard, some towards the gardens and some heading through the other exit towards the forecourt of the main house. What the flipping flounders was going on?

  She threw on the rest of her clothes, fingers fumbling on hooks and eyes, quickly brushed her hair and hurried down to the yard. There she found Mr Peters with Mrs Fielding in his arms – still with her curlers in – obviously consoling her over something. And, of all things, Lord Ansley with them.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she cried.

  White-faced, Lord Ansley turned to her. ‘Elise Harlington is dead, Nell.’

  Drugs was Nell’s first thought once she had pulled herself together from the shock, but that could not have caused all this commotion.

  ‘It appears she was strangled,’ Lord Ansley told her bluntly.

  ‘Where?’ she blurted out. Murder? Again?

  ‘Not in the house. Outside in the grounds. In the old dairy.’

  ELEVEN

  Nell clutched at routine as a lifeline as she wrestled with this new disaster for Wychbourne Court. The elegant, supercilious Miss Harlington murdered? This was more like something out of Fu Manchu or Sherlock Holmes. The kitchen was understandably already buzzing with talk when she arrived. A house such as Wychbourne came to life in stages each day and many of the servants would already have been at work when the alarm was raised. At present work had ceased, and she was quickly under siege from anxious and curious staff. She told them what little she had heard from Lord Ansley, but it was clear that routine had to be abandoned.

  The facts she had to face were these: until she and Arthur had decided to meet in the old dairy, it had been unused; yesterday she had cancelled their appointment and that very night Miss Harlington had been murdered there. That was too much of a coincidence for there to be no link. Had Miss Harlington known of their plans to meet or had it indeed been chance that took her there? If the former, the probability was that Miss Harlington – and her murderer – were expecting Nell and Arthur to be there, not knowing of the cancellation.

  One fact was obvious. She would have to tell the police, which would probably be in the form of Inspector Melbray. The nearer she drew to the dairy, however, the more formidable the task seemed. The moment she walked through the gate from the kitchen yard to the stables, she could see police vans, motor cars and, sure enough, there was the inspector talking to the local police, intent on his job. Worse, a covered stretcher was being loaded into a police mortuary van. Nell shuddered. If she had gone to the dairy last night, as originally planned, would she have been the victim? No, she wouldn’t dwell on that. If Miss Harlington had heard about the rendezvous, though, it must have been either through Arthur or Jimmy, and the latter was much the more probable.

  Her next step was clear. Find Jimmy, who would have been up and about long since with the lamps to look after, but it took a surprisingly long time to track him down. She eventually found him skulking in the library and his face went bright red when he saw her. He looked round for an escape route but she managed to block the door.

  ‘Morning, Miss Drury,’ he began tentatively.

  ‘Fine Baker Street Irregular you are,’ she said severely.

  He did his best to look innocent. ‘Why’s that, Miss Drury?’

  ‘You did deliver my message to Mr Fontenoy yesterday, didn’t you?’ she asked.

  He looked relieved. ‘Yes, miss.’

  He wasn’t getting away with that. ‘You delivered it yourself, Jimmy? You put it through the letterbox at Wychbourne Cottage?’

  His feet suddenly seemed of great interest to him.

  ‘Did you, Jimmy?’

  Guilt was written all over his face. ‘The lady told me she was going there and she’d hand it over to Mr Fontenoy,’ he mumbled. ‘And she did, miss. I saw Mr Fontenoy later and he said he’d got it. Was that the lady they’re saying got murdered last night?’ A quiver in his voice now.

  Nell thought back. Had she sealed that letter? No, she hadn’t bothered as the contents were innocent enough. ‘I believe it was, but what happened last night wasn’t your fault,’ she consoled him. She could see real distress on his face.

  She’d have to tell the police this, but next, she managed to convince herself, she simply must organize her daily work. Anyway, the inspector seemed to have disappeared now. With Kitty’s help she succeeded in concocting suitable menus, but then of course she had to discuss the vegetables with the gardener and telephone the butcher – who proved only too eager to deliver to Wychbourne Court. Clearly the news had travelled and newspaper reporters would be hot on his heels. Nevertheless, the household still had to eat, despite the circumstances. The menus were basic but would do.

  Lady Ansley didn’t notice whether they were basic or not. She stared at them as though she wasn’t sure what they were.

  ‘There’s a guest fewer now, Nell.’ She burst into tears and, alarmed, Nell knelt beside her, taking her hand. ‘What’s happening here?’ Lady Ansley continued. ‘What was she doing in the dairy so late at night? Elise only made a very short appearance at dinner and then she said she was going to retire for the night. I suppose there must have been a tramp sleeping in the dairy.’ She must have picked up Nell’s silence. ‘It was a tramp, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Probably,’ Nell said soothingly. She had to pave the way for the obvious. ‘Although it’s possible the police might think she was killed because she knew who killed Mr Parkyn-Wright.’ Or, she thought, Miss Harlington might have known too much about Mr Charles and his clients.

  ‘The silly girl. Helen’s distraught, Nell. Could you look after her for a while? I don’t know what’s happened to Miss Checkam. There’s no sign of her. Most unusual. Richard is playing the bereaved lover and won’t budge from his room, and Sophy has gone very quiet and shut herself into her room, so poor Helen is on her own because I have to be at Gerald’s side and the police – oh, Nell!’

  ‘Don’t worry about Lady Helen. I’ll stay with her.’ Lunch might be delayed, Nell calculated, but with luck Mrs Squires might have begun preparations in her absence.

  Nell didn’t flatter herself that her company would do Lady Helen much good, though. She was still mourning Mr Charles’s death – in her own way. She was right, for her welcome was not warm.

  ‘What do you want?’ Lady Helen threw at her.

  ‘Your mother didn’t want to leave you alone. Any company’s better than none at present, even mine.’

  Lady Helen looked very pale, obviously ill, Nell thought, but at last there seemed to be a glimpse of the real person underlying the Bright Young Thing.

  She didn’t answer for a few moments, but then: ‘The police will want to see me, won’t they?’

  ‘It will only be a formality. Where you were at the time she was killed and so on.’

  ‘But when was that?’ Lady Helen asked plaintively.

  ‘Probably sometime last night. She was found this morning by one of the gardeners.’

  ‘I hated her, Nell,’ Lady Helen said abruptly. ‘But the thought of her dead is just awful. And here at our home too. I can’t bear it. It almost looks as though one of us must have killed her. But then there’s that bandleader – he’s still around. Or Rex—’ She broke off. ‘No, not Rex.’

  ‘Why on earth would he want to kill her
?’ Nell asked practically.

  ‘He wouldn’t, of course,’ Lady Helen said after a moment. ‘It must have been a tramp or a poacher.’

  Another vote for the convenient tramp. And Lady Helen was remarkably reticent about Mr Beringer. ‘That’s possible,’ Nell agreed. Then she had an idea. She’d persuade Lady Helen that she was needed elsewhere. It would both flatter her and be true. Lord Richard did need help.

  Lady Helen agreed immediately. ‘Of course I’ll go. Richard was crazy about Elise. Oh, Nell, suppose he … He couldn’t have, could he? If she’d really been horrible to him?’

  ‘No, he couldn’t,’ Nell said firmly, hoping she was right. True, Lord Richard was given to impulsive reactions, but strangling someone he loved? No, not he. But if Lady Helen was right about ruling out Mr Beringer, that brought Nell back to considering the servants’ hall for suspects – and by extension to Guy. Ridiculous, because he had no reason for killing Miss Harlington – unless of course it was he who had killed Charles. Her mind began to spin, remembering that William Foster had not confirmed Guy’s alibi. How could she even be thinking of Guy as a killer, though? She just couldn’t believe it, just as Lady Helen couldn’t believe it of Mr Beringer.

  What Nell could believe, however, was that luncheon and dinner had to be served. She was relieved to find on returning to the kitchen that Mrs Squires had indeed begun the preparations. That was a good omen, otherwise how was she going to manage with her head full of police and murder and wondering where Miss Checkam was? It was so unlike Miss Checkam to desert her post.

  Meanwhile, her own post was here, and its most immediate demand was for a raspberry fool to which she had to give full attention. Cooking was an art, not just a craft. It responded to moods and emotions. Why else, Nell had always argued, would a recipe work perfectly well one day and fail miserably the next? The rational explanation was that one was too confident, too blasé about it to give attention to detail or that the ingredients had varied in quality or quantity. In her view there was much more to it. On a happy day, inspiration cooked at your side. On a bad day, inspiration sent his companion Mr Plod in his place. Variations between good and excellent might not be noticed by most diners but she could tell which of the two was in charge, just as an actor repeating the same words each night could tell the difference between one performance and another. One night the audience rose to applaud him and the next it stalked out in disappointment.