Dancing with Death

by Amy Myers

  ‘Quite nice little rooms, aren’t they?’ Lady Enid was the next visitor to the chef’s room. ‘I had no reason to visit this wing during my husband’s reign at Wychbourne. No, I’m mistaken. My husband insisted on our opening the dancing in the servants’ hall on New Year’s Eve, before we returned to the ballroom for our own. The gesture was greatly appreciated.’

  The dowager sat in state in the shabby armchair usually occupied by a large pile of cookery books, which were now heaped on the table in front of where Nell was sitting. She was amazed at Her Ladyship’s presence but had no idea why she was here. More rose petal preserve? Mrs Fielding had duly delivered several to the Dower House with many a smirk at Nell.

  ‘What is going to happen tomorrow night, Miss Drury?’ Lady Enid enquired. ‘All I hear from my son is that ghosts are to gather here and so are the police. It sounds most irregular to me. Is the information I have received correct?’

  ‘Yes, although it isn’t clear what will happen,’ Nell tried to explain. ‘There will be an excellent supper, however.’

  ‘An incentive to attend. I have reluctantly agreed to take part, even though I understand a certain gentleman will be present. I trust I will be seated some distance away. Even a ghost would be a preferable neighbour.’

  ‘Everyone can choose where they wish to sit when they arrive,’ Nell told her.

  Lady Enid frowned. ‘Then I shall insist on distance. Why the inspector believes I should attend is beyond my comprehension but the law must be obeyed. Do the ghosts know that, I wonder?’

  The next visitor was Miss Checkam.

  ‘What’s happening tomorrow, Miss Drury? Do you know?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Lady Ansley says the police are coming to this gathering. What do they want?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nell said wearily. ‘To solve the case, I hope.’

  ‘But the ghosts. I’m going to hate being in the hall with all the same people as before.’

  ‘You said you weren’t in the hall itself,’ Nell pointed out mildly. ‘You were on your way to the grand staircase when you saw Mr Charles by the gallery stairs.’ That was one of the cold areas where Lady Clarice was sure Sir Thomas was drawing energy from the atmosphere, so perhaps she would find Mr Charles back there, Nell thought fancifully.

  ‘Yes.’ Miss Checkam looked flurried. ‘And he was so very unkind to me.’

  Mr Peters and Lord Richard would then have been bringing in equipment from the boot room. Could Miss Checkam have returned later …? No, she couldn’t cope with this again. Let the ghosts sort it out, Nell thought. She had a menu to create.

  Even now, she wasn’t to be left alone. The first visitor was more welcome. It was Jimmy with Lady Clarice’s list. The second visitor was Mr Beringer. Gamekeeper’s son or not, he was a guest in the house and it was surprising to see him here in the east wing.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Drury. I’ve come to disturb your peaceful dreams. Richard and Helen are asking for you. Sophy is there too. I’m just their messenger. Am I interrupting you?’

  ‘It can wait,’ Nell said valiantly, bidding a silent adieu to the ghost menu. Perhaps this afternoon she would get some time to work on it, now that she had all the details of the prospective emotional diners. The list was a long one. Apparently sixty-one ghosts had set up residency in Wychbourne Court over the years but Lady Clarice was sure of only nineteen that had stayed the course, plus Charles Parkyn-Wright if he appeared. Not to mention Miss Harlington. It was going to be quite a gathering tomorrow night and quite a menu if she ever managed to write it – and cook it.

  She accompanied Mr Beringer past the main staircase and into the conservatory. ‘Did you enjoy Lady Warminster’s ball, Miss Drury?’ he asked politely on the way. ‘I saw you dancing with Inspector Melbray. Good fellow, isn’t he?’

  For the umpteenth time, or so it seemed, she agreed that Inspector Melbray was a fine man. ‘Although that depends on whether one’s a criminal or not,’ she added.

  Mr Beringer laughed but then said soberly, ‘Someone here must be. Someone who will probably be here tomorrow night.’

  ‘As a ghost?’

  ‘I imagine a few of them have guilty consciences. No, I meant us, of course.’

  Her heart sank. ‘Is that what Lord Richard and Lady Helen want to talk about?’

  ‘You may find,’ Mr Beringer said carefully, ‘that it’s you whom they expect to talk.’

  Oh, splendid, she thought savagely. When they reached the conservatory, Lord Richard and his sisters were apparently engrossed in a discussion on whether a few extra palm trees might improve the décor. They were certainly trying to look only casually interested in her arrival. Whatever they were planning, she wanted no part of it.

  ‘Hello, Nell,’ Lady Sophy said brightly. ‘Looking forward to tomorrow?’

  ‘Enormously,’ Nell assured her warily.

  ‘Someone probably isn’t,’ Mr Beringer commented.

  ‘Rex means Charlie’s murderer,’ Lady Helen said – looking almost her old self, Nell thought. ‘And Elise’s too.’

  ‘We all think they’re the same person,’ Lady Sophy chimed in. ‘But does the inspector?’

  ‘I’m not in his confidence,’ Nell said firmly.

  ‘You seem to be good chums,’ Lord Richard said suspiciously.

  ‘One dance does not constitute chumminess,’ Nell countered.

  ‘Come on, Nell, do tell,’ Lady Sophy pleaded. ‘Everything’s in the open now so you won’t be breaking confidences.’

  Nell explained yet again. ‘About the ghosts, you know as much as I do, probably more. On the murder cases, I’m as much at sea as—’

  ‘The inspector, it seems,’ Lord Richard drawled.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he’s so keen to see everyone tomorrow night,’ Lady Sophy suggested. ‘It’s not the ghosts that draw him, it’s the idea of us all being together.’

  ‘We obliged him with that awful reconstruction that got nowhere,’ Lord Richard said.

  ‘Nowhere for us,’ Nell contributed, ‘but it might have done for him.’ Her audience fell strangely silent, she noticed.

  ‘Tomorrow night’s serious then?’ Lady Helen asked presently.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Ghosts and all? They could be the smokescreen,’ Lady Sophy pointed out.

  ‘It’ll be a riot,’ Lord Richard said. ‘Fun, eh?’

  ‘Perhaps. But,’ Nell said firmly, ‘no jokes tomorrow night. They’ll get in the way of finding out the truth about the murders.’

  Four pairs of eyes stared at her. ‘Absolutely no jokes?’ Lady Sophy asked wistfully. ‘But it’s such a jokey evening.’

  Time to speak out. ‘It’s no joke at all,’ Nell replied. ‘Wychbourne Court needs to be rid of this cloud hanging over it. If tomorrow night helps, jokes won’t be appropriate. If it doesn’t, they won’t have helped and might have hindered.’

  Silence. ‘Fair enough,’ said Lord Richard at last. ‘No Pepper’s Ghost.’

  And that, Nell thought, as she set off in search of young Jimmy, went for him too. No jokes. All catapults to be impounded, with no more broken plates. Poltergeists, indeed!

  SIXTEEN

  The day had begun badly and it was becoming worse. Nell disciplined herself not to panic but it was hard. Here she was with only an hour before the guests arrived – did one call them guests at what was effectively a séance? The junket for the ghost of Violet Smith hadn’t yet set; the Mutton Cake for the seventh marquess’s dog ghost Napoleon had been thrown away by Mrs Fielding, genuinely under the impression that it was left over from the servants’ shepherd’s pie; Lady Clarice was still frenziedly debating whether Nell’s choice of carp baked with lemons and oranges was too ornate for Brother Sebastian and Sister Edith, the lovelorn couple who reneged on their religious vows and took refuge in the old chapel in 1457; Nell herself had realized that Jeremiah’s Jugged Hare was too alcoholic even for a smuggler in the cellar; and the sobbing baby’s Sweet Rice Pudding à la Portugaise had burnt.<
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  It was all the poltergeist’s fault, Nell decided. Muriel had suffered yet another attack. The lid of Lady Ansley’s favourite teapot had flown from the table, catching Muriel’s shoulder just as the teapot itself toppled over and smashed on the scullery floor. This was too much and Nell had marched straight over to Jimmy who had just come in from the kitchen yard.

  ‘I told you, young man, no more jokes. No catapults,’ she had blazed at him.

  ‘It wasn’t me, Miss Drury,’ he howled in fright. She hadn’t believed him until he produced an alibi.

  ‘He was with me in the yard,’ Mr Peters had told her anxiously. ‘I needed help with the electric generator.’

  She had apologised to Jimmy and calmed down, but if he hadn’t done it, who had? she wondered uneasily. It was a bad omen.

  The next obstacle had been Lady Clarice – a recurrent problem throughout the day. One issue had been particularly difficult to handle. Lady Clarice had been in the great hall, studying the table in its middle that had been earmarked for the buffet. It had only the tablecloth upon it at that stage, plus several small table lamps and three large vases of flowers and greenery which looked far beneath Wychbourne’s usual selections. ‘Ghosts are drawn to rosemary and to wild garlic and nettles and so forth,’ Lady Clarice explained when Nell expressed doubts.

  The lamps, however, were the pivotal point of Nell’s alarm, since Lady Clarice had been in the process of removing them. ‘It has to be dark for the ghosts,’ she had dictated.

  ‘We can’t eat in the dark, though,’ Nell pointed out. ‘The main lights in the hall could be out but these have to be on. We could leave the lamps here and eat before the ghosts arrive.’

  ‘Before the ghosts?’ Lady Clarice had been horrified. ‘Eating their food before their arrival would be most impolite.’

  Nell had struggled for a compromise. ‘Suppose we serve canapés from the sideboard for guests to have with their drinks before the ghosts arrive and then they can enjoy the buffet after the ghosts have dined and we can have light again. When will that be?’ she asked, with little hope of a decision.

  Lady Clarice considered the query with care. ‘They will enjoy watching us eat, but these oil lamps would be much too bright for them if they were suddenly turned up once more.’

  ‘Not the small table lamps that we’ll put on the guests’ tables, surely?’ Nell was becoming increasingly anxious.

  ‘Yes, Miss Drury, they will object,’ Lady Clarice had snapped, which was unusual for her and was a sign that this situation was getting out of hand. ‘I may ask the ghosts to remain throughout the entire evening. It must remain dark. After all, the inspector will also be speaking.’

  ‘To the ghosts?’ What the floundering fishcakes was this world coming to if Scotland Yard had to have a word with the Other Side before every step of its investigation?

  ‘Certainly to the ghosts, Miss Drury. He tells me the ghosts are assisting him in his enquiries.’

  So that had been that. She had upset Lady Clarice. What should she do now? Nell wondered. There wouldn’t be time to lay out the buffet after the ghosts had disappeared – and how the dickens would they know when that was anyway? No help for it. The buffet had to be eaten later but be on the table before the lights were turned off. She’d have to hope that much of it didn’t disappear before the ghosts had their chance to devour it.

  The next problem she was expected to solve had been the correct wardrobe for the event.

  ‘What do you think, Nell?’ Lady Sophy had suddenly appeared at her side in the kitchen clad in a passable imitation of a nun’s habit. ‘Is this going to make Sister Edith’s phantom feel at home?’

  ‘No.’ Nell had laughed despite her rising tension. ‘Set an example, Lady Sophy. The ghosts will appreciate some formality. You need to be worthy of the fine aristocratic name you bear – that’s what Sir Thomas and jolly Sir William will relate to.’ She was particularly fond of Sir William, the gentleman whose portrait hung in the great hall and who had later been elevated by Queen Elizabeth to becoming the Baron Ansley, which must have made him even jollier.

  Lady Sophy had sighed. ‘You mean it’s powder and pearls time? Can I wear my tiara?’

  ‘Have you got one?’

  ‘Of course. It’s only a tiddly one as I’m a younger sister. Personally I think it should be the biggest. I have more to put up with.’

  What should she herself wear? Nell wondered. Once again she was part chef, part participant. Tonight, she decided, she would dress for the role of participant, even if she hadn’t got a tiara. After all, the nice inspector would be present.

  One hour to go – and then Kitty banged on her door to tell her Lady Clarice wanted to see her yet again. What on earth did she want this time? Nell was not yet ready, but pulled her dress over her head at high speed, threw her beads round her neck, tidied her hair and ran. She’d chosen the grey one again in deference to the ghosts. So much for the elegant, poised figure she had hoped to present.

  Lady Clarice was clad in sober black with jet jewellery also, presumably with the ghosts’ feelings in mind, but the stark black didn’t suit her. For some reason this made Nell regret her churlishness. This, after all, was Lady Clarice’s big night, she thought with a rush of affection.

  ‘Nell, the inspector has asked me to take him on the ghost hunt tour again,’ Lady Clarice informed her with great excitement. ‘He suggested I might need a companion and mentioned you. I would be glad of your company.’

  Nell’s heart plummeted. Thank goodness everything was mostly ready in the kitchens and Kitty and Michel were organizing the buffet in the hall. She had congratulated herself after her last inspection that everything there looked efficient and welcoming – both for ghosts and guests. The main oil lamps were still on and the table lamps remained to be lit, but Mr Peters would see that Jimmy dealt with that in due course. The small lamps could be turned down to their lowest point to which even a ghost would not object, she comforted herself. After all, hand torches were standard ghost hunting equipment, so they must tolerate some light.

  ‘What’s the purpose of this tour?’ she asked Lady Clarice warily as they made their way down the staircase. ‘Inspector Melbray must have done it before and also he held that reconstruction.’

  ‘He told me it was to get to know the ghosts. He wasn’t able to spend time on that during his previous tours. I’m not averse to his plan. I have a thermometer with me and have explained to the inspector the importance of the varying temperatures and the consequent cold areas as the ghosts draw their energy from what’s around them.’

  Lady Clarice might be happy about it but Nell wasn’t convinced by this so-called plan. Inspector Melbray must have more in mind than that. As they entered the great hall, Nell could see him; he wasn’t in evening dress but a smart grey suit and waistcoat, clearly underlining the fact that this was a working session. She wondered what he wore when he was off duty. Not one for the fashionable Oxford bags, she decided, but she could imagine him in flannels and blazer boating down the river.

  Concentrate, Nell, she told herself. She was not here to have fantasies out of The Wind in the Willows. She needed her wits about her. At the moment the inspector was talking to Mr Peters who was busy at the sideboard. Lady Sophy was as usual poking her nose curiously into every corner as though the ghosts might be lurking in the wings and even Lady Helen was taking an interest. Automatically Nell craned her head to check if Kitty had put the canapés there – yes, and Michel was bringing through dishes for the buffet table.

  ‘A splendid array of refreshments,’ Inspector Melbray remarked to Lady Clarice as he came over to join them. ‘If I were a ghost, I would be only too happy to dine here. As a mere policeman, I consider myself most privileged. I’m told the lights are to be turned off here shortly. Will that be the case on our tour?’

  ‘No.’ Nell was conscious of her hurried dressing as his gaze flicked over her. ‘It’s electric lighting upstairs. We can turn it off or on as you wi
sh.’

  ‘But that’s not good for the ghosts,’ Lady Clarice said anxiously.

  ‘I’m sure they could put up with it for a few brief moments as we pass,’ Inspector Melbray stated politely.

  ‘What do you want us to do, Inspector Melbray?’ Nell asked hurriedly, seeing Lady Clarice’s mutinous expression.

  ‘I’ll explain as we go round.’

  ‘Only four of the ghosts haunt the great hall itself,’ Lady Clarice told him somewhat stiffly. ‘Alfred, who might bring his spade with him – he was an Anglo-Saxon farmer; poor Sir Ralph, murdered by his brother with whom he had quarrelled over the Norman Conquest; William, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth – he does laugh rather a lot; and the unfortunate Gilbert, the butler killed by the fifth marquess. He will keep getting in Peters’ way as he tries to serve drinks to his previous master.’

  ‘They sound most interesting,’ the inspector told her gravely.

  Lady Clarice looked pleased. ‘I’ll instruct you about the others as we go around. Some rarely manifest themselves, unfortunately.The first marquess, Philip, all too often secretes himself in the library by the seventeenth-century poets’ section. Do you wish me to point out when the air pressure or temperature changes?’

  The inspector gracefully declined and the tour began. Realizing she had to face that gallery again, Nell braced herself as Lady Clarice led the way up to it.

  ‘To think of it,’ Lady Clarice said excitedly, ‘that poor Sir Thomas.’ She retold the story in detail, concluding with a triumphant, ‘and the minstrel boy, his wife’s lover, dealt his fatal blow. It does make me think of Lady Warminster and her gardener.’ She hesitated. ‘Perhaps I should not have mentioned that.’

  ‘I’m not easily shocked, Lady Clarice,’ Inspector Melbray replied, straight-faced. ‘Just tell me what you told your group that night.’

  Lady Clarice took heart as they edged along the gallery in single file. ‘Sir Thomas is waiting but Charlie’s ghost seems to be very coy at present, as I explained to you, Inspector. He is waiting perhaps for Miss Elise to join him but she has not yet done so. She is probably hiding in the dairy.’