Dancing with Death

by Amy Myers

  Lady Warminster’s mouth didn’t so much fall open, Nell noticed, as grow rounder and rounder as she took this in. ‘Darling,’ she said to her husband in between sobs, ‘the inspector is quite right. That’s what happened. Isn’t it awful?’ The general’s arm went round her.

  ‘If you’ve finished with my wife,’ he said firmly,’ I will drive her home. Now.’

  ‘Not yet, General,’ Inspector Melbray said evenly.

  What now? Longing for this ordeal of uncertainty to be over, Nell saw General Warminster stiffen. This was the police’s battlefield, not his, and he would be far too disciplined to argue. But pottering pancakes, where on earth was this leading? Crank up the engine, Inspector, she muttered to herself, rigid with tension.

  ‘When you were there at the dairy, Lady Warminster,’ the inspector continued as calmly as ever, ‘did you see anyone else, other than Miss Harlington?’

  ‘No.’

  The inspector did not press her. What did that imply? Nell thought feverishly. Was Lady Warminster her killer? Was that why Inspector Melbray was playing her like a fish on the line?

  ‘There was obviously someone there with her before you arrived, Lady Warminster,’ he pointed out, ‘and perhaps he was still hiding nearby. We found evidence that some of the guests at the reconstruction earlier that day and at dinner that evening had recently been in the dairy. I take it that you did not ask anyone to accompany you there? Mr Beringer, for example, or Mr Fontenoy or Lord Richard?’

  ‘No,’ she wailed. ‘I went alone.’

  ‘Or Mr Foster, perhaps?’

  ‘He’s not a gentleman,’ she snapped back.

  There was a moment’s appalled silence and Nell saw poor William flush bright red.

  ‘Why was it important that it should be – in your words – “a gentleman”?’ the inspector asked gravely.

  Flustered, Lady Warminster looked in appeal at her husband, but he remained silent. Eventually she said sullenly, ‘Elise had said I could bring along a gentleman friend if I liked, but I don’t know who she meant.’

  ‘What about Mr Ellimore?’ Inspector Melbray asked quietly. ‘He’s your friend, isn’t he? Was Miss Harlington threatening to make this public, perhaps to your husband and perhaps because she was placing a misleading interpretation on this friendship?’

  Guy? Nell’s head spun. How had the inspector got this ridiculous notion? Despite the way he had phrased it, the implication was obvious that Lady Warminster and Guy might be lovers. But that was sheer fiction. He couldn’t stand the woman. True, Guy was very pale but that must be the shock.

  ‘Nonsense, Inspector,’ Guy replied. ‘I worked for Her Ladyship, that’s all. We discussed the music for the ball at Stalisbrook Place and we played there. Nothing more. You’ve been misinformed.’

  He spoke so confidently that Nell was reassured – but not for long.

  ‘Miss Harlington was blackmailing you too,’ the inspector said to him matter-of-factly. ‘That’s why you went with her to the old dairy that night, although I suspect she also enticed you by saying you might find Mr Fontenoy and Miss Drury there.’

  ‘Now that really is nonsense,’ Guy whipped back at him. ‘I’m not married so how could she blackmail me on the grounds that Daisy and I were having a fling?’

  Nell froze. Was he admitting the inspector was right with those ambiguous words and the deliberate use of Lady Warminster’s Christian name, or was the pressure of the questioning flustering him? Surely the latter; it must be that.

  ‘Miss Harlington didn’t threaten to reveal just your relationship with Lady Warminster. She was blackmailing you over something quite different. She was threatening to unmask you as a pretender and spinner of fantasies.’

  ‘How dare you, sir. In what way a pretender?’ But there was less bravado in Guy’s voice now.

  Even Nell realized he was shaken at that and shuddered. Pretender? And what fantasies? This was Guy, whom she knew so well. And what would General Warminster be making of this? Most people here looked stunned and bewildered but the general was maintaining his impassive and stoical front.

  She was wrong about the general, for it was he who rose to his feet and said in steely anger: ‘Inspector Melbray is right, Ellimore, and Miss Harlington was incorrect if she referred to you as a gentleman. No gentleman would talk of a lady as you have of my wife. And you, Ellimore, are indeed a pretender. You claim to have been a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force. You rightly wear with pride the Distinguished Flying Medal awarded to you, but that is an honour awarded only to non-commissioned men. You were no squadron leader – you were a ground mechanic at Vert Galand. Noble work and dangerous, but not what you aspire to be.’

  Nell could not bear to watch while Guy attempted to rally.

  ‘And if so,’ he managed to reply, ‘why would I care enough about Elise’s threats to kill her? I only made that claim for the sake of the band so that we could move in high society. It gave us prestige and that meant more business.’

  ‘No,’ Inspector Melbray said, ‘it gave you prestige. It inflated your view of yourself. Certainly it affected the band, but more importantly to you it affected how you appeared to other people. Especially—’

  ‘To you, Nell,’ Guy interrupted dispassionately, turning to her as she sat there aghast. Was that true? Could it be? ‘Sorry, Nell,’ he added, taking his time over lighting a cigarette. ‘You never saw it. What a team we would have made if only you had.’ He switched his attention briefly to Lady Warminster. ‘At least you saw something in me, Kitty.’ Lady Warminster gave a brief moan, although her husband’s expression was again impassive.

  Guy’s eyes then fixed on Nell again. But they looked odd, far away, and there was a smile on his lips. ‘I had to do it, Nell.’

  ‘Do what?’ she whispered in dread.

  ‘I’ll save you time, Inspector,’ Guy quipped, drawing himself up, shoulders back, gazing neither at Inspector Melbray nor his stunned audience, but perhaps, Nell thought, at some conjured-up image of himself as the heroic officer he still aspired to be, regardless of the fact that he had already proved himself a war hero.

  ‘I’m sure you already have enough evidence to hang me anyway,’ he continued. ‘It was I who strangled Elise Harlington – and so I did a lot of people a favour.’

  This was her Guy? Nell scrabbled for a foothold in a swirl of disbelief. It couldn’t be. There was some mistake. The inspector was already beginning to move when Guy spoke again. He wasn’t fighting back now. He seemed more amused than scared, even when the police entered the room.

  ‘Elise was threatening to spread the word everywhere, not just to you, Kitty,’ he said casually. ‘After all, you wouldn’t have spread it any further, would you? You wouldn’t like it known that you screwed a mere ground mechanic.’

  Amid the general gasps General Warminster reacted immediately, addressing not just Guy but the assembled company. ‘A gentleman,’ he said quietly, ‘fails to hear anything to the detriment of a lady, particularly those he loves. Apart from Mr Ellimore we are all gentlemen in this room and the term bears no relation to our status in life.’

  The general turned to his wife, now sobbing uncontrollably, and put his arm round her. ‘Come, my dear, let us return to our home.’

  ‘Are you all right, Miss Drury?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Nell lied. It was the second time Inspector Melbray had asked her that this evening. He had led an unprotesting Guy to the waiting uniformed police and she had returned to the table they had shared earlier. All right? she wondered. How could she feel all right? Should she just go back to the east wing or to the drawing room? The inspector had asked her to stay but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Or did she? What was done was done and the shock might wear off soon.

  He sat down with her at the table. ‘It has been a long evening,’ he said, ‘and there is much for me to do. But there is also much for us to talk about.’ He hesitated. ‘There is that pleasant spot by the pond where we would be unobserved
tomorrow, if you would care to know more.’

  She flinched. ‘Not about Guy.’

  He stiffened. ‘I am truly sorry but how could I warn you?’ Another awkward pause. ‘He has been arrested and soon I’m sure he will be charged. It is a sad case, one of many that has its roots in the war.’ He took her silence for a refusal of his suggestion about the morrow. ‘I understand why you’d prefer not to know what happened.’

  She roused herself. ‘I was wrong, Inspector. I do want to know. Truly.’

  She couldn’t understand herself why she was so upset. It wasn’t as if she had loved Guy – save perhaps for a few heady days seven years earlier. And yet the enormity of what he had done, his probable fate, seemed too much to bear.

  She and Inspector Melbray walked in silence to the pond the next day. Never had anywhere looked so peaceful, the grass so green, the trees so softly comforting. This place was a refuge from all that had happened. It couldn’t last, but she could take the healing balm it offered. The inspector had brought a rug with him and he placed it carefully on the ground.

  ‘I’ve no picnic with me, I’m afraid. But one day we’ll have another one,’ he remarked.

  To sit on his rug seemed an enormous step, a step that needed some decision to be made, but she made it. He took his place by her side and it was only then that she took in that the smart suit had been replaced by flannels, that he wore no hat, that the jacket he had flung down at his side, if not a blazer, was definitely not one to wear to Scotland Yard. He was intentionally sending a clear message that he was not on duty – even if it was undoubtedly Guy whom he wished to discuss.

  ‘I’ll talk, shall I?’ he asked presently.

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘It was Miss Harlington’s diary that gave us the clues we needed after you put forward that theory of blackmail. And she among our suspects was most certainly the one, apart from the family, who could have known about that access passage where Parkyn-Wright was hiding behind the screen.’

  ‘How would she know?’

  ‘He had been dancing with her. He would have told her about the joke. It gave her the opportunity she needed. What we lacked then was tangible evidence, which we’ve slowly been gathering.’

  She couldn’t bear to mention Guy yet. ‘You said Miss Harlington killed Mr Charles because of that.’

  ‘Yes. We concluded that he intended to take over her role, to control the money and perhaps was beginning to threaten her. Peters was good enough to tell us she was blackmailing him and Rex Beringer also came forward. Short of pushing Parkyn-Wright under a Piccadilly bus, the Wychbourne Court ball provided an ideal opportunity for Miss Harlington to rid herself of him, as many of the people they were blackmailing were around that night.’

  Nell felt more in command of herself now. ‘Why did Miss Harlington go to the dairy, though?’

  ‘It took me time to work that out, owing to your meagreness over parting with the truth.’

  ‘What the blithering bloaters do you mean?’ she asked indignantly.

  He laughed. ‘That ridiculous arrangement you had with Arthur Fontenoy. I can’t believe Miss Harlington was under the impression you were having a fling with Mr Fontenoy but she might have thought you’d worked out that she had killed Parkyn-Wright and felt she had to find out what was going on in case it provided fodder for her blackmailing talents. She didn’t like you, Nell, and so she decided to camouflage her curiosity by taking Guy there, assuring him, so he admitted, that he would indeed find you there indulging your passion with someone else. To find you with Arthur would be a great joke. Then there was Lady Warminster too. Miss Harlington had no intention of letting her get away without a touch of blackmail over William Foster as well as Ellimore and ordered her along to the dairy with him. It would no doubt have amused Miss Harlington to have both of Her Ladyship’s beaux there.’

  ‘I don’t understand why Guy didn’t resist her charms, though. He often used to get women like her giving him the glad eye. He didn’t even like her.’ There was no heart in Nell’s defence. She had thought she had known him but she hadn’t.

  ‘Liking doesn’t always come into such matters.’

  She licked dry lips. ‘He killed Miss Harlington because of his fling with Lady Warminster?’

  ‘No. I told you once we do a lot of work on records. Frederick Peters’ war record proved to be his undoing as far as Parkyn-Wright was concerned, and so did Ellimore’s. General Warminster had kindly pointed out to us the discrepancy between the DFM medal and his supposed officer rank and that led to our discovering more about his war career. He really didn’t want you to find that out, Nell. He needs constant props for his self-esteem.’

  Such as her, she realized. Guy’s need to roam wasn’t a sign of strength but of weakness. General Warminster had sensed something was wrong and it had been Guy, not William Foster, to whom he had referred as ‘a rum fellow’ that night at Stalisbrook Place.

  ‘Poor Guy,’ she managed to say. She had clung too hard to those memories of long ago instead of filing them where they belonged, in the dusty cabinet of youth.

  ‘He’s yet another casualty of the war. The kind of injury you never see.’

  ‘Like Mr Briggs’s.’

  ‘Indeed. We’ve a lot of evidence against Ellimore. He may’ – he hesitated – ‘avoid the worst sentence if he gets a lenient judge. He saw a lot of death during his time at Vert Galand and on home leave he was caught up in the Tontine Street Gotha bombing raid on Folkestone. Not pleasant. It does things to people’s minds. I was in the police during the war, in the Met. We suffered too through the bombing, coping with the wounded returning home. Nothing to compare to being in the trenches or in the air when death was one’s constant neighbour twenty-four hours a day, but our lives were grim too. It makes one understand how the Ellimores of this world can surrender real life to dreams.’

  Nell turned to look at him. ‘I wasn’t in love with Guy. I just – this sounds dotty – felt years ago that I was.’

  ‘Maybe you were both living in a fantasy world like Lady Clarice,’ he said, perhaps to lighten the tone.

  ‘Ghosts!’ That brought Nell to with a start. ‘I’d forgotten them. They came, didn’t they?’ She quickly rethought this. ‘Something happened last night.’

  ‘Impressive, wasn’t it? Lady Sophy is rather proud of her entertainment, in which her brother and sister fully participated. But please don’t tell Lady Clarice.’

  ‘It was a joke, then.’ Of course. How stupid of her to have been taken in. She remembered now – they’d only promised no Pepper’s Ghost, not to avoid all jokes. ‘I thought it was real for a moment,’ she continued. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Glow-worms moving around on the gallery latticework.’

  As simple as that. ‘What about the portraits coming alive? Did they?’

  ‘Not quite. Heard of radio luminescence paint? I found pieces of painted paper poked in at the side of the frames and whisked them off before the Ansley heirs beat me to it. Then I made them pick up every single glow-worm from the gallery with orders to return them forthwith to wherever they found them.’

  ‘But what about the poltergeist? Jimmy could only have been responsible for two of the three episodes.’

  ‘Add to that the unexplained appearance of a phantom butler.’

  ‘It must have been Mr Peters who served you.’

  ‘No, I saw both of them. Shall we forget that and your poltergeist?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nell agreed fervently.

  ‘Are you happy working here? This seems a weird place to me.’

  ‘Yes, again. It’s my home, my dream, even though it’s been a nightmare recently.’

  ‘Your job, that’s what Ellimore told me. Your job came between you both.’

  ‘Not entirely true. Anyway, what about his job? Why just mine? I am my job.’

  ‘I have a job too. Scotland Yard is like Wychbourne Court. Twenty-four hours either working or thinking about it in my sleep. Will you ever marr
y, Nell?’

  She hesitated. ‘I doubt it. Will you, Inspector Melbray?’

  ‘Someday I will. And it’s Alex,’ he said. ‘Alex, for Pete’s sake.’