by Carola Dunn
Alec turned to ask, “Where exactly did you leave your partizan, Mr. Parkinson?”
“Strewth, it’s gorn! Right here beside the door it was, leaning up against the wall, like, so’s I could grab it as I come in next morning.”
“The night before last, you left it here?”
“ ’Sright, sir, when I went off duty. Polished it down nice with a shammy I keep in me pocket, and leant it right here.”
“You may have to testify to that in court.”
“It’s true, sir, s’welp me, if it’s not. D’you mean—was it my partizan Mr. Crabtree was skewered with?”
“It may have been.”
“Let that be a lesson to you,” Webster said sententiously.
Alec took pity on the sweating Parkinson. “Mr. Crabtree was dead before he was . . . skewered. You’re not to say a word about this to anyone.”
“Mum’s the word, sir, I swear it.”
“All right, you can go. Mr. Webster, I don’t know what the penalty is for his dereliction of duty, but it’s not to be carried out until after any court case arising from this investigation is over. Mr. Tring, make sure the two yeomen outside understand they are absolutely not to talk about what they have seen and may have overheard. And after we leave, anyone coming out through this door is to be arrested.”
“Right, sir.”
Tom went out and Alec turned back to Webster. “Who else has a key to this door?”
Webster grinned, an unnerving sight. “The Keeper of the Regalia. No one else. He also has the only key to the door on the first floor, communicating between the jewel chamber and the bridge across to St. Thomas’s Tower.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” said the secretary with relish as they moved outside.
“You may report to General Carradine, of course, but to no one else.”
“Of course.” He closed and locked the door behind them. “The net closes. Good luck, Chief Inspector.”
Alec and Tom followed him up the steps. He went up the slope and they turned under the Bloody Tower.
“Do we have enough circumstantial evidence?” Tom asked.
“Enough to take him in. Whether the public prosecutor will consider it sufficient to try a peer’s son-in-law for murder is another matter.”
As they walked down through the murky tunnel, a shadow detached itself from the wall at the end.
“No sign of life across the way, Chief,” Piper reported. “I strolled up and down the street a few times. Dunno if anyone saw me. If they were watching they kept well back. ’Course, a uniformed bobby’d’ve been more use to put the wind up him.”
“Not at all, laddie,” said Tom. “You’re enough to frighten the living daylights out of a scarecrow.”
“Cor, ta, Sarge.”
“Both of you come with me.” Alec stepped out from under the arch, looking across Water Street at the half-timbered dwelling above the long, low arch of Traitors’ Gate, between the two stone projections of St. Thomas’s Tower. “How does one get up to his place?”
“I asked, Chief. It’s that door, the one to the right of Traitors’ Gate.” Piper pointed out a heavy iron-bound door set back in the thickness of the stone wall.
“If he refuses to open it, we’ll need a battering ram!”
Ernie yanked on the bellpull. No sound was heard from inside. They waited.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe it’s not working,” said Piper, reaching for the handle.
“If it’s not working,” said Tom, “there’s no use pulling again. And if it is working, likely it’ll take ’em a while to get here.”
They waited.
“I wonder whether the Resident Governor has a key to this door,” Alec said at last. “It’s within his domain. Give it another try, Ernie.”
But just then the door swung open. Inside, the only light was a flickering gas lamp turned low. The black-clad manservant’s white shirtfront stood out in the gloom.
“Yes?”
“Police,” said Alec, his foot over the threshold. “I’d like a word with Sir Patrick.”
Without a word, the man turned and led the way upstairs. Piper closed the heavy door behind them with a reverberating thud.
The Keeper’s quarters could not be described as cosy. However, though the gas lights were turned down low, Alec saw at a glance that his sitting room was furnished in somewhat old-fashioned but luxurious comfort, like the smoking room of a very expensive club.
“The police, sir,” said the servant, and faded away.
From the depths of a leather armchair beside the crackling fire, a terrified voice squeaked, “It was an accident!”
Piper already had his notebook out. Unobtrusively, he moved a straight chair to a position to one side and slightly to the rear of Sir Patrick’s. No sense letting an already-frightened suspect see that every word he uttered was being written down.
Tom stationed himself with his back against the door. No one would be intruding or escaping that way.
Alec, without waiting to be invited, sat down in the chair across the fireplace from Sir Patrick. “What was an accident, sir?” he asked gently.
“Rumford falling down the stairs. Crabtree. He slipped. I didn’t push him. Touch him.”
“I must warn you, sir, that you need not say anything, but anything you choose to say may be used in evidence. You’re entitled to have your lawyer—”
“My lawyer! He’s Julia’s, her family’s. Tied up all her money so I can’t touch a penny without begging.”
“Someone else?”
“They’re all the same. Damn parasites!”
Alec interpreted this as declining the right to have a lawyer present. “You were there when Crabtree fell.”
“You don’t need to tell me,” Sir Patrick said petulantly. His hands were in constant motion, fingers scrabbling on his thighs like a cat flexing its claws. “I can’t imagine how you found out. No one could have seen me in the dark and the fog. I didn’t mean to push him. I just wanted to talk to him, to explain I simply couldn’t come up with five hundred pounds. Julia would never have given me so much at one time, not without a damn good reason and something to show for it.”
“You went to talk to . . . ?”
“To Rumford, that damn leech!”
“You went to talk to Rumford. If you spoke to him, how was it that you didn’t realize the man you met was in fact Crabtree?”
“They look alike. In the dark and the fog, I assumed it was Rumford. I wouldn’t have pushed Crabtree down the steps. Nothing against the man. Didn’t know him.”
“You went out at midnight on a cold, foggy night to speak to Rumford. What made you think he’d be there?”
“I knew it was his week on duty. Watched him often enough from here, and I’d seen which way he went from the King’s House once when I spent an evening there. The other chap shouldn’t have been there. It was his own fault he got pushed down the steps.”
“ ‘Got pushed,’ ” said Alec.
“I mean he slipped.” Sir Patrick was whining now. “I wanted to talk to Rumford, that’s all.”
“In that case, sir, may I ask why you took a partizan with you?”
“Partizan? Partizan? What the devil is a partizan?”
“A pike, sir.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? I took it to defend myself, of course, in case he fought back. He was a big man, much bigger than I am. The fall might not have killed him, and I couldn’t have him attacking me, could I?”
Enough, thought Alec. He’d had enough of the Keeper’s feeble lies, sickening self-justification, and unintended admissions. Surely the man had sufficiently damned himself out of his own mouth.
He glanced at Tom, who nodded.
Alec stood up. “Sir Patrick Heald, I arrest you for the murder of Chief Warder Crabtree,” he said wearily.
“It wasn’t my fault!” cried the Keeper of the Regalia. “It was supposed to be Rumford!”
“
An invitation?” said Alec, spreading marmalade on his toast. “From whom?”
“General Carradine and Mrs. Tebbit. It looks as if I’m going to have to go back to the Tower barely a fortnight after swearing never to darken its gates again. An engagement party for Myrtle Tebbit and Jeremy Fisher.”
“Webster. So they’re actually going to get married!”
“Why not?” Daisy looked up from the note Mrs. Tebbit had included with the formal invitation. “You were there.”
“I thought it was just the old lady’s mischief making. I wasn’t paying much attention. You may recall I had other matters on my mind at the time.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“Dare I hope that they don’t want to be reminded, either, and have therefore omitted my name from the invitation?”
“Of course not, darling. It’s for both of us.”
“I’m afraid I shall be out of town on a case that day.”
“I haven’t told you what day it is.”
“Nevertheless, I shall be out of town on a case.”
“That’s all right, I’ll go with the Germonds. Mrs. Tebbit says they’re invited, to make sure the promised tennis party for the girls comes off. Actually, Melanie told me she’s at last settled on a date. She says she’s found some suitable young men for Brenda and Fay.”
“They could hardly be less suitable than Dr. Macleod!”
“By the way, did Rumford tell you what Sir Patrick did that gave him a hold over him.”
“A sordid story—he smuggled a girl in. He simply couldn’t afford to have Lady Julia find out.”
“And General Carradine? What happened in Mesopotamia?”
“That, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Beast!”
Alec grinned. “To tell the truth, he managed to avoid revealing his awful secret.”
“Oh well, I suppose it’s better not to know, in his case, especially if I’m going to this party at the King’s House.”
“I’m glad Mrs. Germond will be with you, but are you sure you’ll be all right going back to that place, love? You were so determined not to.”
“I know, but I feel I can face anything at all after yesterday’s victory.”
“Daisy, what on earth . . . ?”
“You came home too late for me to tell you last night, but I’ve taken Sakari’s advice. She couldn’t understand how I could let a servant lay down the law, so I screwed my courage to the sticking place and tackled Nanny.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did. We’re allowed to call her Mrs. Gilpin instead of Nanny, because of the dog. I must say she was rather put out that we didn’t just change the dog’s name, but we couldn’t do that, could we, Nana?” The dog looked up from where she was lying by the window, being frightfully good about not begging at table. Her tail thumped the floor. “She’d never answer to a different name. And I told Mrs. Gilpin I shall take the twins for their afternoon walk in the perambulator whenever I want to.”
“Daisy, this is mutiny,” Alec said with a grin, “if not insurrection!”
“And what’s more, you’re allowed to go and kiss them good night, however late you come in.”
“Great Scott, weren’t you afraid she’d give notice?”
“Not really,” said Daisy complacently. “According to Melanie, nannies consider it most frightfully prestigious to be in charge of twins!”
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
