Dance to Your Daddy mb-42

by Gladys Mitchell

  'Well, those soon went by the board. These newcomers had no feeling for the country as such; they had simply come out to grab what they could. They didn't dispossess us old hands, of course, but they embittered the relations between the whites and the blacks. Most of our work-people-Lestrange's and mine-were Masai, a peaceable, pastoral people, no trouble at all, but the dominant tribe were the Kikuyu, a very different sort of animal, and a lot of the newcomers, not being the best type of white man, put their backs up more than a little, and made them fighting fit.

  'The tensions weren't improved by the Indians. There were a good many of these. Some were pedlars who used to go up-country and trade with the natives, but others were moneylenders, very extortionate and bitterly hated and resented. But you probably know all this.

  'Well, so far as the blacks were concerned, things went from bad to worse. They were exploited and underpaid in the towns, and they got a pretty dirty deal over land-holding. I'm not saying they were good farmers-they were not. All the same, scientific methods were improving their stock, and health measures were increasing the population, and what they wanted was more land. It hadn't been so bad for the tribes in the old days, because they were partly nomadic and could follow the pasture around. But with these new whites also needing land, the tribes became legally bound to tribal territory, and as much as a quarter of the arable land, as distinct from pasture, was in the hands of Europeans.

  'Well, that was the set-up when the Kikuyu got really restive, and the result, as everybody knows, was the emergence of Mau Mau. That came about in 1950, and we were in a right mess, I can tell you. Oaths were taken, all kinds of violence broke out and neither life nor property was safe. Every sort of bestiality was practised, cattle were stolen or killed, and not only Europeans, but fellow-Africans who didn't belong to Mau Mau, were butchered.

  'Our own boys, being Masai, were not involved, but that didn't keep us out of trouble. Three times the plantation was overrun, and the third time Lestrange was killed and I was very lucky to escape before the evil business began to die down. Well, after a time, the thing was brought more or less under control. However, to us who knew the country, it was easy enough to see what was going to happen. African nationalism was up on its hind-legs, and by 1960 the political initiative was with the Africans. You'll have read or heard about all this, so I needn't elaborate. It's ancient history now.

  'The next thing we feared was a new Mau Mau rising. Some of us sold up and went to Southern Rhodesia or South Africa. As I told you (I think), I was one of them. I settled in Natal. I came to England in 1966 when I heard that Felix Napoleon Lestrange, Romilly's father, had died, and the rest you know.'

  'Now let's have the details,' said Kirkby. 'No doubt you have given us a very interesting potted version of the history of Kenya from 1938 to 1960 or so, but we are far more interested in the history of your dealings with Romilly Lestrange and his family during that time.'

  'I'm coming to all that, but you had to get the set-up clearly in your mind. I wouldn't want you to think that I was responsible for Lestrange's death. I liked him. We got on well together.'

  'Be that as it may-and it's not my purpose to enquire into it at present-what gave you the idea of impersonating him after he was dead?' asked Kirkby. 'We can see you did it to benefit yourself, but how did it begin? Let's have the whole story, shall we?'

  'Oh, yes, if you wish it. You seem to know how bad Romilly's sight was. Well, on one occasion, he broke one pair of glasses and had mislaid the other pair, so he asked me to read his mail for him. It was rare enough for either of us to get letters. We didn't talk about the past, either. I knew he had a brother, and the letters I read on that first occasion came from the lawyers and from Lestrange's grandfather. Both were to tell him that his brother had died.'

  'Did he seem distressed?' asked Dame Beatrice.

  'No. He said, "Poor old Caesar," but that was about all. Oh, he added that he supposed he was now the only one left. He told me he was illegitimate, but had always got on well with his father. The legitimate son had been killed in the war, and old Felix Napoleon had gone on to say that he was acting as guardian to this son's daughter, a charge that would devolve on Romilly later.'

  'And the lawyer's letter was to confirm this, I suppose,' said Kirkby. 'All clear so far. Then what happened?'

  'Nothing, until Romilly got killed. We'd been overrun, as I said, but Lestrange and I had never had anything to do with politics, and Mau Mau was basically a political movement, although its bestialities had nothing to do with the government or the majority of Africans. Lestrange had been in Nairobi for two or three days. He and his party were ambushed and slaughtered on their way home. It wasn't Lestrange himself they were after. He simply happened to be there. Almost immediately after this particular "incident"-to use the cant phrase-troops were drafted in, and Mau Mau went under cover.

  'Well, when I knew what had happened, I went through Lestrange's papers and began to pack up his personal belongings with a view to sending them to his relatives. Among the letters I found an old one from his brother Caesar in which he said that "the old man" was not going to forget the two of them in his Will, and, now that Harvard was dead, he thought it might be something substantial.

  'Well, I knew who Harvard was, and I was tempted. I thought things over. I knew that Caesar himself was dead by that time, so I decided not to report Romilly's death to the relatives, but to hang on and see what transpired. Once the old man himself was dead-and that was the time for the benefits to be shared out-it seemed to me that, if I chose to represent myself as Romilly Lestrange, there wouldn't, most likely, be anybody to gainsay it.

  'Well, as I told you, things didn't go any too well, and I cleared out of Kenya and went to Natal. I took care, when I got there, to let the lawyers know where I was. I knew that Lestrange had never communicated with them direct, so that there was no chance they'd recognise a forged signature. You can work out the rest for yourselves.'

  'We'd rather hear it from you,' said Kirkby. 'Do go on. You chose to pretend that you were Romilly Lestrange.'

  'Yes, well,' said the pretender, 'I couldn't see that it would do anybody any harm, and I thought it might do me quite a lot of good, if I could pass myself off as Romilly. Then came the business of the girl Trilby-Rosamund to you-who turned out to be the heiress. By the time I heard from her I'd bought a small property in Yorkshire (with my own money, I might tell you) and had decided to stay in England and settle down. I'd given the lawyers my address at their request, and they, it seems, had passed it on.'

  'Miss Lestrange wrote to you, then?'

  'She did. She pointed out that, with the exception of some cousins whom she didn't know, I was her only surviving relative, and she asked whether she could come and visit me. Naturally, I was a bit flummoxed by this, but, as I thought it might look suspicious if I refused to see her, I wrote back to say that she would be welcome, and she came along.'

  'Was Judith living with you at the time?' Dame Beatrice asked.

  'Yes. I met her and Luke, my servant, in South Africa. We're not married, neither is she anything more than my housekeeper, no matter what you may think. I suppose Trilby has told you something different, but that is the truth. Well, Trilby came to see us, but Judith didn't like the Yorkshire house, so when Galliard Hall came on to the market for rent, not purchase, we came down here, and Trilby came along with us. That was just over a year ago.'

  'For rent?' repeated Dame Beatrice. 'Did that include the furniture and the fittings?'

  'Yes. Why do you ask? It included everything. The lawyers gave me excellent references, especially as Trilby was with me.'

  'It would account for the pictures which the real Romilly Lestrange would have recognised, although you did not. What made the owners leave such valuable paintings in the house?'

  'They are travelling abroad, and are spending time with relatives in America and Australia. I have the house on a three-year lease and everything in it is
fully insured, or so the owners told me. I've never bothered to check.'

  'Clear, so far,' said Kirkby. 'Please go on.'

  'I don't know what more there is to tell you.'

  'Oh, surely!' protested Dame Beatrice. 'The mysterious letter summoning my assistance in treating Rosamund, the mysterious shot at me through the bedroom squint, the mysterious business of the death of Willoughby, the question as to whether he and his brother were or not invited to join the house-party, the mysterious assertion that Rosamund had formed the habit of drowning things...'

  'Oh, well, as to all that,' said Romilly, 'I have no explanation to offer, except that I was in a pretty desperate strait when I sent for you. Trilby had already tried twice to kill me. That girl is utterly depraved and evil.'

  'Tried to kill you, sir? Why haven't we heard anything about this before?' demanded Kirkby.

  'Don't be a fool!' said Romilly roughly. 'How could I bring the police in on my affairs? Now that you know all the rest about me, I can tell you about the devilish girl, but I didn't want the police poking about while I was passing myself off as Romilly Lestrange. I knew he had relatives all over the place, and I thought the less publicity my affairs had, the better it would be for me.'

  'Chapter and verse might be desirable, Mr de Maas. Will you tell us about the times when Miss Rosamund tried to kill you?'

  'Once when she enticed me to bathe with her and then deliberately tried to drown me...'

  'Do not tell me that you were the life-sized baby doll!' said Dame Beatrice. 'It seems a wildly inaccurate description, except for the first adjective.'

  'And the other time was when she fired at Dame Beatrice, thinking it was at me,' went on Romilly. Then, perceiving his error, for he remembered that Rosamund had known perfectly well that his original room had been allocated to Dame Beatrice during her stay and that Rosamund had visited her there for the so-called treatment, he amended his statement hastily. 'No, I'm getting mixed up. Not that time. At an earlier date. That's why I hung the picture in front of the aperture. It could not be dislodged from behind, from the other side of the hole, you see.'

  'You indicated to me that you knew nothing about the squint,' said Dame Beatrice mildly.

  'I know, I know. One had to do some quick thinking.'

  'I found the bullet. It came from a .22. How would Rosamund gain possession of a sporting gun?'

  'How should I know? She's as cunning as a monkey. I searched her room, of course, and found nothing, but there are several guns in the smoking-room and she had the run of the house.'

  'I wonder you risked allowing her another opportunity, sir, by filling the house with a number of her relatives, any one of whom might have been suspected.'

  'What could I do? Besides, the more the family got to know me as their uncle, the safer my position became, I thought. In any case, on this second occasion, I took the best precaution I could. In fact, I was determined to bring matters to a head. I intended to have an experienced, unbiased witness present.'

  'Oh, really, sir? Who was that?'

  'On my own responsibility, and without reference to Trilby, I invited Dame Beatrice to join us. I knew that if anybody could put a spoke in Trilby's wheel, she could. Of course, I had to find some reason for inviting her, a reason I knew she would accept, so I told her Trilby needed psychiatric treatment, which, in my opinion, she does. The wretched girl must have seen through my little ruse, and took a pot-shot at Dame Beatrice through the hole in the wall. How did you manage to escape?' he asked, breaking off his narrative to ask the question.

  'By a slight re-distribution of the effects of the bedroom,' she replied, 'that is all.'

  'Well,' said Romilly, turning again to Kirkby, 'what are you going to charge me with this time?'

  'Nothing, sir, if you pay back to the lawyers the sum which you say that they paid to you under the terms of Mr Felix Napoleon's Will, and which you state is lying untouched at your bank. My assignment at present is to find the murderer of Mr Willoughby, not to prosecute you for false pretences. That can come later, if need be.'

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  COUNTRY DANCE-MAGE ON A CREE

  'He at Philippi kept

  His sword e'en like a dancer.'

  King Henry V.

  (1)

  'And how much of that tale do we believe?' asked Laura, when Dame Beatrice had described the interview.

  'Time will tell us that, child. There are two things to be done at present, as I see it. The first is to talk to the man Luke.'

  'But I thought you indicated that he is Romilly's tool. That being so, can we believe what he says?'

  'In this instance I think we may.'

  'You want to find out about the letters of invitation, I suppose?'

  'Yes. It is not clear to me why he should have mentioned to the two maidservants that, so far as he knew, Hubert and Willoughby had not been invited.'

  'You mean he must have had some reason for actually mentioning them by name? I expect it was because they were the two who hadn't been invited on the only other occasion when there had been a family gathering at Galliard Hall. He would have realised that those were the names on envelopes which must have disappeared.'

  'I agree, and that raises an interesting point which I should like to have cleared up. We have enough to do without having minor mysteries cluttering up our path.'

  'Do I go with you to Galliard Hall?'

  'I see no reason why not, and I shall be glad of a verbatim report of what Luke says in answer to my questions.'

  'The only thing is, won't he turn rather coy at the sight of a shorthand writer with a notebook?'

  'That we shall need to find out. My impression is that the man, in this particular instance, can have nothing to hide, or he would not have spoken out as he did in the presence of Amabel and Violet.'

  'By the way, do you attach any importance to the fact that none of the servants heard that pot-shot which somebody took at you through the squint in your bedroom wall?'

  'As George did not hear it, any more than did the others, I attach no importance whatever to the fact. The Hall is solidly built, my room was on the first floor, and the servants sleep at the top of the house and in another wing.'

  'Oh, well, that's that, then. I suppose you'll have to let Romilly (I still call him that) know that you want to talk to Luke?'

  'I can hardly do anything else, but I cannot think that he will raise the slightest objection. Why should he? He knows that Luke will say nothing to his disadvantage. The man, although surly, is faithful. In fact, I want to talk to Romilly himself before I tackle Luke.'

  (2)

  Dame Beatrice had not announced their coming, but it came as somewhat of a surprise to find Galliard Hall deserted except for a caretaker, his wife and his two daughters. The latter turned out to be Amabel and Violet, who received Dame Beatrice and Laura with acclamation and carried them off for a cup of tea in the kitchen.

  They were informed that Romilly, whom the servants still referred to as Mr Lestrange, since they had not been told his real name, had left Galliard Hall and did not propose to return. As the rent had been paid in advance and the maids had been given a month's wages in lieu of notice, nobody appeared to object to his sudden departure, and he had left a forwarding address.

  'Not sorry, us beant, to see the back of hem and Messus Judeth,' Amabel confided to Dame Beatrice, 'what weth the police and all. And as for that there old Luke, fair gev ee the creeps, he ded.'

  As a matter of fact, it was Luke I came to see,' said Dame Beatrice, seizing upon the opening, 'but I daresay you and Violet will do just as well.'

  'About they envitation letters.'

  'Yes.'

  'Oi dedd'n ought to have let on to Mess Corenna. Oi know that. But you know how 'tes. Mouth opens and sommat comes out as you never entended.'

  Dame Beatrice, whose own beaky little mouth did not play her this disconcerting trick, responded sympathetically and then add
ed:

  'But that's all over now, and no harm done, as I told you. What exactly did Luke say about the letters? Can you remember?'

  Violet and Amabel could. They had the unspoilt verbal memories of those who have never had occasion for taking written notes to aid their natural faculties. Corroborating one another without difficulty, they told the artless but highly important story.

  'Luke, he blamed us, you see, for tamperen, which us surely never ded. "Oi counted they letters as they laid there on hall table," he says to we. "What have you two gals been a-playen at? Report ee to Mester, Oi well," he says, "ef they letters ant put roight back be the toim Oi goes down to the postbox to catch the post," he says.'

  'What did he mean, do you suppose?'

  'Oh, he went all on about et, he ded. "There be two on 'em messen," he says. "Oi counted 'em careful as Oi laid 'em down. Eight there was, and sex there es," he says. "Who's been playen the fool, then?" he says.'

  'He couldn't have made a mistake in his counting, I suppose?' suggested Laura.

  'Hem? He used to fenger the letters loike as ef he couldn't hardly bear not to tear 'em open and read 'em. Oh, no, he wouldn't make no mestake, not old Luke wouldn't. And the job us had to convence un, then, ee'd never believe. Good as told us we'd penched 'em to foind out whether there was postal orders ensoide, ef ever you heard the loike!'

  'Do you know whether he reported to Mr Romilly that two of the letters were missing?' Dame Beatrice enquired.

  'For certain sure he ded not,' said Violet. 'Hem put hesself in the wrong? Not old Luke, no fear! What he ded say to us, when Mr Romelly was belly-achen about getten no answer from two of his relations, was as how he dedden see how Mester Romelly could expect to get answers to letters that hadden never been sent.'

  'Was he still of the opinion that you had impounded the missing letters?'