"Oh, I was just in the garden, that's all. Just getting a little air. Really, though, it was too cold. I shall be glad to get down to the fire. The central heating here isn't as good as it might be. Somebody must speak to the gardeners about it, Miss Dove."
"I'll do so," Mary promised.
Jennifer Fortescue dropped her coat on a chair and followed Mary out of the room. She went down the stairs ahead of Mary, who drew back a little to give her precedence. In the hall, rather to Mary's surprise, she noticed the tray of eatables was still there. She was about to go out to the pantry and call to Gladys when Adele Fortescue appeared in the door of the library, saying in an irritable voice, "Aren't we ever going to have anything to eat for tea?"
Quickly Mary picked up the tray and took it into the library, disposing the various things on low tables near the fireplace. She was carrying the empty tray out to the hall again when the front doorbell rang. Setting down the tray, Mary went to the door herself. If this was the prodigal son at last, she was rather curious to see him. How unlike the rest of the Fortescues, Mary thought, as she opened the door and looked up into the dark, lean face and the faintly quizzical twist of the mouth. She said quietly, "Mr. Lancelot Fortescue?"
"Himself."
Mary peered beyond him.
"Your luggage?"
"I've paid off the taxi. This is all I've got." He picked up a medium-sized zip bag. Some faint feeling of surprise in her mind, Mary said, "Oh, you did come in a taxi. I thought perhaps you'd walked up. And your wife?"
His face set in a rather grim line, Lance said, "My wife won't be corning. At least, not just yet."
"I see. Come this way, will you, Mr. Fortescue?
Everyone is in the library, having tea."
She took him to the library door and left him there. She thought to herself that Lancelot Fortescue was a very attractive person. A second thought followed the first. Probably a great many other women thought so, too.
"Lance!"
Elaine came hurrying forward towards him. She flung her arms round his neck and hugged him with a schoolgirl abandon that Lance found quite surprising.
"Hullo. Here I am."
He disengaged himself gently.
"This is Jennifer?"
Jennifer Fortescue looked at him with eager curiosity.
"I'm afraid Val's been detained in town," she said. "There's so much to see to, you know. All the arrangements to make and everything. Of course it all comes on Val. He has to see to everything. You can really have no idea what we're all going through."
"It must be terrible for you," said Lance gravely.
He turned to the woman on the sofa, who was sitting with a piece of scone and honey in her hand, quietly appraising him.
"Of course," cried Jennifer, "you don't know Adele, do you?"
Lance murmured "Oh yes, I do" as he took Adele Fortescue's hand in his. As he looked down at her, her eyelids fluttered. She set down the scone she was eating with her left hand and just touched the arrangement of her hair. It was a feminine gesture. It marked her recognition of the entry to the room of a personable man. She said in her thick, soft voice, "Sit down here on the sofa beside me, Lance."
She poured out a cup of tea for him. "I'm so glad you've
come," she went on. "We badly need another man in the house."
Lance said, "You must let me do everything I can to help.”
"You know -but perhaps you don't know -we've had the police here. They think-they think-" she broke off and cried out passionately, "Oh, it's awful! Awful!"
"I know." Lance was grave and sympathetic. "As a mater of fact, they met me at London Airport."
"The police met you?"
"Yes."
"What did they say?"
"Well," Lance was deprecating, "they told me what had happened."
"He was poisoned," said Adele, "that's what they think, what they say. Not food poisoning. Real poisoning, by someone. I believe, I really do believe they think it's one of US."
Lance gave her a sudden, quick smile.
"That's their pigeon," he said consolingly. "It's no good our worrying. What a scrumptious tea! It's a long time since I've seen a good English tea."
The others fell in with his mood soon enough. Adele said suddenly, "But your wife-haven't you got a wife, Lance?"
"I've got a wife, yes. She's in London."
"But aren't you-hadn't you better bring her down here?"
"Plenty of time to make plans," said Lance. "Path, Pat's quite all right where she is."
Elaine said sharply,
"You don't mean-you don't think-"
Lance said quickly, "What a wonderful-looking chocolate cake. I must have some." Cutting himself a slit-e, he asked, "Is Aunt Effie alive still?"
"Oh, yes, Lance. She won't come down and have meals with us or anything, but she's quite well. Only, she's getting very peculiar."
"She always was peculiar," said Lance. "I must go up and see her after tea."
Jennifer Fortescue murmured, "At her age one does really feel that she ought to be in some kind of a home. I
mean somewhere where she will be properly looked after."
"Heaven help any old ladies' home that got Aunt Effie in their midst," said Lance. He added, "Who's the demure piece of goods who let me in?"
Adele looked surprised.
"Didn't Crump let you in? The butler? Oh no, I forgot. It's his day out today. But surely Gladys-"
Lance gave a description. "Blue eyes, hair parted in the middle, soft voice, butter wouldn't melt in the mouth. What goes on behind it all, I wouldn't like to say."
"That," said Jennifer, "would be Mary Dove."
Elaine said, "She sort of runs things for us."
"Does she, now."
Adele said, "She's really very useful."
"Yes," said Lance thoughtfully, "I should think she might be."
"But what is so nice is," said Jennifer, "that she knows her place. She never presumes, if you know what I mean."
"Clever Mary Dove," said Lance, and helped himself to another piece of chocolate cake.
Chapter Twelve
"SO YOU'VE TURNED Up again like a bad penny," said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance grinned at her. "Just as you say, Aunt Effie."
"Humpph!" Miss Ramsbottom sniffed disapprovingly.
"You've chosen a nice time to do it. Your father got himself murdered yesterday, the house is fun of police poking about everywhere, grubbing in the dustbins, even. I've seen them out of the window." She paused, sniffed again, and asked, "Got your wife with you?"
"No. I left Pat in London."
"That shows some sense. I shouldn't bring her here if I were you. You never know what might happen."
"To her? To Pat?"
"To anybody," said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance Fortescue looked at her thoughtfully.
"Got any ideas about it all, Aunt Effie?" he asked.
Miss Ramsbottom did not reply directly. "I had an Inspector here yesterday asking me questions. He didn't get much change out of me. But he wasn't such a fool as he looked, not by a long way." She added with some indignation, "What your grandfather would feel if he knew we had the police in the house-it's enough to make him turn in his grave. A strict Plymouth Brother he was an his life. The fuss there was when he found out I'd been attending Church of England services in the evening! And I'm sure that was harmless enough compared to murder."
Normally Lance would have smiled at this, but his long, dark face remained serious. He said, "D'you know, I'm quite in the dark after having been away so long. What's been going on here of late?"
Miss Ramsbottom raised her eyes to heaven.
"Godless doings," she said firmly.
"Yes, yes, Aunt Effie, you would say that anyway. But what gives the police the idea that Dad was killed here, in house?"
"Adultery is one thing and murder is another," said Miss Ramsbottom. "I shouldn't like to think it of her, I shouldn't, indeed."
&nbs
p; Lance looked alert. "Adele?" he asked.
"My Ups are sealed," said Miss Ramsbottom.
"Come on, old dear," said Lance. "It's a lovely phrase, but it doesn't mean a thing. Adele had a boy friend? Adele and the boy friend fed him henbane in the morning tea. Is that the setup?"
"I'll trouble you not to joke about it."
"I wasn't really joking, you know."
"I'll tell you one thing," said Miss Ramsbottom suddenly. "I believe that girl knows something about it."
"Which girl?" Lance looked surprised.
"The one that sniffs," said Miss Ramsbottom. "The one that ought to have brought me up my tea this afternoon, but didn't. Gone out without leave, so they say. Well, shouldn't wonder if she had gone to the police. Who let you in?"
"Someone called Mary Dove, I understand. Very meek and mild, but not really. Is she the one who's gone to the police?"
"She wouldn't go to the police," said Miss Ramsbottom. "No-I mean that silly little parlormaid. She's been twitching and jumping like a rabbit all day. 'What's the matter with you?" I said. 'Have you got a guilty conscience?" She said, 'I never did anything-I wouldn't do a thing like that." 'I hope you wouldn't,' I said to her, 'but there's something worrying you now, isn't there?" Then she began to sniff and said she didn't want to get anybody into trouble, she was sure it must be all a mistake. I said to her, I said, 'Now, my girl, you speak the truth and shame the devil." That's what I said. 'You go to the police,' I said, 'and tell them anything you know, because no good ever came,' I said, 'of hushing up the truth, however unpleasant it is." Then she talked a lot of nonsense about how she couldn't go to the police, they'd never believe her and what on earth should she say? She ended up by saying anyway she didn't know anything at an."
"You don't think," Lance hesitated, "that she was just making herself important?"
"No, I don't. I think she was scared. I think she saw something or heard something that's given her some idea about the whole thing. It may be important, or it mayn't be of the least consequence."
"You don't think she herself could've had a grudge against Father and-" Lance hesitated.
Miss Ramsbottom was shaking her head decidedly.
"She's not the kind of girl your father would have taken the least notice of. No man ever will take much notice of her, poor girl. Ah, well, it's all the better for her soul, that, I dare say."
Lance took no interest in Gladys's soul. He asked, "You think she may have run along to the police station?"
Aunt Effie nodded vigorously.
"Yes. I think she mayn't like to've said anything to them in this house, in case somebody overheard her."
Lance asked, "Do you think she may have seen someone tampering with the food?"
Aunt Effie threw him a sharp glance.
"It's possible, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes, I suppose so. "Then he added apologetically, "The whole thing still seems so wildly improbable. Like a detective story."
"Percival's wife is a hospital nurse," said Miss Ramsbottom.
The remark seemed so unconnected with what bad gone before that Lance looked at her in a puzzled fashion.
"Hospital nurses are used to handling drugs," said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance looked doubtful.
"This stuff-taxine-is it ever used in medicine? 61 They get it from yew berries, I gather. Children eat yewberries sometimes," said Miss Ramsbottom. "Makes them very- U, too. I remember a case when I was a child. It made a great impression on me. I never forgot it. Things you remember come in useful sometimes."
Lance raised his head sharply and stared at her.
"Natural affection is one thing," said Miss Ramsbottom, "and I hope I've got as much of it as anyone. But I won't stand for wickedness. Wickedness has to be destroyed."
"Went off without a word to me," said Mrs. Crump, raising her red, wrathful face from the pastry she was now rolling out on the board. "Slipped out without a word to anybody. Sly, that's what it is. Sly! Afraid she'd be stopped, and I would have stopped her if I'd caught her! The idea!
There's the master dead, Mr. Lance coming home that hasn't been home for years, and I said to Crump, I said, 'Day out or no day out, I know my duty. There's not going to be cold supper tonight as is usual on a Thursday, but a proper dinner. A gentleman coming home from abroad with his wife, what was formerly married in the aristocracy, things must be properly done." You know me, miss, you know I take a pride in my work."
Mary Dove, the recipient of these confidences, nodded her head gently.
"And what does Crump say?" Mrs. Crump's voice rose angrily. "'It's my day off and I'm goin' off,' that's what he says. 'And a fig for the aristocracy,' he says. No pride in his work, Crump hasn't. So off he goes and I tell Gladys she'll have to manage alone tonight. She just says, 'All right, Mrs. Crump,' then, when my back's turned out she sneaks. It wasn't her day out, anyway. Friday's her day. How we're going to manage now, I don't know. Thank goodness, Mr. Lance hasn't brought his wife here with him today."
"We shall manage, Mrs. Crump," Mary's voice was both soothing and authoritative, "if we just simplify the menu a little." She outlined a few suggestions. Mrs. Crump nodded unwilling acquiescence. "I shall be able to serve that quite easily," Mary concluded.
"You mean you'll wait at table yourself, miss?" Mrs. Crump sounded doubtful.
"If Gladys doesn't come back in time."
"She won't come back," said Mrs. Crump. "Gallivanting off, wasting her money somewhere in the shops. She's got a young man, you know, miss, though you wouldn't think it to look at her. Albert his name is. Going to get married next spring, so she tells me. Don't know what the married state's tike, these girls don't. What I've been through with Crump."
She sighed, then said in an ordinary voice, "What about tea, miss? Who's going to clear it away and wash it up?"
"I'll do that," said Mary. "I'll go and do it now."
The lights had not been turned on in the drawing-room, though Adele Fortescue was still sitting on the sofa behind the tea tray.
"Shall I switch the lights on, Mrs. Fortescue?" Mary asked. Adele did not answer.
Mary switched on the lights and went across to the window where she pulled the curtains across. It was only then that she turned her head and saw the face of the woman who had sagged back against the cushions. A half-eaten scone spread with honey was beside her and her tea cup was still half-full. Death had come to Adele Fortescue suddenly and swiftly.
"Well?" demanded Inspector Neele impatiently.
The doctor said promptly,
"Cyanide-potassium cyanide probably-in the tea."
"Cyanide," muttered Neele.
The doctor looked at him with slight curiosity.
"You're taking this hard. Any special reason?"
"She was cast as a murderess," said Neele.
"And she turns out to be a victim. Hm. You'll have to think again, won't you?"
Neele nodded. His face was bitter and his jaw was grimly set.
Poisoned! Right under his nose. Taxine in Rex Fortescue's breakfast coffee, cyanide in Adele Fortescue's tea. Still an intimate family affair. Or so it seemed.
Adele Fortescue, Jennifer Fortescue, Elaine Fortescue and the newly arrived Lance Fortescue had had tea together in the library. Lance had gone up to see Miss Ramsbottom, Jennifer had gone to her own sitting-room to write letters, Elaine had been the last to leave the library. According to her, Adele had then been in perfect health and had just been pouring herself out a last cup of tea.
A last cup of tea! Yes, it had indeed been her last cup of tea.
And after that a blank twenty minutes, perhaps, until Mary Dove had come into the room and discovered the body.
And during that twenty minutes Inspector Neele swore to himself and went out into the kitchen.
Sitting in a chair by the kitchen table, the vast figure of Mrs. Cramp, her belligerence pricked like a balloon, hardly stirred as he came in.
"Where's that girl? Has she come back yet?"<
br />
"Gladys? No, she's not back. Won't be, I suspect, until eleven o'clock."
"She made the tea, you say, and took it in."
"I didn't touch it, sir, as God's my witness. And what's more, I don't believe Gladys did anything she shouldn't. She wouldn't do a thing like that-not Gladys. She's a good enough girl, sir-a bit foolish like, that's all-not wicked."
A Pocket Full of Rye Page 8
