by Clara Benson
‘The what? Oh, very well, then, I suppose you’re right. I can’t exactly ask him where he gets his money. But you must let me speak to Lois, woman to woman. If there’s anything questionable going on between her and Captain Dauncey then you can be sure I’ll find it out.’
‘All right, but for God’s sake be diplomatic.’
‘Hmph. I am the very soul of diplomacy. And don’t look at me like that! I can be awfully discreet when I want to be.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘So, then,’ went on Gertie, looking at Freddy’s notebook. ‘We have a plan of sorts. You shall go and snoop around Lady Browncliffe’s dressing-room with a magnifying-glass and a yard measure, and I shall speak to Lois and find out what exactly she did on the balcony that night, assuming it’s fit to tell. I rather hope it isn’t—I’ve been so fearfully well-behaved myself lately that I crave excitement in the form of indecorous behaviour from others. Then after that we’ll compare notes, and then decide what to do about Dauncey. Now, anything else?’
‘Not that I can think of,’ said Freddy, although in actual fact his mind had wandered back to the air show, and the disastrous exhibition of the Nugent Nuthatch. Had it really been sabotage, as Lord Browncliffe had claimed? He had been angry at the time, and looking for someone to blame, so perhaps he had exaggerated in the heat of the moment. However, he had certainly mentioned a cut fuel line, which did not sound like an accident or negligence. Assuming it was sabotage, then did it have any connection with Douglas Westray’s death? Freddy could not see how the two events were linked, but it was yet another odd fact among a series of odd facts. The more he looked into this strange affair the more complicated it seemed to become. He had nothing except the vaguest of suspicions at present, so he said nothing about the supposed sabotage to Gertie, and the two of them parted, having agreed to meet again once one or other of them had some news to tell.
Chapter Thirteen
After looking at his watch, Freddy decided it was too late to go back to the office, and that he might be more usefully employed in some other activity. To that end, he decided to walk from Fleet Street to St. James’s Square, and consider the facts of the Westray case as he went. Although he was now sure Douglas Westray had been murdered, he was forced to admit they still had very little evidence of anything; moreover, there was a good chance no further evidence would ever be found, and that the mystery would remain unsolved. The thought of this irritated him—not, truth be told, because of his burning desire to seek justice for Douglas, but because his bruises were still aching and the graze on his cheek still smarting from his narrow escape of Saturday night, and the idea that whoever had tried to run him down might never be caught filled him with indignation. So as he walked he revolved the case in his mind, and thought back to the evening of the dance, trying to remember the arrangements, and how people had looked and what they had said, but without reaching any useful conclusions. At last he turned into St. James’s Square, stepped up to the front door of Badenoch House and rang the bell. The Clarion’s own social page had told him that the Browncliffes were not at home, having gone down to Cowes for a day or two to watch the regatta, and so he hoped to be able to investigate freely without having to waste time in polite conversation with Tatty or Lady Browncliffe. Nobody answered for several minutes—presumably along with the Browncliffes had departed all sense of urgency—but eventually the door was opened by a smart maid, who informed him that the family were not at home.
‘Yes, I know that,’ said Freddy. ‘As a matter of fact, it was you I wanted to speak to. It’s Mabel, isn’t it?’
‘Sally, sir,’ said the maid in surprise.
‘Ah, of course. You’ll remember me—at least, I hope so. I’m a friend of Miss Nugent’s, and I’m here about the death of her young man—or perhaps I should say her former young man, Douglas Westray.’
Sally’s eyes brightened at the prospect of news to share with the rest of the servants.
‘Oh, yes, sir, it was a terrible thing to happen. Poor Miss Patricia, and she couldn’t say a word because she’s engaged to another gentleman now.’
‘I suppose not. It wouldn’t look too good to be seen to be mourning too deeply, what? Listen, do you mind if I come in?’
She stepped back and let him into the hall, glancing around nervously as she did so. Freddy guessed she did not wish to fall foul of the butler or the housekeeper.
‘Now, I don’t know whether Miss Patricia has mentioned it at all,’ he said, ‘but there are one or two queer circumstances surrounding Mr. Westray’s death, and I said I’d look into them. As you know, he was found dead in Lady Browncliffe’s dressing-room after a dance that was held here on the nineteenth of June.’
She shuddered.
‘Yes, sir. Horrible, it was. None of the servants can bear to go in there any more after what happened—and neither can her ladyship.’
‘So I understand. All her things were brought out and the room was locked up, I gather.’
‘That’s so.’
‘Very good. Now, here’s where you might be able to help me. Did her ladyship happen to mention a broken hair-comb to you?’
‘A broken—’ she stared at him in astonishment. ‘Why, yes, she did, now I come to think of it. She thought I’d done it, but I hadn’t.’
‘Are you quite sure of that?’
‘Of course I am—I mean, yes sir. I told her it was already broken when I brought it out of the dressing-room.’
‘And what about Mabel? Might she have done it?’
‘You can ask her, but her ladyship’s already spoken to her about it and she says she never did it either, and it’s not fair on us to keep saying we did.’
Her manner was a touch heated. Freddy hastened to reassure her.
‘Naturally I shouldn’t dream of accusing you. I’m merely trying to find out how it got broken—or if not how, then at least when. I don’t suppose you recall when you last saw it in one piece?’ She was shaking her head, and he went on persuasively, ‘Now do try and remember. It might be awfully helpful to Miss Patricia.’
‘All right, then, let me think,’ she said. ‘I know it was still in one piece the day before the ball, because her ladyship was thinking of wearing it that night. She tried it on, then took it off again and said it was too old-fashioned.’
‘And did you see it again after that?’
‘Not so as to notice it.’
‘And the next time you saw it, it was broken?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Now, there’s also the little matter of a twisted pen nib. Has her ladyship mentioned that?’
‘The gold one? Now, that is a strange thing, sir, because her ladyship says she wrote a letter with that very pen not an hour before the ball began, and it was working perfectly then. But who would have picked the pen up after that? Nobody would have used it while the dance was going on, and then afterwards—’ she shuddered again. ‘No-one wanted to go into the room at all once Mr. Westray had been found there. Here, it’s Mabel.’ Freddy looked around and saw another maid peeping curiously around a door. She whisked out of sight when she saw him looking, but Sally called after her, ‘Mabel, this gentleman has come to ask about what happened at the ball. Come out, won’t you?’
Mabel reappeared shyly, and Freddy repeated his questions, but she had no more idea than Sally did about what had caused the damage to Lady Browncliffe’s things. Just then, Whitcomb the butler turned up and began to reprimand both of them for idling.
‘I beg your pardon, it was entirely my fault, Whitcomb,’ said Freddy. ‘I had a question or two to ask them, and they’ve been most helpful.’
The maids were sent off, and Freddy explained the situation. Whitcomb appeared uncertain as to whether stiffness or amenability were required of him, but once Freddy had assured him that Miss Patricia had particularly asked him to look into the thing, he decided in favour of the latter and softened somewhat.
‘May I help at all, sir?
’ he said.
‘As a matter of fact, I was hoping to speak to some of the servants, to ask whether anyone saw anything of what happened that night. I was thinking in particular of the ones who were standing behind the buffet table in the garden. I want to know who went up onto the fire escape, you see,’ he explained, ‘and since the table was facing the direction of the stairs, perhaps one of them might have seen something.’
‘Lady Browncliffe has taken most of the kitchen staff down to Cowes with her, as she needs them for a large dinner-party,’ said Whitcomb, ‘so I am afraid it will not be possible to ask them.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Freddy. ‘I wonder—might I go into the garden for a moment?’
After a moment’s hesitation the butler assented, and led him through the ballroom and into the garden by way of the French windows. Freddy went across to stand where the buffet table had been set on the evening in question, and immediately saw that it was no use, for the branches of a large tree, hanging over the wall from the garden next door, almost completely obscured the view of the fire escape stairs from that part of the terrace. This was a blow, for he had been hoping that an eagle-eyed servant might have been observing the comings and goings, but there was little use in asking them now, for if the tree branches blocked the view in daylight, it would have been even worse in the dark.
‘I see I’m wasting my time,’ he said. ‘I say, Whitcomb, I don’t suppose you’d let me have another look at Lady Browncliffe’s dressing-room, would you? Is it still locked up?’
The butler replied in the affirmative and went to fetch the key. The room was even dustier than it had been three weeks ago when Freddy had last seen it, but otherwise nothing had changed that he could see. The pen lay on the blotter where he had left it, and he went across and stared at its twisted nib. Then he went to stand in the middle of the room and gazed around, trying once again to see in his mind’s eye how the room had looked the night he had found Douglas Westray lying sprawled in the chair, dead. Something had been out of place then. What was it? He closed his eyes and pictured the scene. He thought it was something near the door.
‘The plates,’ he said suddenly. The butler looked at him inquiringly.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
Freddy went towards the door and looked at the china plates which hung around the wall.
‘There was a gap on the wall, just here I think,’ he said, indicating. ‘The night we found Douglas, I mean.’
The butler’s face cleared.
‘Yes, sir. One of the plates fell down on the night of the dance. I don’t know how it happened—I thought at the time that the reverberation from the gunshot must have knocked it off. It was on the floor just here, so I put it back up.’
‘When was this?’
‘After you entered through the window and let us all into the dressing-room, sir. Everyone was crowding around poor Mr. Westray, so I thought I had better keep out of the way, but I stood near the door as I was sure that I would most probably be wanted. That’s when I noticed the plate had fallen down, so I picked it up and hung it back on the wall. Luckily the carpet is soft so it was not damaged at all.’
‘Which plate was it?’
‘This one, sir.’
Freddy gazed at the plate. It had gilt edging and a pattern of leaves and flourishes painted in gold against a vibrant blue background, with in the centre a hand-painted arrangement of colourful flowers. He reached up and took it carefully down from the wall, to which it had been attached by means of a brass wire plate-hanger and a hook in the wall. He peered closely at this hook for some minutes, then turned and spent a little time considering the door. After that, he bent down and squinted at the keyhole, then stood up again, slid the bolt of the door backwards and forwards a few times, and at last went out into the corridor and regarded the door from the other side. Then he came back in, went across to Lady Browncliffe’s sewing-box and poked about inside it.
‘Might I help in any way, sir?’ said Whitcomb, agog with well-bred curiosity.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Freddy, slamming the lid of the box shut. ‘I’ve seen everything I need to see, thank you.’
He picked up the plate from where he had rested it carefully against the wall and put it back where he had found it, thanked the butler, then went away, thinking very hard.
Chapter Fourteen
Meanwhile, Gertie was chafing with impatience at her forced inactivity. She had taken on the task of speaking to Lois Westray, but on inquiry it turned out that Lois and Alida had also gone down to Cowes with Sir Stanley, and so she was left with nothing to do except wait for Freddy to call. Waiting was not something Gertie did well—and moreover, she was irritated at Freddy’s casual supposition that she had neither the brains nor the qualifications to interview Captain Dauncey—and so she set herself to thinking about how she might effect a meeting between herself and that gentleman, in order to put some discreet questions to him. She came up with several ideas, each one wilder than the last, but none was suitable or practicable, and in the end she discarded them all. Had Dauncey been a young man of her own sort it would have been easy enough, for there were any number of places where they were almost certain to meet, and she would merely have arranged to bump into him and then manoeuvred him into asking her out for dinner; but it did not do for a young lady of noble family to chase after older men of unknown reputation—at least, not publicly, and while sober—and so she was forced to think of another means to her end. She knew the clubs he was supposed to frequent, but those establishments were denied her, and she could not spend her days hovering around Pall Mall in the hope of seeing him, so how could she hope to speak to him?
In the end she resorted to the simplest solution, which was to look up his address in the telephone directory, and to her great satisfaction she found that he lived in a flat on Bruton Street, just around the corner and not thirty seconds’ walk from Bond Street. There was every reason in the world for a young lady of noble family to be seen drifting idly up and down Bond Street for hours at a time, and so Gertie decided to do exactly that for a day or two, in the hope of seeing him—for surely he must leave his house occasionally, and when he did she would be looking out for him.
So it was that on Tuesday morning Gertie sallied forth from the Strathmerrick residence in Grosvenor Square, with the purported intention of buying a new frock. She was careful to take a route which went along Bruton Street, and slowed down as she passed the entrance to Captain Dauncey’s building, but to her disappointment there was no sign of him. She glanced at her watch. It was only half past nine, and not to be supposed that a man who was known to keep late hours would be up yet, so she passed on and turned into New Bond Street, where she spent the next hour pleasantly occupied in matters of a feminine nature, and spent rather a lot of money. In between visits to shops she took care to make regular forays into Bruton Street, but there was still no sign of Captain Dauncey. She began to worry that she might miss him, but she could not very well loiter about outside his house without drawing notice, and so there was nothing to do except return to Bond Street. This time she wandered up and down, staring fixedly into shop windows without going in, and glancing frequently towards Bruton Street, but still she did not see him. By lunch-time she was tremendously bored; she had been into every purveyor of fashionable and expensive ladies’ attire within a hundred-yard radius, and some of the newer shop-assistants who did not know who she was were starting to give her suspicious looks. Moreover, she had not eaten since breakfast and she was starting to feel hungry.
‘Bother!’ she muttered to herself. ‘And to think reporters spend all day waiting about for things to happen. I don’t know how Freddy does it. Well, I can’t stand it. I’m going home, and I shall just have to think of another way to meet him. Oh, but there was a hat—’
The next fifteen minutes were given over to the purchase of a few scraps of silk and ribbon which would undoubtedly earn her a breathless paragraph in the social pages of
the Clarion, but which would certainly not be proof against the slightest puff of wind or drop of rain, then Gertie emerged, having instructed them to deliver the hat to Grosvenor Square, and satisfied that she had achieved something that day, at least. Then her heart gave a great thump, for there he was—Captain Dauncey, just crossing the corner of Bond Street, but instead of coming out of his house he was heading towards it. She must have missed him that morning, and now he was coming home for lunch. She was about to dive across the road after him, but found her way blocked by a group of elderly women, who seemed to be engaged in a competition to see which of them could walk the slowest. Gritting her teeth, she waited for them to pass, and hurried along Bruton Street just in time to see Dauncey disappear through his front door. This was all most vexing, and she stood and fumed for several minutes until she realized there was no sense in waiting, since he was obviously going to have lunch before he came out again. In frustration she returned to Bond Street and entered another shop in which she had seen a frock she had half-thought of buying. Ten minutes later she was standing in front of a looking-glass, draped in silk and stuck full of pins, when to her horror she saw in her reflection the unwelcome sight of Captain Dauncey walking past the shop window.
‘Rats!’ she exclaimed.
Gathering up her borrowed skirts, she ran towards the door, and would certainly have hurtled down the street after him had not the shop-girl put a stop to it. With an exasperated groan Gertie hurried back into her own clothes, threw the frock at the startled girl and ran out. Alas, Captain Dauncey was already a hundred yards away, striding purposefully along Conduit Street, dashing all her plans of pretending to encounter him by chance. She ran after him as far as Regent Street, where he turned left, heading towards Oxford Circus, and then prepared to descend into the Underground station. At that, Gertie brought herself up short. Why exactly was she following him? Had she managed to bump into him ‘accidentally’ then she might have fallen quite casually into conversation with him—even gone to lunch with him—and perhaps learned something useful. But chasing him across London was another thing altogether, and she had no good explanation for it if he happened to turn around and see her. It was a futile endeavour, and she would be much better off returning home and leaving Freddy to tackle him.
