I braved the cold and put my head outside in the hope that fresh air might sharpen my wits. The balcony afforded a frost-blanched view of a small walled garden with bits of stone statuary and gravel walks lined with box hedges. A pond at the center had gray ice floating on the surface.
One deep breath was enough. My legs wobbled. The scene changed to a snowstorm, as if someone had given a shake to one of those ornamental glass orbs containing water and a miniature village. The snow, of course, was in my head. I staggered forward and grabbed the iron railing, telling myself that a cigar would have been a better remedy than fresh air.
Presently my vision clarified. I could see the gravel below the balcony. And—reader, forgive me for the shock this will cause you, for it was a paralyzing shock to me—I saw another corpse.
She lay in a posture of terrible finality, with her head turned at an angle that could only mean that her neck was broken. One arm was trapped beneath her body and the other was fully extended, the palm resting upwards. She was still in her nightdress, leaving one of her legs exposed almost to the knee.
My first impulse was to rush downstairs and cover her decently. Pausing only to pull on a few clothes of my own, I dragged a blanket from the bed and hared down the nearest staircase, through the first door I reached, which happened to be a baize one, and out through the servants’ hall past a group of goggle-eyed maids. My mental faculties were responding to the emergency, thank heaven, and my legs were functioning too.
Outside, I scarcely had time to spread the blanket over Amelia’s body before Colwell the house steward joined me, summoned, I suppose, by the maids. With admirable sangfroid, he asked whether he could assist me in some capacity.
“You can tell me where everyone is,” said I. “Mr. Marcus Pelham, for one.”
“Mr. Pelham is in the breakfast room waiting for morning prayers, sir, together with Sir George Holdfast. They are being observed by Inspector Sweeney from the serving hatch.”
“Ah.” The last I had seen of Sweeney was when he had volunteered to make sure Holdfast came to no harm. He was still on duty, no doubt blithely believing that he had thwarted the murderer.
“Miss Dundas has ordered breakfast in her room this morning,” Colwell continued.
“But someone has seen her?”
“One of the maids.”
“Good.” I paused to consider which course of action was appropriate to this latest outrage, which had shocked me more profoundly than any of the others, as you will appreciate, for reasons of a character too intimate to dwell upon. That it was murder I had no doubt. Murder had been done within a few feet of the place where I had lain drugged and asleep.
Colwell cleared his throat. “Might I enquire what is under the blanket, sir?”
I stooped and uncovered the face.
“I feared so,” he said in a flat voice.
I replaced the blanket. “That’s a curious remark. Surely you didn’t know that Lady Drummond was killed?”
He raised his eyes to the balcony above us. “I didn’t know it, sir, but in all the circumstances, it was a reasonable deduction.”
I refrained from asking him how he deduced it. I said, “I think it would not be prudent to speculate any further. Leave the detective work to me, Colwell.”
“I shall, sir.”
“And be so good as to ask Inspector Sweeney to join me here at once.”
Later that morning at my request our tragically dwindling party assembled in the drawing room—a mere half dozen of us, and that included the Chaplain, who had remained after breakfast to discuss the arrangements for Saturday’s funeral. They may have been few in number, yet they spread themselves around the whole of the room, not, I have to say, to appear more numerous, but to keep at a safe distance from each other.
“You all know by now that our dear hostess is dead,” I said.
“Rest her soul,” added Sweeney, earning an “Amen” from the Chaplain.
“I discovered Lady Drummond in her private garden under the balcony of her dressing room. Having examined the scene, I concluded that the fatal act had been committed within the hour. The signs were very instructive. For one thing, her clothes were almost unmarked by the frost.”
“And for another?” said Pelham with his usual impertinence.
“May I remind you, Mr. Pelham, that we are in mixed company? Graphic descriptions of violent death are manifestly unsuitable for the drawing room. Take my word for it that your sister was killed between six and seven o’clock this morning.”
“Killed?” spoke up Miss Dundas. “Are you quite certain it wasn’t an accident, sir?”
“Utterly.”
“She could have fallen from the balcony, could she not?”
“That was a possibility until we examined the, em, body,” said I.
“So far as I am concerned, you may speak frankly, sir, since I am the only lady present.”
I gave a shrug. “As you wish. Inspector, would you explain?”
Sweeney said, “She hit the ground head first and her neck was broken. We found pieces of gravel embedded in the scalp on the left side of the skull. But we also found injuries on the other side of the head that could not have been caused by the fall. It seems that she was first attacked in the dressing room.”
I took up the account. “I went to the dressing room and found the weapon—a poker. It was lying on the floor. Her attacker evidently struck her twice and then opened the balcony windows and pitched her over the railing to make certain she was dead.”
With a glance in the direction of Miss Dundas, George Holdfast put in, “Or perhaps to give the impression that she caused her own death.”
I shook my head. “This murderer doesn’t wish us to be in any doubt, George. We found the usual calling card, the scrap of newspaper with ‘Friday’ printed on it. It was wrapped around the poker.”
They heard this in horrified silence.
Holdfast said in what sounded suspiciously like a complaint, “Bertie, I don’t understand the logic of this. Last night you came to warn me that I was the likely victim. Friday is the one who is loving and giving. It fitted me. And now we find that Amelia was killed.”
Marcus Pelham had observed an understandable silence since learning of his sister’s murder. Now he said, “If it’s love you’re talking about, no one was more loving than Amelia.”
“How true!” the Chaplain said sanctimoniously and got a glare from Pelham.
“Loving and giving,” said Pelham. “She gave herself to all and sundry.”
The Chaplain gasped.
“Shame on you, sir!” The rebuke came from Holdfast, and I think he spoke for us all.
Pelham glared at him. “That’s the giddy limit, coming from you. Where were you last night when His Royal Highness knocked on your bedroom door? Let’s have the truth.”
Not liking the drift of this at all, I said, “I’ll ask the questions, gentlemen.”
“But it’s obvious,” the loathsome fellow insisted on continuing. “Find out who was sleeping with Amelia and we’ve got our man. Who else could have attacked her in her own dressing room?”
“Pelham,” I addressed him coldly. It was definitely time to pull rank. “I am trying to make allowances for the grief you must be suffering, but there are limits. I warn you not to overstep them.” To the company in general I said, “We estimate that the murder took place between six and seven this morning. I must insist that each of you tell me where you were at that hour.”
Pelham refused to be subdued. “When you say each of us, you mean Holdfast and me. We’re the only suspects left. Well, I can tell you that I was in bed till gone seven—and I mean my own bed. The maid had to wake me up to give me my morning tea.”
There was a stirring of petticoats across the room. “Pardon me,” said Isabella Dundas, “but I will not be dism
issed by Mr. Pelham as if I don’t exist. I am as capable of wielding a poker as anyone else.” This extraordinary claim secured everyone’s attention, but the rest of her statement came as an anticlimax. “As it happened, I did not leave my bedroom all night, and I had breakfast served in my room at half past eight.”
So all eyes turned to Holdfast, but it was Sweeney who spoke up. “I can vouch for Sir George, sir. I kept watch on his room all night. He didn’t leave it until after the murder was discovered.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” said Holdfast,
Pelham said, “Well, I’m not satisfied. I’m entitled to an explanation. This is my sister who was brutally murdered by one of you. We all know Sir George wasn’t in his room at the beginning of the night. I heard the Prince and the Inspector go in there after they woke me up. I heard the doors being opened as they searched the place.” He turned to Miss Dundas. “Didn’t you overhear it?”
“Actually, yes. I did.”
“Where was he, then?” Pelham triumphantly demanded. “Why won’t you tell us where you were, Holdfast?”
“Pelham, these insinuations are not only misconceived. They are deplorable,” I reproached him. “Since the matter has been raised, I had better state that Inspector Sweeney and I traced Sir George to Lady Drummond’s suite shortly after midnight. I cautioned him as to the danger I believed he was in, whereupon he left immediately.”
To which Holdfast added, stressing every word, “And I returned directly to my own bedroom.”
To my immense relief—and everyone’s, I fancy—this squashed Pelham. He had been ready to convince us that Holdfast was the murderer, and now I had driven a coach and horses through his theory. George wasn’t a murderer. He wasn’t much of a philanderer, come to that.
For my part, I saw no purpose in regaling the company with an account of the way I spent the night. I wasn’t under suspicion of murder. I was conducting the investigation. (And if you, the reader, harbor the slightest suspicion that I might somehow have committed the crimes, I would have you know that such thinking is not only preposterous, but tantamount to treason, even if you are expecting an ingenious solution.) Instead, I said, “It seems we shall get no further like this, so I shall be pursuing other lines of inquiry. I trust that nobody has thoughts of leaving, because I must insist that you remain at Desborough until further notice. We know enough about the methods of this murderer to be assured that no one else will be attacked today.”
“What of tomorrow?” said Miss Dundas.
“I expect to have the case solved by then. But in any case tomorrow is Saturday, and according to that wretched verse, Saturday’s victim works hard for a living, a description which can in no way apply to people of our class, with one obvious exception.”
Sweeney crossed himself.
The Chaplain then asked if we still wished to proceed with Osgot-Edge’s funeral on Saturday and I told him I saw no reason to alter the arrangement. Pelham not unreasonably announced that he wished to talk to the Chaplain about a funeral for Amelia, and I dismissed the meeting.
Sweeney was at my side in a twinkling. “Sir, I don’t think we should wait. It’s obvious who did it. Let me run the beggar in. He’ll blow, I guarantee.”
I said, “The only thing that’s obvious to me, John Sweeney, is that you want an arrest before tomorrow. Who do you mean, by the way?”
He screwed up his face at my obtuseness. “Pelham.”
“On what grounds?”
“It comes down to three people, sir, and didn’t we just eliminate Sir George? He couldn’t have killed Lady Drummond because I was watching his room when the murder occurred, and he didn’t so much as put his nose outside the door. That leaves Miss Dundas and Pelham. Why would Miss Dundas kill all those people, even if she’s capable of it? She didn’t know most of them from Adam before she was invited here.”
“Very well, tell me Pelham’s motive.”
“The inheritance, sir. He’s her nearest relative. She had no children and I don’t suppose she made a will. He stands to inherit Desborough and all the Drummond estates.”
“That has a certain cogency to it,” I agreed, and then set him back on his heels with the comment, “but you have to explain why he murdered four others before he killed his sister.”
I could almost hear the sound of dredging from his head as his brain labored. “Well, sir,” he finally said, “he’s a misanthrope.”
“A what?” I was acquainted with the term, but I needed a moment to ponder its relevance to Pelham.
“A misanthrope. A despiser of mankind. I haven’t heard a generous word from the man all week. He’s as bitter as aloes.”
“I’ll grant you that.”
“His sister married money and cold-shouldered him, that’s about the size of it. He wasn’t welcomed here until Lord Drummond died and Lady Amelia was stumped for a man to lead the shoot, with you being here and everything. She turned to Marcus for help and he agreed to come, but he was still eaten up with bitterness. And it wasn’t just his sister who made him envious—it was the people the Drummonds had invited here in previous years. He hated them all and he wanted them to suffer, so after agreeing to come, he devised a plan. He would kill his sister and inherit the lot, but to disguise his motive he would make it one of a series of murders, one each day. He would knock off the people he despised most, the ones who had been preferred to him. And then he refined it some more by thinking of the verse, and the idea of the pieces of paper.”
“To play cat and mouse with us, do you mean?”
“That’s it in a nutshell, sir. He wanted to see you suffer.”
“It sounds rather Irish to me, Sweeney,” I told him. “How did he know that the people he wanted to murder would fit the verse?”
“They didn’t, sir—not all of them. The very first one—fair of face—for example. Obviously that had to be a lady, but he didn’t want to give himself away by killing his sister first, so he had to think of someone else. He picked Queenie Chimes. He’d met her in London, if you remember, so he knew she was pretty, and that was her death warrant—a pretty face.”
“And the others?”
“Well, there were two that happened to fit the verse, the lines about Tuesday and Wednesday. He must have chosen it because they were so appropriate. Full of grace for a duke, and full of woe for a man whose initials happened to spell out the word.”
“That’s obvious.”
“Indeed, sir. But Thursday, being far to go, tested his ingenuity somewhat, so he pushed Mr. Bullivant down the well. He could have done that to any of us, but he picked Mr. Bullivant because, like the Duke of Bournemouth and Mr. Osgot-Edge, that gentleman had been invited to previous shooting parties when he, Marcus, was persona non grata, if I have the expression right, sir. All three of those gentlemen fell foul of his envy.”
“Continue.”
“So we come to the fifth death, that of his sister, the one that would make his fortune. He claims to have been in his bed all night, but we only have his word for it.”
I said, “Presumably the maid will confirm that she brought him tea at seven or thereabouts.”
“But there’s no certainty that he was in his own room at six or half past. I think he murdered her and got back before the maid served the tea. And that isn’t all, sir. Have you noticed how little grief he has shown since his sister’s horrible death?”
“That was typical of the man,” said I. “He lacks breeding. He has none of the finer feelings one expects of a gentleman. However, I don’t think we can lay a murder at his door just because he doesn’t know how to behave.”
“As you wish, sir. But there’s another thing I found indicative, and that was the liberty he took with his own poor dead sister’s reputation when he said she was loving and giving—and left us in no doubt that he meant it in a most disagreeable sense.”
/> “That was unnecessary,” I agreed.
Sweeney became fearfully agitated at this. “Begging your pardon, sir, that isn’t correct. The reverse is true. Pelham wanted to demonstrate that Lady Amelia’s death was just one more in the series, so it was necessary, indeed it was vital, that he fitted her character to the verse. Then you and I wouldn’t recognize this as the crucial murder, the one that provides the motive and gives him away. Have I made myself clear, sir?”
“My dear fellow,” I said, “I’m mightily impressed. I didn’t know you were capable of such a penetrating analysis of the case. It’s a fine illustration of that saying of Dr. Johnsons, to the effect that when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
“Hanged, sir?”
“Hanged in a fortnight or murdered tomorrow—the upshot is the same. As I said, you made a very persuasive case. However, it’s mostly conjecture, isn’t it? Inspired, I’m sure, but short of real evidence.”
“That’s why I want to run him through the mangle, sir. Squeeze out the facts.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
His entire face drooped at the angle of his moustache, but I didn’t relent. Proper detective work isn’t a matter of putting people through mangles. Marcus Pelham might be the only suspect left, but we wanted cast-iron evidence, not a confession squeezed out under duress.
“Look at it this way,” I said in a kindly tone. “If you and I are right about Pelham plotting all this to murder Amelia, then he has just accomplished his object, so there shouldn’t be any more murders. Anyone such as yourself, who can be said to work hard for a living, need have no fears about Saturday. Isn’t that so?”
“True.”
“If, on the other hand, he feels that you are dangerously close to unraveling the truth, I wouldn’t give twopence for your chances.”
His eyes bulged for a moment and then glazed over with gratitude. “I didn’t think of it like that, sir.”
Bertie and the Seven Bodies Page 17
