A Death in the Loch (15 page)

‘I’m not sure how that would work,’ said Bertram. ‘I agree it’s likely she was sharing or selling information that she shouldn’t have been, but how did that get her killed? If Mr Ministry had figured that out he’d have more than enough resources to have her carted away somewhere.’

‘Maybe she was threatening to expose the person she’d been giving the information to and they killed her.’

Bertram shook his head. ‘But that would mean giving herself away as well.’

‘So maybe it was death by misadventure,’ I said.

‘Doesn’t feel like it though, does it?’ said Bertram. ‘We’ve been in enough of these situations to tell when something feels funny.’

I sighed. ‘I agree, but my most likely suspect is Rory trying to scupper the Kiel Canal plan.’

Bertram put his finger quickly to my lips. He looked around frantically. ‘Sssh,’ he said urgently.

I couldn’t help recalling he had been scratching his beard with that hand. I removed the finger. ‘I don’t think he did.’

‘Not that,’ said Bertram irritably. ‘You mustn’t mention … mention … the water thing. We weren’t meant to know about that. Don’t know that knowing about it doesn’t count as treason.’

‘Oh, damn Fitzroy,’ I said.

‘Euphemia!’ said Bertram, obviously shocked.

‘He sent us into a situation where we had no idea what was going on.’

‘I think that was the idea,’ said Bertram gloomily. ‘I think he hoped we’d obediently not ask questions and behave docilely.’

‘Doesn’t know us, does he?’

Bertram grinned. ‘No. But I am concerned about Rory. Not that he’s killed anyone, but that he might do something drastic.’

‘They wouldn’t really do it, would they?’ I asked. ‘It seems like a daft idea to me.’

Bertram’s eyes gleamed. ‘It would be an incredible feat of engineering. If it weren’t for the consequences I’d love to see it done.’ He shrugged. ‘But no, I don’t see how the government could afford it and afford to build the ships. Seems to me their choice is between a new fleet and this thing.’

‘You should explain that to Rory.’

‘I would but I’m not in his best books at the moment. He’s still talking about resigning.’

‘Well, he’s not talking to me either.’

‘Drat it,’ said Bertram. ‘We need the three of us to work this one out. If that inspector keeps digging around I don’t know I trust Rory to keep his mouth shut.’

‘What happened last night? Who fought and why?’

‘Oh, Mr Short said something unsavoury about Mr Ministry’s wife.’

‘What?’

‘Oh I don’t know, Euphemia. We were all pretty drunk by then. Besides even if I did I couldn’t tell you. You being a female.’

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.

‘What can we do?’ said Bertram. ‘I’m glad to hear the wretched man is accusing everyone. I can tell you I was worried for a bit. No, now we just have to keep calm, say as little as possible and keep our eyes open. Something has to turn up.’

‘I hope so,’ I said solemnly. ‘I think you’re right. If Inspector Walker keeps probing things are going to get a great deal worse.’

‘Damn Fitzroy,’ seconded Bertram. We trudged silently side by side back to the house. We separated as I made for the kitchen door and Bertram let himself in through the front.

I’d barely closed the door behind me before Susan was on me. ‘What’s this nonsense about Mr McLeod resigning? I can’t manage without him! Even if we managed to serve meals and I set Merry to answering the door – and it’s only the police liable to be calling – who can I send to deliver sir’s night-time drink? He’s most insistent he has one before bed.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘He said he doesn’t sleep well. He needs something to take his sleeping powder with.’

And then, of course, I knew. The only question was how on earth would I prove it? The first scheme that flashed through my mind was incredibly dangerous. There had to be another way, didn’t there?

‘Rory won’t leave until he’s handed Richard Stapleford his resignation, Susan,’ I said distractedly.

‘Oh. It’s that Mr Walker. He’s got me all wound up.’

Inspector Walker? It had to be worth a shot.

Chapter Twenty-two:

In which Euphemia makes a case

Inspector Walker was between interviewees. He was indulging in a fish-paste sandwich when I entered the library without knocking.

‘I don’t believe I asked to see you, Miss St John,’ he said calmly. ‘But anything that takes my attention away from this terrible sandwich is most welcome.’ He put the sandwich down. ‘I don’t think your cook likes me.’

‘I imagine he didn’t like being accused of murder,’ I said tartly.

Inspector Walker smiled slightly. ‘You’d be surprised how much people reveal when they are accused.’

‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘But I know who did it.’

‘So what makes you think this is a murder case?

‘Other than your presence?’ I said.

‘May I say that you are one of the most unusual maids I have ever come across? Please take a seat and tell me all about yourself.’

I sat down. ‘The man from the Ministry did it.’

‘Mr Fairchild?’

‘Probably,’ I said cautiously and described the man in question.

‘That’s Arthur Fairchild,’ said Inspector Walker, ‘but I am a little troubled that you would accuse a man without even knowing his name. It doesn’t sound as if you’ve done your research properly.’

‘We weren’t given any of the guests’ names. In view of the nature of the meeting …’ I stopped in time.

The Inspector raised an eyebrow. ‘You know what the meeting is about? Even I haven’t been allowed to know that.’

I wriggled uncomfortably in my seat. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Miss St John, can you give me a single reason why I shouldn’t discount anything you tell me as the fantasies of an obviously intelligent and bored household maid? I don’t know what led you to take a position far below your obvious station, but while I might sympathise with your situation I can always arrest you for wasting police time and for defamation of character.’

I leant forward. ‘Listen,’ I said in a firm voice, ‘this is a highly secret government meeting yet Mr Fairchild brings his secretary. Ask anyone, she didn’t strike one as someone to be trusted with government secrets. Then there’s Mr Leech, who is a known womaniser.’

‘I thought you didn’t know any of their names?’

I ignored him and carried on. ‘If you consider Mr Fairchild’s wife, obviously his second wife, he has a predilection for young women. Mr Fairchild and Mr Leech got into a fight, which I believe was about Miss Flowers’s affections.’

‘After she had disappeared.’

‘He would still be angry about Mr Leech’s affair with her.’

‘Because he was having an affair with her himself?’

‘Yes, and every night he takes a sleeping pill to help him sleep.’

‘How does that fit with midnight trysts?’

‘Oh, he wasn’t doing anything here,’ I said blushing furiously. ‘He brought her with him so he could keep an eye on her. He’s a very jealous man and she is – was – a flighty sort of girl.’ The inspector made to speak again, but I rushed on, ‘But the final nail in his coffin is what Jock said about the girl’s body. He said despite the state of it she had a peaceful look on her face, as if she’d fallen asleep.’

‘So you think Mr Fairchild slipped her some sleeping pills before she went out to the loch and she was overcome when she was in the water?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wouldn’t he have had to time that with the precision of a chemist?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He would know how long it took the pills to affect him. Maybe he gave them to her before she left the house hoping she’d be overcome in the forest and he …’

‘Could dispose of the body?’ finished the Inspector.

‘Exactly,’ I said, sitting back in my seat. ‘So you see how he did it?’

‘I think it is a most entertaining theory,’ said the inspector. ‘I also think I must ask you never to repeat this. You have not one shred of evidence. Nothing a case could be built on. I think, young lady, you should leave murder to the professionals. I can overlook this one indiscretion, but spreading malicious stories like this is beneath you and illegal.’

‘I thought you could find the evidence,’ I protested.

‘That isn’t how police procedure works,’ said the inspector. ‘Now I suggest you return to your duties and leave me to get on with my job.’ He paused, ‘Unless there is anything else you could add that would lend credibility to your story.’

Of course, there was, but I couldn’t tell him any of it. So I shook my head. The inspector gave a meaningful look at the door. I got up and left. My face was flaming and I was shaking slightly. ‘Damn Fitzroy,’ I exploded as the door closed behind me. Fortunately there was no one in the corridor. There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to proceed with my plan. It was the only way I could imagine justice being done, but it would be so dangerous I couldn’t ask anyone, even Bertram, to help me. I also had to put it into action as soon as possible. And that meant that night.

My first task was to sneak into Miss Flowers’s room. The inspector and sergeant seemed permanently fixed in the library, so before my nerve broke I went straight to the dead woman’s bedroom. To my relief and surprise, the small satchel of maps still rested under the mattress. I might have been able to make my plan work without them, but this helped a great deal. I could only assume that Rory had replaced the maps after the room had been searched, or that whoever had searched it wasn’t that good at their job. Certainly it had been placed far enough under the mattress that Merry making the beds hadn’t found it. Or perhaps she had and simply left it there.

I took the satchel, and rather than taking it back to my room I hid it in one the bookcases on the corridor behind books I thought it unlikely anyone present would read – a three-part edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

The rest of the staff would be sitting down to an early supper soon before we served the guests. I would have liked to have found an actual prop, but seeing as I wasn’t going to give it to Mr Fairchild, I simply went back and rummaged around the room a bit longer, checking the patterns on Miss Flowers’s make-up case, her luggage, and other small personal items. I learned she was a lover of floral designs. Indeed her perfume was a sickly violet and rose affair. I sprayed it in the air and took note of the primary notes that a man might notice. A woman would only have said sickly and sweet, but to an infatuated man I imagined it smelled like summer and walking in an ornamental garden.

No one saw me do any of this. I then hurried down to dinner, explaining I had been lying down due to a bad headache. Susan and Merry were most sympathetic, Merry observing how ‘peaky’ I looked. I struggled to eat my meal and this led to everyone being most concerned. I did not tell them my lost appetite had nothing to do with my imaginary headache, but that I was almost overcome with nausea. Indeed, I had the sense to be terrified about what I must do that very night. I had no way of knowing if I would survive.

Chapter Twenty-three:

Playing the game

I had no intention of prowling the corridors late into the night. Rather, the more people who were awake when I instigated my plan, the safer I would be. So while the gentlemen were sipping their port, I slipped away and picked up the satchel. I positioned myself outside the dining room door, partially concealed by a small alcove.

At last the door to the dining room opened. I was in luck. Mr Fairchild came out first. I stepped forward and allowed him to see the satchel I was holding. As I had hoped, he recognised it at once. Proving he had been promoted for his brains and not his connections, he turned in the doorway and said loudly to the others that he wanted to have a look at something in the gun room and would join them in the library later.

This was certainly not the room I would have chosen for our confrontation, but I took his meaning and hurried down there. A cool twenty minutes later, during which time I had been tempted to abandon my plan more times than I had breathed out, Mr Arthur Fairchild walked slowly into the room, carrying a glass and swirling his brandy. He came in and shut the door. Then he turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. I could have kicked myself. It would have been the simplest thing for me to have removed the key before he arrived. Now I was trapped in here with him. I would need to make this good.

Mr Fairchild sat down in the one comfortable seat, crossed one leg lazily over the other and drawled, ‘So?’

‘You recognised the satchel?’ I said. I didn’t add ‘sir’. I didn’t want to give him any advantage he did not already have.

‘It belonged to my secretary, Miss Flowers. If you give it to me I shall see it is returned to her family and no more questions will be asked. If not ….’ The threat lingered in the air.

‘You have just removed any doubts I had of your innocence,’ I said coolly. I opened the satchel and laid out the maps on the gun-cleaning table.

Fairchild shot out of seat. ‘How the devil do you have these?’ he cried. ‘This is top secret government business.’

‘Oh don’t worry,’ I said calmly. ‘I have signed the Official Secrets Act.’

Fairchild picked up one the maps, frowned over it and then began to fold and gather all the maps. I made no move to stop him. ‘So you work for us?’ he said.

‘Loosely speaking,’ I confirmed.

Fairchild sat back down clutching the maps. ‘I didn’t think we’d been sent here without some kind of security,’ he said. ‘But a maid. My goodness. This
is
the new century.’ He took a few deep breaths. ‘I have to thank you. Obviously Miss Flowers took advantage of her position.’

‘You had no idea?’ I asked.

‘None,’ said Fairchild, shaking his head slowly. It was said with sincerity and I believed him.

‘So it wasn’t a misplaced sense of honour that made you kill her?’ I asked.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘The sleeping pills in her morning tea. They overcame her when she was in the water and she drowned. I imagine you were pleased about that. The pills would have killed her anyway, but her drowning was so much easier than you having to comb the woods to hide the body. It couldn’t have worked out better, could it?’