Death Sits Down to Dinner (25 page)

“
Caprice
,” said the housemaid, for him, and giggled.

“I am going to go with them of course; perhaps you would like to come with us?”

Mrs. Jackson was almost too startled to reply. She had never seen a film, but she had heard that the Gaumont Picture Palace was a grand affair with a Mighty Wurlitzer organ that played throughout the performance, but as to this Mary Pickford, or whoever she was, she had never heard of her, buried as she was in the Buckinghamshire countryside. She hesitated before she said with genuine gratitude for being asked, “How very nice of you to invite me, Mrs. Harding, but I am quite done in. And her ladyship has asked me to pop in and see her before she leaves for dinner.” She was conscious of quick glances around the table
. I wonder if they think I am here to spy on them,
she thought. And just in case she was coming off as starchy and stuck-up she added, “I am really looking forward to my supper. It smells absolutely delicious.”

“Be on the table in a tick, Mrs. Jackson.” Ginger smiled and gestured to the maids to finish laying the table. “Call Mr. White, would you, Perce? And after dinner, Annie, you must help with the washing-up, if we are to be on time for the picture. I love Mary Pickford, she’s called America’s Sweetheart! Isn’t that nice? And that Owen Moore is so handsome you would never guess he was a penniless tinker’s son from Ireland!” She walked around the table straightening cutlery and smoothing napkins into place and the footmen and maids rushed to help her. There was the usual bustle of chatty activity, with Annie giggling and the footmen vying with each other to make her squeal. Mrs. Jackson was almost glad that Miss Pettigrew was upstairs engrossed in the many little duties she performed for her ladyship at this hour of the early evening, so she wouldn’t have to catch her eye. They all came to the table and stood behind their places to wait for Mr. White, who said such a short grace that Mrs. Jackson was still standing waiting for more as the rest of them sat down.

She lifted her fork to her mouth, realizing as she did so that her mouth was watering. And then:
Oh good heavens above!
She filled her mouth with something hot and delicious in which there were spicy sausages cloaked in a thick, rich tomato sauce poured over some tiny little potato dumplings that were as light as tiny feather pillows.

“This is wonderful, Mrs. Harding,” she said in deep gratitude that the new cook was a spendthrift with the Talbots’ money. “What is it?”

“It’s called gnocchi with a ragout sauce, Mrs. Jackson, a simple rustic Italian dish. I’m glad you like it.”

Mrs. Jackson had never heard of such a thing, but dear Lord, she thought as she scraped her plate and wondered if it was politic to ask for more
,
it was tasty and satisfying and the flavors! In all her life Mrs. Jackson had never tasted anything quite like it before. Where on earth had this young woman learned to cook? It wasn’t in the north of England and that was a fact.

She looked around the table at the shining faces of the Montfort servants as they ate their dinner and talked about their favorite films. The two footmen were leaning back in their chairs, outwardly flirting with the little scullery maid and the second housemaid. Mr. White was listening to Ginger as she told a funny story about the milkman, his face wreathed in such a delighted smile that his eyes had disappeared into two crescents.
Well, he’s a goner,
thought Mrs. Jackson.

*   *   *

Clementine was about to take her bath before dressing for dinner when Mrs. Jackson came into her room. She had not expected to see her housekeeper until the following morning before she left for Chester Square, so hopefully Jackson had something vital to tell her. As usual, her housekeeper was standing in her doorway, quite composed, her face betraying nothing.
Really,
thought Clementine,
there is something almost inscrutable about her; I am never too sure what’s going on in that bright mind of hers.

“Do come in, Jackson, I was about to take my bath but it can wait. You are back early from Chester Square. Has something…?” Her sentence remained unfinished since she realized it was always left to her to fill in the silences until Mrs. Jackson was ready to inform.

Mrs. Jackson remained where she was, simply looking at her.

“Something has happened, Jackson, come on out with it.” And finally her housekeeper spoke, her tone perhaps a little flatter and less conversational than usual.

“Yes, m’lady, something has happened. And I am still trying to work out how it fits in to everything we already know.”

Clementine sat down on her sofa and made herself wait. After a moment Mrs. Jackson took a breath and told her that Miss Kingsley’s first footman, the one who had walked out two days before the dinner party, had finally turned up, and that the Clumsy Footman, whose real name was Eddy Porter, had done a bunk. As Mrs. Jackson talked, Clementine’s mind went blank. And when Mrs. Jackson finished, her first thought was that everything that had gone before in their investigation now simply didn’t make sense.

“What do we know about this Eddy Porter fellow?” she asked.

“Very little. I spoke with John, who is now the only footman at Chester Square, and he said this Eddy Porter had been sent to the house by Gibson’s Domestic Agency. I telephoned the agency before I left Chester Square, and they haven’t heard of him. They have no record of sending over anyone to Mr. Jenkins to interview. They said there is a shortage of well-trained footmen at this time of year.”

“So the first footman Leonard Crutchley was murdered to get him out of the way. And the Clumsy Footman, this Eddy Porter, was planted at Miss Kingsley’s house. But how does a
footman
fit in with the murder of Sir Reginald?” Clementine having finally straightened out the confusing array of footmen employed at Chester Square could not venture beyond these new facts and sat waiting for further enlightenment.

“I am not sure, perhaps because he was not a footman, m’lady. He
was
a strange-looking man, from the little I saw of him. Too tall, too thin, pitch-black hair, horribly pale skin, and washed-out blue eyes. It was eerie really. John told me he didn’t know the first thing about waiting at table. I asked John exactly what had happened on the night of the murder, where all the servants had been from when the ladies left the dining room until Sir Reginald’s body was found, and especially where this Eddy Porter was. And this is what he told me.” She drew in a breath.

“Wait a moment. You have had a long day of it, Jackson. Come on, sit down here. That’s better. Now, on you go.” Clementine reached for her notebook and her pencil as her housekeeper assembled her thoughts.

“John said that when the ladies left the dining room to go up to the salon, Mr. Jenkins told the second footman, the Clumsy Footman to wait on them upstairs. Do you remember that, m’lady?”

And Clementine said yes, she remembered a footman, she did not know his name, but it was the clumsy one, the one who had spilled coffee. He had certainly been tall and his hair very black.

“Yes, well then he was sent by Miss Kingsley downstairs after the coffee accident. How long do you think he was gone for, m’lady?”

“Perhaps ten minutes, might have been more, I am not quite sure.”

“John told me that while Mr. Jenkins was in waiting outside the dining-room door he was belowstairs, setting up some glasses to take up to the salon and the gentleman were all on their way upstairs to join the ladies. He told me that this Eddy Porter, the Clumsy Footman, arrived in the servants’ hall and went outside into the area to have a cigarette. John didn’t feel it was his place to say anything about him taking an unregulated break because Porter was an arrogant sort with an unpleasant attitude to the other servants. But John went straight upstairs to tell Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Jenkins came downstairs and had some stiff words with Porter. John said Martha told him afterwards that Mr. Jenkins stood in the servants’ entrance into the area and was actually shouting at Porter to go back upstairs and take care of the gentlemen and the ladies in the salon. And Porter came inside, took his vinegar, and ran up the back stairs.”

“Could he have—?” Clementine rushed in, but Mrs. Jackson ever so politely lifted her hand from her lap to indicate that she was almost but not quite finished.

“Here is the most interesting thing, m’lady. According to your timetable, Porter was outside in the area at about the time Sir Reginald was murdered, so if anyone got into the dining room through that window, then Porter would only have to look up to seen anyone climbing from the portico onto the dining-room windowsill. And this also means that Mr. Jenkins, who had been standing outside the dining-room door in the inner hall, left his post for as long as it took to go down to the servants’ hall and deal with Porter and then come back up again, something we did not know about before.” Mrs. Jackson having delivered this useful information sat back in her chair with a look that said,
Ask me to do something and you can be sure that I do it well.
And Clementine thought,
Smug doesn’t come close to it
.

“Then this Porter fellow came to the house to engineer the death of, or to murder, Sir Reginald. Has he already disposed of Leonard Crutchley and then presented himself as from Gibson’s, complete with false references? Was he hired to murder Sir Reginald in this rather complicated manner? It’s hard to understand why anyone would want to murder a Goody Two-shoes like Sir Reginald, but what motive would a footman have?” Having written down all her notes, Clementine was still grappling with the concept that another dimension had been added to her investigation.

“Indeed, m’lady, but how did he get into the dining room? He might have gone up the area steps to the pavement and then to the front door, stepped from there across to the dining-room window, murdered Sir Reginald, and then climbed back out of the window and returned the same way to the servants’ hall through the area. But somehow I think that would have taken longer than ten minutes, and he was standing in the area smoking a cigarette when Mr. Jenkins told him to get back upstairs, and why didn’t he close the window afterwards, when he went back upstairs?”

“Because he didn’t have time, because Mr. Jenkins discovered the body before he could do that. I don’t somehow think…” Clementine thought about Adelaide Gaskell and her possible crime of passion. “Perhaps Miss Gaskell can shed some light on this, after all she was also running around the house at the same time as our clumsy footman, Eddy Porter; it doesn’t do to ignore her at this moment, now that Porter has emerged as the possible villain. Perhaps this Porter and Miss Gaskell are linked in some way.” Clementine, despite Mrs. Jackson’s belief that the young companion did not have the courage it took to murder Sir Reginald, was reluctant to let go of Miss Gaskell with those unaccounted-for minutes, and the torn photograph.

“Oh good heavens, look at the time, I must run and take my bath. I’m off to the ballet with Lady Waterford and Mr. Greenberg as Lady Ripon’s guest, so I mustn’t be late. Looks like you still have your hands full at Chester Square, so carry on the good work.” Clementine rustled to her feet as Pettigrew came in from her dressing room with her evening gown over her arm, and seeing that she was still engaged with her housekeeper, she disappeared into the bathroom, which was cloudy with fragrant steam. Clementine just had time for her last instruction to Mrs. Jackson: “I think it’s time to get stern with Miss Gaskell, and if anyone can do it you can, but carefully, Jackson, carefully. If she is the murderess, she is certainly not what she seems. I really envy you, you know, I would give anything for two minutes with that young woman. How many days is it now until the charity evening, by the way?”

“Three, m’lady. Miss Kingsley and Miss Gaskell are going to have to come out of their rooms by then.”

“Hopefully before, Jackson.”

And off Clementine went to soak in her bath and ponder the endless possibilities that cluttered up their inquiry involving bogus footmen, unlocked windows, and geriatric butlers. And Mrs. Jackson went back to the Montfort House servants’ hall for a cup of tea with Ginger before she left to chaperone her young charges to the Gaumont Picture Palace, and to hear exactly how that interesting young woman had come across such an incongruous culinary repertoire.

Chapter Twenty-one

Clementine spent what turned out be an anxious evening at His Majesty’s Theatre and afterward decided that if she had to choose between an evening in the company of Constance Gladys Robinson, the Marchioness of Ripon, and the overactive Lady Cunard, both of whom numbered among Sir Thomas Beecham’s many current paramours, hands down it would be Maud Cunard. At least you could squash some of Maud’s more bullying and steamrolling traits, she thought afterward, whereas Gladys was like a powerful Eastern potentate from a fairy tale: splendid, implacable, and coolly assured that everything must go her way. And most certainly Gladys did not run around society referring to herself by her pseudonym, as did Maud, alias Emerald. Gladys did not run around at all. She was extraordinarily stately: easily six feet tall with marvelous deportment that made the energetic Maud with her tiny frame and her sharp features seem rather like a frantic hen.

Mercifully unprepared for what was to come that evening, Clementine found herself seated on Gladys’s right in the best double box the house had to offer, second only to that of the royal box, which once again was completely dark. Clementine had been received with a languid smile and a gracious tilt of the head from the marchioness as she had indicated the seat that had been left vacant for her. As she took her place next to Gladys, Clementine was aware that she was among one of London society’s most fashionable cliques. She could only assume that her invitation came to her through their mutual friend Gertrude, Lady Waterford, who had greeted her arrival with a pleased smile as Clementine had taken her seat between her and the marchioness. She nodded to those she knew: Hartley Fairfax-Hunter and his beautiful wife’s best friend Lady Westmorland; the elegant Marque twins, first sons of Lord Acton Marque, twins in the family always muddled the line of succession; and the Princess Esterhazy. All gave her polite bows and smiled their good-evenings. The only people she knew well were Gertrude Waterford, and the ubiquitous Aaron Greenberg, who appeared to be on everyone’s guest list this year. As the curtain rose on the ballet, the lively chatter around her dropped to respectful silence; the marchioness would not tolerate conversation in her box during a performance unless she instigated it.