Death Sits Down to Dinner (5 page)

Sir Reginald did not move. He did not look up at them with eyes glassy from too much port wine to apologize with slurred words. He remained humbly head-down among the debris on the cloth, the bright light glinting on a few strands of hair plastered carefully across the gleaming surface of his balding pate.

As Clementine arrived at the bottom of the table, she emphatically understood that Sir Reginald was sprawled out on its surface not because he was dead drunk; he had toppled forward for an altogether different reason. Again she disobeyed the shrill voice within instructing her to leave the dining room and summon help from upstairs, from the servants, from the men in the salon, from her husband. She remained where she was and took in a breath to steady herself.
Slow down, slow down.
She felt her heart leaping along at an alarming rate, a wild March hare racing for its life. The scent of jasmine was overpowering in the airless room. An incongruous image flashed in her mind of a moment in her childhood, of a hare racing across the hot red earth of the maidan in Madras, her dog, Rosie, in full cry; herself running in her white starched pinafore from under the claustrophobic shade of a jacaranda tree. The room dipped and swayed around her; the tropical scent of jasmine was sickeningly sweet, the splash of blood on her pinafore vivid.

Breathe,
the cool, rational voice instructed,
slow breaths.
She obeyed and the stifling heat of the stamped red earth of the maidan and the incessant, monotonous call of the baza bird receded. But the unpleasant metallic smell of rust and salt remained and became stronger in the thick, oppressive atmosphere of the dining room. She held on tightly to the back of the chair she had been seated in throughout dinner and felt sweat break out on her palms and in her hair. In another world and time, the dog caught the hare, and rolled it over and over on the hard-baked clay of the parade ground.

Hermione, on the other hand, appeared to be made of sterner stuff, and well she might be, for Clementine realized the poor woman was mistakenly still under the impression that her old friend was merely unconscious. She took hold of Sir Reginald’s heavy shoulder and shook it, crying sternly “Reginald?
Reg-in-ald
. Whatever is the matter?” And turning to her butler, who had returned to the dining room and was standing motionless in the doorway: “For heaven’s sake, Jenkins, what are you thinking? Have you telephoned for the doctor? I think he’s had a heart attack.”

Jenkins and Clementine looked at each other in complete understanding, and Jenkins said in an elderly quaver, “Ma’am, I am afraid … Sir Reginald is dead. I’m afraid he might have…” He stopped and looked helplessly at Clementine, beseeching her to say the words for him.

“I’m afraid he is dead, but not from a heart attack, Hermione.” The sound of her own voice, clear and steady, brought Clementine fully into herself, and she bent down until she was almost crouched on the floor, and peered up at Sir Reginald. She saw something hard and shiny sticking out from the middle of his chest. The starched front of his white evening shirt and waistcoat, his dark coat, the cloth that hung down from the edge of the table—all were stained in what she now understood to be congealing, dark blood. A wave of nausea burned her throat and she heard herself observe in a neutral and dispassionate voice, “I think that’s a knife handle sticking out of his chest.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Clementine, what can you possibly be saying?” The old lady’s voice was angry and Clementine looked up and saw that Hermione’s face was ashen and uncertain, and that the upright old body had started to sway. Clementine darted around the back of Sir Reginald’s chair and helped Hermione away from the table and back up the room toward her butler. Supporting her with one arm, she motioned to Jenkins for his help, as Hermione had become almost a deadweight in her arms.

As Jenkins and Clementine, with Hermione sandwiched between them, came through the dining-room door and into the hall, the first of Miss Kingsley’s guests came down the stairs. Their faces bore nothing but polite inquiry, until they took in the indomitable figure of their hostess, always commanding in every situation, a curled-up husk, between her butler and Clementine.

Aaron Greenberg, followed by Captain Vetiver, was the first to reach them. Mr. Greenberg gently took Hermione’s hand and then, as she began to fold inward, lifted and half carried her into the drawing room.

Captain Vetiver clattered down the last steps, had a quick exchange with the butler, and started back up the stairs two at a time.

Clementine was aware only of tremendous confusion as guests ran past one another on the stairs, some descending to go into the dining room, others ascending halfway to tell them not to go down. Something terrible had happened and naturally everyone must see for themselves.

She watched Sir Vivian run down the stairs and walk swiftly into the dining room, followed by Lady Cunard, to be abruptly pushed by him back into the hall.

Lady Wentworth had an arm around Marigold Meriwether, who was howling like a shocked baby as they came back through the dining-room doors. Lady Ryderwood was standing at the base of the stairs, her face as white as chalk, and Captain Wildman-Lushington ran across the hall, demanding to know from the butler if there was a telephone in the house. From behind the green baize door to belowstairs a housemaid’s head emerged, followed by another.

Clementine found herself encircled by strong and protective arms.

“What is it, Clemmy, what has happened?” She heard her husband’s voice and felt a wave of tremendous relief, as if she had been searching in vain for his familiar face in a strange land. Her body was stiff and cold, but her mind was racing.

“Reginald Cholmondeley is dead,” she said. “He’s in the dining room. He was murdered.”

And then she heard the unmistakable voice of Mr. Churchill. He reached the bottom of the stairs, barking questions to Captain Vetiver, who was right at his elbow. He ordered everyone to stop talking, get out of the dining room, and stay in the hall. Shouldering past Henry Wentworth, he walked up to her.

“Lady Montfort, what did you see? Try to tell me exactly how you found him.”

“Sir Reginald was sitting at the dining-room table. He was bent over, his head on the table. I thought he … Then I saw the knife handle sticking out from his chest. His evening suit and shirt had blood…” She felt her husband’s arms tighten as Churchill said, “My dear lady, please tell me you did not touch anything?” and heard her husband reply, “That’s enough, Churchill; you’d better go and investigate. Take Vetiver with you, and remember not to touch anything, either of you.”

For a moment Clementine thought that Churchill was going to respond, but he shot a thoughtful look at Lord Montfort and then abruptly turned on his heel and walked away, his head thrust aggressively forward, lower lip jutting, brows lowered. He briefly gestured Vetiver to follow him and they disappeared through the door. Clementine heard his voice above the exclamations of shock from those around her. “Gentlemen, please wait for me in the hall.”

Clementine found herself thinking rather irreverently,
He’s taking over, just like at Sidney Street; I wonder if the Scots Greys will be called in.

The composure Clementine had found so easily to be hers in the dining room left her at this moment. She felt drained and quite exhausted. Her mouth was dry from too much wine. Her feet were ice cold and her mind was off on a track of its own. Her husband, with his arm around her, took her into the drawing room. And there was Hermione, sitting bolt upright in a large wing chair. The old lady’s aged face was the color of ancient ivory, but otherwise she seemed quite as usual, Clementine noticed, in a detached kind of way.

Lord Montfort took his wife to a sofa and sat down on it with her. He drew her toward him and told a startled servant to bring brandy.

“Do not go into any of the receptions rooms for it,” Lord Montfort instructed. “Go to the cellar and bring up a fresh bottle, and do it without talking to anyone.” Then he turned to her. “Oh, my poor darling, you are so frightfully cold. I think you are in shock.” He took off his evening coat and pulled it around her shoulders.

The footman must have run, Clementine thought, because he was back with a brandy bottle, a decanter, and a tray of glasses.
Funny,
she thought,
I am noticing everything, but I don’t yet quite understand what it is I am seeing.
It was as if her brain were disobediently lagging far behind, refusing to take in another fact that might cause anxiety and distress.

“Good. No need to decant it,” said her husband as the footman set down his tray. “Now go and see if you can find Lady Montfort’s coat. And please bring Miss Gaskell in here for Miss Kingsley.”

“I’m quite all right, thank you, Ralph, no need to worry about me. But I do need to know what is going on in my house.” Hermione rose to her feet, accepted a glass of brandy, and drank it in one long swallow—a swallow that caused a shudder to reverberate throughout her thin body—before she walked purposefully toward the door.

Aaron Greenberg beat her to the threshold. “Quite enough for one night, Hermione. Churchill and Vetiver are taking care of everything. Please come and sit down.”

Clementine watched the footman stir up the embers of the fire and add more logs. Aaron Greenberg said to Lord Montfort, “I think it would be a good idea if I asked all the women to come in here, until we know exactly what has happened; it’s not right for them to be milling around in the hall.” His voice expressed disapproval: the fairer sex should not be subjected to even a glimpse of such a sordid sight as a bloody, dead body.

“Of course, good idea, Greenberg.” Lord Montfort barely glanced at him; his concern was only for his wife.

And then the room was full of feminine voices exclaiming in shock or inquisitive with questions. Clementine, sipping her brandy and huddled deep into her sable, was remote from all of them. She saw again Sir Reginald’s bald shining head with three thick strands of hair slicked across it, the dark stain on his shirtfront when Hermione had shaken him upright. Sometimes the images were clear, sometimes they were blurred, as if the dining room were still full of cigar smoke. Other images came and went: Hermione instructing her butler to call for the doctor, the feeling of the old lady’s upright body sagging into her arms. She remained in isolated thought as the room filled with people. The men stood in a solemn group by the doorway in silence, the women together in twos and threes to console or support as they watched the men out of the corners of their eyes. Everyone was waiting for Mr. Churchill to come back from the dining room.

“Adelaide, where on earth have you been, my dear? I was
so
worried.” Hermione was again on her feet, and glancing up at the young companion, Clementine thought that Adelaide Gaskell had been crying, not tears from shock and horror but the sort of concentrated crying that causes swollen lips, eyelids, and noses. The sort of crying that leaves you with a headache and the sort that Clementine had not indulged in for years.

“Brandy,” ordered Hermione, turning on the footman who had spilled the coffee on Marigold’s dress. “Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s over there. If there’s none left then get some more. Now, Adelaide, my poor dear girl, come and sit down here next to the fire.”

Hermione Kingsley, who often erred on the brusque and matter-of-fact, insensitive to the needs of others who were not from the destitute class, was speaking to her companion in a gentle and consoling tone. Clementine was reminded of the voice she had used to her little girls when they had fallen off their ponies and were too frightened to get back on.

She always felt rather sorry for any young woman who had to earn her living as a companion to an elderly spinster or widow; it must be the most trying existence, she thought as she watched Adelaide Gaskell sit down next to the fire, with sideways peeks to see if the other women thought it permissible. Miss Kingsley wrapped a shawl around Adelaide’s shoulders as tenderly as if she were a baby, taking her young hands in her long, bony, wrinkled ones and trying ineffectually to warm them. The young woman ducked her head and sneezed, and Maud Cunard got to her feet and glared at her with disgust.

“What are we waiting for?” she demanded of Aaron Greenberg, who, having decided that Hermione might now be left, was trying to slip out of the room, muttering something about a telephone call.

“We are waiting for the police, Lady Cunard. They will be here directly and will want to talk to all of us.” Mr. Greenberg was instantly attentive.

“All of us?” Maud replied. “Well, all of us aren’t even here. Trevor Tricklebank left after dinner and so did Jennifer Wells-Thornton. And I am not going to sit around all night waiting for a policeman to talk to me about something I know absolutely nothing about. Tell him he can call on me on Wednesday afternoon if he honestly thinks I can be of any help. Now,” she turned to the butler standing in the doorway, “get my coat and tell my driver to bring around the motor. Hermione, I will call on you as soon as all this fuss has died down.” Her meaning was clear, she was not to be considered a part of this catastrophe. Her name must not be mentioned in connection with what was obviously a scandal waiting to break. She gave Adelaide Gaskell another glare as she swept from the room and Adelaide diligently bent over her handkerchief and sneezed even more loudly.

Chapter Five

Detective Inspector Nigel Hillary arrived at Chester Square at half past midnight. The excitement caused by Sir Reginald’s murder had long evaporated, leaving Hermione’s guests in much the same mind as Maud Cunard. All of them, except Mr. Churchill, who was holed up in the library with Captain Vetiver, were sitting silently in the drawing room, drooping with exhaustion and brooding over their involvement in a soon-to-be public scandal.

We are all speculating like mad as to which one among us had reason to kill a perfectly harmless, stout, middle-aged man, whose only fault was that he was self-satisfied and pretentious
. Clementine, still planted on her sofa with a plate of untouched salmon sandwiches on a little table at her elbow, looked around the silent room. The rallying effects of brandy consumed after the shock of finding a dead body in the dining room had worn off the group of society’s bright and chatty partygoers, and when Detective Inspector Hillary strolled into the drawing room he was greeted by the collective blank stare of a group with one thought among them:
Talk to me first so I can go home.