Hasty Death (17 page)

‘I’m sure it’s murder. I wonder if she knew who the murderer of Freddy Pomfret was. Just suppose he collected the evidence against her when he shot Freddy and decided to do a
bit of blackmailing himself. He goes to her and she tells him she’s had enough and is going to tell the police. What else could he do but murder her?’

‘I wish we could get out of here,’ mourned Daisy. ‘I’m frightened to death, I can tell you. Telby Castle seems exciting now, looking back on that murder last year, but at
the time I was scared and unhappy, and I’m scared and unhappy now.’

Rose gave her a quick hug and Daisy looked at her in surprise. Rose was normally not given to demonstrations of affection.

‘I sent a footman off with a telegram to my parents,’ said Rose, ‘which means that they will shortly arrive to remove me from here as soon as possible and the field will be
left to Captain Cathcart.’

‘The press will be here soon as well,’ said Daisy.

‘Perhaps not. I think that Scotland Yard will want to keep this quiet as long as possible.’

‘They can’t,’ said Daisy. ‘All the village was there when that maid burst into the church crying murder.’

‘Oh, I’ve just thought of something.’ Rose bit her lip in vexation. ‘They’ll be searching all around the countryside just in case it was someone from outside. What
if they come across McWhirter’s body in the Thames? Then it will all come out, me being in the asylum.’

Far away, a poacher was making his way through a thick wood. He had no fear of meeting a keeper. The keepers hardly ever patrolled these woods and his pockets were empty of
game.

He came across a dead man propped up against a tree. He stood stock-still. Crows and foxes had already begun their destructive work. And then he noticed how the sunlight shafting through the
trees glinted on the gold watch on the man’s wrist. He bent down and removed it and tucked it into his rags. Then he searched the pockets and found a wallet in the inside pocket. The money
inside was wet. He scratched his head. It hadn’t been raining for days. Still, the notes could be dried out.

He felt the cloth of the man’s motoring coat. Good material. It would fetch a bit at the pawn.

He rolled the body until he got the coat off. A good coat and trousers and silk waistcoat were revealed.

He looked quickly around, but the wood was completely silent. He busily got to work. The river had washed all the blood away and he was disappointed to find a hole in the back of the coat. But,
undeterred, he stripped off and dressed himself in the corpse’s clothes and then, heaving and panting, dressed the corpse in his own rags.

Then, gagging slightly at the smell from the already decomposing body, he dragged it farther deep into the wood and covered it with leaves.

‘It’s all right,’ Harry reassured a still worried Rose later that day. ‘Becket and I took the body really far away and the water was deep and
black.’

Rose said, ‘The water would be black at night. What if it’s clear during the day?’

‘Oh, it’ll be fine,’ said Harry, although he suddenly felt uneasy. ‘Have you been interviewed yet?’

She shook her head. They were standing together outside the house on the front lawn. A tendril of hair floated loose from Rose’s elaborate hair-style. He felt a tug at his heart but
quickly reminded himself how infuriating Rose could be with her unfeminine independence.

Harry had told her as much as he knew.

‘If only it could have been someone from outside,’ said Rose. ‘Have you seen Daisy?’

‘I think she’s talking to Becket.’

‘She is not much use as a companion at times. She should be on duty.’

‘Not the little radical you try to be,’ said Harry. ‘When the chips are down, you are as class-ridden as anyone in society.’

‘That is not true, you hateful man.’

Harry looked ruefully after her as she walked away.

A footman came out of the house and said Lady Glensheil wished to speak to him.

Her ladyship was in the morning-room. Mr Jerry was sitting on a sofa beside her and she was holding his hand.

‘Ah, here you are,’ she trumpeted. ‘Not much of a detective, are you?’

‘There was no way I could anticipate this murder,’ protested Harry. ‘Mrs Trumpington was a suspect. . . I’m sorry, Jerry.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said gloomily. ‘If she hadn’t been murdered and left me as the prime suspect I would be celebrating, and there’s no use pretending
otherwise. She wasn’t always like that, you know. When I married her, she was a pretty little slip of a thing and I thought myself the luckiest man in England. Don’t get married, Harry.
They all turn out the same.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Lady Glensheil frostily. ‘I am married.’

‘But Glensheil’s never around, is he?’ said Mr Jerry, made tactless in his distress.

‘Never mind that. Captain Harry, you must do something about this dreadful business before we are all murdered in our beds.’

‘I will do my best. Kerridge is a brilliant policeman.’

‘Nonsense, the man’s as thick as two planks.’

‘His manner and appearance are deceptive.’

The butler entered. ‘The police wish to interview you now, my lady. They are in the estate office, as you wished.’

‘Very well.’ She rose majestically to her feet and adjusted her hat. After having given her lady’s maid a row over the waxed-fruit disaster, Lady Glensheil had changed all her
clothes, feeling that a new outfit was called for in such distressing circumstances. Lady Glensheil never went hatless during the day. She was wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat decorated with a
stuffed seagull with small ruby eyes.

She turned in the doorway and glared at Harry. ‘Do something,’ she snapped. ‘You’re a detective, so detect!’

After she had gone, Harry turned to Mr Jerry. ‘Have you the slightest idea what your wife could have been up to that would make her the target of blackmail?’

‘Can’t think.’

‘Could she have been having an affair?’

‘I don’t know. I was in India last year for a few months. Maybe then. But who would want her?’

‘It’s the evidence that Freddy had. Did the murderer find it? Or did Freddy have it hidden somewhere?’

‘Blessed if I know. Wait a bit. We put valuables in safe-deposit boxes at the bank.’

‘Surely the police thought of that when they were going through his bank accounts.’

‘Might have come under a different department at the bank.’

‘I’ll use the phone. Blast! There isn’t one, and its Sunday anyway. I’d better see Kerridge.’

Harry nearly collided with Lady Glensheil as she emerged from the estate office.

‘Have you done anything yet?’ she demanded.

‘Give me time,’ said Harry patiently.

He went into the office. Kerridge was seated behind a desk, with Inspector Judd, stationed in a corner, holding a large notebook on his knee.

‘I’ve just had an idea,’ said Harry. ‘Look, Pomfret may have put any blackmail evidence in a safe-deposit box at the bank.’

‘Lady Rose Summer,’ announced the policeman who was on duty outside the door.

‘Come in and sit down, Lady Rose,’ said Kerridge. He thought she looked a picture. She was wearing a white lace blouse with a high boned collar and a dark skirt of some silky
material which rustled when she walked.

‘No,’ he said to Harry. ‘We did check that. Mr Pomfret did not have a safe-deposit box.’

‘Now that Mrs Trumpington is dead,’ said Rose, ‘perhaps it might be an idea to check if Mrs Stockton or Lord Alfred have been paying out any large sums of money recently. You
see, if whoever murdered Freddy took blackmail material, he might have decided to go into business himself.’

‘Yes,’ said Kerridge, ‘but that assumes that the murderer is someone other than the two of them. But we’ll check anyway. Now, Lady Rose, before I start to question you on
this case, you haven’t seen anyone suspicious lurking around?’

‘What other case?’

‘Dr McWhirter.’

‘Oh.’ Rose exchanged a glance with Harry and said quickly, ‘No, not a sight of the man.’

She suddenly remembered McWhirter as he had stood pointing the gun at her and then the sight of his dead body. She turned pale, gave a choked little sound, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and ran
from the room.

Kerridge leaned back in his chair and studied Harry’s face. ‘I’ve always known Lady Rose to be exceptionally brave, but when I mention McWhirter she nearly faints.’

‘I think she’s suffering from delayed shock,’ said Harry. ‘The fact that her parents put her in an asylum was a terrible fright. It distressed her no end.’

‘If you say so. Never take the law into your own hands, Captain Cathcart, or I will treat you like a common criminal.’

‘Of course,’ said Harry blandly. ‘Are we all confined to the house?’

‘Yes, until I finish my investigations. Why?’

‘I wanted to go up to my office to see if there are any messages for me.’

‘Got someone there on a Sunday to take them?’

‘No,’ said Harry, defeated. All at once he regretted having told Miss Jubbles about Rose and hoped against hope she would keep her mouth shut. But he was determined to find a way to
get back to where he had put the body and the car in the Thames to make absolutely sure no one could see anything from the river bank.

Old Mrs Jubbles lived in a perpetual rage. Her daughter, Dora Jubbles, of whom she had held such high hopes, had announced her engagement to the baker, Mr Jones.

She had proceeded to make her daughter’s life as much of a living hell as she could manage and Miss Jubbles had retaliated by leaving home to live in sin with the baker until the wedding
in several weeks’ time.

Miss Jubbles had moved out that very Sunday morning. Mrs Jubbles sat alone, all her hatred turned against Lady Rose Summer. It was that society bitch who had turned the captain against her Dora.
If it had not been for her, Dora would never have stooped so low as to marry a mere baker. In her choler, Mrs Jubbles forgot that she had entertained hopes of marrying Mr Jones herself.

And then her anger left her as she saw a plan of action. She would take a hansom down to the
Daily Mail
offices in Fleet Street and tell them the whole story about how Lady Rose had been
working as a common typist.

She summoned Elsie, the maid of all work, to help her dress in her best. Despite the warmth of the day, she put on her squirrel fur coat and her new lavender dogskin gloves.

At the newspaper’s front desk, she only told them that she had a society scandal to tell the editor. She was told to take a seat.

Mrs Jubbles waited. It was very warm. She opened her coat and saw to her dismay that there was a milk stain on the front of her best gown and hurriedly closed it again.

At last she was ushered up. The news-room seemed to be hectic with excitement. Mrs Jubbles did not know that one of the villagers had wired the paper about the murder at Farthings.

She was escorted in to see the editor. ‘I believe you have a story for us.’

‘How much?’ she demanded.

‘It depends what you story is . . . Mrs Jubbles,’ added the editor, consulting a slip of paper with her name on it which had been sent up from the front desk. ‘May we offer you
some tea and may I take your coat?’

‘I would like tea, yes, but I’ll keep my coat on.’

The sun was streaming in through the windows of the office. Sweat began to trickle down Mrs Jubbles’s face.

The editor waited until tea was brought in and then said, ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

‘It’s about that . . . that . . .’ Mrs Jubbles clutched her throat.

‘Madam, I fear the heart is making you ill. Do let me take your coat.’

‘No, no. It’s that awful girl. My daughter, oh, my daughter.’

And unconsciously echoing Shylock, Mrs Jubbles suffered a massive heart attack and fell from her chair and then lay as dead as the animals which had gone into the making of her best fur
coat.

‘Well, that’s that,’ sighed Kerridge when the last interview was over. ‘Unless the servants tell Garret, who’s interviewing them, something
interesting, we’re no further forward. All the guests and Lady Glensheil claim they were fast asleep. No one ordered a bottle of champagne. No syringe found in the rooms anywhere. Maybe
Cathcart or Lady Rose can come up with something.’

‘If you will forgive me for saying so, sir,’ ventured Judd, ‘it surprises me that you should share the investigation with amateurs.’

‘I’ll tell you why. It’s because amateurs are lucky. I sometimes think they could get away with murder.’

With Becket driving, Harry guided him to the place where they had shoved the car with the body of Mr McWhirter into the river. The grey light of dawn was spreading across the
country-side despite the banks of clouds building up over their heads and the dawn chorus was starting up.

Philip had left no tell-tale tracks. Rather, he had returned and driven the tractor up and down the river bank to obscure any motor-car tracks. A stiff wind was blowing, whipping up waves across
the river.

They stood on the edge of the bank and looked down. But the water was so turbulent now that they could not see a thing.

‘There you are,’ said Harry with relief. ‘See how black the water is?’

‘It’s going to rain,’ said Becket, looking up at the black clouds. ‘I wonder what it’s like here on a calm, sunny day.’

‘Never mind. I assure you there’s nothing to see. We’ve gotten away with it.’

D
inner that evening started off silently. Even Lady’s Glensheil’s tongue was silent. Her black gown was decorated with so much jet that
it glittered like the skin of some primeval reptile.

The men were wearing black armbands and the ladies had looked out their darkest clothes. For the young women of the party, Rose, Daisy, Maisie and Frederica, it had been hard to find anything
suitable to wear, débutantes usually being attired for evening in white or pastels.