Murder At Wittenham Park (11 page)

“Mrs. Welch?” he inquired of Adrienne. “Could I have a few minutes?”

Jim got up and motioned Jemma to follow him. “We'll leave you to it,” he said. “We'll be in the hall.”

Sitting down rather awkwardly on the armchair Jim had vacated, Rutherford went through his routine of questions, asking finally if Welch had been taking any medications.

“Not regularly. It's like I told the doctor. He'd take an Alka Seltzer if he had a hangover. He had a high colour, but he was fit.”

“And, pardon my asking, why weren't you sharing a room last night?”

“That was stupid. I have a huge bedroom, a lovely one. But Lady Gilroy insisted he slept in that little room one night ‘for the murder.'”

So that explanation of Gilroy's was correct. Rutherford made careful notes. He added one last question, a question that was beyond his mandate, since he was not a detective.

“You didn't go in to wake your husband when the ‘murder' happened?”

“He wasn't interested. He only came on the weekend to see how the nobs live.”

As he wrote this down in his slow, neat handwriting, she wondered if it had been wise to lie about why there were here. Well, she thought, it's a white lie and he's only a very young constable.

“It was when he didn't come down to breakfast that I began worrying,” she added, her voice becoming shaky. “I won't ever forget finding him there like that. Not never.”

Fearful that she might break down, and inexperienced in consoling the bereaved, Rutherford thanked her and returned upstairs to the doctor.

Thompson was concluding his examination of the corpse. He had found no needle marks, for which he always looked nowadays. Due to Welch not cutting his toenails properly, the nail of one smaller toe had cut into the flesh of the next bigger one. There was absolutely nothing to explain why he was dead, though his complexion suggested he might have had high blood pressure. Perhaps it was natural of his wife to imagine he'd died of a heart attack, but Thompson was unconvinced.

“Rightly or wrongly,” he told Rutherford, “I regard this as an unusual death, if not actually a suspicious one.”

This remark clinched it for Rutherford. He exchanged puzzlement for decision and went straight downstairs again to telephone his police station and explain to the duty sergeant what was happening. The sergeant gave him precise orders and initiated a series of police procedures which could rapidly escalate into a murder hunt if that seemed justified.

When Hamish chanced on Rutherford in the hall and, addressing him as “Constable” in a superior way, asked if there was any reason why he and his wife should not leave Wittenham Park, he received a very firm answer. No one would be leaving until a more senior officer arrived. Rutherford then told Gilroy the same and went back upstairs to keep Welch's bedroom secure, as the sergeant had instructed him. His role as the leading investigator would very soon be over.

Jim and Jemma Savage were seated in one corner of the Great Hall, a room only fractionally less grand than the library. The staircase with its dragon newels occupied one corner, turning through ninety degrees as it ascended and then through ninety degrees again to the floor above. The front door was at the opposite end, leaving plenty of room for sofas, a substantial oak table, carefully laid out with magazines, and a writing-table with a small rack of headed stationery. Years ago the stag heads at the Lion Park had embellished the walls, or encumbered them, as Dee Dee thought. Now portraits of ancestors—almost all other people's ancestors, bought at Sotheby's and Christie's auctions—stared down superciliously as the father and daughter debated what was going on.

“The next thing will be the post-mortem,” Jemma said. “Do you think Welch could have been murdered?”

“The police must think it possible.”

“So who had a motive?”

“From what his wife was saying just now, she did,” Jim observed. “A strong one, too. ‘Nicely provided for,' she said. Only the Lord knows how many wives have slid their husbands down the eternal rubbish chute to get the life insurance.”

“At least Pauline didn't try that on you!”

“Oh no? You never had to eat her spinach pancakes. Those were terminators.”

“Daddy!” Jemma felt this was mildly unfair. “Just because she thought anything that was an economy could not be disgusting doesn't mean she wanted to kill you.”

“Perhaps not,” Jim relented. “Doesn't alter the fact that someone gets away with domestic murder every week. Adrienne Welch must be a suspect.”

“And who else?”

“Who do we know had a quarrel with Welch?” Jim deliberately gave his daughter a lead.

“Gosh! Several people.” Jemma consulted her notes with increasing excitement. “Welch wanted to buy part of the estate. Lady Gilroy said so quite openly. And he infuriated Lord Gilroy by saying the Lion Park would have to be closed down.”

“Do we think the first row, the one we overheard before dinner, was about the land?” Jim checked his own notes. “At six thirty-one
P.M
. we heard Welch shout, ‘You bloody well will, or else.' And the voice we think was the lawyer woman added, ‘You haven't any option.' Someone was being pressurized.”

“Couldn't have been Gilroy. It must have been someone else.”

“But Gilroy was embarrassed when we mentioned it at dinner. And when Lady Gilroy accused Welch of blackmail she most definitely was not play-acting. Welch knew it, too. Remember how fiercely he reacted?”

“That is true, Daddy! She was just using the murder plot to have a go at him. And he was furious. He turned the colour of blueberries.”

“Then we're agreed.”

“The row had to be with someone else.” Jemma ticked off the guests on her fingers. “The only other man around was that snobby idiot McMountdown. Why should he be involved in the land deal?”

“I'll pass on that,” Jim conceded. “We don't know. So the Gilroys are prime suspects. Or rather,” he hastily corrected himself, “they will be if Welch has been murdered. Which leaves the mysterious woman in a dressing-gown you saw this morning. Could that have been Lady Gilroy going into the State Bedroom? Or into Welch's room?”

“Poison in hand!” Jemma added delightedly.

“Was it her, my dear?”

“I just don't know. Several of the women had lacy night-dresses. And I'm not sure which door the woman was opening anyway.”

“Very probably it was part of the ‘murder plot.' Something one of us was intended to see.”

“Could be,” Jemma said dubiously. “But if it was acting it would have been, well, more obvious.” She had an idea. “Why don't we go upstairs and experiment. You stand by Welch's bedroom door and I'll come out of mine into the passage. That might jog my memory.”

Upstairs Police Constable Rutherford was standing manfully immobile in front of Welch's bedroom, his arms folded across the front of his white shirt, his legs apart. Had he been a more substantial person he would have been a serious human barrier. As it was, he merely looked as if he was trying to impersonate one. His head swivelled toward Jim and Jemma as they emerged from the wide staircase.

“Now you go along…” Jemma was saying, not hesitant about giving her father orders. Then she saw Rutherford. “Oh my God. What's he doing here?”

Rutherford overheard the remark and was nettled by it. “Safeguarding a possible scene of crime,” he said stolidly.

Jemma shot a “What do we do next?” glance at her father and he took up the conversation.

“Would you object to my standing by the next door along for a few minutes, officer?”

“For what purpose, sir?”

“My daughter is trying to jog her memory.”

Rutherford stared at them both with extreme suspicion. “Like how?” he demanded.

“I'm trying…” Jemma gave up petulantly. “Oh, forget it. We'll just go to our own rooms. If you've no objection.”

Rutherford watched them go down the corridor, convinced that there was a lot more in this situation than met the eye, then resumed his sentry duty.

Once they were out of earshot, Jim said, “Never be bad-tempered with a cop, darling. You ought to know that.”

“I wasn't,” Jemma hissed at him. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“All right.” Jim gave way resignedly. “You weren't, but it still doesn't.”

“Doesn't what?”

“Pay to be rude to cops.”

“Oh, get lost, Daddy.” Jemma went to her room.

Very soon afterwards she reappeared, darting out of her door as if disturbed. Rutherford glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just as she retreated again. That girl was up to something, he decided. He pulled out his official notebook, recorded the time as ten forty-one, and wrote down carefully, “Miss Savage behaving in suspicious manner in corridor.” He was not surprised when she came out again and entered her father's room. He would warn the inspector that they were both up to something.

In her father's room Jemma was back to being excitedly positive, their dispute forgotten. “It was that door. I'm sure it was.”

“Welch's?”

“Yes, Welch's. Who else?”

“I doubt if that young constable is going to be flattered at reminding you of a woman in a night-gown.”

Jemma giggled. “Daddy, you're a fool.”

“And how many women were there in night-gowns or dressing-gowns at seven-thirty this morning? Lady G, the curious Priscilla, Loredana, Adrienne Welch. What about the others?

“Loredana's was hidden by her dressing-gown. Dulcie had slung a coat over her shoulders. She wasn't wearing lace. I wasn't.”

“So it was only three?”

“The night-gown I saw had lace round the bottom.”

“Well, if this becomes serious,” Jim said, “we'll be having a fashion parade.”

“I think all the women would be suspects. Priscilla Worthington took Welch a mug of ‘poisoned' cocoa. It could have been poisoned for real. She told us he tried to rape her.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“He had his eye on Loredana, too. Perhaps he had a go at her.”

“That still leaves his lawyer, Dulcie. Why should she want to kill her own client?”

“There you have a point, Daddy. Why should she? It's not the quickest way of getting one's fees paid.”

“So, apart from the servants, that leaves only us. What motives do we have?”

“To make a story for my magazine?” Jemma laughed. “I think we're clean.”

“Then I have to make a confession,” Jim said, more seriously. “Welch took me aside before dinner. He was quite aggressive. ‘I know who you bloody are,' he said. ‘And if you know what's good for you, you'll keep out of this.'”

“He didn't! You're joking!” Jemma was horrified and instantly concerned.

“Scouts honour. There must have been some kind of scam in this land deal. I imagine that Lady Gilroy told him what my profession is, or rather was, in order to keep him under control. Something like that.”

“So what did you say?”

“Told him I was never influenced by threats. Anyway, it hardly means I would want to kill him. Rather the other way around, I'd have thought.”

Jemma laughed. Her father's dry humour always amused her. She answered in the same vein. “So I poisoned him to save you, Daddy.” She clapped her hands. “Perfect. Everyone has a motive.”

“Except the servants and the McMountdowns.”

“Oh, they'll all turn out to have one.”

The noise of vehicles outside interrupted them. Jim looked down from the window. An ambulance and a larger police car were in the drive.

“Things have started to happen. Let's go down again,” he suggested.

As they descended the stairs, two ambulancemen with a stretcher were waiting in the hall, while a uniformed police inspector gave instructions and the rest of the guests stood in a cluster at the library end of the hall, watching. The men went upstairs. When they came down again, carrying Welch's corpse, zipped up inside a black body-bag, they were followed by a white-coated man carrying a video camera and escorted by a sergeant. The police had clearly been carrying through their procedures with exemplary speed.

Adrienne, who was being supported by Dee Dee Gilroy, burst into tears, while the rest stood in momentary silence. Not out of respect for the dead, Jemma realized, but because the bulging body-bag forced everyone to understand the reality of a death. Then subdued chattering broke out until the inspector, the two silver stars of rank glittering on the shoulder tabs of his shirt, raised his hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” He had a burring, North Country voice, and dragged out some of the syllables. “We may not have the results of the post-mortem until tomorrow, though I'm hoping for it sooner. Until then I would be appreciative if you could make yourselves available throughout the course of the day.”

“But officer,” Hamish spoke up complainingly, like an indignant shareholder determined to be heard at an Annual General Meeting, “my wife and I are leaving after lunch.”

“Have you anything else planned, sir?”

“Not precisely,” Hamish admitted. “We have things to do at home.”

“I'm afraid they will have to wait, sir.” The inspector was not giving an inch. “As they would have done if this weekend had gone according to plan. A detective inspector will be here shortly. He will need to talk to everyone here.”

“My God!” Dee Dee whispered to Gilroy. “You won't be able to take them to Blenheim. All they are going to do is eat and drink!”

7

A
S
B
UCK
G
ILROY
welcomed the latest police arrivals into his study, he felt he was being forced to rehearse the same scene again and again, like an actor who could never get it right. He had spent the entire morning being interviewed by policemen. First by Constable Rutherford, then Rutherford's sergeant, then the inspector with the North Country accent. Now it was an officer in a dark-grey suit, who had asked the guests “to make themselves available” with a firm politeness that suggested that he had cells ready and waiting for every one of them, Gilroy included. He had introduced himself as Detective Inspector Morton and the plain-clothes sidekick with him as Detective Sergeant Timmins.