Murder At Wittenham Park (14 page)

Savage sensed the tension between them and Jemma whispered to him, “They've got something on their minds.”

“I think we all have.”

Dulcie was watching Loredana, who must have brought enough clothes for a fortnight at least. She was in a different dress every time she appeared. Tonight it resembled a skimpy, slinky Versace creation in lurid colours, which Hamish—still in his blazer and flannels—made no secret of admiring.

How in hell, thought Dulcie, could Trevor afford Versace for his wife? She herself, being highly paid, didn't take a dress allowance from Hamish. But Loredana had no money of her own. Hmm. She could guess who'd paid for that number. She smoothed down her own demure black trouser suit and took a cool look at the others.

Adrienne was red-eyed and jumpy, wearing the same spotted silk dress as last night. She took a strong whisky from the butler, Priscilla was going through the gin and tonics fast. Jim now knew that she was an actress, employed to jolly things along, but the turn of events had evidently upset her. Slightly to his surprise she came across to him, after Dodgson had come round with the drinks-tray again, and asked if they could talk for a moment. They went through into the servants' hall to sit at the end of the long table, which was now laid for dinner.

“Is something troubling you?” Jim asked. It was fairly obvious something was. Priscilla's hand trembled as she held her gin and tonic.

“You know how I took the drugged cocoa up to Mr. Welch?” she began.

Jim nodded, remembering the histrionics of this morning, when she claimed Welch had tried to grab her.

“Well, he never drank it.”

“How do you know?”

“He offered me twenty pounds if I'd fetch him some more whisky. So I went down to the kitchen and couldn't find the cupboard and then the butler appeared and asked what I was doing. So I told him there was something in it for him if he helped and in the end I took it up. But it all took an age.”

“I thought Welch made a pass at you and you only just escaped?”

“That was when I took him the whisky, not the cocoa. He wanted me to join him for a drink, but whisky does horrible things to me on top of gin, so I refused.”

Jim tried to recall what she had said this morning. Surely she had put the cocoa on a table by Welch's bed? “And the second time the cocoa wasn't there?”

“That's right! I told him. ‘If you'd had that cocoa you'd have calmed down by now,' I said. ‘Drink that muck!' he said. ‘Who d'you think I am? I gave it to Dulcie. Now, come on girl, 'ow about a little bit of nooky?' What a nerve!” Priscilla sat up straighter, looking suitably indignant. “That was when he tried to pull me onto the bed.”

“And you had to run for it?”

“I never got the twenty pounds either.”

“What time d'you think that was?”

“It must have been nearly half past eleven.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“No.” Priscilla fidgeted with her glass. “I was afraid that would make me the last person to have seen him alive. But it means something more important too.” She leaned forward across the table. “It couldn't have been the cocoa, because look at Dulcie! She drank it and she's as right as rain.”

“You didn't take the whisky glass?”

“I felt like it! That would have served him right. But I just had to run.” Having got all this off her chest, Priscilla relaxed. “So you see, I'm not guilty.” She smiled warmly. “I feel so much better for telling you.”

“You really ought to tell the police.” Jim marvelled that it had not occurred to her that someone could have put poison in the whisky decanter. Such innocence in an actress of fifty was rather touching. Or was it suspicious?

“Perhaps I will,” Priscilla said. “If they ask me. After they've found the murderer.”

They were interrupted by Dodgson entering and standing by the door, hovering as if he were waiting for them to leave. Priscilla was embarrassed, sure she'd been overheard, then decided she'd said enough anyway, thanked Savage, gave Dodgson a filthy look and departed.

But Dodgson still stood there, until Savage asked if he wanted something.

“I'd like a word, sir. If it's not inconvenient.”

“Come and sit down then.” Savage was surprised, but tried not to show it. Something seemed to have suddenly made him the popular choice as Father Confessor, though what he didn't know.

Dodgson perched himself where Priscilla had been, cleared his throat with a dry, rasping noise, and unburdened his soul.

“Did that woman tell you about the whisky, sir?” Evidently Priscilla didn't merit the description “lady.” Dodgson was very much the old-style retainer, whose social sensibilities were more acute than his employer's.

“She mentioned Mr. Welch asking her to fetch some,” Savage agreed cautiously. “I suppose she should have refused.”

“She was offered inducements,” Dodgson said, in the acid tone of one who had failed to receive his cut. “But that isn't what's worrying me, sir.”

“Oh?”

“No, sir. It was his lordship's instructions to give them whatever drinks they asked for. Not,” he added, “that her ladyship approved.”

“I see,” Savage said, completely failing to, unless the purpose of this interview was to bad-mouth the Gilroys.

“It's that I need the decanters, sir.”

It took Savage a moment to appreciate that Dodgson had said “decanters,” in the plural. Then he realized that the second supply of whisky would never have been sent up in a bottle, and so there must have been two.

“Well,” he said, clearly remembering the small cut-glass decanter that had been on top of the chest of drawers in Welch's room, “I only saw one, which presumably the police will by now have sent for tests.”

“For poison, you mean, sir?” The butler's thin voice was apprehensive. “I can't deny I took him up the first decanter. Filled it with Bells.”

“Was the second one identical?”

“Not exactly, sir. We did have a set of half-size ones for guests, but some got broken and others was bought. I'd know which was which myself.”

“But I might not?”

“Most likely not, sir.”

“Was it the same whisky?”

“Yes, sir. I gave him the rest of the Bells. The question is, where's the decanter, because I could need it.”

“The maid couldn't have taken it?”

“Tracy, sir? No, sir. She brought down the early-morning tea-trays. Mr. Welch's was outside his room. But when she went later to clear up, the doctor wouldn't let her in.”

Savage pondered this. The second decanter could have been out of sight in the room, on the floor, for instance, except that he himself had looked under the bed. Someone would have to tell Inspector Morton, since the whisky was a substance Welch had been witnessed taking shortly before his death. And the glass was still unaccounted for. Whether he had drunk the early-morning tea was presumably known to the pathologist and possibly to the maid. He asked Dodgson about the tea-things.

“They've all been washed up, sir. Them and the breakfast dishes. That police sergeant was quite annoyed.”

“What about the whisky glass?”

“Must still be in the room, sir. I keep a check on the glasses. His lordship's very particular about guests' having proper tumblers for their drinks.”

“Even these guests?”

“I have my orders, sir,” Dodgson said with disapproval in his slightly quavering voice, as if changing the rules for this weekend ought not to have slipped his master's mind.

So that was that, though the glass was still missing. “Tell me something, Dodgson,” Savage asked. “If Mr. Welch had bought part of the estate, would you have lost your job?”

It was a question designed to put the butler on the defensive, which it did.

“Can't think of a reason for that, sir.”

“But if Lord Gilroy had sold up completely, you would have done?”

“He wouldn't ever do that, sir!” The butler sounded horrified. “He's keeping it for his son.”

“Well.” Savage realized that he was being a little too much of an interrogator. “Was there anything else?”

“No, sir. I mean, nothing was put in the whisky I took up to him or in the lot I gave Mrs. Worthington.” He sounded distressed again as the immediate worry came back to him. “His lordship'll give me hell if there's a decanter gone.”

“I'll ask the inspector about it.” Savage suddenly felt sorry for the old man. He must be past retirement age and probably had nowhere else to go.

“Thank you, sir.” Dodgson walked stiffly back towards the kitchens, leaving Savage barely time to think over what he had said before Jemma came in.

“What have you been doing, Daddy?” she exclaimed. “Everybody's asking.”

“Listening to people proclaim their innocence, my dear.”

“Priscilla, you mean? I'm sure she drinks too much.”

“She's got the shakes. Or something very like it. Anyway, she let out one interesting piece of intelligence. She went to Welch's room twice last night, the second time much later.” Savage retailed the conversation about the whisky.

“Which means that she could have poisoned him?”

“She had the opportunity. But why should an out-of-work actress want to kill a man she'd never met before?”

Jemma thought about this. “Hardly because he tried to assault her. Anyway, that was on her second visit,” she agreed. “So why did she pretend she'd only been to his room once?”

“There you have me.” There was no sense in it. “Except for her not wanting to be the last person to have seen him alive.”

“I've been thinking about that. This morning there was plenty of time after we'd all been woken up for someone to go into Welch's room. It was almost an hour and a half before we went down to breakfast and nearer nine-thirty before Mrs. Welch went up to look for him.”

“And Lord and Lady Gilroy weren't at breakfast,” Savage mused. “On the other hand, I overheard someone say that death occurred between seven-fifteen and eight.”

“I didn't know that!” Jemma exclaimed in annoyance. “Why didn't you tell me!”

“Sorry, darling.”

“Well, you should tell me things.” She was still petulant. “Anyway, there's something all the others want you to do for them, Lady Gilroy included.”

“There is?” Now it was Savage's turn to be alarmed. Anything that united the Gilroys and their guests must have a catch in it.

“They want you to talk the inspector into letting us use the library again. It is pretty miserable in that games room and, as Dulcie says, he's no right to keep us here at all.”

Savage frowned. He had a feeling his daughter might have “volunteered” him, as they used to say in the army. Like most daughters, she had very little hesitation about letting her parent in for things, from mending a fuse onwards. Which was not a bad comparison, given Inspector Morton's high-voltage rating.

“You've been elected. You're the only person they all trust.”

“Because I didn't get on with Morton, I suppose?”

“Go on. You can't refuse.”

Jemma took him by the arm and led him firmly through to the Great Hall, then pointed him towards the nearest of several policemen and set him going, as if he were automated.

The policeman escorted him through to the makeshift interview-room off the kitchen, which Savage realized was very close to the room he had just left, and asked him to wait outside in the passage. Standing there, he reflected that the domestic geography, apart from the main rooms, did not matter much. But the whole scenario had a feeling of clinging unreality, as if Welch's death were an event he had read about and which was never meant to involve him at all, yet was increasingly doing so.

However, Morton was real enough, sitting at the scrubbed table and motioning him to an upright kitchen chair.

“Well, sir. What can I do for you?” the inspector inquired somewhat brusquely, as if he didn't relish his time being wasted.

“There's something you ought perhaps to know,” Savage said firmly and explained about Priscilla and the whisky.

Morton listened attentively, then asked, “Why did she tell you this?”

“She seemed anxious to get it off her chest. I encouraged her to tell you herself.”

“Which she didn't want to do?”

“Quite right.” Savage almost laughed, really because the inspector had got it right the first time. Then, feeling this made him seem like an informer, he added, “Normally I don't break confidences.”

“Nor do I.” Morton grunted. “Never reveal sources either.”

“But the second decanter could be important.”

“We'll decide on that.” Morton's instinctive dislike of amateurs resurfaced. He instantly regretted it and added more emolliently, “Thank you for telling me. Has anyone else confided in you?”

This gave Savage the opening he needed. “Yes,” he said with a decisiveness to match the inspector's. “They have. They would all like the use of the library again.”

“Why? There may be evidence there.”

“The present room is very cramped. They're willing to stay and help with your investigation…”—this was a definite smoothing over of their actual attitudes—“… rather than insist on their right to leave. But they also paid a lot of money for this weekend.”

Morton tapped meditatively on the table with the Biro he was holding. It was a cliché of a movement, intended to imply that he was taking the idea seriously. Which he was, because he had to. Murder cases went cold very fast. If he didn't get a lead in the first three or four days, he might wait months for one, and it would be a lot easier to get that lead with his group of suspects readily available.

“When your searches are complete,” Savage prompted.

“All right then.” Morton gave way. In fact, they'd been over the library very thoroughly already and found only the “clues” that Welch and McMountdown had thrown away. “You can go back in there tonight, after you've eaten.” That would allow time to set up a listening device, which he had not done in the games room. There might be a useful percentage in the change.