The Problem at Two Tithes (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 7) (18 page)

‘Goodness me,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘That’s rather intriguing. What is it?’

‘Dubonnet and gin,’ said Freddy. ‘Mrs. R. is instructing me in the secrets of the cocktail bar. Or corrupting an innocent youth, if you prefer.’

‘Naughty boy,’ said Mrs. Randall.

‘Rubbish,’ said Angela. ‘You are entirely incorruptible, Freddy.’

‘You flatter me,’ said Freddy.

‘Not at all,’ said Angela. ‘I meant you were corrupted long ago and the job is quite complete. There is nothing left to be done.’

‘I suspected as much,’ said Mrs. Randall.

Angela took another sip. The drink was a strong one and she was beginning to feel a pleasant fuzziness in her head.

‘So, then, I expect you’ve been out hunting down criminals while we’ve been idling the afternoon away,’ said Freddy.

‘No, I haven’t, as a matter of fact,’ said Angela. ‘I promised not to do any detecting, so this morning I helped Elisabeth arrange some flowers in vases and placed them to advantage in the various rooms of the house. After that I wound wool until lunch-time, and this afternoon I have been taking a gentle stroll in the garden. I have been polite, considerate and helpful. I have not smoked, used unladylike language or told off-colour jokes—even though I had rather a good one from William yesterday. My behaviour, in short, has been impeccable. I fear, however, that this state of affairs is not destined to continue for the rest of the day—look here, are you sure this is only gin?’

‘It’s marvellous stuff, isn’t it?’ said Freddy. ‘I must say, I’ve never subscribed to the theory that we youngsters are the only ones who know how to enjoy ourselves. I have always been quite certain that those of statelier age and greater experience than I must know how to shake it about a bit—or must have known at one time, at any rate—and this afternoon I have been proved right in my theory. Mrs. R, I salute you.’

He raised his glass and drank. Mrs. Randall accepted her due with a gracious bow of the head.

‘By the way, I see Corky has produced another of his
magna opera
,’ went on Freddy, ‘or didn’t you read his story? I rather hope you didn’t.’

‘I most certainly did,’ said Angela with a shudder. ‘Can’t you do something about him, Freddy? Humphrey really believed I’d said all that rot.’

‘Don’t you think that says more about Humphrey than it does about Corky, though?’ said Freddy.

‘Perhaps it does,’ said Angela. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

‘How on earth can you and Humphrey be part of the same family?’ said Freddy. ‘I still can’t quite believe it. Are you sure your mother didn’t—’

‘Freddy!’ said Angela.

‘I was
going
to say adopt you from an orphanage,’ said Freddy, while Mrs. Randall sniggered.

‘Of course you were. As a matter of fact, though, I might ask the same question of Elisabeth,’ said Angela boldly.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Mrs. Randall. ‘She takes after her father. I never got on with him and I don’t get on much better with her. She’s such a bore, don’t you think? I can see why she married your brother. They deserve one another, I should say. Have you met those boys of theirs? Dreadful little beasts. I know Elisabeth thinks they’re the most gifted creatures ever to grace the earth, but quite frankly, whenever I see them I get the most awful urge to slap them. Horrid brats.’

‘They’re just like Humphrey was as a boy,’ said Angela. ‘Awfully cold and calculating.’

‘Ah, now it all comes out,’ said Freddy, who was enjoying the conversation immensely. ‘But what about you, Angela? Are you going to tell me you were a paragon of virtue and obedience as a child?’

‘Of course not,’ said Angela. ‘As a matter of fact I was rather a terror. But then, I was very bored most of the time because Humphrey wouldn’t play with me, so I think I ought to be excused for getting up to mischief.’

‘But why are you being so virtuous now?’ said Freddy. ‘I mean to say, on this visit? And, by the way, why exactly
doesn’t
brother Humphrey want you to do any detecting?’

‘Because it is unseemly in a woman,’ said Angela. ‘Especially one of my position and respectability.’

Freddy snorted.

‘Respectability, indeed,’ he said. ‘Here, your glass is empty—you’d better have some more.’

‘Yes, respectability,’ said Angela with dignity, and took another drink.

‘Respectability is overrated,’ said Mrs. Randall sadly. ‘If you’ll take my advice, you won’t bother with it. Look at me: I went all out for respectability in my youth, but after a while the reputation sticks and you can’t shake it off, so now I have to skulk in the rhododendrons whenever I want to have fun. “We drink very little in this house, Mr. Pilkington-Soames,”’ she said, in such an accurate imitation of Elisabeth that Angela put her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle. ‘Hmp,’ she went on, and subsided into silence.

‘Well, then, Angela, if you have promised not to detect any murderers, presumably you can’t give me any inside information on the case either,’ said Freddy, who was never entirely off duty, although given his present state it was somewhat doubtful whether he would be able to remember tomorrow anything that he was told today.

‘No,’ said Angela. ‘Everyone thinks Norman Tipping did it and Kathie helped him, though. Even Andrew Norris said as much. And I’m fairly sure the police believe it too.’

Too late she remembered that Kathie’s mother was there and might be shocked to hear the news. But Mrs. Randall was made of stern stuff.

‘Pfft!’ she said. ‘It serves her right for thinking of marrying him. Silly girl. I could have told her he was no good, but girls never listen to their mothers. I wish I’d had sons,’ she said wistfully. ‘They’re so much easier.’

‘Never mind,’ said Freddy. ‘I’ll be your son, if you like. My mother wanted a daughter so it’s a fair exchange. She can have Kathie and you can have me.’

‘What an excellent idea,’ said Mrs. Randall. ‘You shall be a credit to me, I’m quite sure of it.’

They beamed at each other fondly, and more drinks were poured, and then of course they all had to make another toast to Freddy and his new mother. By this time Angela was starting to feel slightly dizzy, and she decided that she had had quite enough.

‘So, then, this off-colour joke you mentioned, Angela,’ said Freddy after a short pause in which they all stared glassily in different directions. ‘I think it’s only fair that you share it with the company, don’t you agree, Mrs. R?’

Mrs. Randall nodded vigorously.

‘Oh, I don’t know that I ought,’ said Angela primly.

‘Of course you ought,’ said Freddy. ‘We have provided the cocktails, and now you must provide the entertainment—pay your way, so to speak.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Angela, and prepared to oblige. She had barely started, however, when to her surprise Freddy suddenly shot out of his seat and bolted into the bushes. She had hardly time to register the terrified look on Mrs. Randall’s face before she heard a voice say loudly:

‘What on
earth
is going on?’

It was Elisabeth, who had come upon them unexpectedly and was standing there, a look of horror on her face. Angela glanced down at the glass in her hand, and at the flask and the bottle which stood on the seat between her and Mrs. Randall, and then back at Elisabeth, whose expression had now changed from shock to haughty fury.

‘Er—hallo, Elisabeth,’ she began, uncomfortably aware that she was not in the fullest possession of her faculties. ‘We were just—’

‘Mother,’ said Elisabeth, ignoring Angela. ‘
What
are you doing?’

‘Why, I don’t quite know, dear,’ said Mrs. Randall. ‘I was just passing when Angela offered me a glass of this cordial, but I don’t think I like it very much.’

‘Cordial?’ snapped Elisabeth as Angela stared in astonishment at Mrs. Randall, whose manner had altered completely, for she spoke in the gentle and puzzled tones of one who, while taking an afternoon stroll through the flower garden, had been lured unwittingly away from the path of pure and virtuous innocence and into a den of vice and debauchery. ‘That’s not a cordial—it’s alcohol! Have you been drinking? Angela, what have you given my mother?’

‘Alcohol?’ said Mrs. Randall in tones of the greatest dismay. ‘Are you sure? Angela, you never said it was alcoholic. But now you come to mention it, I must confess I am feeling a little dizzy.’

‘Of course you’re feeling dizzy,’ said Elisabeth. She drew herself up. ‘Angela, I’m
surprised
at you.’ Words could not express the depth of her reproach.

‘But I didn’t—’ began Angela. It was no use, however, for Elisabeth was not listening.

‘Mother, you must come back to the house at once,’ she said. ‘Here, take my arm. You’re not in any fit state to walk by yourself.’

Mrs. Randall struggled obediently to her feet and clutched at her daughter’s arm.

‘Thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry to be such an inconvenience.’

‘Of course you’re not an inconvenience,’ said Elisabeth. ‘We’ll get you back to the house and you can have a lie down until you’re feeling better. I shall see
you
later, Angela. And don’t think I didn’t hear that shocking language you were using just now,’ she added. ‘I must say, I thought better of you.’

The two of them sailed off in great state, leaving Angela sitting open-mouthed in outrage, which was not helped by the look of pure malice that Mrs. Randall threw back at her as they left.

When Angela got back to the house she crept as quietly as she could up to her room and summoned her maid. Marthe took one look at her and made her lie down on the bed with a cold compress to the head while she went to the kitchen to prepare something which, she assured Angela, would restore her to the full use of all her senses within an hour. She returned a few minutes later with a glass containing something brownish and unidentifiable.

‘Here,
madame
, drink this,’ she commanded.

Angela took a sip and shuddered.

‘Heavens!’ she said. ‘What on earth is it? It’s quite foul. Marthe, I do believe you’ve given me this deliberately to teach me a lesson.’

‘Finish it,’ said Marthe. ‘It will make you better. Here is a drink of water to take the taste away, and now you must lie on the bed for a little while.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Angela, and did as she was told, for her head was still spinning and she wanted to be fully recovered by dinner-time. She put the compress back over her forehead and sighed. ‘I think I’ve rather ruined any chance I ever had of convincing Elisabeth that I’m not a disgrace,’ she said.

‘But why try?’ said Marthe. ‘I have seen her. I know the type. She already has a fixed idea about you and it will not make her happy to persuade her otherwise. Better, surely, not to disarrange yourself by trying to be something you are not.’

‘Normally I should agree with you,’ said Angela, ‘but I do have
some
pride, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to let her know that, unlike her mother, I am not generally in the habit of drinking in the bushes like a tramp. Just wait till I see Freddy, though—I shall give him a jolly good piece of my mind. He ran off before Elisabeth saw him, but if he thinks he’s going to get away scot-free he is very much mistaken.’

‘Ah, M. Pilkington-Soames,’ said Marthe, who at last saw an opportunity to find out what she wanted to know and was determined to seize it. ‘He is an artful one—or he thinks he is. This morning he offered me money in return for some information.’

‘Did he? What information?’ said Angela in surprise.

Marthe began folding some clothes.

‘He said you met a man in Venice,’ she said with apparent indifference, ‘and he wanted to know about it.’

Angela sat bolt upright.

‘He didn’t!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, that—I shall—’

Marthe made her lie down again, which she did with some reluctance.

‘Of course, I did not tell him anything,’ went on Marthe, and then proceeded to attack. ‘How
could
I tell him anything, when I do not know anything? I did not think you would keep such news from me,
madame
. Is it that you no longer trust me?’

Her tone held just the right amount of injured dignity, and she wore an expression of the utmost disappointment.

‘Of course I trust you,’ said Angela.

‘Then why did you not tell me about it? You have always told me such things in the past.’

‘But I don’t have anything to tell,’ said Angela feebly.

Marthe sniffed and looked offended.

‘It is not my place to contradict you,
madame
,’ she said, and subsided into frosty silence.

Angela was no match for Marthe in a huff.

‘Look, I don’t know what Freddy was talking about,’ she said. ‘He made some silly accusation the other day, and I told him it was nonsense, but obviously he didn’t believe me.’

Marthe tossed her head and went on folding clothes with scientific precision.

‘Why should you think there was anything to tell, anyway?’ said Angela. ‘Can’t a person go on holiday without being accused of—things?’

There was no reply. Angela tried to assert her authority.

‘I won’t have you making suppositions about me without permission,’ she said. ‘It’s highly improper.’

The silence grew louder if possible. Angela quailed.

‘And anyway, even if there were—things to tell, it’s not fair of you to try and get them out of me when I’m d—under the weather,’ she said pleadingly.

But Marthe had no scruples on that head, and she scented victory. She allowed herself to thaw a little then proceeded to press her advantage ruthlessly, and by dint of alternate coaxing and feigned hurt pride drew Angela’s secret out of her and reigned triumphant.

‘Ah! He is
très charmant
, that one,’ she said, looking pleased, for she had liked Edgar Valencourt.

‘Yes,’ said Angela dryly. ‘And very persuasive, too, or I should never have gone with him.’

‘But why not?’ said Marthe. ‘If he likes you and you like him, what is to stop you?’

‘Apart from the fact that he’s wanted for theft in about ten countries, do you mean? Why, nothing at all,’ said Angela, trying to ignore the headache that was beginning to throb at her temples.