The Twelve Clues of Christmas (7 page)

There was thumping on the front door. One of the maids must have answered it because we heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Quite a little party we have here, I see,” Inspector Newcombe said, coming into the room. “I was at the police station in the next village when the call was put to the doctor, so Gladys on the switchboard saw fit to try to locate me. Bright girl, that one. She said the old lady gassed herself?”

“Not deliberately, sir. Miss Effie would never do that,” the housekeeper said. “Something went horribly wrong somewhere. The windows were shut; the door was shut. That wasn’t right.”

“Are you sure you’re not reading too much into this?” He went across to the body and leaned down over it. “A lady of her age—it could just as easily have been heart failure.”

“But the smell, sir. There was this gas odor something terrible,” Mrs. Bates said.

“It only takes a little gas to leave a bad smell,” he said. “Maybe there was a small gas leak.”

“The gas was turned on,” Miss Prendergast said firmly. “I had to turn it off myself before I could even get into the room to open the windows. Somebody had turned it on, by accident or intention we don’t know.”

“This is all I need,” Inspector Newcombe said. “At this rate my family is not going to see me at all over Christmas, and as for buying presents . . .” He rubbed angrily at his mustache. “Now the rest of you go on home, please. I don’t want you touching everything.”

“Nobody has touched anything except for my turning off the gas and opening the windows, which I’ve already told you.” Miss Prendergast gave him a withering look. “But we will leave you to it. I’d question those housemaids if I were you. I wouldn’t be surprised if one was slipshod in her duty—thought she had lit the gas properly but didn’t wait to see.”

“Well, that’s a rum do,” Granddad said as we came down the stairs. “Three deaths in three days. Talk about coming to the country for peace and quiet!”

Chapter 10

T
HE HOME OF THE
M
ISSES
F
FRENCH-
F
INCH

D
ECEMBER 22

There were policemen standing outside the house, or I think I might have persuaded Granddad to join me in a little snooping around outside. Unfortunately the snow now covered any footprints that might have shown that someone climbed in through that open window. I wasn’t sure who or why. Perhaps one of those convicts came in to grab supplies and Miss Effie saw him and he stifled her and then made it look as if the gas was to blame. I wished the police would hurry up and catch them or that they were already far, far away. I didn’t think I’d linger close to Dartmoor Prison if I ever got out.

“I’m not sure what to do now,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said as we left Granddad and Miss Prendergast and made our way back to Gorzley Hall. “Tomorrow night when the guests arrive we are supposed to go sing carols around the village. But wouldn’t be seemly, would it, with poor Miss Effie lying there and her sisters grieving.”

“Probably not,” I said. “Take the guests to find the Yule log instead.”

She brightened up. “Excellent idea. I’m so glad you’re here, my dear. You’re sensible. So is my daughter. No hysterics, no nonsense. I hope you both make good matches. Do you have a young chap in mind?”

“Not really,” I replied, blushing.

“I rather feel Hortense has her eye on her cousin. Not sure of the legality of that. Also not sure if it’s him or the title she wants more.” She managed a weary smile. “And I would appreciate it, my dear Lady Georgiana, if you did not mention our unfortunate events to the guests when they arrive. They might find the news . . . unnerving.”

I nodded, thinking that I found the news of three dead bodies in three days a trifle unnerving myself. Not that they could be in any way connected—such different kinds of deaths and all explainable as accidents. Myself, I was inclined to believe in the Lovey Curse.

As soon as I took off my coat I went back upstairs. “Queenie,” I called. “Where is my gray dress?”

Queenie opened my wardrobe and shut it again hastily. “Remember you said that dress was a bit long? You said it wasn’t quite fashionable?”

“Yes.” A feeling of dread was creeping over me.

“Well, it’s not too long anymore,” she said and produced from the wardrobe a dress that was now about a foot shorter than when I last saw it.

“My dress. What did you do to it? You didn’t cut it off, did you?” I could hear my voice rising dangerously.

“Oh, no, miss. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. It was just that . . . well, I saw this thread hanging down and I yanked on it and the whole thing started to unravel. Lucky I stopped or it would have turned into a jumper.”

“Queenie,” I wailed. “Is there no piece of clothing of mine that you haven’t tried to ruin? That gray dress is the only smart winter item I own, apart from my suit, and I can’t wear a suit in the house. Now I’ll have to look like a schoolgirl in my tartan kilt all week.”

“I could try knitting it back up for you,” she suggested hopefully.

“Of course you can’t knit it back up. I honestly don’t know why I keep you. You know I can’t afford to buy new clothes.”

She was now turning those big cow eyes on me, brimming with tears. “I’m awful sorry, miss. I didn’t mean no harm.”

“You never do, Queenie. But the dress is ruined all the same.”

“It might not be too very short,” she suggested. “You did say hemlines are up this year.”

“Yes, but not up to midthigh!” I held the dress up against me. “Well, there’s nothing to be done. I’ll just have to wear what I wore yesterday. And please do not touch my dinner dresses. Don’t try to clean them or iron them. I’d rather wear them crumpled. I don’t want to find there is a big hole or the nap has been rubbed off the velvet.”

She nodded bleakly. “Bob’s yer uncle, miss,” she said.

“And Queenie,” I called as she started to creep away. “Remember when Lady Hawse-Gorzley suggested that you might assist other ladies if they hadn’t brought their own maids?”

“Yes, miss?”

“Don’t,” I said. “I can’t afford to pay for ruined outfits or be responsible for anyone set on fire.”

“That was only the once,” she said. “I don’t go around setting people on fire all the time.”

“I’m just being cautious, Queenie. You are a walking disaster area and I think you should confine your activities to making my life a misery.”

“Yes, miss,” she muttered and crept away, leaving me feeling rotten. Why did she have this ability to make me feel bad when it was always her fault? I finished my toilet and went downstairs to face the arrival of the first guests—the Wexlers from Indiana.

The Americans arrived late that afternoon. We received a telephone call from Newton Abbott Station. The car was dispatched and we were urged to walk to the end of the drive to meet them at the gates. “As a gesture of welcome and goodwill,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley put it. She even made the servants line up as if to receive the new lord of the manor.

“Bloody rubbish if you ask me,” Sir Oswald muttered. “And don’t think I’m going to change out of my old cardigan either. I’m not dressing up for anybody. They can take me as I am.”

“Oswald. It has a hole in the sleeve. You look like a tramp,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “At least put on your tweed jacket.”

As we stood at the gates, feeling cold and silly, it started to snow.

“You see, it is going to be a white Christmas,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said happily. “All your gloom and doom, Oswald, and it will be splendid. Absolutely splendid.”

At last the Bentley was spotted approaching the village. We waved and welcomed them all the way up the drive and Lady Hawse-Gorzley insisted on opening the car door herself.

“What kind of antique automobile do you have here?” The father of the family uncurled himself from the backseat. “Real quaint. I guess you dust it off to fetch guests from the station. Helps to create the right atmosphere, I reckon.”

“This happens to be our only motorcar,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said.

“Gee, at home it would be in a museum,” he replied.

The rest of the family climbed out of the motorcar, staring around them as if they had landed on Mars. They consisted of an impossibly tall Mr. Wexler, a blond and very painted Mrs. Wexler, a pouty daughter whom Wexler called Cherie, and a freckled son named Junior.

“I sincerely hope we are not the only guests,” Mr. Wexler complained as he stepped through the front door and looked around. “We were promised a big house party.”

“The other guests are not arriving until tomorrow,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said, “except, of course, our member of the royal family. Lady Georgiana is already here.”

As Bunty had predicted, that changed everything. Mrs. Wexler bobbed an awkward curtsy. Mr. Wexler muttered, “Well, gee whiz. How about that, Mother. Didn’t I promise you a Christmas you’d never forget?”

“Hey, Pa, take a look at those swords on the wall. Are they real?”

“They certainly are, little boy,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley replied, “and they are so sharp that they’d take your hand off.” Junior withdrew his hand hurriedly.

They were shown their rooms. The parents found them quaint and charming, but the daughter, Cherie, commented that they were “real small” compared to the palatial suites they had at home in Muncie, Indiana. Mrs. Wexler suggested her hosts turn up the central heating a few notches and was horrified to find that there was none.

“Well, I guess it’s so darned cold in here because someone left the window open by mistake,” she said and promptly shut it.

“We always sleep with the windows open. Much healthier,” Bunty said with a bright smile.

“Well, little lady, you must be tougher than we are,” Mr. Wexler replied. “We like our rooms nice and warm in the winter, so if you wouldn’t mind making sure there’s a good fire by the time we get ready for bed . . .”

“Oh, yes, the servants always light the fires well before bedtime,” Bunty said.

Junior looked under the bed. “Hey, Pa, there’s a chamber pot under here.” He shrieked with laughter.

“It goes with the décor, honey,” Mrs. Wexler said. “It’s old world.”

“No, it’s there because the nearest lavatory is a long walk down the hall,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “One never knows.”

“You mean we don’t have our own bathroom?” Mrs. Wexler said, looking with big hopeless eyes at her husband.

“This house was built in 1400,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “In those days they weren’t very good about indoor plumbing. We are fortunate to have two on this floor—one at the end of this hallway and one down there at the other end.” She paused. “And I should probably get Bunty to show you how the geyser works. It can be temperamental.”

“A geyser? Don’t tell me your hot water shoots up from the ground like at Yellowstone?”

“Shoots up from the ground?” Lady Hawse-Gorzley looked bemused. “It’s a perfectly normal water-heating device. A little gadget above the bath. Ours just happens to be slightly temperamental, that’s all.”

“It’s not what we’re used to,” Mr. Wexler said.

“Of course not,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said brightly. “That’s why you came, isn’t it? For an old-fashioned English Christmas. There would be no point if it was just like your home.”

With that she marched away down the stairs, leaving them to stare after her.

“I guess you’ve upset a British aristocrat, Clyde,” Mrs. Wexler said in a low voice. “You know how highly strung they are.”

Lady Hawse-Gorzley was clearly ill at ease with the Americans all afternoon, trying to keep from them the news of three unexpected and unexplained deaths. She suggested that the younger ones go out and make a snowman, to take advantage of the snow—which produced mirthful laughter. Apparently it snowed all winter where they lived, so snowmen were not a novelty. So I was left to cheer them up. I started telling them stories about my cousins the little princesses and the good times we had together. Luckily they really lapped this up.

“Fancy that, Clyde. She went out riding with Princess Elizabeth and she says the princess can ride as well as any grown-up. And that little Princess Margaret—a real firecracker, from what she says. They’re going to have trouble with that one when she grows up.”

They seemed to perk up when tea was served. Apparently tea was a novelty to them and they all approved of the cakes and scones.

“We do dress for dinner,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “Just to warn you. Sir Oswald is very hot on keeping up standards.”

I thought this was a bad example, as Sir Oswald was still in his old Harris tweed jacket and faded corduroy trousers and had made no effort to be hospitable.

“Do some people sit down to dinner in their underwear in England, then?” Junior asked, making his sister giggle.

“No, but the lower classes do not change out of their day clothes. The better class of person usually dines formally in evening wear, even when we are eating alone. It’s the done thing,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said.

“I don’t have no evening wear, do I, Ma?” Junior asked.

“You won’t be dining with the grown-ups, young man,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “We’ll have Cook bring up a tray to your nursery.”

“Of course Junior will eat with us,” Mrs. Wexler said. “Junior always eats with us. What a horrible idea, making him eat alone like a convict in his cell. No wonder the British grow up so cold and unfriendly.”

“I assure you we are not cold or unfriendly,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “I suppose the young man may join us if he wishes.”

“And stay up late, huh, Pa?” Junior asked.

“Sure, son, why not? How often do you get to sit up with quaint British people?”

Lady Hawse-Gorzley pressed her lips together and walked away. During dinner, however, it transpired that the Wexlers did not drink, thus raising Lady Hawse-Gorzley’s spirits considerably because it would keep down the costs and mean more wine for her. She waxed poetic about all the quaint and lovely English customs that awaited them. “We’ve been out searching the grounds for the perfect Yule log,” she said, “and when everybody is here, we’ll all decorate the Christmas tree. And there will be caroling door to door of course, and a hot mince pie and toddy at each house, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Sounds boring to me,” Junior said. His sister nodded agreement.

Lady Hawse-Gorzley went on, “Ah, but Lady Georgiana has some splendid things planned for the young folk. Party games and indoor fireworks and of course the costume ball. Then, after Christmas, all the traditional village events: the hunt, the Lovey Chase and of course the Worsting of the Hag on New Year’s Eve.”

“What’s that?” Junior demanded, interested now in spite of himself.

“It’s all to do with the Lovey Curse,” Bunty said dramatically. “We had a witch in the village who was burned alive at the stake. And she swore she’d come back every Christmastime to get revenge. So every year on New Year’s Eve the villagers go from house to house with drums and pots and pans, making a lot of noise to scare out the hag and ensure a safe year ahead with no bad luck.”

“There’s no such thing as curses and witches, is there, Pa?” Junior said uncertainly.

“Maybe not in America,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “There certainly are in England. We are a very old country, you know. This house was built one hundred years before Columbus even discovered your country.”