Hasty Death

Outside, the sun had begun to shine and the snow was beginning to melt from the roofs.

Harry’scar, with Becket at the wheel, conveyed them through the slippery melting roads to Eaton Square.

The hall-boy had seen them arrive and shouted the news. Two liveried footmen came down the front steps to carry in the luggage.

Then Brum, the butler, greeted them and said, ‘I will inform my lord and my lady of your arrival.’

Rose had hoped to escape to her rooms, have a hot bath and a hair-wash and a change of clothes before either of her parents saw her, but as she and Daisy mounted the stairs, Rose’s mother, Lady Polly, came out of the sitting-room on the first landing.

‘Rose!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come in here immediately.’

The earl was asleep in front of the fire, a newspaper over his face.

‘Wake up!’ shouted Lady Polly. ‘Rose is home!’

‘Eh, what? By Jove, girl, you do look a mess. Sit down.’

Rose sank into a chair. Daisy remained standing, very much aware that she was a servant once again.

‘What have you to say for yourself?’ demanded Lady Polly.

‘I am very grateful to you both for having allowed me to conduct the experiment of being a working woman,’ said Rose. ‘I feel I am now ready to return to society.’

‘And what caused this sudden change of heart?’

‘Daisy persuaded me it would be the proper thing to do.’

‘Indeed!’ Lady Polly smiled at Daisy for the first time. ‘Well, well. I always said she was a sensible girl.’

‘Yes, I am indebted to her.’ Daisy wondered what had prompted Rose to give her credit for something she had not done.

‘Are you sure nobody apart from Cathcart and Drevey knows of your escapade?’ asked her father.

‘No one else, Pa.’

‘Very well,’ said Lady Polly. ‘Go of to your rooms and change. We will talk about your future later.’

At that moment, old Mrs Jubbles was talking about Rose to Mr Jones, the baker, who was seated in her drawing-room, balancing a cup of tea on one chubby knee.

‘You see,’ Mrs Jubbles was saying, ‘it doesn’t seem right she should get away with it. People like Lady Rose have no right to go out and work and take bread out of the mouths of those that need it. Also, I believe that Captain Cathcart may propose to my Dora and this Lady Rose is getting in the way. I would like to get rid of her.’

The teacup rattled nervously on the baker’s knee. ‘You don’t mean . . .’

‘No, silly. I mean I’ve a good mind to phone the Daily Mail and expose her. That way she’d be socially ruined and the captain wouldn’t even look at her.’

Mr Jones was a round-shouldered greying man with small black eyes almost hidden in creases of fat. The delicate chair he was sitting on creaked alarmingly under his weight as he leaned forward. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ he said, his sing-song voice betraying his Welsh origins.

Why? ‘

‘Because this captain ain’t in top society. I mean, he’s put himself in trade. As it stands, Lady Rose’s parents would never give their blessing. But if she was socially ruined, why then, she would be on a par with him.’

‘I never thought of that. It’s so good to have a man around to advise me. I do worry about Dora. I would like to see her married before I get married again myself.’ She glanced roguishly at the baker.

‘As to that,’ said Mr Jones, turning red, ‘I have a proposition to make.’

Mrs Jubbles put one thin old hand up to her bosom. ‘Oh, Mr Jones!’

‘Yes. See, I’ve a mind to ask Dora myself.’

‘Dora!’ screeched Mrs Jubbles. ‘My Dora! Her what’s meant for the captain. Get out of here and don’t come back.’

Mr Jones stood up and laid his teacup down on a side table which had just been beyond his reach.

‘I was only trying to help,’ he said huffily.

Mrs Jubbles raised her trembling black-lace-mittened hands and shouted, ‘Out! Out! Out!’

And so Mr Jones left, bewildered, not knowing that Mrs Jubbles had believed his visits were because he was enamoured of her.

Madly, she blamed this Lady Rose. Things had been going so well before she appeared on the scene.

Harry decided to call on Lord Alfred Curtis to start his investigations. Lord Alfred lived in a house in Eaton Terrace. His manservant answered the door and took Harry’s card. He studied it and then ushered Harry into one of those ante-rooms off the front hall reserved for tradesmen and other hoi polloi.

Harry reflected ruefully that even society’s servants knew he had sunk to trade.

He waited and waited. At last the door opened and Lord Alfred swanned in, wrapped in a brightly coloured oriental dressing-gown. ‘You woke me,’ he said by way of greeting, but Harry noticed that the young man had shaved and that his thick brown hair was smarmed down with Macassar oil. Lord Alfred yawned and said, ‘What’s this about?’

‘It’s about the death of Freddy Pomfret.’

Alfred composed his thin face and heavy-lidded eyes into what he obviously considered was the correct mask of mourning. ‘Poor fellow. Commit suicide, did he?’

‘No, he was shot.’

‘Terribly, frightfully, awfully sad. So what’s it got to do with me?’

‘You paid him ten thousand pounds.’

‘So? I must sit down. I’m getting a sore neck with you looming over me. Let’s go into the morning- room.’

Harry followed him up the stairs and into a room off the first landing. It was decorated in gold: gold- embossed paper on the wall, gold silk furniture, gold carpet.

There was a fire crackling in the grate. ‘Sit down,’ ordered Alfred with a wave of one long white hand.

They both sat down opposite each other.

‘I was asking you why you gave Freddy ten thousand pounds. I’m acting on behalf of his family,’ lied Harry.

‘Let me think.’ Alfred placed the tip of one finger against his brow, rather in the manner of the Dodo in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ‘Ah, yes, he was on his uppers. Begged a loan to pay off his gambling debts.’

‘Do you have an IOU?’

‘Of course not. Gentleman’s agreement. You wouldn’t understand.’ His voice held the hint of a sneer.

‘No, I don’t,’ said Harry bluntly. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anyone in society lending that amount of money without first securing a note.’

‘Really? I have heard you don’t get about so much in the world these days.’ The ‘world’ to Alfred meant the world of society. After all, for him, no other world existed.

‘He wasn’t blackmailing you, was he?’

Lord Alfred rang the bell beside the fireplace and stood up. ‘You are leaving now. Don’t ever come here again with your nasty remarks. Ah, Gerhardt, show this person out.’

The manservant, a powerfully built man, advanced on Harry.

‘I’m leaving,’ said Harry, ‘but you will be hearing from me again.’

Alfred sank back in his chair. ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Never come near me again.’

Rose lay in a scented bath and wondered what to do about Daisy. Because they had been equals when they were working, the fact that Daisy was once more her servant made Rose feel uncomfortable. She had put herself down to Daisy’s level. Perhaps there would be some way to bring Daisy up nearer her own.

After the maids had dried her, Rose dismissed them. She decided to dress herself, but realized that she would need help with her stays and rang the bell.

‘Sorry, my lady,’ said Daisy, looking flustered. ‘I should have been with you earlier.’

‘Help me with my stays, Daisy. The problem is that I can no longer look on you as a servant.’

‘Do you want to get rid of me?’ asked Daisy in a small voice.

‘After all we have been through together! Of course not. What am I to wear?’