Death of a Peer

“Are you certain, Mummy,” said Frid, “that it wasn’t sinister laughter? ‘Heh-heh-heh’?”

“It wasn’t in the least sinister. He giggled.”

“I wish he’d send for me,” Frid muttered.

“I suppose you think,” Henry began, “that you’re going to have a fat dramatic scene, ending in Alleyn throwing up the case because you’re trop troublante. My dear girl, your histrionic antics —”

“I shan’t go in for any histrionic antics, darling. I shall just be very still and dignified and rather pale and very lovely.”

“Well, if Alleyn isn’t sick, he’s got a stronger stomach than I have.”

Frid laughed musically. The constable answered a tap on the door.

“This is my entrance cue,” said Frid. “What do you bet?”

“It may be your father or Henry,” said Charlot.

“Inspector Alleyn,” said the constable, “would be glad if Miss Grey would speak to him.”

III

Roberta followed a second constable down the passage to the dining-room door. Her heart thudded disturbingly. She felt that she wanted to yawn. Her mouth was dry and she wondered if, when she spoke, her voice would be cracked. The constable opened the dining-room door, went in, and said: “Miss Grey, sir.”

Roberta, feeling her lack of inches, walked into the dining-room.

Alleyn and Fox had risen. The constable pulled out a chair at the end of the table. Through a thick mental haze, Roberta became aware of Alleyn’s deep and pleasant voice. “I’m so sorry to worry you, Miss Grey. It’s such bad luck that you should find yourself landed in such a disagreeable affair. Do sit down.”

“Thank you,” said Roberta in a small voice.

“You only arrived yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“From New Zealand. That’s a long journey. What part of New Zealand do you come from?”

“The South Island. South Canterbury.”

“Then you know the McKenzie Country?”

The scent of sun-baked tussock, of wind from the tops of snow mountains, and the memory of an intense blue, visited Roberta’s transplanted heart. “Have you been there?” she asked.

“I was there four years ago.”

“In the McKenzie Country? Tekapo? Pukaki?”

“The sound of the names makes the places vivid again.” He spoke for a little while of his visit and like all colonials Roberta rose to the bait. Her nervousness faded and soon she found herself describing the New Zealand Deepacres, how it stood at the foot of Little Mount Silver, how English trees grew into the fringes of native bush, and how English birdsong, there, was pierced by the colder and deeper notes of bell-birds and mok-e-moks.

“That was Lord Charles’s station?”

“Oh yes. Not ours. We only lived in a small house in a small town. But you see I was so much at Deepacres.”

“It must have been rather a wrench for them, leaving such a place.”

“Not really,” said Roberta. “It was only a New Zealand adventure for them. A kind of interlude. They belong here.”

“Did Lord Charles like farming?”

Roberta had never even thought of Lord Charles as being a farmer. He had merely been at Deepacres. She found it difficult to answer the question. Had he enjoyed himself in New Zealand? It was impossible to say, and she replied confusedly that they had all seemed quite happy, but of course they were glad to be home again. “They are a very united family?” Roberta could see no harm in speaking of the Lampreys’ attachment to each other, and she quite lost her apprehensions in the development of this favourite theme. It was easy to relate how kind the Lampreys had been to her; how, although they argued incessantly, they were happiest when they were together, how she believed they would always come to each other’s aid.

“We had an example of that,” Alleyn agreed, “in the present stand made by the twins.”

Roberta caught her breath and looked at him. His eyes, with their turned-down corners, seemed to express only sympathetic amusement, as though he invited her to laugh a little with him at the twins.

“But they have always been like that,” cried Roberta. “Even at Deepacres when Colin took the big car…” and she was off again, all her anecdotes of the Lampreys tending to show their devotion to each other. Alleyn listened as though everything Roberta said amused and interested him, and she had ridden her hobby-horse down a long road before she stopped suddenly, feeling herself blush with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I’m talking too much.”

“Indeed you’re not. You’re giving me a delightful picture. But I suppose we must get down to hard facts. I just want to check your own movements. You were in here from the time Lord Charles had his interview with his brother right up to the discovery of the accident. That right?”

“Yes.” Roberta had sorted this out carefully and gave him a clear account of her talk with Michael and her final move to the landing.

“That’s grand,” said Alleyn. “Crisp and plain. There are two points I want to check very carefully…The times when Lord Wutherwood shouted. You tell me that when he first called you were all in here.”

“Yes. Including Mike. He had just come in. But the others went out a second or two after he called out.”

“And the second time?”

“Mike went away with Giggle. A very short time after that Lord Wutherwood called out the second time.”

“You’re quite certain?”

“Yes, quite. Because it was so quiet in the room when they had gone. I remember that, after he had called again, I heard the sound of the lift. Then I heard some one call out in the street below and the voices next door in the drawing-room. It’s all very clear. I heard the lift again just as I took a cigarette out of that box. After that, I remember I walked about hunting for matches. I’d just lit my cigarette and was leaning out over the window still looking at London when I heard her — Lady Wutherwood. It was awful, that screaming.”

“I want you to go through that again if you will.”

Roberta went through it again and, greatly to her astonishment, again. Alleyn read over his notes to her and she agreed that they were correct and signed them. He was silent for a moment and then returned to the subject of the family.

“Do you find them much changed now you have seen them again?” he asked.

“Not really. At first they seemed rather fashionable and grown-up but that was only for a little while. They are just the same.”

“They haven’t grown up as far as their pockets are concerned,” Alleyn said lightly. But Roberta was ready for this and said that the Lampreys didn’t worry about money, that it meant nothing to them. With a sensation of peril she carried her theme a little further. They would never, she said, do anything desperate to get money.

“But if they are faced with bankruptcy?”

“Something always happens to save them. They know they will fall on their feet. They seem desperately worried and inside themselves they continually forget to be worried.” And seeing that he listened attentively to her, she went on quickly: “Even now this has happened they are not remembering all the time to be alarmed. They know they are all right.”

“All of them?”

Roberta said truthfully: “Perhaps not… Charlot — Lady Charles. She is frightened because Colin pretended he was in the lift and she wonders if that may make you think Stephen is hiding something. But I am sure, inside herself, she knows it will be all right.” Roberta was silent and perhaps she smiled a little to herself for Alleyn said: “Of what were you thinking, Miss Grey?”

“I was thinking that they are like children. You can see them remembering to be solemn about all that has happened and then for a time they are quite frightened. But in a minute or two one of them will think of something amusing to say and will say it.”

“Does Lord Charles do this?”

A cold sensation of panic visited Roberta. Was it, after all, Lord Charles whom they suspected? Again it