Death of a Peer

message she’s decided to lie like hell and take the consequences. If Martin isn’t careful she’ll manage to warn Master Henry and his father. Let’s see what the bilingual Martin has to say in his notes. Yes. Here we are. Have a look.”

Fox eyed the notes. “I’d have to get it out in longhand,” he said. “May I trouble you to translate, Mr. Alleyn?”

“You may, Foxkin. They seem to have discussed the twins’ proposition and got no further. Here Lady Charles cut in and said: ‘It’s very necessary that we should come to some decision about Gabriel and the money.’ That devilish girl seems to have chipped in with a remark to the effect that what we didn’t know wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Lady Friede, sir?”

“The same. Master Henry said that only their father knew what had happened at the interview. I catch the warning note here, Foxkin. He was instructing his brothers and sisters to forget they had overheard the interview. It’s evident that Lord Charles didn’t know they had listened.”

“What did his lordship say?”

“His lordship is cryptic. He doesn’t say much. Here’s a stray observation. ‘Par rapport a Tante Kit.’ Oh! He says: Considering what Aunt Kit has probably told us, we’re not likely to suppose they were out of the financial wood. Very true. Lady Charles asks what Gabriel said at the interview and Lord Charles replies that he thinks it will be better if his family can truthfully say it doesn’t know. I imagine an awkward silence among members of the carpet party. By this time, no doubt, the twins will have told their parents all they seem to have said about the interview between the brothers. You’d better have another go at the servants, Br’er Fox.”

“I don’t think the butler would give anything away, sir. He’s a quiet old chap and seems to like the family. If that parlour-maid overheard anything, she might be persuaded to speak up.”

“Go and have a word with her. Use your charm. And in the meantime, Fox, I’ll deal with Master Henry.”

So Fox went off to the kitchen and the constable fetched Henry. Alleyn came straight to the point with Henry, asking him whether his uncle had promised to lend his father a sum of money. Henry instantly said that he had.

“So the financial crisis was over?”

“Yes.”

“Why did none of you tell me of this before?”

“Why should we?” asked Henry coolly. “It didn’t arise.”

“The question of the guilt or innocence of every single one of you arises,” said Alleyn. “As you no doubt realize, Lady Katherine has told us of your financial difficulties. Lord Charles has told us that there is a bailiff in the flat. People do not murder a man who is on the point of rescuing them from bankruptcy.”

“Well,” said Henry, “we didn’t murder Uncle G.”

“Who, in your opinion, did murder him?”

“I’ve no opinion about it.”

“You don’t share your mother’s conviction of Lady Wutherwood’s homicidal insanity?”

“Does my mother feel convinced about that?”

“She told me so.” Henry said nothing. “In plain words,” said Alleyn, “do you think Lady Wutherwood is insane and killed her husband?”

“I don’t see how one can possibly know,” said Henry slowly. “I think she’s mad.”

“That’s an honest speech,” said Alleyn unexpectedly. Henry looked up, quickly. “I think she’s mad, too,” Alleyn said, “but like you I don’t know if she killed her husband. I wonder if we hesitate for the same reason. It seems strange to me that a woman who murdered her husband should demand his body.”

“I know,” said Henry quickly, “but if she’s mad—”

“There’s always that, of course. But to me it doesn’t quite fit. Nor to you, I think?”

“To me,” said Henry impatiently, “nothing fits. The whole thing’s a nightmare. I know none of us did it and that’s all I do know. I can’t think either of their servants are murderers. Giggle’s been with them since he was a kid. He’s a mild, stupid man and plays trains with Mike. Tinkerton is objectionable on the general grounds that she’s got a face like a dead flounder and smells of hair combings. Perhaps she killed him.”

“We’d get on a good deal faster, of course,” Alleyn murmured, “if everybody spoke the flat truth.”

“Really? Don’t you think we’re telling the truth?”

“Hardly any of you except your brother Michael. Of course we have to be polite and make sympathetic, gullible noises but when all’s said and done it’s little but a hollow mockery. You’ll give yourselves away in time, and that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Do you often talk like this to your suspects? It seems very un-Yardlike to me,” said Henry lightly.

“We vary our tune a bit. Why didn’t you go straight to the drawing-room with your brothers?”

Henry jumped, seemed to pull himself together, and said: “I didn’t at first see what you meant. Hustling tactics, I perceive. I went to the hall door to see if they’d gone.”

“Anybody in the hall?” Henry shook his head. “Or the landing?”

“No.”

“Or the passage?”

“No.”

“How long were you about it?”

“Not long enough to find a meat skewer and kill my uncle.”

“Where was the meat skewer?”

“I don’t know,” said Henry. “We had it in our charade. I suppose it was either in —”

“Yes?”

“It must have been in the hall with all the other stuff.”

“You were going to say in the drawing-room or in the hall?”

“Was I?” said Henry.

“Well,” said Alleyn amiably, “I’m only asking. Were you?”

“Yes, but I stopped because I realized it couldn’t have been in the drawing-room. If any one had taken it from there we should have seen them.”

“I see by my notes,” said Alleyn, “that Lord Charles was alone in the drawing-room for some time.”

“Then,” said Henry stolidly, “he would have seen anybody who came in and took the skewer.”

“Did you happen to look at the hall table on this visit?”

“Yes, I did. I looked to see if his hat and coat were gone. Of course they were. He was in the lift, I suppose, by then.”

Alleyn clasped his hands together on the table and seemed to contemplate them. Then he raised his head and looked at Henry. “Can you remember seeing anything on the table?”

“I remember very well that there was nothing on it but a vase of flowers.”

“Nothing? You are positive?”

“Quite. I remember the look of the table very clearly. It reflected the light from the window. Some one must have given the vase a knock because there was some water lying on the table. It’s rather a favourite of my father’s and I remember thinking that the water ought to be mopped up. I gave it a wipe with my handkerchief, but it wasn’t very successful. I didn’t do anything more about it. I was afraid that Aunt V. might come out of cover and I’d had a bellyful of Aunt V. I went into the drawing-room. But there was nothing on the table.”

“Would you swear to that? I mean, take a legal oath?”

“Yes,” said Henry, “I would.”

“What did you talk about when you went into the drawing-room?”

For the first time during the interview Henry seemed to be disconcerted. His eyes went blank. He repeated: “Talk about?” on a note that held an overtone of helplessness.

“Yes. What did you say to your father and your brothers or they to you?”

“I don’t remember. I — oh, yes, I asked if the Gabriels had gone.”

“Anything else?”

“No. I don’t think anybody said anything.”

“And yet,” said Alleyn, “you must have all been feeling most elated.”

“We — yes. Yes, of course, we were.”