Death of a Peer

who is not a servant or a strange nurse to be with her in that mausoleum of a house. Imogen says she will go but that I will not have. She’s completely fagged out and where she is to sleep if Violet stays here for the rest of the night I simply don’t know. I — really the whole thing is getting a little more than we can reasonably be expected to endure. I wonder if you could possibly help us?”

“I think so,” Alleyn said. “We can arrange for Lady Wutherwood to go to her own house. We shall have to send some one along to be on duty there, but that can easily be done. I can spare a man from here.”

“I’m extraordinarily relieved.”

“About somebody else going — who do you suggest?”

“Well…” Lord Charles passed his hand over the back of his head. “Well, Robin Grey — Roberta Grey, you know — has very nicely offered to go.”

“Rather a youthful guardian,” said Alleyn with a lift of his eyebrow.

“Ah — yes. Yes, but she’s a most resourceful and composed little person and says she doesn’t mind. My wife suggests that Nanny might go to keep her company. I mean she will be perfectly all right. Two trained nurses and Tinkerton, who for all her fright insists that she can carry on as usual and says Violet will be quite quiet when she has had this medicine of hers. You see Frid, my eldest girl, may be a bit shaken, and of course Patch — Patricia — is too young. And we feel it ought to be a woman — I mean just for the look of things. You see, the nurse says that without some one besides Tinkerton she feels she can’t take the responsibility until the second nurse comes. So we thought that if Robin — I mean, of course, with your approval.”

Alleyn remembered a steadfast face, heart-shaped and colourless, with wide-set eyes of grey. His own phrase “a courageous little liar” recurred to him. But it was no business of his who the Lampreys sent to keep up the look of things in Brummell Street. Better perhaps that it should be the small New Zealander who surely did not come into this tragicomedy except in the dim role of confidante and wholehearted admirer of the family. With a remote feeling of uneasiness Alleyn agreed that Miss Grey and Nanny Burnaby should go in a taxi to Brummell Street; that Lady Wutherwood, Tinkerton, and the nurses, should be driven there by Giggle with Gibson as police escort. Lord Charles hurried away to organize these manoeuvres. Nigel, with a dubious look at Alleyn, murmured something about returning in a minute or two and slipped out after Lord Charles. Alleyn, left alone, walked restlessly about the dining-room. When Fox returned Alleyn instantly thrust the notes of Lord Charles’s statement at him.

“Look at that,” he said, “or rather don’t. I’ll tell you. He said that when they got to the far end of the drawing-room his brother promised in a mumble to help him. He said that none of his precious brood could have heard it. He was in a fix. He didn’t know what they’d told me. I tripped him, Br’er Fox.”

“Nicely,” said Fox, thumbing over the notes.

“Yes, but, damn him, it still might be true. They may have lied but he may have spoken the truth. I’ll swear he didn’t, though.”

“I know he didn’t,” said Fox.

“Do you, by George?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been talking to the parlour-maid.”

“With parlour-maids,” said Alleyn, “you stand supreme. What did she say?”

“She was in the pantry at the time,” said Fox, hauling out his spectacles and note-book. “The pantry door was open and she heard most of what was said between the brothers. I got her to own up that she slid out into the passage after a bit and had a good earful. I asked her why none of the other servants heard what she says she heard and her answer was that they all hung together with the family. She’s under notice and doesn’t mind what she says. Rather a vindictive type of girl with very shapely limbs.”

“That’s nice,” said Alleyn. “Go on. What’s her name?”

“Blackmore’s the name. Cora. She says that the two gentlemen got very hot with each other and there was a lot of talk about the deceased cutting his brother out of everything he could. Blackmore says he went on something terrible. Called his present lordship everything from a sponger to a blackguard, and fetched up by saying he’d see him in the gutter before he’d give him another penny-piece. Then she says his present lordship lost his temper and things got very noisy until the boy — Master Michael — went into the drawing-room with a parcel. When Blackmore saw Master Michael she made out that she was doing something to the soda-water machine in the passage. He went in and they pulled up and said no more to each other. The deceased came away almost at once. As he got to the door he said, speaking very quiet and venomous according to Blackmore: ‘That’s final. If there’s any more whining for help I’ll take legal measures to rid myself of the lot of you.’ Now, sir,” said Fox, looking over the top of his spectacles, “Blackmore was playing round behind the soda-water machine which is close to the wall. She says she heard his present lordship say, very distinctly: ‘I wish that there was some measure, legal or illegal, by which I could get rid of you!”

“Crikey!” said Alleyn.

“That’s what I thought,” said Fox.

CHAPTER XVI NIGHT THICKENS

It was in a sort of trance that Roberta offered to spend the rest of an endless night in an unknown house with the apparently insane widow of a murdered peer. Lord Charles had displayed an incisiveness that surprised Roberta. When Charlot said she would go to Brummell Street he had said: “I absolutely forbid it, Immy,” and rather to Roberta’s surprise Charlot had at once given in. Frid offered to go, but not with any great show of enthusiasm, and Charlot looked dubious. So Roberta, wondering whether she spoke out of turn or whether at last here was something she could do for the Lampreys, made her offer. With the exception of Henry they all seemed to be gently relieved. Roberta knew that the Lampreys, persuaded perhaps by dim ideas of pioneering hardihood, were inclined to think of all colonials as less sheltered and more inured to nervous strain than their English contemporaries. They were charmingly grateful and asked if she was sure she wouldn’t mind.

“You won’t see a sign of Aunt V.,” said Frid, and Charlot added: “And you really ought to see the house, Robin. I can’t tell you what it is like. All Victorian gloom and glaring stuffed animals. Too perfect.”

“I don’t see why Robin should go,” said Henry.

“Robin says she doesn’t mind,” Frid pointed out. “And if Nanny goes she’ll feel as safe as a Crown jewel. Isn’t Robin sweet, Mummy?”

“She’s very kind indeed,” said Charlot. “Honestly, Robin darling, are you sure?”

“I’m quite sure if you think I’ll do.”

“It’s just for somebody to be there with the nurses. If Violet should by any chance make some sort of scene you can ring us up. But I’m sure she won’t. She needn’t even know you are there.”

And so it was arranged. P. C. Martin, no longer in his armchair, stared fixedly at a portrait of a Victorian Lamprey. Lord Charles went off for his interview with Alleyn. Frid did her face; the twins looked gloomily at old Punches; Charlot, having refused to go to bed until the interviews were over, put her feet up and closed her eyes.

“Every moment,” said Henry, “this room grows more like a dental waiting parlour. Here is a particularly old Tatler, Robin. Will you look at it and complete the picture?”

“Thank you, Henry. What are you reading?”

“The Bard. I am reading ‘Macbeth.’ He has a number of very meaty things to say about murder.”

“Do you like the Bard?”

“I suppose I must, as quite often I find myself reading him.”

“On this occasion,” Stephen said. “I call it bad form t-to read ‘Macbeth.’ ”

“‘Night thickens,’ ” said Frid in a professionally deep voice.

“And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood: