Dance to Your Daddy

'I think it may be of very great importance.'

'You mean that this Romilly may have a claim on us?'

'I think he may well consider himself to have a claim on his natural father's fortune. As it is, a life interest in it is left to Felix Napoleon's granddaughter, provided that she attains her twenty-fifth birthday. At her death the money goes to this Romilly. If she does not live to be twenty-five, I am to benefit.'

'What has the death of a clergyman to do with all this?'

'That is what I have to find out. It is all very mysterious at present. Hubert seems to have been on his way to Romilly's house when he met his death, and yet the spot where his body was found does not suggest that he was on the direct route to Galliard Hall. The police have the matter in hand, but I was hoping that you would be able to give me a pointer or two which might be of help to them.'

'I am sorry, but you can scarcely expect me to interest myself in the affair.'

'You have at least persuaded me that Romilly may have some right to his surname, and that is progress of a kind.'

'You have already said that you think he may be Felix Napoleon's natural son, but that gives him no right to call himself Lestrange.'

'I have never seen why a natural son should have no right to his father's name when that name is known and the claim acknowledged.'

'Opinions differ, and I must say that I think you are unwise to have mixed yourself up in the affair.'

'It is too long a story to tell you, and I doubt whether you would be interested in it, but I had no option.'

'Because of the fortune?'

'No. Because Romilly called me in in my professional capacity as a psychiatrist.'

'You mean that the man is mad?'

'No. He was hoping I would say that the heiress presumptive is incapable of managing her own affairs. If I did so, her expectations, for all practical purposes, would cease to exist.'

'It seems that, as usual, you have got yourself mixed up in villainy.'

'That is what I think. Before I go, I must try your exemplary patience a little further. Do the names Willoughby, Corin and Corinna mean anything to you?'

'Corin and Corinna are Sally's children, and therefore are my grandchildren. Their father thought it better that they did not use his name, as they are on the stage in some dubious kind of way, so, to my great annoyance, they have taken their mother's maiden name of Lestrange.'

'I thought Sally's children were named Montmorency and Clotilda. I was present at their christening, if you remember.'

'Those would scarcely be names which could be used for the kind of act which I believe they perpetrate.'

'No, I see that. Oh, well, that accounts for them. What about Willoughby?'

'I have never heard of him.'

'He has disappeared. As he is Hubert's brother, I am wondering whether he also has been murdered.'

'You mean that this clergyman was murdered?'

'The police appear to think so. I do not know yet what evidence they have. One more question, and then I will go. Do you know anything about a family named Provost?'

'Provost? Do you mean the Marshall-Provosts? They are some sort of connections of Sally's husband, John Ponsonby-Marshall, I believe, but they are rather poor and obscure and are not really recognised as relatives by John's family. Why?'

'They seem to be well known to Romilly Lestrange, that is all, but they seem to be called, simply, Provost.'

'I will ring for tea,' said Lady Selina in a tone which indicated, beyond all reasonable doubt, that this nuisance must now cease.

(2)

Armed with such information as Lady Selina had been able to supply, Dame Beatrice rang up her son on Lady Selina's telephone and was invited to dinner and asked to stay for the night.

'Well, mother,' said the eminent man, when dinner was over and he had taken her off to his study for a private chat, 'what mischief have you been getting into this time?'

'I seem to be mixed up, to some extent, in the murder of a member of the family.'

'Don't tell me that somebody has had the public spirit and general goodwill to bump off Aunt Selina!'

'No. I came here from her house and she appears to be alive and well.'

'Who's been murdered, then?'

'A young man-well, I assume that he is young, or comparatively so-named the Reverend Hubert Lestrange.'