“Four and ninepence.”
“Are you sure?”
“Er… yes… I think so.” He was normally a very sure young man, but Lady Eleanor Cremond was able—with one appealing glance—to convert him into a very uncertain creature indeed.
“That comes right then,” she said.
“I don’t see how it can,” ventured Charles Purvis, greatly daring. “You shouldn’t have ninepence at all if you’re charging a shilling and half a crown.”
She smiled sweetly. “There was a man with one leg…”
“Cut rates?”
“I let him into the Park for ninepence. I didn’t think he could walk far.”
Charles Purvis sat down beside her at the baize-coveted table.
“I’ve really come to tell you something rather unpleasant. Mr. Meredith’s been found dead.”
“Not Ossy?” she said, distressed. “Oh, the poor little man. I am sorry. When?”
“We don’t know when,” said Charles Purvis, and told her about the armour.
“But,” she protested in bewildered tones, “he didn’t even like armour. It was the books and pictures that he loved. And all the old documents.”
“I know.”
“In fact”—spiritedly—“he wouldn’t even show people the armoury unless Mr. Ames couldn’t come up from the Vicarage.”
“I know that, too.” He began toying with a wad of unused tickets. “When did you last see him yourself?”
She frowned. “Friday afternoon, I think it was.”
“You’d better be certain,” he warned her. “The police will want to know.”
“The police?”
He nodded.
“It was Friday,” she said slowly. “Just before tea. I went along to the Library and he was there on his own.” She hesitated. “He seemed all right then… no… more than all right. Almost exuberant. On top of the world—you know the sort of feeling. Excited, that’s it.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Say anything? Oh no. I just said I thought he usually took tea with the great aunts on Fridays and he said…” She paused.
“What did he say?”
“He said he thought he had upset them by his discoveries about the earldom.”
“And that,” said Charles Purvis wryly, “is putting it mildly.”
To say that Dillow waylaid those returning from the village cricket match would be an exaggeration and tantamount to unsubtlety on the butler’s part.
He simply happened to be hovering in the entrance hall when they happened to return.
“We won,” announced Lord Henry as he entered. He was a physical parody of his father, seasoned by his mother’s vagueness. “Good match, though.”
“I’m very glad to hear it, sir, but—”
“It’s a help, of course,” chimed in Miles Cremond, close on his heels, “having Henry scoring for us.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Rather.” Miles was a square, thickset man with only some of the Cremond family characteristics. His features would blunt badly with time. Already there was a blur where his chin had been. In contrast, his wife, Laura, was a sharp-featured, angular woman, accustomed to command.
“Miles, you should go straight up to change now.”
“Yes, dear.”
Dillow coughed. “His Lordship has asked to see you all as soon as you came back.”
The Earl and Countess were still in their sitting-room. The Earl got to his feet as the three of them trooped in.
“Something wrong, Father?” That was Lord Henry.
“Yes.”
Laura Cremond said urgently, “What?”
“Mr. Meredith has met with an accident here.”
“Good Lord. Poor chap,” said Henry. “I’d no idea he was even in the house.”
“Neither,” said the Earl of Ornum drily, “had anyone else.”
“Didn’t think he usually came in at the weekend anyway.”
“He didn’t.”
“Thought it funny he wasn’t at the match though,” went on Henry. “Haven’t known him to miss a match in years.”
“Especially the Petering one,” put in Miles, fresh from victory.
The Earl of Omum, aided by several tugs at his moustache, told them about the body in the armour.
Laura Cremond sat down rather suddenly in the nearest chair. “But when did he die?”
“That, Laura, I can’t tell you.”
Lord Henry said thoughtfully, “Someone wasn’t expecting him to be found.”
“No,” agreed the Earl.
“You couldn’t know that that little stinker—what did you say his name was?”
“Michael Fisher.”
“Michael Fisher was going to open up Grumpy like that.”
“To open up who?”
“Grumpy.” Lord Henry gave an engaging smile. “You did say the second suit of armour on the right, didn’t you, Father?”
“I did”—heavily.
“That,” said his son and heir, “was Grumpy. We called all the suits of armour after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you know, when we were small.”
“Did you?”
“Snow White was the puffed and slashed suit,” ventured Miles. “Had a feminine touch about it, we thought.”
“Indeed?” said the Earl.
“That was the Decadence,” said Lord Henry. “We all used to play down there a lot, didn’t we, Miles?”
“Oh yes,” affirmed Miles. “Cut our milk teeth on the armour, you might say.”
“It was Mr. Ames, really,” said Lord Henry. “He was such an enthusiast he didn’t seem to mind how much we hung about. Taught us a lot.”
“All the names for the parts,” agreed Miles. “I’ve forgotten most of them. I expect Henry and William have, too, by now.”
“William,” the Earl sighed. “I was forgetting William played with you.”
Lord Henry frowned in recollection. “There was Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy—that was the one with the long nosepiece.”
“I daresay,” said the Earl, “but I don’t see—”
“Bascinet,” said Miles Cremond suddenly. “I’ve just remembered—”
“I thought that was something you put a baby in.” The Countess of Ornum, silent until now, came to life like an actress on cue.
“Bascinet,” repeated Miles. “That was what Sneezy’s helmet was called. A visored bascinet.”
“That’s right,” agreed Lord Henry. “And Dopey’s was called a burgonet.”
“A closed burgonet,” added Miles. “That’s what made him look so simple. See, we haven’t forgotten after all.”
“You do seem to have forgotten that this isn’t a nursery game,” said his wife sharply.
Miles subsided. “Er… no. Rather not.”
“There were seven without Snow White,” said Lord Henry consideringly. “I wonder why he ended up in Grumpy?”
