left.
They went down the stairs, the light from their bed candles throwing up great shadows on the stone walls. Then there was a scream.
“I think it’s from the other tower. It’s along this corridor here,” whispered Daisy.
They made their way along the long corridor which connected the towers. Lady Hedley appeared from a room at the end of the corridor. Her face was chalk-white and she had a handkerchief pressed to her lips.
“Go back to your room, Lady Rose,” she said. “We are waiting for the doctor. Miss Gore-Desmond is…has been…is ill.”
But other guests appeared behind Rose and they all clustered forward despite the marchioness’s protests.
The gaslight was flaring in Mary Gore-Desmond’s room. Rose had a brief glimpse of a still figure on the bed, the marquess, the butler, the housekeeper, and Mr. Jerry Trumpington, when the marquess turned round and with his face red with anger shouted at them to go away.
“I wonder if they’ll manage to get a doctor on a night like this,” whispered Daisy. “I think she’s dead.”
? Snobbery with Violence ?
Six
– WINSTON CHURCHILL, SPEECH AT LEICESTER, 1909
“Daisy! What are you doing?”
Rose had just come down to the main hall on her way to breakfast the following morning to find Daisy standing with her ear pressed against the door of the earl’s study.
“Sorry,” said Daisy, darting guiltily away from the door and joining her mistress. “But it’s ever so interesting.”
“Don’t say ‘ever so’,” Rose corrected automatically. “You should not listen at doors. It’s vulgar.”
“Lord Hedley is in a right rage. Seems it’s not the usual doctor but a new one, the old one having popped his clogs last week.”
“Daisy!”
“And he won’t sign the death certificate!”
Now Daisy had Rose’s full attention. “Why not?”
“Seems like this new doctor, a Dr. Perriman, well, he says it’s arsenic poisoning, of that he’s sure. Lord Hedley, he says, “So what?” He says a lot of ladies take arsenic to clear the skin and she’s overdone it. Dr. Perriman says he’s already phoned the police and Lord Hedley is raging and saying he’ll have him drummed out of the medical profession.”
There was a thunderous knocking at the door and both women jumped nervously.
The hall-boy, who had been slumbering in a chair near the door, awoke with a start and rushed to open it.
A police sergeant stood there, with a constable at his side. The butler, Curzon, appeared in the hall.
The police sergeant said something in a low voice and then both policemen were led off to the study.
¦
The castle was hushed and sombre. The wind had died down but great black clouds still tore across the sky.
Rose was once more on her way downstairs for afternoon tea when she heard Curzon announcing in tones of doom, “Detective Superintendent Kerridge.”
The superintendent and another detective vanished into the marquess’s study. Rose joined Margaret and the others in the drawing-room where a lavish afternoon tea was being served.
The American twins, Harriet and Deborah Peterson, were whispering together. The rest were moodily silent until Mrs. Trumpington raised her voice. “Who just arrived? I heard a carriage. Curzon?”
The butler, who had entered the room after Rose, said, “Persons from Scotland Yard have arrived, madam.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous.” Mrs. Trumpington selected a large slice of Madeira cake, scoffed it down, brushed off the crumbs which decorated her jet-embroidered gown, and declared, “I mean, the silly girl obviously took arsenic for her skin. Took too much, that’s all. And anyway, that doctor had no right to jump to the conclusion that it was poisoning. And how does he even know it was arsenic?”
“He says she smelled of garlic,” said Sir Gerald-Burke.
“So?”
“Evidently a sign of arsenic poisoning. Then she’d vomited all over the place and –”
“Ladies present. I say.” Harry Trenton.
“You did ask,” remarked Gerald languidly. “It’s all such a bore. I suppose we will all have to be interviewed by the police.”
Lady Sarah Trenton gasped and fell back in her chair with her eyes closed.
“Has she fainted?” asked Neddie Freemantle.
“Acting as usual,” said Frederica Sutherland roundly. “She’s always acting and posing.”
Sarah opened her eyes and glared at them all. “I have delicate sensibilities which the rest of you seem to lack.”
“Did they find arsenic in her room among her cosmetics?” asked Margaret.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Trumpington. “Ask the maids. There’s been an army of them in there cleaning up and laying her out.”
“That’s destroying evidence,” gasped Rose.
They all stared at her and she flushed at being suddenly the centre of so much attention. “It’s just that Scotland Yard has recently opened a fingerprint bureau. If the room had not been cleaned, they could have taken all our fingerprints and discovered if there was anyone who had been in her room.”
“Trust our walking encyclopaedia to know that,” said Gerald waspishly, and Rose, who had begun to regard him as a friend, gave him a hurt look.
The door opened and Lord Hedley came in. “The police want to interview you one at a time. Sorry about this. It’s all the fault of that doctor, Perriman. First it’s the working classes getting uppity, now it’s the middle classes. They make trouble to get their revenge on us.”
“Why would they want to do that?” asked Rose.
“Envy. Pure envy,” said the marquess. “Your parents phoned, young lady. I told them there was no need to travel here. Once this trivial matter has been resolved, we can all relax and enjoy ourselves. Now, the police will begin with the ladies. Lady Rose? Perhaps you should go first.”
“Why?” Rose wanted to ask. But she got up and followed the marquess through a door in the hall and along a corridor. “I’ve put him in the estate office,” said the marquess. He ushered Rose in and closed the door.
Rose and Kerridge took stock of each other. Kerridge saw a very beautiful girl in high-boned white lace blouse and tailored skirt. Rose saw a thickset grey-haired man, with calm grey eyes and a thick grey moustache, standing behind a desk.
“Please be seated, my lady,” said Kerridge. Another detective sat a little away from Kerridge and a policeman with a large notebook was perched on a hard chair in a corner of the room. A stuffed fox glared down from the wall behind the desk, its mouth open in a snarl.
“Now, Lady Rose,” said Kerridge, “where were you on the night Miss Gore-Desmond died?”
“I was in my room and I heard someone shouting – I think shouting, “Get a doctor.” My maid and I put on our dressing-gowns and followed the sound of the voices. Lady Hedley came out of what I now know to have been Miss Gore-Desmond’s room. She said Miss Gore-Desmond had been taken ill. I had a glimpse inside the room of Lord Hedley, the butler and housekeeper, and, I think, Mr. Trumpington. I am afraid that is all I can tell you.”
