really gone but I heard footsteps. I saw Sir Gerald go up the stairs after John, and then I heard a voice call, ‘John’, I thought that there were really too many people about, so I went back to bed.”
“The voice that called out – man or woman?”
“I couldn’t say. Could have been either. It sounded muffled somehow.”
“Thank you, Miss Sutherland. We may have to speak to you again in the morning.”
After she had left, Kerridge drew forward a plan of the guests’ rooms. “That’s odd,” he said. “Burke had no reason to be in that tower. He’s in the other one, the east tower.”
“Maybe he was visiting one of the ladies,” said Judd. “Although he looked a bit of a daisy to me.”
“We’d better see him and find out what he was doing. Where’s Curzon and that list?”
At that moment the door opened and the butler walked in. “I cannot find it,” he said. “The list has gone.”
Kerridge sighed. “Go and take another look. Send Sir Gerald Burke.”
“He may be asleep.”
“Then wake him!” snapped Kerridge.
After ten minutes, Gerald appeared. He held out his wrists. “Put the handcuffs on,” he said. “It’s a fair cop. Isn’t that what they say?”
“Only in penny dreadfuls,” said Kerridge. “Do sit down and tell us what you were doing in the west tower. You followed the footman, John, up the stairs. And yet your room is in the east tower.”
Gerald wrapped himself more closely in an elaborately embroidered dressing-gown. He extracted a long cigarette-lighter, a gold cigarette-case and a box of matches from his pocket and proceeded to light a cigarette with maddening slowness.
“Sir Gerald. I am waiting!”
“I lost the way,” said Gerald. “Simple. I was half-way up when I saw the Trumpington female’s card. So easy to get lost in this pseudo-medieval horror.”
Kerridge consulted his notes. Harry had told him about Lady Hedley’s conversation with Rose and how Mary Gore-Desmond had been a guest of the Hedleys during the season.
He stared at Gerald, who smiled back through a wreath of cigarette smoke. Kerridge decided to take one of his leaps in the dark. “You were very friendly with Miss Gore-Desmond when she was staying with the Hedleys, were you not? In fact, her parents thought you might make a match of it.”
“Ridiculous. I admit I did squire her about a bit. It was Hedley’s idea. He said he’d promised her parents to try to get her engaged but he said that maybe she would look more attractive to the fellows if I could be seen paying her a bit of attention. But she began to take me seriously and I knew I’d better get out or that desperate little thing would be suing me for breach of promise or something. Too, too fatiguing. Not as if she had much of a dowry, either.”
“And when you found that out, that was when she became boring?”
“Don’t inflict your middle-class morals on me, my dear, dear chap. One has to look after oneself in this wicked world. My tailor’s bills alone would keep someone like you in luxury.”
“Were you intimate with her?”
“I do not go around seducing virgins.”
“So you say the reason you were in the west tower was because you lost your way? I find that hard to believe.”
“Think, dear Super, just think what this wretched place is like at night. Hedley’s father went to great expense to get gas piped to the castle and now everyone who is anyone has electricity. The gaslight all over the house and in the corridors is turned off at night and we are all expected to collect our bed candles from the table in the hall.
“I turned left at the first landing instead of right, that is all. A simple mistake. I must inform you, I am known to the crowned heads of Europe and am not in the way of having my word doubted by a common policeman.”
Kerridge comforted himself with a sudden vision of himself, three stone lighter, and twenty years younger, manning the barricades while the limp body of Sir Gerald hung from a lamppost.
“Sir Gerald, I would advise you to co-operate with the police. We are now looking on the death of Miss Gore-Desmond as murder.”
Gerald got languidly to his feet. “Oh, do let me know how you get on. Will that be all?”
“For the moment.”
Gerald swarmed out. “Insufferable little tick,” raged Kerridge. “I’ll bet he did it.”
“Doesn’t look to me as if he could do anything with any woman,” said Judd.
“Oh, that kind would lay the cat if there were money in it. Get the cook up here and then the rest of the kitchen staff. It’s going to be a long night.”
¦
Fortunately for Rose, her mother had instructed the doctor to see her after he had examined the policeman. The sympathetic doctor reported back to Lady Polly that it would be unhealthy to keep her daughter confined to her room and might bring about a crise de nerfs.
She went down for a late breakfast. There were only a few guests present. Rose knew that her mother, like some of the others, preferred to take breakfast in her room.
She helped herself to kidneys, bacon and toast and found a seat next to Harry. He had barricaded himself behind a copy of the
“Do you think someone was really trying to get to me?” asked Rose.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Perhaps it was just another trick by that precious pair, Freddy and Tristram.” As if on cue, the door opened and Cur-zon announced portentously, “Mr Pomfret and Mr. Baker-Willis. Mr. Kerridge wishes to see you.”
Grumbling and throwing nasty looks at Rose, the pair left the room.
“I wish that might turn out to be the case,” said Harry. “But no. They wouldn’t risk anything at all with a murder investigation underway. Kerridge is getting the full pathology report today. I hope he’ll let me know if there was anything interesting in it.”
“Have you seen Kerridge this morning?”
“No, but I saw him last night. He’s probably catching up on some sleep. He wants it to be Gerald Burke.”
“Why?”
“It seems Gerald was seen on the stairs of your tower instead of his own and around the right time. Someone called to John. The footman put down the tray with the tea and went back to see who was calling. That must have been the time when the tea was drugged. Mrs. Trumpington takes laudanum to help her sleep, so does Margaret Bryce-Cuddlestone. There’s a bottle kept in the still-room downstairs. Poor Kerridge. There have been so many phone calls from this castle complaining to people in high places, and that includes Kensington Palace, that he is under tremendous pressure.”
Curzon entered again and approached Rose. “Lady Hadshire wishes your presence, my lady.”
“Can’t it wait until I have finished my breakfast?” demanded Rose.
“Her ladyship said it was extremely urgent.”
Rose sighed and whispered to Harry, “Meet me in the library after luncheon.”
Harry nodded. Rose went up to her mother’s room to find her father there as well.
“Sit down, Rose,” ordered her father. “This is a bad business.”
“I do not think anyone will try anything again, Pa, and we will soon be out of here.”
“That is not why we summoned you. We learned that you have been seen talking to Captain Cathcart at breakfast.”
“Yes. So?”
“Rose, he is not a suitable man for you to consort with.”
Rose felt herself becoming very angry indeed. “Is that all you can think of? It looks as if there might have been another attempt on my life last night and all you can think of is suitable or unsuitable men.”
“It is for your own good. Captain Cathcart has been useful to me, yes, but as a worker, a tradesman if you like. You are not to speak to him again.”
