“I don’t think anything would upset that lady much.”
From Beatrice’s tone, she had not liked Cynthia Dacres.
“Just anxious to get away, she was. Said her business would suffer. She’s a big dressmaker in London, so Mr. Ellis told us.”
A big dressmaker, to Beatrice, meant “trade,” and trade she looked down upon.
“And her husband?”
Beatrice sniffed.
“Steadied his nerves with brandy, he did. Or unsteadied them, some would say.”
“What about Lady Mary Lytton Gore?”
“A very nice lady,” said Beatrice, her tone softening. “My great aunt was in service with her father at the Castle. A pretty young girl she was, so I’ve always heard. Poor she may be, but you can see she’s someone – and so considerate, never giving trouble and always speaking so pleasant. Her daughter’s a nice young lady, too. They didn’t know Sir Bartholomew well, of course, but they were very distressed.”
“Miss Wills?”
Some of Beatrice’s rigidity returned.
“I’m sure I couldn’t say sir, what Miss Wills thought about it.”
“Or what you thought about her?” asked Sir Charles. “Come now, Beatrice, be human.”
An unexpected smile dinted Beatrice’s wooden cheeks. There was something appealingly schoolboyish in Sir Charles’s manner. She was not proof against the charm that nightly audiences had felt so strongly.
“Really, sir, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Just what you thought and felt about Miss Wills.”
“Nothing, sir, nothing at all. She wasn’t, of course – ”
Beatrice hesitated.
“Go on, Beatrice.”
“Well, she wasn’t quite the ‘class’ of the others, sir. She couldn’t help it, I know, went on Beatrice kindly. But she did things a real lady wouldn’t have done. She pried, if you know what I mean, sir, poked and pried about.”
Sir Charles tried hard to get this statement amplified, but Beatrice remained vague. Miss Wills had poked and pried, but asked to produce a special instance of the poking, Beatrice seemed unable to do so. She merely repeated that Miss Wills pried into things that were no business of hers.
They gave it up at last, and Mr. Satterthwaite said:
“Young Mr. Manders arrived unexpectedly, didn’t he?”
“Yes, sir, he had an accident with his car – just by the lodge gates, it was. He said it was a bit of luck its happening just here. The house was full, of course, but Miss Lyndon had a bed made up for him in the little study.”
“Was everyone very surprised to see him?”
“Oh, yes, sir, naturally, sir.”
Asked her opinion of Ellis, Beatrice was non-committal. She’d seen very little of him. Going off the way he did looked bad, though why he should want to harm the master she couldn’t imagine. Nobody could.
“What was he like, the doctor, I mean? Did he seem to be looking forward to the house party? Had he anything on his mind?”
“He seemed particularly cheerful, sir. Smiled to himself, he did, as though he had some joke on. I even heard him make a joke with Mr. Ellis, a thing he’d never done with Mr. Baker. He was usually a bit brusque with the servants, kind always, but not speaking to them much.”
“What did he say?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite eagerly.
“Well, I forget exactly now, sir. Mr. Ellis had come up with a telephone message, and Sir Bartholomew asked him if he was sure he’d got the names right, and Mr. Ellis said quite sure – speaking respectful, of course. And the doctor he laughed and said, ‘You’re a good fellow, Ellis, a first-class butler. Eh, Beatrice, what do you think?’ And I was so surprised, sir, at the master speaking like that – quite unlike his usual self – that I didn’t know what to say.”
“And Ellis?”
“He looked kind of disapproving, sir, as though it was the kind of thing he hadn’t been used to. Stiff like.”
“What was the telephone message?” asked Sir Charles.
“The message, sir? Oh, it was from the Sanatorium – about a patient who had arrived there and had stood the journey well.”
“Do you remember the name?”
“It was a queer name, sir.” Beatrice hesitated. “Mrs. de Rushbridger – something like that.”
“Ah, yes,” said Sir Charles soothingly. “Not an easy name to get right on the telephone. Well, thank you very much, Beatrice. Perhaps we could see Alice now.”
When Beatrice had left the room Sir Charles and Mr. Satterthwaite compared notes by an interchange of glances.
“Miss Wills poked and pried, Captain Dacres got drunk, Mrs. Dacres displayed no emotion. Anything there? Precious little.”
“Very little indeed,” agreed Mr. Satterthwaite.
“Let’s pin our hopes on Alice.”
Alice was a demure, dark-eyed young woman of thirty. She was only too pleased to talk.
She herself didn’t believe Mr. Ellis had anything to do with it. He was too much the gentleman. The police had suggested he was just a common crook. Alice was sure he was nothing of the sort.
“You’re quite certain he was an ordinary honest-to-God butler?” asked Sir Charles.
“Not ordinary, sir. He wasn’t like any butler I’ve ever worked with before. He arranged the work different.”
“But you don’t think he poisoned your master.”
“Oh, sir, I don’t see how he could have done. I was waiting at table with him, and he couldn’t have put anything in the master’s food without my seeing him.”
“And the drinks?”
“He went round with the wine, sir. Sherry first, with the soup, and then hock and claret. But what could he have done, sir? If there’d been anything in the wine he’d have poisoned everybody – or all those who took it. It’s not as though the master had anything that nobody else had. The same thing with the port. All the gentlemen had port, and some of the ladies.”
“The wine glasses were taken out on a tray?”
“Yes, sir, I held the tray and Mr. Ellis put the glasses on it, and I carried the tray out to the pantry, and there they were, sir, when the police came to examine them. The port glasses were still on the table. And the police didn’t find anything.”
“You’re quite sure that the doctor didn’t have anything to eat or drink at dinner that nobody else had?”
“Not that I saw, sir. In fact, I’m sure he didn’t.”
“Nothing that one of the guests gave him – ”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Do you know anything about a secret passage, Alice?”
“One of the gardeners told me something about it. Comes out in the wood where there’s some old walls and things tumbled down. But I’ve never seen any opening to it in the house.”
“Ellis never said anything about it?”
“Oh, no, sir, he wouldn’t know anything about it, I’m sure.”
“Who do you really think killed your master, Alice?”
“I don’t know, Sir. I can’t believe anyone did… I feel it must have been some kind of accident.”
“H’m. Thank you, Alice.”
“If it wasn’t for the death of Babbington,” said Sir Charles as the girl left the room, “we could make her the criminal. She’s a good-looking girl… And she waited at table… No, it won’t do. Babbington was murdered; and anyway Tollie never noticed good-looking girls. He wasn’t made that way.”
“But he was fifty-five,” said Mr. Satterthwaite thoughtfully.
“Why do you say that?”
