‘Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’ Sir Peregrine addressed his visitors as if they were the lowest variety of office boy in his employ.
Inspector Fletcher had agreed with Inspector Devereux that the Marlow police would confine themselves to the murder at the Jesus Hospital. The complicated questions of the authenticity of the codicil could be left to Devereux and Powerscourt. Now Inspector Fletcher could feel his nerves rising. No pauses between sentences, he said to himself. No hesitations. He thought he might start to shake quite soon if he didn’t get a grip on himself. He began taking a series of deep breaths as his wife advised.
‘We would like to know,’ he began hesitantly, ‘what you were doing in the Elysian Fields Hotel outside Marlow the other evening.’
The Inspector had gained in strength as his question progressed. He felt slightly better. Maybe it was going to be all right.
‘Who says I was there?’ Sir Peregrine remembered Inspector Fletcher from the day of the murder at the Jesus Hospital. He had thought little of him then. He saw nothing to make him change his mind.
‘Your car was seen on the road leading to the hotel, Sir Peregrine. And the hotel manager confirmed your presence.’
‘What if I was? I’m a director of the damned hotel. Man can visit any damned hotel he likes, especially if he’s on the board.’
‘Could we ask who you saw when you were there, Sir Peregrine. At the hotel, I mean.’
‘That’s none of your damned business either.’ Sir Peregrine paused while Miss Davis placed an ornate tea tray in front of her master. As a further insult to the visitors, it was laden with scones and sandwiches and three alluring slices of cake. ‘Man can see who he likes, damn your eyes.’
‘I put it to you, Sir Peregrine,’ Inspector Fletcher was feeling almost confident now, ‘that the man you went to see was Thomas Monk, Warden of the Jesus Hospital which, as you know as well as I do, is run by your own livery company the Silkworkers.’
‘I do wish you would mind your damned business. Monk or no Monk, it’s got nothing to do with you.’ Sir Peregrine paused to eat an enormous mouthful of chocolate cake. For some reason, Fletcher was to tell his sergeant later, the sight of the chocolate cake made him very angry indeed.
‘I do not feel, Sir Peregrine,’ he said firmly, happy in the knowledge that he had not paused for the last five minutes or so, ‘that you are taking our questions as seriously as you should. There was a murder at the Jesus Hospital a matter of hours after your car was seen at the nearby hotel. We have no reports of anybody seeing the car leave. For all we know, it, and you, could still have been there at the time of the killing. There was a second murder at the Silkworkers Hall in the City of London. You were the last person to see the victim alive. Your position is more serious than you seem to think, Sir Peregrine.’
‘Are you saying that I am a murderer? Am I a suspect?’
‘I am not saying that you are the murderer. As to whether you are a suspect or not I leave that up to you to decide for the moment. Now, if we could return to the business in hand, perhaps you could tell us, Sir Peregrine, when you left the Elysian Fields the night before the murder?’
‘Are you deaf as well as stupid? It’s none of your damned business!’
‘Then we can assume, can we, Sir Peregrine, that you were still there on the morning of the murder?’
Sir Peregrine made a mighty noise that sounded like a cross between a howl of pain and a yell of triumph. He rose to his feet. His face had turned purple. He was pounding his enormous fist on the table. ‘Get out! Get out now! You insult me in my own office! How dare you? A couple of failed police officers from the back of beyond! Ignorant clodhoppers! Get out! Go on! Clear off!’
Oddly enough it was Sergeant Donaldson who had the last word in the interview. ‘Good day to you, Sir Peregrine,’ he said, opening the door. ‘So glad you enjoyed your tea.’
Sir Peregrine sat down and took a quick swig straight from the half bottle of whisky concealed in his bottom drawer. He pressed a button underneath his desk. Miss Davis appeared as if by magic.
‘Get me the bloody solicitors,’ he snarled. ‘And get them now!’
Mrs Hamilton’s spoken French classes were going well. The Lower Sixth were well advanced into ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’. They had passed the point where the King of Bohemia reveals himself to Holmes and Watson and they have made the acquaintance of Irene Adler, the well-known adventuress. Mrs Hamilton wondered if she had picked too exotic a story, if she wouldn’t have done better with some more domestic problem set in Surrey with governesses and gamekeepers. She hadn’t yet tried to change the subject to murder at Allison’s — she rather feared there was no actual murder in ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ — as she hadn’t deemed it appropriate.
The boys read their section of the story or gazed longingly at Mrs Hamilton when they were not on duty. She had become the focus, the depository of the teenage longings and the teenage fantasies of an entire class. As she made her way back to the hotel that afternoon she checked behind herself a couple of times. It was as she thought. She was being followed. Francis had told her years before of a tingling sensation when somebody is coming after you. For Mrs Hamilton this was the second day of the pursuit. It was as she had predicted. She smiled slightly as she went into the hotel. Then she ran up the stairs and turned all the lights on in her suite of sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. After that she went out of the side door of the Crown, round the back of the green and tapped David Lewis lightly on the shoulder. ‘Come and have some tea,’ she said sweetly. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold out here.’
David Lewis followed his new teacher into the hotel. He thought he had turned red permanently. He suspected his face might never return to its normal condition. His eyes still had the look of puppy-like devotion they had shown in class.
Lady Lucy ordered tea and scones. The room was large with Georgian windows looking out over the green. ‘You’ll never make a detective like Sherlock Holmes if you follow people like that, David,’ she said with a smile. ‘I think you need to be more subtle, not so much sudden jumping behind trees.’
‘I just wanted to be close to you, Mrs Hamilton. I don’t quite know how to say this. I’ve never felt like this in my whole life, not ever…’
Lady Lucy was saved by the arrival of the tea. The maid poured two cups and handed them round before she left. Lady Lucy had been wondering how to extricate herself from this situation which could prove so embarrassing.
‘My husband should be here in a minute,’ she said brightly, buttering a scone. ‘He’s on his way up from London.’ She thought that might buy some time. She watched as David’s face fell. Maybe he hadn’t thought of her with a husband at all. Lady Lucy decided to take a gamble, a huge gamble.
‘He’s a detective, my husband, like Sherlock Holmes, only he’s real, my husband I mean.’
‘Really?’ said David Lewis. ‘And is he working on a case at present?’ There had been mention in the school of a detective who had talked to the headmaster and to Inspector Grime. What was his name? David Lewis didn’t think it was Hamilton.
Lady Lucy got there before him. ‘My married name is Powerscourt, Lady Lucy Powerscourt,’ she said. ‘Before that I was called Hamilton. And my husband’s called Francis.’
‘And are you detecting something up here?’ David Lewis had temporarily forgotten about love in favour of crime and investigation. This was like one of those shockers that passed round the school.
‘Of course we are, silly. And we’d like you to join us, to become part of our team. It depends, of course, on your being able to keep a secret.’
‘Of course I can keep a secret, Lady Powerscourt, Mrs Hamilton, dear me, what should I call you?’
‘You’d better go on calling me Mrs Hamilton, I think, David. In case the other name slips out in class.’
David Lewis stared at Lady Lucy for a moment. ‘You’re here because of the death of the bursar, aren’t you? Mr Gill. Is that the secret?’
‘Part of it, David, just part of it. There are other matters I can’t tell you about just yet. Very deep, very dark matters.’
‘What can I do to help? I’ll do anything, Mrs Hamilton, I’m so happy to be a part of the team.’
Lady Lucy cut him off. She thought he might be about to go back on to dangerous ground.
‘There is one thing,’ she said, ‘that would really help the investigation.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You remember there was a lot of talk about the false postman who came to the school, and who was almost certainly the murderer? And how the police repeated the exercise a couple of days later, exactly like the first
