Daisy glanced at the clock. ‘The tea-gown with the lace panels, I think. It’s still quite cold, so you’d better take your Paisley shawl.’
When she was dressed and her hair had been put up, Rose said, ‘There is no need for you to be on duty in the drawing-room. I wish to speak to my parents in private.’
Harry rang the doorbell of Mrs Jerry Trumpington’s home. He hoped he would have more success with her than he had had with Lord Alfred. He handed his card, and after a few moments was ushered into Mrs Jerry’s sitting-room. She was a vast toad-like woman who carried little bits of food about her dress as a testimony to her gluttony. She had eaten quail for luncheon, Harry noticed, identifying a small bone in the black lace on Mrs Jerry’s bosom, followed by, possibly, Dover sole – there were fish bones, also – and, he guessed, in a mornay sauce, the sauce having caused a thin yellow edge on the lace.
‘Why, my very dear Captain,’ she said, her thick lips opening in a smile. ‘How goes the world?’
‘Very baffling,’ said Harry, sitting down opposite her.
‘I was about to take tea. Will you join me?’
‘Too kind.’
Mrs Jerry rang the bell and ordered tea for two.
‘The reason I am here,’ said Harry, ‘is because of the death of Freddy Pomfret.’
‘Poor chap.’
‘Indeed. Why did you pay Freddy ten thousand pounds?’
She sat very still, her slightly bulbous eyes fixed on his face. Then she said, ‘Did I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, I remember. He was short of the ready, that’s all. I’m a generous soul.’
‘Ten thousand pounds would be considered a fortune to most people in this country.’
‘But I am not most people. How did you find out?’
‘I heard something at Scotland Yard. No doubt the police have been in touch with his bank.’ Harry could imagine Mrs Jerry’s fury if she knew the real source of the information.
Two footmen came in carrying the tea-things. Mrs Jerry waited until they had both been served and then waved the servants away. When the door had closed behind them, she said, ‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’
‘I am working for his family,’ said Harry, feeling that he really must contact Freddy’s family as soon as possible before he was caught out in his lies.
‘I really think the – er – trade you are in is most distasteful.’ Mrs Jerry ignored the thin bread and butter and the mounds of sandwiches and fruitcakes and selected a meringue filled with cream.
‘Was Freddy blackmailing you?’ asked Harry.
She bit down on the meringue so violently that a shower of meringue crumbs, meringue powder, and a dollop of cream joined the detritus of food on her bosom.
‘Geffout!’ she roared when she could.
‘I beg your pardon?’
She seized a napkin and wiped her mouth. She lumbered to her feet, panting with rage.
‘Out!’ she shouted. ‘And never darken my doorstep again.’
‘I didn’t know anyone actually said that apart from the stage,’ said Harry equably. ‘If Freddy was not blackmailing you, why are you so furious?’
Mrs Freddy rang the bell. ‘Because of your impertinence. Because I am a respectable woman without a stain on my character.’
‘Unlike your dress, madam? You are covered in food. You are a walking menu.’
The footmen entered. ‘Throw him out!’ howled Mrs Jerry, collapsing back in her chair.
‘It’s all right, I’m going,’ said Harry.
As he walked outside, he wondered if he had been too blunt. He reflected ruefully that he would not be able to contact Rose because he had nothing to tell her, and in the same moment wondered why that should matter so much.
‘So pleasant to see you looking your old self again,’ sighed Lady Polly. ‘We have decided to launch you back into society by gentle degrees.’
To her mother’s surprise, Rose did not object but merely lowered her long eyelashes and said meekly, ‘Yes, indeed.’
‘There are various cards here. We will go through them and decide which ones to accept.’
Rose’s sharp eyes caught sight of a name – Mrs Angela Stockton. She picked up the card. Mrs Angela Stockton was requesting the pleasure of the earl and countess and their daughter at a lecture she was giving on Rudolf Steiner.
‘This looks interesting.’
The countess raised her lorgnette and studied the card. ‘It’s for tomorrow afternoon. Too late to accept now. Besides, who is Rudolf Steiner?’
‘It would be interesting to find out.’
‘I have no intention of going, even although the woman is perfectly respectable.’
‘I would like to go – with Daisy.’
‘As to Daisy,’ said Lady Polly, ‘I fear you may have become over-familiar with her.’
‘I agree. So I am going to make her my companion and hire a lady’s maid.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘It was Daisy who persuaded me to leave my working life. You are always worried that I will do something disgraceful. Daisy takes care of me. Why, she was even shocked that I should threaten to tell society how you arranged for the road and railway station at Stacey Court to be blown up so that the king would not visit us.’
‘Quite right. I hope you have dropped that silly nonsense.’
‘I’ll need to think about it. Of course, were Daisy elevated to my companion, I wouldn’t dream of mentioning it.’
‘We spoilt you,’ said Lady Polly bitterly. ‘Most young gels who behaved the way you have behaved would have been locked up in the asylum by now. Wake up!’ she suddenly shouted at her husband.
‘Hey, what!’ The little earl blinked like an owl.
‘Tea is served and your daughter wants to make that maid of hers a companion.’
‘And what does Cathcart have to say about that?’
‘Cathcart! He has nothing to say in what our daughter does or does not do.’
‘You must admit he saved her bacon on more than one occasion.’ The earl rang the bell and when the butler answered it, he said, ‘Brum, fetch the telephone.’
‘My lord, that instrument does not detach from the study. It is necessary for one to go to the machine.’
‘Well, go to it and phone that Cathcart fellow and tell him to come here.’
‘It would be better to send a carriage for him,’ said Rose quickly, fearing that Miss Jubbles would take the call and not pass it on. ‘His office is in the Buckingham Palace Road. Number Twenty-five-A.’
‘Very well, jump to it,’ said the earl. ‘By Jove, do I see Madeira cake?’
Looking down from the window, Miss Jubbles saw the carriage with the crest on the panels drawing up outside and a liveried footman jumping down from the backstrap.
She heard footsteps on the stairs. The footman entered. ‘I am here to take Captain Cathcart to visit the Earl of Hadshire.’
Miss Jubbles’s heart beat hard. That girl again!
‘I am afraid,’ she announced in tones of stultifying gentility, ‘that Captain Cathcart is not here. He has gone abroad.’
‘And when is he expected back?’
‘He did not say.’
‘When he returns, tell him to contact his lordship immediately.’
‘Certainly.’
And then Miss Jubbles heard that familiar tread on the stairs. Harry had suffered a shrapnel wound during the Boer War, and on the bad days, walked with a pronounced limp, and this was one of the bad days.
He entered the office and paused in the doorway. He had recognized the earl’s carriage outside.
