CHAPTER TEN
Dinner that evening started off silently. Even Lady’s Glensheil’s tongue was silent. Her black gown was decorated with so much jet that it glittered like the skin of some primeval reptile.
The men were wearing black armbands and the ladies had looked out their darkest clothes. For the young women of the party, Rose, Daisy, Maisie and Frederica, it had been hard to find anything suitable to wear, debutantes usually being attired for evening in white or pastels.
Daisy was the most decorous in her grey silk. Rose was wearing lilac silk, but with a dark purple shawl about her shoulders. Maisie’s maid had stitched black edging on a lime-green gown and Frederica had embellished her white gown with a tartan sash as if for a highland ball, thinking that a show of native Scottishness showed enough respect for the dead.
Everyone began to drink more than usual. The acidulous Sir Gerald Burke was the first to give tongue. People said he had become nastier after that business of extricating himself from the clutches of a middle-aged American lady. Gerald had wrongly assumed the lady to be an heiress and, on finding she was not, had proceeded to retreat, followed by her loud and public recriminations.
‘I don’t know why we are all being kept here,’ he complained. ‘It’s all your fault, Jerry.’
‘What, me? I didn’t murder her, old chap.’
‘You wanted rid of her. Why not just own up and let us all go home?’
Harry decided to see if he could shake them. ‘I don’t think it could possibly be Jerry,’ he said. ‘I mean, he was four sheets to the wind last night. His hand wouldn’t have been steady enough to inject the drug into the champagne bottle.’
All eyes turned on him. Angela Stockton, resplendent in acres of black velvet and a black cap, looked like an actress playing Hamlet’s aunt. ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he, Peregrine?’
‘Talking tosh,’ mumbled her son. ‘We’ve got to get out of here or we’ll all go mad.’
He had reason to be worried. The night before, when Mrs Jerry was choking out her last breath, he had been busy seducing a buxom kitchen maid. The girl had cried afterwards and said she had sinned and he was terrified she would tell Lady Glensheil before he had a chance to put some miles between himself and the old battleaxe.
‘No,’ said Harry calmly. ‘Mrs Jerry did not struggle before she died. There was an empty champagne bottle beside the bed. The cork was in the wastepaper basket and it had a fine hole pierced in it.’
There was an alarmed silence. The general consensus of opinion of everyone except Rose and Daisy was that the much-goaded Jerry had lost his rag in a drunken rage and throttled his wife and they didn’t blame him one bit. ‘Would have done it myself if I’d been married to a bullying horror like her,’ Neddie Freemantle had said earlier.
‘I do not like everyone shouting across the table,’ said Lady Glensheil. ‘Kindly confine your conversations to the people on your right or on your left.’
No one paid any attention to her.
‘You know what I think?’ asked Tristram Baker-Willis ponderously.
‘No, we don’t,’ snapped Sir Gerald. ‘None of us thinks you
Tristram ignored him. ‘I think it’s all balderdash and tosh about poor old Freddy being a blackmailer.’ He fastened his gaze upon Rose. ‘You never liked him. That’s why you started this rumour about blackmail.’
‘That’s not true!’ said Rose. ‘How do you explain three people paying him ten thousand pounds each and now one of them is murdered?’
‘We all know Jerry strangled his wife,’ said Tristram.
‘I say, steady the buffs.’ Neddie Freemantle.
‘Enough!’ shouted Lady Glensheil. ‘We will now talk about something else!’
That evening she was wearing a small jewelled cap embellished with ostrich feathers and those very feathers appeared to bristle with outrage.
They all felt silent, poking at their food like bad children and covertly studying one another.
There was a general feeling of relief when she rose to lead the ladies to the drawing-room. They were crossing the hall when a small kitchen maid curtsied and addressed Angela Stockton. ‘Mum, I got to speak to you.’
‘What are you doing abovestairs, Miss Whatever-your-name is?’ barked Lady Glensheil.
‘I got to be done right by,’ whined the maid. She pointed at Angela. ‘Her son done took my cherry.’
‘What has this to do with fruit?’ demanded her ladyship.
‘I’ll deal with it,’ said Angela hurriedly.
She stepped forward and took the girl by the arm and hustled her into an ante-room.
‘What’s this about, girl?’
‘Your son bedded with me last night.’
‘You must have led him on!’
‘Not me, mum. I feel I ought to go to the perlice. After all, a fellow who ruins a poor girl like me must be up to worst.’
Angela slumped down in a chair.
‘What’s your name?’ she demanded.
‘Alice Turvey, mum.’
‘How much?’
‘I don’t rightly understand, mum.’
‘You want money, don’t you? How much?’
Alice put her apron up to her face to dab her dry eyes while figures ran through her head. ‘Two hunner’ guineas,’ she finally gasped out.
‘You shall have it,’ said Angela wearily.
‘When?’
‘Now. Come to my rooms. But you must leave this house.’ Angela always carried a great deal of money with her.
Alice bobbed a curtsy and followed her. Ten minutes later she ran down the stairs to the servants’ quarters and signalled to the pot-boy, who followed her out the kitchen door.
‘Did you get it?’ he asked.
‘Two hunner’ guineas,’ said Alice triumphantly.
‘Told you she’d pay up. When d’you get the money?’
‘I got it.’
‘Good. I’ll steal what I can and we’ll get out of here tonight. It’s off to ’merica for us.’
‘But the police might stop us.’
‘Easy. You’ve been fired, that’s what you’ll say, and I’m helping you with your bag.’
Kerridge started the interviews all over again the following day but his researches were interrupted as various guests came in to complain they had been robbed. Lord Alfred said his gold cigarette case was missing, Lady Glensheil could not find a silver buttonhook, Maisie screeched that her pearl necklace had gone, Tristram Baker-Willis said he had been robbed of twenty pounds which he had left in his dressing-table drawer and the others complained of expensive trifles that had been taken from their rooms. Only Rose’s and Harry’s rooms had been left untouched.
It was quickly established that both the kitchen maid and the pot-boy were gone. A shame-faced policeman on guard outside the gates to keep the press at bay said he had questioned the couple when they left the estate but they both said they had been dismissed and the young girl had cried most touchingly.
