Death at Daisy's Folly (34 page)

“Who is it?” he asked.

Kate opened the door. “Lawrence is here with your camera equipment,” she said. “And Meg has something important to tell you.”

Meg appeared at the door, shuddered violently when she saw Marsh, and turned pale. Mrs. Wospottle put her arms around the girl, and as she did so, her eyes chanced on the cigar.

“There's th' wretched thing,” she said, nettled. “I knew I smelled a cigar. Cheap, too.”

Charles looked at her. “Do you know cigars?” he asked.

“Know cigars?” Mrs. Wospottle cried. “Fancy I do, at that. Me father worked fer a tobacconist in Brighton. There wa'n't a cigar i' th' shop I cudn't sniff out wi' me eyes shut.”

“Splendid,” Charles said. “We shall hear Meg's tale first. After that, p'rhaps you'll be good enough to enlighten us on the subject of cigars.”

Stop, let me have the truth of that!
Is that all true?

—ROBERT BROWNING
“The Gods Thought Otherwise”

 

 

T
he Prince was pacing restlessly in front of the desk in the library, mulling over what Charles had proposed. “I hope your strategy works,” he said. “What will we do if it does not yield what you expect?”

“There are one or two other lines of inquiry I can pursue,” Charles hedged. He hoped other inquiry would prove unnecessary. “It would be best to obtain a confession if we can, of course. If we do not, Your Highness will be faced with making a difficult and painful judgment on the basis of hearsay testimony and circumstantial evidence.”

The Prince pulled a long face. “Are you certain this is the man we should confront first? What of his confederate?”

“I believe this man to be the agent provocateur,” Charles said, “and not the actual assassin. For that reason he may be the more likely to confess. Further, we have the girl's word, hearsay though it is. Faced with that—”

“Ah, yes,” said the Prince. “The girl's word.” He shook his head. “A sad business, very sad. Well, are we ready to begin?”

“I believe so, sir,” Charles said, and went to stand behind the corner of the desk. There was a discreet knock on the door.

“Sir Friedrich, Your Highness,” the footman announced.

The Prince turned. “Ah, Freddy,” he said affably. He straightened his waistcoat and shoved his cigar into his mouth. “Good of you to come so promptly.”

Sir Friedrich inclined his head. “I am always at your command, Your Highness.” He glanced dismissively at Charles and turned back to the Prince. “What's this about yet another death, Bertie? A suicide, was it?” He made a clucking sound. “Really, this is becoming quite beastly. Perhaps we had all best go back to London, where we are safe.”

The Prince smiled thinly. “Indeed, yes. Beastly. But Charles assures me that we are near the bottom of the business. With your help, I believe we shall clear up the last bit.”

“With my help?” Sir Friedrich asked, puzzlement written large on his features.

“Just so. I wonder, Freddy, old chap—would you mind taking a bit of dictation?”

The puzzlement became a frown. “With respect, sir, I rather think—”

“Would you mind?” the Prince repeated sharply. He gestured toward the writing table. “The pen and ink await you. Sit down.”

Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Sir Friedrich seated himself on a chair at the writing table and picked up the pen Charles had placed there. “What is it you would have me write, Bertie?”

The Prince pursed his lips as if he were fashioning a thought. “Let's see now,” he mused, hands behind his back, looking out the window. “How about this? ‘Before I die, I wish to confess my complicity—' ”

“‘Before I—'?” Sir Friedrich stared, blanching. The pen dropped from his fingers.

The Prince turned from the window. “Am I going too fast for you? Perhaps, then, I should recite the whole text, in order to refresh your memory. ‘Before I die, I wish to confess my complicity in the death of Reginald Wallace. Lady Warwick gave me the gun and paid me to do the killing.' ” He smiled, showing his teeth. “Shall we begin again? ‘Before I die—' ”

Temple did not pick up the pen.

“Come, come, man,” the Prince said impatiently. “Why so reluctant? We merely want a specimen of your writing.”

“For what purpose, if I may be so bold?” Sir Friedrich's voice, however, did not sound bold. It quavered.

“So that we may compare it with the note that was left with the body of the dead footman.” The Prince nodded at Charles, who opened the desk drawer and took out the blood-stained note, holding it up by one corner so that it could be seen.

“Ah, yes,” the Prince said. “That is the one. A most unfortunate note.” He paused, and looked down at Sir Friedrich. “But then,” he added regretfully, “I suppose I really don't need to draw this out. You are its author, are you not?”

“Bertie!” Sir Friedrich exclaimed in a horrified tone. “How can you ask such a question? It is beyond comprehension that a man of my breeding would stoop to such a thing.”

The Prince was thoughtful. “Quite right,” he said. “Beyond comprehension. Then how do you explain the fact that the first letters of the first two words of the suicide note,
Before
and
I,
bear a remarkable similarity to these in the letter you posted to Lord Brooke just last week, which begins with the very same two words? ‘Before I depart for Easton...' ”

The Prince held out his hand and Charles gave him a folded letter, which he unfolded and made a great show of studying. “Yes,” he remarked after a moment, “the two capital letters look extraordinarily alike, even to my unpracticed eye. I daresay an expert in graphology would see more similarities.” He glanced up. “You must have been terribly pressed, Freddy. Otherwise you would have tried to disguise your handwriting. But then, you could not copy your victim's hand, could you? The poor boy could scarcely write. The word
complicity
would have been beyond him.”

Sir Friedrich made a gulping noise.

“There is also the small matter of the blood,” the Prince said. “Charles points out that the table surface under the note was spattered with blood, while the note itself, as you can see, bears bloodstains only in one corner—clearly indicating that the note was placed on the table after the man was shot. Would you not agree?”

Sir Friedrich had turned quite pale, but he said nothing.

The Prince became brisk. “Well, if you do not feel like writing just now, we shall proceed to the other business. Charles, you have your ink case, do you not?”

“Yes, sir,” Charles said, and produced a lidded tin box which contained a felt pad saturated with black ink. He was not entirely happy about this demonstration, but His Highness, obviously intrigued by the business of fingerprinting, had insisted.

“Ink?” Sir Friedrich asked faintly.

“You will find this process most interesting, Freddy,” the Prince said. “Charles will take impressions of your inked fingertips, you see, and compare them against impressions left on a whiskey bottle found at the scene of the crime.” He paused to knock the ash off his cigar into a gilt-edged ashtray. “I do suppose that you can explain why you and Milford Knightly were drinking with a footman in the laundry?”

“Bertie—” Temple made an ineffectual gesture, as if to ward off the accusation.

The Prince held up his hand. “There's more, Freddy. When we have done with the whiskey bottle, we shall compare your fingerprints with those drawn from the murder weapon and from a certain letter.” The Prince turned to Charles, who opened the desk drawer and produced both.
“My
letter,” he added pointedly. “A private letter, written to Lady Warwick, stolen from her room, and planted in Reggie's bedchamber.”

Sir Friedrich's jaw was working. “Sir, I—”

“The footman, you see, revealed that you paid him to obtain my letter and Lady Warwick's gun, and later to hide the letter.”

“Revealed?” Sir Friedrich's face was shocked and white. “But he is dead! How could he—?”

“Quite so. But unhappily for you, his accomplice—the young woman he coerced into doing the deed for him—is
not
dead. She is prepared to testify to your connivance in this affair.” His face darkened and he raised his voice, all amiability vanished. “Come, sir!” he thundered. “Do you take me for a fool? Do you continue to deny your complicity in the face of overwhelming physical evidence? Speak, man! I'll have the truth!”

The Royal performance was masterful, Charles thought, and almost made up for the fact that the evidence was not nearly so overwhelming as the Prince implied. To say that the handwriting was similar was a stretch, and as for fingerprints, a match would be obtained only by the greatest good luck. No, what was needed was a confession, and the Prince was the only person powerful enough to obtain it.

There was a knock at the door and an ashen Lord Warwick entered. “I am very sorry to disturb you, Bertie, but it is a matter of great urgency.”

“Well?” The Prince was not pleased that his oratory had been interrupted at such a crucial point. “Out with it, Brooke!”

“Milford Knightly has bolted. At your orders, I sent the house steward and two footmen to apprehend him, but he eluded them and made for the stable, where he commandeered your hunter, which the grooms were exercising.”

Sir Friedrich gave a dismayed gasp. Charles, however, could hardly conceal his elation. Flight was as good as a confession.

“Commandeered Paradox, by Jove?” the Prince exclaimed, slapping his hand flat on the desk top. “We shall hang the fool for a horse thief, if nothing else. You've sent someone after him?”

Lord Warwick nodded. “Kirk-Smythe went in pursuit, the grooms after.”

“Tip-top.” The Prince gave a gratified grunt. “I'll wager a hundred pounds that we'll have the scoundrel within the half hour. It will be a cold day in hell when Kirk-Smythe can't ride down that loathsome little fellow—if Paradox doesn't dispose of him first.”

“I'll just go down and wait, then, Bertie,” Lord Warwick said. “When there's news—”

“When there's news,” the Prince said authoritatively, “send it here directly.”

When Lord Warwick had gone, the Prince turned back to Sir Friedrich with a Hanoverian scowl. “Now, sir, will you speak? Or shall we twiddle our thumbs until your fellow conspirator is hauled back before us? I warrant you
he
will be quick enough to testify to your guilt.”

Charles had been watching Sir Friedrich. The man seemed to have regained his composure, perhaps because he had decided that he had nothing to lose. The only course open to him was defiance.

“Oh, very well,” he said crossly. “I have done nothing to be ashamed of. My actions were entirely in the interest of the Crown, and carried out at the instigation of the Crown.”

The Prince grew red-faced and his massive chest swelled. “You insult me, sir!” he said icily. “Do you dare to suggest that the blood on your hands is
my
responsibility?”

Sir Friedrich shook his head. “The murders were not my doing,” he muttered.

“You accuse Knightly of all three murders?”

“Knightly did not intend to kill the boy,” Sir Friedrich said sourly. “The lad inadvertently overheard part of a conversation between Reggie and myself in the stable on Friday morning. Knightly struck him from behind, merely intending to render him unconscious. Unfortunately, he struck too hard. Reggie witnessed the boy's death, then threatened to reveal to you what he had seen, which he might well have done after dinner on Friday night if you had not cut him off.”

“Ah,” the Prince said sadly, “so Reggie was murdered to insure his silence.”

“I would have found another way to keep Wallace quiet,” Sir Friedrich said, “but Knightly had borrowed from him to make good a gambling debt, and wanted to be rid of the fellow. Reggie was threatening to expose him as a murderer, a conspirator,
and
a deadbeat.” He looked down his nose. “The third man killed, the footman, was an Anarchist. Left alive to carry on his violent ideas, he was a danger to the Crown. Dead, he was no loss to anyone, not even himself.”

Charles stepped around the desk. “And what was the nature of the conversation between you and Wallace in the stable?” he asked, drawing the man back to the subject. “What was the purpose of your conspiracy?”

Sir Friedrich threw him a black look but did not answer.

“Let's hear your scheme,” the Prince demanded. “Come now, Freddy! I'll have the truth!”

Sir Friedrich looked squarely at the Prince. “Very well. I planned to use your letter to Lady Warwick as a means of compelling you, or her, to end your foolish relationship. That was all I intended. These murders—” He waved his hand. “They were incidental to my purpose. They had nothing to do with me.”

“You intended to blackmail us!” The Prince looked thunderstruck.

“Ah,” Charles said softly. “And you expected to implicate Lady Warwick in Wallace's murder by using her gun and leaving it at the scene of the crime.”

“It was Knightly's scheme to murder him,” Sir Friedrich said. “It certainly seemed clever enough at the time.” His glance went to the Prince. “I knew, of course, that you would never allow the Countess to be brought to trial.”

“But Marsh was also a threat,” Charles said thoughtfully, “having procured the letter and the weapon for you.” He paused. “I wonder you did not kill him the same night Wallace was murdered.”