Death of a Peer (8 page)

“Of course,” Fox continued, “the term enemies is used rather broadly, my lord. I might put it another way and ask if you know of anyone who had good reason to wish for Lord Wutherwood’s death.”

Lord Charles answered this question instantly with a little spurt of words that sounded oddly mechanical.

“If you mean, do I know of anyone who would benefit by his death,” he said, “I suppose you may say that his heirs will do so. I am his heir.”

“Well, yes, my lord. I know Lord Wutherwood had no son.”

“Do you, by God!” said Lord Charles. The exclamation was completely out of key with the level courtesy of his earlier rejoinders but Fox took it in his stride.

“I have heard that is the case,” he said. “I understand that two of his lordship’s servants were here. It’s not very nice,” continued Fox with an air of one who apologizes for a slight error in taste, “to have to think of people in this light, but—”

“Murder,” said Lord Charles, “is not very nice either. You are quite right, Mr. Fox. My brother’s chauffeur and my sister-in-law’s maid were both there.”

“Might I trouble you for their names, my lord?”

“Tinkerton and Giggle.”

“Giggle, my lord?”

“Yes. That’s the chauffeur.”

“Quite an unusual name,” said Fox, placidly busy with his notes. “Have they been long with his lordship?”

“I believe that Tinkerton was with my sister-in-law before she married and that’s twenty-five years ago. Giggle began at Deepacres as an odd boy and under-chauffeur. His father was coachman to my father.”

“Family servants,” murmured Fox, placing them. “And of course your own servants would be in the flat?”

“Yes. There’s Baskett, the butler; and the cook and two maids. They may not all have been in. I’ll find out.”

He stretched his hand out to the bell.

“In a minute, thank you, my lord. These are all the servants you employ?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you spoke of a nurse, my lord.”

“Oh — you mean Nanny,” said Lord Charles who now seemed to have himself very well in hand. “Yes, of course there’s Nanny. We don’t think of her as one of the servants.”

“No, my lord?”

“No. She’s the real head of affairs, you see.”

“Oh, yes!” said Fox politely. “I would be much obliged if you would send for the butler now.”

Baskett came in with his usual ineffable butler’s walk, executed with the arms held straight down, the hands lightly closed and turned out with the palms downwards. It was the deliberate relaxed pose of a man whose deportment is an important factor in his profession. Baskett did it superbly.

“Oh, Baskett,” said Lord Charles, “Inspector Fox would like to ask you about the people who were in the servants’ quarters this evening. Were all the maids in?”

“Ethel was out, my lord. Mrs. James and Blackmore were in.” He glanced at Fox. “That is the cook and the parlourmaid, sir,” he explained.

“Any visitors in your quarters?” asked Fox.

“Yes, sir. Lord Wutherwood’s chauffeur and Lady Wutherwood’s maid. The chauffeur was in the staff sitting-room, sir, for some time, and then went into No. 26 to help Master Michael with his trains. Miss Tinkerton was with Mrs. Burnaby in her room.”

“Mrs. Burnaby?”

“That’s Nanny,” explained Lord Charles.

“Thank you, my lord. And that is the entire household at the time of the occurrence?”

“I think so,” said Lord Charles. “Was there anyone else in your part of the world, Baskett?”

Baskett looked anxiously at his employer and hesitated.

“You will of course tell us,” said Lord Charles, “if you know of anyone else in the flat.”

“Very good, my lord. There was another person, sir, in the kitchen.”

Fox paused, pencil in hand. “Who was that?”

“Good God!” ejaculated Lord Charles. “I’d entirely forgotten him.”

“Forgotten whom, my lord?”

“What’s the miserable creature’s name, Baskett?”

“Grumball, my lord.”

Fox said sharply: “You mean Giggle. I’ve got him.”

“No, sir. This person’s name is Grumball.”

Fox looked scandalized. “Who is he, then?” he asked.

Baskett was silent.

“He’s the man in possession,” said Lord Charles.

“A bailiff, my lord?”

“A bum-baliff, Mr. Fox.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Fox tranquilly. “I’ll see the rest of the staff, now, if it’s agreeable.”
iii

“Would it be one of these society affairs, sir?” asked Detective-Sergeant Bailey, staring with lack-lustre eyes through the police-car window.

“What society affairs, Bailey?” murmured Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn.

“Well, you know, sir. Cocktails, bottle parties, flats and so forth.”

“One of the messy sort,” said Detective-Sergeant Thompson, moving his photographic impedimenta a little farrther under the seat.

“That’s right,” agreed Bailey.

“I’ve no idea,” said Alleyn, “in what sort of country we shall find ourselves.”

“The flat belongs to deceased’s brother, doesn’t it, sir?”

“Yes. Lord Charles Lamprey.”

The police-surgeon spoke for the first time. “I fancy I’ve heard something about Lamprey,” he said. “Can’t remember what it was.”

“Wasn’t he mixed up in that Stein suicide?” said Bailey.

Alleyn glanced at him. “He was, yes. Stein left him with the baby.”

“The baby, sir?”

“Figuratively, Bailey. Lord Charles appeared to have developed an amazing flair for signing himself into every conceivable sort of responsibility. He turned out to be Stein’s partner, you remember.”

“Did he go bust?” asked the doctor.

“I don’t think so, Curtis. Must have felt the draught a bit, one would imagine.”

“Was the deceased a wealthy man, sir?” asked Bailey. “This Lord Wutherwood, I mean.”

“Oh, pretty well, you know,” said Alleyn vaguely. “There’s a monstrous place in Kent, I think. Not that that tells one anything. May have been hanging on by the skin of his teeth.”

“It sounds an unpleasant business,” said Dr. Curtis. “Through the eye, didn’t you say?”

“Yes. Beastly, isn’t it? Fox was very guarded when he rang up. I recognized his suspect-listening manner.”

“Large family of Lampreys?” asked Dr. Curtis.

“Masses of young, I fancy. Damn! We’re in for a nasty run, no doubt. Why the devil do these people have to get themselves messed up in a case like this?”

“Another instance,” said Dr. Curtis drily, “of the aristocracy mixing with the commonalty. They’ve tried trade and they’ve tried big business. Why not a spot of homicide? Sorry!” he added uncomfortably. “Silly statement. Very unprofessional. The peer was probably pinked by a — what? A servant? A lunatic? Somebody with an axe to grind? Here we are in Sloane Street. Cadogan Gardens, isn’t it?”

“Pleasaunce Court. Do you know the doctor, Curtis? His name’s Kantripp.”

“I do, as it happens. He was in my first year at Thomas’s. Nice fellow. Awkward business for him if, as one supposes, he’s the family doctor.”

“It may not be awkward. Let’s hope it’s a simple matter. Some nice homicidal maniac wandering about the top story of Pleasaunce Court Mansions and going all hay-wire at the sight of an elderly peer in a lift. Let’s hope there are no axes to grind. Here’s the turning. How anybody can get a kick out of homicide is to me one of the major puzzles of psychology.”

“Was there never a time,” asked Dr. Curtis, “when you read murder cases in your newspaper with avidity?”

“Oh, yes. Yes.”

“And do they always bore you, nowadays?”

Alleyn grinned. “No,” he said. “I’m not bored by my job. One gets desperately sick of routine at times but it would be an affectation to pretend one was bored. People interest me and homicide cases are so terrifically concerned with people. Each locked up inside his mental bomb-proof shelter and then, suddenly, the holocaust. Most murders are really very squalid affairs, of course, but there’s always the element that press-men call the human angle. All the same, Curtis, it’s a beastly sort of stimulus. One would have to be very case-hardened to feel nothing but technical interest. O Lord, here we go! There’s a gaggle of p.c.’s coming along in the car behind. Fox said we might need some spare parts.”

The car pulled up. With that unmistakable air of being about their business, the four men got out and walked up the steps. A knives-to-grind returning from a profitable day in Chelsea paused at Pleasaunce Court corner and addressed himself to a newsboy.

“Wot’s up in vere?” asked the knives-to-grind.

“Wot’s up in where?”

“In vere. In vem Mensions.”

The newsboy looked. “Coo! P’lice.”

“P’lice!” said the knives-to-grind contemptuously. “I believe you! ’Ere! Know ’oo that is? That’s ’Endsome Ell-een.”

“Cripey, you’re right, mate! Fency me missin’ ’im! I’ve doubled me sales on ’Endsome Ell-een many an evenin’. Coo, there’s ’is cemera-bloke. That’s a cemera orl right in that box. And t’uwer bloke’ll be ’is fingerprint expert.”

“It’s a cise for the Yawd,” said the knives-to-grind.

“Ar. Murder,” agreed the newsboy.

“Not necessairilly.”

“Garn! Wot’s the cemera for if it’s not murder? Taking photers of the liftman?
Not necessairilly
! ’Ere wite on! I’ll git orf a
Stendard
on the old bloke in the ’all.”

The newsboy ran up the steps crying in a respectful manner, “
Stendard
, sir,
Stendard
?” The knives-to-grind thoughtfully salvaged a cigarette butt from the kerb and put it in his waistcoat pocket. A second car drew up and four constables got out and entered the flats.

The newsboy reappeared and with an unconvincing show of nonchalance returned to his post.

“Well,” asked his friend, “ ’ow abaht it?”

“Been an eccident.”

“What sorta eccident?”

“Old bloke ’ad is eye jabbed aht in the lift.”

“Garn!”

“Yeah,” said the newsboy, assuming a slightly hard-boiled transatlantic manner. “And it’s just too bad abaht im. ’E’s a gorner.”

“Dead?”

“Stiff.”

“Cor!”

“
Eccident
!” said the newsboy with ineffable scorn.

“
Eccident
! Oh yeah?”

“Wiv cops and cemeras floatin’ in by dozins,” agreed his friend. “Oh, yeah? Not ’alf. I
don’t
fink.”

And taking up the shafts of his grindstone he trundled down Pleasaunce Court, pausing at the corner to raise the mournful cry of his trade.

“Knives to grind? Knives to grind?”

His voice floated up in the evening air. Alleyn heard it as he rang the Lampreys’ doorbell.

“Any old knives to grind?”

Fox had lavished the most delicate attention on the skewer. It was tied down to a strip of cardboard and lay in a long box. Alleyn held the box under the lamp. The plated ring at the broad end of the skewer caught the light and glinted. The blade did not glint. It had had time to dry a little.

“Disgusting,” said Alleyn. He laid down the box. “Yours, Bailey. The blade has obviously been lifted by the point.”

“That’s me,” said Dr. Kantripp. “I thought it better to avoid the ring as much as possible, though of course in drawing it out—”

“Of course,” said Dr. Curtis.

“Well, you’d better try the ring and top of the shaft, Bailey,” said Alleyn.

“It’s a whale of a great skewer,” said Dr. Curtis.

“Yes. An old one. People use them nowadays for paper-knives.”

“They got this one from the kitchen,” said Fox.

“Did they? We’d better take a look at the body, if you please, Dr. Kantripp.”

They moved to the bed. Fox tilted the lamp. Dr. Kantripp drew back the sheet.

“Nothing’s been done,” he said. “I thought, under the circumstances—”

“Yes, of course. His wife hasn’t seen him like this?”

“No. She wouldn’t come. Just as well perhaps.”

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn, staring at the gargoyle’s head on the sheet. “Just as well.”

“No. He’s not very pretty,” muttered Dr. Curtis absently. He bent down. Fox moved the lamp.

“It seemed a bit queer to me his lasting so long, Doctor,” said Fox.

“The head’s a queer thing,” observed Dr. Curtis. “There have been cases of survival — What was the angle, Kantripp?”

“Slightly upward. But it may have shifted.”

“Yes.”

“You say, Fox,” said Alleyn, “that he tried to speak?”

“Well, sir, not to say speak. He made noises.”

“It wasn’t likely, I thought, that he could say anything,” said Dr. Kantripp, “but Mr. Fox thought there was just a chance. As Curtis says, queer things happen with injuries to the brain. There have been cases—”

“I know. What are those marks beside the eyes? Hypostases?”

The two doctors exchanged glances.

“I didn’t think so,” said Dr. Kantripp diffidently.

“Bruises, more likely,” said Dr. Curtis. “You don’t get hypostases there. Not with the way he’s lying.”

“They said, Fox, that he sat on the right-hand end of the seat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a look at the left temple, would you, Curtis?”

Dr. Curtis began to take away the dressing over the left eye.

“You’re quite right, Alleyn,” said Dr. Kantripp. “There’s a cut on the temple under the bandage. I was going to show you. Yes, there it is.”

With a swift and delicate gesture Alleyn placed his long left hand across the staring right eye and the left socket. The heel of his hand was against the right side of the face, thumb downwards.

“There’s a sort of fancy steel fretwork affair in the wall of the lift,” said Fox. “With knobs on. There’s a bit of a smear on one of the knobs. It looks as if it had been wiped.”

“Does it, indeed?” Alleyn murmured and swiftly drew away his hand. “We’ll get him out of here,” he added.

“I’ve left orders for the mortuary van.”

“Yes. Thank you, Curtis. You’ll do the post-mortem tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“I think before I see the family we’ll take a look at the lift. You can get to work in here, Bailey. Try those bruises for prints. You’d better go all over the face. It’s a faint hope but you’d better have a shot at it. Then the skewer. Then come along to the lift. And, Thompson, you get some shots of the head, will you?”

“Very good, Mr. Alleyn.”

Alleyn did not move away from the bed. He stared at the face on the pillow and the single eye in the face seemed, in return, to glare sightlessly at him. Alleyn stooped and touched the jaw and neck.

“No rigor yet?”

“Just beginning. Why?”

“We may have to perform an unpleasant experiment. Is the nurse still here?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Kantripp.

“When Bailey and Thompson have finished, get her to tidy him up. He’s a nightmare as he is. Come on, Fox.”
ii

Fox had caused the mechanism of the lift to be switched off, had sealed the doors and had posted a uniformed constable on the landing. The lift was dark inside and, waiting there at the Lampreys’ landing, it wore an air of expectancy.

“Window at the top of the door,” said Alleyn.

“That’s right, sir.”

“Didn’t you say that he sat in here, yelling for his wife? With the doors shut?”

“So the butler said.”

“He might have been whisked down below.”

“Perhaps he kept his thumb on the stop button, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Perhaps he did.” Alleyn switched on the light “Now, where was he?”

“From all accounts he was sitting in the right-hand corner with his head leaning against that steel grid affair and his bowler hat tilted over his face. Of course the lift’s been used since then. The doctor, for one, came up in it. As soon as our chaps came in they attended to that. Still, it’s a pity.”

“It
is
.” Alleyn peered at the steel fretwork of the wall. “There’s the smear you talked about on that bulge or knob or what-you-will.”

“Very fancy design, isn’t it, sir?”

“Very, Br’er Fox. Grapes, you see, mixed up with decorative lumps. Modern applied art. How tall was he?”

“Six foot and a half-inch,” said Fox immediately.

“Good. You’re six foot, aren’t you? Just sit at the other end, Foxkin. Yes. Yes, I fancy that if you sat there and I caught you a snorter on the right side of your head your left temple would miss that corresponding knob by half an inch or so. However, that’s altogether too vague. It looks as if we’ll have to get him in here to try. I see these knobs have got slight depressions in the surface. Look at our particular one. Somebody, as you capably observed, has wiped it. And the seat, as well. Not very proficiently. Bailey will have to deal with this. Hullo!”

Alleyn stooped and flashed his torch under the seat. “I suppose you’ve already spotted those, you old devil,” he observed.

“Yes, sir. I thought I’d leave them for you.”

“What delicacy! What tact!” Alleyn reached under the seat and drew out a pair of heavy driving gloves with long gauntlets. He and Fox squatted on the floor and examined them.

“Bloody,” said Fox.

“Blood, or something that looks like it. Between the middle and the third fingers of the left hand, and on the inner surface of those fingers. And a little on the palm. Can you see any on the right-hand glove? Yes. Again, a little on the palm. Bless my soul, Fox, we must take care of these. Give them to Bailey, like a good chap, and then tell me the whole story as far as you’ve got.”

Fox went into 26. The constable cleared his throat. Alleyn gazed at the lift well. The door into 25 opened and a good-looking, pale young man peered out onto the landing.

“Oh, hullo,” he said politely. “I’m sorry to bother you. You’re Mr. Alleyn, I expect.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, I’m so sorry to make a nuisance of myself, but I thought I’d just ask if it was likely to be a very long time before you began to pitch into us. I’m Henry Lamprey.”

“How do you do,” said Alleyn politely. “We’ll be as quick as we can. Not long now.”

“Oh, good. It’s just that my mother is rather exhausted, poor thing, and I think she ought to go to bed. That is, of course, if my Aunt Violet can be moved off the bed or even out of the room which I must say seems to be doubtful… What is the right technique, do you know, with widows of murdered men who are also one’s near relations?”

“Is Lady Charles with Lady Wutherwood at the moment?” asked Alleyn. Henry came out on the landing and shut the door. He stood in the shadow of the lift.

“Yes,” he said. “My mother is in there and so is Tinkerton who is my Aunt Violet’s maid. It appears that my Aunt Violet is in a sort of coma or trance and really doesn’t notice who goes or comes. But you won’t want to be bothered with all that. I was only going to suggest that if you could see my mother first and then Aunt Violet it would give us a chance to bundle Mama off to bed.”

“I’ll see what can be done about it. I’m afraid in this sort of business—”

“Oh, I know,” agreed Henry. “The rest of us are all quite prepared for the dawn to rise on our lies and evasions.”

“I hope not,” said Alleyn.

“Actually we are a truthful family, only the things that happen to us are so peculiar that nobody ever believes in them. Still, I expect you’ve got a sort of winnowing ear for people’s testimonies and will know in a flash if we try any hanky-panky.”

“I expect so,” agreed Alleyn gravely. From the shadow of the lift Henry seemed to look solemnly at him.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid I expect so too. My father suggested that you ought to be offered a drink and some sandwiches but the rest of us knew you wouldn’t break bread with suspected persons. Or is that only in books? Anyway, sir, if you would like us to send something out here or if you would like to join us for a drink, we do hope you will.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Alleyn, “but we don’t on duty.”

“Or if there’s anything at all that we can do.”

“I don’t think there’s anything at the moment. Oh, as you’re here, I may as well ask you. Who is the owner of those gloves?”

“What gloves?” Henry’s voice sounded blank.

“A pair of heavy driving gloves with stiff gauntlets.”

“Lined with rather disgusting fur?”

“Fur-lined, yes.”

“Sound like mine,” said Henry. “Where are they?”

“I’ll return them to you. My colleague took them into the flat.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In the lift,” said Alleyn.

“But I wasn’t in the lift.”

“No?”

“No. I expect…” Henry stopped short.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. I can’t imagine how they got there. You needn’t return them, sir. I don’t really think I want them any more.”

“I don’t think you would,” agreed Alleyn, “if you saw them.”

Henry’s face shone like ivory on that dimly lit landing. His eyes were like black coals under the cold whiteness of his forehead.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“They are stained.”

“Stained? With what?”

“It looks like blood.”

Henry turned on his heel and went blindly into the flat.

Fox returned with Bailey.

“I want to go all over the inside of the lift, Bailey,” said Alleyn. “Try the stops and the doorknobs — everything. Get Thompson to take a close-up shot of the seat and wall.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And, Fox, we’ll go over your notes and then I think I’d better see the family.”
iii

The twins stood side-by-side on the hearthrug. The lamplight glinted on their blonde heads. They wore grey flannel suits and dark green pull-overs that their mother had knitted for them. Their hands were in their pockets; their heads were tilted slightly to one side. Their faces were screwed into an expression of apologetic attentiveness. From her stool by the fire Roberta watched them and felt a cold pang of alarm. For behind the twins Roberta saw not the coal fire of a London grate but the sweetly aromatic logs that burnt in the drawing-room at Deepacres in New Zealand. And with the sharpest emphasis of memory she heard each twin confess that he had taken out the forbidden big car, and had driven it through a water-race into a bank. She saw herself sitting mum, knowing all the time that it was Stephen who had taken the car while Colin was indoors. She heard herself asking Colin privately why he had made this Quixotic gesture and she again heard his answer. “It’s a kind of arrangement we have!”

“Always?” she had asked him, and Colin, rumpling up his fair hair, had answered, “Oh, no. Only when there’s a really major row.”

“A twinny sort of arrangement.” Roberta had said, and Colin had agreed. “Yes, that’s the idea. As between twins.” So insistent was this memory that the past was clearer for a moment than the present and she was unaware of the voices in the drawing-room. Her mind seemed to change gear and she found herself thinking of the Lampreys as strangers. “I don’t know what they are like,” thought Roberta in her cold panic. “I have no knowledge of their reality. I have fitted their words and actions into my own idea of them but my idea may be quite wrong.” And she began to wonder confusedly if anybody had a complete secret reality or if each layer of thought merely represented the level of someone else’s idea of the thinker. “This won’t do,” thought Roberta. “Stop!” Her mind changed gear again and Lord Charles’s voice came back, familiar, gentle, a voice she knew and loved.

“Now listen to me,” Lord Charles was saying. “There is going to be no more of this. One of you went down in the lift with Violet and with him. Which was it?”

“I d-did,” said Stephen.

“Shut up,” said Colin. “I did.”

“Do you realize,” said Henry, “that one of you is making things look just about as murky as may be for the other?”

“If you imagine,” said Lord Charles, “that the police are to be checked by a childish trick of this sort, you are…” He paused and with a deflated air added hurriedly: “you simply couldn’t be more mistaken.”

“What about fingerprints?” said Frid.

“I didn’t touch anything,” said Colin.

“I kept my hands in my p-pocket,” said Stephen.

“Whichever it was, must have worked the lift,” Frid pointed out.

“The lift’s been used twice since then,” said Stephen.

“Twice, at least,” said Colin. “There won’t be any fingerprints worth talking about.”

“At any moment now,” Henry said, “Alleyn will come in and begin to ask questions. As soon as he sees what you are up to he’ll talk to you separately. If you think you’ve one sickly misbegotten hope of taking him in, you’re bigger bloody fools than anybody outside a bug-house.”

“Mummy’ll be back in a minute,” said Frid. “Don’t let’s have this going on when she comes in.”

Lord Charles said: “Stephen, did you commit this crime?”

“No, Father, I didn’t.”

“Colin?”

“No, Father, honestly.”

“On your most solemn word of honour, both of you.”