Death Sits Down to Dinner (35 page)

Clementine was amazed that Lady Ryderwood had the impudence to call the English arrogant, but another revelation dawned:
This is exactly like The Bruce-Partington Plans after all!

“You are nothing but paid spies, you and your Clumsy Footman!”

“No, Lady Montfort, I am an assassin. My partner, the footman, is the spy.” She made it sound as if murder required far superior skill than theft, and if Clementine had not been so thoroughly frightened she would have laughed. “My partner was planted at the Sopwith factory to obtain copies of their designs, and when he had them he came here to help me with my task. It did not work the first time, but it will now. Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk his being recognized by your son after I found out about Lord Haversham’s involvement at the Sopwith factory, which is why he is not here to help me tonight.”

“I knew there was something wrong with the Clumsy Footman,” said Clementine. “I could never put my finger on it. His coloring was all wrong for that jet-black hair, pale eyes, and freckled skin. Good heavens, he was a natural redhead. My son even told me he was!”

“Yes, yes, you are so clever, Lady Montfort. So there is a brain in that dull little English head of yours. But you are a bit too late, I’m afraid.” Lady Ryderwood jerked on the cord that secured the heavy curtains away from the window. “You will wait here behind the screen with me. And when Churchill comes through that door I will have my chance again—one bullet for him and then one for you, after you have served your purpose as my hostage.”

Clementine took a step backward, away from Lady Ryderwood, and now she fervently hoped that Ralph would not come into the room, as if he did he would most certainly be shot. She took another step back and as she did so she tripped over the mounded-up ladder that lay on the floor, bruising her bottom on the lead weight as she went down. Sprawled on her back, she watched in paralyzed fear as Lady Ryderwood, gun in hand, came and stood over her.

“You are so frightfully clumsy, Lady Montfort. Now get up.” Veda Ryderwood pointed her gun. And Clementine thought,
That’s right, make her shoot you now, the sound will bring everyone upstairs and she will be caught
. A heroic and selfless gesture, to be sure, but then she had a far better idea.

She reached underneath her as Lady Ryderwood motioned with her gun that she stand up. “Get up, or I’ll pull you up by your hair.” Things were getting nasty, Clementine thought as her hand closed over the lead weight.

“I may not be able to sing above a top C, Lady Ryderwood,” she said in a reasonable and conversational voice. “But”—she lunged forward as Lady Ryderwood stood over her—“I can do this…” And she slammed the lead weight down as hard as she could on Lady Ryderwood’s foot and heard the most sickening crunch.

“Even if my Italian is pretty patchy…” Clementine leaped to her feet, accompanied by Lady Ryderwood’s shrieks of pain; she was a little off-pitch, Clementine thought, “and I don’t know Verdi from Puccini … I am still pretty steady on
my
feet.” Lady Ryderwood, staggering off-balance in a circle, shot a hole in the ceiling.

Clementine was off across the room; she slipped the key out of the lock and whirled through the door as Lady Ryderwood fired her gun after her.

“And,” she shouted back through the door as she slammed it and turned the key in the lock, “the reason we have a world empire is because we always keep our heads in a crisis.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Standing outside the salon door on the upper landing, Clementine became uncomfortably aware that she had shouted her last remark at the top of her voice and in doing so had secured the fascinated interest of the small crowd gathering below her in the hall. She looked down over the balustrade and saw several startled faces gazing up at her. Her hair was halfway down her back, her gown in ruins. But the upturned faces now frozen in horror were not because of her rough appearance, or her shouted words, but because of the continuing gunfire from the salon.

In a moment her husband had come up the stairs and was at her side.
Better late I suppose than never,
thought Clementine as her legs started to wobble. He was followed by Mrs. Jackson, who, in answer to Clementine’s muttered words, turned and called down the staircase to White, who was determined to maintain composure at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by the Chimney Sweep Boys looking rather sweet in powdered wigs.

“Mr. White, telephone for Detective Inspector Hillary if you please, and tell him to get here as quickly as he can and to bring plenty of police constables.” Mrs. Jackson’s voice cut across a rising babble of conjecture and exclamations from those below them in the hall.

As her husband walked Clementine down the stairs and into the library, Hermione stepped forward, regal in her lilac gown, and followed them into the room.

“My guests will be arriving at any moment, Clementine. The dowager queen Alexandra, the Princess Esterhazy, and Lady Ripon will no doubt be among the first. We simply do not have time for any unpleasant behavior and there must be no further interruptions to the evening. Adelaide! Make arrangements to contain that woman, and please tell Inspector Hillary when he arrives that I do not have time to talk to him. I suppose we will have to scrap the duets.” And Hermione swept out of the room, leaving Lord and Lady Montfort, Aaron Greenberg, Adelaide Gaskell, Macleod and Herne, and what amounted to the entire staff of servants of Chester Square and all the menservants of Montfort House, to relieve the salon of the veritable tigress that was rampaging up and down it, having shot all the bullets in her gun into its walls and the ceiling.

*   *   *

“Well, Lady Montfort,” said Detective Inspector Hillary, having escorted a grimly silent Lady Ryderwood, supported between two policemen, out of the scullery door of Chester Square and up the area steps into a waiting Black Maria parked outside, to the delighted interest of several guests who were walking up the front steps to the house, “if this would be a good time, I would really appreciate it if you would tell me how you made this discovery.”

“It was a complete accident, a coincidence,” said Lord Montfort, rather too quickly in his wife’s opinion as she turned to him and gently laid a hand on his arm. “Darling, might I have a brandy or something? I have asked Mrs. Jackson to join us; we have plenty of time to fill Inspector Hillary in before supper.” Hermione’s guests were now all settled upstairs in the salon and the first strains of music reached their ears from upstairs and then the exquisite power of Nellie Melba’s voice. The door opened and Mrs. Jackson came into the room, looking quite immaculate in her best bombazine silk dress, as if nothing in the world had occurred that evening.

“Have you met Mrs. Jackson, Inspector Hillary? No, I didn’t think you had. This redoubtable woman is responsible for your making the arrest of the person who murdered Sir Reginald, and who was planning the assassination of Mr. Churchill.” Clementine smiled at her housekeeper as she said, “Jackson, do you realize this one only took us the better part of five days?” She pretended not to hear a long-suffering sigh from her husband and realized that perhaps she was showing off.

A near brush with death and the better part of two glasses of a sixty-year-old Napoleon brandy had left Clementine almost euphoric, and it was in this condition that Winston Churchill found her as he burst into the room, arms open as if he were about to enfold her in his embrace. It appeared that Mr. Churchill always managed to avoid the business of sitting down and listening to other divas.

“Clever and resourceful, Lady Montfort!” he cried, and Clementine turned and positively beamed at her husband. The Earl of Montfort and his Countess did not approve of grandstanding and making too much of a business about things, but at this moment Clementine was feeling positively reckless with elation that she had, after all, avoided being shot.

“It was nothing, Mr. Churchill, just some moments that we noticed,” she gestured toward Mrs. Jackson, “and later put together to form a picture of the evening. It was—”

“I am utterly and completely in your debt, always will be. If there’s—” Mr. Churchill glowed at her even as she interrupted.

“It was Mrs. Jackson who actually found Lady Ryderwood’s portable ladder, the one she used to climb down to the dining-room window. And her accomplice is no doubt waiting for her at her address in Mayfair—if you search the house you will be able to find the plans he stole from Tom Sopwith.”

No doubt Churchill had been thoroughly briefed by Vetiver, for he swanned over this scrap of intelligence; even now he would not be lured into any disclosures. His eyes were shining, effortless accolades tripping off his tongue.

“All immediately … in hand …
dear lady
. England will be … forever
in your debt
,” Churchill intoned, his pudgy hands flying out to the world that was England.

Mr. Churchill’s grandiose regard of his wife saving Britain did nothing to mollify Lord Montfort, who with an exhalation of irritation had turned to the brandy decanter for solace.

Surrounded by the sweet, innocent people who had featured as suspects in their murder inquiry—Mr. Greenberg, Adelaide Gaskell, Trevor Tricklebank, who had also joined them as an alternative to an evening of opera, and Mr. Churchill’s punctilious right-hand man, Captain Vetiver—Clementine couldn’t help but tease out the last untidy little loop and knit it up neatly to resolve everything that had gone before. Life rarely provided such opportunities.

“Mr. Greenberg, please let me be the first to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss Gaskell,” she murmured to him, as he came over to refill her empty glass. “Oh, please don’t look so surprised. You gave yourself away the other evening. When we were still … were still … “She caught Jackson’s eye and remembered in time not to go into that unfortunate business at Kingsley House. “If only you had both made your regard for each other known a little earlier, as well as providing each other with an alibi…” she turned and reached out her hand to her housekeeper, nay her friend, her clever and fearless friend, Edith Jackson, “you might have saved Mrs. Jackson a considerable amount of work.”

*   *   *

“What is to become of the Chimney Sweep Boys, m’lady?” Mrs. Jackson was standing in Clementine’s room early the next morning, as Pettigrew directed the footman to take the last of the luggage down to the hall.

“Well, without remotely referring to what Sir Reginald had been up to for years, because that will remain her secret forever, Miss Kingsley of course appointed Mr. Greenberg to become chairman of the board of governors for the charity. And since he is to marry Adelaide, then she will help him run the charity while he waits around for his knighthood or, even better, a peerage. Miss Kingsley, bless her heart, now all this unpleasantness has been resolved, has had a complete about-face. She has put Mr. Tricklebank back into her will—after all, he’s all she has—and invited the new Mrs. Tricklebank for luncheon, which should be a very interesting experience for her. Things couldn’t have turned out better.”

“And the other business?”

“Ah yes, the other business. Well I’m afraid that Lady Ryderwood is for the high jump for espionage, murder, and attempted assassination. Her accomplice, and his name by the way is Gordon, Alexander Gordon, is for the high jump too.”

“Awful people; what drives them to such extremes, I wonder,” Mrs. Jackson said rather grimly as Pettigrew helped Clementine into her coat, before leaving to make sure the footman put the luggage into the back of the motorcar in the correct order.

“I hope Mr. Greenberg sends that awful matron packing, m’lady.”

“Oh, Mr. Greenberg will leave all that to Adelaide. I feel almost sorry for Matron. Mr. Greenberg and Adelaide will do a tremendous job together for the charity. How perfectly it has all fit together. Adelaide and Mr. Greenberg, Mr. Tricklebank and his … well, Mrs. Tricklebank.”

And they are not the only ones to find companionship—to find love,
thought Mrs. Jackson and she set about the business of updating her ladyship on the existing state of affairs in the Montfort servants’ hall.

“Mr. White will be giving notice, I’m afraid to say, m’lady. He has been offered a position as head butler at Lady Cunard’s London residence. He says it is too good an offer to pass up.” Mrs. Jackson radiated disapproval that the butler had done exactly as Miss Pettigrew had predicted.

“Oh no, Jackson, please not that. This is
too
bad. We’ve solved one problem belowstairs and now another one emerges to take its place. Well, we won’t be returning to town until after Easter, so we can jolly well wait until March to hire a new butler. I expect Lady Cunard collared White at Chester Square.” Clementine laughed, shaking her head at the perfidious behavior of some of society’s more ruthless leading ladies.

“Yes, she did indeed, m’lady. And he’s not all she collared either, that Ginger is going with him, they are to be married it would seem. Lady Cunard evidently doesn’t worry about what goes on in
her
servants’ hall.” Because it was expected of her, Mrs. Jackson looked down her nose in utter contempt of servants who did not understand their loyal duty. But ever since she had witnessed that tender scene in the Montfort House servants’ hall and seen the rapt worship of the handsome Mr. White as the fascinating Ginger had served him his breakfast, dangerous emotions had stirred in the Mrs. Jackson’s bosom.
We give ourselves in devoted and loyal service all our working lives, and then we retire and live alone for those years remaining to us.
She thought of the elderly Mr. Jenkins, who preferred not to retire.

“How silly of them. Lady Cunard will run them both off their feet; she never has a quiet evening from one week to the next. Did you tell them about her entertainment schedule?”

Mrs. Jackson emerged from her thoughts to answer her ladyship.

“No, m’lady, I did not. It’s not my place to involve myself in the Montfort House servants’ hall. But it will be nice to get back to Iyntwood and to a staff that keeps to the old ways. And we have a good deal to do to organize for Christmas.” She thought of her interrupted afternoon walk in freshly fallen snow to the edge of the village and Mr. Stafford’s cottage for a nice cup of tea.