Murder at Maddingley Grange (20 page)

“Not published, Derek, printed,” clarified Sheila. “And please give that gun back. You'll trip over something and set it off. No one's going to murder you. It's only a game.”

“That's right, Sherlock,” said Fred. “You'll be all right. Just don't step out of the pentagon.”

“I think you can trust me to handle a simple firearm, Sheila,” said her husband, slipping the gun into his jacket pocket.

“Is it loaded?” asked Violet.

“Haven't the foggiest.”

“Come off it, Gil.” Fred was incredulous.

“No, honestly. It's just part of my memorabilia. The last thing I'd want to do is start poking around and opening the bally thing. Anyway, as I've had it nearly twenty years, even if it is loaded I should think the mechanism's well and truly seized up by now.”

“That may be the case,” said Derek, “but it is still preferable where weaponry is concerned that things be handled by someone who really knows what they're about.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. There was a crunching sound and a howl of distress from Gilly.

“My hat!” he cried, holding up the mangled remains of a boater with a striped band. ‘That was my father's. He wore it at Henley in 1936.”

“I'm sorry.” Derek sounded more sniffy than sorry. “If it was of value, what on earth was it doing sitting on the floor waiting to be trodden on?”

“I do believe”—Simon got up too—“there's something similar in our basket. We hired all sorts of stuff. Let's go and look, shall we?”

“It won't be the same.” A tear-filled voice.

“No, of course not. But that's a great outfit. It does need some sort of chapeau.” Simon bit his lip as he took Gilly's arm. It was hard not to smile at the contrast between the sad eyes and droopy, sad moustache and the aggressively cheerful jacket. As they left, Gilly said: “I was going to wear it on the punt.”

Derek followed them out, turning at the door and crying dramatically: “Don't forget
Black Cross
—you have till one o'clock!”

“What I can't fathom,” said Violet to Sheila, “was how you persuaded him to change his mind.”

That, it seemed, was what everyone wanted to know. Chairs were shoved closer together, elbows rested on the table edge. Only Mother stayed aloof, shaking Worcester Sauce over her cornflakes.

“What makes you think it was me?”

“A woman always knows, dear.”

“Actually you're right.” Sheila seemed hesitant. “But I'm afraid you're going to find the reason very tame.”

“No, no,” they all cried hopefully.

“All I did was to suggest that as he had been cast as the victim, rather than grumble and grouse he should regard it as a challenge. Throw down the gauntlet. Pit his wits against the murderer's rather than just tamely collapse at the first tap on the head. Persuasion wasn't difficult. He was upset because none of you took either him or the detective-fiction genre seriously.” Fred played on an invisible violin, humming “Hearts and Flowers.” “He thought it would be a good thing if you were taught a lesson.”

“But won't that rather defeat the object?” said Rosemary. “I mean, without a body—”

“Of course, we're both aware of our obligations to the rest of you,” continued Sheila. “That's why I agreed that if he hadn't been murdered by lunchtime I'd take his place.”

“The one o'clock deadline,” said Fred. “If you'll excuse the fox's paw.”

“But now Laurel's offered, I won't have to.”

“We shall still be minus a body all morning,” said Rosemary. “I think you're both being rather selfish.”

“I couldn't care less what you think, actually, Rosemary.”

“Now, now,” Violet, creamy and emollient. “Birds in their little nests agree.”

Rosemary's eyes flashed and Sheila's lips tightened, but before the feathers could really start to loosen up a bit, something happened to distract them all. Mother started laughing. Short, strangulated barks. She was peering into her teacup, rolling it between her palms.

“Heh, heh, heh,” she went, just like evil old ladies always have. Then she lifted her arm. Fred grabbed it just in time.

“I
told
you,” he said, wresting the cup from her hand.

“There's a spaniel in the works.”

“You'll get a spaniel.”

“If you've finished, Mother,” said Violet, brightly dragging harmony back by the scruff of its neck, “we could go and have a look at the cellar. You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

Mrs. Gibbs did not reply. Cheated of her opening throw, her face became hooded and peevish. She turned eyes glittering with anger on Sheila and hunched down in her chair, becoming both smaller and more powerful as if preparing to spring. Sheila stared coldly back.

“I'm not taking any notice of you, Mrs. Gibbs. I don't believe in your silly ghost. And I think it was nothing short of wicked doing all that pointing and accusing last night when you weren't Mad Betty the soothsayer at all.” She got up. “Frightening people half to death.”

Mother mumbled, almost inaudibly, “I know what I know.”

“You don't know anything,” snapped Sheila. “You're just a silly old woman.” And she stalked off into the sunshine.

L
aurie was washing up in the annex. Gaunt, wounded, sat in a wheelback chair, his leg elevated onto a wooden box. Laurie had offered earlier to telephone for a doctor but the servants had both expressed alarm at this, saying they didn't want to be any trouble and in any case were both alien to the medical profession. Laurie, rather shamedly, had not persisted. She could only have called out Lionel Murchison, Aunt Maude's doctor, knowing no other, and he was an old family friend who would certainly not keep his juicy discovery of the shenanigans at the Grange to himself. Also he might well diagnose some serious injury necessitating the removal of Gaunt in an ambulance, no doubt accompanied by an anxiously attentive sibling. Then the running of the weekend would fall entirely on Laurie's shoulders.

As it was she was having to tackle most of the chores. Admittedly Simon (after his sister had threatened to take the bus to Oxford and not come back till Sunday evening) had lent a hand preparing breakfast. He had made the coffee and grilled the sausages, glaring resentfully at his hired help the while.

“Quite honestly,” he had grumbled to Laurie, “given a certain amount of crude scientific equipment and all that lightning we had last night, I could have made something more efficient.”

He had been very blunt in the display of his feelings toward
les domestiques
, berating Gaunt soundly for wandering around in the middle of the night. Simon had declined a private view of the leg and had further explained that they would not be getting their full whack of cash for the weekend. Indeed, unless they pulled their socks up, not a penny piece would be changing hands. He concluded by suggesting that if either of them had the gall to ask him for a reference it would be couched in terms of such unforgiving clarity that any prospective employer would as soon engage two carriers of the Black Death. He had then returned to his sausages, stabbing the glossy links savagely before piling them up on a hot plate.

But the mood had not persisted, and when Laurie had taken the second batch of croissants and homemade quince jelly into the dining room, he had been full of smiles and pouring China tea for Sheila Gregory. Now—Laurie pulled the plug and rinsed soap from her hands—she could see him on the lawn teaching Rosemary the rudiments of croquet. This seemed to involve an awful lot of proximity. He was standing very close behind her, encircling her waist with his arms as they drew back the mallet. But there came no soft thock of wood on wood. Surprisingly, in spite of all that undivided attention, they missed and had to start all over again.

Laurie looked wistful as she dried her hands with a tea towel. Rosemary was so pretty. She was wearing a Leghorn hat against the sun, tied on with velvet ribbons, and her lounging pajamas rippled and floated as she moved. Her face, shadowed by the wide straw brim, looked pale and interesting.

If only I were taller, thought Laurie, suddenly anguished. Or not so brown, or so sturdy. Or had sleeker hair and elegant brows and no freckles. And nails shaped like perfect almonds and colored strawberry pink. She couldn't understand this sudden aversion to her appearance. She had never been dissatisfied before. Never been satisfied either. Just not given the matter a thought. So why this passionate yearning to be different?

Now Sheila Gregory, also curry combed to perfection, had appeared on the lawn in a svelte white linen dress almost to her ankles, white turban and tortoiseshell sunglasses. She stood swinging her mallet helplessly and Simon, having finally coaxed Rosemary's ball through a hoop, turned his attention to the newcomer and within seconds they too were wrapped in what appeared to be an enjoyable collusion of ineptitude. Watching Sheila twist her head round laughing, her lips just inches from those of her companion, Laurie wondered what Derek would think should he observe that sensuous embrace. No sooner had the notion entered her mind than the door opened and in he came.

“Ah, there you are!” he cried accusingly. Bennet blinked at him. Gaunt struggled to rise.

“There's no need for that. You may sit. Sit,” repeated Derek and, like an obedient mastiff, the butler once more collapsed.

“Now, I am continuing my investigation into the extraordinary events that took place in the small hours of this morning. I take it I do not need to refresh your memory?”

“Hardly, sir. With a broken leg to remayned me.”

“Quite so.” Derek brushed this piffling detail briskly aside. “First I need to know exactly why you were on the stairs at all.”

“I thought I'd left a window open.”

“He thought he heard a burglar, sir.”

Laurie was unsurprised at this lack of synchronization. Apart from their briefly united appearance on the antimedical front, the couple seemed to be fretfully living in separate worlds. Gaunt mooning over his injured limb, Bennet performing the modest tasks that faulty vision would allow in a rigidly controlled manner while shedding upon the butler a beam of anger, resentment and disapproval so powerful that, when needing to step between them, Laurie could feel it like a lance.

“An interesting and revealing reply,” quoth Derek. “You see, Laurel, although they have had ample time to collaborate on a story, they have chosen not to do so. This argues, I'm sure, either extreme cunning or complete innocence. I am inclined to favor the latter.”

“Yes,” said Laurie. “Well…if you'll excuse me—”

“You do understand the seriousness of this matter?” Nods from both suspects. “Good. Now, we'll examine the window explanation first. Gaunt?”

“I checked them all, as I thought, before I retired, sir. I'd quite dropped off when something hit me—”

“You were attacked, man?”

“No, no, sir. Just a thought. I sat up in bed. I said: ‘Ben-net'—”

“Just a moment. You call your sister by her surname?”

“I…I do in my sleep, sir.”

“How very singular.” Derek put the tips of his fingers together and started loping about. “Continue…”

“Bennet,” I said, “I don't think I checked that tall window at the end of the landing.”

There wouldn't have been a lot of point, thought Laurie. The window, an acid yellow and bright blue Burne-Jones affair of daffodils and flowing streams, was purely ornamental. Half irritated at the holdup—there was a lot to do for lunch—and half amused, she excused herself again and went next door to the kitchen to make a start.

“I cannot bear to think,” Gaunt carried on, “that I have not carried out my duties to the best of my ability—”

“That was the cornerstone of our training at Blades, sir. Always carry—”

“Yes, yes.” Derek waved Bennet into silence. “Get on with it, man.”

“So I put a dressing gown on and went upstairs. I had been worrying unduly. The window was quite secure. But then as I turned to go back something…appeared…” The butler started to shake and covered his face with his hands.

“Go on…
go on…
” Derek's eyes shone.

“I can't…on my mother's eyes, sir…If you'd seen it you wouldn't ask.”

“It is your duty,” insisted the panjandrum, pressing meanly on the Achilles tendon.

“Well…” Gaunt drew a deep breath. “It arose out of the floor…by the opposite window to mine and started sliding and…and slithering toward me. A phantom. It had claws and eyes like red-hot coals and it sort of…glowed…” Fear dowsed the butler's voice and he could say no more.

This didn't sound at all to Derek like Mrs. Gibbs's apparition. “Does the family have two ghosts, Laurel?” he called through the connecting doorway.

“As far as I know it doesn't have any.” Laurie, having strained the contents of her stockpot through several folds of clear muslin, was now whisking in some egg whites. She tapped the whisk very aggressively on the side of her pan, hoping Bennet might take the hint and come to give a hand. Laurie felt herself to be in a difficult position. On the one side there was Derek, already with a large and quite justifiable grievance (Laurie, being absent from the breakfast table, was not familiar with his change of heart), at last doing what he had paid two hundred and fifty pounds to do, namely investigate a mystery. On the other, in just over two hours' time ten people were expecting to sit down to walnut soup, salmon trout with new potatoes and salad of lettuce and endive, strawberries Romanoff and Tuiles a l'Orange. No cheese.

“Of course!” continued Derek, still excitedly on the move, “this second figure is, I suggest, none other than the previously spotted intruder. In other words,
the man I saw running away on the terrace
. Obviously, once we were all asleep he effected an entry, disguised himself with some drapery and set about his nefarious intent. That must be the solution.”