Murder At Wittenham Park (27 page)

“Seriously?” This was a startling idea, though not one that Jemma could believe.

“I heard them quarrelling earlier on. D'you know,” Tracy went on, “some people behave as if you aren't there. She's one of them. All matey with Lady G, and all airs and graces with us. You know she brought down her tea-tray Saturday morning?”

“At what time?”

“A good twenty minutes before any one else. She said she wanted to save you trouble.”

“Not on your nelly! She was after getting her breakfast right. Must have her grapefruit all cut up the way she wanted. Lightly boiled egg. ‘Only three and a quarter minutes, please. Not a second more.' No crusts on the toast. You name it. Choosy bitch she is.”

That hardly made her a criminal, Jemma thought, and turned the conversation to crime writing. Whether Tracy was more enthralled by her second lot of scones or by the literary advice was uncertain, but it evoked one more piece of gossip.

“You'll never guess what I found in one of the library wastebaskets this morning.”

“What was it?”

“A tiny glass bottle with a funny top, almost like it was out of a doll's house. No label or anything. I'll show you when we get back, if you like.” Tracy giggled. “Could have been drugs, I thought. D'you reckon any of them are junkies?”

Jemma considered this fairly lightly. Then it struck her that quite possibly Priscilla might be on drugs. She was scatter-brained enough to dump the evidence in a waste-basket.

“I'd like to see it,” she said. “Maybe we ought to be getting back.”

Tracy reluctantly finished the last of her tea and they set off, arriving back at Wittenham just behind a police car.

“Something's going on,” Jemma remarked. “Let's go and see.”

But Tracy felt she couldn't. “Her ladyship'll go bananas if I come in the front door. We have to go round the back. Thanks a million for the outing, and ta for now.” She left the car and hurried round to the servants' entrance, while Jemma went to the main one.

Something was indeed going on. A policeman insisted on checking her identity at the door. Inside the Great Hall the guests were grouped to one side, listening to an altercation between Dulcie and Morton, while Adrienne stood sobbing hysterically beside Sergeant Timmins, who was in his uniform.

“Have you a warrant for her arrest?” Dulcie demanded, squaring up to Morton like a very small pugilist confronting a Goliath, her head up and eyes fixed on his from beneath her neatly cut mop of blonde hair.

“Is she your client?” Morton asked firmly but equably. He was at his best in this kind of tense situation.

“She is now.” Dulcie turned to Adrienne. “You would like me to represent you?” Adrienne nodded, unable to speak and having to be supported physically by Timmins.

“Then I am asking again. Have you a warrant for her arrest?”

“I am arresting Mrs. Welch on suspicion of having murdered her husband, George Ernest Welch,” Morton said. “Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act I can hold a suspect for questioning for up to twenty-four hours.”

He turned to Adrienne and delivered a wordy caution that had been much modified by British law's having removed a suspect's right to stay silent. “You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something that you later use in your defence. Anything you do say may be used in evidence.”

“Don't say a word,” Dulcie snapped and then faced Morton again. “She has the right of access to her solicitor before being interviewed. Are you going to grant her that access here, or at the police station?”

Morton considered this. There were rigid procedures to follow. Mrs. Welch would have to be handed over to an officer at a “designated” police station, be fed, kept warm, not be interviewed unduly late in the evening, allowed eight hours' sleep, et cetera, et cetera. Mrs. Welch would be within her rights in refusing to say anything until she had spoken to a solicitor, while he could not start interviewing her until they reached the police station.

It was unusual for a solicitor to be present at an arrest. However, few things about the Wittenham Park murder seemed to be normal. In fact, Morton reckoned that if he ever came to write his memoirs, Wittenham Park would merit a chapter of its own. So he gave way and allowed the two women to be taken to Gilroy's study, for Dulcie to counsel her new client. The quicker this was done, the sooner he could start his interviewing and discover how much Mrs. Welch really knew about the state of her husband's finances.

Amid the hubbub of excited conversation that broke out among the guests, Jim took Jemma aside.

“Either he's deliberately breaking up the log-jam by making that arrest, or he's got evidence that neither of us have dreamt of.”

“How do you mean?”

“He may hope Adrienne will collapse and confess. More likely he hopes this will make all the rest of us feel we're off the hook. Then who knows what might not surface.”

The truth of this observation was reinforced within seconds, when Hamish accosted Morton and said he presumed that everyone was now free to leave.

“If you don't mind, sir”—Morton was at his most diplomatic—“I would prefer you to wait until after breakfast tomorrow.”

“But that's absurd,” Loredana said, hobbling across on her stick. “Who wants another night in this dreadful place?”

“Thank you, dear,” said Dee Dee caustically, having overheard her. “I will pass your compliments to the staff.”

“I'm so sorry.” Loredana backed off apologetically. “I didn't mean it personally. It's just that now he's made his arrest it seems so pointless keeping us.”

“I don't like to disappoint you,” Jim cut in, not unhappy at putting Loredana in her place. “But holding someone for questioning is not the same as charging them with murder.”

“Oh. Isn't it?” Loredana sounded disappointed.

A few minutes later Dulcie emerged with Adrienne, who was calmer, if still extremely shaky.

“She'll need to pack some clothes,” Dulcie told Morton. “I assume you'll send someone upstairs with her?”

Morton agreed, then turned to his unwanted audience. “I shall shortly be taking Mrs. Welch to Oxford. I shall not need to talk to anyone of you again this evening.”

Dee Dee glanced at the tiny jewelled wrist-watch Gilroy had given her as a wedding present, saw that it was still only five-thirty, and decided the hell with it. “I need a drink,” she announced. “Anyone else who would like one can come to the library.” She turned to the butler, who had also been watching. “Please come out of your daze, Dodgson, and do your stuff. And tonight we shall eat properly in the dining-room.”

This clear statement did more than anything to make everyone appreciate that, at least as far as the Gilroys were concerned, life was returning to normal. Nor did Morton dispute it. Shortly afterwards he and another officer took Adrienne away, Dulcie promising that she would visit her in the morning.

“Those people make me angry,” Dulcie commented as Morton disappeared. But she would not explain why.

Meanwhile Jemma slipped along to the kitchen and returned unobtrusively with Tracy's tiny bottle wrapped in a tissue in her bag. When she showed it to Jim, he was puzzled.

“Looks familiar,” he remarked. “But I can't think why.” He examined it, carefully holding it with the tissue. The bottle was barely an inch and a half long and had a rubber-sealed clip-on metal cap. He eased the blue-coloured cap off and sniffed. There was no smell and the bottle appeared empty. “It'll come to me eventually. Let's keep this safe.” He went through to the hall, took one of the crested envelopes from the rack on the writing-table and popped it in. I shall call this Exhibit A for the time being.”

“How original can you get,” Jemma cracked. “You're not still playing detective, are you, Daddy?

“I most certainly am. And if you're not being my accomplice, why did you bother with this?”

“You don't think Adrienne's guilty then?”

“I'm one hundred percent certain she lied to us and probably to Morton about the contract. I'm equally sure she's no murderess. Let's follow Lady Gilroy's advice and find a drink, shall we? We could have a strenuous evening ahead.”

16

“D
EE
D
EE
, darling,” Buck said, as they were changing for dinner. “D'you realize we're going to be rid of this ghastly bunch tomorrow? Why don't we have some champagne?”

“Why not!” For the first time in three days she looked at her blundering husband with affection. The “Agatha Christie” weekend looked set to retreat into the annals of a family history which future generations would marvel at, if more in despair than admiration. The threatened Lloyds demand had not arrived and a phone call had established that it had never been issued. Buck was now convinced that Hamish McMountdown had tried to con him and was wondering why. The only answer was that he had been in cahoots with Welch.

One thing the Coldstream Guards had taught Buck Gilroy was how to open a bottle of fizz without the ostentatious fuss of a racing driver spraying stage champagne all over a crowd. He twisted the cork out with only the mildest “pop” and deftly poured two glasses.

“To us.” He toasted his wife.

“To us.” Dee Dee kissed him. “And to Mrs. Welch for getting rid of that loathsome man. She deserves a medal, not jail.”

Naturally they consumed the bottle before going down to host the final evening, and Buck became increasingly of a mind to confront McMountdown. With less of the Widow Clicquot's vintage restorative inside him, he would have shied off the idea like a bolting horse. But now he began to feel alcoholically indignant.

“You know, Mr. Savage,” he said, as he and Dee Dee encountered Jim and Jemma on the stairs, “I think there was a conspiracy against me this weekend. What do you think?”

“I'm quite sure there was.” Jim looked at him in amazement. “Didn't you know they were ganging up on you?”

“Only just came to me. You mean, you knew?”

“I deduced it. You remember I was asking about the row my daughter and I overheard before dinner on Friday? That was Mrs. McMountdown telling her husband in no uncertain terms that if he did not collaborate with Welch in fooling you, then Welch would sue him for something. I can only guess what it was, but the threat was real enough to make him spin you that tale about Lloyds losses during dinner.”

“Which was a bloody lie,” Gilroy said with unusual animation.

“A necessary one for Welch. Everything this weekend centered on your signing the contract.”

“Including Welch's murder?”

“Everything except the murder. That might have been thought about before, but it was prompted by an opportunity.”

“But his wife was involved with the contract.”

“That doesn't mean she did the deed.”

“I suppose not.” Gilroy absorbed this idea slowly. His brain cells had been working overtime since Adrienne's arrest and the champagne did not improve their efficiency.

“She wasn't deeply involved with the deal, anyway,” Jemma chimed in. “I mean, I'm sure she pretended to be, but I could see she wasn't.”

“Exactly,” Jim agreed. “Even though she nicked the document later on.”

“She what?” Gilroy exclaimed, amazed.

“Took possession of the contract. Can't say ‘stole' because she was a director of the company.”

“Why?” Now Gilroy was indignant. “We were looking everywhere for the damn thing!”

“To see what it let her in for.” Jim persisted. “I'm virtually certain that she took the contract from Welch's room when she found him dead. Either she did go in when she says she was afraid to disturb him, or she put it in her bag before calling for help later. Since it turned out to be unsigned, there was no commitment to alarm her, and eventually she got rid of it by dumping it on my bed.”

“I'm still going to have it out with that bastard McMountdown,” Gilroy said vehemently, reverting to his earlier thoughts about having been conned.

“Buck, darling,” Dee Dee cut in, “I don't think that is such a great idea.”

“Oh.” Having wriggled back into his wife's good books, Gilroy didn't want to annoy her. “Let's forget it then.”

They left the Savages and continued down the stairs and through to the library, ready to greet their guests as they came down.

Meanwhile Jim and Jemma lingered in the Great Hall, over in a corner where they could watch the others descend.

“He's pretty slow,” Jim remarked. “It's taken him a long time to cotton on to Welch's tactics.”

“Adrienne can't have been part of those. Do you think she's innocent, Daddy?”

“Yes. Do you?”

Jemma told him why and he listened with care to her conclusions.

“We ought to tell Morton this,” he said.

“Except that he's not here to be told. Why don't we bring it out into the open?”

“It's impossible to prove.”

“But it's not impossible to hassle people into admissions. That's what attorneys do all the time in court.”

“My love, I'm not an attorney and we're not in court.”

“Well, I don't agree,” Jemma insisted. “I think Lord Gilroy's drunk just enough to challenge Hamish and we should take it from there.”

“Let's play it by ear then, shall we?”

So they went on through to the library, where Priscilla was making a nervous entrance.

“Oh, Lady Gilroy,” she gushed, “I am so glad this is the last night.”

“So are we,” Dee Dee said icily. “There's a taxi coming for you at ten tomorrow to take you to the station. Now please behave yourself this evening.”

“Scout's honour,” Priscilla promised, which privately meant that, since she was not a boy, she would do no such thing. She had existed in a half-world between the theatre and life for too many years.