Murder At Wittenham Park (9 page)

5

B
REAKFAST
was an anticlimax after the 7:30
A.M
. commotion. Dee Dee had misjudged the effect of having the “murder” discovered so early. Her guests' first instinct was to get back to their morning tea, then to dress. When they did come down for breakfast soon after nine, they were more interested in real food than fictional crime. Furthermore, it was a genuine country-house breakfast, not a hotelier's make-believe, with silver dishes bearing bacon, eggs, tomatoes, kidneys and mushrooms, lined up on a hotplate for everyone to serve themselves as they felt inclined.

Dee Dee and Gilroy breakfasted elsewhere and only Priscilla tried to steer the conversation onto the “murder,” an attempt not helped by her being in the grip of a hangover.

“I don't know about all of you, darlings,” she quavered, embracing Hamish, Dulcie and Loredana with what was intended to be an encouraging smile, but emerged as a conspiratorial giggle, “but I quite definitely heard footsteps in the corridor during the night. I'm sure something dastardly was going on.”

“The question is what,” Dulcie remarked, looking sideways at her husband, who flushed, while Loredana became intensely interested in a boiled egg which she had only been fiddling with before.

“I heard a midnight person,” Jemma cut in. “And I saw a woman in a night-dress this morning who can't have been the maid.”

“Must we take this nonsense seriously?” Hamish asked in a lofty way. “Personally I came here for a relaxed weekend.”

“We came because we were invited,” Dulcie said coldly.

Listening, Jim Savage realized whose voice they had overheard in the hall before dinner. Dulcie's last remark had the same low, scornful, and almost masculine intensity that had characterized the words “You haven't any option.”

“None the less, Mrs. McMountdown, you have been joining in,” he protested, wondering if he would catch her on the hop. “Jemma and me heard the ‘row' before dinner. Mr. Welch took part, didn't he?”

“Before dinner?” Dulcie was caught unawares, but recovered quickly and laughed in a dismissive way. “You've fallen for a red herring. Lord Gilroy lent him the room for a business discussion. There was no row. George always expresses himself, well, vividly. The row during dinner was the one we're supposed to remember.”

“Libellous that was, all that about blackmail,” Adrienne said indignantly. “Just deliberately getting on George's wick. No wonder he went bananas. And fancy making him sleep in a different room to me.” She stopped, then added with a trace of concern, almost of guilt, “I think I'll go and see what's keeping him. It's not like my George to be late for a meal. Likes his food too much.” She put down her napkin and left the room.

“I need to talk to him, too,” Dulcie said.

“So do I,” Hamish echoed her words, making Jim wonder if he had been the third person involved in the row. It was clearer than ever that those three had an agenda of their own this weekend, just as it had been obvious that Lady Gilroy's antipathy to Welch was real and that Loredana was involved with Hamish.

“What I simply don't understand,” Priscilla said plaintively, holding her hands to her head as if in need of steadying her brain, “is what we do when we've guessed the clues.”

“Oh my God!” Jim exclaimed, reminded of his duties, “I'm meant to be the detective.” He ought to have made notes about everything in “Mrs. Sketchley's” room—the position of the body, all that kind of thing. Although he could hardly have done so when the “body” had sailed imperiously off to the Gilroy's private quarters.

“You'll have to make up for lost time, Daddy,” Jemma chided him. “Shall I come with you?”

“Good idea.” He swallowed down the last of his coffee and the two of them left the room.

As they reached the top of the great staircase, Adrienne appeared from the dressing-room, where her husband was, looking frantically around, her handbag swinging. When she caught sight of Jim and Jemma she hurried down the passage to them.

“Please help me,” she said, her voice only just under control. “It's George. I can't wake him up.”

She led them into the dressing-room. It was simply and traditionally furnished with a mahogany chest of drawers, an Empire-style single bed, a mahogany wardrobe and a bookcase. Welch's underclothes were lying in disarray on an armchair. The curtains were drawn across a high window and there was another door, presumably leading either to a bathroom or to the State Room next door.

Jim began making these mental notes the moment he saw George Welch's corpulent body, lying propped up with pillows, on the elegant bed. He was wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas and might have been reading something when he collapsed, because a pair of reading glasses lay on the bedcover. Jim stood by the bed, took his wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none.

“We need a doctor,” he said. “Jemma, go and rout out the Gilroys. Quick.”

“He's not dead!” Adrienne half-screamed, beginning to lose control, as Jemma ran out into the passage. She took her husband's arm and tried to lift him up further on the bed. “George, George,” she cried out. “What's happened?” There was no response and he was too heavy for her to shift.

“They'll have a doctor here in no time,” Jim said. It was pointless to offer hope, but he felt Welch's chest as a gesture. There was no trace of a heartbeat.

Adrienne gave up her efforts, sat down heavily in the empty armchair and began to sob.

“Can I get you a cup of tea?” Jim offered.

She nodded.

Before leaving the room, he made a further quick survey of what was in it. A small decanter stood on top of the chest of drawers. It looked empty. It struck him that something was missing, something that should have been there, but he could not think what it was. He would have liked to look in the bathroom, but felt obliged to go out by the main door.

Downstairs he encountered Gilroy, calling the doctor from the phone in the hall, with Jemma beside him. He fetched a cup of sweetened tea from the dining-room and took it up. The only table was the bedside one. Balancing the teacup in his right hand, he used his left to lift the table across to Adrienne.

“I never knew he had a bad heart,” she said. “It must have been his heart, mustn't it? I can't believe this is happening.” She began to sob again. “I reely can't.”

“The doctor'll be here soon,” he assured her. There wasn't a lot more to say and he was uncertain whether to stay with her or not, eventually deciding he ought to. Possibly the tea helped, because she gradually recovered herself.

“It must have been his heart,” she repeated, seeming oddly reconciled to the idea.

Downstairs Gilroy went through to tell the guests still at breakfast that Welch was ill. Dulcie at once insisted on going up to see him.

“His wife's with him,” Gilroy said, displaying unusual firmness. “I think you should wait.” She agreed reluctantly and the first animated conversation of the weekend erupted amongst everyone else.

Twenty minutes later Dr. Thompson arrived, carrying a sombre black bag, like an outsize briefcase, that contrasted oddly with his cheerful, chubby face and very active manner. After a methodical examination of Welch he confirmed that he was dead, but was cautious about the reason.

“It must be his heart,” Adrienne said again, as though comforting herself with the idea.

“Was he taking any medication?” Thompson asked.

“Not regularly. He'd take a pill if he couldn't sleep. And so would I,” Adrienne added. “You should have heard him snore.”

“Was he a healthy person? Did he smoke a lot, drink much?”

“He liked his whisky,” Adrienne admitted. “But he didn't smoke, except sometimes a cigar.”

Suddenly Jim remembered two things that were missing. The first was whatever Welch had been reading, unless it had fallen on the floor. The second was the whisky glass. As the doctor continued, he went quietly to the other door, opened it and found a luxurious bathroom tiled in onyx, with a gigantic tub and a shower. Another door presumably led into the State Room. He tried the handle, but it was locked. He noticed a pair of tumblers on a glass shelf below a shaving mirror and sniffed them without touching them. There was no smell of liquor and they were clean. Standing there, he asked himself why he was doing all this. Lady Gilroy had asked him to keep an eye on the silver. That was hardly a reason for behaving like a private eye. And yet …

The doctor gave him a curious look as he re-entered the dressing-room, asked if that was a bathroom, went through and made up a sedative for Adrienne, using one of the tumblers. While he was there Jim managed to look around the floor by the bed and again found nothing. When Thompson returned with the sedative he told Gilroy that he would like a word in private.

“If you don't mind,” he said to Adrienne, “I think it would be best if we all go downstairs.” He ushered Jim and Adrienne out, then extracted the key from the inside of the bedroom door and locked it from the outside, carefully putting the key in his coat pocket.

“What d'you do that for?” Adrienne demanded. “Why shouldn't I go in? It's my husband's room! And he's in there.” She began to sob again and Dr. Thompson had to take her arm and guide her down the hall.

“Can Lady Gilroy look after her?” he asked. “Somebody must do.”

Fortunately Dee Dee came through from the kitchen in the east wing at this moment and took charge of Adrienne, while Jim rejoined the others and the doctor went with Gilroy to the study.

“Was this man Welch perfectly fit yesterday, so far as you know?” he demanded.

“Seemed to be.” Gilroy was stunned. No one could have wished Welch out of the way more than he did, but dying was carrying things a bit far. He felt as though he had been mugged himself, and it was all too easy to spot what the doctor's next request would be.

“Since there appears to have been nothing the matter with him, I cannot possibly sign a death certificate. We must call the police.”

“Do we have to?” This was exactly the wrong kind of publicity for Wittenham. The next thing they knew the grounds would be swarming with reporters.

“I'm afraid so. May I?” Thompson picked up the study's phone extension and rang a number. “As you probably know, I'm a police surgeon, but I'm not doing anything until officially asked.”

“Then I shall have to tell the guests,” Gilroy agreed wearily, wondering whether they would sue for refunds.

By this time breakfast was over. Dodgson discreetly chivvied everyone back to the library, Gilroy cleared his throat for an important announcement, told them all that Welch was dead and the police were on the way.

A gasp of amazement shook the room, followed by a palpable relaxation of the tension. Jemma, who had begun keeping notes in earnest for her magazine article, recorded being intrigued by people's expressions.

Dodgson and Tracy, standing respectfully apart from the guests, as the staff would have done in an Edwardian family photograph, showed silent satisfaction. Tracy's face had “Serve him right” written all over it, while the butler's displayed the relief of a long-serving worker who had not been let go after all.

The thin-lipped smile and wink that Hamish gave to Loredana were reciprocated by a tiny shrug of the shoulders from her, implying that this was none of her business, but probably a good thing. Otherwise she remained as impassive as the Ice Queen.

Only Dulcie actually spoke, and when she did it was in the strong, low tones that Jemma and her father had agreed were her business voice.

“As Mr. Welch's lawyer, I need access to papers that he was working on last night.”

“I doubt the police would wish anything in his room to be touched.” This was Dr. Thompson speaking.

“Then you can come with me as a witness.” Dulcie's head was tilted slightly back to challenge the doctor, who was well over six feet tall. “The document will have my fingerprints on it already. All I need to know is whether my client signed it.”

“What a mystery!” Priscilla exclaimed delightedly. “Just like a thriller!”

“On the contrary.” Dulcie swung round and cut her down. “This is for real and there is no mystery, simply a contract.” She turned on Thompson. “Well, Doctor. Shall we go?”

Faced by this bundle of determined energy, Thompson relented and they went out, leaving the field clear for Priscilla to indulge herself.

“What's the betting he was murdered?” she cooed. “Wouldn't that be exciting!”

“Please, Mrs. Worthington.” Gilroy protested.

“Oh, but he easily could have been, darling. I gave him the poisoned nightcap.”

“You what!” Gilroy yelped, as everyone turned to look at her.

“He wouldn't take it in to ‘Mrs. Sketchley,' so Mr. Dodgson made it up, and I took it to him instead. Horrid man.”

Gilroy tried to shake off the fuzziness that this hung-over woman's remarks induced in his own head. Where did fiction end and fact begin? He had told her to get together with Dodgson and fix some skulduggery with the coffee-cups. What on earth had they actually done? He gave Dodgson a despairing glance and the butler stepped into the breach.

“If your lordship will forgive the intrusion,” he wheezed, “I would like to explain. For the purposes of the plot, Mr. Welch was to take a poisoned hot drink to his ‘sister.' Of course, it was not actually contaminated in any way. It was merely cocoa. I delivered it to this lady at ten in the evening.”

“And I poisoned it!” Priscilla shrilled, apparently convinced that she really had.

“What is this nonsense?” Hamish demanded haughtily. “Poor old George Welch is dead and we should have some respect for him.”

“Well, I put in a few sleeping tablets, that was all,” Priscilla admitted sulkily, aggrieved at having her dramatics curtailed when she'd been told to keep things lively, and feeling no sorrow whatever for Welch. “He was such an old goat. He deserved to be immm-m” she stumbled over the word “immobilized” and then abandoned it. “Put out of business for the night.”