A Mourning Wedding Read online

  “Well, of course.”

  Alec thought it best not to comment. “Is this the only door?” he asked.

  “There’s one to a bathroom, shared with the next bedroom, but it was bolted on this side when I arrived. No one could’ve got in unseen.”

  “Good, though the murderer had plenty of time to do what he wanted in the night. What time of death did the doctors propose?”

  “Between one and four. They wouldn’t commit themselves closer.”

  “They never will. Has anyone tried to get in?” Alec asked the elderly constable, who was regarding him with an inexplicable air of approval.

  “No, sir. Leastways, a pair of housemaids came to do the rooms and they said the housekeeper told ‘em to tidy up this un too, but when I told ’em no, they wasn’t going to argue. Relieved, they was, sir, that’s the word. Giggling and squeaking like a pair o’ mice,” he added benevolently.

  “That’ll do, Stebbins,” snapped Crummle, unlocking and opening the door and ushering Alec in.

  Alec stood for a moment on the threshold. The scene was much as he had expected from Daisy’s description. He crossed to the dressing table. “Any sign of theft?”

  “No, sir. There’s jewellery in the top drawer there and a purse with a few pounds and change.”

  One leather case contained a superb ruby necklace, and another held nearly a dozen elaborate rings. “Was the deceased wearing any rings?” Alec asked.

  “A wedding ring, gold, and another ring on the same finger, a pink stone with pearls around. Her personal maid said she never took it off except to be cleaned. Looked to me uncomfortable to wear in bed but I suppose she’d got used to it.”

  “That could explain how the pillow was ripped open. I’d wondered. The ring must have caught a thread.”

  Crummle flushed. “I didn’t examine the ring closely.”

  “Never mind, it’s a minor point and can be checked.” He opened another drawer and found a sachet with several pairs of silk stockings in fashionable beige skin-tones. In a second sachet were more in different colours, presumably to match particular frocks. “What colour was the stocking around her neck?”

  “Sort of brownish.”

  “Did you ask her maid whether she ever wore that precise shade?”

  “No, sir.” Crummle was indignant. “I can’t see where it matters what colour it is. Sky-blue pink’d kill just as well.”

  “True.”

  But there might be a clue to the way the murderer thought in whether he brought a stocking with him or, when the pillow failed, used one he found to hand. Alec didn’t bother to explain. He was getting fed up with the inspector’s lack of imagination coupled with his sense of grievance. He tried to come up with some task which would keep the man out of his way while presenting at least an appearance of usefulness.

  “When is the autopsy scheduled, and who’s doing it?”

  “Dr. Philpotts, the police surgeon, said he’d do it this evening if he can’t get to it this afternoon.”

  “All right, I’ll need a written report of all your findings to date, and any theories you’ve come up with. Try to have it done by the time the photos get here, so we can all go over everything together. This room had better be left as it is until I’ve seen your photos. And now it’s about time I presented myself to the earl.”

  As a Scotland Yard detective called in by the Chief Constable, he should be introduced to Lord Haverhill by Sir Leonard. As an invited wedding guest, he should be introduced by Daisy or Lucy. Rather than sort out these competing claims, and unsure of just how his lordship regarded him, he decided to put himself in the butler’s hands.

  Much better not to involve Daisy, not to suggest to others—to one particular other—that she was involved. He wondered what she had been doing since leaving the library. He hadn’t had a chance to remind her to drop a few hints dissociating herself from the investigation.

  With Inspector Crummle’s inimical glare upon her, Daisy had been only too glad to remove herself from the library. Her business with Alec was unfinished, however. She hadn’t had time to pass on her information and opinions about most of the people at Haverhill. She had a nagging feeling there was something both important and urgent she ought to have said, but she couldn’t think what, nor even about whom.

  The hall was empty, no group waiting for her with anxious questions.

  She wasn’t surprised. At lunch the taciturn gloom had been thick enough to cut with a knife: the shock and horror of what had happened had sunk in at last. Except for the Haverhills, Lord and Lady Fotheringay, and Sally, everyone had turned up, including the Devenishes and three newcomers who had just arrived by car. The latter were anxious to leave again as soon as possible; in fact, several others had turned around at the station and gone straight home when Lord Haverhill’s chauffeur told them what had happened. The rest were resigned to staying. No one seemed to realize the police couldn’t actually stop them leaving if they insisted, and Daisy hadn’t enlightened them.

  On leaving Alec and Crummle in the library, she decided to go up to the family apartments to enquire after Lord Fotheringay’s health.

  By now she had talked to everyone since the murder, at least briefly, except Lady Haverhill and Maud and Aubrey Fotheringay. Not that she suspected any of the three, but they might know something useful. Lady Eva could have confided in her sister-in-law, for instance, about trouble with a member of her family.

  Interrupted by Crummle, Alec had failed to issue his usual prohibition against asking direct questions, but Daisy virtuously resolved not to. On the other hand, he had practically ordered her to drop hints about not knowing what was in Lady Eva’s memoranda. If she worded her hints right, they ought to elicit any information available.

  When she knocked at the sitting-room door, Lady Fotheringay opened it. “Oh, it’s you, Daisy. We thought it might be your husband. Sir Leonard announced his arrival.”

  “He’ll be up to make his bow shortly, but he felt he had to smooth the local man’s ruffled feathers first. I just popped up to ask after your husband. Lucy said you were concerned about the effect of the shock on his health.”

  Lady Haverhill’s voice came from within the room. “Ask Mrs. Fletcher to come in, Maud. My son has insisted on taking refuge with his plants, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “I’m glad he’s well enough.”

  “He ought to be in bed,” said Lady Fotheringay. “Such a terrible shock!”

  “I’m afraid the shock has hit my husband harder than was immediately apparent, Mrs. Fletcher. Nicholas has not been quite himself for a month or more, as is, I dare say, to be expected at our age. He is lying down at present, but of course he will get up to … to welcome your husband.”

  “Alec wouldn’t dream of disturbing him. He’ll have to speak to him sometime, but I’m sure it can wait until he’s rested,” Daisy rashly pledged. “Do you know how Mr. Montagu is getting on? I had the impression he was close to Lady Eva.”

  “Montagu encouraged Eva in that wretched gossip business,” Lady Haverhill said astringently.

  Or had she blackmailed him into passing on rumours heard at his club? Daisy wondered.

  “He’s taken to his bed,” Lady Fotheringay informed her. “They were as close as any brother and sister I know, so it’s quite understandable. What I cannot understand is why Sally should do likewise. She scarcely knew Aunt Eva. What on earth persuaded my son to marry a girl with such delicate nerves? Not at all suitable for a soldier’s wife!”

  “Sally is in such a state, Nicholas felt obliged to send Rupert’s commanding officer a cable asking that he be released from his manoeuvres.”

  “I don’t think it’s at all surprising that she’s upset,” said Daisy, with a glow of conscious virtue earned by sticking up for a person she disliked. “The very idea of murder is so abhorrent that being involved in a case, however peripherally, is enough to make some people ill.”

  “I suppose Mr. Fletcher is quite convinced that it’s m-murder?�
��

  “Of course he is, Maud, or he’d not have rushed down from London three days earlier than intended. I should say, my dear, that Nicholas is very grateful that your husband is willing to head the investigation.”

  Daisy didn’t say that Alec was not at all willing and had only come because he’d been ordered to. She wanted to steer the conversation back to Lady Eva’s gossip collection. “There’s the London connection,” she said, “which makes it possible for Scotland Yard to get involved. One of Alec’s men is at Lady Eva’s house now, going through her files.”

  Both ladies flinched, appalled. Daisy had overestimated their sang froid. In the face of the murder of a relative by marriage they managed stiff upper lips, but the prospect of the public washing of the family’s dirty linen made them quail.

  Clearly they had not considered the ramifications of the crime. Had the murderer? Could he or she possibly have failed to realize that Lady Eva’s demise would cause the police to read her memoranda?

  “Don’t worry, the police will treat the information as confidential.” Unless it was needed as evidence. “Alec won’t even tell me.”

  “Do you think she was killed because of something she found out?” faltered Lady Fotheringay, braving her mama-in-law’s frown.

  “The police must no doubt consider the possibility,” Lady Haverhill conceded, “since Eva was so ill-advised as to make a hobby of enquiring into other people’s private business, and so unwise as to make no secret of it.” She changed the subject. “Mrs. Fletcher, Lucinda appears indifferent to the postponement of her wedding. I confess myself baffled by the flippant manner you modern young women consider de rigueur, so I cannot make out whether she is simply putting on a brave face for our sakes. Can you tell me, is she dreadfully upset?”

  Daisy hesitated. For a start, she didn’t feel she had a secure grasp on Lucy’s state of mind—and she wasn’t at all sure that Lucy herself did. Secondly, telling Lucy’s aunt and grandmother that she had decided to call the whole thing off would only distress them at a time when there was more than enough grief to go around. And in the third place, if they didn’t know about Lucy’s bequest from Lady Eva, it was not for Daisy to tell them.

  “The reason for the postponement is far more upsetting than the postponement can possibly be,” she said guardedly.

  “I feel I must take you into my—our—confidence. By the time a decent period of mourning has passed, in today’s terms, which I know are very different from those of my young days, I rather doubt that Nicholas will be up to entertaining on the scale presently arranged.”

  “Gosh, is he really ill?”

  “A degenerative disease which the doctor expects to progress quite rapidly.” The countess’s voice caught on the last word, but after passing her hand across her eyes, she continued with her habitual composure, “Only the immediate family has been told. I need not ask you, I’m sure, to keep it to yourself.”

  Daisy’s mind raced. It sounded as if Lady Fotheringay would at last become Countess of Haverhill in the not too far distant future. Whether she had the force of character to stop playing second fiddle to her mother-in-law was another question.

  In any case, Lady Eva’s death had not contributed to the change in her prospects, so there was no reason for Daisy to mention the earl’s illness to Alec. “Of course, Lady Haverhill, I shan’t breathe a word.”

  “But if you can gently hint to Lucinda the possibility that she may have to … to make do with a somewhat less lavish celebration …”

  “Lucy won’t mind, I’m sure. I don’t want to make her sound ungrateful, but it’s all been rather a trial to her.”

  “I rather suspected this grand affair was more Victoria’s notion than Lucinda’s, though, of course, one must make some sort of show for Lord and Lady Tiverton.”

  For a moment, Daisy couldn’t think who Lord and Lady Tiverton were—oh yes, Binkie’s parents, the Marquis and Marchioness. Irrelevant as they were to the present situation, she had forgotten them.

  She wasn’t getting very far with the present situation. What she really wanted was an excuse to talk to the Devenishes, especially Edward. Just why did young Teddy, Lady Eva’s residual legatee, who had been “consorting with a divorcée,” turn up unexpectedly at more or less the time the victim was meeting her end?

  Even if Daisy braved Alec’s displeasure to ask Teddy outright, he wasn’t likely to give her a straight answer. But whatever his reason, he must have given his sister some explanation, true or false, and Daisy was on excellent terms with Angela.

  9

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Chief,” said Tom, entering the library with the soft tread of a large man whose mass is more muscle than fat.”It’s going to be quite a job running these people to earth when you want to talk to ’em. The place is a bloody great barracks, excepting in a barracks everyone’s got a place where he ought to be. This lot can wander all over. I’ve asked Mr. Baines to loan us a footman to help. He’s waiting in the hall.”

  “Good thinking. Crummle’s detailing a constable to help, too. Ah, here he is.”

  “Constable Stebbins, sir.” It was the elderly officer who had been on duty at Lady Eva’s door. By no means a large man, he walked with the heavy yet gingerly tread of one whose feet hurt him. “Mr. Crummle said to give you a hand, sir, to round up the suspects.”

  “Crummle’s revenge,” Alec muttered in an undertone.

  Tom stroked his moustache to hide a grin. “We’ll have to keep some of ’em on ice, Chief, or there’ll be a long wait between, considering how they’re scattered all over. Mr. Baines says there’s a little sitting room, what he calls an antechamber, across the hall. Suppose we stick them that’s waiting in there with Constable Stebbins to keep an eye on them.”

  “Good idea, Mr. Tring.”

  Stebbins breathed a gusty sigh of relief. “Thank you, sir! Mebbe I did ought to tell you, sir, there’s a couple of young chaps Mr. Crummle stationed at the front door which there aren’t hardly no need for, there being many and many a way out o’ this place and the rest not guarded.”

  “Thank you, Constable. Sergeant, shanghai one of those young chaps, if you please.”

  “Done, Chief!”

  “Tell him and the footman I want to see Miss Angela Devenish first, and then Mr. Edward Devenish. And after them, let’s see, Lucy—Miss Lucy Fotheringay—I think, followed by Sir James and Lady Devenish.”

  Usually Alec preferred to question his least likely suspects first, in the hope of eliminating some right away. This time, however, he couldn’t separate the sheep from the goats until he had the results of Piper’s researches. The chance of anyone’s having an alibi, except from a spouse, was minimal. For most of the people on his list he didn’t even have Daisy’s comments to guide him.

  In these preliminary interviews, he might as well start with those few of whose motives he was already aware. Lady Eva had known about Teddy’s association with a woman of whom his parents would undoubtedly disapprove, perhaps to the point of cutting off his allowance to force him to live at home. Both young Devenishes stood to gain financially from their grandmother’s death. And both had been wandering about the house at about the time she died.

  While they waited for Angela’s arrival, Tom told Alec what he had learnt from the servants. Though much more detailed than Crummle’s report, and with many more opinions voiced, it did not materially change matters.

  While the locked doors were not an impassable barrier, Lady Eva had been a generous tipper, therefore always a welcome guest at Haverhill as far as the servants were concerned. Her voracious appetite for aristocratic gossip was well known, as was her lack of interest in the misdeeds of lesser beings, provided they did not directly affect her comfort.

  The two servants she had brought with her, her personal maid and chauffeur, had been with her for five or six years. They were satisfied with their positions and did not expect any great recognition in her will.

  “Which is just as well,” sai
d Alec, “as she’s left them ten pounds per year of service.”

  “People have been killed for less,” Tom rumbled, “but not by them as’d have to go out looking for a job with the black mark of a murdered mistress against them. I reckon we can rule ’em out, all of ’em.”

  “Provisionally, as a working hypothesis.”

  “There’s one other thing, Chief. Seems Lady I-oh-nee—that’s I-O-N-E—Fotheringay went off to London by train after breakfast.”

  “Great Scott! Has anyone else sloped off that no one’s bothered to tell me about?”

  “If so, they haven’t bothered to tell me either. I didn’t come running, Chief, because she took no luggage and she’s ordered a car to pick her up at the station at half past six. I didn’t reckon you’d want to put out an all-stations alert or a watch on the ports, not for a Lady.”

  “No, you’re quite right. Who the devil is she?”

  Tom consulted his notebook. “Lord Haverhill’s spinster daughter. Fiftyish, plain, drab, dull. Not that they used those words but that’s what it added up to. No money to speak of—lives at home. They didn’t tell Inspector Crummle. He didn’t ask.”

  “Blast the man! All right, Tom, we’ll just have to wait and hope she turns up at … Ah, here comes Miss Dev—Daisy! What the dickens?”

  “This is Angela Devenish, darling.” Daisy’s smile had more than a touch of smugness. “You sent for her and she asked me to come with her. Angela, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher and Detective Sergeant Tring.”

  Exasperated, Alec ran his fingers through his hair. He should have expected this. The way Daisy had talked of Angela suggested they were on excellent terms.

  Angela Devenish, having entered with a small, nondescript dog at her heels, seemed not in the least disconcerted by the peculiar introduction. “How d’ye do, Mr. Fletcher,” she said gruffly. “I hope you don’t mind Tiddler. I can’t leave him; he howls.”

  “Not at all, Miss Devenish.” What he objected to was Daisy’s presence, and the whole situation where he was half guest, half inquisitive intruder. “Won’t you sit down?” He indicated the chair by the desk. Then, frowning at Daisy, he pointed to a chair at some distance.