A Mourning Wedding (8 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: A Mourning Wedding
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“Of course, of course. In the meantime, suppose I take your sergeant here to see Crummle?”
“I'd take it very kindly, sir,” said Tom tactfully.
They all went into the house. The enormous hall, inhabited only by ancestral portraits, made Alec think of the overpopulated rabbit warrens of London's East End, through which he'd chased many a villain. In some ways, the challenge here was going to be entirely different. In some ways it would be much the same: a web of family loyalties, a confusion of lies concealing unimportant secrets, a motive turning on some variation of greed or fear.
Cui bono?
Who would profit from Lady Eva's death, whether financially or by freedom from dread of exposure?
“Come into the library, darling. Mr. Walsdorf is the only person who ever uses it, and he's moved his theatre of operations up to Lord Haverhill's study. The poor chap's in charge of cancelling all the wedding arrangements.”
“Cancelling? Not postponing?”
“I'll come to that later. I have so much to tell you!”
Alec shut the library door behind them and kissed Daisy thoroughly. “Are you all right, love? I hate to think of you having such a shock in your condition.”
“Whereas you don't mind a bit if I have a shock when I'm not pregnant?”
“You know very well I wish you'd never in your life come within a hundred miles of murder.”
“Then I'd never have met you.”
“True,” Alec admitted. “That wouldn't have done at all.” He kissed her again before surveying his surroundings.
The library was another huge apartment, though without the lofty height of the hall. The only sign of mediaeval influence was the
row of tall arched windows looking north onto the carriage sweep and avenue. Between the windows, bookshelves rose to the ceiling. Matching bookcases on the opposite wall were interspersed with more portraits, these of stalwart Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen with whiskers or beards and their ladies in crinolines, bustles or Grecian bends.
“These are the real family portraits,” said Daisy, noting the direction of his gaze. “The ones in the hall are someone else's ancestors. Lord Haverhill told me the history of the Fotheringays.”
“Is it relevant?”
“I don't
think
so. I shan't waste time on it now, anyway. Come and sit down. You'll want to use the desk, won't you?”
“Yes. This looks like a good room for us to settle in, telephone and all.”
“I'm sure no one will mind. Right-oh, where shall I start? With the … the body?”
“No, I'll get all that from Crummle. Let's go through this list of who was here last night. Tell me a bit about each, which will no doubt lead to further revelations.”
“I suspect I have a revelation before we start. Is Edward, or Teddy, Devenish on your list?”
Something nagged at the back of Alec's mind as he ran his finger down the list. “Edward Devenish? No. Are you saying he was in fact here?”
“He arrived in the wee small hours, I'm told. His sister let him in and he slept on her bedroom floor.”
“What's their relationship to the deceased?”
“Grandchildren. Teddy's the only male child of Sir James and Lady Devenish.”
“‘The young master,'” Alec quoted Lady Eva's housekeeper. “Ernie found a reference to his consorting with a divorcee. I left him going through the papers, by the way—and thanks for the tip. It might have taken us a while to get on to that stash of dynamite.”
“The relatives mightn't have been too happy to mention it,” Daisy agreed. “Really rather an infra dig hobby for the daughter of an earl and widow of a baronet. I mean, gossip's one thing but digging around for it and writing it down is not at all the thing. Do you think the motive for her murder's there?”
“I'm not quite ready to pronounce on that. We'll see what else Ernie digs up.”
Daisy pounced on his pronoun. “We?
We'll
see?”
“Tom and I, and possibly the local chap. It's no good looking so disconsolate, love. You don't really want to know all the naughty antics Lucy's family gets up to.”
“I suppose not,” she conceded reluctantly.
“Apart from other considerations, such as my professional integrity, it's dangerous knowledge.” He frowned. “In fact, you'd better drop the odd disgruntled hint that I'm being close-mouthed. I don't want you suffering Lady Eva's fate, and you've the baby to think of now, too. Cheer up. I do need your help.”
“Noble of you to admit it for once, darling!”
“Back to Teddy Devenish. Do you know why he turned up in the early hours of the morning?”
“I haven't the foggiest. Angela—his sister—just told me he telephoned last night, and she went down to let him in at one. He was late and she had to hang about. I don't know what excuse he gave her. She's a bit naive. She also told me she expects to inherit a fair amount from Lady Eva.”
“She must have known we'd see the will. As a matter of fact, I have it in my pocket.”
“But she could have pretended not to know about the bequest.”
“True, though since the housekeeper told me about the bequest, that wouldn't have washed. Tell me about her. I'm going to concentrate on the financial motive until I hear from Piper.”
Daisy complied, ending, “I can't see anyone so determined to fight cruelty inflicting such a frightful death on any living being.”
“Unless for the greater good.”
“I don't believe she's that fanatical, but if she is, she'd surely have found a quick and painless way to do her grandmother in. I saw her face, Alec.”
He reached across the corner of the desk to squeeze Daisy's hand. “Don't think about it, love. Let's move on to Teddy. He's the residuary legatee. What do you make of him?”
“Spoilt. By his mother, at least, and indulged by his sister, who lurked on the cold, dark terrace for ages waiting for him to put in an appearance.”
“And his father?”
“I suspect Sir James's opinions don't carry a great deal of weight. Lady Devenish rather squashed him. Perhaps that's why he's such an avid pursuer of game large and small. It gets him out of the house. Is he in the will?”
“Not exactly. But the town house belongs to the estate so he gains the free use of it by his mother's death. He could rent it out for income, or use it to escape from his wife. Would they have condoned Teddy's carrying on with a divorcée?”
“Who knows? Though I doubt their indulgence would stretch so far, even if she was technically the wronged party. Do you think Lady Eva might have threatened to tell his parents? Or to rewrite her will?”
“It seems rather more likely than that she should hold a discovery over the head of anyone less closely related. It would give him a double motive. So far, young Master Teddy is shaping up as my prime suspect. Daisy, I hate to tell you this, but Lucy figures largely in the will.”
“I know. She told me. But it was she who persuaded the Earl to ask the Chief Constable to ask for you. Besides, darling, can you imagine Lucy
strangling
someone? She's much too fastidious.”
“I must admit that's my feeling, but you know I can't go by my feelings. I'll have to treat her like the rest.”
“It's not really a woman's crime, is it? Besides being gruesomely
grotesque, wouldn't it take a lot of strength? Lady Eva was pretty hefty.”
“Not if the victim was taken by surprise, in her sleep, say, as seems likely. By the time she awaked and realized what was happening it would be too late to struggle. Unconsciousness comes quite quickly.”
“Thank heaven for that.”
Daisy was looking pale again, but Alec failed to see how he could avoid the subject entirely, unless he cut her out of the investigation altogether. She'd be furious if he tried, and her views on the people involved, apart from Lucy, were too valuable to lose.
“Were you there when Lucy heard the news?” he asked. “How did she react?”
“You have to understand that she was already in a blue funk over the wedding. When the maid who found the body started screaming, she hid her head under the pillow and pretended she … Alec, I've just thought of something. Have you seen Lady Eva's room?”
“Not yet. You know I just arrived. Unfortunately Sir Leonard had the body removed to the mortuary, but Crummle had everything photographed and the pictures are being developed. Why?”
“There were feathers all over the place.”
“Ah, Sir Leonard didn't mention that.”
“From a ripped pillow. It seems to me the only reason for a pillow seam to split is that the murderer first tried to smother her with it and she fought back. Also, she was hanging off the side of the bed, as if she'd been pulled.”
“He didn't mention that, either.”
“So it must have been someone strong.”
“Not particularly,” Alec said grimly. “Suffocation is as much a woman's crime as a man's. And when it failed and the stocking came into play …”
“It was a stocking? But that doesn't have to mean it was a woman. Anyone can buy a pair of stockings. It could have been either a man who brought one on purpose or a woman who happened to have one
in her pocket. But with Lady Eva struggling, we come back to the need for strength.”
“Not necessarily. Half-suffocated, she might be quite feeble. Besides, at that point her murderer couldn't afford to let her live. He—or she—would have the strength of desperation.”
G
loomy, disgruntled and belligerent, Detective Inspector Crummle trudged the length of the library, saying, “Sir Leonard ordered me to report to you, sir. He's gone to see Lord Haverhill. Sergeant Tring is talking to the servants. Which I've already done.”
“Inspector Crummle? How do you do.” Alec stood up and shook hands. The courtesy invoked no spark of cheer in the local man. “Daisy, we're just about done, aren't we? I'll see you later. All right, Inspector, let's have your report, and then you can take me up to see the victim's room. Take a seat.”
“Thank you, sir.” Crummle sat down heavily in the chair Daisy had just vacated. “Pursuant to a telephone call received at—”
“Yes, yes, let's skip all that.” Alec pretended not to see Daisy turn on her way to the door and pull a face at him. “Tell me what you found when you arrived at Haverhill?”
“I asked to see his lordship. The butler would have left me waiting in the hall, but I wasn't having any of that, letting Lord Haverhill prepare himself. It's no good letting your suspects prepare themselves. I followed the butler up.”
No wonder the Earl had decided to bring in Scotland Yard. “You see Lord Haverhill as a suspect?” Alec asked. “Isn't he in his eighties?”
“But a very hearty old gentleman, as I could see the moment I set eyes on him. After interviewing him, I proceeded—”
“Wait a bit. What did you learn from him?”
“Nothing. He told me he had no information to assist me in bringing the investigation to a swift conclusion.”
Alec didn't ask why Crummle had believed Lord Haverhill. He had met this ambivalent attitude to the nobility before, a willingness to suspect them of crimes but not to question their statements. “So you then proceeded … ?” he said.
“I proceeded to instruct the butler, a man by the name of Baines, to show me to the scene of the crime and to send my men to me there.”
Judging by his description of his activities thereafter, Crummle had managed the scene of the crime quite competently. Photographs had been taken, fingerprints dusted for. The local GP had turned up, followed shortly by the police surgeon, who had been forced to agree on the obvious cause of death.
“And I would've left the body where it was,” said Crummle, belligerence to the fore, “for my superintendent to see, or you as it turned out, but Sir Leonard had it taken away. Said it was upsetting the family.”
“It's a pity I didn't see it as it was found,” Alec agreed, the nearest he could come to criticizing the Chief Constable to the inspector. “I'll go and have a look in the morgue but it's not quite the same thing. When will the photos be ready?”
Crummle took out his watch. “My sergeant's developing and printing them quick as he can. With luck he'll be back with them in an hour or so.”
“What did you find in the way of fingerprints?”
“The outside doorknob was a mess, having been used by two maids, Mrs. Timothy Fotheringay, and Mrs. Fletcher.” The inspector pronounced this last name with a hint of malicious satisfaction, but went on to admit, “Not that it'd likely have made much difference
if they'd've all used kid gloves. The inside knob, that her ladyship and her ladyship's maid must have used, was wiped clean. Everything else in the room seems to be one of theirs or the housemaid that cleaned. I'll have to wait for the photos of the dabs to be sure.”
“Sir Leonard tells me you've ruled out the servants.”
“The doors between the servants' wing and the rest of the house are locked from midnight till half past six. It seems servants today won't stand for being summoned at all hours. Lord Haverhill's anxious to keep his staff happy, so his household and guests know they can't come if called. The butler has the key. He can be rung for in an emergency.”
“And the exterior doors?”
“All shut and bolted.”
“One wasn't. At least, I understand it was opened and left unlocked for an appreciable time. Miss—” Alec checked his notes. “—Miss Angela Devenish told my wife she went down at one this morning to let her brother Edward in.”
Crummle stared at him with understandable resentment. “Miss Devenish told Mrs. Fletcher?”
It wasn't fair that Alec had an inside source of information, but the inspector would have to live with it. “Miss Devenish had to wait some time for her brother. I don't know whether she stayed near the door all the time.”
“She'll say she wandered off,” Crummle prophesied, “so an intruder could have entered. Give us someone else to look at outside the family. These nobs all stick together.”
“What she'll say remains to be seen,” said Alec, beginning to lose patience. He stood up. “Come on, show me Lady Eva's room. On the way you can tell me what else you've learnt.”
 
Crummle had not learnt much. The servants had answered direct questions willingly enough, but had not volunteered information,
and the inspector had failed to ask the right questions. However, Tom Tring could be relied upon to rectify his omissions.
As Alec and the inspector made their way upstairs, the house seemed oddly deserted. Early afternoon on a fine June day—normally one would expect people to be outside enjoying themselves. But today was not normal. Alec suspected the inhabitants were huddled in bedrooms and sitting rooms, trying to decide alone or in small groups just what they were going to tell him when the questions began.
A uniformed constable guarded the door of the victim's room.
“It's locked and I've got the key,” said Crummle defensively, “but there's likely another key around somewhere.” He hesitated, then added with extreme reluctance, “Mrs. Fletcher locked the door a few minutes after the body was discovered and gave the key to the butler, and he posted a footman here, too. Apart from me and my men, the only person in there since the maid with the tea started screaming is Mrs. Timothy Fotheringay. Seems she was a nurse in the War. Mrs. Fletcher sent her in to check whether the victim was quite dead.”
“And the doctors and the ambulance men who took away the body?”
“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.”

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