A Mourning Wedding (9 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: A Mourning Wedding
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“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.
“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,” said 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.
She wrinkled her nose at him but obediently sat, and Tom, his notebook at the ready, took a seat out of Angela's line of vision.
“I regret having to trouble you at such a sorrowful time.” Alec noted that she looked less sorrowful than uneasy. “Describe for me, please, everything that occurred between midnight and seven o'clock this morning.”
Startlingly, Angela blushed. She didn't look at all the sort of young woman to have been entertaining a swain in her bedroom, but after all, one never could tell. “Midnight? I didn't go downstairs till just before one.”
“Midnight.”
“I … Well, I had to do something to stay awake, to let my brother in, you know, so I started writing an article for the RSPCA magazine. I've never tried it before. I'm not much of a hand at writing, actually, but I thought maybe … maybe Daisy wouldn't mind looking at it and giving me a hint.” She sent Daisy a pleading glance.
Daisy opened her mouth. Alec scowled. Daisy shut her mouth but smiled and nodded.
Angela heaved a sigh of relief. That hurdle overcome, she went
on, “At ten to one, I went downstairs. Oh, I ought to say I went by the back stairs, the servants' stairs. I wouldn't have seen anyone even if they'd been about.”
“Did … Tiddler go with you?”
“Of course,” she said, surprised. “I can't leave him; he howls.”
Tom's moustache twitched and Daisy grinned. There and then Alec more or less gave up on Angela Devenish as a suspect. “Go on.”
“I went to the Long Gallery and opened one of the French doors—”
“Locked?”
“Yes, and bolted top and bottom, but the keys are kept in the drawer of a table. The gold and marble one, you know, Daisy? We went out on the terrace. And hung about and hung about for simply
ages
.”
“Did you move out of sight of the door?”
“No. That is, I took Tiddler down the steps to the lawn, so I suppose I had my back turned for a moment, but once I reached the bottom I turned round to watch for Teddy. I didn't want him to go in and lock me out. It was a clear night and I could see quite well, though there was only a sliver of moon. Then Teddy turned up at last—the tower clock had chimed the half hour—and we went in and locked and bolted the door … .”
“You're sure of that?”
“Oh yes. Uncle Nicholas—he's my great-uncle, actually—is very particular about that. There was a tremendous row once when Rupert came in late and didn't lock up. I suppose there's some valuable stuff in the house,” she said vaguely.
Assuming Crummle's men could be trusted to spot any sign of a break-in—and he seemed quite competent at that sort of thing—Angela's evidence meant that Lady Eva had almost certainly been murdered by one of the family.
She didn't seem to realize the significance of her words. Her uneasiness had faded and she continued without prompting: “We went
up to my room and he pinched my counterpane and a pillow. I went to sleep and didn't wake up till a maid brought tea and told me about … about Grandmama.”
“You were on good terms with your grandmother?”
“Yes, well, sort of. She didn't like what I do but she liked that I do it. I mean, she approved of me not being a drip, sitting at home knitting, like poor Aunt Ione.”
Daisy gasped. Alec gave her a quick glare and turned back to Angela. Her brow creased in a puzzled frown, she hadn't noticed the interruption.
“That's why she left me some money, and Lucy, too, though of course photography is much more respectable than rescuing badly treated animals. I can't think why.”
“Very odd. Let's just go back to when you at last got to bed. Your brother curled up on the floor with your counterpane around him?”
“Well, after his bath.”
“He took a bath? How long did that take him?”
“I haven't the faintest. I fell asleep right away.”
“Tiddler didn't bark when he came in?”
“Oh no, he's much too frightened. He never barks.” She reached down and gently pulled one ragged ear. “He was quite badly hurt. I found him—”
“In the morning, Miss Devenish, when you woke, your brother was asleep on the floor in your bedroom?”
“On the other side of the bed from the door, so that the maid wouldn't see him when she brought the tea. He didn't want Mummy and Daddy to know he'd arrived in the middle of the night, you see. When he rang up, he told me not to tell them he was coming or have a room prepared for him. He was just going to turn up after breakfast and pretend he'd left London early.”
“He came from London?”
“No, from a house-party, in Hampshire, I think. That's why he was so late. He couldn't leave there till after dinner.”
“I see. By the way, why on earth did he leave a house-party at that time of night?”
“It was boring,” Angela said simply.
Alec decided he didn't understand the younger generation. Or else he didn't understand the upper classes. One way or another, he felt very middle-aged and middle-class. He glanced at Daisy.
She shrugged and raised her eyes to heaven.
He understood her very well, most of the time, and she was an aristocrat ten years his junior. Cheered, he waited a moment to see if silence would prompt further unsolicited confidences from Angela, but she appeared to have run out of steam.
This was a preliminary interview, he reminded himself, and he had a couple of dozen more people to see. Rising, he said, “Thank you very much, Miss Devenish. You've been most helpful.”
“Is that all? I knew you couldn't be like Mummy said you would or Daisy wouldn't have married you.”
Alec felt his face reddening. He couldn't remember being put to the blush by a suspect since his early days as a detective constable. Tom's grin was too wide to be hidden by his moustache and Alec didn't dare look at Daisy. He shook the hand Angela held out to him.
“I'll have some more questions for you later,” he warned her.
“Right-oh. Coming, Daisy?”
“In a bit. I want a word with Alec. I'll see you later.”
“Right-oh.”
Tom escorted Angela out.
“Darling, it's too frightful, I quite forgot to mention about Lady Ione.”
“Tom found out from the servants. You couldn't have warned me in time to intercept her at the station, could you?”
“No,” Daisy said thankfully, “you arrived long after.”
“Never mind, then. Quickly, anything else I need to know about Edward Devenish?”
“He's definitely a bit of a blister. But he must be aware of his sister's devastating frankness.”
“Devastating is the word!”
“I advised her—I advised all of them—to tell the whole truth right away. She's probably the only one to take my words so enthusiastically to heart. Because she's inclined that way anyway, so Teddy must know he couldn't count on her keeping the time of his arrival secret. So it'd be stupid to then go and murder Lady Eva.”

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