Death of a Beauty Queen (32 page)

Farman sniffed, as if to indicate that from Amy he had expected nothing better, and then, what she had told him beginning to sink into his mind, he so far departed from his usual routine of next unlocking and unbolting the front-door, as to proceed instead to the small morning-room that was Lady Cambers's favourite sitting-room—her ‘den' she had been used to call it sometimes, in opposition to the library Sir Albert had appropriated to himself and his special pursuits and interests wherein books and reading had no place whatever. That, of course, had been before the final breach, but Lady Cambers had continued her habit of using this small room as her own special domain—it was snug and quiet, she said, and she liked it, and gradually a convention had been established that when she was sitting there she was not to be disturbed except for urgent cause. Farman, opening the door, had a vague expectation of finding her there now. He supposed she might have got up early for some reason and come downstairs to sit here. But the room was unoccupied. The morning light, struggling through the still shuttered and curtained windows, showed that, and showed, also, on the table a tray with an empty tumbler on it, and a plate on which were still some crumbs. Glancing over his shoulder, to remark to Amy that anyhow her ladyship wasn't there, Farman noticed with uninterested surprise that the girl's former expression of bewilderment had given way to one that seemed to show uneasiness and alarm—even terror. Though what there could be to alarm her or anyone else in this unoccupied room, Farman had no idea. He left the problem unconsidered, and said: ‘Well, she isn't here.'

‘I'll clear those things away,' Amy said, advancing into the room, putting down the breakfast-tray she was still carrying, and making to pick up the one on the table before them.

Again Farman was vaguely puzzled by a certain haste and uneasiness her hurried nervous action seemed to show. But it was plainly her duty, since she was responsible for the room, to clear away this tray that had apparently been left from the night before.

‘Ought to have been done before,' he said severely, and then sniffed at the glass from which a faint odour had reached his expert and practised nostrils. ‘Brandy,' he exclaimed. ‘Well, now, and I thought she never touched it. That young Eddy Dene was here last night, wasn't he? Been standing him a drink, I suppose.'

Amy did not reply. She picked up the tray and began to hurry away. But Farman stopped her. He was beginning to feel really puzzled and uneasy now.

‘I'll attend to that,' he said. ‘You go and see if she's in Lady Hirlpool's room. Very likely she's there all the time.'

‘I'll take this into the kitchen first,' Amy said, still holding on to the tray.

‘You do what you're told, my girl; and look slippy, too,' Farman ordered, taking it from her. ‘It's a bit rummy, where she is.' When Amy still hesitated, he added sharply: ‘Now then, what are you waiting for?'

She obeyed then, though still as if reluctant to leave the tray with him. When she had gone, Farman smelt the glass again.

‘Stiff,' he commented to himself. ‘There's been no drowning that little lot. Is the old girl taking to drink on the sly?' He shook his head gravely, pleased at the idea—which, however, he did not believe for a moment. ‘Or is it Miss Amy Emmers having a go on the q.t., and is that why she didn't seem to like me seeing it?' Again he shook his head gravely, again pleased at this idea and thinking it more probable. ‘Or has one or other of 'em been standing Mr. Eddy drinks?'

But against this last supposition was the fact that he himself had let Eddy Dene out the night before, and certainly, so far as he knew at least, no brandy—or, indeed, any other refreshment—had been served during his visit, prolonged as that had been.

In the hall he gave the tray to one of the maids—for now the usual round of domestic work was beginning—told her to take it into the kitchen, and then went on upstairs. He paused on the landing outside Lady Hirlpool's room. There was a murmur of voices within, and almost at once Amy came out.

‘She's not there,' she said. ‘Lady Hirlpool's not seen her.'

They looked at each other helplessly, and there emerged from the room Amy had just left a little old sharp-featured lady, wearing her dressing-gown over her pyjamas, for, if she was over sixty and a grandmother of grown-up grandchildren, none the less she was as up-to-date as the most up-to-date young miss who ever let to-morrow toil after her in vain.

‘What's all this fuss about?' she demanded. ‘Lady Cambers has most likely just gone out for a stroll before breakfast—it's a lovely morning after the rain.'

‘Yes, m'lady,' agreed Farman, ‘but she never does, m'lady; and then all the doors were locked.'

‘Her bed's not been slept in,' Amy said.

Lady Hirlpool looked as if she didn't believe it.

‘But that's...' she began, and then, without specifying what it was, she marched across the landing and along the passage to Lady Cambers's room. She went in, and came out again almost at once.

‘No, it hasn't been,' she confirmed, and stood still in the doorway, looking at them and apparently expecting them to say something.

By this time a certain uneasiness, a vague alarm, had begun to spread itself through the house. The maid who had taken the tray into the kitchen had reported that ‘Mr. Farman looked that upset'; the chauffeur, coming into the kitchen for his early-morning cup of tea, had smelt at the glass on the tray on the kitchen table, and inquired, with jocular envy, who had been swigging brandy already; the parlourmaid had reported that Amy had left Lady Cambers's early-morning tray in the morning-room for her tea to grow cold. All the domestic staff—parlourmaid, housemaids, senior and junior, the tweeny, cook, kitchen-maid, chauffeur—were now hovering doubtfully on the frontier-line that cut off the family rooms from the staff apartments, and then cook, strong in the knowledge of a dignity that enabled her to hold her own even with Mr. Farman himself, came resolutely through the hall and up the stairs.

‘Is it burglars?' she demanded, voicing her perennial fear. ‘And me thinking we were safe for once, with a young police gentleman in the house.'

Lady Hirlpool had vanished into Lady Cambers's room again, but now once more emerged. She somehow gave an impression of having just made a swift and careful search in every corner, in every drawer, behind every chair or curtain. She said: ‘It's most extraordinary. She must be somewhere.' She paused to see if anyone contradicted this. No one did, and finding it was a proposition generally accepted, but not carrying the matter much further, she asked: ‘Have you told Mr. Owen? If you haven't, you had better.'

The Mr. Owen she referred to was the young policeman on whose mere presence in the house the cook had so greatly relied. A grandson of Lady Hirlpool's, he had chosen the police for a career, and by good luck and a certain stolid persistence of endeavour that never let him abandon any clue, however slight, had attained some success and promotion to the rank of sergeant in the C.I.D. It was through his grandmother, Lady Hirlpool, an old friend of Lady Cambers, that he had come to spend the week-end here, partly because his grandmother wanted to show him off to her friend, but ostensibly to advise Lady Cambers on precautions to be taken against the burglary whereof she shared her cook's perennial dread that certain recent occurrences had much increased. His room was on the same floor, not far away, and when Farman entered he found the young man standing at the window, already fully dressed. He glanced round as the butler came in, and said to him: ‘Isn't that field over there the one where Eddy Dene is doing his digging? Seems to be something up; there's a bit of a crowd and people running about. Looks as if they had found the Missing Link all right.'

But this jesting allusion to the archaeological investigations that were being carried on brought no response from Farman. He came to the window, too, and looked out. He said abruptly: ‘We can't find Lady Cambers. She's not in the house. Her bed's not been slept in.'