Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman (19 page)

 

Chapter Eighteen

It was a perfectly lovely afternoon with no possibility of rain to spoil it, which did much to alleviate the tension at Iyntwood as Clementine and her friends waited for Valentine's return from London. Determined to save her house party from a swift return to the doldrums, Clementine suggested that they spend the afternoon outside on the lawn. Lady Shackleton and Lady Waterford challenged Lord Montfort and Colonel Ambrose to a game of croquet, and Harry, not to be outdone, enlisted Oscar, Ellis, and Sir Hugo in a doubles lawn-tennis match, with Pansy and Blanche eagerly running up and down to retrieve balls.

Lawn games were probably not a fitting occupation for a house in mourning, or a house suspected of murdering one of its occupants, but the Iyntwood house party was doomed to be the center of scandal anyway, she thought, and activity soothed the nervous system and passed the time.

Clementine, who needed time to think, wandered back and forth between the two games, played within several hundred feet of each other, which gave her the opportunity to move about without having to engage in conversation. Croquet gave Lord Booth, whose preferred activity, other than smoking huge cigars, was to pontificate, a chance to do both as he stood directly among the players, getting frightfully in the way, she noticed.

She briefly joined Lady Harriet and Gilbert Lambert-Lambert, Sir Wilfred, Lady Booth, and Constance Ambrose, who had stationed themselves under the shade of the chestnut tree. Here they observed a strenuous game of tennis, with Lady Booth kindly amplifying the rules of the game and keeping score.

“Fifteen love … each,” she said, happily inaccurate, and turned to fix Constance Ambrose with her eye, as Harry smashed a ball over the net to whip up off the grass out of Sir Hugo's reach. “And it's Sir Hugo still to give service. Though good heavens would you look at the perspiration, it simply isn't fair to have him up against Harry and Ellis this way. Oh dear, yes, well that would be his fault, two into the net. He does look tired. That means fifteen to him and Oscar and then thirty, or is it forty, to other side? Do you see how it goes, Constance? First one side, then the other—that's why it's called tennis!”

Constance didn't see, but Clementine guessed she would enjoy any sport that involved athletic men, balls, and a lot of speed. She smiled to herself, enjoying the idea that tennis observed the niceties of prep school: each politely taking it in turn, first one and then the other.
For heaven's sake,
she thought,
is that what happened to Teddy—was there more than one person involved in his death? Two people working together?
Clementine ranged back and forth between tennis and croquet under her sunshade, her mind taken up with a missing shoe, strong rope, storage boxes, and forked lightning.

Just as Sir Hugo and Oscar had managed to turn the game against Harry and Ellis, she looked up and across the lake saw Colonel Valentine's motorcar coming up the drive. He briefly appeared on the terrace and then, ignoring welcoming cries from the lawn, locked himself away in the uninterrupted quiet of the morning room, apparently—so Hollyoak informed her—to put together a report of his investigation thus far.

Clementine did not suspect that the colonel consciously set out to keep everyone in suspense. But since his return all lawn games had stopped, and when he stayed away from the group, pressure had started to build, reaching a tight-lipped, preoccupied politeness among them. And despite Clementine's efforts they stayed that way until Valentine strolled out to join them for tea, when they grouped themselves in a semicircle around him like so many rabbits gathered in front of a stoat. She watched her friends sip tea and nibble sandwiches and cake, chattering about things they didn't give a fig about, as they waited for Valentine to begin.

“I know you are all most concerned about events surrounding Mr. Mallory's tragic death,” he opened up. No one spoke, and she was conscious that all eyes watched him finish his salmon and cucumber sandwich and sit back to address the now silent group.

“Based on my original findings, this investigation now falls under the purview of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police, who are sending down one of their top men, Detective Chief Inspector Ewan, to help us through the last part of the inquiry. This is a formality only, as it would seem, from evidence I found at Oxford, that Mr. Mallory's involvement with an organization in London is the probable reason for his death.” There was a pomposity about this lack of real information that was infuriating, thought Clementine. It was certainly received with a certain amount of pursed lips and fretful, furrowed brows among the tea drinkers on the lawn.

For heaven's sake, why would the Metropolitan Police be coming up to Iyntwood if their investigation was now down in London? Clementine struggled to be fair, and while she believed that Valentine had tried from the start to shield them as much as he could from the scandal of Teddy's death, the age of hushing up unattractive and embarrassing breaches of the law for the country's privileged classes was a thing of the past. Five or ten years ago Valentine could have protected them all from gossip and the public eye by exercising his position as the county's chief constable. But now, unable to wrap up the murder investigation satisfactorily with an arrest, he had most likely been obliged to go to a higher authority for help, and obviously the Metropolitan Police were not as impressed as he was by his “new evidence found at Oxford.”

Clementine turned her head and caught her housekeeper's eye with an I-told-you-so look on her face. She had asked Mrs. Jackson to help out with tea today so that she would hear firsthand what Valentine had to say, and her housekeeper was standing within earshot under the shade of the chestnut tree, keeping water hot for tea and filling trays of sandwiches for the footmen.

Turning back to her friends, Clementine listened to the silence deepen into a yawning, wordless protest.
You could cut the atmosphere on the lawn with a cake knife,
she thought.

Her husband cleared his throat so that attention might be transferred away from Valentine.

“Thank you, Valentine, well done indeed, everything superbly taken care of. I'm sure Chief Inspector Ewan only needs to tighten up a few lose ends … not that there could be any!” He nodded his thanks to Valentine before continuing with what she knew troubled him the most.

“Christina will arrive tomorrow morning, with Verity, who accompanied her from Paris. Christina will decide when the funeral will take place, of course, but more than likely it will be on Friday, as the coroner's office has given us the go-ahead.”

Clementine observed her guests fuss with bread and butter, teacups, and newspapers, or turn to one another in scarcely concealed exasperation, obviously concerned with plans that were seriously awry for the rest of the week. Of course they were irritated, she thought, and by the look of it seriously worried, too. She watched Sir Wilfred get to his feet, almost furtively, and walk away from the group to stare intently into the woodland like a retriever waiting for the pheasant to break.

Lady Harriet and Gilbert Lambert-Lambert excused themselves, as they were expecting a telephone call from Miss Davis of Girton College momentarily. Clementine had noticed with particular interest that there had been no mention from Valentine of Lucinda's ill-timed disappearance or, come to that, of the missing maid. But then she remembered that Violet's absence had not been publicly revealed, though she had no doubt everyone had been informed of her disappearance via their servants.

She heard Agatha, beside her, take in a breath as she turned to Olive Shackleton and Constance Ambrose. “I admire Harriet's fortitude, I really do. I always say that quiet strength is the hallmark of good breeding. Unfortunately, this is exactly the price one pays for educating young girls as if they were boys. A very bad thing indeed for people of our background. Education has a particularly vulgarizing effect on a gentle mind. What on earth possessed them I simply don't know … it has quite ruined Lucinda.”

Olive Shackleton straightened up in her chair and Clementine waited with anxiety for what was to come: “Good heavens, Agatha, what a preposterous thought! We can't just write off education for women like that—it is precisely the lack of it that causes so many problems for women today.”

Clementine had never seen Olive so impatient with Agatha's archaic snobbishness.
Captivity certainly speeds up the erosion of restrained, good manners,
she thought.

Lady Booth appeared happy to be appalled. “Olive, how could you say such a thing? Lucinda would never have done something as scandalous as this if she had been kept at home until she was married. She will single-handedly pull down the entire Squareforth family, and it is this obsessive quest for education and independence that is to blame.” Lady Booth's voice sounded harsh and staccato as she drove home her point.

“I quite agree with you, Lady Booth,” said Constance Ambrose. Well, of course she did, thought Clementine. For a woman whose entire preoccupation was focused on her wardrobe, and the attentions of very young men, Constance evidently believed that a woman's place was with her
lingère
and her dressmaker. Staying another two or three days meant she would probably miss a fitting at Lucile.

But Constance, she noticed, enthralled, was not finished. “Educating women is on the same par as socialism and both will destroy the country,” she said, quoting her husband, who never picked up a book if he could help it. “Socialists and the women's movement are treasonous.”

There,
thought Clementine.
Now Constance can be quoted all over London as saying that Lucinda should be shot for treason because she went to Girton. Could this afternoon become any more disastrous?

A row was happening before their very eyes. Clementine felt five parts alarm and five parts fascination as she watched what followed. There was a stunned silence as everyone frantically thought of something to say to change the direction of this dreadful exchange. Lord Booth rose to the occasion, clutching a cup and saucer in both hands as he got to his feet and glared at his wife. Clementine almost expected him to gnash his teeth and she watched with interest, as this was something she had never seen done before.

“What utter rot.” He towered over Olive and Agatha, his dark eyes narrow as he frowned down at them. “I don't want to hear another damned word about women's education, their right to vote, and other rubbish. It is a most vulgar preoccupation. These young women have simply got to pull themselves together and get on with doing what they were bred to do: looking after their husbands and their families.” He turned to address his daughters, who were cowering in their lawn chairs. “And if they don't have a family then they should concentrate their efforts on getting one, and leave the business of education and government to their fathers and husbands. My dear,” Clementine saw him bend a horrid look of dislike upon his wife, “I am sure you think this absorbing topic has gone far enough.” Looking thunderous, Lord Booth slammed down his cup and saucer and marched off to the house, leaving them sitting on the lawn with their mouths open in mingled amusement and horror.

Lady Booth, outraged at being publicly corrected, struggled to her feet, hampered by humiliation, rigid whalebone stays, and her fat little dog, who was struggling for air in her tight grip. She looked down at Olive Shackleton and said in a voice shaking with suppressed anger that set her hat feathers quivering, “Olive, perhaps you will forbear to discuss in public what you clearly don't understand, and by doing so cease to cause trouble. I have some letters to write before dinner.” She stumped off up the lawn toward the retreating back of her husband, her short legs desperately trying to close the distance between them.

Mrs. Jackson, standing behind an array of tea paraphernalia and cake stands, was a silent spectator to the unraveling of the Talbots' house party. Trapped at Iyntwood, their guests suspected things were about to get a good deal nastier at the hands of a top man from Scotland Yard. Patience had come to an end and tempers were beginning to fray. She happened to glance over at Lady Waterford, who had been sitting thoughtfully quiet throughout the exchange, and noticed that her hands shook as she lifted her teacup to her lips. Mrs. Jackson's eyes swept over the rest of the group and assessed reactions.

Sir Wilfred was staring into the middle distance as if nothing had occurred at all, and Colonel Ambrose was glowering at Mrs. Ambrose. But Sir Hugo, as he lolled back in his lawn chair, was silently watching his wife in a peculiarly detached manner. His speculative stare was fixed on her face with an odd expression of amusement and inquiry, as if he were watching her struggle with the answer to a tricky question she did not have the answer to.

After a while Lady Waterford rose to her feet with the habitual poise that Mrs. Jackson had long admired in her. “Off for my afternoon stroll,” she said as she adjusted the brim of her hat against the direct sun. Mrs. Jackson felt tremendous admiration for the woman's self-assurance, as she watched Lady Waterford walk across the lawn to the house, quickly enough to be ahead of the group as they got to their feet, and certainly quickly enough to pass Lady Booth plodding toward the terrace. But at no time, thought Mrs. Jackson, did she look as if she was racing Lord Booth as he gained the terrace door, where it appeared he paused as if waiting for Lady Waterford to catch up with him.

 

Chapter Nineteen

At the end of the afternoon and just before the dressing gong sounded, Mrs. Jackson came out of her parlor and was about to go belowstairs before dinner preparations reached their greatest pinnacle of activity, when Lady Waterford came though the green baize door from the second-floor servants' landing. As soon as Lady Waterford saw her, she came to an abrupt halt, and stood silent and motionless like a lovely but rather battered statue. Her arrival in this area of the house was remarkable in itself, but her appearance was so profoundly perplexing that it took Mrs. Jackson a moment or two to take it all in.