Eat, Drink and Be Buried (25 page)

The polo captain's wife was making an early reconnoiter of my status and availability when Felicity appeared at my elbow. “That was Professor Gainsborough I was talking to,” she said. “He's doing some agricultural research over at Huntingdon University. Cloning wheat, he was telling me. Be able to feed the whole world, he said. I asked him if he could clone caviar and he said he hadn't thought of that.”

The captain's wife knew when she was outgunned and withdrew. Felicity gave me an admiring look. “Well, you really outdid yourself tonight,” she said. “Everyone was very impressed.”

“Thank you again,” I said. “Compliments like that are hard to resist.”

“You haven't seen our torture chamber, have you?”

I thought at first that I had misheard. I must have looked blank. She chuckled. “I can see that you haven't. Would you like to?”

“If it had been a bad meal—I mean, a really bad one—then I could understand being sent there. You said it was a good meal, though, so I don't…”

There was a merry twinkle in her eyes. “According to castle history, the chamber hasn't seen any torture for two hundred years, so you can relax. Would you like to see it?”

To be invited by a lovely girl to visit an underground chamber in a castle late at night was a romantic prospect, and my resistance to such an offer was negligible. Felicity led me through a part of the castle I had not seen before. Long corridors lined with presumably locked rooms went on and on. We went down a wooden staircase and into a vast empty room.

“They stored food in here when they were expecting a siege,” Felicity told me. “Mostly grain, of course. Then they could make it into bread and they sometimes had to live on that and dried meat.”

“What about water?”

“The west wing had a well. It's sealed up now but it was never known to run dry.”

From there, we went down another staircase. It became colder and we entered a stone corridor, which had a damp, penetrating chill. The utter silence was almost palpable. At the end, a stone staircase, chopped out of solid rock, spiraled down.

Felicity started down it. She stopped and looked up at me. “Come on, it's quite safe.” I followed her.

A dim light appeared as Felicity found a switch. The stone walls were confining and the iron barred gate ahead of us was a grim reminder of what had undoubtedly been an awful past.

“Don't you have tourists coming through here?” I asked. “This must be a great attraction, but you'd surely need more light than this.”

“We did open it, some time back,” she said, “but there was an accident and it hasn't been open to visitors since.”

“What kind of accident?” I asked, but she was pulling open the gate of iron bars and the creaking must have obscured my question for she didn't answer.

Moisture trickled down the walls and the gloom was pervasive. The low ceiling added to the oppressive atmosphere. The sconces on the walls were torch holders and I would have liked to see all of them filled and lit. A scuttling rat or two was all that was needed to complete the melancholy scenario.

“What a place for a romantic assignation!” was the thought going through my mind when I thought I heard a laugh echoing. I had to hurry to catch up with Felicity as she turned a corner in the corridor. We went down a few rough-hewn steps and to another wrought-iron gate with a huge iron key in the massive lock. In the wall was a rusty iron lever.

The gate creaked loudly as we went through it into a chamber. A table with a white tablecloth over it stood in the middle of the uneven stone floor. On the table was a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket and some fluted glasses. On the floor was a case of bottles.

A figure bounced over them.

“Welcome to the torture chamber!” said Richard.

He poured champagne and handed us each a glass. Felicity smiled at me, enjoying my surprise. She sipped. Richard picked up his half-full glass.

“This isn't a torture chamber at all, really, though prisoners were kept down here for many years and that was torture enough,” he explained. “We started coming down here when we were kids. There were no lights then and we had to bring torches.”

He looked at Felicity. “Where's Theresa? I thought it was her when I heard your footsteps.”

“I don't know,” she said. “I thought she'd be here already.” She gave him an appraising look. “Is it on again with her?”

“Might be,” Richard said languidly. To me, he said, “Fine meal tonight. One of the best we've had for a long time.”

“You have some talented people in the kitchen,” I told him. “Some very supportive ones, too.”

“Supportive?” questioned Felicity.

“Louise, for instance. She baffled the police for some time.”

They both stared at me.

“Louise?” said Richard, perplexed. “Louise in the kitchen? What do the police know about her?”

“Nothing,” I said. “That's the point. They didn't know that before each joust, she prepared a special salad for you and left it in the back of the cooler.”

Felicity frowned. “Even I didn't know about that.”

“Only one other person did—that was Kenny. He was jealous of Richard because he considered he had stolen away the affections of Jean Arkwright.”

“Kenny!” Felicity said. “You mean he tried to kill Richard by poisoning the salad? Killed himself by accident?”

“Not exactly.”

Richard started to say something, but Felicity interrupted. “Poison in the salad! What kind of poison?”

“An amino acid that is found in high proportions in owlsfoot—a herbal plant found in your Plantation.”

Richard turned abruptly to Felicity. “Did you know about this?”

“I've heard of owlsfoot,” she admitted. “It's an extremely dangerous plant. Dennis, the gardener, has mentioned it, but if we have had any in the Plantation, it has been destroyed.”

Richard banged down his champagne glass. “Wait a minute! Are you saying that Louise had something to do with this? She wouldn't—”

“I'm sure she wouldn't,” I cut in. “Someone else found out about her practice of preparing a salad for you. They let her do that and added some owlsfoot to it. It was unfortunate for Kenny that that was the day you decided to go into the village. He replaced you in the joust and ate your salad as a gesture of retaliation for taking away Jean Arkwright.”

He was looking at me strangely. “Is this why you brought us down here?”

I motioned to Felicity. “Ask Felicity. It was her idea.”

He turned to her. “What's going on here, sis?”

Her eyes were fixed on me. “Are you with the police?”

“Not exactly. I came here only to help improve your kitchens so they could serve more medieval food. I got involved in this poisoning business the day after I had arrived.”

Richard was looking distinctly annoyed. “So you knew someone was trying to poison me?”

“I finally figured it out.”

“Didn't you think they might try again?” He was really riled up now.

“Yes, I did. I took every precaution I could to make sure they didn't succeed.”

Felicity cut in sharply. “They? Who do you mean by ‘they'?”

Footsteps clanged on the stones. They were near and coming nearer.

“Theresa,” said Richard, not sounding pleased. “Surely she doesn't have anything to—”

The iron gate groaned loudly as it opened.

Angela entered.

H
ER EYES LOOKED BIGGER
than ever and had an inner light of their own. She looked different somehow, like a beautiful feline ready to pounce. She gave me a provocative pout.

“Didn't drink all the champers, did you?” she asked lightly.

Richard poured her a third of a glass, let the bubbles subside, filled it, and handed the glass to her. She bowed her head archly, swung the glass to acknowledge each of us, and drank.

“Isn't this romantic?” Angela said.

Felicity's face was troubled. “Aren't we supposed to be three couples?” she asked.

Her question was directed to Angela, who pouted and drank more champagne. “In a way,” she said coyly.

“What do you mean, ‘in a way'?” Felicity asked. She looked at Richard and me. “Angela arranged this,” she told us.

Angela emptied her glass and held it out to Richard. He examined the bottle on the table and pulled another from the case beside it. While he was opening it, Angela said, “Theresa won't be here.”

“Why not?” Richard asked. “Didn't she want to come?” The cork popped. He poured and handed the glass to Angela.

“I didn't ask her.”

Angela's reply startled Richard and Felicity sufficiently that they did not speak at once. Before they could do so, Angela said, “Neville will be here, though.”

Felicity looked uneasily at me.

“This seems to be a family affair,” I said pleasantly. “I think you'd prefer it if I left.”

Angela and Felicity spoke together. Both said, “No.” They looked at each other. Angela looked amused, as if enjoying some secret joke. Felicity had a puzzled expression.

Richard spoke up with the authoritative tone natural to a lord's son. “What is going on here? What do you mean, Angela? Why didn't you ask Theresa?”

Angela was not in the least disconcerted by Richard's manner. “Because it is a family affair.” She nodded toward me. “He has chosen to involve himself in it so he should stay.”

“I still don't understand what you're talking about, Angela,” Richard said testily. “What do you mean, family affair?”

If I had to stay, I decided I might as well dive in at the deep end.

“She means the elimination of the Harlington family.”

That was a show-stopping line if ever I used one. I got the full attention of the three of them. I went on while they were all still stunned.

“The owlsfoot in the salad was intended to kill Richard. The arrow that was fired was intended to kill Felicity. That puzzled me at first. I thought it might be aimed at me, but that was egotism. I knew nothing at that time so I could not have been any kind of a threat. It could have been an accident, but that was just too improbable. The most likely explanation was that the arrow was aimed at Felicity—just as the poison was aimed at Richard.”

“You mean someone is trying to kill all of us?” Richard was scornful. “That's ridiculous! Who and why?”

“It was your father who supplied the key to the whole puzzle. It stared me in the face at the time, but I didn't make the connection until now—when we started talking about a family affair.”

Richard frowned. “My father?”

“I suggested to him the idea of a competitor in another stately home wanting to put Harlington Castle out of business. I knew it was unlikely. Your father called it ‘too bizarre' and made a joking reference to an Alec Guinness film in which all eight members of a noble family were killed off. This was a much easier task, Richard—only you and Felicity.”

“But just a minute,” Felicity said. “There was the earlier attempt on Richard—cutting the saddle strap on his hone.”

“That was a bungled and ineffective method,” I said. “But it cleared someone's mind and resulted in a decision to be more resolute. Poison was a much more deadly means.”

“The gunshot at you and Angela,” Felicity said. “That was aimed at her and not you…”

“It wasn't aimed at me either. You're right.”

“This is getting preposterous! Who would want to kill all of us?” Richard was getting angry and argumentative.

Footsteps clattered again on the stone-flagged floor. A figure came into sight through the bars of the iron door.

It was Neville. He opened the door and came in.

“I see you started without me,” he said.

No one offered him champagne but that was probably because everyone present was having his or her own churning thoughts. I know I was. When Felicity had brought me here to the “torture chamber,” I had some half-formed notions, but now the rest of it was falling into place. I had only one regret…but it was no time for regrets.

“We were talking about the Harlington family,” I said to Neville cheerfully. “The immediate family really, although I know you are a cousin.”

“Half cousin to be precise,” Neville said in his bored fashion.

“And to bring you up to date, we had established that an attempt was made to poison Richard that killed Kenny Bryce by mistake, and then there was the arrow that went astray—or so we thought at first. It was intended to kill Felicity.”

Neville regarded me for a few seconds, then his gaze roamed around the others. “Is this some kind of joke? If so, it's in appallingly bad taste.”

“There was also a gunshot that only just missed Angela,” I went on, ignoring his question.

Neville's expression changed marginally. He no longer looked quite as bored. “You don't appear to have mentioned Norman,” he said slowly.

“That's right, I didn't,” I said agreeably.

“No attempts on his life either,” Neville said, musing.

Angela turned on me, furious. “That's absurd—to think that Norman would do any of those things!”

“Then would you like to suggest who did?” I asked amiably.

She stood fuming, her eyes wild.

“It was the other murder that gave it all away,” I told them conversationally. “The murder of Dr. Wyatt.”

“She's not part of the Harlington family,” protested Richard.

“It was what she knew about the family that made it too dangerous for her to be allowed to live.” I had their full attention now.

“Dr. Wyatt had been Lady Harlington's psychiatrist. The doctor was aware that she was schizophrenic just as her mother had been.” I looked at Angela.

“I believe that Lord Harlington had Dr. Wyatt come to the castle to treat you. He knew that you were schizophrenic too and he suspected that you were involved in the murder attempts.”