Murder at Maddingley Grange (12 page)

“You watch your language. We got ladies present.” Fred almost bounced in his seat with pleasure at what looked like the opening to a sparkling bit of crosstalk, but Derek declined to play his interlocutor and continued to address the party at large.

“However, to a real buff with his nose on the historical trail, I think perhaps
Bleak House
is a bit of a pointer. No, thank you.” He covered his glass with his hand and Gaunt passed to Laurie, who did the same.

“Yes,” went on Derek, “it doesn't do to discount Dickens.” He leaned forward, placed the tips of his fingers together, narrowed his eyes and hissed, in a sinister undertone: “I'm Inspector Bucket of the Yard, I am.”

There was a crash. The bottle slipped, wine flowed all over Mr. Gillette's plate and trousers.

“Oh!” Laurie jumped up. “Gaunt, how could you be so careless?”

“May hand went all numb, madam.”

“I'm so sorry, Mr. Gillette. What can we do? You're soaked,” cried Laurie, thinking: If only it had been his jacket.

“No, no. Just a spot. All tickety-boo, honestly.”

Bennet removed the broken glass and plate; Gaunt mopped up the spillage, brought a clean napkin and replaced the wine glass. Gilly, still insisting that he didn't want to be any trouble and really it was quite all right and no he wouldn't care to remove his trousers and have them sponged and pressed, was in fact deeply distressed. Five years ago, when he had last had the precious suit cleaned, the girl had advised him, because of its advanced age, not to risk doing it again. The little flurry of activity subsided and Fred assisted the conversation from its resting place.

“I knew you were incognito, Inspector, the minute I clapped eyes on that hat.”

“It's a character from Dickens! Surely,” continued Derek with increasing exasperation, “even you have heard of Dickens.”

“Course I have,” replied Fred, all umbraged at this hint that his grasp of Eng. Lit. was not all it might be.

“And what do you think of him?” asked Simon, hoping to soothe Fred's feathers while perhaps hoiking the debate to a more rarified level.

“Well, between you and me, squire,” came the reply, “I think he's a bit of a Charlie.”

This sally put Fred in such good humor that he guffawed nonstop. Violet said he would be the death of her, Simon thought fat chance, and Bennet removed the vegetable tureens. Derek started droning on about Maud Silver and Miss Marple, and Gilly, after admiring Mrs. Saville's necklace and saying he hoped she traveled with a strongbox, asked how she had managed for fresh eggs in the thirties.

“How dare you! I wasn't even born in the thirties.” She glared at him, then turned away, swinging her rigidly corseted embonpoint in Martin's direction. “What a rude man.”

“Oh, I think he's more shortsighted than rude,” said Martin gallantly. “Anyone can see that you couldn't possibly have been born in the thirties. Or even”—he felt Rosemary's silent encouragement playing havoc with his innate truthfulness—“in the forties.”

“Quite so,” said Mrs. Saville. She gave him a gracious nod and what looked like the beginnings of a smile. A few more remarks like that, thought Martin, and she'll be eating out of my hand. Just to be on the safe side, he put it in his lap and covered it with a napkin.

“I wonder,” he continued, not wishing to waste this propitious opening, “if, after dinner, you would care for a game of whist?” The final word was hardly out of his mouth before a jade silk heel crunched down onto his delicate tarsal bones. He let out a yell of pain. “I mean,” he gasped, “bridge.”

“That sounds interesting,” said Mrs. Saville. “We'll try to make up a rubber. That is”—she peered almost kindly into his tear-filled eyes—“if you have quite recovered from your fit.”

“I thought for a moment,” Derek called across the table, “that the drama had begun. I mean—that you'd been murdered.”

“No such luck,” called back Rosemary, and a rather unpleasant silence ensued, broken only by Mother gnawing on a pheasant's leg. The bone stuck out a little each side of her mouth, giving her a slightly cannibalistic air. Bennet returned from the kitchen with a peach and almond torte and Gaunt removed the claret glasses, replacing them with tall, narrow-stemmed tulips. The Château d'Yquem was broached.

“So, to continue on a point of similarity,” Derek droned on, “I suggest we pick up the hobbies motif. It surely cannot have escaped anyone's notice that in times of intense deductive thought, what do both Maud Silver and Miss Marple do?” Silence. “They pick up their knitting!”

Still no one spoke, so Laurie said: “Goodness.” She hoped the onus of keeping up the initiate's end of the symposium wasn't going to fall entirely upon her shoulders. She had never heard of Maud Silver or the Woman in White, let alone Inspector Bucket of the Yard.

“Compare this activity with Holmes's violin. Less creative and intellectual naturally—they are both female, after all—”

“Watch it, Derek,” said his wife.

“But if you think that coincidence is interesting,” Derek persisted, apparently blind with optimism, “then consider this. In nearly every instance both ladies are making garments
for children.”

Having delivered his coda, Derek sat back and raised a supercilious brow at the others, defying disagreement. There was a brief pause while they all took in this latest revelation and wondered how it could most usefully be woven into the fabric of their everyday lives; then Violet spoke.

“Who's Maud Silver?”

“Who's…Who's Maud…” Derek spluttered and stared, stupefied with astonishment.
“Who's Maud Silver?
You know who Miss Marple is, I suppose?” A general murmur of agreement. “And Hercule Poirot?” Yes. Solid there as well.

“They're on television, you see,” explained Rosemary.

“But don't you read the books?” cried Derek. “My God—I thought you'd all be aficionados.”

“We had one of them,” admitted Fred. “But the wheel came off. Blimey, Simon”—tasting the wine, “you've done it again. This one's a bloody miracle. You must have a cellar down there worth thousands.”

“One does one's best.”

“I don't know what any of you are doing here…” Derek wrung his hands, so anguished was his disappointment. “You might as well be at home reading Barbara Cartland.”

A deathly hush followed this intemperate remark, and the atmosphere became distinctly chilly. Mrs. Saville, her tones rimed with frost, spoke for them all. “There is no need, Mr. Gregory, to be insulting.”

Sheila raised her empty glass rather pointedly and Laurie looked around for Gaunt, who arrived from the kitchen with a jug of cream. He placed this in an unnaturally poised, almost slow-motion manner in the precise center of the table, before filling Mrs. Gregory's glass, spilling a drop or two in the process. As people started to eat, the flowery scent of the wine mingled with the lush, peachy ripeness of the pudding, producing a rich perfume. The jug went round.

“A lovely sweet, dear,” complimented Violet. “Something in the cream too, isn't there? A twang of lemon?”

“More subtle than that, surely?” Mrs. Saville's lips made pointed sippy movements around the tip of her spoon like a goldfish coming up for air. “I would have said a suggestion of kirsch.”

“Really?” Laurie tasted the cream. It certainly lay a little oddly on the tongue. Old Mrs. Gibbs took a slurp and said:

“Mother's ruin.”

Gilly declined the pudding and asked if there was any cheese.

“A little Double Gloucester, sir?” The butler was already floating across to the armoire when Laurie hissed: “Wait!” and caught up with him. “I don't think there's enough.”

“A slayver won't miss, madam.”

“Won't it?” Laurie watched as he lifted the green and gold Edwardian cheese dish. “Gaunt”—she clutched at his arm, getting flour all over her fingers. “Couldn't we just cut a little bit off and put it on a plate for him?”

“Oh, madam…” He gave Laurie a look of such overwhelming reproach that she hung her head, feeling as if she had been caught with her hand in the poor box. She mumbled “Sorry” before returning to her seat where her worst fears were immediately realized.

Sheila Gregory cried: “Oh goody—cheese!” and cut a piece larger than Mr. Gillette's. Mrs. Saville showed an interest as did Martin and Violet and Fred. The single remaining square came to rest before Mother. Her talons reached out.

“Now, now,” cautioned Violet. “You know what happens when you have cheese.” She leaned confidingly close to Simon. “It jangles her up something terrible. First she gets nightmares, then she starts sort of warbling, then she walks in her sleep.”

“Good grief.”

“What did I say to you?” Mother had popped the cheese into her mouth and was chewing away with relish. “She won't be told.”

“Three cheers for the Gorgonzola,” croaked the old relic. Violet shook her head sadly, tapped her forehead and said, “See what I mean? She's very vague.”

Simon, meeting Mrs. Gibbs's snapping and determined eye, was not at all happy with this definition. He thought she looked about as vague as a Gatling gun. She gulped down the cheese, emptied her glass and said, very loudly: “What about our murder then?”

This harsh imperative sent a mild shock around the assembled company. The shock was not unpleasurable and left behind a satisfied feeling that Mother had put her finger on the nub. A murder was indeed the axle on which the wheel of their weekend was scheduled to turn and she was not the only one who felt it high time someone gave the wheel a shove. The steel frames of Derek's spectacles positively scintillated as he cried: “Hear, hear, madam,” which appellation threw Mrs. Gibbs into a state of screeching merriment.

Only Laurie was not caught up in this circle of happy expectancy. Now that the word had been spoken in this dark, suddenly still room with the faces of strangers looking ever more strange in the flickering candlelight, it no longer seemed like a fit subject for a charade. Indeed, Laurie now wondered how they could ever have thought that it did. She watched Simon, his eyes deeply enshadowed, his skin golden, rise, giving a faint nod to the butler. Gaunt vanished into a dim corner of the room from where, a moment later, music flowed.

Simon had chosen well. The sinuous chords wound their claustrophobic way around the room, tendrils tightening, choking, like blanket fog. A horn called, high and beckoning. Laurie recalled her previous conviction on the sunlit terrace that Apollo had been present. Now, listening to that high, bright warning cry she struggled to reestablish in her heart those previous feelings of quiet serenity. But it was no good. The golden mask was slipping, imperceptibly. And behind it she could see another mask. Grinning, fiercely ecstatic. Dionysus, at home upon the lupercal. This is it, she thought. This is the beginning. And her heart was filled with dread.

S
imon said, “Murder,” then waited to allow any images engendered by that fearful word to develop, procreate and swarm. “The most horrifying crime of which a human being is capable. And yet how drawn we all are into the orbit of its terrible fascination. We read of murder, we dream of murder, murder sells more newspapers and guarantees the most savage and prolific of its exponents a permanent place in the black pantheon of crime. And which of us”—he leaned forward, hands resting lightly on the table edge and gazed at them all in turn— “which of us has not at some time believed that the world would be a better place minus a certain personality? Or imagined ourselves to be the means of their dispatch? And now, at Madingley Grange, for someone this longing is about to be fulfilled. Because by this time tomorrow one of us will be dead—”

“Oo—er,” said Fred.

“—and one of us will be a murderer. But who will perpetrate the dreadful deed? And by what method will the victim meet his end?”

Simon got up and started to circle the table, stopping first behind Violet. “Poison perhaps? Where one writhes and screams in unspeakable agony and the antidote is sought in vain…”

Derek, enraptured, murmured, “
Sparkling Cyanide,”
and Violet looked suspiciously at her empty pudding dish. Simon, noticing, added: “You do well to be concerned. How easy it is to slip something into a drink. Or a plate of food. Perhaps this has already been done? Pheasant is a strong meat, after all. Who would notice the addition of some lethally subtle spice? Or we might consider the cream. More than one person commented on the strangeness of the taste.”

“That's true.” Rosemary's spoon and fork clattered as she dropped them on her plate. “And I had seconds!”

“Or there's the knife…” Swiftly now he moved to Sheila Gregory, pinioned her against the chair and drew the back of his thumbnail very slowly across her throat. She stifled a small cry. Simon smiled and his teeth gleamed wolflike. “Quick, efficient. Always a good sharp supply in the kitchen. No special skills needed. Anyone can hack away with a knife.”

“The Orient Express,”
Derek added his gloss.

“Could it be strangulation?”

“The Four-fifty from Paddington.”
Derek switched his loyalties to British Rail.

“As a method it has the advantage of speed. Three minutes, I believe.” Simon came to rest at his sister's place. “And of course it's so simple. You just
pounce”—
his cool fingers tightened round her throat—”and the murderee should not even have time to scream. Then you gently squeeze…and squeeze…producing a ringing in the ears and a red mist before the eyes—”

“Stop it!” cried Martin. “You're hurting her.”

“Just creating a bit of ambience.” Simon lifted his hands. “You OK?”

Laurie, sucking in a great gulp of candlesmoked air, nodded. Then, as Simon moved on, she experienced again that warm tingle, this time at her feet. It developed into a definite glow spreading up her legs and through her body until she seemed to be wrapped from head to toe in a snug blanket. She took a quick peek at the man who had been so concerned on her behalf but he was addressing a cross-looking Rosemary Saville and she couldn't see his face.