Murder At Wittenham Park (26 page)

And yet, Morton asked himself, since Gilroy had not signed the contract, why should he resort to murder? It did not add up.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he demanded when Gilroy was shown in, and immediately widened the subject by adding, “I understand there's been a quarrel between two of the ladies.”

“There certainly has.” In a sense this was what Gilroy had come to talk about. “The strain's becoming too much, Inspector. The women are at each other's throats.”

“Over what?”

“Mrs. Worthington is accusing Mrs. Welch of murder. Well, I suppose it's possible. She's by far the most likely person to have gone to Welch's room before breakfast that day.”

Morton gave an encouraging grunt, an unspoken assent to the idea. The least convincing aspect of his interview with Adrienne Welch had been her insistence that she had not wanted to disturb her husband, even though the maid had been screaming her head off outside his door only minutes earlier.

“Of course,” Gilroy began to backtrack, “I wasn't in that part of the house, so I can't tell. But the point is the two women are at each other's throats now and the others are taking sides. Surely you could let them all leave today? Haven't you got enough statements?”

“As I've told you, sir, I have no power to keep anyone here. But I hope they will continue to collaborate.” This was Morton's sole ace. Anyone who insisted on leaving would automatically throw suspicion on themselves.

“You can't make an arrest?” Gilroy asked hopefully. That would solve the problem. Then all the others could be on their way and he and Dee Dee could start getting things back to normal.

“Not without a smoking gun, as you might say.”

“Can we at least have more use of the house?”

Morton considered this. All the main rooms had been exhaustively searched. After two full days they had yielded nothing more significant than coins down the sides of armchairs and discarded clues for the “murder.” The broken whisky glass had tested negative for poisonous substances. So had all the cups and saucers and teapots from the kitchen. He was convinced that the evidence he needed would be derived from personal relationships, not objects.

“I'll agree to that,” he conceded, “and I'll make an announcement later about when they can leave.”

“Thank you, Inspector.” Gilroy was mightily relieved and hastened back to tell Dee Dee. He felt he ought to have thrown his weight around and insisted on his rights. But there was a solid, rocklike quality about Morton which made that impossible.

After he had gone, Morton called in Timmins again.

“They're starting to crack up,” he said with satisfaction. “Keep your fingers crossed for this evening.”

15

T
HE SINGLE
, agonized scream coming from the servants' wing was enough to set everyone within earshot racing towards the back stairs. Morton got there first, closely followed by Jim Savage. What they found was totally unexpected.

Lying at the foot of the stairs in a contorted heap was Loredana, her arms outstretched to save herself, one leg buckled beneath her body at an unpleasant-looking angle. And bending over her, futilely trying to lift her from the step above, was Hamish, while Dodgson made unavailing efforts to free her legs.

“Leave me alone,” she moaned. “Oh, my leg!”

Morton leaped into action, brusquely telling Dodgson and Hamish to get out of the way and lifting Loredana gently by the shoulders, so that Jim could ease her legs away from the bottom step, where her feet had become wedged against the wall. Together they carried her through to the Great Hall and laid her down on a sofa.

A policeman went to fetch a blanket, while Morton arranged cushions beneath her head, Gilroy telephoned the doctor and Hamish stood helplessly by. Gradually Loredana calmed down, her breathing became less agitated and she started tentatively feeling her limbs with her fingertips. Occasionally she gave a tiny exclamation of pain.

“What happened?” Morton asked, when she was more composed.

“I slipped. It was so stupid. Oh God,” she said, continuing to explore her injuries, “I have hurt my leg.”

“Better stay still until the doctor comes.” Morton turned to Hamish. “You were with her?”

“I was behind her on the stairs.”

“You couldn't save her?”

“Of course I tried. I was just too far away.” Hamish's expression showed acute embarrassment. “The truth is we'd had a slight argument.”

“I just wanted to get away from him,” Loredana said weakly from the sofa. “Then I slipped up on that beastly carpet.”

Shortly after this the doctor arrived and began his examination of Loredana, giving Jim a chance to escape and take a look at the stairs himself.

The servants' staircase turned through a right angle half-way down and its steps were covered with a narrow strip of worn, brown-patterned cord carpet. The wood showing on either side of the carpet was painted a dull brown. It was all another reminder of Gilroy's parsimony where the staff were concerned. In fact, the carpet was so threadbare and scuffed that Jim had difficulty making out where Loredana had slipped or, more likely, tripped. But a long scratch on the paintwork near the bottom had presumably been made by one of her heels.

When he returned, Doctor Thompson was delivering his verdict.

“A lucky escape,” he was telling Loredana, “you'll have some beautiful bruises, no doubt, but nothing's broken. If I were you, I'd spend the day resting.”

He began putting his gear away in his black bag, then asked for a word with Morton before leaving again.

Having been re-assured that she was not badly injured, Loredana cheered up a little, but refused to go to her room to rest.

“I'm quite happy here,” she insisted, then thought of something and called out to Jemma. “I left the book I'm reading upstairs. Could you be an angel and fetch it for me? It's a Barbara Taylor Bradford.”

Jemma dutifully went to the small room Loredana had been allotted, not far from the head of the servants' staircase. The room was immaculately tidy. Jemma herself normally left clothes, towels, boxes of tissues, make-up and magazines strewn everywhere. She was impressed, yet slightly chilled. Loredana must be a pain to live with. She saw the novel at once, lying on the counterpane of the bed. Then she became curious and began examining Loredana's other possessions.

They reflected a very orderly person and also one who was obsessed with her own appearance. An array of what Jim called “lotions and potions” stood on the small dressing-table. A set of hair curlers had its electric flex neatly coiled. Loredana's cream silk dressing gown hung from a peg on the back of the door. So did two night-gowns, one much more diaphanous than the other.

Jemma could not resist running her hands over their expensive fabrics and, in a moment of bitchiness, guessed at the demure one being for when husband Trevor was around, and the sexier number, with its low-cut neck and lace trim, for receiving lovers. Lace again! If Loredana had been wearing the lacy one on Saturday, that could add her to the list of mysterious women. Then she realized that the hem of neither would have been visible under the silk dressing-gown, which during the re-enactment had practically swept the floor.

She'd already been in the room several minutes and Loredana would be getting suspicious. She picked up the novel, noticing it had a slip of paper as a bookmark. Still curious, she saw the bookmark was a clipping from a magazine and almost laughed out loud as she read it. So that was where the horoscope had gone!

As she was on the way down again she bumped into Tracy, almost literally bumped, because the maid was coming up the stairs and was so fat that they had to squeeze past each other.

“Oh, miss,” Tracy said, seizing the moment, “your dad says you're a crime reporter. Is that for real?”

“Pretty much.”

“Can I talk to you about it? That's what I'd like to do. Be a reporter.”

“No problem.” Jemma had few illusions about how little she could help Tracy, but equally she had time on her hands. “When would you like?”

“After I've done the lunch. I have the afternoon off and I was going to the village.”

“Why don't we go together.”

“If that Mr. Morton'll let us.”

“I'll ask him.”

In fact, Morton was busy and she had to ask Timmins. To her surprise, he had no objection. Still with time on her hands, Jemma returned to the library, only to freeze in the doorway as she realized that a serious altercation was going on there between Loredana and Hamish.

Loredana was reclining on a sofa near the fireplace, with her back to the door, but there was nothing relaxed about her voice, while Hamish was perched on an upright chair alongside the sofa, apparently defending himself.

“Why are you making such a fuss over Adrienne? Because she's suddenly become rich and unattached, I suppose? The way you've been all over her is disgusting.” Loredana spoke sibilantly, almost hissing out the words, in a tone Jemma had never heard her use to Hamish before, though it was reminiscent of the way she had addressed her unfortunate husband on Saturday. “I suppose I don't matter to you any more?”

“Darling, you're imagining things. I was being nice to Adrienne because I can no more believe she's a killer than that we are.”

“I told you upstairs, you and I have nothing to do with all this. Why get yourself involved?” She glared up at him.

“I was simply trying to be nice to her.”

“Well, you're a fool. Anyway, if anyone did have a motive to kill George Welch, it was Adrienne.”

Jemma coughed discreetly, feeling she had heard enough of this, and Hamish jumped up as fast as if a wasp had stung his backside.

“We had no idea you were there,” he said in an accusing voice.

“The last thing we wanted,” Loredana added, unexpectedly backing him up, “was to be overheard. But since you obviously listened to everything, you might as well know that I think Mrs. Welch is as guilty as hell. He does not agree. We almost came to blows over it upstairs, before I tripped on that wretched carpet.” She made a show of reaching forwards to massage her ankle and Jemma noticed that dark bruises were coming up on her arm. Hamish tried to assist and she pushed him away. “Hamish, please.”

“I'm so sorry.” Jemma decided to retreat until they'd sorted out this argument. Interpersonal relationships were evidently not Hamish's big thing, though it was hard to feel sorry for him. She had decided that he thoroughly deserved Loredana, tantrums and all. She left the room quickly and went to find her father.

“Hmm,” he grunted, “odd that they should be quarrelling when the pressure's off. I wonder if Adrienne really is the reason. Perhaps we'll discover more at lunch.”

However, lunch was an uneventful and strained occasion, with Loredana hobbling to the table on a borrowed stick and nobody except Jim talking to Priscilla at all. Furthermore the generosity of earlier menus had been diminished. This one consisted only of cold meat and salad, followed by cheese and fruit. It was quickly over and soon after Jemma borrowed her father's car and the two girls set off.

For Tracy this was a huge treat. She normally bicycled, huffing and puffing her considerable girth along the three miles. So she was both cheerful and gossipy. The village itself was a typical English tourist trap, where most of the few shops sold Cotswold postcards and souvenirs, antiques or pottery, but little of practical use. However, there was an Olde English Tea Shoppe, with a bow-window displaying all kinds of cakes and cookies. Here they ended up, with Jemma buying tea and scones for them both. As she devoured the scones and cream and jam as if she hadn't eaten for a week, Tracy became more confidential.

“You could write a thriller about what's been going on,” she confessed. “Could we write one together? Just fancy having my name on a book! That would put old Dodgson's nose out of joint, in real time too.”

“I bet he's a pain to work with.”

“Worse than ever this weekend.” Tracy leaned conspiratorially across the table. “Missed his Sunday fix.”

The idea of the doddery old butler taking a fix of anything was so unlikely that Jemma almost laughed. “What of?” she asked.

“That medicine-cupboard stuff. Morphine, its called. I reckon Lady Gilroy forgot it was there. He's been taking a tiny drop in his tea on Sundays to jazz himself up. But now the cops have confiscated the bottle.”

“He didn't put some in Welch's tea, did he?”

The remark was meant as a joke, but Tracy took it at face value.

“He could have done,” she said, an edge of excitement in her voice. “He easy could. You see, usually I make the early-morning tea, but seeing how many guests there were, he made the tea in each of the pots and I took them up.”

“Did he have anything against Welch?”

“Not half. His Lordship thinks we never hear anything. But we knew all about what Welch was after. And Mr. Dodgson asked him straight out if we'd lose our jobs. ‘Don't you worry, old chap,' he said, ‘it probably won't come to that.' What a nerve. Didn't worry me, but it did old Dodders.”

“But…” Jemma was about to point out that the land development didn't mean the whole place would be sold, when she remembered Lady Gilroy's saying that a housing estate by the lake would be unbearable. No doubt that had been overheard. “I suppose he'd have nowhere to go?”

“Too right,” Tracy said indistinctly, her mouth full of pastry.

After this the conversation lapsed until they got onto the subject of the back stairs.

“They're real dangerous,” Tracy remarked. “I've always said so. No wonder that lady came a-cropper.” She giggled. “Screamed a lot better than I did.”

“You must have heard her fall.”

“The first thing we heard was her yelling. Otherwise I'd have been there before anyone else. You know something? I wouldn't be surprised if her boy-friend didn't push her.”