Murder At Wittenham Park (6 page)

Then her thoughts reverted to the coming night. That loathsome man Welch had been looking her over in a very suggestive way. Just let him try propositioning her! But how was she going to get together with Hamish? They had discussed slipping a pill into Dulcie's last drink, just to make sure she did sleep. Well, that was his job, not hers. Dulcie had been making some oddly knowing remarks, too. Was she getting suspicious?

Dulcie herself was being blandly polite to Hamish as he unpacked, noticing with disgust when he laid his pyjamas out on the bed that they were stained as usual, and thankful that the butler was not unpacking for them. However, she had more important things on her mind. Welch had just told her triumphantly that his meeting with Gilroy was scheduled for after dinner and she must be ready with the contract.

Hamish himself had not yet been told of his intended part in the business, yet he seemed on edge, Dulcie thought. Perhaps he guessed that this weekend was no free lunch. Or was he nervous over sneaking out to the wretched Loredana's room? When Trevor was away and he slipped out, after she was asleep, to go to Loredana, she would watch him return across the village street in the dawn, then go back to bed and pretend to be still asleep. Had that saved their marriage? It didn't seem to have. In fact, he was behaving with unbelievable gall. As she changed, Dulcie confirmed her decision to have it out with him this weekend.

She heard a car scrunch on the gravel outside and looked through the window to see a taxi disgorge what could only be the last guest. From above, her face was obscured by a large straw hat extravagantly decorated with flowers. It was odd that a woman should come on this kind of weekend by herself.

Priscilla Worthington arrived from the station complete with a huge suitcase and a model's make-up box. She was around fifty, slim, of average height, and with an exceptionally pretty face that had not quite withstood the attentions of time. She needed a good friend to tell her to use less make-up.

She had been talked into this job by her agent and, more convincingly, by the arrival of her quarterly telephone bill. Normally she would never have taken such a dubious form of acting. Not an actress of her talent. Not someone who used to appear on TV and was asked to open supermarkets. However, the gloomy splendour of Wittenham Park and the suave appearance of Lord Gilroy in his boating jacket when he greeted her persuaded her that it might be quite amusing after all. She began to cheer up.

“What a perfect setting for a murder!” she gushed after Gilroy had introduced Dee Dee. “This is going to be the greatest fun.”

“I'm so glad you feel like that,” Dee Dee said quickly, “because you're the murderess.”

“Why not! I was a great hit in
The Mousetrap.
”

“If you don't mind,” Gilroy said, “we'll explain the plot straightaway. We're running to rather a tight schedule this evening. Have to get the show on the road and all that, and luckily the rest are upstairs changing.”

Having thoughtfully provided Priscilla with a stiff gin and tonic, which Dee Dee guessed she would prefer to tea, they launched into the details.

As the characters of Louise and her family were outlined, Priscilla began calculating the many opportunities that the staircase, the stone-flagged Great Hall and the library offered for dramatic entrances and exits.

“Being the widow's companion,” Dee Dee explained, “you have more access to her private rooms than anyone else. You're also determined to get your legacy. When, over dinner, it sounds as though she'll rethink her will, you decide to act. You don't know who the blackmailer is, but you suspect it's her brother. He's sleeping in what had been her husband's dressing-room, next to hers. So it should be easy to throw suspicion on him.”

“And how do I kill her?”

“Poison,” Gilroy said. “You put it in the bedtime drink you bring her every night. But tonight you talk her brother into taking it for you.”

“Are you sure he won't see through that, darlings?” Priscilla slipped into her theatrical way of calling everyone “darling” without realizing it. “Or is he an utter fool?”

“Why should he suspect anything?” Gilroy reacted as if insulted, but it was being called “darling” that had upset him more than the implication of idiocy.

“Well, I would.”

“Then you'd better sort out some stage business with the coffee-cups. Or the after-dinner brandy. Talk to Dodgson. You can work it out between you while we're at the Lion Park. Give you a chance to get to know the house too.”

“Just what kind of poison is it?”

“What kind?” They hadn't bothered with this aspect. It was as bad as those army instructors who always wanted to know the calibre of weapon you were using. “The fatal kind, of course. What does it matter?”

“An awful lot, darlings. Cyanide is very quick. Arsenic's very slow. There's hemlock and aconite. You ought to read Agatha Christie.”

“We have, God help us,” Gilroy exploded “Until the cows come home.”

“In fact,” Dee Dee confessed, “we're probably the only people on this weekend who've read a word of hers.”

“I thought they were all enthusiasts.”

“So did we.”

“But, darlings”—having acted in many murder plays, Priscilla was very positive about crime—“the kind of poison makes an awful lot of difference.”

“Mrs. Worthington.” Dee Dee decided to call a halt and did so with a barbed remark, given whom she was talking to. “This is only play-acting. The game is for everyone to identify the murderer.”

Priscilla's eyelids quivered, as though she was about to cry. “I've brought several costumes. Are your guests dressing up?”

“Only to their own satisfaction. I have to warn you they're a tough bunch. Getting any enthusiasm out of them is going to be hard work. The man Savage and his daughter will enter into the spirit of things. The others won't.”

“We rely on you,” Gilroy said, “to get things going.”

“And keep them going,” added Dee Dee firmly. “It's going to be a long, hard night.”

Priscilla gazed at her hosts, so affable at first, now so demanding. “It'll be a fun weekend, so you won't mind the fee being rather small, will you?” the agent had said. What
had
she let herself in for?

“A hard night for all of us,” Dee Dee said, softening the blow a little. “Would you like to see your room?”

Priscilla was so overwhelmed that she did not dare ask for another drink. Luckily she had a half bottle of gin in her make-up case.

4

T
HE ASSEMBLED
group almost caused Dee Dee Gilroy to burst out laughing. Each person had a different idea of the right clothes to wear for seeing the lions. Welch was in one of the loudest checked jackets ever seen outside a race-track, while his wife bulged in a green spotted silk dress more suitable for a garden party. Hamish had opted for soft blue canvas loafers and a blazer with buttons bearing the lion crest of a London store. Loredana was in a Chanel-style beige safari suit, with large pockets and a silk Hermès scarf tied around the crown of an Australian bush hat. Dee Dee thought. Only Dulcie had on common-sense jeans and a sweater, as had Dee Dee herself.

Two Land Rovers with viewing hatches cut in the roofs stood in the drive. Beside them waited Ted Matthews, the Lion Park keeper, wearing cords and an old sleeveless safari jacket. He was a youngster compared to most of them, with a fresh, freckled face and a boyish smile. He was in a more or less constant dispute with Lord Gilroy, who wanted him to sport a full-scale African hunting outfit, as the rangers did at rival safari parks. Ted, who had a zoology Ph.D. and had spent five years in a South African game reserve, argued that it would look absurd in rural England, even if this was more show business than animal management. Since Ted had both the experience and the instinct for handling big cats, Gilroy had so far given way.

Gilroy introduced this motley group to Ted and apportioned them seats, taking care to put Welch in the vehicle Ted drove. He knew exactly what kind of remarks Welch would make during the “safari” and had no intention of being subjected to them. Naturally the McMountdowns went with Welch, leaving Loredana to flutter her eyelashes vainly at being left to the mercies of Gilroy himself, together with the Savages. Loredana was making a big thing out of having been on safari in Kenya and was not pleased to discover that Gilroy and Dee Dee had been there frequently, while Jemma had been in the Masai Mara reporting on the murder there of an English girl. “I don't remember that,” Loredana protested. “Who killed her?”

“They pretended it was a lion, but really she'd been hacked to pieces.”

“How absolutely horrid. Men are beasts.”

“What about women?” Jemma said, earning a disdainful frown from Loredana. “Don't lionesses usually do the killing?”

“Only because the males are too lazy.”

“When did you start the Lion Park, Lord Gilroy?” Jim asked, elbowing his daughter in the ribs to shut her up, but noting that Loredana took offence easily and had little sense of humour.

“The only one in this part of the country,” Gilroy said with pride, as they were let through a high gate in the electrified fence. “They have a hundred acres all to themselves. It's a big attraction.”

There were still visitors from the afternoon driving round in their saloon cars, past signs warning them it was forbidden to feed the animals, sound their horns, or—most importantly—get out of their vehicles.

“People think they can go up to the lions and stroke them,” Gilroy said. “Not that I'd be sorry if that fellow Welch tried.”

The lions themselves seemed healthy enough, if incongruous lying in the shade of oak trees in English meadows.

“Caesar's our largest male,” Gilroy said, stopping the vehicle to point at an impressive black-maned lion squatting over a lioness and very actively mating. “Don't see them at it all that often. Not that there's much else for them to do.”

“Darling!” Dee protested.

“I'd like a few cubs born here. Tremendous publicity.”

At this moment the other Land Rover drew up, also to watch Caesar in action. Jim studied the occupants' faces through his binoculars and was amused. Mrs. Welch was affecting embarrassment, Hamish was expressionless, as though this sort of thing were beneath him, Dulcie was openly laughing and Welch had his own binoculars raised to get a close-up view. That pretty well summed them up, Jim thought. Hamish was a cold fish and Welch a sex-obsessed rogue.

As they watched, Caesar dismounted from the lioness, biting her neck gently, then ambled away to lie down by himself.

“He's limping,” Loredana said. “Poor old thing. He must have a thorn in his paw.”

“No thorn-bushes here,” Gilroy countered, aggravated that he had not noticed the limp himself. “Whatever it is, Ted'll fix him up.”

“How? I mean, I find it hard enough with my cat.” It was clear that she felt deeply about cats, or at least about her own one.

“Dart him with a tranquillizer,” Gilroy said, casually emphasizing his expertise, “deal with the paw, then inject him with the antidote and get the hell out of his way again.”

“But wouldn't Caesar be grateful? My little Timmy would.”

“How would little Timmy like having a hypodermic fired into his little behind?” Dee Dee asked, nauseated by all this tweeness.

“Oh, he'd hate it!” Loredana instantly reversed her attitude. “He's a lion at heart. And he hates the vet. He knows when we're going there. But he's so old now, he's going to have to be put down.”

“It's a lot kinder,” Jemma said. “I'm all for euthanasia.”

“Regardless of age, I hope.” Dee Dee reckoned they had several euthanasia candidates here this weekend.

“She was thinking of me, rather than her, I think,” Jim suggested.

“Oh no, Daddy. Never.” Jemma leaned across and squeezed his hand.

Far from laughing along with the others, Loredana was annoyed by this inconsequential small talk. Nobody understood her problems. “I only wish I could put darling Timmy to sleep myself,” she moaned.

“Come on, darling,” Dee Dee said to Gilroy, having had enough of this inane chatter. “We haven't seen the Conservation Centre yet.”

But Loredana wanted the last word. “You have one? How marvellous!” she cooed. “And I must talk to your keeper. Lions are so fascinating.”

“Compared to humans, unquestionably,” said Dee Dee.

The Conservation Centre was a skilful adaptation of an old timbered Elizabethan barn, the only surviving building of the original estate. It housed an exhibition area, a cafeteria, a souvenir shop and the lion keeper's offices and laboratory.

The two Land Rovers arrived almost simultaneously and Gilroy gathered his group to show them round, not omitting the shop with its car stickers boasting “I've heard the Wittenham lions roar!” and mugs emblazoned with the family crest of the stag. In fact, he took them there first, pretending it would shortly be closing. He'd once heard a marketing man say, “The sale you lose today can never be made again.” It had taken him time to understand the concept that tomorrow is inescapably another day, but once he had, this became a prized motto. Predictably Adrienne bought a crested mug and Dulcie a tea-towel because she felt obliged to, while the others firmly bought nothing.

The exhibition was more rewarding. There were photographs and wildlife montages, while looking down at them were the mounted trophies of the first Lord Gilroy's big-game hunting. This collection of slightly moth-eaten heads—buffalo, numerous antelope, tiger and, inevitably, lion—had formerly graced the Great Hall at the house. They had been Dee Dee's first target for eviction after her marriage.

“Bet the animal-rights girls like those!” Welch commented sardonically. “Get a lot of protests?”