Naughty In Nice (29 page)
Authors: Rhys Bowen
“Claire Daniels will do perfectly,” Mummy said, “since I believe I’m officially still Mrs. Homer Clegg—the last man I was married to, a Texas oil millionaire who found religion and won’t divorce me. Of all the husbands’ names to get stuck with!” She motioned to the chair. “Please do sit down. Would you like some coffee?”
“I only take tea in the mornings,” Lady Groper said, perching herself, birdlike, once more on the chair, “but at the moment I feel more like a good, stiff brandy.”
“Brandy it shall be, then,” Mummy said, turning back to the maid who was hovering in the doorway.
“I wasn’t being serious, Mrs. Daniels,” Lady Groper said. “It’s only ten o’clock in the morning.”
“If you need it and want it, who cares about the hour?” Mummy shrugged. “A cognac for Milady, please, Claudette.”
“It’s very good of you.” Lady Groper looked inquiringly at the rest of us, who were loitering. “I’m afraid I haven’t been introduced to these ladies.”
“Forgive me. This is Madame Chanel, Mrs. Bate Lombardi and my daughter, Georgiana Rannoch.”
“Oh, so you’re the one!” Lady Groper’s eyes hardened as she looked at me.
“Yes, I discovered your husband’s body, I’m afraid,” I said, not sure what she was hinting.
“But they were saying at the Negresco that the police arrested you for his murder. They say you were out with him on his yacht and I know what that generally means.”
Really, I was quite amazed at how quickly gossip spreads among an expatriate community.
“The police have got it wrong, as usual,” Mummy said sharply. “Georgiana was invited for a sail on his yacht. She was not aware of your husband’s reputation, and she left when he began acting boorishly. That was the last time she saw him alive.”
Lady Groper’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. As you can imagine, I’m rather upset. However badly he behaved, he was my husband for over twenty years. I must have loved him once, I suppose. And I wouldn’t wish anybody to die like that, bleeding to death in his swimming pool.” She looked down at her gloved hands. “That pool was his pride and joy. Although a frightful extravagance, if you ask me. What irony that it should cause his death.”
“I rather think the blow to the head caused his death,” I said. “The pool was just a convenient place to dump the body in the hopes that it would look like an accident. Which of course it didn’t. You can’t hit the back of your head and then pitch forward into a pool.”
Again she looked at me with narrowed eyes, as if suspecting that I knew more than I was telling. I was glad that Claudette arrived just then with the cognac on a tray. Lady Groper accepted it and took a good swig.
“So you only heard the news this morning,” Mummy said. “It must have come as a tremendous shock to you.”
“Tremendous.” Lady Groper shuddered again. “I had been up to visit friends in the hills. I returned to the Negresco very late last night and saw the news when the boy brought in my morning paper. There it was, screaming from the headline: ‘English Lord Murdered.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Chanel said in her delightfully French-accented English, “why were you staying at a hotel when you own such a lovely villa nearby? Had you and your husband had a falling-out?”
Lady Groper flushed. “It’s really none of your business,” she said.
“Ah, but it is. My little friend Georgiana is accused of a murder she did not commit. So I must wonder . . .”
“How dare you!” Lady Groper put down the glass with a bang on the table. “Are you suggesting that I had anything to do with my husband’s murder?”
Chanel looked not in the least put out. She shrugged. “I am only curious why a wife chooses to sleep apart from her husband.”
“You know very well why.” Lady Groper almost spat out the words. “Because I assumed that creature would be in residence. How would you feel, knowing that he flaunted that floozie in public, having her to live with him at the villa? He blamed me—claimed that it was my fault because I refused to come to the Riviera with him every winter.” She looked up, as if asking for sympathy. “But I hate living abroad. I hate the lifestyle and the constant parties and the gambling and the—carrying-on, if you know what I mean. It’s all quite alien to what I stand for. Give me a good old British winter with hunting any day.”
“So why did you come this time, Lady Groper?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
She frowned at me. “Again it’s none of your business.”
“But the police might suspect that you came over here with the express purpose of catching your husband with his mistress,” I said. “And being the French police, they would go on to surmise that you lost control and hit him with the nearest object.”
She shot me a fleeting look of horror. “Surely no one would ever think such a thing. That’s ridiculous. I have known about his mistresses for years and turned a blind eye, because that’s what good wives do.” She sat even straighter and folded her hands in her lap. “If you must know, I had a small spot of business to attend to with my husband. When it was concluded, I decided to visit an old friend who has a villa in the hills. I was planning to return home by tonight’s train, only to hear the news about Toby.” She stood up abruptly. “I’ve taken too much of your time. I’d better go to the villa and check whether there are any possessions of mine there—or presents that I gave Toby. I rather suspect he gave that floozie some of my jewels, but I don’t suppose she keeps them at the villa.”
“Mademoiselle Olga had left him,” Chanel said.
“She had? When?”
“Only a day or so ago. She stormed out in a rage.”
Lady Groper beamed. “There you are, then. You have your killer. She was known to be a dramatic, violent sort of person. She came back to kill him. Presumably the police are looking for her?”
“I expect they’ll eventually get around to it,” Vera said.
Lady Groper started toward the front door, then turned back. “I wonder if I could ask a favor—if one of you would come with me to the villa. I don’t want to compromise myself in any way—you understand. I’d prefer to have a witness present.”
“I presume you will inherit the property, won’t you? So the possessions in it are legally yours,” Mummy said.
“Unless Toby has changed his will behind our backs, my son inherits the estates and the title. I am left a sum of money ample for my needs and of course I own property that comes from my family.”
“Oh, you have a son,” Mummy said innocently. “How lovely for you.”
Lady Groper’s face softened. “Yes, he is a dear boy and quite devoted to his mother. He’s doing well—up at Oxford, you know. His father had high hopes for him. He’ll be devastated when he hears this.”
And with that she opened the front door. I watched her go, then followed at the back of the party. Several things were interesting to me: first, that she had not mentioned her intention to file divorce proceedings against her husband, nor his threats to expose her to scandal, and second, that she didn’t appear to know her son was also on the Riviera. Or if she did, she was a very good liar.
There were two policemen standing at the entrance to our driveway. They stepped out to block the way as they saw us.
“We are escorting Lady Groper to her villa,” Coco said to them. “She has just heard the terrible news and has to see whether anything has been stolen.”
“Very well,” one of the policemen said. “You will find our men at the villa. You may tell them you have permission to accompany Lady Groper.”
We walked down the driveway. Lady Groper shuddered as the villa came into sight. “A monstrosity, isn’t it? The kind of tasteless extravagance that one of no breeding builds. Toby might have had a title, but he was still a parvenu, a nouveau riche. You’ve seen the artwork he collected?” She looked back at us. “He claims it will be worth a fortune, but I find much of it hideous.”
We reached the front door, which was opened for us by another policeman, and stepped inside. Almost immediately Johnson appeared. “Oh, it’s you, ladies,” he said, looking relieved. “I thought it might be the inspector again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve answered the same questions, over and over—What time did I go into town? Did I see the young lady from next door?” He looked at me, “Oh, and I must apologize, my lady. I didn’t know who you were before. I must have appeared a bit rude.”
“Not at all. I didn’t choose to reveal my true identity at that moment,” I said. “People tend to behave differently toward me when they know I have royal connections.”
“I understand, my lady.” His gaze moved on to Lady Groper. She was eyeing him coldly. “And who is this young man, may I ask?” she said.
“Johnson, ma’am,” he said. “Sir Toby’s new valet. He hired me shortly before we left for the Continent. I take it that you are Lady Groper. May I say how very sorry I am that he met such a tragic end.”
“Another new valet,” Lady Groper said. “I could never keep up with them. And where were you, Johnson, when my husband was brutally murdered?”
Johnson clearly saw this as a veiled criticism, that he had somehow been neglecting his duty. “Sir Toby had sent me into town to run errands for him,” he said. “I saw him set off on his yacht and did not expect him back until evening. In fact, he told me I didn’t need to hurry back, so I didn’t. I also ran a few errands for myself and enjoyed seeing a bit of Nice. I saw his yacht moored in the harbor, so I’ve no idea how he came to be back here, all alone. I only wish I had come back sooner—I may have prevented . . .” And his voice wavered.
“Don’t blame yourself, boy,” Lady Groper said. “You did what you were instructed. So I presume that your master was not expecting anybody to call yesterday afternoon? And there is no evidence of anyone having been here?”
“No, my lady.”
“And that woman—Olga?” she asked tentatively.
“She left the master a few days ago. She took all her belongings and moved out.”
“And she didn’t come back at all and try to see him?”
“No, my lady. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since, and good riddance, if you don’t mind my saying so. She was a nasty piece of stuff.”
“And I presume you have checked the villa to see if anything was disturbed or taken?” she asked.
“As far as I could tell nothing was touched, ma’am,” he said. “Of course I don’t have the keys to his safe or several locked drawers, and I have no idea of their contents.”
Lady Groper moved forward into the drawing room, looking around her with distaste. “He’s acquired even more things since I was here last, and most of them as ugly as sin,” she said. “Why would anyone want a painting of an old chair? Or that one with all the scribbles and ink blots? Surely he didn’t pay good money for something like that.”
“I believe it’s a Matisse, my lady,” Johnson said. “He’s a local painter who has gained quite a reputation.”
“I wouldn’t give you tuppence for it,” Lady Groper said. “But I see he’s brought out a lot of my family’s good silver. That will have to go back home where it belongs. Find me some suitable boxes and I’ll tell you which things I want packed and shipped.”
Johnson looked embarrassed. “I don’t think I should do that yet, my lady.”
“Why not?” she snapped.
“The police might not be through with them.”
“What would the French police want with my silver?” she demanded. “Are they trying to insinuate that my husband received stolen goods or that it wasn’t his? The impudence.”
“No, my lady. It’s more looking for fingerprints on them—that sort of thing, to try to work out who might have been here and whether they’d tried to take anything.”
“Oh, very well,” Lady Groper snapped. “I suppose this means I’d better stay at the villa so that some grubby little French policeman doesn’t walk off with any of the family heirlooms. You can make a bed up for me in the blue bedroom, young man.” She paused, eyeing him critically. “What was your name again?”
“Johnson, my lady,” he said.
“And for whom were you in service last?”
“An American gentleman, my lady. I spent the last year living in Los Angeles.”
“And why did you leave him?”
“America was not to my taste, my lady.” Johnson held her gaze. “But since I am obviously no longer employed by your husband, I think my past history is no longer of any relevance.”
“Impudent pup,” Lady Groper said. “Go about your duties, boy.”
He gave the slightest hint of a bow and left the room. As they spoke, I had been eyeing the broken glass-topped table with the queen’s snuffbox in it. Now I was in a quandary—it was possible that the police had made an inventory of Sir Toby’s things. And if they decided to search my room and found the snuffbox in my possession, it would be one more piece of incriminating evidence. I moved away again. Now that Lady Groper had announced her intention to stay in the villa for a few days, I would wait for a suitable moment and then tell her the truth—well, maybe part of the truth—that Her Majesty maybe lent the snuffbox to Sir Toby for a special display . . . ? And at the very worst, I’d tell Johnson the truth and have him acquire it for me.
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