Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) (23 page)

“Passion,” Max repeated.

“Very wise.” Dominic fingered some residual moisture from his forehead.

“Were you wanting a towel, Cousin Dominic?”

Dominic caught Tom’s eye. “No, I’ll soak here for the time being. If you’re Sherlock Holmesing, Maximilian—
love
the hat—you might find a clue in the Gaze Tower.”

“Might I?”

“If I were Moriarty I would leave one there.”

Max regarded his cousin with uncertainty. “A villain wouldn’t deliberately leave a clue.”

“Only if he wanted to be caught,” Lucinda pointed out dryly.

“A villain, Maximilian,” Dominic corrected, “might
in
advertently leave a clue.”

“Yes. I read somewhere—in a Beano comic, I think—that a murderer always takes something away and leaves something behind.”

“You couldn’t possibly have read that in a Beano comic.”

“But why the tower, Cousin Dominic?”

“The only thing to do is go and find out.”

“By George, you’re right.” Max adjusted his deerstalker. “We must eliminate all possibilities. Come along, Miss Christmas.”

“You were eager to get rid,” Lucinda remarked to Dominic when Max and Miranda had disappeared past the gate.

“Only because the water, dear Lucy, is absolutely bloody freezing if you’re not moving through it.” He scrambled onto the pool’s ledge behind Lucinda, darted for the nearby chair in a cascade of dripping water, and snatched a towel. Even at a distance, Tom could see gooseflesh.

“And
is
there a clue in the Gaze Tower?” Lucinda called to be heard behind her, as Dominic wrapped one towel around his hips and another one across his chest.

“Don’t be silly. Of course there isn’t.”

“You used to play awful tricks on me. I followed him around like a puppy at holidays on Baissé,” Lucinda said in a confiding tone to Tom. “I was besotted by my older brother … cousin, whatever you are, Dominic. I think your daughter is rather taken with Maxie, don’t you, Vicar?”

Tom emitted a feeble noise of agreement.

“They’re much too young, and nothing would come of it anyway.” Dominic pulled the chair over and sat down, splaying his white legs.

“Yes, true.” Lucinda waggled the sun cream in his face and shifted in her lounge chair. “Back.”

“What time is it? Is there time?”

Tom glanced at his watch. “Three twenty.”

“Is it worth it?” Dominic frowned as he took the bottle from her. “We have this … this summons to the great hall. You’ll get oil all over the Louis Quinze.”

“Back!” Lucinda commanded again, turning fully. Tom’s eyes went helplessly to her curvaceous backside, then felt Dominic’s smirking glance upon him. He wiggled the bottle invitingly. Tom responded with a shake of the head.

“You’re the eighth Marquess of Morborne.” Lucinda’s voice echoed against the tiles she looked to be addressing. “Where will the ninth come from?”

“I believe that’s a non sequitur, Lucy dear.”

“Not really. Answer the question.”

“Shut up.”

“Maximilian will be the eleventh Earl of Fairhaven when Hector dies. Where will the twelfth come from?”

“Don’t be so bloody obtuse.”

“I’m merely reconsidering your remark that nothing would come of Maxie and darling Miranda. Your daughter
is
darling, Vicar.”

“Thank you,” Tom said evenly.

“You will have to perform your feudal duty, Dominic,” Lucinda continued.

“For the sake of passing on moth-eaten ermine and a tarnished coronet?” Dominic grunted and popped the top of the bottle.

“Morborne House? Four Paul Cézanne, three Paul Gauguin, two Claude Monet, and Renoir’s painting of a pear tree?”

“But are they real or are they forgeries?” Dominic squeezed a dollop of cream onto his fingers. “Anyway, as Maximilian
stands to inherit all of this—Eggescombe and the rest of it—and needs must pass it on, I’m sure one day he will put his mind to his duty.”

“Well, Hector did.” Lucinda’s laugh eased into a sigh as Dominic’s hands pressed into her back.

Dominic smiled at Tom, who realised his expression must have betrayed the curiosity he felt. “I think you’ll find, Vicar, that with Max the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”

G
eorgina arrived at the great hall next to last. She hesitated in a swift, sweeping assessment of the assembled, and clacked across the floor in low heels to the long oak draw-table where Ellen Gaunt had laid out tea and stood ready to serve. Tom thought Lady Fairhaven’s eyes rested for a fraction of a second longer over her mother-in-law, the dowager countess, who had assumed earlier a red wing chair to the right of the fireplace, matched throne to the wing chair to the fireplace’s left, which accommodated Hector in slumped repose, one ankle over the other. Each had a familiar: Roberto rested on a hard cane-backed chair next to Marguerite, arms folded over his chest, eyes directed to the chimneypiece, as elaborately carved as the screen above the door; Gaunt stood stiffly by Hector, arms by sides, eyes alert to the needs of those in the room. Bonzo was slumbering at his master’s feet.

“Darling, take a seat, why don’t you?” Hector spoke impatiently to his wife as she received a cup of tea from Mrs. Gaunt.

“Georgie, have this one,” Marguerite said, though she made no effort to move.

“I’m all right to stand for a moment.” Georgina took a tentative sip. “There’s room on the sofa with Jamie and Jane. Lucy, what on earth are you wearing?” she added, her cup hitting its saucer with an elegant scrape.

“A dressing gown, can’t you tell? I’ve been by the pool and have sun cream all over me.”

Lady Fairhaven’s lips disappeared into a disapproving moue. “And what are you drinking?”

“I had Gaunt make me a
blanc-cassis
. I don’t feel like tea.”

Tom glanced from Lucinda, who was seated beside him in an upholstered chair, into the milky stew of his own half-finished cup. He didn’t much feel like tea, either, though the great hall, with its north face, its white marble floors, and its soaring plasterwork ceiling, seemed to cling to the chill of a spring months past. In late-medieval times when the hall was built, it would have been the heart and hearth of Eggescombe, crackling with fire and life. Now its wintry resplendence served only to impress. Tom suspected that in Hector’s choosing the great hall to receive the police detectives, he wished to make plain that this was his house; possibly he hoped to intimidate them. If so, he wasn’t certain the strategy was wise. He felt vaguely apprehensive, as if he were about to sit exams, and he expected the others, as evinced by Lucinda’s snappish remark, were too. The atmosphere was sour with a tension that might have been soothed in the relatively homely surroundings
of the sunny drawing room. He exchanged a glance with Madrun, who stood with Ellen at the draw-table, but he could discern no particular sentiment behind the reflective glass of her cat’s-eye spectacles. It was as if she had taken on the impersonal mien of a servant, though he was certain her mind was coursing wonderfully over this scene. Whatever would old Mrs. Prowse be treated to in the next letter!

Porcelain tapped porcelain, a throat cleared, fabric shushed along fabric as legs crossed and uncrossed: The waiting seemed interminable, though—Tom let his eyes fall surreptitiously to his watch—the detectives were not late. Finally, though Tom heard no heralding sound, Gaunt squared his back, glanced at Hector, then at Dominic, who sat bolt-upright in a cane-backed chair near Hector, and slipped out of the hall. A moment later, heads turned to the two blocky figures in dark suits Gaunt ushered into the room. Hector rose from his seat and indicated two chairs that had been placed in front of the fireplace, closing the straggling ring of family, guests, and staff, and introduced them.

“Some of you, I believe,” Hector continued, his voice controlled and plummy, “have already spoken with Detective Inspector Blessing and Detective Sergeant Bliss—”

“Detective Inspector Bliss, Your Lordship,” Bliss corrected. “He’s Blessing.” He flicked his thumb to his partner, who sat himself on the spindly chair and pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket.

“Quite.” Irritation flickered on Hector’s face. “Detective Inspector Bliss and Detective Sergeant Blessing asked to see us as a group to … to—”

“To try and get a picture of Lord Morborne’s activities and
movements here since he arrived at Eggescombe. We’ll also be speaking with you separately, later, of course.”

“Why don’t you sit down, Detective Inspector,” Hector said, dropping into his own chair. “Would you care for tea?”

“I’ll stand for the time being, if you don’t mind.” Bliss squared his feet along the marble tiles. “And thank you, no.”

“Darling”—Hector, nettled, turned his attention to his wife—“do sit down.”

“You’re all welcome to sit,” Bliss said as Georgina tucked her skirt behind her legs and took the end cushion of the couch next to Jane.

“We’ll stand, Inspector.” Gaunt looked to his wife and Madrun. Tom glanced around the sparsely furnished room. There were no other chairs. Gaunt had intended staff to stand.

“Suit yourselves.”

“I should point out, Inspector”—Lucinda lifted her lips from her glass—“that some of us only arrived yesterday.”

“I’m aware of your arrival times,” Bliss responded evenly. “Lord Morborne arrived Wednesday afternoon, for instance, having driven down from London—alone, I might add.”

Hector frowned. “Is there some significance to his coming down alone?”

“I understand that Lord Morborne announced his engagement last evening to a Serena Knowlton of Knightsbridge, London. It seemed to me if you’d got engaged you might bring your fiancée down to meet your family.”

“He was down for a charity event, you know,” Hector said.

“Has anyone spoken with Serena?” Marguerite interrupted. “We discussed doing so at luncheon.”

“Marve, no one has a number.” Georgina lifted her teacup.

“Nonsense. Frank Knowlton is hardly ex-directory. He has a business empire. Hector, you must have a number for him. Or couldn’t someone have simply looked on Oliver’s mobile?” Marve looked to Gaunt. “Besides, mightn’t she have phoned
here
? It’s all over television. I looked.”

“No, my lady,” Gaunt replied.

“We’ve shut off the switchboard, Mother,” Hector explained. “You can understand why.”

“
I
spoke with her,” Bliss interrupted. “When she couldn’t get through here, she was patched through to me.”

“Well, I hope she doesn’t think you all callous,” Marguerite murmured.

Bliss cleared his throat noisily as Hector opened his mouth to protest. “The Honourable Serena Knowlton told me that Lord Morborne did not tell her he planned to be in Devon other than for the jump yesterday. He texted her when he arrived here Wednesday saying he had business in the area. What, she didn’t know.”

“I might be able to help you there, Inspector,” Tom said. “Lord Morborne paid a visit to my church’s music director, Colm Parry—whom you know from Thornford Regis. I understand Lord Morborne was trying to coax him from retirement to perform at some musical event next year in London.”

“But, Tom”—Jamie leaned forward to address him—“Mr. Parry was among the party that came with you to the airstrip at Plymouth for the charity jump. I remember because it was such fun to meet the guy who sang ‘Bank Holiday.’ ”

“That’s true. They could have spoken anytime before or after the jump,” Tom reflected.

“Maybe Oliver just wanted a few days out of London,” Jane said, though Tom could hear the doubt in her voice.

“It’s true he can be impulsive,” her husband added.

“Then I take it, Lady Fairhaven”—Bliss turned his attention to Georgina—“that you hadn’t expected your brother to arrive when he did.”

“Well, no.” Georgina looked to her husband. “But of course he was very welcome to come and stay, with or without notice. There’s plenty of room—usually,” she amended.

“And how did he spend his time here those few days before yesterday’s jump?” Blessing looked up from his notebook, speaking for the first time.

“On his bloody mobile,” Jamie laughed. “Talking or texting. Doing business. He wasn’t a relaxed sort of fellow, Olly. I took Friday lunch with him at the Pilgrims Inn at Abbotswick and the thing was going off all the time until I wrenched it from his hands and switched it off.”

“Lord Morborne’s fondness for his mobile has arisen several times in our investigation.” Bliss frowned. “And yet there is no evidence of it. Anyone explain that? No? We may need to search the house, Lord Fairhaven.”

“Of course, if you must.”

“You might want to consider reinforcements, Inspector,” Dominic remarked. “Eggescombe isn’t exactly a suburban semi.”

“What did you talk about with Lord Morborne?” Blessing addressed Jamie before Bliss could apply a snappy comeback.

“Oh, gosh, nothing that seems memorable. The jump the
next day. Cricket, business …” Jamie shrugged. “We had a bit of a family catch-up …”

“Did he seem different in any way?”

“Different?”