The Wrong Rite (17 page)

“Then it is me you will have to be excusing long enough to bring out the hot water,” Alice called out. “And the cakes.”

That struck a chord. People were looking a shade less pinched as they straggled in and took chairs around the long board that had been so festive earlier on. The lanterns were still burning, possibly as a deterrent to certain types of reveling among the young fry.

Their gentle light was a welcome change from the darkness outside that was still being interrupted by an occasional spurt of flame from what was left of the fatal bonfire. The supper mess had been cleared away, but an array of clean cups and saucers still stood beside the tea urn. Constable Rhys decided it would be quite in order for both Iowerth and Betty to assist Mrs. Madoc in her errand of mercy. As things turned out, all Janet did was fetch the refilled cream jug and some writing materials for Madoc, but her good offices were given full honor by one and all.

Madoc started working one side of the table, Constable Rhys the other. By the time the police ambulance arrived from wherever it had had to be summoned from with the chief constable tagging along behind in a snappy red Jaguar, they’d pretty well finished their interrogations and each had two cups of tea in the bargain. Madoc had passed up the cakes, but Rhys the Police had shown his gratitude for the women’s kind endeavors by eating a whole plateful all by himself.

“And there is no way, Doctor, of questioning Mr. Robert Rhys until he wakes up of his own accord?” The chief constable was a shortish, sixtyish man in country tweeds who somewhat resembled the late Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor except that he seemed inordinately shy of women and had shown palpable uneasiness on being introduced to Mrs. Madoc.

“I don’t think it would be much good trying to rouse him now, Mr. Davies.” The doctor had stayed on with the rest lest anyone should turn faint or, more probably, fall victim to a surfeit of cakes and tea. “He’ll be in reasonable shape by morning.”

“Then we shall just have to wait.” Mr. Davies didn’t look too upset about the prospect. “Now, Mrs. Madoc Rhys, you say you believe the victim may herself have put gunpowder in her pockets?”

“I didn’t say I believed it, I only suggested it as a possibility.”

He quailed and turned to the nervously hovering Dai as a less daunting prospect.

“And you, Dai Rhys, you were Miss Mary Rhys’s nephew and also her apprentice.”

“It was her idea. The apprenticeship, I mean. I didn’t want to be.”

“Oh, you didn’t want to be? May I ask why not?”

“Because I—I just didn’t.”

“Was it perhaps that you did not get on well with your aunt, who, with her brother, had taken you in as an orphan and given you food and shelter and education and set you on the path to a respectable career as a gem-cutter?”

“They didn’t! I mean, they did, but it wasn’t as if I’d been Oliver Twist or somebody. My father left—” It apparently dawned on Dai that he was not making the best possible showing in front of the chief constable, he proceeded to make a bad matter worse. “I know what they did for me. I just got sick and tired of hearing about it all the time.”

“So you stuffed your aunt’s pockets with gunpowder?”

“Me? Where would I get gunpowder?”

“A very good question, Mr. Dai Rhys. Can somebody here give us an answer? Mr. Huw, would there be gunpowder on this estate?”

“Only in a few shotgun cartridges. None loose, not in my house and not, to the best of my knowledge, in my father’s.”

“You would submit to a search of your house and barns?”

“If you deem it necessary, Mr. Davies. I can’t speak for my father. I only hope you won’t go waking him up tonight, because he is an old man who has had a strenuous day.”

“But suppose we were to search only the bedroom that Miss Mary Rhys was occupying, in the hope that we may ascertain without further ado whether she brought gunpowder with her when she came?”

“I should say that would be a sensible thing to do,” Huw replied with some relief. “I understand the advisability of the room’s being searched before somebody gets in there and starts mucking about, and I have no objection, provided you don’t disturb my father.”

“Which room was Mary sleeping in?” Owain asked.

It was Lady Rhys who replied. “The one next to my husband’s and mine. We’re at the opposite end of the manor from Uncle Caradoc, so there shouldn’t be much risk of your waking him unless you go shouting and thumping about. I should suggest you take my son Madoc with you instead of Cyril, Mr. Davies. His tread is far the more catlike of the two. And perhaps my daughter-in-law also, if she doesn’t mind, so that Mary’s ghost will not be embarrassed by seeing a strange man rummaging among her undergarments unchaperoned. I expect she’s hanging about up there by now, itching for a chance to haunt somebody. Poor thing, one does hope Mary gets more fun out of the body than she ever did in it.”

The chief constable obviously had not bargained for Lady Rhys. He had to blink and hem a few times before he could manage a reply.

“Thank you for your suggestion, Lady Rhys. I should welcome the assistance of Detective Inspector Madoc Rhys, and also that of his lady wife, should she care to accompany us in our search. Constable Cyril Rhys, you will please remain here and complete the taking of statements.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rhys the Police stood up and saluted smartly, though not without casting a regretful glance at his depleted plate and empty cup. As the search squad left the barn, they met Alice hurrying back in with fresh supplies.

“The investigation is proceeding with decorum and dispatch,” Madoc muttered in Janet’s ear.

“Of course,” she murmured back. “I expect your mother’s right about Mary’s ghost. Come on then, it’s not polite to keep a specter waiting.”

“S
O YOU DID FIND
the gunpowder?”

Sir Emlyn’s beautiful white hair was in disarray, he must have been taking a nap on the red-room bed before they woke him by barging in with the dreadful news.

Madoc nodded.

“What was left of it. Jenny found it, actually, a cardboard box that could have held a pound or more, with only a spoonful or so left in the bottom. The box had simply been tossed into the fireplace, which could have been rather exciting for whoever happened to light the next fire.”

“Exactly the feckless sort of thing Mary would do. Not to speak ill of the dead, but you know as well as I what a featherhead she was.” Lady Rhys started gathering up her needlepoint materials. She was embroidering a pillow with a unicorn on it for her granddaughter’s room, judging that by the time she finished, Dorothy would be out of bunnies and kitties and into her unicorn stage. “I must say I’m extremely relieved to have the matter settled so quickly, Madoc. Now you won’t have to go around detecting things and upsetting people. The Condryckes’ friends are still snubbing us, you know, over that time in New Brunswick.”

“Yes, Mother. Did Dorothy wake up?”

“Just once. She wasn’t wet and she didn’t seem hungry, she just wanted her old granny to cuddle her a bit. So I did, and she dropped off again, the lamb. I do so wish Dafydd were as commonsensical as you, Madoc, about settling down and raising a family. Can’t you quietly take him aside and have a nice, brotherly chat?”

“No, Mother. Would you care to join me in a nightcap? We’ve that duty-free brandy, if Tad hasn’t drunk it all up.”

“A fine way to talk about your own father in front of the baby. Just a spot, then. Poor old Mary, I cannot get over her having done such a gruesome thing. She must have been batty as a—a what, Emmy?”

“A bat, perhaps? Thank you, Madoc. Cheers. Mary may not have been one’s favorite relative, but one wouldn’t have wished such a death on one’s worst enemy. I do hope she hadn’t time to suffer.”

“I don’t see how she could have,” Janet reassured her father-in-law. “Mary was certainly dead by the time Madoc got to her, and that was in virtually no time at all. The shock alone would have killed her, I should think. It was quite something when that powder went off. I hope we get to see the lab report.”

Lady Rhys raised her eyebrows. “I suppose, being married to a policeman, these things rub off. It’s so good of you to take an interest in Madoc’s work, Jenny,” she added out of politeness.

“Jenny’s a natural-born detective,” Madoc protested. “She was chasing down a murder before I ever met her. Remember that jar of string beans, love?”

“How could I forget? Those beans got me a husband, didn’t they? Have you had any company this evening, Mother?”

“Just Uncle Caradoc.”

“How was he feeling?”

“Weary but happy. He said Dafydd had walked him back to the door, but was going on to Lisa’s. They neither of them had any desire to stay for the bonfire, which was a great blessing. Of course Dafydd’s never cared for bonfires, not since that time in Winnipeg when he was a little boy and that awful child who lived next door—what was their name, Emmy? The ones who kept the pack of bloodhounds that used to bay at the moon.”

“I can’t remember. They didn’t stay long, thank goodness.”

“Anyway, they were burning rubbish or something and that ghastly boy got hold of some shotgun shells the father had left lying around, which just shows you the sort of people they were. You surely remember that much, Emmy? Dafydd just missed being killed. He had buckshot in his leg, his hair was all singed in front, and his left eyebrow was burned right off. We were afraid he’d be scarred for life, but mercifully he healed without a trace. Outwardly, at any rate. Well, darlings, I expect you want to get to bed. We’ll see you at breakfast. Night-night.”

Madoc had his shirt unbuttoned before his parents were fairly out the door. Janet couldn’t settle. She fiddled with her earrings, brushed her hair for no good reason, wandered around picking things up and putting them down. Madoc, sitting on the edge of the bed taking off his shoes and socks, watched her till he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“All right, love, what’s eating you?”

She put down the nightgown she’d been turning inside out, though she had no idea why, and came to sit beside him. “For one thing, I can’t help thinking what a cinch it would have been for anybody at all to sneak upstairs and toss that box into Mary’s fireplace. The help were out at the party along with the rest of us, the house was wide open, and had been all day long. Mary herself never changed out of that rig she came down to breakfast in, I doubt whether she ever went back to her room. She must have stayed right on the job the whole time, judging from the show she put on and the number of backs she managed to put up. So that means she’d been carrying that gunpowder around all day long, or else—”

“I know, Jenny. I’ve been thinking about it too. Anything else?”

“Madoc, Dafydd did go back to the bonfire. I saw him out there, right after the explosion.”

“And so?”

“And so nothing, I don’t suppose. He probably just didn’t care for sitting over there at Lisa’s by himself after all, and decided he might as well come back to the party. Only he didn’t stay. I noticed he wasn’t around when Constable Rhys called us into the barn. Not that that means anything either. Maybe seeing Mary get blown up gave him an attack of the old horrors, and he was afraid of disgracing himself in front of the company. You certainly couldn’t blame him for that, could you?”

“No, Jenny. Whom was Dafydd with when you saw him?”

“Nobody, he was off by himself. You know how people were bunched up on one side or the other of the fire. Dafydd was about halfway between. I only happened to notice him because the fire flared up when Uncle Huw put more wood on. I was more or less opposite him, on the side where you were. I was trying to sidle up and catch your eye.”

“Why, love?”

“Because. Oh, you know why. Give me a kiss and tell me I’m being stupid.”

“Since you insist. I don’t know what more we can do tonight, we’ll just have to wait and see whether Bob makes any sense in the morning. Who gets to change Dorothy this time?”

“She’s not wet. She’ll wait till we’re nicely asleep, I expect.”

“Rotten kid. Come on, love, I could use a spot of wifely consolation. Assuming you’re in the mood.”

“Coax me.”

So the long birthday ended pleasantly after all. Morning was harder, somebody had to tell Uncle Caradoc. Huw would have been the obvious person. However, he’d made no objection when Sir Emlyn offered to do it, since he and Elen were already stuck with Bob, not to mention the tidying up.

A person could not have lived as long as Sir Caradoc Rhys without having become fairly well inured to tragedy along the way. He was distressed, of course, but not enough to be put off his bacon and eggs and sausage. His main concern was for Dai, because the young took things so much harder. When Danny the Boots came in with a scuttleful of coal for Betty’s stove, the old master sent him upstairs to see how the nephew was doing.

“He is curled up like a dormouse,” was Danny’s report. “Dai Rhys will be sleeping the day away, I am thinking.”

“That is a good thing. Let him sleep until we need him. Do you go now and tell my son Huw that I wish Bob Rhys to be sent here as soon as he is awake. They have enough to do up at the farm, and it will be better that any questions to Bob come from me. Madoc, you will perhaps wish to be present when I talk to him.”

“Certainly, Uncle Caradoc. You’ll want Constable Rhys too, I expect. Cyril’s an able chap, he was at the barn last night taking statements. I don’t know whether Tad mentioned that. The chief constable also came by.”

“Cyril read well yesterday. His poem was one of the worthier efforts, did you not think? We will indeed have Cyril Rhys, I would not wish to slight a kinsman. There is no reason to trouble Mr. Davies again.”

Madoc should have known. Some years back, hot words had been exchanged between Sir Caradoc and the chief constable in a matter of sheep. Sir Caradoc was not a vengeful man, but neither was he a forgetful one. That Davies had invaded his premises without his leave was an affront; whoever had let the man come should have known better. He went on eating his eggs and sausages in awful silence until Dorothy, who had inherited her grandmother’s gift for smoothing over awkward moments, offered him a bit of her toast. Things went merrily enough after that, until Owain delivered Bob.