Village Affairs (13 page)

“Ham?” said Bethancourt wildly. He could not recollect ham ever having played a major part in the beef Wellingtons he had previously consumed.

“Ham,” repeated Astley-Cooper firmly. “I’ll need five thin slices.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bethancourt. Behind his glasses, his eyes looked doubtful. “I’ll slice, Marla, and you can spread.”

Marla, perfectly content that this was not beyond her culinary capacities, obediently joined him at the counter.

“How was Eve today?” asked Bethancourt, slicing capably.

“Fine,” answered Marla. “Better than I expected, actually. Considering the circumstances, she seemed quite cheery.”

“Well, I gather she and her father weren’t close, which makes a difference. You were wrong, by the way; she came without an entourage.”

“Yes,” said Marla reflectively. “I was rather surprised about that.”

“I do hope,” said Astley-Cooper, “that you invited her to dinner. It must be difficult for her, all alone. Good job you happened to be here.”

“I did invite her,” said Marla, licking a pâté-smeared finger, “but she begged off. She was awfully tired, having been up most of last night.”

“Is she staying in the cottage?”

Marla laughed. “It’s hardly up to her standard, is it? Frankly, she was appalled. No, she’s staying at a hotel over in Cheltenham.”

“It’s really quite a nice cottage,” said Astley-Cooper, glancing about his own huge, seventeenth-century kitchen. The fireplace hood was considered particularly fine, and his gaze rested balefully upon it for a moment. “I’m ready for that ham any time.”

“I suppose it is,” said Marla, answering his first thought. “But Eve is one of those people who consider anything less than luxury in bad taste.” She carefully picked up the ham slices, liberally smeared with foie gras, and transported them to her host.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said absently. “Well, probably that’s what it’s like to be truly rich. Here, Marla, if you could just hold the filet while I wrestle this ham into the slits I’ve made.”

“Phillip’s truly rich,” said Marla, “and he’s not like that.”

“I am not,” replied Bethancourt, who was letting Cerberus lick the pâté off his fingers, “as rich as Eve Bingham. Nor do I find her sort of lifestyle very tempting.” He leaned back with his wine and watched in fascination while Astley-Cooper recklessly hacked off the edges of the ham that were left exposed outside the filet.

Marla had backed away from Astley-Cooper and his knife, which was flailing rather dramatically. “And you must be rich yourself,” she said to him, kneeling to let Cerberus have a turn at her fingers.

“Nonsense,” replied Astley-Cooper. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Well, this house and all.”

Astley-Cooper looked immediately depressed. “This house,” he said, “would be a drain on anyone’s resources. It’s no wonder I haven’t any money left. It’s a miracle the bloody thing is still standing. ‘Built to last,’ indeed!” He snorted.

“You’ve missed a bit,” said Bethancourt, pointing at the filet.

“Ah, yes.” Astley-Cooper attacked the offending piece of ham, which seemed to restore his good cheer.

“Getting back to Eve Bingham,” said Bethancourt, “is she seeing anyone, do you know, Marla?”

“Three or four that I’ve heard of.”

“But no one serious? Not contemplating marriage or anything of that sort?”

“Goodness, no. She spreads her favors around where it amuses her, that’s all. So far as I’ve heard, no one’s managed to amuse her for very long.”

“Running with the wrong crowd,” remarked Astley-Cooper. “What people like that need is stability—oh, dear.”

“What is it?” asked Bethancourt, moving forward.

Astley-Cooper had stepped back from the counter and was gazing dolefully at his creation. “They say to reshape the filet, but it won’t reshape; it’s gaping.”

Gaping, Bethancourt thought, described it very well.

“String,” he said succinctly.

“What a marvelous idea. I wonder where Mrs. Cummins keeps it.”

This involved a rummaging through all the kitchen drawers, which were numerous. Bethancourt, glancing at his watch, decided that dinner could not possibly be ready before half ten, and was thankful that he had bought three bottles of wine. He poured himself another glass.

It was Marla who eventually found the string. Astley-Cooper cut off about four yards and proceeded to tie up the meat in as many directions as possible. Bethancourt, amazed, hovered nearby to watch.

“There!” exclaimed Astley-Cooper, surveying his handiwork. “Now, we’ll just pop it in the oven for exactly …” he consulted his cookbook, “twelve minutes. It says to baste frequently. Phillip, can you take care of that while I just roll out this pastry dough? There’s some beef stock in the refrigerator.”

Bethancourt basted while Astley-Cooper exuberantly covered the counter in flour and began to roll out the dough. Once he glanced suspiciously at Bethancourt, who had sat down at the table and was lighting a cigarette.

“It says to baste frequently, Phillip,” he said reproachfully.

“Frequently does not mean constantly,” retorted Bethancourt. “Really, Clarence, if I don’t leave it alone part of the time, it’ll never cook properly.”

“Yes, well, there is that, I suppose.” Astley-Cooper flourished his rolling pin. “So,” he said, rolling industriously, “why all the questions about Eve Bingham? Do you think she murdered her father?”

“I don’t know,” replied Bethancourt equably.

“Phillip,” said Marla sharply, “you can’t possibly think—why, he was her only family, for God’s sake.”

“By her own admission, she barely knew him,” said Bethancourt.

“That doesn’t mean she killed him.”

“No, it doesn’t. I didn’t say that it did.” He rose. “Twelve minutes are up.”

“Perfect timing,” said Astley-Cooper. “I’ve just finished the dough. My, doesn’t it look lovely. Now, all we need do is slap a layer of foie gras over the filet and pop it into the dough.”

“Um,” said Bethancourt diffidently, “don’t you think we’d better take the string off first?”

“Oh, yes—I’d forgotten it.”

It took several minutes of silent struggle to remove the vast web of string, but at last it was done, with only minimal damage to the filet, and Astley-Copper and Bethancourt began coating it with the pate.

“I say,” said Astley-Cooper after a moment, “it doesn’t stick very well, does it?”

“It’s supposed to be a thin layer,” replied Bethancourt, doggedly spreading. “I think we just have to go more carefully.”

Careful was not a term descriptive of Astley-Cooper’s method of cookery. It was quite some time before the filet was appropriately coated. They shifted it over to where the dough lay, and Astley-Cooper began folding the pastry around it and muttering to himself.

“Phillip,” whispered Marla, “what about things to go with? Vegetables, I mean.”

“He’s probably forgotten,” Bethancourt whispered back. “I’ll try and bring it up tactfully once the thing’s in the oven.”

Marla nodded. “I’m awfully hungry,” she said wistfully.

“Have some more wine.”

“Phillip,” called Astley-Cooper, “do you think you could help with this? It doesn’t seem to be going awfully well.”

Bethancourt sighed. “I know absolutely nothing about wrapping beef in pastry,” he said.

“Well, neither do I,” retorted Astley-Cooper.

Bethancourt went to help.

“Perhaps,” he said, picking gingerly at the dough, “Marla should start on the vegetables or whatever while we’re working on this.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Astley-Cooper. “I always forget. Well, there’s probably a packet of frozen peas in the freezer.”

Marla pronounced herself capable of dealing with frozen peas. She cast an extremely doubtful eye at the dough-encased filet as it was conveyed to the oven. One slender eyebrow rose.

“I hope it’s edible,” she muttered.

In the event, it was not too bad. The pastry was, admittedly, rather soggy, but the beef itself was tasty enough, and Marla had done an admirable job with the frozen peas. Of course, they were all a little drunk by the time it was served which, as Bethancourt later remarked to Marla, probably helped.

Gibbons and Carmichael had a less elaborate but timelier meal at the pub.

“You did well today, lad,” said the chief inspector. “Very well indeed. Tactfully handled.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Gibbons, pleased. “I don’t know as it really gets us much further forward, though.”

“Well, now, I don’t know about that, lad.” Carmichael swallowed the last bite of his steak-and-kidney pie and pushed the plate aside. “It’s true it looks more like accident than murder,” he said thoughtfully. “And I won’t be convinced it’s not until we find Bingham’s girlfriend with a cast-iron alibi.”

“Just so, sir,” said Gibbons.

“But,” and Carmichael held up a cautionary finger, “my instincts are beginning to stir, Sergeant. I don’t think this case is going to turn out to be as simple as we thought.”

Gibbons considered this.

“It’s true that the more we find out, the more complications there seem to be,” he said.

Carmichael pulled out a cigar and bent to light it. He smoked meditatively for several minutes while Gibbons finished his meal and drank off the last of his pint.

“I think we had better do a bit of digging,” Carmichael said at last. “Let’s assume, for the moment, that Bingham was very cleverly murdered, the whole thing set up to look natural, or at least like an accident. We’ve no idea about the girlfriend, but Andrew Sealingham is nobody’s fool, and according to her solicitors, neither is Eve Bingham.”

He raised a brow in question.

“No, sir,” agreed Gibbons. “She has brains, even if she sometimes seems not to use them.”

Carmichael nodded, and paused a moment, thinking it through.

“Constable Stikes has finished compiling her list of possible tourists Bingham might be dating,” he said.

“That was quick work, sir.”

“Indeed. Very industrious, our constable. She’s put the women who live in and around London at the top of the list. I’m thinking we can leave it to our colleagues at the Yard to check up on them while we tie up all the rest of the loose ends and see how our suspects look after that.”

“Yes, sir,” said Gibbons. “Will you want me to check up on St. Martin’s Lane then?”

“I think so,” answered Carmichael. He blew out a stream of smoke, aiming it toward the raftered ceiling. “But it might be a good idea to keep an eye on Miss Bingham in the meantime. She may have been estranged from her father, the money gives her a solid motive, and she certainly had the opportunity. I think, Sergeant, you might pay another visit to Miss Bingham tonight. Bethancourt’s idea makes a good excuse; you can ask her who her beneficiary is and whether or not she’s planning to marry. And meanwhile you can see if the penny’s dropped about her lack of alibi, as well as putting her on notice that the police have their eye on her.”

Gibbons was surprised.

“Certainly, sir. Won’t you be coming along?”

Carmichael lit his cigar. “No, no, I think this has all worked out for the best. We can save the big, bad chief inspector for later if she turns into our prime suspect. Then I can go along and try to be intimidating.”

“That makes sense,” agreed Gibbons. “After all, we may find tomorrow that she’s got a cast-iron alibi at that hotel in London.”

“We may, we may. Have a coffee before you go, Gibbons. It’s early yet.”

So Gibbons had his coffee and then drove into Cheltenham alone. Queen’s Hotel sat at the edge of the Imperial Gardens, a large, gracious building of Victorian vintage which Gibbons found without difficulty. He announced himself at the front desk and then ascended to Eve Bingham’s suite, one on an upper floor with a view looking over the gardens. The curtains were open when Gibbons came in, but there was not much to see in the dark.

Eve’s brisk, businesslike attitude of the morning had changed; she looked utterly weary, but invited him in politely enough.

“I’m having a nightcap,” she told him. “Won’t you join me?”

“Thank you,” said Gibbons, divesting himself of his raincoat.

He followed her over to the windows where there was an arrangement of two easy chairs and a table. This room was the sitting room; the doorways to the bathroom and bedroom stood ajar on the farther wall.

Eve motioned to one of the chairs while she poured generously from a bottle of twenty-four-year-old single malt scotch. Gibbons sat and took up the glass she pushed toward him, waiting until she had seated herself before raising it and saying, “Cheers.” He sipped judiciously and added, “That’s very good.”

Eve shrugged and set her own glass down, empty. She was wrapped in a heavy silk dressing gown and she smoothed the fabric over her knees, tracing the embroidered pattern over and over again with her fingers.

“I expect the fact that you’re having a drink with me means you haven’t come to arrest me?” she said, her attention still fastened on her knees.

Clearly, Gibbons thought, the penny had indeed dropped about her lack of alibi.

“No,” he answered, “I haven’t. I’ve only come to ask you one or two more questions.”

“You keep long hours, Inspector.” She poured another measure into her glass and this time sipped it. “Do you like good whisky, then?”

“I’m a sergeant, Miss. Yes, I do.”

She glanced sideways at him, half-smiling. “But I suppose you can’t afford it often?”

Gibbons’s ears perked up; this sounded remarkably like the beginning of a bribe. “No,” he said ruefully. “Only now and then, as a treat.”

“And what would be your favorite?”

“I like the Islay malts. Lagavulin or Laphroaig,” he answered, loyal to the whiskies to which Bethancourt had introduced him and which they often drank together. He waited for her to imply—subtly, of course—that in the near future he might be able to afford all the Lagavulin he liked.

She leaned back and lit a cigarette. “Laphroaig,” she murmured. “Yes, that’s very good. Rich and smoky, as I remember it.”

“Yes, it has a distinctive taste.”

He was still waiting, but she disappointed him.

“I’ll have to try it again sometime,” she said. Then, in a bitter tone as she glanced at the half-empty bottle on the table, “Maybe tomorrow. Bottles don’t seem to be lasting very long these days.”