Corpse in a Gilded Cage (11 page)

His briskness was well-calculated. Even the Countess gulped down a sob and looked at him. He went from person to person, bending his thin height over them, and jotting down details in his notebook. All of them had perceptibly stiffened, and kept very quiet. It was as if this routine request provided final confirmation of a fact they had mentally been resisting. Now their quietness was that of people assessing their position. Even Chokey, not unused to police procedures, put an end to his ambulatory inventory of the room and sat quiet. Sam straightened, but kept his cloudy brown eyes alert to the silent drama before him.

When Sergeant Medway had been from one to another, asking his questions in a low, respectful voice, he looked around the room to see that there was no one he had missed, then cleared his throat.

‘Thank you very much. I don't need to say how sorry I am to have to break in on you at a time like this. I take it this is all the family and guests? Yes? And were there any servants in the house last night?'

‘No, there wasn't,' said the Countess, speaking out for the first time. ‘We got rid of . . . Oh my Gawd!'

‘By Jove!' said Digby. And they all looked round at each other in a fashion almost friendly.

‘That butler!' said Trevor. ‘That fat-gutted butler!'

‘Butler?' said Sergeant Medway quietly. ‘Could you give me his name?'

‘Can't remember,' said the Countess. He looked at her in surprise, but she was oblivious. ‘I heard it once, but it's gone.'

‘We were having a bit of a party,' put in Dixie from the window.

‘For Dad's sixtieth,' explained Digby.

‘And it developed into a knees-up that spread all over the house. And when we got to—' Dixie waved her hand in the direction of the Blenheim Wing—‘that bit over there, we were dancing, you see, around all the rooms and corridors, and we got to the top floor, and we were just going to turn around when someone opened a door.'

‘I did,' said Trevor, and added, to Medway's mystification: ‘Looking for a place to film.'

‘And we found this smarmy type and his bint established there. He'd been butler here, so Dad said, and she'd been maid or cook or something, and they'd parked themselves in one of the far-off bits while they waited for another job. The hide of some people! Anyway, Dad really gave them the rounds of the kitchen.'

‘He threw them out, did he?'

‘He gave them till morning,' said Digby, standing up self-importantly. ‘They sneaked away, but I don't know at what time. Dad said the old Escort in the stables must be theirs, but when I went to look for it this morning, it was gone.'

‘You could get their names from the village,' said Joan, to contribute to the general helpfulness. ‘Dad said he'd seen the man in the public house there. He thought that all the village knew they'd stayed on at Chetton.
Wouldn't
you think someone would have said something?'

‘They're not the only ones,' said Trevor. ‘Dad thought that lawyer chap—Lillyvick or whatever he's called—must have known too.'

‘I'm sure he didn't,' said Dixie, her tones becoming more refined at the thought of the lawyer. ‘He's just not the type.'

‘We don't all have your personal acquaintance with him,' said Trevor. ‘As far as I can make out, he's one of these old family retainer types. Like a butler. They all stick together, thick as thieves. From what Dad said, we were just intruders to him . . . not family, just dirt. I wouldn't mind betting old Lillyvick knew they were here.'

‘I beg your pardon.'

A dark, spare shape like a minatory shadow stood in the doorway. Mr Lillywaite's cavernous face, like carved rock, stared around at the assembled
family, startled out of its conventional, well-practised expression of sympathy into revealing something of the distaste he really felt for them.

‘Oh, you're the lawyer chappie, are you?' said Trevor, quite unintimidated. ‘I was just saying you probably knew they were here.'

‘Knew
who
were here?'

‘That butler and his tart. Camping out in the wing over there.'

‘Parsloe?'

‘That's it,' said the Countess. ‘Knew I'd heard it.'

‘You astound me. Parsloe still in the house? Most extraordinary. And reprehensible. I most certainly did not know.'

‘Pull the other one,' said Trevor, irrepressible in his new energy. ‘Seems everyone in the village knew. How come you didn't?'

Mr Lillywaite looked at him fiercely, like some old-style headmaster in a Giles cartoon.

‘I have my office in the village; I do not
live
there. I live near Meresham. I have not seen Parsloe since I gave him notice and paid him off.'

‘Dad thought he only came out at night,' said Dixie.

‘Like some bloody owl,' said Michele. ‘Creepy.'

‘This,' said Mr Lillywaite calculatingly, ‘puts an entirely new aspect on things. Though I can hardly believe . . . What could be the motive?'

The word sank into their consciousnesses.

‘Then Dad was definitely done in, was he?' asked Trevor.

‘Murder. How appalling,' said Digby.

‘That's what I mean by “done in”,' said Trevor. ‘Could we all now stop beating about the proverbial?'

‘We must not jump our fences,' said Mr Lillywaite, regarding Trevor with almost open dislike. ‘Still, as I understand the matter, the police believe—'

‘Perhaps it would be better to wait a while, sir, until the medical evidence is clearer,' came the voice of Sergeant Medway. Mr Lillywaite jumped. In his absorption he had forgotten the presence of a policeman in the room. He pulled himself up hurriedly.

‘Of course. Quite. Quite right, Sergeant.' He tried to relieve the situation. ‘I presume you will report to the Superintendent this extraordinary news about Parsloe?'

‘Naturally I'll be doing that, sir,' said Medway quietly. ‘And perhaps you could give me the name of the lady who was with him.'

‘Well, I imagine . . . I know nothing of the personal lives of the staff, but . . . there were few female servants. The cleaning was done by
women from the village. There were no personal maids since there had been no Countess of Ellesmere for many years . . . er, before the present one.' He bowed to the bulky form on the sofa. ‘So I rather think the lady with Parsloe must have been the cook. Nazeby. Elizabeth Nazeby.'

‘I'm much obliged to you, sir,' said Sergeant Medway, and he handed his list of names to a constable in the hall, then came back and lingered unobtrusively by the door. Mr Lillywaite had been reminded of the proprieties by his recent words, and had approached the Countess on the sofa in the approved consolatory manner.

‘Lady Ellesmere, I can't tell you how shocked I was when I heard what had happened. So sudden. Such a terrible shock for you, to find him there.'

‘It was that all right.'

‘And to think he enjoyed his title, his estate, for such a short time.'

‘He didn't
enjoy
them at all, no more did I. They've been a nightmare and a millstone round our necks. All we ever wanted was to get out and get back home.'

She looked at him in silent accusation.

‘I assure you, Lady Ellesmere, that I have acted with the best intentions. Remember that there were enormous responsibilities involved.'

‘Still are,' said Digby.

‘Yes—er—quite. In a sense.'

‘I think,' said Trevor, ‘you'd better come clean about the position. All this lot's interested in is the will.'

‘You have an interest too,' said Michele. ‘Don't do yourself down.'

‘Ah—I really think this is hardly the time,' fumed Mr Lillywaite. ‘I would wish the new Earl to be present.'

‘The new Earl's in jug,' said Michele.

‘This does concern all the children,' said Digby judiciously.

‘Quite,' said Mr Lillywaite. ‘But unequally.'

‘Unequally?' said Lady Joan sharply. ‘I don't see that. I know Dad made a will months ago—when he nearly got run over in Clapham High Street.'

‘Oh yes,' said Mr Lillywaite. ‘There was that will.'

‘What do you mean? Wasn't it legal?'

‘Oh yes. So far as I know.'

‘Was there another?' asked Digby.

‘I hardly think it seemly,' began Mr Lillywaite, in a badgered tone, ‘With the Earl lying dead in the Hall—'

The gods were on his side. Just as he was beginning to get a sense of the
family forming itself into a pack, driving him to earth in the approved manner of huntsmen, a constable entered from the Hall.

‘The Chief Superintendent's compliments, and he'd be obliged if he could have a talk with Lady Ellesmere.'

Dixie was on her feet a second before the Countess.

Dixie recovered herself in a moment, and attempted to retrieve the situation.

‘Sorry, Mum. Silly of me. I expect he means you.'

The Countess, cast down as she was, did not deign to reply, but shuffled out of the room on the arm of the young constable, muttering to herself. ‘The hide of it,' were the only words audible to her escort. The incident was not lost on anybody in the room: Mr Lillywaite—regretting, not for the first time, his choice of ally—tut-tutted audibly; Sam cast an ironic look in Dixie's direction as she subsided stormily into her chair; while Trevor put his hand up to his mouth and whispered to Michele:

‘No prizes for guessing what's been going through Dixie's mind.'

Dixie was hardly capable of embarrassment, but having given herself away so thoroughly she did keep quiet for a bit. In any case, she had no need to say anything. She knew what the others were so keen to find out.

It was Digby who led the renewed attack.

‘I don't want to press the point unduly, sir—' Digby made a habit of calling older men ‘sir' when he wanted something out of them—‘but naturally Lady Joan and the other members of the family would like to know where they stand.'

Mr Lillywaite sighed. He might have known that the family's foxhunting instincts were too deeply inbred to have been eradicated by an upbringing in Clapham.

‘This involves,' pursued Digby, ‘getting some rough idea of the late Earl's testamentary dispositions.'

‘His what?' asked Trevor.

‘The will. What I'm trying to say is, we should be told what's in the will.'

‘I said the will was all they were interested in,' said Trevor. But he was beginning to be curious himself.

‘The Countess not being present—' began Mr Lillywaite.

‘Mum will know all about it,' said Trevor. ‘Dad never scratched his—back without telling Mum.'

‘No doubt you're right,' sighed Mr Lillywaite, beginning reluctantly to concede defeat. ‘I think the Countess was present when we discussed it.'

‘Go on, tell them,' said Dixie, from her seat by the window. ‘If there's going to be a row, we might as well have it now, while Mum's not here.'

‘Very well; the position is this: when the late Earl came into the property, some six weeks or so ago, I prepared an emergency will, as a holding measure so to speak, designed to meet just such a contingency as has now—regrettably—arisen. It left token amounts—
generous
token amounts—to the two younger children, an annuity to the Countess, and the rest to the elder son, Philip.'

‘And this will was legal—signed, and so on,' asked Lady Joan, in a small, high voice.

‘Naturally,' said Mr Lillywaite, at his most austere. ‘I would hardly let so long go by without tying it up legally. The Earl and I agreed that this was to be a temporary safety-net, a mere stop-gap measure.'

‘Until what?' asked Trevor.

‘In my opinion, and surely in the opinion of anyone who knows our levels of death duty, the property should have been transferred to the elder son in the late Earl's lifetime. It is the only way to minimize the duties, and the longer the Earl lived thereafter, the better for the heir. I should say in all honesty that I had not convinced the late Earl of the wisdom of this step, though I had high hopes of doing so.'

‘You had no hopes,' said Joan, her voice harsh with disappointment. ‘Dad was very fair.'

‘If it's not a distasteful question,' said Trevor, who was rapidly recovering some of his old insouciant spirit, ‘what sort of sum would you describe as a generous token amount? In figures, I mean.'

‘The sum was twenty thousand pounds.'

Trevor whistled.

‘Not bad. Could be better, but not bad.'

‘You're a fool, Trevor,' snapped Joan. ‘It's chickenfeed. It would have been much, much more if the old will had stood.'

‘It would have meant the dismemberment of Chetton, and of the whole artistic heritage that goes with it, as well as the end of the place as the
family's home,' said Mr Lillywaite severely, and with feeling. Then his cratered face collapsed, and he sighed. ‘Not that the question arises now. The subject is purely academic.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Trevor.

‘As I have already explained to Lady Port—to the new Countess, two lots of death duties, as well as the small amount payable on the death of the old Earl, effectively destroy any possibility of maintaining the heritage in the family. There is no way the money can be found and Chetton held on to. It means the ruin of the Spenders.'

His words fell into silence. Dixie, slumped in her chair by the windows, glowered. The rest of them thought, the ticking of their mental processes running a race with the ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. Digby raised an eyebrow at Joan. She was a family member. It was for her to put their thoughts—for had they not discussed it, over and over?—into words.

‘But,' said Joan hesitatingly, ‘death duties are only a proportion. A percentage.'