Death of a Peer (18 page)

“Do you find them much changed now you have seen them again?” he asked.

“Not really. At first they seemed rather fashionable and grown-up but that was only for a little while. They are just the same.”

“They haven’t grown up as far as their pockets are concerned,” Alleyn said lightly. But Roberta was ready for this and said that the Lampreys didn’t worry about money, that it meant nothing to them. With a sensation of peril she carried her theme a little further. They would never, she said, do anything desperate to get money.

“But if they are faced with bankruptcy?”

“Something always happens to save them. They know they will fall on their feet. They
seem
desperately worried and inside themselves they continually forget to be worried.” And seeing that he listened attentively to her, she went on quickly: “Even now this has happened they are not remembering all the time to be alarmed. They know they are all right.”

“All of them?”

Roberta said truthfully: “Perhaps not… Charlot — Lady Charles. She is frightened because Colin pretended he was in the lift and she wonders if that may make you think Stephen is hiding something. But I am sure, inside herself, she knows it will be all right.” Roberta was silent and perhaps she smiled a little to herself for Alleyn said: “Of what were you thinking, Miss Grey?”

“I was thinking that they are like children. You can see them remembering to be solemn about all that has happened and then for a time they are quite frightened. But in a minute or two one of them will think of something amusing to say and will say it.”

“Does Lord Charles do this?”

A cold sensation of panic visited Roberta. Was it, after all, Lord Charles whom they suspected? Again it seemed to her that it was impossible to guess at Lord Charles’s thoughts. He was always politely remote, a background to his family. She discovered that she had no understanding of his reaction to his brother’s murder. She said that of course it was more of a tragedy for him. Lord Wutherwood had been his only brother. She regretted this immediately, anticipating Alleyn’s next question.

“Were they much attached to each other?”

“They didn’t meet often,” Roberta said and knew that she had blundered. Alleyn did not press this point but asked her what she had thought of Lord Wutherwood. She said quickly that she had seen him for the first time that afternoon.

“May we have your first impression?” Alleyn asked. But Roberta was nervous now and racked her brains for generalities. Lord Wutherwood, she said, was not very noticeable. He was rather quiet and colourless. There had been so many people she hadn’t paid any particular attention… She broke off, disturbed by Alleyn’s gently incredulous glance.

“But it seems to me,” he said, “that you are a good observer.”

“Only of people who interest me.”

“And Lord Wutherwood did not interest you?” Roberta did not speak, remembering that she had watched both the Wutherwoods with an interest inspired by the object of their visit. A vivid picture of that complaisant yet huffy face rose before her imagination. She saw again the buck teeth, the eyes set too close to the thin nose, the look of speculative disapproval. She couldn’t quite force herself to deny this picture. Alleyn waited for a moment and then as she remained stubbornly silent he said: “and what about Lady Wutherwood?”

“You couldn’t
not
notice her,” Roberta said quickly. “She was so very odd.”

“In what way?”

“But you’ve seen her.”

“Since her husband was murdered, remember.”

“There’s not all that difference,” said Roberta bluntly.

Alleyn looked steadily at her. Under cover of the table Roberta clasped her hands together. What next?

Alleyn said: “Did you join the reconnaissance party, Miss Grey?”

“The — I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps reconnaissance is not quite the word. Did you listen with the others to the conversation next door?”

It hadn’t seemed such an awful thing to do at the time, Roberta told herself wildly. The Lampreys had assured her that Lord Charles wouldn’t mind. In a way it had been rather fun. Why, oh why, should it show so shabbily, now that this man asked her about it? Lying on the floor with her ears to the door! Spying! Her cheeks were burning coals. She would not unclasp her hands. She would sit there, burning before him, not lowering her gaze.

“Yes,” said Roberta clearly, “I did.”

“Will you tell me what you heard?”

“No. I’d rather not do that.”

“We’ll have to see if any of the servants were about,” said Alleyn thoughtfully. A hot blast of fury and shame prevented Roberta from understanding that he was not deliberately insulting her, deliberately suggesting that she had behaved like an untrustworthy housemaid. And she could say nothing to justify herself. She heard her own voice stammering out words that meant nothing. In a nightmare of shame she looked at her own indignity. “It wasn’t like that — we were together— we weren’t doing it like that — it was because we were anxious to know…” The unfamiliar voice whined shamefully on until out of the fog of her own discomfiture she saw Alleyn looking at her with astonishment, and she was able to be silent.

“Here, I say, hi!” said Alleyn. “What’s all this about?” Roberta, on the verge of tears, stared at the opposite wall. She felt rather than saw him get up and come round the table towards her. Now he stood above her. In her misery she noticed that he smelt pleasantly. Something like a new book in a good binding, said her brain, which seemed to be thinking frantically in several directions. She would not,
she would not
cry in front of these men.

“I’m so sorry,” the deep voice was saying. “I see. Look here, Miss Grey, I wasn’t hurling insults at you. Really. I mean it would have been perfectly outrageous if I had suggested…” He broke off. His air of helplessness steadied Roberta. She looked up at him. His face was twisted into a singular grimace. His left eyebrow had climbed half-way up his forehead. His mouth was screwed to one side as if a twinge of toothache bothered him. “Oh damn!” he said.

“It’s all right,” said Roberta, “but you made it sound so
low
. I suppose it was really.”

“We’re all low at times,” said Alleyn comfortably. “I can see why you wanted to hear the interview. A good deal depended on it. Lord Charles asked his brother to get him out of this financial box, didn’t he?”

Desperate speculations as to the amount of information he had already collected joggled about in Roberta’s brain. If he knew positively the gist of the interview she would do harm in denying Lord Charles’s appeal. If he didn’t know he might yet find out. And what had Lady Katherine told him?

She said: “I may have listened at door cracks but at least I can hold my tongue about what I heard.” And even that sounded bad. If Alleyn had been mistaken, of course she would have said so. “He knows,” she thought desperately. “He knows.”

“You will understand,” Alleyn said, “that from our point of view this discussion between the brothers is important. You see we know why Lord Wutherwood came here. We know what it was hoped would be the result of the interview. I think you would all have been only too ready to tell us if Lord Wutherwood had agreed to help his brother.”

What would Henry and Lord Charles tell him? They had spoken about it in French. She had caught enough of the conversation to realize what they were talking about. What had the twins told him? Had they agreed to lie about it? Why not? Why not, since Uncle G. was dead and could not give them away? But Alleyn could not have asked the twins about the interview or they would have said so on their return. So it was up to her. The word perjury was caught up in her thoughts with a dim notion of punishment. But she could do them no harm. Only herself, because she lied to the police in the execution of their duty. That wasn’t right. Lying statement. False statement. She must speak now.
Now
. With conviction. She seemed to hover for eternity on the edge of utterance and when her voice did come it was without any conscious order from her brain.

“But,” said Roberta’s voice, “didn’t they tell you? Lord Wutherwood promised to help his brother.”

“Do you speak French, Miss Grey?” asked Alleyn.

“No,” said Roberta.

Back in the drawing-room Roberta returned to her fireside seat. The Lampreys watched her with guarded inquisitive-ness.

“Well, Robin,” said Henry, “I trust your little spot of inquisition passed off quietly.”

“Oh yes,” said Roberta. “Mr. Alleyn just wanted to know where I was and all that.” And nerving herself, she said: “You know, my dears, I’ve been thinking you must be very glad he was so generous after all. It’ll be nice to remember that, won’t it?”

There was a dead silence. Roberta looked into Lord Charles’s eyes and then into Henry’s. “Won’t it?” she repeated.

“Yes,” said Henry after a long pause. “It’ll be nice to remember that.”

“Courageous little liar,” said Alleyn, “isn’t she?”

“I suppose so,” said Fox.

“Of course she is, Br’er Fox. Do you imagine if it were true they wouldn’t have been out with the whole story as soon as we mentioned the interview? They’ve shied away like hell whenever we got near it. She’s a good, plucked ’un is the little New Zealander. She can’t understand French and unless they managed to slip her a message she’s decided to lie like hell and take the consequences. If Martin isn’t careful she’ll manage to warn Master Henry and his father. Let’s see what the bilingual Martin has to say in his notes. Yes. Here we are. Have a look.”

Fox eyed the notes. “I’d have to get it out in longhand,” he said. “May I trouble you to translate, Mr. Alleyn?”

“You may, Foxkin. They seem to have discussed the twins’ proposition and got no further. Here Lady Charles cut in and said: ‘It’s very necessary that we should come to some decision about Gabriel and the money.’ That devilish girl seems to have chipped in with a remark to the effect that what we didn’t know wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Lady Friede, sir?”

“The same. Master Henry said that only their father knew what had happened at the interview. I catch the warning note here, Foxkin. He was instructing his brothers and sisters to forget they had overheard the interview. It’s evident that Lord Charles didn’t know they had listened.”

“What did his lordship say?”

“His lordship is cryptic. He doesn’t say much. Here’s a stray observation. ‘
Par rapport a Tante Kit
.’ Oh! He says: Considering what Aunt Kit has probably told us, we’re not likely to suppose they were out of the financial wood. Very true. Lady Charles asks what Gabriel said at the interview and Lord Charles replies that he thinks it will be better if his family can truthfully say it doesn’t know. I imagine an awkward silence among members of the carpet party. By this time, no doubt, the twins will have told their parents all they seem to have said about the interview between the brothers. You’d better have another go at the servants, Br’er Fox.”

“I don’t think the butler would give anything away, sir. He’s a quiet old chap and seems to like the family. If that parlour-maid overheard anything, she might be persuaded to speak up.”

“Go and have a word with her. Use your charm. And in the meantime, Fox, I’ll deal with Master Henry.”

So Fox went off to the kitchen and the constable fetched Henry. Alleyn came straight to the point with Henry, asking him whether his uncle had promised to lend his father a sum of money. Henry instantly said that he had.

“So the financial crisis was over?”

“Yes.”

“Why did none of you tell me of this before?”

“Why should we?” asked Henry coolly. “It didn’t arise.”

“The question of the guilt or innocence of every single one of you arises,” said Alleyn. “As you no doubt realize, Lady Katherine has told us of your financial difficulties. Lord Charles has told us that there is a bailiff in the flat. People do not murder a man who is on the point of rescuing them from bankruptcy.”

“Well,” said Henry, “we didn’t murder Uncle G.”

“Who, in your opinion, did murder him?”

“I’ve no opinion about it.”

“You don’t share your mother’s conviction of Lady Wutherwood’s homicidal insanity?”

“Does my mother feel convinced about that?”

“She told me so.” Henry said nothing. “In plain words,” said Alleyn, “do you think Lady Wutherwood is insane and killed her husband?”

“I don’t see how one can possibly know,” said Henry slowly. “I think she’s mad.”

“That’s an honest speech,” said Alleyn unexpectedly. Henry looked up, quickly. “I think she’s mad, too,” Alleyn said, “but like you I don’t know if she killed her husband. I wonder if we hesitate for the same reason. It seems strange to me that a woman who murdered her husband should demand his body.”

“I know,” said Henry quickly, “but if she’s mad—”

“There’s always that, of course. But to me it doesn’t quite fit. Nor to you, I think?”

“To me,” said Henry impatiently, “nothing fits. The whole thing’s a nightmare. I know none of us did it and that’s all I do know. I can’t think either of their servants are murderers. Giggle’s been with them since he was a kid. He’s a mild, stupid man and plays trains with Mike. Tinkerton is objectionable on the general grounds that she’s got a face like a dead flounder and smells of hair combings. Perhaps
she
killed him.”

“We’d get on a good deal faster, of course,” Alleyn murmured, “if everybody spoke the flat truth.”

“Really? Don’t you think we’re telling the truth?”

“Hardly any of you except your brother Michael. Of course we have to be polite and make sympathetic, gullible noises but when all’s said and done it’s little but a hollow mockery. You’ll give yourselves away in time, and that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Do you often talk like this to your suspects? It seems very un-Yardlike to me,” said Henry lightly.

“We vary our tune a bit. Why didn’t you go straight to the drawing-room with your brothers?”

Henry jumped, seemed to pull himself together, and said: “I didn’t at first see what you meant. Hustling tactics, I perceive. I went to the hall door to see if they’d gone.”

“Anybody in the hall?” Henry shook his head. “Or the landing?”

“No.”

“Or the passage?”

“No.”

“How long were you about it?”

“Not long enough to find a meat skewer and kill my uncle.”

“Where was the meat skewer?”

“
I
don’t know,” said Henry. “We had it in our charade. I suppose it was either in—”

“Yes?”

“It must have been in the hall with all the other stuff.”

“You were going to say in the drawing-room or in the hall?”

“Was I?” said Henry.

“Well,” said Alleyn amiably, “I’m only asking. Were you?”

“Yes, but I stopped because I realized it couldn’t have been in the drawing-room. If any one had taken it from there we should have seen them.”

“I see by my notes,” said Alleyn, “that Lord Charles was alone in the drawing-room for some time.”

“Then,” said Henry stolidly, “he would have seen anybody who came in and took the skewer.”

“Did you happen to look at the hall table on this visit?”

“Yes, I did. I looked to see if his hat and coat were gone. Of course they were. He was in the lift, I suppose, by then.”

Alleyn clasped his hands together on the table and seemed to contemplate them. Then he raised his head and looked at Henry. “Can you remember seeing anything on the table?”

“I remember very well that there was nothing on it but a vase of flowers.”

“Nothing? You are positive?”

“Quite. I remember the look of the table very clearly. It reflected the light from the window. Some one must have given the vase a knock because there was some water lying on the table. It’s rather a favourite of my father’s and I remember thinking that the water ought to be mopped up. I gave it a wipe with my handkerchief, but it wasn’t very successful. I didn’t do anything more about it. I was afraid that Aunt V. might come out of cover and I’d had a bellyful of Aunt V. I went into the drawing-room. But there was nothing on the table.”

“Would you swear to that? I mean, take a legal oath?”

“Yes,” said Henry, “I would.”

“What did you talk about when you went into the drawing-room?”

For the first time during the interview Henry seemed to be disconcerted. His eyes went blank. He repeated: “Talk about?” on a note that held an overtone of helplessness.

“Yes. What did you say to your father and your brothers or they to you?”

“I don’t remember. I — oh, yes, I asked if the Gabriels had gone.”

“Anything else?”

“No. I don’t think anybody said anything.”

“And yet,” said Alleyn, “you must have all been feeling most elated.”

“We — yes. Yes, of course, we were.”

“Everything all right again. Lord Wutherwood had promised to see you out of the wood. Crisis averted.”

“Yes. Oh, rather. It was wonderful,” said Henry.

“And yet you all sat there saying nothing except to ask if the benefactor was out of the way. Your younger sister tells me that she and Lady Friede, who went into Flat 26 at this stage of the proceedings, also had nothing to say. A curious reaction.”

“Perhaps our hearts,” said Henry, recovering his poise, “were too full for words.”

“Perhaps they were,” said Alleyn. “I think that’s all. Thank you so much.”

Looking rather startled, Henry got up and moved to the door. Here he paused and after a moment’s hesitation returned to Alleyn.

“We didn’t do it, sir,” he said. “Honestly. None of us. We are not at all a homicidal family.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Alleyn tranquilly.

Henry stared at him and then shrugged his shoulders. “Not an impressive effort on my part, I see,” he said.

“Have you been honest with us?”

Henry didn’t answer. His face was quite colourless. “Well, good night,” he said and, on some obscure impulse, held out his hand.
ii

Fox had not returned. Alleyn looked at his watch. Almost midnight. They’d done not so badly in four hours. He added another column to a tabulated record of everybody’s movements from the time of Lord Wutherwood’s first yell up to the return of the lift. P. C. Gibson, at the door, coughed.

“All right,” said Alleyn without looking up. “We’ll get going again in a moment. Been following the statements?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what do you think about it?” asked Alleyn, scowling at his notes.

“Well, sir, I seem to think there’s a good deal in the old lady myself.”

“Yes, Gibson, and so will everybody else. But why, why, why does she want the body? Can you tell me that, Gibson?”

“Because she’s mad, sir?” Gibson ventured.

“It won’t cover everything. She screamed the roof off when the injury was discovered. She wouldn’t go and see him when he was dying. If she killed him why, mad or sane, should she want to take him home? The funeral could have been arranged to leave from the house with all the trappings and the suits of woe, if that’s what she’s after. It may be, and yet— and yet — it doesn’t seem to me like the inconsistency of a
homicidal
lunatic, but lord knows I’m no alienist. I don’t think I’ve got the dowager right, somehow, and that’s a fact. All right, Gibson. My compliments to his lordship and I’d be glad if he’d see me. The others may go to bed, of course.”

“Yes, sir. Martin asked me to mention, sir, that Mr. Bathgate has arrived and is with the family. He’s been asking if he could see you.”

“So they did ring him up,” Alleyn muttered. “Incredible! I’d better see him now, Gibson, before you give the message to Lord Charles.”

“Very good, sir.”

Nigel lost no time in making his appearance. Alleyn heard him hurrying along the passage and in a moment he burst into the dining-room.

“Look here, Alleyn,” Nigel cried, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Talk away,” said Alleyn, “but not at the top of your voice and not, if you’ve any mercy, at great length. I’m on duty.”

“I can’t help it if…” Nigel broke off and looked at Gibson. “It’s — I’d like to see you alone.”

Alleyn nodded good-humouredly at Gibson, who went out.

“Now what is it?” Alleyn asked. “Have you come to tell me I mustn’t speak to your friends as if there’s been a murder in their flat?”

“I’ve come to tell you it’s utterly out of the question that any of them should be implicated. I’ve come to save them, if possible, from opening their mouths and putting their feet in them. See here, Alleyn, I’ve known the Lampreys all my life. Known them well. They’re as mad as May flies but there’s not a vicious impulse in the make-up of a single one of them. Oh hell, I’m not going about this in the right way! I got such a damned jolt when they told me what was up that I’m all anyhow. Let me explain the Lampreys.”

“Two of their friends have already explained them, this evening,” said Alleyn. “Their descriptions tallied fairly well. Boiled down to a few unsympathetic adjectives they came to this: ‘Charming. Irresponsible. Unscrupulous about money. Good-natured. Lazy. Amusing. Enormously popular.’ Do you agree?”

“Nobody knows better than you,” said Nigel, “that people can
not
be boiled down into a few adjectives.”

“I entirely agree. So what do you suggest we do about it?”

“If I could make you understand the Lampreys! God knows what they’ve been saying to you! I can see that in spite of the shock it’s given them they’re beginning to look at this business as a sort of macabre parlour game with themselves on one side and you on the other. They’re hopeless. They’ll try to diddle you merely to see if they can get away with it. Can you understand that?”

“No,” Alleyn said. “If they’re making false statements for the sheer fun of the thing, I’ve completely misjudged them.”

“But, Alleyn—”

“See here, Bathgate, you’d much better stay out of this. We had the same difficulty when we first met. The Frantock case
is
almost seven years old now, isn’t it? Do you remember how hot you were about our work over that case? Because the people involved were friends of yours? It’s the same thing over again. My dear old Bathgate, it’s only fun being friends with a policeman when you’re not also friends with his suspects.”

“Then,” said Nigel turning very pale, “do you suspect one of them?”

“They were in the flat, together with some eight other persons of whom there are also possible murderers. We’ve only been four hours on the damned case and haven’t had much of a chance to thin out names. I tell you quite honestly, we’ve only got the faintest glimmering so far.”

“I’d risk everything I’ve got in the world on the Lampreys being out of it.”

“Would you? Then you’ve nothing to worry about.”

“I know. But I’m so deadly afraid of what they may take it into their heads to say. They’re such lunatics.”

“So far, beyond a few superficial flourishes they haven’t behaved like lunatics. They’ve behaved with an air of irresponsibility, but considering that they’re working under police supervision they’ve managed to keep their misrepresentations pretty consistent. They’ve displayed a surprising virtuosity. They’re nobody’s fools.”