“I see, sir. Thank you…”
“I blame myself about Meredith,” said the Earl unexpectedly. He had a deep, unaccented staccato voice. “This is what comes of having the House Open. I knew no good would come of it in the long run but, you know, Inspector, there’s a limit to the amount of retrenchment…”
“Quite so, milord.”
“Though what my father would have said about having people in the house for money…”
Sloan prepared to go. “For the record then, Mr. Osborne Meredith was your Librarian and Archivist, milord?”
“That’s right.”
The Countess waved a hand vaguely. “He was writing a history of the family, wasn’t he, Harry? Such a pity he won’t be able to finish it now.”
“Yes,” said the Earl of Ornum rather shortly.
“My brother’s called Harry, too,” said Detective Constable Crosby chattily.
Inspector Sloan shot him a ferocious look.
“Mr. Meredith had just made such an interesting discovery,” said the Countess of Ornum, undeflected. “He told us all about it last week.”
“What was that, milady?” asked Sloan.
The pretty, vague face turned towards him. “He’d just found some papers that he said proved that Harry isn’t Earl of Ornum after all.”
5
« ^ »
What was that you said, Sloan?”
Inspector Sloan said louder and more clearly into the telephone, “Burke’s Peerage, sir, Please.”
Superintendent Leeyes, still at Berebury Policy Station, grunted. “That’s what I thought you said. And is that all you want?”
“For the time being, sir, thank you. I’m expecting Dyson for the photographs any minute now and Dr. Dabbe is on his way over from Kinnisport.”
Leeyes grunted again. “And all you want is a Peerage?”
“That’s right, sir. No…” Sloan paused. “There is something else, please, now you ask.”
“And what may that be?”
“A dictionary.”
“A dictionary?”
“Yes, sir. Unless you can tell me what muniments are.”
He couldn’t.
The two policemen had made their way with difficulty to where the telephone stood. Without the aid of the butler, Dillow, the way had seemed long and tortuous.
And, at one point, doubtful.
That had been when they had turned left and not right by the largest Chinese vase Sloan had ever seen.
“Can’t think why they didn’t pop the body into that, sir,” said Crosby gloomily. “Saved us a lot of trouble, that would.”
“There’ll have been a reason,” murmured Sloan.
That was one thing experience had taught him. There was a reason behind most human actions. Not necessarily sound, of course, but a reason all the same.
“This chap with the cut hand,” said Crosby, “we’ll have to have a word with him, sir.”
“We shall have to have a great many words with a great many people before we’re out of here,” said Sloan prophetically. “This way, I think…”
He was wrong. By the time they had taken two more turnings they were lost.
They were in part of the house where the chairs were not roped off with thick red cord, where no drugget lay over the carpet. And on the various pieces of furniture that lined the corridors were small, easily removable ornamental items.
“Do you mind telling me what you are doing here?” It was a thin voice, which seemed to materialise out of the air behind them.
Constable Crosby jumped palpably, and they both spun round.
A very old lady whose skirt practically reached her ankles was regarding them from a doorway. She was hung about with beads, which swung as she talked. Round her sparse grey hair and forehead was a bandeau and her hands were covered in the brown petechiae of arteriosclerotic old age. In her hand was the receiver of a hearing aid, which she held before her in the manner of a radio interviewer.
“You may have paid your half crown, my man, but that does not give you the run of the house.”
“Lady Alice?” divined Inspector Sloan.
The thin figure peered a little farther out of the doorway. “Do I know you?”
“No,” said Sloan.
“I thought not”—triumphantly—“because I’m not Alice. She’s in there.”
“Lady Maude?” hazarded Sloan.
She looked him up and down. “That’s right. Who are you? And what are you doing here?”
“We’ve come about Mr. Meredith,” said Sloan truthfully.
The beads—by now confused with the wire from the hearing aid to her ear—gave a dangerous lurch to starboard as she shook her head vigorously. “That man! Don’t mention his name to me.”
“Why not?”
But Lady Maude was not to be drawn.
She retreated into the doorway again. “I never want to see him again.”
“You aren’t going to,” muttered Crosby, sotto voce.
“Not after the things he said.” Lady Maude’s voice had the variable register of the very deaf. “My sister and I are most upset. He used to take tea with us. We do not propose to invite him again.”
The door closed and Sloan and Crosby were left standing in the corridor.
“Dear, dear,” said Crosby. “Not to be invited to tea. That would have upset the deceased a lot, I’m sure.”
“But not, I fancy, enough to drive him to suicide,” murmured Sloan, trying to take his bearings from the corridor.
“It means something though, sir, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes, Constable, it means something all right, but what I couldn’t begin to say. Yet.”
“No, sir.”
“Now to find our way out of here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lead on, Crosby,” he said unfairly. “After all, you are a detective constable.”
Charles Purvis, Steward to the thirteenth Earl of Ornum, had no difficulty in finding his way about the great house and in his turn reported to his superior in much the same way as Sloan had done to his.
“I’ve arranged for the postmistress to ring us as soon as Miss Meredith gets back to The Old Forge, sir.”
His Lordship nodded. “And the boy?”
“Michael Fisher? I took the liberty of slipping him a pound, sir.”
“Good. Don’t like to think of a man lying dead in the house and us not knowing.”
Purvis said, “We’d never have found him.”
“No.” The Earl waved a hand. “The boy’s mother—what happened to her?”
“Mrs. Morley gave her tea and the Inspector can see no reason why they shouldn’t all go back in the charabanc with the rest of the party.”
“Thank God for that,” said his Lordship fervently. “The boy sounds a terror.”
“He is,” said Purvis briefly. “I’ve just been talking to the coach driver. He’s all ready to go, but he’s two short.”
“Not the boy and his mother?”
“No. A Miss Mavis Palmer and her boy friend. Last seen three hours ago in the Folly.”
“Were they?” said the Earl thoughtfully. “Well, get them found, Charles. And quickly. The sooner that particular coachload is off the premises the better. And then come back here. There are one or two other matters which need attending to.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Earl tugged his left-hand whiskers. “Charles.”
“Sir?”
“You’ll have the Press here by morning.”
The young man nodded. “I’d thought of that. Dillow is going to put them in the morning-room and then get hold of me as quickly as he can.”
“Then there’s my cousin and Eleanor.”
“Miss Gertrude is still in the China Room, sir. I don’t think the last of the visitors have quite gone yet. And Lady Eleanor is… er… cashing up at the front door.”