“What? Oh, me? Yes, rather.”
“Where?”
“Where? Oh—in the Park, you know. Actually I went round the ha ha. To get in training for the match, what? No exercise to speak of in Town, don’t you know.”
“Never touch it myself,” said William Murton, looking with close interest from one flushed face to the next.
“Touch what?” said Miles.
“Exercise.” William patted his tummy. “Went to seed early myself. Less trouble.”
Cousin Gertrude rounded on him as if he’d been a wing half coming up fast on the outside. “There’s no need for you to talk, William. You’d miss your uncle Harry here more than anyone.”
“True.”
“You may not touch exercise,” she went on tartly, “but you’re certainly not above touching him for money when you need it.”
“Granted.” He made a mock bow in her direction. “But you will be pleased to hear I’ve turned over a new leaf. My… er… touching days are gone.”
This produced total silence. The Earl and his son exchanged a quick glance.
“Truly,” said William. “I haven’t asked you for a loan this trip, Uncle Harry, now have I?”
“Not yet,” said that peer cautiously.
Cousin Gertrude was inexorable. “Moreover,” she went on, “there’s the Judge taking to walking about again. I hear that Aunt Alice saw him on Friday evening. You all know what that means.”
There was an immediate chorus from Eleanor, Henry, Miles, and William. “Someone’s going to go!”
Laura Cremond turned on her husband. “Really, Miles…”
“Sorry, dear, learnt the responses as a child.”
“You are now a grown-up.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I don’t think,” said Gertrude astringently, “that Laura quite appreciates that the Judge being seen always means that someone is going to die.”
“He’s dead,” insisted Laura. “You’ve all been saying so.”
“Not Ossy. He doesn’t count. It’s got to be a member of the family,” declared Gertrude.
“It’s a family legend,” said William Murton, adding ironically, “You needn’t worry, Laura. It only applies to blood relations.”
“Like the two black owls and the Duke of Dorset in Zulieka Dobson,” explained Lord Henry swiftly. Laura was looking cross.
“And the dying gooseberry bush in the walls of Kilravock Castle,” added Lady Eleanor.
“And just as true,” insisted Miss Cremond.
“Never mind, Cousin Gertrude,” said Lord Henry helpfully. “Perhaps it’s one of the great-aunts. After all, they are knocking ninety and they can’t live forever, you know.”
“Talking of the aunts,” said Eleanor suddenly, “where are they tonight?”
“They’ve taken umbrage,” said her brother.
“Why?”
“Mother used Great Aunt Maude’s hearing aid as a pepper pot last night.”
“No…”
“It’s a fact,” said Lord Henry. “Poor old Maude. She stood it on the table all the better to hear with and Mother started shaking it all over her soup.”
“It is a bit like one, you know,” murmured Millicent Ornum defensively, “until you look at it closely.”
But Cousin Gertrude had not done.
Heated and anxious, she said, “Don’t you all realise that somebody we know killed poor Ossy?”
There was silence.
“Someone here in Ornum House,” she said. “Perhaps someone in this very room now.”
The Earl of Ornum cleared his throat, and said in a low rumble, “ ’Fraid you’re probably right, Gertrude.”
Laura Cremond said spitefully, “What about you, Gertrude? You’ve got more to lose than any of us, haven’t you?”
10
« ^ »
Monday morning dawned with its customary inevitability.
With it came the news that there had been a road traffic accident at Tappett’s Corner on the main Berebury to Luston Road the night before. Superintendent Leeyes was not pleased about this.
“A ruddy great pile-up,” he moaned, flinging down the report in front of Inspector Sloan as soon as he arrived on duty. “One woman driver who wouldn’t have been safe out with a pram, one commercial vehicle with no business to be on the road at all on a Sunday…”
Inspector Sloan picked up the paper and began to read.
“And a family saloon,” said Leeyes, “driven by two old women.”
The report said that it had been driven by a husband with his wife sitting beside him, but Sloan knew what the Superintendent meant. He had been speaking figuratively. There were some real figures, too.
Two people had been taken to hospital and three vehicles to the suspect garage.
“If there’s anybody in my Division getting a kickback out of this, Sloan,” threatened Leeyes, “there’s going to be real trouble.”
“Yes, sir.” He looked at the report. “It is the nearest garage to Tappett’s Corner.”
“I know that.”
“And they’re the only people with heavy lifting gear for this van.”
“I know that, too, and it doesn’t help, does it?”
“No, sir.”
It didn’t.
If there was something wrong there was something wrong and explanations were neither here nor there.
“This other business, Sloan…” Only a true policeman, jealous in honour, would have such an order of priority. “How far have you got? We can’t hang on to a case like this, you know.”
“Some of the way, sir.” Sloan knew Superintendent Leeyes wouldn’t want anyone else here while he was worried about Inspector Harpe’s men. “I think the deceased was killed in the Library between four o’clock and half-past five on Friday afternoon.”
Leeyes grunted.
“He was last seen alive,” went on Sloan, “by Lady Eleanor, the Earl’s daughter, just before four and by the butler, Dillow, immediately after that.”
“But by five-thirty…”
“By five-thirty. That was when the Vicar, Mr. Walter Ames, arrived at Ornum House in response to a message—”
“A message?”
“A message to the effect that his friend, Mr. Meredith, had made an important discovery—”
“What!”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“What sort of discovery?”
“We don’t know, sir. Yet. All we know is that he telephoned the Vicar’s house during that afternoon and left a message with the Vicar’s wife asking Mr. Ames to step around to the house as soon as he could.” Sloan paused. “I think that by the time he got there Mr. Meredith was dead.”
“Someone else knew about his discovery?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.” He coughed. “The telephone at Ornum House is somewhat public, sir. It’s in the entrance hall. Anyone could have heard him.”
“Someone did?”
“I’m very much afraid so, sir.”
Leeyes grunted again. “Go on.”
“There are bloodstains at the far end of the last bay in the Library. I’m having them analysed this morning. He could well have been killed there and left there until the opportunity arose to take his body to the armoury.”
“Without being seen?”
“It was a chance that would have to be taken. I should not imagine that the Library was used all that often and the bloodstains are at the far end of the last bay. In fact Mr. Ames did look in the Library for the deceased and called out his name—but when he did not appear or answer he went away.”
“Beyond call,” observed Leeyes succinctly, “and recall.”
“Exactly, sir. Then there are the Muniments—”
“Documents,” supplied Leeyes, “kept as evidence of rights or privilege.”
“Thank you, sir. I thought they might be. Well, at some time after five-thirty on Friday afternoon when the Vicar looked in the Muniments Room and noticed nothing amiss, and at some time before I got there myself yesterday afternoon, some person or persons unknown played havoc with them.”