The Mammoth Book Of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Part 22

"Quite," said Lord Bognor. "And this young chap is the friend of a son-in-law of a dear old friend of mine that is, of his late brother, to be precise and a sterling supporter of our great cause."

The pilot returned the handshake and the smile, doubling both of them. "Giles Macready. A real privilege, I must say, to shake hands with one who is on the front line of the struggle against injustice. Tell me, what is a f.l.a.n.g.e-mounter? Precisely, I mean; of course, I understand the concept in broad terms."

Norbert didn't particularly want a cigarette, but discovering that his fidgeting had caused his cigarette case to appear in his hands felt that he could hardly put the b.l.o.o.d.y thing away again without ever opening it. He offered a cigarette to Susan, who declined, and to Bognor, who declined. He then offered himself one, which he was obliged to accept.

"It's a bit complicated," he told Giles, with a still broader smile. "Perhaps later, if you're that interested."

Bognor laughed, loudly; a sign, Norbert knew, that a joke was coming. It had been his observation that the upper-cla.s.ses always laughed before the joke, rather than after it, as if giving a fox a fair start. "By the way, young Giles isn't a bald Negro, in case you were wondering he's wearing a flying cap. He's a valiant aviator, you know. In fact, he's brought tomorrow's lunch to us, fresh from France."

"Oh, atrocious manners, forgive me." Giles removed his headgear. "I didn't realize I was still wearing it these things become like one's own skin after the first few hundred hours of flying time."

"An aviator?" said Norbert. "How interesting."

"Oh, you know, nothing very glamorous." Giles slapped his cap against his thigh, then folded it into a pocket on his leather jerkin. "Just the regular Croydon-Paris pa.s.senger run. It's a trade, like any other pays the bills, until the dawning of the Glorious Day."

"Speaking of the Glorious Day," said Norbert, "how did you come to be involved, if you don't mind me asking, in the historic struggle of the workers?"

"Ah well, as to that." Giles's smile withdrew, delicately, into the corners of his mouth and eyes, and a suitably solemn look replaced it. "As I was saying to Comrade Boggy here, when we met quite by chance in his club last week I saw a fair few things during the war."

"Yes, indeed," said Bognor. "Quite so."

"Things I don't care to dwell on. I'm not alone lot of chaps went through pretty much the same, lot of chaps didn't come back to bore on about it, so least said, the best. But I said to myself in 1917, 'If we get through this lot, things have got to change.' "

Bognor nodded, and Norbert noted that without one of his usual repertoire of more-or-less idiotic smiles in place, he looked so sincere it was almost upsetting. "Got to change," said Bognor. "Never again."

"Well, they have changed," Giles continued. "For the worse. And it's up to our generation, Comrade Norris "

"Norbert."

"Comrade Norbert, it is up to us "

An astonis.h.i.+ng noise shook the walls of the ancient hall, and the inner ears of its inhabitants.

"Ah!" said Bognor, clapping his hands together. "Dinner. It's an electrical klaxon, you know; we don't have a gong any more. Gongs, do you see, are reminiscent of feudalism."

Giles begged leave to remove the rest of his flying togs, and wash his hands, before dining. When he emerged from the lavatory, Norbert was waiting for him.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

The valiant aviator put a fraternal arm around Norbert's shoulder. "Same as you, old chap, I imagine. Shall we go in?"

"Listen to me, you stuck-up little "

"I see we're not expected to dress for dinner. Splendid, much better for the digestion. Most liberating, you have to admit, this communism business."

"It's called asparagus," Diana Lawrence whispered. "One eats it with one's fingers."

Norbert thanked her. He'd probably eaten more sparrow-gra.s.s than the rest of them put together; his uncle used to bring it home for soup, unsold from the market stall.

The conversation at dinner was mostly of a political nature. Willie Browning and Diana were the most vocal, with Lord Bognor restricting his comments to hearty concurrences. Sir Reginald Lloyd concentrated on his food, though he did emerge from his trencher once or twice to "congratulate Your Lords.h.i.+p on your choice of chef."

There was general agreement that the Communist Party of Great Britain had surrendered to reformism, and that only The Bolshevist League of Urgency clearly understood the necessity of naming the Glorious Day without delay. Diana let it be known that, in her opinion, the CPGB contained "very few comrades of real character". From the apologetic smile she bestowed on Norbert after delivering this remark, he gathered that she was complaining about the regrettably plebeian nature of the mainstream communist movement.

"We all know," said Willie, as they awaited their fish course, "that the flood of surplus capital from America into Europe which has eased the current crisis of European capitalism cannot furnish but a temporary revival, since the interest on American loans can only be repaid by further borrowing. As soon as the flow of credit is broken, catastrophe will set in. Capitalism will only be able to increase its profits in the following period by a direct and vicious attack on wages and conditions."

"Quite so," said Comrade Boggy. "Direct and vicious."

"The north-east?" Giles Macready asked, effortlessly projecting his voice across the table to Norbert. "Whereabouts?"

"Jarrow," said Norbert.

"Interesting. I thought I caught a hint of the Princ.i.p.ality in your consonants; just a hint, you know, at the back of the throat, there . . . ?"

"My grandmother was from Pontypridd," said Norbert. "One of my grandmothers."

"Maternal?"

"Paternal," said Norbert. He took a mouthful of boiled potato, and added: "So now you know, bonny lad."

General mingling was the order of the postprandial hour. Norbert smoked a cigarette in the billiard room, where he learned that Diana was one of the world's leading female players of that game. She dealt with both Bognor and Giles in short order, but was unable to persuade Sir Reginald to pick up a cue. Norbert suspected that her display of simpering and eyelash-fluttering had produced an effect in the businessman precisely opposite to that intended. She had to content herself with beating Willie, while wearing a blindfold.

Susan was prevailed upon to provide a few tunes ("A smile, a song and a piano!" as Bognor put it) in one of several rooms which contained a baby grand. When it became clear that Sir Reginald's interest was more in the shapely shoulders and soft hair of the pianist than in the music she was playing, Norbert contrived to steer him towards the veranda, where a manly cigar school was in full flower. This act of chivalry earned him a grateful look from Comrade Chaplin.

Sir Reginald did not seem to be much of a conversationalist a mercy, perhaps, given the amount he had drunk at dinner and subsequently but he did become quite lively concerning his suspicions of corruption and hypocrisy amongst the members of the Labour government.

"They say Macdonald has a car, you know."

"Well," said Giles, "he is prime minister. I daresay he needs to rush from place to place, you know, betraying the working cla.s.s."

"Yes, but how does he pay for it?" Sir Reginald dropped his cigar, and Norbert picked it up for him. "He has no money how does a man of that cla.s.s run a motor? You tell me that."

"His wife has money, I believe," said Bognor, but Sir Reginald didn't seem to hear him.

"You can't run a ruddy car on what a prime minister makes, take it from me."

A little later, Norbert announced that he fancied an early night, and offered to show Sir Reginald to his room. The latter was drunk enough to take this as a courtesy, not an impertinence.

"Have we met before?" Sir Reginald asked, moving his face backwards and forwards in an attempt to focus on Norbert's. "I know you from somewhere, don't I?"

"Quite possible." Norbert had been wondering when this would come up. "I'm a trade union official."

"Are you, by G.o.d? I b.l.o.o.d.y hate trade union officials."

"I hope you don't mind me asking," said Norbert, as they made their lopsided way along the landing, "but what brings a man of your eminence in the industrial world to join Comrade Boggy's group?"

Sir Reginald stopped, looked around him, and gestured untidily for Norbert to come closer. In a voice which he evidently imagined was a whisper, he said: "You've read Marx, have you? Course you have. So have I. You're not the only one. I've read Lenin, too. And he's more to the point. After the revolution and everyone says it's only a matter of time, half the people I do business with have moved their money to America; moved their families too, some of them after the revolution there will be a transcription period "

"Transition period?"

"Sshh! This is between you and me. Even my secretary doesn't know I'm here, let alone my wife. There will be a transmission period, during which the socialist state will work with chosen capitalists. Well now, if a chap happened to be able to guarantee that he would be one of those chosen catipalists, he'd be laughing. Laughing, take that from me."

"I see," said Norbert, marvelling inwardly, and not for the first time in his life, at the lengths a Lancas.h.i.+re businessman would go to in order to secure a monopoly. Presumably the real Communist Party had turned him down; hence his affiliation with this unlikely offshoot.

"I delivered the first instalment, in cash, to that grinning fool, Bognor, this afternoon. And I told him I said, 'There's more where that came from, my Lord.' Plenty more. There are certain things money can't buy, and for which I will pay any amount."

Norbert wished Sir Reginald a "Goodnight, Comrade," then hurried to his room to bring his notes up to date. The corpse was not discovered until after breakfast.

"Nothing like it was before the war, of course," said Diana Lawrence, shovelling onto her plate enough kidneys to process the urine of a small boatload of lambs. "But still, old Boggy does a lot better than most. There's a chef, thank G.o.d, a kitchen maid, a scullery maid, between-maid, several chaps in the garden, a groom (for the motor), butler and hall boy, obviously, an odd job man, a carpenter "

"Good G.o.d, there's hundreds of them," said Norbert, dealing himself a third helping of mushrooms to go with his second lot of scrambled eggs. He'd been a bit surprised to discover that breakfast was self-service. It reminded him rather of a works canteen though with undeniably superior cuisine. "I'm sure I spotted a smithy yesterday. Surely Comrade Boggy doesn't still retain his own blacksmith?"

"Indeed he does. He currently has him making enormous hammer-and-sickle designs, with which to adorn the estate gates."

One by one, and with only one exception, the revolutionaries arrived to take part in the storming of the serving dishes, until most of the food had gone, and that which remained was cold. At that point, Bognor ever the attentive host instructed his butler to see that a tray was taken up to Sir Reginald's room. When the butler returned to report that the gentleman was not in his bedroom, nor in his bathroom, a search was instigated. It ended in the Vitality Room.

This was not an image the galvatronic therapy types would be likely to use in their advertis.e.m.e.nts, Norbert couldn't help feeling, as he gently elbowed his way through the crowded doorway and knelt to check Sir Reginald Lloyd's pulse. The industrialist was even more red-faced than usual, and his tongue seemed to hang halfway down his chest. His hair was scorched, and the metal skullcap appeared almost welded to his head. His hands resembled claws, perhaps because he had tried to free himself from a length of flexible tubing which had become entangled about his neck. Strange place for Lloyd to die, Norbert thought; he seemed hardly the health and fitness type.

"No vital signs," he reported. "I'm no doctor, but I should say he has been vibrated to death."

"Dear G.o.d!" cried Bognor.

"Also strangled."

"Oh Lord," said Susan.

"Electrocuted, too, I think . . ."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" said Diana.

". . . and quite possibly boiled."

There was a silence, until Norbert looked up and nodded, to signify that he had finished.

"One way or another," said Giles, "he sounds quite dead."

"Utterly."

"What a beastly accident," said Bognor. "The blasted machine must have gone rogue." He patted his waistcoat absently, as if searching for shot.

"Not an accident, I'm afraid," said Norbert. "The dosage controls over there have been set to maximum and the off switch here on the machine itself has been disabled."

"He's right, you know," said Giles, after a quick inspection. "Someone's shoved a cigarette card in there. I reckon you'd need a penknife to free it, too. Unless this was an especially peculiar way of committing suicide, then this is undoubtedly a murder."

"But who " said Susan.

"Any one of us could have done it." Norbert paused; he thought the occasion demanded it. "I don't believe any of us can alibi any of the others for the entire period during which this crime might have been committed. Rising times this morning were various and individual. As for breakfast, we all came and went without formality. Can anyone refute any of that?"

"Could it not have been one of the staff?" Willie asked.

Bognor shook his head. "No, no. They'd have been far too busy preparing breakfast and so on. Besides, any servant who was absent his post would be noticed by the others."

"Unless they were all in it together," said Susan.

Bognor and Diana looked at her in astonishment. "All in it together?" said Bognor. "But that would be tantamount to . . ." He couldn't finish the sentence. A particular word hung in the air for a short time, and then, seeing it wasn't wanted, slunk away.

". . . unthinkable," said Diana.

Bognor nodded. "Unthinkable."

"At least we can eliminate one suspect from your list," said Giles.

"Indeed? Who?"

"Why, yourself, Comrade Norbert." Giles smiled, and looked around at the others. "After all, you are the detective, Sergeant Whistler and you can't be the detective and the killer. That isn't how these things are done, at all."

The late Sir Reginald Lloyd was removed to an unoccupied bedroom in the servants' wing, naturally while the living comrades gathered in the Small Library.

"It was only just now that I remembered where I'd seen Comrade Norbert before," Giles explained. "During the 1919 police strike, wasn't it, Norbert?"

"Is this true?" demanded Diana. "A detective? A policeman? Sent to spy on us, I suppose!"

"Well, yes," said Norbert. "In a word. But never mind that now, there is a killer amongst us and he or she must be identified: that is the priority. I must ask no one to leave the house and immediate grounds until I have determined what happened." The relief of being able to speak once again in his natural, Kentish tones almost outweighed his displeasure at being unmasked as a spy. How the lingually acrobatic Geordies ever managed to produce that extraordinary noise in the first place, let alone keep it up for hour after hour, was beyond him; they must practise constantly, perhaps in front of mirrors.

It was agreed, nem con, that the comrades should occupy themselves upon the tennis courts, while Norbert summoned them individually for interview in the billiard room (chosen for its view over the tennis courts, and its comfortable chairs). He began with Giles.

"Hope you don't mind me letting the cat out of bag, Comrade Norbert," said Giles, settling himself happily in the very chair which Norbert had intended for his own. "But I thought it better to keep this in the family, rather than involve the local coppers. We'd both sooner this matter didn't make the Daily Mirror, yes?"

It pained him to do so, but Norbert was forced to agree; there was plenty of potential for embarra.s.sment all round in this messy situation. "Besides," he said, "I may end up arresting you for murder, and I wouldn't want anything to complicate that."

Giles laughed. "My dear fellow, I don't know what sort of things you get up to in the Met, but I can a.s.sure you that His Majesty's intelligence services do not go about vibrating businessmen to death in stately homes. It's simply not within our purview."

"You must admit you have a motive. You wouldn't care to see a revolutionary movement getting hold of Sir Reginald's money." Norbert wasn't going to be put off by any quant.i.ty of sangfroid.

"Only the precise same motive which you have yourself as a Special Branch officer and I don't accuse you."

"Then what are you doing here? This organization is absurd, not dangerous."

"I could ask you the same question." Giles sighed, as if Norbert's silliness was at last becoming tiresome. "And I'd get the same answer they all need watching, no matter how absurd they might appear. Brother Lenin was pretty absurd, I daresay, up until the moment he wasn't."

Detective Sergeant Whistler considered this answer, and found it incomplete. With Whitehall apparently convinced that the entire country was on the verge of all-out cla.s.s war, why would MI5 waste an experienced field man on a bunch of crackpots and misfits like The Bolshevist League of Urgency? He was about to say something along those lines, when Giles added: "Incidentally, old boy: was it your idea to come here, or the Yard's?"

Time to rea.s.sert control of this interview; past time, in fact. "All right, what do you make of the others?"

"Are you consulting me, my dear old thing?"

Norbert ground out his cigarette, and gave the secret agent a hard look. "No, Mr Macready, I am interrogating you. As a murder suspect. I should bear that in mind, if I were you."

There wasn't a flicker of uncertainty on Giles Macready's face. There hadn't been such a flicker on a Macready, Norbert was sure, since the Norman Conquest. "What do I think of the others? Well, I would take a close look at Boggy himself. The man is notoriously unstable this present pa.s.sion for revolution, for instance, dates most coincidentally from the time of his wife's departure."