Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery Part 16

"Sergeant?" Bliss prompted his deputy.

Blessing flipped through his notebook. "The Duke of Warwick and Baron Pownall were the last to see him, around one in the morning, before they went to their rooms in the-"

"And then-what?-he vanished?"

"I was coming to that, Your Lords.h.i.+p. According to the bar manager, Lord Morborne left the Pilgrims Inn with a Miss Janice Sclanders, a barmaid, at about one thirty." He glanced up from his notebook. "We have contacted Miss Sclanders. She lives with her parents in a cottage in the village, but as it happens her parents are away in c.u.mbria to attend to the birth of a grandchild so-"

"What an impossible pig!" Lucinda lifted her gla.s.s to her mouth.

"You mean, he was with this woman?" Hector thundered.

"Hector, don't be obtuse." Dominic crossed his legs. "My question is why he left this woman's cottage so early. It had to be early for the vicar to find him at-what was it?" He flicked a glance at Tom. "Sunrise? He could have had a very nice lie-in." He smirked and dropped his voice theatrically. "Don't tell me our Olly had some regard for the proprieties?"

"I doubt he got much sleep." Lucinda drained her gla.s.s.

"Have the decency to shut up, would you? The pair of you!" Hector glared. Bonzo raised his head and yawned.

Bliss waited a beat until tempers had simmered. "Miss Sclanders says they were awakened by thunder-around four thirty, is her reckoning. There was quite a lot of thunder and lightning over southeast Dartmoor last night-not surprising, given the heat we've been having. It even woke me in Totnes. Lightning almost continuous, too, according to the Met."

"You mean, Inspector"-Dominic's voice was laced with sarcasm-"that Olly forgot his brolly and had to make a dash for home."

"No." Blessing responded for his superior. "In fact, what very little rain there was fell only on that patch of the moor, not on the surrounding countryside."

"Are you sure it didn't fall on a plain, in Spain, Inspector?"

"Have you been drinking?" Hector leveled his gaze at Dominic.

"Tea, Hector. I'm drinking tea." He held up the cup. "Then perhaps Oliver did have some regard for proprieties."

Bliss twitched and s.h.i.+fted his body. "I'm afraid I have no idea of Lord Morborne's regard for proprieties. According to Miss Sclanders, he spent some few minutes texting-"

"At four thirty in the morning?" Jamie interrupted.

"California. Then he told Miss Sclanders that ..." He looked to Blessing. "What was it exactly?"

Blessing licked his thumb and flipped back several pages, "That he had-and I quote-'a rendezvous with' "-he looked up from his notebook-" 'a lady.' "

The word fell on the a.s.sembled like fine rain. All except Lucinda, who ran her finger absently around the lip of her empty gla.s.s. "Then he was a pig twice over. Imagine leaving some woman's bed with the announcement you're expected at another's."

"I'm not sure Miss Sclanders is the type to care. She wasn't expecting to become Lady Morborne," Bliss remarked. "She barely knew who Lord Morborne was."

"She does now, I daresay." Marguerite spoke impatiently. "But I think you're missing the inspector's point, Lucy. Are you certain"-she turned her attention to Bliss-"he didn't say 'woman'?"

"No, my lady, she was quite certain Lord Morborne said 'lady.' "

"In any case," Blessing added, "the word woman would only expand the numbers in the category slightly."

"You can't possibly mean-" Lucinda began. Tom felt her stiffen with a new alertness. But Jane interrupted: "The word is also generic, Inspector. It can refer to any adult female."

"Yes," Bliss conceded blandly, "that's true. But I need to consider any information given me. Lord Morborne left Miss Sclanders's cottage in the direction of Egges...o...b.. Park and he was found in the Egges...o...b.. Park's Labyrinth. I'm sure of the six women present at Egges...o...b..-and present here this afternoon-all of you are ladies." He smiled thinly. "But four of you are Ladies, you understand." He nodded to each in turn. "Dowager Lady Fairhaven, Lady Fairhaven, Lady Kirkbride, and you, Lady Lucinda."

"But that's nonsense! What would my wife, my mother ..." Hector spluttered. "... be doing wandering around the grounds in the middle of the night?"

"I don't know, my lord. That's what I would like to find out."

"Rendezvous? The word is outrageous! These woman are family, for G.o.d's sake!"

"Rendezvous does not mean 'a.s.signation,' " Blessing muttered into his pad, but Hector heard him: "I should b.l.o.o.d.y hope it doesn't!"

Tom exchanged a glance with Jane. He sensed they shared a thought born of an earlier discussion: There were five, not four, Ladies at Egges...o...b...

"Inspector," Tom began, mulling the words over in his mind so as not to unnecessarily s.h.i.+ne a light on anyone, "Lord Morborne's remark about having a rendezvous with a lady may have another meaning-and it may explain why he was in the Labyrinth at such an early hour. You've noticed, I'm sure, the sculpture at the Labyrinth's centre. It's the Virgin Mary, of course. The Virgin is sometimes referred to as the Lady. We have Lady chapels in our churches, for instance. Lord Morborne's remark may simply have been ironic."

Bliss appeared to digest this, while Blessing looked up from his pad and asked, "But why rendezvous with this 'lady' at all? And why at that particular hour?"

Tom not only felt Jane's eyes upon him, but sensed a sharpened interest in the others. Keeping his focus on Blessing, whose brow was beginning a familiar furrowing, he said truthfully-for the words were true: "I really couldn't say."

Blessing opened his mouth as if to pursue another enquiry, but Bliss, s.h.i.+fting his stance, interrupted with a bark: "Well, statues can't s.h.i.+ft themselves, so I'm afraid I must ask you all-lords, ladies, and gentlemen-about your movements between the hours of midnight and six this morning."

"What movements, Inspector?" Hector snapped. "We were all asleep, of course."

"None of you was disturbed by the thunder and lightning on the moor? Lord Morborne was. PC Widger, apparently, too, and a number of others in Abbotswick. It would have been the talk of the village but for ..." Bliss cleared his throat.

"The noise and light woke me," Jane answered. "I'm not sure of the time. I went to the window, thinking I should pull the window shut against any rain, but I saw nothing worth noting, other than the grounds and gardens suddenly flas.h.i.+ng with light."

"I slept through it," Jamie said. "Jump days are usually long days. They tend to take it out of one."

"My husband would sleep through Armageddon," Jane added.

"I'm the same as Jamie," Hector said. "Slept like a top."

"I take medication to sleep, Detective Inspector." Georgina looked grave. "I wasn't aware of any storm. Or anything else, for that matter."

"No one awoke?" Bliss's tone was testy. "No one, but for Lady Kirkbride, went to the window to look out? No one nipped down to the kitchen to get a cup of cocoa to get them back to sleep and ran into someone in a corridor or on the stairs. No one-"

"Are you suggesting that someone from this household is responsible for Oliver's death?"

"No, my-"

"Because surely the solution is that someone followed Oliver from the village in the early hours of the morning, someone with some ... animus against him-and G.o.d knows he's offended enough people in his life-and ... well, you know ..."

"My lord, I am conducting an investigation and am making no accusations. I am only interested at this time in people's possible movements during the night. Those people could be here in the Hall or over in the village."

"Well, I was with my wife," Hector continued gruffly. "I heard nothing until Jane knocked me up about six thirtyish. I had just come out of the shower."

"I was with mine," Jamie added.

"Your Ladys.h.i.+p?" Bliss turned to Lucinda.

Tom's eyes rose, above Bliss's head, to the ma.s.sive overmantel and its elaborate alabaster carving of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. He waited with dread while Lucinda hesitated over her answer. Was she delaying to taunt him?

"Your Ladys.h.i.+p?" Bliss prompted.

"I was with Dominic."

Blessing looked up from his notebook, instantly alert. "The entire night?"

"I joined my brother," Lucinda replied with hauteur, "for conversation after the party and fell asleep on the daybed in his room. I'm not sure how well I slept-I had drunk a little more than I should-and perhaps the thunder did disturb me. I can't recall."

"I slept through it all," Dominic said.

"Lady Fairhaven?" Bliss turned to Marguerite.

"I'm at the dower house, Inspector, some distance from here." She favoured him with a charming smile. "So I can't really help you. And Mr. Sica was with me."

Her tone, her emphasis on the final word, suggested a relations.h.i.+p less s.e.xual and more maternal-Tom watched both Bliss and Blessing's stony features struggle to suppress bemus.e.m.e.nt-and designed to n.o.bble further enquiry. Surely, he thought, Marve was being economical with the truth. He recalled their freighted exchange in the stable block: Marve had been keen to remind Roberto he had not been working in his studio all night. Jane had heard this exchange, too. He could see her regarding the dowager countess with frank curiosity. Indeed, everyone regarded Marguerite with some varied emotion-distaste, admiration, amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You're an artist, I understand," Bliss addressed Roberto.

"A sculptor," he replied tonelessly. "Lady Fairhaven is my patron."

Bliss blinked. Tom suspected the inspector found the descriptor little clarifying. He seemed to heave a world-weary sigh as he turned to Gaunt.

"The Gatehouse-"

"We heard and saw nothing, Inspector," Gaunt was quick to reply. He glanced past the draw-table to his wife.

"You rise early, yes?" Bliss pressed. "I'm sure you have things to ready before the household gets up."

"Indeed," Gaunt replied, "Mrs. Gaunt gets up before I do, as she has the morning meal to prepare and usually makes a start on dishes for other meals."

"Then, Mrs. Gaunt"-Blessing took up the enquiry-"you would have walked near to the Labyrinth early this morning on your way here. About what time?"

"About five thirty."

"Still fairly dark."

"I saw nothing nor heard anything out of the ordinary." Ellen trained her eyes on the detective sergeant.

Startled, Tom wondered at her choice of words, supposing out of the ordinary precluded mentioning Hector's very ordinary early-morning run.

"Lord Morborne would-presumably-have walked through the Gatehouse gate on his return to Egges...o...b..," Blessing continued.

"Sergeant," Hector said with a hint of asperity, "Gaunt has said he and Mrs. Gaunt saw and heard nothing."

Bliss stepped in. "Mrs. Prowse?"

Tom regarded his housekeeper. Madrun ran a smoothing hand over her skirt and adjusted her spectacles on the bridge of her nose, as if she were preparing for a longish disquisition to a rapt audience. "Well, Detective Inspector, as it happens, I was troubled by noises in the night. Thunder, of course, but then I was awoken by some rather loud whistling."

"That had to be Olly," Jamie interrupted. "He's a champion whistler. Usually sort of jaunty and vaguely baroque sounding."

"Yes. That's it precisely!"

"Never knew what the tune was. He always seemed to whistle it when he'd completed something to his satisfaction."

"James, really!" Georgina frowned.

"What? What have I said?"

"Jamie," Jane said, "consider where Oliver had been earlier."

"Sorry, Georgie, I didn't intend-"

"I always thought," Lucinda interposed, "Olly whistled when he was looking forwards to something."

"Whatever do you mean?" Hector demanded.

"A rendezvous with a lady?" Lucinda's tone was arch.

Bliss ignored Lucinda. "Can you recall what time you heard the whistling, Mrs. Prowse?"

Madrun reflected. "No, I can't. Not precisely, no. I neglected to bring my travel clock and I left my watch on the dressing table. After the thunder, as I said, but before dawn, though the sky was beginning to lighten a bit. I believe. Then I heard my hosts rise-my bedroom is above theirs-though I may have fallen back to sleep in between."

Bliss appeared to absorb this as Blessing continued with his scribbling. Tom sensed a fruitlessness to this strand of the enquiry. It had been dark. Everyone had been in his or her bed-or at least each could make such claim, because each had an ally-a spouse, a lover, a sibling. Lucinda had been economical with the truth. So, too, Tom suspected, had Marguerite. Madrun had no one to vouch for her, but she had been forthright with her pinch of information. He had no one to vouch for him, though. And yet he did, for at least a part of the night. But what part and how large? He sensed Bliss awakening from his brief reverie, about to turn his large head to him, the last of those a.s.sembled in the great hall to be questioned about the night.

He had once been in an automobile accident with his mother Kate, who, as an American, never really accommodated herself to the narrow lanes and congestion of the small island she made her home. He had been fourteen, Kate speeding him to a football match, when abruptly the car ahead on the A227 stopped-to avoid hitting a dog, it turned out. Kate had taken her eyes off the road in the few seconds it took to light her f.a.g off the lighter of their Volvo. But Tom, staring through the windscreen, could only watch helplessly as the hood sped relentlessly forwards to the inevitable collision. Long after, his memory was not of screaming tires and crus.h.i.+ng metal, but of the remarkable sense of time slowing, as in a film, and of himself, growing strangely detached, as the back of the car ahead filled his vision. Only on impact did time snap back and trigger alarm. He felt like that now as he watched Bliss's heavy lids slide up his eyes and his head slowly begin an arc that would s.h.i.+ft his attention to him, Tom.

And now the thoughts followed on one another like the waves of an incoming tide: his rebuke to Lucinda by the pool, clearly obviated, to be forthright with the police, his felt need to reclaim forthrightness, by contradicting her-and, oh, what that would mean: how the fact of the matter would startle everyone, surprise some, appall a few-and shame him, very much, before these not unkind people, before his housekeeper, the vigilant minder of his days, and spread like a stain to touch his daughter, the village, the Church in ways predictable and unpredictable, dreadful to contemplate. He met Bliss's disinterested gaze, his slightly red-rimmed, grey eyes-not enough sleep, Detective Inspector?-and then, as if out of a dream, a bell sounded and sounded again, urgently, demandingly, and that gaze veered, deflected towards the source of this irritant. It was Blessing's phone. A trespa.s.ser had been apprehended by the kitchen garden claiming to have vital and urgent information about Lord Morborne's death. Bliss excused himself.

There is a G.o.d and, Tom thought with provisional grat.i.tude, He uses mobile telephones His wonders to perform.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"I might as well be playing with a flamingo," Tom remarked to Jane as he hobbled a few steps across the croquet lawn with his mallet. "And that," he gestured to his orange ball, which had failed to clear the wicket, "might as well be a hedgehog."

"At least it's not crawling away."

"Our team will lose with me playing."

"Your daughter is very good." They both looked up the sun-dappled lawn to Miranda, who was studying Max as he stalked his blue ball, mallet in hand.