Chapter 21 #2
In the library, Tom and Ernie had put together a list of those who could not have been in the conservatory when Bincombe was attacked.
“Both Miss Lucy’s parents,” said Tom.
“Thank heavens!” said Alec.
“Erica Pendleton and Julia Lasbury—they’re the two bridesmaids who came early, before their parents.”
“I suppose the parents will turn up any moment, to complicate matters.”
“Lady Ione—but she was already out of it—and Miss Flora F. Mrs. Rupert F. Mrs. Walsdorf. All four Henry Fotheringays: ma, pa, and two bridesmaid daughters. Edward Devenish, who was here with us. And that’s it, Chief.
Miss Lucy has a feeling there was someone else, a couple, in the further reaches of the drawing room, but she didn’t notice who. ”
“Pity. But that’s a good lot knocked out. Which leaves?”
“Lady Devenish,” said Piper. “Mrs. Fletcher spotted her skulking about outside the library after dinner, waiting for sonny-boy.”
“Yes, she told me.”
“But she needn’t have stayed there,” Tom pointed out. “She could have gone to the conservatory and come back.”
“Daisy didn’t notice her when she came to tell us about Lord Gerald?”
“She didn’t say so, Chief, but she wasn’t in a state to do much noticing.”
“True.”
“I wouldn’t have said Lady Devenish was strong enough for a blow like that. I could be wrong, though.”
“Never, Sarge!”
“You watch your lip, my lad! I was just thinking, Chief, ladies aren’t the delicate plants they were in my young day. All this tennis and golf and whatnot. I’ve heard they even play cricket and hockey at some schools for young ladies!”
“Not Lady Devenish.”
“No, I s’pose not,” Tom said reluctantly. “The younger ladies.”
“Most of the younger ladies seem to be accounted for. I’ll include
Miss Angela—she could easily have finished him off while she was alone with him. We’d never have managed to prove she could have saved him.”
“Pity. I bet she could hit a ball for six. Cricket bat or not, we’re going to have to search the place for the weapon, right, Chief?”
“Not you and I, Tom.” Alec grinned at Piper’s horrified face.
“The CC has sent for some extra constables and Ernie shall organize them. The house is huge, but being Victorian, not mediaeval, it’s comparatively simply laid out.
They can start on the public areas as soon as everyone has gone to bed and if necessary search the bedrooms tomorrow after everyone’s up. ”
“Chief,” said Piper, suddenly excited, “the murderer wouldn’t take the weapon to his bedroom, would he?
Don’t you reckon there must be a cupboard somewhere where they keep bats and balls, and croquet stuff, tennis racquets, all that sort of stuff?
If it was a cricket bat, wouldn’t he’d stick in in there with all the rest? ”
“Good point, young ’un.”
“Yes,” Alec said, “good idea, Ernie. I must be tired. Go and find out, from a servant, not one of the family. And then go and look.”
Piper dashed off.
Alec and Tom returned to the lists. “What about Sir James Devenish?” Alec asked. “He can’t claim to have been with his wife if she was seen alone in the hall.”
“No,” said Tom with grim satisfaction, “and he strikes me as almost as likely as young Teddy. He’s certainly strong enough.”
“But is he clever enough?”
“Clever enough to hang on to the purse-strings. I can’t see him using poison, though.”
“Hmm. Out of character, perhaps, but in spite of Smith and his brides in the bath, a multiple murderer can’t be counted on to behave in a normal fashion, even normal for himself.
What about the other daughter, Mrs. Bancroft, and her husband?
They may be the nameless couple Lucy thought she saw in the drawing room. ”
“Someone will know. Mrs. Walsdorf’ll know, I expect. Mrs. Fletcher said she was pouring coffee.”
“She must have noticed everyone, then. Good.”
“Walsdorf was out and about though. I wouldn’t put poisoning past him.”
“Because he’s a foreigner?” Alec asked dryly.
“No, Chief! Because he’s a smooth, mild, soft-spoken sort of chap, like Dr. Crippen.”
“Not at all the sort, in fact, to hit someone over the head.”
“You’ve got me there, Chief. I’ll give you Sir James poisoning Lord Fotheringay if you’ll give me Mr. Walsdorf bashing Lord Gerald.”
“Fair enough. Who’s left?”
“The Carletons. Unless they were the couple Miss Lucy saw. How about he did in Lady Eva because of the mistress, and she did in Lord Fotheringay to protect him so her darling daughter’s daddy wouldn’t be hanged, and he tried to do in Lord Gerald because if she was caught, so’d he be.”
“Ingenious!” Alec said admiringly. “And not beyond the bounds of plausibility.”
Tom preened his moustache. “Then there’s the Honourable Montagu Fotheringay. Personally, I agree with Miss Lucy he’s not up to the physical exertion required, but Mrs. Fletcher fancies him. He came to talk to her in her room just before I was up there.”
“She didn’t let him in!”
“Yes, but Miss Lucy was standing right behind her with a poker.”
Alec laughed. “Lucy brandishing a poker! I wish I’d seen it.”
“She told me the maids are forbidden to go into Mr. Montagu’s room alone. So the maid who took up his tea-tray wouldn’t have seen him. He might have answered when she knocked. I didn’t ask.”
“What makes Daisy suspect him?”
“Oh, just that he was one of the last out of the dining room, so he’d have known pretty near when Lord Gerald would go to the conservatory and that he wouldn’t have long to wait.”
“It’s a point. The longer the murderer hung about in the conservatory, or watching to see when Bincombe left the dining room, the more chance he’d be missed or seen. Is that the lot?”
“Well, there’s always Mr. Baines.”
“The butler?” Alec asked in surprise.
“He had the key to the servants’ wing door,” Tom pointed out defensively. “And he’s always buzzing about. The nobs wouldn’t notice him or think twice if they did. I’m not saying he’s likely, mind, but he’s possible.”
“Quite right, we must take him into account. Now, before we have anyone in, let’s go over the people in Lady Eva’s notes. With any luck, Ernie will return bearing a cricket bat with blood on one end and a nice, clear set of fingerprints on the other.”
Before they had finished running through the suspects with known motives for killing Lady Eva, Ernie Piper returned. He bore in triumph a cricket bat, holding it carefully with a handkerchief wrapped around the upper part of the blade.
“Blood on the end all right,” he announced.
“And soil stuck to it. There’s a big closet—more like a box-room—down that corridor behind the conservatory, between the gun room and the billiard room.
Full to busting of tennis stuff, croquet, cricket, golf clubs, badminton, anything you can think of. Pushed in right at the back, this was.”
“Well done, young ’un.” As he spoke, Tom extracted his fingerprint kit from the Murder Bag. “Let’s hope he was too rushed to think of wiping off the dabs.”
But the bat bore not a single fingerprint, old or new.
“Pity,” said Tom, “but at least I shan’t have to take the dabs of a couple of dozen nobs all screaming blue murder.”