Chapter 21
Wide-awake now, Alec glanced at his watch. Just five minutes before he was due to see Lady Tyndall—on the way to the study, he had met Gwen in the passage as she came out of her mother’s room.
He ran down the stairs to the billiard room and quickly looked through the notes of his previous meetings with her ladyship. They had covered remarkably little ground. Questioning the widow of a murder victim was always a touchy business.
Alec reached the sitting room door at the same time as a maid bearing a tea tray. He wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sorry. Sometimes the ritual of serving tea relaxed the person to be interviewed; sometimes fussing over teacups was an irritating distraction.
He knocked and held the door open for the girl. As he followed her into the room, his attention flew to the window opposite. The sun was a red ball on the horizon, and thickening bands of cloud flamed in a display that outdid any fireworks show he had ever seen.
“ ‘What is man, that thou art mindful of him?’ ” murmured Lady Tyndall. She was seated in a chair by the window, angled to look out. She motioned him to another, set opposite at an equivalent angle, as the maid laid out the tea things on a small table between them.
Man is—Alec thought but didn’t say—as far as we know, the only creature able to appreciate a sunset, and it is a crime to kill him.
He would have preferred to face her directly, but failing that he turned his chair slightly towards her before he sat down.
She looked much less fragile than last night, but he couldn’t tell how much the change was due to the healthy glow imparted by the pink light of the evening sky. She was, at least, more composed.
“I hope you like Lapsang Souchong, Mr. Fletcher,” she said, holding the teapot poised over a flowery, gold-rimmed porcelain cup. “It is my favourite at this time of day. But Bella can bring something else if you prefer.”
“Lapsang Souchong will do very well, thank you, Lady Tyndall.”
“Milk? Lemon? Sugar? Please help yourself to sandwiches and cake. Thank you, Bella, that will be all.”
“A little milk, no sugar, thanks.” As he had feared, teatime was already interfering with the interview. Though a cuppa was welcome, he had no intention of encumbering himself with mouthfuls of food.
“Oh dear, it’s rather strong. Shall I add a little hot water?” She lifted the silver hot-water jug.
“No, thank you, that’s perfect. Lady Tyndall, I’m sorry to have to take you back to last night, but it can’t be helped. You told me you were dismayed that your son invited the Gooches but accepted his right to do so. Your husband was less accommodating. Did he tax your son with his opinion?”
“I believe not.” Her voice was constrained. “I was occupied with our other guests and didn’t watch them, but even Harold would not start a row at a party, and Jack certainly showed no sign of being disturbed. Not until . . .afterwards.”
“After the fireworks.”
“The . . .? Oh, yes, the missing rockets. I’d almost forgotten. That fuss was almost too much for me, on top of the strain of entertaining a large number of people.”
“You must have been tempted to stay in the warm house when everyone went outside.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Her smile was sudden, charming. “But I confess I made up my mind not to mingle with the throng, making polite conversation. Everyone would presume I was talking to someone else.”
“You were at leisure, then, to watch the rest. Did you see Sir Harold or Mrs. Gooch or anyone else go inside?”
“No,” she answered quickly—too quickly. “I was watching the fireworks. I knew Harold would ask me about them later. You must understand that he spent months planning the show. He was very secretive, like a child with a new toy he doesn’t want to share.
That’s why the display had to be constructed at the last minute, so that no one could guess the details.
And afterwards, he always wanted everyone to say how wonderful it was.
It combined his two passions: family tradition and gunpowder explosions. ”
The vigour of her words was belied by a fading tone, like a gramophone in need of winding. Alec sipped his tea, letting the ensuing pause lengthen.
Experience suggested she had worked out in advance exactly what to say. She was protecting someone, and she had no conceivable reason to protect Gooch, or Miller. She had seen one of her family, one of her children, enter the house.
In silence, Alec considered the four. Adelaide: No hint of a motive had come to light.
Barbara: The greed for land was a powerful force, but would she have killed for the chance not to own but to manage the estate for her brother?
Gwen: Call it love, lust, or simply a biological urge to reproduce, it was a drive as powerful as greed, and Sir Harold had tried to thwart her last chance in a world where women her age vastly outnumbered the surviving men; she might kill her father, but the woman she’d first met just the previous day?
There remained Jack, with his overwhelming reasons for wanting both the baronet and Mrs. Gooch out of his way.
Whichever way one looked at it, Jack Tyndall was in the centre of the picture.
His motive was still greater if he really was the woman’s son, but if such was the case, why would Lady Tyndall deny it?
Why should she lie to the police to protect the young man her husband had forced her to pass off as her own?
“May I pour you another cup?” Few could resist filling a silence that stretched so long and Lady Tyndall eventually succumbed, though not with the helpful gush of words Alec had hoped for.
“Yes, please.”
“I’m afraid it’s steeped rather too long.
” After emptying the dregs from his cup into the matching slop basin, she poured simultaneous streams of tea and hot water through the silver strainer.
Her hands were as steady as if she were entertaining a close friend, not a police detective in a murder enquiry.
But now that the sunset glow was fading, her face showed the strain—parchment-pale, with a pinched look about the mouth.
“It’s getting dark. Shall I turn on a light?” Alec suggested. He wanted to be able to see her expression, so, not waiting for her response, he reached up to switch on the standard lamp behind his chair.
It had scarcely clicked on when her personal maid came in, her status made plain by the lack of cap and apron.
She ignored Alec. “Now, my lady, you’ll be getting chilled there by the window.
Come over to the fire, do. I’ll poke it up nice and draw the curtains and move the tray for you.
Why, you haven’t eaten a thing. You must keep your strength up, my lady, indeed you must.”
Bustling about, she suited action to words and resettled Lady Tyndall by the fireplace with a shawl over her knees and a plate with a slice of cherry cake before her.
“Thank you, Mendicott, but I’m not hungry, I’m afraid.”
Rejoining her, Alec made up his mind: Tomorrow, if not this evening, he was going to start questioning people at Constable Blount’s station house in the village to avoid the constant interruptions at Edge Manor.
As soon as the maid closed the door behind her, he said, “I understand Mr. Tyndall was born abroad.”
The morsel of cake she was listlessly breaking from the slice crumbled.
“Oh, how clumsy of me.” She pushed the plate away and wiped her fingers on her napkin with a nervous motion.
“Yes, Jack was born in Switzerland. Bearing children didn’t agree with me, you see.
I was quite ill when Gwen was born. So when we were expecting another, it was thought advisable that I should try a different climate and complete rest. Harold was .
. . was very good. He stayed with me most of the time, though he’d rather have been at home.
We brought Jack home when he was six weeks old.
His birth was registered here, of course.
There’s no question of his not being British. ”
As before, she ran out of steam, or, more likely, out of the speech she had prepared.
Alec told himself it didn’t necessarily mean she was attempting to mislead him.
An elderly lady of her class, unused to dealing with the police, might well think it a good idea to arrange her thoughts beforehand, especially after breaking down the previous evening.
The stiff-upper-lip ethos tended to be even stronger among the “county” families than the aristocracy.
Though, in Alec’s opinion, anyone might be forgiven for hysterics when informed her husband had shot and killed a woman, a virtual stranger, and himself.
The second blow, the claim that her son was not her own, she was taking with more outward calm, whether because it was not true or because she had been half-expecting it for twenty-one years.
With luck, Ernie Piper would discover the truth among the late doctor’s papers.
Alec saw no point in putting the question to Lady Tyndall again at present.
Again the silence lengthened. This time, it was shattered by a knock on the door, followed by the irruption into the sitting room of Mrs. Yarborough.
“Mother! I’ve brought your grandsons to comfort you.”
Lady Tyndall closed her eyes and appeared to utter a silent prayer. Alec regarded with interest the two boys who had almost certainly committed an assault on a motorist, causing grievous bodily harm, which would certainly have landed them in prison had they been older.
Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. They were scrubbed to a glow, hair slicked down, ties neatly knotted, shirts tucked into their shorts, jacket pockets flat instead of bulging with the bits and bobs boys customarily collect. Even their socks were pulled up to the knee and their shoes shone.
“Good afternoon, Grandmama,” they chorused. “We’re very sorry about Grandpapa.” But as they spoke, they stared at Alec.
“Mummy, is that the Scotland Yard ’tec?” the elder whispered.