Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman (22 page)

“Well, Chief Inspector, this is my house; of course I was asleep in my own room!” He was rather taken aback by the man's impudence.

“If you spent the remainder of the night alone in your room, then you don't have an alibi who can vouch for your whereabouts until six o'clock on Sunday morning.”

“An alibi? I have just told you, Chief Inspector, I was asleep in my bed.” He was beginning to feel confused.

“When your valet left you in your room, you could have dressed, left the house, and murdered your nephew at any time between half past four and six o'clock in the morning. There would be plenty of time for you to accomplish this, Lord Montfort.”

Lord Montfort stood quite still with his brows down, in complete silence. The sergeant scribbled away frantically behind him on the window seat. Still he did not speak and, aware that Valentine was standing in the window, fuming, was careful not to look in his direction.

“I understand Mr. Mallory had run up considerable debts both in London and among friends, and had been expelled from Oxford for extortion. You are his guardian so he must have been a liability both to your bank account and your family's reputation. It would be understandable—”

“Not to me, Chief Inspector.” Irate and perplexed, Lord Montfort could not quite take in that within minutes of arriving in his house, this police officer was accusing him of murder.

“Lord Montfort, until you can produce an alibi for the time in question, you are naturally a suspect. This is an official police investigation.”

“It is also an investigation that touches my personal life, Chief Inspector Ewan, and an intrusion. I would appreciate a little more courtesy.” His voice was cold.

“I beg pardon if I have offended you, but I cannot be clearer than I have. You are either a suspect or not, based on the facts available. Your household has been placed in a serious situation with very serious consequences. Is there anything else you would like to say?”

Lord Montfort glanced over at Valentine, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, shifting small change, outraged on the earl's behalf.

“My valet left me in my room between half past four to five o'clock. Check the exact time with him if you wish. From then until ten o'clock in the morning I was with my wife in her room. I understand the necessity of your questions but I find your manner impertinent and needlessly invasive.”

“In which case I apologize and thank you, Lord Montfort, for providing yourself with an alibi. I need trouble you no further.”

“I sincerely hope you do not intend to corroborate what I have just told you with Lady Montfort.”

“I am afraid that I must, Lord Montfort.”

“Then I hope you will take care with your manners when you do so, Chief Inspector.”

“I will do my utmost to phrase my question to the countess very carefully indeed, Lord Montfort.”

Having been thoroughly and unnecessarily insulted, Lord Montfort recognized quite sadly that Ewan was oblivious of how rude he had been.

He left the room, convinced that the world he had known had changed quite drastically for the worse, and felt only deep embarrassment for his friends. They would all be put through the same wretched experience. He was not a prude about his friends' personal lives. He had never been interested in any woman other than his wife from the day he had met her. But he was a realist, and without wishing to know the details, he knew that this was not the case with most of the people he knew. Ewan's probing and prying would be acutely awkward for at least half of his guests, of that he had no doubt. He hoped that Mrs. Thwaite had a decent luncheon organized, because they were all going to need it. He went into his study and rang for his butler.

“What is planned for luncheon, Hollyoak?”

“I believe we are to have roast chicken with foie gras stuffing and
pommes sarladaise
with truffles and garden peas, my lord. A cold consommé to begin and an apricot tart with cream for pudding.”

“Good, then bring up some Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux, the 1910 will do, and make sure you bring plenty of it. Now where is Lady Montfort?”

“On the south lawn, your lordship. Lord Haversham and Mr. Ellis are giving the ladies an archery lesson.”

Off Lord Montfort went, still bemused at the state of the world he now inhabited, to find his wife. As he drew near he was impressed to see that she had just sent an arrow straight into the middle of the butt, standing quite eighty feet distant. Her son cheered and Harriet Lambert-Lambert reached out and gave Clementine a little pat, as Constance and Olive let out peals of laughter.

“Clemmy, Harry must have been giving you lessons on the quiet. You are usually hopeless. Come on, Harry, show us how to hit the target!” There was more laughter, and Lord Montfort decided that the kindest thing he could do was to let them enjoy their few minutes of simple pleasure, because the top man from Scotland Yard was certainly going to wipe some smiles off a few faces by this afternoon.

 

Chapter Twenty-one

In spite of Ewan's impertinent manner when she met with him and his determination that she divulge whom she had slept with on the night of the ball, which she found both provocative and intriguing, Clementine was in good spirits that afternoon. Apart from Ewan's arrival at Iyntwood, which was having a profoundly dismal effect on their friends, the second thing of great moment that had happened that day, anticipated by her family with interest if not with absolute enthusiasm, was the arrival of Teddy's mother at Haversham Hall.

Hollyoak had informed her that Mrs. Mallory had arrived on the half-past-eleven express train from Marylebone, accompanied by the Talbot s' eldest, married daughter, Lady Verity de Lamballe. Lady Verity would stop for luncheon with her grandmother at Haversham Hall and then in the early afternoon drive over to Iyntwood. Her arrival was anticipated by her parents with the greatest of pleasure. Verity was outgoing with a sunny disposition and was a huge favorite of everyone. Her lively presence would provide a distraction from the dreaded horrors of the policeman from London, Clementine thought, and it would be delightful to spend time with her daughter again.

After an enjoyable afternoon with Verity, Lord and Lady Montfort were expected at the dower house for tea to pay their respects to Christina Mallory. At half past four her husband was waiting for her in the hall when she came down the stairs, pulling on her gloves and adjusting her hat. Together they walked outside to the pony and chaise and with Lord Montfort driving off they went into a dripping afternoon with a sullen gray south horizon and intermittent bursts of bright sky and sunshine as clouds moved overhead. The trees sparkled in the changing light, showering tiny crystal drops on them as they bowled through the park. They jogged along the narrow lane, under a high overarching roof of green boughs full of shadowy light, like the nave of a great gothic cathedral.

All too soon the tall iron gates of Haversham Hall appeared on their left, and the pony picked up his pace as they turned into the gravel drive. On either side, towering rhododendrons, in the last of their garish flower, formed a high bank, obscuring a perfect view of the park.

Clementine was a proponent of the charming and comfortable country house. She had never liked Haversham Hall; it was a house full of dusty carpets, looming ceilings, and an overabundance of stained glass. Built in 1840, at the height of England's philistine years as far as architecture was concerned, Clementine found the house unwelcoming and ugly: stuffy and airless in summer, drafty and cold in winter.

Her husband helped her down from the snug rustic comfort of the pony chaise and the vast doors swung open to reveal Stevens, the dowager's elderly butler, bowing deeply to both of them, as if they had arrived at the Court of Saint James. The hall was a cavernous and echoing chamber large enough for a tennis court, with a double staircase in a deep, brownish red marble that always reminded her of raw liver. Huge stained-glass windows cut out any opportunity for light, making the hall as welcoming as a tomb. The echo and bone-chilling cold made Clementine feel depressed and hopeless the moment she arrived. Whatever the weather, she always dressed in her warmest clothes and rarely surrendered her coat to the butler on arrival. In winter she wore woolen undergarments. Preceding them through the echoing hallway, Stevens took them to the east drawing room, where the dowager had chosen to take her tea.

Clementine, used to the warm, well-lit rooms of her house, shivered. She noticed a sad little heap of logs trying its best in a baronial fireplace big enough to roast an ox in. Because the house was in mourning, the heavy green-velvet curtains were drawn tightly across the windows, shutting out all natural daylight. Some ugly lamps had been lit—there was no electricity in Haversham Hall. She huddled her fur collar farther up around her neck and chose to believe that up in the shadowy heights there was a ceiling somewhere, presently obscured from view by the gloom.

Crossing the room, she went over to her mother-in-law, Sylvia, the Dowager Countess of Montfort, sitting behind a battery of tarnished Georgian silver, pouring tea. She was a diminutive woman. Her slight figure and her fluting, high-pitched voice gave her the deceptive appearance of a fragile girl even though, Clementine had calculated, she must be well into her seventies. Clementine knew she did not have her mother-in-law's approval and had accurately guessed that the dowager considered her a brash arriviste from the outer edges of the empire, where she had grown up surrounded by pagan gods, rabid dogs, dirt, disease, and failing drains. Well, at least she had the last part right, thought Clementine.

That she was aware of her mother-in-law's opinion of her and did nothing to try to offset it said much for her self-assurance. She had done her time, endured a million corrections, ignored a thousand snubs, and moved serenely on. Clementine's was indeed the patience of a woman, if not bred to the muddy-English-manor born, one who had brought to her position more élan and generosity of spirit than the Talbots had seen in centuries. It was this thought that gave her comfort as she arrived before the dowager.

Clementine always maintained scrupulously good manners toward her mama-in-law and kept any opinion that might irk or cause ruffled feathers carefully under wraps. Privately she thought the dowager was a cold and selfish woman, ungenerous and reluctant with even the smallest of considerations. Coming as she did from one of the most venerable families in the country put the dowager above such trivialities as welcoming her guests with carefully prepared food in warm and welcoming rooms.

Looking about her, she was happy to see the Reverend Bottomley-Jones sitting in the corner of a huge Victorian wing chair, sipping a cup of lukewarm tea and nibbling a dry cucumber sandwich already curling at the edges. He was one of her favorites, a man of sly wit, great erudition, and small stature. Mr. Bottomley-Jones was talking to Morris Valentine on his left; and on his right, taking up an entire sofa, the one closest to the fire, like someone from a stage play fifteen years earlier, in a welter of silk shawls, little bags, back-dated copies of
The Tatler,
and pages from the
Times Court Circular,
was Christina Mallory. She was dressed in the deepest and blackest of black. And next to Christina, as close to her as she could get, but not upon the sofa, was Lady Booth, also dressed in full mourning and clutching her little dog on her lap.

Clementine watched her husband cross an acre of carpet in a pattern of snaking vines in murky browns and jaundiced yellow to bow over his mother's hand, and then go straight to his sister, who was watching him with tearful and somewhat resentful eyes. He inquired after her journey as he joined her on the sofa, where he devoted his time to her for the rest of their visit. Her responses to his solicitous questions were inaudible to Clementine, but were said with a little smile of effort and a tremor in her voice.

Aha,
she thought,
Christina is playing the brave little woman for now. At least she will behave herself in front of Valentine and Bottomley-Jones
. Clementine walked over to her sister-in-law to offer her condolences and sympathy. But Christina, having used up her limited supply of manners on her brother, found that there was little to say to her. Clementine's mother-in-law followed this up by presenting a cheek that felt like lightly floured uncooked dough for her kiss.

The niceties observed the, dowager countess waved her hand at her teapots and inquired, “Indiah or Chinah?”

Clementine wished ardently that she lived in either and took refuge next to the Reverend Bottomley-Jones.

It seemed at this point that all social exchange had been exhausted. Thank God for Lady Booth, who could always be relied upon to maintain an uninterruptable flow of observations on the manners and habits of others. The afternoon trundled forward, creaking and groaning under the solemn weight of the occasion. Clementine settled in for a nice cozy chat with Mr. Bottomley-Jones, assuring him that of course they would be happy to donate new bellows for the church organ and that she would get together with Mrs. Clemson to finalize details for the summer fete, an annual event held on Iyntwood's south lawn by the lake every August. All proceeds went to the cottage hospital.

As she chatted with Mr. Bottomley-Jones she turned her head a little to take in Lady Booth's conversation with Christina. Her only child had been murdered not less than a week ago and she had been in the country only twenty-four hours, but Clementine was amazed to observe that she was already quite caught up with all the London gossip. Lady Strathdevon had become a Theosophist, overnight, and had recently squandered hundreds of pounds on some post-Impressionist paintings that were so violent in both color and content that her husband had banned them from the house; Lady Constance Lytton had disgraced herself again with her suffragette friends and Emily Lutyens, when everything was going so well for poor Edwin with his architectural plans for New Delhi; and the Marchioness of Quakestone had been seen twice with Sir Thomas Beecham in front of the Strand entrance to the Savoy Hotel and a further three times leaving from the service entrance at the side of the building.