Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (70 page)

He shook his fair head slowly, still staring down at the note. “There was nothing up with old Crump either,” he remarked bitterly. “So my telephone call was a hoax as well. Someone wanted me out of the way while he tried to murder you.”

There was a long silence. One of the servants had lit the fire in the hall and it crackled merrily. All the clocks in the great house began to chime the midnight hour, from the deep bong-bong-bong of the grandfather clocks downstairs to the silvery tinkle of the French clocks in the salons on the first floor.

“Well, I must say,” twittered Lady Bertha, “nothing like this would have ever happened at dear Chennington before.”

“So
sad
,” sighed Lady Mary. “I feel as if the peace of one of England’s greatest homes has been broken forever….”

The elegant Lady Tilly disappeared in a flash and the old tomboy emerged as Lady Tilly rounded on the aunts in a fury.

“Oh, go to bed, you troublemaking old frumps!” she yelled.

“That’s the stuff, Tilly!” said Toby Bassett, grinning.

“And don’t say you’ve never been so insulted,” pursued Tilly, her face flushed and her bosom heaving, “cos with your rotten, spiteful manners I’m sure you have,
many times!
”

“Well!” was all the bridling and snorting aunts could muster, their feather headdresses shaking with rage.

“Quite right, my dear,” came the faint voice of Mrs. Plumb from a dark corner, startling them all. “Mary and Bertha were always a nuisance, even as gels. I remember when you, Bertha, wanted to run off with that waiter from Brown’s Hotel and you, Mary—”

But that was as far as she got. With a frantic rustling of silk skirts, the aunts fled to the safety of their rooms.

The marquess put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and led her into the drawing room. Toby followed silently behind.

They sat in silence for a few moments and then the marquess spread out Francine’s letter, which he had crushed in his hand. “You don’t think,” he said slowly, “that it could have been a woman up that tree? I mean, someone could have been paying Francine…”

Tilly angrily shook her head. “Francine’s the best friend I ever had. She would never do anything to hurt me. That note may be a forgery.”

Masters was sent to bring down Francine’s book, which itemized the contents of Tilly’s jewel box and lace safe, and the handwriting in the book exactly matched that of the note.

Masters coughed discreetly. “The dogcart has been taken round to the stables, my lord. The horse has sustained no hurt. I cannot understand it, my lord. The horse was Dapple, a very mild-mannered gelding.”

“Thank you, Masters,” said the marquess. “That will be all. No, wait a bit. Bring us something to drink.”

“May I suggest champagne, my lord?” said Masters. “A couple of bottles of Dom Pérignon would have a soothing, yet enlivening effect.”

“Just so,” replied the marquess with a ghost of a smile. “By all means let us be soothed and enlivened.”

Tilly stared miserably at her husband. Everything had been so perfect and now it was all spoiled by this brooding fear. Her husband looked heartbreakingly handsome as he lay back in his chair, with the soft glow from the lamp beside him gilding his hair, the faded blue of his jumper bringing out the startling blue of his eyes.

The arrival of the champagne caused a little bustle. Toby looked at it thoughtfully, but to everyone’s surprise, declined.

“Something happened to me at the vicarage,” he said. “I suddenly thought I might settle down and get married myself, and no nice girl would want a fellow around who was always drunk.”

Despite her misery, Tilly could not refrain from flashing a triumphant look at the marquess. So Toby had fallen for the pretty Emily after all!

“I may leave for London tomorrow,” went on Toby. “I’ll pop into the vicarage before I go. There’s something I want to see the old man about. You know, I don’t suppose any of us feel sleepy with all this mystery. I, for one, would love to take a stroll down the drive to take a look at that place where Cyril was supposed to have overturned.”

“Waste of time,” said the marquess gloomily. “Sir Charles isn’t the sort to lie. As a matter of fact, it’s a miracle the old martinet could even bear Cyril’s company for two seconds, let alone a whole evening!”

“Oh, let’s go!” said Tilly suddenly, finding the effects of the champagne were all that Masters had promised. “I can’t sleep. I feel I want to do
something
.”

“Very well,” said her husband, getting to his feet. “It’s a fine night and a walk will probably do us all good. I’m amazed at your stamina, Tilly.”

Tilly suddenly wondered if he would have preferred her to be more feminine, more weak and ailing.
But, goodness knows
, thought poor Tilly,
I couldn’t be more frightened!

Stars burned and blazed above in a deep, dark sky as the threesome made their way down the long drive. The air was cool and sweet and heavy with the scent of grass and flowers. But somewhere in this garden of English Eden lurked a serpent, and that thought seemed to make the very peace of the night sinister.

They walked out into the road, chalky white in the moonlight; moonlight so bright that every small pebble cast a small, sharpedged black shadow.

Toby held up the lantern as they moved slowly along. “This’ll be it,” he said at last. “Look at those bits of broken wood in the ditch. Funny the dogcart should have been so smashed up. There are only those two rocks and they’re pretty smooth.”

The three stood and studied the scene of the accident in silence.

There was nothing to see except a few pieces of polished wood, lying in thin splinters on the shaggy, dew-laden grass at the edge of the road.

“Let’s go back…” the marquess was beginning, when Tilly screamed in pure terror. “There’s something watching us from behind that tree,” she cried. “I saw its eyes in the moonlight. It’s
horrible
.”

The marquess shoved her into Toby’s arms and plunged into the woods in the direction she had pointed. There was the sound of a scuffle, then a sharp protest, and then the marquess appeared, dragging behind him what appeared to be a furious bundle of rags.

Revealed by the moonlight, an old tramp stood wriggling in the marquess’s grasp.

“Leggo, guv,” he protested. “You’re abreaking of me arm.”

“I’ll break a lot more than your arm, fellow,” said the marquess, giving him a shake. “What the bloody hell do you mean by spying on us?”

“I didn’t mean nothin’, guv,” whined the tramp. “I was asleep and I ’eard your gentry voices, like, so I says to meself, I says, they’re still maybe playin’ games, like, and maybe if I’m smartish, they’ll give me sumpin’ as well.”

“We are not playing games. We are—What do you mean, give you something as well?”

“Like the other cove did. Leggo, you’re a-hurtin’ me.”

The marquess relaxed his grip. “Look, my man, a gentleman claims he had an accident at this corner. Did you see it?”

“’Appen I did,” said the tramp with a slow grin.

“Well, tell us! Out with it!”

“’Ow much?”

“Oh, you conniving rascal. Here!” The marquess dug in the pocket of his venerable flannels and pulled out two sovereigns. “No, you don’t,” he said as the tramp made a grab at the gold. “Story first.”

“Well, it be like this,” said the tramp. Tilly, shivering in Toby’s arms, wondered vaguely why he smelled of her own perfume and then forgot it as the tramp began to speak.

“This ’ere gentry cove,” went on the tramp, “I seen ’im right ’ere and ’e ’ad this carriage on its side, like, and ’e was a-stovin’ the side in with a rock. ’E sees me and ’e says like ’ow it’s a bit of a joke and ’ow ’e’ll give me a guinea for to keep me peepers closed, so to speak. Right, guv, says I, thinking as ’ow there’s no ’arm in a fellow breaking up ’is own carriage cos, savin’ your presence, guv, the swells do get up to some nifty goings-on. I ’member the time young Lord—”

“Enough!” The marquess handed him the money. “Now, take yourself off. You’re quite right. It was only a joke after all.”

“I say, Philip,” protested Toby, “hadn’t you better keep tabs on him? He’ll be needed as a witness.”

“’Ere, not me!” cried the tramp, alarmed. “I ain’t ’aving the rozzers after me.” And with that, he plunged back into the trees with amazing agility.

“Let him go,” said the marquess as Toby tried to follow. “We shall telephone Sir Charles… no, no… we’ll
call
on him and get to the bottom of this. I shall deal with Cyril myself. My name has been bandied about the press enough as it is. Cyril must have faked the accident to account for the cuts and bruises he received when Tilly kicked him out the tree.”

It took another three quarters of an hour before the marquess’s brougham, driven by a sleepy coachman, deposited them in front of Sir Charles’s mansion. It was a big, brooding, ugly barracks of a place, the windows shuttered and eyeless against the still night.

After what seemed like ages of pounding on the door and ringing the bell, a footman, half in and half out of his livery, answered the door. He was just protesting that he would not dare disturb his master at such a late hour of the night when a candle flickered on the staircase behind him and the majestic figure of Sir Charles Ponte could be seen descending, despite his attire of long flannel nightshirt, red wooly nightcap, and morocco slippers.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sir Charles…” began the marquess.

“So I should damn well think,” roared Sir Charles. “That you, Heppleford? Well, I must say this is too much by half. I’m a good sort. I like party games and all that twaddle myself and I’m willing to play along, but not if it means I’m to be rousted from my bed in the middle of the deuced night. Is that right, or isn’t it right?” demanded Sir Charles, betraying a surprising knowledge of the current small talk, where repeating questions was all the rage.

“It isn’t a party game,” said the marquess patiently. “And I certainly wouldn’t get you out of bed on such a trivial matter. I simply want to know if Cyril Nettleford was here this evening.”

“Well, isn’t that just what I’ve been saying?” roared Sir Charles. “Course he was here.”

Three hearts sank.

“And I must say,” went on the enraged Sir Charles, “I would have thought at your age, Heppleford, you would have got over these schoolboyish pranks. Murder, indeed! Pah!” he added, with true Palmerstonian vehemence.

The marquess stiffened. “Look, Sir Charles,” he said in a quiet, tense voice. “I am not playing silly buggers. I am in deadly earnest. Someone attacked Lady Tilly tonight and I believe that person to have been Cyril Nettleford. But he claims he spent the evening with you and now you confirm it. And what’s this about murder?”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Sir Charles, scratching his gray hair and knocking his nightcap to the side of his head in the process. “You’d better come in. Bassett’s with you, I see. Dear, dear, dear. Lady Tilly? Oh, my stars and garters! Here, Henry, fetch my dressing gown. Here’s a how-de-do,” he remarked, unconsciously Gilbertian. “Come in! Come in!”

They followed him into a small salon and waited impatiently, for Sir Charles would not talk until his nightshirt was hidden from the modest gaze of Lady Tilly in the enveloping folds of a huge brown dressing gown.

“Now,” he barked. “This is what happened. That creature Nettleford turns up here. Don’t like the fellow. Never have. But he’s a relative of yours, Heppleford. He says you’re all playing a game of Murder and he’s the murderer and part of the game is to establish an alibi. He says you will phone me late in the evening and ask me if he’s been here and I’m to say yes. That’s all. I was so relieved the bounder wasn’t staying, I agreed. Anything to get rid of him, don’t you know, or don’t you? What a business. I’ll call the magistrate right away.”

“No,” said the marquess slowly. “I’ll handle this myself. And I would be deeply indebted to you, Sir Charles, if you would forget about the whole thing. We don’t want to stand in court and suffer the consequent publicity for a worm like Cyril.”

“That’s the stuff, my lad!” said Sir Charles enthusiastically. “Horsewhip the cur!”

They rose to take their leave, Tilly shaken, relieved, and disappointed all at once. She was glad the mystery of her attacker was solved, but she would have loved to have seen Cyril in the dock at the Old Bailey.

When the threesome reached home again, Tilly was told firmly to go to bed and stay there and to put the pillow over her ears if necessary. The marquess and Toby Bassett went off to Cyril’s rooms.

Tilly lay awake for a long time, wincing as sinister thumps and bangs echoed through the silent house.
I’ll never sleep again
, she thought.
Never!
And on that thought she plunged far down into a long and dreamless sleep, while at the other end of the corridor the honor of the Hepplefords was being well and truly avenged.

Tilly descended the stairs on a bright, sunny morning to find the house still and quiet. She felt very cold and slightly sick, a reaction to her experience of the night before.

Mr. Masters, Mrs. Judd, and Mrs. Comfrey were waiting for Tilly in the morning room, bursting with news. His lordship, they said, had gone to pack Mr. Cyril off to Singapore and had even said he was going to buy him a forty-four pound first-class ticket, whereas, in the opinion of the three upper servants, Master Cyril should have been sent steerage. His lordship had also sent his aunts packing and told them not to show their faces at Chennington again until they could show a proper respect for his wife. Mrs. Plumb had also left.

“But is that
all
that’s going to happen to Cyril?” asked Tilly, amazed.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Comfrey. “You don’t want no scandal, my lady. It’s always the best thing. Send ’em to the Colonies and let ’em try their evil tricks on the heathens. I don’t hold with all them courts and newspapers and things. Best to do things in the good old way.”

Mr. Masters coughed delicately. “I may add, my lady,” he said, “that Mr. Cyril had two of the most lovely black eyes you ever did see.”