Naughty In Nice (23 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

BOOK: Naughty In Nice
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“Well, it does seem that way,” I said. “That’s why I think we should call the police—and just pray they don’t send out the same awful inspector.”
“You’d better do it, Coco,” Mummy said carelessly. “You know how bad my French is.”
Coco went into the hall and we heard her rattling away on the telephone in French, “Yes—a man floating in his pool. Of course he appears to be dead. Nobody lies in a pool without moving unless he is dead. And yes, you should send someone out immediately.” She replaced the receiver. “Idiots, all of them.”
About fifteen minutes later a police motorcar drew up outside and we were relieved to see that it contained two smart young gendarmes. They were most polite and almost in awe of Coco as she ushered them through to the terrace and then pointed down at the body.
“Do you happen to know who this man is?” one of the policemen asked.
“Yes. Sir Toby Groper. He owns the villa,” Mummy said. “At least I presume it is he. We can’t see his face, but the body looks like him. Disgustingly fat around the middle.”
“How long ago did you discover this shocking scene?” the young man asked.
“We only just arrived home to be greeted by Lady Georgiana with the news,” Vera said.
“And I had only just made the discovery myself,” I said quickly. “I was on my way into the house to call the police when my”—I was going to say “my mother” but I changed it rapidly—“when these ladies came home. I had just got back myself from an afternoon at a friend’s house.”
I saw Coco and Vera give each other a glance. I saw them comprehend what I had realized a few minutes earlier—that I had been on Sir Toby’s yacht and was probably one of the last people to see him alive. For all they knew, I only just left him a minute or two before the murder. This put me in a difficult position. I was glad that I had been with Jean-Paul. At least the police would believe him if he told them that Sir Toby was alive and well when I leaped off his boat. Oh, dear—that wouldn’t look good either, would it? I decided that for once silence would be golden.
The young gendarme began to cross the terrace on his way back to the front door. Then he turned back to us. “Does this Sir Toby live alone at his villa?”
“His wife was in town yesterday,” I said. “I saw her checking into the Negresco, so I don’t believe she was staying at the villa.”
“Why was that, do you think?” the policeman asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I don’t know Lady Groper,” I said. “And I also met his son at the casino, but I couldn’t tell you where he was staying—with friends, I gather.”
“So none of them was staying with the poor papa?” he asked. “Does this not seem strange?”
“As I said, we don’t know the family,” Vera said firmly.
“So he would have been in the house alone, apart from the servants?”
“We don’t know,” Coco said, sounding rather irritated now. “Madame Daniels, who owns this villa, has no social contact with her neighbor.”
“Then we will trouble you no more.” The young gendarmes bowed and left us. The moment they had gone the three women turned on me. “You said you spent the afternoon with a friend. So you didn’t go to Sir Toby after all?” Coco asked.
“I did go,” I said. “I went out on his yacht. But then Jean-Paul came by in his speedboat and I went off with him to his villa.”
I saw Mummy’s eyebrows rise.
“Where he treated me like a perfect gentleman,” I said. “Unlike Sir Toby, who tried to make a horrible pass at me. Groper was a good name for him. He was all hands.”
“The nasty little swine,” Mummy said. “It’s too bad he’s dead. I’d have liked to deliver a knee where it could have done some damage.” (You can tell at times that she wasn’t born a lady, can’t you? But I have to say I didn’t disagree with her.)
“I think it might be best, given the circumstances, if you don’t reveal the full details of what happened on Sir Toby’s yacht,” Coco said carefully. “Seeing that someone may have hit him over the head.”
“You don’t think anyone could imagine that Georgiana was somehow involved in his death!” Mummy said indignantly. “That’s absurd.”
“To us, yes. But to an annoying little
inspecteur
who can’t see past the end of his nose, he might jump at such an available suspect.”
“I can’t lie to the police,” I said.
“No, but you can truthfully say that you went for a sail with Sir Toby earlier in the day and later were with the marquis. Thank God he’s a respected alibi!”
As she finished speaking there was a pounding on the front door. Mummy went to open it, arriving before her maid. A worried-looking Johnson was standing there.
“Sorry to trouble you, ma’am,” he said, “but I’ve just come back from town and there seems to be a police vehicle blocking the entrance to Sir Toby’s driveway. I wondered if you knew anything about it.”
“And you are?” Mummy asked, in her best ex-duchess voice.
“Johnson, ma’am. Sir Toby’s manservant. I just wondered if something had happened.”
“Yes, it has,” Mummy said. “Your employer is lying facedown in his swimming pool.”
The color drained from Johnson’s face. “Dead, you mean? Sir Toby has drowned? But that’s not possible. He was an excellent swimmer. Besides”—he paused, thinking—“how can he be here at all? He went out on the yacht today and I saw the yacht in the old port when I was coming back from town.”
“I’m afraid we didn’t really know your master,” Mummy said. “But the police are at the villa. You’d better go down there and see if you can help them with their inquiries.”
“Oh, dear. I don’t know how I’m going to do that,” Johnson said. “My French is nonexistent. I had trouble in town today trying to carry out Sir Toby’s various commissions.”
“Doesn’t he have any French-speaking servants?” Coco asked.
“Only Marie, the cook, and it was her half day off.”
“So the house was empty,” I said.
He looked at me, as if he was seeing me for the first time. “Yes, the house was empty for the afternoon. I don’t know how or why Sir Toby came back. He knew Marie was off and that I would be kept all afternoon trying to muddle my way through the things he wanted done.” He looked at me again. “But you were on the yacht with him. You must know of his movements.”
“I left his yacht quite early in the day,” I said. “A friend came to the yacht to collect me in his motorboat, so I never saw in which direction Sir Toby eventually sailed. It was heading for Monte Carlo at the time I chose to leave.”
“I see.” He was frowning, trying to read the full meaning of my words.
“We all just arrived home,” I said, “and we happened to spot the body in the swimming pool.”
“It’s too bad, isn’t it?” Johnson made a face. “I thought I’d landed myself a plum job for once and I’d be in clover. Now I’m back to square one.” He sighed. “Oh, well. I suppose I’d better go down and face the music. I hope one of the policemen speaks some English. I don’t suppose one of you would like to come down and translate for me?”
“Certainly not,” Vera said. “Such impudence, talking to your betters like that.”
Johnson flushed. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean what I said. I meant one of your servants, of course. I’m just so flustered at the news. I won’t trouble you any longer.”
He hurried out. Mummy closed the door behind him. “What an extraordinary young man.”
“He was obviously very upset,” I said. “And frightened of dealing with foreign policemen. I can’t say I blame him. He’ll have to try to explain his own movements, won’t he?”
“Luckily for him he’s arrived back in the car to find the entrance blocked,” Mummy said. “That pretty much guarantees that he was not pushing his master into a swimming pool.”
“Why would he want to, anyway?” I said. “He’s upset that he’s lost such a good position. If he had been the one to hit his master over the head, he’d have absconded with some of Sir Toby’s art treasures.” As I said this I felt a horrid flush rising on my face, because stealing a treasure was exactly what I had planned to do. Thank heavens I hadn’t been caught in the house with the snuffbox in my hand and Sir Toby lying dead in the pool. That would have looked bad for me, wouldn’t it?
Suddenly Coco ran to the front door and wrenched it open again. “Young man, wait,” she called. Johnson was already at our gate. He turned and looked back hopefully.
“We have decided to be gracious and come and help you in your need,” she said.
“Have you gone mad?” Vera hissed. “We don’t want to get involved with the French police. You know what they are like.”
“But,
chérie
, we can’t miss out on the chance to witness a real crime scene. Everyone will invite us to dinner to hear the gory details. Come on. Where is your sense of adventure?”
She started off down the drive toward the young man. Mummy’s face also had an expectant smile on it. “I’ve been dying to see around his place,” she said. “Come on, Vera. Georgie.”
Vera gave me a resigned look and followed along. So did I. Two conflicting thoughts were going through my head. One was that there might be a remote chance that I could put the queen’s snuffbox into my pocket when nobody was looking. It would probably be my only opportunity. On the other hand my more sensible side, the side that took after my austere great-grandmother, was whispering that it might not go down very well with the police if I were caught pocketing an item from a murder scene—especially since it might come up that I had been out with Sir Toby on his yacht that morning. Still, curiosity won out over my qualms and I followed the others down Sir Toby’s long, sweeping drive.
 
Chapter 21
 
At the villa of Sir Toby Groper (deceased)
January 26, 1933
 
One of the gendarmes was speaking into a telephone as we entered.
“Yes, sir, I would say that foul play cannot be ruled out. Yes, I suggest that we do notify the detectives in Nice to come to inspect the scene. I have not moved the body or touched anything.” He hung up and turned to stare at us.
“What are you doing here, ladies?” he asked. “You have something to tell us about this tragic incident?”
“This young man is the servant of Sir Toby Groper,” Coco said. “He has just arrived home in his master’s automobile and found the driveway blocked by your police vehicle. He came to our house and was most distressed by the news about his master. I am sure you will wish to ask him questions, and since he speaks no French, we have volunteered to help him.”
“Four lady interpreters?” the gendarme raised an eyebrow. “A very fortunate young man.”
“I accompanied Madame Chanel because it was not right that she had to endure an unpleasant situation alone,” Vera said. “And naturally these other ladies did not wish to remain home alone, knowing there might still be a murderer at large in the area.”
“Murderer?” the policeman asked sharply, glancing at his colleague, who had just come in from the pool area. “Who said anything about murder?”
“One has to consider all possibilities,” Vera said quickly.
“Men do not often fall into their own swimming pools and die.”
“He could have had a heart attack,” the first gendarme said.
“The water around him appeared to be pink, indicating that he had been bleeding,” Vera said.
“He could have slipped on the wet cement and hit his head,” commented the gendarme who had just entered. His colleague turned to him. “I think you should stay by the body until the inspector arrives. We should not allow it to be tampered with in any way.”
“Who could tamper with it?” the other gendarme demanded. “It is in a swimming pool halfway down a cliff, cut off from the world.”
“There are also buzzards and seagulls,” the first gendarme said. “They will be attracted to this kind of corpse.”
The other gendarme, who looked as if he was fresh out of training school, turned decidedly green. “I will stay with the body,” he said and retreated again. The first gendarme turned to us. “It is interesting that you suspect a murder, however. Perhaps you know more about this matter than you are revealing to us. You English know much about the various intrigues that go on when you come to the Riviera.”

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