C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) (19 page)

‘That’s all entirely logical,’ I said.

‘Now we know this Judith died in a fall from a hotel balcony in Brighton some time ago. And we’ve been told that the only member of the family who was with her at the time was Connie Worth.’

‘The murder victim.’

‘Precisely. So could there be a connection between this letter, presumably obtained from Judith’s personal belongings at the time of her death, and the murder?’ said Jack, his eyes shining with the discovery.

‘So Connie might have brought the letter with her when she came here from Brighton?’

‘And she can have had only one reason for doing so. Given what we’ve been told about her character—a person known to the youngsters in the house as “The Black Widow” and “The Ice Queen”—it would have been in character for her to attempt blackmail.’

‘Yes, of course!’

‘Then consider the other facts we know,’ Jack continued. ‘She has been chronically short of money since the disappearance of her husband, but young Will saw her with a large sum in cash not long before her death. The need for money gives her a motive for blackmail, and the cash suggests she succeeded.’

‘So bring this back to the murder,’ I said. ‘Blackmail is another crime altogether—how might it lead to these two murders?’

‘It could certainly lead to the first murder,’ said Jack with a knowing grin, ‘since it’s not unheard of for blackmailers to be murdered by their victims.’

‘Logically, that would make Sir William Dyer the murderer of Connie Worth. But Jack,’ I protested, ‘that is physically impossible. He was never even present at the afternoon tea on the terrace where she was poisoned. He was in his room. Keggs the butler saw him there. Even I caught a glimpse of him at one stage in his window up on the first floor. Sir William may have had a motive to kill Connie, but how could he have done it?’

Jack chuckled and said, ‘That’s our next puzzle, isn’t it?’

‘No, no, no, no,’ I protested, as I paced the library floor. ‘I just can’t see it. The sheer physical impossibility of Sir William Dyer getting cyanide into Connie Worth’s slice of cake—and only
her
slice of cake—when he was at least fifty yards away, and he was indoors and she outdoors, makes the thing . . . well . . . what I said . . . utterly physically impossible. Which puts us at a dead end. We’re right back where we started.’

‘Not entirely,’ said Jack. ‘Where there is one blackmail victim there might be more.’

With these words Jack produced from the top pocket of his worn and tatty tweed jacket first a crumpled handkerchief and then the two slips of paper we had found in Connie Worth’s room. He spread these out on the window sill—the slips of paper, not the handkerchief—and invited me to consider them.

‘She was keeping these for a reason,’ said Jack, ‘and keeping them carefully hidden. The question is: what was that reason? Since these receipts are part of the household accounts, I propose that we talk, tactfully, to the staff—simply engage them in conversation—and see if something interesting emerges.’

With me leading the way we set off for the butler’s pantry.

We found Keggs sitting at the small table in his pantry polishing some of the silverware. He was wearing white cotton gloves and using a chamois and a bottle of something called Silv-O (‘It makes your silver sing’, said the label in large letters).

We apologised for the interruption and Jack reminded him that his task (meaning ‘his Jack’s’ not ‘his Keggs’s’—you need to follow me closely here—are you paying attention at the back of the room?) was to investigate the murders in order to clear my name. Would Keggs be happy to help by answering a few questions?

‘I’m sure we all hope, sir, that Mr Morris is cleared of all police suspicions very shortly,’ replied the butler in his best impersonation of Jack’s rich Oxbridge accent.

‘Thank you, Keggs. Now—we know about the people on the terrace on the day Mrs Worth died, but we were wondering about Sir William . . .’

Before these words could become a question, Keggs replied, ‘He was in his study for the entire afternoon, sir. I know he was working hard there because at the end of the day he gave me quite a number of letters to post.’

‘And you saw him there yourself?’ Jack asked.

‘Yes, sir, I took him afternoon tea shortly before service began on the terrace.’

‘Was that the last time you saw him?’

‘No, sir. When I brought him his tea he asked me for a glass of brandy—the good brandy he keeps in the gun room, not the brandy for visitors kept in the decanter in the drawing room. As soon as service was finished on the terrace, I fetched the brandy and took it up to Sir William in his study. In fact, I was standing beside him, sir, when we heard the scream from the terrace and ran to the window to see what was happening.’

This painted an odd picture. I had never seen Keggs run in the many months I had known him: the words ‘run’ and ‘Keggs’ did not seem to belong in the same sentence. Perhaps what he meant was that he glided a little more swiftly than usual.

‘You were at the window together?’ I asked.

‘Indeed, Mr Morris. I was standing right beside Sir William when Mrs Worth collapsed, more or less into your arms.’

I turned to Jack and nodded. My nod was intended to speak volumes. Something along the lines of ‘You see what I mean—utterly physically impossible . . . so cross Sir William off your list of suspects.’ I managed to put all of that into a nod.

Jack must have taken that in—he takes in everything as fast as lightning—but he pursued his cross-examination of the butler.

‘Now, Keggs,’ he said, ‘we have reason to believe that Mrs Worth might have been guilty of blackmail.’

Keggs’s face took on an expression that was a careful amalgam of total astonishment and the impassive, blank look of the good servant. There was also a faint hint of disapproval at the guests gossiping about the household with the servants. He could pack as much into a facial expression as I could into a nod. It’s a gift, I suppose.

‘Does this come as a surprise?’ Jack pursued.

‘I’m quite sure, sir, there’s been no hint of any such thing in the servants’ quarters.’ Now the disapproval was in the icy tone of voice as well as the face.

This, I thought, was not going to get us anywhere, so I thanked Keggs for his time and steered Jack out of the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen.

Mrs Buckingham was sitting at the big table in the middle of the kitchen with a cup of tea. She looked more than ever like a round, sweet bun, with raisins for eyes. Except that she was smiling at us and drinking a cup of tea, which is not really like a bun at all, I suppose. So forget the whole bun thing.

‘Just giving me feet a rest,’ she said. ‘I’ve been baking all morning.’

‘Mrs Buckingham,’ asked Jack, ‘do you mind if we take you back once more to the day of the murder?’

‘Oh, that do give me the shivers, that really do, sir. But if it will help I’m happy to talk to you.’

‘Did Sir William come to your kitchen any time that day?’ Jack asked.

‘Now let me think. Yes, I do believe he called in during the morning. He came to get a key, I think. Yes, I’m sure that’s it. A lot of the keys are on that board beside the door.’ She nodded at the board in question.

I walked over to it and looked for the key Sir William had told us about—the key to the Hunting Tower. There was a peg with a small paper label saying ‘Hunting Tower’, but the peg was empty. I was disappointed. I had intended to pocket the key to be prepared for when Jack and I took our next walk in that direction.

‘Do you know where the key to the Hunting Tower is, Mrs Buckingham?’

‘I haven’t the faintest, dearie,’ she said taking another large, and very loud, sip of tea. ‘It’s been missing for ages.’ Then she picked up a piece of shortbread, dunked it into her tea and began to chew on the soggy result.

‘So on the day of the murder,’ Jack resumed, ‘Sir William visited the kitchen in the morning?’

Mrs Buckingham nodded her round head and blinked her round eyes.

‘Did he return later in the day?’

‘No, dearie, I’m quite certain he didn’t.’

‘He wasn’t here,’ Jack pursued, ‘after the cake—the dark fruit cake you baked for afternoon tea—came out of the oven?’

‘Oh no, not then. I’m certain he wasn’t here then.’

I gave Jack another knowing look and another nod—just confirming the removal of Sir William’s name from the list of possible suspects. There was no way known to man he could have interfered with that cake.

Jack thanked Mrs Buckingham for her time and we were about to leave when Keggs entered, levitating across the floor in his usual slow, stately fashion, bearing a tray loaded with the newly polished silverware.

Seeing him, Jack said, ‘Keggs, I almost forgot—we found these today.’ He produced with a flourish the two receipts we’d found in Connie Worth’s room.

Keggs looked at the two slips of paper, blinked rapidly, and then his face went bright red, something I would have thought impossible for an impassive butler. But he really did go red—so red that any passing fire engine would have recognised him as a brother in arms.

Keggs coughed politely, sounding rather like an elderly cat with a fishbone caught in its throat, and held out his hand.

‘If I may have those back, please, sir. They appear to be receipts missing from the household accounts. I have no idea how they could have gone astray.’

Jack handed over the slips of paper and we left the kitchen.

As we walked through the drawing room towards the front door of Plumwood Hall, I glanced sideways at Jack and I was surprised: he had a broad grin on his face.

A moment later the gravel of the driveway was crunching beneath our feet. The high pressure ridge across most of the United Kingdom was still doing its stuff—the sky was blue, the breeze was gentle, the birds were singing, insects all over the place were buzzing away with joy and a cocker spaniel was lying on the lawn, in the sun, snoring loudly.

Then a dark cloud loomed—not in the sky but in the driveway ahead. It was a dark, storm-threatening, rain-bearing cloud by the name of Inspector Matthew Hyde of the county constabulary. As always, he was glaring at me as if I was one of his local villagers who had failed to abate a smoking chimney.

This man I regarded as my mortal enemy. I was quite certain that his nightly prayer as he knelt at the foot of his bed was that I would end up dangling uncomfortably at the end of a hangman’s rope—and that he would be there to see it.

I glared back at him, hoping my glare would convey the message that I regarded him as a slug in the salad of civilisation.

Jack, however, hailed this fiend in human form in a happy and hearty manner.

‘Inspector Hyde,’ he bellowed cheerfully, ‘you’re just what I’m looking for.’

‘And what might that be, Mr Lewis?’ asked Hyde, the suspicious weasel side of his character at once coming to the fore.

‘A policeman,’ Jack announced. ‘They say you can never find a policeman when you want one. Well, here you—living disproof of the familiar cliché. I am in want of a policeman and, lo and behold, you appear on the spot.’

This sort of banter only deepened Hyde’s suspicions. He glared at Jack, he glared at me, then he glanced around as if looking for a trap.

‘As you say, I’m here, Mr Lewis,’ he said, lowering his eyelids and staring narrowly at Jack. ‘So what can I do for you?’

‘It’s more a matter of what I can do for you. Morris and I have uncovered what appears to be an important clue in the case of the cyanide murders.’

Inspector Hyde folded his arms, rocked back on his heels and asked for the full details. Jack supplied them: the letter tumbling out of the old book, the addressee of the passionate love letter, the signature I recognised and the possibility of blackmail it suggested.

Hyde held out his hand and demanded, ‘The letter, if you don’t mind, Mr Lewis.’

Jack handed it over. The policeman read it slowly, his eyes opening wider and wider as he came across one declaration of intimate passion after another. Having turned it over and read to the bottom of the second page he immediately turned it back and read it all again—as if he couldn’t quite believe it the first time and had to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.