Murder at Maddingley Grange, page 4
“Sorry. One up on the last job though, ain’t it?” Gaunt’s smile attempted to close the gap. “Deceitful cow she was. Calling herself an honorable and wearing hooky gear. No more honorable than my left bollock.”
“No comparison.” Bennet closed the door.
“Sentimental value she said it had, that ring.”
“Fifty quid!” Bennet gave a bitter laugh. “Last time I got sentimental about fifty quid I was thirteen and swapping car tires while the drivers were in the knocking shop.”
“Those were the days.”
“Those were not the days, Gordon. Fruit machines, gas meters, minding dodgy parcels, ripping off the lead. If you think those were the days, you want your bloody head examined.”
“There was a real neighborhood feeling.” Gaunt looked dreamily reminiscent. “Everybody stuck together.”
“When they weren’t shopping each other.”
“Dad pulled off the Ellsworthy caper.”
“Then pulled off fifteen years.”
“He trusted the wrong people.”
“And you know where the proceeds went?”
“Leave it out.” Gaunt looked deeply uncomfortable.
“On the best domestic training money can buy. Blades set him back the biggest part of ten grand. Thought it was worth it, didn’t he? An ontray into the country’s wealthiest establishments. And what’s the return on his investment? A fish slice here, a cruet there—that wonky painting you thought was a Picasso—”
“We haven’t had the luck. Till now.”
“It’s not bad here.” Bennet backed off, mildly grudging. “Not bad at all.” He flexed thin bony fingers. Twenty-twenty vision might be lacking but the touch was a hundred percent. Those fingers were almost magnetic. Things (usually little sparkly things) were immediately attracted and stuck to them like glue. Trouble was, Ben not having the sight, the stuff was frequently worthless. This was where Gordon came in. They were a team. Supposed to be. “We could load up when they’re asleep”—a bit of enthusiasm crept into Ben’s voice—“cut the phone wires, take the bus…”
“Be back in the Smoke before you could say Bent Vernon.”
“He’s Vera now.”
“Is he?” Gaunt sat up in some surprise. “Where d’you hear that?”
“He had the operation. I shall begin to feel the need for one meself if I spend much more time in that daft schmutter.” He nodded at the black dress and white ruched frill on the bed. “I’ll swear that wig’s alive. Sling the bazookas across, then. Time I got dressed.”
Gaunt unhooked the cotton-wool-stuffed brassiere from the bed post and threw it. “I’ll bet they’ll be a right load of wankers. Faffing about playing at being murdered.”
“Got to do something with their time. The idle rich.” Ben struggled with the hooks and eyes. “This is a bugger.”
“You’ve undone enough.” Gordon chuckled coarsely, then stared out of the window. “Look at them peacocks. Dirty devils.”
“If…and I say if we decide to pull this one, you won’t let me down?”
“Ben!” A mixture of surprise and pained reproach. “When have I ever let you down?”
“Never mind then—it’s now I’m talking about.” Bennet put on his wig, then sat by his brother on the bed. “The past is water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned.”
At the word water Gordon looked deeply apprehensive. “You got no faith in me.” His lip trembled. “You’ve never had faith.”
“That’s not fair. It just gets a bit dented sometimes.” Ben paused and looked sternly hesitant. “You’re not…You haven’t…”
“No.”
“You did promise.”
“I’ve not touched a drop. Stand on me.”
“I bloody will if I find you near a bottle. Right”—he got up, settling his frill—“the coach’ll be here in a minute. Get your skates on.”
In the conservatory Laurie pottered happily about. She had just finished sponging the huge leaves of a Dief-fenbachia maculata and now pulled out a few tiny weeds, loving the feel of the peaty crumbs between her fingers. She sprayed the philodendron which was looking a bit parched and fed the abutilon before sweeping the tiles (a turquoise and white design of amaranthus with a Greek key border) and taking off her cream gardening smock. It was very grubby and had a long smear of earth across the front.
The room was so pretty with its flowering plants and chintzy bamboo furniture that people were bound to want to sit in it and there was no doubt that her smock, kept on a hook behind the door between her visits to the house, would definitely lower the tone. Laurie rolled it up and stuffed it behind one of the sofa cushions, plumping and smoothing out the others as she went along.
She paused at the door for a final check. It all looked very restful and tidy but she had the sense of something missing. Then she realized there were no books or magazines. It was the single place she had forgotten. Laurie hurried off to the library and studied the glass-fronted cases. None of the heavy volumes was what you’d call browsable. Then she spotted Simon’s little stack of whodunits, unlocked the case and took them out.
Back in the conservatory she placed them on the wicker table, caught sight of her watch and gasped in horror. They would be here any minute! And even as she entertained the thought, Bennet appeared in the doorway to say that the minibus was turning in at the main gates.
THE SETUP
Chapter Five
“W here on earth are all the others?”
“For heaven’s sake, Mummy. We’ve only been on the coach a couple of minutes.”
Unmollified, Mrs. Laetitia Saville glared at the innocent, sparklingly clean window a few inches from her left shoulder. It shrank in its frame. Rosemary glanced sideways at her parent’s alarming profile. At the great Roman arch of a nose, the bone seemingly on the point of bursting through the skin, at the sizable jaw and tightly clamped lips incongruously colored petunia pink and at the fire of diamonds at her ear. Happily unconscious of the set of her own lips and the slight but definite thrust of her own jaw, Rosemary, nineteen and complacently aware that she was thought to be as pretty as a picture, settled back in her seat and imagined herself sweeping down the grand staircase—for surely all country houses had one—in her sea-green chiffon. Her mother’s voice intruded sharply on this pleasing fantasy.
“Sorry, Mummy…”
“I said: ‘Why aren’t you looking more upset?’”
“What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean. I don’t believe you’ve done what you promised at all.”
“Yes, I have.”
“You’ve finished with him entirely?”
“Entirely.”
“Then the affair can’t have been very serious.”
“I loved him madly,” cried Rosemary, having already regressed to around 1935. “I look into my heart and see only emptiness and sorrow.”
Mrs. Saville sniffed. She had no time for such namby-pamby introspection. Life, according to Mrs. Saville, once one’s natural and domestic surroundings and any socially acceptable habitués had been licked into shape, was for living.
“But I put on a brave face,” continued Rosemary. “And of course I am quite resilient, taking after you.”
Mother and daughter exchanged looks of mutual congratulation, rearranging their lips into tightish smiles. Mrs. Saville patted Rosemary’s arm. “He wouldn’t have done, you know, darling.”
“If only you’d met him—”
“I didn’t need to meet him. He was in trade. And the worse sort of trade. A commercial traveler.”
“He won’t always be. One day he hopes to have his own business.”
“On whose money, I wonder.”
“That’s a horrid thing to say. Anyway—what’s wrong with being in business? Daddy was.”
“Banking is a profession, Rosemary, like the law and the church. The Savilles have never been in business. And your grandfather, never forget, was a rear admiral.”
Fat chance, thought Rosemary, who already knew enough about her maternal grandfather to last her several lifetimes. More people started to board. Rosemary regarded them with interested distaste, Mrs. Saville with horror strongly mixed with mounting indignation.
A stout man in an electric-blue pinstripe suit climbed the steps, then turned and bent down. His trousers stretched over a bottom like two large, fully inflated balloons. “Come on, Mother,” he urged. “Only two more steps and the view’s enough to take your breath away.” He braced his legs like someone in a tug-of-war team and gave a huge pull accompanied by a grunt. Then he shouted: “Shove up a bit your end, Violet. She’s nearly there.”
On the second step, panting like a grampus, rested a very short, very wide old lady. Her lack of stature was so marked that she seemed to be squatting rather than standing, and this, coupled with a dark, mottled, rather warty complexion and a squinty eye, gave her the look of a baffled toad. She was dressed all in black apart from her hat, which was a festive Carmen Miranda number of emerald felt, topped by a mound of twinkling glass fruit.
The man in the suit and the woman pushing from behind let go for a breather and the old lady wheezed and concertinaed a little closer to the step. With a cry of “Ay up!—she’s sinking” they hove to once again and, after a lot more effort, settled her opposite the Savilles, where she filled two seats and overflowed into the gangway. The man turned and held out his hand.
“Howdya do. Gibbs is the name. Gibbs, Gibbs and Gibbs. Or in the vernacular, Fred, Vi and Mother.”
“Hello.” The hand was so large and so plainly under her nose that Rosemary felt compelled to reach out and quickly grace it with her own. “I’m Rosemary Saville. And this is my mother.”
At this perfidious linking of herself with the appalling monstrosity adjacent, Rosemary felt her parent give a great shudder as if from some traitorous blow. Or a nip from a serpent’s tooth. Mrs. Saville ignored the outstretched hand, treating Mr. Gibbs to a glare that would have stripped the bark from a coolibah tree. He beamed back, saying, “She don’t look too grand, your mam.”
“No…” Rosemary was annoyed to find herself compelled to exculpate her mother’s rudeness. “It’s the train. She doesn’t travel well.”
“I had a Schnauzer like that. The only thing that’d settle her was a saucer of navy rum.”
Violet Gibbs wriggled round in her seat and gazed at Rosemary. Violet had a foolish, doll-like face and primrose-colored hair in lifeless curls pinned all over her head like synthetic little sausages. There was an all-embracing ameliatory quality to her smile. She opened a tiny wet mouth like a sea anemone and spoke.
“You been to one of these dos before, dear?”
“No. Have you?”
“Ohhh, yes. Lots of times.”
“Not in a moated grange, Vi,” corrected her husband. “Be fair.”
“That’s true. Only in hotels.” Violet jerked her head, indicating that Rosemary should lean forward. Taking a deep breath and prepared to hold it forever if necessary, Rosemary did. Violet lowered her voice as if about to impart a juicily shameful snippet of news. “He prefers the routs.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Jousting and wassail. Whereas I,” continued Violet, still in a discreet whisper, “incline to the Wild West more. Barbecues, shootouts and no problems with your wimple.”
“Horns on your head,” cackled the elder Mrs. Gibbs. “Looked like an advert for beefsteak.”
“D’you remember that Richard the Third lookalike contest at Bosworth? When I got stuck in my doublet and hose?” Fred turned to Mrs. Saville with a confiding wink. “I were busting by the time I got me codpiece off.”
“We’ve come for Mother really.” Violet, who had noticed a truly spectacular slow burn commencing in the seat behind, rushed into deflective explanation.
Rosemary sneaked a sidelong glance at the old lady, who had drawn open a silk reticule and was efficiently stripping the transparent wrapping off a large pork pie.
“She doesn’t have a lot of pleasure,” continued Violet, “but you show her a dead body and watch her face light up.”
“Well,” said Rosemary nervously. “As long as it isn’t mine.”
“Oooh—she’s sharp,” cried Fred. “Who’s been round the knife box then?”
An attractive woman with smooth auburn hair climbed aboard, followed by a man wearing, in spite of the warmth of the day, a long overcoat. Fred declaimed: “This way for Castle Dracula.” Then introduced himself. “Gibbs is the name. Gibbs, Gibbs and Gibbs. Or in the vernacular, Fred, Vi and Mother.”
Sheila Gregory gave a chilly smile. Her husband turned and gazed piercingly at his new acquaintance. The cloth of his coat was a neat lovat check and the garment had a brief cape attached. He also wore a deerstalker, the flaps tied beneath his chin. He had a long, rather pointed nose which quivered slightly when he spoke, and he carried a violin case.
“You’re dressed for it then, Sherlock,” continued Fred, giving the deerstalker a complicit nod. “This your Watson? He looks a touch iffy. I wouldn’t like to bend down when he’s around.”
“There’s always one, isn’t there?” muttered Sheila to her husband, who responded by lifting a schoolmasterly finger of restraint.
“Any more for the Skylark, Cap’n?” queried the ship’s joker.
Simon’s reply was courteous but slightly distant. He had still not fully recovered from his first sight of Gibbs, Gibbs and Gibbs. How on earth people of that stamp came to be reading The Times was quite beyond his comprehension. Probably wrapped around their chips. “We’re waiting for Mr. Gillette. And Mr. Lewis—his train was due a few minutes ago.”
Two men now approached the bus, both with heavy bags. Mr. Lewis staggered under the weight of his; Mr. Gillette’s was rolling meekly in his wake on little wheels. Like Mr. Gregory he carried a musical instrument case; long, narrow and round at one end. He refused to let Simon take this and tripped over it as he climbed the steps.
Mr. Lewis boarded first, ducking his head shyly at his fellow passengers. He wore a light grey suit and had a sweet, rather owlish look due largely to a lot of fluffy hair and round horn-rimmed spectacles. He settled behind the Gregorys, the back of his neck turning pink as he felt himself to be observed. Mr. Gillette (pale flannels, blazer) removed his boater and sat next to Mr. Lewis, who started nervously at the contact.
Fred, no doubt determined that the newcomers should not be left in ignorance of his family’s appellation, either in or out of the vernacular, rose to his feet. As he did so Simon violently slammed the lid of the trunk.
“Aaaahhh…!!!” cried Fred, slumping back in his seat. “They got me, Vi. I’m a goner…”
“Don’t set me off,” said Violet with a hint of a rollick. “You know what I’m like.”
“Mother of God”—her husband clutched his chest—“Is this the end of Freddo?”
“It’ll certainly be the end of me,” said Mrs. Saville crisply, not bothering to lower her voice, “if I have to put up with much more of this.” She ignored Rosemary’s hushings. “If you had come to Bath as I suggested, we could be in the Palm Court at the Royal Georgian by now, having an aperitif.”
“They give you the runs,” the old lady informed everyone. “Aperitifs.” She smacked her chops over the last crumb of pork pie, rolled the wrapping up into a tight ball and flicked it the length of the bus. It hit Simon on the back of the head as he was getting into the driver’s seat.
“The gang’s all here then?” demanded Fred.
Their cap’n forbore to reply. He drove off, making his way as quickly as the traffic would allow through Oxford, then taking the B480 for Toot Balden before branching off to Madingley. Many remarks were passed about the beauty of the landscape and Simon wondered who would be the first to say: “And so convenient for the M40.” It was Mr. Gillette.
“Have you done a murder weekend before?” asked Mrs. Gibbs, determinedly friendly to the couple in the front seat.
“Not precisely,” replied Derek Gregory. “But I am by way of being an af—”
“You’ll love it. Won’t he, Fred?”
“He will that.”
“You’re old hands then?” inquired Sheila politely.
“Old hands?” Mr. Gibbs made a clucking noise at the roof of the bus as if expecting it to burst into vocal support. “Old hands? I should think we are old hands. You’ll have to get up early to beat us to the draw.”
At this remark Mr. Gregory sneered. His lip lifted, his nostrils widened and his whole face assumed an expression of the most infinite superiority. Mrs. Saville, sitting at an angle behind him, noticed this and, so precisely did it illustrate her own state of mind, warmed to him immediately.
“D’you remember that weekend,” Violet compounded her husband’s felony, “when the victim got murdered twice? He were garrotted at breakfast, then given the kiss of life, then stabbed to death in the Palatine Lounge.”
“That weren’t a murder weekend,” replied her husband. “That were a sunshine break. At Billericay.”
The coach sped on.
Simon had known Madingley Grange nearly all his life and was so used to its appearance that he was quite unprepared for the sudden gasps of surprise and murmurs of appreciation as the last curve in the road through the surrounding parkland was negotiated and the house suddenly swung into view. He tried to see it through his passengers’ eyes and failed, merely observing to himself that hideousness on such a profoundly confident and flamboyant scale must surely be some sort of virtue in its own right. He was sorry to see, as he bumped over the drawbridge, that the swans were round the back, but one of the peacocks made up for this by elegantly sauntering into view as Simon crunched to a halt by the iron-studded main doors.
For the umpteenth time he congratulated himself on his idea of a thirties setting. The trio on the steps (where was Hugh?) could have stepped straight out of an early Christie. Reading from left to right—Gaunt, grave of feature in his swallowtails…Bennet, thin as the wind, lips clamped respectfully together, graying hair scraped back under her starched cap. And Laurie…
