Having failed to find the Actress Belle, the Great Detective headed back to the terrace, hoping to find instead a scrap of hummus remaining. It was not really a failure of my detective skill: I could have easily found Belle if I had wished to exert my powers; if I had followed the clue of seeing her out of her bedroom window teeter-tottering back across the sheep field. But my energy must not be spread too thinly, like jam. She was of little interest, detective-wise. No: all the action was sur la terrace. The clues that should have been hidden in the cake – that I had gathered up twice and carefully re-written and tucked into their little packets – would now not have any chance of getting stuck between teeth or levering out the false ones of the old folk and delighting and surprising the guests at the same time. Each one was presented on a saucer with a cup of tea. Plenty of tea. And luckily some hummus had survived the plague of Paying Guests that had swept over the tables, though all the celery and carrot was gone. Not a problem – they are just for scooping up the hummus anyway and fingers do the job just as well.
A little disappointed there had been no more bloody murders over lunch. The more survivors, the more suspects. Remaining are:
Colonel Rooting-Compound and his blunderbust;
Mrs Colonel Beryl R-C and her false teeth;
The Cook, who was in the kitchen all morning but now here on the terrace being questioned by Mrs R-C even though she had died of poison at breakfast. I mentioned that she was dead and she took her leave and a piece of yesterday's quiche;
The Doctor and her Mister, who had not horribly murdered each other yet, but it could only be a matter of time and opportunity;
The Vicar, who was carefully organising her notebook or writing a sermon;
The Choirboy, who was wearing her dress again or cossack and her red cheeks. She was clutching a chicken wing in one hand and the Vicar in the other;
Butler, wetter but just as whiskery. He seemed to have learned his lesson, and was not back on the sherry again just yet. The Cutter-Plains still had him in a pincer movement: perhaps that was what stopped him getting at the booze.
Mummy was there too of course, and the policemen – who had not even witnessed any murders, but they were bungling about anyway giving away clues to the Colonel and Beryl.
The last piece of chicken having disappeared into the chubby cheeks of Roger, I was forced the head back to the kitchen for more supplies. Of course, met the big beast there, busy inserting sandwiches into her person alongside Cook. I swept my gimlet gaze around the kitchen, scene of one murder and one tragic accident. The floury mess reminded me of Mrs Baker and whether or not she might be a suspect, with a cake-envy motive and she had seemed sleepy on Saturday afternoon when we went to fetch the scones and slightly disappointing jam. But, I realised, she would never get through the window.
“What makes you think anyone got in through the window?” mumbled V. I must have been concentrating out loud.
“Out.” She was trying to misdirect me. It was clear from the shatter-pattern of the cake that it and the perpetratress had exploded outwards.
“Perpetratress? You're still accusing me then?”
“You remain a suspect.”
“Stop staring at my bum!”
I was gauging her girth relative to the window. It might not be possible for much longer, but she could have made the leap. By that time, I was beginning to suspect a wider conspiracy. Who stood to gain from the cake's destruction? Mrs B may have been too ungainly to have vaulted out the window; Verity had her tarts and no need for professional jealousy; Charity, perhaps. She had the bitter look in her eye of a woman who would tip a cake off a sill just to see it fall. No – these were minor suspects, and Tickham major was still top of the list. What could her motivation be? This was not a whodunnit, but a why-did-she-do-it? The cooking jealousy thing? The tea-yen? A gastric vapour brought on by the night's fasting, making her delirious? In the pay of Mrs Baker perhaps? No – I still could not see that honest craftswoman stooping to cake destruction. So who was in league with the sullen one?
I let V stomp back off upstairs, left Cook still grazing, and took my scraps of food back to the party, which had moved into the drawing room. The Actress Belle had returned from her stroll. She was dressed up again, in some of the same things as yesterday. The dress with the bustle, and her little leopard print waistcoat. Perhaps she had got chilly on her walk. The hair today was definitely more nature than art. The problem with staying in other people's houses is that there is not sufficient variety of clothes for the System to work properly. That and they always get up so late and you do not necessarily know where they keep the milk and cereal. She threw me a little smile but I was busy with my notes.
Able and Easy were in charge, proceeding up and down in front of the guests, who were perched in a row on the better chaise longue which is not to be bounced on and the uneasy chairs we have in there. Butler was lurking in the doorway, looking a little sleepy around the edges.
“As you all know,” the sergeant declared, “the Master of the house was found dead by the Maid on Saturday ay em in the study.”
“With a letter-knife in his back,” added Easy, with a grin. Inappropriate, I thought. Like the Great Detective, these chaps from the yard had obviously been numbed by all-too-frequent exposure to goresome death. I scribbled a note: Comfortable Easy seems to think this is all a game – a sociopath? Also, the 'Master' found dead early ay em; cake number one found destroyed at around the same time.
“Thank-you, Easy,” frowned Sergeant Able, and continued his pompous pacing. Easy bobbed up and down to the rhythm of his declaration. “The means of the murder, we will come to shortly: a post-mortem has been conducted.”
“Already?” cut in Dr Plain. Looked anxious to me. I made a note, and saw the Vicar make a mark with one of her highlighter pens.
“Please, madam,” bobbed Easy.
“Doctor.”
“A Doctor, eh?” declared Sergeant Able, stopping mid-stride and spinning to face her. Effect somewhat spoiled by his loose, long legs getting themselves twisted up.
“Up you get Sarge.”
“Heave-ho, Constable.”
“Oh yes,” piped up Beryl R-C from over her teacup, “and an authority on poisoning, it seems.” A murmur ran round the room, and Dr Plain glared after it indignantly.
“I did not do it.”
“I was not with her at that time,” offered Mr Cutter, ungallant rogue, “as I had patients to see in town before driving down.”
“Sergeant, the post-mortem?” came Mummy's low voice as she sashayed round me and Butler to stroll over to the fireplace.
“Tea, modom?” purred Butler, swimming in her wake to present a silver tray with dainty teacup, not sensible and comforting mug; earl grey and a squeeze, not builders red and a slosh. I had not even noticed him leave our doorway. Was the Great Detective's Great Brain not at its sharpest? Oh contrary messieurdames, it was whizzing away, stitching together the shreds of clues and evidence.
“Yes ma'am,” coughed Sergeant Able, flapping his knuckly hand at his forehead.
“Right away ma'am,” chirped Easy.
The Sarge began his proceeding again. “Though of course the letter-knife seemed the obvious instrument, given that the de-ceased was found with it planted between his shoulder blades, we were not surprised to learn that he was in fact dead before it was planted there.”
“Not the knife,” nodded the Vicar, crossing one item off her list.
“Not the knife,” bobbed Easy, which made her tight trousers creak.
The Maid, I reasoned, running flustered from the study, might have leapt up onto the kitchen surface to avoid a mouse or stable boy or surgeon, and inadvertently or by mistake nudged the cake out through the open window. Pity the Maid was not about any more to confess.
“The only other injury our pathologist was able to discover was a paper-cut,” droned the Sergeant, “but he was able in the end to determine that the cause of death was ...”
“Poison!” cri
ed Beryl R-C, leaping up and slopping tea and Mummy pretended not to notice which is what happens when you are a Paying Guest or Elderly Aunt.
“Steady old girl!” roared the Colonel, and slopped his own tea pawing at her. But all eyes were now on the Doctor again.
“I did not do it!” she cried, while Mr Cutter, the faithless dog, shuffled away from her on the chaise, to the distress of Roger against whom he squished up.
“What makes you say poison?” the Choirboy asked Beryl, trying to tug her dress out from under the IT geek's fat bottom.
“We know that the Cook was poisoned ...” Beryl began, counting deaths on her old fingers.
“If we can believe the Doctor,” muttered Mr Cutter, and was glared at for his trouble. It would be a quiet drive home in the geek-mobile.
“... and now the Master is killed silently and without resistance at his own desk; and what about Sandy? Nice boy. He was rigid, no injury to see.”
“She's right,” put in the Vicar, consulting her notes.
“He looked as if he might have died of fright,” huffed the Colonel. “Any more biscuits? I heard of a chap – in India y'know – who died of fright. Been cursed by the local witch-doctor, went around pale as a pasty for a week, then was found just like the lad – staring out the window, stone dead. That Stable-boy hadn't by any chance stolen a great big diamond from a village temple, had he? What? Thanks Butler. All sorts of rum goings on in those parts, even these days, no offence.” That last directed at the Cutter-Plains, who were about as Indian as a chicken tikka masala which is to say not at all really. They were too busy scowling at each other to notice. If looks could kill, we would soon find out. Meanwhile, I wondered whether Farmer Tickle's ghost was the killer. There had been reverends seen about, especially by the pond, which you can see from the dining room window. Or maybe there is a curse on the barrow. A Mummy or Daddy might have escaped and be abroad or still nearby.
“It was poison. That is certain,” Mummy put in. No mention about whether the pathologist checked for cake crumbs. Another failure to see the whole picture.
“Each of you must account for himself,” commanded Sergeant Able.
“And herself,” piped up Easy.
Perhaps you will begin, Ms Figura?” suggested Mummy. Belle had been flicking through her notes, trying to work out who was whom (grammar). She jumped up nervously and curtseyed and cleared her throat and read with her finger tracing the words,
“I am the Actress Belle Figura, from London. For some time, I have being being … been being blackmailed” general gasping “by the Master of the horse.”
“Are you sure, dear?” murmured Mummy, as the others gasped, chattered and giggled. It was the Vicar and Roger giggling, who knows why.
Belle tried again: “The Master of the house. After meeting him in London, I was swept away by him in a whirlwind romance. Regretting our lee-as … lasi ... lash ...” What she was trying to say was lee-ay-zong which I asked la gorda about and it is a fancy word for french sauce. She is good for something, then.
“Regretting our sordid affair,” said Belle, finally grasping the story and finding a language she was comfortable with, “I dumped the love rat. Two years later, with me with my name in lights, he saw his chance to cash in. 'I've got less to lose than you' he told me and began demanding cash. I came down here ready to use persuasion, seduction – all my feminine wiles. But not murder!” She sat back down, onto the Colonel, and then leapt up again.
“Oof!” went the Colonel, “Plenty to go on there,” though Belle had not said anything about the murders.
“I accuse Mr Cutter. With the letter-knife. In the Study,” the Actress read, pointing at the geek. Then she sat down in her own chair.
“We already know it was not the letter-knife,” sniffed Beryl, “It was poison.”
“Oh,” shrugged Belle.
“I too was being blackmailed,” confessed Dr Plain: everyone turned to stare at her again. She stood and recited from her notes: “There was an incident, early in my career, that left me open to blackmail by this unscrupulous rogue.” It seemed that she was still planning to insist on her innocence, just as Belle had. I never had her in the frame anyway. Odd thing: why had they both chosen this moment to come down from London and confront their blackmailer? They must not have known there would be a houseful of guests. As she droned on, I suddenly realised that by the time they had all had their turn, it would be nearly dinner time, and there was no sign of Mummy moving towards the kitchen. Leftovers are all right for lunch and tea, but would not do for Sunday Lunch at Dinner Time. I slipped away from the party and galloped through the kitchen where Cook was sleeping and there was definitely nothing roasting in the oven, and so upstairs to warn V. The last thing I wanted was to have to eat her cooking.
Chapter 17