David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘I have heard nothing,’ said the young man. ‘And how are your investigations proceeding, Lord Powerscourt? Have you cracked the case? Discovered the real murderer?’

Powerscourt decided there could be no harm in a little exaggeration. Nothing huge, just a little nudge that might, just might, persuade the prosecution that their case was already won and they could afford to be complacent.

‘I am here this evening, as you see, Inspector. Tomorrow I carry out more inquiries. The day after that I shall return to London and carry out more. We have made no progress. The case remains exactly where it was when you were taken off it. The date for the trial may come this week. The defence barrister and I both wish we had never taken the business on. It does a man’s career no service at all if is dogged by failure. I have never failed yet in a murder investigation, never. This case is going to be the first one. I am sure of it.’

Lord Francis Powerscourt wasn’t absolutely sure what he hoped to find on his voyage round the hotels of northern Norfolk. If he was honest with himself, he was rather ashamed of what he was doing. It was all part of the attempt to build up a case for the defence. He hoped he would find a foreigner who had come to stay in one of these hotels. He hoped Charles Augustus Pugh could imply that the stranger had come for the wedding. Once persuade the jury that the stranger had penetrated the grounds of Brympton Hall and anything might be possible. Juries don’t like foreigners very much, he remembered Pugh telling him about some earlier case. In some parts of the country they really don’t like them at all.

The hotel manager in his own hotel, the Black Boys, at the corner of the main square in Aylsham, a mile and half from the Hall, remembered the night before the wedding well. The hotel was full, every last bed occupied. Mr Willoughby had booked all the rooms six weeks before. Were all the guests English? From London and around there? Powerscourt had asked. Oh, yes, the hotel-keeper had assured him. There had been some sort of sing-song after supper and the guests had all known the words, the hotel-keeper remembered that. No Frenchmen? Powerscourt had asked wistfully, no Italians? None of those, sir. What would them people want with a wedding in Norfolk anyway? Murder, Powerscourt said to himself, murder most foul, and he went in for his supper.

A few miles to the south was the Marsham Arms in Hevingham on the Norwich road, an ancient establishment even older than the Black Boys in Aylsham. It was the lady of the house who received him.

‘The day you’re asking about, sir, that’ll be the day of the big wedding up at Brympton, the one with the murder, would it?’

Powerscourt assured her that it was. She bent down and pulled out a large visitors’ book from a drawer underneath the table. ‘Frederick and I always make sure we get the visitors to sign in. You can’t be sure, of course, if they’re signing with their real names or not. In the summer holidays you’d be surprised at how many strange people we get. A great number of people called Jones come for the weekend in the summer. It must be something in the air. Never mind. Fourth, fifth, sixth, here we are. We were nearly full that night, sir. Would you like to take a look for yourself?’ She spun the book round and Powerscourt read a series of innocuous English names.

‘No Frenchmen?’ he asked. ‘No foreigners?’

‘No, sir, not that we don’t often have some foreigners here. Very welcome we make them too, if I might say so.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully and went on his way.

North-east of Brympton Hall was the Manor House in North Walsham, a fine red-brick building that looked as if it been there for a couple of centuries. The proprietor introduced himself as Archibald Wilkins, a man of average height with pale brown hair and a broken nose and so thin it was painful to behold. He too pulled out a battered visitors’ book. ‘I remember that day well,’ he said, ‘we were short-staffed and I had to wait at table myself. I’d nearly forgotten how to do it. Here we are,’ he swung the book round so Powerscourt could see it clearly, ‘a pair of Robertses, four Donaldsons, a brace of Chadwicks and three Jardines, one about three years old. Any of them of interest to you, sir?’ The man sounded hopeful that one of his customers might be in hot water of one sort or another.

‘I’m afraid not, Mr Wilkins. You didn’t have any foreigners here that night, did you? Frenchman? Italian? That sort of person?’

‘I never did hold with them foreigners wandering about the place and staying in our hotels,’ said Mr Wilkins, ‘don’t give them house room here, if you follow me. We usually send them over to the Saracen’s Head over Erpingham way. They’ll take anything over there. Come to think of it, them Saracens were bloody foreigners too, weren’t they? They’d be well suited, over there.’

Powerscourt wished that Archibald Wilkins could be transferred to London and a position on the jury at the trial of Cosmo Colville. Such xenophobia could come in very useful. He had a list of nine hotels in the area in his pocket. He wondered if he would draw blank in all of them.

His next port of call was at the Bell at Cawston a few miles to the west of Aylsham on the Dereham Road. The landlord here was a great bear of a man in his mid-thirties with a mop of black hair and a black beard called Jack Gill. He offered Powerscourt a cup of tea in the empty saloon bar while he went to fetch his books from another part of the building.

‘Fifth,’ the black beard muttered to himself. ‘We only had three guests that evening and they were all brothers having some sort of birthday reunion. Phelps, their name was, James, Jolyon and John Phelps, as if their parents could only cope with one letter of the alphabet.’

‘You didn’t have any foreigners that night, Frenchmen, Italians, that sort of thing?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Gill, staring suddenly at his visitors’ book. ‘Hilda!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘Hilda! Where the devil are you?’ His voice echoed round the ground floor of the hotel.

Jack Gill took four strides over to the door that opened on to his garden. He was just about to shout once more when a pretty blonde woman, almost covered from head to toe in the biggest apron Powerscourt had ever seen, entered the saloon bar from the opposite side.

‘You didn’t have to shout, Jack,’ she said sweetly, ‘you know this is the day I do the baking in the afternoon.’

‘Sorry about that,’ said Gill. ‘This gentleman is asking who we had here round about the time of the wedding and the murder up at the Hall.’ Powerscourt hadn’t mentioned it in a single establishment – all the hotel people had just assumed that was why he was here.

‘Was that the time we had Philippe the Fair here?’ Gill went on. ‘His reservation was in the name of Legros, Pierre Legros, but I think it was false. He pretended not to understand when we mentioned the visitors’ book and signing in, but I think he knew perfectly well what was wanted. He never did sign it. That’s why I’m not sure exactly when he was here. Can you remember, my dear?’

Hilda scratched vigorously at her blonde hair. Flakes of flour floated to the ground. ‘Do you know, Jack, I think it was then. He was here the same day the man from Norwich came about the drains. That was the day before the wedding, I’m fairly sure of it.’

‘You’re right,’ said Gill, ‘he came just after the drain man left and we were wondering if we could ever afford his bill.’

‘What sort of man was he?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘Would I be right in assuming he was French?’

‘He was French, with just a little English. There was something about him made me think he was a military man or had been a military man in his time. That erect bearing, beautifully polished shoes he had, I remember, as if he was going on parade.’