Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Peer

“Giggle,” Roberta began, wishing he had another name, “there’s been an accident.”

He looked at her, maddeningly stolid.

“An accident, Miss?”

“Yes, to Lord Wutherwood. He’s hurt himself. Lady Charles thinks you had better come up.”

“Yes, Miss. Will Miss Tinkerton be needed, Miss?”

Roberta didn’t know. She said: “I think perhaps you should both come. Lady Wutherwood may want Tinkerton.”

They followed her into the hall. The lift was down again. Stamford opened the doors. Conquering a sudden and violent reluctance, Roberta went in. She saw that the two servants were preparing to walk up. English servants, she thought, and said: “Will you both come up in the lift, please?”

They got in and Giggle pressed the button. Tinkerton was a small woman with black eyes and a guarded expression. They won’t speak until I do, thought Roberta.

“The doctor has come,” she said. “It’s an upset, isn’t it?”

They both said: “Yes, Miss,” and Tinkerton added in a mumbling voice, “Is her ladyship much hurt, Miss?”

“It’s not her ladyship,” said Roberta, “it’s his lordship.” She remembered insanely that someone once said you had to use “Your Majesty” in every phrase of a letter written to the King. Your Majesty, your lordship, his lordship, her ladyship.

“His lordship, Miss?”

“Yes. He has hurt his head. I don’t really know what happened.”

“No, Miss.”

The lift reached the top landing. Roberta felt as if she were followed by two embarrassingly large dogs. She asked them to wait and left them standing woodenly on the landing.

Now she was back in the flat and didn’t know where to go. Perhaps Patch and Mike were still in the dining-room. She stood in the hall and listened. There was a murmur of voices in the drawing-room. Baskett came along the passage carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses. Extraordinary sight, thought Roberta. Can they possibly have settled down for another glass of sherry? Baskett dated from the New Zealand days; he was an old friend of Roberta’s and she did not feel shy with him.

“Baskett, who’s in the drawing-room?”

“The family, Miss, with the exception of his lordship. His lordship is with the doctor, Miss.”

“And Lady Wutherwood?”

“I understand her ladyship is lying down, Miss.”

Baskett lingered for a moment, looking down in a kindly and human manner at Roberta.

“The family will be glad to have you with them, Miss Robin,” he said.

“Have you heard how — how he is?”

“He seemed to be unconscious, Miss, when we carried him into his lordship’s dressing-room — but alive. I haven’t heard any further report.”

“No. Baskett.”

“Yes, Miss?”

“What was the matter with — his eye?”

The network of threadlike veins across Baskett’s cheekbones started out against his bleached skin. The glasses on the tray jingled.

“I shouldn’t worry about it, Miss. You’ll only upset yourself.”

He opened the drawing-room door and stood aside for her to go in. ii

The Lampreys were nice to Roberta. She kept saying to herself, they are nice to think about me. Henry gave her a glass of sherry and Charlot said what a help she had been. They were all very quiet and seemed to listen attentively for something to happen. Charlot had just left Lady Wutherwood who was lying on her bed. She was no longer hysterical and had asked for Tinkerton. Roberta took Tinkerton to the door of the room and then rejoined the others. Nanny came in and in the usual way dragooned Mike off to bed. Charlot asked Patch to go with Nanny and Mike.

“But, Mummy—” Patch began—“it’s hours before my bedtime. Can’t I—”

“Please be with Mike, Patch.”

“All right.”

“What is the time?” asked Frid.

“Quarter to eight,” said Nanny from the door. “Come along, Michael and Patricia.”

“Can it be no more than an hour since they came!” said Charlot.

“Aunt Kit got here earlier,” said Colin.

“ Aunt Kit !” Charlot looked from one to another of her children. “For pity’s sake, what has become of Aunt Kit?”

“Has anybody seen her?” asked Frid.

Nobody, it appeared, had seen Lady Katherine since the brothers were left alone in the dining-room and Charlot took the aunts to her bedroom.

“We stayed there for about ten minutes I suppose,” said Charlot, “and then she said she wished to ‘disappear.’ She knows the flat quite well so I didn’t lead the way or anything. Stephen — go and see if you can find her.”

Stephen went away but returned to say that unless Aunt Kit was in with the doctor and Lord Charles she was not in the flat.

“Well,” said Henry, “she told you, Mummy, that she wished to disappear and she has.”

“But—”

“Darling,” said Frid jerkily, “we can’t be worried about Aunt Kit. Honestly.”

“At least,” said Stephen, “she had behaved with d-decent reticence. Did you ever hear anything more disgraceful than Aunt V.?”

“Poor thing,” said Charlot.

“I simply can’t feel sorry for her,” said Henry.

“I can only feel sick,” said Stephen. “I feel very sick indeed. Does anyone else?”

“Shut up,” said Colin automatically.

“Here’s Daddy,” said Frid.

Lord Charles came in at the far door. He walked slowly across the room to his family. Charlot made a quick, contained movement with her hands. Her husband stood before her.

“Well, darling?” she asked.

“Immy,” said Lord Charles, “he’s not dead. He’s alive still ”

“Will he live?”

“It doesn’t seem possible.”

“Charlie — if he dies?”

“It seems that if Gabriel dies he will have been murdered.”

There was a dead silence and then Henry said in a strange voice: “Isn’t there a book called It Can’t Happen Here ?”

Stephen said: “Of c-course he’s murdered. Of course he’ll die. With that thing through his b-brain, why didn’t he die at once?”

“Shut up,” said Colin.

Lord Charles sat on the arm of his wife’s chair and put his hand on her shoulder. It was the first time Roberta had ever seen him do this. “Where’s Patch?” he asked.

“I sent her away with Mike and Nanny. She — didn’t see, but I thought—”

“Yes. She and Mike will know of course but it might be as well, Imogen, if you told them. The rest of you had better hear the whole story now. Unless Robin—”

Roberta said, “If it’s private of course—”

“Private! My dear child, it will be front-page news in every paper by to-morrow.”

“So it will!” Frid ejaculated. “I say, we ought to tell Nigel Bathgate. It’d be a lovely scoop for him, wouldn’t it?”

“I must say, Frid,” said Henry, “I think that a particularly mad suggestion of yours.”

“I don’t see why. As Daddy says, it will be in all the papers anyway so why not give Nigel a break? I daresay he’d fight off all the other press-men for us. Shall I ring him up, Mummy?”

“Not now, Frid. And yet I don’t know. Nigel might be a sort of protection, Charlie.”

“I really do not consider,” said Lord Charles with emphasis, “that one rings up young journalists, however charming, and tells them that one’s relations have been murderously assaulted! You none of you seem to realize…” He broke off and looked at Roberta who was still hovering doubtfully. “Robin, my dear, we have no secrets from you. I’m only so sorry that you should have been plunged into this nightmare. Stay by all means, if you will.”

“Don’t go away, Robin,” said Henry.

“No, don’t go,” said the others. So Roberta stayed.