M.C. Beaton: Death of a Prankster

“You’d better show me where he was killed,” said Hamish. “Who found the body?”

“Titchy Gold.”

Hamish turned to Enrico, “Get her and bring her along.”

Jeffrey led the way upstairs to Titchy’s bedroom. Hamish stood in the doorway and looked into the room. The bed was made up, the wardrobe door closed, and the air smelled of some sort of cleaner.

He turned in amazement to Enrico, who had returned quietly after summoning Titchy. “Don’t tell me, just don’t tell me, that you’ve cleaned this room.”

“Maria did it,” said Enrico. “There was blood on the carpet. She could not leave a mess like that.”

“You,” said Hamish, “are in bad trouble, and if the chief inspector does not charge you with interfering in a murder investigation, you can count yourself lucky.”

Enrico looked unmoved. “Here’s Titchy,” said Jeffrey.

Titchy Gold and Hamish Macbeth surveyed each other. Titchy threw him a tremulous smile, thinking he was quite nice-looking with those hazel eyes and that fiery red hair.

Hamish thought Titchy looked as if she had stepped down from one of the calendars usually hung in motor repair shops. She was wearing a brief tight scarlet leather skirt with a transparent white blouse, seamed stockings and very high-heeled red shoes. Her dyed blonde hair was piled on top of her head, apart from a few artistic wisps. Her face was beautifully made up with a small lascivious mouth painted pink and false eyelashes shading bright blue eyes.

“Miss Gold, before I take your official statement, just tell me briefly what happened.”

Titchy shuddered. “I found the body when I opened the wardrobe last night. It just fell out. He – Mr Trent – had played a joke on me before where a dummy with a knife in it fell out of that wardrobe. I was fed up. I was getting out of here somehow. So I just left the body lying where it was and went to bed. It was when I awoke in the morning that I thought there was something funny about it and…and…I took off the mask…and…”

She dabbed at her eyes. Hamish looked at her narrowly. He sensed that Titchy was excited about something rather than shocked or frightened.

“I’m going to lock this room,” said Hamish to Jeffrey, “in the hope that there’s something left for forensic to examine. While we wait for the team to arrive from Strathbane, I may as well take preliminary statements. Is there a room I can use?”

“The library,” offered Jeffrey. “It’s got a desk.”

“Very well. Lead the way.”

As they were going down the stairs, a thin elegant woman darted up to Jeffrey and seized him by the arm. “It’s Paul,” she cried, waving a letter. “He’s gone off with that girl. What are we…” Her voice trailed away as she saw Hamish.

“Your son Paul Sinclair and Miss Clarke have left,” said Hamish. “What does he say in that letter? You are Mrs Jeffrey Trent, I gather.”

Jan clutched the letter to her bosom.

“It’s private,” she gasped. “Private correspondence.”

Hamish held out his hand. “Nothing is private in a murder investigation, Mrs Trent. Hand it over.”

Jan looked wildly at her husband, who shrugged. Reluctantly she gave the letter to Hamish. It said:

Dear Mum ,

We can’t stand the old man’s jokes any longer so we’re getting out. If I had stayed a day longer, I would have killed the silly old fool. I’ll call on you in London when I get back. Tell Enrico we’re sending the skis back from Inverness .

Love, Paul

Hamish put the letter in his pocket. “Now for the library,” he said. “First I’ve got to make a phone call. Mr Trent, give me a description of Mr Sinclair and Miss Clarke.”

“No,” wailed Jan.

“He’ll need to be brought back,” said Jeffrey quietly. “Don’t make things worse.” He turned to Hamish. “Paul is about six feet tall, fair hair, horn-rimmed glasses, twenty-five. I don’t know what he’s wearing, but probably something suitable for skiing. Melissa Clarke is about a couple of years younger, five feet six inches, pink hair, protest student-demo clothes.”

“Right!” Hamish picked up the phone and got through to the Inverness police and gave them a description of Paul and Melissa, saying that they might be found at the railway station waiting for a train south.

“Now,” said Hamish, sitting behind the desk which was placed at the window, “I’ll start with you, Mr Trent. Mrs Trent, I will see you later.” Jan looked as if she would have liked to protest, but Jeffrey pointedly held the door open for her.

“It’s a bad business,” sighed Jeffrey. “It can’t be any of us. Probably some maniac got in from outside.”

Hamish studied Jeffrey for a long moment. Jeffrey was a grey man – grey hair, grey suit, greyish complexion. He showed no signs of grief.

“First of all,” said Hamish, “why are you all gathered here at this time of year? I mean, it’s not Christmas or Easter or the summer holidays.”

“Andrew wrote to us all and said he was dying,” said Jeffrey in a dry precise voice. “We should have known it was a lie. But we all came. Of course he wasn’t even ill.”

“Did he upset anyone particularly during this visit?”

“He played his nasty jokes on all of us. I think perhaps that actress, Titchy Gold, was the worst affected.” He told Hamish in detail of the original body-in-the-wardrobe trick, of Titchy’s reaction to the headless knight. “Then she decided to flirt with him and the silly old goat fell for it. That was until, for some crazy reason, he decided to open up the seams in her best dresses. She went for him. He swore he didn’t do it and he didn’t find it funny, so perhaps he didn’t.”

“Do you know the terms of your brother’s will?”

“No, I do not. I know the name of the firm of solicitors in Inverness that he used – Bright, Norton and Jiggs.”

“Is it correct to assume that the bulk of his fortune would go to Charles, his adopted son? In Scotland, the man is always favoured in wills, even over real daughters.”

“No, he detested Charles. He may have left it all to the cats’ home as one last and great joke on the lot of us.”

“Until the body is examined by the pathologist, we do not know the time of death. But if the body fell out on Titchy before she went to bed, and that was around midnight, and he had last been seen in the drawing room at eleven o’clock, then it seems safe to assume he was killed between eleven and midnight. Where were you during that hour, Mr Trent?”

“I? You surely don’t think I would kill my own brother?”

Hamish waited patiently.

“Well, let me see. I had drinks with the others in the drawing room. People kept coming and going. I myself went out to the library for a bit. I think it was just after Andrew went up to bed that Jan and I decided to retire.”

“Was anyone missing from the drawing room for a long time?”

“Titchy and Charles. They went outside, I mean outside the house, for a private talk.”

“A full statement will be taken from you shortly. I’m just getting a few facts sorted out,” said Hamish. “Would you send in the servants?”

After a few minutes Enrico and Maria appeared. Maria’s eyes were red with weeping. “Name?” Hamish asked Enrico.

“Santos. Enrico Santos, and this is my wife, Maria.”

“How long have you worked for Mr Trent?”

“Fifteen years. Both of us.”

“How did you find your way up here to the north of Scotland?”

“We were working in a restaurant in London,” said Enrico in his careful and precise English. “It was owned by my father-in-law. We did not get on. Maria cannot have children and yet he blamed me. I saw an advertisement for a couple in The Lady magazine and we answered it. So we came to live with Mr Trent.”