Freddy arrived late at Mrs. Belcher’s reception, having gone home for a bite of lunch and unaccountably fallen asleep afterwards, so it was gone four o’clock when he arrived at Sir Aldridge Featherstone’s mansion in Grosvenor Square. The first thing he saw on being ushered into the grand salon was his mother and Nancy Beasley, in earnest conversation with Marjorie Belcher herself. Cynthia spotted him immediately, but affected not to and went on talking, and he narrowed his eyes in exasperation. An enthusiastic woman with a collection box advanced upon him, and within five minutes he had spent seventeen shillings and ninepence on raffle tickets and other donations, and had narrowly avoided being tricked into signing a temperance pledge. He escaped the clutches of the enthusiastic woman, and went across to a long table, spread with a white cloth, behind which two or three slightly defeated-looking young women of the lower classes were standing, waiting to serve him tea. Several others of their kind were standing in a gaggle in one corner, looking and evidently feeling out of place, having been given their tea separately in the less valuable china. They bore patiently the stares of the guests and the loud remarks of the charity ladies, as they were pointed out at every opportunity as shining examples of what a pledge to abstain from drink could do. One of them, Freddy noticed, was eyeing an unattended silver teaspoon with interest.
Since it was obvious that his mother would be engaged for some time to come, he made a bee-line for someone he recognized. It was Larry Bendish, who was standing in conversation with Ann Chadwick and another young woman.
‘Hallo, Freddy,’ said Larry. ‘What are you doing here? Oughtn’t you to be plugging away at a typewriter? Or did they send you to write a story about the evils of the demon drink? Dreadful bore, this sort of thing, but I promised my mother I’d come, and so here I am. You know Ann, don’t you? Of course you do.’
Freddy said what was proper, and then Ann said:
‘Have you met Amelia?’
Freddy turned to see a girl with neat brown hair and wide, pale blue eyes, and was instantly smitten.
‘Amelia Drinkwater. Pleased to meet you,’ said Amelia.
‘Oh, I say, what?’ said Freddy idiotically, and forgot to introduce himself.
‘I expect you’ve heard about Ticky,’ said Larry Bendish.
Freddy closed his mouth with a snap and pulled himself together.
‘Ticky Maltravers?’ he said, as though he knew several Tickys. ‘Yes, the paper sent me along there this morning.’
‘And what did you find out?’ said Amelia with the greatest curiosity. ‘Did you speak to the police? Do they really suspect foul play?’
‘They wouldn’t say,’ said Freddy. ‘I don’t expect they know themselves, yet. They’ll have to do a post-mortem to find out how he died.’
‘I understand he dropped dead outside his own house,’ said Larry.
‘As a matter of fact, it was the house next door,’ said Freddy. ‘He didn’t make it as far as home.’
‘But why were the police called at all?’ said Amelia. ‘I mean, who decided his death was suspicious?’
‘Ticky’s doctor, I gather. He—er—seemed to think the body had been moved, and thought it needed looking into,’ said Freddy uncomfortably.
‘He was moved after he died, do you mean?’ said Larry in surprise. ‘Why would someone do that? And where was he moved from?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ replied Freddy, for to tell the truth was obviously impossible.
‘Well, it’s all very mysterious,’ said Amelia. ‘I shall be poring over the newspapers to find out what happens next. I do love a good murder.’
‘Murder!’ said Ann, laughing. ‘Why, Amelia, I believe your imagination is running away with you. What on earth makes you think he was murdered?’
‘I have an instinct for these things. Just you watch—I’ll bet that some time soon we’ll read that they’ve found out he was poisoned or something, and then the police will be all over the place, and Mummy will become even more impossible than she is now. She was at Babcock’s with him last night, for his birthday,’ she explained, in reply to Freddy’s questioning look.
‘Really? So was my mother,’ he said.
‘And mine,’ said Larry.
‘How funny!’ said Amelia. ‘Then we already have three murder suspects. Not that I believe for a moment that my mother would kill anyone, of course.’
Freddy said nothing, since he could not speak quite so confidently about Cynthia.
‘It’s five, if you include Mr. and Mrs. Beasley,’ said Ann. ‘And Captain Atherton was there, too—you know, the explorer.’
‘You mean the one who discovered that lost tribe in the Amazon jungle?’ said Amelia. ‘Goodness! Well, that makes six. I expect one of them put something in his food. I wonder which of them it was.’
‘I don’t really suppose it was any of them—or anybody at all, in fact,’ said Ann. ‘And I don’t know that it’s a good idea to be talking about murder at this stage. There might be a perfectly ordinary explanation for what happened, and we don’t want people gossiping and pointing fingers at innocent people, now, do we?’
‘How sensible you are!’ said Amelia. ‘No wonder Mrs. Beasley can’t do without you.’
‘She’ll have to, soon,’ said Larry. ‘I can’t do without her either, and husbands come first.’
‘When is it to be?’ said Amelia. ‘And won’t it feel strange to move out of that enormous house in Charles Street, and into a little place of your own?’
‘Ann prefers a smaller house, don’t you, Ann?’ said Larry. ‘It’ll be easier for her to look after, since we won’t have a great deal of money to start with, and shall have to struggle along for a little while.’
‘I don’t mind that,’ said Ann cheerfully. ‘I’ve always been poor, and I’m used to making do.’
She and Amelia began to talk of weddings and gowns, and other subjects of interest only to the female mind, and Freddy’s eye wandered away for a moment—fortunately for him, for he just then saw his mother, who was quite obviously trying to sidle out of the room without being seen. Excusing himself quickly, he ran out after her, and caught up with her at the bottom of the marble staircase.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he said.
She started guiltily.
‘Oh, there you are, darling!’ she said. ‘I was just about to go outside and have a cigarette. You know how Mrs. Belcher disapproves of smoking, but there are some things one simply can’t give up, however good the cause.’
‘All right, then, I’ll come with you,’ he said.
‘There’s no need for that. In fact, I’d far rather you didn’t. I need someone to distract her before she notices I’m missing. I’ll only be five minutes.’
She made as if to leave, but Freddy caught hold of her arm.
‘Not so fast,’ he said. ‘If you think I’m letting you run off, you’re very much mistaken. I want a word with you.’
Cynthia pouted.
‘You’re being very tiresome,’ she said, then sighed as she saw she had been fairly caught. ‘All right, then, if you must. I expect you’re going to bother me about that silly business last night.’
‘That silly—’ exclaimed Freddy. ‘Do you call skipping about with a corpse in a toy cart a silly business? I’m living in fear of my life. Why, if the police catch me, who knows what they’ll accuse me of? Aiding and abetting in a murder? Kidnapping? Or will they settle for a lesser charge of dangerous driving with an overloaded vehicle, do you suppose?’
‘Shh!’ said Cynthia, glancing about. ‘Not so loud! Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody need know about it except ourselves, as long as you keep quiet.’
‘Except that the police are already investigating,’ said Freddy. ‘Ticky’s doctor saw at once that he’d been moved after he died, and it’s only a matter of time before they find out who did it.’
Cynthia put her hand to her mouth.
‘Oh, goodness!’ she said. ‘Are you sure? Is that why the police were called? I had no idea.’
‘Of course that’s why the police were called. Why did you think it was?’
‘Why, I don’t know,’ she said vaguely. ‘I can’t say I’d given it much thought.’
Freddy suppressed the urge to give his mother a good shake.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘You can’t wriggle out of this one. I don’t know what you were thinking of, but it’s perfectly clear we’ve made things ten times worse by doing what we did. If you’d called a doctor straightaway, then everything would have been so much easier. They’d probably have put it down to a heart attack and nobody would have been any the wiser. Now they’re suspicious, and as soon as they find out where he was last night they’ll be sniffing around, asking awkward questions, and then what shall you say? You’ll have to admit everything.’
‘I? What have I to admit? You’re the one who did it,’ said Cynthia sweetly. ‘I shall tell them I had nothing to do with it.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ he said, aghast.
‘Just watch me.’
As Freddy spluttered with indignation, she put her hand on his arm.
‘Look, darling,’ she said persuasively. ‘I expect you’re right—I probably ought to have called a doctor, but the thing’s done now, and if we don’t want to get into trouble, it’s in both our interests to say nothing. Even if they suspect, they can’t prove it, and it’s not as though either of us killed him, is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Freddy. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘Of course I didn’t kill him! What a dreadful thing to suggest of your own mother! Freddy, I’m quite shocked at you.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you.’
‘Well, I didn’t. It all happened exactly as I told you. He didn’t feel well in the taxi, and then he collapsed outside our house and I—well, I suppose I panicked at the mention of poison.’
‘All right, then, but if you didn’t kill him, then who did? And why? Who wanted him dead?’
‘Oh, we all wanted him dead, darling,’ she said without thinking.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I was just joking.’
‘No you weren’t. What do you mean, you all wanted him dead? I thought you were all terrific pals.’
‘Well, dead is a strong word,’ she said. ‘I mean, that’s probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but he wasn’t the nicest sort, and he did take advantage rather, and I really didn’t have the cash to spare quite often, but he was always very firm and wouldn’t let me off. And I expect if he was doing it with me then he was doing it with everybody—not that anyone’s confessed to it in so many words, naturally, since it’s not the sort of thing one talks about, but I have heard some strong hints—so I suppose it’s always possible that he pushed things a little too far with someone. Perhaps he caught them on a bad day, or—I don’t know—perhaps they couldn’t afford it that week, or something. You know how one can put up with things for a while, then suddenly get sick and tired of it all, and decide that enough’s enough. So if he really didn’t die of a heart attack, then I expect that’s what happened. Do you see?’
‘No,’ said Freddy, although he was beginning to have a sinking feeling. ‘Why were you paying him money?’
Cynthia looked away and said nothing.
‘Mother,’ said Freddy, as the truth dawned. ‘Do you mean to say Ticky was blackmailing you?’