Why should your fellowship a trouble be,
Since man’s chief pleasure is society?
—SIR JOHN DAVIES
Two days had passed since the attempted murder of Lady Rose Summer. The countryside round about had been scoured for the would-be assassin. All railway stations were watched. Bert had a description of the man. He had called in at the village pub, The Feathers, with a magazine and had shown a photograph in it to the landlord. The photograph had won the annual prize and the story with it said it had been taken by a Dr. Linley of Drifton in Yorkshire.
“I didn’t know any better,” protested the landlord. “You didn’t say to tell no one about her. I told him, ‘Oh, that’s Rose what lives with our policeman.’ ”
He described the man as being of medium height, stockily built, with a large red face, a brown moustache and wearing a dark suit and a bowler hat.
Kerridge had travelled to the village accompanied by Harry and Inspector Judd. Rose and Daisy were confined to the cottage and told not to venture out of doors.
Kerridge said to Bert, “It’s no use you fretting, Shuffle-bottom. It’s not your fault. How were we to guess that wretched doctor would take a photograph of her? From the description, it’s no one we know. The Honourable Cyril isn’t at all like the description of this stranger in the village.”
“What about Dolly’s brother, Jeremy?” asked Harry.
Kerridge shook his head. “No, Jeremy Tremaine is thin and tall. What are you getting at? That her own family would kill her? Rubbish.”
“It did cross my mind,” said Harry. “They were so blatantly ambitious.”
“What I can’t understand,” said Kerridge, “is why he’s still after Lady Rose? As I said before, he must surely know that she would have told the police everything.”
“Cyril could have hired someone,” said Harry. “I mean, he might blame Rose for his rejection.”
“But she knew Dolly only for a very short time.”
“He might not know that. There was also that speculation in the newspapers that Lady Rose might be keeping quiet out of loyalty to her friend. How did he manage to escape from a hall full of people?”
“He stood by the side door and fired and then escaped out into the night. Everyone was screaming and tumbling about, trying to escape. Lots of confusion. No one really saw him because they were all looking at Lady Rose and Miss Levine on the stage. Lady Rose can’t continue to stay here. What are we to do with her?”
“Her parents are in Biarritz. You managed to keep this out of the newspapers?”
“Yes, clamped down on the whole thing.”
“I see no reason to tell them of this.” Or poor Lady Rose really will be shipped out to India, he thought, “With any luck we will have solved the case by the time they return. I suggest Lady Rose should return to London. My Aunt Phyllis will act as chaperone and I myself will move into the earl’s town house.”
“If you gentlemen would like to discuss this over dinner,” said Bert. “My Sally’s just fed the children and they’ve gone back to school. Lady Rose will take dinner with you and you can tell her your plans.”
Harry was taken aback to find Rose standing over the cooking pots on the range, wrapped in a long white pinafore. Daisy was laying the table with the help of Sally.
Rose turned round as they entered. “Please sit down,” she said. “I am about to serve.”
She lifted a leg of lamb out of one oven and then a tray of roasted potatoes and vegetables out of the other. She put the potatoes and vegetables in a casserole and placed it on the table and then put the leg of lamb on a large dish and put it in front of Harry. “Will you carve, please? I do not have the skill.”
I will never understand the upper classes, thought Kerridge. Here is the captain, her fiancé, and yet she goes on as if he’s a stranger.
When they were all seated over plates of lamb, Rose asked, “How are your investigations progressing?”
“Not well at all,” said Kerridge. “By Jove, this lamb’s delicious. You will make the captain a good wife. How are you coping with the shock, Lady Rose?”
“I am managing,” said Rose stiffly, remembering how, last night, she had clung on to Sally and wept.
“We have decided that you should return to London,” said Kerridge. “We saw no reason to alarm your parents with news of this. The captain’s Aunt Phyllis will chaperone you and the captain himself will move into the town house as well.”
Daisy brightened. Living with the captain meant living with Becket.
“May Daisy and I not stay here?” asked Rose. “He will surely not try to come here again and it is easier to watch out for strangers in a small village than it is in London.”
“There’s miles of places around this village where he could lie in wait,” said Kerridge. “I will arrange for you to make a press statement saying that you only knew Miss Tremaine briefly and she never said anything about anyone. There was only that note about her running away.”
“Lady Rose’s photograph was in the newspapers after the death of Dolly Tremaine,” said Harry. “Maybe one of the locals recognized her and blabbed.”
“If one of the locals had recognized her and it had got about, the press would have been here,” said Kerridge. “No, it was that doctor’s photograph that did the damage. May I have some more lamb?”
Rose felt tearful the next day as she said goodbye to Sally, Bert and the children. Harry, waiting beside the closed carriage that was to take them to York, saw the way her lip trembled and was amazed that the usually haughty Lady Rose had formed such an affection for these people.
“I shall come back, I promise,” said Rose, hugging Sally.
The children began to cry. Daisy cried as well, although, unlike Rose, she was longing to get to London again and see Becket.
Rose was silent on the long journey. Harry made several attempts to engage her in conversation, but she only answered in dreary monosyllables.
But as the train from York was approaching Paddington, Rose suddenly asked him, “What is this aunt of yours like? Who is she?”
“She is Lady Phyllis Derwent, widow of Lord Derwent. She is very kind.”
“It is nearly August,” remarked Rose. “Lady Phyllis will not be obliged to do very much chaperoning. Everyone goes to Scotland in August to shoot things.”
“Then you will have time to rest after your horrible experience.”
Aunt Phyllis was waiting for them. Her butler answered the door to them, Brum having gone to Biarritz with the earl and countess. Unlike Brum, the butler, Dobson, was a small round genial man with mutton-chop whiskers and small twinkling eyes.
They followed him up to the drawing-room. Aunt Phyllis rose to meet them. She was a thin, languid lady, dressed in a sea-green tea-gown bedecked with many long necklaces of pearls mixed with arty lumps of decorated china beads strung with black thread. Her long face was highly painted. Her eyes were a pale washed-out blue under wrinkled lids. The hand she extended to Rose was covered in rings.
“Welcome,” she said. “I trust you had a good journey?”
“Such a too, too sickening experience. I do not know what Harry was about, to billet you with the peasantry.”
“They were not peasants.” Rose fixed her with a hard stare. “In fact they were decent charming people with no false airs or graces. I was happy there.”
“Dear me. How original.” Aunt Phyllis turned to Harry. “Is Rose to be kept indoors?”
“No, through Superintendent Kerridge a statement is being issued to the press today to say that she knew very little about Dolly Tremaine.”
Becket entered the room and Daisy wished she could throw herself into his arms.
“Ah, Becket,” said Harry. “Any news?”
“The Tremaine family departed for their home in the country some time ago. The son, Jeremy, is studying divinity at Oxford.”
“I would really like to talk to the Tremaines now that their grief will have subsided a bit. Where do they live?”
“Dr. Tremaine is rector of Saint Paul’s in the village of Apton Magna in Gloucestershire.”
“I will go with you,” said Rose.
“That will not do at all,” said Aunt Phyllis. “I forbid it.”
“You are a guest in my home,” said Rose coldly, “so may I point out you are not in a position to forbid anything.”
“My sweet child! Do not be in such a taking. I was merely concerned for your welfare,” said Phyllis. She did not want to give up free accommodation and free meals for herself and her servants.
“As it is better I should be with my fiancée every time she ventures out of doors,” said Harry, “then perhaps it would be a good idea if she accompanied me.”
Lord and Lady Hadfield were basking in the sun on the terrace of the Grand Hotel at Biarritz. The earl was asleep with a newspaper over his face.
His wife poked him awake with the point of her parasol.
“Brum says you received a telegraph this morning. What was it?”
“Hey, what? Oh, that? Simply Cathcart saying that all was well with Rose.”
“Such a relief,” sighed Lady Polly, looking out at an expanse of deep blue sea. “It is so pleasant to be spared the worry of her.”
“I wish I had a son,” complained the earl. “Boys are less trouble.”
“Oh, go back to sleep,” snapped his wife, thinking again of all those little graves in the churchyard at Stacey Court. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried and tried. She had given birth to three boys, all of whom had died in childbirth and had gone to join their little sisters in the family grave. Only Rose had survived. Difficult Rose.
To Daisy’s dismay, the captain had changed his mind about staying at the earl’s town house. He had decided that it might occasion too much unfavourable comment, given that he was only engaged to Rose and not married to her.
But at least she and Becket were to join Rose and Harry on the outing to Gloucestershire.
Both wearing carriage dresses and heavily veiled, they climbed into Harry’s car the following day.
The sun was shining and the shops and houses of London all had blinds and awnings, fluttering in the lightest of breezes. They gave the effect of a city under full sail.
Harry was driving with Rose beside him. Rose was overawed by the beauty of the motor car. It was the new Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, the genius of the odd alliance between Charles Rolls, an aristocrat, and Frederick Royce, a working man from very poor beginnings. The Silver Ghost cruised along beautifully, keeping to the speed limit of twenty miles per hour.
“Your business must be doing very well,” she remarked.
“Because of my Rolls?”
“Yes.”
“Business has been excellent if tiresome. But people are prepared to pay a fortune for me to cover up scandals or even to find their lost dogs. I have told my secretary, however, that I am not taking on any further business until this case is solved.”
They stopped at an inn in a village outside Oxford for lunch because they had set out early that morning. “I wonder if Jeremy Tremaine is at the university,” said Harry.
“Hardly.” Rose poked at the food on her plate. She would not confess that she was still nervous and frightened, expecting assassins to jump out from behind every bush. “It’s high summer. What college does he attend?”
“Saint Edwin’s.”
“I wonder if this visit to the Tremaines is really necessary. They cannot know anything and they will hardly admit they drove their daughter into trying to run away because they were forcing her into marriage with Lord Berrow.”
“They might just know something,” said Harry. “If you’ve finished toying with your food, we’ll get on the road again.” Inspector Judd entered Kerridge’s office looking excited. “A man’s been dragged out of the Thames under Westminster Bridge.”
“So?”
“He hadn’t been in the water long and he looks like the man from Plomley.” The police artist had made a sketch of Rose’s would-be assassin from the Plomley landlord’s description, and the picture, prominently displayed on posters, had already been distributed to every police station in Britain.
Kerridge leaped to his feet and grabbed his bowler hat. “We’d best get down there and have a look.”
The body was lying, covered with a blanket, on the landing stage at Charing Cross. “Anything in his pockets?” asked Kerridge.
“I recognized him from the poster,” said the policeman, “and left him just as he was when he was dragged out of the river and gave instructions that you should be informed, sir.”
“Good lad. Let’s have a look.”
The constable pulled back the blanket. “He can’t have been in the water long,” commented Kerridge. “Who found him? Where exactly was he found?”
“It was low tide and two children found him, half in, half out of the river.”
“That artist did a good job. Let’s see what he has in his pockets.”
Kerridge knelt beside the body and began to pull out the contents of the dead man’s pockets. There was a gold watch, a wallet containing a wad of notes, a blackjack, and, in one coat pocket, to Kerridge’s delight, a pistol—a lady’s purse pistol. “This looks like our man,” said Kerridge. He turned the body over with the help of Judd. Someone had struck the man a vicious blow on the back of the head.
Kerridge sat back on his heels. “I think that’s what killed him, not drowning, but the pathologist will let us know. Let me have a proper look in this wallet.”
He carefully extracted the sodden notes, all five-pound ones. “I think there’s about five hundred pounds here,” he ex-claimed. “Anything else?”
He fished out a photograph showing the dead man posing on a beach with a pretty woman. “I want the police photographer to make copies of this and send it to all the newspapers. Where is he, anyway?”
“Here, sir,” panted the photographer, running up. Kerridge heaved the body back over. “Take a photograph of this, and take this photograph I found in the man’s wallet and see if you can photograph it and send it round to the newspapers. When we know who he is, we’ll know why.”
Before reaching Apton Magna, they had driven through some very pretty villages, but Apton Magna seemed a dreary, poverty-stricken place. It consisted of a long line of agricultural labourers’ cottages, built like miners’ cottages, directly onto the road and without front gardens. At one end of the row was a village shop and a pub, which was just really someone’s house with a green branch outside to show it sold ale. At the other end was the church with its square Norman tower.
The rectory was, however, a large handsome Georgian building with a porticoed entrance.
Dr. Tremaine came out to meet them. He was as thin as his wife was fat, wearing black clericals and buckled shoes. He had a craggy lantern-jawed face and small hazel eyes which regarded them with alarm.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded as Harry stepped down from the car.
“Lady Rose was fond of your daughter and wondered whether on calmer reflection Miss Tremaine had said anything to indicate there was anyone she feared.”
“There was no one. Now, go away.”
“Dr. Tremaine, I fail to understand your attitude. You must surely want to know who killed your daughter.”
“That is a job for the police and not for some dilettante aristocrat like you.”
“At attempt has been made twice on the life of my fiancée, Lady Rose,” said Harry sternly, “and all because some madman thinks she may have some knowledge of the murderer, which, believe me, she most certainly has not.”
“You must respect our grief,” said Dr. Tremaine. “You must go away before my wife sees you. She is still gravely upset and her nerves are delicate.”
At that moment, Mrs. Tremaine lumbered out of the house. With a cap on her mousy hair and her round figure, she looked rather like the late Queen. “Why, Lady Rose!” she exclaimed. “How kind of you to call.”
“They’re just leaving,” snarled her husband.
“Oh, you cannot go without taking some refreshment. Don’t be such a bear, dear. Do come in, Lady Rose.”
Under the rector’s glaring eyes, Rose entered the house. Daisy and Becket would have followed, but Mrs. Tremaine looked at them in horror. “Your servants may remain in the car.”
She led the way to a drawing-room. It had noble proportions which were lost in over-furnishing. The light was dim because of three sets of curtains on the long windows—net, linen and then brocade.
Mrs. Tremaine pulled the bell-rope and when the maid answered the summons asked for tea to be brought in. “My poor Dolly was so honoured by your friendship, Lady Rose,” she said. “She was meant for great things and struck down in her prime.”
“Have you any idea who might have murdered her?” asked Harry.
“I have already answered that,” said Dr. Tremaine.
“There was one person,” said Mrs. Tremaine, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, although Rose noticed her eyes were quite dry.
“Who?” asked Rose eagerly.
“The Honourable Cyril Banks, that’s who. He asked Mr. Tremaine for permission to pay his addresses and was told the answer was firmly no. ‘You’ll regret this,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll ruin that girl of yours. I’ll get even with you.’ Ah, here is tea.”
Ludicrously, Mrs. Tremaine began to brag about the great people she had met in London, and about what a duchess had said to her and what a countess had confided in her, and Rose could practically hear all these dropped names pattering like rain among the china cups.
She played her part, flattering Mrs. Tremaine and listening intently to her. Then, as they rose to take their leave, Rose said, “May I perhaps see my old friend’s bedchamber? An odd request, but it would help me to say goodbye.”
The rector muttered, “Pah!” But Mrs. Tremaine could not refuse a title anything. “Follow me, my lady.”
Upstairs, Rose stood on the threshold of what had been Dolly’s bedchamber and looked in. It was a bleak room furnished with a narrow bed, a desk, a hard chair and a wardrobe. Above the fireplace was a badly executed oil painting of a blond and blue-eyed Jesus suffering a group of remarkably British-looking children to come unto Him. The only other piece of furniture was a bedside table with a large Bible placed on top of it.
“Miss Tremaine did not have a diary or anything like that?” she asked.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Thank you,” said Rose.
“May I visit you when I am in London?” asked Mrs. Tremaine eagerly.
“By all means,” said Rose, confident that the rector would make sure his wife would not.
Rose and Harry told Daisy and Becket the little they had learned. “Perhaps when everyone returns to London, I might encourage the attentions of Cyril and see what I can find out,” suggested Rose.
“You are engaged to me,” snapped Harry. “It would be regarded as most unseemly behaviour.”
“Pooh,” said Rose. Daisy and Becket exchanged looks. Their hopes of Rose and Harry’s marrying seemed farther away than ever.
Harry received a message from Kerridge the following morning, bringing him up to date on the latest development.
He rushed round to Scotland Yard.
“Who is he?” he demanded, after entering Kerridge’s office. All the way to Scotland Yard he had been praying that it would turn out to be someone Dolly had known, that the murderer had drowned himself in a fit of remorse, and that Rose would now be safe.
“Sit down,” said Kerridge. “I’ve just interviewed a retired prison officer from Wormwood Scrubs. He says he recognized our man from his photograph in the newspapers this morning. His name is Reg Bolton. He was doing time for stealing a reticule up the West End from a lady who had left it lying beside her on a chair in a coffee shop. He had a record of violence as well. His wife was found dead with her head bashed in but this Reg had various people to alibi him for the night she was killed, so he got off with that one. Reg had five hundred pounds in his wallet when we found him. And no, he didn’t drown. He was murdered.”
Harry sat down in the chair opposite Kerridge. “So it looks as if someone hired him to kill Lady Rose?”
“That’s just the way it looks to me,” said Kerridge gloomily. “This gets worse and worse. He had a lady’s purse pistol on him. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be the one that was used. Blast!
“Did this Reg have any visitors when he was in prison?”
“Wasn’t allowed any. If his wife had still been alive or if he’d had any children, then the authorities would have allowed them to visit, but no one else got in.”
“May I talk to this screw myself?” In Pentonville Prison in 1840, prisoners were supposed to turn a crank on a machine. If the prisoner was to be punished further, the screw was tightened, and so that was how prison warders came to be known as screws.
“I’ll give you a note. His name is Henry Barker.”
Giving Becket the rare treat of taking the wheel of his new motor, Harry went to Wormwood Scrubs. He saw the governor and gave him Kerridge’s note and Henry Barker was summoned.
“I have Detective Superintendent Kerridge’s permission to interview you,” said Harry. “I am Captain Cathcart.”
“I’ve heard about you,” said Barker. “Private detective, ain’t you?”
“That is correct. Now what sort of character was this Reg Bolton?”
“Brutal. He terrified a lot of the prisoners.”
“Did he say anything to you, anything that might give us a hint that someone might be paying him?”
“Well, these hardened criminals always like to brag, Captain. The day afore he was leaving, he was grinning all over his face.
“ ‘One more day to go,’ I says. He says, ‘I ain’t coming back here no more,’ he says. ‘Good,’ says I. ‘Mending your ways?’ He grins and says to me, ‘I’m going to be a gent. I got connections. Got a good job waiting for me.’ ”
“And what did you gather from that?”
“Villains never change. I thought maybe one of the other villains had put him in touch with a gang.”
“Did he have a particular friend?”
The warder shook his head. “The others detested him, even the real hard ones. He was a nasty bit of work. I mean, I’m only guessing one of them offered him a job. But I never saw him talking much to anyone all the time he was here.”
“How long he in here for?”
“Two years.”
“And no one visited him during all that time?”
“No, sir. Not a one.”
Harry turned to the governor. “Would it be possible to find me his home address?”
“I’ll get my secretary to look up the records,” said the governor. “Thank you, Barker, that will be all.”
Harry left and headed for Bermondsey and to the address the governor had given him. He changed his mind when he saw the attention his Rolls was getting from bunches of sinister-looking men on street corners. “Turn around, Becket,” he ordered. “We’ll leave the car somewhere safe and take a hansom.”
They returned later, told the cabbie to wait, and stared up at a rat warren of a building.
They entered a narrow hallway, edging around broken prams and soggy boxes of detritus. There was no reply on the ground floor and so they mounted the rickety stairs. The smell was appalling. Harry knocked at a door on the first landing.
A slattern of a woman answered it.
“I wondered if there was anyone living here who remembers Reg Bolton?”
“Never ’eard o’ ’im.” The door began to close.
Harry put his foot in it. “Is there anyone who has been living here for some time?”
“Try old Phil at the top and get your bleedin’ foot out o’ my door.”
Holding his handkerchief to his nose, Harry, followed by Becket, went on up the stairs. He knocked on one door and there was no answer. He tried the other one. There came the sound of shuffling feet behind the door and then it opened.
An old man stood there, or perhaps, thought Harry with sudden compassion, he might not be that old but aged by poverty. Behind him was a bare room with an iron bedstead.
“Are you Phil?” asked Harry.
“Right, guv. I’d ask you inside but there ain’t nowheres to sit down.”
Phil’s face was marked by scabs and his clothes were ragged.
“That’s over two years ago. Flash fellow, he were. Wouldn’t spend the money to get his missus out of this rat hole. She said she was leaving him and he beat her to death. But he got loads o’ villains to testify he was somewhere else at the time. Shame, it was.”
“Did he know any grand people?”
“Naw, only villains.”
“How old are you?” asked Harry.
“Fifty-five, come Tuesday.”
“And how did you come to land up here?”
“The wife went off and left me. I adored my Elsie. Went to pieces. Lost me trade as a joiner. Shut up in the asylum, and when I got out I was done for. Just existed here ever since.”
Harry could not bear to leave him. A voice in his head was screaming at him that he was surrounded by hundreds of other cases of dismal poverty and to leave Phil alone. But he found himself saying, “Come with me. I think I can find work for you. Have you belongings you can pack?”
“Got nothing but what you see.”
“Come along.”
Phil meekly shuffled down the stairs after them. Becket opened his mouth to protest and then shut it again as he remembered how Harry had saved him from a life of poverty after Becket had collapsed from hunger while working as a porter in Covent Garden.
The driver of the hansom told him that he wasn’t going to allow Phil in his cab until Harry promised to pay extra.
“What is your name?” asked Harry.
“Phil Marshall.”
“Well, Phil, first of all we need to get you cleaned up and get you some decent clothes.”
“What can he do?” asked Becket.
“That cleaning woman is finishing work for us at the end of the week. Do you think you are fit enough to do some cleaning, Phil?”
“Reckon I could, guv. I feel a bit weak, mind.”
“When did you last eat?”
“Maybe Tuesday.”
“Dear me, and this is Friday. Becket, summon the doctor when we arrive. He’ll need to treat those scabs.”
Phil began to feel as if he had died and gone to heaven. A warm bath was run for him and Becket laid out clean underwear and a suit for him.
After that, he was checked by the doctor, who said the scabs were caused by untreated bedbug bites and malnutrition and suggested a gentle diet of soup and light meals to begin with.
Phil was given a small room in the basement and told to rest as much as possible.
He lay on the bed after Becket had gone, tears of gratitude pouring down his cheeks. He swore that from that day on, he would die for the captain if necessary.
Harry called on Rose later that day. She listened in alarm as he described the body fished out of the Thames and how they feared that Reg had been a hired assassin.
“But I think you will be safe now,” he assured her. “A story has gone into all the newspapers that you held nothing back from the police.”
“So I suppose you will feel free to go back to ignoring me.”
“On the contrary,” said Harry. “I have been remiss and I do apologize. But you cannot have any social engagements in August. Everyone is away.”
Rose bit her lip and then said in a small voice. “I’m bored.”
“Then next week, I will take you for a drive if the weather is fine.”
“I wish I were a man,” raged Rose later to Daisy. “He can call at Scotland Yard any time he likes and be part of the investigation, but all I can do is sit here and rot and get letters from that dreary Mrs. Tremaine, oiling all over me in print. I am not interested in the fact that she and her dear husband have gone to Cromer on holiday.”
Daisy brightened. “I am.”
“Why, pray?”
“It would be interesting to go down to that village while the Tremaines have gone and ask around about them and about Dolly. See what we could find out.”
“That is a splendid idea. I must find out how to get there.”
“We could take one of the carriages.”
“They’ve all got Pa’s coat of arms on the panels. That would occasion comment. Better to travel by rail to the nearest town and take a carriage from there. We need not trouble to tell Aunt Phyllis where we are going. She is only concerned with ordering the servants around and eating vast quantities of food.”
They took the train to Oxford and changed onto a local line and took another train to Moreton-in-Marsh, where they hired a waiting carriage to take them to Apton Magna.
“It is pleasant to be back in the country again,” sighed Rose. “When all this is over, I shall go back north to see Bert and Sally.”
“And how will you do that?” asked Daisy. “If your parents are at home, they are certainly not going to let you go all that way to see a mere village policeman.”
“Perhaps the captain can arrange something,” said Rose. “Oh, do look at that sweet cottage.”
“All I see is the pump at the front for the water and no doubt the you-know-what will be out in the back garden. I can smell the cesspool from here.”
“You have no romance in your soul,” admonished Rose.
“I have memories of poverty in me soul,” said Daisy.
“Don’t say ‘me.’ ”
They told the cabbie to wait for them at the entrance to the village. They had both decided to wear their plainest clothes.
A woman was sitting outside a cottage, holding a baby on her lap. “Excuse me,” said Rose, “we were wondering if you could give us some information about the Tremaines.”
The woman got to her feet and, disappearing inside the cottage, slammed the door behind her.
They met with the same lack of success at other cottages.
“Perhaps one of the more well-to-do residents would be more forthcoming,” suggested Rose.
“There don’t seen to be any,” replied Daisy. “We’ve forgotten our village ways. We’re too direct. We need someone friendly. Ask them something like where we can get a cup of tea, enter into conversation about the weather and so on, and then slide in some remark about the murder.”
“That sounds a very good idea,” said Rose. “That is, if we can find anyone amiable.”
“I remember there was a cottage up by the rector’s place. It looked in better shape than the others,” said Daisy. “Why is the rector called ‘doctor’?”
“Because he’s a doctor of divinity. Remember that Gilbert and Sullivan opera? ‘A doctor of divinity/Who resides in this vicinity.’ ”
The cottage they approached was small and thatched and made of Cotswold stone, unlike the red brick cottages of the other villagers.
It had a front garden crowded with flowers. They opened the gate and walked up the path. Rose knocked on the door.
A woman answered it. She looked washed-out and faded, as if some grim laundress had boiled her, mangled her and hung her out in strong sunlight to dry without ironing her first. Her simple muslin gown was creased, and the dry flaky skin of her long face, lined with wrinkles. Her eyes were of such a pale grey that they looked almost white and she wore her sparse grey hair under a crumpled linen cap.
“We are visiting the countryside and wondered whether there was anywhere in Apton Magna where we could get some refreshment,” said Rose.
“Oh, there’s nothing nearer than Moreton-in-Marsh. They do ever such a nice tea at the White Hart Royal. I remember being taken there by a gentleman friend when I was just a girl.”
“Perhaps you would like to join us?” suggested Rose. “We have a carriage waiting at the end of the village. I am Lady Rose Summer and this is Miss Daisy Levine.”
“That’s is so kind of you. May I present myself? I am Miss Friendly.” She plucked nervously at her gown. “I am not perhaps quite properly dressed.”
“Nonsense,” said Rose bracingly. “You will do very well.”
“I don’t know. Dear me. Afternoon tea! Such a luxury.” She looked at them wistfully out of her pale eyes.
“I’ll go and bring the carriage,” said Daisy quickly, and ran off.
“Please step inside,” said Miss Friendly. “The sun is very strong.”
Rose followed her into a front parlour. There was very little furniture. There were light squares on the dingy wallpaper showing where pictures had once hung. Fallen on hard times, thought Rose, with a feeling of compassion.
“Do you live here alone, Miss Friendly?”
“Yes. Papa died ten years ago. He was rector of Saint Paul’s before Dr. Tremaine. The church kindly allowed me to have this cottage.”
Rose heard a rumble of carriage wheels outside.
“Ah, there is our carriage and Miss Levine. If you are ready, Miss Friendly?”
Seated in the pleasant gloom of the White Hart Royal over an enormous afternoon tea, Rose again felt a sharp pang of compassion as she watched Miss Friendly try not to gobble the food. The woman was obviously starving. Rose talked about the weather and about the beauties of the countryside until she saw that Miss Friendly’s appetite was at last beginning to be satisfied.
“You must have been very upset over the news of Miss Tremaine’s murder,” she said.
“Oh, shocking. Very shocking. Poor Dolly. She often came to my little cottage. Such a beautiful girl. But very much a country girl. I always thought she would have been happy marrying a farmer, or someone like that, but her parents had such ambitions for her.”
“I knew her in London,” said Rose. “She was very unhappy.”
“Of course. Lady Rose Summer! I saw your name in the newspapers. You found her. How awful. Yes, it was awful. But she must have been missing . . . Oh, I shouldn’t gossip. Poor Dolly.”
“My fiancé is a private detective,” said Rose. “He is helping Scotland Yard to find the killer. Anything you can tell me would be of great help. Who was Dolly missing?”
“Roger Dallow.”
“And who is this Roger Dallow?”
“He’s the blacksmith’s son. I think he and Dolly were very much in love.”
“And is he in the village? May I speak to him?”
“Oh, he left, right after Dolly went up to London.”
“And where did he go?”
“Nobody knows. You see, his father is a brutal man. I think that was the bond between Roger and Dolly. They were both bullied by their parents. I am sorry I cannot tell you any more. I assume that is why you invited me for tea.”
“I could just as well have asked you these questions at your cottage,” said Rose. “Do you find it difficult to make ends meet?”
For the first time colour appeared on Miss Friendly’s pale cheeks. She hung her head. “Papa was fond of hunting and hunting is an expensive sport. When he died I had to sell his horses, my jewellery and pictures and furniture to pay his debts. The church charges me a low rent but I have nearly reached the point where I do not think I can go on paying it. Forgive me. Ladies should not talk of such things.”
“Oh, we talk about anything,” said Daisy. “Don’t you worry about it.”
“Yes, I am a very good seamstress. Do not judge me by my clothes. It is a long time since I have been able to afford any material and . . . well . . . I gave up troubling about my appearance.”
“Our lady’s maid, Turner, is not very expert with a needle but is an amiable creature and I would not like to lose her.” The main reason Rose liked Turner was because Turner never reported any of her doings to Lady Polly. “Perhaps you might consider working for me? You would have a comfortable room and board and you would not need to worry about the rent.”
Miss Friendly burst into tears. Rose handed her a handkerchief and waited.
“It seems like a miracle,” she gasped when she could.
“Then we will return to your cottage and you may pack a trunk and we will send a fourgon for the rest of your things later. My parents’ secretary will advise the church of your leaving.”
Lady Rose should really have put Miss Friendly in a second-class compartment, which is where servants normally travelled. But the woman looked so frail, she decided to buy her a first-class ticket. Full of food, Miss Friendly fell asleep as soon as the train moved off.
“That was right decent of you,” said Daisy.
“I think when this murder is solved that I should get involved in charity work. My parents cannot object. It is quite fashionable to do so.”
“Do we have enough work for her?” asked Daisy. “We’re always getting new clothes.”
“There is plenty of work. Servants’ clothes often need to be altered. Hats need to be trimmed. I will make sure she is kept busy.”
Aunt Phyllis started to complain about the employment of Miss Friendly, but Rose silenced her with a haughty glare, and saying, “You have no right to question who I engage.”
To Rose’s relief the housekeeper, Mrs. Holt, actually welcomed the newcomer, privately planning to have several of her own gowns made over. Miss Friendly was given a small bedchamber off the second landing and shown the sewing-room in one of the attics.
Matthew Jarvis called on her to get the details of whom to notify in the church and where to send the fourgon. To Miss Friendly’s amazed delight, she found she was to get a salary as well.
Then the housekeeper, under Rose’s instructions, presented Miss Friendly with two bolts of cloth.
“Lady Rose says you might want to begin by making some frocks for yourself.”
The next day, Miss Friendly began to work, the sewing-machine humming under her clever fingers, stopping occasionally to caress the rich cloth. As she worked, she began to search her mind for everything she knew about the Tremaines.
Perhaps she had forgotten something that might help Lady Rose’s fiancé with the investigation.
Harry called on Rose that evening. He listened carefully while she told him about the blacksmith’s son. “I’ll tell Kerridge. He might have followed the Tremaines to London. I would like to speak to this woman myself. I will go to Apton Magna tomorrow.”
“That will not be necessary. I have engaged her as a seamstress. She is here.”
“How did that come about?”
“She was so poor and so hungry. Besides, she will be of use.”
Harry thought of his rescue of Phil. How like he and Rose really were. He wanted suddenly to tell her that they should start again, that perhaps they could deal very well together, but Rose had risen to ring the bell and ask a footman to fetch Miss Friendly.
She came in and sat down timidly on the very edge of a chair. “I am Captain Cathcart,” Harry began, “and I believe you have supplied Lady Rose with some very interesting information about the blacksmith’s son.”
“Only that he and Dolly were very much in love. I believe they used to meet in secret. You can’t keep much quiet in a village. The rector complained to the blacksmith and the blacksmith gave Roger a terrible beating. That was just before they took Dolly to London.”
“Miss Tremaine gave Lady Rose a note saying she was running away. It is possible that she knew where this Roger was and was going to join him. On the other hand, he could have killed her. What sort of fellow was he?”
“Very strong. Curly black hair and quite tall. He told someone in the village that he was running off to London.”
“Would it be possible to find a photograph of him?”
“I shouldn’t think so, sir. I cannot remember anyone in the village having a camera.”
“I’ll get Kerridge on to this,” said Harry. “Thank you, Miss Friendly.”
She curtsied and left.
“You should not have risked going to Apton Magna without telling me,” said Harry.
“How could I tell you? You are never here.”
“I do have a telephone, as you well know.”
“I do not like not having the freedom of a man,” said Rose. “You are able to visit Scotland Yard any time you like and find out the latest developments.”
“I could wish you were more conventional for your own safety.”
“One could hardly call you conventional.”
“True, but it is different for a man.”
“I sometimes feel like cancelling our engagement and marrying Sir Peter.”
He glared at her in outrage. “That would be a marriage in name only.”
“As this is an engagement in name only,” retorted Rose.
The much-goaded Harry seized her in his arms and kissed her hard on the lips. When she reeled back after he had released her, he said, “I am sorry. I should not have done that. But you are infuriating!”
And with that, he turned and left the room.
