The holiday season had started and at Heathrow Airport the bustle was quite incredible. They had had to come two hours before the flight—not one, as it had been. Penelope Tradescant looked at her watch: nine o’clock. She could do with some more coffee. She’d got up at some unearthly hour. Needed to check in first. How long the queue was!
Her mobile phone rang. ‘Hold this,’ she told her companion and handed him her overnight bag.
She held the phone to her ear. ‘Yes?’
‘Lady Tradescant? Oh dear. This is too dreadful!’
‘Who is this?’
‘I am so sorry. It’s Wilfred Cowley-Cowper speaking. From Mayholme Manor—’
‘Who? Oh—Master?’
‘Yes, yes—oh dear—yes.’
He sounded extremely flustered.
‘What is it?’ Vic whispered.
‘Sorry, can’t hear you very well,’ she said. ‘Has anything happened? Not Seymour?’
‘Yes! I am so sorry, Lady Tradescant, but I am afraid—it’s Sir Seymour—I am so sorry!’
‘Seymour? Is he ill?’
‘I am afraid I am the bearer of terrible tidings, Lady Tradescant. The worst possible news. Sir Seymour died this morning.’
‘Died?’
‘What’s happened?’ Vic asked. ‘Who’s died?’
‘He died forty-five minutes ago. I called Dr Henley at once,’ the Master explained, ‘but it was too late.’
‘Oh, my God. What—but what happened?’
‘Sir Seymour didn’t feel frightfully well last night. He thought his fingers were a bit swollen—this might have nothing to do with it, mind! I suggested calling Dr Henley, but Sir Seymour insisted he was fine. Well, he died this morning. In his bath.’
Penelope gave a little gasp. ‘In his bath!’
‘I am afraid so. It’s terrible. That’s where Travis—one of the stewards—found him when he brought him his breakfast. I am so sorry. This must be extremely distressing!’
‘It’s a shock … My God … Seymour … Was it a heart attack?’
‘Dr Henley is not sure, but he thinks it was a heart attack, yes.’
‘Poor Seymour.’ She looked across at the darkly handsome face of her companion. Poor lamb, he looked worried, quite distressed in fact. He had insisted on seeing her off. So sweet. She tried to give him a reassuring smile.
‘Dr Henley kept warning him against taking hot baths. There may be a PM. I don’t know. Dr Henley will need to conduct further examinations.’ The Master sounded quite choked. ‘It all seems to depend on how conclusive his findings are. He may need to ask for a second opinion, he says. It is all too dreadful for words. I was wondering whether it would be convenient for you to—’
‘Of course. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I shall take a cab. Thank you for letting me know, Master. I am at Heathrow, as it happens. The airport, yes. I was on my way to the South of France—good thing I never got on the plane!’
‘The South of France!’ The Master seemed to find this particularly distressing. ‘I am so terribly sorry.’
Poor poppet. He was clearly in a state of shock. Penelope had a soft spot for the Master.
‘Well, Vic, c’est la vie. First your mother, now Seymour. It’s awful, I know, though I can’t pretend I feel sad for either of them.’
It was half an hour later. They were sitting in the back of a cab and he was holding her hand. He said, ‘They’ll think it is us, Penelope. They’ll think it’s us.’
‘I don’t see why they should. Seymour died of a heart attack. That’s what the doctor thinks.’
‘What if he drowned? He was in the bath, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s a possibility, but I don’t see how they could start imagining that we’ve got anything to do with it. At this point there’s no question of anyone suspecting foul play. The fact remains Seymour died shortly after eight o’clock this morning. The Master said so.’
‘Eight o’clock? Are they sure? Thank God!’ Vic gave a sigh of relief. ‘At eight o’clock we were in the cab on the way to Heathrow. Neither you nor I could have been at Dulwich, drowning your husband!’
‘Unless one of us managed to be in two places at the same time?’ She gave a little smile as she remembered the book of conjuring tricks she had given Seymour. ‘Perhaps I am not me?’
‘What—what do you mean?’
‘Don’t look at me like that, silly—of course it’s me! I shouldn’t be joking, I know, but I can’t help feeling very happy. I am free—and I am rich!’
‘Will you marry me?’
‘I am not sure. Actually, my sweet, I don’t think that would be an awfully good idea,’ Penelope Tradescant said.
‘Why not? You love me, don’t you?’
‘I adore you.’
‘It’s interesting, the way you smile when you clearly don’t feel like smiling. I caught myself in my shaving mirror doing exactly the same thing the other day,’ Vic said. ‘It suddenly came to me. We are so similar!’
‘We are, aren’t we? Practically alike. That can be dangerous,’ Penelope said with mock gravity. ‘All the more reason why we shouldn’t get married.’
‘Arise, Sir Nicholas!’ It was the dark girl who said it this time and she laid the brush against his left, then against his right shoulder. They were at the same hotel, but the blonde girl wasn’t with them.
Nicholas Tradescant went on staring down at his mobile phone. Did he feel sorry—sad? Well, no. He felt—nothing. He felt empty. A bit shaken up, that was all. He’d never loved his father. He had been caned by a servant at his father’s orders once. He must have been ten or eleven. He couldn’t remember the reason. His father had sat by and watched, while sipping pale sherry. He recalled his father’s words. ‘Well, Nicky, if you asked me nicely, the castigation could be cancelled.’ There had been a smirk on the servant’s face. Nicky had clenched his teeth. He hadn’t begged for mercy. He hadn’t screamed or sobbed. He had stood the punishment out, bloodied but Spartan in his silence. He had then walked stiffly and painfully to his room. He’d wished his father dead, he remembered.
The dark girl put her arm around his neck. ‘What are you thinking about, Nicky? Aren’t you happy?’
‘No.’ He frowned. ‘We floated an electronically operated boat on the lake once. Many years ago. I was very excited about it, but my father got angry with me, I can’t remember the reason, but he told me to go back to the house. He then spent an hour playing with the boat all by himself.’
‘What a terrible thing to do! Poor Nicky. Well, your father is dead now and you are one of the richest men in England, aren’t you?’
He asked the dark girl where the blonde girl was—did she have any idea?
She shrugged. ‘She is a dark horse. Perhaps it was her who went and killed your father. She said she would, didn’t she?’
‘Actually it was you who said it.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘They don’t know the exact cause of death yet, but it looks like a stroke.’ He glanced down at his mobile phone. There was a message—from his aunt, of all people. What did it say? Rejoice! Rejoice!
He shut his eyes. He had started feeling a little queasy.
‘I am pregnant and I am absolutely sure you are the father,’ the dark girl was saying.