Murder at Maddingley Grange Page 2

  “You said she wouldn’t mind.”

  “Picky, picky. I shall put a help-wanted notice in the Oxford Mail.”

  “Safer to go to an agency.”

  “I’ve no intention of paying a huge registration fee and inflated salaries, thanks very much. Especially as our profits have now been cut to the bone thanks to all this whining about numbers. The point of the weekend after all is to make a killing. I shall ask for references, of course.”

  “I should hope so.”

  Simon replaced his glass on the table and lifted his face to the warm early evening sun, calmly content. He had never in a million years thought that he would be able to persuade Laurie to go along with his plan. Or, should this persuasion miraculously occur, that she would agree to more than two or, at the very most, four visitors at a time. Huckster-like he had started by suggesting over thirty, knowing this would frighten the wits out of her, and now she had actually agreed to ten. Unbelievable. Tomorrow he really would put an advertisement in The Times. He said: “And the murder is still on?” When Laurie frowned he added quickly: “I’ll organize it all.”

  “What do you know about murder weekends?”

  “Done lots of research.” Simon indicated a pile of brochures sitting next to some paperbacks by the lemonade jug. He picked up a copy of Death on the Nile and waved it about. “And got lots of ideas. I shall draw up a flexible plot outline, give everyone a stock character and let them get on with it.”

  “It all sounds a bit vague.”

  “Vagueness is vital. You’ve got to allow room for improvisation. Usually, according to these”—he patted the brochures—“actors are involved, but I’m certainly not hiring any. They want what’s called the Equity minimum. I was horrified when I discovered what it was. I thought they all did it for love. Like nuns and missionaries.”

  “I shall want to vet all the replies to the advert.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And this butler and maid.”

  “Of course. Though they’ll really just be set-dressing. You can do lots of cooking before the guests arrive and tart up the house. You know—put flowers in all the rooms—”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “I thought you liked flowers. Right, so that’s the weekend after this. June fifteenth to seventeenth.”

  “And what will you be doing whilst all this activity’s going on?”

  “I,” said Simon grandly, tilting his chair back again and resting his loafers once more on the rungs of the table, “will be pressing my plus fours.”

  Chapter Two

  Oddly enough, in one respect Simon proved to be correct. Once Laurie had really thrown herself into the business of organizing the weekend, her misgivings, temporarily at least, slipped away. She vacuumed and dusted and ran up and down stairs with piles of lavender-scented sheets and pillowcases, making sure that each guest had fresh flowers, fluffy towels, scented soap and plenty of reading materials. Plus, on their bedside tables, a handwritten menu card.

  She had prepared for their delectation pigeon terrine, boeuf en croute, lemon and toffee puddings and, in case anyone was a vegetarian, some ratatouille and a Stilton and broccoli quiche. All this was in the freezer together with a hundred rolls and fifty assorted croissants and brioche. There were still pheasants to prepare and a whole salmon was in the fridge awaiting Saturday lunch. For the first time Laurie felt grateful to her aunt who, quaintly believing gardening to be no job for a lady, had refused to pay her niece’s fees for the coming year at Pershore College until she had completed two full terms at the Tante Marie School of Cookery. Now, feeling crisp and capable, Laurie checked her housekeeping list over and over again, sure she had forgotten nothing. She was, of course, wrong.

  Simon, as always once he had got his own way, was all sweetness, light and helpful assistance. He had driven the Mountfield Simplicity to great effect over the vast lawns, throwing up sparkling clouds of frail grass cuttings and leaving stripes of exquisite perfection. He had also obtained a minibus (all the guests having taken advantage of the free train offer) by trading in, temporarily, his old Karmann Ghia. The bus now stood washed and polished outside the front entrance. An amber sunstrip, boldly lettered MADINGLEY GRANGE, arched over the windshield. And yesterday they had braved the cellar.

  Neither of them had been down there before and they were amazed at the size of the place. It was like a small aircraft hangar dimly lit by three sixty-watt bulbs suspended from frayed old electric cord. A cryptish smell prevailed, the floor was gritty under their feet and the dust made Laurie sneeze. There was no echo. Rather the sneeze was immediately trapped and enfolded in an atmosphere of overpowering fustiness. As they stood, rather close together, one of the bulbs sizzled briefly and went out.

  “Great,” said Simon. “We could hardly see a thing before. I should have brought a torch.”

  “I’ll go and get one.”

  “Don’t you dare.” He caught his sister’s eye. “And there’s no need to sneer.” His voice wavered theatrically. “Who knows what horrors lurk at the bottom of the Black Lagoon?”

  Laurie reached up and pushed the light. It swung backward and forward. Huge shapes loomed out of the dimness, receded, loomed again. Old furniture piled high, some trunks, an upturned ancient rowing boat. Tennis nets, bats and balls, a set of mallets for croquet. And crates and crates and crates of wine.

  “My God…” breathed Simon. “An oenophile’s paradise.”

  “I bet it’s all off.”

  “One way to find out.” Simon moved toward the nearest stack. Each set of fifty crates was enclosed in a three-sided cage made of open wire mesh over a wooden frame. He pulled out a bottle.

  “Don’t swing it about like that. There’s bound to be sediment.”

  “So I spoil one. There’s hundreds more. What sort do we want? You’re the chef de cuisine.”

  “Some red and some white.”

  “I’d have thought all that pricy training would have left you with a slightly wider grasp of château and vintage than ‘some red and some white’.”

  “There’s no point in being precise when I don’t know what we’ve got.”

  “Well, this…” Simon peered at a bottle. “The label’s flaked off.”

  “Should tell you on the cork what it is.”

  “There’s obviously some serious testing to be done here. We can’t give the punters stuff we haven’t had a go at ourselves. You take the next three down and I’ll bring these.”

  “Simon…” Laurie had moved a few steps away. “Here a minute.”

  Simon joined her. “Champers. Yum-yum.”

  “It’s Krug, 1955.”

  “High time we polished it off then.”

  “We can’t do that. It must be worth a fortune.”

  “You’re not going to be tiresome, are you, Laurie?”

  “What do the others say?”

  “Drink me.” Simon turned Laurie firmly toward the cellar steps and gave her a little push. “Go and find a corkscrew.” He collected three more bottles and followed his sister, nudging when she hesitated.

  Back in the dining room he produced some long-stemmed tulip glasses, wiped the dirt and cobwebs from bottle number one—it still looked quite black—and eased out the cork. The wine glowed like rubies and a heavenly fragrance, massively opulent, arose from the glass. Black currants, cedarwood (or was it sandalwood?), plummy and rich. Laurie emptied her glass and gazed at Simon. She looked quite stunned.

  “Delicious.”

  Simon pulled a further cork. “This is a white one. I think you asked for one of each.”

  The white one in its own way was equally superb. In color a lovely buttery yellow with a greenish edge. Disbelieving the first glass, they had a second. It smelled of…

  “Vanilla.”

  “Nuts.”

  “Toast.”

  “Toast?”

  “And butter.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” contradicted Laurie, wagging her head. “Seems to me”—investigating further—“to have a rare and subtle oakiness—”

  “Spare me the wine babble.”

  “Oany…oh…only…ocky…”

  “One more word about rare and subtle oakiness and it all goes down the sink.”

  “No!”

  “Behave yourself then.”

  “Yes, Simon.”

  “Let’s have no prating on about saucy little numbers with a quick good-bye.”

  “No, Simon.” Laurie imbibed a little more. “Gorse bushes.”

  “God, you’re affected.” Simon broached bottle number three.

  “That’s the fish and meat then.”

  “What is?”

  “What we’ve just”—in a huge effort of concentration, Laurie frowned and gripped the edge of the table—“drunk.”

  “I can see you’re drunk. You’re a disgrace to the family name.”

  “Not true. Now…” Laurie laid a solemn and restraining hand on her brother’s arm. “We want something to go with the pudding.”

  “Pudding, madam?” Simon wrapped a clean tea towel around bottle number three. “Say no more.”

  “I shall say what I like. Who you think you are?”

  Simon poured. Hayfields newly mown under a baking sun. Mignonette crushed in the hand. Clover and wild flowers. A deep golden wine with a rim the color of burnt sugar, rich and sweet. Fat honeybee sweetness that stayed in your mouth. And stayed. And stayed.

  “Now that”—Simon drained his glass—“is bliss. As close, I fear, to heaven as I shall ever be in this world or the next. What are you doing down there?”

  “Down where?”

  “On the floor.”

  “I’m not on the floor.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m
not.”

  “Well, one of us is.”

  “It’s you.” Laurie started to laugh, rocking in her chair. “Get up…get up…”

  “These wines,” said Simon, struggling to his feet and nearly pulling Laurie down in the process, “are something else.”

  “I must find out what they are. An’ write them on the menu cards.”

  “Absolutely. Now—open up the Krug,” demanded Simon. “And let the sunshine in.”

  Hours later, when Laurie felt herself capable, she returned to the cellar with a flashlight and a little stool and rubbed the dust from the three cages. It was then revealed that Friday’s guests would be drinking Mouton-Rothschild ’45 with their meat, a 1962 Louis Latour Corton-Charlemagne with their fish, and with their dessert a 1921 Château d’Yquem.

  “And all so divine,” muttered Laurie while amending her menu cards, “that I should think people would be prepared to pay two hundred and fifty pounds just for the privilege of tasting them.” And in so saying she spoke no more than the simple truth.

  The next day Simon, still complaining of a faint buzzing in the ears, drove to Oxford to interview what he insisted on calling les domestiques. The pair were traveling down from London after apparently being alerted to Simon’s advertisement in the Mail by a cousin in Witney.

  The interview was to be conducted over tea at the Mitre, which Laurie thought a bit silly. After all, she said as her brother prepared to leave, the whole point of the operation was not to discover if they could sit nicely and be waited on but if they in their turn could wait. Simon replied that he could hardly expect the two of them to start handing round iced cakes and cucumber sandwiches in a perfectly strange hotel just to show him what they were made of.

  Actually there seemed to be some discrepancy, thought Laurie, rootling through her aunt’s boulle escritoire when her brother had departed, between his claim that he had been snowed under by applications and the solitary letter, wavily written on cheap lined paper, that lurked in the back of the spring clip “Murder” file. The envelope was covered with what looked like the meanderings of a spider who had lunched too well on overripe flies, then fallen into the nearest inkpot. The letter itself was brief. The scrivener, one A. Bennet (Mrs.), having had Simon’s advertisement brought to her attention, wished to offer the services of herself and her brother for the brief period before they left to take up employment in Ireland with Lady Keele at Castle Triamory. They had previously been in service with the Hon. Mrs. Hatherley. Mention was made of the highest references. Indeed, the tone throughout was so high and the names dropped so grand that Laurie wondered briefly whether the references were to be offered or demanded.

  She returned the letter to the file and took out the handful from Simon’s punters. Here at least things seemed to be in order. Although they were one short of the ten he had hoped for, all the checks had gone through and the notepaper was, on the whole, what Simon referred to as “respectable.”

  Laurie wasn’t too sure about Mr. Gibbs, who wrote from Peep O’Day on a showy deckle edge stamped with two vivacious bikini-clad nymphettes playing with a beach ball, especially as he seemed to be bringing two wives. But Mrs. Saville (plain blue linen, raised Gothic script), Mr. Lewis (unadorned good-quality white), and the Gregorys (cream parchment distinguished by crossed magnifying glasses sejant and deerstalker crest over the words Grimpen Villas), were obviously made of the right stuff. Mrs. Gregory, who had rung up to ask about the food and other details, sounded really charming.

  They were coming from Brize Norton, not too far away. But the Gibbses came from the North and Arthur Gillette from the even norther, namely Fishwick, Berwick on Tweed. So much, commented Simon bitterly, for the notion that no one would bother to travel far for a mere weekend.

  On Thursday morning the costumes arrived and Laurie asked that the basket be placed in the washing-up annex off the kitchen. This was a vast room with a long deal table scrubbed white and much scarred in the center and three huge stone sinks linked by old wooden draining boards and used only when the flowers were being done. Three sides of the room had floor-to-ceiling mahogany cupboards filled with Mason’s blue and yellow Regency Ironstone crockery. A hundred of everything including egg cups. Laurie, knowing the most her aunt ever did in the entertaining line was invite the Madingley Women’s Institute to tea, once asked why she kept such an elaborate service. Mrs. Maberley had explained that one must keep up appearances.

  “But no one knows they’re there.”

  “I know they’re there, Laurel,” Aunt Maude had replied. “And that’s what matters. Standards are maintained by all sorts of eccentric little practices. Like always wearing clean bloomers.”

  Thinking of this formidable relative, even though she was by now safely in the middle of the Indian Ocean, made Laurie nervous. She was glad when Simon came back from the Mitre full of assurances as to the suitability of the interviewees, and they could turn their attention to the costumes. Simon had bought a long cigarette holder from Bowater’s and lounged about with it while Laurie opened the basket.

  The costumes, beautifully packed and shrouded with tissue, were beneath two boxes. Laurie lifted out the largest—and passed it to Simon who started greedily rustling through the paper. “It’s hats!”

  “What do we want hats for?”

  “Here’s yours.” Simon handed over a lamé turban sporting white egret feathers secured by a glittering pin in the shape of a scimitar.

  “I’m not wearing that!”

  “Don’t get acrimonious before we even start.” Simon delved again and came up with a boater and a large mustard-and-brown checked cap. “And this must be for me.” He put it on. Laurie shrieked. He took it off again. “Or possibly for Hugh. What’s happened to him anyway? I thought he was coming for lunch.”

  “He was. I expect he’s got held up.” Laurie unpacked shoes, gloves, a sequined evening bag. “I must say they’ve done us proud.”

  They turned their attention to the basket proper and Simon pulled out a canary-yellow waistcoat, a shirt patterned with winking foxes, brogues with lively questing tongues and snuff-colored plus fours. Laurie shrieked again. Simon took the clothes and laid them on the table next to Hugh’s cap with such kindly reverence you would have thought them to be newly deceased, then brought out a swallowtail coat.

  “Ah,” said Simon with deep satisfaction, “the butler’s soup and fish. And this”—he passed over a deep white piecrust frill—“for the maid.”

  Laurie placed it on her head. It fell straight down to the bridge of her nose and rested there. She bobbed. “Ow does oi look, zur?”

  “Like a Neanderthal nun.” Simon slipped on a cream barathea dinner jacket and held the black braided trousers against his jeans. “How do I look?”

  He looked very dishy but Laurie had no intention of saying so. “Like a shopsoiled gigolo. Where’s the female equivalent?”

  “Voila!” Simon waved a shimmering fall of ice-blue lamé in front of his sister in the manner of a matador with a cape. She took it cautiously.

  “It’s a bit slippy. Rather beautiful though. Are these the shoes? Heavens—they’re like stilts.”

  “The other day you were complaining because you’re only five feet nothing.” Simon leaned across the basket and took his sister’s hands. “Buck up, love. Try and enter into the spirit of the thing.”

  “I shall look a right pig’s ear in that lot.”

  “Think of the money then. You’ll be able to buy enough potting compost to cover the county. And seed trays. And corns—”

  “Corms, Simon.”

  “Exactly,” said Simon with as much satisfaction as if he had just solved the Metternich-Carstairs equation. “Now we have”—he hoiked out a coffee and cream geometrically patterned number—“your”—studying the label—“tea gown—”

  “Tea gown! I don’t believe it. You mean people actually changed for tea?”

  “In some circles they still do.”

  “Don’t be so daft.”

  “I suggest you wear it when welcoming them all tomorrow. You’ll have to alter your makeup though. Or rather”—he frowned at Laurie’s freckled, sunburned countenance… “start wearing some. Ruby-red lipstick was all the crack, I believe, if those god-awful magazines in the attic are anything to go by. Plus a very thin arched brow—”