Chapter 3
A Dinner With A Difference
For Ginger the atmosphere at dinner had a strange, nightmarish quality. That he and Bertie and the unknown murderer should be the only ones to know of Cliffe's death cast an air of unreality over the scene. He felt he was an actor in a play and everyone knew their lines except him. Everything appeared normal on the surface, but he imagined he sensed odd undercurrents at work. Ginger covertly surveyed his fellow guests and wondered which of them had pulled the trigger. He looked at Bertie who was sitting opposite him and thought he was probably doing the same thing. Suddenly he dragged his mind back to the dinner table as he realised his neighbour was addressing him.
"Sorry, Lady Conway," he apologised to Bertie's aunt, who was sitting on his right. "I was miles away. What did you say?"
His neighbour repeated her question and Ginger answered absent-mindedly, his thoughts distracted. The minutes dragged until at last Celia and her mother rose and gathered the ladies around them to retire to the drawing room. When finally the men were alone and the port was being passed amid wreaths of aromatic cigar smoke spiralling up to the ceiling, Ginger managed to catch Bertie's eye. Bertie leaned towards him. "We shan't linger long, old boy," he reassured his fidgeting companion, "but we can't dash off straight away; it would look odd. We shall have to sit it out a bit longer for form's sake."
Ginger, impatient to be off but resigned to observing the proprieties, sipped his glass of port slowly, surreptitiously glancing at his watch from time to time, waiting for the minutes to pass and failing utterly to take any interest in the gossip that accompanied the wine. When the decanter was making its second circuit he stared hard at Bertie, willing him to make a move.
"I can't take much more of this," he muttered quietly when Bertie glanced his way. "My nerves are at full stretch. Surely we can join the ladies now."
Simpson, one of the guns on his left, leaning forward to take the decanter, overheard his last statement and made a jocular remark about Ginger's eagerness for female company that brought a rush of blood to the young man's cheeks. Much to his discomfiture the theme was taken up by some of the others who had noticed Celia's preference for his company over theirs.
Bertie took pity on the blushing youngster and gave his proposal a hearty backing.
"Absolutely right, old boy," he averred with a smile. "We mustn't deprive the ladies of our company any longer." He stood up and headed for the door.
There was a scraping of chairs as the others followed his lead and made their way to the drawing room where the wives of several of the guns were making polite conversation with Celia and her mother.
Celia turned at their entrance and broke off from what she had been saying to welcome the men back. Bertie moved across and took her gently by the elbow, drawing her discreetly away from the chattering circle.
"Ginger and I need to have a quiet word with you, old girl," he told her earnestly. "Is there somewhere we can go where we shan't be disturbed?"
Celia looked at him askance, puzzled by the unusual seriousness of his demeanour. "There's the library," she replied with a questioning lift of her eyebrows.
"Good," murmured Bertie. "We don't want anyone being curious," he added nonchalantly, "so wait a moment and then suggest showing Ginger one of the pictures in the library. I'll make an excuse, then come and join you shortly afterwards."
As Celia moved away, Ginger hissed furiously, "if she does that, they'll all think …"
"Of course they will, old boy," broke in Bertie with a smile. "That's the whole idea. The last thing they'll suspect is that you've got some bad news about one of the guests to break to her. Don't worry," he added with a reassuring wink, "You won't be alone with her for long."
Ginger was about to say that Bertie had missed the point when Celia came across and pointedly invited him to view the copy of a Reynolds in the library, leaving him no option but to accept with alacrity. He was acutely aware of several pairs of eyes watching their departure together with interested speculation.
Celia led the way along the corridor and entered the book-lined room. Ginger followed, feeling rather foolish. Celia faced him across a large partners desk and demanded to know what on earth was going on. "Why has Bertie asked me to bring you here?" she wanted to know.
He took a deep breath and invited her to sit down.
"I'm afraid I have some rather unfortunate news," he began when she was seated at the desk and he had sunk into an armchair opposite her. "It's about Cliffe."
"Cliffe?" she expostulated. "What has Cliffe got to do with having a tête-à-tête with you in the library?" she asked with some asperity. "People will be beginning to think there is something between us – apart from this desk," she added drily with a slight twitch of the lips.
Ginger sighed, thinking Bertie's bright ideas often made relatively simple things more complicated. "Bertie didn't want everybody to know, although they'll have to eventually, and this was his way of putting everyone off the scent," he explained. "Believe you me, it wasn't my idea," he added ungallantly, but with considerable feeling. Celia hid a smile, amused by his scarcely veiled reluctance to be left alone with her, which she found added piquancy to the chase.
"Cliffe has been shot dead in his bedroom," Ginger continued baldly, unwilling to prolong a situation he found slightly embarrassing more than was strictly necessary. "That's why he was absent from dinner."
Celia gave a little squeal and clutched at her breast. She turned pale and for a moment Ginger thought anxiously that she was going to faint. He need not have worried; Bertie's family was made of sterner stuff, even if Celia belonged to a collateral branch. After a moment, during which she stared at him open-mouthed, Celia drew in a deep breath and made a visible effort to pull herself together. "Do you mean it wasn't an accident?" she asked breathlessly when she had recovered her composure. "He was terribly bad at handling his shotgun safely. It would be just like him to do something stupid like take it to his room instead of leaving it in the gun room."
Ginger nodded reluctantly. "As far as Bertie's aware, he was murdered," he answered slowly, holding her gaze. "He found the body when he went up to see if Cliffe was ready to come down to dinner. Cliffe had been shot with a small calibre pistol, not a shotgun and there was no sign of a weapon. Bertie locked the door and pocketed the key so no one could get in and disturb anything. I can't tell you any more because that's all he told me; I haven't seen it for myself."
She continued to look at him aghast. "We shall have to call the police in," she concluded, with a sigh. When he nodded his agreement, she continued, "I don't know what they'll say about the delay." She paused. "When did he tell you? Was that what he wanted to have a word with you about? Did you know about it before dinner?" she wanted to know. Ginger admitted he did.
She shook her head in amazement. "You gave absolutely no sign of it," she remarked, then she exclaimed, horrified, "how could you? It's so macabre!"
Privately Ginger agreed with her. "Bertie said it was best to wait until after dinner because it would ruin your guests' final evening," he explained. "After all, they leave tomorrow."
"Well, they won't be able to now!" Celia commented tartly. "I shall have to ring the local station. They'll send that clodhopper Pearson up," she added, referring to the local policeman who had a reputation for bucolic incompetence. With a sigh of resignation she reached for the telephone and asked to be put through. As briefly as possible she informed them about the death and asked that they send someone up to the Manor as soon as possible. From where he sat, Ginger could hear the squawking on the other end of the line as the constable responded heatedly to that request. Although he could not hear the words, the gist of the message was clear and he could well imagine what was being said about the delay in reporting the fatality.
Bertie arrived just as Celia was concluding her conversation with the local constabulary and she looked at him reproachfully. Unabashed he sat in one of the leather armchairs and commented light-heartedly, "Ginger gave you the sad tidings then, old girl!"
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked plaintively. She shuddered. "When I think of the dead body lying upstairs all the time we were dining; it's revolting."
"Well, he's still up there, old girl. Now you know, is it any less or more revolting? What good would it have done? I saw no need to spoil your dinner," remarked Bertie with inescapable logic. "More to the point, will PC Plod be able to find out whodunit or shall we have to call in Scotland Yard?"
"I thought you were attached to Scotland Yard," commented Celia acidly.
Bertie made a face to indicate his distaste at her bluntness. "Only in a manner of speaking," he replied dismissively. "We deal with air incidents, don't you know? Unless someone shot him through the window while hovering in a helicopter," he added sarcastically, " – and I don't think they did, or we would have heard it! – there doesn't seem to be an air angle to this one, if you get my meaning."
Ginger, ignored while the cousins were bickering, got up and went across to the French window. He twitched aside the heavy curtain and looked out over the terrace. The park and pleasure grounds were in darkness. Above, the sky was ink black, strewn with twinkling points of light where the stars showed through the wisps of cloud. The moon had not yet risen. He was on the wrong side of the house to see the drive, he thought, but mentally picturing the layout of the building, he concluded that Cliffe's bedroom must be two floors above them, on that side of the wing, overlooking the croquet lawn that he knew lay between the terrace and the ha-ha, and which was reached by a flight of broad stone steps.
He turned back towards the room and asked, "What did he do?"
"Do?" echoed Bertie, looking at him puzzled. "What do you mean, old boy?"
"Cliffe," replied Ginger. "What did he do for a living? Perhaps the motive for his death lies in whatever it was he did to make a bob or two; a business rival or a deal that went wrong. Perhaps he got caught up with the wrong sort of people," he speculated.
Bertie looked at Celia with raised eyebrows and she shrugged her shoulders elegantly. "Import-export mainly, I think," she replied vaguely. "Property as well."
"Hmm," mused Bertie, absent-mindedly polishing his eye-glass. "That covers a multitude of sins. I wonder exactly what he was importing and exporting. It could make a lot of difference."
"We'll have to make sure the police don't neglect that line of enquiry," suggested Ginger.
"Perhaps," interposed Celia wryly, "it was just someone he had insulted."
"In that case," averred Ginger bitterly, the memory of the way Cliffe had treated him when they had met still fresh, "it will take the police weeks to interview everybody! I'm surprised Bertie didn't report lots of wounds on his body. I should think they would have been queuing up to have a go at him, like Julius Caesar!"
At that juncture, there was a discreet tap on the door and Beech entered, looking grave.
"Constable Pearson is here, m'lady," he announced. "He says there's been a murder!"
Celia sighed with exasperation at the melodramatic way her butler had ended his announcement and mentally cursed the village constable for his self-importance. "So much for keeping it quiet!" she murmured, then in a louder tone, she continued, "I know all about it, Beech. Show him in here."
