Chapter 11

Casting A Heel Line

That afternoon, Bertie and Ginger sat in the morning room and interviewed the suspects again about their movements at the earlier time. As most of them were in their rooms dressing, it was a matter of husbands corroborating wives and vice versa. Even the Colonel had spent some time in conversation with his manservant when he rang for his assistance, which the valet confirmed.

Lady Conway's maid had been helping her mistress to dress and mentioned that Lady Celia had come in to speak to her mother just before going down to the drawing room.

Peter and Julian vouched for each other. Peter coloured when Ginger broached the subject of his visit to the victim's room after the murder. "I don't suppose you'll believe I went to get a book back, will you?" he asked. "The constable didn't."

Ginger and Bertie nodded. "What was the real reason?" asked Bertie. "Cliffe had an incriminating letter you needed to get back?"

Peter wrung his hands. "I knew it!" he exclaimed. "I'm done for! My aunt will crucify me! I'll have no job, no money, nothing!" He looked on the point of tears.

"We don't know anything specific," Bertie hastened to reassure him, "but we guessed it was something like that."

"It's all my fault," admitted Julian ruefully. " I was indiscreet. I wrote something to Peter and carelessly left it lying about instead of posting it straight away. Cliffe got hold of it somehow." He blushed. "It wouldn't look good if it were published. His aunt is rather straight-laced," he explained. "She wouldn't understand at all. She would take great delight in disinheriting him and the firm he works for would drop him like a hot brick at any breath of scandal." He looked at Bertie and Ginger pleadingly. "You can't always choose how you feel," he murmured. "Things are changing, but there is a long way to go yet."

"I know," replied Bertie compassionately. Ginger remained silent.

"I swear I didn't kill him," avowed Peter passionately, "but I can't say I wasn't relieved when I heard someone had done it for us. My first thought was to get that letter back, but the constable wouldn't let me in."

Bertie regarded them steadily. "No, I don't think you did murder him," he concluded. "If you had killed him," he remarked, "it would be only natural to have ransacked the room and taken the letter as soon as he was dead, not go up there hours later to try to find it. As there was ample time for someone to fire a shot on the terrace as a red herring, the murderer clearly wasn't disturbed doing the evil deed." He smiled at Peter reassuringly. "Don't worry, old chap. I'll do everything in my power to see that the letter is returned to you safely without a scandal," he promised.

Peter wrung Bertie's hand gratefully. "Thank you for understanding," he breathed. "So few people do."

When they were alone again, Bertie and Ginger sat back to compare notes and review what they had come up with so far. As Bertie gloomily remarked, there seemed to be as many suspects as there were people in the house and just about everyone had both motive and opportunity. Mostly any corroborative evidence had been supplied by people who were closely linked to each other. Hardly independent witnesses, as Ginger had to admit.

"Is there anyone we've overlooked, old boy?" Bertie asked, staring at the pieces of paper in front of them. On one of them, Ginger had drawn lines linking the names of those involved to make a sort of chart, but Bertie felt it had not advanced their understanding very much or brought a solution any nearer.

"Well, I suppose we haven't talked to the parlour maids," remarked Ginger. "We've had a word with just about everybody else."

Bertie agreed and sent for Beech to request the girls to be interviewed. They came singly. The plump, mousy girl who had gathered up the pearl necklace was the first to arrive. Alice, as she was called, was amiable, but not over-endowed with intelligence, it seemed. Her answers mainly consisted of, "dunno" and "sort of". When she had disappeared back to the servants' quarters, Bertie sighed.

"Let's hope your mystery maid is more enlightening," he teased Ginger. "Perhaps you'll remember where you've seen her before."

A brief tap preceded the opening of the door and Sarah entered. Bertie noticed that Ginger had been correct in his observation that her hair was not naturally blonde; the darker roots were beginning to show where the hair was parted and she had very dark eyebrows and eyelashes as well as dark brown eyes. As he looked at her, the feeling grew on him that he, too, had seen her somewhere before, but like Ginger, he could not place where.

"Are you feeling better now, Sarah?" asked Ginger conversationally to break the ice. "I understand you fainted."

She looked at him suspiciously and nodded. "I came over funny," she added. "'Tweren't nothing to it."

"But Beech relieved you of your duties," prompted Bertie. When she looked at him blankly, he explained, "you were allowed to go to your room and rest; you didn't have to make the fire up in the drawing room or wait on table."

She nodded but said nothing.

"And did you go to your room?" asked Ginger.

"Course I did," she told him. "Don't often get a rest here."

Bertie hesitated a moment before putting his next question. "Is there anyone who can confirm that?"

"Didn't have a man in my room, if that's what you mean," she scoffed defiantly.

Bertie looked discomfited. More to distract attention than for any other reason, Ginger asked, "did you know the murdered man?"

A look of hatred flashed across her face, but so swiftly was it hidden that Ginger almost wondered if he had imagined it. "No," she denied. "I never saw him before."

"But you disliked him?" probed Ginger.

"I never," she countered. "How could I dislike him when I didn't know him?"

"He might have upset you during his stay," suggested Bertie. "He wasn't the most tactful of guests."

She shook her head. "I never had anything to do with him."

"Didn't you go up to his room after his death to try to collect the sheets?" asked Ginger, recalling his conversation with Constable Clark.

She looked at him like a startled rabbit, the blood draining from her face. Suddenly Ginger realised it was not that he had seen her before, but that she reminded him of Naomi Levy-Strauss. He pictured her with dark hair and was surprised at the resemblance; the two of them could have been sisters.

"That was Mr Beech's idea," she protested, "not mine. He wanted everything cleared up. When I came back and said I couldn't get in, he went up himself to see."

Ginger nodded. "Well, I think that's all. Thank you, Miss …" He hesitated. "What's your surname, Sarah?" he asked curiously.

"Smith," she disclosed. "And it's Mrs."

"Have you been married long?" he queried, noticing the wedding band on her ring finger for the first time.

"I'm a widow," she told him shortly. "There's no one to provide for me." The bitterness in her tone was harsh.

Ginger wondered briefly about the emphasis. Who was there who had someone to provide for them? "No family?" he enquired. "What was your maiden name?"

She looked at him for a moment as if she were contemplating telling him it was none of his business, but then she relented. "My maiden name was Goldman," she informed him matter-of-factly. "When I married a Gentile, my family was not very happy. Now he's dead and I'm left to carry on alone." She coloured and stood up, unconsciously smoothing her apron. "I didn't mean to go on, sir, m'lord," she apologised to the pair of them. "I'm just feeling a bit run down."

When Sarah had departed, Ginger told Bertie about the resemblance he had noticed. "Of course, old boy!" exclaimed Bertie. "I'd spotted it, too, but like you, I couldn't place it! Well, well. Goldman, eh? I wonder if Mrs Levy-Strauss was also a Goldman."

"Let's find out, shall we?" suggested Ginger, half rising, "we can ring up Algy and ask him to check at Somerset House."

Bertie remained where he was. "If she is Sarah's sister," he mused, "that must have been dashed awkward for them. No wonder Mrs L is such a bundle of nerves. She must live in dread of someone making the connection." He looked at Ginger sharply. "You know, old boy," he ventured quizzically, "I wonder if that had any bearing on Mrs Levy-Strauss' twitchiness when you mentioned the staircase she used. She might have met her sister on the stairs and been too socially embarrassed that someone might find out a close relation was a servant here."

"I suppose if she did, she would have told her husband," reflected Ginger, sitting down again, "which could account for his reaction. He would want to protect his wife – and by extension, himself. Yes," he concluded, "if Sarah Smith and Naomi Levy-Strauss are related, it would explain a lot of things."

"It complicates a lot of things, too, though, old boy," added Bertie. "And poses a lot more questions; are they still estranged, for a start? Blood is thicker than water and Sarah appears to be down on her luck at the moment, while Naomi has married well and risen in society."

"Did you notice the look on her face when I asked if she knew Cliffe?" asked Ginger. "She denied that she had ever met him, but I'm sure she detested him for some reason. She was very quick in covering it up, but for a moment what flashed across her face was pure hatred."

Bertie nodded. "Mrs Smith certainly merits a closer inspection, old boy." He stood up and made for the door. "Let's go and make that phone call, shall we? After all, we can't let Algy miss all the fun."