Then, as Mary ffolkes started to fuss around her daughter again, the Chief-Inspector, who was clearly a man who didn’t believe in wasting time, immediately turned to her husband.
‘Colonel?’
‘Yes, Trubshawe?’
‘Now that Miss Selina has told me everything she knows, I believe it’s your turn to walk over the hot coals.’
‘My turn to … Oh yes, of course, of course,’ Roger ffolkes quickly replied.
For a few seconds, though, he fiddled uneasily with his cigar’s cellophane wrapper, before finally saying:
‘There’s just one thing, Trubshawe. We do seem to have been at this for hours already. I wonder if the others think the way I do, that maybe we might take a short break. It’s very draining on us all, you know, being interrogated in this way, and I’m sure my guests would like to have a bit of a lie-down in their bedrooms. As for me, I haven’t had my constitutional today and I really need to stretch my legs.’
‘In this weather, Colonel?’
‘In all weathers, sir, in all weathers. Isn’t that so, Mary?’
‘Oh yes, that’s quite right, Inspector. Roger won’t let a day go by without his constitutional.’
‘We-ell,’ said Trubshawe uncertainly, ‘p’raps a break wouldn’t be such a bad idea at that. Though a short one, mind.’
On hearing the Chief-Inspector’s acquiescence – which for him, of course, implied a stay of execution, however short-lived – the Colonel instantly became his breezy self once again.
‘Oh, absolutely!’ he genially replied. ‘Absolutely! All I want is a lungful of good fresh wintry air. Half an hour, no more, there and back, I promise.’
‘Actually, Colonel,’ added Trubshawe, ‘if you do intend going for a walk, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind taking Tober along with you. The poor old boy needs his constitutional too.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ said the Colonel. ‘But will he follow me?’
‘Oh yes. Follow anybody for a walk, Tober will. Even a villain, ha ha! Hey, Tober, won’t you, though? Walkies! Walkies!’
No sooner had the Chief-Inspector pronounced the magic word than the Labrador, who had been lying slumped at his master’s feet, dragged himself up to his own feet with such surprising energy you might have thought his furiously wagging tail was acting as a kind of hydraulic lever.
‘There’s a good boy,’ said the Colonel, tickling the dog’s sticky-wet muzzle and starting to lead him out of the library. ‘Going for walkies, are we, you and me? Eh? Eh, Tobermory?’
Just as he reached the doorway, however, he turned round.
‘Farrar?’
‘Yes, Colonel?’
‘Whilst I’m out, you might pop down to the kitchen for a while. Make sure the servants are all right.’
‘Yes, of course, sir.’
‘And Farrar?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have Iris serve tea in the drawing-room. I imagine everybody’s dying for a quick cuppa before they go up to their rooms.’
‘Will do.’
Chapter Nine
‘Cracking piece of bacon, is this, Mrs Varley.’
‘Well, thank you, Mr Chitty. Your appreciation is much appreciated, I’m sure. Can I tempt you to some more cold turkey?’
‘Don’t mind if I do, Mrs Varley.’
‘Addie!’ cried Mrs Varley.
There was no response.
‘Addie!!!’
Little Addie, little adenoidal Addie, wiping her two grimy little hands on her apron, came running in from the coal-house.
‘Did you call me, mum?’
Mrs Varley spluttered in disbelief.
‘Did I call you? she says! Who else was I calling? Stop yer twittering and cut Mr Chitty another slice of turkey. And make sure it’s nice and thick.’
‘Yes, mum. Right away, mum.’
‘Oh no, my lass, not right away. You’ll wash yer hands first. And proper, mind. They’re positive caked with muck.’
‘Yes, mum.’
As Addie hurried over to the sink, Tomelty, the ffolkeses’ Irish gardener and general handyman, lit up a Senior Service, gave his scarlet braces a devil-may-care snap and ran his fingers through his wavy, dreamy, Brylcreemy, jet-black hair. Something of a self-fancying Don Juan, the terror of the village girls, with his gleaming white teeth and smouldering five o’clock shadow, he was slouching at the far end of the kitchen table from Chitty, his Senior Service in one corner of his mouth, his trademark sneer in the other.
Watching the butler sup his steaming tea, he commented amiably, ‘Well, Mr Chitty, this ’ere murder business don’t appear to ’ave done your appetite no ’arm.’
‘Ah, Tomelty,’ replied Chitty, extracting with repulsive gentility a sliver of bacon which had got lodged between two of his front teeth, ‘must keep our peckers up, you know.’
There was a pause.
‘You’re very quiet, Mr Farrar,’ someone said.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Who’s going to be the murderer’s next victim?’
‘Tomelty!’ Chitty snapped at him. ‘Just you watch that tongue of yours! I won’t have you scaring the womenfolk with sly talk of murder. Not whilst I’m master in this kitchen.’
Chitty had been a boxing referee for some years before entering domestic service and seldom let his inferiors forget it.
‘No talk o’ murder? Fat chance!’ exclaimed the chauffeur. ‘Nothin’ this int’r’stin’ ’as ’appened at ffolkes Manor since I began workin’ ’ere. And you think you can stop us talkin’ about it? You’ve gone funny in the ’ead, you ’ave. Aren’t I right, Mr Farrar?’
‘Ye-es. Whatever else can be said about it, Gentry’s murder is certainly interesting.’
‘I’m surprised at you, Mr Farrar, you so well educated!’ said Mrs Varley. ‘Interesting? What word is that to use about a guest found with a bullet in his brains?’
‘Heart, surely?’
‘Heart – brains – what’s the difference? A man’s been shot dead. I can think of a lot of words for that, but interesting wouldn’t come top of the list.’
‘And I can think of a lot o’ words for Raymond Gentry,’ said Tomelty, ‘and int’r’stin’ wouldn’t come top o’ that list neither.’
‘We-ell, that’s true enough,’ said Mrs Varley, recalling just how recently it was she had been furious with the late gossip columnist. ‘Slimy is more like it.’
‘Now, now, Mrs Varley,’ said Chitty. ‘As you yourself just said, the poor man’s lying dead upstairs. A little Christian charity is called for.’
‘Poor man!’ said Mrs Varley, warming to her theme. ‘The gall, the unmitigated gall, asking for bacon and eggs at eleven in the morning! Where did he think he was? The bleedin’ Savoy hotel! He had a right bleedin’ nerve, if I may say so. Pardon my French, Mr Chitty.’
Chitty, who clearly shared the sentiment – for he too had found himself at the receiving end of more than one of Gentry’s sallies – felt nevertheless that it had been ill-expressed.
‘Language, Mrs Varley, language …’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Chitty, but you’re not above denying, I’m sure, he was an all-round bad lot who deserved everything that was coming to him.’
‘Oh, I don’t know as how I’d go that far …’
Addie, meanwhile, whose squashed little features could just conceivably have been appealing had she known how to make herself up and pinned back her hair so that it wasn’t always dripping into her eyes, came over to the table with an extra-thick slice of turkey and prodded it on to Chitty’s empty plate with the blunt edge of a large bread knife.