Page 28 of Marble Hall Murders

It was difficult to say if Lola was being purposefully insulting, but Pünd was unperturbed. ‘It is strange,’ he said. ‘When I first met Lady Chalfont – it was in Salisbury, when I was investigating the death of George Colindale – she was a most courageous woman. She was also someone I would describe as forthright. She spoke her mind. She held nothing back. And yet the woman you describe, who does not tell you why she has summoned me or the nature of the crime she has supposedly discovered, she appears secretive. Perhaps even afraid.’

‘It may be that my mother had changed since you met her, Mr Pünd,’ Judith said, adding in a low voice: ‘Since she married Elmer.’

‘You do not approve of your stepfather?’

Judith flinched. ‘No. That’s not what I meant at all.’

‘But it must have been difficult for you when your mother decided to remarry.’

‘We were all surprised to begin with. Elmer had only come into our lives to advise on the art collection at the Hall, but whatever we may have thought of him, my mother adored him. She would have done anything for him. And if he made her happy, that was all that mattered.’

‘You say “whatever we may have thought of him”.’ Pünd paused. ‘What did you think of him?’

‘When he first turned up, we thought he was a gold-digger,’ Lola said. ‘He had her round his little finger and he still does – at least, he did until yesterday afternoon. She never did anything without asking him first. But Judith’s right about one thing. He didn’t need her money. He’d inherited more than enough when his first wife died.’

‘How did she die?’ Voltaire asked.

‘She threw herself under a train.’

‘How awful!’ Fraser muttered.

Lola glanced at him. ‘Maybe it was better than living with Elmer.’

There was a brief silence, broken only by the sound of Fraser’s pen scratching against the surface of his notebook. Then Pünd continued. ‘You were not expecting to meet Maître Lambert yesterday.’

‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw him here,’ Judith said. ‘Heinsisted that Mother had asked him to come to the house at half past four, but she’d never said anything about it to us.’

‘Could it be there was something that she did not wish you to know?’

‘I suppose that’s possible. But if it was important, I’m sure she would have asked Elmer first.’

Voltaire had been listening to all this with growing impatience. It seemed to him that Pünd had learned nothing of any importance and that his questions seemed to have been fired at random, none of them coming close to the target. Voltaire’s way of doing things was more straightforward. ‘Can you tell me your movements yesterday?’ he cut in.

‘I had breakfast in thepetit salon—’ Lola began.

‘I am referring to the afternoon, madame,’ Voltaire snapped. ‘Did either of you go down to the kitchen at around four o’clock?’

‘I stayed in my room.’ Judith was the first to answer. ‘I was reading and I was very much immersed in my book. The next thing I knew, I heard Harry in the hall and he was shouting. That’s when I came down.’

Voltaire turned to Lola.

‘I was also in my room.’ Lola waved a languid hand. ‘You might like to know that before I married Jeffrey, I was an actress. A well-known actress, as a matter of fact. Right now I’m considering taking a part in a production that’s opening later this year. I’ll be meeting the producers quite soon, so I was looking at my lines.’

She paused.

‘There is something else?’ Voltaire asked.

‘Well, since you ask, I did hear someone go down to thekitchen. Don’t ask me the exact time, but it must have been around four o’clock. They went down the service stairs. They’re right next to my room and they creak. Béatrice sometimes wakes me up in the morning when she goes down to do the breakfast. I’ve told her a hundred times to make less noise, but I suppose it’s not her fault.’

‘Do you know who it was?’

‘How could I know who it was, Monsieur Voltaire? I heard them. I didn’t see them.’

‘How can you be quite certain that they were not climbing the stairs?’ Pünd asked. ‘It could have been someone coming from the kitchen or perhaps even climbing up to the top floor.’

Lola thought about this. ‘I suppose you have a point,’ she conceded. ‘I heard the door open on the landing, so they must have started from there. But I suppose they could have gone up, not down.’

‘Only Béatrice has a room on the top floor,’ Judith said.