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EIGHT

F rom the grand salon , Atticus Pünd, Fraser and Voltaire passed through to the L-shaped kitchen, where they found Béatrice sitting at the table, polishing the silver. It was obvious that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and there were several balls of tissues in front of her. She had already met Voltaire earlier that morning, but the sight of two more strangers had her trembling in her seat.

Pünd sat down opposite her. ‘You are Mademoiselle Béatrice?’ he asked gently, trying to put her at her ease.

‘Béatrice Laurent, monsieur.’

‘This must be a very difficult time for you.’

‘You have no idea, monsieur. Lady Chalfont was always so kind to me. I know that she was ill, but I did not expect this. And I hear them saying that maybe she was poisoned! That is impossible! I will not believe it!’

She reached for another tissue and Pünd waited until she had wiped away fresh tears.

Béatrice spoke no English, so James Fraser had been translating everything that was being said. Pünd waited for her to calm down. ‘You live here in the villa?’ Pünd asked.

‘She lives here for six months when the family is in residence,’ James translated. ‘During the winter months, she comes in twice a week and lives with her brother just outside Nice.’ He frowned. ‘I didn’t quite catch the last part, but I think she said he’s a bastard.’

‘Miss Laurent and her brother live in a stone house,’ Voltaire cut in. ‘The French word for a stone house is bastide .’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Fraser blushed.

‘Would you like me to take over the translation?’ Voltaire asked.

‘That will not be necessary, Monsieur Voltaire, thank you. But if you could point out any other misunderstandings, we would both be very grateful.’ Pünd turned back to the housekeeper. ‘You made the tea yesterday afternoon.’

‘Yes, monsieur. Lady Chalfont liked to take tea in the garden with her family. I made sandwiches and cakes and took them out, as she had instructed. One pot for madame, another for the two gentlemen.’

‘You took everything together?’

Béatrice shook her head. ‘No, monsieur. I waited until Lady Chalfont went into the garden. Then I took out the fish.’

‘The drinks,’ Voltaire muttered. ‘ Boissons . Not poissons .’

‘Sorry,’ Fraser said.

Pünd chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to upset the housekeeper any more than she had been upset already. ‘You realise, mademoiselle, that if Lady Chalfont was deliberately poisoned at the gazebo, it could only have been in the tea.’ Before she could react, he went on. ‘Can you tell me how you prepared it? Of course, you boiled the kettle. You added the leaves. What I am asking is, did you leave the kitchen at any time during the preparation?’

‘I did. Yes. When Lady Chalfont came down, I spoke to her in the grand salon .’

‘How long were you with her?’

‘For about a minute.’

Béatrice had more to say. Pünd saw her start, then hesitate. ‘There is something else?’ he asked.

‘I do not wish to make false accusations,’ she began.

‘You must tell us everything you know, mademoiselle,’ Voltaire said sternly.

‘Well, it was something I saw at the time. I’d taken two teapots from the cupboard and I placed them over there.’ She pointed at the sideboard. ‘I put in the tea leaves and filled them with boiling water and then I replaced les couvercles …’

Fraser looked to Voltaire. ‘The lids,’ Voltaire said.

‘That was when I heard Lady Chalfont outside and went to speak to her. I met her in the grand salon . But here is what I do not understand, monsieur. When I returned, the lid of the smaller pot, the pink one, had been removed. That was madame’s! But I am sure the teapot was closed. It is not like me to be so clumsy.’

Pünd considered. ‘Can you tell me, Mademoiselle Laurent, how many ways there are into the kitchen?’

Béatrice had to think for a moment, looking around her to be sure. ‘There are four,’ she exclaimed eventually. ‘You came in through the main door to the house. The door over there connects directly with the petit salon . There is a third door into the garden.’

‘And the fourth?’ It was Voltaire who asked.

‘There is a service staircase that leads all the way to the top floor. You cannot see it from here. It is hidden round the corner. I have a room at the top of the house and I use the stairs at the beginning and the end of every day.’

‘So someone could have been waiting for her to leave,’ Fraser said. ‘The moment she left to have a chat with Lady Chalfont, they could have crept in and added something to the teapot.’ He turned to Béatrice. ‘Did you hear anything?’

‘No, monsieur. I heard nothing.’

‘I would like to see for myself these hidden stairs,’ Pünd remarked. He bowed to the housekeeper. ‘ Je vous remercie, mademoiselle. Vous m’avez beaucoup aidé. ’

James Fraser stared at him as they made their way to the back of the kitchen. ‘You speak French!’

‘Only a little, James. A few words. You did an excellent job.’

What looked like a cupboard door opened to reveal a narrow wooden staircase, uncarpeted, rising between two plaster-covered walls. The steps creaked as he began the climb upwards, followed by Fraser and a struggling Voltaire. After a short while, he came to a door and opened it to emerge onto a wide, richly decorated corridor that ran the full length of the first floor with eight or nine doors leading off it. The door to the staircase itself virtually disappeared into the wall. Looking around him, Pünd recognised a Chagall painting nearby. In fact, there was so much art and fine furniture that he could have been standing in a museum.

‘You think someone entered the kitchen by the service stairs?’ Voltaire asked.

Pünd shrugged. ‘To come in from the garden – that is to take a great risk as they might have been seen from the gazebo. The main doorway also was in full sight of Mademoiselle Béatrice and Lady Chalfont. The petit salon is possible, but why would they have been in there in the first place? This would seem to be the most likely.’

‘Well, where do you want to start?’ Voltaire pointed to a door. ‘That’s Elmer Waysmith’s bedroom and office suite at the end of the corridor. He’s in there now, I would imagine, although I would doubt that he is ready to talk. I saw him this morning and he was so upset, he couldn’t say a word. His son, Robert, has the room opposite.’ He turned round and pointed. ‘Lady Chalfont slept at the back of the house.’

‘Not with her husband?’ Fraser asked.

Pünd smiled at his assistant. ‘It is quite common for members of the British aristocracy to sleep in separate rooms,’ he explained. ‘Also, you must remember, Lady Chalfont was unwell.’

‘Judith Lyttleton and her husband have a room round the corner,’ Voltaire explained. ‘And Jeffrey Chalfont and his wife are next door.’

‘I would like, I think, to speak to Dr Judith Lyttleton,’ Pünd said. ‘Her husband said that she did not discuss our meeting in London. I must ask her about this.’

‘You think he was lying?’

‘Somebody is most definitely lying, James. It seemed to me at the time that Dr Lyttleton was unhappy that her mother had approached me and I would be interested to know why she did not mention the encounter.’

‘All right,’ Voltaire said. ‘Let’s start with her.’

*

In fact, Judith Lyttleton had company. When Pünd knocked and entered, he found himself not in a bedroom as he had expected, but in a comfortable living room with a sofa and three armchairs and a highly ornate, gilded cassone to one side. An archway opened into a second space with a four-poster bed, only partly visible.

One corner of the room was taken up by an antique globe, spun round so that South America was uppermost, next to a monumental desk piled high with books and black-and-white photographs. Glancing at them, Pünd saw a desert landscape with symmetrical lines and shapes dug into the sand. There were also representations of different animals: a condor, a monkey and a spider. He realised that he was looking at the Nazca Lines, which Dr Lyttleton seemed to have made her life’s work. They were certainly spectacular.

Lola Chalfont was sitting with her. The two women had been deep in conversation when they were interrupted. Lola appeared entirely composed, sitting with her legs crossed, a cigarette in one hand, a cocktail glass cradled in the other. But Judith was still in shock, her face haggard, her eyes empty. The shutters were half closed but the early-afternoon light was still streaming in, giving the room the feel of a church or a sanitorium.

Once again, Voltaire introduced the two arrivals. Lola had not met Pünd, but Judith recognised him and started, as if he was the last person she had hoped to see. Pünd noticed this, but said nothing as he took his place on the sofa. Voltaire and Fraser remained standing.

‘May I offer you my condolences on the death of your mother,’ Pünd began. ‘I met her many years ago and we were friends.’

‘Yes. She told me.’ Judith could barely manage the four monosyllables.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Lola weighed in. ‘As if it isn’t bad enough having Monsieur Voltaire from the S?reté, now we have a private detective from England? Margaret was not murdered, and forgive me, Judith, but Harry was an idiot to call the police in the first place.’

‘It was Lady Chalfont herself who invited me to come here,’ Pünd replied. He glanced at Judith. ‘You were present when we spoke.’

Judith nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘You will recall that she wished to consult with me on a matter of the greatest urgency. Those were her words, and she asked me for my card so that she could write to me.’

‘It’s true.’ The words came out breathlessly, as if forced. Judith turned to her sister-in-law, apologetic. ‘I should have said,’ she muttered miserably.

‘I am a little surprised that you do not seem to have mentioned our meeting to your husband or to anyone in the family,’ Pünd continued.

‘I … I didn’t think it was important.’

‘When a woman approaches a well-known detective and asks for him to investigate and then, just a few days later, is found murdered, of course it’s important,’ Voltaire said. Unlike Pünd, he had not even tried to be kind.

‘She was just asking for his advice!’ Judith took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘Of course it was important. In the taxi on the way to the airport I asked her several times what she was going on about, but she waved me away and I didn’t think any more about it. I know it sounds awful now, but I had other things on my mind.’

‘Your work.’

‘Yes. I’m making a study of the Nazca Lines. They really are one of the wonders of the southern hemisphere, Mr Voltaire. They are mathematically precise drawings in the desert that cover an area of almost one hundred and ninety square miles, but they’ve been calculated to the nearest inch. Nobody understands why they were put there or how. They can only be seen by air. But the worst thing is that the wretched Peruvian government is refusing to look after them. They’ve already built a highway across the desert—’

She stopped herself, realising that she had allowed her enthusiasm to get the better of her. A moment before she had been mourning her mother. Now she had forgotten her.

‘You say she was murdered,’ Lola stepped in, as if to defend her sister-in-law. ‘But that’s ridiculous. You don’t kill a woman who is already so very ill. And all this intrusion … the very idea that there might have been poison in her tea! It’s nonsense. It’s only making everything worse.’

‘You believe I’m intruding, madame?’ Voltaire growled. ‘You should be grateful that the S?reté took this matter seriously enough to send me here.’

‘We will find out soon enough if there is a need for you to be here, Monsieur Voltaire.’ Pünd was trying to be conciliatory. ‘The tea that Lady Chalfont drank is being analysed even as we speak,’ he explained. ‘But until the results are known, there are still questions to be asked.’ He turned back to Judith Lyttleton. ‘Your mother wrote to me of a conversation she had overheard. In her letter, she suggested that she had come upon something criminal and that it might be a matter for the police. She never discussed it with you?’

‘What sort of crime are you talking about?’ Lola was scornful. ‘What do you take us for, Mr Pünd? My husband is the seventh Earl Chalfont, in case you hadn’t noticed. This is a respectable family. Do we look like thieves or murderers to you?’

‘It is astonishing how many thieves and murderers do not resemble thieves and murderers,’ Pünd replied.

‘That’s true!’ Fraser agreed.

‘I didn’t know she’d written to you,’ Judith said. ‘She must have posted the letter without telling us.’

‘Where is the nearest postbox?’ Pünd asked.

‘It’s in the port,’ Lola replied. ‘But she wouldn’t have needed to walk there. If anyone wants to send a letter, they just leave it on the table beside the front door. Béatrice takes the mail in every morning to catch the midday post.’

‘There is still the possibility that somebody in the house might have seen my name on the envelope.’

‘And recognised it?’ Lola raised an eyebrow. ‘Until Monsieur Voltaire introduced you, I didn’t have the faintest idea who you were.’

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 Ma?tre Lambert yesterday.’

‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw him here,’ Judith said. ‘He insisted 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 the petit 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 the kitchen. 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.

‘And Béatrice was serving the tea,’ Lola added.

‘Where was the younger Mr Waysmith?’ Pünd asked.

‘He went into Nice for lunch with his father. I don’t know what time he got back.’

‘I didn’t see him until after the police arrived,’ Judith said. ‘He was probably at the swimming pool. He likes to keep himself fit.’

‘You should ask Bruno,’ Lola added.

‘Bruno is the gardener?’

‘Yes – but he does the pool too. There’s a sort of Swiss chalet thing next to it and Robert uses it to get changed. It’s quite possible Bruno will have seen him.’

‘But whether he did or not, your questions are ridiculous!’ Judith scowled. ‘Robert would never have hurt Mama, not in a million years. None of us would. Mama died of natural causes and your presence here is both intrusive and irrelevant.’

There seemed to be nothing more to say. Pünd stood up and, with a brief nod of thanks, Voltaire moved to the door. Pünd followed, James Fraser close behind.

‘Well, that wasn’t very helpful,’ James said, glancing at the notes he had made once they were back in the corridor.

‘I am not so sure, James.’ Pünd shook his head. ‘Do you not see how it all begins to fit together?’

‘But Judith Lyttleton does have a point. We still don’t know if Lady Chalfont was really poisoned!’

Pünd turned to Voltaire. ‘When do you expect the results of the analysis, Monsieur Voltaire?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘Then let us continue.’ Pünd looked up and down the corridor, past the gold-framed mirrors, oil paintings and engravings. ‘I would very much like to see Lady Chalfont’s room.’

‘Follow me.’

The French detective was moving more slowly than ever, as if already exhausted by the investigation. He led them to the back of the house and through a door that opened into a magnificent suite of rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, a dressing room and a small sitting area, all of them exquisitely furnished. But more glorious than any of this was the panoramic view of the garden on the other side of the three Romanesque arches. This was a room to wake up in. It would be impossible to start the day without a sense of inspiration.

There was a brown envelope on a table beside the bed and Pünd recognised it at once. The envelope was empty now, but it had the words POST OFFICE TELEGRAMS printed in red above the royal coat of arms. He showed it to Voltaire. ‘You left this here?’ he asked.

‘I left it where I found it,’ Voltaire replied. ‘It was here when I arrived. I brought the telegram with me when I came to the hotel.’

Pünd ran a finger across the top of the envelope, feeling the edge. ‘I wonder who opened this telegram,’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘I do not believe it was Lady Chalfont.’

Voltaire scowled. ‘It has been severed with a knife,’ he said. ‘I think it’s quite likely that Lady Chalfont would have had a paper knife in her possession.’

‘Then where is it, Monsieur Voltaire? And if you look at the way the paper has been cut, you will clearly see that the knife that was used had a serrated edge. That would suggest to me that it was a bread knife or perhaps a fruit knife, and it is unclear to me why, if she opened the telegram in this room, Lady Chalfont would have had either such implement anywhere near her.’

‘But if someone had cut it open before it was given to her, she would have known.’

‘If that person was certain that she would be dead within a few hours, it would not matter.’

Voltaire was about to reply when Pünd held up a hand for silence. He could hear voices coming from outside and, gesturing at Fraser to accompany him, he stepped out onto the balcony.

In the distance, he could hear the fall of water from the fountain, but much closer two voices were raised in argument.

‘I don’t like it here. I want to go back to Norfolk.’ It was a child who had spoken and Pünd knew at once that this must be Cedric, Jeffrey and Lola’s son, talking to someone in the grand salon .

‘We can’t go back yet.’ Jeffrey Chalfont’s voice was unmistakable. ‘Even if we wanted to, it wouldn’t be allowed.’

‘Because Granny’s dead?’

‘Exactly, Cedric. And you could try to show a little more sympathy.’

‘I didn’t kill her! The police don’t want to talk to me. They probably think you did it.’

‘That’s a dreadful thing to say, Cedric. I think you should go to your room.’

‘I hate it here. I’ve got no friends. The food’s horrible. It’s boring. And nobody speaks English.’

‘We’re not leaving yet and that’s the end of the matter. Now go to your bloody room!’

‘Maybe you’ll be next. Or Mummy. Or Uncle Harry. There’s lots of poison in the garden. Lots and lots of it. I know. I’ve seen it.’

‘Cedric!’

But there was no reply from the child. Only the banging of an unseen door.