“A case of suicide, you’re saying, sir? How simply dreadful! Well, well! I’m sure the fellow had much weighing on his conscience but all the same … I’m surprised to hear he took his own life. He never seemed the kind who would oblige the world by leaving it of his own volition. Oh, dear! Today of all days …”
“I have a plan to deal with the inconvenience of it all, Styles. You must relay all this to Mrs. Bolton and you must both …” He swore the butler, and through him the housekeeper, to silence and ensured they would maintain a cordon sanitaire between the house, including family, guests and servants, and the wood, where discreet police activity might be expected.
Styles hurried to assure Joe that he perfectly understood and would act as prescribed until further orders. “Lady Cecily …?” he began to enquire.
“I shall take it upon myself to break the news, Styles. At some time after the arrival of the guests,” he added carefully.
Styles nodded and appeared relieved. He picked up his tray and set off eagerly with his pot of tea and his budget of news to enliven his weekly heart-to-heart with the housekeeper.
AN INVENTORY OF the guests seemed to be Joe’s next most urgent task. Who was where and in whose company was something he had to establish without raising an alarm. He hurried along to the breakfast parlour where he came upon a convivial scene. The usual male breakfast club seemed to be forming up, helping themselves to bacon and devilled kidneys from heated chafing dishes laid out on a sideboard. A pair of footmen, one of them the indefatigable Ben, were standing by in attendance at the tea and coffee urns. Joe caught sight of a dish of fragrant kedgeree and was sorely tempted to join the party but he had things more urgent than smoked haddock on his mind.
Two of the gentlemen, Ripley and Somerton, were well into their breakfast, judging by the state of their plates. A third had just arrived. Alexander, to Joe’s surprise, was languidly questioning the footman on the provenance of the coffee and extending a shuddering hand to reject his suggestion of sausages and bacon.
Joe sidled up to him. “Early riser, Truelove?”
“Not by nature, Sandilands. Exceptionally—on a Sunday. Mama sent up a footman to boot me out of bed. She won’t countenance my missing the Parade of Stallions. Especially not the Midsummer parade. The whole village will be there on the lawn with flags and ribbons and bells and babies. They may even have put up a maypole.” Alex shuddered again.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Joe said, grinning.
“Good man! I say, Sandilands …” Alex leaned closer. “Not so bleary-eyed I hadn’t noticed … You might like to nip up to your room and change your shirt. Blood-stained cuffs not really acceptable at the breakfast table, you know.”
Joe stared at his cuffs in dismay.
“So that was you out there popping off a gun at some unearthly hour, was it? Bothering God’s creatures?” Alex delivered the reprimand with a smirk and tweaked a sprig of bracken from Joe’s tweed jacket. He dusted off Joe’s shoulders with the concerned reproof of a good valet.
“Styles sent me out to bag a brace of woodcock for breakfast,” Joe said lightly. “They’re probably under some chafing dish already masquerading as délice de bécasse on toast.”
“No woodcock to be had in Suffolk before they come flighting in halfway through October, old man. I wonder what it was you bagged?”
Annoyed and preoccupied, Joe muttered, “Woodpigeon then. Excuse me—before I go up …” He turned and addressed the room: “I say, you fellows … Has anyone clapped eyes on Mungo McIver this bright A.M.?”
The two married men looked about them checking the company as though just noticing that the news baron had not yet come down. Looks were exchanged and then Basil Ripley offered a kindly but mischievous, “Last seen staggering upstairs with a half-drunk bottle of Napoleon after losing badly at snooker. He’s probably still in bed, sharing a pot of tea or something with the delightful Mrs. McIver. ‘Do Not Disturb’ and all that, Sandilands.”
Joe cocked an eyebrow at Ben who nodded confirmation.
“Of course! I understand,” Joe said. “It can wait. Look, I’m just going up to change and then if anyone wants to see me in the next half hour, will you tell them I’ll be down in the stables?”
They all mumbled that they’d oblige, speared another kidney and returned to the racing tips in Saturday’s newspaper.
A MEDDLING SCOTLAND Yard heavyweight was the last man they wanted to see in the stables at this busy time. Joe knew that and was doubly impressed by the quiet civility with which he was greeted. The head groom, Wallace Flowerdew, stepped up to deal with him, drawing him carefully aside as a great horse clumped by. A team of men and boys was moving purposefully about in the gloom in an atmosphere of suppressed excitement that seemed to have communicated itself to the animals.