Heirs of the Body(113)

“Thank you.” Tommy bowed acknowledgment. “However, perhaps Lord Dalrymple would prefer to wait until his birthday tomorrow…?”

“No,” said Geraldine. “I want it settled now. Tomorrow half the county will be here for the party and we can break the news to them.”

“As you wish, my dear,” said Edgar with an absent smile. “I’m trying to remember what kind of caterpillar lives on pennyroyal. It grows in the herb garden, you know.”

“I’ll have it dug out this very afternoon,” her ladyship said grimly, “whether that’s where Laurette obtained it or not.”

Daisy wondered silently whether Geraldine would have been equally eager to uproot the laburnum alley, had Vincent used its deadly seeds to poison someone.

Tommy cleared his throat. “Shall we proceed? Mr. Dalrymple, I trust you have kept safely the … item you showed me in London?”

“Of course, sir.” As Sam started to struggle to his feet, Frank gave him a hand and a resigned look. Sam tried to look modest but couldn’t quite hide a grin. “Lord Dalrymple let me keep it in his safe.”

“Edgar!”

“Yes, dear?” His lordship emerged from his cogitation. “Pyrausta aurata. The mint moth, as I should have remembered. A singularly pretty creature.”

“Oh bother your moths!” said Geraldine sacrilegiously. “Go with Samuel to open the safe. Would anyone care for more coffee?” She rang the bell.

“Champagne, don’t you think, dear?” Edgar suggested from the doorway.

Lowecroft came in and was told to bring coffee and champagne.

“Do go on, Mr. Pearson,” said Geraldine. “We need not wait for their return.”

“As you wish, Lady Dalrymple. In the car from Worcester, DCI Fletcher showed me letters he had received from France. To be precise, notarised copies of letters. They were written by Marie-Claire Dalrymple, née Vallier, wife of Julian Dalrymple, from Jamaica to her parents in Paris. Each announces the birth of one of her sons. They are dated.”

“The Sûreté obtained them from the Valliers,” said Alec, “who had previously sent copies to Vincent when he asked for family papers.”

Tommy sighed. “They had not thought to mention them to my representative, as they naturally assumed Vincent would do so.”

Edgar and Sam returned, as Lowecroft and Ernest brought in the coffee and three bottles of cellar-chilled champagne. “I ventured to bring some up after lunch, my lord,” said the butler, “just in case it was called for.”

“Good thinking, my dear chap. Now!” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see what Sam has to show us.”

Sam’s parcel was carefully wrapped in oiled cloth and tied with a faded blue ribbon. Unwrapping it, he revealed a bible bound in black calfskin.

“This belonged to my great-grandmother, Marie-Claire,” he said. “On the blank pages she kept a record of the family. She died in a cholera epidemic in 1850, along with her baby, a fifth son. After my great-grandfather, Julian, died in 1870, my grandfather moved his part of the family from the plantation to Kingston. He left this bible with his half sister, the child of Julian and a freed slave.”

Frank, grinning, started to comment, then thought better of it and coughed instead.

Sam placed the bible on the table at Tommy’s elbow, open at the flyleaf, and sat down beside him. “Her daughter, my great-aunt—”

“Second cousin,” said Tommy.

“Aunt Lucea. This was passed on to her, and she’s kept up the family records for all branches of the family still in Jamaica. I had to go over to the old plantation to beg her to lend it to me. That’s why—one reason—it took me so long to get here. Don’t for pity’s sake get sticky fingerprints on it!”

Offended, Tommy put down his coffee, took out his handkerchief, and ostentatiously wiped his fingers. He studied the faded ink of the family tree.

Daisy was tempted to go and look over his shoulder, but she resisted the temptation. Not that she wasn’t pretty sure of the answer, but she considered the lawyer to be prolonging the suspense to an unwarrantable length.

“Yes,” he said at last, “this agrees with the letters from Paris. The eldest son of Julian was Alfred, born in 1832, father of James, father of Samuel. I can see no reason why the two together should not be accepted as evidence of primogeniture. Congratulations, Mr. Dalrymple. Congratulations, Lord Dalrymple, you have an heir.” A buzz of congratulations arose, which he promptly interrupted. “Pending, needless to say, the decision of the College of Arms.”