‘Really?’
There was something about Bicknell’s manner that I didn’t much like.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘About a present for Lord Etringham,’ I improvised.
‘A present?’
‘Yes … Yes, I think she wants to give him a present to say thank you for helping Sir Henry with his racing tips.’
‘How peculiar,’ said Bicknell. ‘I would have thought Sir Henry himself would have—’
‘Oh, do leave off, Mr Bicknell,’ said Mrs Tilman. ‘You sound like a police inspector, doesn’t he, Mr Wilberforce? Anyway, you were only in there a minute, weren’t you, love?’
‘Oh, rather,’ I said, slightly surprised.
‘I seen you going off to bed only a couple of minutes later.’
‘Oh, rather,’ I said again. Weak, I admit, but I was a bit nonplussed by this unexpected alibi.
‘Do they need more bacon, Mr Bicknell?’ said Mrs Tilman.
‘I’ll look after that,’ said Mrs Padgett, guarding her stove.
Mrs Tilman poured me a fresh cup of tea and – unless I was mistaken – winked at me. I was still trying to work out what was going on when Bicknell returned in search of more coffee.
‘What they’re all asking now,’ he said, ‘is what happened to the man Dame Judith saw outside her window. If he was the burglar, where is he now and how did he escape?’
‘’Appen as he’s the one you saw on the roof, Mr B,’ said Mrs Padgett.
‘That’s as may be,’ said Bicknell. ‘But I had Hoad guard the fire escape, then go up on the roof first thing and there was nobody there.’
‘Sounds like The Mystery of the Gabled House,’ I said, taking a shot at lightening the tone. ‘Not that Melbury Hall has gables, obviously. Jolly good book, though.’
‘And who was the murderer?’ said Mrs Tilman.
‘The butler did it,’ I said. ‘He always does.’
‘Not this butler,’ said Bicknell. ‘Though I have my suspicions.’
‘Well, keep them to yourself,’ said Mrs Tilman, using a tone I wouldn’t have dared risk. ‘Mr Wilberforce, why don’t you pop into the dining room and start to clear the sideboard.’
Bicknell gave Mrs Tilman a reproachful look, but said nothing. I wondered whether she knew things about him, apart from his fondness for the master’s claret; perhaps over the years the odd weakness – a pretty housemaid here, a missing silver napkin ring there – had come to her attention and been set aside for a rainy day.
At any rate, I was glad to escape his cross-examination; pottering about in the background of the dining room seemed a safer option.
‘But, Dame Judith,’ Amelia was saying with some excitement when I went in, ‘surely you must have got a good look at the man’s face.’
‘I’ve told you, it was dark,’ said Dame Judith. ‘And I was in a state of shock. So would you have been, young lady.’
‘Yes, Ambo,’ said Georgiana, ‘it’s easier for someone outside to see into a lighted room than vice versa.’
‘So he must have got a good look at Dame Judith,’ said Amelia.
This thought seemed to cause both girls a spasm of silent amusement.
‘Were you in your nightclothes, Judith?’ asked Lady Hackwood sympathetically.
‘Indeed. I had completed my preparations for retiring and was coming to the end of a most interesting article in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies.’
At this point, Amelia had a fit of coughing that necessitated her holding a napkin over her face, while Georgiana leant over and ministered to her, her shoulders also silently shaking.
Sir Henry Hackwood put down his copy of The Times and looked down the table.
‘Goodwood soon,’ he said. ‘Any thoughts, Etringham?’
‘Not yet, I fear,’ said Jeeves. ‘But I shall shortly be in touch with a Newmarket friend who may conceivably be in a position to—’
‘Splendid. Good man.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Lady Hackwood, ‘is why, when Bicknell shone a torch up to the roof, the intruder seemed to be swaddled in a bed sheet.’
‘A bed sheet?’ said Dame Judith.
‘Bicknell?’ said Sir Henry.
‘Yes, Sir Henry,’ said Bicknell. ‘The party was wearing a long piece of cloth wrapped round him from neck to feet. Like an old statue.’
‘Do you mean like a toga?’ said Lady Hackwood.
‘A toga!’ said Dame Judith. ‘Good heavens. The last time a man in a toga was discovered on a roof in the middle of the night, it was poor Agatha Worplesdon’s lunatic nephew.’