DCI Seldon cleared his throat. ‘Lady Swift, I need to ask you what you were doing upstairs.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw as he waited for her response.
She frowned. ‘I was looking for Lancelot.’
‘Why were you looking for him, Lady Swift?’ There was that twitch again.
She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. ‘Because, Inspector, I was a little overwhelmed by meeting so many new people. I wanted to see a… familiar face.’
‘Familiar face,’ DCI Seldon repeated as his pen scratched across the paper. He glanced up at her. ‘Please continue, Lady Swift.’
‘Well, I had taken a small… tumble on the dance floor and was just going to fix my make-up when I spotted him disappearing up the side stairs.’
DCI Seldon looked at her strangely. ‘Yes, I am well aware of your small “tumble”, as was everyone else, including my men.’ He looked back down at his notebook. ‘So, you followed him upstairs?’
‘Yes, as I said, I followed him up the stairs.’
‘And what did he do?’
‘Honestly, I don’t know. When I got to the landing, he’d disappeared.’
DCI Seldon stroked his jaw. ‘Did he know you were following him?’
‘No, he was quite a way ahead of me.’
‘You didn’t call out to him, then?’
‘Inspector, I appreciate you refraining from remarking on my unladylike behaviour in following him in the first place, but was I really likely to bellow his name out? I was trying to be discreet.’
The corners of Seldon’s lips curled upwards. ‘Being discreet,’ he mumbled as he wrote. ‘So whilst discreetly creeping around the upstairs, you…?’
‘Wandered around for a few minutes, if I’m honest.’ She studied the tabletop. ‘I can understand how this sounds, Inspector, but I had the idea and just ran with it. All that doing the right thing at the right time doesn’t come naturally to me, you know.’
‘Yes.’ He stared at the paper. ‘I do know.’
She tried to gauge this response. Was he laughing at her? Oh, this was all so ludicrous! ‘Yes, well, anyway I wandered around and then heard a noise coming from that room so I went in.’
‘Without knocking?’
She stiffened. ‘Inspector, are you making fun of me?’
He looked up. ‘I’m just establishing the facts of the case. If you had knocked, the accused would have had time to react.’
She tugged at the yards of fabric swaddling her legs. ‘I-I’m sorry, I’m a little on edge. Yes, without knocking. I wish that I had knocked.’
DCI Seldon leaned forward. ‘Lady Swift, it is my duty to remind you, again, that this is a murder investigation and that your statement will be the most pertinent in the case. You may wish to stick to the facts.’
Eleanor was tired and confused. With every word of her statement she seemed to be incriminating Lancelot even further.
DCI Seldon cleared his throat. ‘If you would like to continue from “heard a noise coming from that room so I went in”?’
‘So I went in…’ Her chest tightened, pulling the air from her lungs.
‘And saw?’ DCI Seldon coaxed.
She pursed her lips. ‘And saw Lancelot crouched over… a body that was lying on the floor.’
‘And was the accused holding anything?’
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, a candlestick.’
She sat up as the detective’s notebook snapped shut.
‘Thank you, Lady Swift. You are free to go but we will obviously need you to call in at Chipstone Police Station and sign your statement within the next day or so. I will also need to talk with you again once we have corroborated your story.’
She frowned. ‘Corroborated my story?’
He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Lady Swift, you were found in the room with the accused. Lady Fenwick-Langham’s jewels were missing and there was a dead body! You are as close to a suspect in this affair as that blasted young Lord Fenwick-Langham.’
Eleanor gasped. ‘You can’t be serious!’
The inspector held her stare. ‘As I said at the beginning, I wish we were meeting under different circumstances.’ He opened the door.
‘But this is preposterous!’
He spun round. ‘For goodness’ sake, you and the accused were the only people in the room. Alone, damn it! As the detective in this case, I have to consider the possibility that either you were working together, you are protecting him or…’ He looked into her eyes. ‘He is protecting you.’
Five
‘Mrs Trotman’s sent me in with your favourites, my lady, fresh from the griddle.’ Mrs Butters made space on the breakfast table for the covered plate she held. ‘Master Gladstone seems to think as they’re for him, mind. Followed me all the way from the kitchen.’ She gave the bulldog a gentle look of reproach as he leaned on Eleanor’s leg, breathing heavily and waiting expectantly.
Eleanor brightened as she lifted the cover. ‘Mrs Trotman’s famous crumpets! Just what’s needed. I shall pop down and thank her as soon as I have eaten the lot.’
The housekeeper smiled and pushed the mustard and jam closer to Eleanor.
‘Look at that! It’s supposed to be summer.’ Eleanor gestured with a half-buttered crumpet to the morning room’s French windows that normally gave a wonderful view of the formal lawns and colourful herb borders. But the rain of the night before had died out to be replaced by a blanket of grey, oppressive fog. ‘Mrs Trotman couldn’t have timed a welcome plate of comfort food any better. What do you say, Clifford?’
Clifford straightened his cuffs. ‘I should think that finishing a full complement of crumpets would see one in a flour-and-sugar-induced coma, my lady.’
‘Tosh, I’ll rise to the challenge. Half with egg and gammon, and half with Mrs Trotman’s fine home-made jam. Besides, a hearty breakfast is essential to aid concentration.’ She reached for another crumpet. ‘It would be entirely ungrateful of me to let them go stale after all her efforts.’ She looked down at Gladstone and tickled his chin. ‘Don’t think that means you can share them, greedy old chum.’ His eyes implored her to think again.
Mrs Butters stifled a giggle and pulled a fresh serviette from her apron pocket.
Clifford stepped to Eleanor’s side. ‘Would you care for more coffee to accompany your substantial breakfast?’
Eleanor nodded as she swallowed another mouthful, savouring the salty butter contrasting with the sweetened damsons. ‘Yes, indeed.’
Mrs Butters took the coffee pot. ‘I’ll bring a fresh pot, Mr Clifford. I’m sure you and the mistress have plenty to discuss this morning.’ She threw Eleanor a sympathetic smile before leaving them alone.
‘So, a busy day for us then, if not an easy one.’ Eleanor ignored the proffered tongs as she helped herself from the silver egg decanter Clifford held for her. ‘Yikes, they’re super hot!’ She dropped the boiled egg into her cup at an angle. Clifford set it upright with the tongs. ‘Oh, and Clifford, thank you again for appearing so promptly at Langham Manor to collect me yesterday. Very timely. I was positively itching to leave.’