Death Sits Down to Dinner Read online

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  To Chloe, Toby, and Georgia

  Characters

  Montfort House in Belgravia, London

  Clementine Elizabeth Talbot, the Countess of Montfort: our amateur sleuth, welcome everywhere in fashionable London society

  *Mrs. Edith Jackson: housekeeper at Iyntwood, Lord Montfort’s country estate in Buckinghamshire, and Lady Montfort’s fellow sleuth

  Ralph Cuthbert Talbot, the Earl of Montfort: Lady Montfort’s long-suffering and loving husband

  Harry Talbot, Viscount Lord Haversham: the Talbots’ only son and heir and enthusiastic aviator

  Mr. White: the Montfort House butler

  *Mrs. “Ginger” Harding: the Montfort House cook

  First footman

  Second footman

  Edna Pettigrew: the Countess of Montfort’s lady’s maid

  Herne: the chauffeur

  Mr. Ernest Stafford: contract landscape architect at Iyntwood

  *Cooks and housekeepers were referred to as Mrs. out of respect even if they were unmarried.

  The House at Chester Square in Belgravia, London

  Hermione Kingsley: elderly patroness of England’s largest charity for orphans, the Chimney Sweep Boys

  Adelaide Gaskell: Miss Kingsley’s pretty, paid companion

  Mr. Jenkins: Miss Kingsley’s geriatric butler

  Martha: first housemaid

  Eliza: second housemaid

  First footman: working name John*

  Second footman: working name James*, real name Eddy Porter (also known as the Clumsy Footman)

  Macleod: chauffeur

  *Often footmen did not work under their own names, but worked under the house names. James and John were typical working names for footmen.

  Other guests invited to Hermione Kingsley’s party to celebrate Winston Churchill’s birthday

  Winston Churchill: First Lord of the Admiralty

  Captain Wildman-Lushington: Royal Marine, aviator, and Mr. Churchill’s flying instructor

  Captain Sir Parceval Vetiver: punctilious aide to Winston Churchill

  Marigold Meriwether: Vetiver’s superbly dressed young fiancée

  Sir Reginald Cholmondeley: old friend of Hermione Kingsley and chairman of the board of governors for the Chimney Sweep Boys

  Aaron Greenberg: sophisticate and extremely rich banker

  Veda, Lady Ryderwood: a beautiful widow with a superb singing voice

  Trevor “Tricky” Tricklebank: Hermione Kingsley’s nephew and only surviving member of her family

  Jennifer Wells-Thornton: the young woman Tricky is expected to marry

  Maud, Lady Cunard: wife of Sir Bache Cunard of the Cunard Shipping Line, and rich American patroness of the arts and arch gossip

  Lord and Lady Wentworth: rich aristocrats

  Sir Vivian Hussey: patron of the arts

  Friends, well-wishers, and policemen

  Chief Inspector Hillary: educated and intelligent member of Scotland Yard’s CID

  Mavis Biggleswade: matron of Kingsley House, home of the Chimney Sweep Boys

  Olive, Lady Shackleton: friend of Lady Montfort

  Gertrude, Lady Waterford: friend of Lady Montfort

  Sir Thomas Beecham: conductor of his own orchestra, man about town, and lover of Lady Cunard

  Gladys Robinson, the Marchioness of Ripon: charismatic patroness of the arts who brought the Ballets Russes to London

  Nellie Melba: Australian opera singer and international superstar

  Chapter One

  A wet and miserable late-autumn day had turned into a bitterly cold winter night as the sun sank unseen below a horizon obscured by a bank of thick gray clouds. The wind veered to the east and the first strong gust gathered force from the estuary and bellowed up the Thames, blowing sprays of puddle water into the air and plastering wet leaves against the legs of those unfortunate enough still to be hurrying homeward.

  Tucked away in the quiet comfort of her bedroom at Montfort House, Clementine Talbot, the Countess of Montfort, and her maid, Pettigrew, were absorbed in the leisurely business of dressing her for dinner. As they went diligently about their work, engrossed in the particulars of choosing the right shoes for her evening dress and making difficult decisions on the appropriate jewels for the occasion, they enjoyed an intermittent exchange of information on the new cook who had recently taken up her appointment at Montfort House.

  “Her food is quite nice, I suppose, considering how young she is and not even French, but from somewhere in the north of England; some industrial town like Newcastle or … Sheffield.” Clementine suppressed a smile at Pettigrew’s grudging praise. Her maid viewed all changes in the Talbots’ London house servants’ hall with skepticism and was not naturally given to enthusiasm.

  The search for the new cook had been a long and worrying business. Clementine was well aware there was little enough to entice her husband away from the family estates at Iyntwood to London. But once convinced he should make the effort, it did not do for him to eat his dinner at the Carlton or White’s, where he heard horribly exaggerated accounts from his friends of lucrative rents garnered from the lease of their London houses to the nouveaux riches.

  “Lord Montfort must not eat all his meals at one of his clubs when he comes up to town, White,” Clementine had reminded the Montfort House butler when after weeks of interviews he had found no exceptional candidate. “It prompts him to question the prudence of keeping on the expense of a full establishment in London.” She knew the butler would understand the wisdom of this thinking. “It is absolutely vital that a first-rate cook be found before his lordship’s next visit.”

  White had certainly more than redoubled his efforts. And when the perfect candidate accepted an offer of employment a collective sigh of relief had resounded throughout the household belowstairs that their future employment was once again secure. And upstairs, Clementine had given thanks that she would continue with a house of her own to stay in whenever she chose to come up to town.

  Persuaded by his wife that the domestic crisis was over and breakfast, luncheon, and dinner at Montfort House would no longer regrettably remind him of Eton, Lord Montfort had come up to London for the first time in months. He had enjoyed a delectable dinner of veal consommé, succulent trout in crisp blanched almonds, game quenelles and truffles, followed by a roast goose with a red-currant glaze, and pronounced that London was almost civilized.

  “Her food not only tastes sublime, it looks wonderful, too,” Clementine said, regarding herself critically in the looking glass. She wondered if wearing her hair piled high toward her forehead was flattering now that she had reached her forties.

  “She’s got her little ways though,” said Pettigrew and wrinkled up her nose. Clementine knew, of old, that her maid could never resist taking some of the gilt off the gingerbread; it was almost expected of her.

  “I think you should
wear the diamond circlet when we do your hair this way, m’lady.” She held her choice over Clementine’s head, and they both gazed thoughtfully into the glass.

  Clementine shook her head. “No, it’s a bit too ornate for this evening.” Pettigrew produced a more modest affair. “Yes, that will do nicely.” She returned to their earlier conversation. “What little ways?”

  “Well, nothing at all really, m’lady. She gave us a nice beef stew for dinner the other day for servants’ dinner, called it by some French name. It had two bottles of wine in it.” And catching Clementine’s startled look, Pettigrew used her fading-away voice to say, “Oh no, m’lady, not the good stuff.” And feeling that more explanation might be required: “Just some of the ordinary from France she said it was. Does wonders for the cheaper cuts of beef.” Clementine’s shoulders came down a notch, and Pettigrew continued, “Anyway, she announced at servants’ dinner today that she would prefer us to call her by her nickname.” She paused and glanced at Clementine in the looking glass.

  A little warning bell began to chime in the distance and Clementine struggled for outer calm. It was hard enough to find and keep good servants in London without making things any more complicated than they already were. There was a shortage of talented cooks who were also sober, honest, and didn’t cause havoc belowstairs. Now one merely prayed that the new candidate would fit into the claustrophobic and tightly knit group whose members made up her servants’ hall. But Pettigrew no doubt expected a reaction to her tidbit and Clementine dutifully obliged.

  “Her nickname? Oh really? How awfully nice of her!” Clementine said in a bright sort of voice. While it was important to take an interest in the lives of those who worked for her, she believed it best not to involve herself in the servants’ social interaction with one another, it only made muddles.

  Pettigrew, concentrating on the finishing touches to Clementine’s hair as she fixed the diamond half-circlet firmly into place, took a moment to reply, “Yes, m’lady, she is a nice young woman, very friendly. But as Mr. White says, it’s important to observe decorum and the proper respect for each other.” Pettigrew was a traditionalist, a member of the old school of personal servants, and would be appalled, thought Clementine, if anyone other than her family called her Edna. She hurried to agree.

  “Of course, he’s absolutely right; important to observe social convention, saves a lot of misunderstandings in the long run. What is her Christian name by the way?”

  “I think it might be Ethel, m’lady. But she said, ‘Just call me Ginger.’” Pettigrew pulled her mouth into a tight knot as she slid in the last hairpin and lifted her eyes to gaze with reproach at Clementine’s face reflected in the looking glass.

  “Ginger,” Clementine was puzzled until she recalled her only meeting with the new cook. “Ah yes, all that glorious titian hair. So do you? Call her Ginger, I mean.” She was careful to maintain only a polite interest.

  “No, m’lady, we most certainly do not.” The lines around Pettigrew’s mouth deepened. “We may not be a sophisticated bunch belowstairs, but we have our standards. We call her Mrs. Harding, as we ought.”

  “And very right and proper, too,” was Clementine’s only comment.

  They lifted their heads as they heard a powerful gust of wind chasing down the street.

  “Hark at that, m’lady, wouldn’t be surprised if we lost a few roof tiles tonight.” Pettigrew, happily complacent they were not her roof tiles, searched for the left hand to the pair of Clementine’s evening gloves. The bedroom windows rattled in their heavy frames as another gust clouted the front of the house.

  “Yes, it’s definitely taken a turn for the worse,” Clementine observed, equally unworried. “Thank you, Pettigrew. No need to wait up, we’ll be back late. But perhaps come in before I leave to make sure I have everything.” A small puff of smoke blew back down the chimney.

  Pettigrew laid the gloves on the dressing table, retrieved Clementine’s evening handbag from the bed, made a quick inventory of its contents, and laid it next to the gloves. She reached over to her mistress and carefully smoothed the neckline at the back of her dress, then hurried off to the servants’ hall for a nice cup of hot cocoa and, guessed Clementine, for further assessment of Ginger’s other interesting eccentricities.

  Clementine walked over to her bedroom window and pulled back the heavy velvet curtain. The draft creeping in around the edges of the window frames struck cold against her bare arms, but she leaned forward to look down the street in time to see a quick blue flare at the bottom of the square as the lamplighter lit the last lamp. She watched him climb down his ladder, swing it up onto his shoulder, and stagger into the wind, his cap pulled down on his head and scarf tied tightly up around his neck. In the light from the lamppost outside Montfort House she watched the last of the leaves that had blown off the plane trees in the center of the square fly upward, as if trying to reattach themselves. She let the curtain fall back and with an exaggerated shiver turned back into the welcoming brightness of the room; a log fell in the grate and a pretty gold and ormolu clock chimed a silvery half past the hour. The door opened and Lord Montfort walked into the room

  “What a wretched night,” Clementine said and recognized, too late, her husband’s raised eyebrows and slightly downturned mouth—customary indications of reluctance and resignation in the face of duty—and realized she had said the wrong thing.

  “‘Wretched’ isn’t what springs to mind. ‘Unbearable’ is more like it.” Her husband walked over to the fireplace and, flipping the tails of his coat out of the way, sat down in a chair, his legs extended and crossed comfortably at the ankle. He must have heard his tone and decided it sounded ungracious because he looked up at her with an appreciative smile and said, “You look rather nice. Is that new?”

  She cast an assessing glance at her dress in the pier glass. She thought the color beautiful, a shade of rich, old gold, the narrow skirt falling in three diagonal layers of lace-edged tulle from a fitted bodice of pomegranate-red silk velvet, with delicate gold tulle split sleeves to just above the elbow.

  “Yes, it’s from Worth. Like it?”

  “Yes, very much, perfect color for you.” He always appreciated the trouble she took to dress in elegant clothes with simple lines.

  She smoothed down the front of the dress and went to sit at her dressing table, head tilted to one side to put on her earrings.

  “How’s Olive bearing up?” He was making a supreme effort to shake off low spirits as he politely inquired after her afternoon round of visits.

  “She’s in a bit of a fluster over poor old Sir Thom.” Clementine laughed as she referred to one of her closest friends and patron of the arts, Olive, Lady Shackleton, and her ongoing fascination with Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and director of his own symphony orchestra; he was also the managing director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and impresario of His Majesty’s Theatre, and privately referred to by the three of them as Sir Thom, because of his tendency to stray, like a male cat when the moon was full, from his current mistress, Maud, Lady Cunard.

  “Oh, and the Shackletons will not be with us for dinner tonight,” Clementine said, delivering what she knew would be bad news.

  “Shackleton not coming to Hermione’s tonight?” His dismay was palpable. The last lifeboat onboard the sinking ship of his evening had been found to have a hole in its bottom.

  Clementine did what she could to reassure: “But Henry and Emily Wentworth and Aaron Greenburg will be there. And do you remember Lady Ryderwood? We met her at the Waterfords’. No? Yes, of course you remember her. She is the widow of Sir Francis Ryderwood; they lived on the Continent.”

  The company of Lord Montfort’s good friends Henry Wentworth and Aaron Greenberg, with the added attraction of one of London’s most lovely widows, did little to dispel gloom that had probably been building all afternoon. Clementine knew what was causing her husband’s despondency, but she did nothing more to try to convince him that their evening wo
uld be enjoyable. It was too late: his morale had already taken a nose-dive, so all efforts would be wasted.

  At tonight’s dinner there could not be enough old friends to make the evening palatable for her husband. The principal guest, the man whose birthday was being celebrated at the house of their close friend Hermione Kingsley, was the First Lord of the Admiralty; a man whom Lord Montfort had never approved of and whose company he took considerable pains to avoid. There were plenty of men who held positions of power and responsibility in government with whom Lord Montfort got on quite well, in spite of differences in their politics. Winston Churchill was not one of them.

  “The one thing I can never forgive Churchill for is his treachery…”

  “Treachery”? Surely this was a bit steep? All the man had done was leave one political party to join another. He had merely left the Tories to join the Liberals. Clementine prepared herself for a long list of Churchill’s many faults.

  “Treachery rewarded by a meteor-like career from a lowly undersecretary,” her husband reminded her, as if she could possibly ever forget, “to home secretary in just six years … not to mention his self-aggrandizing and grandstanding.”

  Well, of course he has a point. Winston Churchill’s habitual indulgence in passionate rhetoric can be rather trying.

  “But worst of all is the man’s complete nincompoopery and his … well … his showing off.”

  Clementine tried to find patience. Please, not the Siege of Sidney Street again. She sighed as she recognized the prelude to her husband’s favorite diatribe toward a man he despised.

  But she was evidently not to be spared. The slums of Whitechapel, made notorious by Jack the Ripper twenty-five years earlier, had provided the backdrop for a calamitous incident in Winston Churchill’s early career as home secretary. The police had made a telephone call to Churchill for permission to call in military support in the arrest of a gang of desperate Latvian thieves who had killed three policemen in an armed robbery and were now trapped in a dilapidated, terraced house in Sidney Street.