Page 13 of Marble Hall Murders

Lady Chalfont put down the telegram and rested her head against the pillows, relieved. The cup of tea was still steaming on the tray that Béatrice had left on the bed, but she didn’t drink any of it. She was aware that something was wrong. She thought back to what had just happened: the knock at the door, the entrance, the message. She picked up the envelope a second time and examined it. Yes. That was what it was. She hadn’t torn open the envelope. It had been open when it was delivered to her. She could see where the knife had been drawn across.

Someone had read the telegram before it had been delivered to her. They had taken it and then put it back in the wrong place. They knew that Pünd was here, which meant they would also know she had invited him.

But who?

*

‘Are you getting out of bed?’ Lola Chalfont asked her husband.

‘What time is it?’ The voice came from under the covers, disembodied and tetchy.

‘Almost half past eight. You know Elmer hates it when we’re late for breakfast.’

‘Why should I care what Elmer thinks? This isn’t his house and I’m not his damn servant. You go down. I need to sleep.’

A hand with a gold signet ring appeared, pushing back the sheets and revealing a pockmarked face with a sprawl of bright red hair that almost made it seem as if his head was on fire, sideboards slicing into his face, a flat nose and puffed-out lips. Jeffrey Chalfont, now the 7th Earl Chalfont and aged thirty-seven, was running to fat, his thick neck and fleshy shoulders resting against a mountain of pillows. He had begun to resemble his father – but, unfortunately, when Henry Chalfont had been twenty years older than Jeffrey was now. He was short-tempered. He seldom smiled. When Lola woke up, it sometimes took her a few moments to remember she was married to the man lying beside her. They had been together for ten years and had an eight-year-old son, but saw less and less of each other as the days went by.

The 7th Earl was not completely at home in the South of France. He would much rather be in the 11,000-acre estate he had inherited in Norfolk, rattling around in his trusty Massey Ferguson, barking orders at workers who had been with the family for generations. He liked to dress in a flat cap, tweed jacket and waistcoat and would march along country lanes surrounded by his four dogs, two Labradors and two Pinschers, forming a pack around him. He was the master of the local hunt and at weekends he would invite friends over for a shooting party. By the following Monday, not a single bird would be seen in the sky. He enjoyed fishing too. A river ran for half a mile through his estate and fortunate the salmon or perch that would make it from one end to the other.

‘What hour did you get in?’ Lola demanded.

‘Damned if I know. I don’t remember. About twelve o’clock.’

By which he meant one or two o’clock in the morning. Lola had learned to adjust any answer Jeffrey gave her, adding or subtracting as necessary. He had gone out after dinner, supposedly meeting some chums in Nice. He had met them, of course, at the casino – not that she had asked him that. Why invite another lie? But now, in the light of the morning, she couldn’t resist challenging him.

‘How much did you lose?’ she asked.

‘What makes you think I lost?’

‘Old habits die hard,’ Lola muttered, reaching for her eau de toilette.

Lola Chalfont was already dressed and sitting at her dressing table, in front of an antique mirror that unfolded like a triptych on a church altar. The three reflections in their separate panels showed a woman who was still beautiful but who was fighting her thirty-three years and the disappointments of her life. She and Jeffrey had met at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. He had been in the audience, she on the stage, in the lead role, performing as the exotic spy Mata Hari. When she had found a young and enthusiastic Jeffrey Chalfont at the stage door with an impressive bouquet of flowers, she had been swept away, particularly when she had found out about the title he would one day inherit along with his Norfolk estate. Lola Chalfont, countess! That was a part she could certainly play.

It was only after their marriage that she realised she had made the mistake of her life. She had swapped glamour andgreasepaint for bridge parties and long, muddy tracks. The title role for a supporting part. Nor could there be any going back. Producers and directors were nervous of her. She was a member of the aristocracy now, not one of them, and they didn’t even return her calls. She knew she had nobody to blame but herself. Even so, she blamed her new husband and quickly came to despise him.

‘So how much?’ she demanded a second time.

‘How much what?’

‘You know what I’m talking about, Jeffrey. The casino.’

Jeffrey grunted. ‘A couple of hundred francs,’ he admitted at last.

He meant three or four hundred, then. It had been the same the night before – and the night before that. Lola had a sick feeling in her stomach. Where was all this money going to come from? Their bank manager, Mr Spurling, had been on the phone several times – and with every call he’d become less deferential, more demanding.

‘Who were you with?’ she asked.

‘Harry and Charley and Algy …’ All Jeffrey’s friends had names that ended in ‘y’.

‘I suppose they all lost.’

‘You’re wrong. Charley had a fantastic run of luck on the roulette wheel. Champagne all round.’

‘Good old Charley!’

Lola picked up the hairbrush and adjusted the jet-black locks that tumbled over each other, crowning a face that was at once vulnerable and imperious. Born and brought up in Seville until her parents moved to London, she felt completely at home next to the Mediterranean. Herreflections in the mirrors showed intense eyes, a slender neck and a smile that could dazzle across a room, even if that room contained six hundred people. It’s not over yet, she thought to herself. If the producers wouldn’t ring her, the solution was simple. She would become a producer herself.

Grab Me a Gondolawas going into rehearsal at the end of the year and hadn’t yet been cast, but Lola had read the script and listened to the songs, played for her by a rehearsal pianist she had hired out of her own pocket. She was certain the show was going to be a hit and the part of Virginia, a starlet at the Venice Film Festival (where the musical was set), could have been made for her. She had met the writers at a cocktail party at the Dorchester and when she had mentioned she was thinking about investing money, they had shown an immediate interest. She had told them how much she loved the story ofGrab Me a Gondolaand all the wonderful characters – particularly Virginia Jones. Did they think there was any chance that she might audition for the part? And how much was she thinking of investing? How about two thousand pounds? Suddenly it seemed to be a perfect fit.

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