English Rose (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 13) Page 3

  At that moment Carswell brought in four bottles of wine and Cooper began playing lightly on the piano.

  “Quickly, Madame, the second attempt,” said Poiret, who was writing in his notebook, never ceasing, meanwhile, to watch the cheerful group in front of him.

  “The second attempt also happened up North. We had a jolly dinner at my parents’ house, because we thought that at last the good old days were back and the good workers had accepted to live in peace and Ian had tried out the piano and was singing some songs to please me. He’s so nice and sympathetic. Kimberley had gone somewhere or other. The car was waiting at the door after dinner and we went out and got in. Almost instantly there was a fearful noise and the engine of the car exploded. My husband loved that car. As to Stephen, he was wounded in his right leg. The doctor told us it was a bullet. The driver had his shoulder a little bruised, practically nothing. After that attack my husband was forced to stay in bed for two weeks. When he was able to travel I and Kimberley prevailed on him to convalesce here in Folkestone, far away from the factories and the troubles up North. We took the car, but during the journey my husband was overcome by high fever, because the wound in his leg had reopened. The doctors ordered absolute rest and so we have settled here in the mansion. Since then, not a day has gone by without Stephen receiving an anonymous letter telling him that nothing can save him from the revenge of the Communists. He’s brave and only smiles, but I know well that we are vulnerable. So I watch him every minute and let no one approach him except his friends and us, his family.”

  “Who lives here, Madame?”

  “I invited an old nursemaid, who watched me grow up. Then there is our butler, Carswell and some servants, sent by my parents to stay with us.”

  “And the third attempt, was it in the house?”

  “Yes, it was of all of them the most frightening, because it was so mysterious and the mystery has not yet, alas, been solved.”

  John Colliver had told a joke which was received with so much laughter that nothing else could be heard.

  Hassocks, who had been watching Poiret, actually all had kept an eye on the heavy-set detective, said, “Eh, Poiret, how do you like the lot of us?”

  “Poiret, he thinks you are very brave, Monsieur,” said Poiret quietly.

  “How is that?” said the arms manufacturer, smiling.

  “You must forgive Poiret for thinking of the things that you may wish to forget entirely.”

  He indicated the man’s wounded leg.

  “The chances of war!” said the arms manufacturer and shrugged. “A leg here, an arm there. But, as you see, I’m still here. Your health, my friend!”

  “Santé, mon ami!”

  They both raised their glasses and drank their wine silently for a moment.

  “They will end by growing tired and leaving me in peace, you understand?” continued Hassocks. “There is no reason to excite ourselves. It’s my business to defend the empire at the peril of my life. I find that quite natural. I’ve experienced enough in the world of business, not to speak of the terrors of love, that is more ferocious than you can imagine. Look at what they did to my poor friend Barnet. There was a brave man. In the evening, he was a rich banker, when his work was over, he always left the office and went to join his wife and children in their apartment in Mayfair. No guards! One evening a group of bank robbers mounted an attack on him, when he was in his apartment. He was dining with his family. They knocked and he opened the door. He saw who they were and tried to speak, but they gave him no time.”

  As he listened Poiret went somewhat pale. He kept his eyes on the door as if he expected to see it open, giving access to ferocious attackers. He almost regretted having taken the terrible responsibility to dismiss the policemen. After what Inspector Watkins had confided to him of things that had happened in the house, he had not hesitated to risk everything on that audacious decision, but all the same this story of robbers, who appeared at the end of a meal, gun in hand it upset him. Had he not made a mistake by dismissing the police?

  “Mon Dieu,” he said, conquering his misgivings and resuming, as always, his confidence in himself, “what did they do then?”

  “Barnet knew he had not much time left. He didn’t ask for it. They took him to the bank. When the police found the body, it was pierced with twenty-five bullets.”

  “That was exactly the number of thousands they stole,” came in the even voice of Kimberley.

  “Oh, you always find a way,” grumbled the arms manufacturer, shaking his head. “Poor Barnet did his duty, as I do mine.

  “Yes, papa. That is what the communists ought not to forget.”

  John Colliver declared, “They should come this evening. We are in form!”

  On which he filled the glasses again.

  “None the less, permit me to say,” ventured the wool-merchant timidly, “permit me to say that this Barnet was negligent.”

  “Oui, Poiret agrees. He was gravely imprudent,” agreed Poiret. “He should have the protection.”

  He stammered a little toward the end, because it occurred to him that it was a little inconsistent to express such an opinion, just after he had sent the policemen guarding the arms manufacturer away.

  “My dear fellow,” cried Colliver, in an exaggerated voice, “it wasn’t imprudence! It was contempt of death! Yes, it was contempt of death that murdered him! To you, ladies and gentlemen!” He took a draught of his wine. “Gaze on Stephen. Superb! My word, superb! To you all!” He emptied his glass in his throat and looked around for a bottle to refill it.

  “You, my friends,” declared the arms manufacturer, “prove your great courage by coming here to share the danger with me.”

  “Not at all, not at all!” said Monk.

  “Oh, there’s no reason to pat us on the shoulder, Stephen,” insisted Cooper modestly. “What risk do we run? The police have surrounded this place.”

  “We’re protected by the hand of God,” declared Monk, “because the police, well, I don’t have any confidence in the police.”

  Adam Ashby, who had been smoking in the garden, entered during the remark.

  “Be happy, then, Mr. Monk,” he said, “because there are no policemen anywhere near the mansion.”

  “Where are they?” inquired the Member of Parliament uneasily.

  “An order came from, uh, Inspector Watkins to remove them,” explained Lady Hassocks, glancing at Poiret and exerting herself to appear calm.

  “Are they not being replaced?” asked Colliver, alarmed.

  “No, there must have been some confusion in the orders given to them.” Lady Hassocks reddened, because she loathed a lie.

  “Oh, well, all the better,” said the arms manufacturer. “It will give us some peace and quiet to play bowls in the garden tomorrow.”

  Adam was of the same mind as the arms manufacturer. When Christian Cooper and Richard Monk offered to spend the night at the mansion and take the place of the absent policemen, Hassocks, to Poiret’s relief disapproved of the idea of this new guard.

  “No, no,” he cried emphatically. “You leave at the usual time. I want to get back into living as everyone else does. We shall be all right. Watkins must have arranged the matter. Maybe he is unsure of his men. You understand me. I don’t need to explain further. You will go home to bed and we will all sleep. Those are the orders. Goodnight. All of us to bed now!”

  They didn’t insist further. They went into the patio, where liqueurs were served by the butler, as always. Lady Hassocks pushed the wheelchair of her husband. Poiret saw her whisper in his ear. He kept repeating, “No. No more police. They only bring trouble.”

  “Stephen!” sighed Lady Hassocks, whose anxiety had deepened. “They watched over your life.”

  “Life is dear to me only because of you, Francine,” he responded, looking her in the eyes.

  “And not at all because of me, papa?” asked Kimberley.

  “Oh, Kimberley!”

  Poiret watched them as Hassocks
took both her hands in his. It was a touching glimpse of family intimacy.

  While Carswell poured the liqueurs, melancholy began to show in the arms manufacturer’s face as he watched the night deepen in the sky, the golden night of Folkestone.

  The cheerful group on the terrace all appeared to be held in charmed awe by the view, except for Ian, Adam and Poiret, who were watching Kimberley as she glowed in the moonlight. Truly, no one could ever guess the anger or the hate that broods in a man’s heart, who has to share the object of his love with another man. Kimberley knew nothing of this.

  After Lady Hassocks had helped her husband into his bed, she roamed the solitary garden looking for Poiret. There was light coming from the arms manufacturer’s window on the first floor. There were lights coming from the basement, from the kitchens. There was light on the ground floor near the sitting room, coming from the window in Kimberley’s room.

  As Mrs. Hassocks walked through the garden she felt as though she was carrying all the weight of the threatening outside world on her shoulders. She had examined everything. All was shut tight, was perfectly secure and there was no one within the house except for people she was absolutely sure of, but, whom, all the same, she didn’t allow to go anywhere in the house except for where their work called them. Each person was where he should be. She wished each one could remain fixed like the statues on the lawn. Even as she thought it, a shadow of one of the statues moved, stretched itself out, rose to its knees, grasped her skirt and spoke in the voice of Poiret.

  “Please to tell to Poiret, why is Monsieur Carswell on the patio? Please to send him to the kitchens. And you, Madame, please to go inside at once and to shut the door. Poiret, he begs you not to concern yourself about him. Bonne nuit.”

  Poiret hid himself again in the shadows, among the other statues. Lady Hassocks did as she was told. She returned to the house and spoke to Carswell. Then the mistress of the house closed the outside door. She locked the door of the kitchen stairs, which allowed the domestics to enter the mansion from below. Down there each night the devoted nursemaid and the faithful Carswell kept a watchful eye on all.

  Within the mansion there were on the ground floor only Kimberley, who slept in the room off the sitting room and above on the first floor, were Lady Hassocks in her room and the Mr. Hassocks in his room.

  Mrs. Hassocks went downstairs again and sat down in the darkness of the drawing room, her flashlight in her hand. All her nights had been spent like this, moving from door to door, from room to room, watching, not daring to stop her surveillance even to throw herself on the mattress that she had placed in front of the door of her husband’s room. Even she herself could hardly say if she ever slept. But that night there was Poiret to help her. She felt a little safer until she remembered that the police were no longer there. She couldn’t deny that in some way she felt more confident about her husband’s security now that the police were gone. She didn’t have to spend her time watching their shadows in the shadows, searching the darkness in order to know where they all were. She had less work now that she didn’t have to watch the police. And she had less fear!

  She thanked the detective for that. She wondered if he was still among the statues out there on the lawn. She peered through the lattice of the shutters and looked anxiously out into the darkened garden. She looked at a crouching black shadow with an unlit pipe in his mouth. It was the statue of a garden gnome. She loved her little guardian angel, who watched with her over her husband’s life and thanks to whom serious injury had not yet befallen him. When she was little she had been afraid of garden gnomes, but her father had explained to her that they warded off evil spirits. After she was married, she had run across the statue in a shop in Bath. She had immediately bought him, carried him home by train herself and placed him in the vestibule of her house. In leaving her house up North she had made sure he was one of the items they took with them to Folkestone. She herself had placed him on the lawn so that he could continue to watch over her happiness and over the life of her Stephen. And in order to make sure that he would not be bored she had surrounded him with other statues. The rotund Frenchman had frightened her, rising suddenly like that, without warning, on the lawn. For a moment she had believed that it was the garden gnome himself standing up to stretch his legs. It seemed to her that that night there were two little men watching over the house. And that was worth more to her than all the police in the world.

  Only one man watched the house, though. Poiret, sitting among the statues could see everything and he could hear everything. One could walk past him without suspecting him being there. But Poiret had not stayed outside.

  “It is Poiret,” said a voice behind Mrs. Hassocks.

  It startled her, but only for an instant. She waited for what he would say. She had supposed he was outside the house. Still she wasn’t too astonished that he was within. He had entered without anyone noticing him.

  “So you were here?” she said, taking his hand and pressing it nervously in hers.

  “Poiret, he watched you close the doors and the windows. It is the task well-done. You have forgotten not a thing.”

  “Have you seen anything, Mr. Poiret? I’ve been into all the nooks and crannies of this house.”

  “But Madame, should Poiret see or hear anything suspicious in the mansion when you are watching it, when the arms manufacturer, he is asleep and your stepdaughter, she is preparing for the bed?”

  “No. No. I don’t believe so. I don’t. No, oh, Christ!”

  They talked, both seated in a corner of the sofa. She sighed anxiously.

  “And in the garden, Mr. Poiret, have you heard anything?”

  “Poiret, he heard the solicitor, Monsieur Ian say to the doctor, Monsieur Adam, “Shall we return at once to the mansion?” Monsieur Adam, he refused. Then they had the discussion, which Poiret, he cannot repeat, but it is certain from the way they talked that they disagreed and that, how do you say, no love, it is lost between them.”

  “No, they don’t like each other. They both love Kimberley.”

  “And she, which one of them does she love, Madame?”

  “She pretends that she loves Ian and I believe she does and yet she’s very friendly with Adam and often goes into nooks and corners to chat with him, which makes Ian mad with jealousy. She has forbidden Ian to speak to her father about their marriage, on the pretext that she does not wish to leave her father now, while each day, each minute his life is in danger.”

  “And you, Madame, do you love your stepdaughter?” brutally inquired the consulting detective.

  “Yes, sincerely,” replied Lady Hassocks, nodding her head as if to accentuate her feelings.

  “And she, Madame, does she love you?”

  “I believe so, Monsieur. Yes, she loves me and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t love me. I believe we all here in this house love one another. Our friends are old proved friends. Ian has been my husband’s solicitor for many years. We don’t share any of his too-modern ideas, though. I reproached him for going to my husband without telling Kimberley and me and begging him to have mercy on the protesters at his factories. It wasn’t his role. A solicitor is a solicitor. My husband was not amused by his display of disloyalty. He already had enough to fight against with the workers, with his conscience and with the tears of his daughter and his wife. Ian understood, but he behaved again like a woman in defending the “heroes of the barricades,” as he called them in court. There was a terrible scene. It was before the next-to-the-last attack. Stephen still had the use of both legs. He stamped his feet and fairly shook the house.”

  “Madame,” said Poiret, “a propos of the attacks, you must tell to Poiret more about the third attack.”

  As he said this, leaning toward her, Lady Hassocks said suddenly, “Listen!”

  Poiret had heard nothing.

  “You hear nothing?” she whispered to him with an effort. “A tick-tack?”

  “Like the tick-tack of the clock?”

  “No
clocks are running here. It’s so that we can better hear the tick-tack.”

  “Oui, je comprends. But Poiret, he does not hear anything.”

  “I think I hear the tick-tack all the time since the last attempt. It haunts my ears. It’s frightful to know there’s a clock somewhere, just about to reach the death-tick and not to know where, not to know where! Tick-tack! Tick-tack!”

  Drops of perspiration appeared on her forehead.

  “Listen,” she said perking up suddenly.

  “Someone, he is talking and now he is crying,” said the little man.

  “Shhh!”

  Poiret felt the rigid hand of Lady Hassocks on his arm.

  “It’s my husband. Stephen is dreaming!”

  She took him into the dining room, into a corner where they could no longer hear the arms manufacturer moaning. But all the doors that connected to the dining room, the drawing room and the sitting room stayed open behind him. Poiret made sure of that.

  As if trying to distract Poiret’s attention from the sounds above, she continued, “My husband has a pocket watch. Well, I have stopped it, because more than once I was startled by hearing the tick-tack of the watch in his waistcoat-pocket. Inspector Watkins gave me the advice one day when he was here. He told me to stop all the watches and clocks so that there would be no chance of confusing them with the tick-tack of a bomb planted in some corner.”

  “Madame,” interrupted Poiret, “Madame, someone, he moans still, upstairs.”

  “Oh, that is nothing, my dear friend. It’s my husband, who has bad dreams. He can’t sleep without sleeping medicine. I’m going to tell you now, how the third attack came about. And then you’ll understand how it is I always have the tick-tack in my ears.