Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [24]
“As it is better I should be with my fiancée every time she ventures out of doors,” said Harry, “then perhaps it would be a good idea if she accompanied me.”
Lord and Lady Hadfield were basking in the sun on the terrace of the Grand Hotel at Biarritz. The earl was asleep with a newspaper over his face.
His wife poked him awake with the point of her parasol.
“Brum says you received a telegraph this morning. What was it?”
“Hey, what? Oh, that? Simply Cathcart saying that all was well with Rose.”
“Such a relief,” sighed Lady Polly, looking out at an expanse of deep blue sea. “It is so pleasant to be spared the worry of her.”
“I wish I had a son,” complained the earl. “Boys are less trouble.”
“Oh, go back to sleep,” snapped his wife, thinking again of all those little graves in the churchyard at Stacey Court. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried and tried. She had given birth to three boys, all of whom had died in childbirth and had gone to join their little sisters in the family grave. Only Rose had survived. Difficult Rose.
To Daisy’s dismay, the captain had changed his mind about staying at the earl’s town house. He had decided that it might occasion too much unfavourable comment, given that he was only engaged to Rose and not married to her.
But at least she and Becket were to join Rose and Harry on the outing to Gloucestershire.
Both wearing carriage dresses and heavily veiled, they climbed into Harry’s car the following day.
The sun was shining and the shops and houses of London all had blinds and awnings, fluttering in the lightest of breezes. They gave the effect of a city under full sail.
Harry was driving with Rose beside him. Rose was overawed by the beauty of the motor car. It was the new Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, the genius of the odd alliance between Charles Rolls, an aristocrat, and Frederick Royce, a working man from very poor beginnings. The Silver Ghost cruised along beautifully, keeping to the speed limit of twenty miles per hour.
“Your business must be doing very well,” she remarked.
“Because of my Rolls?”
“Yes.”
“Business has been excellent if tiresome. But people are prepared to pay a fortune for me to cover up scandals or even to find their lost dogs. I have told my secretary, however, that I am not taking on any further business until this case is solved.”
They stopped at an inn in a village outside Oxford for lunch because they had set out early that morning. “I wonder if Jeremy Tremaine is at the university,” said Harry.
“Hardly.” Rose poked at the food on her plate. She would not confess that she was still nervous and frightened, expecting assassins to jump out from behind every bush. “It’s high summer. What college does he attend?”
“Saint Edwin’s.”
“I wonder if this visit to the Tremaines is really necessary. They cannot know anything and they will hardly admit they drove their daughter into trying to run away because they were forcing her into marriage with Lord Berrow.”
“They might just know something,” said Harry. “If you’ve finished toying with your food, we’ll get on the road again.” Inspector Judd entered Kerridge’s office looking excited. “A man’s been dragged out of the Thames under Westminster Bridge.”
“So?”
“He hadn’t been in the water long and he looks like the man from Plomley.” The police artist had made a sketch of Rose’s would-be assassin from the Plomley landlord’s description, and the picture, prominently displayed on posters, had already been distributed to every police station in Britain.
Kerridge leaped to his feet and grabbed his bowler hat. “We’d best get down there and have a look.”
The body was lying, covered with a blanket, on the landing stage at Charing Cross. “Anything in his pockets?” asked Kerridge.
“I recognized him from the poster,” said the policeman, “and left him just as he was when he was dragged out of the river and gave instructions that you should be informed, sir.”
“Good lad. Let’s have a look.”
The constable pulled back the blanket. “He can’t have been in the water long,” commented Kerridge.