Death at Dinner Read online

  I glanced down at his notebook. “You’re going to see Mr. Sharma then?”

  Inspector Hamilton snapped his notebook closed. “Mr. Warland didn’t seem to like him. I’d like to know why.”

  “I might be able to help you with that.”

  “Is that a ploy to be in on my questioning again?”

  I grinned. “Maybe a little bit, but I really can help you. Mrs. McWade would know where he was.”

  “Mrs. McWade? Who is she?”

  “A widow staying at the same hotel as Mr. Sharma. She sits in the lobby in the afternoon and people assume she’s a good chaperone. If they were there, she’d have noticed.”

  “And you can introduce me to her?”

  I nodded.

  He leaned back to talk to the driver. “The Prescott Guest House.” Then he climbed into the cab beside me.

  When he was settled in the cab, I said, “Mr. Ainsworth seemed to think Mr. Sharma was all right.”

  “We only have Mr. Sharma’s word for that.”

  “They seemed to be on fine terms at the dinner, but then so did Mr. Warland and Mr. Sharma.”

  “And if it’s Mr. Sharma, it won’t be Mrs. Pomeroy.”

  I smiled. “There is that. But why would Mr. Warland and Mr. Ainsworth dislike him?”

  Inspector Hamilton shrugged. “Why isn’t as important as how, but I suspect that it has something to do with the merger.”

  “What is this merger anyway? Is it big enough to murder over?”

  “Most definitely. Mr. Sharma’s family owns one of the largest steamworks in Delhi. Mr. Carrollton’s company makes the pipes and fittings used to transport the steam. If they manage this deal, it will mean huge amounts of money for Carrollton and huge savings for Sharma.”

  “But now Mr. Sharma’s backing out because the finances don’t look as good as he expected.” I leaned back against the cushions of the cab and tried to see how this fit in with the murder. “I suppose, if they were pushing for the merger, he might have — but no one’s forcing him to sign. It would make more sense if they were against a merger he was for.”

  Inspector Hamilton smiled. “Any other help you’d like to give me?”

  I glared at him, but he seemed to find it funny. I was still thinking of something to say when the cab stopped. Inspector Hamilton hopped out and held the door for me. “Now where is this font of knowledge you’ve located?”

  “In the sitting room. Pay the driver, and I’ll show you.”

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Mrs. McWade was right where I expected her to be, sitting in the lounge of the Prescott Guest House with her knitting in hand. She glanced at the door out of the corner of her eye. When she saw it was me, she sat up and let her knitting fall into her lap. “Miss Pengear. How nice to see you again.” She stared at Inspector Hamilton with one eyebrow raised.

  Inspector Hamilton took off his hat and gave her a small bow.

  I let him squirm for a minute so he’d appreciate my intervention; then I made the introductions. “Mrs. McWade, this is Inspector Hamilton from Scotland Yard. He’s investigating the murder I was telling you about.”

  “Am I a suspect?” She seemed quite delighted by the idea.

  Inspector Hamilton pulled a chair over from the other side of the room so he could sit across from her. “No, no, only the people at the dinner party are suspects at the moment. But I was hoping you could be a witness.”

  “A witness? Yes, I suppose that is a more comfortable position to be in. So you want me to provide an alibi for Mr. Navin Sharma?”

  I saw Inspector Hamilton’s lip twitch. He was finding her very amusing. “I knew you would be an excellent witness.”

  “Flattery does not become you, Inspector Hamilton.” But she did seem pleased by it. “For when does he need an alibi?”

  “Saturday afternoon.” Inspector Hamilton pulled out his notebook. “Anything you remember would be a help.”

  “Around what, one o’clock? That’s easy. He was here.”

  “By here you mean at the hotel, or—”

  “Here in this room. Right over there.” She pointed to the telegraph table. “Mr. Prescott-Smythe was here with him, so you can have a corroborating witness if you’d like.”

  Inspector Hamilton looked surprised. “You saw him? What was he doing?”

  “They were trying to fix that machine. Mr. Sharma had just come back from lunch, with the girl who may or may not be his fiancée I think, and Mr. Prescott-Smythe had a telegram for him from India. Mr. Sharma went upstairs to read it, and came down and started working on the machine almost at once.”

  “To send or receive?”

  “He sent a telegram as soon as it was fixed.”

  “Mr. Sharma sent it himself?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So it must have been personal. Something he didn’t want anyone else to know about, even at the telegraph office. I wish I knew what it said.”

  Mrs. McWade waited until she had his full attention again. “I may be able to help.” She picked up her knitting and studied it. “It was long, long, long, short, long, short, short. Does that mean something?”

  Inspector Hamilton scribbled on his notepad as she spoke. “‘OPE.’ What do you think that means?”

  Neither of us said anything.

  “Hope, maybe? Or some foreign tongue.”

  Mrs. McWade picked up her knitting again. “The rest of it was long, short, short, short...” As she spoke, Inspector Hamilton scribbled furiously in his notebook. He didn’t look up until she said, “Does that help?”

  “‘Ope best chance.’ Hope best chance? Best chance for what?” He looked back at Mrs. McWade. “Did you hear anything else?”

  “I’m afraid not. Mrs. Prescott-Smythe said lunch was ready, and it would have been obvious if I had stayed.”

  “And the first message was delivered? Did you see from where?”

  “It was delivered by a small boy with brown hair, recently trimmed. He was wearing a green jacket that may have been an attempt at a uniform. And he was on foot.”

  “So, probably a local office.” Inspector Hamilton made more notes. “You said Mr. Sharma was here; did he stay all afternoon to wait for the reply then?”

  “He was here for at least an hour. He got a telephone call at quarter to three and left in a hurry directly after.”

  I tried not to react. He would have had time to get from the guest house to Mr. Warland’s if he’d found a cab quickly. So he didn’t have an alibi at all.

  Inspector Hamilton scribbled something else in his notebook. “Well, thank you for your help. If I need anything else, I’ll call again.”

  “I’ll be here until Friday.” Mrs. McWade met my eyes as I rose to leave.

  Outside, Inspector Hamilton hailed another cab. “Thank you for your help with her. I don’t think she would have told me as much without you. I’m going back to the Yard. Can I drop you somewhere?”

  “I’m just going home.”

  “All right. Then go home and leave this to me. I’ll get you a cab.”

  “No, I can take the Underground.”

  “Very well, but go home. No investigating.”

  “I’ll send word if I remember anything useful.” I didn’t want to lie to him, and I certainly wasn’t going home.

  “Remember, do not investigate, dig up, discover, cajole, or stumble upon anything to do with the murder. Remembering is permitted provided you send word to me at once.”

  I pretended I hadn’t heard as I started walking slowly towards the nearest Underground stop. He tipped his hat and got into the cab.

  I kept walking towards the Underground station until I saw Inspector Hamilton’s cab turn the corner. As soon as I was sure he wouldn’t see me, I turned back to the hotel.

  Chapter 24

  BACK AT THE GUEST HOUSE, Mrs. McWade was sitting right where I’d left her. “So you did come back.”

  “I wanted to hear what you really thought happened.”

  S
he smiled. “I knew you would understand. I didn’t want to bother Inspector Hamilton with random speculation. And I didn’t want to step on his toes. After all, he is being paid to put the facts together. I rang for some tea, so do help yourself, or would you rather I played mother?” She picked up her knitting. “I don’t think the message had anything to do with the murder. He didn’t try to hide it from Mr. Prescott-Smythe.”

  I wanted to tell her the message probably had nothing to do with anything now that we knew it wasn’t going to give him an alibi, unless she was wrong about the times. “What exactly happened?”

  “The telegram was delivered just as we were finishing our luncheon. Mrs. Prescott-Smythe brought it in to him on a silver tray no less. A bit much, I think, unless you are a proper butler, but that’s neither here nor there. In any case, Mr. Sharma brought it upstairs to read so I couldn’t see his reaction.”

  “So you think he knew what it said before he opened it?”

  “No, I think he knew Mrs. Prescott-Smythe was interested and didn’t want to let her in on it. She isn’t nosy exactly, but she is overly concerned with the reputation of this place. This was all in the front hall, which I’m sure you noticed can be seen from here. He was gone for about five minutes, really just long enough to read the message, then he came downstairs in quite a hurry but trying not to look like he was, and started asking for Mr. Prescott-Smythe. Well, Mr. Prescott-Smythe was in here, helping me get this steam heater just right, so I was able to hear everything. Mr. Sharma asked if the telegraph machine was working. Mr. Prescott-Smythe said it just needed a bit of tweaking and it would be perfect, so Mr. Sharma said to let him have a go at it.” She paused to try one of the biscuits.

  “And they got to work?”

  “Apparently. They crawled around a lot and Mr. Prescott-Smythe did something up top and Mrs. Sharma fiddled under the table, and the whole thing started to buzz. I don’t mind telling you I almost ran out of here when that happened, but I didn’t want to offend Mr. Prescott-Smythe.”

  “So they were both tinkering with it?”

  “Yes, for a good twenty minutes.”

  “And Mr. Sharma was able to repair the telegraph?”

  “Oh yes, he was crawling under the table, fiddling with wires and all that sort of thing.”

  “Fiddling?”

  “Twisting them together, wrapping them with something, cutting things.”

  I tried not to look disappointed. If he’d just been fiddling, maybe he wouldn’t have been capable of disabling the telephone at Parkside House, but twisting and cutting wires sounded like he knew what he was doing. “I wonder why he went to so much trouble to sent the message from here. Was there more than you told Inspector Hamilton?”

  “Not much. I started knitting it as soon as I realized what he was doing. It couldn’t have been more than a few characters off.”

  So there wasn’t some hidden meaning to it then. “By the way, what are you knitting?”

  “A jacket for my grand-nephew. He won’t mind a bit of code on the back. He might find it exciting.”

  “He probably will. Do you have any idea what the message Mr. Sharma got was?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Inspector Hamilton would probably try to find the office that had delivered it, and would probably be able to get the text of it. I was fairly certain I would not be able to unless I asked Mr. Sharma directly. “Do you know where he went when he left?”

  “I’m afraid not, but I had the impression it was more of an annoyance. I rather thought that young woman, Miss Carrollton, might have been involved, but that was just an impression, of course, nothing concrete.”

  “And is he in now?”

  “No, he went out this morning.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  Mrs. McWade shook her head. “But I do know where he’ll be later. I heard him tell Mr. Prescott-Smythe he could be reached at the Henderson Tea Room if another message came through. The young lady again, I think. You’ll make certain he’s not framed, won’t you? It would certainly be exciting to tell them back home that I shared a hotel with a murderer, but he’s such a nice man, I’d rather it wasn’t him. And it’s exciting enough to have the police around. You know, he brought me a box of chocolates as a thank-you for being their chaperone? None of the others did that. So you will look out for him, won’t you?”

  Did every suspect have someone that wanted me to look out for them? “I’ll make certain Inspector Hamilton is fair.”

  “Thank you, dear.”

  Back on the street, I considered my options again. I couldn’t remember the name of the tea shop where I had met Miss Carrollton, but if she was the person he was meeting, it would make sense that it would be there. Not that I had any idea of what to ask him now. Of all of my suspects, who seemed the most suspicious? I didn’t like any of the answers I came up with, so I decided to try a different order. Who I most wanted it to be did not seem like a very professional way to go, certainly not one that Glamorous Gladys would have embraced. The one with the most unanswered questions, now that was a good, logical route to take. And the answer was easy. Mr. Williamson had not given a good account of his whereabouts, and if he was guilty, I wouldn’t have minded one bit. I took the Underground to his bank.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  When I got to the bank, I spotted the bespectacled clerk from the other day. He perked up when I approached his desk. “Can I be of assistance?”

  “I hope so. I came to pick up the information on the accounts Mr. Carrollton was switching to.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give out any personal information.”

  It was worth a try. On to plan B. “I’m afraid I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean on his current accounts, just the general information on the new account types so he can compare them to what he already has. I think Mr. Williamson meant to bring them last week, but he didn’t leave anything.”

  “I don’t think — well, let me go check the file.”

  I waited while he went into the office. He returned with a thin file of papers. I could see the top sheet from where I stood. It was what I had asked for, a very general description of a type of account.

  “I don’t see any notes in the file, and Mr. Carrollton already has our most advantageous accounts as he is a good client. I don’t know what you were told—”

  “Mr. Williamson paid a call on Mr. Carrollton’s solicitor. He said he had more advantageous accounts for him if he wanted to change.”

  The young clerk snapped the file shut. “I should have known. There have been rumors, but I wouldn’t have thought—”

  “Is something wrong?” I tried to look bland and innocent, although I sensed I was near an explanation.

  “That man’s ambition knows no bounds, but to stoop to poaching clients...”

  “Poaching clients? Why would he do that?”

  “There have been rumors that he wants to move to Coutts & Co. I’ll bet that’s what he was doing, trying to get some of our best clients to defect along with him.”

  I didn’t think Mr. Carrollton’s business would be enough to impress a bank which had the Queen herself as a depositor, but some of the more prestigious ones in the area might very well look at it as a sign of his loyalty to a new employer. And it would be something he’d try to hide. “How reliable are these rumors?”

  “Well, he was seen leaving Coutts last Saturday.”

  I looked up. “The day he went home sick?”

  “Exactly. Leaving us short-handed on a Saturday when it’s all hands on deck to pursue another post.”

  “Well, maybe the directors will reward your loyalty with his position.”

  “Now, that’s a thought.”

  I left him with his dreams of promotion.

  As I walked to the Underground, I debated telling Inspector Hamilton about this development but decided against it. He would be angry with me for investigating, and it might be valuable as an excuse to visit Scotland Yard or as a bargainin
g chip when I needed information.

  I glanced at my watch. By now it was near enough to Mr. Sharma’s appointment that I could catch him at the tea shop if that was, in fact, where he was meeting Miss Carrollton. I took the Underground to Oxford Circle. When I got there, I was still a bit early, so I walked down Regent Street to the corner where it met Conduit Street. I had met Miss Carrollton there before, so if she was the one Mr. Sharma was meeting, it seemed a good place to wait. I bought a newspaper and found an out-of-the-way lamppost to lean against while I pretended to be looking for an advertisement. I didn’t have long to wait. I hadn’t even started to attract stares when I saw a group of young women come out of a brown brick building with a blue door four shops down. I scanned the group and spotted Miss Carrollton towards the back. I retraced my steps down the street so I could appear to have happened upon her without her knowing I’d seen her secret destination.

  I followed Miss Carrollton until we were near the tea shop we’d visited on our first meeting. I glanced at the sign. Miss Beaton’s Fine Teas. Not where Mr. Sharma was, then. But it did seem like a safe place to reveal myself to her, so I called to her as she passed the shop. She turned when she heard me and looked around. I could tell she was wondering how much I’d seen. She waited for me to catch up before she asked, “Were you looking for me?”

  I made up a quick, and upon reflection easy to disprove, story. “Your maid said you had another piano lesson, so I took a chance that you frequented this tea shop every time.”

  That seemed to calm her. She stopped scanning the block and looked at me directly. “So you’ve been waiting here for me?”

  “Not very long. Could we talk a bit?”

  “I suppose. But I haven’t found anything out for you. And I even had a good cover story.”

  “What was it?” I was hoping to get on her good side by complimenting her detective work.