Sweet Poison

Book 1: Lord Edward Corinth & Verity Browne

by David Roberts

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

A murder mystery featuring Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne. August 1935. The Duke of Mersham's exclusive party ends in tragedy as General Sir Alistair Craig VC collapses, victim of a poisoned glass of port, just as Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne join the soirée. The unlikely pair - the younger son of a duke and a journalist committed to the Communist Party - find common ground as they seek the truth and discover that everyone present that evening, including the Duke of Mersham himself, had motive for wanting Sir Alistair out of the picture. But more deaths will follow before Lord Edward and Verity can get to the bottom of this intriguing mystery... Praise for David Roberts: 'A classic murder mystery [...] and a most engaging pair of amateur sleuths' Charles Osborne, author of The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie 'A gripping, richly satisfying whodunit with finely observed characters, sparkling with insouciance and stinging menace' Peter James 'A really well-crafted and charming mystery story' Daily Mail 'A perfect example of golden-age mystery traditions with the cobwebs swept away' Guardian

Release date: September 1, 2011

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 292

Sample

Prologue

The Duke thrust aside his copy of The Times in disgust and stared up through the branches of the great copper beech under which he sat. A light wind agitated the leaves and tossed the discarded newspaper into the air so that several sheets lodged among the lower branches. The ancient and noble tree, which the Germans call a blood beech, creaked and groaned. The brittle leaves rustled and whispered. Shafts of white light, like burning arrows, pierced the shadow into which he had taken his deck chair and made him shield his eyes with his hand. August in England is often an unsettled month but this year, 1935, it had been unusually hot. The grass was browned and the river ran slow and sullen, stifled by weed.

The Duke had not been sleeping well, perhaps because of the heat but there were other reasons, and now his eyes closed, unable to withstand the bright sunlight. He drew out of his trouser pocket his red-spotted silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. He had been upset by what he had read in the newspaper and he had shut his eyes in the hope of forgetting but, as was now commonplace, his mind filled with nightmare images of his brother’s death all of twenty years ago. They were the more vivid because he had not himself witnessed it. He saw Franklyn, splendid in his uniform, leading his men towards a wood or maybe just a copse, he could not be sure. Then he saw ill-defined figures in grey kneeling around a metal tripod. They seemed to be feeding a long thin muzzle from below as one might milk a cow. His brother was running, waving his revolver in his right hand to urge on the men behind him. He was bare-headed. In these early days of war, steel helmets were not often worn and his cap had been snatched off his head by the wind or by a bullet as he began his charge. He never reached the trees. A few yards short of the wood he fell clumsily as though he had tripped over a furrow or stumbled on a mole hill. On the ground, he made absurd swimming movements before lying still. All about him other men were dropping down with the same gracelessness. At this moment, as was always the way of it, the Duke woke up choking with anxiety, the blood pounding in his head.

He struggled out of his canvas chair cursing and calling for his wife. ‘Connie! Connie! Where are you?’

‘I’m here, dear. What’s the matter?’ came her calm, cool voice from across the lawn and the Duke, still stupid with panic and fatigue, half ran towards the woman who alone made his life bearable.

‘What is it, my dear?’ she said as he came up to her. ‘You have upset yourself? Have you been having that dream again?’

The Duke hung his head shamefacedly. ‘I was sitting there reading the paper and thinking about the dinner tonight and I must have dozed off.’

‘And you started thinking of Frank?’

‘Yes, for the first time for a week. I thought I was really free of it but I suppose . . . well, the news from Germany unsettled me.’ He gripped his wife’s arm so hard it hurt but she made no sign. ‘That’s why it is so important to get these people talking. Frank cannot, must not, have died in vain. We must . . .’

‘I know, Gerald,’ said the Duchess gently, stroking his cheek, ‘I know. It will all go well tonight; don’t worry. Now, why don’t you go up to the house and go through the arrangements with Bates and make sure he’s clear about the wine.’

‘Yes, m’dear,’ said the Duke meekly. ‘Sorry, old thing. I’m afraid I got myself into a bit of a state.’

The Duke, much calmer now, walked slowly back towards the open French windows through which his wife had come to his rescue. She stood where he had left her, looking at his retreating form with something approaching dismay. She was afraid he was setting too much store by these dinners he had determined to host with the aim of fostering Anglo-German understanding. He had never got over his brother’s death in those first few days of the war and the guilt he felt at not himself having fought. He had so wanted to prove himself on the field of battle but his father had forbidden it. He had told his son that his disobedience would kill him. He had tortured himself ever after wondering if he had been a coward not to have defied his father and gone to France. It was this heavy burden, she knew, which made him dread another war with Germany and he considered it his duty to do everything he could to prevent it.

At least the castle was looking at its most delectable for the distinguished guests. It had been built in Elizabethan times by a Swedish princess, one of the Virgin Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. The long gravel drive broadened into a graceful sweep outside the great front door made of ancient oak and studded with iron nails. Through the door the visitor entered a hall created in the eighteenth century to replace the somewhat poky original entrance. This new hall, designed by Robert Adam in 1768, was of some considerable size, floored in black and white marble squares and encircled by a magnificent staircase. In the middle of the hall on a table stood a glorious arrangement of summer flowers which scented the whole house. High above, Adam had created a glass dome which matched the airy lightness of the castle to perfection. On the right of the hall there was the dining-room. A Holbein of an unknown man, possibly a relation of the princess who had built the house, hung above an Adam fireplace. Less happily, in the nineteenth century, French windows had been let into a bay for the convenience of those who might wish to step out on to the lawns without the bother of going through the hall. The drawing-room on the other side of the hall had been similarly defaced but there was no doubt that on a summer’s day such as this one it was delightful to feel, with the French windows thrown open, a gentle breeze dissipate the stale air of afternoon heat. This was Connie’s domain. She did not for one moment consider herself to be the castle’s owner; she was merely – if it could ever be considered ‘merely’ – its chatelaine. Standing on the lawn, she raised her eyes to the castle battlements. They shimmered insubstantial in the early afternoon sun. The castle for all its parapets and embrasures was a confection with the defensive capability of a wedding cake. It pretended to be what it was not. The ancient honey-coloured stone, somnolent in the sun, dreamed not of war but of masques and plays, courtiers and their ladies. It stood, like England itself, unprepared for conflict of any sort – in sleepy forgetfulness of its own history.

1

Saturday Afternoon

Lord Edward Corinth deplored unpunctuality. He pressed down his foot on the accelerator pedal and smiled to himself as he felt the Lagonda Rapier respond. He had only taken delivery of the elegant two-seater three weeks before and he had spent that time lovingly bringing its four-and-a-half-litre six-cylinder engine up to its peak. Now fully run-in, this was his first opportunity of putting it through its paces. The colour of whipped cream, the Lagonda sped along the Great West Road like some latter-day Pegasus. Soon, London was left behind. Sooted houses and modern factories gave way to countryside punctuated by the occasional roadhouse, but Edward had no time or inclination to tarry. He had to reach Mersham Castle by seven thirty at the latest if he didn’t want to bring down upon his head the wrath of Gerald, his older brother and Duke of Mersham, and it was already after six. He urged the great car along the empty road, feeling the wind in his face, relishing the beat of the powerful engine. He loved speed and this was equal to anything except flying itself. He had learnt to fly in Africa and the sensation of being at one with the elements, swooping above herds of impala and kudu on the Masai Mara, came vividly back to him. Handling this supreme achievement of modern automobile engineering engendered in him the same ecstasy he had felt swinging above the African plains in his flimsy aeroplane tied together with string – a tiny dot against a vast blue canvas of sky – at one and the same time totally insignificant and a god.

Once he turned the Lagonda on to country roads the going was slower. He glanced at his watch. Damn it, he was going to be very late and Gerald would look at him in that special way he had when he was displeased, pulling his moustache and wrinkling his brows. Against his better judgment, Edward had agreed to attend one of his brother’s infernal dinners where he would have to make himself pleasant to pompous politicians and stuffy civil servants. It was not his idea of a lively evening and he had at first refused, pointing out that on no account could he let the Cherrypickers down. The Cherrypickers were all friends of his, Old Etonians for the most part like himself, who played cricket against similar clubs all over the south of England. On this occasion they were playing a strong side at Richmond and he had every intention of carrying his bat for his team. However, Gerald had sounded so desperate when he had said he could not come that he had weakened and then given way. The Duke’s invitation became even less appealing when he explained why he was begging for his younger brother’s presence.

‘I know it’s not your sort of thing, Ned, and I apologize for inviting you at the last minute like this. The fact of the matter is, I’m in a bit of a hole. I have invited Lord Weaver, the newspaper owner – you know who I mean?’

‘I know who you mean,’ Edward had replied tartly. ‘I may not dine with the nobs on a regular basis like you, Gerald, but I am not a complete ostrich. He owns the New Gazette, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, and several other papers as well.’

‘And why do you need me to entertain him?’

‘Well, I don’t need you to entertain him, Ned. The thing is, he has a perfectly charming wife and a rather difficult stepdaughter that the wife is insisting on bringing with her. Apparently, she tries not to let her out of her sight.’

‘And I’m to be nanny to the poisonous stepdaughter, is that it?’

‘Yes. I know it’s asking a lot, Ned, but you have to help me.’

‘She’s called Hermione, isn’t she? I have met her a couple of times before.’

‘That’s wonderful!’

‘I said I have met her, Gerald. That doesn’t mean I ever want to meet her again. Doesn’t she have a young man? I seem to remember seeing her entwined with a nasty piece of work by the name of Charlie Lomax when I bumped into her at the Fellowes’ ball.’

‘That’s right. I invited him at the mother’s request but the blighter dropped out an hour ago without a decent excuse. I couldn’t think what else to do except telephone you.’

‘Thank you, Gerald! That was very well put.’

‘Oh, you know what I mean. My acquaintance with bright young things is rather limited. Please, Ned, you must come.’

‘Oh well, I suppose so,’ said Edward unwillingly. He was fond of his elder brother and loved Connie, his sister-in-law. He guessed she did not have an easy time of it with the Duke, who acted at least ten years older than his real age which was forty-one. ‘Mind you, I may have to cut it a bit tight because I can’t let the Cherrypickers down.’

‘Well, try not to be late, Ned. This dinner is more important than a cricket match.’

‘More important than cricket,’ exclaimed the young man. ‘Pshaw! I say, Gerald . . .’ but the Duke had replaced the receiver. He was not enthusiastic about the telephone and associated its use – along with telegrams – with unpleasantness of one sort or another.

Edward persuaded himself that if the Cherrypickers elected to field first and then bat he would knock up a respectable thirty or even forty as opening bat and be on his way to Mersham by four-thirty at the latest. It was not to be. On his day he was a passable spin bowler and a first-class bat. When, after breaking for lunch, he had stood at the crease, resplendent in his white flannels, he had known from the first ball tossed at him that he could do no wrong. That very first ball he had knocked for six and thereafter he never faltered. It was not until, tired but triumphant, he had walked back to the pavilion raising his bat to acknowledge the applause, not out one hundred and five, that he had any idea of how much time had passed. Brushing aside invitations to celebrate a famous victory he had grabbed his clothes, thrown his bag into the back of the Lagonda and raced out of London, part of him still elated by his record-beating innings and part furious with himself for thinking he could combine an afternoon of perfect cricket with a dinner-party at Mersham Castle in Hampshire, a good two and a half hours away.

Edward was not quite the empty-headed pleasure-seeker his brother supposed him to be. He was intellectually his brother’s superior but he liked to disguise his intelligence below a veneer of flippancy. Since coming down from Cambridge he had not found any employment to his taste though he had been tempted by the diplomatic service. He had plenty of money and very little patience so he was not cut out for office work. His restlessness had found an outlet in travel to the most outlandish corners of the world and an addiction to any sport which promised danger. He had an idea, which he had never put into words, that pleasure had to be earned through pain but the life he led, so active but essentially purposeless, did not altogether satisfy him. He knew himself well enough to realize he was looking for something which would test every sinew and brain cell and give his life meaning.

In 1914, when his eldest brother Frank had died trying to take a machine gun emplacement with only courage to set against a murderous hail of bullets, he had still been a schoolboy. He had hardly known his brother, now a dead hero, but he saw the effect his death had on his father and on his other brother Gerald, and he mourned. Though Gerald might not recognize it, Edward had a passionate hatred of war the equal of his own but he did not share Gerald’s belief that a new, even more horrible war could be avoided by a series of dinner-parties, however influential the guests.

Edward had asked who, along with the Weavers, was coming to the castle for this particular dinner to drink the Duke’s excellent wine and eat his food and talk about how to make a lasting peace in Europe. ‘Well, it’s not an ordinary dinner-party,’ the Duke told him. ‘It was the men I wanted but of course, where there are female appendages, I have invited them too. There will be twelve of us altogether. There’s Sir Alistair Craig . . .’ Craig was an old friend of the family. He had commanded Franklyn’s regiment in 1914 when he was already a distinguished soldier – a VC, no less. He had now retired but was said still to wield a lot of influence at Horse Guards. Peter Larmore was also coming with his long-suffering wife. Edward knew him slightly and knew his reputation as a ladies’ man. Brilliant but unsound, he was a rising politician – a Conservative – who, it was forecast, would soon be a member of the new Prime Minister’s cabinet if he did not blot his copy book.

There was also to be present Cecil Haycraft, Bishop of Worthing, one of the new breed of political bishops who could be seen at the head of protest marches as often as in his cathedral and who enjoyed the sound of his own voice. He made speeches at ‘peace rallies’ – he was a convinced pacifist – and was beginning to be a familiar voice on the wireless. Even the Duke had heard him though he rarely listened to the wireless except for news bulletins. Finally, a new man in the German embassy, Baron Helmut von Friedberg, who was said to have the ear of the recently appointed German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, had promised to come. He was the Duke’s greatest ‘catch’ and Larmore, who had met Friedberg on several occasions, had used his influence to secure the German’s acceptance of the Duke’s invitation. Baron von Friedberg was the focus of the dinner and the Duke had high hopes that something useful might be achieved by having the man at his table.

Edward’s use as a guest was not confined to his role as Hermione’s nursemaid. He had charm. He could, as the Duke put it to himself, ‘oil the wheels’, fill in any embarrassing pauses in the conversation. As the Duke had said to his wife at breakfast, ‘You know, Connie m’dear, that boy must have something. The women like him and yet the men seem not to resent him. In fact, I was talking to Carlisle at the club last week and he said he was one of the ablest men he knew and the bravest. Apparently, Carlisle told me, Ned pulled off an amazing rescue when he was climbing in the Alps last year but he never said a word to me about it. Did he to you?’

‘No,’ said the Duchess, smiling, ‘but then I would not have expected him to. Beneath all that – what shall we call it: braggadocio? – no, not braggadocio – let’s say persiflage, your little brother is one of the most modest men I know. He talks and talks, shows off like a peacock in front of the ladies, who love it of course, and yet, as you say, the men see immediately the . . . the iron in his soul. And don’t forget he is intelligent.’

‘Oh yes, he’s clever enough,’ said the Duke, massaging honey from Mersham’s own apiaries on to his toast. ‘He got a first at Cambridge and all that but what I can’t understand is he doesn’t do anything. He rackets around the world trying to break his neck, getting into every scrape, when he could be – well, when he could be in the House or something.’

Connie laughed. ‘Can you see Ned surviving one hour in that place? Duffers or crooks – sometimes both – he once described Members of Parliament to me.’

‘I just hope he isn’t going to be late tonight, that’s all,’ said the Duke, accepting that he never would understand his brother’s lack of interest in what most of the world considered to be important. ‘He says he’s got to play in some cricket match or other on his way here. I gather that girl of Weaver’s – what’s her name?’

‘Hermione.’

‘I gather Hermione is worse than the yellow peril,’ he finished morosely, ‘and now that cub Lomax has cried off, I’m counting on him to take her off my hands. I don’t want anything to distract Weaver from getting to know Friedberg. I think he could really be important to us.’

‘When Lady Weaver asked me to invite Mr Lomax,’ said Connie, ‘she hinted he might make difficulties about coming. Reading between the lines, I guess that Hermione thinks she’s in love with him but he is playing hard to get.’

The Duke sighed. ‘The young today! They aren’t like –’

‘Don’t start playing the old man, Gerald,’ said the Duchess sharply. ‘Our generation was just as wilful, especially when they had money like Hermione Weaver. But then the war came and –’

‘Perhaps we should just have been honest with Weaver and told him not to bring the gel because without her chap she’s going to be bored stiff,’ the Duke broke in.

‘Well, it’s too late now, but don’t worry, darling,’ said the Duchess comfortably, ‘Ned won’t let you down. He may cut it fine but he’s never late.’

But for once this sensible woman was to be proved wrong.

Edward looked at his watch again. It had taken him longer than he had expected to negotiate Reading. He considered stopping at a public house to telephone the castle and explain that he was going to be a little late, but that would only delay him still further. No, he would cut across country and make his gorgeous girl fly and be there at least in time for the fish.

He had long ago mastered the spider’s web of minor roads, many of them little more than lanes, narrow enough to be sure but passable in a motor car with a little care and which cut half an hour off the journey to Mersham. For several miles he made good time and when he came up a steep slope on to the spine of the Downs, which run deep into Hampshire, he was beginning to feel that he would not be very late after all. The road marched straight ahead of him, whitened by chalk from where the tar had blistered and peeled. He blessed the old Roman road builders who had scorned to circumvent obstacles, preferring simply to pretend they did not exist. He pressed his foot hard on the accelerator pedal and the Lagonda leaped from thirty to forty until the needle on the speedometer wavered above the sixty mark.

Edward experienced for the second time that day the joy of being beyond normal physical restraints. Just as when he felt rather than heard the delicious crack of leather on willow earlier that afternoon, he now felt the electrical charge which comes when nature recognizes a perfect match of mental control over physical power.

Glancing in the mirror, he could see nothing behind him but a cloud of white dust which the Lagonda’s wheels were raising from the sun-dried, badly macadamized road. Then he looked ahead. Because of the dust he had put on his leather helmet and goggles and now he took one hand off the wheel to wipe them, for a second not quite believing what had suddenly come into view. The blanched streak of road ahead of him was no longer empty. Although the road had looked quite level, stretching into infinity, he now realized, fatally late in the day, that this had been an illusion. A shallow dip had effectively concealed a wagon piled high with hay, a tottering mountain moving slowly up the gradient towards him pulled by two horses straining against their harnesses. It filled the whole width of the road. The painter Constable, no doubt, would have said, ‘Ah, a haywain!’ and set up his easel and begun painting. Edward’s reaction was rather different. Slamming on the brakes he went into a skid which would have drawn an admiring gasp from an ice-skater. Struggling to control the car he swerved around the wagon before swaying elegantly into a deep dry ditch which ran beside the road. For one moment he was certain the car was going to turn over and crush him but with an angry crack it steadied itself before sinking on its haunches like a broken-down horse. It needed no mechanic to tell him that the axle had broken under the impact.

For several moments Edward sat where he was, staring at his gloved hands which were still clenched around the steering wheel. Red drops which he knew must be blood began to stain his ulster. Gingerly, he prised off his goggles and helmet and touched his forehead. He cursed and took his hand away hurriedly. He must have cut his head on the edge of the windshield but he had no memory of doing so. An anxious-looking bewhiskered face appeared beside him.

‘You bain’t be dead then?’ the worried but rubicund face declared. ‘I’se feared you was a gonner, leastways you ought t’be.’

‘You are quite right,’ said Edward gallantly, ‘I ought to be dead. I was driving like a lunatic. I hope I did not scare you as much as I scared myself. The truth is, I had no idea there was that dip in the road. I thought I could see miles ahead.’

‘Ah,’ said the wagoner judiciously, ‘I reckons now there be so many o’ these here blooming automobiles, begging your pardon, sir, there ought to be a notice. But you’re bleeding, sir; are you hurt bad?’

‘No, no bones broken, I think.’ Edward tried to open the door but it was jammed, so slowly he raised himself out of the driver’s seat and clambered out, wincing and hoping he was right about not having broken any bones. He was bruised and he had done something to his knee which made it painful to walk, and no doubt in twenty-four hours he would feel stiff and aching all over. His chest had collided with the steering wheel but fortunately the force of the impact had been cushioned by his heavy ulster. No, he could congratulate himself that his idiocy had not been the death of him. It was to be the first time that evening death had chosen to spare him.

At Mersham Castle the Duke’s guests had already repaired to their rooms to rest and bathe before dressing for dinner. It was a pity that none of them was in a mood to appreciate the airy beauty of this magical castellated house. It had something of the feel of a Continental château or maybe an Austrian duke’s hunting lodge. Certainly, it was not quite English – light and airy where Norman castles had been dark and claustrophobic. It seemed to float in the evening light as serene as the swans drifting on the river which moated the castle walls. On an August evening as perfect as this one, it was more beautiful than any fairy-tale castle. Lord Tennyson, who knew Mersham well, had, it was said, recalled it in his Idylls of the King. No such place could be without a garden where lovers might walk arm in arm and declare to one another everlasting devotion and there were indeed lawns stretching down to the water, also a rather threadbare maze created only a century before in 1830, but the jewel in the crown was an Elizabethan knot garden of intricate design, in August blazing with colour and heady with the scent of roses. Beyond it there was a little woodland called The Pleasury.

It was not love but death upon which General Sir Alistair Craig VC brooded as he stared at himself in the looking-glass; not his own death, though he knew that was crouching at his shoulder like a black cat, but the death of his beloved wife just a year before, friends dead in the war or after it, and the death of the child in his wife’s womb so many years ago, the son he was never to clasp in his arms. For some reason he could not begin to explain, he thought too of the funeral of his old and revered chief, Earl Haig, a just and upright man who had saved Britain and the Empire but whose reputation was already being savaged by men who called themselves historians but who, in the eyes of the old soldier, were little better than jackals and not good enough to wipe the Field Marshal’s boots. It had been all of seven years ago that he had processed through London with so many other generals, three princes and statesmen from all over the world. From St Columba’s Church, Pont Street, they marched bare-headed along the Mall and Whitehall to Westminster Abbey. Crowds lined the route in solemn silence. Many wore poppies, the symbol not just of those millions who had died on the field of battle but of the great work the Field Marshal had done in helping the wounded and dispossessed in the years after the war. It had been an event, a ceremony, which the General would never, nor ever want to, forget. It gave meaning to his own life that this great man, under whom he had served for three cruel years of war, should be so honoured. And now, was this honour to be stripped away like the gold leaf on a pharaoh’s coffin? Only last year at Oxford, in a debate in the Union, undergraduates had supported a motion that in no circumstances would they fight for king and country. The report in The Times had made his blood run cold when he read it. Pacifism was gnawing away at the nation’s manhood. It was a sickness. He, General Craig, had sent men to their deaths, many thousands of men. It had been his duty. Was it now to be said that, in obeying the orders of that great man now lying in honour in Dryburgh Abbey, he had not done well? Was he now to stand accused of . . . of murder? That was no reward for a life’s patriotic service.

And what of tonight? Why had he come? Out of respect for the Duke, certainly; he did not altogether agree with the Duke on his attitude to their erstwhile enemy. The General believed, albeit with melancholy bordering on despair, that Britain was enjoying nothing more than a truce in her war with Prussian militarism. He could not believe that anything – talk, diplomacy, treaties, behind-the-scenes-negotiations – anything short of force – naked and brutal – would affect how Hitler behaved. Throughout history, despots had chosen foreign adventures as a way of uniting their people behind them. That way opposition to anything they chose to do could be construed as unpatriotic and be ruthlessly suppressed. The General considered it to be self-evident that the new German Chancellor, like the Kaiser before him, would use mindless xenophobia dressed as patriotism to distract the German people from troubles at home. In his view, the new Germany was worse than the old one – a shabby, disreputable alliance of big business and an army which had convinced itself it had not been defeated in battle but stabbed in the back by its own politicians. But tonight at the Duke’s dinner he would play his part in trying to alert his country to the peril he could see looming on the horizon. Maybe there was still something to be done, something only he could do.

General Craig was a solit. . .