Gordon stabbed angrily at a slice of ham with his fork.

  Skins, meanwhile, was talking to Elizabeth.

  ‘It’s so frightfully exciting to have an actual jazz band staying at the house,’ she said. ‘Under other circumstances I rather fear we’d be taking unfair advantage of having such talented guests.’

  ‘It’s never an imposition,’ said Skins. ‘We love to play.’

  ‘How long have you been together?’

  ‘The Dizzy Heights? A couple of years now. But Barty and I have been mates since we were kids. Do you play?’

  ‘I played the violin as a girl, but I haven’t touched it for years. I can peck out a tune on the piano.’

  ‘Were you any good? At the violin, I mean.’

  ‘Not bad, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re welcome to play with us if you fancy something to divert you from . . . Well, you know. Things.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but I’m not up to your standard. Wretched Ronnie’s the one with the talent.’

  Skins glanced across the table, but Veronica was busy talking to Dunn and hadn’t heard them. ‘You don’t get on, then?’

  Elizabeth thought for a moment. ‘Honestly? No, not really. She’s such a . . . Oh, I don’t know. She calls me Boring Bossy Betty and I tell her she ought to be more ladylike. She really ought, you know. She ought to make something more of herself.’

  ‘I thought she was a schoolteacher – that’s something to be proud of, surely?’

  ‘It would be if only she were a little more . . . I struggle to describe it. She has all these ideas about independence. She sneers at me for getting engaged to a solicitor and preparing to be a “dutiful wife”. She thinks that’s boring. But looking after a family is important, don’t you think? I’d be keeping up my charity work, too.’

  ‘I can’t say you’re wrong – it’s what Ellie chose to do, after all. But . . . Well, it’s not my place to get involved in a family’s business, but the point is that Ellie chose to do it. Isn’t it up to Veronica what she does?’

  ‘Of course. In a way. I just wish she wanted to live a more conventional life.’

  ‘What does the rest of the family think? Did your father approve?’

  ‘Heavens, no. But he disapproved of almost everyone.’

  ‘Even you? What did you do?’

  ‘I got engaged to Peter. He massively disapproved of Peter. He called him a second-rate failing lawyer and accused him of being a gold-digger. “That fool’s barely competent to write wills for maiden ladies leaving their meagre fortunes to their lapdogs. He’s only interested in you because of my money.” I was, apparently, a fool for falling for him.’

  ‘But you could have weathered that one, surely. He’d have come round in the end. Peter seems all right to me.’

  ‘He’s an absolute darling and I love him more than I can adequately express. But that was when Papa started talking about changing his will. He was planning to give Marianne a controlling stake in the company – it had always been promised to Gordon – and cut Howard out completely. Which was fine by me – I don’t care who runs the stupid biscuit factory – but it meant the money-grabbing little witch started getting proprietorial about “her” money. That was when the budget for my wedding got cut. And my allowance.’

  ‘What did Gordon think of all this?’

  ‘He was furious. He’s always been the blue-eyed boy, the heir apparent, the chosen bloody one. Suddenly his precious biscuits are going to his stepmother.’

  ‘So the will has been changed?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t think so. I’m sure there would have been a grand announcement if it had. He loved letting everyone know how little he thought of us all. Kept us on our toes, apparently. Or in our places. Or something.’ She paused for a moment. ‘It was so completely out of character. You know . . . taking his own life. That wasn’t Papa’s style at all. If he were going to do anything to upset us, he’d want to witness the consequences. He’d want to see the looks on our faces, hear the outrage in our voices. Just bowing out without being able to gloat over our distress wasn’t him.’

  ‘So you think someone killed him?’

  ‘How could they? The study was locked from the inside – it took Ronnie, Ellie and I about five minutes to break in. There was no one lurking in there and no way for them to get out. Ellie checked the windows from the outside.’

  Skins shook his head. That was very much the problem they were trying to solve.

  Suddenly, there was a commotion at the other end of the table. Charlotte threw her napkin towards her plate and it caught Vera’s champagne glass on the way. As the glass smashed on the table, she stood so forcefully that she knocked her chair over. Without a word, she stormed away, her heels clicking as she hurried in through the French doors.

  Everyone pretended not to notice and carried on eating.

  Ellie looked around, still bewildered by the English and their reactions to awkward social moments, while Dunsworth and the footman discreetly cleared away the broken glass and checked that no one had been splashed, before setting Vera up with more champagne. Ellie nudged Skins and gave him a questioning look, but he just grinned, shrugged and returned to his pie.

  On the other side of the table, Veronica had become entangled in a conversation with Howard about some family matter Dunn didn’t really understand, so he turned to his left and introduced himself to Peter Putnam.

  ‘We’ve not met properly,’ he said. ‘Barty Dunn. Bass player with the Dizzy Heights.’

  ‘Peter Putnam. I’m engaged to Elizabeth.’

  They awkwardly shook hands without standing.

  ‘Veronica has been trying to explain everyone to us, but it’s not easy keeping it all straight. You’re the solicitor, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. I have a practice at Oxford. Just a small one, you know? Wills, a bit of conveyancing – nothing fancy, but it pays the bills.’

  ‘As long as you enjoy it, that’s all you need.’

  Peter laughed. ‘I say, steady on. I’d not say I enjoy it. I don’t hate it, but “enjoy” is a bit steep.’

  ‘Really? Then why . . . ?’

  ‘A chap has to earn a living. I come from a long line of solicitors, so it was just sort of what I expected to do. If my father had been a miner, I’d have worked down the mine. If he were a cobbler, I’d mend shoes. But he’s a solicitor, so I solicit. And it’s much less important now that I’m marrying one of the richest gels in the county, what?’ He winked.

  Dunn winced inwardly but decided not to respond. Instead he said, ‘Did you handle John’s will?’ He already knew the answer, but he was keen to hear what Peter had to say on the matter.

  ‘Gracious, no. It’s a very personal thing, a will. You don’t want family members getting involved in that – even prospective family members. It opens up the possibility of the will being challenged, as well.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Of course. Let’s say I drafted the will and he left an enormous legacy to Elizabeth but disinherited one of the others. They could say that I’d written it in my bride-to-be’s favour, and the courts might agree with them. Far better to get it done by a disinterested party.’

  ‘That makes sense. But surely he put some work your way now and again.’

  ‘From time to time. I act for Malcolm more often. He trusts me to handle quite a bit of Bilver-Tone business.’ He looked towards the other end of the table to check that Malcolm couldn’t overhear. ‘He recommended me for some other work. Might have been a bit of a leg-up, but it all came to nothing in the end.’

  ‘What sort of work?’

  ‘Just some conveyancing for a local businessman. You’ve heard of Valentine Baisley?’

  ‘I confess I haven’t. Local musician?’

  Peter chuckled. ‘Hardly. He describes himself a businessman, but he fancies himself as an American-style gangster. Among his many enterprises, he runs a swanky nightclub in Oxford.’

  ‘There’s a lot of that about. London has more than its fair share of clubs run by shady blokes.’

  ‘Well, Baisley has Oxford to himself. As well as his club where he likes to show off to the local well-to-dos, he owns a couple of pubs and a row of houses in Jericho. He’s an entrepreneur. Or ontro-pron-ewer, as he so eloquently and elegantly says it.’

  ‘How does that make him a gangster?’

  ‘Well, we’ve not banned booze like the Yanks, but they say he has complete control of the local drugs market. Gambling, too. There are rumours that he even runs the local protection racket, but I’m not sure I completely believe any of it. I strongly suspect it’s an image he likes to cultivate because he thinks it makes him seem more glamorous and exciting.’

  ‘There’s a lot of that about, too – there’s a particular kind of bloke who gets caught up in the romantic image of villainy. They forget it’s mostly about frightening little old shopkeepers out of their hard-earned money.’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  ‘So why would you want to be involved with a bloke like that?’

  ‘Business is business and money’s money, old chap. It would still pay my bills, no matter where it came from. That’s rather been Malcolm’s attitude, too, I think.’

  ‘So how is Malcolm linked to Baisley?’

  ‘Baisley put up most of the money to get Bilver-Tone Records started.’

  ‘Blimey. That can’t have gone down well with his brother. I shouldn’t imagine John would have wanted the family linked to a dodgy geezer – even if the dodginess was put on.’

  ‘There was a fair amount of frostiness, I believe. For his next birthday John bought Malcolm a long spoon.’

  ‘For supping with the Devil.’

  ‘Precisely. But Malcolm didn’t care. He insisted that many of the characters John dealt with were no less unpleasant in their own ways. One of John’s landlord friends putting a family out on the street for not paying their rent, he argued, was no different to Baisley having a man’s fingers broken for not paying his gambling debts.’

  ‘So Malcolm bought into the gangster thing?’

  ‘Everyone does. It’s reached the point where it doesn’t matter whether it’s actually true – people accept that he’s a violent thug. John huffed and puffed about the legality of it, of course, but he was an honourable man himself and he could see there were ethical – or rather unethical – similarities between Baisley and some of his own business acquaintances.’

  ‘John was straight, then?’

  ‘As a die. He was a JP with a reputation for being strict, fair and thoroughly incorruptible.’

  ‘Sounds like a nice bloke.’

  Peter laughed again. ‘Ye gods, no. He was a thoroughly dislikeable man, but a decent and honest one.’

  Dunn nodded.

  When lunch was over, servants materialized as if from nowhere to clear everything away, and the house’s inmates split into their customary groups. The family disappeared indoors while the band tried to agree how to spend the afternoon. Although the weather had cheered up, the ground was still sodden, so the proposed games of rounders, French cricket and five-a-side football were all vetoed. Eventually they decided to retire to the chapel with its never-ending supply of tea, where they could have another game of cards.

  Skins, Ellie and Dunn stayed behind on the terrace, promising to join them all in a short while.

  ‘So what did you learn?’ asked Ellie as she drew her notebook from her pocket.

  ‘Why do you assume we were trying to learn things?’ said Dunn. ‘I might just have been passing the time of day with our gracious but reluctant hosts.’

  ‘If you weren’t trying to learn things, Bartholomew Dunn, you’re in serious trouble.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘That’s better. And what did you make of that business with Charlotte? Did you hear her and Gordon going at it? He called her a “street girl” right there in front of everyone. I take it Jericho is where the hookers hang out and I haven’t misunderstood.’

  ‘It’s in Oxford,’ said Dunn. ‘North of the city, by the canal. And yes, it is.’

  ‘I shan’t ask how you know.’

  ‘We played some dates in Oxford before the war. You pick things up.’

  Ellie raised her eyebrows. ‘Hmm. And what about her storming off like that?’

  ‘Malcolm said something to Marianne,’ said Dunn, ‘but I couldn’t hear what. Marianne looked very upset. Charlotte remonstrated and he told her to shut up and mind her own business.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Ellie. ‘What’s going on there?’

  Skins shook his head. ‘I doubt they’ll ever tell us.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they ever will,’ said Ellie. ‘So what did you pick up?’

  ‘Well, Elizabeth is pretty much just as Veronica makes her out to be. An ordinary woman. Didn’t much like her dad and it really cheesed her off that John didn’t like her bloke . . .’

  ‘Peter,’ said Dunn.

  ‘That’s him. She’s not keen on her sister and she doesn’t like her stepmother, either. Says she’s trying to manoeuvre things so she gets all the money. She said something about a new will.’

  ‘He made a new will?’ said Ellie, raising an eyebrow as she made notes. ‘Did she know anything about it?’

  ‘I think it was just a planned new will – she didn’t know if he’d actually written one. All she knew for certain was that the idea was to give Marianne a bigger share of the biscuit business and that Gordon was furious.’

  Ellie made another note. ‘That makes him even more of a suspect. Kill the old man for sleeping with his wife and do it before he changes the will.’

  ‘It makes Marianne less of a suspect, too,’ said Dunn. ‘She’d want to make sure the new will was in place before she bumped him off for knocking off his daughter-in-law.’

  ‘Good point. Gordon’s a nasty piece of work. Did you hear the way he talked to Marianne and Charlotte?’

  ‘He made sure we all did,’ said Skins. ‘Quite the bully.’

  ‘Very unpleasant,’ agreed Ellie.

  Dunn nodded. ‘Did he say anything about his father?’

  ‘Nothing bad. He acknowledged that John was . . . What did he say? A “difficult” man. But he didn’t seem to despise him.’

  ‘I don’t think any of them liked him much. But if Gordon had done him in, he would play it down, wouldn’t he? He’d not be sitting there ranting about how much he hated the old bloke in case anyone worked out it was murder rather than suicide. He’d want to keep up the impression that he found him “difficult” but loved him all the same.’

  ‘Elizabeth is wondering whether it really is suicide,’ said Skins.

  Ellie looked up from her notebook. ‘What?’

  ‘She says it was completely out of character. She said if he was going to upset people, he’d want to be there to see it. She doesn’t reckon suicide was his style.’

  ‘If that’s true, she’s not likely to be the only one who thinks it,’ said Ellie. ‘What about Peter?’

  ‘He didn’t mention suicide,’ said Dunn.

  ‘No, you chimp, what did you make of him?’

  ‘As ordinary as his affianced. Seems like a bit of a plodder. I got the impression his ambitions outstrip his abilities. He spent most of the time talking about the local gangster, though.’

  Ellie had returned to her note-taking. ‘I want to say Beasley, but I know that’s not right.’

  ‘Baisley. Valentine Baisley. How do you know about him?’

  ‘Howard pointed him out to me at the party while you were corrupting the assembled throng with the Devil’s syncopation and all his demonic harmonies.’

  ‘We are a degenerate influence, it’s true,’ said Skins. ‘So who is this bloke?’

  ‘He’s a local businessman,’ said Dunn. ‘Among other things he runs a nightclub and likes to play the gangster. Peter thinks it’s put on, but he still seems to find him quite glamorous. Wanted to work for him, but it fell through.’

  ‘Howard believes it,’ said Ellie. ‘And so do others. I heard a young guy asking him not so subtly for some cocaine.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dunn, ‘maybe there’s something in it, maybe not. But he put up the money for Malcolm’s record business, so he can’t be all bad.’

  ‘Rules Malcy-boy out, then,’ said Skins. ‘He wouldn’t have cause to kill his brother if his funding was coming from somewhere else. He might profit from the will, but he doesn’t need it.’

  ‘Did Peter say anything about what John had done to make them fall out? Veronica just knew it was something to do with Peter’s practice.’

  ‘Didn’t mention it at all,’ said Dunn.

  Ellie finished off her notes. ‘There might be something in that – we’ll have to do some more digging. I’m going to go through the list again – can I have a yes or no, please. Malcolm?’

  Skins frowned. ‘Leave him as a possible. I can’t see a motive. It would be difficult for him to get to the house and back in a hurry on his false leg, too.’

  ‘Marianne?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dunn. ‘Revenge for the infidelity and securing her inheritance.’

  ‘Assuming the will was changed in her favour,’ said Skins.

  ‘OK,’ said Ellie. ‘Gordon?’

  Skins nodded. ‘Yes. Inheritance if the will hasn’t already been changed. And revenge, of course.’

  ‘Charlotte?’

  ‘Don’t know anything about her yet, but I can’t see what she’d have to gain from it.’

  ‘I’ll put her as a no in this round, then. Elizabeth?’

  ‘No,’ said Skins. ‘Too . . . wet.’

  ‘I don’t think “being a little insipid” is a valid defence in court, but all right. Peter Putnam?’

  ‘No,’ said Dunn. ‘Same defence. And neither of them seems to have a decent motive.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Ellie. ‘He’s a bit slimy.’

  ‘If being wet isn’t enough to get someone off, being slimy isn’t enough to convict.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen him in the drawing room at the party, but all right.’