Ellis Peters - George Felse 02 - Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters

same to you.” He wanted to be sure of an undisturbed night rather than an uneasy and solitary sleep during the day. “Want me to contact Armiger’s solicitors, or will you do that?”
    “
Cui bono
?” said Duckett absently. “I’ll get on to them myself. You make what you can of the bunch here, and I’ll send Grocott to help you with the day staff when they come in, and the list of people who were in the pub last night.”
    George left them still busy with cameras and flashes, and went to interview the frightened maids and waiters and the pretty, bleached blonde who was Mrs. Calverley. He got as little from them as he had expected, but deduced from the frozen silence in which he found them that they had justified his forecast by withdrawing into themselves rather than sharing their fears. Laboriously he put together an account of Armiger’s movements during the last hour or two of his life. Shortly before ten, according to Mrs. Calverley, one of the waiters, a young man named Turner who lodged in Comerford, had come into the saloon bar and relayed some message to Mr. Armiger, who had excused himself to his friends and followed him out. A couple of minutes later he had returned, gone straight to his party and had a word with them, and then gone out again. It appeared that this must have been when the anonymous young pal arrived to see him, for what he did next was to bounce into the servery by the dining-room, help himself to a magnum of champagne, and make off in the direction of the side door, bumping into Bennie and giving him his orders with regard to Clayton and the car on the way. No one had again seen him alive.
    By the time George had done with the last of them it was almost daylight, and the ambulance had long since taken the dead man away, though Johnson was still in possession of the ballroom, indefatigably combing every hospitable surface for prints. George took himself home for a bath and breakfast and a brief and troubled conference with Bunty, and then took himself off again before Dominic should come scurrying downstairs and begin to ask questions.
    He called at the house where the waiter lodged, and found him sitting in his room poring over the day’s runners, half-dressed and not yet shaven. Turner was a Londoner, pale with the city pallor on which summer has no influence, thin and sharp-eyed and dubious of Comerford already. He wouldn’t last long, he’d be off back to town. Meantime he might well be detached about all the people involved in this case, since he knew none of them. He wasn’t worried about being visited by the police, only puzzled and intrigued.
    Yes, he said, some time before ten, maybe five minutes or so, he couldn’t be exact, he’d been passing through the hall and a young man had walked in at the door and buttonholed him, and asked for Mr. Armiger. Didn’t give a name, just said ask Mr. Armiger if he can spare a few minutes, say it’s important and I won’t keep him long. And he’d delivered the message, and thought no more about it, and Mr. Armiger had gone out to his visitor, who had waited in the hall for him. That was the last Turner had seen of either of them, because he’d been back in the dining-room after that. Did he know the young man? He knew nobody here, he’d only just come. Could he describe him? Well, there was nothing special about him. Young fellow about twenty-five or twenty-six. Dark overcoat and a grey suit. No hat. Tallish but not tall, cleanshaven, brown hair, nothing particular to notice about him. But he’d know him again if he saw him. Or a photograph? Well, probably, but you can’t always tell with photographs. He could try. Why, anyhow? What did they want him for? What had happened?
    George told him, in the shortest and most startling words he could find, watching the cigarette that dangled from a colourless lip. The ash didn’t even fall, but at least Turner’s eyes opened fully for the first time, staring at George with a curiosity and