The mistress of the house awaited them inside the hallway, dressed in a long navy-blue taffeta dress. Her grey hair had been arranged in a nest of curls above a fine-boned face bearing a deep tan leftover from a summer spent in the Caribbean. Fat pearls hung from her ears and a matching triple-strand was draped around her neck.
“Welcome,” Cassandra Gilbert greeted them warmly and extended a bejewelled hand. “Mr and Mrs Ryan, isn’t it?”
She might have been dressed for Ascot but they were delighted to find that Cassandra Gilbert’s voice was pure, unadulterated Geordie. The lilting, unpretentious sound of it made them feel instantly at home despite the grandeur of their surroundings.
“Not yet,” Anna smiled. “But we’re getting married in a couple of weeks. I’m Anna.”
“And you must be Maxwell,” Cassandra deduced, casting her discerning eye over the tall man with raven black hair and cool grey eyes.
“Ryan is fine,” he said.
“I’m so pleased you could come. I’m sorry we haven’t had an opportunity to meet in person before now but I understand you’re renting one of our cottages for the summer?”
“We’re enjoying it very much,” Anna said. “You have a beautiful home, Mrs Gilbert.”
“Cassandra. Thank you, dear.” She turned to Ryan again with open curiosity. “They tell me you’re a detective? I seem to recognise you.”
Here it comes, he thought.
“Yes, I’m based out of Northumbria CID.”
“Of course!” Cassandra raised a delicate hand to her mouth and her eyes widened dramatically. “All that business with the serial killer…”
“Depends which one you mean,” he said lightly. “There have been quite a few, over the years.”
“Oh, I mean the one last April, that awful man who broke out of prison and killed that poor young girl—”
Sensing their unease, Cassandra broke off and gave them an apologetic smile.
“Well, if anybody can guess the murderer in tonight’s game, it will be you,” she said. “I’m so sorry my husband won’t be joining us this evening but he’s come down with a touch of flu. Probably the long-haul flight, last week,” she tutted. “It’s the air-conditioning on the plane, I’m sure of it.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Anna said. “I hope he recovers soon.”
“Thank you. Now, go on upstairs and help yourself to champagne. Tonight, we’re celebrating.”
As Cassandra turned to greet some new arrivals, Anna and Ryan followed a series of cardboard placards directing them to the mezzanine level of the house, halfway between the first and second floors. Its layout reminded Ryan of a rabbit warren: higgledy-piggledy, with only a few large reception rooms offset by various smaller interconnecting anterooms, countless staircases and corridors, as well as an old lift shaft currently not in use.
Anna lifted her skirts and hauled them up the main flight of wide oak stairs until they reached a long gallery on the mezzanine level where the party was already well underway. Ryan swept an assessing eye over the crowd and estimated around thirty or forty people had turned out, most of them household or ground staff, conservationists and elderly volunteers working at the tea rooms or as tour guides on days when the house was open to the public.
“Anna, Ryan, glad you could come!”
They turned to greet a man in his mid-fifties who was dressed in a flamboyant green velvet smoking jacket with matching cap and pinstripe trousers. He was brandishing fluted glasses of champagne in his outstretched hands.
“Thanks, Dave.”
The conservation manager raised his bushy grey eyebrows.
“Tonight, I am Lord Quibble of Newcastle,” he corrected them with exaggerated hauteur. When he wriggled an enormous false moustache, Ryan realised the man was actually enjoying himself.
It took all sorts.
“You should be in your element,” Dave continued, scooping up another champagne flute from a passing tray. “Wouldn’t it be funny if you guessed the murderer wrong? No hope for the rest of us, eh? Mysteries are your forte!”
He bellowed out a hearty laugh and Ryan cast around for something polite to say but was forestalled by Anna’s smooth interruption.
“He’s been so excited about the party, haven’t you, darling?”
She turned to him with innocent brown eyes and he could happily have throttled her.
“Mm,” Ryan gave her a toothy smile before delivering his coup de grace. “Not as much as you, darling. I know you’ve been dying to find out about the plans for renovating Armstrong’s old electrical room.”
He took a fiendish delight in her shocked expression and wriggled his own eyebrows.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place!” Dave exclaimed, blissfully unaware of any nuance in the conversation. “I can tell you all about the electrics. Why don’t I give you a quick tour?”
In short order, Anna found herself being led off in the direction of one of the smaller wings of the house by a velvet-clad enthusiast. Ryan had no time to congratulate himself when, scarcely thirty seconds after her departure, a gaggle of female staff took their chance to strike before he had time to deploy any evasive manoeuvres.
“Hello, dear!”
“Looking so handsome this evening—”
“Just like Sherlock Holmes!” came the inevitable commentary.
“Now, girls, don’t embarrass the poor man,” a woman of around seventy he recognised as Maggie, the housekeeper, rescued him with the natural ease of lifelong experience. “Where’s your lovely fiancée, Ryan?”
“Ah, she’s looking at the renovations,” he replied and thought belatedly that the prospect of being bored to tears by a historical aficionado was looking more attractive by the minute.
“Oh, Maggie, here comes your fancy-man!” one of the women said in a stage whisper.
Victor Swann was in his late seventies but could easily pass for twenty years younger, with a shock of white-grey hair brushed back from a tanned face sporting a designer beard and a pair of bright blue eyes framed by deep laughter lines. Clearly, he was in demand as the estate’s resident lothario, which Ryan could only admire.
“Good evening, ladies,” Victor doffed his hat and executed a small bow. “May I say, you all look ravishing.”
There ensued a maelstrom of giggles and Ryan gulped his drink, searching the room for any sign of an emergency exit.
*
Two hours crawled by, during which time Ryan was subjected to a lengthy performance of The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Duchess by a troupe of amateur actors who approached their task in much the same way as a Christmas pantomime at the London Palladium. Amid cries of “Send ‘im down!”, Ryan found himself enlisted to enact the part of the murdered duchess’s wayward lover. After it was all over, Ryan slumped back in his chair at the long dining table and prayed for a real murder to take him away from it all. He checked his mobile phone again but there was no message from the Control Room.