'And a butler, sir.'

'Thank you for reminding me, Sergeant. We mustn't forget the butler. I regard the butler as a gratuitous insult on the part of fate. So let's give the gentry in the library-a respite and hear what Munter has to tell us.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Buckley noted with irritation that Munter, invited by Grogan to sit, managed in the mere act of lowering his buttocks on to the chair to suggest both that it was unseemly for him to seat himself in the business room and that Grogan had committed a social solecism in inviting him to do so. He couldn't remember ever having seen the man in Speymouth; his was certainly not an appearance one was likely to forget. Watching Munter's strong and lugubrious face on which the unease proper to his present situation was noticeably absent he found himself prepared to disbelieve everything he heard. It seemed to him suspicious that a man should want to make himself more grotesque than nature had intended and if this was Munter's way of cocking a snook at the world he had better not try it on with the police. Basically conforming and ambitious, Buckley had no resentment of those wealthier than himself; he had every intention of eventually joining them. But he despised and distrusted those who chose to earn their living by pandering to the rich and suspected that Grogan shared this prejudice. He watched them both with a wary and critical eye and wished that he was taking a more active part in the interrogation. Never had his chief's insistence that he sit silent unless invited to speak, watch carefully and take unobtrusive shorthand notes seemed more restrictive and demeaning. Morbidly sensitive to any nuance of condescension he felt that the glance Munter casually gave him conveyed a slight surprise that he should have been allowed into the house.

Grogan, seated at the desk, leaned back in his chair so strongly that its back creaked, twirled round to face Munter and splayed his legs wide as if to assert his right to feel perfectly at home. He said:

'Suppose you begin by telling us who you are, where you came from and what precisely is your job here.'

'My duties, sir, have never been precisely defined. This is not altogether an orthodox household. But I am in charge of all the domestic arrangements and supervise the two other members of staff, my wife and Oldfield, who is the gardener, handyman and boatman. Any additional help necessary when Mr Gorringe is entertaining or has house guests is obtained on a temporary basis from the mainland. I look after the silver and the wine and wait at table. The cooking is generally shared. My wife is the pastry cook and Mr Ambrose himself occasionally cooks a meal. He is fond of preparing savouries.'

'Very tasty, I'm sure. And how long have you been part of this unorthodox household?'

'My wife and I came into Mr Gorringe's service in July 1978 three months after his return from a year abroad. He had inherited the castle from his uncle in 1977. Perhaps you would wish for a brief curriculum vitae. I was born in London in 1940 and educated at Pimlico Primary and. Secondary Schools. I then took a course in hotel catering and for seven years worked in hotels here and abroad. But I decided that institutional life was unsuited to my temperament and entered private services firstly with an American business gentleman living in London and then, when he returned home, here in Dorset with his lordship at Bossington House. I am sure my previous gentleman will speak for me if necessary.'

'No doubt. If I were looking for a manservant you'd do very nicely. But I'll be consulting a more objective character reference source, the Criminal Records Office. Does that worry you?'

'It offends me, sir. It doesn't worry me.'

Buckley wondered when Grogan would stop this needling and get down to the main inquiry, what Munter had been doing between the ending of lunch and the finding of the body. If these preliminaries were meant to provoke the witness they weren't succeeding. But Grogan knew his business, at least the Met had appeared to think so. He had come to Dorset burdened with something of a reputation. Now he stopped looking at Munter; his voice became conversational: 'This play. It was to be a regular event, was it? An annual drama festival perhaps?'

'I have no means of knowing. Mr Gorringe did not confide his plans to me.'

'Once was enough, I should think. It must have made a lot of extra work for you and your wife.'

Munter's slow and disapproving glance round the business room was an inventory of unwelcome change; the slight rearrangement of the furniture, Buckley's jacket slung over the back of his chair, the coffee-tray with the two stained cups, its surface crumbed with half-eaten biscuits. He said:

'The domestic inconvenience occasioned by Lady Ralston living was nugatory compared with the inconvenience of Lady Ralston murdered.'

Grogan held his pen in front of his face and peered at its tip, moving it backwards and forwards as if testing his eyesight.

'You found her a pleasant, likeable guest, easy to get on with?'

'That was not a question to which I addressed myself.'

'Address yourself to it now.'

'Lady Ralston seemed a very agreeable lady.'

'No trouble? No disagreements? No rows as far as you knew?'

'None, sir. A great loss to the English stage.' He paused and added woodenly:

'And, of course, to Sir George Ralston.'

It was impossible to judge whether the statement was ironic, but Buckley wondered whether Grogan, too, had caught the clear bite of contempt. Grogan rocked back in his chair, legs stretched, and stared consideringly at his witness. Munter gazed ahead with a look of patient resignation and, after a minute of silence, permitted himself a glance at his watch.

'Right! Let's get on with it. You know what we want, a full account of where you were, what you were doing and who you saw between one o'clock when lunch was over and two forty-three when Miss Gray found the body.'

According to Munter's account, he had spent the whole of that time on the ground floor of the castle chiefly moving between the dining-room, his pantry and the theatre. As he had been continually busy with preparations for the play and the supper party, it wasn't always possible to say where he had been or with whom at any particular moment in time, although he doubted whether he had ever been alone for more than a few minutes. He said in a voice which held no trace of regret, that he very much regretted not being able to be more precise, but he could not, of course, have known so detailed an account would subsequently be required. At first he had helped his wife clear away the luncheon and had then gone to check on the wine. There had then been three telephone calls to answer, one from a guest who was prevented by illness from attending the performance, a second inquiring about the time the launch would leave Speymouth, a call from Lady Cottringham's housekeeper to know whether they needed any extra glasses. He had been checking on the men's dressing-room when his wife had appeared backstage to ask him to look at one of the tea urns which she thought might not be working. It was unfortunate that they had to hire urns; Mr Gorringe had a strong dislike of them and complained that they made the great hall look like a meeting of the Women's Institute, but with an audience of eighty people and the cast to provide for, the use of the urns had been necessary.

At some time, he couldn't remember precisely when, he had remembered that Mr Gorringe had asked him to find a second musical-box for use in the Third Act of the play, Miss Lisle having expressed dissatisfaction with the one provided at the dress rehearsal. He had come here into the business room to fetch it from the walnut chiffonier. At this stage his eyes indicated what Buckley sourly thought could very well have been described as a cupboard. His Aunt Sadie had one like it, not as fancily carved on the doors or at the end of the shelves, but pretty much the same. She claimed it had been in the family for generations, kept it in the back parlour, and called it a dresser. She used it for the bits and pieces her kids brought back from holiday for her, cheap souvenirs from the Costa del Sol, Malta and, now, from Miami. He'd have to tell her that what she'd got was a chiffonier and she'd reply that he made it sound like a bloody ice-cream.