02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall Read online

  ‘Yes, Inspector. My son, Hallam, is here. He splits his time between Dareswick and Oxford, don’t you know. Isabella, she’s my youngest daughter, she lives in a service flat in London. Rarely see her. Can’t say I really approve, but you know what young girls are like nowadays. Since the war they’ve become independent and know their own minds. Likes the bright lights and the bustle of London, does my Isabella. She finds Dareswick a trifle quiet, whereas my eldest daughter, Josephine, quite loves the place. Keeps house for me since my wife died and a very good job of it she does. Don’t think I would ever be able to tear her from this place, she lives and breathes it. Not that I’d want her to leave, of course, the current arrangement suits us both very well.’

  ‘I see. And it was Miss Isabella who was betrothed to the deceased?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the baron, sadly. ‘Tragic, quite tragic, Inspector. I say, I really must go and see how my daughter’s getting on. Haven’t seen her yet since this awful business happened. Don’t know how badly she’s taken it. Don’t even know if the doctor’s given her a sedative. Has he, Crabtree?’

  ‘No, my lord. A sedative was offered but Miss Isabella declined.’

  ‘She’s a chip off the old block, Inspector. Made of stern stuff, that girl of mine. Still, I’d better go and see her. Where is she, Crabtree, in the drawing room?’

  ‘No, my lord,’ said the butler looking rather appalled at the suggestion. ‘Mrs Hodges and I thought the drawing room was located a little too near to the library. She’s in the upstairs sitting room.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, Inspector, I’d like to go and see my daughter now. I feel I’ve been rather remiss’, the baron said, rising from his chair. It was clear to all those present that he intended what he said to be a statement rather than a question.

  ‘Yes, indeed, my lord. We can talk to you later about your guests. In the meantime, I’d like to ask your butler here a few questions and I would like to have another look at the murder scene. We glanced in on it on our way through the hall to make our introductions. Our men should be almost finished with the room by now, although I hardly need to tell you that we’ll need to keep it locked.’

  As the baron left the room, the inspector got up and started slowly pacing the room, going first to the mantelpiece and idly picking up an ornament, looking at it for a moment and then replacing it and then going over to the baron’s winged chair where he paused, stood behind it and rested his arms on the back. He leaned forward slightly, shifting some of his weight to the chair, and looked keenly at the butler. Crabtree in turn seemed to flinch under such scrutiny and made as if to avert his gaze.

  ‘Well, what is it man, out with it,’ demanded the inspector, not unkindly, but rather abruptly.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ stammered the butler, clearly flustered.

  ‘Just now you didn’t agree with something that his lordship said. Your cough gave you away. You wanted to contradict what he said, but you thought better of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’d rather not –.’

  ‘I don’t care what you’d rather not. This is no time for discretion or to hold things back. This is a murder investigation. My sergeant here and I need to know everything, do you hear me, no matter how irrelevant you may think it is, or,’ Deacon’s eyes seemed to bore into the butler, ‘or incriminating. Is that it, man? You’re afraid of incriminating someone in this house?’

  For a moment Crabtree said nothing, as if he was trying to make up his mind what to do and then he nodded, miserably.

  ‘Miss Josephine,’ he mumbled, so softly that Deacon was not sure whether he had heard him correctly. However, a quick glance over at his sergeant showed him by the surprised expression on Lane’s face that he had not misheard.

  ‘Miss Josephine? The baron’s eldest daughter, the one that was not engaged to Lord Sneddon?’

  But before the butler had a chance to nod or say any more, the door of the study burst open and an irate Baron Atherton came rushing in, the look on his face that of a man about to explode, quelling the butler into silence.

  ‘Where is she? Where is Miss Josephine? You said she was comforting Miss Isabella. But the poor girl’s all alone in her room and she says she’s not seen her sister all morning. I met Mrs Hodges on the landing and the woman was damned evasive, I can tell you. Wouldn’t answer my questions at all. Why, she wouldn’t even look me in the eye, she just kept going on about how I should speak to you. Well, I’m waiting, Crabtree. Why did you lie to me? Why did you tell me that Miss Josephine was looking after Miss Isabella if she wasn’t?’

  The baron glared at the butler, his face thunderous.

  ‘M-my, l-lord I –,’ began the poor man stammering.

  ‘Actually, my lord, I think you will find that your butler did not lie to you,’ said Deacon, coming to Crabtree’s rescue. He held up a hand as the baron tried to protest. ‘I think, my lord, that you quite naturally and understandably assumed that Miss Josephine was looking after her sister, because it was the sort of thing she would do.’ He turned to the butler. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But there is something that you’re keeping from us, isn’t there? Out with it, man.’

  ‘Yes, spit it out, Crabtree,’ demanded the baron. ‘Where is my daughter?’

  ‘I don’t know where Miss Josephine is, sir, as God is my witness. But there is something else.’ Crabtree took a deep breath, in anticipation of the storm which was surely about to erupt. ‘When the maid took a cup of tea to Miss Josephine this morning, as is her habit, only it was a bit later than usual because of all the fuss about –.’

  ‘Get on with it, man,’ demanded the baron, rudely.

  ‘She found Miss Josephine’s room empty and she said her bed had not been slept in. She immediately got Mrs Hodges and they went through her wardrobe. Some of Miss Josephine’s everyday clothes had gone, together with her jewellery box. I sent young Robert to go and see Brimshaw in his quarters over the garage. He’s the chauffeur, sir,’ Crabtree explained to the inspector, ‘to see if Miss Josephine had asked him to drive her somewhere.’

  ‘Robert? Robert!’ bellowed the baron. ‘What’s he still doing here? I dismissed the fellow and demanded that he leave by first light yesterday. So what’s he still doing here, Crabtree?’

  ‘Never mind about that now,’ said Deacon firmly, ‘we’ll come to that later. What had Brimshaw to say?’

  ‘He wasn’t there, sir, neither him nor the Rolls-Royce. No one’s had sight or sound of either him or Miss Josephine since last night. They’ve both disappeared.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  'Well, what do you make of that, Lane?’ Inspector Deacon asked his sergeant when they at last had the study to themselves.

  ‘The same as the baron, sir. That they’ve eloped. While the baron was in here tearing his hair out and after I’d rung the station to put calls out to the stations and air and sea ports, I took the liberty of going down to the servants’ hall and having a word with a couple of the maids.’ He broke off as he blushed slightly at Deacon’s raised eyebrows and knowing smile. ‘Purely business, of course sir, although Mrs Gooden, she’s the cook, sir, did press upon me a nice hot cup of tea. Nice and strong too, it was, just like my mother makes. But anyway,’ he continued, seeing the look of exasperation on his inspector’s face, ‘the maids, Doris and Pearl, they said how Brimshaw was an awfully good looking young man and how jealous they were of Miss Josephine for running off with him and that, given half the chance, they’d have done the same.’

  ‘I see, so it’s possible that they’ve just eloped.’

  ‘Just, sir?’ queried Lane. ‘I don’t think the baron sees it like that. I think he thinks that it is the worst possible thing that can have happened to his daughter.’

  ‘Well, then the man lacks imagination,’ said Deacon, somewhat dismissively. ‘A peer of the realm is found murdered in his house and his daughter is found to be missing. It seems to me t
hat there are two far more awful alternatives with regard to her possible fate.’

  ‘You think that she may have been murdered too?’ queried Lane, looking alarmed. ‘You think this Brimshaw fellow bumped her off as well as Lord Sneddon? The constables are busy searching the grounds so they’ll discover her body if it’s been dumped in the woods or the garden. I’ll just go and get a couple of them to do a quick search of all the rooms in the Hall, before we start the thorough search, just to make sure that she’s not in the house.’

  Deacon went and seated himself on the leather sofa while he awaited his sergeant’s return. Lane found him deep in thought when he came back into the room.

  ‘Right, that’s all organised. You said there was another awful possibility regarding Miss Josephine’s fate, sir,’ he reminded the inspector.

  ‘Yes, I did, the gallows. Does it not strike you as strange, Lane, that Lord Sneddon should be murdered on the very same night that Josephine Atherton and this chap Brimshaw decide to elope?’

  ‘You think then that the two things are connected, sir?’

  ‘I do. It’s too much of a coincidence that they are not. I don’t want us to jump to any conclusions just yet, but the obvious one is that Sneddon disturbed them as they were making preparations to leave. I’m sure that they stole out of the house at the dead of night when they could be quite certain that all the household had retired to bed.

  ‘Brimshaw had his room over the garage, that old converted stable block that we saw earlier when we first arrived, but no doubt he came into the house to help Josephine Atherton down the stairs with her suitcase. I hardly see her doing that herself. Perhaps they went into the library for Josephine to write her father a farewell note. That desk that Sneddon was found slumped over looks like the sort often used by ladies as a writing desk. Perhaps Sneddon came in to get himself a whisky, there was a half empty decanter of the stuff and a glass on the table near the armchair by the fire if you remember, and he discovered them. We both know the sort of man Sneddon was, we saw that for ourselves at Ashgrove. It’s quite an advantage for us, I think, having already had some dealings with the victim before he was murdered. Anyway, Sneddon could have threatened to alert the baron. There could have been a scuffle and he was killed. Either Josephine Atherton or Brimshaw could have struck the fatal blow. I can certainly envisage Sneddon fighting with Brimshaw, particularly if he was in drink and Josephine panicking, fearing that the house would be roused and their plan uncovered, or perhaps that Brimshaw would be hurt. Then, without quite realising what she was doing, picking up the letter opener and stabbing Sneddon in the back. I am sure that they would have regretted their actions immediately, especially once they realised that Sneddon was dead and not just incapacitated. And then fearing the consequences of their actions, they decided to make a run for it.’

  ‘You think that’s what happened, sir?’ asked the sergeant, looking appalled. ‘That Josephine Atherton murdered Lord Sneddon?’

  ‘No, not necessarily. All I’m saying is that it is possible and so shouldn’t be ruled out. And that, instead of raging and cursing as he did earlier, the baron should be praying that eloping with the chauffeur is the only thing Josephine Atherton was guilty of last night.’

  Both men pondered on this theory for a while, before Deacon roused himself from his musings.

  ‘Ring the bell pull, Lane, will you. I’d like to have another word with that Crabtree fellow. I’d like to find out who exactly is staying here at Dareswick this weekend besides the family. I would ask the baron, but I have a feeling we won’t get much sense out of him between him fuming about the elopement of his daughter and trying to get up the courage to inform the Duke of Haywater of the unfortunate demise of his only surviving son. Why he doesn’t leave it to us to do, I can’t imagine.’

  ‘I think he sees it as his responsibility, sir,’ replied the sergeant, ‘you know, what with Lord Sneddon being a guest in his house, so to speak. Do you want me to stay and take notes while you speak to the butler?’

  ‘Actually, I’d rather you went back to the servants’ hall and chatted some more with the servants. I have a feeling they’ll be more forthcoming with Crabtree out of the way talking to me and not breathing down their necks. And you always seem to have a particular way with the maids. I’d like you to have a word with this Robert fellow too. Find out the story there. The baron almost had a fit when he realised that he was still in the house. Find out what exactly this Robert chap did to incur the baron’s wrath and get dismissed.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant left and the inspector was left to contemplate how he might be able to penetrate Crabtree’s natural reserve. The fact that no one would be taking down the butler’s words verbatim would hopefully give a more informal air to the proceedings and encourage the butler to speak more openly.

  ‘Is your master alright?’ enquired Deacon, when the butler appeared.

  ‘He is very distressed about Miss Josephine, sir, and of course also about Lord Sneddon’s death.’

  ‘Yes, of course. It must have been an awful shock for all the servants as well.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir, it was. Young Doris is beside herself, she is. It was she who found Lord Sneddon this morning. She walked straight past him and didn’t see him until she had opened the curtains and begun to empty and sweep the grate. Gave her an awful fright it did, seeing the corpse like that.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said the inspector, sympathetically.

  ‘She’s talking about leaving Dareswick for good. She was talking about running home to her parents’ house today. It was all Mrs Hodges could do to make her stop and have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Well, don’t let her go until she’s spoken to my sergeant,’ warned Deacon. ‘We’ll need to talk to her, see if she saw anything. And if she does go I’d rather one of my constables saw her home. For all we know there’s a murderer still in the grounds, although I have to say the constables have seen no sign of him so far and they have been combing the area for a fair few hours now. Talking of which, we could find no sign of a forced entry. What time were the doors and windows locked last night? Is there a possibility that a door or window could have been left unlocked unintentionally so to speak?’

  ‘No, sir. We follow a special routine here at Dareswick, his lordship’s most particular. A lot of houses around here don’t lock their doors and windows until ten o’clock, but his lordship insists that all doors and windows are locked by half past seven sharp. Most insistent about it, he is. And Sidney, he’s the first footman, he and I do it together to make sure the job is done properly.’

  ‘So one of you locks the window or door and the other one checks that it is secured properly?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ’And that’s what happened last night?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ confirmed the butler. Deacon looked at him keenly. He did not strike him as a man who would lie to protect himself or a man who did not undertake a job thoroughly.

  ‘In which case,’ said the inspector slowly, ‘unless Lord Sneddon let in his murderer himself, say by one of the French windows in the library, the murderer did not come in from outside.’

  ‘He couldn’t have let him in by the library, sir. The locks on the French windows have seized up. Those windows haven’t been open for years. There’s some valuable books on the bookshelves. We keep the curtains drawn when there’s strong sunlight to keep the bindings from fading. And on no account are we to open the windows. So…’

  ‘… the murderer must have been someone from within the house, yes, it certainly looks like it, doesn’t it?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Is it true?’ Hallam asked Cedric, entering the room clenching and unclenching his hands in his agitation. They were in the garden room, a room rarely used except in the heat of summer, and as such it had a disused feel about it, notwithstanding that the grate had been hastily swept and a fire laid. The warmth coming from the hearth, however, did not seem to have penetrated the room for the other
occupants huddled in their seats as if they felt the cold. However, the garden room was located far enough away from both the library and the study, to make those present feel somewhat protected from the awful events that had occurred and were unfolding in the rest of the house.

  ‘About Josephine? Yes, apparently so,’ sighed Cedric. ‘Crabtree and Mrs Hodges sought me out not long after the servants had discovered Sneddon’s body. The two of them were beside themselves, they didn’t know what to do. They were afraid to tell your father because they knew he’d blow a gasket, especially when he found out about your chauffeur’s disappearance.’

  ‘I just can’t believe it. Josephine would never elope with Brimshaw.’ Hallam gave a look of disgust. ‘I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the chap, of course, but there is nothing for her to see in him either. Rose, you’d agree with me, wouldn’t you? Brimshaw is a nice enough chap but really nothing to write home about, is he? He’s not the sort of man to make you girls go weak at the knees, is he?’

  Rose, being put on the spot, fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. She herself had not felt any particular attraction to the chauffeur, but then all her attention and feelings had been focused on Cedric who she had known would be awaiting her at Dareswick. At the time, it was true, if she remembered correctly, she had idly thought Brimshaw rather a handsome young man in a pleasant sort of way, and his character had been perfectly agreeable. But what of Josephine, stuck out at Dareswick in the middle of nowhere, with very little company to speak of? She imagined her entertaining the aged vicar and his wife and arranging village bazaars and suchlike. In such circumstances, starved of eligible young men, might she not be attracted to a good looking servant with a pleasant manner? There would have been plenty of opportunity for a fledgling romance to grow. Brimshaw would have driven Josephine about the place probably every day with Dareswick being so out in the sticks. It would have been necessary to travel by car to go anywhere and surely they would have passed the time of day. Josephine, Rose felt sure, would have chatted to the chauffeur, she would not have just sat there in silence. Also, of course, Brimshaw had his own private quarters above the garage where they would have been able to meet secretly, unobserved by the other servants.