02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall Read online

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a rum old time of it with the pressmen, my lord.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for your efforts, it would have been an awful lot worse,’ Cedric acknowledged gratefully. ‘Now what was I saying? Yes… I had no idea that Sneddon would be here this weekend, I don’t think anyone had, apart from Isabella, of course. It was an awful shock to us all, to tell the truth. Embarrassingly so, I’m afraid. When he walked into the drawing room with the baron, we all just stopped talking and stared. You could have heard a pin drop. You’ve probably already heard all about what happened last time Sneddon visited?’ The inspector nodded and Cedric continued. ‘Good, I’m glad I don’t have to go into all the unsavoury details. It was a most tragic business, that’s for certain, simply awful, and the household is still recovering from the aftermath, both the Athertons and their servants.’

  ‘So Lord Sneddon’s arrival was unwelcome?’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Cedric said with conviction. ‘Hallam made rather a scene, begged his sister not to marry the man. It was awful. And one of the servants dropped boiling hot soup in his lap. Sneddon could have been badly scalded but, thankfully, he was relatively unharmed….’ Cedric did not finish his sentence because the vision came unbidden into his mind of Sneddon slumped lifelessly over the writing table, a gold dagger protruding from his back, as melodramatic a scene as if it had been performed before him on a stage. Sneddon had escaped being badly burned, but he had not escaped death.

  ‘So Hallam Atherton was upset to see Lord Sneddon?’ Deacon asked carefully.

  ‘I say he was, and who could blame him?’ Cedric asked, indignantly. ‘At one point I thought they might come to blows, that’s to say Hallam might punch him because, to give Sneddon his due, he didn’t seem to bear any animosity towards Hallam, even after his outburst. It was jolly awkward for the rest of us, of course. We didn’t know where to look or what to do.’ Cedric sighed. ‘You have to give it to Hallam, he only voiced out loud what the rest of us thought in private.’

  ‘How serious was this outburst, my lord? Did Hallam Atherton need to be restrained to avoid harming Lord Sneddon?’

  ‘I’m not sure, that’s to say, when I say Hallam was hell bent on hitting Sneddon, I may have been a bit hasty,’ Cedric said, looking uncomfortable. ‘In the heat of the moment he might have done it, it’s true. But he wouldn’t have come down in the middle of the night and stabbed Sneddon in the back, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t think Hallam’s the type of chap to do that. That wouldn’t have been sporting at all, Inspector, definitely not cricket. If he was going to fight Sneddon he would have let him know about it. He wouldn’t have sneaked up behind him and killed him. Besides,’ continued Cedric, warming to his subject, ‘on recollection I think all he wanted to do was to let off steam a bit. He wanted to tell him what he thought of his conduct and perhaps give him a bloody nose, nothing more.’

  ‘You don’t think he might have set about planning how to kill Lord Sneddon and get away with it?’ Deacon asked, quietly.

  ‘Of course not, Inspector, the idea’s preposterous. Whoever killed Sneddon did it in a cowardly, underhand manner. Hallam’s not your man.’ Cedric glared at Deacon.

  ‘Very well, what about the Honourable Josephine Atherton?’

  ‘No, certainly not. She’s a respectable, properly brought up young lady, Inspector, not the sort to get herself mixed up in murder. And she has a sensible head on her shoulders. Not one to give way to hysteria or doing something on impulse. And I don’t believe that she’s eloped with that chauffeur fellow either, whatever anyone says. I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for her disappearance, you see if I’m not right, Inspector.’

  ‘It’s Deacon,’ Cedric said quietly to Rose on his return to the garden room. He had taken her by the arm and led her to the far end of the room where it was unlikely their conversation would be overheard by Hallam or Isabella. ‘He and Sergeant Lane are carrying out the investigation into Sneddon’s murder.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ said Rose, looking relieved. ‘They won’t jump to any silly conclusions or try and build a case against someone when there isn’t any evidence.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Cedric, thoughtfully. ‘Deacon’s a clever chap, but I think he’s got it into his head that either Hallam or Josephine are involved somehow in Sneddon’s death. It didn’t help me telling him about Hallam’s outburst on Friday night. I wish I’d kept quiet about that now. It doesn’t put the boy in a good light. Deacon probably thinks Hallam’s a loose cannon. He’s suspicious of Josephine too, which is hardly surprising. Goodness knows what she was thinking of just disappearing like that. Oh, if only he knew her like we do, he’d realise how ludicrous it is to suspect her of anything underhand, let alone murder.’

  It was on the tip of Rose’s tongue to say that she hardly knew Josephine herself, and that she wasn’t sure how the girl usually acted, but thought it best to remain quiet. Instead she said: ‘Doesn’t he think that it’s far more likely that the murderer broke into the house or was just let in by Sneddon himself?’

  ‘No, the place is thoroughly locked at night and apparently the French windows in the library don’t open, although I find that hard to believe. So unless Sneddon trotted along to another room to let someone into the house, the police think his murderer must be someone from within.’

  ‘Sneddon looked pretty engrossed in the library when I left him,’ mused Rose, thinking back to her last sight of him, a broken and distraught man. She shivered. She should have stayed with him. If she had, then perhaps he would not be dead now. At the very least she should have shown pity or given encouragement. He had told her that he wished to make amends and now she would never know whether he would have followed through on his words. He had reached out to her for help and she had turned her back on him. It was that, she realised when she looked back over the events that followed, that made her feel that his death could not go unpunished and, if nothing else, she owed it to him to find his murderer and bring him to justice.

  ‘Miss Simpson? Come with me please, the Inspector wants to interview you next.’ The constable had already turned on his heel and set off up the corridor before Rose had caught up with him. Before she could stop herself, she found herself tugging at his sleeve in an attempt to make him stop. He turned around impatiently, clearly unamused by such seemingly childish tactics.

  ‘Please, stop,’ said Rose quickly, before he could protest. ‘Surely there must be some mistake? The inspector will want to see Isabella first, he’s bound to. She was the deceased’s fiancée after all, he’ll have simply loads of questions to ask her, I’m sure. He’ll want to interview her first.’

  ‘No, miss, the inspector was very specific. He said that he wanted to interview you next.’

  ‘Oh.’ What should she do, she didn’t know. What could she do? There was nothing she could do without drawing more attention to herself and Isabella. She glanced back helplessly into the garden room. Through the open doorway her eyes rested on Isabella, sitting upright on the very edge of the sofa, her eyes cast down to the floor and her hands clutched demurely in her lap as if she were ushering up a prayer, as well she might under the circumstances, Rose thought.

  Well, Isabella was enduring this setback well. She had not raised her eyes to Rose and given her an imploring look to remain silent about the blackmail. It appeared instead that she was deliberately not catching Rose’s eye and Rose wondered if, in all conscience, she could remain quiet.

  Rose took a deep breath. There was nothing for it; she must make the best of it. She must give the impression that Isabella meant to tell the police about the blackmail. Yet, as she looked back now to catch one last glimpse of the girl who sat so resolutely on the sofa, the girl who refused to lift her head and appeal to her with a look, Rose knew instinctively that Isabella had no intention of volunteering the information to the police. If Rose herself did not mention the blackmail business, then she knew, as su
rely as if Isabella had told her so herself, that Isabella would not.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Oh, what shall we do?’ asked Mrs Hodges, wringing her hands in her lap. The teacup lay discarded on the table beside her. For once, when her eyes stole around the room in search of the whisky bottle it was so she herself could take a sip. But Crabtree had obviously already purloined it and hidden it in his own quarters. Really, the man was too bad. At a time like this when a good, honest, hardworking, law-abiding person like herself really did need to take a sip for medicinal purposes. Instead she gave the butler a steely look.

  ‘Whatever we do, we mustn’t be hasty, Mr Crabtree,’ she said firmly.

  ‘It’s our duty to inform the police of what we know, Mrs Hodges,’ said the butler, drawing himself up to his full height and pulling in his stomach as he did so. Mrs Hodges would have laughed if things had not been so serious.

  ‘But if we do tell the police they’ll have young Robert arrested for murder before we know it, you know they will. Far easier and more convenient for them to arrest a servant than one of the family or, God forbid, one of the guests. And there will be pressure on them to make a quick arrest, you mark my words. What with Lord Sneddon’s father being the Duke of Haywater and all. He’s probably got the police in his pocket. And no one will want any scandal, will they? Who knows what secrets will come tumbling out of the woodwork the longer they delay in making an arrest. The papers will have a field day. They’ll be rife with speculation.’

  ‘I share your concerns, Mrs Hodges, but even so, we must inform the police of what we know. It is our duty.’

  ‘Damn duty, Mr Crabtree!’ cried the housekeeper, banging her fist down upon the table, making the cup and saucer rattle. ‘Do you want to be responsible for sending young Robert to the gallows? Do you want to see him swing?’ She turned a contemptuous look upon the butler who gulped and looked pale. His eyes darted around the room as if he himself this time were trying to locate the whisky bottle. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, we’ll do nothing, absolutely nothing. Those policemen are from Scotland Yard, aren’t they?’ Crabtree merely nodded. ‘Well then, they’ll be the best of the best, won’t they? They’ll only take the most clever detectives in Scotland Yard, it stands to reason. Well, let them find out about it for themselves.’

  ‘But, Mrs Hodges –.’

  ‘No “buts”, Mr Crabtree, that’s what we’ll do,’ said the housekeeper, nodding her head with conviction.

  ‘But, Mrs Hodges,’ and this time the butler held up his hand to stop her from interrupting or trying to contradict him, ‘it’s not just Robert we have to consider.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean, Mr Crabtree?’

  ‘Robert isn’t the only suspect who could have let himself out of the servants’ quarters and gone downstairs and murdered Lord Sneddon?’

  ‘Surely you’re not suggesting that Sidney did it? Really, Mr Crabtree, have you gone –.’

  ‘No, I was thinking of a much more likely candidate,’

  ‘Ah!’ Daylight dawned on the housekeeper’s troubled brain. ‘You mean –.’

  ‘Exactly, Mrs Hodges, I was referring to Lord Sneddon’s dubious so-called valet, Ricketts.’

  ‘Miss Simpson.’ Both Inspector Deacon and Sergeant Lane had risen from their seats as soon as the study door was opened and she was ushered in by the constable. Somewhat inexplicably, she felt as she had done when summoned once to her headmistress’s room; a feeling of apprehension at what lay ahead. How absurd really, she thought, to feel like this, particularly as she suddenly realised how very pleased she was to see them.

  ‘Inspector Deacon, Sergeant Lane. Oh, I’m so frightfully glad it’s you who are investigating this awful murder. Cedric just told me. We’re jolly pleased, I can tell you. I can’t quite believe it’s happened again. Another murder, I mean. I can’t take it in. What are the odds of it happening to someone more than once, I wonder. You know, being involved in more than one murder?’

  ‘Quite a lot if you happen to be a policeman,’ Deacon smiled.

  I’m behaving like a complete idiot, thought Rose. I’m talking a lot of old rot, what must they think of me? They’ll realise straightaway that I’m nervous, that I’ve something to hide. Why don’t I just keep quiet?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rose. ‘It’s because I’ve just been sitting there quietly in the garden room listening to everyone speculating. I thought I was going to go mad. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything about what’s happened, you know, offer an opinion in front of Isabella and Hallam. They’re so frightfully confused, you see. Well we all are rather. And we’re all terribly worried about Josephine. Do you know where she is? Have you found her yet?’

  ‘We’re still looking for Miss Atherton,’ said the inspector. He studied her closely. ‘How are the others taking her sudden disappearance? Do they think it out of character for her to just vanish like this?’

  ‘Well, yes they do, although they’re trying hard to convince themselves that nothing is amiss. Of course, I hardly knew Josephine. I only met her for the first time on Friday, but she seemed the steady, dependable sort, the kind of person who holds the family together. I can imagine everyone coming to her if they were in trouble or worried about something. Oh dear, it makes her sound very boring, but really she isn’t. She is very pleasant actually. I liked her as soon as we were introduced. I can’t think why she would leave like she has, not in the middle of entertaining guests and everything. It seems so very odd to leave in the middle of the night unless…’

  ‘Yes, Miss Simpson, unless what?’ Deacon prompted, visibly sitting forward in his seat. The move unnerved Rose who dropped her gaze to her skirt where she fidgeted with the fabric between her fingers.

  ‘I-I don’t know, I can’t really think...’

  ‘Perhaps you were thinking it was very odd unless she had just killed a man?’

  ‘Oh my goodness, no! You can’t possibly think Josephine had anything to do with Lord Sneddon’s death.’ How very stupid she was being. She had been concentrating so much on shielding Isabella that she had been rather careless in what she had said about Josephine.

  ‘You have to admit, Miss Simpson, that it is rather a coincidence that Josephine Atherton disappeared on the same night a murder took place in this house. She probably even vanished around the very time Sneddon was being murdered.’ There was a silence interrupted only by the irritating ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. The noise became almost unbearable and everyone was restive, she noticed, even Lane, who fiddled with the pages in his notebook. But no one spoke. Eventually Deacon decided to change tack.

  ‘Tell me, Miss Simpson, Rose, do you think it likely that Miss Atherton has eloped with the chauffeur?’

  ‘With Brimshaw? If you want my honest opinion, Inspector, no I don’t,’ Rose said frankly, ‘And I’m not just trying to preserve her reputation. Brimshaw is a nice enough chap, very pleasant and rather good-looking in a way, but I can’t see Josephine losing her head over him to such an extent that she would just up and leave. If nothing else, she would consider it frightfully bad manners to leave like that. I am assuming she didn’t leave a note?’ Rose looked up expectantly at Deacon who shook his head. ‘But I’m also convinced she had nothing to do with Lord Sneddon’s death. I just can’t understand it. The baron has something of a temper. She’d know that he would be bound to be livid. If she has eloped with the chauffeur the baron will never let her set foot in Dareswick again. Why, I think he’d sooner disown her than lay eyes on her if she’s eloped with a servant. But she simply can’t have done that, it’s not something she would do. And besides, she loves Dareswick too much. You should have heard her go on about the gardens. She had obviously spent a lot of time talking with the gardener about what bulbs they were going to plant and where they were going to get them from and …oh…’

  ‘What is it?’ Deacon asked sharply. Even Sergeant Lane had looked up from his notebook in anticipation, his pencil poised in his han
d.

  ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing and I can’t quite remember what she said exactly,’ Rose said, wishing now she’d kept quiet. But it was too late. There was nothing she could do but tell the truth. ‘She seemed awfully nice, as I’ve said, but rather distracted, as if she had something on her mind. And then she said something about it being a pity that she wouldn’t be there to see the flowers. I thought it was rather odd at the time. I remember I asked whether she was going away and then she got rather flustered and told me to ignore her, that she was just talking a lot of nonsense.’

  ‘So you think she may have been planning to go away all along? It still seems rather a strange time to choose, doesn’t it, in the middle of having her family and guests to stay. I understand that the baron often stays in town and sleeps at his club. It would seem to make more sense for her to leave on one of those occasions when he was absent from the house and her sister was in London and her brother in Oxford.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Rose, ‘as I have already said, I can’t understand what would have made her leave so suddenly.’ Other than murdering Lord Sneddon, she thought. She looked up. Deacon obviously was of the same opinion but had thought better of pursuing the subject with her again.

  ‘You helped us a great deal with that business at Ashgrove,’ the inspector said, smiling. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’m not sure the case would have been solved. So I’d be interested to have your impressions of the other members of the household. Let’s start with Hallam Atherton shall we. What are your impressions of him?’

  ‘He’s jolly nice, a very affable young man, the little I have seen of him. Cedric’s very fond of him, regards him a bit like a younger brother, I think. If I were being honest,’ Rose paused, reluctant to say anything that could be seen as detrimental, ‘I’d probably say that he is a little immature, you know, a bit young for his age. He’s still very much a boy really, although he’s trying very hard to appear a man. I think he has probably been a bit spoilt and over indulged by his older sisters, but it hasn’t gone to his head, he’s very pleasant.’