‘Yes. But if foul play was suspected,’ agreed Rose, ‘he couldn’t take the risk of leaving the glass on the bookcase where it would be discovered and sent to be analysed.’
‘Well, that leaves only one question to be answered,’ said Constable Bright, determined to have his penny’s worth, and feeling it was high time that a representative of the law took charge of the conversation. He turned his attention to the footman and gave him a particularly fierce look. ‘Now, young man. Out with it. Who took the wine glass?’
Charlie, finding all eyes turned on him, went a deep crimson and began to splutter.
‘Come on, lad,’ said the constable more kindly. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. Did you see who took the glass from the bookcase, or didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ said Charlie. ‘It was … it was Mr Rewe.’
There was the sound of a sharp intake of breath. ‘What?’ cried Cedric, considerably taken aback. ‘Henry? I say, are you absolutely certain it was him?’
The footman nodded rather tentatively. When he had been requested to spy on the troupe, it had not occurred to him that he was being asked to observe a murderer stealing incriminating evidence. The realisation had come to him swift and sharp while listening in a discreet fashion to the conversation of the others. It had been with a degree of excitement that he had kept this knowledge of the murderer’s identity to himself. Indeed, he was almost fit to burst with the thrill of it all, longing for the moment when he might return to the servants’ hall and divulge what he knew. For he alone knew who the murderer was! Until the words escaped his lips, the others were left in ignorance.
However, now he had uttered the name, he felt rather deflated, for the reception to his news had not been what he had envisaged. Instead of his master clasping him warmly by the hand and congratulating him for a job well done, the earl was staring at him with a look of disbelief.
Rose herself shared something of her husband’s scepticism. It was only then that she realised she must subconsciously have imagined the murderer to be someone else. For, had the footman mentioned Algernon Cuffe or Walter Drury, she did not think she would have felt as she felt now. There was an awful sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Surely the servant had been mistaken or else her plan had gone awry.
‘Mr Rewe?’ she queried dully.
‘Yes, m’lady,’ replied Charlie eagerly. ‘The man that’s playing Hamlet, least I think he is. Dressed in black breeches, he is, and ’as a black shirt that has ruffles on it and is laced at the neck.’
Rose saw Cedric nod his head and murmur something to the effect that it was the outfit Henry wore in the final scene of the play when he discarded his black velvet doublet to fight the duel.
Encouraged, the footman saw fit to add to his description. ‘Little fellow, thin as a rake,’ he said.
The image was conjured up before Rose’s eyes of Henry, as she had seen him first, pale and nervous, holding the hilt of his foil awkwardly as if it were some foreign object. She remembered how he had mumbled and flinched visibly when Cedric, in the guise of Laertes, had thrust forward with his foil, the smaller man all but dropping his own weapon. She played the final scene of the play over in her mind, recalling how Henry had jumped up with a startled cry as soon as Ursula had begun to choke. Indeed, he had seemed quite overcome by her death. His complexion had gone a ghastly shade of grey and he had been required to sit down lest he collapse. Had it all been an act, she wondered, or had he felt a horror or remorse at what he had done? Was it really possible that he poisoned Ursula in so callous a fashion? Had he knelt by her side and watched as she took her final breath? And what of afterwards, when he had half lain crouched on the footstool in such a dejected and pathetic fashion, attended to by the dutiful Algernon Cuffe and Walter Drury, who had regarded him with such obvious concern and apprehension?
The constable coughed, startling Rose and rousing her from her reverie. She had been so deep in thought that she had all but forgotten Constable Bright, who stood there before her, regarding Cedric and herself with something akin to a veiled amusement. It was obvious from his expression that he thought her elaborate plan had come to nothing, that she and Cedric had been playing some strange game to enliven lives that had little purpose, or else that she were playing at being detective when she had neither the necessary skills nor training to do the job well. His next words seemed to confirm as much.
‘Well, I’d better be going, your lordship, you ladyship.’ He noted the looks of disappointment on their faces and seemed to take pity on them. ‘I’m not saying it isn’t a little strange that the young man saw fit to take Miss Quail’s wine glass, but I don’t think it signifies what you’re suggesting. No, not at all. In my experience, folk do many a queer thing and it don’t mean nothing; nothing bad any roads. I’m not saying I won’t have a quiet word with him tomorrow, like, and ask him to replace the glass and no harm done.’
‘I take it you will arrange for the wine glass in the study to be analysed, Constable?’ demanded Cedric rather coldly. ‘I will think it a great dereliction of your duty if you don’t. I ought to warn you that I mean to say as much to the chief constable.’
The constable paled significantly at such a threat. In truth, he had been half minded to leave the wine glass where it was. He didn’t hold with the gentry dabbling in things that didn’t concern them, adding two and two and making five. The good doctor had said that the poor woman had died due to a complication with her heart, and that was good enough for him. But if the young earl was going to …
‘Of course, Constable Bright was intending to take the glass with him,’ Rose said, coming to the policeman’s aid, and bestowing on him a kindly smile. ‘You have been most thorough, Constable. I don’t believe there is anything more to be done until we know whether Mrs Stapleton’s death was from natural causes or the result of foul play.’
‘Indeed,’ said Cedric, looking a little sheepish, obviously regretting his outburst. ‘You don’t need the likes of me to tell you how to do your job, Constable. Manning will see you out. Good day to you.’
Though they had bid him farewell, the earl and countess showed little inclination, however, to leave the policeman to his own devices. Instead they lingered in the hall, waiting while the constable went to retrieve the glass from the study table and watching as he returned, holding the glass by the stem with the aid of a large white handkerchief, which he had wrapped around the glass like some huge bandage. They stared after him as the constable hurried from the house, holding the wine glass out before him like a torch.
‘Well,’ said Cedric, watching the policeman’s progress down the drive. ‘I suppose tomorrow we will know whether we were right. For tomorrow, we will know whether or not Ursula Stapleton was murdered.’
Chapter Eleven
‘I’ve a good mind to telephone Bichester police station,’ said Cedric, ‘to inquire whether Constable Bright brought them the wine glass to have analysed.’
It was the afternoon of the next day, and he had just returned from a visit to the folly, where he had surveyed the paraphernalia and debris left behind by the thespians, as if to reassure himself that the events of the previous day had actually taken place and were not just figments of his imagination. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that he hadn’t,’ he added.
‘I think you’re being awfully unfair to the poor constable,’ said Rose, descending the main staircase, and coming to stand beside her husband in the hall. ‘He might not believe Ursula was murdered, but he did promise us that he would arrange for the glass to be thoroughly examined.’
They had spent something of a restive evening after the policeman’s departure, unable to settle at doing anything other than roam the many rooms of Sedgwick Court like two lost souls. For their minds had refused to focus on anything except the indisputable fact that Ursula Stapleton had been murdered, and that they alone seemed to believe this fact. It was true that Constable Bright’s obvious scepticism, and the som
ewhat unexpected discovery that it had been Henry Rewe who had purloined the wine glass, had done a little to dampen their feelings of certainty that a crime had been committed, but still it gnawed away at them like a stubborn headache. Their forced inactivity did little to alleviate the situation, being made to bide their time until the truth was known. And all the while, they were in receipt of the knowledge that a violent death had been committed in their grounds, which was yet to be properly investigated or even acknowledged.
They had barely touched their dinner that night, a fact which had been a cause of some dismay to their cook, Mrs Broughton, who had complained very vocally to anyone who would listen in the servants’ hall, that what was the use of her slaving over a hot stove only to have the meals returned to the kitchen untouched. A slight on her cooking, that’s what it was and if the master and mistress didn’t like her food and were going to turn their noses up at every meal she produced, well, really, she would have to obtain another position where her talents were appreciated. Of course, she wouldn’t say it wasn’t sad that someone should see fit to die in the folly of all places, but it wasn’t as if the woman in question was a particular friend of the master’s, or mistress’. Inconsiderate, that’s what she called it, someone as good as a stranger dying in the grounds. Why the woman couldn’t stay at home and die in her own bed if she had a mind to, she didn’t know.
Her flow of words was eventually stemmed by a reproving look from Manning, who did not consider it appropriate that she should speak in such a way in front of the lower servants, whom old Torridge had always instilled in him were particularly impressionable. ‘One must lead by example,’ he had said sombrely to Manning, who had been the under-butler at the time. ‘Such talk, if indeed there needs to be any, is to be reserved to the confines of the housekeeper’s sitting room.’
Under Manning’s critical eye, Mrs Broughton had brought her tirade to a faltering stop, with cheeks flushing crimson. It was only to herself that she admitted that she was a little worried that there might have been something wrong with the food. Indeed, she had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in her bed in her little attic bedroom worrying that the piece of beef she had served hadn’t looked as fresh as it might have. Meanwhile, the kitchen and scullery maids, who were more often than not the last to go to bed after completing their final daily chores, had, quite unbeknown to the cook, crept into the kitchen to partake of a slice or two of the said meat, giving never a thought to the quality of the beef they chewed, only aware that it filled their stomachs in a delicious fashion. Had Mrs Broughton known the clandestine activities of her staff, she might have been comforted with the knowledge that the maids, at least, had suffered no ill-effects from eating the meat.
The cook had not been the only upper servant to fret. For Mrs Farrier, the housekeeper, had experienced her own share of worries, not helped by being a witness to the footman’s rather embellished account of the affair of the poisoned wine glass, as Charlie was wont to call it. Her own concerns, however, focused on the more practical. Would it affect her ability to recruit housemaids, there having been two violent deaths in the grounds in the space of a couple of years? First the maze and now the folly. Really, you would hardly credit it. And everyone knew how difficult it was to get good servants these days, she more than most. She didn’t want girls with ghoulish or imaginative natures, who would sneak off to the folly to see if an aura of death still hung about the place, when they should be up to their elbows in household chores, or else timid little mites who’d be forever worked up and jumpy so that they dropped a vase or fainted the minute they heard the wind rustling the leaves in the trees. Still, it did have its compensations she supposed. A housemaid might think twice in future before sneaking out to the folly to meet her young man. That was the trouble with having silly young girls about the place. Mrs Farrier pulled herself up to her full height and pursed her lips. She didn’t approve of such goings on. The young these days … And it didn’t help having buildings dotted around the grounds that resembled houses and temples. She couldn’t see the point of it herself. A waste of good bricks and mortar, if you asked her. It was only encouraging young girls to be led astray …
In the minds of Cedric and Rose, the morning had brought little hope of a speedy resolution to their agitation. The bright clarity of a new day and accompanying sunshine had done little to lift their mood. For the weather seemed only to mock their sense of propriety by suggesting that all was well with the world with its bright, vibrant summer colours, when it so very obviously wasn’t. Each felt that the elements should be more reflective of the violent death that had occurred in their midst. If there had been dark clouds followed by a torrent of rain, or if there had been sharp gusts of wind that had pulled at their hats and gloves and numbed their bones, then they might have felt more resigned to wait patiently for the official verdict concerning Ursula Stapleton’s death. Instead, the day threatened to be a repeat of the evening before; a frustrating and seemingly endless waiting game.
Even now, they were tempted to loiter in the hall in case anyone should happen to telephone. They had quite sensibly reasoned that it might be a couple of days before the results of either the post-mortem or the analysis of the wine glass were known, particularly if Constable Bright had chosen to drag his feet about the business. There was little doubt that the policeman had advised his superiors of the doctor’s view that Ursula Stapleton had died of natural causes. This, in itself, suggested there was little need for urgency unless it was felt prudent to act on the whims of the local aristocracy.
At which point, Cedric imagined the constable’s accompanying smirk. He could envisage the policeman’s supplemental words: ‘See murder wherever they go, do his lordship and her ladyship. ’Course we all know as how they’ve been involved with more than their fair share of violent deaths and all. But give them a simple case of a poor lady with a weak heart and they see a crime. No one’s saying it’s not unfortunate that it happened on their land, what with that business with the maze … why, that’s the sort of thing that gives a place a bit of a reputation. Death Manor they’ll be calling it instead of Sedgwick Court, you mark my words. I’ll be surprised if any folk will accept their hospitality.’ Cedric imagined him chuckling. ‘You wouldn’t catch me attending a house party there, I can tell you, not if my life depended on it. Ha, ha.’
‘Not as how you’d be invited, Constable,’ retorted Cedric forthrightly, though admittedly only in his mind. The young earl took a deep breath and gave himself a severe talking to. It did no good to hold imaginary conversations in one’s head, even if it was only to relieve oppressive boredom and frustration. He caught his wife’s eye and smiled, aware rather belatedly that she had been watching him closely.
‘I’ve just been giving Constable Bright a piece of my mind,’ he said. ‘Something along the lines of what I was saying to you earlier. You know, the bit about how well I think he is carrying out his duty.’
‘Aloud, or in your head?’ enquired Rose.
‘Oh, in my head, naturally,’ said Cedric, having the grace to blush. ‘Not sure I’d have the nerve to tell him to his face.’
‘Well, you made a pretty good show of it yesterday,’ said his wife, trying not to laugh in spite of herself. In that moment, it all seemed so unreal, as if what they had witnessed yesterday had been no more than a part of the play. Why, Rose half expected Ursula Stapleton to call on them to enquire if there was to be another rehearsal before the actual performance. If the woman were to appear before her now, would she be so very shocked? Would she think she had seen a ghost, as poor Hamlet had done, when instructed by his dead father’s spectre to avenge his death? She put a hand to her head and wondered whether she was going to pieces.
It was at that moment that the telephone bell rang out loudly in the hall, the noise seeming to echo and resonate around the room, rebounding off the walls and the black and white tiles of the floor.
In one swift movement, Cedric had sprung to the instrument
and picked up the receiver before the butler had an opportunity to answer the telephone extension in his parlour.
‘Hello? Yes, it is. I say, would you mind awfully repeating that? Are you quite sure? I take it there’s been no mistake? No, I didn’t think so. Well, that’s splendid. No, I didn’t … By that, I mean of course … No, no, poor woman. Awful business. Well, thank you for letting me know. Jolly decent of you. Goodbye.’
‘Who was that?’ demanded Rose, though she knew the answer as surely as if she had lifted the telephone receiver herself and spoken to the person on the other end. Her husband, meanwhile, was cradling the instrument in his hand, and showed no inclination to replace it on its stand.
‘That was someone ringing on behalf of the chief constable; a sergeant, I think, he said he was. I didn’t catch his name. He said the chief constable had instructed him to telephone me with the findings from the post-mortem and the analysis of the wine glass …’ Cedric passed a hand across his brow and sat down on a convenient chair. A thought struck him and he looked up. ‘I say, I’ve done poor old Constable Bright an awful –’
‘What did he say, this sergeant,’ Rose asked impatiently. She knelt beside her husband and took his hands in hers. The action caused Cedric to look at her, though there was still something of a glazed look in his eyes. It was a moment before he could bring himself to talk, as if he were slowly recalling himself to the present. When he did at last speak, his sentences came out all in a rush, almost on top of each other, with hardly a gasp for breath between them.
‘We were right all along. Ursula Stapleton was murdered. They found traces of potassium cyanide in the wine glass. And the results of the post-mortem showed levels of cyanide in Ursula’s blood consistent with her having been poisoned. I …’ Cedric faltered. ‘I knew she had been poisoned. I could detect the smell of bitter almonds on her breath … the way she died … I knew it … and yet, now it has been confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt, I feel shocked, startled even, as if I weren’t expecting …’
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