The Black Cat Murders: A Cotswolds Country House Murder (Heathcliff Lennox Book 2)

by Karen Menuhin

  ‘It weren’t me, Inspector.’ He regarded us earnestly through his round spectacles. I felt rather sorry for the poor chap.

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ Swift said coldly.

  ‘Thank you for your help, Clegg.’ I tried my best reassuring tone, though I doubt it did much to allay the poor man’s fears. ‘And keep this to yourself, there’s a good fellow.’

  ‘Have them taken to my car,’ Swift told him.

  ‘Ay, sir.’ Clegg left with a heavy tread as another figure approached us.

  ‘Sir, sir …’ Dicks came running over.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His Lordship, the Brigadier requests your presence, sirs,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘Ah, he does, does he. Someone told him the Inspector is here?’ I enquired.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of a hullaballoo going on, Major Lennox, sir. The Brigadier is demanding an explanation.’ He stopped and eyed me closely, then withdrew a small brush from his inside pocket. ‘Um, you have some specks of sawdust on your garments, sir. May I?’

  Before I could object, he started brushing me off.

  ‘Dicks, will you stop doing that.’ I took a step backwards.

  ‘Sorry, sir. You have some in your hair too. I have a spare comb, sir.’ He reached into his inside pocket.

  ‘No! No combs, Dicks, and no brushes.’ I ran a hand through my unruly hair. ‘Right, Inspector Swift and I will go and see the Brigadier now.’

  Dicks insisted on accompanying us. I hadn’t mentioned Sir Crispin’s frocks to Swift, but as the source of said information was now dogging our footsteps it seemed like a good opportunity.

  ‘Dicks.’ I stopped and he almost ran into me.

  ‘Sir?’ He looked flustered. ‘Um, I believe his Lordship to be quite agitated, sir. We should hurry.’

  ‘Yes, well, never mind that. Tell Inspector Swift about Sir Crispin’s extra-curricular activities, would you.’

  He looked aghast. ‘I couldn’t possibly, sir. That was strictly between Uncle Greggs and myself.’

  ‘Too late, I’m afraid. Cat’s out of the bag. Just tell him.’

  Swift was now eyeing Dicks. ‘Tell me what?’ he demanded.

  Dicks had no choice but to spill the beans, which he did succinctly, although it bought a flush to his pale cheeks. Swift didn’t bat an eyelid – but he was from Scotland Yard, and I’ve no doubt this sort of thing goes on all the time in the Great Metropolis.

  ‘Does anyone know where Sir Crispin went when he dressed in drag?’ Swift demanded.

  ‘There’s talk of a venue in Oxford, sir,’ Dicks replied.

  ‘There are any number of venues in Oxford,’ I remarked. ‘Sir Crispin may have been dressing up for a pantomime or a play or some such.’

  ‘No, sir. The name of the establishment is the Black Cat Club. I believe it is a place of ill repute.’ Dicks had turned quite pink.

  ‘Really,’ I mused. I had been at Oxford, where sporting activities had taken up my time and the racier side of life had quite eluded me.

  ‘Have you been there?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Certainly not, sir.’ Dicks took a step back.

  ‘Does anyone else from the house or opera group go there?’ Swift continued.

  ‘I have no idea, sir.’

  ‘Where are the opera singers, by the way?’ I asked.

  ‘They are installed in the Dower House, sir. At the far end of the formal gardens,’ Dicks said.

  ‘What is a “Dower House”? Swift asked.

  ‘Residence for outdated matriarchs,’ I told him. ‘When an earl shuffles off, his widow gets dispatched to the Dower House to clear the way for the heir and his wife. Keeps the peace and the old lady at the bottom of a very large garden. Rather a good idea, I’ve always thought.’

  ‘Humph.’ Swift turned over the information. ‘Need to interview these opera singers.’

  ‘Bit late in the day, Swift,’ I told him.

  ‘Um, I really think we should be going, sirs,’ Dicks tried again to hurry us.

  ‘Yes, very well.’ I turned and we made our way back to the French windows and then climbed the stairs to the upper reaches.

  ‘He’s almost deaf,’ I warned Swift. ‘Just take him as it comes and don’t speak more than you have to.’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of comporting myself in front of earls, thank you, Lennox,’ Swift snapped. ‘I don’t need etiquette lessons.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ I retorted. Swift’s socialist tendencies coloured his attitude, to my mind, and he was too quick to take offence.

  Brigadier Bloxford belonged to another century and still lived there most of the time. I wasn’t sure if he was fighting the Boche or the Boers – I doubt if he knew either. Tall, lean and looking older than I remembered, his hair now entirely white. He wore his old Army uniform complete with service revolver — his back stiff and shoulders squared, leather and brass gleaming. He stood in front of a blazing fire and glared at us from under bristling brows.

  ‘Lennox,’ Brigadier Bloxford bellowed at me. ‘You here? You’re late, man! Did you fly in? Who’s winning?’

  ‘We are, sir,’ I yelled back. ‘Almost over.’

  Swift looked speculatively from one of us to the other, then gazed around the large room, stuffed with furniture from around the Empire. The walls were hung with paintings of battle scenes and hand-drawn maps from old campaigns. A scarred ebony table was strewn with books and papers. African shields and spears stood in one corner, a tattered Union Jack in another. A huge Scottish broadsword was propped against a bookcase, the blade glinting in the spring sunshine slanting into the room through mullioned windows filling most of the south-facing wall. The Brigadier’s rooms occupied the central section of the house overlooking the front, and gave onto a broad panorama of the hills and valleys of the Cotswold countryside. At one time it would all have belonged to his family.

  ‘Good day, Brigadier,’ Swift shouted.

  ‘Stand down, men,’ Bloxford continued at volume, and sat down in a large carved chair. We perched on an antique sofa opposite him in front of the flickering hearth. Bloxford’s valet was a Gurkha; he’d been a stalwart presence at the Brigadier’s side since I’d known the family. He came in silently to place a rug across the old man’s knees and then stationed himself behind his master’s chair.

  The Gurkha hardly seemed to have changed since I’d first encounter him when I was a boy. He was swarthy, with a deeply lined face, and lean as a whip. Eyes dark under the shadow of his brow, he wore a sort of turban, and a knee-length tunic belted at the waist over slim trousers and shoes like slippers. I’d heard of the fearsome knives the Gurkhas carried – the kukri – but I had never seen either blade nor sheath on the man.

  ‘Do you recall Sir Crispin Gibbons?’ Swift asked the Brigadier loudly.

  ‘No,’ he yelled back. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘The opera, sir. Gibbons was the opera singer,’ I added.

  ‘Complete arse,’ Bloxford snapped back. ‘Popular with the men, but no brains. Sent him to HQ out of harm's way. Tea?’

  ‘Um, no, thank you, sir,’ I replied for both of us. ‘Crispin Gibbons died in the theatre the other night … You were there, sir.’

  ‘There were police,’ Bloxford said loudly, then growled. ‘Not having them. Upsets the girl. Wedding, you know.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. ‘Chief Inspector Swift is here. He is known to me. He needs to look into the incident.’

  ‘Is he sound?’ Bloxford questioned.

  ‘Yes, I will vouch for him, sir.’ I replied.

  The Brigadier suddenly glared at Swift, who held firm. ‘You Swift?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Swift responded loudly.

  ‘Need to Investigate, do you?’ the Brigadier shouted.

  ‘I do, sir,’ Swift replied.

  ‘Tread carefully. I will not allow a pack of MPs on the base. You and only you.’ He stabbed a leather gloved finger at Swift. ‘Understood?’ the Brigadie
r barked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Swift nodded.

  ‘I was there,’ Brigadier Bloxford continued. ‘Show put on for the troops. Damn racket. Fellow was killed. What was it, accident or mischief?’

  ‘Mischief, sir,’ I replied. ‘Or worse.’

  He glared. ’Find the miscreant – give him a good flogging. Not an officer, though. If it’s an officer, bit of a slap, then send him to the front.’ The Brigadier wasn’t actually looking at us but some point behind us, or possibly somewhere a long way in the past.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I answered.

  ‘Major Lennox, take your aeroplane to Lille, they’re waiting on dispatch. Dismissed.’

  I stood and saluted – it seemed the thing to do; then we turned about smartly and left the old man staring into the distance.

  The Gurkha was at the door and gave a short bow as he opened it, then closed it silently behind us.

  ‘He’s mad,’ Swift said as we trotted down the stairs toward the hall.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ I replied. ‘He may not live in the same time period as we do, but he’s perfectly rational. And he knows about the wedding, and he knows who you are. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him, Swift.’

  He looked at me, intelligence in his dark eyes, mulling over the encounter and my warning words.

  ‘Who was the manservant?’

  ‘A Gurkha – had him since before I can recall. I don’t know where the Brigadier found him. He’s called Kalo Biralo.’

  ‘Does he speak?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Yes, but not English, or not as far as I know. He and the Brigadier speak Nepalese between themselves.’

  I had answered brusquely and felt a pang of guilt for my short temper, but I was disturbed by the encounter with the Brigadier. I wanted to find my dog and walk in the woods and meadows to think.

  Swift seemed to have had enough, too. He tightened the belt on his trench coat. ‘Right, reports to write up. I’ll be back in the morning.’

  As he spoke, Benson pulled open the front door and something extraordinary happened: a vision appeared, bathed in a glowing light and wreathed in the most extraordinary scent of flowers. My mouth may have fallen open. The vision glided toward us, smiling, and regarded us with blue-grey eyes in an exquisite face framed by pale blonde hair caught up in a simple knot.

  ‘Hello,’ the vision said over an armful of pink roses. ‘Oh, I can’t quite see where I’m going! Oh dear, what an utter idiot I am.’ She bumped into Swift.

  ‘Please, let me help,’ he said with a rare smile.

  ‘If you could open the door to the morning room I’d be terribly grateful,’ the vision told him.

  I received another glancing smile and may have closed my mouth, but then it fell open again and nothing came out. I was aware that Swift had moved away and was in fact now helping the vision by holding a door open and then following her. He was talking.

  ‘Anything to oblige, Miss – erm …?

  ‘Florence. Florence Braeburn. I’m an old friend of Caroline’s. Actually, I’m one of her bridesmaids.’ Florence Braeburn laughed, a delightful musical laugh.

  ‘I’m Swift, Jonathan Swift…’

  Their voices faded into the distance. I awoke from my trance and realised that the bloody man had stolen a march on me.

  Chapter 5

  Florence Braeburn. I cudgelled my mind for any recollection of her, but came up with nothing more than a hazy memory of a skinny girl in overalls clambering in the hayloft with Caroline, myself and my cousin Edgar. She hadn’t appeared to remember me either.

  I returned to my rooms to persuade Fogg to come walking with me, but he refused. I remonstrated with him, but that achieved nothing so I picked up the kitten, who was full of cream, and sleepy. It had long whiskers and soft paws which I tickled though it didn’t seem to appreciate it, so I tried its chin, which resulted in a loud purr. I gave it back to Fogg, who had now moved into his basket with the kitten and had been watching me anxiously. I slipped on my shooting jacket and emptied the pockets of the shotgun cartridges I habitually carried, which left more than enough room for one small cat. Once I had dropped it gently into my pocket, the kitten and I set off for a contemplative ramble with Fogg following closely behind.

  The old man was dying. I’d seen the signs before, on my father’s face as he’d neared the end. A haze of broken veins across lean cheekbones, more purple than red. The blue glaze around the irises, the pale grey hue of the skin and the slight rasp of the breath. I was surprised Caroline hadn’t noticed, although she saw him every day and the changes were so very slow, so fractional, that they crept up before anyone realised. His heart was giving out and I suspected he knew it. Cyril Fletcher would, too, but he wasn’t allowed to share his secrets, and besides, the Brigadier had a physician of his own.

  I walked through meadow grass, bright and glossy and dotted with daisies, following a path worn down to dirt by the hooves of horses and deer. It grieved me to see the great man nearing his end – and he had been great: his military record was one of extraordinary bravery and achievement. He was a modest man, his accolades and medals secreted away and his exploits almost forgotten in the aftermath of a brutal war we all preferred to leave behind.

  Fogg chased rabbits, barking as he scattered them; then he spotted squirrels and I called him to come away. The woods were cooler, shaded. Buds were greening on dark boughs, catkins hung yellow and soft, a lark in a distant meadow struck a trilling song. I stopped to listen, soaking in the scents and sounds of spring, and sent a silent word of thanks to the Man Upstairs. Then, with a deep breath of crisp fresh air, I turned back to the house and the mystery of Crispin’s murder.

  The kitten woke up and began fidgeting in my jacket, so I extended my stride and reached the front door just as Benson once again pulled it slowly open, this time to reveal Caroline and Florence exiting.

  ‘Heathcliff Lennox!’ Florence exclaimed at once. ‘I hadn’t realised it was you, you’re so tall now.’ She laughed, her lovely face alight.

  I straightened my back and forced a smile — not that I hadn’t wanted to smile, but I’d again frozen to the spot.

  ‘Just Lennox. Never liked Heathcliff,’ I responded. My mother had been of a romantic tilt and named me after some damn hero from a book. I have fought resolutely against it ever since.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Florence blushed. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be a curmudgeon, Lennox,’ Caroline retorted.

  ‘I didn’t … I mean … it’s that … well …’ I was about to start babbling, a bad habit when I’m nervous, so I shut my mouth to stop myself. I realised the kitten had started trying to climb out of my pocket so I shoved my hand in to keep it in place. That didn’t work because it climbed inside my sleeve instead.

  ‘I will remember – Lennox – and it is very nice to see you again.’ Florence attempted another smile. ‘I met your friend Jonathan Swift.’

  ‘He’s not my friend, he’s a detective,’ I replied, then realised my mistake.

  ‘Lennox,’ Caroline instantly snapped back. ‘What are you doing letting the police in here? Daddy was quite clear, and I told you, ‘absolutely no detecting’. You total rotter!’

  ‘Now look, Caroline.’ Damn it, the kitten was working its way up my arm now. ‘I’ve squared it with the Brigadier, and Swift is sound. Well, mostly,’ I added, not wanting to give him any more of an advantage with Florence. ‘Anyway, I will see you at dinner.’

  I raced inside leaving them on the doorstep looking after me – I don’t think the encounter went too well, actually. Damn it, I never know what to say to ladies. Fortunately I spotted Dicks near the staircase.

  ‘Dicks, I need a hand,’ I told him. ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘I’m on bell service, sir. I’m not supposed to move unless someone rings a bell.’

  ‘Nonsense, I’ll ring a bell if you insist.’

  ‘But sir …’

  ‘Right, fine,’ I manoeuvred a hand up my slee
ve, extracted the kitten, handed it to him and raced off to the nearest bell – which happened to be in the boot room – rang it, and came back. ‘Upstairs, now,’ I ordered him.

  He didn’t move, just stood in the same spot looking at the kitten in his hands, which was wide awake and staring back.

  ‘Dicks!’ That livened him up. He followed me and we decanted the kitten into its litter box, where it made a careful toilette before jumping back out and mewing at us.

  ‘Dicks, you are now on dog-and-kitten duty, and don’t look at me like that.’

  His shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Fogg needs breakfast and supper – scraps of beef, steak and liver are his favourites. The kitten needs milk and some sort of food.’

  ‘What sort of food, sir?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. Don’t you know?

  ‘No, sir.’ He looked at me. ‘I can discuss it with Cook, she’s known to be fond of cats, sir.’ He started tidying up, taking up the blanket from the basket and making it into a little bed. Then he withdrew the brush from his inner pocket and swept up dog hairs from around the basket. He was just moving toward my desk when I remonstrated:

  ‘Dicks!’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Will you stop doing that.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I have a neat streak. Uncle Greggs often remarked it.’ He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘The dinner gong will be sounding shortly, sir.’

  ‘Oh, hell. Yes, right. You go and get the food for Fogg and the kitten while I dress.’

  He left while I changed. I’d no sooner spruced up and tried to lick my hair into order with a wet comb than I heard the gong. I dashed out onto the rear garden terrace, where people were dressed in country smarts and clutching glasses of champagne. A footman handed one to me as a shaft of evening sun washed pale pink light across the scene.

  ‘Ah, you are the gallant Major?’

  It was that damn coxcomb who’d stolen the roses from the house; and he spoke with a German accent.

  ‘And you’re a bloody Prussian,’ I replied.

  ‘Ja, but the war is over, Major Lennox.’ He smiled at me, looking even more handsome, if that were possible. ‘Come, come, old fellow, ve do not fight now. Ve are all good friends and I was on the side of Blighty in the war, you know. I am Count Gustav von Graf.’ He broadened the smile, held out a manicured hand and clicked his heels.