‘Not long. But he’s not our Bloxford parish vicar, he’s the house chaplain, he ministers for the family at the private chapel here at the Hall. He’s supposed to care for the old chantry too, but he hasn’t taken much of an interest. And he has no excuse, as his rectory is almost next door to it. I’m surprised the Brigadier accepted him – he’s not the usual sort at all.’
‘Hum. Well, he seems pretty rum to me.’
‘Yes, quite!’ she said, sipping sherry.
Maybe Miss Busybody wasn’t such a birdbrain after all, actually I was beginning to realise that she was really rather astute. I eyed her more closely – she’d been pretty once, many years ago. The lines around her bright eyes spoke of a sense of humour, the slight upturn to her furrowed lips was a smile engraved by time. My mother would have liked her.
‘Were you at the opera the night of the accident, Miss Busby?’ I asked.
‘I was, yes, indeed. It was an adequate performance. I’m rather fond of opera, although I prefer something more traditional. Aida is particularly moving.’
‘Wouldn’t know, I’m afraid,’ I replied.
‘You don’t support the arts?’ she asked, a note of teasing in her voice.
I eyed her. She was prevaricating, and I wondered why. Probably weighing me in the balance before deciding to open up – or not.
‘Where were you sitting during the performance?’ I asked.
She returned my gaze, then smiled. ‘You don’t think it was an accident, do you?’
‘No,’ I replied.
‘My nephew is the local police inspector – Inspector Watson – my sister’s eldest. He attended that evening and became terribly excited that it may have been murder. There was quite a debate at the time, then I think pressure was brought to bear and he decided it was nothing of the sort and lost interest. He’s a chump,’ she added.
‘There’s still a body at the mortuary; that can’t be so easily dismissed. What about Crispin’s family?’
‘Two elderly aunts in Sussex, a bit gaga, from what I understand,’ she told me. ‘The accident was explained to them, they made the usual expressions of regret and released the body for burial.’
‘But there must be an inquest?’
‘Ah, but there is an earl and a wedding, isn’t there. Nobody wants a fuss and it is generally believed that there is no reason to create a fuss. A quiet funeral will take place shortly. It will all be forgotten.’
‘Hum,’ I replied, weighing her words. I wasn’t about to confide in her that Swift would already have acted to prevent any internment.
‘Unless you take an interest, of course.’ She looked at me with arched brows.
Dicks came over to refill our glasses. I must say, the Brigadier kept an exceptionally good cellar.
‘Miss Busby,’ I said after a sip of my snifter. ‘Investigating requires the gathering of information and evidence. There is very little evidence, but someone with an enquiring mind may be able to offer information – such as where everyone was seated at the time of the accident.’ I looked pointedly at her.
She laughed, a trilling laugh. ‘Very persuasive, Major Lennox. Very well …’ Her voice dropped a notch as she became more serious. ‘I was near the back, almost in the last row. It was a very long performance and the audience were not aficionados, so there was quite a lot of fidgeting. At the time of the accident, the family, including the Texans, were seated in the boxes. The young couple in the left-hand box, the older members in the right. I couldn’t see them when the performers fell, but the lights were turned on almost immediately afterwards and they leapt to their feet and leaned over to stare at the stage. Except the Brigadier: he remained seated, but I saw him clearly,’ Miss Busby added.
‘Very good.’ I nodded. ‘Who was missing? There must have been some empty chairs in the auditorium.’
‘There were,’ she replied. ‘Quite a few, actually. The Chaplain wasn’t there, nor was the German gentleman. There were a small number of others absent, but they were local farmers. The understudy wasn’t in his spot either.’
‘You mean Andrew Dundale?’ I prompted.
‘Yes – he caught my attention, he has a very good voice. I do hope he keeps it, because he does sound rather strained,’ she digressed. ‘He was supposed to be among the chorus at the rear of the stage. They were silent as the soprano began her aria, but I was watching carefully – he wasn’t there.’
‘Interesting,’ I noted. ‘What happened after the trap-door collapsed?’
‘The young American took over, the groom, I mean – Hiram. He ordered people out and called for a doctor, who came immediately. I went below, they were rolling the soprano off the tenor,’ she paused for a sip of sherry. ‘She was making a dreadful fuss - he was distinctly dead. Quite ghastly, with his tongue hanging out and bloodshot eyes bulging. It seemed obvious what had happened: the plank holding up the trap-door gave way – and yet, one must ask, why had it not happened sooner?’ She looked at me with a question in her eyes. ‘I take it you are seeking answers to that puzzle?’
I nodded silently, not wanting to spill any beans.
‘And of course there is the little door at the back of the theatre, the one that allows direct access to the traps below the stage,’ Miss Busby mused.
‘You know about that?’ I asked, watching her more closely.
‘I am an old friend of the family, I often walk in the grounds here.’
‘You know where the spare key is?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
‘And anyone can gain access, if they know about it?’
‘Yes, and I suspect a good many people who live or work in the house do know,’ she stated with an arch of the brows.
‘Hum. Any suspicions?’
She laughed. ‘Indeed, yes, but no one I could point the finger at. It was too dark to see anything, apart from the orchestra.’
‘Who are the orchestra, by the way?’ This was a question I’d been wanting to ask for a while.
‘I had the same thought,’ she said. ‘According to my chump of a nephew, they are from one of the Oxford colleges and play in their spare time. They were all present at the time of the accident, and before. It was easy to see them as they each had a lighted candle over their music stand, and I know none of them was absent.’
‘Hum.’ I nodded and switched the subject. ‘What brought about the change of chaplain? Jarvis?’
She laughed lightly. ‘For an investigator, Major Lennox, you don’t seem to have discovered very much.’
That brought a frown to the brow. ‘Well, I’ve only just started,’ I protested.
‘And nobody wants to tell you, either, do they?’ She smiled again.
I laughed at the teasing, she was a spirited lady. ‘Perhaps you might throw some light, Miss Busby?’
A slight frown gathered on her face as she recounted the tale. ’Well, the previous chaplain stole some silver and ran away. Or that was the story, anyway. He was an odd chap, quite reclusive. Jeremy Bartholomew, he was called. I tried to befriend him as he seemed rather a lost soul, but he remained elusive. I think he had suffered some sort of shock in the War. He stuttered rather badly and had a tremor, you know.’
I nodded. I knew there were a lot like him. Some recovered, many didn’t.
Miss Busby continued: ‘When he disappeared, my nephew investigated.’
‘Inspector Watson?’
‘I have only one nephew,’ she retorted archly. ‘He found letters in the Reverend Bartholomew’s cottage signed by a woman from Brighton. It appeared that Bartholomew had been involved with this lady and that they planned to start a new life together on the Isle of White. All his belongings had gone, and so had some of the valuable church silver. It caused quite a stir at the time.’
‘When was this?’
‘Late last year.’
‘Did the police find him in the Isle of White, or Brighton?’
‘Not a trace,’ she answered. ‘But they said he would have changed his
name, and she probably did too.’
A shadow loomed next to us.
‘Miss Busby.’ Von Graf arrived and bowed with a smart click of his heels. He then lifted the lady’s hand and kissed it reverentially. ‘Fraulein, it is always a pleasure to meet with you,’ he smarmed.
‘Major Lennox, have you met Count von Graf?’ Miss Busby asked.
Yes,’ I retorted sharply.
‘Ja, Major.’ Von Graf raised thin eyebrows at me. ‘My friend Jarvis tells me you are a murderer, nein?’
‘No, I damn well am not,’ I retorted with feeling.
‘Ha-ha, this is a joke, is it not? Your marvellous British humour. I like it very much. I am very British, don’t you know, old man,’ he laughed, then noticed my hostile regard and took a step backwards. ‘Well, I must push off. I will be seeing you.’ He raised a hand in mock salute, clicked his heels again, flashed a smile at Miss Busby and went over to join Jarvis, still sitting alone on a sofa.
‘There’s no need to scowl, Major Lennox.’ Miss Busby was smiling. ‘He can be quite amusing, you know, and he is very knowledgeable about art.’
I was about to tell her about the filched flowers when Caroline broke into our conversation by standing up and clapping her hands. ‘You will all be delighted to hear that Dame Gabriel has agreed to sing for us. And Hiram’s mother, Lady Ruth Chisholm, has offered to accompany her on the piano.’ She looked around, commanding silence.
‘Just need to see to my dog, old thing,’ I told Caroline. I nodded to Miss Busby and the assembled, and made for the door.
‘Lennox, come back!’ Caroline snapped at me, but I’d had enough for one night, and besides, I had quite a lot of information to digest.
On returning to my room, I picked Fogg up and stuffed him under my arm. The kitten was asleep and I had determined not to have my dog-walking routine dictated by Fogg’s infatuation with a small cat.
Foggy ferreted around the front gardens startling birds in the bushes while I stood gazing at the dark heavens strewn with stars. The night air was cool and fresh and suffused with silence. It cleared my head of the buzz of conversations, particularly the irritating ones. I stood quietly on the lawn, hands in pockets, and looked up at the house – a handsome place, its mellow stones settled into the gentle Cotswold landscape. Elaborate chimneys rose from steeply pitched roofs, black against the sky. Light shone yellow from various windows – tall, delicately latticed and framed in stone, the place looked inviting and warm and I called Foggy to come back with me indoors.
The bedroom fire had been lit and was blazing against the night chill. I took up my chair at the desk as kitten and dog settled on the hearthrug to watch the flames together.
Evidence that Dicks had been present was everywhere. My pens, pencils, ruler, knife-opener and ink were lined up precisely to the right. Empty jam jars stood in a serried row and my blotter was placed to the left along with my magnifying glass and, dead centre, my brand new notebook.
I lit the oil lamp and opened my notebook, which I’d bought for this very purpose. It was rather smart, I thought, with a dark leather binding and thick cream pages run across with faint red lines. I filled my pen with fresh ink and wrote all the details given to me by both Clegg and Miss Isabelle Busby. I ended with a large question mark next to the name of the absconded chaplain, Jeremy Bartholomew, and dabbed each page with the blotter. Tomorrow I would share some of my findings with Swift – provided he didn’t spend too much time eliciting the company of the lovely Florence Braeburn.
Chapter 7
Breakfast is better taken in solitary peace, apart from the company of my dog, of course. Generally, when not at my own home, I take it alone in my rooms, but I thought I might bump into Florence today so I trotted down to the morning room with Fogg under my arm. I was the first to arrive as it was still only a touch before seven o’clock. I tucked in to my bacon and eggs, enjoying the quietude as footmen trod softly behind me.
I liked this room, it was filled with sunshine from large windows overlooking the gardens. Light reflected along the walls, washing the pale pastels with bright hue. As an interlude between dawn and the coming day, the morning room provided a gentle launching pad. I was musing quietly on the genius of designers of old when my serenity was abruptly broken. Andrew Dundale plonked himself opposite me.
‘Heathcliff! You here?’ Andrew said as he stuffed the corner of his napkin under his double chin.
‘Patently, Andrew, and don’t call me Heathcliff.’ I reached for the newspaper and opened it in the hope that it would put him off. It didn’t.
'Rumour has it that you’re doing a spot of detecting. Probing into Crispin’s extinction and all that?’ Andrew retained the angelic phiz I recalled from our school days: eyes, cow-like in bovine blockheadedness, with a round face, pink cheeks and blond hair.
‘Nothing for you to worry about, Andrew,’ I muttered, staring intently at some tedious article in the Times.
A footman delivered Andrew’s plate, almost overflowing with fried bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, kidneys, a sliver of steak, mushrooms, fried bread and onions. I didn’t need to worry about him bothering me for long because he’d shortly be dead of a heart attack.
Before that, however, he leaned in close across the white tablecloth. ‘You don’t think it was an accident, do you? There wouldn’t be anything to detect, if it were.’
I didn’t answer, it would only encourage him.
’The thing is, old man,’ he told me, shaking salt copiously over his meal. ‘It should have been me.’
‘What?’
He stopped spraying salt and looked around the room, then stared at me. ‘It was me, not Crispin. They were after me.’
‘Wait a minute. Are you saying you think someone wants to kill you?’
‘Yes, that’s what I said, Heathcliff. I thought you were detecting. You’re not going to get very far if you can’t follow the string of a sentence.’
‘Andrew, if you call me Heathcliff again you’ll be wearing that meal.’
‘Well, really, old man. I came to tell you that my life is in danger and all you can do is object to my calling you by your own name.’
I tossed the newspaper aside. ‘Start again, Andrew, and keep it simple, will you.’
He finished another mouthful. ‘I was supposed to sing the lead that night. Crispin told me he had something terribly important to do. “More important than squandering my talent on that bunch of Philistines”, he said. But when Dame Gabriel heard about it, she threw a huge tantrum. Berated him in front of the whole troupe, called him a rank amateur and worse. Anyway, he crumbled in the end, performed the whole caboodle, and ended up getting squashed by said Dame.’ Andrew gazed, round-eyed at me while chewing.
‘Andrew,’ I remarked. ‘Anyone would realise it was Crispin on stage. He was older than you, for a start.’
‘Yes, but once we were in make-up it was hard to tell between us. We’re the same build and height and all that. Even hair colour.’
I eyed him narrowly: those round blue eyes in a chubby face topped by golden curls – perhaps he was cherubim to Crispin’s seraphim.
‘Why would anyone want to kill you, or him, for that matter?’ I asked as I finished my food and dropped half a rasher Foggy’s way.
‘I don’t know, but they do.’ He nodded solemnly.
‘Wouldn’t be connected to the Black Cat Club, would it?’ I asked.
He spluttered pieces of bacon. ‘How the devil do you know about that?’
‘Crispin’s frocks. Oxford. And I recall how you used to like dressing up in school plays. Not too difficult to make the connection, really.’
‘Is that detecting?’ His brows rose in genuine surprise. ‘Jolly good if it is. Did you really murder someone, Lennox?’ he asked as he dunked toast in his egg.
‘No, I did not! But if I ever do, that damn chaplain will be at the top of my list.’
‘There’s no need to shout, old chap,’ he said.
I ran m
y fingers through my hair. ‘Just tell me what happens at the Black Cat Club.’
‘Ah, well … This isn’t going to go any further, is it?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘Spit it out, Andrew, or we’ll be here all morning.’
‘Um, it’s just a bit of fun really. Bunch of chaps laying on some light-hearted entertainment. Like we used to do in the Army. Concerts, that sort of thing,’ he said.
‘Yes, and …’
‘Well, we used to have an act together, Crispin and I, in the Division Theatre Group. We were on loan from the Oxfordshire Hussars. When the War ended, we came back and just sort of carried on.’
‘The Oxfordshire Hussars were under the Brigadier, weren’t they?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but I don’t think he cared for any dramatics; sent us off to HQ and told us we could stay there for the duration.’
‘He knew you and Crispin, then?’
‘Wouldn’t say he knew us, old chap.’ Andrew paused for a slurp of tea. ‘Said we were unfit for service and sent us packing. Crispin’s bleeding affliction, you know – and I’m a flatfoot; so we weren’t much use in the soldierly sense. They let us in as Non-Combatants.’
‘Hum.’ I digested this snippet and ordered some toast and marmalade. ’This act you had, were you dressed in drag?’
‘Yes – yes, that was the point: we were the “ladies”. We were stars back in the War, you know. Putting on shows. The men used to adore us. Everywhere we went, they’d call out to us, “Give us a song”, or “Show us a leg”. When we sang “Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty”, everyone joined in, top brass too. It was very moving, actually.’ He suddenly broke into song. ‘“There’s a long, long trail a-winding / Into the land of my dreams. Where the nightingales are singing / And the white moon beams …”’
I remembered it, too, from when I was at the front; and he was right, it was very moving. I shook myself out of it.
‘All right, Andrew. Quieten down, man,’ I told him as the footmen turned to stare. ‘So you continued your act at the Black Cat Club in Oxford?’
He sighed. ‘We did, but it wasn’t the same. Much smaller house, of course; and I have to tell you, Lennox, there are some strange fellows down there. I mean, we’re supposed to be the ones in drag, but so are quite a few in the audience. Most of them, actually. Crispin thought it was all marvellous, but I have doubts, you know …’ He trailed off.
The Black Cat Murders: A Cotswolds Country House Murder (Heathcliff Lennox Book 2) Page 6