Capable of Murder

by Brian Kavanagh

  Without taking her eyes from the magazine the girl called in an adenoidal bellow, ‘Daaad.’

  From the depths of the shop a shadowy figure emerged into the feeble light. It was a man of fifty or so who wore a tattered leather apron. He brushed his hands on his shirt and eyed Belinda with brazen curiosity as if sighting another human for the first time. The girl remained absorbed in her magazine.

  There was a brief silence before Belinda, wondering if she had wandered into a village inhabited by half-wits, turned to the man and asked, ‘Can you direct me to Mr Munro’s house? I know it’s nearby.’

  The man and the girl exchanged a glance and they both turned their eyes back to Belinda.

  ‘Did he send you?’ the man asked gruffly.

  Belinda shook her head in confusion. ‘Did who send me? Do you mean Mr Munro?’

  The girl sighed wearily. ‘He means Ja–’

  ‘You hold your tongue.’ He turned his attention back to Belinda. ‘You won’t find Mr Munro, he’s gone away.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Belinda, wondering how the man would know the solicitor’s movements. As though reading her thoughts the storekeeper replied.

  ‘We take supplies and newspapers up to the manor house. He’s cancelled things while he’s away.’

  ‘Do you know how long he’ll be gone?’

  Again the father and daughter exchanged a glance.

  ‘He didn’t say. Likely he’ll let us know when he returns.’

  Belinda considered this. ‘Well, I’d still like to call at his house, just to make certain and perhaps leave a message for him.’ The man shook his head and the girl giggled.

  ‘Won’t do you no good. The place is empty.’

  ‘But surely he has a housekeeper and staff to look after the place?’

  ‘All away,’ was the abrupt reply.

  The girl snorted again and returned to the photographs of muscle-bound youths.

  As the engine roared into life, Belinda glanced back at the store. Both father and daughter had their faces pressed against the window watching her. The girl had a snide smirk on her lips.

  ‘Idiot child,’ snapped Belinda, as she put her foot down on the accelerator. The car leapt forward into a large puddle sending a spray of muddy water showering across the store window. Belinda was delighted to see the two faces disappear in the mucky deluge.

  Belinda drove on for another half-mile. She stopped the car at a crossroads and consulted her map once more. There seemed little point in driving around in the hope that she would locate Mr Munro’s house, and his card was little help as it gave just a telephone number and the village name.

  Just as Belinda was about to give up, a gust of wind revealed a small signpost half-hidden by the sodden branches of a huge tree.

  In barely legible writing it pointed the way to “The Manor House”.

  With a sigh of relief Belinda turned the car down the narrow country lane. The road wound for a further mile through high hedgerows before the trees cleared and a distant manor house was revealed on a gently sloping hillside with a spectacular landscape and lake behind it.

  Belinda drove on and came to a halt at iron gates set into the high stone fence that surrounded the property. The rain had eased temporarily to a misty drizzle as Belinda stepped from the car and approached the entrance. Surprisingly, the huge gates opened easily; she had expected them to be locked. In a few minutes she had driven into the property and secured the gates behind her.

  ‘What a beautiful grove,’ Belinda cried, looking out the window. She was travelling down a green tunnel created by trees that had joined overhead, the faint light filtering soft and green to the rich damp earth below. Bursting out from the emerald dark the road ahead went uphill through a small but dense wood. The hill fell away unexpectedly and the sight revealed took Belinda’s breath away. Below her lay a stately country house of Bath stone surmounted by a dome below which a pediment, adorned with sculptures, overlooked a formal garden with countless trees and small fountains flowing into ornamental pools.

  Belinda drove rapidly down the hill and pulled the car to a halt at the side of the house. A honey-coloured stone staircase led to the terrace. She switched off the motor and in the sudden silence, sat back and looked about her.

  The house seemed deserted and no one had acknowledged her arrival. She stepped from the car and walked down the gravel path. On closer inspection the gardens proved to be less exquisite than the house, with ponderous stone statues of lions and mythical animals poised among the formal setting. There was a lack of symmetry about the design with trees and shrubs crowded together, all fighting for space. It had the air of an out-of-doors, overstuffed Victorian parlour, flamboyant to the point of claustrophobia. And oddly menacing. Belinda peered through the glass door that faced the terrace.

  The large ornate room was decorated with panelling painted with arabesques, foliated scrolls and grotesques. Belinda’s eyes, wide with wonder, flitted from these to the painted ceiling with its winged female figures and landscapes.

  Tentatively she turned the handle of the window and to her surprise it clicked open. Holding her breath she stepped inside the study.

  The air was rich with the penetrating odour of books, books that lined three walls from floor to ceiling. Belinda moved hesitantly further into the room. The stillness of the house unnerved her and she crossed the carpeted floor and opened a panelled door. A deserted passageway leading to a broad staircase met her gaze.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  Her voice sounded strained, thin and hollow in the vast building and the only reply was the faint reverberation of her own words. She edged her way tentatively into the hall.

  She gazed upwards to the top of the staircase. The slight movement of a shadow on one of the heavy wooden doors above caught her eye, a shadow that melted away as she watched.

  ‘Mr Munro?’ Her voice was tight with apprehension.

  If the old lawyer was there, why didn’t he reply? Having come this far to find him she was not going to give up now.

  The staircase ran up in a circular motion around the wall and a small elevator about the size and shape of a large birdcage rose up through the centre. Just managing to squeeze herself into the rickety affair, Belinda closed the iron gate and pressed the button.

  With great reluctance and the threat of giving up halfway, the lift shuddered, shot up sharply about four feet and then settled into a slow halting ascent. A sudden speeding up, followed by a heavy jolt and the elevator sighed to a stop. With as much haste as she could, Belinda disentangled herself. The heavy wooden door was half-open. Belinda tapped on it. There was a silence from within.

  ‘Hello,’ she called.

  The darkened room was stacked from floor to ceiling with piles of books, old newspapers and magazines. An overstuffed armchair was set in the midst of this clutter along with a reading lamp and a small table on which crouched a large black cat. Belinda gave a shiver of fear at this sudden unexpected confrontation with the animal. It viewed her suspiciously through dark, green, villainous eyes, its only movement a portentous swish of it sleek black tail.

  A loud clang and a rasping noise behind Belinda made her jump in fright.

  She turned quickly and saw the lift shudder then slowly sink out of sight. Turning back Belinda realised the cat had vanished. Peering over the balustrade into the hall below she saw the lift come to a jolting standstill. The hall was still deserted.

  ‘Perhaps it returns automatically,’ thought Belinda, attempting to convince herself that this was the case. She moved along the landing and became aware of eerie faint voices of a man and woman talking.

  ‘Excuse me, is anyone there?’ she called loudly.

  But again there was no response.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ thought Belinda, ‘surely someone’s here. People just don’t go out and leave all the doors open.’

  She stepped into the first room on her left. It was a well-appointed sitting room with a large leather couch
and what she recognised as a Louis XV black lacquer commode. The draped windows overlooked a garden and in the half-light Belinda could make out a large chestnut tree.

  The low ghostly voices came from a television set which was softly conveying the daily news to a collection of antique furnishings. Nervously, Belinda stepped back into the hall and nearly knocked over a small table. She was feeling very light-headed and it seemed that she floated down the passage. As she reached the end, she became aware that from behind a closed door on her right she could hear running water. Her mouth had gone dry and she ran her tongue over her lips. Swallowing hard she called, ‘Hello. Is anyone there?’

  She pushed open the door to reveal an old fashioned bathroom. The heavy bath was in the middle of the room. A large, highly polished brass tap was gushing water into the empty bath. The mysterious atmosphere closed in on Belinda and she turned and fled back to the staircase. As she descended she saw at the bottom of the stairs, the formidable black shape of the cat. It watched her descent, its eyes never leaving her. As she approached the bottom step the cat sprang into life and with a grating, resentful meow it flew past her up the stairs.

  Belinda returned to the study. On a dusty oak desk there were a number of volumes open, their pages spilling colourful illustrations across the leather inlay and vying with the splendour of the opulent room. They were largely eighteenth century prints of exotic plants from around the world, some grotesque, others fantastic but all strangely beautiful. There was a collection of illustrations collected by Sir Joseph Banks from his voyages with Captain Cook to the South Seas including early sketches of Banksias, the curious Australian plant named after Banks himself.

  Beside the books stood a teacup half-filled with milky tea. Belinda touched it.

  It was still warm.

  Suddenly the menace of the silent house was too much for her.

  Feeling that she was being scrutinised by an invisible eye and afraid of a sudden confrontation with her unknown observer, Belinda crept back towards the window, her eyes running over the tomes entombed in the shelves lining the walls. Here again they were horticultural manuscripts, leather bound, profound, solid and intimidating.

  She stepped out onto the terrace and, breathing a sigh of relief to be out in the open again, pulled the window shut behind her. Across the lake a breeze sprang up. Belinda glanced up at the sky. The clouds moved swiftly and grew into malformed nocturnal shapes. But the enigmatic house drew her back to it. Belinda moved to the next window. As she put her forehead to the glass her blood ran cold, for she came face to face with a grotesque creature.

  The ghastly being swiftly flung back the window and stepped onto the terrace. It grasped the startled Belinda by her arm and roughly pushed her against the wall.

  The misty light revealed her assailant to be the oafish bookseller. Jack the Ripper.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded in a hoarse voice.

  For a moment, Hazel’s melodramatic description of the bookseller overcame Belinda’s reason, but she inhaled deeply and pushed the man’s hand away.

  ‘Let me go, you great fool. I came to see Mr Munro.’

  The man gave a loud sniff. ‘He’s not here. The staff’s away and I’m here by myself.’

  Belinda was getting angry at this standard reply.

  ‘Well, if he’s not here, where is he? He had an appointment with me earlier this week and he didn’t keep it. No one seems to know where he is, which I think is a little odd.’

  The bookseller seemed to lose interest in her for a moment as he gave his attention to chewing a fingernail. It suddenly struck Belinda as peculiar that he should be in Mr Munro’s house.

  ‘And may I ask what you are doing here?’

  A fragment of fingernail was spat onto the terrace.

  ‘I live here.’

  The possibility of this gross individual living in splendour was inconceivable. Belinda gave a snort of disbelief.

  ‘You. Live here?’

  The man nodded, and clearing his throat spat violently into the bushes. Belinda felt nauseous.

  ‘I live in the old caretaker’s cottage.’

  ‘But why do you live here with Mr Munro?’

  ‘The old boy’s my uncle.’

  Belinda found it difficult to imagine that this vulgar creature could be in anyway related to the strait-laced, meticulous solicitor.

  ‘He took me in when my parents died,’ continued the nephew, ‘and set me up in the bookshop. I’m his only living relative.’

  The prospect of him inheriting this beautiful manor and gardens was almost too much for Belinda.

  ‘How nice,’ she replied weakly. She held out a hand, which the man ignored. ‘My name is Belinda. And you are …?’

  ‘Jack,’ he replied almost coyly.

  ‘Tell me Jack, did you ever tell your uncle that my aunt came to you looking for a map?’

  ‘Your aunt?’ Jack looked confused.

  ‘Yes, you remember. The old lady who fell down the stairs.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Now I remember.’ A crafty look came into his eyes. ‘What if I did?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ replied Belinda, with false indifference, ‘it’s just that I found a map of a garden and your uncle was very taken with it.’

  The man was suddenly alert. ‘He’s seen it?

  Belinda nodded in satisfaction. The bookseller was not as innocent as he made out. ‘That’s right. And he’s so interested in gardens, isn’t he?’

  Jack bit his lip and twisted his anxious fingers as he absorbed this information. ‘He never told me he’d seen it. He never told me.’ For a moment Belinda feared he would burst into tears.

  ‘Why was it so important to him, Jack?’

  Jack gave her a distrustful look but remained silent.

  ‘And you have no idea where your Uncle is?’ continued Belinda sceptically.

  ‘No. He didn’t tell me anything. He just went away.

  ‘Don’t you think it odd that he has just vanished? If I were you, I’d worry that something may have happened to him. And you know how people talk. If he can’t be found and it comes out that you are his heir, people may imagine all sorts of things.’

  Having planted a seed of suspicion in the bookseller’s mind Belinda returned to her car. As she drove away she felt certain that Jack knew more about Mr Munro’s mysterious absence than he admitted and wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had something to do with the solicitor’s disappearance.

  ‘Still, he’s probably just gone off to the Mediterranean to avoid this foul weather,’ Belinda grumbled enviously to herself, as she arrived at Mark’s house late in the day, to finish the work she had left undone after their last meeting.

  The memory of Mark’s clumsy attempts at getting her to sell the cottage raised her hackles again and she wielded the vacuum cleaner like an instrument of war as she set about cleaning the rooms.

  As Belinda finished the polishing in Mark’s study she picked up a pile of large books that had been removed from the bookcase. They were mostly art books and photographic essays on country houses and estates.

  She clambered onto a small set of steps that stood by a bookcase covering one wall. One by one she replaced the books in the spaces from which they had obviously been taken.

  As the last book slid onto the shelf some obstruction prevented it from finding its position and she withdrew it. Protruding slightly from the bottom of the book was a number of yellowish pieces of paper.

  ‘He’ll probably be looking for these in the future and wonder what he’s done with them,’ thought Belinda, as she opened the book, unfolded the papers and glanced at them.

  She almost dropped the book with shock and her heart leapt at the discovery.

  Taking the worn papers she half fell down the steps, sat unbelieving at the desk and switched on the desk lamp so that she could inspect the letters, for that’s what they appeared to be.

  Written in fading ink and in the language and idiom of a past age, the first l
etter appeared to be a request. Her eyes wide with excitement, Belinda began to read,

  “Sir, if you have time - when you visit Combe Down I would take it as a mighty kindness if you would do yourself the bother to stop at my dwelling in Milford. I am in considerable concern and disquiet, which one swift glance of yours into a sizeable measure of land of mine would swiftly ease me from. I hope I am not in error to desire a diminutive canvas from a …”

  Here the letter finished abruptly as the page was torn at a sharp angle. Belinda realised that she had hardly taken a breath since starting the letter. She placed the first page aside and picked up the second. As she did the telephone at her elbow emitted a shrill ring and she jumped with fright. She took the receiver in her hand.

  ‘Hello, this is Mark Sallinger’s residence.’

  There was a menacing silence at the other end of the phone. Belinda heard someone breathing as the line was disconnected.

  The unknown caller had hung up. Belinda shifted her attention to the second letter, written in a different hand but which appeared to be an answer to the first.

  “… and at your request, I have scratched a design as best I could from the survey as well as the report you gave me.”

  The top of the page was missing but the faint writing was in a definite and strong hand.

  “To bring about these ideas there needs to be a pleasing design, decent execution, a faultless awareness of the country and the substances in it – and constant tenderness in the planting thereof – building on the magnitude of the trees and the tint of their leaves to yield the reward of light and shadow so necessary to the completion of a delightful design.

  As to the matter of …

  Again the page was torn and gave no hint as to the identity of the writer. Belinda however had no hesitation in identifying the author. Capability Brown! As the full meaning of her discovery dawned on Belinda, a fear that grew stronger by the minute overtook her and without bothering to collect her cleaning utensils she gathered her coat and took the ancient letters in her hands. Looking at the first, she examined the bottom of the torn page.

  “I hope I am not in error to desire a diminutive canvas from a …”