by Issy Brooke
“No. They are all unconnected collectors of such things. I do not think that this will go to a public auction. We have a certain list of buyers who are keen to see items like this when they appear; many of the most priceless artefacts never go to public auction at all.”
“I see. Please do keep us informed of the progress of the sale. As for the legal matters, those are being dealt with by Mr Unthank. Thank you so much for your time.”
MARIANNE’S MIND WAS a whirl of questions and she stayed quiet as they walked along Pall Mall. Phoebe was drinking in the atmosphere, though she had no money at all to spend. Mr Fry followed at a suitable distance.
Did Louisa Newman know about the jewels’ existence, and had she discovered Miss Dorothea’s plans for them to be sold? That was Marianne’s main question. Did she think that those jewels ought to have been hers? Why had she first gone to America with her husband? What had happened to him out there?
She absolutely had to find Mrs Newman. She hoped that Tobias was wrong, and that she had not fled back to America. How could she, anyway? She had no money. Who else could know where she had gone? Then the answer came to her: the invisible overlooked class of servants, of course. Mrs Peck, the housekeeper. She would know a lot.
She might know everything.
“I need to go back to Rosedene,” Marianne told Phoebe.
“What for?”
“I need to speak to Mrs Peck and the other servant at the house. She was a daily girl who came in when needed, so I think she must live close by, and hopefully I can find out from neighbours where Mrs Peck might be.”
“I am tired.”
“Go home. Mr Fry will take you. I’ll go part of the way by train but then there is more walking.”
“Ugh, walking. I will abandon you, if you don’t mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind. You have other issues, anyway. How are you going to get your mother to leave?”
“Oh, don’t,” Phoebe said with an exaggerated shudder. “Poison her or marry someone – the choice is yours. I’m afraid it’s all down to you, Marianne. Please hurry.”
“Hmm.” She pressed her lips tightly together and did not trust herself to give an answer to that.
MARIANNE TURNED HERSELF into a pure detective. She went around the back of the next house along the road nearest to Rosedene and found a scullery maid happy to talk to her. The girl had heard of the “ghosts” but she was a sensible sort of person, and dismissed them as “nonsense”. She was a religious type and told Marianne, very confidently, that the only ghost was the Holy Ghost and anything else was “man-made silliness.”
“Excellent. What do you know of Mrs Newman?”
“Mrs – oh, the younger woman, the American lady? Nothing at all. Hardly saw her.”
“And the older, Miss Dorothea Newman?”
“Lovely woman, everyone said, but I never met her. May she rest in peace.”
“Did you know the staff there?”
“Yes. Mrs Peck was friendly enough. Letitia didn’t ever say much.”
“She was the daily girl?”
“Yes. She’s gone away now to some farm in Surrey and maybe that will suit her better.”
“And Mrs Peck?”
“She’s inside. She’s come to work here.”
“Ah!”
But what seemed like a stroke of luck turned sour almost immediately. Mrs Peck could offer no solution as to where Mrs Newman had gone, nor did she know anything about any jewellery, or so she said. She spoke curtly and unwillingly and soon went back to her duties.
Marianne found herself standing outside Rosedene, on the gravel, looking up at the strange house, so stubbornly silent and full of secrets.
Everything leaves a trace, Marianne thought. Nothing that has happened in that place can be invisible to science.
What could have caused the screaming? And then she thought – hold hard, there is another question to ask.
Is the screaming sound still occurring at night? Mrs Newman said it had stopped. But I do not trust a word that she says.
For if it was still happening, even intermittently, that would answer so many questions.
She wondered if it were connected to a clock. But they had said it happened on an irregular basis. A broken clock, perhaps? It sounded like speech, but imperfectly so. And if it did occur, it would occur only once a night, and not be repeated. Something on a rough twenty-four hour schedule then, that sometimes worked and sometimes did not. What could that be?
She stared at the windows, willing them to reveal something to her, and then laughed at herself for her own wishful thinking. She’d be attending séances as a participant at this rate. No, Marianne, she reprimanded herself. Let there be science, and only that.
She wandered around the house again, following the same route that she had before. What could sound like a voice, screaming? A squeaking door, a hinge that needed oiling. A loose catch banging in the wind. She had walked past inn signs that sounded like the hounds of hell in a stiff breeze. The wind, blowing down a narrow pipe, when it was just in the right direction.
A hidden phonograph – but she had checked every part of the house and so had the police.
She came to the door that she had failed to pick, and tried the handle again, but of course it did not shift. She kicked at the stone step and continued on, looking for anything she might have missed. She’d crawl in through a window if she were able to.
The back of the house was not neat and flat. There were alcoves and jutting rooms, with small windows and large ones, wooden hatches and shutters, and openings with bars across them. It was the best way to make use of space, and ensure that storerooms and larders had ventilation and access. In one corner she came across another door, and as soon as she saw it, she knew that was her way in. She had thought it was an outside store before, but it could also lead inside.
This door was small and wooden, and the marks on the moss on the flagstones showed that it only ever opened halfway, and then rarely. She pulled at it and it scraped unwillingly open. She ducked into a tiny, dark, incredibly chilly little room with no natural light, and stone shelves that were apparently empty.
It didn’t matter what it had housed. She found another door and this was locked, but the key remained in the hole and it was not turned. She pushed her handkerchief under the gap at the bottom of the door, using a stick that she found outside. Then she used the same stick to poke the key through the lock until it fell to the floor, and she could pull her handkerchief back with the key now resting on it. It was no work at all to unlock the door and gain access to the main part of the house.
She quashed the little voice in her head that was telling her this was all hopeless. She walked as quietly as she could along the corridor. The floor was made of red quarry tiles and her outdoor boots clicked, echoing off the white-painted walls. She found the kitchen and looked around. It was as Mrs Peck had left it when she had gone, albeit that she had not gone far. A few drawers in the long dresser were half-open. The large table was strewn with items – a colander, a box that had contained tea, a milk jug of stale and rancid cheese-like stuff now.
Somewhere, possibly upstairs, something rattled. Marianne held her breath.
Oh, it was nothing, she told herself. Remember that this house has rats. There could be birds trapped here. Or a loose casement.
Nevertheless, she proceeded with even more caution as she made her way into the Tudor-style hall. The windows here had been boarded up from the outside, and only a small amount of light filtered in from gaps at the top. It was gloomy, and if she had been prone to fancies, she would have fled by now.
The stairs were carpeted and she was able to creep to the next floor in silence. Once again she was drawn to the wing of the house that had been inhabited. She spent fifteen minutes in the Grand Bedroom, gazing around, trying to see what she had missed.
Nothing.
What of the unused parts of the house? She made her way across the landing and explored the oth
er wing. It was as she had expected – bare, empty rooms that smelled of mould and desolation. The floors were thick with dust and mildew clogged the drapery. Wallpaper peeled from the walls and lumps of plaster had fallen down in places. She trudged back to the central landing again, and stood in thought.
A scraping noise at the front door paralysed her.
Someone was unlocking it and they were coming in.
She remained where she was, hidden in the gloom, waiting to see who it was. She pressed a hand to her belly in relief when she recognised the familiar dark uniform of a police constable.
“Good day, sir,” she said as she began to walk down the stairs.
He screamed, then got control of himself and turned the scream into a low cough. “Miss. Miss Starr! Ah, was it you all along?”
“I have been here around an hour. How long is all along?”
“Not long enough. I have been sent on account of reports of noise and lights here.”
“From the neighbours?”
“From the house over the road, opposite; their upper rooms have some view of part of this house. Otherwise, it is quite well screened. But also a passing tradesman noticed a light go out, when he was on an early morning round, and he had called here on the off chance that someone still lived here. That was before we boarded up the windows. He thought nothing of the light until talking to his friends, a few days later, when they told him that the house was empty and the old lady had died, and so he came to us to report it.”
“Did Inspector Gladstone send you?”
“Indeed he did, miss. So if the light was not caused by you, then who?”
Marianne now had a pretty good idea of who. “Someone is still living here.”
“Where? Have you evidence?”
“Infuriatingly, no. I have searched everywhere.”
“Forgive me, miss, but I will conduct a search of my own.”
“Indeed, you must, for you may spot what I have missed.”
She could not remain in the dark hall. She went outside and stood in the porch, where it was slightly warmer than inside, even in spite of the lack of sunshine. She waited until the constable had finished his search, and when he came out defeated, she accompanied him back to the police station.
She found Inspector Gladstone with a plate of sandwiches on one side of his desk, and a stack of papers on the other. He seemed up to his elbows in both matters. He waved her into a seat opposite his desk, and the constable brought her a fresh cup of tea.
“What of these noises and lights at Rosedene?” she asked immediately. “You sent that man to investigate.”
He tapped his pencil on a piece of paper and shook his head. “Oh, I think there is nothing in it, but the neighbours expected a response. There were rats there – you said so yourself.”
“Rats cannot light a gas lamp.”
“But the moon can shine into a room and reflect off a mirror, when the light is strong enough.”
“True, but unlikely. You must think there is something to it, to send a constable to investigate.”
“As I said, I was merely going through the motions. The house is to be sold, apparently, and I am concerned to keep criminals out. And as you can see, I am rather busy.”
It was a hint that she chose to ignore. “Do you know about the jewels?”
“What jewels?”
She told him of her visit to the auction house, and she also explained her theory. “I think the jewels had been hidden somewhere. I do not know if Miss Newman knew about them all along, or discovered them, but she had ordered them to be sold and she changed her will soon afterwards, so that Tobias would inherit everything. And I do not know how much of all that which Mrs Newman knew about, but there is her motive!”
“You truly believe Mrs Newman killed the older Miss Newman?”
“I do.”
“In revenge for selling the jewels?”
“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully. “I am not entirely sure why. If she did not know the jewels had been already gone to the auction house, she might have been hastening her inheritance only. That would account for her reaction at the reading of the will.”
“But now Mrs Newman is fled.”
“No,” Marianne said. “I am convinced that she is hiding somewhere in Rosedene.”
“We have torn that place apart. You yourself have searched everywhere. It is not possible.”
“It must be.”
“The theory of the jewels does not hold up. If she thinks they are due to her, why does she not go to the auction house?”
“Perhaps she has no claim. Perhaps she needs some evidence that remains in the house.”
“Perhaps she does not know about them at all.” Inspector Gladstone laid down his pencil and knitted his fingers together. He looked at her with an expression of benevolent frustration, like a father who was losing patience with a favourite child. “My superiors need a conclusion to this, and Tobias, sadly, looks guilty. More importantly, we know where he is. Yes, I know; he is staying with your odd little friend. He has inherited money; Mrs Newman has not. She gained nothing by the death. By all logic and reasoning, the boy must be the perpetrator.”
“Then why have you not arrested him already?” Marianne snapped. “I am sorry – forgive my manner. I am tired.”
“No, no. I understand,” he replied, looking equally weary. “I should have arrested him a day or so ago. They are snapping at my heels to end this case. I am holding them off, in the hope that you can come up with something, but I cannot hold them off much longer. If you can find Mrs Newman, then I would be willing to interview her again – as forcefully as possible. If you really think she is hiding at Rosedene, I will have the constable give you the key. Go and do what you can.”
“Thank you. I cannot ask for more.”
“True. You cannot. But you can take a sandwich, if you like.”
Eighteen
She did accept a sandwich which was filled with some unidentifiable variant of potted meat, and took the train home, her head filled with possibilities, suspicions, and suppositions. But she was tired, dog-tired in limb and mind, and her thoughts were getting woollier by the minute. She collapsed into bed as soon as she reached her room, and whiled away the evening floating in and out of slumber.
The next day she found she could not avoid taking part in the family prayer session instigated by Ann Davenport. She could feel Mrs Davenport’s eyes boring into her as they knelt in the dining room. Prayers were all fine and dandy, Marianne thought, but kneeling as well was going too far. Mrs Davenport had chosen the dining room as being the most appropriate, saying they were to feed on the word of God and receive spiritual sustenance. It impacted on the work of the servants preparing the room for breakfast, but that was of no importance to Mrs Davenport, who insisted that the staff join them if possible, too.
Breakfast, finally, was taken in silence. This suited Price, who always liked to flick through his newspapers, and Marianne was equally relieved. She tried to slip away at the earliest opportunity but Mrs Davenport had been watching her continually, and stopped her with a fierce command.
“Marianne. You and I shall have a private conversation in the library. Come along.”
“Mother ...” Phoebe tried to interrupt her.
“Thank you, Phoebe. We will speak later.” Mrs Davenport dismissed her daughter as casually as if she were letting a servant return to the kitchen.
Marianne trudged after Mrs Davenport. Phoebe pressed her hand to her eyes and muttered something about a pain in her head.
Marianne was not even allowed to sit down before Mrs Davenport began her assault.
“I am aware that I have little to no jurisdiction or influence over you, Marianne. And this pains me. You are, tragically, an unmarried woman and still therefore under the care of your father. However, we both know that he is often incapable of performing his duties and therefore it apparently falls to me to do my Christian duty in this regard, however unpleasant that might be for t
he both of us. I take no pleasure in this, Marianne. But I have known you since you were a child. And I fancy that we still might yet have some remaining affection for one another.”
“Mrs Davenport,” Marianne said, choosing her words very carefully. “I am grateful that you care for me. Truly, I am. However, I have lived an independent life for many years now, and –”
“No, you haven’t,” Mrs Davenport said. “You are not remotely independent. You live here on my daughter’s charity.”
“I mean, in matters of morals and ethics and personal choices...”
“Again, I must correct you. You are dependent on Phoebe and Price’s largesse. This puts you under an obligation to them. An obligation to not bring shame and dishonour right to their very door.”
So they were coming to the crux of the matter. Marianne hung her head. “I am genuinely very, very sorry for any distress my behaviour caused at the dinner party that you had arranged. However, I am really not in the marriage market and...”
“Not only that, but you are running in and out of London, without a single care for your role in the household here, leaving poor Phoebe to cope alone when, if you really embraced your apparent status as a spinster, you should be devoting your life to the ease of others.”
“I have not said that I will never marry but not yet, as...”
Mrs Davenport was not going to let her finish a single sentence. The conversation teetered just on the respectable side of what would otherwise be considered an argument as Marianne was informed of her failings, her lack of self-awareness, her pitiful adherence to social convention, her shocking morals and her inevitable decline into solitude, sickness and death. She bit her tongue and remained almost mute, muttering out, “Yes, Mrs Davenport” and “No, Mrs Davenport” at the appropriate points.