A Better Quality of Murder: (Inspector Ben Ross 3)

by Granger, Ann

  ‘Can you by any chance tell me how I can find the Manor House, the residence of Colonel Frey?’ I asked.

  The waiter’s face brightened. He leaned forward conspiratorially. In lowered tones, although we were now alone, he hissed, ‘You’ll be the police officer from Scotland Yard, sir!’

  I didn’t bother to ask how he guessed my occupation, although out here in the country that was more surprising than, for example, Jed Sparrow recognising me in London.

  But the specific ‘the police officer’ . . .’ startled me considerably and I couldn’t help but show it. ‘You’re expecting one?’ I asked. How could this be? Surely no one had sent word ahead that I was on my way?

  ‘We all know the colonel has sent for an officer to come,’ said the waiter smugly.

  ‘Really?’ I replied as I mentally reordered my whole approach to the colonel. ‘It’s common knowledge, then?’ I added. I have found that is always a good conversational gambit for getting people talking.

  ‘This is racing country, sir, and has been since good King Charles the Second’s time. If it concerns the horses, everyone knows,’ said the waiter.

  The horses! I should have guessed, perhaps. It wasn’t some ghastly murder or major house robbery, but something to do with the stables. As for the Merry Monarch, he was cropping up all over the place in this investigation. When not strolling in Green Park, it seemed he was watching his horse run here at Newmarket.

  ‘Awkward business,’ I said to the waiter in a confidential undertone, to match his.

  ‘Very, sir. If word gets out that anyone’s been near the horses, well, the security at all the stables has been increased. The colonel has a couple of men patrolling his premises night and day – with shotguns! But I did hear he was thinking of calling in the police.’

  It occurred to me I had to be careful here. I didn’t want to find myself face to face with the real officer called in by the colonel and have to explain why I was using his visit as cover.

  ‘We didn’t think you’d be here so soon, though,’ said the waiter with admiration. ‘You’ve got to hand it to you fellows, right off the mark. You weren’t expected until next week.’

  Thank goodness for that!

  ‘That’s why the colonel’s gone away for a couple of days,’ said the waiter. He really was an excellent informant. We could do with a few like him in London. And the colonel was away from home? Better and better. After so much frustration were things at last starting to go the way of our investigation?

  ‘He’ll be sorry to have missed you,’ said the waiter.

  ‘His, ah, lady is at the Manor House?’ I enquired.

  ‘Mrs Frey has accompanied the colonel. I believe they are visiting their son. He’s away at the university. Oxford,’ concluded the waiter. ‘We had expected that the young gentleman would have gone to Cambridge but his father wished it otherwise.’

  There is not much privacy to be had in small communities and it seemed that Colonel and Mrs Frey had no secrets from anyone local, at least not concerning their general business and movements.

  ‘Another officer will come when the colonel returns,’ I assured the waiter. ‘In the meantime, I’d like to go out to the Manor and make some enquiries.’

  ‘Half a mile down the road,’ said the waiter. ‘Turn right as you leave here. You can’t miss it.’

  Just as well I wasn’t planning to nobble the horses, and no surprise that the colonel had posted armed guards. I might find it more difficult to get past them when I reached the Manor House than I’d found it gathering all the background information here!

  I certainly could not have missed my destination. A white board painted with the information that this was Manor Stables gleamed at the roadside for all to see. The colonel, obviously retired from a military career, had turned his hand to either breeding or training racehorses.

  I turned down a lane and found myself approaching a considerable establishment. To my right was the manor house itself, a square, grey building with tall chimneys, which looked as though it might date from the reign of that same King Charles. To my left were several stable blocks around a sizeable yard; beyond them I could see a manicured track, winding out over the nearby landscape. The gallops, I thought, digging into my scant knowledge of the racing world.

  I had had time only to observe these generalities when a very large man wearing a bowler hat jammed down over a pair of cauliflower ears, and carrying a fearsome-looking blunderbuss, stepped out from behind a tree and barred my way.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said, ‘might you be looking for someone?’

  The words were friendly enough but the blunderbuss wasn’t.

  ‘I am Inspector Ross from Scotland Yard,’ I said hastily. ‘If I might show you my warrant card?’

  I handed the document over and it was very thoroughly studied. He then nodded and returned it to me. To my relief, he turned away the muzzle of the blunderbuss as well.

  ‘We’ve been expecting you, sir,’ he said. ‘But the colonel isn’t at home.’

  ‘That is a pity,’ I said calmly. ‘In that case, as I have come from London, perhaps I might just see the stableyard and talk to whoever is in charge? Then one of my colleagues will return next week when the colonel is at home.’

  ‘It’s Mr Smithers you want,’ said the man. ‘If you’d follow me, sir.’

  I did as bid and we arrived in the large cleanly swept yard where a boy was leading a horse round in a circle observed closely by a stocky, red-faced man in gaiters.

  ‘Who is this, Kelly?’ demanded this individual as I appeared with my armed escort.

  ‘Inspector Ross, Mr Smithers, from Scotland Yard, as the colonel ordered,’ said Kelly.

  Well, well, we are here to serve the public and if Colonel Frey had ordered up a detective, here I was.

  The red-faced man, whose purple nose suggested to me a close acquaintance with strong spirits, turned back to the boy and ordered briskly, ‘Keep leading him round, Jim!’

  He then nodded at Kelly to dismiss him and addressed me. ‘You’ll want to see the layout of the place.’

  ‘Indeed, yes, thank you.’

  I followed him as we went around, asking what I hoped were suitable questions, and gathering as I did that the reason behind all this activity was that known members of a notorious gang of horse dopers had been spotted in the area.

  ‘We know which one they are after,’ said Smithers to me. ‘It’s His Eminence here.’

  I was temporarily bewildered by the sudden introduction of a clerical figure. But a snort and snuffle, the stamp of a hoof, and the head of a chestnut horse appearing over a stable door, identified His Eminence. He pricked his ears and gazed at me enquiringly. I was glad he couldn’t speak. He looked more intelligent than his handlers.

  ‘Is the season not over?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, yes sir, but as I thought the colonel would have explained, that is not the problem,’ Smithers replied, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes.

  ‘I did not speak to Colonel Frey myself,’ I said quickly. ‘I only understood this was to do with doping horses.’

  ‘More than that,’ said Smithers grimly. ‘This is poisoning, sir. They mean to murder His Eminence, or so they say, if the colonel will not pay. The loss of the horse would be a blow. The stud fees, you understand.’

  ‘Blackmail!’ I exclaimed as all now became clear.

  ‘The colonel took all the letters to Scotland Yard with him. But he will not pay, sir!’

  ‘Of course,’ I said firmly. ‘No, no, certainly not, never pay. But we will get the villains, never fear.’

  ‘Whoever it is, they will have hired these doping tricksters to do the work for them,’ Smithers informed me.

  ‘If they were seen and recognised so easily,’ I said, ‘then I would guess it was intentionally. The blackmailer meant to underline the threat by letting it be known his hired desperadoes were close at hand, should the colonel stand firm.’

  ‘The colonel will
stand firm, sir. He is a military man.’

  The time had come to extricate myself from what was becoming a very interesting case. But not my case. When I got back to London, I thought, I would straight away have to find whoever of my colleagues was dealing with all this, and inform him of my activities and the freedom I had taken with his investigation for my own cover.

  ‘Obviously you yourself, and the men under you, are alert and doing an excellent job,’ I said. ‘But what if a member of the staff at the house were to see anything suspicious, would he or she go straight to the colonel?’

  ‘More likely to Mr Seymour, the butler, sir. Then Mr Seymour would take it to the colonel if he thought the matter serious.’

  ‘Then perhaps, before I leave, I should speak to Mr Seymour,’ I suggested.

  So that was how I found myself very shortly thereafter seated comfortably in the housekeeper’s private parlour, with its flowered wallpaper and glowing fire in the grate, tea at hand, and the elusive Seymour, at last run to ground, seated opposite me.

  Seymour was a small, neat man, with black hair brushed straight back from a pale forehead. His black clothing was formal to the extreme and he reminded me very much of a small black and white cat. He was watching me with a cat’s wary gaze. I suspected he sensed already I was here about more than the blackmail threats to the colonel.

  ‘I will be frank, Mr Seymour,’ I said, setting down my cup. ‘I have a second purpose in being here.’

  ‘Indeed, sir?’ he said blandly.

  ‘You may even have been expecting a visit from the police, perhaps? I’m not suggesting you are, or have been, involved in anything criminal, please don’t think that. But recent events, of which you can’t be unaware, may have led you to wonder if we would want to speak to you. I am not referring to the blackmail letters received by the colonel. I lead the team investigating a recent murder in London.’

  ‘I thought as much, sir,’ answered Seymour in a bland butler’s manner. I might have been referring to some unexpectedly inferior wine delivered by the colonel’s regular supplier. He inclined his head. ‘I was surprised when Smithers said Scotland Yard had sent an inspector. I had not expected anyone of that rank to come about the matter of letters the colonel has received. It followed that some other, particularly grave, matter had brought you.’

  The butler was not a fool and considerably more a man of the world than the groom. Good.

  ‘Then we may cut to the chase,’ I said briskly. ‘In your previous place, I understand you worked for some time for Mr Sebastian Benedict, of The Cedars, near to Egham, in Surrey.’

  Seymour inclined his head and showed neither surprise nor curiosity at my words. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘For how long were you with Mr Benedict?’

  ‘For nearly ten years, sir.’

  ‘It was a good place?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mr Benedict was an excellent employer.’

  ‘And Mrs Benedict, the lady of the house? How would you describe her?’ I waited for his answer with some eagerness. This was the whole reason for my being here. I did not want to return to Superintendent Dunn and confess I had drawn a blank.

  ‘As deceased, sir,’ replied Seymour with an unexpected dry humour. ‘I read of the event you referred to in the newspapers and was very distressed. She was a very pleasant lady.’

  ‘It is the death of that lady we are investigating, as you may have guessed,’ I continued. ‘We had hoped that her companion, a Miss Isabella Marchwood, might be able to give us much useful background information. But unfortunately, before she could do so, Miss Marchwood was herself murdered, on a train. You read of that too, perhaps?’

  Seymour nodded and his watchful look returned.

  ‘We are therefore casting our net wider in a search for such information. As butler in the household for such a long time, you would have been aware of most things going on, I imagine.’

  ‘It is my business to know what the staff are doing,’ Seymour answered carefully. ‘It is not my business to enquire into my employer’s private life.’

  ‘Come now, Seymour,’ I urged. ‘We are trying to find a double murderer here. How many more women do you want to see slaughtered in this dreadful way?’

  Seymour flushed and his stiff manner became slightly agitated. ‘None, Inspector! For goodness’ sake, what do you imagine? I had the greatest admiration for Miss Marchwood. She was a woman of the most respectable background reduced to seeking positions as a companion by her straitened circumstances. She gave offence to no one and I can’t imagine why she was killed on that train. There is no possibility, I suppose, that it was a case of mistaken identity? The killer thought she was someone else? Or perhaps a robbery that got out of hand?’

  There was definitely a note of desperation in his voice now. Aha! I thought. Mr Mortimer Seymour does know something. It is something he would much rather not have to tell me. But he does have to tell me and I think, when he realises it, he will.

  ‘There is no possibility. This was a deliberate murder of a specific victim. The lady’s purse was found in the carriage, still containing money. There are other details we need not go into now.’

  Seymour sighed.

  ‘You spoke to me of your job and its duties just now,’ I began. ‘I have a job and duties, too. They are different from yours but place equal obligations on me. I often have to do things I’d rather not do, and ask questions I am embarrassed to put. I am determined to find this killer. I need all the help I can get. But perhaps I can help you a little. I realise that there was a difference in age between Mr Benedict and his wife, that she was not English and quite possibly not entirely happy in her marriage. Would you agree with that?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Seymour after a few seconds’ pause.

  ‘You left the employment of Mr Benedict very suddenly. Mr Benedict was upset about it. He has not employed anyone to replace you.’

  Seymour now began to look distressed. ‘Has he not? I am sorry to hear it. I would not have left Mr Benedict in the lurch like that, if I could have stayed. But it had become impossible for me.’

  ‘Because, like me, you had learned things you had rather not known?’ I asked gently.

  He sighed and nodded. ‘I told you, Inspector, that it was not my place to enquire into Mr Benedict’s private life. But, given my position in the household, it was difficult not to become aware of certain things.’ He hesitated, seeking his way forward, and I did not press him. He had decided to talk now and he would.

  ‘The household staff here report to me,’ he said. ‘You were asking earlier, as I understand, whether anyone who had seen anything suspicious around the stables or the house would have reported it to the colonel; and Smithers told you it would be reported to me in the first instance.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And I’d be grateful if you continued with the pretence that I am here solely about the blackmail threats to the colonel.’

  ‘It would suit me, too,’ Seymour said frankly. ‘Murder upsets people. I have told no one on the staff here that I was butler at The Cedars. The colonel knows where I was previously employed, because Mr Benedict was good enough to give me a reference. But the colonel’s attention is entirely taken up with the blackmail attempt at the moment and I doubt it has yet occurred to him to match the name of the victim to that of my former employer.’

  ‘Then we have a pact.’ I smiled at him encouragingly.

  Seymour almost smiled back. ‘Thank you, sir. You mentioned Miss Marchwood. She was a religious lady. She somehow or other became involved in some temperance meetings in London. She travelled up to them each Sunday and got to know a Mrs Scott. The – the preacher at these meetings is a Joshua Fawcett. Mr Fawcett often spoke at private gatherings at Mrs Scott’s house. It is in Clapham, I understand. To my knowledge, Mrs Benedict never went to the meetings in central London on a Sunday. But she did go several times with Miss Marchwood to the private gatherings at Clapham. They were by way of an outing for her. She had no interest, I ima
gine, in the temperance movement. But you are right: she was lonely and unhappy. All of us, all the staff, could see it.’

  He sighed. ‘Mrs Benedict was impressed by this fellow, Fawcett. I never met him but I understand he makes a very striking figure. Miss Marchwood was also impressed and let us know about it. She – Isabella Marchwood – was normally a very level-headed woman, Inspector. If she lost her sense of judgement regarding this Fawcett, then it is not surprising that Mrs Benedict did the same. Mrs Benedict came to this country as a very young bride. She was inexperienced in the world and – I will be frank – Mr Benedict kept her somewhat cloistered away at The Cedars. I firmly believe his intentions were the best possible. He wanted to protect her from the dangers of society. But by so doing, he left her unprotected against someone like Fawcett; do you understand me, Inspector?’