A Bloody Hot Summer

by Trevor D'Silva

  The insurance company filed a lawsuit against Lord Fitzhugh because they suspected that he had deliberately sabotaged the mine to collect the insurance money because the mine did not have a huge diamond deposit. When it was proved otherwise, he won the case and returned to England a rich man.

  “Why is all this important?” Flora asked curiously.

  Dermot showed her Slattery’s memoirs. “Slattery was writing his memoirs about his time in South Africa. Dr. Talbot, who performed the autopsy on her Ladyship, identified the knots used to tie her as ones that are used in the military. The only person in the manor that was in the military was Slattery.”

  “Major Havelock was in Father’s unit during the Boer War.”

  “Ahh, that reminds me that I need to talk to him too… Now, did Slattery recently have a disagreement with Lady Fitzhugh?”

  “Not that I know of. They got along like a house on fire. He would never do anything to harm Doris. He was just as devoted to her as he was to Father.”

  “Then probably he saw something he shouldn’t have when he went on his nightly rounds and was killed for that. But he told us that he didn’t see anything.”

  Flora shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know why he would deny ever seeing anything. Wouldn’t make sense…”

  “Where is Cora from?” asked Dermot.

  Flora told him that Cora was from Toronto, Canada, and that she worked as a school teacher there. Allan had left England at the age of eighteen and met her in Toronto. Allan came back with Cora and Pippa in 1906, after Lord Fitzhugh died from septicaemia following gall bladder surgery. He didn’t get along with his father, whom he nicknamed Henry VIII, because he blamed him for their mother’s death when he was three. Clara had died of a broken heart due to Lord Fitzhugh’s philandering, even though she had finally given him a son. Doris brought up Allan and she was like a mother to him. Cora now schooled Hector at the manor, as they had taken him out of Harrow.

  When Dermot enquired why, Flora told him that Allan was suspected of being a spy because he was found dead from a gunshot wound in his London office where he worked for the War Office Intelligence Service in 1916. Doris had persuaded him to join the War Office as she didn’t want him to be killed in action. The intelligence service thought that Allan would be an asset, since he had lived in Germany and other countries during his itinerant years. His knowledge of German was used to decode messages the intelligence service had intercepted from Germany. The two people he worked with were given chase by the police and they perished in a car crash. The papers labelled Allan as a spy. When Hector went to Harrow, some of the boys bullied him about his father being a traitor.

  “Children can be so cruel, Detective. Hector is the spitting image of Allan and he felt the loss of his father even though he was only two years old and barely out of his nappies when Allan died. He tried to defend Allan’s name by fighting with the boys who tormented him. They even defaced a plaque with Allan’s name on it for winning a rugby tournament.”

  “He’s a bright young lad. He wanted to help us in the murder investigation,” said Dermot, smiling.

  “The cheeky devil! If Cora or Lilian get wind of this, they will box his ears.”

  Dermot looked at the wall and saw the portrait of Theo Fitzhugh and his family. He asked Flora what had happened to them and Flora recounted the events that took place in India during the mutiny. Lord Fitzhugh pursued the rebels, with his two Indian scouts, when they took Sitara and Theo’s two children as hostages. He was wounded in the pursuit, but he was the only one who returned alive – everybody else was killed. Lord Fitzhugh then inherited the estate, since Theo and his children were killed.

  The emerald necklace was gifted to Rosalyn by one of Theo’s Indian soldiers, because Theo saved the woman that the soldier loved from becoming a suttee. The woman was wearing the necklace when her relatives were taking her to be burnt with her dead husband. When Eliza was killed by the rebels, Clara got the necklace.

  Dermot looked perplexed. “I wonder why the rebels didn’t take all of you as prisoners if they wanted hostages to exchange for fellow rebels.”

  Flora shrugged. “Father told us that when he caught up with the rebels, they told him that our ayah, who was the estranged wife of the rebel leader, had betrayed us by sending messages to her husband detailing when to attack the garrison and also planned the kidnappings. They had attacked the garrison a few hours after the caravan left and burnt it to the ground after killing everyone in it. Lilian’s demeanour changed after the ordeal because she was the ayah’s favourite.”

  “So Mrs. Endecott was not always so… sharp?”

  “Not at all… When we were at finishing school in Kent, we heard from classmates how their ayahs had sacrificed their lives to protect them. Some of them literally crawled from under the dead bodies of their ayahs, who had stood between them and the rebels’ swords. One ayah had used opium to put a classmate’s infant brother to sleep and she hid them with their mother in a cupboard and told the rebels that there was no one at home. After the rebels left, she took the three of them to safety. These stories distressed Lilian, because our ayah had betrayed us.”

  “So the events of the mutiny still have a hold on Mrs. Endecott, even after all these years?”

  “Yes, Detective. She never had a good marriage because she couldn’t trust her husband. Mother had told us about Father’s infidelities. Lilian was also too strict with Arthur and that’s why he is the way he is.”

  “You don’t say!” said Dermot with a smile.

  “Detective, I just remembered something. It may not be important. While Father was dying in agony, he received a note that contained a single sentence. If I remember correctly, it said, ‘Remember the diamond mine, the De Villiers family, and your brother’s family.’ It upset Father a lot and he wouldn’t say anything. The police and the family thought it was a mean joke. He always regretted that he couldn’t save his brother or his family during the mutiny. He couldn’t bear to see their portrait and wanted it destroyed after his mother died, but Doris put it in the attic and had it put back on the wall when Father died.”

  “Do you still have that note?” asked Dermot with some excitement.

  “It should still be in Father’s room. Doris left everything in his room just as it was on the day he died.”

  Just then, Cora came in asking if they had seen Hector. Dermot greeted her and asked her to sit down and answer a few questions. Cora sat next to Flora and looked uncomfortable. Dermot asked Cora whether Allan had told her if he suspected anything untoward in the intelligence service when he visited the manor.

  Cora thought for a second. “During the war, he rarely came home, except on some weekends. We were busy too because a part of the estate had been converted into a hospital to take care of wounded soldiers.

  “He visited the weekend before he died and he looked upset. I forced him to tell me what was worrying him, and he told me that he suspected that a lady and her son who worked with him in the intelligence service were spies. He was going to set a trap for them to see if his suspicions were well-founded.”

  “Cora, you never mentioned that! So he may’ve been innocent after all?” asked Flora, surprised at the revelation.

  “He swore me to secrecy. He had, after all, signed the Official Secrets Act and could’ve gone to prison or been executed for telling me that.”

  “I’m not surprised. Husbands are known to tell their wives things that they wouldn’t tell other people… Did Lady Fitzhugh know about it?” Dermot asked.

  “I told her when the newspapers were saying that he was a spy, but Doris forbade me to tell anyone. She said that people would think I was making it up to protect Allan’s name,” explained Cora.

  “Now,
did anyone in the family know the contents of the will or that her Ladyship planned to make changes?” asked Dermot.

  The two women looked surprised and shrugged their shoulders.

  “Doris never discussed her will with anyone. We only found out that Hector gets everything when the will was read. It wasn’t a surprise to any of us though, since she was so fond of Hector because he is Allan’s son,” said Flora.

  “Did she say anything about Arthur inheriting those antique guns that are in the library?” Dermot asked.

  Flora looked surprised. “Not to us, but Arthur claimed that she had told him that she would make changes to her legacy. Bertram didn’t seem to know anything about it though.”

  Dermot looked at Cora as Flora spoke; she had no expression on her face. He then asked Flora to take him to her father’s bedroom. As he left the living room with Flora, he saw a portrait of a man in Tudor-style clothing.

  “Is that your ancestor who first owned this estate?” he asked.

  “Yes, Jeremiah Thomas Fitzhugh. This estate was gifted to him by King Henry VII for his services as a knight.” Flora pointed to another portrait. “That’s his son, Roy Fitzhugh. You see that crucifix on his chest? Family legend has it that he had it painted onto the portrait during the Catholic persecutions under Queen Elizabeth’s reign. He also installed the statue of the queen in the chapel to show loyalty to her. The family pretended to be converts to the new religion, but secretly practiced the Catholic faith. It was during the Cromwellian period that the family switched to the Church of England. The library used to be a chapel until then and was converted into a library after that, but the statue of Queen Elizabeth remains even after the manor was renovated in the last century. Nobody knows why.”

  — — —

  Dermot and Flora went up the stairs, walked along the corridor, and passed by Lady Fitzhugh’s room. They stood in front of a door that looked like it hadn’t been opened in a long time. Flora took a set of keys from her dress pocket and flipped through the key ring. She found the key she wanted and unlocked the door. The room was a bit dusty and dark. They entered and Flora went to the window and drew the curtains aside; the sun’s rays lit up the room.

  Flora pointed at the desk and gave Dermot permission to search it. Dermot went to the writing desk and looked at it. The desk still had papers that were yellowing with time and a pen next to an inkwell. There was a photograph of a woman dressed in the fashion of the mid-eighteenth century. Flora told Dermot that it was her mother and that Lord Fitzhugh had been devastated when she died, even though he had been unfaithful to her.

  He opened the desk drawer and looked inside. There was an envelope that was postmarked two days before Lord Fitzhugh died. He opened it and took out the note. The note was yellowing and the ink was starting to fade. It said, ‘Remember the diamond mine, the De Villiers family, and your brother’s family.’ It was not signed.

  “The postmark says ‘London’. Anyone could’ve sent this note. Have you received anything since?”

  Flora shook her head.

  “When did you and Mrs. Endecott come to live here?”

  “A few months after Father left for South Africa. Doris was lonely and both our husbands had passed away. So she asked us to come live with her.”

  Dermot found a cheque book. He went through it and found certain payments made to a ‘Portia Hartford’. He noted his discovery in his notebook.

  “Who’s Portia Hartford?”

  Flora shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. Father never told us anything about his acquaintances. Maybe a woman who needed help? He once mentioned that coming close to death had made him realise that he needed to help people. He started giving to charity, which he never did before. He even donated money to build Meadowford Hospital. He was a changed man when he returned from South Africa.”

  “Some of the cheques were made to her account in the Bank of England. I wonder if Lord Fitzhugh was paying her because she knew something damaging about him?”

  “Could be, because Father was very particular about keeping the family name free from scandal.”

  “Hello, what do we have here?” Dermot took a photograph from the drawer and held it up. It was of Lord Fitzhugh sitting on a chair and a man standing behind him on his right. On the back of the photograph was written ‘Pretoria, 1898’.

  “Oh, yes, that’s a picture of Slattery with Father when they had just moved to South Africa. Slattery looked very different as a young man with a moustache – I can hardly recognise him there.”

  There was nothing else to pique Dermot’s interest. After obtaining Flora’s permission, Dermot put the note and its envelope in his breast pocket. He now had some leads that he had to follow.

  Dermot went home and placed a call to the Metropolitan Police where he worked. He spoke to Detective Lloyd, his superior, and told him what he had learnt from his investigation. He also told Lloyd that he suspected that the deaths of Doris and Allan Fitzhugh could be related and wondered if he could view the file on Allan Fitzhugh’s death, even if they were sealed. Detective Lloyd told him that an acquaintance of his at Scotland Yard, named Oswald Gardner, worked with Allan Fitzhugh in the War Office during the Great War, and he would speak to him about getting Dermot the files he needed.

  Chapter 8: A Handful of Spies

  In London, a man with his hat turned downwards to hide his face stopped in front of a red pillar post box. He furtively glanced around to see if anyone was looking at him. People walked past him, trying to escape the heat, without paying any attention. Satisfied, he reached into his pocket and took out an envelope. He quickly pushed it into the opening of the post box and hurriedly walked away. He was sweating, not only because of the heat but also due to nervousness. He had never done anything like this before. He slowed down and smiled. He knew his letter, which he had carefully typed, would make his victim nervous and pay attention. He was interested in what the outcome would be. Hopefully, it would be what he expected.

  — — —

  Dermot was in his car driving to London. The wind made the heat dissipate a little and he was grateful for that. He was excited about the case but at the same time he was unhappy – he had wanted his holiday to be a relaxing one.

  On reaching Scotland Yard, Dermot went to the information desk and asked for Chief Inspector Oswald Gardner. A few minutes later, he saw a middle-aged man with greying hair and a big well-groomed moustache walk towards him. Dermot held out his hand and smiled.

  “Detective Carlyle, I presume,” the man said as he shook Dermot’s hand. “Detective Lloyd has told me about you and the case. He mentioned that you suspect that the murder you’re investigating may be linked to an incident that occurred during the war.”

  “Yes. It’s the death of Allan Fitzhugh who worked for the War Office. He was found dead under mysterious circumstances and nobody has a clear answer as to what really happened.”

  “I remember that case; it was hushed up quickly. The files are all sealed, but I can get them for your investigation. Come this way and we can talk in my office.”

  Dermot followed Gardner to his office and sat down. It was a very tidy office; on his desk was a typewriter, a stack of files on one side, and some loose sheets of paper in a tray. Gardner sat down too as a secretary came in and gave him two files. He thanked her and she left, closing the door behind her.

  Gardner opened the files and looked at them. He placed them in front of Dermot and then pointed to one. “This is his service record. Seems he had an exemplary service. He joined at the beginning of the war. His European travels before the war, particularly to Germany, made him a prime candidate to work in the intelligence service because of his language skills and knowledge of the area.”


  Gardner saw Dermot nod to indicate that he was aware of it. He pointed to the other file. “This file is on his death, which was very mysterious. He was found shot to death in his London office. He was clutching a piece of paper in his right fist, which came from top secret designs for a submarine that could go deeper than any other built at that time and could attack the enemy U-boats undetected. We never knew he was spying for Germany. We speculated that while he was handing over the plans to his accomplices, he probably changed his mind or demanded more money and they shot him. They made it look like suicide. He was shot through the heart and was found with the gun clutched in his left hand.”

  “But he was right-handed?”

  “Yes, I believe so. Only his fingerprints were found on it, though, and it was ruled a suicide.”

  “Any idea who these accomplices were?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Ethel Northam and her son, David. They had befriended Allan a year earlier while working in the War Office. Exemplary work, but they were very introverted and kept themselves to themselves. They were British subjects from South Africa…”

  “South Africa?”

  “Yes, they claimed they had worked for the British Army during the Boer War. The son, David, knew a lot about military manoeuvres and tactics. His mother, a widow, stated that her husband was killed in the Second Boer War and that helping England was like a tribute to her husband. They both spoke German and Dutch Afrikaans very well. Ethel worked as a typist, while David helped in decoding the messages we intercepted in German.”

  “Seems like South Africa comes into the picture all the time.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gardner.

  “The butler at Fitzhugh Manor, who was murdered, was writing his memoirs about his experiences in South Africa. He went with Lord Fitzhugh and was his batman during the war.”