A Bloody Hot Summer

by Trevor D'Silva

  “Detective, are you saying that she’s our cousin, Eliza, who was killed during the Indian mutiny?” asked Flora. “That’s impossible, because Father went to save them and came back wounded. Everyone else was killed, including the two scouts he took along with him.”

  “Your father was a liar and a killer. No doubt he must’ve inflicted the wounds on himself,” retorted Miss Carter, seething with rage.

  “There’s no doubt about that,” said Dermot. “Mrs. Ainsworth, you told me that at the lake your mother was pleading with your father to move on, but he kept delaying. I was wondering why the rebels only took your cousins as prisoners. Under normal circumstances, more prisoners would have increased their chances of successfully negotiating the release of their fellow rebels. In my opinion, your father was an accomplice to the plan to kidnap your cousins. He got the rebels to attack the garrison after the caravan left, so that his brother’s family would all be killed and he would inherit the entire estate. Like the diamond mine, it was greed that motivated him to betray his brother.”

  “It’s true, Detective,” said Miss Carter. “That day still haunts me.” Miss Carter then recounted what happened when William Fitzhugh, along with the two scouts, caught up with the rebels. They had expected to be rescued, but were shocked when William greeted them. Sitara pleaded with her husband to tell her what was going on and he told her that Chindi, one of William’s native scouts, came to his brothel the previous night and passed on instructions to attack the garrison after the caravan had left and to target the weakened portions of the garrison’s walls. After they had killed Theo and Rosalyn, they were then to kidnap Sitara and Theo’s children. William would then pretend to come to their rescue.

  “So, I was right!” said Dermot.

  Miss Carter nodded and then cleared her throat and continued. Manu Lal told Sitara that Theo knew who had betrayed them and that he pleaded for the lives of his children before Manu Lal murdered Theo and Rosalyn. When Manu Lal finished talking, William drew his gun and killed his two scouts. Then Manu Lal and William began shooting the others. The next thing that the young Miss Carter remembered was waking up and finding Sitara and Teddy dead on top of her. She had been wounded in the arm. Manu Lal lay dead, with a few gold coins next to him. William had shot him in the back. He had left no witnesses.

  After wandering alone for hours, the young Miss Carter was found by a Dutch family escaping the mutiny. The husband, a doctor, extracted the bullet from her arm and she then travelled with them as they immigrated to South Africa. The family named her Rowena and brought her up as their daughter. She later married a Boer farmer and had two children: Hermine and David. David, who was Peter’s friend, introduced Hermine to Peter and when Peter returned from Germany during the Boer War, he married Hermine and then left to join the same unit that David was in. Rowena was living with the De Villiers for the duration of the war because they thought it was safer.

  Having blocked out the entire mutiny incident, Rowena found Lord Fitzhugh familiar when he came to arrest the De Villiers family in Kimberley. She continued seeing his face in her dreams during her incarceration in the camp and also when she came to England, but she couldn’t understand why the people with him looked Indian rather than British.

  “It is only when you read Lord Fitzhugh’s account of his escape from the mutiny, at the London Library, that you realised who you really were. I have to thank Miss Cartwright’s excellent memory for that piece of information,” said Dermot.

  “Yes, Detective,” said Miss Carter. “Initially our intention was to kill Lord Fitzhugh. When he was dying, the newspapers mentioned that he had escaped the Indian mutiny and I went to the London Library to investigate. I read the account and knew that he had lied to make himself a brave hero. The dreams stopped after I realised that I was actually Eliza Fitzhugh. Richard knew about my dreams, and when I told him what I had discovered we decided that Nancy should get what was rightfully hers. Lady Argyle agreed to help us. We just had to wait for the right opportunity to infiltrate the manor and find out who needed to be eliminated in order for Nancy to inherit this place.”

  “Thank you, Miss Carter,” said Dermot. He turned to Richard. “Who informed you about your family’s arrest?”

  “Pastor Jan Louw sent me a letter,” Richard replied. “Unfortunately, the day after I received it we were ambushed in the veld by the British Army. I was badly injured, along with David who died a few days later in a makeshift hospital. Since we both had our faces bandaged, we agreed to switch identities because I knew that Lord Fitzhugh wanted to kill me for the mine. We exchanged beds and when David died I was recorded as one of the deceased. By the time I recovered, the war was over. When I met Rowena, we decided that I would continue masquerading as her son. After the war, many people were reinventing themselves to start a new life and we did the same.”

  “The commanding officer of your unit was Gerhard Von Schultz, a friend of your father. Did he help you to change your identities?”

  Richard looked stunned. “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “Mr. Griffin found that out.” Dermot took a newspaper cutting from his briefcase and showed it to him. “Von Schultz published his memoirs about his time during the Boer War and explained how his hatred for the English made him spy for the Germans during the Great War. When the war began, he wrote you a letter from France asking you to help spy for him. It was to get back at England for starting the war in South Africa. Your former landlady, Sylvia Henderson, remembers you receiving that letter. He instructed you to be a double agent and pass him British military secrets, which he in turn would pass on to the Germans. Von Schultz was in France spying on the French at that time.

  “That is why you were heading towards the coast to cross the English Channel. You were going there to give Gerhard the plans. When you realised that the coppers were gaining on you, you took the chance to destroy the plans and fake your own deaths when you were separated from the pursuing coppers by the flock of sheep. You then headed to Argyle Village in Scotland and established yourselves with new identities, as Alister and Jane.”

  “Yes, it was our only way to avenge what the British did to us, and we would gladly do it again,” said Richard.

  “You both met Allan Fitzhugh while working for the British Intelligence and saw an opportunity to humiliate or kill another member of the Fitzhugh family,” said Dermot.

  “We couldn’t believe it when Allan told us who he was,” said Miss Carter. “I remembered that when Lord Fitzhugh was dying I had read in the newspapers that he had a son born in England. Allan had mentioned that he had lived in Germany during his itinerant years. Allan suspected us and when he tricked us into stealing the submarine plans, we killed him and made it look like he had committed suicide to scapegoat him for our espionage activities and to humiliate the family by making him a traitor. We nearly got caught while escaping… well, you know the rest, Detective.”

  Dermot nodded, while Cora and Pippa stifled sobs.

  “With regards to Slattery’s murder, he tried to blackmail you, Miss Carter. He realised that you were the one who had drugged his wine and Arthur’s chamomile tea with Mrs. Withers’ sleeping powders because you were the only one to handle the wine and the tea. He was also aware that only you and he knew that the wills were to be changed, disinheriting Pippa if she did not give up Richard, after Kerr told her Ladyship who Richard really was and she asked you both, in confidence, to be witnesses. Slattery also suspected you of stealing the wills from Kerr’s briefcase and returning them later.

  “When Charles told him about seeing the candle being waved from the library window, Slattery knew it was you signalling Richard. I think he also suspected that you two communicated using the library books. He probably heard you tell Richard that The Count of Monte Cristo was not in its proper place and then later sa
w Richard with the book in the library, as also witnessed by Pippa. You had written a note telling him that Lady Fitzhugh needed to die that night and why.”

  “Yes, Slattery slid a note under my bedroom door asking me to meet him near the pantry. When I met him, he told me that he knew I was involved in the murder,” said Miss Carter.

  “So he made a deal with you if you greased his palm.”

  “He was a greedy man. When he demanded more, I knew he had to be got rid of. On the second night, I waited for him in the dark in the library and when he turned after taking the money, I stabbed him in the chest.”

  There was stunned silence. “You killed so many,” said Lilian sadly. “And for what? Revenge? Was this all necessary?”

  Miss Carter looked at her with anger. “Don’t you get it? Your father killed members of my family and other innocent people. So we were his nemesis. We executed him for the crimes he would have got away with had he died a natural death. It was only right that we corrected the wrongs he did to us. The others were only in the way.

  “Doris didn’t believe me and defended her father as an honourable gentleman. That enraged me and I sliced her throat with the dagger I had stolen from Arthur’s suitcase.”

  The two sisters and Cora gasped in horror. Everyone in the room was stunned and speechless at the hard-heartedness of Miss Carter.

  The library door opened slowly. A policewoman entered and signalled to Dermot. He waved her in. “After Miss Carter and Alice left the kitchen with the tea and scones, PWC Brent, under my strict orders, searched Miss Carter’s room. Please tell us what you found.”

  “I found this necklace, a bottle of arsenic, the diary of Lord Cecil Fitzhugh, and some letters from Richard Seymour posted from London. They were all under some loose floor boards in Miss Carter’s room.”

  “Good job, PWC Brent.”

  Dermot turned to Miss Carter. “After you murdered Lady Fitzhugh, you took the necklace because you were supposed to have inherited it from your mother. I knew it would be in your room,” said Dermot.

  PWC Brent gave the necklace to Dermot and he held it up for everyone to see. Richard looked angrily at Miss Carter. “You bloody stupid old cow, I told you not to take the necklace. If I knew you would send that note to William Fitzhugh, I would’ve stopped you.”

  Miss Carter hung her head in shame.

  “I understand the reasoning behind your actions, but you will have to be held accountable,” said Inspector Enderby. “We will have to take you both into custody.”

  Constables Barnaby and Jenkins made Richard and Miss Carter stand up and handcuffed them. As they passed by Nancy, who was wiping away tears, Miss Carter looked at her sadly. “Nancy, we did this for you,” she said. “You were cheated out of your birthright and we needed to see that justice was done and that you got what was rightfully yours.”

  Nancy got up and embraced them. “I understand… but not this way.”

  “There was no other way,” said Richard.

  After Miss Carter and Richard were taken away, Lilian requested that the family be left to discuss Nancy and Irene getting a share of the estate. Dermot motioned for the remaining constables and staff to leave the room and allow the family to discuss in private.

  As Dermot closed the library door, there was a flash of lightning and another roll of thunder. The darkened clouds, laden with moisture, finally burst open and it started raining heavily.

  “Make sure that Miss Carter doesn’t get wet,” said Dermot.

  “I’ll cover her with my coat,” replied Inspector Enderby.

  As he watched the police get into the police van with their two prisoners, Dermot muttered to himself, “The bloody hot summer is finally over.”

  Chapter 27: The Detective Explains

  Gerard Argyle came out of the library and walked up to Dermot. “How did ye ken that Nancy and I were married?”

  “When you told me that you were both at the registrar’s office that morning, I had my suspicions. Before we left Argyle Village, Inspector Enderby and I went to the registrar’s office and the registrar who married the two of you, Mr. McDougal, told us that an irregular marriage had taken place between you and Nancy – in front of two witnesses who were sworn to secrecy – on the day that Mr. Kerr came to Argyle Castle… Lady Argyle didn’t approve of your courtship with Nancy, am I right?”

  “Och aye, she objected because Nancy was the maid’s grandniece and she wouldn’t make a suitable Lady of the castle. We grew up together and we have been in love for a long time.”

  “The real reason was because the two of you are second cousins and Lady Argyle couldn’t reveal that fact to you or the whole plan would be out in the open. Did she plan on disinheriting you if you married Nancy?”

  “Aye, she threatened tae give the property tae a distant cousin of mine. Her hostility towards Nancy was most strange. She said that she would state in her will that if I married anyone else, with the exception of Nancy, I could inherit what was rightfully mine. She even threatened tae change solicitors because hers was a long-term friend of the family and he didn’t want tae draw up a will that would disinherit me.”

  “So when you saw Mr. Kerr’s business card saying he was a will and probate solicitor, you assumed that he was there to talk to Lady Argyle about changing her will?”

  “Aye, I thought that if I married Nancy that day then she would be forced tae accept us.”

  “I can only speculate that she was under the impression that if their plan had worked, then Nancy would inherit Fitzhugh Manor and its vast estate and then it would be hard for you to make a decision between staying at Argyle Castle and moving to Meadowford Village. She didn’t want it coming to that.”

  “I didn’t hae the opportunity tae tell her that we had got married because we found her completely shattered when we got back. She would’ve died of shock there and then if I had told her that we were married. We had absolutely no idea what she was up tae.”

  “Her desire for revenge was so great that she put aside her scruples to see that justice was done. Revenge can blind even the most virtuous of people,” said Dermot.

  “Tell me, Detective, how did ye ken that Ruiseart had been murdered?” asked Gerard.

  “You told me that he suddenly died in agony before Alister and Jane left. When Miss Cartwright confirmed that Ruiseart is Gaelic for Richard, I remembered Pippa telling me that Richard was getting a pension cheque every month from the government for his service in the Great War. I asked Chief Inspector Gardner of Scotland Yard to check on this and the address listed in their files was Richard’s flat in London. Lady Argyle hadn’t notified the government about Ruiseart’s death. Alister, or Richard as we know him, had taken his place to get the cheque every month. That’s when I realised that the real Ruiseart had probably been poisoned with arsenic. No wonder Lady Argyle got sick after his death, her guilty conscience was gnawing at her.”

  Gerard sighed and shook his head in disbelief.

  “Your telegram, informing me about the picture that Kerr stole, helped me to solve Richard’s true identity,” Dermot continued. “He had to grow his facial hair in order to change his appearance and to avoid being recognised if he ran into any of the people he knew in London. He didn’t anticipate the artistic skills of Constable Beckett exposing who he really was.”

  “Thank ye for everythin’, Detective,” said Nancy, taking Gerard’s hand in hers. “I’m happy wi’ Gerard and would prefer tae stay in Argyle Village. Fitzhugh Manor and South Africa are buried in ma past and I want tae look forward tae the future wi’ Gerard.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget that the two elderly sisters would like you to be part of their lives and to make amends,” said Dermot. “The
re’s a happy ending to this sad story. Remember that you have family here too.”

  The rain had subsided a bit. Gerard and Nancy wished Dermot goodbye, walked out into the rain, and got into the taxi that was waiting to take them to Meadowford Train Station.

  — — —

  As Dermot passed by the drawing room, he noticed a figure standing in front of the window looking out at the rain. He walked into the dark room and slowly called out. Pippa turned; tears were streaming down her face.

  “I’m very sorry, Pippa.”

  “All this seems like a bad dream.” Pippa sighed. “He was so charming. I feel so guilty for bringing him here. Aunt Doris, Slattery, and Abigail would still be alive if it were not for me.”

  “Pippa, you mustn’t feel guilty. He fooled a lot of people and he knew how to charm women.”

  “My aunts weren’t fooled.”

  “No, but they were fooled by Miss Carter. It seems like everyone fell for the charms of these killers.”

  “It’s not just that. I will never find anyone to marry me. Look at me… I’m not exactly a catch.”

  “I think you have, but you just don’t know it yet.”