Design for Murder

by Nancy Buckingham

  I had been forbidden by Neil to give the slightest hint of his suspicions concerning Ursula’s death. For the time being, he’d adjured me, it must continue to be regarded as an accident. So I made suitable concurring noises until the vicar felt that his duty to us had been done.

  “That chap almost trips over his own exclamation marks,” Tim commented, as he moved out of earshot.

  “He works hard,” I said. “You’ve got to grant him that.”

  The guests, each in turn, had mumbled a few conventional words of condolence to Sir Robert upon arriving at the Hall, after which everyone seemed very content to steer clear of him. The poor man was seated in an upright chair to one side of the massive carved mantel, Sebastian hovering at his elbow. Oliver’s father had borne himself with dignity throughout the ordeal at the church, but now he looked drained, scarcely aware of what was going on around him. His fighting spirit seemed to have evaporated completely. Perhaps, I reflected, he felt that he could give up now that his heir was the virtuous Sebastian.

  Lady Medway, mourning with elegance in an expensive black silk dress, was conscientiously moving from one group to another. Or did she find this preferable to being in the company of her husband? I realised that I’d not seen them exchange as much as a single word this morning.

  Tim, observing her reach out for another glass of sherry from the circulating Grainger’s tray, remarked, “Lady M. is tanking up, isn’t she? That must be her fifth or sixth.”

  Yesterday had gone by without Tim and I managing to patch things up. But today, when he came and sat down beside me in the church, a truce had tacitly been declared between us for the duration of the funeral.

  Diana Medway was bearing down on us, a little unsteadily but still in fair control.

  “You’re a sly one, Tracy,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Lady Medway, I don’t understand.”

  “No?” She flickered a meaningful glance at Tim. “This is the ‘friend’ you took riding with you, I hear. It didn’t take you long, did it?”

  She meant, to find myself a replacement for Oliver. And I had to stand there meekly and take it. I could hardly start a slanging match right here in her own house on the day of her stepson’s funeral.

  Tim, bless him, spiked her guns with an easy smile. “You didn’t object to my using one of your horses, did you, Lady Medway?”

  She lifted her slender shoulders in an elaborate shrug.

  “I haven’t the least objection,” she drawled, “so long as you know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh yes, I can assure you that I do know what I’m doing with horses.”

  Diana Medway stared at him coldly, but decided not to follow that through.

  “As I told Tracy the other day,” she said, with another elegantly performed shrug, “those animals need exercising.”

  Tim observed with amusement as she tacked off across the room, “What a flaming bitch that woman is.”

  “She’s been in a very peculiar mood lately,” I said. “I just don’t know what to make of it. Her attitude to me was always distant, but on Saturday, when she stopped me and suggested that I should keep up the riding, she was suddenly very pally. Then today ...”

  Tim nodded. Then, “She seems to have taken against her husband, doesn’t she? In church this morning you could almost hear the wind whistling through the gap between the two of them.”

  “Why don’t you go over and talk to Sir Robert?” I found myself suggesting. “It’s awful the way everyone is avoiding him. You might be able to cheer him up a bit.”

  “Think so?”

  “Besides, it’s an opportunity to get to know Sebastian. And you’ll have to be on closer terms with him, won’t you, now that he’s the new heir?”

  “True,” he said. “Are you coming with me?”

  I shook my head. Actually, I had decided that I’d better go and confront Ralph and Grace. So far I’d only been awarded a freezing nod, as at the inquest, and I reckoned it was time to heal the breach.

  My opportunity came a moment later when the little knot of people with whom the Ebborns had been chatting, a couple of tenant farmers and their wives, broke up. I went across to waylay them, and came straight to the point.

  “Look, I know that you’re blaming me for telling the police about Sebastian, but I had to, you must see that.”

  “You promised that you’d leave it to Ralph,” said Grace, tight-lipped with resentment.

  “Yes, and I meant to at the time—even though it went against my conscience. But when I got talking to Neil Grant and he asked me about Sebastian ... well, I’d have been withholding information from the police if I hadn’t admitted what I knew.”

  “You’ve become very thick with that detective inspector,” Ralph said.

  “Neil Grant,” I pointed out, trying to keep my temper, “is someone I’ve known ever since the time I first came to live in Steeple Haslop. You’re not suggesting, for heaven’s sake, that the police should be treated as The Enemy, and ostracised?”

  Ralph made a bitter face at me. “All that your interference has achieved, Tracy, is to stir up a lot of unnecessary trouble for Sebastian. The police have been badgering him with endless questions and checking up on his movements. I can tell you that he’s damned annoyed about it, and he holds you entirely to blame.”

  “Oh? So you told him that the information came from me, did you?” “

  “Naturally I did. Sebastian will be my employer one day— and it could be any day now, considering the precarious state of Sir Robert’s health. I just couldn’t afford to have him thinking that I’d gone sneaking behind his back talking about him to the police.”

  Even if I granted that Ralph had a point, this was a murder enquiry, dammit. I’d only done what I had to do, and it was too late for regrets.

  “Why did you tell me,” I asked him, injecting challenge into my voice, “that Sebastian had given you a completely satisfactory explanation for being in the district last Wednesday morning?”

  Ralph gave me an odd glance. “Because he did, Tracy.”

  “The police don’t agree,” I said.

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” he demanded sharply.

  I sighed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t really be saying this, but Neil Grant told me that Sebastian isn’t automatically cleared by the explanation he gave them.”

  Ralph was staring at me in horror, Grace in plain bewilderment.

  “Are you telling me,” he spluttered, “that the police seriously think that Sebastian”—he dropped his voice to an almost inaudible murmur—“killed Oliver?”

  “Not at all, but they’re keeping an open mind. I gather that his alibi isn’t completely watertight.” I paused a moment, then asked, “What was the explanation he gave you, Ralph?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” he replied sourly. “But I’m surprised that Inspector Grant didn’t, since you seem to be so completely in the man’s confidence.”

  To my relief, I saw that Tim was coming over, weaving his way through the little clusters of people standing around with their sherry glasses and buffet snacks. He was looking pleased about something, I decided, and I wondered what it was. After a couple of minutes of strained conversation with Ralph and Grace, he gave them a good-natured smile and deftly steered me away.

  “Well,” I asked him, “how did you get on with Sir Robert?”

  “It all worked out rather nicely, Tracy. Without any prompting from me the question of a long-term lease on the vineyard came up, and the old boy isn’t at all opposed to my ideas. Even more to the point, neither is Sebastian.”

  “I’m glad for you, Tim.”

  It had been my suggestion that Tim should cement relations with Sebastian, and the outcome could hardly have been more favourable. But would Sebastian Medway ever be in a position to implement any promises he might make to Tim or anyone else concerning the future of the Haslop Hall estate? I wondered if the police had checked on his whereabouts on the night of Ursula’s death
.

  “You don’t sound very glad,” Tim commented, and gave me a measuring stare. “What were the solemn looks between you and the Ebborns in aid of?”

  “You’re imagining things,” I said lightly.

  “Tracy, Tracy, who are you trying to fool?”

  The less important, non-family guests were beginning to depart. As Tim and I went to take our leave of the Medways, I was aware of something unexpected in Sebastian’s attitude to me. I’d dreaded an angry, challenging glare, but instead he seemed to avoid meeting my eyes. I became aware, with something of a shock, that Sebastian Medway was half afraid of me.

  * * * *

  “I would have suggested that we have some lunch together,” said Tim. “But after all those nibbly bits they laid on ...”

  “Count me out,” I said hastily. “I’m full.”

  We were standing beside Tim’s car. Not to add to the inevitable crush on the circle of gravel outside the Hall, I’d left my Fiesta over by the Coach House. People passing nodded goodbye to us, their glances registering the fact that we were together.

  “About this evening, then,” Tim persisted. “Shall I see you?”

  “Do you fancy another ride?” I asked him after a flick of thought. I wouldn’t be committing myself to too much, this way, and there would be less chance of another prickly situation developing between us.

  “I’d like that, Tracy. Her ladyship wasn’t very gracious, but she did give us permission.”

  “And it’s perfectly true that the horses need to be exercised,” I added.

  “So we’ve talked ourselves into it. What time do you suggest?”

  “Would six o’clock be too early? I’ll drop in on my way to the studio now and soften up Billy Moon a bit.”

  With his car door open, Tim paused and looked at me.

  “Why should Billy Moon need to be softened up?”

  “I don’t know why.” Rashly, against my better judgment, I went on, “For some reason he seems to be down on you, Tim.”

  “Oh? What’s the old chap been saying about me?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s just the impression I got.”

  Tim laughed. “Well, you tell him that he couldn’t hope to meet a nicer bloke than Timothy Baxter, not in a month of Sundays.”

  I was about to make a flip retort, but I had a feeling that Tim wasn’t really amused.

  Everything was quiet when I reached the stables. The horses would all be out in the paddocks. I wandered into the tack room, hoping to find Billy there. It was also his den, where he would sit puffing his pipe in reflective moments. I was out of luck, though.

  As always, like every square inch of the territory under Billy Moon’s command, the little room was spotless, the floor well-swept, each piece of tack hung in its appointed place, the wooden saddle-horse scrubbed, the saddles themselves placed neatly on their racks. Smiling to myself, I took a ball-point and a scrap of paper from my shoulderbag to leave Billy a note.

  There was a high, old-fashioned counting-house desk which had probably been relegated here at some long-ago time when the estate offices were modernised. Under its sloping lid, I knew, was a meticulously-kept stable log book written up in Billy’s spidery script. On the match-boarding wall above this, fixed with drawing pins, was a calendar from a feed firm, a faded picture postcard of Blackpool Tower, a poster concerning some horse trials at Cirencester, and further along ...

  The wave of shock passed right through me, setting my pulse throbbing. Pinned at each corner with perfect precision was a familiar coloured picture of three horses taking a hurdle at Cheltenham races. The cover of last month’s Cotswold Illustrated.

  I stepped closer, but there was no mistake. The picture had been carefully trimmed, with the magazine’s title cut away. I started to lever out the drawing pins with my fingernails, gave up, searched and found a penknife with a broken handle, and used that. When I had the square of art paper off the wall I held it in my hands and stared at it hard, back and front, as if it might of itself somehow reveal a secret.

  I heard a footstep outside, and swung round.

  “What you a’doing, miss?” demanded Billy Moon from the doorway, sounding truculent.

  I held up the picture. “What’s this, Billy? Where did you get it?”

  He shuffled forward a foot or two, but not very close. “I ain’t done nothing wrong, miss, and it’s no good you trying to make out that I have.”

  “No, I’m sure you haven’t, Billy. Only ... please just tell me where it came from.”

  “I found it, didn’t I?”

  “Found it? Where?”

  “It were chucked away,” he grunted.

  “Yes, but where? Was it the whole magazine you found, or just this one page?”

  “All cut about it were, and no good to anyone. You ain’t got no cause to make an almighty fuss about it, Miss Yorke.”

  I wanted to shake the information out of him. Instead, I said mildly, “I’m not blaming you for anything, Billy. I just want you to tell me where you found the magazine. It’s very important for me to know.”

  He gave me a stubborn, bitter look. “In the stable. Behind one of the mangers.”

  “Show me, please.”

  Grumbling to himself, Billy led the way into the big stable, which was used to house all four of the horses now kept. We walked along to the end stall, and he pointed sullenly at the manger.

  “It were there, miss, stuffed right down behind. It had been throwed out, anyone could tell that. All the pages were cut about, and ...”

  “Where’s the rest of the magazine?” I demanded excitedly.

  Billy glowered at me, as if he thought that I was off my rocker. “It’s gone now, I s’pose.”

  “Gone where?”

  “With the rubbish, a’course. What would I want with keeping it for?”

  “In the dustbins, you mean? The same ones I use for the studio?”

  “I allus use them bins,” he said, now on the defensive about this new aspect. “Nobody ain’t never told me not to.”

  I was already half out of the door. As I ran across the courtyard, I heard Billy call after me, “It ain’t no good you looking, miss. Them bins was emptied yesterday. We’re done on a Tuesday round here.”

  I still went to look, though. The two bins were indeed empty, except for a baked-bean tin and a newspaper that Billy must have thrown in since the refuse collection. He came across and stood beside me, perversely satisfied.

  “I told you, miss, didn’t I? Why don’t you lissen?”

  My mind raced frantically.

  “When exactly was it that you found the copy of Cotswold Illustrated?” I asked.

  Billy’s lined face creased into even more wrinkles.

  “Monday, I reckon ... yes, Monday art’noon. I noticed the manger pulled out a bit from the wall ... that there Prince is a proper messy feeder, always jerking things about. It were when I went to shove it back that I spotted the magazine.”

  “Who could have put it there, Billy?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Well then—who might have come in here?”

  He scratched his ear. “Anyone, I s’pose. There’s only her ladyship and Mr. Sebastian who do any riding these days, ’cepting for yourself, miss. But neither of them was here on Monday, ’cause of that there inquest. I didn’t see no sign of anyone all day, just you on your way up to the studio.”

  There was nothing more to be got out of him, that was clear.

  I said, “Well, thank you, Billy—thank you very much. I’ll keep the picture, if you don’t mind. And please don’t say anything about this to anyone.”

  “Ain’t nothing to say,” he groused, half to himself. “All this blessed hullabaloo over some old magazine nobody wanted. I only kept the picture ’cause one of they jockeys was the grandson of a bloke I used to know. But if you want to take it away from me, Miss Yorke, I can’t stop you.”

  “I’ll get you another one, Billy,” I promised him soothingly
. “In fact, you can have the cover picture from my own copy. How’s that?”

  Whether he attributed it to my gender, my social class, or my character, he patently thought that I was stark raving mad.

  “You do as you please, miss,” he said with a sniff. “I got work to get on with.”

  I hurried across to the studio, unlocked the door, and ran upstairs. Picking up the phone, I dialled the number of the Gilchester police headquarters, and impatiently counted off the seconds that I had to wait.

  “Detective Inspector Grant, please.”

  “I’ll see if he’s in, madam. Who’s speaking?”

  “Tracy Yorke.”

  Neil came on the line immediately. “What’s new, Tracy?”

  “Something important. The magazine has turned up.”

  “That’s something I didn’t expect. Where was it?”

  I explained briefly, and Neil asked several questions until he had extracted everything I knew myself. Then he said, “I’m coming straight over. I suppose you’ve handled that cover page, Tracy?”

  “Well, yes ...”

  “And Billy Moon’s prints will be plastered all over it, too. I don’t expect there’s a hope in hell we’ll find anything useful, but you never know.”

  This time, while I waited for Neil to turn up, it wasn’t in the same mood of nervous trepidation as before. This was not just guesswork on my part, but solid fact. Could it be that my discovery would unlock the answers to everything ... the sender of the anonymous letter, Oliver’s killer and—if Neil was right—Ursula’s killer, too?

  Neil arrived like a whirlwind. “Okay, where’s this magazine cover you found?”

  I pointed to it on my table, and he studied it thoughtfully for a moment. Then, touching only the edges, he slid it into a polythene bag he took from his jacket pocket.

  “Now, Tracy, I’m off to see Billy Moon. But I want you to stay here by the phone, because I’m hoping for a call to say that the remnants of the magazine have been found. If it comes through, then take the message and come down and let me know at once.”