A Very English Murder

by Verity Bright

  She stepped back out onto the road and looked up at the sign reading West Radington Post Office. Returning, she called out, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Long live our noble queen…’ The wobbling voice failed to hit anything other than one excruciating note. ‘Happy and glorious. Long to reign over us. God save the Queen.’

  ‘Mother!’ The gramophone cut off. ‘Mother, we’ve been over this.’ A gaunt woman in her early fifties stepped in from the adjoining room. ‘Our noble Queen Victoria is long departed. It’s Long Live the King, King George V, please catch up.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll swing for treason, my girl. Play it again and stop your treacherous talk. Next it’ll be that we’re having acorns for tea again. I told you they give me the gripes.’

  There was a scuffle and then the graunch of a needle being wrenched across the shellac surface.

  On her previous errand for Mrs Butters, Eleanor had forgotten the last items on the list: two envelopes and the accompanying stamps. However, having asked Clifford to pause on their sightseeing trip so she could correct this oversight, she was now wondering if it had been a bad idea.

  The voices continued from the back room.

  ‘Mother, it’s time for your nap. Please go on upstairs.’

  ‘Tsk, a nap indeed, I have to practise. Let me alone.’

  ‘Mother’ appeared, followed by her daughter, and began a procession of the shop, knees high as she stepped, making a trumpeting noise along the way.

  The daughter saw Eleanor and her hand flew to her mouth. Then a sly look crossed her face. ‘Mother, you’ll see the parade far better from the upstairs bedroom window.’

  With the elderly woman dispatched, the daughter turned to Eleanor. ‘Madam, what must you think of us? How may I help?’

  Eleanor walked up to the counter. ‘Good morning, Mrs…?’

  ‘Oh my, how rude of me. It’s Miss Green, sub-postmistress and owner of this convenience store.’

  Eleanor looked around, noting for the first time the cigarette machine on the wall and the rack of shelves laden with an extraordinary number of random items. ‘Good morning, Miss Green. Perhaps you would be so good as to provide me with the items on this list.’ She handed over the crumpled piece of paper.

  Miss Green looked at the list and then at Eleanor. ‘You know, Doctor Browning popped in here only the other day.’ She paused. ‘But maybe you haven’t met Doctor Browning?’

  Eleanor shook her head.

  ‘Ah, well he’s attended royalty, has our Doctor Browning. Well, almost royalty.’

  Eleanor tried to take part in the conversation. ‘I’m not from around here. Well, I am sort of now.’ She realised she wasn’t sounding any more coherent than Miss Green. ‘I come from Little Buckford, over the way. I’m Lady Swift of Henley Hall.’

  Miss Green’s jaw dropped. ‘Lady Swift? Then you must know Mr Stoker.’

  Eleanor was tiring of this nonsense. ‘Mr Stoker?’

  ‘Everyone knows Mr Stoker. Well travelled, he is. He’s got a fair collection alright, put it on display in The Badger he did.’

  Eleanor blinked. ‘On display in a badger?’

  The postmistress looked at Eleanor as if she was the one behaving oddly. ‘Not a badger, the Badger. The local public house.’

  Eleanor smiled weakly. ‘Oh, of course, that Badger.’ She blinked again. ‘Collection of what though?’ She regretted asking immediately, but it was too late.

  ‘Well, mosses, fungi and algae, of course. There’s not much Mr Stoker doesn’t know about that kind of thing.’

  Eleanor fixed the postmistress with a wan smile. ‘Perhaps, Miss Green, you could get me my stamps and…’ Eleanor stopped. After all, the quarry wasn’t far from here and this woman, however unhinged, obviously knew everyone in the local area. Ever the opportunist, she changed tack. ‘Actually, Miss Green, I wonder if you can help me in a most important matter?’

  Miss Green swelled with pride. ‘Of course, Lady Swit.’

  Eleanor let it go. ‘I witnessed a most unfortunate accident just down the road from here. A poor chap fell from his motorbike by a disused quarry.’ Well, it’s only a small lie in a good cause, Ellie! ‘He was in such a fearful rush he dashed away before I could check if he needed assistance. I feel bad about the whole affair.’

  Miss Green interrupted her. ‘All vehicles in the surrounding area have to be registered each year and the authorities have deemed my post office as an outer fringe point for accepting registration paperwork.’ Eleanor couldn’t believe her luck as Miss Green continued. ‘There’s only four who ride one of those death traps around here.’ She picked up a large, dog-eared notebook and rummaged through the pages, reading out four names: ‘A Mr Jonas Trundle, a Mr Jack Cornell, a Mr Bartholemew Blount and a Mr Lancelot Germaine Benedict Fenwick-Langham.’ She gave Eleanor a knowing look. ‘He’s the son of a lord, you know.’

  She did indeed know and with the names secured in her memory, she thanked Miss Green for her expert knowledge. ‘One last question,’ Eleanor called from the doorway. ‘Has anyone sent any unusual telegrams lately? Anything about a murder or moving a body?’

  Well, it was worth a shot.

  Further on, the lane wound up a steep climb. The Rolls had run out of gears early and was crawling upwards with its engine labouring. A hand-painted sign on a piece of scrap metal attached to a gatepost caught her eye: ‘STEEP DOWNHILL’.

  Eleanor pointed, shouting to Clifford. ‘Sort of obvious, what?’

  ‘Cyclists,’ Clifford said. ‘Local touring clubs erect their own danger boards. They are lobbying Parliament for signs to be erected nationwide.’

  ‘That’s going to look dashed untidy.’ She pictured every road festooned with warning signs of steep gradients, wayward sheep and drunken villagers.

  The Rolls ground over the crest. The engine noise subsided.

  ‘What a beautiful view.’ She was entranced, but Clifford seemed less interested in the view and more interested in his feet. A few yards over the rise, the verges started to shoot past her window at an alarming rate. Eleanor grabbed the doorframe with one hand and Gladstone with the other. The car slewed around the first corner, barely keeping to the road.

  ‘Clifford, slow down!’ she admonished.

  ‘I can’t… my… lady.’ Clifford wrestled with the steering wheel, his feet pressed hard to the floor. ‘I fear the… brakes… are defective.’

  The back end of the car spun round, the front wheels fighting for grip. It seemed inevitable they would plunge over the edge and down into the valley. Clifford wrenched the wheel desperately. The rear wheels caught, and the car spun away from the steep drop.

  Before Eleanor had time to feel relieved, she realised that they were about to hit a very large oak tree. This is going to hurt, Ellie! She held Gladstone tightly.

  ‘My lady,’ Clifford’s voice was loud but calm. ‘Brace!’

  Twenty-Four

  That flapping was making her wince. Eleanor struggled to brush it away. Something soft and wet…

  ‘Gladstone!’ Mrs Butters whispered. ‘Stop licking her ladyship. The mistress is sleeping.’ Eleanor stirred and opened her eyes.

  The housekeeper tutted. ‘My lady, you’re awake. I am so sorry about Gladstone. I tried to keep him out, but he must have barged the door open.’

  ‘No matter. How long have I been… unconscious?’

  ‘Since the accident, my lady. About midday they brought you here.’

  Eleanor groaned. ‘Really? Well, I need to be up now anyway.’

  ‘Oh no, full bed rest was the doctor’s orders. That was a very nasty knock to your head. And the cut as well.’

  Eleanor reached up and felt her head. ‘It seems I am bandaged up. Most inelegant, I’m sure.’ Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Clifford! How is he?’

  Mrs Butters smiled. ‘Mr Clifford is just fine, my lady. You know what he’s like, wouldn’t say if his leg was hanging off. But he’s walking alright, carrying on with his duties and getting the
car sorted.’

  Eleanor patted the exuberant bulldog. ‘And amazingly Gladstone seems to have survived unscratched. He’s built like a tank, this one!’

  ‘He is indeed.’ The housekeeper straightened Eleanor’s eiderdown and plumped her pillow.

  ‘Anything important I need to know about?’

  ‘Nothing urgent, my lady. The Reverend called again, but Mr Clifford told him to come back in a few days when you’re better. You rest, my lady. I’ll check on you later.’

  Eleanor winced. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Mrs Butters. A short nap will shift this bothersome headache.’ She snuggled down in the bed.

  The housekeeper closed the door softly behind her.

  Four hours and several most peculiar dreams later, Eleanor woke in an unladylike sweat.

  ‘What! Oh, Gladstone. This won’t do, boy. Come on.’ She clambered out of bed, then washed and dressed slowly due to her pounding head and throbbing shoulder. Gently she made it down the stairs to the hall and bumped into her maid.

  Polly squeaked then curtsied and scurried back to the kitchen. Mrs Butters and Mrs Trotman appeared before Eleanor had reached the morning room.

  ‘My lady!’ they chorused.

  ‘I’m fine, ladies.’ Eleanor smiled with a wince. ‘Thank you for your concern. Is Clifford around?’

  ‘Apologies, my lady. He has popped out. He should be back within the hour.’ Mrs Butters frowned at Eleanor’s pale complexion and tired eyes.

  ‘Good. Then he won’t hear me asking for a spot of lunch at the obscene hour of four o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to take your lunch in the kitchen, my lady? The range is lit and it’s nice and toasty in there.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Eleanor wished with all her heart this kind housekeeper had been around for those lonely visits when she was a child. Why is it against the rules to hug one’s staff?

  ‘There you are! No, do please carry on.’ Eleanor waved Clifford back onto the bench he was starting to rise from as she entered. Having finished her late lunch, she had set out to see if her fellow invalid had returned. ‘So, this is the boot room?’

  ‘Indeed, my lady.’

  Clifford sat back down, with a shoe slipped over one hand, and a brush in the other. He dipped his head and peered at her over a pair of spectacles. He cleared his throat. ‘Can I get you something, my lady? Perhaps some tea in the drawing room?’

  ‘I’m swimming in tea, thank you. And I’m done with lying about. Honestly, how do women do it in those romance novels? All that lounging about. It’s ghastly!’

  ‘I couldn’t say, my lady, not being an admirer of the romance genre.’

  ‘No, I imagine not.’ Eleanor thought about the countless hundreds of them that she had devoured with intense and secret delight.

  ‘My lady, forgive my presumption, but perhaps you have risen rather earlier than the doctor thought prudent?’ He put down the shoe and brush and made to undo his apron.

  ‘Tosh! I merely have a headache.’ She raised her hand to her head to illustrate and winced for the hundredth time. ‘Okay, and a slightly painful shoulder. But enough about me. What of you, Clifford? Did we hit a tree? I don’t remember much after we spun round.’

  Clifford looked at his feet for a second. ‘My lady, with deep regret I was unable to stop the car meeting a most solid and unforgiving oak tree. Fortunately, the Rolls survived the impact intact. In fact, I was able to drive straight to Doctor Browning, who attended to you.’

  So now I have met Doctor Browning.

  ‘Then I returned with you to the Hall, my lady, and dropped the Rolls off at Johnson’s, the coachbuilders. It should be back in service within a few days.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Clifford! I don’t care about the Rolls, I’m asking if you’re alright?’

  ‘Thank you, my lady. I emerged in one piece.’

  ‘Yes, and if your leg was hanging off, you wouldn’t say, as Mrs Butters rightly pointed out. Now, you have my permission to take as much rest as you need to recover.’

  He nodded. ‘Most kind.’

  She sat down on the bench opposite him. ‘But tell me, what on earth happened?’

  Clifford removed his spectacles and set them on the table. ‘It would appear that someone tampered with the brakes.’

  She digested the information. Now her headache had receded a little, she was able to think more clearly, and for the first time it struck her. ‘Do you think they were trying to kill us?’

  ‘It is a distinct possibility.’

  She was furious. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill her but that had been abroad. This was England. And rural England at that!

  Clifford continued. ‘Or it might be that it was merely a warning.’

  Eleanor snorted. ‘Well, they are going to have to work a lot harder than that!’

  Clifford nodded at Eleanor’s bandaged head and shoulder. ‘I have noted you are rather hard to kill, my lady, but perhaps they won’t need to work an awful lot harder?’

  ‘I didn’t have you pegged as a scaredy-cat, Clifford.’

  Clifford almost looked annoyed. ‘My concern was with your safety, my lady, not my own. Your uncle…’ He paused.

  ‘Go on.’

  He hesitated. ‘I think, my lady, that that is perhaps for some other time.’

  Eleanor decided her head hurt too much to argue.

  ‘Okay, Clifford.’

  He laid down the brush. ‘There is another more pressing matter. Miss Abigail, who works at Chipstone Police Station…’

  Eleanor forgot her headache. ‘Yes, yes, I recall, my memory hasn’t been affected. And…?’

  ‘It seems she overheard two policemen discussing the news that a body has been found.’

  Eleanor threw her hands up. ‘Another body!’

  ‘Indeed. The body was found around twelve fifteen today by the postman, who informed the police. And next to the body the police found a suicide note, in which…’ Clifford paused. ‘… the deceased confessed to having killed Mr Atkins.’

  Eleanor gasped. ‘So Mr Atkins was murdered just as we thought?’

  ‘It seems so, but Miss Abigail was unable to ascertain if the suicide note gave a reason for the murder.’

  ‘But now at least we know who the murderer is. Did she get a name?’

  Clifford shook his head. ‘Miss Abigail has not been able to establish the deceased’s identity yet, but she will no doubt know soon enough, or else the tabloids will publish it.’

  Eleanor sat back on the hard, wooden bench and tried to think. ‘Wonderful though it is to have our theory validated, a great many things don’t add up, but in particular two are screaming at me.’ She raised one finger. ‘It seems rather convenient that this person was indecent enough to commit murder but decent enough to confess to it. Makes for a nice open-and-shut case for the police, wouldn’t you say?’

  Clifford nodded. ‘Very perceptive, my lady. And the second point?’

  She raised a second finger. ‘If this chap was behind the affair, why would he have tried to kill or scare us off just before he took his own life?’

  Clifford nodded. ‘Agreed. There is a third point, similar to your first that puzzles me also. If the deceased did murder Mr Atkins, why would he have gone to all the trouble of making it look like an accident, only to confess to the murder a week later?’

  Eleanor thumped the bench and regretted it as her head swam and a sharp pain shot across her shoulders. She waited a moment to recover. ‘Clifford, it seems to me that we have been reading this case all wrong.’

  Clifford raised an eyebrow a fraction. ‘How so, my lady?’

  ‘Do you remember when you told me about Lord Wildmoor? And we talked about how power has changed hands from the nobility in these rural areas? Well, up till now we’ve been looking at Mr Atkins’ death as a personal matter. A feud that got out of hand with Cartwright perhaps, or Wilby. Obviously not Lancelot.’ She blushed lightly and hurried on, ‘A
s we’ve ruled him out as a suspect.’

  Clifford nodded thoughtfully. ‘Indeed, my lady, I can see where your train of thought is going. This affair seems to be much more than a merely personal matter if our current suspicions are correct – and they are only that at the moment, suspicions. But if we are right, then the newly deceased was also murdered, and again the murder disguised as something else, in this case, suicide. But did the murderer fake a suicide note to persuade the police to treat it as an open-and-shut case or—’

  Eleanor jumped in. ‘Or did our Sergeant Wilby conveniently arrange it?’

  Clifford nodded. ‘Indeed. Whoever is orchestrating this has a certain amount of power. There have long been rumours of corruption in the local constabulary or council, but nothing has ever been proven. Some say it is just the usual thing, the police and councillors taking backhanders to turn a blind eye.’

  Eleanor slapped the bench, wincing only slightly. ‘We need to break into Mr Atkins’ house and find some real evidence. Evidence those idiot police have overlooked, or are hiding.’

  Clifford smiled. ‘Once again, my lady, I see your uncle in you. But, with respect, perhaps allowing Miss Abigail another day to uncover more details might be a safer plan?’

  Eleanor sighed. ‘I suppose so.’

  The door into the hallway opened and Mrs Butters bustled in. She stopped, seeing Eleanor. ‘Oh, my lady, I do apologise. I had no idea you were here.’

  Eleanor smiled. ‘No trouble, Mrs Butters.’

  The housekeeper blushed and turned to Clifford. ‘Mr Clifford, Doctor Browning is waiting in the hall.’

  Clifford rose, folded his apron on the table, then held the door ‘My lady…’

  Twenty-Five

  The following morning, Gladstone was keeping Eleanor company at the breakfast table. Truth be told, he was more interested in keeping the breakfast company as he preferred human food to his normal dog food. Eleanor had been trying to wean him onto plain toast as his sausage habit was clearly not a healthy one. Clifford made his usual silent entrance and refilled her teacup. ‘Might I enquire if you are feeling brighter this morning, my lady?’