A Very English Murder

by Verity Bright

  ‘Clifford? But… but he was my uncle’s wingman for years. He was at the Hall when I was a child. He can’t have been suspected if my uncle was…’ Her words dried up and her eyes filled.

  ‘I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’

  Eleanor shook her head. ‘And I’m sorry but I simply don’t believe it. My uncle was too shrewd to be taken in. And besides, Clifford has been nothing but a loyal servant since my arrival.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely. Why, when someone tampered with the brakes on the Rolls, he practically saved my life.’

  ‘Perhaps… or perhaps he made it look like he did. Mr Clifford is known to have a complicated past and a great many contacts that you and I would describe as “questionable”, but which could also be described as downright criminal. I fought the urge to tell you all this on your last visit as you were so newly arrived, but now I fear for your safety.’

  ‘Why on earth would he wish me harm?’

  ‘Perhaps you are uncovering his most carefully laid tracks. He has been with you on your investigations so far?’

  Eleanor nodded, sipping her tea to conceal her confusion.

  ‘Don’t you see, my dear? He has been with you every step and knows what you have discovered. What might he do to stop you finding out any more?’

  Eleanor’s face was ashen. I know you toyed with him being a suspect, Ellie, but you never really believed it. Did you? ‘Clifford isn’t a murderer!’

  Kingsley shook his head slowly. ‘I wish I shared your confidence. On the evening when you were at the quarry, where was your loyal butler?’

  ‘He was out looking for me in the car.’

  ‘And did he find you?’

  Eleanor groaned. ‘No.’

  ‘So, his whereabouts at the time of the murder are unknown.’ Kingsley nodded to himself. ‘And who knew Atkins’ personal habits as well as Mr Clifford? None of us who worked with him had any inkling of his home life. He was quite reclusive and fiercely private. I wager Mr Clifford knew a great deal though.’

  Eleanor said nothing, but her face betrayed her thoughts.

  ‘Lady Swift,’ Kingsley said softly. ‘How did you become alerted to the police logbook allegedly having been tampered with? A “discovery” of Mr Clifford’s perhaps?’

  Eleanor’s mind raced. Was it possible that she had been so blind? She pictured her penny dreadful-inspired lists back at the Hall and now she could see plainly what she’d been unable, or refused, to see before – the name of the murderer.

  And that name was Clifford.

  Kingsley stood up and put his hands together. ‘Lady Swift, will you permit me to provide a safe house for you to reside in until I can assure your safety?’

  ‘What? Safe house?’ Eleanor stared furiously at the mayor. ‘Good gracious, no!’

  Kingsley took her arm as she rose. ‘Is Mr Clifford waiting outside for you?’

  ‘No, he has gone to see his… contacts.’

  Kingsley drew his breath in sharply. ‘I see. Then if you return to Henley Hall, I insist that Perkins drives you in my car. But I do strongly urge you to let me ensure your safety. I will arrange for a member of the force to check on you regularly.’

  She shook her head and, pulling her arm free, slid her gloves on and straightened her hat. ‘Now I know what I’m dealing with I shall be fine, Mayor Kingsley. In my previous life I managed quite admirably. I foolishly let my guard down temporarily, that’s all. Thank you for your time.’

  ‘Perkins!’ Kingsley bellowed from the open door. ‘Car, now!’

  Back at the Hall, Eleanor made her excuses to Mrs Butters and asked for tea in her room. Once the tray had been delivered and the door closed, she sat on the floor, leaning against the bed. Even Gladstone had been sent away with the housekeeper. She needed to be alone.

  She buried her head in her hands, her mind switching from believing to disbelieving and back until she felt dizzy. It had to be wrong. Clifford couldn’t have fooled her so completely. But what if he’d been fooling her uncle for all those years? She thought back to the day when she had arrived. Clifford had been so put out to see her. Was it because she’d disrupted his plans to murder someone that night?

  And the brakes being cut on the Rolls. Had he arranged that himself as the mayor had suggested? Was it just an elaborate ruse to keep her from suspecting him? A cold-hearted plan that had involved him inflicting concussion and a battered shoulder on her?

  And his mysterious contacts? She hadn’t questioned who they were, but he hadn’t volunteered the information either. Even the box Gladstone had uncovered in the quarry could very well belong to Clifford. After all, he’d been keen to stop the bulldog digging and he claimed he’d been unable to see the box even though she’d spotted it immediately. Which meant if the box was his, so were the notebooks, money… and gun!

  Finally, what about his latest insistence she didn’t leave the Hall? Was it for her own safety… or so he could find her if he needed to? She shivered. And he still hadn’t returned. This was too much, how could she possibly know who to believe? Since her parents’ disappearance she had learnt to trust no one, only letting her guard down once with the man she’d finally married, and that had been a monumental mistake. Had she done the same again?

  She let her head flop back onto the bed. There’s only one way to find out, Ellie…

  Reaching under her bed, she scrabbled about for her soft-soled ballet pumps. At the door, she opened it a crack and listened carefully. The upstairs was silent and there was no movement in the hallway below. Right, here goes, Ellie…

  Thirty-Two

  Downstairs, she listened again. Nothing. Holding her breath, she pushed the kitchen door open to be met by the soft sound of Gladstone’s snores over by the range. She stepped towards the window and saw Mrs Trotman talking to the milkman, while Polly was fighting with the sheets she was trying to peg out on the washing line. Eleanor made the snap decision that she would just have to risk that Mrs Butters was somewhere out of the way.

  She crossed to the other end of the kitchen and tapped gently on the door to the butler’s pantry. This was the mysterious room leading between the kitchen and the dining room, allowing Clifford to magically appear with a tray at a moment’s notice. Getting no answer, she turned the door handle and stepped inside.

  Leaning against the door, she let it close with the softest of clicks. The arched windows on the opposite wall threw sunlight across the wooden countertops, which ran the full length of the room. Sets of silver tableware sat perfectly polished and arranged. Below this, was a long run of cupboard doors.

  Willing her feet to move, Eleanor stepped to the first and pulled open the door. Acres of glassware filled the space. In the next three it was the same, only different sets of crockery. Good grief, her uncle would have needed to have thrown a party for the whole village to use half this stuff. The last door revealed sets of linen ware, all perfectly ironed and ready to go at the slightest hint of a spillage in the dining room. With a jolt, she remembered that it now all belonged to her…

  With a deep breath, she focussed again on the task at hand. She turned in a full circle, noting that the two highly polished tables in the centre of the room each had drawers. But these revealed nothing more than a range of corkscrews in one and cigar cutters in the other. Think, Ellie, he wouldn’t hide anything incriminating in amongst the dinner service!

  Aside from the glass-fronted drinks cabinet, which she noted was locked, there was an oak tall boy, which opened with a nerve-wracking creak but only to reveal rows of decoratively labelled jars of preserves and a world of cheese, trapped in glass-domed kingdoms. That only left two doors. The larger of the two, she knew had to lead straight into the dining room. The other, therefore, had to lead to Clifford’s personal quarters. Ah, that was where she should be! Grabbing a set of white gloves from the neat pile on the countertop, she slipped them on and grasped the handle.

  It was only after she’d opened the door a
nd peeped up the short flight of stairs that it struck her as odd that he didn’t keep this locked. Good job though. Still, she had to take herself in hand and demand that her legs carry her up to the smart, bachelor-style sitting room. Snooping on one’s staff was not her style.

  A large writing desk filled the window recess, one pane slightly ajar on its stay, and two leather armchairs sat facing the stone fireplace. Two silver-framed photographs of Clifford with her uncle somewhere abroad were the only decoration, save for a wide mirror hanging above them.

  At the far end, half-obscured by a jutting wall, a circular dining table was set with a blue cloth and two chairs. She noted one had a plump cushion propped against the back. Eleanor paused, had her uncle sat with his butler up here, invited into Clifford’s private world? Two old friends, enjoying a brandy, chuckling over their adventures and sharing a late-night supper?

  She shook her head. It didn’t seem possible that Clifford could have taken her uncle in for all those years. She sighed. She knew so little about her uncle, how could she possibly judge?

  She started with the drawers of the desk and quickly scanned all the papers, but nothing seemed in the least bit out of the ordinary, merely household accounts, archived letters to and from tradesmen and a copy of Debretts Peerage and Baronetage. The room was furnished with such elegant minimalism that she stared blankly round for a moment. Where could one hide anything?

  Her eyes ran to the slim bookcase near the table. Going through each of the books and pulling on their spines in the hope of revealing a secret opening, revealed… nothing. Resorting to taking the lid from the copper kettle hanging on the hook over the fireplace, she chewed her lip. There had to be more. His bedroom! But where on earth was it? Spinning round, she noted one of the windows this end of the room had the curtains drawn. She gingerly peeped through.

  Ah! Not a window but another short flight of stairs to Clifford’s inner sanctum. With no idea what she would say if he found her peering under his mattress, she sprinted up the stairs. The cedar wardrobe held nothing but a perfect row of suits: morning, grey and black. She hurried through the pockets of the jackets and trousers to no avail.

  A row of five pairs of highly polished shoes stood on a rack below but she could find no signs of sand or chalk from the quarry on the soles and no hidden compartments in the heels. Tapping the back of the wardrobe for a hidden panel did nothing but frazzle her nerves even further at the loud echo that bounced round the wooden-floored room.

  Next she focussed her attentions on the single bed. It had a walnut-inlaid nightstand either side, a water carafe standing on one and an ornate oil lamp on the other.

  The drawers were filled with a stack of clean handkerchiefs on one side and several pairs of spectacles and a set of thin metal rods she assumed were the set of skeleton keys he had used in the hut in the quarry on the other.

  The bed was made with such military precision she hesitated before running her hand under the pillows and lifting the mattress. Nothing.

  A few minutes later and she had resorted to lifting the circular rug in the middle of the room but this revealed nothing more than perfectly polished and dust-free oak boards. Off to the left was a small washroom, tiled in alternate green and white, complete with toilet, clawfoot hip bath and a ceramic basin. In the small corner cupboard, she found only shaving gear, a hand-held mirror, soap and a neat array of gentleman’s nail clippers and combs.

  Dash it! His rooms were just as inscrutable as his deadpan butler persona.

  She sighed as she closed the bathroom-cabinet door quietly. Short of ripping up the floorboards or scouring every inch of the walls, she’d drawn a total blank. Money! The thought popped into her head. He had to have somewhere to keep his money; he wouldn’t put that in the family safe in her uncle’s study. She moved to the one painting hanging on the wall opposite the bed. A rather artless work of two cowboys watching the setting sun, astride sandy-coloured steeds. Artless and not the hiding place for a safe it turned out.

  As she put the picture back, a thought struck her. She darted back into the bathroom and snatched up the shaving mirror. Then she sprawled on the floor and examined the underneath of the furniture and bed for anything taped out of sight.

  Nothing!

  Eleanor scrambled back up and resigned herself to being wrong about him. He really was as straight-laced and rigidly upstanding as he seemed. She went back to the bathroom cabinet to replace the mirror but tripped over the door threshold. ‘No!’ she blurted out as the mirror flew from her hand. Somehow she caught it. She lay winded on her back for a second before rolling over. ‘Hello! What’s this?’ she whispered.

  In the mirror she could see behind one of the feet on the hip bath where two of the wall tiles seemed to be slightly proud. Unless you were lying on the bathroom floor with a mirror, you’d never notice.

  She lay back down and felt along the section of tiled wall until they came away. She nodded at the space that was now revealed. And the slim safety deposit box that just fitted in the hole.

  She almost dropped the box at the sound of a voice drifting through the window. ‘Polly, hang the bed sheets straight my girl. Mrs Butters doesn’t want to spend her life pressing out creases!’

  Eleanor stared at the box. She tried the lid. Locked, of course. Clifford’s skeleton keys! After a couple of minutes that seemed like twenty, she heard it: the dink of a lock clicking back into its open position.

  Holding her breath, she lifted the lid and gasped. Inside were seven oddly shaped gems.

  ‘Garnets!’

  She picked one up. It was certainly a garnet, like the one they’d found in the quarry, but… in the shape of a bullet?

  For a fleeting moment, she thought of dropping it into her pocket but ironically Clifford’s previous words flooded back to her: ‘It would, after all, be a shame to alert the murderer to the fact that we have him on our list of suspects.’ Slamming the lid of the box shut, she slid it back into the hole and replaced the tiles.

  She licked her finger and ran it along the floor to pick up the telltale line of fine white plaster that had been dislodged. Hastily replacing the keys in the bedside drawer, she retreated down the two short flights of stairs into the main house.

  Back in her room, she lay against the door to catch her breath. When her pulse had begun to settle, she moved into pacing the room. Why did Clifford have those garnets? Did he accidentally drop one in the quarry, or did he deliberately plant one there? Then again, the garnet she’d found in the quarry had been cut to fit in a jewellery mounting, the ones she’d just discovered in Clifford’s room were cut like bullets.

  She shook her head. What to make of all this, Ellie? She stopped pacing, the mayor’s words coming back to her like an ice-cold dagger. ‘My dear, he has been with you every step and knows what you have discovered. What might he do to stop you finding out any more?’

  She stopped short and held her breath for a moment, as this time, the memory of Clifford’s words came back to her: ‘I have noted you are rather hard to kill, my lady.’

  Thirty-Three

  Eleanor jumped as Mrs Butters called through the door, ‘My lady?’

  Calm down, Ellie!

  ‘Come in!’

  ‘Good gracious, my lady. Have you seen a ghost?’ The housekeeper peered at Eleanor’s pale face.

  ‘No, should I have?’ Eleanor snapped. ‘I asked not to be disturbed, Mrs Butters.’

  The housekeeper looked anxiously at her. ‘I do beg your pardon, my lady, but with Mr Clifford not here and all the goings on I didn’t think it best to send the gentleman away.’

  ‘Gentleman?’

  She handed Eleanor a card on a small silver tray: Detective Chief Inspector Seldon, Oxford Criminal Investigation Division.

  She hesitated. Maybe he would be bringing good news. Taking the card, she brushed past Mrs Butters down the stairs and into the hallway where her visitor was waiting.

  ‘Inspector, are you planning to stay long enough
for tea?’

  ‘Regrettably not, Lady Swift. May we talk in private?’

  Eleanor gestured to the morning room and shook her head at Mrs Butters who was waiting at the base of the stairs for instructions.

  With the door closed, Eleanor sat and motioned for the inspector to do the same. However, he remained standing.

  ‘So, not a social call then? Do you come with the sombre news of more deaths and murder?’

  DCI Seldon grimaced. ‘Thankfully no, Lady Swift, no more murders… but I did promise to keep you up to date with… developments.’

  ‘Do please come to the point, Inspector.’

  ‘The fact is, Lady Swift, the Atkins case is closed.’

  Eleanor jumped up. ‘Closed! You’ve found the murderer then?’

  He sighed. ‘Mr Cornell has been deemed guilty of the murder of Mr Atkins. The suicide note—’

  ‘That’s what you were supposed to think,’ Eleanor cried. ‘You fell for it. Now there is a multiple murderer on the loose and no one is looking for him!’ Her anger threatened to burn a hole through her skull and her cheeks as they turned crimson.

  ‘Lady Swift, are you alright? Forgive me, but you look a little flushed.’

  ‘More than alright, thank you. In fact, I am in superlative health and perfectly able to take care of myself.’

  DCI Seldon looked at Eleanor’s hands. For a moment she thought he might be about to reach out and take them in his. Instead, his continued in his usual gruff tone. ‘Lady Swift, it is my official duty to repeat my warning that you shouldn’t continue to investigate this matter any further. The case is, as I said, officially closed. Any attempts to re-open it by yourself will be seen as attempting to obstruct justice.’

  ‘Obstruct justice!’ She smiled coldly. ‘Inspector, might I suggest that next time you decide to waste my time, you use the telephone and save yourself a journey.’ She rose and gestured towards the door.

  ‘Good day, Lady Swift.’ He bowed stiffly and left.