A Death by Any Other Name

by Tessa Arlen

  “I loved Rupert, Amelia, he was the kindest … most kindest of men.” Mrs. Haldane wailed like a brokenhearted child.

  Mrs. Jackson went to the bell pull and rang for Charles.

  “Charles,” she said, smiling at the footman; all evening he had been looking particularly hang-dog but now he brightened up. “That went very well, but I am afraid we cannot give you your stamps back because they will be needed. Now would you light a fire and bring some brandy in here, please? And some coffee—hot, mind—with lots of sugar, and sandwiches. And then be on hand for Colonel Valentine so you may tell him about the package that came for Mr. Bartholomew the day before he died, the one that came from China.” She turned to the chief constable, who was standing in the middle of the room, with his two constables supporting a now silent Mrs. Bartholomew.

  “You see, Colonel Valentine, Charles collects stamps and he steamed the stamps off the package addressed to Mr. Bartholomew from his wife. I am afraid the brown wrapping paper bearing the address, written in Mrs. Bartholomew’s hand, has long since gone. But I am sure that Mr. Stafford has already given you the little blue bottle and if you look at the frank on the stamps with a magnifying glass, you might be able to discern the date.” And then she modestly stepped to one side.

  Mr. Stafford came across the room to her.

  “That was remarkable playacting. Who put Mr. Urquhart up to it? Was it Lady Montfort? I was quite taken in.” He added in an undertone, “And what about the stamps? Where did you come up with them?”

  “Charles is a philatelist; his aunt proudly told me of the fact when I had tea belowstairs. You see, we guessed that Mrs. Bartholomew had posted the poisoned digestive powders to her husband from China. Shanghai, to be exact. I had a conversation with Mr. Evans about postal deliveries that day, and he told me that it was Charles’s job to distribute the post when it came. When he questioned him, the poor boy completely broke down. He said he had seen the Shanghai stamps on a small package addressed to Mr. Bartholomew, and he couldn’t help himself. He steamed them off the parcel before he gave it to him. I hope Mr. Evans does not sack him for taking them.”

  “No one surely loses their job for taking three stamps?” Mr. Stafford’s voice was incredulous, and Mrs. Jackson smiled.

  “Servants must not take things that don’t belong to them,” she said simply. “It is the code we work by. In this case, his taking the stamps was of immeasurable help in forcing a confession from Mrs. Bartholomew; it looks to me as if she will admit to the murder of her husband.”

  A white-faced Mrs. Bartholomew was standing upright between two policemen, her face rigid with anger. She did not look particularly cooperative.

  “Her fingerprints will be all over the bottle anyway,” said Mr. Stafford.

  “Very luckily we did not need to rely on modern police methods,” said Mrs. Jackson—her eyes were still alight with the excitement of it all.

  Lady Montfort, having finished talking to Colonel Valentine, came across the room and sat down in the chair she had occupied for the séance. She still looked very upset, Mrs. Jackson thought. As Charles returned through the door with a tray of glasses and brandy, she went over to him and filled a glass, then went back to her ladyship.

  “You look rather shaken up, m’lady; perhaps this will revive you,” she said as she handed her a glass with a little brandy and then directed Charles to administer refreshments to the stunned group of rosarians who were standing in a dazed bunch on the other side of the room as far away from Mr. Urquhart and Lady Montfort as they could get.

  “Was that playacting, Lady Montfort?” Mrs. Jackson noticed that Mr. Stafford couldn’t take his eyes off the elderly man who had wrapped his cashmere shawl around his shoulders and was now sitting by the fire crackling in the hearth, his pale eyes gazing deeply into the flames, like a very tired old wizard.

  “It was certainly not playacting, my lad.” Mr. Urquhart turned his head and frowned at Mr. Stafford. “It was the spirit of my friend Rupert Bartholomew. I felt his presence quite strongly, the poor man.”

  Colonel Valentine had turned away from Albertine, who was now being escorted out of the room between two policemen. In the hallway they came across an outraged Mr. Haldane, who burst past them into the room, shouting at his wife.

  “Maud, what the ruddy hell is going on in this house? Policemen? Are you mad? Where are they taking Albertine?”

  “You need to calm down, Roger,” said Mrs. Haldane, lifting her head from taking a sizable sip of brandy. “The police have just arrested Albertine for Rupert’s murder. I should watch what you say if I were you, dear, otherwise you might find yourself up on a charge of obstructing the course of justice.” Mr. Wickham nodded agreement. “Yes, she is right, Roger, I would keep quiet if I were you.”

  Mr. Haldane laughed. “Whether she murdered her husband or not is quite immaterial. There are other, more important matters on hand.” He had taken center stage in the room, and his squat, toadlike body clad in his evening clothes looked macabre and out of place among the dainty tables and lacy cloths.

  “Our prime minister has given Germany twenty-four hours to withdraw its army from Belgium. Otherwise we go to war.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Colonel Valentine quietly closed the door to the library. Charles had lit a fire in the grate and had left coffee and sandwiches on a table.

  “Thank you so much for driving over here at such a late hour, Colonel Valentine. I was so worried that you would not make it in time, and then we would have had to deal with a very angry woman without your constables.” Clementine sank down in a chair by the fire. She still had brandy in her glass, but she seemed completely unaware that she even had a glass in her hand. She shook her head to Jackson’s offered cup of coffee. “Now, how can I help you?”

  Colonel Valentine cleared his throat and looked at his notes. “Well, Mr. Stafford was very clear about what you had discovered. He did not mention the séance, of course, just that you hoped with the aid of a parlor game to trick Mrs. Bartholomew into a confession, which was evidently successful from what I heard in the conservatory.”

  “Ah, so you were there all the time, you heard the entire thing.”

  “Yes, we arrived just as you were all finishing your dinner and were sitting in the conservatory from the moment Mr. Urquhart set up his Ouija game or whatever it is.”

  Clementine nodded, though she was not terribly sure that it should be referred to as a game. She was still trying to understand the events in the salon after dinner.

  “Did Mrs. Bartholomew make a full confession to you?” Mr. Stafford asked.

  “Yes, she did. She wanted her husband out of the way so she could return to France and marry the man she was in love with. It’s always the same when a woman murders her husband: there is usually another man.” Mrs. Jackson smiled at this, but said nothing.

  “Of course there is money involved, too. Mrs. Bartholomew inherited everything her husband owned on his death. She admitted this to us, but she seemed a good deal more agitated about a rose. I expect that will all come out later.”

  “I can explain that to you, Colonel Valentine. You see, she had bred a very beautiful rose for her husband, which he claimed to be his own. Quite a lovely specimen for a hybrid tea rose. And she simply wanted him to acknowledge that she had created it and that it carry her name: Rosa Albertine. I think in her mind, poisoning her husband was justification for his stealing her rose.” After days of watching men badger and belittle their wives, Clementine’s voice expressed not a tinge of regret for what had taken place in Hyde Castle five months ago.

  Mr. Stafford stirred in his chair and said, “Surely a woman doesn’t poison her husband simply because he denies her the right to name a rose she created after herself.” He looked most uneasy.

  “It is surprising what will drive a woman to murder, Mr. Stafford,” Mrs. Jackson said.

  “Well, my business here is done,” said Colonel Valentine. “We will ask Fisk & Able to mak
e sure that the chemical analysis of the digestive powders is made available to us. Mr. Stafford has given us the original bottle with its contents and they will be tested for Mrs. Bartholomew’s fingerprints. I will certainly do all I can to keep your good name out of this, Lady Montfort.” He nodded at Stafford and Mrs. Jackson, assuring them that he would do his best to keep them out of it, too.

  “Thank you, Colonel Valentine. I am sure Lord Montfort will be heartily grateful to you.” Clementine took a sip of brandy.

  * * *

  The three of them sat on in the library. Mr. Stafford, who had missed his dinner, ate an entire plate of sandwiches; Clementine had another brandy; and Mrs. Jackson sipped some particularly delicious Turkish coffee.

  “May I ask you about the séance, m’lady?” Mrs. Jackson asked, and Mr. Stafford dusted off his hands with a napkin and said that he, too, was curious.

  “It all sounded so real from the conservatory,” he said. “I thought old Colonel Valentine was going to have a fit. All we could hear, of course, was that high, thin Scots voice spelling out the words. It was quite eerie.”

  “I asked Mr. Urquhart, at dinner, if he would help me set up one of his Ouija sessions. By the way, he does not like that word at all. You see he completely believes in the other side, as he calls it. And you know something?” She laughed, a little embarrassed. “I know this sounds almost ludicrous, but I do think that Mr. Urquhart is blessed with some sort of Celtic ‘sight,’ as they call it. Do you remember the lecture he gave us in the conservatory, Jackson? When he told us all about poisonous plants and their many uses?”

  Mrs. Jackson nodded. “Yes, m’lady, it was quite unnerving; I was convinced he was the murderer and was playing some sort of game with us.”

  “You see, I think he sensed something was off about Mr. Bartholomew’s death right from the start. He told me that he had guessed that it was not accidental food poisoning. He said, ‘I knew it would just be a matter of time before it all came out, and then you and Edith arrived and I sensed that you were here to solve the mystery surrounding his death.’ So you see, it was quite easy for me to tell him that I wanted to force a confession. I did not need to say from whom, and he did not ask me.”

  “So it was Lady Montfort moving the board around.” Mr. Stafford’s face lost its tight look and he laughed in relief. “With Mr. Urquhart’s cooperation?”

  “Yes, I did guide the board, but Mr. Urquhart was not cooperating with me, other than to set up the séance.” Clementine hesitated. “After Mr. Urquhart ‘got through’ to the other side, I took over and guided the planchette to spell out that the spirit had a message for Albertine and that the rose should be named Oleander—which was a lucky guess, of course, because she might just as easily have used ground castor bean. But…” She laughed again and took another sip of brandy. “Really I must have had a little too much wine at dinner. I could have sworn that the whole thing took off from there. Perhaps Mr. Urquhart was guiding the planchette, but there was a moment when it actually seemed to move itself. It felt almost electrifying.”

  “What about when he went into a trance, m’lady? That was awful.” Mrs. Jackson turned to Mr. Stafford. “You didn’t see it, but it was actually quite disturbing. He collapsed back in his chair, his eyes rolled back in his head, and this strange voice came out of him. It was a horrible moment.” She shivered.

  “It was unearthly, that’s how it felt to me; even standing in the conservatory with two burly constables breathing heavily and pouring sweat in the heat of that room, it sounded otherworldly. What an act.” Mr. Stafford laughed, but it was an uneasy laugh.

  “But you see,” Clementine finished her brandy and set down her glass, “I don’t think it was an act. I truly believe that Mr. Urquhart, funny little man that he is, with his toasted tea cakes and his hypochondria, actually in that moment went into some sort of trancelike state. I have seen holy men do something of the sort in India. Auto-suggestion? Quite possibly, but it was his voice from another world that completely did for Mrs. Bartholomew.”

  She looked at the clock on the chimney piece. “Good grief, look at the time. Let us go upstairs, Jackson, and pack up our things. It is nearly midnight and when we wake up tomorrow morning, if the German army has not retreated from Belgium, we will no doubt be at war. And if that is the case, it would be better for us to be at Iyntwood than in Mr. Haldane’s house.”

  * * *

  On the morning that England declared war on Germany, Mrs. Jackson was grateful that they had at least had time to enjoy a decent breakfast, before Mr. Haldane roared the expected news across the dining room. The sound of his voice had certainly galvanized her ladyship into action; she had never seen her say her goodbyes before with such purpose and speed.

  “Well, thank goodness that is over, Jackson,” she said as they settled themselves in the hushed comfort of the Iyntwood Daimler and bowled out through the grandiose entrance gates, leaving the entire Hyde Rose Society grouped together on the steps of the castle’s baronial entrance—waving them off with energetic enthusiasm. “The drama of the last few days has left me feeling quite drained. But it was awfully sweet of them all to turn up for breakfast to say goodbye. Even Mr. Urquhart deigned to eat his toast and marmalade in the dining room. He didn’t look in the least bit bothered by that terrific smack on the head that Mrs. Bartholomew gave him last night.”

  “Some of those frail-looking elderly men are very resilient, m’lady. I must say, though, it was very nice of them to turn out at such an early hour. I don’t think anyone can have slept very well last night, what with Mrs. Bartholomew’s arrest for murder, and knowing that we would probably wake up to find ourselves at war. I can hardly take it in myself.”

  “Yes, I can’t quite believe our country is at war either. One moment we were thinking how unpleasant the Austrians were being toward Serbia and then the next thing is we are all at war.” They both brooded on the fate of their world, until Lady Montfort rallied them both, saying that there was no point in dwelling on something they were powerless to change.

  “It was awfully nice of them to join us for breakfast, wasn’t it?” she said. “But I think that serving kedgeree was rather a macabre touch; who on earth thought that was a good idea? They are such strange people.”

  Nothing could have persuaded Mrs. Jackson to eat even a forkful of kedgeree, but she had thoroughly enjoyed Hyde Castle’s wonderful sausages—she had treated herself to two this morning and had jotted down the name of the pork butcher in Market Wingley who made them. “The kedgeree was Mr. Evans’ idea, m’lady. I rather think he was making a point to Mr. and Mrs. Haldane and he is about to make another one as well.” She was rather curious to see her ladyship’s reaction to yet another unorthodox outcome in the Haldane household.

  “Oh really, Jackson, what does Evans have in mind? He is certainly a bit of an oddity.”

  “Well, his bags are packed, m’lady. He told me this morning when I went belowstairs to say goodbye that he could no longer continue to work for a man as unpleasant as Mr. Haldane, and now that Mrs. Armitage’s name has been cleared he will be handing in his notice.” This morning in the servants’ hall she had almost changed her opinion about Mr. Evans. He had behaved most honorably over the business of Mrs. Armitage.

  “Evans is leaving Hyde Castle? Very sensible of him, too; where is he going?”

  “To America, m’lady; he has had an offer to act in a film they are making over there. He says England has had its day and that there is all the opportunity in the world in America for a man with his skills.”

  Lady Montfort laughed. “Yes, I imagine he would do quite well in America in pictures. He has a very large way of being, not a quality best suited in a butler, but one that might do very well in the cinema. So he is abandoning Mrs. Wickham; she doesn’t seem to have much luck where love is concerned.”

  “I think she is well out of that one, m’lady, I would not have said that Mrs. Wickham and Mr. Evans had a future together, they are too much a
like. And Mrs. Wickham, it seems, is often attracted to the wrong type of man.” She smiled. “It’s a knack she has,” she added with dismissive Lancastrian practicality.

  Her housekeeper was looking particularly bonny this morning despite their few hours of rest. Clementine wondered if she dare pursue the subject of Mr. Stafford, whose clearly expressed admiration for her housekeeper’s role in this investigation last night had been nothing short of worshipful.

  No, she thought, this is not your business, and if she wants to confide in you, she will. But part of her couldn’t resist saying, “What a good friend Mr. Stafford has turned out to be throughout this business—so generous with his time and so very helpful. I invited him over to Iyntwood so he can see how well his design for the new rose garden turned out, and he said he would pop over next week.”

  To her delight, she noticed that Mrs. Jackson’s usual equanimity disappeared completely as she turned her head and carefully inspected the side of the road and the hedgerows. Her fair skin flushed pink as she said, “Yes, so he said this morning. Hyde Castle will most likely be his last commission for a while; he suspects that this war will change a lot of things.”

  This morning? My goodness, she was up early!

  “Yes, I am afraid you are probably right, Jackson. War will change everything.”

  Could it really be possible? The enormity of it hit Clementine again, even though it was impossible to imagine war on a morning like this with the sun beaming down on meadows full of peacefully grazing cows. Clementine, tired and grateful to be returning home, felt a lump rise in the base of her throat. In the coming months their lives would no doubt be turned upside down by a conflict that involved the most prosperous countries in Europe; a war of such unimaginable industrial magnitude that it would probably not take them long to understand how harmful to their world it would be. The country would empty of young men as sons, brothers, husbands, and lovers would march off to do their duty in that carefree way young men often displayed at the prospect of the glories of battle. Mr. Haldane and men like him would grow still richer, and most certainly nothing would ever be the same again.