by Ann Granger
It was a good point. I knew from experience that crowds gather before a house where there has been a murder, or follow the coffin of a perfect stranger to all of them, if the death has been sensational enough.
‘The icehouse sounds a very sensible place to lodge the coffin,’ I told him in my ‘official’ voice. Privately, I thought it rather peculiar. ‘As for the ladies, I am sure they will be delighted to take tea with Mrs Beresford.’
‘Good, then I’ll arrange it.’ Beresford looked relieved. ‘I am worried about my wife, frankly.’
I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. I do admit I was keen for the ladies to visit Oakwood House, because I wanted to hear what Agnes Beresford was thinking about it all. Lizzie would certainly bring me an excellent report. I was being duplicitous, I knew, but that’s what an investigating officer is often called on to be.
‘Now then,’ Beresford went on, ‘you will want to quiz me regarding this dreadful business, will you not? I am happy for you to do it here, but there is some risk we might be overheard, if only in part. I thought I might drive you to my uncle’s house in the trap and we could talk on the way. When we get there, it is for you, naturally, to decide what you want to do next. If you wish to go and visit Mrs Ross during the day I can take you there, or Tizard. Just let us know.’
He spoke earnestly and I believed him to be sincere, but it was all dashed awkward. Like it or not, I would have to accept some help.
‘Thank you,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be glad to accept your offer.’
We bowled out of the inn yard in fine style and travelled some way with only a few words shouted between us. The rattle of the wheels made anything else impossible. I was wondering just how we were going to talk ‘on the way’ when Beresford settled the matter. He had clearly made his plan beforehand. The road ran through woodland here. Then, unexpectedly, a swathe of open land appeared to our left, cutting a wide drive between the trees. Beresford pulled the trap to a halt and turned to me.
‘We can sit in the trap and talk; or walk between the trees,’ he said, ‘as you prefer.’
I elected to walk and talk. ‘I should have said earlier that I am truly sorry for the sudden and shocking bereavement in your family,’ I told him. ‘Were you and Sir Henry close?’
‘We were closely related, but not close in any other way,’ Beresford told me frankly. ‘Ross, I should explain to you about my family in general. It will perhaps make things easier to understand. I need to begin with my grandfather, Captain Sir Hector Meager. He was sent to sea at the age of eleven, together with his ten-year-old brother, also a Henry. Great-Uncle Henry died of fever in the West Indies and there is a monument to his memory in the churchyard here. Grandfather Hector survived to have a distinguished naval career.’
‘You must be very proud of him,’ I said.
‘Well, he was a hero, I suppose,’ said Beresford. ‘It didn’t make him a pleasant man or one easy to deal with, as I understand it. He couldn’t abide any kind of opposition. His manner of dealing with it was to treat it as a sea battle: fire a broadside and blast the enemy out of the water. I knew him when I was a young child and I was terrified of him.’
‘Eleven is young to be sent to sea,’ I said. ‘But I was sent down a coalmine at the even younger age of six, to be a trapper. My job was to sit in the dark with the rats and open and close the doors controlling the flow of air through the mine, as required. Fortunately, that period of my life did not last long. But I think I understand what made your grandfather so difficult to deal with.’
‘Oh, yes, there were good reasons for it, I don’t doubt,’ Beresford agreed. ‘It was a brutal upbringing amid dreadful sights and experiences. But he survived, and his naval career allowed him to return home wealthy from his share of prize money, so he married. My uncle was born and baptised Henry, in memory of Hector’s own younger brother, who had not survived.’
Beresford hesitated. ‘Grandfather then suffered a second loss. Sadly, his wife died not long after the birth of their son. Hostilities had broken out again, so my grandfather returned to sea, leaving his motherless child in the care of a godparent. That the baby survived at all must be counted very lucky. My uncle did not meet his father until five years later, when the old seadog finally retired from the navy, having been given his baronetcy. He came home and remarried. My mother was the child of that second marriage. When she was growing up, her half-brother, my uncle, was away at school. She did not have a close relationship with him.’
‘And your uncle could hardly have known his own father at all,’ I remarked.
Beresford made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It happens in naval families. As I said just now, I do remember my grandfather, since he had chosen a life ashore by then. He lived to a ripe old age. “Old Indestructible” he was nicknamed. My mother used to take me to visit him, not because she had great affection for the old fellow, but because he expected it. I wasn’t sent away for my schooling because, believe it or not, I was considered delicate.’
Beresford paused to grin briefly. ‘My grandfather had little time for such an opinion. He had little time for any kind of medical opinion. Given his own way, he would probably have packed me off to sea, as had been done for him. But my parents withstood the storm, and I remained at home.’
‘Yet your grandfather didn’t send his own son, your Uncle Henry, to sea?’
‘No.’ Beresford shook his head. ‘He was a bad-tempered old fellow. But, perhaps mindful of the death of his own brother, he had no wish to risk the life of the only son he had. Besides, it was now a time of peace.’ Beresford made a wry grimace. ‘Little chance of prize money!’ he said.
‘When young Henry had finished his schooling, he was sent off to travel the Continent, on what was called “the grand tour”. That’s why you’ll see so much bric-a-brac around the house. Marble busts, third-rate oil paintings, bits of ancient pottery. Uncle Henry had no interest in art. He brought those things back in order to show his father he’d visited all the expected sites, museums, galleries and so forth. “Old Indestructible” had no interest in art either, so was no judge.
‘When Henry arrived back from his travels, it was to discover that my grandfather had found a girl he wanted him to marry. Now, I can’t tell you the details because my mother did not tell me all of it. She did say Henry didn’t agree with his father’s choice. I fancy he wanted to marry someone else. But Old Indestructible wanted to see his son married before he himself died; and he knew he didn’t have much longer. So Henry was married as his father wished. My grandfather died at long last aged ninety-one; and Henry inherited.’
He paused. ‘I remember my Aunt Madeleine, his wife. She was a very sweet person. They were married only a short time and were childless.’
We had walked some way by now, and Beresford turned back. We began to retrace our steps towards where the pony and trap waited patiently in the distance.
‘To conclude,’ said Beresford in the manner of one summing up an argument, ‘you will understand that, although I was designated as his heir early on, my Uncle Henry and I were not close.’
There was a point to clear up. ‘Was the estate entailed? I mean, if your uncle had had children of his own…’
‘But he did not!’ said Beresford shortly. ‘There is no entail attached to the estate. I do not inherit by default, as it were. It was my uncle’s personal decision and his wish to bequeath it all to me.’
He obviously didn’t want to say more about that. But I already had a lot to mull over. I was beginning to suspect that the roots of this murder lay in the past, rather than in any recent events. Was that what Beresford wanted me to think? He had taken care to give me a lengthy family history. I was also well aware, as a detective of some experience in these matters, that the more information a witness volunteers, the likelier it is there is something he does not want you to know. Had I just been enveloped in a smokescreen designed to hide some very important fact from me?
‘May I ask?’ I said as we
reached the trap. ‘When this is all settled, do you and Mrs Beresford plan to move into the Hall?’
‘Oh no,’ he replied at once. ‘Agnes and I discussed that at length, even before Uncle Henry died. I shall be glad of the income from the land. But I shall probably seek out a tenant for the house. It is a rambling old place and not a happy one. Unhappiness, you know, seems to seep into the bricks of a house like that.’
‘You knew it well as a child, visiting with your mother,’ I said. ‘I understand the house is very old. Tell me, is there any kind of a hiding place in it? A priest’s hole or a secret corridor?’
Beresford, about to climb up into the trap, burst out laughing. ‘If there is, I never found it! Believe me, Ross; I searched that house high and low when I was a boy. I had read my share of adventure yarns and was determined that there must be something. A secret escape route perhaps, dating from the time of the Civil War. The house was besieged by a party of Cromwell’s men. The Meager at the time, a Royalist, was eventually obliged to admit them. The Roundheads searched the place. They found nothing of interest and no hiding Royalist soldiers or incriminating documents, so moved off and left the owner in possession. But no, I didn’t find a secret tunnel; and I know of no tradition of there ever being one. It is an English country house of early period. That is all.’
He paused. ‘And a damned inconvenient place to live in, believe you me! Freezing cold in winter no matter how many fires are lit. It was so dark indoors at noon, when I was a boy, it required candles or oil lamps in midsummer. Uncle Henry later paid a great deal of money to have gas pipes run out there. The cost of using the gas is such that my uncle then refused to have the gas mantles lit except in special circumstances, so oil lamps were again used as an economy measure. The gas mantles were lit in time for family and guests coming down to dinner, as when Mrs Ross and Mrs Parry came. No, no, Agnes and I will not be moving in.’
So, I thought, during much of the day the corridors and rooms of the house were gloomy. Anyone wishing to move around unobserved would not find it difficult if no noise were made: an invitation to intruders.
But, when I saw the Hall, I admit I was impressed. It was not as large as some houses of the period, but it had a sense of permanence about it. Storms might rage around it and Cromwell’s Roundheads fire musket balls into its stout oak front door, but it would defy them all. As a home for ‘Old Indestructible’, it must have been perfect.
The estate manager, Harcourt, was waiting for us and came out on to the front steps to meet us. He was a handsome man just under six feet tall. To see him standing at the entry to the house, a stranger might have mistaken him for its owner. I judged his age to be about the same as Beresford’s, possibly a year or two older, and thought he might prove a difficult customer.
However, he greeted me civilly as I came up to him. But I noticed his eyes were wary. He was obviously ill at ease, for all the assurance of his stance. He had every good reason to be. His employer was dead, murdered, and his future must be uncertain. He had been at the fateful final dinner party. I was mindful of Lizzie’s whispered warning that there had been tension between the three men that night. I guessed that, if there had been any argument, Beresford and Harcourt would join forces to prevent me from finding out what it had been about. Inquiry into Sir Henry’s shocking death might be my business; but these two men would consider that private and business matters were not. It would be my duty to inform them otherwise. Nothing remains private in a murder case.
I decided to take the reins immediately in the inquiry. After all, I was not the usual sort of visitor, awaiting invitation.
‘This is a shocking business and distressing to everyone, I am sure,’ I began briskly. ‘But I should like to see around the house and gain some idea of the layout. Particularly I am interested to learn where there are points of access and exit. I should like to meet the staff and speak to them all, possibly one at a time. I should like to speak to you again, Mr Beresford, about the evening of the murder; and to you, too, Mr Harcourt. I realise that Inspector Hughes has already spoken to everyone, but I should like to hear for myself about the evening of Sir Henry’s death.’
‘The staff are all gathered in the kitchen,’ said Harcourt stiffly. ‘They’ve all worked here for years and are very shocked. I should warn you that Warton, the butler, is particularly shaken. He is an elderly man and, frankly, somewhat unstable in his wits. Also the valet, Lynn, is in a bad way. He found the— body.’
The hesitation before he said the word ‘body’ was slight; but it was there. Harcourt, too, was shaken.
We made a slow and careful tour of the rooms. The main drawing room was oak-panelled and I glanced around it curiously. Beresford noticed and a faint smile touched his lips.
‘I have tried each and every one of them over the years, Ross, and none of them move.’ He then turned to Harcourt and added, ‘The inspector is curious to know if there are any hidden passages or hidey-holes.’
Harcourt blinked and stared at me, startled. ‘Good Lord, no!’ he exclaimed.
We progressed from there to the library where the drawer of the desk was still open, its lock splintered. The box that had housed the pistols was open and the pair to the pistol Hughes had shown me still lay in it undisturbed. That was careless of Inspector Hughes. He should have removed both weapons when he came here at the outset of the investigation. Leaving a weapon lying around in an unlocked drawer in a house in which there had just been a murder is not good police work.
Beresford noticed my frown. ‘The other pistol should be locked away safely,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t realised it still lay here. I have a good strong safe, with a Chubb lock, at Oakwood House. I’ll take it there when I leave.’
This was not ideal either. But I had no way of locking it up securely at the Acorn, and Beresford’s safe was probably the best alternative. If Beresford were the heir, the pistol was in any case his property now.
I took my time over my tour, examining all the window catches, watched all the while by the other two. It was very annoying but I did not want to offend them so early by asking them both to leave me alone to make my search. It was when we came to Sir Henry’s bedroom that they both stood back, by a common unspoken agreement, and let me go in alone.
Harcourt, stationed just outside the door, called, ‘The doctor, when he came to examine the body and certify Sir Henry was dead, may have disturbed the bedclothes. I ordered the staff that nothing was to be touched – until the police had been. When Inspector Hughes came from Southampton, I don’t think he moved anything. I am sure the housekeeper would like to remove the— the stained bed linen and clean generally.’
There was a smell of blood in the air, and a gruesome black stain on the pillow. Flies were crawling on it. ‘Oh, tell her she may clear it all away,’ I said sharply. ‘Inspector Hughes ordered a photographer out here to make a record. There was no need to leave it in this state. Anyway, I have seen it now for myself.’
I wondered that Hughes had not told them to tidy and clean the room when he left the house. Perhaps he had assumed that, after the photographer had done his work, the staff would automatically clear everything away. My criticism had stung Harcourt, who had reddened.
‘They are all very upset,’ he said curtly. ‘You are used to scenes of violent crime, Inspector Ross. The staff here are not.’
No, they weren’t. The untouched state of the room should have brought home to me, forcefully, how very frightened they all must be. This room now held terrors for them. None of them wanted to be in it. I couldn’t see Beresford, who had remained out of my line of sight in the corridor. He made no comment. Perhaps he thought I had criticised him personally, for not ordering the bed linen removed.
When I did finally meet the indoor staff in the cavernous kitchen, with its huge open grate and rows of gleaming brass pans on the wall, their terror was still apparent. Warton, the elderly butler, appeared so frail I urged him to sit down.
‘Poor old fellow,’ whisp
ered Beresford to me. ‘He began working here as a youngster, an under footman, when my grandfather was still alive.’
Lynn, the valet, was a younger man, but his nerves seemed also to be about to give way.
‘Now then, Lynn,’ I said encouragingly. ‘You discovered the body, I understand. Don’t be alarmed. Just tell me what you saw when you first entered the bedroom.’
‘I walked in, sir, and saw him, saw Sir Henry! It was a dreadful sight, sir! The blood was everywhere and his brains. I nearly fainted. I have nightmares about it. I think I always shall.’
The wretched Lynn then burst into tears. Harcourt ordered him to ‘pull himself together’.
The cook-housekeeper was a large lady who spoke in a whisper so faint as to be almost inaudible. The three housemaids clustered together like a huddle of rabbits faced by a particularly fierce fox. There was also the girl, Susan Bate, whom Hughes had mentioned as employed to wash the dishes. The orphanage waif, I thought. She had long dark hair beneath a mobcap and large brown eyes in an oval face with regular features. She would indeed have been pretty, but for a vacant stare and way of giggling from time to time. The sight of me seemed to set her off. The cook tapped her shoulder and ordered her to ‘stop that!’ and Susan subsided, repressing her mirth with some difficulty. The aged butler, Warton, seemed to be praying. I strongly suspected I would get no information of any value from any of them. Well, I’d been forewarned. Perhaps I’d do better with the outdoor staff, but I had no very high hopes. I revised my intention of speaking to them individually. I’d get nowhere.
‘You are quite sure,’ I asked the maids, ‘that, when you went to dust and tidy the rooms in the morning, all the windows were fastened?’
The rabbits whispered as one, ‘Yessir!’
I surveyed them all. ‘None of you heard the shot? Or any unusual sound?’