“Maybe. But until the vicar’s story can be verified, my sister is still in the picture.” Julian spat the words out like cherry stones. “As is her son.”
“Your sisder married a Welshman. A miner’s son! I hardly think Grandfather would have considered his family background good.”
Bristling with anger at this insult, Gethin said, “My family’s as good as yours, you toffee-nosed prat. Better, in fact. Want to come outside and let me prove it to you?”
“There’s no poind.” Lancelot sniffed dismissively. “Id’s too lade for your brad now, old chap. James has seen to thad. Fancy one’s father turning oud do be a vagrand! Seems straightforward enough to me. He’s dead. And now my pa’s popped off. The line’s preddy clear, wouldn’d you agree?”
Julian looked at his cousin shrewdly. “I wouldn’t be quite so sure about that. Where’s that Frenchman? What’s his name? Toulouse? I’d like to know a little more about that sister of his.”
At this, everyone looked towards the door, expecting to see Toulouse still sitting, cradling his injured hand in a bag of ice. But he wasn’t there. In fact, he wasn’t in the drawing-room at all.
“Where the devil has the fellow got to?” demanded Julian. “I want to ask him a few questions.”
As if in reply there was a sudden scream from the courtyard outside. Ghastly. Bloodcurdling. Bone chilling. And at that very same moment, every light bulb in Coldean Manor shattered.
DODGY WIRING
GLASS rained down on people’s heads as the house was plunged into the murky darkness of a stormy afternoon. There were shrieks, and cries of “Oh, I say!” and “What’s going on?” and “Who turned the lights orf?”
While the guests stood in the gloom picking shards of light bulb out of each other’s hair, Graham and I sped out of the room towards the source of the scream.
We found ourselves running along a corridor we hadn’t been down before. An open door at the far end led to the courtyard. It was banging on its hinges as the wind tore at it and barged into the house in furious, sodden gusts. Rain was pooling on the worn slate floor.
It was as slippery as an ice rink as we peered out over the cobbles. There was a small stone building to the right. An outside toilet, I guessed. Its door was wedged open by something. Someone. Most of the body was inside, hidden from view, but two feet in muddy trainers were sticking out into the yard, perfectly still. Rivulets of water ran down grooved soles. The jeans were slightly rucked up, and exposed ankles glistened wetly in the grey light.
No one but Toulouse had worn casual clothes to Coldean Manor. We knew it was him before we stepped outside for a closer look.
He’d tried to put the light on – that was all. His hand, damp from the rain, had connected with a loosely dangling wire, which was now melded to his palm. Not only had he blown all the manor’s light bulbs, he’d blown his own brains, too. By the time we reached him Toulouse was French toast.
As I bent down to look, Graham screamed, “Don’t touch him!”
“Why?”
“Don’t you remember anything about electrical circuitry?”
I trawled through my memory of various science lessons. Nothing came to light. “Frankly, no.”
“You ought to pay more attention. If you touch him, the current will pass through you, too. You want to end up like that?”
Graham fetched the wooden broom that was propped up by the back door and managed to prise apart the Frenchman’s hand and the wire. Then he checked for Toulouse’s non-existent pulse and slowly shook his head. At which point various people, including the four Strudwicks, appeared from inside the house. Rain and wind were temporarily forgotten as they stepped out to stare at Toulouse’s dead body.
“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed an elderly lady.
“He’s done for!” gasped another.
“How?”
“Electrocuted, by the looks of it.”
Major Huwes-Guffing said, “The whole place should have been rewired years ago. Lawrence would keep putting it orf.”
His companion asked, “Why on earth did he come out here? There are plenty of lavatories inside.”
It was actually a very good question. Which nobody answered. Not directly, anyway.
Julian looked at Lancelot. “And so your accuser dies. How very convenient.” His voice sliced the silence like a knife.
His cousin looked shifty. “Whadever do you mean?”
“Well, we can’t ask him about his sister now, can we?”
“Are you suggesding thad I…?” Lancelot was all outraged innocence. “This is gedding beyond a joke.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Julian,” snarled Lydia. “This was clearly an accident.”
“For heaven’s sake, let’s be reasonable,” soothed Jennifer. She stared sadly at Toulouse. “We can’t just leave the poor man there. We must bring him inside.”
Graham and I looked at each other uncomfortably. We both knew that people who die in suspicious circumstances shouldn’t be moved until the police have investigated the scene. But the flood had cut us off from the emergency services and one or two of the Strudwicks were looking dangerously close to violence. Now didn’t seem like a good time to interfere.
We kept our mouths shut, and this time it was Gethin and Joe who carried the body indoors and stashed it away in a bedroom. Meanwhile the guests trickled back inside, following the Strudwick cousins who seemed reluctant to take their eyes off one another. Lydia glowered at Jennifer. Julian glared at Lancelot. Mutual suspicion prickled between the two sides of the family, stiff and bristly as the broom Graham had used on Toulouse.
But there were immediate, practical things to distract them. The wind had escalated from gale to hurricane force in the last half-hour. It rattled ancient windows, and found its way through every ill-fitting frame and under every door. The house was groaning and creaking like a ship that had just hit an iceberg. There was a roaring fire in the drawing-room grate but the rest of the house was beginning to feel like a wind tunnel in Antarctica. It was also getting darker by the second.
“We need to change a fuse or something,” Jennifer said fretfully. A rumble of distant thunder made her forehead contract into deep anxiety lines. “Any idea where the box is, Lydia?”
“No, afraid not.”
“Lancelot? Julian? Anyone?”
It turned out that Graham was the only person present who’d ever paid sufficient attention to the subject of electrical circuitry. Armed with a torch, and with Jennifer and Marmaduke trailing along behind us, Graham first found and then examined the fuse box. To the accompaniment of increasingly loud and frequent thunder claps, he explained to Jennifer that the system was so antiquated, repairing it would require a particular kind of wire that had to be cut from a particular kind of roll. And of course none of the Strudwicks had any idea where such a thing could be found. After a fruitless search they eventually fell back on old-fashioned methods of lighting, i.e. candles and paraffin lamps and occasional flashes of lightning.
Sally managed to find an extra bag of coal stuffed in the back of the larder, so she stoked up the Aga and put pans of water on to boil. She’d been asked to supply everyone with fresh cups of tea and insisted that Graham and I stay with her and help. The water took ages to heat up and it was pretty much pitch-dark outside by the time we took fresh drinks and sandwich rations to the drawing-room. I was just carrying a full plate of thinly sliced cake towards Julian and Joe when I stumbled over a rucksack. It had been shoved under the “naughty chair” that Toulouse had been confined to but I’d managed to get my feet caught in the strap. I put the cake down so I could disentangle myself.
A piece of paper was poking out of a side pocket. I pulled it free but it was too dark to read what was written on it. Then a flash of lightning lit up the whole room.
In my hands I held a certificate, signed by a registrar in the presence of two independent witnesses, which clearly stated that a Mademoiselle Camille de la Tour had married a Mr Lancelot Strud
wick three months ago.
HIDING EVIDENCE
I didn’t exactly mean to pocket the marriage certificate, but Lancelot and Julian were both heading across the room towards me. They carried lighted candles, which threw sinister shadows on to their faces, and I panicked.
“Whad are you doing?” demanded Lancelot.
“What have you got there?” asked Julian.
Their attention was on the bag, not what was in my hand, so I pulled the rucksack free and threw it to them.
Lancelot caught it. “Whad’s dis?”
“It’s that Frenchman’s!”
“Led me see!”
“You’re not tampering with anything in there!”
“And you’re nod planding anyding!”
While the two cousins were tussling over Toulouse’s bag – spilling hot wax over it and each other in the process – I hurriedly stuffed the crumpled certificate into my pocket.
“Julian! Lancelot! You’re behaving like spoilt children!” Jennifer tried to make peace between them. She failed.
“I want to see what’s inside!”
“You can’d!”
“What is it? What are you fighting over?” asked Jennifer.
“It’s the Frenchman’s bag. I’ll bet there’s some incriminating evidence in here about that mysterious marriage,” growled Julian.
“Only if you pud id dere,” snarled Lancelot. “You’d do anyding to stop me inheriding, wouldn’d you? Bud id won’d work.”
“For heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Jennifer. She sounded tired. “If it really does belong to that poor Toulouse fellow, I suppose none of us will rest until the contents are examined. Let me see it.”
“There’s nothing to stop you shoving something in there yourself, cuz.” Lydia stepped into the fray. “Let me do it.”
“No!” Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t put it past you to destroy something important.”
The cousins had reached deadlock. It was Gethin who eventually broke it, clearing his throat and saying quietly, “The most sensible thing to do would be to hand it to a third party, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well, that’s not you!” snapped Lydia.
“No, I realize that. I thought that perhaps the vicar could do the honours?”
Reverend Bristow seemed embarrassed to be drawn into the argument, but manfully he stepped up to the job. Prising the rucksack from Julian and Lancelot’s reluctant fingers he began to remove the contents: a wallet, a passport, a washbag, two pairs of smelly socks and three pairs of underpants (no one wanted to look too closely at those), a crumpled T-shirt, a damp towel and a pair of grubby jeans.
I suspected that the most important thing from the bag was now stuffed in my pocket. I thought about confessing the theft, but then I recalled those spears mounted on the wall upstairs and the savage expressions on Lancelot and Julian’s faces a few moments ago. And I remembered Toulouse, lying dead in the outside toilet. I promised myself that I’d keep the certificate nice and safe in my pocket until we escaped from the manor. Then I’d take it to a nice, secure police station, and show it to a nice, kind policewoman.
The vicar had now reached the bottom of the bag. He up-ended it and two more items dropped out: a torn section of newspaper and a postcard.
The newspaper was a Canadian one. It gave a brief account of the accidental death of a female tourist in the Arctic Circle – she’d been on an ill-equipped hiking expedition and had died from exposure and loss of blood. It didn’t mention the woman’s name or that she’d been on honeymoon so it hardly counted as evidence of the secret marriage. Lancelot began to look slightly smug.
The postcard was more interesting. There was a photo of a polar bear on the front and on the back was a Canadian stamp postmarked three months ago. A message had been scrawled in French.
“I’m sorry,” said the vicar, scanning it quickly, “I’m a bit rusty. Not sure I’m up to translating this.”
“Here, let me.” Joe smiled. “I’m French Canadian – bilingual,” he explained to the crowd that had gathered around as the rucksack drama unfolded. “It says:
My dearest brother, I have a big surprise for you – I’m married! Don’t be angry with me for not telling you sooner – it happened so fast I can scarcely believe it myself. I’ll tell you everything when I next see you and then you can meet my darling husband. But right now we’re on a polar bear safari! You would laugh to see me wearing walking boots, sleeping in a tent, washing in a puddle – in fact, you probably wouldn’t recognize me. I hardly recognize myself. I’m so happy!
The sad, poignant last message to her brother was signed simply “Camille”. There was no surname; no husband’s name: nothing whatsoever to incriminate Lancelot. He was off the hook and he knew it.
“I dold you,” he said to the room in general. “Id’s god nuding to do wid me.”
Joe handed the postcard back to Reverend Bristow. “It’s kinda strange,” he said, more to himself than anyone else but Julian pounced on his words.
“What is?”
“Oh … well, this Camille woman going to look for bears at that time of year. Why not wait until later? They gather round Churchill in the fall, waiting for the sea to freeze. They’re a dime a dozen then. In the summer, mostly all you’ll see if you go walking is bugs. The mosquitoes are enough to drive you crazy! Can suck a man dry if he’s not careful.”
No one replied. The fire crackled and the candles flickered. Thunder pealed and lightning flashed and silence reigned in the drawing-room.
But then the vicar looked at me and said awkwardly, “I hate to intrude, but didn’t you have something in your hand just now? I thought I saw a piece of paper.”
“Erm … yeah… Sorry. I forgot.” There was no point denying it. Feeling literally hot under the collar I pulled the certificate out of my pocket and shamefacedly handed it to the vicar.
He examined it by candlelight and held it out for the cousins to see. After that all hell broke loose.
“You did marry her! This proves it! That’s your signature!” Julian yelled at Lancelot.
“Bud I didn’d sign id! I never med her! I’ve never even been do Canada!”
Lancelot was beside himself, laughing hysterically at the absurdity of Julian’s accusation, ready to thump anyone who believed it. He had no alibi, he admitted reluctantly. He’d been away from home at the time of Camille’s death: hill walking in Scotland, he said. No, he couldn’t produce any witnesses. But he didn’t need to! The certificate was a forgery, a fake, he insisted; it was all one big con. He turned on Julian. On Jennifer. He even accused his own sister of setting him up.
The more he blustered, the more he stormed and raged about the unfairness of it all, the more he convinced everyone in the drawing-room that he was lying.
REFUGEES
LANCELOT’S fury blew itself out eventually but the sulky silence that followed was even worse. The storm passed over, the thunder and lightning faded and died, but the wind carried on screaming and the rain went on steadily beating down. People sat obsessively trying to check the latest weather reports but soon there was no signal to be had in any part of the house. Some gadgets failed altogether, screens dying with an apologetic blip as batteries drained. Even the consolation of electronic contact with the outside world had faded into nothing.
By 8 p.m. it was obvious to the Strudwicks’ guests that they were going to have to spend the night in the manor with two dead bodies. I don’t know if it was the corpses or the sub-zero temperature upstairs that influenced their decision, but they all chose to camp out in the drawing-room rather than sleep in the spacious bedrooms that were offered to them.
Sally was determined to prevent Graham and me from getting involved in another murder case so she ensured we were kept Fully Occupied at All Times. The result was that we didn’t get to talk to each other about what was going on, which was horribly frustrating. We did all the fetching and carrying of pillows and quilts and bedspreads and mattresses and infla
table lilos and cushions and anything else that could be remotely useful in making people comfortable. By the time we’d finished, the drawing-room looked like a refugee centre.
“Reminds me of the war,” said Major Huwes-Guffing cheerfully. “We used to hunker down in the Anderson shelter during the air raids when I was a boy. Frightfully cosy, really. Bit of an adventure, you know. We thought it was terrific fun. As long as a bomb didn’t land on you, of course.”
At about 9.30 p.m. the family – who were presumably used to the near-freezing conditions – retired to bedrooms upstairs, leaving their guests, the vicar and us to our own devices.
Sally had opted for the safety-in-numbers option of the drawing-room and insisted that Graham and I sleep on either side of her. By 10 p.m. we were all cocooned in musty-smelling blankets and eiderdowns, and one by one the guests started to drop off. By now I was dying to talk to Graham but there was no way we could have a good chat. I lay there, eyes wide open, staring at the shadows the firelight threw on the ceiling and willing Sally to fall asleep.
Luckily Graham’s mum had had a very long and exceedingly stressful day. She couldn’t stay awake for ever. The moment her breathing deepened, I crept out from under the covers and tiptoed across the room. Thirty seconds later, Graham followed. I waited for him at the foot of the grand staircase and then we felt our way along the dark corridor towards the kitchen. It was pitch-dark but we knew our way well enough by now. The Aga would still be warm and it seemed the safest place to talk.
We opened the Aga door and stirred up the fire – the faintly glowing embers gave just enough light for us to see each other’s faces.
“So Lancelot was lying,” said Graham. “He was married all along.”
“It certainly looks that way. But earlier, when he was having that argument with Toulouse, I had the feeling he was telling the truth.”
The Will To Live Page 5