The Price of Silence

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘You couldn’t hear what was said, could you?’

  Mrs Harrop shook her head. ‘Only bits and pieces and odd words here and there, as you might say, sir.’ Thanks to Sir Douglas Lynton’s report, Anthony knew what those odd words were: ‘the police … law … disgrace’. They were, thought Anthony, suggestive.

  She looked at him hesitantly. ‘The thing is …’ She broke off. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, sir.’

  ‘I understand Captain Knowle’s name was mentioned. As a matter of fact, Mrs Harrop, that’s what brings me here today.’

  She looked at him warily. ‘Mr Maurice knows nothing about it. He called to see his mother that morning, but he only stopped about half an hour or so.’

  ‘How did he seem? As usual?’

  Mrs Harrop frowned. ‘I wouldn’t say he was as usual, exactly. He was worried about something, that I do know.’

  ‘Have you any idea what he was worried about?’

  ‘Chocolate.’

  Anthony blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Chocolate,’ repeated Mrs Harrop. ‘Don’t ask me what about chocolate, because I can’t tell you, but that’s one of the first things he said to the mistress. “It’s true,” he said and then something about chocolate. After that they went into the mistress’s sitting room. But you can take it from me, that Mr Maurice is as innocent as the babe unborn, especially with him being crippled and all.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ Anthony reassured her. ‘But you know how gossip gets about. It’s become known what poor Hawthorne said before he died and, as you can imagine, there are those who’ve put the worst possible construction on his words.’

  Mrs Harrop bristled. ‘It’s just shocking what some people say.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Captain Knowle is a very gallant officer and the regiment feels it’s their duty to do all they can to prove his complete innocence.’

  ‘I’ll do anything to help Master Maurice. I’ve known him from a boy and a nicer lad you’d never meet.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I know he was an officer, but he was so young to have gone through so much. You know he lost his arm? You’d think folk would be shamed to think ill of him.’

  ‘If more people thought like you, Mrs Harrop, there’d be a lot less ill-natured gossip in the world.’ She was clearly pleased. ‘Why don’t you,’ said Anthony in what he thought of as his ‘I’m a doctor, you can trust me voice’, ‘tell me all about it?’

  The voice worked. Clearly reassured, Mrs Harrop told him the story, starting from her initial surprise at seeing Hawthorne – Hawthorne, of all people! – outside the study, listening to the quarrel.

  ‘Can you think of any reason why Mr and Mrs Jowett should have quarrelled?’ asked Anthony.

  Mrs Harrop looked distressed. ‘I can’t, sir, as true as I’m sat here. I’ve gone over it time and again, but it defeats me.’

  There must have been something though, thought Anthony. His impression of Edward Jowett was of an even-tempered, thoughtful man. Inspector Tanner had established that Mr Jowett had been feeling under the weather when he’d left work, but not angry or distressed. Therefore it must have been something at home that had made him angry. That was a fair deduction but what was it, for heaven’s sake?

  ‘How was Mrs Jowett that morning?’ Maybe she had learned something, some bad or worrying news. Some news that could, perhaps, make her husband lose his temper.

  ‘Much the same as usual, sir. I spoke to her that morning about meals for the week, and she said there was nothing for it, but that if we couldn’t get hold of chops, we’d have to make do with heart and liver and make the best of it. Wrong, I call it,’ said Mrs Harrop with a sniff. ‘Having to eat the inside of animals. It’s not right.’

  If Mrs Jowett was concerned about offal, it didn’t sound as if she had any bad news to impart.

  ‘Mind you,’ continued Mrs Harrop, ‘I wouldn’t say she was exactly at ease. I told the policeman about this. About a month before …’ she hesitated. ‘About a month before it happened, Mr Jowett was upset and said that someone had been rooting around in his study. Nothing was taken, but my word, he was upset! He took to locking the door of the study afterwards. Mrs Jowett was ill at ease after that.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just as well we don’t know what’s in store for us, isn’t it?’

  ‘Those are very wise words, Mrs Harrop,’ said Anthony with shameless flattery. He was still trying to work out what had caused Mr Jowett’s anger. ‘Had any letters arrived for Mr Jowett by the midday post? I wondered if he’d been upset by a letter he’d received.’

  ‘There were two letters,’ said Mrs Harrop with a sniff. ‘A bill from the electric and a bill from the telephone.’

  Electricity and telephone bills were more likely to cause complaint than violent anger. So letters were out then. ‘Had there been any visitors to the house that day?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know, sir, except Mr Maurice that morning.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t know what Mr Maurice said to the mistress, but she wasn’t herself afterwards. She seemed mithered, as if she had something on her mind.’

  Something on her mind. That had to be it, surely. Maurice Knowle had brought some news, something that had worried his mother. Was it enough though? After all, what had apparently only worried Mrs Jowett had driven Mr Jowett to fury.

  ‘Would you say Mr Jowett was a quick-tempered man?’ asked Anthony.

  Mrs Harrop looked shocked. ‘Oh no, sir. They were such a quiet couple. They used to have the occasional bridge party and guests to dinner occasionally, but not so much recently. It’s difficult, as you know, with any sort of food that’s fit to put before guests being so short and hard to get hold of. The last dinner party wasn’t really a dinner party at all, more a supper, with just one guest, a gentleman who Mr Jowett knew. That was about three weeks before …’ She caught her breath. ‘Before it happened. That was Mr Diefenbach from the bank.’

  Diefenbach? Anthony remembered the name from Inspector Tanner’s report. ‘Mr Paul Diefenbach, you mean? He runs the bank, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, sir, for all that he’s only a young man. I should say he’s not out of his thirties yet. He and the master always got on. The master was the uncle of one of Mr Diefenbach’s friends. You know he used to get up to all sorts of harum-scarum tricks, flying and such like?’

  Anthony suddenly realized why the name Diefenbach was vaguely familiar. Of course, Diefenbach was a real adventurer. It wasn’t just flight – although hadn’t he attempted to cross the North Sea? – but surely he’d been on an expedition to the Pole and he was pretty sure he’d explored Yucatan as well. Quite a bloke. ‘Yes, I think I’ve placed him,’ he said.

  ‘Well, as I say, Mr Jowett, he was uncle to Richard Cooper, who went off with Mr Diefenbach on one of his trips, and poor Mr Richard, he was killed. A few years ago now, it was, but Mr Diefenbach, he came to see Mr Jowett to tell him all about it, and how sorry he was. It was about that time there was a bit of uncertainty at the bank, and Mr Diefenbach, he told his father, and his father ended up buying the bank. So you could say it all worked out for the best, but it’s tragic that the poor master and mistress should end like this.’

  She sighed deeply. ‘I’ve wondered a few times if I should try and get in touch with him, to tell him what happened, but apparently he’s gone off exploring somewhere, so I don’t suppose he was able to send his condolences. He’ll be upset, that I do know. He and Mr Jowett were very close. I think he saw Mr Jowett as an uncle, I do indeed. You know he was separated from his wife?’

  As Anthony had only really just become aware of Paul Diefenbach’s existence, he could hardly be expected to know that he was married, however unsatisfactorily. He shook his head.

  ‘I think he appreciated Mr Jowett’s advice,’ continued Mrs Harrop with a sigh. ‘The master, he was all for peace in the home and thought Mr Diefenbach should make an attempt to make up, but there! You can’t live other people’s lives for them, and that’s a f
act. I think this was his little bit of home, if you see my meaning, with him not having a proper home himself, just a couple of rooms in a club. He often dined here. I’ve heard him say that he felt that Mr Jowett was the only one he could rely on. He said that as he left,’ she said with a reminiscent sniff. ‘Poor Mr Hawthorne, he should have stayed up to see Mr Diefenbach out, but he was that weary, I told him to get to bed and I’d step in for him, as the master wouldn’t mind, with it being just the one guest and him an old friend. Yes, Mr Diefenbach shook the master by the hand as he left and said he could rely on him.’

  ‘Rely on him? Rely on him for what?’

  ‘I don’t know, but there was something going on. It perhaps had to do with this trip of his, running off to the ends of the earth, and he wanted Mr Jowett to support him.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Anthony, making a mental note to find out more about Paul Diefenbach. However, a supper party three weeks before the shootings wasn’t the event he was looking for. ‘I don’t want to distress you, but I’d be grateful if you could tell me what happened on the day itself.’

  Mrs Harrop, dabbing her eyes occasionally, plunged into her story.

  First of all the shots and then Hawthorne’s collapse, with that wretched girl, Annie, who was as much use as a wet washday, sobbing and crying and carrying on, and how, despite everything she, Mrs Harrop, had said, that officious young madam, Eileen Chadderton, had insisted on bringing a policeman into the house and how he had shouldered down the door.

  Anthony had the distinct impression that in her heart of hearts, Mrs Harrop believed that if PC Coltrane hadn’t broken down the door, everything would somehow and mysteriously have been all right.

  ‘After all,’ said Mrs Harrop, with an air of finality, ‘Mr Hawthorne didn’t want the door broken down. That’s what upset him so.’

  There was a bit more to Hawthorne’s collapse than his distress at the destruction of Mr and Mrs Jowett’s property, thought Anthony, finishing his tea. So far he’d heard nothing new, but Mrs Harrop’s story breathed life into what had been a bald recounting of the facts in the police reports. He felt sincerely sorry for the housekeeper. ‘Poor Mr Hawthorne,’ he said sympathetically.

  Mrs Harrop wiped her eyes. ‘I know he was old, and if he was going to be taken, he’d have wanted to have been taken in service, but when I think of how it happened, and how he blamed himself – well, it breaks my heart.’

  ‘Blamed himself?’ Anthony repeated innocently, as if it was the first time he had heard it. ‘How could he possibly be to blame?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Mrs Harrop, her plump face crinkling in distress. ‘I’ve teased myself with that. It’s come between me and my sleep many a time since. All I can think of is that poor Mr Hawthorne felt guilty about listening at the door.’

  As a reason for Hawthorne’s undoubted distress, that seemed weak, to put it mildly, but those last words of the butler’s had to be explained somehow. ‘It really was so unusual for Mr Hawthorne to listen at a door?’ questioned Anthony.

  Mrs Harrop’s eyes widened. ‘Unusual! You could have knocked me down with a feather and no mistake, when I opened the door onto the landing and saw Mr Hawthorne and that gaggle of girls, all outside the study door. I can tell you this much though. Samuel Hawthorne never did anything wrong. He was one of the old school, as they say, devoted to the master and mistress and punctilious to a fault. That’s what the master, God rest him, used to say. Punctilious to a fault. It used to tickle the master, how correct poor Mr Hawthorne was. He had better manners than a duke, the master would say.’

  Considering that Mr Jowett had, in the eyes of the world at least, murdered his wife and then shot himself, it didn’t seem to have dented Mrs Harrop’s affection for her late employer.

  ‘So you were fond of Mr Jowett?’ he hazarded.

  Mrs Harrop nodded vigorously. ‘I was, sir, despite what happened. If it happened as they say,’ she added portentously. ‘Not that I believe it. The police don’t know everything and don’t tell me they do. You mark my words, Mr Jowett might have been upset, but he’d no sooner raise a hand to the mistress than he would have flown to the moon. That’s God’s own truth.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Anthony, to her obvious satisfaction. ‘Like you, I can’t believe in the story the police told.’

  ‘You’ve never said a truer word, sir,’ she said earnestly. ‘We’ve been asked to believe wicked lies, but I knew the truth would out.’

  ‘The trouble is, Mrs Harrop, the truth isn’t out yet.’ Anthony smiled encouragingly as she gave him a puzzled look. ‘We’ll have to give it a helping hand. What I mean is, that somehow we’re going to have to prove the truth as both you and I know it.’

  ‘Anyone who can believe wrong of the master isn’t worth bothering about,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘I’d still like to convince them,’ said Anthony gently. ‘Tell me, where are the other servants who were here that day?’

  ‘Them!’ said Mrs Harrop with a snort. ‘Gone to work in factories, if you please. Flighty, I calls it. It’s sinful what these girls can earn nowadays. I did hear as they can earn five pounds a week.’ She bridled in indignation. ‘Five pounds! And all spent on rubbish, I’ll be bound. It’s no wonder that girls are getting ideas above their station. Service isn’t good enough, oh no, not any more. Obviously we don’t need a full staff, but I’m here by myself and I don’t like it. One of those young women should’ve stopped on but we can’t get anyone, not with these factories paying the wages that they do. It wouldn’t have happened before the war.’

  Anthony had a great deal of sympathy for the absent girls’ point of view, but he thought it politic not to express it. ‘It’s a great pity the other servants have left. I’d like to speak to them.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Mrs Harrop belligerently. ‘I’m the housekeeper. I can tell you anything you care to ask.’

  The last thing Anthony wanted to do was put Mrs Harrop’s back up by seeming to undermine her authority. ‘That’s not quite so, though, is it?’ he said with a disarming smile. ‘After all, Mrs Harrop, when the door was broken down and Mr Hawthorne collapsed, you fainted, didn’t you? I’m sure it does credit to your feelings, but it does mean you can’t tell me what happened after you were taken ill.’

  ‘Mortal bad, I was,’ she said earnestly. ‘I’d tell you if I could, sir, but I was taken mortal bad.’

  ‘And did someone look after you? You weren’t just left on the floor of the study?’ His voice betrayed nothing but concern.

  ‘Well, no, I was helped up to my bed,’ she admitted. ‘It wouldn’t have been seemly otherwise.’ She shuddered. ‘I can’t think of that room without going cold all over and that’s a fact.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I haven’t been able to bring myself to go in there ever since it happened and never mind the dusting.’ She moved uneasily in her seat, obviously wanting to say more.

  ‘Go on,’ prompted Anthony gently.

  ‘The room’s haunted!’ She glared at him defensively. ‘It’s true. I’d swear it on my mother’s grave. I know there’s many who’d laugh, but that study’s haunted.’

  Anthony didn’t believe in ghosts but couldn’t doubt her sincerity. ‘Have you seen anything?’

  She shuddered. ‘No. I won’t go near that room again and that’s a fact. I’ve heard groaning and, what’s more, heard gunshots, too. I can hear it at night and sometimes in the day too. I tell you, there’s something in that room that’s not natural.’ She poured herself another cup of tea with trembling hands. ‘I don’t care what anyone says, I knows what I’ve heard.’

  What on earth had she heard? A room that had been witness to sudden death virtually demanded to be haunted but … ‘That’s very interesting,’ said Anthony slowly. ‘Can I have a look at the study?’

  She shuddered once more. ‘If you must. There’s something in that room that shouldn’t be there.’ She drank her tea broodingly. ‘Do you want to know anything more, sir?’

  ‘Ye
s, if you don’t mind. Mrs Harrop, who helped you to your bed after you fainted? Can you remember?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘I think – mind I say I think – it was Eileen Chadderton and Winnie Bruce. Yes, it was,’ she added, sounding much more like her old self. She made a sound between a sniff and a snort. ‘No one would’ve asked Annie Colbeck to help, if I know anything about it. When we were stood outside the door and poor Mr Hawthorne was took so bad, all she did was sob and wail. She couldn’t even go and get his drops and a glass of water without taking till doomsday to come back.’

  ‘So Annie Colbeck was left in the room while Eileen Chadderton and Winnie Bruce saw to you?’

  ‘Someone had to stay,’ said Mrs Harrop, shocked. ‘It wouldn’t have been right to leave them alone.’

  ‘No. No, of course not. Will you show me the study?’ he added, after what he thought was a suitable pause.

  Mrs Harrop shuddered. ‘If you insist, sir,’ she said reluctantly.

  SIX

  Mrs Harrop wouldn’t come into the study; in fact she wouldn’t venture along the corridor but pointed out the door from the stairs before she departed back to her sitting room.

  Once in the study, Anthony was able to see for himself the truth of Inspector Tanner’s assessment of how difficult it would be to escape from the room. The sash window opened onto Pettifer’s Court with a sheer drop to the basement area three stories below. Not only was it overlooked by the neighbouring houses, but Pettifer’s Court was well populated. If anyone had dropped a rope ladder, say, out of the window, they would certainly have been spotted. There was, as Inspector Tanner had stated, no fire escape or balcony and, noted Anthony, no drainpipe either. No; there was no exit that way.

  A pair of fine Turkish rugs – they must be worth a good deal, thought Anthony – hung on wooden rails in the alcoves, one either side of the fireplace. The two other walls were lined with deep bookcases that nearly reached the ceiling.