by Evelyn James
“I’m sorry,” Clara said to Betty, feeling guilty for bringing her up to this room and revealing Harvey’s double-dealing.
Betty merely shrugged her shoulders.
“I should have known,” she said miserably. “Why would he want a wife like me? What could I offer him? I don’t have a fortune or a fancy title. I am the sort of girl more fit to be a servant to the Howtons than part of the family. They have made that plain enough to me.”
Betty hung her head.
“Was any of it real? Even the wedding?” Betty started to cry. “Was that all a lie too? I trusted him, but what if the license was fake? What if we are not legally married at all?”
Clara hoped Harvey had not been so cruel.
“That doesn’t matter,” she told Betty firmly. “Whether you were really married or not, Lord Howton will make sure you are taken care of. He will honour his brother’s actions.”
“I feel so stupid,” Betty wept to herself. “I believed him. I believed every word.”
“You had no reason not to,” Clara comforted her. “Don’t berate yourself.”
“I have to leave this house,” Betty wiped away her tears. “It’s bad enough all this, but I keep thinking about those footprints. Harvey came into the hall last night and I think he will come again. I don’t want to be here when my dead husband appears.”
Despite it all, Betty was certain Harvey was deceased. He may have betrayed her over their marriage, but she could not imagine him faking his own death. Clara admitted it would have been quite a feat of planning and sheer gall. At any point he could have been discovered. But Harvey was a man who took chances.
“Will you go home?” Clara asked Betty.
“I don’t know,” Betty gnawed on her thumb agitatedly. “Lord Howton says we must talk about my future and my inheritance from Harvey. And, I can’t go home just yet, I need to know what dark magic has resurrected my husband from the dead and who is behind it. I can’t go home thinking of him as a walking corpse. I have to see that resolved.”
Clara nodded, she understood. Betty had loved Harvey and, although he had treated her badly, she still wanted to know that his soul rested in peace. Clara wished she could convince her that Harvey’s soul was not currently in jeopardy as he was very much alive, but she knew when she was faced with a battle she could not win.
“There is an inn a couple of miles away that rents out rooms,” Clara told Betty. “You could stay there if you have money?”
Betty shook her head.
“I don’t have enough,” she looked bleak. “I’m stuck here, aren’t I?”
“Not necessarily,” Clara smiled. “I’ll loan you the money. You can pay me back when you get your inheritance.”
Betty narrowed her eyes.
“Why would you do that?”
“To help you,” Clara answered honestly. “I can see the distress being in this house causes you and I would like to offer you an alternative.”
“That would be most kind, thank you,” Betty replied, ducking her head so she didn’t have to meet Clara’s eyes. “I would like to leave now.”
Clara had to return to her bedroom to fetch the money. She gave more than enough to Betty for at least two nights at the inn and extra for meals. She hoped by the time the money was gone she would have solved the case and Lord Howton would have made financial arrangements for Betty, so she could go home knowing she would be provided for.
“That is all I have,” Clara told the girl.
“Thank you, it is more than kind,” Betty clutched the money to her chest. “It will be good to sleep somewhere without all this stuff hanging over me. Who wants to live in the shadow of the past?”
Who indeed, Clara thought to herself.
Betty went to her room to finish packing and Clara wandered back downstairs to the grand hall. The stuffed fox’s head was lying on the floor where it had fallen. The moth-eaten nose had been badly knocked in the fall and the animal looked as though it bore a lop-sided grin rather than the snarl it was meant to have. Clara picked it up and took a good look at the old thing. It certainly would give you a fright with its bared teeth and glass eyes as it hurtled down from the wall. Looking up, Clara could see the space it had forsaken when it plummeted down on Betty. There was a gap between the heads of another fox and a badger mounted quite high. There was a circle of darker colour on the wallpaper where the head had hung and prevented the red flock from fading, unlike the area around it.
Clara turned the fox head over and looked at its mountings. It had a brass loop at the top which would have hung over a nail in the wall. Clara peered up and could just see the nail protruding from the wall. It was a stout thing and looked solidly embedded. The brass loop had neither perished nor worn away. There seemed no reason for the fox head to have suddenly parted company with the wall.
Clara gazed upwards again, she noticed something sitting just on top of the badger’s head. She changed her angle and tried to see what it was. It looked like a hook, similar to a fishing hook but bigger, and it was lodged in the badger’s head, a thin slip of twine hung off the end, snapped from a longer piece. Clara pressed her lips together, starting to see the shape of things. The hook would have been slipped under the brass loop of the fox head, raising it up slightly from the nail. Then a length of twine would be tied to the end and run up to somewhere on the staircase which dominated the ground hall. With a sharp enough tug, the hook would jerk the brass loop free from the nail and the fox head would plummet down.
Now Clara could see how the prank was done. Clearly someone wanted Betty out of the hall. Unfortunately, there were a considerable number of suspects for such a desire. Clara sighed. Well they had got their wish.
She propped the fox head up against a cabinet and went in search of Mr Crawley, hoping he might have some answers for her.
Chapter Seventeen
It took over an hour to track down Mr Crawley. He was in the butler’s pantry, a rather misnamed room that served as a workspace for Mr Crawley. He was carefully ironing Lord Howton’s shirts, which he considered his personal duty. Clara had been directed to the pantry by a disgruntled laundry maid who took Crawley’s insistence on ironing his master’s shirts as a personal affront. She probably had good reason to feel that way, Clara reflected.
Mr Crawley had taken off his jacket to do the ironing. He was put out when Clara peered around his pantry door.
“Miss Fitzgerald, you are in the servants’ quarters,” he told her bluntly.
“Indeed, it happens to be where you find the servants,” Clara replied with a smile.
“It is not fitting,” Mr Crawley grumbled.
He was a middle-aged man of considerable height, so he could tower over nearly everyone in the household, including his lordship. He had a very oval head, made to look somewhat dome-like because of his slicked back dark hair. He never seemed to smile, though Clara thought that was a trait peculiar to butlers. Smiling was something other people did, but not such respected and high-ranking servants. He was really rather typical of a bygone age, but then much the same could be said about Howton Hall in general. There was a sense that everyone was clinging onto the past within the confines of the hall; clinging on for dear life. Crawley was just the same as the rest of them, unable to shed off the prejudices and expectations of the last generation.
Crawley had not stopped ironing. He swept the flat iron around the buttons of a shirt with slick precision.
“I thought the hall had a fully staffed laundry?” Clara could not resist prodding him, though she made the comment sound innocent enough.
“The hall is fully staffed, but I am of the opinion that his lordship deserves something better for the ironing of his shirts than the careless hand of a laundry maid.”
The comment was said with pure arrogance and more than a smidge of spite.
“Are the laundry maids so hopeless?” Clara asked, thinking that the ironing of a shirt was not a great art. As long as the creases were all gone, surely that
was what mattered? Annie could probably correct her on that.
“The laundry maids are young and they come and go. No sooner has Mrs Reed the housekeeper trained one up, then she goes off and gets married. His lordship cannot have his shirts passing through such a collection of inexperienced hands,” Crawley flicked the iron down a sleeve with the lightest of touches. The shirt was done and he held it up to the glare of a bare bulb to examine its appearance. Satisfied he placed it on a metal hangar and fitted it onto a clothing rack where other shirts hung.
“I had hoped to talk to you about Harvey Howton,” Clara filled the pause which fell as the shirt was restored to its place, ready to be taken back upstairs to his lordship’s wardrobe.
“I doubt I can tell you any more than you have already learned from the family,” Mr Crawley said brusquely. He had picked up another shirt and was looking it over. “There! See what I mean? They have lost a button when washing this one! Utter carelessness!”
“Perhaps his lordship lost the button?” Clara suggested.
“Certainly not!” Mr Crawley looked offended, as if she was questioning his professional abilities. “I personally collect his lordship’s washing from his room and check all the items before passing them to the laundry. I make sure each item is in fit condition. I hardly would bother sending a ripped shirt to be cleaned. I also make note of stains, so I can check on the thoroughness of the staff. Naturally, I count the buttons too.”
How delightful, Clara thought. No wonder the laundry maid had pulled a face when she had told Clara where the butler was. He must be impossible to work with. She appreciated that such households ran on precision; everything was done to perfection, from the cleaning of the silver, to the sweeping of the floors. But it must be infuriating for the laundry staff to have Mr Crawley glaring over their shoulders and questioning their work all the time.
“Fortunately, I have a full stock of spare buttons,” Mr Crawley moved to a cabinet containing a number of small drawers. He opened one and took out a button which he compared to those remaining on the shirt. Satisfied it was a match, he took out a reel of thread and a needle and began work on the replacement.
“I wanted to ask you about the day Harvey died,” Clara said.
Mr Crawley appeared to be ignoring her as he worked on the shirt, which was surprisingly bold for the uptight butler, considering she was a household guest and therefore technically to be afforded his full attention.
“What precisely would you care to know?” Mr Crawley asked, still not looking up.
“You were summoned when the under-gardeners pulled Harvey from the lake?”
“I was,” Mr Crawley agreed. “The gardeners are not allowed inside the house unless given explicit permission. One of the under-gardeners came to the kitchen door and said Master Harvey had been in an accident. I went at once.”
“He did not state Harvey had drowned?”
“He had enough sense in his head not to upset the kitchen staff that way. He explained as he escorted me to the lake what had occurred.”
“And Harvey was truly dead when you came to him?”
Mr Crawley’s head shot up and, for just a moment, Clara thought he looked uncertain. The question had startled him and it was hard to startle Mr Crawley.
“That is a very peculiar question,” he hedged.
“The situation is most peculiar,” Clara pointed out. “It is not every day a notable family claim a deceased member of their lineage is stalking their property.”
“On that you have a point,” Mr Crawley admitted grudgingly. “Not that I care for this talk of the walking dead. It is most inappropriate.”
“The talk, or the walking dead man?”
“Both,” Mr Crawley growled. He finished with the button and took the shirt to his ironing board. His flat irons had been sat by the fire and were sufficiently hot again to use.
“But Harvey was dead?” Clara persisted, feeling he was trying to ignore her again.
“Madam, to suggest otherwise would beggar belief!” Mr Crawley snapped. “I personally saw him carried to the house and deposited in his bedroom.”
“What happened after that?” Clara asked, guessing she was not going to get a straight answer to her previous question and that it was not worth pushing it.
“I broke the news to the family. It was a most difficult time. Lord Howton wished to see his brother, as did the former Lady Howton. I escorted them to his bedroom and they looked upon him a while, then removed themselves. I did not pursue them, as it was not fitting,” Crawley was back to sweeping his iron around the buttons on the shirt.
“What about the funeral arrangements?” Clara asked.
“Master Harvey had given very specific instructions. He did not want a funeral and he was to be buried in his mausoleum. He wanted to be carried there by those among the staff who served with him in the war.”
“He had made all these arrangements?” Clara said, surprised that a young man would have taken the time.
“Master Harvey had detailed his desires during his service in the war, when it was feasible he might die at any moment. His requests were honoured even though he had not died on active duty. The family agreed Master Harvey would have wanted it that way.”
That was a reasonable explanation. The war had brought death close to many and had made even the young contemplate their mortality.
“Was a doctor called?”
“Only to sign the death certificate,” Mr Crawley explained. “It was a mere formality. I summoned the family doctor and explained the situation. He briefly looked at Master Harvey and then signed the certificate.”
Another potential hurdle overcome, Clara thought to herself. She was beginning to see how, with Crawley’s help, Harvey could have manipulated the situation to make it seem as if he had drowned.
“There were no undertakers?” Clara asked.
“I laid out Master Harvey personally. Every Howton who has died in the hall has been laid out by his butler or, in the case of the ladies, by the housekeeper. It is tradition. I placed Harvey in his coffin myself.”
And so no one would have handled Harvey and realised he was alive except those already in on the scheme.
“And then he was entombed in the mausoleum?”
“Yes. It was a private service, just the family and the household staff. I thought it most beautiful.”
And completely fraudulent, Clara mused.
“May I ask why you wish to know all this?” Mr Crawley was still not meeting Clara’s eyes, but he was observing her nonetheless.
“To understand everything,” Clara replied, deciding that she could be vague in her answers too. “You must be aware of the disturbances affecting the family on a nightly basis.”
“Of course,” Mr Crawley said.
“I wonder what your opinion on the matter might be?” Clara leaned against the frame of the pantry door and waited.
Mr Crawley flicked up the iron from the shirt and placed it by the fire. He took his time checking his work and placing the shirt on a hangar. Clara knew he was buying himself time.
“I do not have an opinion on the subject,” he said at last.
Clara almost snorted with laughter at the suggestion, but she maintained a neutral expression.
“Do you believe in the supernatural, Mr Crawley?”
“I have not given the matter much thought,” Mr Crawley responded, plucking up another shirt. “I find myself overall too busy with material concerns to spend time contemplating such things. I believe in God, naturally.”
“I was just curious,” Clara said. “Considering you know the family so well and obviously for so long. What do you say to the other servants when they raise the topic of Harvey’s ghost?”
“That they ought to be getting on with their work and minding their tongues,” Mr Crawley said sternly.
He at last turned his full attention on Clara.
“I appreciate you have been asked to solve this little conundrum, but you are looking in
the wrong place. No one here knows anything and I would rather you do not go about asking too many questions among the servants. They are disturbed enough as it is.”
“Disturbed by what?” Clara asked bluntly, trying to draw him out.
“Disturbed by the rumours of ghosts and demons,” Mr Crawley snorted. “Now, I really do not have time to talk further.”
This was plain rudeness to a guest and something which, under normal circumstances, Mr Crawley would never have considered. Clara was pleased to see her questions had rattled him enough to cause him to drop his usually impeccable manners.
“I don’t think the staff need worry themselves,” she said lightly, starting to turn and leave.
“Why would that be?” Mr Crawley asked, unable to stop himself.
“Well, it is quite obvious,” Clara smiled.
“Perhaps not to all, might you elaborate on what you are thinking?” Mr Crawley had dropped his head and was assessing her like one of those stains he had mentioned on his lordship’s shirts.
“It is simple really,” Clara enjoyed stringing him along. “Since ghosts do not exist and the dead cannot rise from their graves, quite plainly the man at the window is a living being.”
Mr Crawley said nothing.
“I first thought someone was playing a cruel hoax on the family and masquerading as Harvey,” Clara continued. “Now I believe Harvey was never really dead. That he fooled the family into thinking he was so he could play this cruel hoax on them all.”
Mr Crawley managed to mask the gasp he was going to give at this explanation with a snort instead.
“I find that most incredible,” he said after a moment.
“And yet, it must be the only answer to the problem,” Clara was enjoying herself. “The only thing I cannot as yet answer is why Harvey would go to such lengths. My fear is that he has something sinister in mind.”
“Master Harvey was a fine man. One of integrity and honesty,” Mr Crawley countered. “He would not play such games.”