by Evelyn James
Lord Howton stated this very carefully, almost as if, Clara felt, he was trying to make it plain that Richard could not have been involved as he arrived after hearing his sister cry out.
Inspector Park-Coombs took a moment to write all this down.
“Do we know how Harvey came to be in the hall?” he asked.
“I believe your answer lies there, Inspector,” Lord Howton pointed behind him to the terrace door. Its new lock was still intact, but the bolt had been pulled across meaning it was useless. The door could have been opened whenever Harvey pleased. “I locked that door myself before going to bed. It appears someone opened it after I had gone from the room.”
The inspector made further notes in his little book.
“And, do any of you have an idea why he came back into the hall?”
“No more than we have an idea why he played this ghastly trick on us all,” Lord Howton said. “Why would the fellow wish to fake his own death and then haunts us like that? It is preposterous!”
“There will have been a reason,” the inspector said calmly. “I assume Harvey was of sound mind?”
“Absolutely!” Angelica hastily defended her son.
“Then he had a reason,” Inspector Park-Coombs concluded. “He went to a lot of effort to look the part.”
Inspector Park-Coombs flicked over a page in his notebook then casually asked;
“Do you have a gun room?”
“Naturally,” Lord Howton said steadily. “There are two, in fact. The Guard Room contains antique armaments and the Gun Room contains fowling pieces and shotguns used during the pheasant season.”
“And these are easy to access?” the inspector persisted.
“Neither are locked,” Lord Howton agreed. “Though many of the older pieces are not in working condition.”
“But the ones in the Gun Room would be ready to use?”
“Yes Inspector, they are available at all times in case someone wishes to go shooting.”
Clara’s eyes had fallen on Genevieve. So, Harvey had been shot.
“Those pieces in the Gun Room consist of hunting guns?” the inspector clarified.
“Yes, those are the only sort people would be expected to use on the local wildlife,” Lord Howton looked puzzled.
“Was he killed by a shotgun?” Angelica asked, her voice husky with rage, her eyes pinned on Genevieve.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Genevieve reacted fast. She had gone pale ever since mention of the Gun Room had been made. She clearly grasped the implications. “I did not shoot Harvey!”
“You threatened to enough times!” Angelica started to rise from her chair. Lady Howton’s consoling arm now acted to restrain her mother-in-law. “You said you were going to shoot him!”
“I only said I would wing the fellow who was causing all this bother! Give him something to think about!” Genevieve snapped defensively, her eyes now turned to the inspector. “I had no intention of killing him. I wanted to give the culprit a fright and prove to everyone he was a live person, not some demon from hell. I wanted to make people see things rationally again! Please, Inspector, believe me!”
“You killed my son!” Angelica screamed. “You shot him!”
“I never left my room until I was woken by Richard!” Genevieve countered. “I am not responsible!”
“Who else would have done it?” Angelica cried. “Who else?”
“I believe you are both under the misapprehension that Harvey Howton was killed by a shotgun,” Inspector Park-Coombs interjected calmly.
He had allowed the accusations to fly as much as anything to get an insight into the family’s mood and who they might consider the murderer. Now he put the argument to rest.
“The wound looks likely to have been caused by a pistol of some description. Do you have such guns in the house?”
Lord Howton took a long moment to speak. He coughed and cleared his throat before words would come. He seemed to be unconsciously avoiding looking at Richard.
“The only guns of that type in the hall are the Webley service revolvers Richard and Harvey retained after the war,” he said at last.
“Could I see where they are kept?” Inspector Park-Coombs asked.
Lord Howton escorted him from the room, Clara tagged along since no one had said she could not. The inspector was fairly lenient about her presence at a crime scene as long as she did not interfere with his investigations.
They entered the Gun Room. The morning light was now streaming through the windows and glinting off the metal barrels of old muskets and flintlocks. But what caught the eye at once was the glass cabinet standing against the wall. It caught the eye because it was placed centrally and was clearly newer than the other cabinets. That morning there was another reason it attracted attention – the glass front was smashed.
Inspector Park-Coombs looked into the case where, a few hours ago, the matching revolvers of nephew and uncle had sat side-by-side, only differentiated by neat little typed labels that gave their owners’ name and rank. Harvey’s Webley remained in its place. Richard’s was missing.
“This seems to be where the murder weapon came from,” Park-Coombs observed. “Were bullets available for the gun?”
Lord Howton’s throat seemed to have shrunk; his words squeaked out.
“Richard’s revolver was still loaded. The last bullet in the chamber. He had been about to fire it when he had news of the Armistice. Seems silly, but we were superstitious about unloading it.”
“When you say ‘we’, do you actually mean Richard?” the inspector asked in his placid, even tone that was so disconcerting when he was asking such serious questions.
“No, I agreed with him,” Lord Howton quickly said.
“Well, I have a number of things to look into further,” Inspector Park-Coombs finally put away his notebook. “I shall have my men comb the grounds for the missing revolver. I’m afraid it will be necessary to search your home too.”
Lord Howton cringed, but he did not argue.
“If you must,” he said.
“I must,” Inspector Park-Coombs assured him. “I shall make the arrangements. Good day Lord Howton, Clara.”
The inspector left the Gun Room. Lord Howton did not move. Clara found herself staring at the smashed glass of the case.
“It was a sealed case,” Lord Howton said quietly. “We never meant for it to be opened again. That was important. Sealing these guns away for good rather felt like we were shutting away what they represented. Richard always said, if the last bullet was never shot, it was like holding back time. War could never rip this country apart again if we just kept these revolvers frozen in their last moments of violence. A strange notion, but it made sense in those strange first days after the war ended.”
Lord Howton picked up a shard of glass.
“Now that moment, maybe that magic, has been broken for good. Peace is so fragile. All it took was the smashing of a sheet of glass to destroy ours,” Lord Howton shut his eyes and hung down his head.
“You think Richard did this,” Clara stated.
Lord Howton groaned.
“I fear it,” he said. “Richard has such darkness raging inside him, and he won’t talk to me. I know he hated Harvey.”
“Don’t condemn him without knowing the truth,” Clara told him firmly. “There is still a lot to be discovered.”
Lord Howton opened his eyes and fixed them on her.
“You will continue to investigate, won’t you Miss Fitzgerald? There are too many questions remaining. Who killed Harvey is the most pressing, but I would also like to know why he played these games with us.”
“I shall continue to look into it,” Clara promised.
“Thank you, Miss Fitzgerald,” Lord Howton sighed. “Harmony must be restored to this family. The truth will save us.”
Clara was not so certain about that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Harvey’s body was removed from the property. The police were satis
fied they had retrieved all they could from the scene of the crime, and the servants were allowed to take charge with buckets of soapy water to clean up the mess. If only the murder could be erased so easily and thoroughly from the minds of the family, Clara mused. Angelica took herself to her room and shut herself away. The rest of the family attempted to get on with the day as normal, but there was a constant reminder, in the form of policemen searching the grounds and rooms of the hall, that the day was far from normal.
Clara had her own investigations to perform. She went in search of Diana, to get to the bottom of this mystery of her sudden desire to confront intruders in the night.
Diana was in her room, or rather, the room that was currently hers as everyone in the house seemed but a passing visitor and had no real place there. Diana’s bedroom contained the relics of two prior residents, both female. One was a seventeenth century lady, the sister to the then lady of the house, who had used this bedroom for several decades. A fine collection of needlepoint dotted the room, including a footstool and the bed curtains. They had been a labour of love for the woman in question.
The second woman had been one of the lord’s daughters in the early nineteenth century. The poor girl had died in her eighteenth year of consumption. The evidence for her existence came in the form of several pretty watercolours hanging on the wall, all floral arrangements hand painted by the tragic consumptive. Also, there were several large porcelain dolls stacked on top of a wardrobe, mementoes of a lost childhood. Even the furniture had once belonged to the young lady before Diana had taken her place in the room, aside from the bed which harked back to the days of the seventeenth century lady. It was not hard to feel that the presence of these two deceased women overshadowed Diana in the room. It seemed as if she was an interloper into another past, into these very women’s lives. No wonder Diana had a tendency to shrink away when her very slumber was overpowered by long dead ancestors.
Diana was sitting before her dressing table, combing her hair in a slow fashion that suggested it was not because her hair was untidy that she brushed it, but rather because she had nothing better to do. Her door was open. Clara knocked anyway.
“Hello Miss Fitzgerald,” Diana glanced over her shoulder, her tone dull and sombre.
“Might I come in and talk with you?” Clara asked.
“What about?” Diana frowned and fidgeted with the hair comb.
“Your father wants me to continue investigating the reasons why Harvey pretended to be dead.”
“Are you looking into his murder too?”
“Only to ensure those who are innocent are not condemned,” Clara promised, she hoped with such words to gain Diana’s trust, to demonstrate that she was not about to accuse anyone of murder without good reason. “I would like to ask you about what happened last night?”
“Is that necessary?” Diana turned away and started to rearrange perfume bottles and lotion jars that stood on the dressing table. She had quite a collection of skin creams. Clara could not fathom why, as Diana’s skin was flawless, or at least to her eyes. Perhaps the girl saw things differently.
Clara quietly closed the bedroom door.
“May I be blunt Diana?” the girl made no motion either of consent or denial, so Clara carried on. “I found it all rather odd that you rose from your bed last night to investigate a strange noise.”
“Why?” Diana still toyed with the bottles and jars on the dressing table.
“It struck me that you would prefer not to risk confronting Harvey, whether he be alive or dead,” Clara explained. “I struggle to imagine you gladly rising to investigate a sound in the middle of the night. Personally, I would prefer to ignore the noise and hope it would go away.”
“I might be braver than I look,” Diana countered, but not very vigorously.
“You might be,” Clara agreed. “Then again…”
“You think I am lying? That I shot Harvey?” Diana suddenly turned in her seat and her eyes flashed with a hitherto unexpected fury.
“I just think there is something missing from your tale. It might be that it is not of any great importance, then again, it might be that it has a bearing on Harvey’s death. I am not accusing you,” Clara replied, keeping her tone light.
“Jolly good, because I had no reason to harm Harvey.”
Clara waited, letting the silence stretch out and act on Diana. She knew there was something else to Diana’s story, she just had to be patient. Diana’s fury evaporated as swiftly as it had come. Her determination went with it. She was a naturally honest girl, hopeless at keeping secrets. Now she shut her eyes and sighed.
“I can’t sleep in this room,” Diana said, her voice barely a whisper. “Please do not laugh, but I am convinced it is haunted.”
Clara did not laugh. Surrounded by the belongings of the previous occupants of the room, it was entirely possible to feel as if they were present, just a hair’s breadth away and looking over one’s shoulder. Clara understood.
“Last night I felt certain something was in here with me. I suppose I was so worked up about Harvey my imagination was overwrought. I was convinced someone was stood behind the curtains at the window. Only, not an actual someone, if you understand?”
“A ghost,” Clara elaborated.
“Exactly,” Diana nodded. “It is not the first time, either. Some nights I don’t sleep a wink because I believe there is someone else in the room with me. I have asked mother if I can move rooms, but she says there is none other I can go into. You see, though this house has many bedrooms, most are not fit for habitation. The beds in most of the rooms are so fragile they would break at the slightest touch, or the rooms have developed damp and the air is bad for the constitution. There are only a handful of rooms that are actually liveable, this is one of them.”
“Then you are stuck here?” Clara said.
“Until I marry, or perhaps Genevieve marries and I have her room. You don’t know what it is to live in a house that is dedicated to the people who came before you. I can hardly call it home.”
“What happened last night?” Clara asked. “With the person behind the curtain?”
“I suppose there was no one there really, though it felt as if they were,” Diana chewed on her lip. “I never am sure when morning comes whether ghosts exist or not, but at night I am certain. It is so peculiar. Last night, as I lay in bed, I just knew there was someone hiding behind the curtains. And then I heard this dreadful bang. The hall echoes a lot and, in my fright, I thought the bang came from the window and something was coming to get me. I panicked, leapt from the bed and raced out into the hall.”
Diana paused.
“You have probably noted that the spot where Harvey died is not far from this room?”
“I had noticed that,” Clara agreed. “As you ran you would have nearly stumbled over him.”
“Everything was dark when I came out. The corridors are pitch black in places. But there was enough light coming in through the dome in the great hall for the staircase and part of the corridor ahead to be illuminated. My nerves were so stretched that I seemed to see more than usual and when I saw this lumpy bundle on the floor ahead of me I came to a complete stop,” Diana was breathing fast, as if the panic of the night before was returning. “I didn’t at first know what it was. Then my eyes seemed to work it out like a puzzle, and I realised someone was lying on the floor. I hardly thought they were real at first! I screamed because I thought this was some ghostly shadow from the past!”
“Then you realised it was Harvey?” Clara asked.
“No. I never realised it was Harvey. I was paralysed with fear. All I could think to do was scream and hope someone would come. Then daddy arrived with a torch. It was he who saw that it was Harvey,” Diana shook her head. “So, you see Miss Fitzgerald, it was not bravery that forced me from my bedroom, but terror. I was running from an imagined nightmare only to stumbled into a very real one.”
Clara did see, and everything made much better sense.
“When you heard the bang, what was it like?” she asked.
“I suppose it was like a gun shot,” Diana shrugged.
“No, that is what you think it sounded like now you know what caused the noise. But what were you thinking when it actually happened?”
Diana frowned again, the question clearly a little too probing for her.
“Why did that bang make you run?” Clara pressed. “What did you think was going to happen?”
Diana pursed her lips, digging back into her memory. She looked up at the watercolours on the wall.
“It made me think of a door slamming,” she said at last. “I think, in that instant, I thought someone was…”
She turned her eyes to the other side of the room where the wardrobe and the porcelain dolls stood.
“That was it, I remember now! I thought someone was coming out of my wardrobe! The bang sounded just like a door being opened and closed!” Diana pointed at her wardrobe. “I was sleepy, not asleep, but sleepy nonetheless. And I thought the noise came from the wardrobe because it was strangely muffled. Now I know it was because I was hearing something further away in the hall.”
Clara nodded.
“I heard Harvey being shot!” Diana gasped.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Clara responded. “You heard what sounded like a door slamming. Perhaps it really was a door? The killer had to go somewhere after they murdered Harvey.”
“It is true he was shot with Richard’s Webley?” Diana asked suddenly, her eyes tearful now.
“Richard’s Webley is missing. Whether it is the murder weapon, I cannot say.”
“Poor Richard,” Diana groaned. “But, no! He arrived after daddy! He came up the stairs…” Diana hesitated. “Now I think of it, that was rather odd. Richard’s room is on the same floor as everyone else. Why was he downstairs… unless he was getting his gun?”
Diana looked panicked. Clara quickly moved to reassure her.
“Richard would not have been downstairs getting the gun after Harvey was murdered. And since the gun was not replaced, it does not seem that that was the reason he was downstairs,” Clara could see Diana was not convinced. “Think if you saw anyone, anyone at all, when you came upon Harvey.”