by Granger, Ann
‘But, as it happens,’ the solicitor was continuing, ‘I had already heard the sad news from Sam Barnes. He came round here last night to tell me and arrange for me to be here today when you were expected. I’m glad to see you, Ross. I should have been getting in touch with you myself, otherwise.’ He paused. ‘I’ll have to contact Jonathan Tapley, too, though I dare say I’ll be hearing from him, probably by tomorrow’s post.’
‘I think you may,’ I agreed. ‘Mr Jonathan Tapley believes he is the executor, or one of them, of his cousin’s will. Is that right? You have the will here?’
‘Oh, yes, we have it, and his other papers. You are correct. Jonathan Tapley is one executor. My father is the other.’
‘I confess,’ I told him, ‘that I had rather hoped to speak to someone who had known Tapley personally.’
‘You can speak to my father tonight, when he gets back.’
‘I am pledged to dine with Inspector Barnes, and don’t want to disappoint Mrs Barnes.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Thorpe cheerily. ‘People around here dine early. You can eat your dinner and then come over to our house to meet my father afterwards, take a glass of port with us. Bring Sam Barnes with you. You can meet my grandfather, too. Might as well see us all in one lot. Father and grandfather both knew the Tapley family.’
‘Thank you,’ I told him. It sounded as if the Thorpes all lived together.
‘But I knew Tapley, too, you know,’ said Young Fred with a mischievous look in his eye.
‘You did?’
He knew he’d surprised me and chuckled away to himself. I was beginning to find his irrepressible good humour as wearing as Barnes’s boisterousness. But anyone who had to deal daily with Walter would need a robust sense of humour.
As if on cue, the ale arrived, carried in by Walter. Charlie was probably not allowed into this inner sanctum.
‘Your good health!’ Thorpe toasted me when he’d poured our ale. I raised my glass in return salutation. There was a pause while we savoured our ale. I remarked it was a very good brew.
‘It’s our water,’ said my host.
‘Not the stuff down at the Pump Rooms?’
‘Good Lord, no. I never touch that. Mind you, Grandfather swears by it.’ He returned to business. ‘Fact is, Tom Tapley came here at the very beginning of last year.’
Of course he had, Jonathan Tapley had told me. But somehow I had imagined Thomas would have seen the older partner, young Fred’s father, not the younger man.
‘It was right at the end of January with snow on the ground, a difficult time to travel.’ Fred took another drink of the ale. ‘He was wearing a shabby old frock coat, as I recall, and a plaid shawl draped over it. It put Walter in quite a state when he walked into the outer office. Walter knew him years ago and was very upset to see him so down at heel and half frozen as well. It gave me a start when I learned who he was. Charlie was sent over the road to fetch a hot toddy for him. Tapley had asked to see my father. But the old man was out visiting a local landowner on a matter of business, just as he is today. I explained to Tapley he had to make do with me or return later. He said he would deal with me. I was, after all, a Thorpe.
‘He told me he’d just returned from France where he’d been living for some years. He’d brought me some documents to add to those we already held for him. He explained that he was temporarily lodged and when he had found somewhere permanent he would let me have that address. But he never did, so I presume he hadn’t found anywhere?’ Thorpe paused and raised his eyebrows and his mug of ale to his lips at the same time.
‘He stayed with a lady in Southampton and then in London with a Quaker lady. It is at her house he died. If he stayed anywhere else we don’t know of it.’
Thorpe set down his mug. ‘He was very nervous, poor old boy. I marked it at once.’
Ah. The jollity deceived. Thorpe was shrewd as a third-generation solicitor would be.
‘How did he show it?’
‘In almost every way he could. I liked him, by the way. He seemed a nice old gentleman, about my father’s age, two and sixty. I told him my father would be most sorry to miss him, and certainly wish to see him again, but he said he couldn’t wait until the evening, much less come back next day. He must start back south. I don’t know what the hurry was. He didn’t tell me.
‘I did ask him what had brought him back from the Continent and if he intended to stay in England? He said he was planning to settle here now. He confided that he’d had “a bad experience” in France, not long before. It was one reason he was anxious to deposit a box containing all his private papers with us the moment he’d returned. “Lest anyone get their hands on them,” he said. “Has that happened?” I asked him. But he became more agitated, said he didn’t know, couldn’t be sure. He had been ill for some time, in France, he said, about six or seven months earlier. He had lain delirious for two whole weeks and at death’s door for almost a month. Consequently there was a gap in his memory. So, working back through the calendar, I reckon whatever it was, it happened at some point the year before last, during this illness.’
The year before last, I thought. Later that year he was seen, by a Mr Parker, on the beach at Deauville with a mysterious woman on his arm. He had told Parker that he’d been ill and was at the coast to recuperate.
‘Mr Thorpe,’ I said, ‘what manner of documents did Tapley bring to deposit with you?’
‘There is a passport issued by the Foreign Office with which he’d had the foresight to equip himself before leaving England. It is in a well-worn and generally sorry state, rather like poor Tapley. As a private gentleman travelling with no diplomatic position and not wishing to engage in any trade, he did not, of course, strictly speaking need such a document. But he anticipated that officials sometimes like to see these things, especially at border crossing. He also deposited the various letters of introduction which he’d carried around with him on his travels. Some are so out of date now that I can’t imagine anyone to whom he might have shown them would have been much impressed. There was also a mixed bag of correspondence: some from us, of which we had our copies, of course. However he wanted us to keep his originals, too. There was correspondence from his bank, but no private letters. He said he had been obliged to destroy those. He didn’t give a reason, just that he had had to do it. It was one of the things that underlined how nervous he was. I wish now, of course, that I had pressed him for details. But even if I had, I doubt he’d have given any. I should tell you that, from time to time over the years, he had sent bundles of correspondence to us to keep here. Otherwise he wouldn’t have needed just a box, he’d have needed a trunk to store them all.’
‘He corresponded with this office frequently?’
‘Fairly regularly during all his stay in France. That is why I didn’t doubt he’d send us his new address in England when he had one. He managed most of his affairs through us and his bank. We also acted as his land agent. That was, perhaps, a little unusual. But it’s how he wanted it.’
‘Land agent?’ I gasped. ‘Did he own extensive property?’
Thorpe shook his head, raising a hand in protest. ‘I wouldn’t call it extensive, but certainly not to be sniffed at. There is one fair-sized property, consisting of a large house and grounds, and a farm, originally part of the same property but now leased out separately. The house is – and has been for a number of years – leased to a tenant. He is a retired military gentleman, Major Griffiths. The farm has a different tenant, a local family.’
So what on earth, I wondered, was Tom Tapley doing, living in rented rooms? The income from this estate alone must be respectable.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Fred Thorpe was saying, ‘I have arranged to take you out to the house this afternoon, if that’s all right with you. I thought you might like to take a look at the property yourself and meet Major Griffiths. The major would rather like to meet you. I sent a message there to inform him that the owner of the property had died, as soon as I ha
d the news from Barnes.’
I had to hand it to Barnes, Thorpe, Griffiths and all the rest of them I’d not yet had the honour to meet, they were nothing if not efficient. They had my timetable planned down to the last half-hour of my stay in Harrogate.
‘This property’, I began, ‘now forms part of the late Mr Tapley’s estate? It is disposed of in his will?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Thorpe.
A thought struck me. ‘Among the papers he brought you last year, he didn’t bring a new will, did he?’
Thorpe shook his head. ‘No, but I raised the matter. I asked if, since it was many years now since the will had been drawn up, there were any changes he wished to make to it. At that, the poor old fellow looked so upset I thought he would faint clean away. He was most insistent he wanted no changes to his will.’
‘May I ask,’ I began, ‘who is the principal beneficiary?’
‘His daughter, Miss Flora Tapley,’ Thorpe replied. ‘There is no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. She resides in London with Mr Jonathan Tapley and his wife,’
‘I have met the young lady,’ I said. ‘The property at present leased to Major Griffiths, does that also form a part of the bequest to Miss Flora?’
‘It does.’
‘Major Griffiths was probably concerned to hear of Tapley’s death. But the lease would still have some time to run? His position as tenant is not immediately threatened?’
‘The present lease runs for another couple of years, unless the new owner wishes to terminate the agreement before then. There is a clause in the tenancy agreement. I imagine, with so little time to run until the end of the lease, the new owner may simply wait. It would be almost as quick as waiting for the law to grind its course. But Major Griffiths is nevertheless anxious to see you, Inspector. May I suggest we go there now? I have arranged a pony and trap to take us.’
By now I would have expected no less. ‘Let us go there, then,’ I said, taking up my hat. It was all proving quite an adventure. What surprises would Major Griffiths spring?
Our journey to see Major Griffiths took us across open moor and along country roads that made the trap rattle and bounce and precluded much conversation. Thorpe did his best.
‘You do meet these eccentrics!’ he shouted at me, holding on to his hat in the stiff wind.
‘Tapley does seem to have been quaint in his ways!’ I bawled back, holding on to mine.
‘All Tapleys a bit odd!’ contributed our driver over his shoulder. ‘Well known for it! Not all touched, mind you! Just a bit different!’
‘William is a local man!’ explained Thorpe, indicating the driver. ‘It’s true, the Tapleys were all considered, well, different, in the days when they lived around here. People didn’t mind, though, did they, William?’
‘Folk used to it,’ retorted William simply. ‘Haven’t seen any of ’em around for years. Mr Thomas dead, you say?’
‘Murdered!’ shouted Thorpe. ‘In London!’
‘Ah!’ replied the driver. ‘It’ll have been in London. He’d not have got himself murdered around here.’
For some minutes we’d been following a stone wall on our right-hand side. Now we drew up before a pair of closed wrought-iron gates. Our driver climbed down and tugged at a bell affixed to the wall. It jangled loudly, its discordant notes echoing around us and breaking the silence as harshly as a gunshot would have done. In reply, the door of a small lodge opened and a sturdy fellow in gaiters and moleskin waistcoat, who looked like a gamekeeper, came out. He dragged open the gates and we clattered through.
The gate/gamekeeper raised a hand in salute and stared at me in an unfriendly manner, or so it seemed. His living and his home, as with all those employed by Major Griffiths, had suddenly become uncertain with the death of the owner of the estate and the lease only having two years to run. The tenant farmer and his family must also be apprehensive. I must expect to be viewed as the harbinger of doom.
The house was soon reached. The solid Jacobean building of regular proportions and with rows of identical windows had been so long here that it had settled into the landscape like a natural feature, and its tall slender chimneys appeared to spring from its mossy roof as long-necked birds stretching their heads skyward.
‘This is The Old Hall,’ said Thorpe, as we scrambled down from the trap. ‘So called because the family who originally owned it decided to build a New Hall, a more fashionable seat, elsewhere around 1790. The old house came into the Tapley family through marriage. Thomas Tapley’s mother brought it as her dowry.’
‘A fine dowry,’ I observed, remembering that Jonathan had told me his uncle, Thomas’s father, had ‘married money’. In this house young Thomas had grown up, cosseted by his mamma and all those doting female relatives. I entered it with a lively interest.
Major Griffiths turned out to be as solidly built as the house. He was a man of some seventy years but with an upright soldier’s bearing still, and a fine mane of silvering hair.
‘I am pleased to meet you, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I appreciate you have made time to come out here. Has Mr Thorpe told you why I was so anxious to talk to you?’
‘Er, no . . .’ I replied, glancing at Thorpe.
‘Thought it best you explain, Major,’ said the solicitor. ‘Because the inspector will have questions and I couldn’t answer them.’
‘Quite so, quite so. Do make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen. I can have them bring tea, or a glass of Madeira might suit you more.’
After our bone-shaking journey, we gratefully accepted the Madeira. Accompanied by plain cake, it arrived carried in by an elderly butler.
‘I’ll explain it all as quickly as I can,’ began Griffiths. ‘I dare say you have other matters to attend to before you go back to London, Inspector. When Mr Thorpe sent a message to me yesterday, telling me you were expected, I sent a reply back by the same carrier, making clear my urgent need to talk to you. At least, it seems urgent to me. I am – or was – Thomas Tapley’s tenant, as you’ll know. I am still the tenant for the next two years, unless the new owner wants to turn me out. I hope we’ll be able to come to some arrangement about that, Thorpe! I should like to see the lease out here. In two years’ time I shall be ready to move out of my own accord and retire to a mild climate. I have a fancy for the South-West, Sidmouth, to end my days by the sea. I know the late Duke of Kent, our gracious Queen’s father, took the chill there that carried the poor fellow off, but I like the place. Where was I? Ah, yes, Ross.’
To my relief, he turned his attention back to me. If this were telling it as quickly as he could, I would hate to be subjected to what Griffiths would consider a lengthy explanation.
‘I don’t get many visitors here, you know, and those who do come, come by my invitation. It is an out-of-the-way spot. But at the beginning of November last, a hired carriage drew up here and out got a couple I’d never set eyes on, who requested to view the house. They were, they said, on a tour of Yorkshire. I thought they had left it rather late in the year. The weather was cold. They were foreign, French. The man introduced himself as Monsieur Hector Guillaume and he presented the lady as his sister.’
Major Griffiths gave a snort. ‘I am an old soldier. I’ve been around. She was no more his sister than she was mine! What’s more, she was a type who, if younger, I’d have described as a camp-follower. She was a handsome female, I’ll give you that. She had fine eyes but the look in them was wary and her mouth was hard. These things always give away a woman of questionable background. She carried herself well. I suspected the dark red colour of her hair was helped with henna. There was a great deal of it, the hair, all piled up in a complicated way. She would have passed for forty-something in a kindly light, but was probably nearly fifty-one or -two. I am not an expert at judging ladies’ years. Paint and powder disguise the passage of time and this lady had applied plenty of both.
‘The man was, I would say, a good deal younger. He was not unprepossessing, but dressed in the manner I fancy he thought someo
ne visiting the English countryside should dress. He wore tweed knickerbockers and matching jacket of a rather loud check. He had some kind of scented oil on his hair, which no country gentleman of my acquaintance would affect. I don’t know what they do in Town these days. Never trust a fellow who perfumes himself is my motto. I also found his manner . . .’ Griffiths paused to seek the word.
‘There was something not quite right about him!’ he concluded. ‘I can’t say he was rude. I’d have shown them the door at once if he had been. On the contrary, he was very polite, too polite. Both were all smiles. I wouldn’t have trusted either of them. However, a number of foreigners come to Harrogate for the waters. They are not a strange sight. When visiting, they do often take the opportunity to tour Yorkshire and they do turn up at country houses. The Old Hall clearly has considerable age and would catch the eye. These travellers made their request courteously. If they overdid it a bit, perhaps they were just nervous. It put me in something of a quandary. I didn’t wish to appear inhospitable or unfair. One can’t expect a foreigner to act like a straightforward Englishman. I’d no wish to appear prejudiced. So I said I would show them around the ground-floor rooms, but not upstairs. I regretted I was not able to offer them any other hospitality.
‘They assured me they only wished to look round the main reception rooms. I saw no objection to that. But they asked questions, oh my, they did. They first wanted to know, reasonably enough, about the age of the house and its history. They then asked if it had been long in my family? So far, so good. But when I replied I was only the tenant, they expressed some surprise. Thereafter, their questioning became more specific and, to my mind, bordered on the impertinent. What of the owner? His name? Tapley? They were surprised he did not wish to live here himself, in such a charming house. Were there no other Tapley family members who might want to live here? What had caused him to leave? Where did he live now?’
Major Griffiths gave a kind of growl. ‘To the last I replied I had no idea where he lived and was not myself in correspondence with him. I was now most anxious to be rid of them and deeply regretted giving way to their request. I recommended them to consult Newman and Thorpe in Harrogate if they wished to know more about Mr Tapley, and I hurried them out. To be frank, once they realised I didn’t know where Tapley could be found, they showed no inclination to linger, or so it seemed to me. They took themselves off. I instructed Hartwell, my gamekeeper who lives at the lodge and whom you probably saw when you arrived, that if they returned, they were not to be admitted. I also sent a letter to Thorpe here, telling him about it. I warned him they might turn up at his office.’