The Mystery at Underwood House

by Clara Benson

  Stella was gazing at him with a distraught expression.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘And yet you wanted to know where I was this afternoon,’ he replied. ‘It’s perfectly obvious you don’t trust me. I realize now why you have been avoiding me all these weeks: you think I did it. You think I put poison in Aunt Philippa’s coffee, and pushed Aunt Winifred over the balustrade, and drowned Uncle Edward in the lake.’

  He paused.

  ‘Did you do it?’ whispered Stella into the silence. Her eyes pleaded with him to say no.

  ‘Oh, what’s the use?’ he cried, throwing up his hands, then turned and ran out of the room.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Donald!’ cried Stella, jumping up and running after him.

  John turned to Ursula.

  ‘You interfering old hag,’ he said angrily. ‘Look what you have done. You have turned everything upside-down and driven Donald away with your ridiculous tale.’

  Ursula drew herself up.

  ‘It is not a ridiculous tale,’ she said. ‘I have kept quiet up to now for Louisa’s sake, since she has always been kind to me, but this evening was the last straw. I cannot go on countenancing this murderous orgy.’

  John snorted.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he said.

  ‘Do you deny that the deaths were deliberate? Do you suppose that Mr. Faulkner stuck that knife into himself?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t, but that’s—now just you listen here—’

  ‘He’s gone!’ cried Stella, bursting back into the room. ‘He ran out of the house and wouldn’t come back when I called after him. I’m so dreadfully afraid he’s going to do something stupid.’ She looked appealingly at Guy. ‘Please, Guy, you must go after him and bring him back.’

  Guy stood up.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m the person he wants to see at the moment, old girl,’ he said. ‘But I shall try. Did you see which way he went?’

  ‘I think he headed down towards the lake,’ she replied.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘I shall catch him and bring him back if I possibly can.’ He took hold of her hand briefly. ‘Never despair!’ he said with a smile, and hurried out.

  Despite the time of year the sky outside was lowering with the approaching storm. Angela thought of the last time she had taken that deserted path, and the fear she had felt as she tried to escape the unseen pursuer behind her. She rose and went into the hall, where she found William hovering.

  ‘There’s been a bit of a blow-up,’ she said. ‘No doubt you saw Donald leave the house in a hurry just now. Guy has gone after him.’

  ‘Then he’s going to need my help,’ said William firmly.

  ‘I know I can rely on you. Do you have the thing I gave you?’

  The young man looked around carefully, put his hand into his inside pocket and drew out the handle of a revolver.

  ‘Good,’ said Angela. ‘It’s only small but it will do the job, and you might need it, so be sure and keep it with you at all times.’

  ‘I will,’ he promised.

  ‘In the meantime I shall go into the attic and retrieve that box of papers. I only hope it’s not too dark up there.’

  He nodded and without further ado left the house, his jaw set in determination.

  Angela returned to the drawing-room, and was about to excuse herself from dinner by pleading a headache, when Louisa announced that the meal would be delayed until Donald could be found. Angela withdrew again and hurried up the stairs. She found the door to the attic just as William had described it, and opened it slowly, wishing she had a torch. It was not as dark as she had expected, however, as a faint glow from some unknown source lit her way as she ascended.

  As she reached the top a stair creaked loudly under her foot and she thought she heard a sudden rustle. She paused. Was it a rat? Or something else? Never mind—there was no time to worry about that now. The important thing was to get hold of those papers, as she had the feeling that all the proof she needed would be contained in that wooden box. She hoped its owner had not been up here in the last hour or two and seen the broken lock.

  Angela moved forward cautiously. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim, flickering light now and she looked around for an old writing-desk. It was unlikely to be too far away, she reasoned, since the owner of the box presumably came up here regularly to put documents in it or take them out, and so would want to keep it nearby in order to be able to reach it easily. For some minutes she gazed about her fruitlessly, her eyes lighting on old bedsteads, chairs, tables and lamp-shades. A moth-eaten stag’s head glared dourly at her from its undignified position next to a pile of chamber-pots, and everywhere she looked were trunks spilling over with the accumulated stuff of decades. William had been right when he described the attic as an Aladdin’s cave. How many of these things would ever see the light of day again? Her gaze fell on a painting of some forget-me-nots in a vase, prettily done, and she wondered whether it had once belonged to Christina. Or had she even painted it herself?

  At last Angela spotted what she was looking for: an old roll-top bureau, just off to her left. On top of it was a box with an inlaid lid, which looked just big enough to hold a few papers. She went over to it and shook her head as she saw the broken lock and splintered wood. It was obvious that it had been forced. Now it would be impossible to pretend, should the necessity arise, that it had been broken by accident. Well, it couldn’t be helped—and did it matter, anyway? Things had gone too far to take a step back now.

  She lifted the lid of the box. The first thing that met her eye was the photograph that had been stolen from her in London. She put it to one side and picked up the top one from the small sheaf of documents in the box. It was a letter, written through in a close, crabbed hand. She could just make out what it said, and she read it in increasing astonishment.

  My dear boy (it said),

  By now you ought to have grown quite accustomed to receiving these peculiar letters from beyond the grave, so I make no further apology for disturbing your peace—if indeed it is disturbed; the youth of today are quite hardened to the unpleasantnesses of life, I find. Mr. Faulkner made no comment when I gave him his original instructions, but his eyebrows rose at least an inch, and I could see he looked askance upon such unusual proceedings. How could I explain to him that it made an old man happy to think that, once he was dead and gone, he could still communicate in some way with his favourite, and yet unacknowledged grandchild?

  So, then, if that old goat of a solicitor has indeed done as I instructed him, you will be reading this some time in early May. Spring was always your mother’s favourite time of year, as you will no doubt remember—not just because May was her birth month, but also because, as she told me, she loved to run outside and feel the fresh air upon her face, breathe in the scent of the newly-blooming flowers and give thanks for the joys of the new season.

  I beg your pardon—I had to pause for a few moments after writing the above. I had not thought that her death could still affect me so after all these years. Believe me, I still rue the terrible sequence of events that tore Christina so cruelly from her home here at Underwood House. Why, I have asked myself continually, was I not there to prevent her from being sent away in disgrace by the very mother, brothers and sisters who should have protected her against the dangers of the world? My dear boy, as I have repeated to you many times before, had I had the slightest idea of what they were planning, I should never in a thousand years have taken that trip to Manchester to visit my old friend who was gravely ill, thus allowing them to spirit her away in my absence. Time after time I tried to find her over the next eight years, but there was a conspiracy of silence against me. Try as I might, I was unable to discover her whereabouts, until it was too late and they told me she was dead.

  But enough of the past. We are concerned only with the present, and I write once again to remind you of your pledge to me. Were I still in the land of the
living, I should be able to help you attain our purpose of visiting retribution on my ungrateful children for the harm they did to my sweet, innocent daughter—but as things stand, I fear the burden will fall on you alone. Be not afraid, however: I trust you implicitly. I know you will avenge Christina’s memory as only her true son could. I urge you to make them suffer as she did, and to ensure that their sins are returned tenfold upon their own heads. Remember also that by stripping their families of their inheritance you are regaining what is rightfully yours, and take it as a mark of my faith in you when I say that nobody could deserve his birthright more than you do.

  Very well, then. I leave you to do your duty to your late mother and to me, the father who loved her. Do not let anybody turn you aside from your purpose, and remember the rewards that will be yours if you succeed.

  I wish you all success in your endeavours.

  Yours affectionately,

  Philip

  The letter left Angela quite breathless, and she stared at it blankly for a moment or two. Her hand was reaching out automatically to take the next document from the box when her attention was arrested by a noise to her right. Unconsciously she thrust the first letter into her pocket and raised her head, listening carefully. There it was again. It sounded like nothing so much as someone trying to shift position inaudibly.

  Angela sighed.

  ‘Very well, then,’ she thought. ‘It’s about time someone smoked you out.’

  There was an old wardrobe standing in a corner of the attic. The dim light seemed to issue from behind it. Angela picked her way round it and peered towards the source of the light, which turned out to be a burning candle. There, crouching on a makeshift bed with its back to her, was a figure.

  ‘Hallo, Robin,’ she said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Robin started violently and whirled round to face her, terrified. He looked dreadful: unkempt and unshaven and under-fed. Angela regarded him not unsympathetically.

  ‘Don’t you think you should stop all this nonsense and turn yourself in?’ she asked.

  He shrank away from her. He appeared to have lost the power of speech.

  ‘Surely you weren’t planning to stay here forever?’ Angela went on. ‘You would have been discovered very soon, you know. Somebody would have noticed that food was being stolen, or you would have been heard, or seen.’

  ‘I was only going to stay until the fuss had died down,’ he said, regaining his voice with an effort, ‘then I should have gone abroad somewhere.’

  ‘And how did you propose to do that? They are looking out for you at all the ports. And even supposing you did manage to make it out of the country, how did you expect to live? The money you took from your mother wouldn’t have lasted long. Really, Robin, I don’t think you have quite thought this out. Speculating with other people’s money is bad enough, but if you are going to do it you should at least be certain at first that you are going to make a decent fist of it. And then not even to have a proper escape route planned when it all went wrong—why, that looks very like incompetence to me.’

  ‘I suppose you would have done it differently,’ he said petulantly.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done it at all,’ she said. ‘But if I wanted to, I should do it better than you have. I thought you were supposed to be an expert in financial matters. You must have been aware of the risks you were running.’

  ‘You’re a woman, so I can’t expect you to understand how the markets can turn against one at any moment. I was doing perfectly well—had been for months, as a matter of fact. Then that Anglo-Pretoria business happened and I was left completely exposed.’

  ‘But why did you start doing it in the first place? Selling short is a dangerous thing to do at the best of times, but doing it with your clients’ money is positively reckless.’

  He looked sulky.

  ‘I could hardly afford to do it with my own money, could I? I am not a rich man. I could have been, though—I had the chance to make thousands, and nobody would have been any the wiser had it all gone to plan. All I had to do was borrow the stock for a little while then give it back once I’d made the trade. What harm could it possibly do?’

  ‘None, so long as the markets were going your way. Unfortunately for you, they didn’t. Did you approach your Aunt Winifred after you got into difficulties following the Anglo-Pretoria business?’

  ‘Yes. I needed money to cover my losses, and she had plenty. I thought I should have no trouble in making up the difference, and expected to provide a healthy return for her into the bargain, but things went from bad to worse and I was left stony-broke.’

  ‘But how did you manage to cover it all up for so long?’

  ‘They trusted me at Peake’s,’ he said. ‘Or, at least, they did until recently. I gather that someone had lately got wind of what was happening and they had me watched. To tell the truth, it was almost a relief when it all came out. For over a year I had lived in fear of discovery. There was no possibility of getting money from anyone else—although I did ask everyone I could think of—so I sat on the losses for months and months, terrified that somebody was going to start asking awkward questions. When the police came I fully intended to face up to it all, but then they started hinting that I had murdered Aunt Winifred and I—well, I lost my nerve and ran away.’

  ‘Yes, the police did suggest that you might have had a hand in her death.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her, I tell you!’ he cried.

  ‘But you did search her pockets when you found her lying dead on the floor, didn’t you?’

  He cast his eyes down.

  ‘How did you know that?’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t, until a few days ago. You and Donald both claimed that the other was first on the scene after she fell and it was impossible to say which of you was telling the truth. After you disappeared the police found a letter from you to Winifred, which you had tried to destroy, and they immediately concluded that you had retrieved it from her pocket after she fell.’

  ‘You must think me an utter wretch,’ he said.

  ‘You have made rather a mess of things, certainly,’ agreed Angela, ‘but if it is of any comfort to you, I know you are not guilty of murder.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ he cried suddenly, and Angela was reminded of his mother’s desperate outburst of a few days earlier.

  ‘First, you must come down from the attic and have a wash and some dinner. After that, what you do is entirely up to you. Your mother is here, you know. She has been frantic with worry about you.’

  ‘Has she? I thought she would be furious with me.’

  ‘I imagine she is. But your father is dead and you are her only child—the only person she has left in the world. Naturally, she is anxious about you.’

  For a second he looked forlorn, like a little boy who had been caught in the pantry eating sugar and was waiting to hear what his punishment would be.

  ‘How—how long do you think they will put me in prison for?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Angela. ‘I believe your mother has already engaged a good defence counsel, however. He will be able to advise you. Perhaps you will get off lightly.’

  He sighed.

  ‘I guess it was absurd of me to think I could hide up here for long without being caught,’ he said. ‘I was getting bored and that probably made me careless. And people keep coming up here. I think you’re the fourth one today.’

  ‘It can’t be much fun living alone in an attic,’ agreed Angela. ‘Now, are you going to go down and face your mother?’

  He winced at the thought.

  ‘I suppose I must. Will you come with me, Mrs. Marchmont? I daren’t face her on my own.’

  Angela laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry—Louisa and the others are there and will protect you from her, then that will be the hardest part over and done with. After that, facing the police will seem like child’s play.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ he said feelingly. He stood up
and emerged from the den in which he had spent almost a week. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said.

  ‘I have one or two things to do up here, then I shall come down,’ said Angela.

  He did not ask what the one or two things were, but nodded and went off. She heard his footsteps as he descended the stairs, then the sound of the door opening and closing. Her thoughts returned to the inlaid box and its astonishing contents and she moved over to the writing-desk, intending to read quickly through one or two more of the papers before removing the whole thing and taking it to her room to show to Inspector Jameson when he arrived. She had just lifted the lid of the box when she heard the attic door open again and the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs slowly.

  ‘Back here already? I thought you were going to confess everything to your mother,’ she said without turning round.

  ‘My mother is dead,’ said a voice behind her.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Angela’s heart beat loudly in her breast and she turned round.

  ‘I thought you had gone out into the woods,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you did, didn’t you?’ said Guy. ‘But here I am, as you see.’

  He wore his usual insouciant smile, but now there was something chilling about it. Angela noticed for the first time how powerfully built he was, and remembered that he had once been an athlete.

  ‘Where is Donald? Is he—is he all right?’ she asked hesitantly.

  He shrugged.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I should imagine your man has caught up with him by now—I saw him, by the way, as I was doubling back, looking terribly brave and firm of purpose. Perhaps he will shoot his quarry and save me the trouble. Or perhaps Don has returned of his own accord and is now being comforted by Stella. I’m sure he’ll forgive her her temporary lapse in faith.’ His expression hardened.