The Stately Home Murder

by Catherine Aird

  His voice boomed back from the bare stone walls and his boots grated on the floor much as those of a jailer would have done. Mrs. Fisher shivered again.

  “This is the oldest part of the house,” he announced. “Left over from when it was a castle. All the rest was built on top of this bit and lots more that’s gone through the centuries.”

  He waited for the echo to catch up with him.

  “This bit here,” he put his hand on a stone wall that could only be called substantial, “is what used to be a bastion.”

  “Well I never,” murmured someone obligingly.

  “And inside it is the donjon, or dungeon,” said Bert Hackle, giving Mrs. Fisher her first and last lesson in philology. “Donjon—dungeon. See?”

  He led the way round the wall, and stooping, went through an arch where a door had been. They crowded in after him. “This is where they kept the prisoners.”

  His party was suitably impressed.

  “Nasty, isn’t it?”

  “Glad I wasn’t one.”

  “Look at that damp. If they didn’t have anything else they’d soon have rheumatism.”

  This last was an unfair reflection on the original builders, whose stonework had, in fact, been perfect. The dampness could be laid entirely at Bert Hackle’s door. The instinct of an undergardener is to sprinkle water everywhere and Bert Hackle had lent a touch of verisimilitude to the dungeon walls by the judicious application of a little water before visiting time.

  His Lordship—who was not slow—had done nothing to stop him. Indeed, on the last occasion he had been down there, the Earl had gone so far as to congratulate Bert on the fern species which were growing from a crack in the wall.

  (“Fine plant you have there, Hackle,” he had said.

  “Thank you, my lord.”)

  Which Bert had taken as tacit approval.

  “There’ll be a well somewhere,” said someone in the party who knew about castles.

  Bert Hackle pointed. “Over there.”

  The castle well was deep enough to need no faking and had been firmly boarded over on the advice of his Lordship’s insurance company.

  “Good water,” said the gardener. “Nice and sweet.”

  “Better than the piped stuff,” said a woman who had heard of—but knew nothing about—typhoid fever.

  Hackle moved beyond the well head and took up a fresh stance in front of a low grating cut in the side of the wall. He cleared his throat impressively. The echo didn’t quite know what to make of this and there was an appreciable pause before he began on what was obviously his pièce de résistance.

  “If you was bad,” he said, “you were thrown into the dungeons, but if you was really bad …”

  Mrs. Fisher was sure Michael must be about somewhere.

  “If you was really bad, they put you in here.” He bent his powerful arms down and pulled at the two iron bars of the grating. A great stone pivoted outwards, revealing a hole beyond. Three men might have stood in it.

  “It’s a n’oobliette,” announced Hackle. “Where you put your prisoners and forgot them.”

  “From the French,” translated the earnest woman.

  Mrs. Fisher craned her neck to make sure that Michael wasn’t in it.

  “They had it just here,” Hackle said in a macabre voice, “so that the prisoners could see the water being brought up from the well. Then they didn’t give them none.”

  It took everyone except Mrs. Fisher a little time to sort out this double negative.

  “They died of thirst,” she said at once, “while they was watching the water.”

  Bert Hackle sucked his lips. “That’s right. Now, if you’ll all come along here with me I’ll show you the way to the armory. It’s been reconstitooted from part of the old curtain wall …”

  But the oubliette—or perhaps the stone staircase—had been enough for some, and the party that eventually entered the armory was a very thin one. The earnest woman came—of course—and some three or four others.

  “Michael Fisher!” Michael Fisher’s mother gave a shriek of mingled anger and recognition. “You naughty boy! You wait until I get you home …”

  “It’s lovely down here, Mum.”

  “What ever do you mean by running away like that?”

  “It’s much more fun down here.” Michael remained undismayed by her anger.

  Mrs. Fisher took a quick look round. There was one thing about this part of the house that reassured her. The old things, having stood the test of so very much time, were more likely to stand the test of Michael Fisher. His mother did not think he could have got up to much in the armory.

  Wherein she was sadly wrong.

  It was a truly fearsome collection. Weapons sprouted from the walls, antique swords lay about in glass cases, chain-mail hung from hooks, and—as if this weren’t enough—several suits of armor stood about on the floor.

  “Whoopee,” shouted Michael. “Look, Mum, this is what I’ve been doing.”

  He darted off down the center of the armory, shadowboxing with the coat of war of some long-forgotten knight of a bygone age.

  “Got you,” he said to one of them, landing a blow on the breastplate. It resounded across the hall.

  “Mum …” This was Maureen, who had been studying the contents of one of the glass cases without real interest.

  “What?”

  “Mum, what’s a belt of chastity?”

  Mrs. Fisher’s answer to this was what the psychologists call a displacement activity. She shouted at her son.

  “Michael, leave that suit of armor alone.”

  “I just want to look inside.”

  “Leave it alone, I tell you.”

  The earnest woman looked up at the raised voice and politely looked away again.

  Michael was struggling with the visor.

  “Can’t you hear what I say?”

  There was at least no doubt about that. Mrs. Fisher in full voice could be heard clearly from one end of Paradise Row to the other, so the armory presented no problem in audibility.

  “Yes, I just want to …” Michael heaved at the visor with both hands.

  “Mum …” It was a whine from Maureen. “Mum, what’s a belt of chastity?”

  “Michael Fisher, you’ll leave that suit of armor alone or else …”

  What the alternative was no one ever knew. At that moment Michael Fisher managed to lift the visor.

  He stared inside.

  A face stared back at him.

  It was human and it was dead.

  3

  The information was not exactly welcomed at the nearest police station. In fact, the Superintendent of Police in Berebury was inclined to be petulant when he was told. He glared across his desk at the head of his Criminal Investigation Department and said:

  “You sure it isn’t a false alarm, malicious intent?”

  “A body in a suit of armor,” repeated Detective Inspector CD. Sloan, the bearer of the unhappy news.

  “Perhaps it was a dummy,” said Superintendent Leeyes hopefully. “False alarm, good intent.”

  “In Ornum House,” went on Sloan.

  “Ornum House?” The superintendent sat up. He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “You mean the place where they have all those day trippers?”

  “Yes, sir.” Sloan didn’t suppose the people who paid their half crowns to go round Ornum House thought of themselves as day trippers, but there was no good going into that with the superintendent now.

  “Whereabouts in Ornum House is this body?”

  Sloan coughed. “In the armory, actually, sir.”

  “I might have known,” grunted Leeyes. “In that sort of setup the armor is always in the armory.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who said so?”

  Sloan started. “The steward.”

  “Not”—heavily sarcastic—“not the butler?”

  “No, sir. He’s gone down to keep guard. The steward—his name’s Purvis—came to telepho
ne us.”

  “And,” asked Leeyes pertinently, “the name of the body in the armor?”

  “He didn’t say, sir. He just said his Lordship was sure we would wish to know.”

  The superintendent glared suspiciously at his subordinate. “He did, did he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Leeyes took a deep breath. “Then you’d better go and—what is it they say?—unravel the mystery, hadn’t you, Sloan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Though I don’t want any touching of forelocks, kowtowing or what have you, Sloan. This is the twentieth century.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On the other hand”—very silkily—“you would do well to remember that the Earl of Ornum is a Deputy Lieutenant for Calleshire.”

  “I shan’t forget, sir.” Even though it was the twentieth century?

  “Now, who have you got to go with you?”

  “Only Detective Constable Crosby”—apologetically.

  Leeyes groaned. “Crosby?”

  “Sergeant Gelven’s gone on that training course, if you remember, sir.”

  The Criminal Investigation Department at Berebury was a very small affair, all matters of great criminal moment being referred to the County Constabulary Headquarters at Calleford.

  The superintendent snorted gently. “I shouldn’t have thought Crosby could unravel knitting let alone some masochistic nonsense like this.”

  “No, sir.” But it would have to be Crosby because there wasn’t anyone else.

  “All right,” sighed Leeyes. “Take him—but do try to see that he doesn’t say ‘You can’t do that there ’ere’ to the Earl.”

  Detective Constable Crosby—raw, but ambitious, too—drove Inspector Sloan the odd fifteen miles or so from the police station at Berebury to the village of Ornum. The village itself was clustered about the entrance to the park—and it was a very imposing entrance indeed. Crosby turned the car in between two magnificent wrought-iron gates.

  The gates were painted black, with the finer points etched out in gold leaf. If the state of a man’s gate was any guide to the man—and in Sloan’s working experience it was—the Earl of Ornum maintained a high standard. Surmounting the pillars were two stone spheres, and crouching on top of the spheres was a pair of gryphons.

  Constable Crosby regarded them critically. “They’re funny-looking birds, aren’t they? Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like that flying around.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Constable. They don’t exist.”

  Crosby glanced up over his shoulder at the solid stone. “I see, sir.”

  “A myth,” amplified Sloan. “Like unicorns.”

  “Yes, sir.” Crosby slid the car between the gryphons and lowered his speed to a self-conscious fifteen miles an hour in deference to a notice which said just that. Then he cleared his throat. “The house, sir. I can’t see it.”

  “Stately homes aren’t meant to be seen from the road, Constable. That’s the whole idea. Carry on.”

  Crosby subsided into silence—for perhaps half a minute. “It’s a long way, sir …”

  Sloan grunted. “The distance in this instance between the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate is about a mile.”

  “A mile, sir?” Crosby digested this, dropping a gear the while. This particular police car wasn’t used to a steady fifteen m.p.h.

  “A mile,” confirmed Sloan, whose own single latched gate led up a short straight path to a semidetached house in suburban Berebury. In his view his own path had the edge—so to speak—on the Earl’s inasmuch as it was flanked by prize rose bushes as opposed to great oak trees. Sloan favored roses. He felt that there should be a moratorium on crime while they were in bloom.

  “Sir, if we were to go over fifteen miles an hour would a prosecution hold under the Road Traffic Acts?” Crosby was young still and anxious for promotion. “They’d have to bring a private prosecution, wouldn’t they? I mean, we couldn’t bring one, or could we?”

  Sloan, who was watching keenly for a first glimpse of Ornum House, said, “Couldn’t do what?”

  “Bring a prosecution for speeding on private land.” Crosby kept his eye on the speedometer. “Traffic Division wouldn’t be able to do a thing, would they?”

  Sloan grunted. Traffic Division were never ones for being interested in the finer academic points of law. Their line of demarcation was a simple one.

  Fatals and non-fatals.

  However, if Crosby wanted to split hairs …

  “Going over the limit anytime, anywhere, Constable, isn’t the same thing as proving it.”

  “No, sir, but if you had two independent witnesses …”

  “Ah,” said Sloan drily. “I agree that would be different.” He peered forward, thinking he saw a building. “I don’t know when I last saw two independent witnesses. Rare birds, independent witnesses. I’d put them in the same category as gryphons myself.”

  Crosby persisted, “But if you had them, sir, then what? I could ask Traffic, I suppose …”

  Sloan happened to know that Inspector Harpe of Traffic Division wouldn’t thank anybody for asking him anything else just at this moment. Superintendent Leeyes had today posed him about the most awkward question a police officer could ever be asked. It was: “Why were all the damaged cars from the accident jobs attended by his three crews finding their way into the same garage for repair? If anyone was getting a rake-off there would be hell to pay …”

  “Sir,” Crosby pointed suddenly. “Something moved over there between the trees. I saw it.”

  Sloan turned and caught a glimpse of brown. “Deer. And there’s the house coming up now. Keep going.”

  There was a young woman sitting by a baize-covered table near the front door. She had on a pretty summer frock and she was all for charging Sloan and Crosby half a crown before she would let them in.

  “Half a crown, did you say, miss?” Sloan was torn between a natural reluctance to tell anyone who didn’t already know that the police had been sent for—and the certain knowledge of the difficulty he would have in retrieving five shillings from the County Council No. 2 Imprest Account, police officers, for the use of.

  “Half a crown if you want to go into the house,” she said firmly. “Gardens and the park only, a shilling.”

  They were rescued—just in time—by a competent-looking young man who introduced himself as Charles Purvis, steward and comptroller to the Earl of Ornum.

  “That’s all right, Lady Eleanor,” he said. “These two gentlemen have come to see me. They’re not visitors.”

  She nodded and turned to give change to the next arrivals.

  The steward led the two policemen through the great hall—Mr. Feathers was saying his piece there to a fresh party—and then down the spiral staircase.

  “We closed the armory at once, Inspector—you’ll watch your step here, won’t you …”

  Sloan was going to watch his step in Ornum House all right. He had his pension to think of.

  “Shall I go first, Inspector?” offered Purvis. “It’s a bit tricky on the downward flight.”

  It wasn’t only going to be the staircase that was tricky either. Sloan could see that already.

  “Hang on to the rope,” advised Charles Purvis. “As I was saying, we closed the armory at once but didn’t tell more people than was absolutely necessary.”

  “Not Lady Eleanor?” said Sloan.

  “No, she doesn’t know yet.” Purvis turned left at the bottom of the staircase and led the way down the dim corridor. “We felt it would only cause comment to close the entire house at this stage.”

  A body in the armory of a stately home was going to do more than cause comment, but Sloan did not say so. Instead, he murmured something about not letting those with were in the house out.

  “The earlier parties will have gone by now,” said Purvis regretfully. “The armory is the last of the rooms on exhibition because relatively few people are interested. They mostly don’t come d
own here at all, but go into the park next.”

  They passed the dungeon and the well head and found Bert Hackle standing guard at the armory door.

  “There’s nobody here now, Mr. Purvis, but me. Mr. Dillow—”

  “The butler,” put in Purvis.

  “That’s right,” said Bert Hackle. “He’s taken all those that were in here along to the kitchen with Mrs. Morley.”

  “Thank you, Hackle.” Purvis opened the armory door and walked in, the two policemen at his heels.

  At first glance it did not seem as if anything was amiss.

  All was still and the room resembled a museum gallery as much as anything. There were eight suits of armor, each standing attentively facing the center of the room as if alert for some fresh call to arms. Sloan regarded them closely. The visors were down on all of them, but one at least was more than a mere shell.

  “Which …” he began.

  “The second on the right,” said Charles Purvis.

  Sloan and Crosby advanced. A little plaque on the floor in front of it read ARMOR WITH TILT PIECES, CIRCA 1595.

  Sloan lifted the visor very very carefully. There might be more fingerprints than those of Michael Fisher here. The visor was heavier than he expected but, just as the boy had done, he got it up at last.

  Inside was the face of a man verging on the elderly and more than a little dead. Inspector Sloan touched his cheek though he knew there was no need. It was quite cold. He looked back at the steward.

  “Do you know who …”

  “Mr. Meredith,” supplied Charles Purvis, adding by way of explanation. “Our Mr. Meredith.”

  “Our Mr. Meredith?”

  “Librarian and archivist to his Lordship.”

  “You know him well then?”

  “Oh yes,” said the steward readily. “He comes—came—to the house most days. He was writing a history of the family.”

  “Was he?” Sloan tucked the fact away in his mind. “Where did he live? Here?”

  “No. In Ornum village. With his sister.”

  Sloan lowered the visor. It was just like banishing an unpleasant fact to the back of one’s mind. At once the room seemed normal again.