The Stately Home Murder

by Catherine Aird

  Crosby got out a notebook.

  “Mr. Osborne Meredith,” said Purvis, “and his address was The Old Forge, Ornum.”

  “If he came here every day,” said Sloan, “perhaps you could tell me the last day you saw him here.”

  The steward frowned slightly. “Not today, I know.”

  Sloan knew that too. That cheek had been too chill to the touch.

  “I don’t recall seeing him yesterday either, now I come to think of it,” went on Purvis, “but he might well have been here without my seeing him. He came and went very much as he wished.”

  Sloan waved a hand in a gesture that took in the whole house. “Whereabouts in here would you expect to see him?”

  “He spent most of his time in the library and in the muniments room.”

  “Did he?” said Sloan, adding ambiguously, “I’ll be checking up on that later.”

  Purvis nodded. “But how he came to be down here in the armory, and in this, Inspector, I couldn’t begin to say at all.”

  “And dead,” added Sloan.

  “And dead,” agreed Purvis somberly. “His Lordship was most distressed when he was told and said that I was to give you every possible assistance …”

  “He came and went,” observed the egregious Detective Constable Crosby, “and now he’s gone.”

  If anything, Dr. Dabbe, the consultant pathologist to the Berebury group of hospitals, was more put out by the news than the superintendent had been.

  But for a different reason. Because it was Sunday afternoon and he was sailing his Albacore at Kinnisport.

  “Send him along to the mortuary, Sloan,” he said from the yacht club telephone, “and I’ll take a look at him when I get back.”

  The tide must be just right, thought Sloan. Aloud he said, “It’s not quite like that, Doctor. The body’s at Ornum House.”

  The medical voice sounded amused. “What are you expecting, Sloan? True blue blood? Because I can assure you that—”

  “No, Doctor. It’s not like that at all.” The telephone that the steward had led him to was in a hallway and rather less private than a public kiosk. “We’re treating it as a sudden death.”

  The sands of time having run out for one more soul.

  “Well, then …” said the doctor reasonably.

  “He’s in a suit of armor for the tilt, circa 1595,” said Sloan, “and I not only don’t know that we ought to move him, but I’m not at all sure that we can.”

  Then, duty bound, Sloan telephoned Superintendent Leeyes at Berebury.

  “I’ve been wondering what kept you,” said that official pleasantly. “And how did you find the man in the iron mask?”

  “Dead,” said Sloan.

  “Ah!”

  “Dead these last couple of days, I should say—though there’s not a lot of him visible to go by, if you take my meaning, sir.”

  Leeyes grunted. “I should have said a good look at the face should have been enough for any really experienced police officer, Sloan.”

  “Yes, sir.” If the deceased had happened to have been shot between the eyes, for instance.

  “So?”

  “I’ve sent for Dr. Dabbe, sir, and I’d be obliged if I might have a couple of photographers and a fingerprint man—”

  “The lot?”

  “Yes, please, sir. And if they’ll ask Lady Eleanor to tell the steward when they arrive—”

  “Lady who?”

  “Lady Eleanor, sir. His Lordship’s daughter. She’s on duty at the door.”

  “Is she? Then she’ll probably send them round the back anyway,” said the superintendent, “when she’s taken a good look at them.”

  “Yes, sir”—dutifully. Then, “The deceased is a Mr. Osborne Meredith, librarian to the Earl.”

  “Ha!” Triumphantly. “What did I tell you, Sloan? Librarian. He got the idea from a book, I’ll be bound. Mark my words, he’ll be one of these suicides that’s got to be different—”

  “Different,” conceded Sloan, at once. “This is different all right, but as to the other, sir, I couldn’t say. Not yet.”

  4

  Detective Constable Crosby was still keeping watch in the armory when Charles Purvis and Inspector Sloan got back there.

  “I’ve just checked up on the other seven suits of armor, sir,” he said virtuously.

  “Good.”

  “All empty.”

  “Good,” said Sloan again, slightly startled this time. Honest as always, even with himself, Sloan admitted that this was something he wouldn’t have considered. He’d got a real eager beaver on his hands in young Crosby. Surely Grand Guignol himself wouldn’t have thought of seven more men in seven more suits.

  “And,” went on Crosby, “on the ways into here.”

  “There’s just the one, isn’t there?” said Sloan.

  “That’s right, sir. The door.”

  Purvis, the steward, seemed inclined to apologize for this. “That’s because we’re below ground level here, Inspector, and so we can’t very well have windows. Nor even borrowed light. It’s all artificial, the lighting down here.”

  Sloan looked round. In a fine imitation of medieval times, flaming-torch-style lighting had been fixed into basket-type brackets high up on the walls.

  “The lighting’s not very good,” said Purvis.

  “Effective, though.”

  Purvis nodded. “Most people are glad to get back upstairs again.”

  Sloan went back to the second suit of armor on the right. “Tell me, had anyone mentioned to you that Mr. Meredith was missing?”

  “No, Inspector. We—that is, I—had no idea at all that everything was not as usual. We shouldn’t have opened the house at all today had there been any suggestion that …” His voice trailed away.

  “Quite so,” said Sloan.

  “Complete surprise to us all.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Nasty shock, actually.”

  “You said he lived with his sister.”

  “That’s right. His Lordship has gone down to Ornum to break the news.”

  “Himself?”

  Purvis looked surprised and a bit embarrassed. “Not the sort of job to delegate, you know. Come better from him anyway, don’t you think? Take it as a gesture, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then get the vicar to go round afterwards. Helpful sort of chap, the vicar.”

  “Good,” said Sloan, content that the ground was also being prepared for him. A visit from a humble policeman shouldn’t come amiss after all that.

  “Though, as to the rest”—the steward waved a hand to embrace the armor—“I can’t understand it at all. It’s not as if it was even his subject. It’s Mr. Ames who’s the expert.”

  “Ames?”

  “The vicar. Bit of an enthusiast about armor. If we get any visitors who’re really keen we ring him up at the vicarage and he comes in.”

  Sloan looked round the armory. “There’s never a full-time guide here, then?”

  “No. Hackle brings people as far as the door when he’s finished showing the dungeons and so forth—you need a man there because of the oubliette—and then they find their own way out in their own time.”

  “I see.”

  Purvis pointed to an arquebus hanging on the wall. “Not everyone’s subject.”

  “No.”

  “But Mr. Ames catalogued this collection years ago, and he always comes in if special parties come.”

  “Special parties?”

  Purvis nodded. “As well as the ordinary visitors we have what you might call specialist groups. People who are interested in just one facet of Ornum House. Parties come to see the armor and I tell Mr. Ames. It’s the same with the pictures and books and manuscript records. Take next week, for instance. I’ve got a party who call themselves The Young Masters coming down to see the pictures on Monday. Arranged it with Mr. Meredith so that he could …” Purvis came to a stop when he saw where his sentence was getting him. “Oh, dear, I’d forgotten a
ll about that.”

  Sloan looked at the suit of armor that contained the late Mr. Meredith and said, “What other … er … specialty of the house do you have?”

  “The Ornum collection of china,” replied the steward, not without pride, “is thought to be one of the finest still in private hands.”

  “I see.” Sloan scratched his chin. “Before I see his Lordship, do you think you could just give me some idea of the setup here?”

  “Setup?” said Purvis distantly.

  “Who all live here, then …”

  “Well, there’s the family, of course …”

  Constable Crosby got out his notebook and started writing.

  “There’s his Lordship,” said Purvis, “and the Countess and their children.”

  “Lady Eleanor?” said Sloan.

  “Lady Eleanor is their only daughter,” said Charles Purvis, a curious strangled note creeping into his voice.

  “And who else?”

  “Lord Cremond, his Lordship’s son.”

  “And heir?” enquired Sloan.

  Purvis nodded. “His only son.”

  “I see. That all?”

  The steward smiled faintly. “By no means.”

  “Oh?”

  “Then there’s his Lordship’s cousin, Miss Gertrude Cremond.”

  “Quite a family.”

  “And,” went on Purvis, “his Lordship’s aunts, Lady Alice and Lady Maude. They are, of course, rather … er … elderly now.”

  Sloan sighed. That, being translated, meant eccentric.

  Purvis hadn’t finished. “His Lordship’s nephew, Mr. Miles Cremond, is staying in the house just now, with his wife, Mrs. Laura Cremond, and then, of course, there are the indoor staff … Dillow, the butler, and so on.”

  Sloan sighed again

  “Do you want me to go on?” asked Purvis.

  “Oh yes,” said Sloan grimly, pointing to the suit of armor. “No man could have got into this contraption on his own. I can work that much out from here.”

  “I know,” said Purvis flatly. “That’s why we sent for you.”

  Mrs. Pearl Fisher was sitting in the biggest kitchen Sloan had ever seen in his life.

  She was by no means the only person in the room, but she contrived—by a subtle alchemy that would have done credit to some first lady of the stage—to give the impression that she was.

  She was sitting at a vast deal table and she was drinking tea. Teas (2/-per head) were available to visitors in the Old stables, but this pot was obviously on the house. It was being administered by the housekeeper, Mrs. Morley, a lady who looked as if she had only just stopped wearing bombazine. A personage whom Sloan took to be Mr. Dillow, the butler, hovered at an appropriate distance.

  “I don’t know that I’ll ever get over the shock,” Mrs. Fisher was announcing as Inspector Sloan and Crosby went in.

  “The tea will help,” Mrs. Morley said drily.

  Mrs. Fisher ignored this. “Sent me heart all pitter patter, it did.”

  “Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Morley.

  Histrionically, Mrs. Fisher laid her hand on her left chest. “It’s still galloping away.”

  “Another cup of tea?” suggested Mrs. Morley.

  Both ladies knew that there would be brandy and to spare in a house like this, but one of them, at least, was not prepared for it to be dispensed.

  “It can bring on a nasty turn, can a sight like that,” offered Mrs. Fisher.

  Mrs. Morley advised a quiet sit.

  Mrs. Fisher said she thought it would be quite a while before her heart steadied down again.

  Mrs. Morley said she wasn’t to think of hurrying. She was very welcome. Besides, the police inspector would want to hear all about it, wouldn’t he, sir?

  Sloan nodded. Crosby got out his notebook.

  “I shall never sleep again,” declared Mrs. Fisher. “That face; I tell you, it’ll come between me and my sleep for the rest of my born days.”

  “Tell me, madam—”

  “Them eyes,” she moaned. “Staring like that.”

  “Quite so. Now—”

  “He didn’t die today, did he?” she said. “I know that much—”

  “How do you know that?”—sharply.

  “He was the same colour as poor old Mr. Wilkins in our street, that’s why—”

  “Mr. Wilkins?”

  “Putty, that’s what he looked like when they found him.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Three days’ milk there was outside his house before they broke the door down,” said Mrs. Fisher reminiscently. “And he looked just like him.”

  “I see.”

  “In fact,” said Mrs. Fisher, seeing an advantage and taking it all in the same breath, “if it hadn’t been for my Michael there’s no knowing when you might have found the poor gentleman, is there?” She looked round her audience in a challenging manner. “It’s not as if there was any milk bottles.”

  Sloan nodded. It was a good point. There had been no milk bottles outside the armory door. Nothing that he knew of to lead to that particular suit of armor. There was indeed no knowing …

  Where was Michael now?

  Michael Fisher, it presently transpired, was somewhere else being sick.

  “I don’t know what he’ll be like in the coach going home, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Fisher with satisfaction. “I shouldn’t wonder if we don’t have to stop.”

  Maureen was despatched to retrieve Michael.

  Finding the dead face had had its effect on the boy. His complexion was chalky white still, and there was a thin line of perspiration along the edge of his hair line. He looked Sloan up and down warily.

  “I didn’t touch him, mister. I just lifted that front piece thing, that’s all.”

  “Why?” asked Sloan mildly.

  “I wanted to see inside.”

  “But why that particular one? There are eight there.”

  “Tell the inspector,” intruded Mrs. Fisher unnecessarily.

  “I dunno why that one.”

  “Had you touched any of the others?”

  Michael licked his lips. “I sort of touched them all.”

  “Sort of?”

  “I’m learning to box at school.”

  “I see.”

  “I tried to get under their guards.”

  “Not too difficult surely?”

  “More difficult than you’d think.” Michael Fisher’s spirit was coming back. “Those arms got in the way.”

  “But you got round them in the end?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And this particular one—the one with the man inside …”

  “It sounded different when I hit it,” admitted Michael. “Less hollow.”

  “That’s why you looked?”

  “Yes.”

  “No other reason?”

  Michael shook his head.

  It was the first time in Sloan’s police career that he had ever been conducted anywhere by a butler.

  “Mr. Purvis said I was to take you straight to his Lordship,” said Dillow, “as soon as his Lordship got back from the village.”

  “Thank you,” murmured Sloan politely.

  There was no denying that the butler was a man of considerable presence. As tall as the two policemen and graver. Sloan, who had subconsciously expected him to be old, saw that he was no more than middle-aged.

  “If you would be so good as to follow me, gentlemen.”

  Sloan and Crosby obediently fell in behind Dillow of the stately mien and set off on the long journey from the kitchen to what the butler referred to as the private apartments.

  “You would have known Mr. Meredith, of course,” began Sloan as they rounded their first corridor.

  “Certainly, sir. A very quiet gentleman. Always very pleasant, he was. And no trouble.”

  “Really?” responded Sloan as noncommittally as he could. Mr. Osborne Meredith might not have been any trouble to a butler. He was going to be a great deal of tr
ouble to a police inspector.

  This police inspector.

  “He usually went home to luncheon,” said the butler. “Ah, through this way, I think, sir, if you don’t mind.”

  He changed direction abruptly at the distant sound of voices. Sloan had almost forgotten the house was still full of people who had paid to see some—but by no means all—of the sights of Ornum House.

  “Sometimes,” went on the butler, “he would take tea with the family, but more often than not he would be … ah … absorbed in his work and I would take him a pot to himself in the library.”

  “I shall want to see the library presently.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “And the … er … muniments room.”

  “Certainly, sir.” Dillow had at last reached the door he wanted. He moved forward ahead of them, coughed discreetly, and announced:

  “Two members of the county constabulary to see you, milord.”

  As a way of introducing a country police inspector and his constable, Sloan couldn’t have improved on it.

  There were two people in the room: a middle-aged man with a long drooping mustache and a pretty woman with fair hair and wide-open eyes of china blue. There was gray now among the fair hair and a rather vague look. The two had obviously just finished afternoon tea and the scene reminded Sloan of a picture he had once seen called Conversation Piece. The only difference as he remembered it was that in the picture the tea had not been drunk. Here, the meal was over, a fact appreciated by Dillow, who immediately began to clear away.

  “Bad business,” said the Earl of Ornum.

  “Yes, sir—milord,” Sloan amended hastily. In the nature of things, interviews with the titled did not often come his way.

  “Poor, poor Mr. Meredith,” said the Countess. “Such a nice man.”

  Not being altogether certain of how to address a Countess, Sloan turned back to the Earl. “You’ve seen his sister I understand, milord?”

  “No. Tried to. Not at home.”

  “Oh?”

  “House shut up.” The Earl pulled gently at one side of his drooping mustache. “She must be away. Accounts for one thing though, doesn’t it?”

  “What’s that, sir—milord?”

  “No hue and cry for the man. General alarm not raised. Just chance that that boy—you’ve got his name, haven’t you?”