The Mitford Murders

by Jessica Fellowes

  In any case, Nancy’s anger was so big, filling every room, that it left no space for explanations; she wasn’t capable of hearing anything even if anyone tried to speak. Louisa kept herself calm, hugging all the children goodbye and telling Nancy brightly that they could still write to each other.

  ‘But what will your address be?’ said Nancy, following Louisa into her room.

  ‘I will go home,’ said Louisa. ‘It’ll be easy enough to write to me there.’

  ‘Yes, but what about your uncle?’ Nancy hissed dramatically. Louisa had not mentioned the spots of blood.

  ‘It’s all right, I don’t think he’ll be bothering me again,’ said Louisa, affecting indifference.

  ‘But he must have gone back to London after Roland went to see him,’ said Nancy, not letting it drop.

  ‘Shhh,’ said Louisa. ‘Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, I always am. And so will you.’

  With that, Nancy saw there was no more to be said.

  Ada, upset, was in the nursery too, summoned to replace Louisa immediately. She gave Louisa a book, a new Agatha Christie, with a flower from the garden hastily pressed inside it.

  ‘It’s all I had to hand,’ Ada said, swallowing a sob. ‘I’m so sorry you’re going. Who shall I have to gossip with now? I’m surrounded by old ladies.’

  Louisa smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I have nothing to give you but I will write. Thank you for the book; I know I’ll enjoy it.’

  At last, everything packed, there was nothing else to do but walk around to the stables to find Hooper and ask him to take her to the station. He grunted in his usual way and showed no alarm at the request; the toings and froings were none of his business so far as he was concerned. Louisa had pleaded with Nanny Blor and the children to stay in the nursery when she left. She didn’t want to cause a scene, certainly not one that Lady Redesdale could view from her window.

  So she left with no fanfare, not even a wave, sitting alongside Hooper and keeping her back to the yellow-grey stone and gabled roof of Asthall Manor.

  PART THREE

  1921

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  On the journey to London, Louisa realised that she couldn’t go home. She felt like an outcast. Even if she could return to Peabody Estate, she would be reminded all too often with jibes and pointed comments that she had failed at her work in a posh house. She’d be accused of hoity-toity airs if she mistakenly used a Mitford-ism instead of the common-or-garden words she’d been brought up with. All of that, perhaps, she could stand, but there would be no one who would understand what she had had to leave behind or why. She missed her ma and wanted her reassurance more than ever, but if she asked any questions about Stephen, what could she say?

  Roland Lucknor. If she could nail him to the Shore murder, she’d be absolved and she’d get her job back, as well as clear her conscience over Stephen. It was the only answer.

  The police seemed to have closed the file on Florence Shore’s murder. Could she solve this? She had a way in, if she could find out more about Roland. She needed to do something; everything else was failing at her touch, it seemed.

  Louisa had taken down Roland’s address before she left and had it written down on a slip of paper in her pocket. It had been easy to find, as Nancy had a dozen unfinished letters to him stuffed underneath her mattress. At the time, she hadn’t been quite sure what she was writing it down for, but now she knew. She would go there and see him for herself. Perhaps she could talk to him, persuade him that he must leave Nancy alone. She felt afraid but her worry for Nancy was greater. There was no time like the present and she had nothing else to do, so she went straight to the address in Baron’s Court from Paddington station.

  The mansion block that Louisa found herself standing in front of only a short while later was built in handsome red brick. It looked like a comfortable, affluent sort of place, able to ignore the seedier elements of London more or less around the corner. There was a wide front door for Roland’s block, which was open, and Louisa could see a porter inside, wearing a cap that was probably intended to pass as a sort of livery but looked rather too scruffy for that. He was sweeping the hall with a broom that was almost the same height as him. Louisa hesitated at the threshold.

  ‘What can I do for you, miss?’ said the porter with a friendly smile.

  Louisa saw that she’d got so far, she’d better get to the end of it now.

  ‘I’m looking for a Mr Roland Lucknor, flat nine, I think.’

  ‘You won’t find him there today, miss,’ said the porter, leaning against the broom. ‘Nor any day; he hasn’t been here for months.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Louisa. ‘But what about his post? I know he’s been receiving letters.’

  ‘Nothing’s come here, miss.’

  Yet Nancy had written to him here. Perhaps he had arranged to have his letters sent on. He could easily have asked the local postmistress for the favour.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him here?’ said Louisa.

  ‘I don’t know, a while ago. A lady turned up in a fur coat to see him and there was a row. Terrific shouting, it was. After that, we never saw him again.’

  ‘What did the lady look like?’ said Louisa. A fur coat? Was that Florence Shore? She’d been wearing one on that fatal train journey.

  But this question seemed to make the porter realise he’d overstepped the mark, sharing information about one of the tenants with a complete stranger.

  ‘I couldn’t presume as to tell you that, miss.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Louisa, ‘I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that he’s a friend of mine and I’m trying to find him.’

  The porter looked sympathetic. ‘Course you are. I just have to be careful. Discretion, that’s the name of my game. People think being a porter’s an easy job but you see things and you have to keep them to yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I do see,’ said Louisa. ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘If he comes back, would you like me to give him a message?’

  ‘Oh, no. No, thank you,’ she said and left, as if Roland might suddenly appear out of the shadows.

  Back out on the street, Louisa realised where she could go. She was feeling tired and hungry now, having left before lunch, but she felt better for knowing what she was going to do next. She would take a train to St Leonards-on-Sea. With luck, Rosa might give her some work as a waitress in her café, at least until she had a plan for what to do next. But first, she needed to post a short note to Guy.

  The sight of the steamed-up windows of Rosa’s café on Bohemia Road quelled Louisa’s panic and when she was only a few steps across the threshold, she found herself enveloped in the comforting bosom of its proprietor, her floury apron leaving marks on Louisa’s coat.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ flustered Rosa, brushing Louisa down. ‘Come along now, take a pew. You look like you need a good cup of tea and I’ve got a batch of scones just out of the oven. Millie!’

  Rosa beckoned to a waitress, dishwater blond hair falling out from under her sagging cap – she looked like she could do with the sustenance more, thought Louisa – but she sank gratefully on to a chair, kicking her cloth bag under the table.

  Once she’d drunk three cups of tea and eaten as many scones as she could, piled high with thick clotted cream and raspberry jam with seeds that lodged themselves in between all her teeth, things felt not quite so bad as they had done before. Thanks to Lady Redesdale’s promise to pay out the rest of the month, she even had a bit of money in her pocket.

  Rosa had had to leave her while she dealt with some customers, but there was a lull and she now came to sit by Louisa. ‘So, my love, what is this all about? I’m very happy to see you, you know that. But I can’t help thinking it’s not a holiday,’ she said sympathetically.

  If she closed her eyes, the voice and the warmth that resonated from Rosa could have been Nanny Blor. Louisa felt a wave of homesickness, and not for her mother.

  ‘No,’
said Louisa, ‘it’s not a holiday. It’s just that I had to leave and I didn’t really know where else to go. May I stay a few nights? I can pay for my board, and if you have any work for me to do in the café, I’d like to do it. Please.’

  Rosa folded her arms and shifted her bosom slightly as she looked at Louisa and then at the café behind her, where she could see Millie struggling to stack cups and plates, teaspoons falling on the floor like pick-up sticks. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I can give you some work to get you on your feet and of course you can stay here. It worries me, though. I’m going to have to tell Laura that you’re here.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Louisa. ‘I’m not asking you to keep any secrets from your sister. And Nanny Blor – I mean, Laura – doesn’t have to keep it secret from Lady Redesdale, though I don’t expect she’ll ask anything.’

  ‘Are you in trouble? You know you can tell me,’ said Rosa in a clandestine whisper, which might have made Louisa laugh at any other time. ‘I’m a woman of the world, even though I might be down here, by the sea in a teashop. I’ve seen some troubles and I know when someone is afraid.’

  ‘It’s fine, honestly. There was someone but he’s gone now, I think. He won’t bother me here. I only need a bit of time to work out what happens next. I said something to Lady Redesdale that I shouldn’t have, that was all. She didn’t like it and I had to go.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Rosa, ‘and they can sack you just like that, can’t they? It’s a terrible thing. I hope that Lloyd George sees that lot off, I really do.’

  Louisa smiled. She was grateful, but she was also tired. She asked if she might go up to the flat and see herself to bed. She needed, more than anything, a night of dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Guy sat in a greasy spoon, contemplating a late breakfast of congealing bacon and eggs with thick slices of fried bread and black pudding. Louisa’s note lay open before him, explaining that she had tried to find Roland but he wasn’t there and hadn’t been seen since an argument with ‘a lady in a fur coat. Could it have been Florence Shore?’

  What he needed was to find Roland, but if he wasn’t at the address Louisa had found for him, there was no clue as to where he could be. In any case, if he apprehended Roland, what could he say? That he’d once had an argument with a lady in a fur coat and it sounded suspicious? That he’d muttered ‘Nurse Shore’ when he was asleep? It was ridiculous and yet there was something sinister about Roland that Guy could not shake off. What he needed was a better picture of the man.

  Leaving his food uneaten, Guy paid the bill and headed out into the damp London day. He would start with Roland’s army colleagues and try to build up a picture of him from there.

  From the Army List at Hammersmith library, it was fast work for Guy to look up the names of those serving in the same battalion as Lord Redesdale and Roland Lucknor. He took down the names of the four officers and eight sergeants. He had to hope at least one of their fellow soldiers had survived to be able to tell him something of Roland. In the phone book, he found three matching names in London. Guy looked at his watch: midday. There was no time like the present; he might as well set off now.

  Two of the addresses were in Fulham, fairly close to each other. The first yielded no answer to his knock at the door but the second, Mr Timothy Malone of 98c Lilyville Road, was answered by a man with a face that looked not much more than thirty but his hair was as white as clouds. He opened the door and with a lop-sided smile turned an empty pocket inside out.

  ‘If you’ve come collecting money,’ he said, ‘I have nothing, as you can see.’

  ‘No,’ said Guy, rather taken aback, ‘I haven’t come about money. I’ve come—’ At this, he stopped. What reason could he give for asking questions about Roland Lucknor? He wasn’t on official police business and he wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was going to have to lie. ‘I’m a private detective trying to find out information about a man called Roland Lucknor. I believe you served in the same battalion as him during the war.’

  Timothy’s smile widened. ‘Why, yes, old chap. I did. Come in, come in. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Before Guy could reply, Timothy had started walking into the hallway, then turned off into a room. When Guy followed behind, he saw the unmistakeable signs of a bachelor’s lonely existence. The wallpaper was curling at the edges, damp having turned it dark brown at the top corners, and the windows let in little light thanks to the grey smut on the outside. There was an unmade single bed in the corner, which Timothy was discreetly trying to straighten out as he asked Guy whether he’d like sugar with his tea. Guy sat down at one of two chairs in front of the window by a scruffy table with a newspaper, reading glasses and, touchingly, an old jam jar with three Michaelmas daisies in it.

  ‘Excuse the mess,’ said Timothy. ‘I’m still not quite used to doing it all for myself, and with no work, I can’t pay for a daily, you see …’ He gestured to his left arm, which ended before the elbow. ‘No one wants to employ a crippled soldier.’ He tried to do a little laugh, as if he had made a joke, but the sound trailed away to nothing. Timothy clicked his fingers as if summoning an invisible waiter. ‘Tea! One moment, coming right up.’

  There was some clattering in the corner and Guy could see an old rag being used to clean out two cups and a saucer. Timothy brought it all over and sat down.

  ‘Private detective, you say? That must be interesting work.’

  ‘Er, yes.’ Guy coughed. ‘So, you knew Roland Lucknor, then?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ said Timothy, ‘but who wants to know?’

  Guy tried to keep his breathing steady. ‘His family,’ he said. ‘They don’t know where he is and they’re trying to find him.’

  Timothy sat back in his chair and crossed his long legs. Despite his surroundings and the frayed edges of his collar, he exuded an elegance that some men couldn’t achieve with an entire wardrobe of Savile Row tailoring.

  ‘Well, it’s no wonder they can’t find him. From what I remember of his sorry tale, it had been some time since he had had anything to do with them.’

  Guy leaned forwards. ‘What is it that you remember?’

  Timothy had not had company for some time; he was eager to talk and by the time he had finished, he had replenished Guy’s cup three times. Roland had been a voluntary officer when Timothy was a CO and for quite some time they had been stationed together not long after war had broken out, when the battalion was at Arras. Conditions had been ghastly. They soon learned that was the norm, but at the start it had been a shock, and despite Roland’s gung-ho attitude, Timothy noticed that it wasn’t long before he started to show the strain. One night, he sat up with Roland and his batman – ‘Can’t remember his name but he was another handsome fellow’ – and they had got drunk on a bottle of whisky that the batman had managed to smuggle from somewhere. ‘You soon learned not to ask too many questions but just enjoy the stuff if you could get it,’ said Timothy.

  With the sound of shelling rumbling throughout, Roland had told his story: his mother dead before he was nine, when he hadn’t seen her for five years; his father remaining in Africa as a missionary but for one stilted meeting shortly before Roland left school. With no family except for a godmother, he had run away to Paris as soon as he left school, which was where he had met the batman. ‘Waring! That was it,’ Timothy slapped his leg. ‘Thought the old mind was starting to go, there. Those two had some adventures, by the sound of it, all those bohemian types, you know. Lots of parties and women. Sort of thing old Eddie was a bit partial to.’

  ‘Eddie?’ asked Guy, bewildered.

  ‘King Edward. He used to love all that stuff.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Guy, nodding as sagely as he could. Calling kings by casual names was not really the sort of thing he did.

  ‘Anyway, seems that for all the fun they were having out there, they were dirt poor. They were trying to make a living as writers, I think, but obviously not getting anywhere with it. When war broke out, they saw their chan
ce for a bit of regular food and a roof over their heads. Poor chaps.’ He shook his head. ‘We were all fools. We all thought we’d be doing our bit for King and country. We weren’t to know.’ In a moment of melancholy, he gestured to his pathetic room. ‘This is what we were fighting for.’

  Guy did his best to give him a sympathetic look. These were the worst moments for him, when he might be forced to admit that he was not one of the band of courageous men who fought for King and country, nor even for a down-at-heel bedsit.

  Timothy shook his head. ‘I was telling you about Roland, wasn’t I? Well, perhaps he did know. He was a man ruined by the war. Screaming in his sleep at night, sometimes crying openly in the day. The gas attack was the worst thing that could have happened to him; he should have been finished off by a bullet. I’m sorry, I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but for some of those men, living with the memory of the war was worse than dying. Waring seemed to cope with it rather better but perhaps he was just better at hiding it. I must say I was surprised when I heard it was Waring who killed himself.’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Oh, didn’t you know? Waring was found in some sort of outhouse, having shot himself through the head. They had both just been signed off by the doctors. Roland was to be sent back to England on leave, Waring was to go back to the front line. So I never saw either of them again.’

  ‘I see,’ said Guy, though he wasn’t sure he did quite. ‘And why were you surprised to hear that it was Waring?’

  ‘I don’t know. No one can know what must be going through the mind of someone driven to do that, but somehow I would have expected it of Roland more than of Waring. Everyone knew that Roland’s being sent home meant the doctors thought he had shellshock but they didn’t like to call it that. Waring had been signed to go back into battle. Perhaps he just couldn’t face it.’