Heirs and Assigns

by Marjorie Eccles

  They sat on wooden stools and her hands, cradling her cup, were rough and work-worn; she held it so tightly he knew she was more tense than she was trying to seem. ‘Why did it take so long to contact the police, Mrs Douglas?’

  After a while she said, ‘I really should have spoken earlier, I suppose, only … well, it was so incredible, such an enormous thing to even contemplate … And one couldn’t be sure, after all …’ Her voice trailed off uncertainly, her unseeing glance fixed on something beyond the window.

  Yet she didn’t look like an indecisive person. She had a firm chin and a way of looking out of those wide brown eyes that said she saw a great deal, but would take her time to make up her mind about what it might mean. She was perhaps in her late fifties. Her dark hair was short and greying, she had a healthy tan and laughter lines at the corners of her eyes. He waited for her to go on but she seemed more intent on staring out of the window than talking. A huge round clock on the kitchen wall, visible through the slightly ajar door, tocked away the seconds, loudly. He prompted, ‘So why did you make the call in the end?’

  ‘I … It was difficult. They all think … after all, it was always there in the background, something that could have happened to Pen any time, with his heart. Though he neither looked nor acted frail. He had a cough that had bothered him lately, but you’d have put him down as good for another twenty years.’ She stared down into her tea. ‘Sorry, I’d better start at the beginning, hadn’t I?’

  The beginning didn’t appear to mean the same to her as it did to him. ‘The supper party … I’d persuaded him it would be better not to wait until the birthday … oh dear, that won’t be making much sense to you, either.’ She drew a long breath and began again. ‘The twentieth was his birthday, you see. He would have been sixty, and he’d taken it into his head to throw a party, a biggish one. But we also arranged a small supper a couple of days before … just his family – they’re all staying here, in the house – and a few friends. We – we had some news, the sort I’d persuaded him would be best to give them privately, rather than announce publicly at the actual birthday, which was what he’d had in mind.’ Her chin lifted slightly. ‘Pen and I were going to be married.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you? I don’t know that anyone else did … or at least, not as we saw it. We didn’t deceive ourselves that we were either of us exactly spring chickens, but we knew what we were doing.’ Her face suddenly bleak, she was unable to go on for a moment. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, Pen and I. From the time when I was one of the local children who sometimes played with the Bryn Glas children. But when we grew up, we both moved away and lost touch, as one does. Then, when my father died several years ago and his house passed to me, I had a sudden yen to come back – I can run my business just as easily from here as anywhere else. It’s not as though it’s all that demanding, anyway,’ she added honestly. ‘Pen had always used this house as a weekend retreat, for himself and any of the family who wanted to use it. When he was advised to retire because of his health, he came back to live here permanently, we got to know each other properly and a few weeks ago we decided to get married, but—’ She broke off.

  ‘No reason why you shouldn’t, was there?’

  ‘None at all, of course.’ She swallowed. ‘Look, I’m aware how this is going to sound but I’ll try to be as honest with you as I can about what happened …’

  ‘Take your time.’

  When she went on it was in a more collected manner. ‘The supper party didn’t go on late. I think it had in fact been rather a strain for Pen. He’d warned me beforehand that his family were not necessarily going to be pleased. They’d be afraid it would mean they’d be cut out of his will, and he was right about their reactions. Oh, they all did their best to conceal their feelings, but there was a definite atmosphere after he told them what we intended. Gerald – that’s Dr Fairlie, who was one of the guests – obviously saw this, too, and tactfully stepped in with a suggestion of an early night, for which I was very grateful. After that, we all dispersed – my son Jack and I, and the other two guests, a young woman called Carey Brewster and Mrs Ramsey.’

  That was better than he’d hoped, Kate Ramsey being on visiting terms at this house. A useful contact, perhaps.

  ‘I came in early the next morning,’ Mrs Douglas went on, ‘the garden’s at the messy stage at the moment, as you can see, and I thought I should get my lads to do some clearing up before the party – not that we would have been spilling outside, in November, but I wanted to make it look a bit more acceptable if I could. I was very early and let myself in, but Mrs Knightly had just made Pen’s morning tea, so I told her I’d take it up to him …’ Her breath caught in her throat. ‘This – this may sound like hindsight but I swear I knew … I felt a sort of empty feeling about the room before I – before I even went in and saw him.’ For a moment, she closed her eyes. ‘His cough had been bothering him quite a bit the night before and – well, with a heart condition like his … All the same, I couldn’t understand it. He’d been tossing around in that bed like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve been with him when he had an angina pain, and he would go quite still, afraid of moving almost, until his medication kicked in.’

  ‘I can believe that.’ You wouldn’t want to thrash around much with such a pain. The instinct would be to keep still, surely.

  ‘The pillows were all over the place and the blankets and sheets were in a turmoil. And he’d knocked his water glass over on to the carpet.’

  ‘Trying to reach his medication?’

  Again she fell silent, this time for fully a minute. ‘That’s just it. I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight at that particular moment, but before I went to tell anyone else, for decency’s sake I tidied him up a bit, smoothed the sheets and put the pillows in place. It was only afterwards, when I was thinking about how it had happened, I realized I couldn’t remember seeing his capsules on the bedside table. I went to check and I was right, they weren’t there. I found them in his bathroom cabinet, where he never kept them – not ever! He was supposed to put one under his tongue when necessary and he kept them with him – always. Especially at night, within reach. That was when I began to wonder … to wonder if someone hadn’t put those tablets where they were so it would look as though he’d died simply because he’d forgotten to keep his medicine handy. But he hadn’t, I’d swear to that.’ She finished on a choking note. ‘He didn’t die a natural death. He’d struggled with someone … someone had taken his life, a pillow over his face, perhaps …’ She covered her own face with her hands.

  ‘The doctor didn’t notice anything amiss,’ Reardon said gently, after a moment. But he knew that suffocation like that was notoriously difficult to prove; it didn’t always leave marks.

  Her hands dropped to her lap and she looked directly at him. Her eyes were tragic but there were no tears. ‘I’m in no way blaming Dr Fairlie for anything. He’s a very good doctor, as well as a personal friend to both of us, but I think he saw what he expected to see: a man he’d been treating for a serious heart condition, who he’d examined only two days before and seen to bed the previous night. Noticed that he’d been a little overexcited, perhaps. Besides, he would never have left Pen without being sure his medicine was near at hand. After I found Pen, they fetched Gerald immediately from a house where he was attending a birth – it’s May Grimley’s fifth and hopefully her last, and as it turns out, a healthy little boy – but he was worried about her and anxious to get back.’

  The doctor had been entirely within his rights in signing the death certificate, having attended his patient in a professional capacity so recently. A too hasty examination, perhaps, understandable in the circumstances. An explicable death, with such medical history; with Penrose’s heart condition there had been no need to look for a further cause. Except that instinct – and love perhaps – had told this woman who was going to marry Penrose Llewellyn otherwise. She’d been proved right, too. In the light of what she later said, the
coroner had called for a post-mortem, which had revealed heavy bruises on both of his upper arms. The conclusion reached was that Penrose Llewellyn had indeed died of myocardial infarction – a heart attack in layman’s terms. But if the bruises on his arms were any indication, it could have been brought on by his being forcibly held down, fighting for breath as his fragile heart finally gave up the struggle to pump blood around his body. At any rate, since the dead don’t bruise, they were suspicious enough to justify further enquiry.

  ‘There’s something else.’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sure his room had been searched. Left to himself Pen wasn’t,’ she explained, the shadow of a smile chasing away the sadness for a brief instant, ‘the tidiest of persons, and everything was so precisely in place it looked unnatural. His clothes put away on hangers, even the towels in his bathroom folded.’ After a moment she added colourlessly, ‘It must have been someone who was sleeping in the house, mustn’t it? And they might have got away with it, if I hadn’t … No wonder they all hate me.’

  ‘Well, we shall certainly need to speak to everyone who was here.’

  She was looking unhappily out over the moonscape that was the future garden. ‘Somebody will have to decide what’s to be done about all this now. It seems rather pointless to go on with the plans we’d made but … They’re all wanting to leave and go home – the family, I mean.’

  ‘We’ll make it as quick as possible. But first, I’d like to take a quick look round the house, get my bearings, have a word with the housekeeper.’

  SEVEN

  Gilmour, having done his scouting around for digs, had followed Reardon across to Bryn Glas and was now waiting in the hallway. It appeared that Mrs Petty, the widow who ran the little tea shop – ‘Just a couple of tables in her front room, really’ – was reluctantly prepared to offer accommodation for one, at a pinch. One paying guest she could cope with, but she really didn’t have two suitable rooms, and besides, two hungry men would mean shopping in Castle Wyvering for extra food supplies, and the bus only ran once a week, on market day.

  ‘It would do me,’ Gilmour said, ‘and you can take up that invitation to stay with Mrs Reardon’s friend.’

  ‘There hasn’t been any invitation,’ Reardon said testily, wishing he hadn’t ill-advisedly used Kate Ramsey and Ellen’s fanciful idea of staying with her as a conversational gambit to prevent Gilmour from regaling him with yet more fascinating pregnancy details. ‘No joy at that pub, then – the Fox?’

  ‘I tried it before I went to Mrs Petty, but it was closed. According to her the landlord never opens up before six, even if it’s someone he knows. He’s a law unto himself. She did say that if he feels in the mood – if being the operative word – there’s a couple of bedrooms. Grub not bad – but the beds might be damp.’

  ‘Try again, later, when it’s likely to be open. We need somewhere to lay our heads and we’re not going to be here long enough to get rheumatics.’

  Mrs Knightly had her own private sitting room where she insisted on serving coffee and home-made shortbread. Gilmour, who had a robust appetite, more than made up for Reardon who was still too full of tea to do it justice.

  ‘I’m speaking to you first, Mrs Knightly, because I understand you’ve worked for Mr Llewellyn for some time and you can give us an overall picture,’ Reardon began.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ She was a brisk, white-haired woman with a nice smile and kind eyes, obviously very shocked by her employer’s death, but prepared and seemingly relieved to have the chance to talk. ‘I came to Bryn Glas when I was thirteen and I’ve been here ever since, nearly fifty years. I stayed on after I married my John, who managed the farm.

  ‘It was a farm when you started then?’

  ‘If you could call it that. Sheep, it was. The boys’ father, Mr Gwilym – Welsh family, you see, a long way back – had just bought it after old Basset, who owned it, had died. It was in a sad state, his two sons had pushed off to Canada but he’d refused to go with them, thinking he could manage on his own. Of course he couldn’t. Neither could Mr Gwilym for that matter. He thought he could do better, poured a lot of money into it but he was only what you call a gentleman farmer, he didn’t really understand, you know?’ She looked at Reardon, who nodded as if on familiar terms with the notion that hill-farming was not for the faint-hearted or the inexperienced. ‘Oh, he’d roll his sleeves up and get stuck in at first, but he soon saw he was more hindrance than help – he was the sort of fellow more for his books, you see. My John did his best but then he died … and after that, everything went downhill, and in the end Mr Gwilym gave up trying to be a farmer. I think he saw he’d soon have nothing left if he went on like that, losing money hand over fist.’

  Having finished her tea, she reached out for some knitting that was nearby, a woman whose hands always had to be occupied. ‘When Mr Gwilym died, the house came to Penrose as the eldest and he asked me to stay on and look after it. They all used to come back and use it for holidays and weekends and then after Penrose had that heart scare – it was quite a bad one – he retired from business and came to live here permanently.’ She knitted on, expertly weaving three colours, dark green, red and white, her fingers moving so fast it seemed to Reardon as though the argyle-patterned sock that descended from the four needles grew inches by the minute. When she spoke again tears were not far away. ‘He was the best of the bunch, you know, Pen. He was a good man, always willing to help, and people liked him. He’d have been happy with Anna, with Mrs Douglas – but somebody here has seen to it he didn’t have the chance.’ She laid the knitting on her knee in order to search for her handkerchief and dab at her eyes. ‘I speak my mind, as you’ll have gathered, but I don’t think I’m far wrong.’

  ‘Who exactly was staying in the house, after the supper party, Mrs Knightly?’ Gilmour asked.

  ‘Just the family.’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘No,’ she said, resuming the sock. ‘And that was enough, let me tell you. Too much for me and Prue, the girl who helps me. Though I’d arranged for extra help for the birthday party. There was his brother Theo and his wife … and his sister, Ida, Mrs Lancaster, and her daughter Verity … and Huwie.’ Her lips compressed. ‘That was a surprise, him turning up like a bad penny after all these years.’

  ‘Another brother? Not a regular visitor?’

  ‘He didn’t visit at all. He’s very much the baby of the family, a little surprise he was, coming so long after the others, but he was always a trouble to his father, getting expelled from one school after another and goodness knows what. Spoilt by his mother, of course. And then, oh, years ago, I don’t know how many, there was a big row between him and Theo. His father never forgave Huwie. Mrs Llewellyn wasn’t strong and she took family quarrels badly, especially where Huwie was concerned. She died shortly after that one and Mr Gwilym always blamed Huwie for it, went purple whenever his name was mentioned. He was the sort, Mr Gwilym, that doesn’t lose their temper much but when they do! They all have a touch of that, even Penrose. Huwie disappeared and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him until he turned up the other day, reckoning he’d been invited to stay for the birthday party. Well, it looks funny, doesn’t it?’ She held up the plate of biscuits and the coffee pot. ‘Sure you won’t have another cup?’

  ‘Thanks, but no.’ Both of them shook their heads, Gilmour regretfully. ‘You didn’t hear anything that night?’

  ‘No. But I wouldn’t, would I, my bedroom being downstairs, just along the passage? To tell the truth, I was glad when the supper party broke up, there was a lot of clearing up to do before I could get off to bed. I was that tired I slept like a log.’

  ‘The doors would be locked, of course?’ Gilmour asked.

  ‘I saw to it myself,’ she said quickly. ‘And the windows – all of them. There’s a stray tomcat seems to think he’s entitled to bed-and-breakfast here and I wouldn’t put it past him to get in, even through the cloakroom window.’

 
; ‘All right, we’ll push on now with seeing everyone else. Do you think you could provide a written list of everyone who slept in the house that night – names and so on?’

  Mrs Knightly was happy to comply, as well as adding a few observations on the way, sharp and to the point. Apart from herself, there was only the family, she repeated. Although she’d known them all from children, there seemed little love lost in that direction for any of them, except when it came to the young woman, Verity, Ida Lancaster’s daughter. The housekeeper seemed very fond of her, although it had evidently been Penrose Llewellyn who had engaged her deepest affection.

  Gilmour finished writing down the details. ‘Thank you, Mrs Knightly. You’ve been very helpful.’

  ‘Perhaps we could see Mr Penrose’s bedroom and the rest of the house before we go any further,’ Reardon asked. Mr Penrose. It sounded feudal and faintly servile, but there had to be something to distinguish him from the other two other Mr Llewellyns.

  ‘I only hope,’ she said, tight-lipped, ‘whichever of them’s done this thing, they’ll think it was worth it when you find which one.’

  ‘I hope so, too.’ A bunch of obvious suspects. A locked house. Ten to one they all knew or suspected who’d done it, but unless someone spilt the beans, or one of them decided to come clean and confess – both scenarios equally unlikely – the person who’d taken Penrose Llewellyn’s life was quite likely to walk away. It was a depressing thought that, although this wouldn’t be a complicated case, it might well prove unsolvable. No wonder the local police had shunted it off. ‘Lead on, Mrs Knightly.’