by Myers, Amy
Auguste fidgeted, on tenterhooks now. He and Egbert exchanged few words now that the trail appeared so clear-cut, so obviously pointing to one conclusion.
Gertrude and Cyril were first to appear, closely followed by Laura.
‘Mr Carstairs, ma’am,’ a parlourmaid announced to her a moment later.
‘I trust you do not object to his presence, Chief Inspector,’ Laura said drily. ‘Although this is going to be a matter for the family, Mr Carstairs still claims he wishes to be part of it, but I fear he will shortly change his mind.’
‘I’d like you here, sir.’ Rose nodded at him.
Gradually the family including Alexander assembled, Priscilla and George entering last, as if to present a united front. And that, Auguste thought soberly, they were going to need.
‘In the early morning of Sunday 29 September, the body of a man was found in the smokehouse here at Tabor Hall,’ Rose began, his formality causing Oliver to glance at Auguste uneasily. ‘The body was that of Tom Griffin, a travelling showman, whose clothes were later found hidden in the grounds. They had been exchanged for evening clothes, not his own, and his dead body had been manicured, in an attempt to obscure his identity long enough so that those who might most easily identify him would have left the area.’
Auguste looked round as Egbert’s even voice continued. Victoria appeared on the verge of tears as though a game had suddenly ceased to be one; her hand was clasped in Alexander’s. Gertrude looked brightly interested but Cyril distinctly nervous. That was odd, wasn’t it?
‘We’ll leave the matter of just how and at whose hands he met his death for a moment. Suffice to say that you, the Tabor family, found itself left with a body on its hands at approximately twelve-thirty. The murder probably took place at the time that the noise of the report would be best smothered by the stable clock chiming midnight. The family had to think quickly, and came up with the solution of changing the victim’s clothes and sprucing him up; probably it was meant only as a temporary measure until the body could be otherwise disposed of. It would hardly have been safe to attempt to bury the body in the grounds that night, or to smuggle it out, with extra police and guards on watch due to the King’s presence. For the same reason I don’t believe it was a premeditated crime. The suit presented a problem, since one belonging to a member of the family or a guest would instantly be missed by the valet responsible.’
‘It wasn’t mine,’ cried Cyril defensively.
‘No,’ Rose agreed. ‘We think it was one that had belonged to the late Lord Charles Tabor.’
‘None of those was missing,’ said Laura quickly. ‘Savage told me.’
‘So she might have, Miss Laura. But Miss Savage is devoted to her mistress and the Tabor family.’
‘Are you suggesting my mother-in-law sneaked down in the middle of the night and murdered this man?’ Priscilla asked icily.
‘I’m telling you I believe one of your father-in-law’s suits disappeared. You, the Tabor family, realised you could not leave labels inside which would easily be traced to the late Lord Tabor. Nor could they simply be ripped out, thus betraying something was out of the ordinary. It was important that every detail should look as correct as possible to mislead us on the dead man’s background. False labels therefore had to be stitched quickly into the pockets of the jacket and waistcoat, on the shirt, etc. That task was, I fancy, given to Miss Laura and Miss Victoria.’
Laura’s face betrayed nothing save mild interest. Victoria’s flushed bright red.
‘The hair and beard had to be trimmed, the fingernails and hands manicured,’ Rose continued. ‘All at high speed in case lights in the smokehouse, however dim, or lanterns moving on the path should be noticed. It was just over two hours later that Mr Alexander and Mrs Didier came across the body by chance, thinking it was someone who was after the blood of Mr Didier.’
Auguste’s stomach took an unpleasant lurch. Gregorin leapt agilely from the back to the forefront of his mind and was firmly sent back again.
‘It was a remarkable achievement looked at dispassionately,’ Rose finished. ‘Great organisation and clear thinking were needed. Bloodstains, for example, had to appear on the suit, for which purpose, if I’m right, pig’s blood was taken from the kitchens. Some of the original blood had to be removed from the carpet, in order that a fiction of suicide might be maintained.’
There was dead silence as seven mask-like Tabor faces stared politely at Chief Inspector Rose. They might have been listening to a travelling entertainer, not to a Scotland Yard detective all but accusing them of being at the very least accessories to murder, a crime which could carry a penalty of ten years’ penal servitude.
‘You have a fanciful imagination, Chief Inspector.’ Priscilla took up her usual role of spokeswoman. ‘It is a tour de force to recreate so vividly two such busy hours in the life of – I think you intimated – my sister-in-law Laura.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t one person,’ Rose rejoined. ‘That wouldn’t have been possible. I believe you were all working together.’
A cry from Gertie. ‘It wasn’t me!’
‘Except Mrs Gertrude Tabor, I should have said,’ Rose continued unruffled. ‘I don’t think she was involved with this business at all. The rest of you were all very helpful in providing us with red herrings, just serious enough to deflect our attention from the truth. Mr Cyril Tabor’s suit was the last of these – a risk on your part since it pointed, falsely, to one particular member of the family.’
‘Might I ask,’ Priscilla came in heavily, ‘why we were all going to such lengths to disguise the identity of this man, or are you accusing us of murdering him as well?’
‘I’m coming to that,’ said Rose. ‘Unless you feel inclined to take over, Lady Tabor?’
Priscilla apparently didn’t.
‘Whatever document you may have made Tom Griffin sign, and even if he believed himself to be illegitimate, you knew different, didn’t you? You knew that the late Lord Tabor’s marriage to the present Dowager was invalid because he was already married to Rose Griffin, who did not die until 1847. Therefore you, Lord Tabor, Mr Tabor and Miss Tabor, were illegitimate. The title and estates belonged to Tom Griffin, whether he knew that when he called here or not. Nothing could preserve you from ruin if he ever found out he was legitimate. Did your father tell you about the marriage, Lord Tabor, or did you only find out after Tom Griffin called here in August, and you did a little bit of investigation? For some reason Rose Griffin thought her marriage not valid, and therefore that Tom was illegitimate, but there’s no doubt it was. You had reason for murder all right. To do you justice, you might even have wanted Tom Griffin out of the way to spare the Dowager the shock of learning of her husband’s misdeeds at her time of life.’
Auguste noticed a swift look between George and Priscilla. So Egbert was near the truth. Nothing convinced him of it so much, however, as the utter silence of the Tabors. Only Oliver showed emotion, but what emotion it was, Auguste could not be sure.
‘So where have we got to?’ Rose continued. ‘The marriage of Thomas Charles Tabor to Rose Griffin in 1841 meant that the Tabor estates rightfully belonged to Tom Tabor, or Griffin as he called himself, since he was born legally in 1842, as we now know. With Tom’s death the estates pass, I believe, not to you, Lord Tabor, since you are illegitimate, but to Tom’s line. He had no direct heirs, so it reverts to the line of Charles Tabor’s brothers, and failing that, to the line of his father’s brothers. Very remote. And no one would ever find out if Griffin were dead, would they? There was a reasonable chance he would never be missed, certainly that he could never be linked to you. Of course, by that time he had bought a thumping great roundabout which, for all you know, might have been left sitting there in the middle of Settle. But luck was with you. And against Tom Griffin.’
‘Let me be clear of your meaning, Chief Inspector,’ Priscilla said steadily. ‘You seem to be accusing our family of murder now. Why? You have invented a wonderful story. Do you have proo
f that one of us committed murder? Or are we merely discussing possibilities?’
‘You’ll know the answer when we make an arrest,’ Rose told her shortly.
Priscilla smiled. It was a challenge to battle, thought Auguste, both fascinated and repelled; the smile of one who understood her opponent and was confident of victory. ‘So you have no proof,’ she said. ‘Suppose, for the sake of argument, this strange story about our conspiracy in the middle of the night were true? What would you propose to do? Arrest the whole family?’
Checkmate, Auguste thought to himself. The jelly that refused to jell. There was no way Egbert could arrest the whole family. He needed to single out one from the others, and he could not yet do so. He had obviously been hoping for the united front to crack, but it had not done so.
‘I thought not. Even had we such a strong motive as you outline, Chief Inspector, your case is laughable without proof. Now I regret I have to disappoint you: there is no such motive.’
‘And how’s that, Lady Tabor?’ Rose asked.
‘We have no such motive.’
‘What my wife is trying to tell you, Chief Inspector,’ George took up the colours, ‘is that my father was not married to this Rose girl. The marriage was invalid. This Tom Griffin came here in August believing he was illegitimate and he was. This marriage is a red herring of your own, Chief Inspector. It is true my father went through a form of marriage with the girl, and possibly believed it valid at the time, but it was not. The marriage was not known to his parents and when my grandfather discovered it two years later, he disabused my father of any notion that it was valid. When my father later married my mother, he therefore never burdened her with the pain of telling her about this boyish foolishness.
‘You will have noticed my late arrival at this meeting,’ he continued gruffly. ‘The reason is that, thanks to you, I had to explain all this unfortunate business to my mother, who was badgering me to know all the details. I gather she discovered about Rose Griffin through you, Chief Inspector, and I was able to relieve her mind greatly as to the validity of her marriage. It had been an enormous shock to her, though she might not have let you see that. She is a lady of the old school.’
‘I trust you are satisfied with the result of your meddling, Chief Inspector?’ Priscilla used her most glacial voice.
‘When did you first hear about Rose Griffin, sir?’ Rose was impervious to ice and fire.
‘My father told me about the entanglement when he was getting on in years, merely because there had been a son, and he feared there might be trouble if he ever approached the family. As indeed there has been,’ George added crossly.
‘Why did your father believe the marriage invalid?’
‘For two reasons. Both my father and the girl were minors, and swore falsely that they had obtained the consent of their parents. They had not. The marriage was thus invalid, not only on that score, but also because the girl had given a false name. She was married under the name of Griffin, whereas her real name was Moffat. My grandfather had naturally investigated the matter thoroughly. The girl was provided with a home and a certain amount of money to live on.’
‘I trust you now see, Chief Inspector,’ said Priscilla simply, ‘that your work has brought you full circle. As none of us had any motive to murder the man, it is obvious he met his death, not by murder, but by suicide.’
Chapter Eleven
‘It adds up.’ Rose poured himself some more coffee.
‘Like a butler’s accounts,’ protested Auguste crossly. ‘It is too accurate.’
‘Be blowed to that. Tabor marries the girl and plays at part-time shepherds and shepherdesses in Dent, but, in 1844, the family finds out and there’s all hell to pay. They convince him the marriage is invalid. By that time he’s met Miriam, and is only too eager to see the folly of his youthful ways. So he or the father sets the girl up in a cottage in Clapham, and breathes a deep sigh of relief.’ Egbert contemplated the coffee, provided by the hospitality of the Tabors. It moved him not at all. ‘One of them did it, of course, but which of them? Or are you backing Priscilla’s suicide theory?’
‘How could it be suicide in view of the post mortem report?’ A procession of Tabors marched before Auguste’s eyes, headed by Miriam, with Priscilla, George, Victoria, Alfred, Cyril and Laura solidly behind her. Somewhere at the end of the line a breathless Gertie struggled to keep up, but he quickly dismissed her. It couldn’t have been Gertie. On the other hand, it couldn’t have been any of the others either. Not people he knew and, he realised with a sinking heart, liked. Detection was easier from behind the green baize door.
‘Fancy a visit to see the registrar?’
‘We are to be married, Egbert?’ Auguste tried hard.
‘Very funny. Breakfast ain’t a time for jokes.’
‘Yes, I will come.’ Tatiana had an appointment with a petrol engine, and the prospect of a day on tenterhooks did not appeal.
What they learned from the Settle sub-district registrar, however, depressed him further. The gas had now been turned so high that the pot-au-feu must surely boil over. He, a mere sous-chef in this, could do nothing to prevent what must now happen.
‘Do you forgive me, darling?’ Victoria looked scared.
A pause. ‘No. Not when there’s murder involved.’
‘But it was suicide,’ she wailed. ‘Mother is right and the police are wrong. That horrible man came back that night claiming he was the legal heir, that he’d been misled. Father told him he wasn’t and proved it, so he shot himself. What other explanation could there be?’
Victoria looked defenceless and beautiful, but Alexander still remained unable to leap the gulf. ‘Perhaps,’ he said noncommittally.
‘You still want to marry me, don’t you?’
Thus forced, Alexander ran through the scenario that might lie ahead: an alliance with a family more likely than not to harbour a murderer. But did he believe Victoria guilty of murder? The idea was ludicrous, of course. Wasn’t it?
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Laura.’ Oliver appeared unexpectedly from the library, catching her arm as she returned from breakfasting. ‘I need to talk to you.’
With obvious reluctance, she allowed herself to be shepherded into the library and the door to be firmly closed behind them. ‘What is it?’ There was a note of defiance in her voice.
‘I would like you to marry me.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but he forestalled her. ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, and I know you can’t tell me. What is obvious is that it isn’t over yet, but that it’s coming to a head.’
Laura flinched, but her voice was steady enough. ‘What has that to do with you and me, Oliver?’
‘Old-fashioned though it may sound, you will need my protection in what is to come. I want to be able to give it to the best of my ability.’
‘Protection?’ she echoed lightly. ‘What an odd word.’
‘You know well why I use it.’
She steadied herself. ‘Oliver, I am grateful to you for your concern, but I cannot marry you, or even be affianced to you. Not now.’
At last Egbert re-emerged from the room in which he had been closeted with Cobbold. ‘Fancy a pint, Auguste?’
There was nothing Auguste fancied less, but obviously Egbert had more in mind than refreshment. The sous-chef was rising in status.
The Golden Lion’s private room was warm and welcoming after the police station, and the hot punch Auguste had chosen in preference to ale even more so.
‘It all points one way, Auguste. You know that.’
‘But the evidence . . .’
‘The motive, Auguste. That marriage was as valid as yours and Tatiana’s. The tale they spun us about the false names was true enough, but the marriage would only be invalid if both parties knew that a false name was being used. Charles Tabor did not: he thought Griffin was Rose’s real name, not knowing that she assumed it when she left home to join Wombwell’s Menagerie. We can prove that
now from Wombwell’s books, which show that a Rose Griffin worked there from June ’37 to September ’39. Rose Moffat ceased to be from the moment she saw those animals. And the change of law in 1822 meant that though Rose and Charles were minors, they could only be fined for having falsely declared that their parents’ consent had been given. No, the Dowager’s marriage was bigamous all right. Hard for her, discovering it after all this time, poor lady. But not,’ he added, draining the glass, ‘for our villains. They knew all the time.’
‘But one thumbprint, Egbert?’
‘Or a wife with gloves.’
‘Which?’
‘We’ll soon know.’
‘He is of the old school, Egbert. He would not allow his wife to take the risk of murder.’
‘Our Priscilla not only plans, she acts. She’s the Lady Macbeth of Yorkshire, Auguste. She’d decided the honour of the Tabors rested with her to defend.’
Don’t underestimate George, Auguste heard the Dowager say again. But wasn’t that just what they were doing?
‘The landlord told me you were here.’ Tatiana swept in, flushed and pink from the fresh air. ‘I’ve just had an oatcake in the Thistlethwaite tearoom, but I seem to be hungry—’ She broke off, seeing their glum faces. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked sharply.
‘It is near, Tatiana,’ Auguste told her.
‘Ah. Can you—?’
‘No,’ he answered wretchedly.
‘When?’
‘Late this afternoon,’ Egbert said gruffly. ‘When I’ve spoken to the Chief Constable.’
‘I should like,’ Tatiana said to Auguste, after Egbert had left, ‘to know more about Rose and Tom. I think it would help . . . when it happens. Would you come with me to Clapham? I could drive you, ma mie,’ she added hopefully. ‘Mr Williams has loaned me the Panhard.’