02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall

by Margaret Addison

  ‘More to the point,’ Cedric was continuing, ‘are you having any luck, Sherlock, in solving these murders? I looked up once or twice during our game of billiards to catch your eye and make sure you weren’t getting too bored just sitting there. But you didn’t see me at all. You were deep in thought and then you accosted poor old Crabtree. I could tell you had your detective hat on and wondered if you had decided who the murderer was and were going to make a pronouncement or something there and then.’

  ‘You may mock me,’ said Rose, laughing despite everything, ‘but I admit I was thinking about it all, you know, turning it all over in my mind and trying to make some sense out of some of it. I think I may be getting somewhere with the mystery of the disappearing Josephine element but I have a way to go. So, yes, I’ll carry on trying to do that while you write your ever so important letters. Lead on Watson.’

  The moment of frivolity, however, was soon over as they walked out of the room, along the corridor and into the hall. Death seemed to hang in the air here, heavy and sombre. Rose cast a glance at the closed library door and thought of the horror that had taken place behind it. She remembered too the distraught, broken figure of the man she had left to repent and face his demons. They couldn’t go on pretending it was some sort of game. It was far too serious and tragic for all that. She owed it to Lord Sneddon to find his murderer. She looked up at Cedric and saw that he too had been affected by the atmosphere for he had gone pale and there was no trace of a smile on his face.

  He led the way off the hall and they walked in silence down a short corridor that Rose had not noticed before. Cedric was going to write letters and she was going to try and think. Letters.... letters seemed to have featured a great deal this weekend, she thought. First, Josephine had been waiting desperately for a letter that had never arrived, and then Isabella had been blackmailed by letters that she must have heartily wished she had never written. Passionate letters, if one went by the extract that Sneddon had read aloud in the library. It seemed an age ago now and yet, unbelievably, it was only yesterday. She remembered how distraught Isabella had been on hearing such words spoken by a person whose sole purpose had been to embarrass her and ensure that she did his bidding. How had the extract gone again? Now that she was trying so hard to, she could not for the life of her remember the words. And yet something was niggling at the back of her mind. She had a feeling that something had not sounded quite right when the passage had been read aloud. It had been almost right, but not quite.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  ‘Miss Simpson, Lord Belvedere.’ Inspector Deacon had looked startled, springing up from his chair as soon as Rose and Cedric had burst into the study in a somewhat ungainly fashion, failing even to knock. In his surprise, Lane had dropped his notebook and Rose, without hesitating had snatched it from the floor and thrust it back into his hands.

  ‘Sergeant Lane, you jotted down a bit from one of Isabella’s letters to Claude Lambert, didn’t you? It was the same bit that I overheard Lord Sneddon reading out to Isabella in the library. Can you find it for me, please?’

  The sergeant glanced at Deacon and, receiving a nod, thumbed through a few pages of his notebook until he came across what he was seeking. There then followed an uncomfortable pause with Lane turning crimson and refusing to open his mouth. It was evident to all present that he did not relish the prospect of reading out the words in question. Rose gave a sigh of impatience and snatched the book from him.

  ‘“My darling Claude. I cannot wait until I am in your arms and your lips are on mine, to feel…”’ read Rose, much to the amusement of Cedric. ‘Yes, I was right. It’s overdone. It doesn’t sound real. You agree with me, Cedric, don’t you? It doesn’t read quite right, does it? It sounds too contrived, as if it was made-up somehow, more how a person might imagine a love letter should read. I’m not making myself clear I know and you all probably think I’m being jolly silly and pedantic. But I’m sure I’m right. What’s more, it seems to me to be missing a word.

  ‘I am not quite sure I follow,’ said Deacon, looking confused but also, to Rose’s relief, interested.

  ‘I think it should read: “My darling Claude. I cannot wait until I am in your arms again and your lips are on mine, to feel ....” It’s missing the word “again”. Oh, don’t you see?’ she asked, looking at their blank faces with exasperation. ‘Otherwise it implies that Isabella has never laid in Claude Lambert’s arms before.’

  ‘She may have written the letter hurriedly and missed out the word by mistake,’ suggested Deacon, looking disappointed as if he had been expecting more. ‘I don’t think the omission of the word “again” proves anything one way or the other. What are you suggesting? That there never was a love affair?’ he said, looking sceptical. ‘Are you proposing that these letters are just the result of a girl’s overactive imagination?’

  ‘No,’ said Rose, slowly. ‘I think there was a love affair but that there is more to it than meets the eye. I don’t think the situation is quite as simple and straightforward as it seems.’

  The inspector frowned but said nothing. Sergeant Lane averted his gaze to his shoes, which he suddenly seemed to find interesting, and Cedric gave her a small, sympathetic smile.

  She could tell that they all thought she was making something out of nothing, that she was seeing things where there was nothing to see. She didn’t really blame them. There were more pieces of the puzzle to get, she knew, before she could rearrange them and try and piece them together. But she was on to something, she was sure. It was all beginning to come together, whatever they might think. And then she would show them that her instincts had been right all along. She shivered. It would be nice to be proved right, but she was apprehensive as to how it would all end.

  ‘You think I made rather a fool of myself in front of the policemen, don’t you?’

  ‘No… not exactly,’ replied Cedric, choosing his words carefully. They were aimlessly wandering the grounds again, not sure what else to do given the circumstances.

  ‘Oh, I know I sounded ridiculous. Why, what I was saying even sounded ridiculous to me, but I know I’m right. Now I’ve just got to figure out what to do now.’

  ‘You’ve always said that you think Josephine holds the key. We’ve got to find out what made her run off to London when she did.’

  ‘We know that the missing letter contributed to her departure, but what else I wonder. I’ve been thinking over the talk I had with her in the garden yesterday morning, just after I had overheard Lord Sneddon blackmailing Isabella in the library. She was preoccupied about something then, I’m sure of it. She didn’t really give me her full attention until I told her what I had overheard.’

  ‘Wait a minute, Rose. Are you telling me that you told Josephine about Sneddon blackmailing her sister into marrying him?’

  ‘Yes, I ….’

  ‘Then she knew about the blackmail business before Sneddon was killed?’

  ‘Yes, she made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. She said she’d sort it out. That’s why I didn’t tell you about it. I wanted to of course but I –.’

  ‘Oh, my God, Rose, do you know what this means?’ Cedric put his head in his hands.

  ‘Yes, it gives her a very strong motive for killing Lord Sneddon, I know. But I’m sure she didn’t do it, at least I hope she didn’t. I so very much want her not to be guilty.’

  ‘Do the police know?’

  ‘No, I haven’t told them. I know I should have but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do so.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. I say, Rose, you don’t think she could have done it, do you? I mean to protect Isabella and all that?’

  ‘I did wonder. You know it was all rather odd come to think about it.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Well,’ said Rose, ‘she never once asked why Lord Sneddon was blackmailing Isabella into marrying him.’

  ‘She must have realised it was for her money. Sneddon was jolly hard up, you know.’
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br />   ‘Yes, but Josephine wasn’t to know that, was she? It wasn’t something Sneddon liked to broadcast, was it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Cedric, pondering. ‘She may have thought Sneddon wanted to marry her sister because she’s considered quite a beauty, although I have to admit I’ve never seen it myself. I’ve always found her rather trying which has probably clouded my judgement on her looks. But she does come from a good family. That sort of thing would matter to a fellow like Sneddon.’

  Rose could not help smiling. Dear Cedric. Thank goodness that neither of those attributes mattered so very much to him, considering that she was somewhat lacking in both departments. For a moment she thought of Isabella’s strong, almost fierce, beauty and her own rather pleasant plainness.

  ‘Even so, Cedric, it seems to me a little odd, that’s all. Oh, I know what you’re going to say,’ she added, catching his eye, ‘that I am finding everything a bit strange. But even so, surely it would have been the first thing she would have asked. It’s funny, you know, she seemed more interested in Isabella’s letters to that Claude Lambert chap. She was visibly shocked by that. She had to sit herself down on a bench.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, particularly if you told her some of the rot Isabella had written.’

  ‘Yes, I did, and now I remember that Josephine said that she’d had suspicions about there being some sort of romance between her sister and this man, but that she had hoped they would prove unfounded. She was jolly upset by it all, you know. Why, she was even shaking at one point.’

  ‘Well, the baron would have kicked up a right stink about it if he’d found out. He’d probably have disowned Isabella. Josephine was right to feel alarmed. If those letters were to fall into the wrong hands, why, all hell would have broken loose.’

  ‘If the letters were to fall into the wrong hands… yes. You know, Cedric, perhaps that’s the key to everything, the fear that the letters would fall into the wrong hands.’

  ‘So that’s it, then,’ said Cedric, ‘nothing else?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘It still doesn’t explain why Josephine saw the need to forsake friends and family and dash off to London in the middle of the night, does it?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, but I can’t think of anything else. The rest of the day until my bumping into Lord Sneddon in the library later that night was rather uneventful.’ Rose caught the look on Cedric’s face. ‘In the best possible way, of course,’ she added. ‘It was wonderful just wandering leisurely around the village. Absolutely divine. I wish the whole weekend could have been like that. It was nice Sneddon not being there to put a dampener on everything. And I know it sounds rather rotten but it made things less fraught and more relaxing Isabella being absent from the excursion. If she had been there, there would have been some tension, particularly between her and Hallam.’

  ‘Yes, put like that, yesterday does sound rather uneventful as far as anything happening to spur Josephine to drop everything and rush off to London.’

  ‘I doubt whether she even got the chance to confront Sneddon about the blackmail business when he came back. He didn’t return until the very last minute, if you remember? He only just made it back in time for dinner.’

  ‘So nothing else happened that you can think of?’

  ‘No…Oh, I wonder … but no, that was nothing. Or perhaps it was. Now that I come to think about it, perhaps something did happen, only I didn’t realise the significance of it at the time. Or perhaps I’m just reading more into all this than there was.’

  ‘I wish to goodness I knew what you were talking about. Tell me exactly what happened and then we’ll be able to decide if it was significant or not.’ Cedric was looking at her keenly.

  ‘Well, Josephine decided to arrange some flowers in a vase.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  ‘Josephine decided to replace the flowers in the drawing room. There were some rather wilted chrysanthemums in a vase that had clearly seen better days and needed throwing out. She picked some roses in the rose garden and one of the maids provided her with an old newspaper and a vase.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I was reading a magazine while she arranged the roses in the vase. She laid out the newspaper on the floor in front of her and put the dead chrysanthemums on it. I have to admit that I was only half listening to what she was saying, something about roses being one of her favourite flowers, I think. Anyway, she stood back from her arrangement to see how it looked from a distance and gave a bit of a gasp. It was loud enough to make me look up and ask her what the matter was.’

  ‘And what was the matter?’ Cedric looked torn between curiosity and wanting to yawn.

  ‘She said that she had pricked her finger on a thorn, which she had done after she had finished examining the flower arrangement and was gathering up the wilted flowers. Then she picked up the newspaper with the dead chrysanthemums and hurried out of the room.’

  ‘Is that all? I don’t see –.’

  ‘I think that it was the first excuse she could think of. She had put all the roses in the vase and had stood back to admire them. She hadn’t been holding any roses in her hands at the time, so there hadn’t been a thorn on which to prick her finger. No, she’d just been gathering up the chrysanthemums in the newspaper, and chrysanthemums don’t have thorns do they? And she’d been in a hurry to leave the room.’

  ‘So what are you saying exactly?’

  ‘I think, as she was clearing up, she suddenly caught sight of an article in the newspaper. I think it shocked her, or at the very least surprised her, and that she wanted to hurry off and read it somewhere where she could be alone.’

  ‘And you think it was this newspaper article that made her decide to pack up her things and rush off to London as soon as she could?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I know it probably seems a bit of a stretch of the imagination and all that, Cedric, but I think it’s the only explanation for why Josephine did what she did.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but how do we find out if your theory is right?’

  ‘We track down the newspaper and locate the article.’

  Cedric was about to pull the bell pull when one of the housemaids entered the room, dustpan and brush in hand. She looked decidedly flustered when she saw them.

  ‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry miss, my lord. I didn’t think anyone would be in here. The morning room’s not been used much since the mistress died. Miss Josephine and Miss Isabella prefer the drawing room and the library, they do, although I can’t see either one of them ever wanting to go in the library again, not after what happened, like. I’ve told Mrs Hodges that I ain’t ever going to set foot in there again, no fear. It was me as found him, you know –.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Cedric impatiently. ‘It must have been awful for you, Doris, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ The housemaid curtseyed rather belatedly.

  ‘I wonder if you can help us, Doris. We’re looking for a newspaper.’

  ‘Oh, there are lots of those, Mr Crabtree keeps –.’

  ‘We’re looking for a specific one,’ said Rose, hurriedly, ‘the one that Miss Josephine used when she was arranging the flowers to be exact. Do you know what became of it?’

  ‘It’ll have been put on one of the fires by now, miss. It wouldn’t have been fit for reading, not after it had had water on it and been scrunched up with the dead flowers and whatnot.’

  ‘I suppose that it would be too much to ask if you remember what newspaper it was and the precise edition?’ asked Rose, rather hopelessly.

  ‘Oh, of course I do, miss. It was an old copy of The Daily, it was. Mr Crabtree, he don’t really like The Daily, he keeps going on about how inferior it is compared to the master’s Times, so Pearl and me we have to sneak it in, we do, if we want to read it because he makes that much fuss about it. Anyway, I knows what edition it is ‘cos it had an advertisement in it about Icilma face powder that I particularly wanted to keep. I was that cross wi
th Pearl for giving that particular newspaper to Miss Josephine to use for her flowers without checking with me first that I’d finished with it.’

  ‘That’s all very interesting, Doris,’ said Rose, ‘but we really need to get a copy of that same newspaper as soon as possible. I don’t suppose that there are any spares of it lying around, are there?’

  ‘No, miss. But they get that newspaper in the house where my sister’s in service. They might still have a copy of it because I know that young master Geoffrey likes to use the old newspapers for his papier-mâché, he does. He’s always making model boats out of the stuff, he is.’

  ‘Where is this place?’

  ‘A couple of miles out of the village, miss. I tell you what, I’ll send Cyril, the boot boy, if you want. He’s always looking for an excuse to get out of the house and have a run about.’

  ‘Good idea,’ agreed Cedric. ‘Tell him there’s a half shilling in it for him if he brings back the right newspaper, and a full shilling if he’s really quick.’

  It was an agonising wait for Cyril, although in reality he managed to undertake the task in no time at all, the promise of a full shilling spurring him on. Cedric rewarded him handsomely on his return, especially as Doris had confirmed that he had brought back the right edition.

  ‘What exactly are we looking for?’ asked Cedric, as he and Rose pored over the pages of the newspaper.

  ‘I’m not sure exactly,’ admitted Rose, ‘but I think I’ll know when we find it. Let me see. The article would have needed to be big enough to have caught Josephine’s eye because she wasn’t looking for it. She would have been scooping up the dead flowers in it like this, and…oh, wait a minute, I think this could be it ...’