Death at Thorburn Hall

by Julianna Deering

  “No?”

  Drew steeled himself. “Cotton held on for the win?”

  “Came in eighth,” Birdsong said with a grin. “Alf Perry’s the man. Had a stunner of a last day and finished at 283.”

  Drew sighed. “Poor Cotton, eh?”

  “Can’t win everything.”

  Drew escorted the chief inspector to the door and went down the front steps with him to the cab. “Safe trip and give my best to Mrs. Birdsong.”

  “And to your missus,” the chief inspector said. He gave a curt wave as the cab pulled away from the house and onto the road.

  “What was that about?” Nick asked when Drew went back into the drawing room.

  “The chief inspector just came by to offer his sympathies to the family.” Drew smiled and tucked Birdsong’s card into his waistcoat pocket. “Quite thoughtful of him.”

  The next day was Sunday, and Nick and Carrie and the Pikes accompanied Drew and Madeline back to the church. Although Joan did come down to breakfast, neither she nor her mother attended the service. Count Kuznetsov, too fatigued from the activities of the day before, also stayed behind.

  Built not fifty years before, the church was solid and simple, hardly more than a rectangle of light-colored stone with a pitched roof. Inside, however, there was that same expectant tranquility Drew knew from his own church in Farthering St. John. He had felt it at the funeral service the day before, and today, as then, he couldn’t help but smile at the little dog carved near the base of the pulpit, a reminder of the words in St. Matthew about the woman who came to Christ asking for healing for her little daughter, knowing she was unworthy but still holding to the belief that even the lowliest of people could come to Him for grace.

  When the service ended, Mr. and Mrs. Pike returned to Thorburn Hall, leaving the two young couples to take a stroll to the ruins of the twelfth-century church, St. Andrews, on the west side of the village, flanked by the brilliant summer green and pale stone of the old churchyard.

  The rest of that day was quiet and contemplative. The ladies of the house both came to tea with everyone else. The secluded morning seemed to have done of Lady Rainsby a world of good. The oppressive, brittle silence from earlier in the day softened into a more companionable quiet that had more to do with reflection than mourning, and she spoke of her husband with smiles and tears.

  Joan rarely spoke, and then only when spoken to. She seemed more troubled than grieved, and as soon as the evening meal ended she excused herself, pleading a headache. Drew stopped her before she could go up the stairs.

  “I know you must be dead vexed with me,” he said with a touch of a rueful smile.

  “I don’t know what you mean. What have you done?”

  “It’s more what I haven’t done. I saw you looking reproachfully at me all through dinner.”

  She blushed, smiling a little. “I was not.”

  “Now, now, I know reproach when I see it. And you’re jolly well right, of course, but I haven’t been as idle as it might seem.”

  “You haven’t?” she asked, and her blush deepened. “I mean . . . it just seems as though nothing’s being done in the least. Not by the police and not by you.”

  “I told you I’d look into it, and I am. I’ve had a look at the saddle, but I don’t see anything wrong with it except what we already know—that it’s old and worn. I’ve spoken with your stable master, Clarridge, and one of the boys who looks after the horses, and they don’t see anything out of the ordinary. And it being the weekend, I couldn’t very well go visit the saddlers until tomorrow. But first thing in the morning I’ll take the saddle to be looked at. How would that be?”

  She breathed out, her lips trembling. “If you would, I’d feel so much better.”

  “I may not find anything,” he reminded her. “Odds are there won’t be anything to find.”

  “I know, and if it were anyone but Dad . . .”

  “Sometimes one has only a little catch inside, something that says everything isn’t as it should be. I’ve had less to go on and regretted it when I’ve tried to pretend it wasn’t there.” He gave her shoulder a brotherly pat. “You have a good night’s sleep and try not to worry.”

  An almost desperate gratitude flashed in her eyes, and then she merely looked exhausted. With a nod, she started up the stairs, her low-heeled shoes making hardly a sound on the metal steps. She stopped and turned back to him. “I hope you don’t find anything.”

  Without another word, she pattered up the stairs and down the corridor.

  The next day, Drew had Phillips drive him and Lord Rainsby’s battered saddle over to the premises of Spender and Martin, Saddlers. Mr. Martin was a beefy, red-faced man of hearty middle age. His thick-fingered hands swallowed up Drew’s in a vigorous handshake once he’d introduced himself and stated the reason for his visit.

  “That was a bad business, Lord Rainsby was, sir. I’m hard-pressed to think of him being throwed from his horse, but they say it can happen to anyone. A pity it is, though.”

  Drew turned the saddle over on the worktable, the better to display where the girth had come loose. Martin’s heavy brows bunched together.

  “Are you telling me this girth came loose while Lord Rainsby was riding? And that’s what killed him?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “No, sir.” Martin thumped his heavy hand flat down on the table. “I stitched this one myself. Replaced the girth and made the stitches extra strong. Only . . . last autumn it was. Yes, last October, right before he rode Atalanta for the Thorburn hunt. There’s no chance this girth came loose on its own, not even if that horse bolted straight down to Chelsea. No, sir.”

  “But you see it did,” Drew said, pointing at the girth.

  The saddler gave it a tug where it was still attached on one side. It didn’t budge. Then he looked at the other side. “That never pulled loose there, sir. Look at this.” He indicated the holes in the leather where the stitching had gone through. “Do you see any pulling here? Any breakage? No, sir.”

  Drew narrowed his eyes, studying every detail. “But the stitching could have broken, couldn’t it?”

  “Not my stitching, sir. No, I won’t have it said.” Martin leaned closer to the saddle till it was within a few inches of his face, his practiced fingers examining the place where the girth had once been fastened. “His lordship was particular about his saddle. If there was a whisper of a problem, he’d have brought it back to me. Bad stitching, though I’ll let my reputation speak for me on that account, would have come to light long before now. If you were to ask me, sir . . . hold on now.”

  Looking puzzled, he poked a forefinger between two pieces of leather, then picked up an awl and stuck it there. He pulled out a couple of pieces of thread and showed them to Drew, his face grave. “That doesn’t belong in the making of a saddle, sir. It’s no wonder the girth came loose.”

  “This isn’t what you usually use,” Drew asked, touching one of the threads.

  “No, sir, it’s not. You might think so just to look at it. It has the same sort of color and all. But no, this is nothing more than cotton thread put a few times through to thicken it up, and I shouldn’t think it would last long. Not with that girth pulled taut around a horse.”

  “It couldn’t have been used by mistake, I take it.”

  Martin’s eyes flashed. “It could not. Not by me, sir.”

  “Then how would you imagine that particular thread got there?” Drew asked, not wanting to put words in the man’s mouth.

  “Surely not from here—you can be certain of that much. Otherwise, if you were to ask me, whoever put that there meant for the girth to come loose. Maybe not that day, nor the next, but in time, sir. In time.”

  Drew was silent for a moment. He picked up the two bits of thread Martin had found, folded them inside his handkerchief, and tucked them into his waistcoat pocket. “I think you ought to come round to the police station and tell them what you just told me.”

  Inspector Boyd R
anald of the East Lothian Police was clearly not in the mood to be trifled with. He peered through small, close-set eyes at Drew and the saddler as if he begrudged them not only his time but also the use of the decidedly uncomfortable chairs they sat in.

  “Yes, Mr. Farthering, I remember you from the day of the accident. As I told you back at the Hall, we’ll be contacting you should we have any questions regarding your statement.”

  “I understand that, Inspector, but Mr. Martin has some vital information about the accident, and we thought you ought to know about it right away.”

  As Drew explained their business in his office, his harried expression changed into one of curiosity.

  “And when was it you last tended to his lordship’s saddle. Mr. Martin?”

  The saddler told him what he had told Drew. The saddle, though old, had been well-maintained. Lord Rainsby was always careful to inspect it before he rode. Someone had tampered with the stitching, expecting his lordship to fall and be injured or killed. He did not know who that someone might be. By the time Martin had finished, the inspector’s curiosity had faded.

  “This stitching, Mr. Martin, you’re certain it’s not from your own shop?” he asked, running his hand over the thinning fair hair at the back of his head.

  “I am, sir. It’s nothing near the sort we use for saddles. It’s more like something you might mend a blanket with.”

  “But it’s kept in your shop?”

  The saddler shrugged. “I expect we have a bit handy. In case we should need it. But for a saddle—”

  “And you can swear no one in your shop, not an apprentice or someone you’ve newly taken on, might not have used this? Not by mistake?”

  Martin shot a look at Drew, clearly unsure what he was supposed to do. “We-ell, I suppose things of that sort can happen, but it seems terrible unlikely. I always tended to his lordship’s things myself, and I’d never have done it.”

  “And you dealt with Lord Rainsby directly?” Ranald asked, looking through the contents of the case file spread out on his desk. “He never sent one of his people into your shop with a saddle that needed looking after?”

  The saddler seemed put out. “Well, certainly he did. I’m sure his lordship had much more important things to do than to tend to petty errands, though he did consult me in person from time to time, especially when he wanted new tack for his wife or daughter. But I tell you, it was always his way to check his equipment personally before he rode. He always—”

  “And it wouldn’t have been even remotely possible that he sent someone in to have a repair done one day when you were out, and someone else at your shop saw to it?”

  “I haven’t heard any of my people mention such a thing. If Lord Rainsby—”

  “But you can’t swear it mightn’t have happened.”

  Martin huffed. “I’m sure someone would have mentioned it.”

  Ranald looked at him, his pale eyes hard, until the saddler wilted.

  “No, I can’t swear to it.”

  The inspector nodded in satisfaction and then turned to Drew. “And what part do you play in all this, Mr. Farthering? Apart from having discovered the body after the incident.”

  “The victim’s daughter, Miss Joan Rainsby, asked me to see what I could find out about her father’s death. The investigation was so quickly concluded, she feels there could be more to be discovered, and she isn’t satisfied with the ruling of accidental death.”

  “Isn’t she now?” Ranald’s Scottish accent was suddenly heavier. “Then perhaps she might’ve come round to speak to us here at the station rather than setting someone with no authority and no experience to muddy the waters.”

  “I’m sure you’re perfectly right, Inspector,” Drew said. “I’m doing no more than coming round to speak to you here at the station, in her stead of course, since she and her mother are in mourning.”

  Ranald pursed his lips. “I see. That’s all to the good, then. Certainly if there is new evidence, we’ll look into it. Just whom does she suspect of having done the mysterious stitching?”

  “She doesn’t actually know about the stitching, Inspector. She just told me, as Mr. Martin here has said, that her father was very careful about his riding equipment. She doesn’t think Lord Rainsby would have missed normal wear and tear. Not wear in such an advanced state that that piece would have come away like that. I merely told her I would see what I could find out about it. Nothing more.”

  “No disrespect meant, sir, but let an amateur detective read too many of these penny dreadfuls and he thinks he’s equipped to solve real-life murders. It’s all nonsense, of course. Just makes our jobs all that much harder.”

  “Scandalous, I’m sure,” Drew commiserated. “But no doubt you and your lads know best how to handle this case. I just thought you’d like to know what I found.”

  “Very good.” Ranald closed the file. “Is the saddle at Mr. Martin’s place of business at the moment?”

  “In the boot of the Rainsbys’ Triumph, actually,” Drew said. “Shall we bring it inside for you?”

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” Martin said.

  “Very well.” The inspector nodded toward the hallway. “Tell Teague at the front desk to mark that ‘Rainsby’ and not let it get mislaid.”

  “Right away.”

  “Assure Miss Rainsby and Lady Rainsby we’ll be looking into it,” the inspector told Drew once the saddler was gone.

  “Excellent.” Drew stood. “I’ll tell them you’ll be in touch.”

  “We’ll be looking into it,” the inspector said severely. “No use upsetting them with a lot of unfounded theories when the simplest answer is most likely the correct one. It’s quite possible we will not find anything inconsistent with our original conclusions.”

  “Naturally that is a possibility,” Drew said, “but the saddle—”

  “We’ll be looking into it,” Ranald said more firmly.

  “Just as you say, Inspector.”

  Drew bade the inspector farewell. He was still smiling as he dropped Mr. Martin at his saddlery shop and then ordered Phillips to drive him back to Thorburn Hall. He’d done his duty in reporting his findings to the authorities. If they weren’t interested in pursuing the matter, that left him free to follow his own line of investigation. He didn’t at all believe Rainsby’s death was an accident. Not at all.

  Six

  Lady Louisa was sitting in her chaise longue with a neglected book lying open in her lap and a cigarette dangling from her fingers, her black satin dressing gown a striking contrast to the otherwise white room. Her feet, propped up before her, were ensconced in little black slippers with a ruffle of black feathers across the arch. The ashtray sitting on the small mirrored table beside her was full to overflowing. It was hard to tell whether she had been crying.

  “Mr. Farthering would like a word with you, madam,” the maid said, her voice low and appropriately grave.

  Lady Louisa looked up and managed something of a smile. “Oh, do come in, Drew dear. Forgive me, I was miles away. Is something wrong?”

  He put both hands on the back of a straight-backed chair with a white fur cushion. “May I?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her hand fluttered toward the chair. “Please.” She didn’t say anything more, and when he also was silent, she knit her brow. “Is this about Gerald?”

  “I’m afraid it is. But if you’ll be patient just another moment, I’ll tell you about it when your daughter gets here. I sent your maid for her.”

  “I’m here.”

  Wearing mourning far more severe than her mother’s, Joan came into the room and shut the door behind her. Drew gave her his chair.

  “I won’t mince words,” he told them. “I took the liberty of inspecting Lord Rainsby’s saddle a bit more closely than before, and I had his saddler look at it, as well. It seems part of it was stitched together in a way that was meant to come apart under the pressure of riding.”

  Lady Louisa caught an audible breath.

  Joan
’s slender hands clenched into fists. “Dad would never have ridden with a saddle in that sort of condition. I knew it. Oh, I knew it.”

  “But who would have done such a thing?” Lady Louisa asked. “Who could have wanted to kill Gerald?”

  “I’m not quite certain they’re actually willing to reopen the investigation,” Drew said, “but I told the police about it.”

  There was a flash of temper in Joan’s eyes. “You mean that’s all? You told the police and you’re leaving it at that?”

  “Miss Rainsby, I assure you—”

  “You assured me that you would find out what happened. You haven’t found out anything.”

  Her mother took hold of her hand. “Please, Joanie, remember yourself.”

  “Someone murdered my father!” Joan cried, springing up from the chair and pulling away from her. “That is what I remember.”

  “Please,” Drew said, “hear me out. If it isn’t too much of an imposition, I’d like to stay here at the Hall for a while and see what I can uncover. As I told you before, I’m not the police, but if they’re reluctant to continue on—”

  “Then you will?” Joan took a deep breath and was once more cool and calm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw a tantrum.”

  Drew sat her back down. “It’s all right. Perfectly understandable.” He leaned down to have his eyes level with hers. “And yes, I will do everything I can to find out exactly what happened to your father and who’s responsible for it.”

  Lady Louisa shoved the smoldering remains of her cigarette into the ashtray. “Drew, are you certain? I can’t see how it could be—well, be what you say. Gerald didn’t have any enemies. No one could have possibly wanted to kill him.”

  “There’s always the possibility,” Drew said, straightening. “An old grudge. Financial gain. Some other benefit. We’ll just have to find out who it might have been.”

  “Are you certain it couldn’t have been an accident?” she pressed, looking bewildered. “It had to have been.”

  Drew shook his head. “I’m afraid there seems very little chance of that.”