Death at Thorburn Hall

by Julianna Deering

  That seemed to cheer her a bit, and Drew nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  “Anyway, I worked for Mr. Barnaby after that, eight years now. Never a grumble about my work, I can tell you, and I thought I’d stay working for him until it was my time to put my feet up for good.” She dabbed at her eyes with her cotton handkerchief. “Now I don’t know what I’ll do. The men these days, they want smart young things doing their typewriting and dictation. I’m fifty-six, Mr. Farthering.”

  “I’m sure it must have come as a great shock,” he soothed, making a mental note to have someone from his company look into vacancies where her skills and experience might be appreciated. “I think the only thing that can be done for Mr. Barnaby now is to see if we can find out who murdered him.”

  She sniffled again and then nodded. “You’re quite right. I don’t really know, sir, that I can be of help. Mr. Barnaby, well, you saw him in the office. He wasn’t so much younger than I am, but he always was that careful the way he dressed, the way he did his hair, and how he never would wear his eyeglasses when there was a young lady about the office. Not Masie, mind you. She wasn’t his type. He liked women with some style and sophistication to them. With the London look, if you know what I mean.”

  Drew nodded.

  “Liked the young ones, did Mr. Barnaby, not to speak ill of the dead. Old enough to be their father, most of them, but I suppose that’s as may be.”

  “And you think he was meeting one of them at the office the night he was killed?”

  “I can’t think it was anything else.”

  “Did he usually meet women up at the office?” Drew asked.

  “No. Not until the past few weeks. I mean, if that was what he was doing.”

  “But that’s what you believe he was doing.”

  “It seems so, by the state of the office on those Monday mornings after.” She colored and then cleared her throat. “I don’t mean anything untoward, sir, but there were often empty wine bottles in the bin. Sometimes the odd box of sweets, empty or nearly so. That sort of thing. And cigarette ends. More than Mr. Barnaby could have smoked on his own for the whole week sometimes.”

  “Was Mr. Barnaby the political sort, Miss Grahame?”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “Was he the type to talk about world affairs at all? Or how things should be managed here at home?”

  “Well, he sometimes did. Mostly when he read the newspapers and saw there were strikes or that sort of thing. Or waste in government. He thought things could be better run, more orderly and efficient. Like they do in Germany, or so he said.”

  He frowned, thinking. Then, realizing she was afraid she had said something that displeased him, he softened his expression. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Miss Grahame? Anything at all?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, no. I just don’t know what else I could tell you.” She dabbed at her eyes again and gave him a hopeful smile. “Would you care for something before you leave? Mrs. Kensington made some lovely custard tarts just this morning. Won’t take her a moment to bring some up with tea.”

  “Very kind of you,” he said, standing and reclaiming his hat from the little table at the end of the sofa, “but I’m meeting my wife and some friends for dinner at The Swan. You can reach me at Thorburn Hall if you think of anything more I should know.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  He went to the door and turned back to her. “Is it possible someone else in the firm will keep you on now? Surely you’re far too valuable to lose, especially now that Mr. Barnaby’s gone. You’d be just the one to help whoever takes on his old cases. Tell the fellow what’s what, eh?”

  She brightened measurably. “Do you think so? They’ve been very kind, letting me have a day or two to collect myself.”

  “I’m certain of it. And if they don’t happen to remember, you make sure and tell them.”

  He tipped his hat and walked out to the street, thinking about what she had said. Lady Louisa was a smoker, to be sure, and stylishly attractive for her age, but no one, not even the most smitten suitor, would mistake her for a girl half as old. And Lisa Shearer smoked, he was certain of it. There would be a good many things to discuss over dinner.

  Madeline rose the next morning to find Carrie curled up at the window of their sitting room, her cheeks and nose pink and a cup of coffee in her hands.

  “What are you doing up so early?” Madeline pulled the tie of her robe a little more snugly around her waist and went to sit beside her. “Are you all right?”

  Carrie shook her head.

  “Anything I can do?”

  Again, Carrie shook her head. “I had an awful night. I can’t stand being cooped up here like this, but I can’t stand the idea of leaving, either. Not as long as . . . everybody is staying.”

  “So long as Nick is staying, you mean.” Madeline smiled sympathetically. “Where did you get that coffee? I could use some just about now.”

  “You can have this. I haven’t touched it.”

  Carrie handed Madeline the cup, and Madeline immediately set it down. “It’s cold. How long have you been sitting here?”

  “I don’t know.” Carrie ran one hand through her tousled red-gold hair and drew a hard breath. “What am I going to do? I can’t stand thinking something awful is going to happen any minute. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “I had to make a decision.” Madeline smiled more to herself, remembering. “Drew and I almost didn’t get married, you know.”

  Carrie blinked at her. “What?”

  “Oh, I was so confused and afraid I was making a mistake, I almost left him and went back home to Chicago. And that would have been the worst mistake of my life.” Madeline clasped her friend’s hand. “And all because I didn’t trust God with my future.”

  Carrie looked away but didn’t let go of Madeline’s hand. “I just wish I could be sure.”

  “It wouldn’t be faith if we could see everything ahead of time.”

  Carrie’s mouth twitched at one corner. “It’d be nice all the same.”

  “I suppose it would.” Madeline patted her hand and released it. “You never did tell me what time you perched yourself out here.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe around six?”

  “It’s after seven now. You can’t just sit here moping all day. Come on.” Madeline stood and hauled Carrie up with her. “Go get dressed, something pretty now, and we’ll have a nice walk along the beach. Getting out into the fresh air will make things look a lot better, I promise.”

  “I don’t know.” Carrie looked out the window to the street below. “I think I’ll just stay here.”

  “Now, don’t be that way. The beach is very pretty in the early morning, and the tide probably brought in all kinds of interesting shells and things.”

  Carrie shrugged listlessly.

  “Maybe,” Madeline added, “if we walk toward the Hall, the boys will see us and ask us to breakfast.”

  That brought a hint of a smile to Carrie’s face. “I suppose it would be nice to get out in the fresh air for a little while.”

  Madeline grinned. “I’ll race you.”

  Fourteen

  Madeline and Carrie walked along the shoreline toward Thorburn Hall. The sea air was fresh and crisp, and they stopped to watch a flock of sandwich terns fishing among the rocks, their grating kear-ik kear-ik loud in the early morning quiet.

  “Better?” Madeline asked as Carrie stood watching one of the males present his mate with a courtship offering of fish.

  “Aren’t they sweet?” Carrie’s eyes were bright now, her cheeks rosy with sun and briny air rather than tears.

  “Just like you and Nick.”

  “Go on.” Carrie huffed and started off down the beach again, only to stumble and nearly fall.

  “I told you not to wear those shoes.”

  Carrie darted a glance at Madeline’s feet and made a face. “I couldn’t very well let Nick see me in something like what you’ve got on.�
��

  Madeline took her arm, her expression warm. “You could wear army boots, honey, and he’d think they were glass slippers.”

  Carrie smiled faintly, but the smile was more sad than happy. “I know he would. Oh, Madeline, what am I going to do?”

  “You know I can’t decide that for you.”

  Scowling, Carrie quickened her pace as they approached the boulder-strewn beach below Thorburn Hall. Then she stopped abruptly and shaded her eyes. “What’s that down there?”

  A police car had pulled off the road, and two officers were standing over something that looked like a bundle of rags that had washed up with the tide. A little knot of people—an elderly couple, several children, a middle-aged woman with binoculars and a hiking stick—stood looking at the bundle and murmuring among themselves.

  “All right,” one of the officers was telling them as Madeline and Carrie drew nearer. “There’s nothing to see here. Everything’s being looked after.” He looked over at the girls and raised his voice. “I beg your pardon, ladies, but I must ask that you carry on with your walking.” He turned again to the others. “Ladies and gentlemen, please. This is an official investigation. I must ask you to go on about your business.”

  “Are we not to know anything, young Phelps?” the old woman asked. “Not even a wee bit of it?”

  The officer shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ellis, but you’ve got to go now. No doubt there’ll be something in the papers in time. Now come along.”

  She took her husband’s arm, tugging him along with her, muttering darkly, though he didn’t look as if he quite knew where he was or what was happening.

  The children, being warned again, scattered across the beach while the woman with the binoculars clutched her hiking stick and headed down the road behind Madeline and Carrie.

  With a glance at Carrie, Madeline slowed to let her catch up. “What was that about?”

  The woman lifted one heavy eyebrow. “It’s a body. I saw before they covered him up, poor man. Must have been rather a fine-looking man too, from what I saw, although it’s hard to tell so much when they’re dead.”

  Carrie kept her eyes on the road ahead and said nothing, but her lips were pressed into a hard, taut line.

  “Was it an accident?” Madeline asked. Please, don’t let it be another murder.

  “They won’t say, of course,” the woman said thoughtfully. “But his front was all over with blood, and I heard one of the constables talking about the sort of gun it must have been. Can you imagine? Oh, I beg your pardon. I suppose they’re ever so much more common where you’re from, I daresay. Pistols, I mean, not a proper hunting rifle or that sort of thing. Those we have, of course, but that’s different, isn’t it? Still, it seems a shame. A young man like that. I suppose he had got in with the wrong sort.” She glanced back toward the scene of the crime, but there was little to see from this distance. “You are American, I take it?”

  Madeline nodded. Carrie merely walked straight ahead.

  The other woman looked grimly pleased. “I thought as much. Well, I suppose we’ll have to wait till the next edition of the news. Here’s my turn. Good morning.”

  She scurried off along a little track that veered away from the water and was gone.

  “Carrie,” Madeline began. But Carrie didn’t turn, didn’t slow. Madeline hurried after her. “Carrie.”

  Carrie stumbled and then bent down to rub her ankle. Madeline stopped beside her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right. I’m not all right at all.” She sniffed and then fished her handkerchief out of her handbag and dabbed her nose with it. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t let all this get to me again. People die, right? They do. That doesn’t mean we’re in danger, right? Or Nick—” She looked up and put on a stiff smile. “Nick.”

  The boys were scrambling down the steep path that led from the house to the beach.

  “Hullo, sweet.” Nick went straight to Carrie, and she huddled against him.

  “We didn’t expect to see you down here, but we saw the police and thought we’d see what’s what.” Drew kissed Madeline’s cheek. “What’s happening over there?”

  Carrie glanced at Madeline. “I—I don’t know. The police won’t let anyone near. They told us to keep walking.”

  “Did you see anything?” Drew asked Madeline.

  “I’m fairly sure there’s a body on the rocks over there, but as Carrie said, they wouldn’t let us stop and look.”

  “Probably not something either of you want to see, darling. I believe that’s Sergeant Shaw over there now. Let me just see what he’ll tell me. Won’t be half a moment.”

  Drew loped over to where the body was. There was a second police car pulled up there now and another officer, Sergeant Shaw. Drew spoke to him for a moment. Then he knelt beside the body and lifted up the blanket that covered the face. He pushed the blanket to about halfway down and motioned for Shaw to come closer. He pointed at something on the body and then put the blanket back into place and stood.

  For another minute or so, he walked carefully around the area, bending down now and then before going back to speak to Shaw. The sergeant shook his head decisively, frowned and then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. Drew looked at the contents and then jogged back to where the other three were waiting for him.

  “Definitely a body,” Drew said. “Not quite what I expected.”

  “Drowning?” Nick asked.

  “No. Shot through the heart. Dead before he hit the rocks.”

  “There was a woman there when we first came up,” Madeline said. “She mentioned something about a pistol. But who is it?”

  “The caddie. Jamie Tyler.”

  “Oh,” Carrie breathed. “Poor Joan.”

  “We’d better go on back to the house,” Drew said, looking back toward the crime scene once more. “I know the inspector will be by any minute now, and doubtless he’ll be in no mood for my antics. The good sergeant will keep us informed if there are any developments.” He took Madeline’s arm. “I think we’d better go and talk to Joan, darling. I don’t want her to hear about this from one of the servants or from the next edition of the paper.”

  “Are you all right, Carrie?” Nick asked as they climbed the path back up to the Hall.

  She lifted her chin. “Of course I am. I know I’ve been a ninny about all this, but I’m not going to be anymore.” She clasped his arm, struggling for a moment with a step that was higher than the others. “You’ll figure this out, and that’ll be the end of it, right?”

  “Of course.” He put his hands around her slim waist and lifted her up to the next step. “Not to worry.”

  Madeline watched them for a moment and then hurried after.

  When they reached the Hall, Drew immediately sent for Twining. “Has Miss Rainsby rung for her tea this morning?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir. Is something the matter?”

  Drew glanced up the stairway. “Is she usually up at this time of the morning?”

  “No, not generally, sir. Like many young persons, Miss Joan has always been rather a late sleeper.” The butler looked at the crystal clock on the mantel. “She should be rising soon. May I send up a message with her breakfast?”

  “Does she generally request a newspaper with her tea?” Drew asked. “Or would she have had occasion to see one this morning?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir. I could ask Agnes, but based on my own observations, I don’t believe Miss Joan ever looks at the papers until the afternoon.”

  “All the same, could you see that whoever brings up her tray makes sure not to include the morning papers? Thank you, Twining.”

  “Just as you say, sir.”

  Drew looked out the window down toward the sea. He couldn’t see anything of the spot where Tyler’s body lay, but it was possible that from some parts of the house, perhaps from the roof, it would be visible. “Oh, I say, Twining?”

  “Yes, sir?”r />
  “Do you know if there’s been any gossip among the servants this morning?”

  “There is always gossip, sir.”

  Drew smiled faintly. “Quite. But something alarming. Just this morning.”

  “I understand the Russian gentleman is to return to us sometime today.” In spite of Twining’s always correct demeanor, Drew could still tell the butler found this news decidedly alarming. “Mr. and Mrs. Pike have gone round to fetch him.”

  “Besides that.”

  “All the staff were churning amongst themselves, trying to see what was amiss down on the beach,” Twining said. “But I let them know in no uncertain terms that their duties lay inside the Hall and not outside of it. They know no more than I do about the matter.”

  “Good. Please see that no one says anything upsetting to Miss Rainsby until I’ve had a chance to speak to her. It’s very important.”

  “Certainly, sir.” Twining gave a half bow. “I will see to it personally.”

  “And yes, please send up a note with her breakfast asking if I might come speak to her as soon as is convenient.”

  “It’s not likely to be in the papers, is it?” Madeline said once the butler had gone. “I mean, they only just found the body.”

  “Not likely, no,” Drew admitted. “But I don’t know how long they’ve been out there or if some reporter mightn’t have happened on it before dawn and hurried off to write a lurid account for the early edition. No sense having Joan seeing that instead of us breaking it to her gently.”

  “Breaking what to me?”

  All four of them looked up to see the daughter of the house standing in the drawing room doorway, her face pale, her eyes puffy as if she hadn’t slept well. Nick and Drew both stood.

  “Good morning,” Drew said, going to her. “I hope my message hasn’t disturbed you. I most distinctly told Twining to say I’d wait until you had a convenient moment. You can’t have eaten yet.”

  He led her to an overstuffed chair, and she sat down.

  “I’m not hungry. I couldn’t stand even the smell of whatever was on my tray this morning. When Agnes brought your message, I was already dressed anyway, so I thought I may as well come down.” She smoothed back her dark hair on one side. Evidently she had done no more than run a comb through it before coming downstairs. “So what is it you have to break to me? Is it more about my mother? It is, isn’t it? Have they found something else against her?” She ran her hands through her hair, disarranging it again. “Oh, I can’t stand this. I could hardly sleep, thinking about everything that’s happened. It is Mother, isn’t it?”