A Place of Confinement: The Investigations of Miss Dido Kent (Dido Kent Mysteries)

by Dean, Anna

  Dido stopped, reluctant to intrude upon such patent distress. Should she attempt to force a confidence? Would it be too unkind?

  Martha had come to a standstill now in the shadow of the cliffs. The dark rocks looming over her figure gave her a small, vulnerable appearance.

  As Dido hesitated, a single pebble rattled down the cliff and two seagulls started noisily into the air; their movement drew her eyes up the face of crumbling rock to the gorse that grew atop …

  And there she saw a brown horse with its rider standing beside it – so close to the cliff’s edge that he seemed to be actually in the gorse bush. She had only time to note that he was standing immediately above Miss Gibbs, before the rocks began to fall.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  At first it was no more than a few pebbles that fell – rolling and bouncing in little clouds of dry earth, mingled with tufts of grass. But in a moment there were larger pieces of rock falling, rolling down the cliffs with a terrible noise which echoed and re-echoed. Martha looked up and seemed to watch them for a moment without comprehending her danger. Then she screamed and began to run. And there was a horrible appearance of the stones being alive and wilfully pursuing her. They bounded down the cliff and out across the beach, moving with alarming speed through a rising cloud of dust. For a while there was nothing but noise and dust and fear.

  Dido found herself foolishly holding out her hands and urging haste as if the tumbling rocks themselves were not encouragement enough to the terrified girl. Then, just as it seemed Martha had outrun the landslide, she stumbled, half fell, put one hand to her ankle. Dido started forward, seized her arm, and dragged her clear.

  And, as she did so, through the cloud of dust and the grit in her eyes, she saw the man up on the cliff remount his horse and ride rapidly away across the downs.

  Martha clung to Dido’s arm with both hands, her fingers rigid, her whole body shaking. The dirt was in their eyes, their noses, their mouths; it had settled in their hair. A few last stones rattled down the cliff and came to rest at their feet. Their companions were running towards them.

  ‘There was a man,’ Dido whispered hastily, brushing the dust from her lips. ‘He was on the cliff top. He made the rocks fall.’

  ‘Where?’ Martha looked about fearfully, her eyes appearing very white in her dusty face. ‘I can see nobody on the cliffs. There is nobody there.’

  ‘He is gone now – but I swear to you he was there. Who is he? Why did he do it?’

  ‘I can’t!’ Tears were making clean streaks through the dust now. ‘I just can’t tell you … You mustn’t say a word about it.’

  Martha broke away and joined the others in exclaiming upon the terrible accident. They were all agreed that it was a very terrible accident indeed and no one could find words adequate to describe how they had felt upon first seeing the rocks falling. But it was a mercy that Miss Gibbs had looked up when she did, was it not? If she had not, the accident might have been a great deal worse …

  Martha was consoled, her face cleaned with a handkerchief; her ankle was discovered to be only twisted, not broken; Emma undertook to hurry on to the inn and send word for the carriage to be brought – and Mrs Bailey offered a great deal of advice.

  And still no objection was raised against the word ‘accident’. Martha did not contradict it and, after a little consideration, neither did Dido. She needed to think a little about it all before she could determine what to say or do.

  As the others began to move away she loitered behind on the deserted beach, looking at the debris spread across the damp, hard-packed sand: earth and pebbles and grass, bushes torn up by their roots, and the clean fractured rock from the heart of the cliff – angular fragments veined with grey and red. There was even the ragged remains of a bird’s nest with one pale egg lying within, miraculously unbroken by the fall.

  Cautiously Dido picked her way back towards the cliff through the smell of damp rock and disturbed earth. The voices of her companions were fading into the distance, Mrs Bailey still declaring that she had never, never been so frightened in her life. For she was not easily frightened; her friends frequently remarked upon her steady nerves. But, upon her word, she could not describe how she had felt when she first turned and saw those great stones tumbling down …

  The dramatic tones trailed away and were replaced by the cries of returning gulls, the crash and sigh of distant waves.

  Dido gazed up the cliff, with its raw red scar, loose pebbles and hanging tufts of grass, to the place where the man had stood. Half of the gorse bush was now fallen away. The ground up there was certainly unsafe; the cliffs seemed to be formed of crumbling rock and soft red earth. From his position, the watching man could have easily set the slide in motion by kicking away at the edge.

  She did not doubt he had done it. His hasty escape confirmed his guilt. But why had he done something so very dangerous?

  From his vantage point he would have been able to see Dido approaching Martha. Had he feared the girl would be persuaded into telling the secret which weighed so heavily on her mind?

  Dido shrank from that thought – it was horrible to suppose that her own search for information had imperilled Miss Gibbs … But it also produced the certainty that Martha’s secret was of the utmost importance.

  She sat down upon a rock and gazed across the wet, shining sands to the white shimmering line of breaking waves. The sudden sense of danger twisted painfully in her breast; but weighed against it there was swelling indignation. Someone was so determined to keep Miss Gibbs silent that he was prepared to endanger her life. Someone was attempting to prevent her – Dido – from discovering the truth!

  And that was not to be borne. Not when the life of an innocent man was at stake.

  She rested her chin in her hands and tried to reason calmly. The man on the brown horse had followed them through the wood and across the downs – so he had almost certainly come from Charcombe Manor. And who else could it be but Lancelot or George Fenstanton? The figure had been too distant for her to distinguish … though the green coat argued for it being Mr George.

  But what could Martha’s secret be that it should make him so determined to prevent her from speaking?

  She turned her thoughts back to the conversation in the wood – and its tantalising interruption. Martha had been very certain of Miss Verney’s affection for Tom Lomax. And yet she had repeatedly denied the possibility of elopement. ‘I know she has not eloped,’ she had said. But why was she so certain? How could Martha know that Letitia had not eloped? And why had it been so very dangerous for her to explain herself?

  Was it because the explanation could expose a murderer?

  Dido felt as if an answer to at least some part of this puzzle was there, almost within her reach, in the salty breeze. Something suggested by a dozen small hints and clues and contradictions – a word spoken here, a look there … She tried hard to grasp it, but still it eluded her …

  At the other end of the beach, Mrs Bailey was now assisting Miss Gibbs up the steps to the town. Dido watched Martha climb painfully, her head bowed against the wind. The poor girl must not be put into danger again – and yet her secret must somehow be obtained, for without it there was no way of reaching a proper understanding of either the disappearance or the murder.

  She rose and began to make her way back across the beach; but, as she did so, her eye was caught by the gleam of something among the scattered rocks and debris at her feet. She stooped down, pushed aside some pebbles and a large tuft of grass, and found, half covered by the fallen nest, a gold chain. She carefully drew out Martha’s necklace – the necklace in which her hand had been twisting just before the landslide began. The chain had broken, and the locket had sprung open as it fell.

  Dido ran the chain into a little golden pool in the palm of her hand – and looked at the miniature portrait contained within the locket.

  The sly, handsome features of Tom Lomax sneered back at her.

  And it was as she held that
treacherous smile in the hollow of her hand that some inkling of Martha’s great secret began at last to form in her head.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  … Eliza, I think I begin to understand at last how Miss Verney disappeared from one side of a door and never appeared upon the other.

  It is a strange theory, though – a fantastic creation which rather puts me in mind of Lady Lorton’s pictures worked in ‘curiosities’. Do you remember them – great landscapes made up of shells and feathers and moss and butterfly wings and I know not what? Well, so is my solution made up of bits and pieces I have found about me – my ‘curiosities’ being nothing more than glancing looks and ideas half spoken; a visit to Worcestershire; a portrait in a locket; the contradiction of a cautious and worldly young lady entering into a secret engagement with a handsome and penniless man; and the time upon the stable clock …

  The clock, I believe, is the very centrepiece of my design. It is just the right piece of feather or moss or withered turnip to make up my picture!

  But I am not quite satisfied with my completed landscape. I am not sure that I would wish to have it framed in mahogany and hung upon the dining room wall. I am as hesitant to display the work of my genius as we agreed Lady Lorton ought to have been.

  I must put my ideas to the test, and I can think of no other way of doing so than by applying to Martha. Only she can tell me whether my suspicions are correct. And yet it must be a secret conference. I would not have anyone see us talking together for fear of putting her in danger again.

  And that is why I am not yet abed, though the clock down in the hall struck one a quarter of an hour ago. Aunt Manners is snoring and the old house has at last creaked and groaned itself into silence. I intend to go now to Martha’s chamber. Even rousing her from sleep will be kinder than exposing her …

  * * *

  ‘Lord! Miss Kent, I have told you, I don’t know no better than anyone else where Tish has got to.’ Martha Gibbs stared at Dido in bewilderment. She had scrambled back into her bed after cautiously opening the chamber door and was sitting now with the covers drawn up to her chin over bent knees. Curl papers twisted from under her nightcap and her face was greasy with some kind of lotion. ‘I only know that when I returned to the house that day she was gone.’

  ‘I do not suppose that you understand everything, Miss Gibbs. But I know that there is something of great importance which you will not tell.’

  ‘I cannot tell it.’

  ‘But you know that Mr Tom Lomax was deceived, do you not? And you know why he believes that he saw Miss Verney return to the house. You know how she disappeared, even if you do not know where she is now.’

  Martha’s eyes rolled wildly. But Dido continued to regard her steadily and, at last, she essayed the very slightest of nods.

  ‘But there has been a threat made, has there not? You have been told that you must not reveal what you know.’

  There was another small nod.

  ‘May I ask how this threat was made? Has someone in this house spoken to you on the subject?’

  ‘Lord! No! No one has said a word to me.’

  ‘You have received a message, then? A note?’

  Martha tried very hard to give no answer. But silence is not easily maintained. Every well-brought-up miss is taught to fear silence – it is a rudeness, an embarrassment. And anyone who has ever paid a morning call knows that silence is a great provoker of unguarded speech. Dido had known many a young lady make an unsuitably confiding remark simply to fill an intolerable silence which was threatening the tranquillity of the tea board.

  She waited.

  ‘Yes,’ Martha burst out at last. ‘Yes, I got a note. A very nasty note.’

  ‘And this was on the day that your friend disappeared?’

  ‘Yes. It had been pushed under that door.’ Martha’s eyes strayed to the door of the chamber, as if she expected to see the nasty note still lying beside it. ‘I found it when I came up here to dress for dinner. Not a proper posted letter, you know. But a note – folded and with my name writ very clear on the outside. It said I had better hold my tongue about what I knew. There would be great trouble if I did not, it said – great trouble for me – and “for everyone you care about.” That is what it said.’

  ‘Do you still have this note?’

  ‘No, I burnt the nasty old thing.’

  ‘I see. But was there a name – a signature – upon it?’ It was, of course, a forlorn hope. She was not surprised by Martha’s shake of the head. ‘Do you know from whom it came?’

  There was no answer.

  Dido said nothing for a while. She was keenly aware of Martha’s hands gripping tightly at her knees, the fingers clenching until they were white; but she continued to gaze about her and allow the silence to do its work.

  ‘I think,’ Martha said at last, ‘it was Mrs Bailey.’

  ‘I see.’ Dido was determinedly calm. A lady should never seem surprised when a companion blunders into confidence – certainly not if she wishes the discourse to continue flowing. ‘You believe that Mrs Bailey knows your secret?’

  ‘Yes, and she wants me to hold my tongue because she don’t want Tish found.’

  ‘But you wish Miss Verney to be found, do you not?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I do.’

  ‘And she may never be found if you do not tell what you know.’

  ‘But I cannot!’ cried Martha in great alarm. ‘I beg you will excuse me … What happened on the beach today was just too horrible for words and I don’t doubt it was her – Mrs Bailey, I mean – that sent the man to push the stones down on me!’

  Dido shook her head. She reached out and laid her hand over Martha’s hot, trembling fingers. ‘I do not think,’ she said gently, ‘that it is Mrs Bailey who wishes you to be silent. I saw the man upon the cliff – and I believe that it was Mr George Fenstanton.’

  Martha stared in confusion and pressed her hands to her face. ‘But why?’ she whispered through her fingers.

  ‘I am not sure. But I promise you that if you will only tell what you know, I shall do my utmost to discover the whole truth.’

  ‘But I dare not.’

  Dido jumped impatiently to her feet. ‘What would you say, Miss Gibbs, if I told you that I know your secret? I know – at least, I think I know – why Miss Verney seemed to vanish during the course of her walk along the carriage drive. I only want you to tell me if I am correct. You need only say yes or no.’

  ‘Oh.’ Martha seemed unable to say more.

  Dido watched her closely. The difficulty would lie in determining whether she was telling the truth when she spoke her yes or no. ‘I believe, that the stable clock provides the answer,’ she began quietly.

  ‘The clock?’ cried Martha with a frown.

  ‘Yes. When you came into the hall on the day your friend disappeared, you said that its being slow had made you late for dinner.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are quite sure that the clock was slow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dido smiled. ‘Well! Therein lies the explanation of the little magic trick! Miss Verney seemed to walk along a drive and pass through a door; but she never arrived upon the other side of that door. Now that, of course, is impossible … unless one small detail is not as it seems; unless the eye and the brain are deceived in one small matter…’

  Martha looked blank for a moment. Then: ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Mr Lomax was wrong as to the time! He too was calculating by the stable clock … And so … so it was not five o’clock when he saw Miss Verney walk into the house – it was later.’

  ‘And if that was the case,’ Dido pointed out, ‘Miss Verney could have passed through the hall unnoticed, after the company had all repaired to the dining room.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Martha, ‘Quite so. It is just as you say. If you but change one detail it all becomes as clear as anything!’

  Dido watched her face with interest – and was satisfied. ‘Was that the deception practised upon
Mr Tom Lomax?’ she asked. ‘Is that the secret you must not divulge?’

  ‘Yes.’ Martha blushed and looked down upon her hands which were twisting up the edge of the sheet. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Yes it is.’

  Dido watched for a minute or two as the silence worked on Martha; watched her hands writhe, her feet shift under the coverlet. She consigned every detail of the girl’s manner to memory – remembering that this was how Martha behaved when she told a lie.

  Then she walked to the window, pulled aside the edge of the heavy curtain and looked down upon the gardens – and the fateful carriage drive which gleamed palely, lit by a fragment of moon. The only movement in the cold silver world was the occasional lope of a rabbit feeding on the lawns. ‘Well then, that part of the mystery is solved.’ She spoke quietly without turning back into the room. ‘But it is very strange.’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘Yes, it is very strange indeed.’ She turned and found Martha regarding her with a look of fear. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘Mr Lomax came only to the manor gates when Miss Verney returned – and it is not possible to see the clock from the gates.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘And furthermore, if Mr Lomax did derive his idea of the time from that clock, he would in fact have received a fairly accurate impression.’

  ‘No, he would not,’ protested Martha. ‘The stable clock is slow.’

  ‘For the greater part of the week it is, yes. But, as you will recall, it was just a week ago – on a Thursday – that Miss Verney left Charcombe. And the stable clock is at its most accurate on Thursdays – because it is corrected every Thursday morning.’

  ‘Oh, but…’ Martha’s eyes rolled about ‘… everyone talks of the stable clock being slow … I have heard about it again and again … I did not know about it being put right on a Thursday…’

  ‘Of course you did not – or you would not have blamed it for your lateness when you returned that day.’