Murder at Morrington Hall

by Clara McKenna

  “They might not be wild, but don’t tell them that. They’ll sooner bite you than not.”

  “Thank you for the warning, Lord Lyndhurst,” she said, dropping her hand to her side as the pony continued grazing.

  Lyndy frowned. “Are we back to that again? It’s Lyndy. After Derby Day I assumed . . .” He had the decency not to finish his thought.

  “I’ve spent the entire morning cooped up with Mrs. Westwoode, who’s been chiding me and insulting me and insinuating again and again that I’m not a proper English lady. So, I will not be calling you by your nickname. It’s not proper.”

  He looked over at her, his jaw set, his lips tight. He clutched his lapels. “Why do you insist on acting like something you’re not?”

  “Are you saying I’m not a lady?”

  “Come walk with me.”

  Confused and frustrated, she did as he asked. He led her through the rose garden, where spindly stems bowed over from their lush, heady blooms, and down to the edge of the pond. She waited for him to say more, but he stared out at the swans, occasionally fiddling with the belt of his tweed jacket.

  They stood in silence. Stella was used to silence. Having no one but Daddy and servants in the house, she had spent long periods back home without speaking or being spoken to. She’d sit and read for hours with only the sound of the clock ticking or birdsong to break the quiet. Until this morning, she hadn’t fully appreciated the luxury of it. But she wasn’t used to standing idle, in nervous anticipation of what the man next to her might say. Judging by his restlessness, tugging on this, brushing at that, neither was he.

  She clasped her hands in front of her until the tips of her fingers turned numb from her ever-tightening grip. Then she bent down, found a smooth, flat stone, and flung it out across the water. The rock skipped five times, sending increasingly larger ripples in its wake, until it sank under the water. She chose another and flung that too. This time it skipped eight times and made it within inches of where the swans had glided out of reach. She looked down for another rock.

  “Where did you go last night? Mother was not pleased.” Was that a chuckle?

  Stella had driven Ethel to the police station in Lyndhurst without incident. Unable to reach Inspector Brown at that time of night, the constable on duty had insisted they wait for Constable Waterman. Though Ethel had been a nervous wreck, wringing her hands until they turned red, Stella hadn’t minded. She preferred the drab police station to Lady Atherly’s music room. When Constable Waterman had arrived, he’d patiently written down Ethel’s story and sent the pair of them home. To Stella’s relief, the wait had saved her from having to mingle with strangers. The guests had gone home.

  “I took Ethel to the police station in Lyndhurst.”

  “Why?”

  Her words followed in a rush. “Because Harry couldn’t have done it. Ethel was with him at the time of the murder. The police had to know.” No reaction. Wasn’t he relieved about the footman? “Besides, who wants to be the center of attention? I had to find some excuse to skip the party.”

  Why doesn’t he smile or wink or say something?

  “I know they face dismissal without references for lying and being alone together,” she said, “but perhaps if you spoke to Lady Atherly on their behalf . . . ?”

  He remained staring out at the pond. It was as smooth as glass. Yet Stella could feel the muscles in his body tense.

  “Lyndy?”

  He faced her, a slight smirk on his face. “Finally.”

  What did he mean by that? And then she remembered; she’d called him by his nickname. She chuckled. He always seemed to get his way, like Daddy. Yet she didn’t mind. It was different with him.

  Lyndy’s face clouded over again. “I never did think Harry did it.”

  “What made you so certain?”

  “Because I’m afraid I know who did.” Lyndy pointed to the folly across the pond. It looked like a larger stone version of the gazebo in her garden in Kentucky. “Hugh and the vicar argued the night before . . .”

  Before what? Did Lyndy suspect his friend of the murder?

  “No,” Lyndy said when she asked. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think Lord Hugh wanted the vicar to give to him?”

  “I think Hugh knew about the vicar’s money and wanted it. Hugh has debts.” Who would’ve known, the way Lord Hugh bet at the Derby? Or perhaps because of it.

  “You don’t suspect Lord Hugh was involved in Orson’s theft, too, do you?”

  Lyndy stared out at the pond again. He didn’t deny it.

  “Orson is worth tens of thousands of pounds, if not more,” Lyndy said.

  But why would Hugh steal the stallion if he’d robbed the vicar of thousands of pounds? Was he that over his head in debt? Besides, Lord Hugh was with them at Epsom Downs when the horse was taken.

  Admiring the pink and white daylilies blooming around the base of the folly, Stella asked, “Where was Lord Hugh when the vicar was killed?”

  “He says he was in Rosehurst.”

  “He says?” Stella glanced over at Lyndy. He pulled the cap from his head and ran his sleeve over his forehead, as if the morning sun was too hot. Stella couldn’t picture it ever being too hot here. “Do you doubt him about that too?”

  “I do. What business would Hugh have in Rosehurst that he won’t discuss? It doesn’t make sense.” Lyndy frowned and began rocking on his heels. “It was almost better when the police suspected Harry did it.”

  * * *

  “I have a favor to ask, Mother.”

  Lyndy had been dreading this encounter from the moment Stella suggested it. He was never comfortable being alone with his mother. She’d spent the requisite hour a day with him and Alice when they were children, but she’d made it clear that it was her duty to attend her children and not a desire. Duty! How Lyndy hated that word. He could count on one hand the number of times they’d had a private conversation that didn’t entail Lyndy doing what Mother construed as his duty. He hoped this wouldn’t be one of them.

  And then there was the matter of Stella’s absence at Mother’s soiree last night.

  “What is it, Lyndy?”

  Sunlight streamed through the French windows of Mother’s morning room, illuminating a painted center table laid out with wedding gifts: engraved silver candlesticks, a large silver platter, an intricately painted Chinese vase that stood several feet tall, numerous bejeweled brooches, hatpins and hair combs, a long string of immense pearls once belonging to Catherine the Great, and a diamond tiara tipped with large pear-shaped stones. Hidden behind the vase was a bronze sculpture of three polo players and their horses in a hideous tangle. It was an original work by the American artist Frederic Remington. Lyndy could guess who had sent that.

  This was her sanctuary, with its pale blue and white palette, its heady scent coming from the large bouquets of white roses, and its prominent secretary desk. With its tall ceilings and light palette, Mother’s morning room was the antithesis of Papa’s study. Yet Lyndy didn’t feel any more comfortable here than in Papa’s room. Mother sat at the secretary, drafting a letter. She hadn’t stopped writing on his account. Why had he agreed to do this?

  “Harry, the first footman, is innocent. A maid gave him an alibi. They were together at the time of the vicar’s death.” Mother stopped writing and looked up, expectation and skeptical curiosity in her expression. “It was innocent enough. The maid was teaching Harry to read. The girl has already informed the police.”

  And now what? Would the police suspect Hugh, as, God forgive him, Lyndy did?

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I’d like you to give me your assurances that they won’t be dismissed.”

  “Why should I?” Mother went back to her letter.

  How could she be so callous? How could she not sense the conflict he was going through? How could he have expected anything else? Lyndy held his temper, but he began pacing the room. He couldn’t wait to be away from
here.

  “Because the footman’s innocent. Isn’t that enough?”

  “But the servants disregarded my rules, Lyndy.”

  “Miss Kendrick gave the maid her word. Otherwise, the girl never would’ve admitted to it.”

  Mother slowly set down her fountain pen. “Pity, Miss Kendrick didn’t consider that before she acted so rashly.”

  Mother was livid about last night, and she had every reason to be; Stella shouldn’t have dashed off as she had. Stella shouldn’t have promised the maid anything either. But did that mean Mother would let Harry hang for breaking her rules? Or was she so petty that she’d let the maid and the footman suffer because Stella didn’t present herself to be gawked at? Lyndy had been as shocked as the rest at Stella’s conduct, but by God, he admired her audacity.

  “Miss Kendrick didn’t want Harry to hang, Mother. But you, you would dismiss them both without references? You might as well let him hang.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “Who will we get to replace them, then?” Mother flinched. Lyndy had hit on a sore subject. Papa’s fossil expeditions had forced them to let several of the staff go, and keeping the staff they had was proving difficult. “Hasn’t Mrs. Nelson hired three new maids in so many months, just to have them desert us? We’ll be down to a single footman without Harry. Shall we allow the hall boy to serve at table, to dress me?”

  “Very well. You made your point. I shall tell Mrs. Nelson not to dismiss the girl.”

  “And Harry?”

  “I’ll tell your father to inform Fulton that he is not to dismiss the footman.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  She tilted her face, tapping the side of it with her finger. Wrinkles stretched from the corner of her eye. Laughter lines, he’d heard them called. She used to laugh. Lyndy bent down and dutifully kissed his mother’s cheek. When had she stopped?

  CHAPTER 18

  “Did you hear the news, Mr. Heppenstall?”

  The boy held three wooden crates of empty ale bottles, stacked up to his chin. He couldn’t see his feet, and that was never a good thing.

  “Watch what you’re doing there, lad,” the publican of the Knightwood Oak said. “If you drop them bottles, it will come out of your wages.”

  “What news?” Old Joe looked up from the newspaper he had spread out across the bar.

  “Don’t encourage the boy, Joe,” Tom Heppenstall chided. But Old Joe waited expectantly. Tom knew neither the boy nor the old man would be satisfied until the lad said his piece. “Well, then, tell us what you’ve learned.”

  “The police released Harry Finn, first footman at Morrington Hall.”

  “Did they now?” Old Joe said.

  Tom glanced over toward the window where that grockle had sat last night. A couple of hands from Granger’s farm occupied the table now. Tom had assumed he’d seen the last of the stranger. No such luck. After days away, the grockle had turned up again. Was the bloke a murderer or a harmless grockle? Who was he kidding? There was no such thing as a harmless grockle.

  “What I hear,” the boy said, resting the crates on the nearest table, “is that someone saw him doing something else at the time of the vicar’s murder, so he couldn’t have done it.”

  “Who’s this someone else?” Old Joe said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then who did do it?” Old Joe said.

  “I don’t know. But from what I hear—”

  “What you hear? What you hear?” Tom said. “You hear a lot of nonsense, that’s what you hear. Now pick up those crates, lad. That table needs wiping down.” He flung his towel over his shoulder and strode around from behind the bar.

  “The argument I heard wasn’t nonsense.” Old Joe and Tom stared at the grumbling lad, who was focusing on balancing the crates against his chest as he lifted them up again.

  “Put those crates down,” Tom said.

  “But . . . ,” the boy said, even as he obediently set the crates on the table again. The publican grabbed the back of the lad’s collar and pulled his face toward him.

  “Now you listen here, boy,” Tom said, the boy frozen in his grip. “If you heard something, anything, that pertains to the murder of our vicar, you say so, and you say so now.” Tom, letting his frustration with the boy get the best of him, pushed the lad, who tumbled backward against the table. The glass bottles clinked as the boy collided with the crates.

  “I heard someone arguing with the vicar,” the boy stammered, “and before you ask, I don’t know who it was. I couldn’t see his face. Just that he wore posh clothes.”

  “When was this?”

  “The night before . . . you know, before it happened.”

  “Where?”

  This time the boy hesitated.

  “Where did you hear it?”

  “At Morrington Hall.”

  “At Morrington Hall? What in the name of—”

  “Not by the house,” the lad scrambled to explain. “On the other side of the pond. Near that little building with the columns.”

  “The folly?”

  The boy nodded, his face as red as that of a drunkard on a binge. Tom didn’t have to ask what the boy had been doing anywhere near there. He’d suspected for quite some time.

  The boy looked at his boots. They had an inch of mud on them. How many times had he told the lad to scrape his boots before coming in? First the table, now the floor. Tom might have to hire a maid just to clean up after the boy.

  “You should’ve told someone,” Old Joe said.

  “But I don’t have permission to cut through—”

  “Lord Atherly’s land? No, you don’t. You don’t have any business . . . ,” Tom said. “You cut through there to see the butcher’s daughter.” It wasn’t a question. “That’s why you haven’t told anyone.”

  The lad nodded.

  The publican leaned toward the boy. “You’re going to tell the police now, though, aren’t you, lad?” His voice was barely above a whisper. He wasn’t happy. “For it’s either you tell the police or I’ll surprise the missus with a fresh side of bacon from the butcher’s tonight. If you get my meaning.”

  The boy tripped over his own feet as he hurried toward the door. Old Joe chuckled. Tom didn’t see the humor in it. If he weren’t his wife’s cousin’s boy, he would’ve let the lad go long ago. Maybe he should tell the butcher, anyway, and be rid of the troublesome lad.

  “And you’ll put these bottles away when you get back,” Tom yelled as the boy swung open the door and disappeared.

  * * *

  Papa conversed with Inspector Brown on the other side of the smoking room as Mr. Westwoode hurried past without a word. Lyndy didn’t like the troubled look on Mr. Westwoode’s normally placid face. As he hadn’t liked the look on the coachman’s face when Gates had alighted from the family carriage, charged with the unpleasant task of conveying the bad news. It hadn’t mattered that he and Hugh were hip deep in the Beaulieu River, fishing. Or that Stella, in a simple but sumptuous pink linen and lace dress, along with Alice, Miss Westwoode, and Miss Luckett, the chaperone, were admiring Lyndy’s fishing prowess from the comfort of a woolen blanket, spread with the remains of their picnic lunch, on the shore. The police summons had ruined a perfectly good afternoon.

  “What’s this all about? I’ve told you everything I know,” Lyndy lied.

  “Yes, and thank you, my lord,” the inspector said. “We highly regret taking you away from the river, as it is Lord Hugh Drakeford we’d like to speak to.”

  “Me?” Hugh shrugged. “I had nothing to do with the vicar’s death or the horse’s disappearance.”

  “It’s not only you, Hugh,” Papa said, trying to explain. “They are asking everyone now that the footman has been exonerated.”

  “Papa, you’re allowing them to question everyone?” Lyndy couldn’t believe it. The intrusion, the implication was insulting. No wonder Mr. Westwoode had made such an unceremonious departure.

  Papa nodded, insi
sting the inspector had assured him of his discretion.

  If they were asking everyone, why the need to rush them back? Couldn’t the police have waited until they returned from their afternoon excursion? Lyndy looked at the constable. The policeman hadn’t uttered a word but held a pencil and notebook at the ready. Lyndy looked at the inspector. That man would win a staring contest with anyone, even Mother.

  “Then let’s get this over with,” Lyndy said, settling into the nearest captain’s chair. Hugh remained standing and faced the inspector.

  “Right,” the inspector said. “Could you tell me, Lord Hugh, where you were late in the afternoon last Sunday?”

  The question took Lyndy by surprise. Why ask Hugh about the day before the murder? They all knew Hugh had spent the afternoon playing cricket at the local pitch. Hugh was the best bowler Lyndy knew. Hugh had come back, bragging and . . .

  “The reason I ask is that someone was overheard arguing with Reverend Bullmore late that afternoon. It was described as heated. It was you, wasn’t it, Lord Hugh?”

  There it was. The secret Lyndy had been prepared to keep for the rest of his life. Did Stella, the sole person he’d confided in, tell the police? She’d given her word. She wasn’t capable of such deception. Was she? No. Someone else must’ve overheard the argument. But who?

  “Who says so?” Hugh said, obviously wondering the same thing.

  “Then it’s true?” The inspector sounded surprised. Had he been bluffing? Had he tricked Hugh into confessing? Lyndy wasn’t sure whether to feel contempt or admiration for the inspector. “You were overheard saying, ‘Either give it to me or leave me alone.’ Is that correct, Lord Hugh?”

  “So, what if I did?” The bitterness in Hugh’s voice surprised Lyndy.

  “What were you arguing about?” the inspector said. “What did you—”

  “What the argument was about is irrelevant as Lord Hugh wasn’t here when the vicar died,” Papa interrupted. “We have all been quite cooperative, Inspector, but will be less so if you insist on asking my family and guests inappropriate questions.”

  The inspector opened his mouth as if to say something but snapped it closed again.