Murder at Morrington Hall

by Clara McKenna

  Stella stared ahead as she approached the village, leaving the church and yew behind. Would she return? She didn’t know.

  * * *

  “This way?” Stella asked.

  Lady Alice nodded.

  “Okay, if you say so.”

  Stella plunged the car into the water flowing across the road on the edge of the village of Rosehurst.

  Splash!

  “What are you doing?” Mrs. Westwoode said, peering into the water beneath the tires. “The road is flooded.”

  Lady Alice laughed. “No, Mrs. Westwoode. This is the watersplash. It’s always like this. The road was built to let the stream flow across. The ponies and other livestock use it as a watering place. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “Then what do you suppose happened there?” Mrs. Westwoode said, pointing down the road.

  A string of two-story redbrick buildings, some with slate roofs, some with red clay tiled roofs, some with thatch, each with a chimney and a large storefront window, lined the curving road on both sides. A small crowd had gathered by the building closest to the far side of the watersplash. The storefront read WHITEHOUSE & SON, BUTCHERS. A man wiping his hands on his stained white apron leaned in the doorway. Stella drove clear of the water, pulled the car over, and parked.

  “What are you doing?” Mrs. Westwoode said. “The stationer is at the other end of the high street.”

  Without answering, Stella pulled off her driving veil, climbed out of the car, and approached the crowd. A man in a tan cap, tall boots, and a green vest had laid his coat aside and was rolling up his shirtsleeves. He kneeled beside the gray New Forest pony lying on her side at the edge of the road.

  “What happened?” Stella whispered to the woman next to her.

  The woman, clutching a bolt of light gray wool to her chest, shrugged. “Just up and laid down in the middle of the street.”

  The man gently ran his hand from the pony’s shoulder to its flank, to its hip, and then down its left leg. The pony wiggled its lips and flared its nostrils when the man’s hand touched its fetlock. Not a good sign. The pony groaned as the man tried to move its leg. Stella flinched and took a step forward. She had to help her, poor thing.

  Lady Alice, having joined the crowd, put her hand on Stella’s shoulder as Stella stepped forward. Stella looked over her shoulder. Mrs. Westwoode and her daughter had stayed in the car. “Let the agister do his job,” Lady Alice said.

  Agister? Lyndy had mentioned the word in passing. Agisters were forest rangers, who might help the police find Orson.

  “What happened to her?” Stella asked the agister after he managed to get the pony on her feet. He frowned as he searched the faces in the crowd until his eyes stopped on Stella in her duster coat.

  “That your motorcar?” The agister pointed to the Daimler. Several heads turned to look at Daddy’s automobile. Mrs. Westwoode, in the backseat, frowned from the sudden attention. “A pony was killed by one last week.”

  Stella stared at the car in horror. It had never struck her as something dangerous before. She would drive the Daimler into the pond before ever hurting a horse.

  “Grockle,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  Stella cringed. She didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Have you made any progress in finding the stolen racehorse, Mr. Gerald?” Lady Alice said, drawing the agister’s attention away.

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” he said, yanking the cap from his head. “I didn’t see you there. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Well, Mr. Gerald, have you?”

  “No, miss, not yet.”

  “Herbert,” Stella said.

  Beyond the humbled agister, a man with curly black hair crossed the street. It was the head groom from Morrington Hall.

  “If he’s involved, I’m sure Mr. Gerald will do all he can to help find him,” Lady Alice said, misunderstanding Stella’s meaning.

  “Won’t you, Mr. Gerald?”

  “No, I mean, there’s Herbert.” Stella pointed toward the groom.

  Heads turned. Herbert, now the focus of attention, dashed into a squat whitewashed, thatched building set apart from the others. A few wrought-iron tables and chairs had been set here and there in front of it. A wooden sign with a massive oak tree in summer green foliage hung above the door. Stella pushed past the woman with the bolt of cloth and headed across the street.

  “Miss Kendrick?” Lady Alice called after her. After catching up with her, Lady Alice put a hand on Stella’s arm. “Where are you going?”

  “To confront Herbert.”

  “But you can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Lady Alice’s expression struck a close resemblance to her mother’s haughty glare, and there was more to her tone than simply astonishment. “Because, Miss Kendrick, that’s the pub.”

  “So?”

  This time, Stella didn’t let Lady Alice’s hand restrain her. That man could be the key to the vicar’s death. Stella shook off Lady Alice’s hand and headed toward the Knightwood Oak.

  * * *

  Tom Heppenstall slid the tuppence across the smooth, polished surface of the bar with one hand and into the other. He tossed the coin into the till and slid the drawer shut. A rumble, like the purr of a giant mechanical cat, passed by outside. The boy, who was supposed to be washing the windows, had his face pressed against the glass.

  “Oi, watch the nose prints!” What was so interesting that the lad would risk cleaning the window a second time?

  The boy, his nose still pressed against the glass, motioned the owner of the Knightwood Oak pub toward the window with a fluttering wave of his hand. With an exasperated sigh, Tom strolled from behind the bar, skirted the tables, one of them cluttered with two dirty glasses and a plate of sausage grease and tomato seeds, and peered out the window. Parked across and down the street a bit was a motorcar, shiny and magnificent. A group of onlookers had gathered, not around the motorcar, but around a prostrate pony near the butchers’ shop. Tom recognized Neil Gerald, the local agister, and didn’t give the pony another thought; it was in good hands. But that motorcar. For once, the boy was right. That was something worth looking at.

  “Can we go out and get a closer look?” the boy asked. Tom hesitated, and that wasn’t like him. He had a dozen customers, tables to clear, glasses to wash, yet . . .

  “Who do you think it belongs to?” the boy said.

  “The Americans.”

  Tom and the boy simultaneously turned their heads at the sound of the gruff voice behind them. Old Joe had left his perch at the bar, his newspaper left open to the sporting page, and was looking over Tom’s shoulder, out the window.

  “’Tis a beauty,” Old Joe said. Tom and the boy nodded in full agreement. “Saw a picture in the paper of His Majesty in one just like it. Here now, isn’t that Lady Alice?”

  Tom squinted. He had resisted the need for spectacles; he could see the labels on the taps, the keys on the till. What use did he have for spectacles?

  “It’s hard to tell, all bundled up like that,” the boy said, “but I think so. Who’s that with her?”

  Tom squinted harder. He could make out two ladies among the onlookers, each wearing a long overcoat of some kind and a fancy wide-brimmed hat. Lady Alice must be the blonde.

  “It must be the American,” Old Joe pronounced. “Miss Kendrick.”

  Tom squinted even harder. He’d heard more than he’d asked for about the Kentucky horse breeder and his lovely daughter. Before Tom had started working at the Knightwood Oak, he would never have believed that men in pubs gossiped. Silently drowned themselves in a bitter, yes. Went on about who had heard what and when, like a gaggle of geese, never. One rumor had Lord Lyndhurst marrying the American heiress. Another insinuated Miss Kendrick was the one who had found the dead vicar’s body. Yet another declared that the horse breeder, Mr. Kendrick, had won two hundred thousand pounds at the Derby and was trying to convince Lord Atherly to sell Morrington Hal
l. Tom didn’t believe a word of any of it.

  “I’m going out to get a closer look,” the boy declared. Before Tom could stop him, the boy pushed a chair out of his way and, ducking his shoulder, avoided Tom snagging his vest.

  Where did the lad think he was going? He had work to do.

  “Oi!” Tom yelled at the boy as the door flew open and a man darted in. The boy, stumbling back to avoid colliding with the new arrival, smacked into the uncleared table, sending a glass shattering to the floor.

  “Idiot boy,” Tom muttered. “Oi, watch yourself. The glass.”

  Tom pointed to the jagged fragments on the floor as the newcomer crunched one under his boot. It was Herbert Kitcher, the groom from Morrington Hall. Tom hadn’t expected to see him so soon, what with the way he was drinking last night. With only a quick glimpse at the floor, Herbert shoved the boy into a nearby chair and ran toward the back door.

  For one long moment, a hush pervaded the pub as everyone silently stared at one another. Only after closing, when Tom turned the key in the lock at night, did it ever sound like this. And then pandemonium! Glasses slammed down, chairs scraped across the floor, the door banged closed, and voices rose, shouting over each other, complaining, questioning, demanding. What had just happened?

  “Look!” Old Joe shouted above the din. He was staring out the window. Every able-bodied man in the pub rushed to find a place at a window. The boy, brooding over his rough treatment, stubbornly stayed where he was.

  Tom wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see—a runaway wagon on three wheels careening into the watersplash, a pack of stampeding ponies crashing into the greengrocer’s, a flock of pigeons landing on the agister’s head? But this? Never.

  The American, Miss Kendrick, had crossed the street and was heading for his door. Two other ladies, one of them Lady Alice, skittered after her, while another clambered from the motorcar, shouting something. Men in the Knightwood Oak bolted away from the windows like skittish colts.

  “Excuse me. Hello?” a sweet high voice called out.

  Tom turned to see the young American heiress, her hat three times wider than the opening in the doorway, as she peered through, her blue eyes curious and wide. He’d heard rumors about how Americans were different. He’d dismissed the wild tales the cowhands and the delivery boys swapped while in their cups. But there she was, an heiress to a great fortune, standing on his doorstep, peeking in. Could all the rumors be true?

  Tom, determined to keep his composure, made for the front door. A straggler, in his frantic need to disappear out the back, knocked into his shoulder.

  “Oi!” Tom was annoyed. The customer had impeded his advance. Tom couldn’t have the boy reaching the door first; he’d embarrass them all. “Watch where you’re going.”

  It was the grockle. The one he’d told Inspector Brown about. When had he arrived? Tom hadn’t noticed him before.

  “Pardon,” the bloke mumbled as he pushed past.

  Old Joe reached the door first.

  “Can we help you, miss?” Old Joe said, opening the door wider.

  “Did you see Lord Atherly’s groom, Herbert, come in here?” The lady glanced about, seeing what she could from the threshold.

  The boy, his mouth hanging open, his eyes glazed and unblinking, pointed toward the back entrance. Tom hadn’t needed to worry about him. The boy was frozen to his seat.

  “Mr. Westwoode? Is that you?” Miss Kendrick said.

  Mr. Westwoode? Tom didn’t know anyone by that name. He followed the lady’s gaze to the retreating figure of the bloke who had nearly knocked him off his feet. The grockle. Tom folded his arms across his chest as the bloke disappeared out the back door. Tom finally had a name for the stranger’s face. Inspector Brown would soon know it too.

  CHAPTER 24

  Whack!

  Stella struck the yellow ball with the mallet, sending it ricocheting off Miss Westwoode’s blue ball and straight through the hoop.

  “Brilliant shot, Miss Kendrick.” Lyndy admired Stella’s concentration and determination, not to mention the fine curve of her backside, as Stella took her stance behind her ball and smacked it again toward the next hoop. Croquet had never been so enjoyable.

  And here is Mrs. Westwoode, to ruin everything.

  “The sun is lovely, don’t you agree, Lord Lyndhurst?” the matron said, strolling over to his side. “After such a dreary start to the day too.”

  Yes, the rain had stopped, and the sky had cleared. What did this woman want him to say? There were fewer things in life that Lyndy hated more than conversations about the weather.

  “My daughter adores croquet. She’s quite skilled at it, though I see Miss Kendrick has played a time or two herself.” Stella expertly smacked her ball again, this time hitting Alice’s ball, earning yet another stroke. “If I may be so bold, Lord Lyndhurst,” Mrs. Westwoode said, facing him. Lyndy kept his eyes on the croquet players. “You need to keep an eye on that future bride of yours.”

  “How so?”

  “Hasn’t anyone told you of our trip to Rosehurst?”

  Lyndy, unable to find Hugh after Stella gave him the burnt letter and promissory note, had taken Beau out for a ride. He’d changed for tea, only to find the ladies had returned from their excursion and were on the lawn, playing croquet. He hadn’t spoken to Stella yet. Hugh, standing beside his red ball, took a few playful practice swings with his mallet. Lyndy’s chest tightened. Lyndy hadn’t spoken to Hugh yet either.

  Taking his silence as an answer, Mrs. Westwoode continued. “Miss Kendrick nearly stepped foot into the public house in Rosehurst today.”

  Almost went into the pub, did she? He suppressed a chuckle as Stella took another smack at her ball, sending it through the next hoop. Well, Mother would certainly not approve. For that alone, he wished she had gone in, despite the scandal that it would’ve caused. He had hoped for different, after all, hadn’t he?

  “And would have, if it hadn’t been for my darling Elizabeth.”

  Lyndy doubted that. Miss Westwoode couldn’t prevent an ant from crossing over her foot, let alone prevent Stella from crossing the threshold of the Knightwood Oak.

  “Aren’t you shocked?” Mrs. Westwoode pressed.

  “Why is what I would like to know. Does Miss Kendrick have a penchant for cider? Or was it the colorful locals she aimed to gawk at?”

  “She wanted to follow someone inside.” That wasn’t the answer Lyndy was expecting.

  “Who?” he said, more churlish than he planned. Why wouldn’t this woman just tell him what had happened?

  Mrs. Westwoode hesitated, glancing first at the croquet players. Then she leaned in and whispered, “She said she saw the scoundrel accused of killing the vicar.”

  Mrs. Westwoode leaned back, satisfied no doubt by the look on Lyndy’s face. He was stunned. Lyndy didn’t know there was such a man. There were suspicions, yes, but no one had been openly accused. He glanced at Hugh, standing beside Miss Westwoode, laughing, at his own joke presumably, as they waited their turn. Could Stella have told Mrs. Westwoode, of all people, his concerns about Hugh?

  “Who would that be?” Lyndy asked, fidgeting with his tie. Harry had tied the damn thing too tight.

  “Herbert, the groom. Who else?” Mrs. Westwoode declared indignantly.

  Lyndy relaxed his shoulders and sought Stella’s gaze. She caught his eye and waved happily at him. She was enjoying herself. He smiled back.

  “Who else would it be?” Mrs. Westwoode added.

  Who else indeed? Lyndy glanced at Hugh again.

  “And was it? Herbert?” he asked. Not very bright of the groom, showing his face in Rosehurst, and in the pub, of all places. Did he think the police wouldn’t hear about it?

  “We’ll never know. As I said, Elizabeth prevented Miss Kendrick from following him inside. But she was most distressed when she returned to the motorcar. The scoundrel had escaped out the back.”

  “Then perhaps it wasn’t such a prudent action on your daug
hter’s part, after all.”

  “What? How could you say that?”

  “If Miss Kendrick could’ve prevented Herbert from escaping, we might have had an end to this business.”

  Lyndy enjoyed the moment, as the affront crossed the lady’s face, before calling to his friend. He had to do this now, before Hugh’s name, and not Herbert’s, was on Mrs. Westwoode’s lips.

  “Hugh, a word?”

  * * *

  Hugh whispered something in the ear of Miss Westwoode, who smiled, and then, carrying his mallet, he jogged over to Lyndy. Stella had missed the last hoop. It was Miss Westwoode’s turn again.

  “What is it?” Hugh said, watching the game. Miss Westwoode hit her ball through the hoop. “Jolly good, Miss Westwoode.”

  “Shall we go somewhere more private?” Lyndy said.

  That got Hugh’s attention. Lyndy led him toward the hedge maze. Built by the fifth Earl of Atherly, using a thousand yews, the quarter-acre square maze had been a favorite hiding place for Lyndy and Alice when Nanny was in a temper. Lyndy hadn’t completed the maze in years.

  “What is this about?” Hugh asked when Lyndy stepped inside the hedges.

  “Do you know anything about this?” Lyndy held out the burnt scrap with the vicar’s name on it.

  Hugh hesitated. “Why would I?”

  “You’re not a good liar, old chap,” Lyndy said. “It was found in your room.”

  Hugh frowned. “How did you get it?” he asked, his voice tense.

  Lyndy glanced down at the mallet in Hugh’s hand. “A maid gave it to Miss Kendrick, and she gave it to me.”

  “Miss Kendrick knows about this?”

  Lyndy nodded.

  “In here.” Hugh swung the mallet to his shoulder and motioned for Lyndy to follow him farther into the maze.

  Hugh chose the first right turn and then the next left turn and then another left. Obviously, Hugh didn’t know where he was going. When they reached the dead end, where the sound of the croquet players was muffled by the tall yew hedges, Hugh stopped. He swung around and raised the mallet. The stripe of red paint around the base of the handle, only a few inches from Lyndy’s face, looked too much like a smear of blood.