by Dean James
“Then someone could have sneaked in through the front door, I suppose,” I said. “Robin, what do you know about Jessamy Cholmondley-Pease?”
“Nothing to make me suspect that she’s involved in this, Simon. Why do you ask?”
“Did Jessamy tell you that I found her lurking in the bushes outside the Hall the night of the murder?”
“What? No, she bloody well didn’t, Simon, and neither did you.”
“Sorry about that, Robin,” I said, a bit embarrassed. “I really thought I had.” Before he could censure me further, I hastened to enlighten him.
“Lost jewelry, eh?” Robin laughed. “How many times have I heard that one?”
“I think Jessamy bears further investigation, Robin. Did you know her father had been gardener at Blitherington Hall? Name of Macleod, and apparently he was quite chummy with Giles’s grandfather. Giles also told me that our Jessamy has a bit of a checkered past. Ran off to London when she was a teenager, then came back here about fifteen years ago, when she snared Cholmondley-Pease.”
As I waited for Robin to chew over these facts, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t once been tempted to bite him on the neck. I had been right, then, about which batch of pills were the real thing. I was much relieved.
“You think it’s possible she might have known Harwood in London?” Robin asked doubtfully.
“I know it’s a bit of a long shot,” I said, “but at this stage, what can it hurt to do a bit of digging?”
While Robin smoked in silence, mulling that over, I thought of something else I should mention. Before I could give voice to my thought, however, I heard the sounds of a key turning in the lock at the front door.
“Excuse me a moment, Robin,” I said, rising from the sofa. “I believe there’s someone at the front door.”
“No need to get up on my account, Simon,” Giles said from the doorway. “My, my, how cozy we are this evening. I do beg your pardon for interrupting your little rendezvous.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Really, Giles, don’t just stand there dripping all over the floor. Take off your coat and hang it up in the hallway, if you please.”
The last thing I needed right now was Giles having a fit of jealousy in front of Robin. Especially given the fact that he was Cliff Weatherstone’s alibi for the murder of Zeke Harwood. I was still inclined to see a bit of red over that little item of news. It served him right to see me here with Robin, since I had found him with Cliff Weatherstone on several occasions.
I poured Giles a whisky and soda and refilled Robin’s glass as well. I handed Giles the glass when he had stalked back into the room. He tossed it off in one gulp, then handed it back to me. “Once more, please, Simon,” he said, having the grace to appear slightly abashed as he seated himself on the sofa.
“Very well,” I said. I prepared the drink, then carried it to him. I too sat on the sofa, but at the other end.
“Simon and I were discussing the case, Giles,” Robin said mildly. “Actually, you arrived at a most opportune time, for there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
I wondered whether Giles had noted that Robin had not, for once, called him “Sir Giles.”
Giles’s eyes narrowed as he sipped his whisky. “What would that be, Detective Inspector?”
I wanted to smack him. Just when I thought he was giving over some of his juvenile behavior, he persisted in acting like a spoiled child.
Robin, however, remained undaunted. “It’s about this secret stairway of yours. Is there any other access to it, besides the doors in the drawing room and the bedroom above?”
“Yes, there’s a cellar beneath it. Didn’t I tell you that?” Giles had told me, but I had forgotten about it, I must admit.
With a small frown, Robin replied, his tone still mild, “No, I don’t believe you did.”
“Can’t believe I didn’t mention it,” Giles said carelessly. “Still, I can’t see that it matters. It hasn’t been opened in years.”
“That you know of,” Robin pointed out.
“Well, yes,” Giles said. “But surely you would have seen signs of it, when you and your minions examined it.”
“The SOCOs did a very thorough job, I can assure you,” Robin said, his voice at last taking on a bit of an edge. “But it would certainly have been a great help to have known about this cellar before now.”
“Sorry,” Giles muttered, accepting the rebuke more mildly than I would have expected.
“How big is this cellar?” Robin asked. “And is there a way into the cellar, other than from this stairway?”
“It’s a glorified priest hole,” Giles said. “I believe one of my ancestors used it to hide his brandy back during the Napoleonic wars, and before that it might have been used as a priest hole. One of the Blitheringtons was a Catholic holdout for a while, if memory serves. But then we all became good little Anglicans, don’t you know.
“I suppose there must be another way in and out of the bally thing, but I don’t know where it is. I thought my grandfather had had it blocked off, because one of the grooms in those days was sneaking in and having it off with my grandmother.” He grinned. “Which could explain why the old bat was so dashed unpleasant when I knew her. Hard to imagine her having illicit trysts with a groom, right under the old man’s nose, so to speak.”
Robin set his empty glass on the table in front of him and stubbed out his cigar. He stood up. “I’m afraid I must ask you, then, to accompany me back to Blitherington Hall, Sir Giles. I think we should examine this secret cellar as quickly as possible. I don’t know that the killer used it, but we had best make certain. If I might use your phone, Simon, I’ll have to get my team moving.”
“Certainly, Robin,” I said. “Use the phone in my office.”
I waited until Robin was out of earshot before I spoke my mind to Giles. “Really, Giles, I despair of you. How could you behave so childishly just now?”
“I’m sorry, Simon,” Giles said, and indeed he did appear contrite. “I came here with the best intentions, but when I saw you with Chase, all that flew out the window.” He clenched his hands into fists. “You really do drive me mad sometimes, Simon.”
He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I came here because I wanted to explain to you about Cliff Weatherstone, Simon. It’s not what you think—his alibi, I mean.”
“You mean to say you weren’t snogging in your bedroom?” I used the slang deliberately.
Giles’s face colored. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, Giles? How does one ‘not exactly’ snog?”
“I mean,” he said, “that Cliff certainly wanted to, even tried to, but I wouldn’t. We had a bit of an argument, if you must know, and it was over you.”
“You resisted Cliff’s considerable wiles for my sake?” I said. “I am truly honored.”
The sarcasm was uncalled for, I knew, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I had to admit to myself that I was just as jealous as Giles was. “Sorry, Giles, that was unworthy of me. Forgive me.”
“If you’ll do the same for me.” His smile was radiant.
Robin cleared his throat from the doorway. “If you don’t mind, Sir Giles,” he said, “I think we had best get back to Blitherington Hall. My team is on the way.”
I wondered how much of that little exchange Robin might have heard. Not too much, I hoped.
“Mind if I tag along, Robin?” I said. “I’d love to see this secret staircase, if I might.”
“Why not?” Robin shrugged.
“Thanks.” I turned to Giles. “Did you walk here, Giles?”
He nodded.
“That’s why you were so wet when you arrived here. You can come with me, then, and we’ll follow Robin in his car.”
And thus we set off for Blitherington Hall.
It was certainly a dark and stormy night. No wonder, then, that Giles had been out of sorts by the time he slogged through all that only to find me, warm and comfortable and enjoyin
g the company of the man he considered his chief rival for my affections. Silly boy, I thought fondly, as I concentrated on directing the Jag through the driving rain.
“Do you have any clue as to who the murderer is, Simon?” Giles asked, stirring in the seat beside me.
“There are several possibilities, Giles,” I said. “Much depends on who’s telling the truth ... and who’s not. But there’s also a bit of an unknown factor.” I was thinking, in the latter case, of Jessamy Cholmondley-Pease. She had played some role in this little drama, but what that was, I wasn’t completely certain.
“And my mother is the only one who doesn’t have some sort of alibi,” Giles said. “Still, I can’t think that Chase is going to arrest her.”
“No, I don’t think he’ll do that,” I said as I drew the car into the forecourt of Blitherington Hall and parked behind Robin, who was just getting out of his car. The press had at last decamped, apparently not brave enough—or foolhardy enough—to sit through the rain tonight.
We made a dash for the front door. Robin stood aside to allow Giles in first. Thompson had neglected to lock the door, which made Giles’s key unnecessary. And if Thompson had left the front door unlocked on a night like this, might he not also have left it unlocked the evening of the murder? Just last night, I realized with a start Yes, he might well have done so, which only complicated matters.
“The SOCOs will be here in a few minutes,” Robin said, taking off his wet coat. We hung ours alongside his on the rack, then followed him to the door of the drawing room. Robin drew the key from his pocket. “I had thought to return this to you, Sir Giles,” he said, brandishing the key, “but it seems I might need it a bit longer.” He opened the door.
We stepped inside. The lights had been left burning, and I paused to glance around the room. It did indeed resemble a shambles. Surely Harwood’s crew would come in and clean up their mess, despite the fact that this was a job that would remain unfinished. That would be the decent thing to do. They would at least retrieve their tools and supplies, if nothing else.
Robin directed our attention to the wall where the door to the hidden staircase stood slightly ajar. “I’d rather that you not go all the way inside, Simon,” he said. “I believe you can see as much as you need to see from the doorway.” He picked up an electric torch from the floor beside the door. “Use this.”
It might sound childish, I know, but ever since I first encountered Nancy Drew at the age of nine or ten, I’ve been fascinated by secret passages and the like. How thrilling it was to investigate the old Turnbull mansion with Nancy, and shiver as she found her way through the hidden staircase.
Thus it was with great anticipation that I stepped to the doorway, pushed it further open with my elbow, clicked on the electric torch, and shone it inside. Perhaps I was doomed to disappointment, for I had imagined something a bit grander, more mysterious, than what the light revealed.
To my left, a steep wooden staircase led up to the bedroom above. Here and there, as I waved the electric torch around, I spotted a cobweb, but I could see that someone had indeed swept much of the dust away from the stairs. The air was a bit cooler inside the passage, despite the fact that the doorway had been standing slightly open for quite some time.
I shone the light up the stairs again. From my vantage point I estimated that the steps were almost wide enough to allow two thin persons to walk abreast up or down. The steps appeared more worn in the center. At some point in the past they must have had quite regular use. Perhaps in the days when Giles’s grandmother was having her fling with the groom. I grinned.
I stepped away from the door and blinked in the brighter light of the drawing room. “Where is the entrance to the cellar, Giles?”
“There should be a trapdoor,” Giles said. "There’s no ring or anything to grab any longer. I believe my grandfather had the opening mechanism removed and the stones replaced. That’s why I doubt anyone has made use of it since that time. Deuced difficult to open, I should think.”
Robin took the electric torch from me and moved to shine it on the floor. There was an expanse of about six or seven feet square of rough-hewn stone at the bottom of the stairs. I crowded behind Robin and peered over his shoulder. He stiffened when he felt my hand on his shoulder, and I resisted the temptation to squeeze. I wouldn’t want him to misinterpret my playful gesture.
“I believe I see it,” Robin said, gesturing for me to move back. He snapped off the electric torch and turned to face Giles and me. “It’s difficult to tell, with the stone floor, but I believe I see where one of the stones looks a bit less worn. That must be where the original mechanism was.”
“How did it work originally?” I asked.
Giles shrugged. “I’m not certain, but I think it must have been some sort of spring mechanism. If you knew precisely where to push, the spring would open the lock, and then you could lift the door up.”
The arrival of Robin’s SOCO team put an end to further speculation. Giles and I removed ourselves to the library as Robin began to issue instructions. Giles helped himself to another whisky and soda while I made myself comfortable in one of the leather armchairs.
“No, none for me,” I said, waving away Giles’s offer of a drink.
“Do you really think someone could have gained access to the house through that secret cellar, Simon?” Giles settled himself in his accustomed place behind the desk.
“It’s entirely possible,” I said. “But that person would have to have more knowledge of Blitherington Hall than I would have expected. You did tell me, did you not, that the gardener Macleod was quite the crony of your grandfather’s?”
“Yes,” Giles said. “He would certainly have known of it, because, now that I think about it, I believe he was the one who discovered what was going on between my grandmother and the groom.”
“And Macleod had a daughter.”
“Jessamy? Good grief, Simon, are you saying that you think Jessamy knew about the secret passage and such?” Giles was thunderstruck. “I never even thought of that.”
“I think it’s possible, Giles, and we must consider every possibility.”
“But what possible motive could she have for killing Zeke Harwood? She had never even met the man.”
“As far as we know, Giles, but she might have. You told me that she ran off to London years ago, and she might have known him in her London days.”
“That’s possible,” Giles conceded.
“As for a motive, he did after all humiliate her in front of the village worthies, if you’ll remember,” I said. “And our Jessamy is rather proud of her position here.”
“Well, yes,” Giles said, “but that’s hardly sufficient motive, don’t you think?”
“Probably not, though we shouldn’t forget it.” I paused, considering another tack. “Tell me, Giles, how difficult is it for someone to get into the main cellar? Can it be done from outside the house?”
Giles considered that for a moment. “There is one way, but whoever did it would get pretty filthy, I should think, just getting in.” He explained that there was one small window, on the south side of the Hall, which opened directly into the cellar. “I shouldn’t think, however, that it has been opened in donkey’s years. I suppose I should let Chase know that, however, so he and his men can check it out.”
“Yes, they’ll need to check it,” I said. “But it could all be one big red herring. I have the feeling that we’ve been overlooking something all along. Perhaps this case isn’t really as complicated as it seems.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I sat and brooded in silence while Giles got up and lit the wood already laid in the fireplace. Giles stood warming his hands appreciatively before the fire, once he had it going to his satisfaction. Then he turned and toasted his backside while he watched me.
What had I overlooked? If the alibis of Piers, Moira, and Dittany held up, then Jessamy looked like a stronger possibility as the killer. But why would she have wanted to kill Zeke H
arwood? Had she known him during her London days? Even if she had, and he had done something horrible to her, why would she have waited so long to exact revenge?
Opportunity was the most likely answer to that last question. The killer had made use of the peculiarities of Blitherington Hall in order to commit a murder that was proving difficult to solve. I wouldn’t have thought Jessamy was that clever, but perhaps she was smarter than I had credited.
If not Jessamy, though, who could be the killer? Maybe it was Thompson, the butler. I stifled a laugh. Maybe Thompson, in a misguided fit of loyalty to Lady Prunella, had used his key, gone into the drawing room, and batted Harwood over the head. All so Harwood would not continue to annoy Thompson’s mistress.
I was about to share my latest theory with Giles when a knock sounded at the door.
“Enter,” Giles called, and Robin Chase opened the door.
“Any luck, Robin?” I asked.
“It rather depends on what you call luck, Simon,” Robin said wearily, crossing the room to stand in front of the fire. “Ah, that’s just the ticket. It was bloody cold down in that cellar.”
Robin had looked a bit blue in the face when he first came in, not to mention the smears of dust here and there on his suit.
“What did you find, Robin?” I asked.
“Plenty of dirt and cobwebs, not to mention the corpses of numerous insects,” Robin said. “I doubt anyone had been in that small chamber for fifty years or more.”
“I guess that answers one of our questions,” I said. “Did you find the way into the main cellar?”
“Oh, yes,” Robin said, “though it took a bit of work. We couldn’t open it from within, so we went into the main cellar to investigate. We finally found the door, but Sir Giles was quite correct It had been made completely inoperable. No one got in that way.”
“Back to square one, then,” I said, a bit deflated.
“Indeed,” Robin said, sounding every bit as weary as he looked.
“I regret that you’ve had to waste time on such a wild goose chase, Detective Inspector,” Giles said.