Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas)

by Benison, C. C.

  “Do you need this cafetière?”

  “No, I have others,” Marguerite called over her shoulder.

  “Let me clear.”

  “Oh, would you? How kind.” Marguerite’s head turned sharply as she moved to the refrigerator. She stared at the table, as if momentarily disconcerted. “Roberto must have made himself at home.”

  “Tom found Oliver,” Jane remarked as she loaded the lengths of both arms with plates, then said to Tom, who had openly admired her skill, “I’ve done this before. I waited tables at a lobster restaurant in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, when I was a teenager.”

  “I was going to ask where.” Marguerite popped the lip from a canister and spooned coffee beans into the grinder.

  “Where I grew up?”

  “No, where Oliver was found.”

  “I found him in the Labyrinth, Lady Fairhaven.” Tom hobbled into the room out of Jane’s way, feeling inept before these competent women. The door into an adjacent mudroom was open; so, too, was the top half of a Dutch door that led onto the garden. Pegged along a rack against one wall between the doors he glimpsed the usual array of outerwear—waxed jackets, quilted jackets, a riding coat, assorted tweed caps and felt hats—all in country drab, but for one red hoodie crested with an ARSENAL FC logo. He had a notion who that might belong to and gave a passing thought to the nature of Marguerite and Roberto’s living arrangements.

  “When?”

  Tom turned from his glance at the footwear under the mudroom bench, walking sticks and other paraphernalia to respond: “Very early this morning. The sun was barely nudging the horizon.”

  “Then no one else was about?”

  Tom hesitated. The metallic shriek of beans being pulverised gave him leave to consider his reply. Had it been a trick of the light or, rather, a trick of the shadow? Had he truly seen the back of someone’s head? And why did he think it was a woman’s? Something about the shape, the sense of hair longer than most men wore these days? Lucinda remained worryingly in his mind. But now, unhappily, not wishing to acknowledge the terrible possibility, he studied the back of the dowager countess’s head as she bent to her task, at the cut of her silvery blond hair, conscious that Her Ladyship was an early riser (she had said so moments earlier in the forecourt), conscious, too, that though she was a woman in her sixties, she exhibited the agility and vigor of a woman a decade or more younger. But to be capable of strangling a man? Then beetling off into the shrubbery? And for what possible reason? It was all too ridiculous.

  And yet there was something watchful in her eyes when she turned and met his, clearly expecting an answer to her seemingly nonchalant question. Her eyes dipped as she removed the top of the grinder and the moment was lost.

  “There wouldn’t have been enough light for me to know for sure if there was.” He chose his words with care as he watched Marguerite spoon the ground coffee into the cafetière. “… anyone about,” he added, noting Jane transfer a curious doubting frown from the used coffee mugs she was carrying to him.

  “And you heard nothing?” she asked, depositing the china on the island near Marguerite.

  “I can say for certain I heard a cat. And saw one. And I’m pretty sure I heard some noises in the shrubbery.”

  The kettle’s hiss turned to a shriek at that moment, severing conversation. Marguerite lifted it from the hob and they waited in silence for the water to cool slightly, the murmur of the muted radio and the ticking of the wall-mounted clock now the ascendant sounds. Tom glanced at the two women, each of whose face reposed in private thought.

  “Someone must have been very angry with Oliver.” Jane broke the silence as Marguerite poured a little hot water over the grounds and swirled the cafetière around. After a few seconds, she tipped the kettle to pour in the rest.

  “Perhaps.” A plume of steam obscured Marguerite’s face momentarily. “Well, yes,” she said, as if conceding the point. She flicked a glance at Tom. “What with? Do you know?”

  “If you mean the … instrument of death, I don’t know,” Tom replied, taking the liberty of sitting down. “Nothing was in evidence that I could see. I expect when the scene of crime experts are through something will come to light.”

  “We’re going to have the whole spectacle of the police and the law upon us, aren’t we?” Marguerite pressed the plunger into the cafetière. “I can’t think this will go very well for Hector. Jane, fresh mugs are on the dresser.”

  “Because the police will learn that Hector and Olly had been fighting?” Jane lifted three mugs off their hooks.

  “In part. If Hector’s determined to stand for Parliament, any breath of scandal will do him no good. The prime minister’s very hot on propriety of all sorts these days.”

  “Marve, do you have any idea why they were at each other yesterday?”

  “Not at all. I asked Hector yesterday and he stubbornly refused to tell me. There wasn’t much point in asking Oliver, as he never gives … gave, rather, you a straight answer about anything.” Marguerite carried the cafetière to the table. “I suppose all one can say to the police is that Hector and Olly never got on, so that yesterday’s incident is simply another in a long line.” She flicked a glance down at Tom. “I can read the ‘why’ in your face, Vicar.”

  “Oh, dear. And I thought I was doing well looking blank.”

  Marguerite laughed and continued: “They’ve never really rubbed along, Hector and Olly. There’s no point in not saying these things. If I read detective novels correctly, we’re all in for a bout of living in each other’s pockets.” She settled the cafetière next to the cream jug Jane had left on the table. “I think it’s simply … well, sometimes you meet someone and you simply can’t bear them from the moment you shake their paw. Biscuit, anyone? Mrs. Gaunt sent over some lovely baking the other day. She’s a superb cook, she really is, but I do find her a little severe.” Marguerite glanced about. “There it is!” She walked over and lifted a tin from the counter under the window. “Now what was I saying?”

  “Hector and Olly not getting on,” Jane prompted.

  “Right, yes, well, I think there was some incident when they were in the Parachute Regiment. I don’t really know. I’m not sure if it’s important now.” Marguerite opened the lid and placed the tin on the table. “Plates, Jane, if you please. Anyway, the Stricklands and the fforde-Becketts are rather chalk and cheese. Unlike the fforde-Becketts, the Stricklands have managed to weather the chop and change of the last century. Perhaps it’s having remained resolutely Catholic through the Reformation and the Civil War. It’s made the Stricklands wilier. I’ve just thought of that. I’m not sure it’s true. But it is true that the fforde-Becketts threw most of it away on the horses, women, bad investments—that foolish scheme in the West Indies of Olly’s father. By the way, Tom, you should get Maxie to show you and your daughter the priest holes at the Hall and such. He adores the intrigue.” Marguerite glanced at her watch as she sat down and bid Jane do the same. “I wonder …”

  “Wonder what?”

  “I don’t usually go, even on Sunday. Sorry, I’m thinking out loud. Father Downes, Jane. You must have met him while you’ve been here. He comes up to Eggescombe from Ivybridge every morning when Hector’s in residence to say Mass in the chapel. A retired priest.” Marve turned to Tom. “Quite the amateur architectural historian. Loves Eggescombe.” She laughed. “And last Sunday, he stayed on for lunch, Mrs. Gaunt’s cooking being the attraction. I can’t say I blame him. She is a little treasure.”

  “Shall I be mother?” Jane’s hand brushed the cafetière’s handle. “Black or white?”

  Both Tom and Marguerite opted for black coffee.

  “But you are coming for Sunday lunch, Marve.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m simply wondering if I should go to Mass. I’m a convert, you understand,” she said to Tom, adding obliquely, “it was the price of admission. Dare I bring Roberto?” She smiled knowingly at Jane.

  “To lunch? Hector didn’t say.” J
ane flicked a glance at Tom as she poured the coffee.

  Marguerite snorted. “Roberto’s too busy working anyway.” She pinched her lips in thought, then said in a somewhat reluctant tone, “I suppose I could take you over to the stables when we’re done here so you could see what he’s doing.”

  “I’d like that,” Tom said, considering the excursion another way to keep the children preoccupied.

  “He won’t be terribly communicative, though.” Marguerite looked as though she regretted the invitation. She glanced at Tom then lifted a biscuit from the tin. “I’ve had a thought—Dominic!” She bit into it. “Was he terribly pleased?”

  “Marve!” Jane looked up from the cream she was pouring into her mug.

  “Was he, Tom?”

  “I couldn’t say.” In truth he couldn’t, though he had a qualm. When Lucinda had dipped into her deep curtsy and addressed her half brother with the honorific, Tom, later than the others, had realised the implication. With Oliver possessed of no legitimate male heir of his body, the marquessate passed automatically to his late father’s late brother’s son—his cousin, Dominic fforde-Beckett.

  Dominic had received Lucinda’s gesture with an expression of bemusement. He was wearing cream-coloured khakis and a fresh white shirt, the sleeves of which he was rolling to his elbows as he responded:

  “I feel like I’ve stumbled into Act Two of some Regency farce—or is it Jacobean melodrama?—and haven’t the foggiest what the play is about. What is the play about? Is that kedgeree I smell? Good morning, all.” He pushed his long, slightly damp hair behind his ears.

  “The gods have smiled upon you this morning, brother dear.”

  “Lucy, that’s quite enough out of you,” Hector barked. “Oliver has died, Dominic.”

  “What do you mean, died?”

  “Died. Ceased to be.” Hector sounded the exasperation of a man fed up. “Died!” he said again.

  “I take your point, Hector, but how did he die? He certainly looked hale yesterday. Liver failure? Sorry, Georgie, I didn’t mean to sound cavalier.”

  “No, Oliver’s been killed—well, murdered, I suppose.” Hector glanced at Miranda.

  “Oh, don’t be silly.”

  “Somebody else tell him.”

  “It’s true, Dominic.” Jamie spoke. “Oliver’s body is in the Labyrinth. We’re waiting for the police, well, more police.”

  “Good God.”

  It fell to Hector to explain the events of the morning, which he did briefly and gracelessly—in a growing bad temper.

  “It’s unbelievable,” Dominic said, turning to his cousin. “Really, Georgie, I am so very sorry.” He addressed her with further expressions of condolence, yet, somehow, to Tom’s ears, the words were formulaic and the tone practised—more a facsimile of sympathy than sympathy itself—though he knew from his pastoral work how oddly shock could shape words and affect people.

  “Inheriting the marquessate and all wasn’t alluded to again,” Tom said to Marguerite now, his thoughts returned to the present. “So no, I couldn’t really tell you what Dominic’s feelings might be.”

  “Not that there’s much left in the kitty, I shouldn’t think.” Marguerite looked over the table. “There’s still the house in Eaton Square. At least now Charlotte and Lucinda won’t be homeless, not that Charlotte’s much in London, I’m given to understand. Oh, Jane, you don’t have a spoon.” She rose quickly.

  “Marve, it doesn’t matter,” Jane called after her.

  But Marve, having reached the counter, held up a warning finger, her other hand adjusting the knob of the radio so the familiar strains of BBC Radio Devon’s news summary filled the room. Belinda Dixon’s practised voice followed:

  The headlines: Police are reporting the death of one of Britain’s leading entertainment entrepreneurs this morning. Oliver fforde-Beckett, the Marquess of Morborne, founder of London’s Icarus club and of the Daedalus Group, manager of such bands as Lovebox and Heir of the Dog, and organiser of last year’s Child-Aid benefit at Wembley Stadium, was found dead early this morning at Eggescombe Park, the Devon estate of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Fairhaven. His death is being treated by police as suspicious. In other news, more than seventy organisations have expressed concern about the government’s plans to overhaul the benefits system—

  Marguerite snapped the radio off. Tom could see the rise, then the fall, of Marguerite’s bosom under the shirt she wore as she released a deep sigh. She turned to them, her face somber.

  “Why,” she asked, as a burst of childish laughter, perversely timed, came from down the hall, “does hearing it on the radio make it seem that much more real?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “My plan … or rather, the plan,” Marguerite said, as if it were necessary to make the distinction, “is to convert much of the stable block into artists’ studios—or studio and accommodation, in some instances. One of them is finished, for display.” She gestured to the back of the large central yard. “And I’ll still keep a few horses—there.” Her hand moved to the left from whence came a scuff of hooves and the thump of great weight against a stall, the animals’ response to their mistress’s voice. “So it can be put to good use.”

  “Pater thinks it’s a rum idea. I heard him tell Mater.”

  “And what do you think, poppet?” Marguerite smiled at Maximilian indulgently.

  “I think it’s wizard. When I’m earl I shall do all sorts.”

  “Good boy. Eggescombe needs single-minded attention and lots of imagination, if it’s going to survive.”

  Tom and Jane exchanged glances. Poor Hector, Tom thought: damned all but in name. In a battle of wills, he suspected the dowager countess would easily vanquish her son.

  “The notion”—Marguerite shielded her eyes against the high sun beaming into the central courtyard—“is that the artists can display and sell their wares, in this courtyard, in good weather, or in a shop that will be over there.” She indicated a complex of arched door wells at the far end of the stable block. “Once we remove the old box stalls, of course. And there’ll be a tearoom next to it for light refreshments. There’s an old kitchen and scullery in that corner, so the conversion shouldn’t be too, too difficult.

  “An all-season attraction, I explained to Hector.” Marguerite glanced down. A hefty white cat had darted from seemingly nowhere and curled around her legs. “Visitors don’t want to tramp around the Labyrinth—or Alice’s Garden when it’s finished—in wet weather. So they can come here in February. People can watch the painters and sculptors and potters at work. We’ll have exhibits and openings and the like. Event planning, they call it.”

  “Great larks, Grandmama. Here, puss.”

  “One of the village cats, I think, but it’s become quite attached to Roberto.” Marguerite pushed it gently away with her foot. “It will mean some extra winter employment for the village. There’ll be more people rattling around here than just me and the estate manager and his wife, so Eggescombe Park won’t seem such a museum. It will promote artists from the southwest, or London, or wherever. There’ll be increased revenues … eventually, of course. I think it’s a winner. And,” she added sotto voce, as Max and Miranda wandered towards the source of horse noises, “the other directors of Eggescombe Enterprises agreed with me. Ha!

  “Come, you two.” Marguerite amplified her voice. “Let’s see what Mr. Sica is up to this morning. How’s the cast boot, Tom?”

  “Splendid.”

  It was. Quite the contraption, the boot hugged most of his lower leg and foot in a shell of plastic held together by a fiesta of Velcro straps. He had tried it out as the five of them had walked from the dower house towards the stable block, down a private path, marvelling at the relative comfort, grateful that he could—almost literally—throw away his crutches. (He left them in the dower house mudroom instead.) Intermittent birdsong and whispering trees slowly gave precedence to a steady manufactured rhythm as they drew closer to the stables, the whir and whine of a
machine, more evident still where the path joined the drive and they passed through the arched entrance beneath the clock tower. “Georgian,” Marguerite had remarked apropos of very little as Tom glanced about, noting the classical detailing. “Built nearly two centuries after the house and my little cottage. Catholics couldn’t own more than one horse at one time. They were weapons of war during the Reformation. Rather like owning a tank today.”

  Now the mechanical sound from within the stables seemed to stall and start as they approached the pair of great wooden doors, one of which rested on its hinge, open a crack and allowing the cat egress. Tom could feel the courtyard bricks below the naked toes of his right foot radiate with the day’s growing heat and he felt sweat bloom under his arms.

  “Roberto’s been a bit the canary in the coal mine in this venture. But having him here at Eggescombe has proved that resident artists can work well. Roberto,” she called, tugging at the heavy door and peeking in, “I hope we’re not intruding. Roberto?”

  The hinge squealed in protest as Marguerite pushed and Tom, awkwardly, pulled. The sun sent an angle of honey-yellow light spilling several feet into the dark interior, scintillating the mote-heavy air into a blurring scrim. But it was his nose, not his impaired eyes, that was first assailed by the peculiarities of the studio. A washhouse dampness pervaded, a stale smell of wet clay, yet, oddly, blunted by a kind of dust, so desiccating that Tom’s eyes watered as he fought to prevent a sneeze. Through his teeming eyes, he glimpsed a cavernous room, the full two storeys of the stable block, lying in half shadow, a jumble of vague shapes obscuring its perimeters. The spill of sunshine surrendered to the blue-white brilliance of two floodlights on stands directed towards a cleared space near the centre of the room where more fine powder fanned out in silky plumes, whitening the air. The person wielding the machine—some sort of sander, Tom presumed—was obscured by the artwork’s massing, but the sound of grit upon stone was not. An almost satisfying shrill, it filled the space. Tom sneezed loudly, then sneezed again with greater force, but his echoing blasts (to Tom’s ears) provoked no reaction. Wiping his eyes, he glimpsed, through a curving limb in the statuary, a frightening mask with gleaming eyes and a snout like a metal pig’s, then another glimpse, this of a flowing headdress, like the white keffiyeh of an Arab. No one watching moved. Tom sensed them all transfixed by the artist in the act of creation, and when Roberto backed around the statue with the sander, a figure streaked with white, no one, at least not Tom, noticed for a moment that he wore nothing below his neck save for dust-covered trainers and gardening gloves. Jolted, feeling as if he were intruding on a very private act, Tom glanced away, then glanced at Miranda, who was staring with open-eyed surprise.