“Thank you, Mr. Christmas.” Ellen’s throat caught on his name. Her distress passed through him like an invisible wave and he felt the helplessness of the bystander, able to offer only the inoffensive words,
“I’m sure this incident will be resolved soon.”
She nodded but said nothing. He sensed her composing herself at considerable cost and was relieved when Jane fetched him forthwith.
“Mrs. Gaunt seems troubled,” Tom remarked when the two of them were out of earshot along the passage leading into the interior of the Hall.
Jane flicked him a glance as they passed through a recessed door in the wall that opened onto the grand staircase. “Yes, I thought so, too. I guess we’re all being affected one way or another, aren’t we? Georgie having her lunch on a tray in her room isn’t a good sign, for one.”
The news that Roberto Sica had been removed to Totnes was the midday meal’s chief diversion. It was Jane herself who had seen the car with the Battenberg markings drive past while she was out walking and recognised the head in the backseat. By the time Tom returned to the Hall from the dower house and could confirm events, speculation had grown invidious.
“Poor Marve,” Lucinda reacted with a hint of schadenfreude as she poured herself a second vermouth from the drawing room’s drinks table. “I’m sure she’ll miss him terribly.”
“He hasn’t been arrested or charged,” Tom insisted as Gaunt poured him a whisky. “Helping the police with their enquiries is not tantamount to guilt.”
“Tom is correct, of course.” Jamie glared over his gin at Lucinda, who made a rude noise at him over her drink. “I doubt he’ll be detained for very long.”
Jane frowned into her mineral water, saying nothing. Dominic, with a dry sherry, retreated to the French windows to look out over the terrace, as if he wished to distance himself from his half sister. Hector flicked uninterpretable glances at Tom between sips of sherry. Had, Tom wondered, Lord Fairhaven met with Bliss and Blessing while he had visited the dowager countess? And what had been disclosed?
“It’s that brooding quality they have,” Lucinda continued when they were seated for luncheon.
“Who is they?” Jamie unfolded a napkin on his lap.
“Italians.”
“If you’re referring to Roberto, I understood he was born in London.”
“Doesn’t matter. They brood,” Lucinda drew out the word, then grazed the air with a kiss. “Ever so sexy, don’t you think, Dominic, darling?”
“Shut up, Lucy. You’ve had too much to drink.”
“And then they explode!” she continued, ignoring him. “Boom! And they find their hands are around someone’s neck and—”
“Lucy! Gaunt, remove the wine,” Hector barked to his butler.
“Oh, Hector, I’m simply trying to—”
“For heaven’s sake, Lucy,” Jane cut in, “you can’t attribute this to a Mediterranean temperament. It’s ridiculous. From what little I’ve seen, Roberto’s been a gentleman. Has anyone seen an instance of temper? Hector? You come down to Eggescombe during the year and stay with Marve. Have you …?”
“Well, he’s only been Mother’s guest a little over a year and he keeps out of my way when I’m down, but …” Hector’s tone conveyed regret more than concurrence. “No, he doesn’t seem particularly … murderous.”
“ ‘Countess’s Toyboy in Killing Spree.’ ” Lucinda’s arm shot out in illustration of an imaginary tabloid headline, almost hitting Gaunt in the process of taking the wine carafe from the table. “Gaunt, don’t you dare touch that wine.”
“Lucy,” Hector thundered, “if the police hadn’t supplanted me as master of my own house, I would ask you to leave. At once!”
“Hector, don’t be such a bore!”
“And now you’ve spilled wine on yourself, you stupid girl. And a single individual does not constitute a ‘spree’!”
Luncheon—in addition to chilled cucumber soup, a crab salad with lemon and caper, and crusty French bread, with a raspberry soufflé for afters—had continued in a similarly fraught vein until Hector, evidently disgusted, excused himself for some work in the estate office, with an invitation to Jamie to join him in due course. Lucy opted for another afternoon by the pool, as did Dominic. Tom, still concerned for Miranda’s welfare, followed in the same direction shortly after, his destination the kitchen where the children were ensconced. Jane joined him. Her idea was that they should take Miranda and Max on a nature walk but, of course, they were too late.
Now, as they stepped off the grand staircase and into the bright, mullion-windowed Long Gallery, which ran the length of the house, Jane said, “When I was out walking before lunch, I saw one of Hector’s private security hustle Andrew Macgreevy away off the property. Do you remember him?”
“Yes,” Tom murmured. He was distracted by the plaster vaulted ceiling carved in coils of honeysuckle and the rankings of family portraits along panelling that glowed like silk in the afternoon sun. “He was that reporter snooping around Thornford after Colm Parry’s daughter was found murdered last year. He was very interested in your brother-in-law Sebastian … John, I mean. Did he see you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t suppose it matters. He’s just doing his job. But he has sort of got in the way at other critical times in my life.” Jane stopped at a door past a large hanging tapestry presenting the Fall of Man. “Jamie says he’s my nemesis.”
“You managed to rein him in last time, I recall, when I met you for the first time last year.”
“I’m afraid I expended all my capital then. I can’t call in any favours this time.”
“Will you have to?”
“I don’t know.” Jane opened the door and ushered Tom to another staircase, smaller and cruder in material and execution. “Did you look at the papers this morning?”
“Glanced at a few Gaunt must have placed on the library table. I noticed Hector kept them out of the morning room. The tabloids were predictably obnoxious. I feel very sorry for that woman Oliver was engaged to.”
“I know. I’m sure she wasn’t aware of some of the family history they dredged up.” Jane puffed a little. The stairs were steeper here, curving, with a couple of short landings leading to doors that went who knew where.
Talk of newspapers recalled to Tom his encounter earlier with Anna Phillips. “Good heavens,” he muttered unthinkingly, an idea coming to him diamond-bright.
“What?”
“That woman.”
“What woman?”
Tom could no more take back his words than he could put toothpaste back in its tube. “The woman I thought I glimpsed in the Labyrinth yesterday morning. I think it’s Anna Phillips!”
“Anna …? The local woman whose brother was killed? How—”
“I met her.”
“Oh, Tom! You didn’t! Why didn’t you say earlier? Is John—my John, our John—her partner? Did you ask?”
Tom felt moved by her excitement and hated to dash her hopes. “She’s Ree Corlett, all right. She said so.”
“Wait till I tell my husband!”
“But she said her partner is John Phillips and it’s simply chance they share a surname.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You’re disappointed, of course.”
“No, I mean I don’t believe it. I don’t believe her. Where did you meet her?”
“At Marguerite’s. This morning. She’s Marguerite’s daily. She found a back route onto the estate.” Tom outlined the encounter. “I had an odd sensation when I was looking at her, as if we’d met before. The way the light caught her when we were in the kitchen. And now I know why, or think I do.”
“Then she made the dew path across the south lawn—the one you followed?”
“The other one, more likely, I would think,” Tom reflected. “The one path leading towards Abbotswick. She lives in the village after all.”
Jane glanced over her shoulder at him. “Is it possible she …?”
; “I … I don’t know.” Tom’s impulse was to exempt the fair sex from brutal displays of physicality, but strong emotion he was certain could trump any physical disadvantage. “She was, I could sense, under strain, but of course she’s only just lost her brother. I don’t think she was happy to see me with Marguerite, however.
“And she said the oddest thing, Jane. When I offered my condolences and expressed the hope that she would receive some justice, she said, ‘Rough justice may have already prevailed.’ ”
“Rough justice,” Jane repeated. She had reached the top of the stairs and turned to him. “That’s provocative.”
“She certainly looked alarmed when we heard the voices coming from the drawing room, and after Roberto was taken away and I went back to the kitchen with Marguerite to fetch some eggs to bring back to the Hall, she had vanished.” Tom joined Jane on the small landing. “ ‘Likes to start her cleaning in the upstairs rooms,’ Marguerite said.”
“I wonder if we should be concerned?”
“For Marguerite’s well-being? I don’t know. Oddly, Marguerite asked me to keep my having seen Anna to myself—which, obviously, I’ve dishonoured.”
“For good reason, perhaps, Tom.”
“There was some … undercurrent between the two women, but not, I don’t think, a fraught one. I suppose I could be wrong.”
“Marve knows everyone in the village. I’m sure if she thought this Anna posed some sort of danger, she wouldn’t be passive about it.”
“Yes, I expect so.”
Jane glanced at her watch. “We’re having tea at the dower house later this afternoon. We can press Marve for details then. And I strongly hope Anna will still be there. I have questions for her! You didn’t ask her for a description of this John Phillips, by any chance?”
“That would have implied I didn’t believe her.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Jane sighed. “Well, here we are. This is it.”
Tom observed a wall of brick. “There’s nothing.”
“Not really.” Jane groped along the wall until she found what looked to be an iron handle well concealed among the projecting bricks, seizing it with one hand and pushing. A portion of the wall began to give inwards, making a dull grating noise as it moved.
“Cunning,” Tom remarked as they slipped into what was a small garret room, with a low arch-braced roof, a plain unvarnished oak floor, and a deeply recessed double lancet window.
“The priest’s room, so called,” Jane said. “And that slab of wood under the window was the altar, according to Hector, though it looks very unfinished.”
“And appropriately east facing, too.” Tom went to look out the window. He could see the edge of the Labyrinth, below, and the police tape surrounding it. Evidently PC Widger had secured it sufficient.
“Now, let’s see,” said Jane behind him. “Oh, the kids have been here. Look.”
Tom turned from the window. One of the timber beams in the plaster wall was pivoted outwards; secreted in the brickwork behind was a cavity large enough for a man to crawl into. Tom flashed his torch along it and shuddered with horror imagining a priest lying with racing heart in that black recess, the beam closed behind him, as the pursuivants, the king’s men, ransacked the house. Who knew how long one would lie there, cramped and sore, half starved, barely daring to draw breath.
“Apparently, there’s a way of shutting yourself in from the inside, but Hector had it removed—just in case. And somewhere in this wainscoting are tiny holes for tubing to pass through to deliver water or refreshment. Can you imagine? It would be like hiding in a coffin.”
Tom peered at the wood, too, and ran his hand over its silky texture, unable to detect any openings. “Ingenious the workmanship, horrible the need for it. But where are Miranda and Max?”
“Wait!” Jane held up a cautionary finger. “This room has other secrets. I’ll bet they’ve gone down the hidden staircase.”
“Miranda will be in her element. Alice au manoir hanté is one of her favourite Alice Roys. It has hidden staircases galore.” Tom looked around the plain room. “Clearly, the one here is very hidden.”
“Very.” Jane crouched and plucked at several of the floor nails in succession. “It’s one of these,” she said, shuffling to a new set of floor nails along the wide slats.
“Can I help?”
“Try tugging at the nails where you are. Several of them are loose, if you can get your fingers under just so. If you find one, you’ll see what happens.”
But it was Jane who first succeeded. “Here we go,” she exclaimed, pulling a nail fully out, and gesturing to Tom. “Try the one on that board, and then the one on the board next to that.”
Tom did. The nails were pivots and the heavy oak slats revolved around them to reveal a narrow but artfully constructed staircase descending into darkness. An aroma of must flew up to meet his nostrils.
“They have been here.” Jane let her torchlight run down to what appeared to be a small landing about six feet below. “You can see the dust’s been disturbed.”
Tom shivered. “I’m not sure I’m happy about Miranda wandering down there unsupervised.”
“Hector has seen to the safety of these hidden passages. I think he’s considering opening them up to the public as an added attraction.”
Tom grunted, not entirely satisfied. “Have you travelled them yourself?”
“Yes, on a previous visit. It’s quite the journey. Shall we? Do you think your foot can stand it?”
“Why not? This boot is working very well.”
“I’ll lead the way.”
“Where does it end?” Tom watched Jane tread carefully on the steep, narrow steps, the beam of her torch dancing along the wooden walls of the narrow chute.
“I’ll let you be surprised.”
From the small landing crowding the two of them, she pushed through a narrow door into blackness revealed by the light to be a constricted passageway lined with rough brick and mortar and heavy with the scent of damp and dust. The beam of light disappeared into darkness and for a moment a kind of animal dread clutched at Tom’s heart, as if doom in some fashion waited somewhere off in the very near distance.
Noticing his hesitation, Jane said, “It’s not so claustrophobic as it seems. You’ll see in a minute. You’ll have to bend your head a bit—you’re taller than the average Tudor.”
They were, Tom realised—ducking under the sill and pulling a cobweb from his hair—about to move through the vast thickness of Eggescombe Hall’s walls. The dust was more evident here under the beam of his torch, and the aroma stuffy, yet the atmosphere was not so suffocating, nor the darkness so Stygian, as he had dreaded, and after a moment following Jane he understood why. Here and there, the brick flushed with pinprick radiance, like a star-scattered night sky. Light and air seeped through tiny openings into the walls of adjacent rooms, no doubt, Tom thought, well concealed in the highly decorated plasterwork.
“Careful,” Jane said, casting a narrow puddle of illumination from her torch onto another set of narrow steps. They turned a corner, and then another, followed by more narrow steps downward. Before long, Tom’s sense of direction had vanished. The pinholes were too small to permit a passing glimpse of the rooms, but there were no forks in this fusty passage to further befuddle. Eggescombe’s secret passage was not a maze offering choices at every turn; it was a labyrinth leading to a single destination, whatever that may be.
“Look through here.” Jane flashed her light on a chink in the brick.
Tom squinted. “The great hall!” He could see the ornate minstrel’s gallery opposite glowing in the light and felt an odd sense of vertigo. The passage they were walking was about halfway up the interior wall of the room. “What am I looking through that wouldn’t have been noticed by pursuivants on the other side?”
Jane laughed. “You’re looking between the legs of one of the hundreds of figures on the ornamental screen.”
“Ah, no eyeball would be detected that w
ay.” Tom felt the tips of his eyelashes brush the opening. “Look, there’s Hector crossing the room. At top speed, I might add. Should I say something? I feel like a Peeping Tom.”
“You’re a Tom at any rate, but I doubt Hector would hear anything more than a muffled noise even if you shouted.”
They continued on, around, and ever downward. Before long, Tom detected a greater movement of air along his face, a faintly sweeter, yet drier aroma suggesting perhaps some egress to the out of doors. And yet the blackness did not recede. Soon they were down a short set of stairs, stone, these ones, and—the twin beams of their torches revealed—in a narrow, barrel-vaulted room not much wider than the stairs, the walls brick.
“Do you know where we are?” Tom asked, turning his light towards the source of the cooler air, flowing stronger now. He noted a new set of stone stairs leading to a brick-lined passage that sloped gently downwards and curved out of sight.
“Near the old servants’ quarters. I think this might be the old wine cellar.”
“Then that”—Tom kept his light on the sloping floor—“must be a tunnel.”
“Yes. Would you like to see where it goes?”
“Very much. The alternative is climbing our way back up to the garret, yes? And surely Miranda and Max have come this way.”
“I think actually there are some concealed entrances into other rooms in the Hall, but I haven’t a clue where they are. I’ve only had the tour once.”
“You’ve done well to remember this.”
They stepped down to the passage, Tom noting a new sound, the crunch of gravel under their feet, but they’d barely turned the corner into the tunnel proper when they saw two beams of amber light flickering over the bricks and heard the approach of excited voices.
“Daddy!” Miranda’s torch dazzled Tom’s eyes as it passed over his face. He felt an unexpected surge of relief to hear her excited voice in this dank place and the scrunch on gravel intensify as she and Max broke into a run towards them.
Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) Page 25