Deadly Inheritance

by Janet Laurence

  A powerful tug from his strong arm pulled her onto dry land. It was wonderful to be free but Ursula found she was shaking with the shock of the crash. She thanked the detective with a voice that trembled. Then she pulled herself together and went to soothe Barnaby and to assess the situation.

  ‘If I keep the horse quiet, Mr Jackman, can you release the harness?’

  He studied the buckles as Barnaby, thrashing his legs, threw his head from side to side and blew threateningly through his nose. ‘Can you stop the animal from kicking me.’

  Several minutes later, Ursula had managed to quieten the horse.

  As she was about to instruct the investigator on how the harness was fastened, Ursula realised there was no need.

  More quickly than she had dared to hope, Barnaby was freed and able to struggle to his feet.

  Thomas Jackman looked at the trap. ‘Can’t say I have your acquaintance with this sort of conveyance, Miss Grandison,’ he said. ‘But I’ve had enough doings with carts and drays. I’m afraid even if we can manage to get this onto the road, it’s in no state to get us back to Mountstanton.’

  One of the shafts had shattered under Barnaby’s weight and the wheel that had pinned Ursula’s skirts stuck out at a crazy angle.

  ‘The axle’s gone, see?’ Jackman pointed underneath the trap. ‘And those spokes look dodgy.’

  Ursula stroked Barnaby’s neck, feeling his shudders gradually lessening. ‘We’d better walk back to the house; they can send what’s necessary to get it back on the road.’

  ‘What about the horse, miss?’ He looked nervously at the animal.

  ‘I’ll lead it.’ Ursula spoke more confidently than she felt. Her relief at discovering that her damaged ankle was only slightly worse was tempered by realising that since her sprain, she had not undertaken a walk anywhere near the length it would take to get back to Mountstanton. And foolishly she had left her stick behind.

  ‘Why not ride?’ suggested Thomas Jackman.

  ‘Barnaby’s been thoroughly shaken up by the accident; he needs time to recover himself.’

  ‘Him and us both! Well, we’d better get going while we’ve still got enough light to show us the way.’

  Ursula looked through the gloom in the direction Belle had galloped. The glimpse of her desperate face came back to haunt her. What had happened to make the girl set off into the countryside at this time of day? Where could she have been going? And why had she been so lost to everything but herself that she had not seen the trap coming towards her?

  There were no answers nor any possibility of following Belle; she would be far away by now.

  ‘We’d better step lively, Mr Jackman. It’s about to rain.’

  The going was not easy. Ursula did not know which was worse, coping with the ruts and pot holes of the badly maintained road or walking on the grass verge; the way her feet sank into the soft ground made progress exhausting. She chose the road.

  ‘This Miss Ranner,’ said Jackman, walking beside her. ‘She a softly spoken spinster of some sixty summers, untidy brown hair poking out of a russet bonnet, sharp blue eyes?’

  ‘I couldn’t describe her better myself.’

  ‘Talked to her regarding attendance at the birthday fête. She was able to place the position of various villagers in a highly satisfactory manner. Could have been a policeman; almost told her so.’

  Ursula was amused and said she thought Miss Ranner would have been too.

  ‘So how does she fit into the picture as regards the nursery maid?’

  Ursula explained how Mary, Polly’s mother, had worked for Miss Ranner, and how the woman had helped the girl when she realised she was with child. ‘Mary died giving birth. Polly was placed in an orphanage but Miss Ranner supervised her education and provided the reference that secured her the position in the Mountstanton nursery.’

  ‘I think she should be visited tomorrow,’ Ursula said finally.

  ‘You believe she has more information than she told that agent?’

  ‘I believe she knows everything that goes on in the village. Whether she will tell us is another matter.’ She looked ruefully at the investigator. ‘Maybe you can work your way under her guard, as you did with Mr Gray.’

  ‘With Miss Ranner, I think you will have a better chance than I, miss. She answered my questions but as a matter of duty. She told me no more than was strictly required. On your own, woman to woman, I am sure you could find out more.’

  Ursula was surprised to feel a surge of pride that this ex-member of the Metropolitan Police Force trusted her to conduct an interview. Perhaps, she thought, they could, after all, work together in the way the Colonel obviously intended.

  ‘Miss Grandison,’ Jackman said, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck as though his jacket chafed him, ‘Do you know of any reason why someone would want to kill the late Earl?’

  Her mind went back to the discussion she’d had with the Colonel. ‘I wish I could answer that.’

  He gave her a quizzical look. ‘Does that mean you know of something but are not able to tell me?’

  ‘Not at all. I know of no reason why anyone should want to shoot the Earl but I wish I did. That is all.’

  ‘You see, Miss Grandison, when considering murder, I look at three things: means, opportunity, and motive. Now, as to the means, the Earl was killed with his own gun. So who had the opportunity to access it? As to that, it appears that a large number of people would have known where it was kept, and that afternoon they could have helped themselves to it without difficulty. There is also the possibility that the Earl had it with him for some reason.

  ‘His mother, you call her the Dowager Countess, do you not? Well, she seemed convinced he could have got bored with her birthday fête and decided to shoot pigeons.

  ‘That little stone summerhouse – called a “belvedere” ‘aint it – well, it was out of sight of the general company; any one of those guests could have arranged to meet his lordship there, armed themselves with the gun and taken the opportunity to shoot him.’

  ‘So,’ said Ursula as he paused. ‘Means and opportunity can be identified but what could have been the motive?’

  ‘You have it exactly,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘Find the motive and we find the man.’

  ‘Or woman,’ said Ursula without thinking.

  Barnaby took a couple of steps towards the verge on the other side of the road and she pulled him back beside her.

  ‘My, Miss Grandison, you do have the makings of an investigator,’ Jackman said. ‘Now, what makes you think it could have been a woman who wanted to remove his lordship from this life?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Ursula, cursing her quick tongue. ‘It was just that so often people talk of a man in circumstances when it could equally well be a woman. Womanhood is constantly assumed to lack the brains, energy and general ability of men. I find it very irritating and take every opportunity to correct such facile judgements. But it was stupid of me to do so in this situation.’

  ‘From my investigations in Hinton Parva,’ Jackman said slowly, kicking at a loose stone in the road as though it was a football, ‘I received the impression that the dead man was not a popular figure. Estate cottages have not been maintained; servants have been turned off for minor offences without references; the hunt, of which he is apparently Master, has been careless of tenant holdings when riding in pursuit of a fox.’

  Ursula was shocked. Then she remembered the Colonel’s comments when the Earl had been complaining about the chairman of magistrates. ‘How much of that would be due to the Earl and how much to his agent?’

  ‘A useful point, Miss Grandison. But is not the master responsible for the actions of his servants?’

  ‘The servants in the household seem happy enough, Mr Jackman.’ Then Ursula wondered how much she had seen. What went on behind the green baize door that closed off the servant quarters?

  ‘Which brings us back, Miss Grandison, to the question of who was responsible for the death of the
nursery maid?’

  ‘Then, like me, you believe the two deaths are connected?’ Ursula tightened her hold on Barnaby’s rein. Her ankle was aching. She began to wonder about her ability to reach their destination.

  Thomas Jackman nodded. ‘In my experience, the coincidence is too great for any other conclusion.’

  Ursula stumbled over a nasty rut and could not stifle a cry.

  ‘Hey, miss, you’ve got to be careful. You’re too important to the investigation to be crippled.’ He put a steadying hand beneath her elbow and studied her face. ‘You all right to go on?’

  She looked into his dark eyes and could see nothing but concern for her there. The cold, professional assessment that had so disconcerted her on their first meeting seemed for the moment to have vanished.

  ‘I’m … I’m OK.’

  Determinedly, she stepped forward.

  ‘I like your American speech,’ Jackman said. ‘And the way you manage to carry on, whatever happens.’

  Once again he had disconcerted her. ‘How come you are investigating for the Colonel?’ She wanted to move the conversation away from her situation but was also genuinely curious.

  He gave a shrug. ‘I came to the end of my career in the police force.’

  Ursula was not satisfied with this answer and she questioned him until he revealed how he had run up against what he referred to as ‘the establishment’.

  ‘What establishment is that?’

  ‘Why, the toffs; those that have the money and the power. Them like your Colonel and his late brother.’

  ‘The Colonel isn’t “mine”, as you put it, and the Earl did not seem to have much money.’

  ‘But he had position; that’s what I was up against.’

  Ursula sighed. ‘English society seems to work in a very different way from the US. Money talks big over there. It may not buy you an entrée into the highest circles but it gives you the power to do everything else. Here, unless you have the background as well, it seems that money on its own will not talk loud enough.’

  ‘Miss Grandison, you have it right.’ He fell silent for a little time.

  It was almost dark now. Ursula hoped Barnaby knew the way home to his stable and supper. Once more, Ursula wondered why Belle had been riding in that madcap way and where she was going.

  ‘I told the Colonel that if he was going to interfere, should it look as if a toff were the responsible one, then I wouldn’t investigate as he wanted.’

  Ursula shivered. ‘What did Colonel Stanhope say to that?’

  ‘Told me he had no intention of allowing anyone to escape his just desserts. Snakes and ladders, it’s starting to rain!’

  It was more mist than rain but they were going to get wet, that was for sure.

  ‘Now you got to get on that horse. I can run, see. No skirts to trip me up.’ He took her by the arm. ‘Make a stirrup shall I?’ He bent down and offered his linked hands.

  Ursula only hesitated a minute. Then she put her foot in the cupped hands and allowed him to toss her onto Barnaby’s back. The horse gave a small step sideways but otherwise seemed untroubled by her weight. She gathered up the long driving reins she’d tucked into the harness and looped them into a manageable length.

  ‘Let’s go,’ cried Jackman, breaking into a trot.

  Perched on Barnaby’s broad back, needing to concentrate on maintaining her seat without a saddle, Ursula was unable to converse further.

  They were thoroughly drenched by the time they reached Mountstanton.

  Jackman helped Ursula down as a groom ran out of the stables, exclaiming at the appearance of Barnaby without the trap.

  ‘I’ll leave you to explain everything,’ said Ursula in an undertone. ‘And please find out all you can about Belle and why she rode off.’

  * * *

  In the hall, Ursula was surprised to see Benson. It was well past the hour for dinner; why wasn’t he overseeing its service?

  ‘Miss Grandison, I am delighted you are returned. Colonel Charles is anxious for you to join him and her ladyship in the library.’ Benson’s jaw worked and his fingers twitched beside his pinstriped trousers.

  Earlier, Benson appeared to have recovered some of the calm that had been torn apart by the violent death of Mountstanton’s master. Now he seemed freshly disturbed.

  ‘Have they finished dinner already?’ Ursula had hoped to be able to share a supper with Thomas Jackman before they reported to the Colonel on the results of their encounter with the agent.

  The butler drew a long breath and looked at his shoes. ‘Dinner has been put back an hour, Miss Grandison.’ Then he seemed to take in her condition and his impassive face worked for a moment.

  Unnamed anxiety filled Ursula.

  ‘Has Miss Seldon returned, Benson?’

  ‘No, Miss Grandison.’

  Ursula sensed he would like to have said more. Frustration filled her. She wanted to talk to the butler as an equal, ask him what he knew, what he thought had happened. But her place in the hierarchy of the household was ambiguous. She might dine with the family but she was not on their level. Nor was she a servant. As far as Benson was concerned, her position was undefined.

  ‘I cannot present myself in this condition.’ Ursula looked down at her wet clothing, her skirt filthy from the ditch and its hem ripped. She’d lost her hat and her hair was all over the place.

  ‘Colonel Charles did say immediately on your return, Miss.’

  ‘He and her ladyship will have to wait; I will not be long. May some hot water be sent up to me, Benson, please? And when Mr Jackman comes in from the stables, he will need a change of clothes, could that possibly be organised for him?’

  Hurriedly climbing the stairs, Ursula thought again about Belle. She had been hired as her companion. It was no use telling herself that, after their arrival, responsibility for her charge had passed to Helen. She had seen how tenuous their relationship was and she knew how wayward the girl could be. No, she had become far too involved with the matter of Polly’s death and had neglected her duty. With a terrible sense of foreboding, she remembered the look on Belle’s face as she galloped past the trap. Something disastrous must have happened.

  As Ursula passed the nursery, she heard a child crying with awful desperation. She knocked and entered.

  Mrs Comfort was trying to hold a struggling boy on her lap. ‘There, there, now, Lord Harry. Don’t take on so. It will be all right in the morning.’

  ‘Belle, I want Belle,’ the boy screamed, his voice rising to a pitch of passion that was heartbreaking. ‘She promised … she promised.’

  Ursula knelt beside the nurse and caught one of the boy’s flying hands.

  ‘What did Belle promise you, Harry?’

  Perhaps it was her sudden arrival, or because he associated her with his aunt, but the boy’s screaming stopped and he caught his breath in a convulsive sob. ‘Belle said she would go out with me this afternoon. She promised!’ His voice started to rise again.

  ‘Then she must have had to go somewhere on a most urgent mission, Harry. She will be very upset tomorrow that she could not keep her promise to you.’ She spoke soothingly, matter-of-factly.

  ‘There, isn’t that just what I’ve been saying?’ Mrs Comfort pulled down the little jacket that had rumpled itself up the boy’s back and settled him more comfortably into her lap. ‘Why, miss, what’s happened to you? You look like you’ve been through a hedge backwards.’

  Ursula laughed. ‘You have it to rights, Mrs Comfort. That is almost exactly what’s happened. Harry, I have had such an adventure.’

  She held the little boy’s hand in hers and remained crouched down by the nanny’s side while she gave him a dramatic account of the accident, without identifying the rider who had caused the crash.

  ‘Barnaby don’t keep to the straight all the time,’ Harry said wisely. He’d listened with attention, the passionate crying dying away to a series of snatched breaths. ‘Jem says you got to make him work at it.’


  ‘Jem is quite right, Harry. Now, I had better go and change. I can’t go round looking like this.’

  He gave her a weak smile. ‘Hedge backwards!’

  ‘Well, what a thing for a nicely brought up lady such as yourself to have to deal with! We’re not quite ourselves, what with what’s happened and all,’ she added in an undertone, tightening her hold on the boy.

  Ursula gently stroked Harry’s blond hair then laid a finger on the Mountstanton nose that Belle had identified. ‘We’ll do all sorts of things tomorrow, I’m sure.’

  ‘Promise?’ he said fiercely.

  ‘We’ll have to see what is happening.’

  He looked pleadingly at her. ‘Everyone is always busy. But you’ll do something with me, won’t you?’ His mouth wobbled dangerously. ‘Please?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Ursula said, dramatically crossing her chest and hoping that this was a promise she could keep.

  In her room, the hot water she’d asked for was waiting. Washed and in clean underclothes, she ignored the grey silk dress that was her normal evening wear in favour of a plain gabardine skirt and jacket. She had no intention of going into dinner. Once she had discovered what had happened with Belle, she would beg the kitchen for some food to eat with Jackman. She tried to towel her hair dry, then drew the still damp tresses into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  She moved as quickly as she could down the stairs, deeply troubled about Belle. She had grown used to the girl in a variety of moods: happy and laughing Belle, flirtatious Belle, mischievous Belle, sulky Belle, mutinous Belle, angry Belle – but never desperate.

  Why hadn’t Ursula spent more time with her? Why hadn’t she been able to persuade Helen that the girl needed more entertainment, that waiting around for her season to start was too boring for her sister?

  Benson was no longer in the hall; the footman, John, was on duty. Ursula handed him the boots she’d been wearing, their soft leather ruined by the water and debris in the ditch, they were her only ones. ‘Would it be possible for something to be done with these, please?’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Grandison. I will see to it immediately.’