Murder at Merisham Lodge: Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate: Book 1

by Grace, Celina

  Verity was fast asleep by the time I got back to our room. I sighed, a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to chat. Instead, I fetched some clean water for the wash bowl on the stand, washed my face, cleaned my teeth and began the slow, laborious work of unpinning my hair. Verity had left the oil lamp burning, which she always did if I was going to be later than her. I could feel my eyelids drooping and knew I should just curl up under the blankets and let myself sleep, but part of me was cross that this was the only time I ever really got to myself and almost all of it was spent unconscious. I picked up my notebook and pen and started to write, continuing a story idea that I’d had while clearing up the kitchen that evening. I nurtured dreams of being a real writer, of seeing my own words in print. That was one thing I’d never confessed to anybody, not even Verity. That was the one dream I couldn’t bear to have stamped on or laughed at. Not that Verity would do either of those things, but still… It was no use, that night. I couldn’t keep my eyelids from fluttering closed. Giving in, I tucked the notebook and pen under my bed and turned off the lamp.

  Chapter Three

  I was up bright and early the next morning, feeling well rested for a change. My first task of the day in the kitchen was always to make a start on the breakfasts, and I set to with a will, chopping mushrooms, breaking eggs and peeling damp slices of bacon from the greaseproof packet the butcher had delivered yesterday. Maggie had just finished mopping the kitchen floor and I had to tread carefully on the wet tiles to avoid slipping.

  Once everything was underway, I filled the kettle and put it on the hob. Mrs Watling liked a good, hot cup of tea first thing when she came through to the kitchen, and after my hard work of the last half an hour I was ready for one too. As I lit the gas, a sound at the edge of hearing made me catch my breath. Was that – was that a scream? I stood still for a moment, straining my ears, but there was nothing, no other sound like the one I’d so briefly heard. Or had I? Shrugging mentally, I turned to get the cups from the dresser, laid them out and poured out the tea.

  Something flickered in the corner of my vision and I turned, expecting to see Mrs Watling in the doorway. It wasn’t her. It was Verity.

  One glance told me something was terribly wrong.

  “V? Verity? What’s wrong?”

  Verity didn’t answer. She was chalk white, milk white, so pale that for a second she looked like a ghost of herself in the gloom. She was swaying very slightly.

  “Verity?” I asked, now thoroughly alarmed. Quickly, I moved over to her. “What’s wrong?”

  She looked at me then and I grew even more anxious. Her eyes were huge, horrified pools.

  I could see Verity trying to speak but nothing came from her dry mouth. “Over here,” I said, and almost dragged her over to one of the kitchen chairs. She flopped into it as if all the strength had left her legs, and I quickly fetched her a glass of water.

  She took a sip, and then another, the water splashing over the sides as her hand shook. Then she looked up at me. “She’s dead,” she whispered.

  I had a sudden, shocking memory of that time in Asharton Manor, seeing Violet the housemaid run into the kitchen there, gibbering with fear. It’s Madam, it’s Madam – she’s lying there all cold, there’s something wrong – all cold – I think she’s dead…

  I swallowed down the bubble of nausea that had risen in my throat. “V? Verity? Who’s dead?”

  Verity put the glass back on the table, having spilt most of the water. “Lady Eveline.”

  I gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “Lady Eveline. I went into the library to fetch Lord Cartwright’s spectacles and – and—” Her voice started to tremble. “And she’s lying there on the carpet, dead.”

  Her gaze rose to meet mine, her eyes dark and horrified. For a moment, shock overwhelmed me and I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  Eventually I regained the power of speech. “Do you think she had a fit or something?”

  Verity shook her head. “It’s worse than that. Much worse than that.”

  I went cold. “What do you mean?”

  Verity said nothing for a moment. She got up from the table, moving like an old woman. “Can you come with me? I need to show you.”

  I didn’t respond straight away. I looked towards the stove, where the half-prepared breakfasts were waiting. Then I sighed. “Of course. Of course I’ll come with you.”

  The two of us ran up the stairs to the hallway and raced down the corridor towards the library. We didn’t meet anyone else on the way, and as we passed the staircase, I cocked an ear for sounds of the household getting up. It must have still been too early, for I could hear nothing.

  Verity paused outside the library door. She was shaking, and I wasn’t much better myself.

  “Oh God, I don’t think I can do it, I don’t think I can look at her again,” Verity whispered. She looked at me in anguish and then gulped and opened the door.

  It was dark in the library, close and stuffy, and the usual smells of musty old books, old cigarette smoke and wood-smoke were undercut by something else, something sharp and coppery and dangerous. Blood, I told myself, holding my arms across my body to stop myself shivering. Fearfully, I looked where Verity was pointing.

  At first I didn’t think it was too bad, as I only saw her feet to start with. Lady Eveline was lying by her desk, crumpled onto her side, one arm out flung on the Persian rug beneath her. It was dim in the library, only one curtain pulled back at the window, and I stepped forward to see a bit better. That was when I saw her head, and the damage that had been done to it, and I screamed despite myself.

  “Don’t! Don’t, Joan.” Verity clutched my arm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, gasping. “It was just the shock.”

  Lady Eveline had been bludgeoned to death. I tore my eyes away from the blood and looked at the patterns on the carpet, trying to force the image from my head. I looked until the swirls of the pattern began to echo inside my head.

  “Joanie—”

  I came to with a start. Verity was shaking me gently.

  “Joanie, keep yourself together. I don’t want you to faint.”

  “I won’t faint,” I muttered. Trying to breathe deeply, I pulled myself upright. “We have to tell someone straight away.”

  Verity nodded, her eyes huge. “Shouldn’t the police be informed?”

  “That’s not our job.” I thought of who we should tell. Mr Fenwick, the butler, or Mrs Anstells, the housekeeper.

  “I suppose it should be Mister Fenwick,” Verity whispered, reading my mind.

  “Come on, then.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the door, desperate to get out of that blood-soaked room.

  We flew down the corridor and down the stairs to where Mr Fenwick had his butler’s pantry. I had only ever been in there once, to receive a ponderous message of approval for a dinner party for which Mrs Watling and I had worked like slaves. Mr Fenwick seemed old to me, even for a head butler.

  He opened the door to our hurried, loud knocks with disapproval already knitting his tufty white eyebrows.

  “What is the meaning of this? Verity? I’m surprised at you.”

  We fell over ourselves to explain, talking over one another.

  “It’s Madam—”

  “She’s been killed, she’s lying there dead in the library—”

  “Mister Fenwick, you have to help—”

  It took some time before we could make ourselves plain. Almost as white as his eyebrows, Mr Fenwick ordered us to remain where we were and marched out of the room.

  Murder has its own rhythm. I knew that, after what I’d been through at Asharton Manor. Within twenty minutes of Mr Fenwick discovering that we’d been telling the truth about Lady Eveline, the whole house was in uproar. Verity had to go upstairs to tend to Dorothy, who’d apparently fainted when she was told of her mother’s death. Mrs Watling and I attempted to get some sort of breakfast together but we might as well have not bothered – nobody was
eating a thing. I collected the untouched dishes from the dining room, gone stone cold, and was walking back through the hallway to the kitchen stairs when I saw something through the front windows that made me freeze. Three black cars approached the house and as they got closer, tyres crunching over the gravel, I could see the ‘Police’ signs on the car roofs of all three. They hadn’t wasted much time, I thought and then jumped as the doorbell rang. Hurriedly, china chinking on the tray, I went downstairs again. As I put the loaded tray on the kitchen table, I could hear Mr Fenwick’s footsteps, approaching the front door up above, somewhat faster than his normal, stately tread.

  It was a strange day. Verity hurried down the stairs to the kitchen about three hours after she’d first gone up to Miss Dorothy.

  “Have we got any brandy?” she asked in a rush.

  “Yes,” I said, reaching for the bottle. “Want to put some in Dorothy’s coffee, is that it?”

  “I don’t know what else to do.” Verity sounded close to tears. “She’s hysterical. She keeps screaming and crying and yelling. I thought if she could just get some sleep…”

  She was very pale herself, and there were large dark circles under her eyes.

  “Have you eaten anything today?” I asked sharply.

  Verity shook her head.

  “Right,” Mrs Watling said, taking charge. She took the silver breakfast tray from Verity’s shaking hands and put it on the table. “Sit down here.” She almost shoved Verity into a sitting position. I slid a plate of bacon and bread in front of her.

  “Mrs Watling’s right,” I said. “If you don’t eat something you’ll faint, and then you’ll be no good to Dorothy at all.”

  “That’s true.” Verity fell on the food ravenously. I put a mug of tea down in front of her as well, and Mrs Watling followed it up with a small glass filled with the cooking sherry.

  “Get that down you, too, Verity,” she said firmly. “We’ve all a long day ahead of us.”

  I watched Verity eating, wishing I could be more help to her, but what could I do? My duties lay down here. I turned back to the stove-top and began stirring the soup, listening to the thump of policemen’s feet up above my head.

  Chapter Four

  The day went on, superficially, as normal. Mrs Watling and I prepared the meals, made up the menus for the following day, and marked up the order sheets for the grocer. Maggie and I scrubbed and polished and chopped as usual. While overhead, all we could hear all morning was the heavier tread of the police as they walked back and forth, from room to room. At about half past eleven, I heard the noise of an engine, noisier than a normal car would have been, and realised that the mortuary van had arrived. It was funny but I’d been getting on with things quite well up to that point, almost as though someone else was controlling my hands and my thoughts. I felt oddly detached from myself – even when I burnt myself on one of the pots on the hob. I barely registered the pain. I suppose I was still in shock. Sadly, unlike Dorothy, I couldn’t fall about in hysterics and demand brandy and scream the place down. No, not me. I just had to get on with it, so I did, feeling all the while as if I’d been breathing in the fumes of something poisonous, something that made me feel dazed and sleepy but still somehow able to function.

  The noise of the mortuary van broke through all that. I’d been cutting cold roast beef – Mrs Watling had decided on a cold lunch, why bother cooking something hot when nobody was going to eat it, she’d said, and I agreed – and until I heard the low, throaty roar of the engine outside in the yard, the fact that I was carving moist, pinkish meat hadn’t bothered me. Now, I looked down at my hand with the knife and the reddish stain the meat had left on the chopping board and suddenly, I was back there in the library with Verity this morning, looking at Lady Eveline lying on the carpet.

  I just about made it to the privy in time. What little breakfast I had eaten came up and I hung over the bowl, my trembling hands braced against the wall, feeling as weak and ill as if I really had been poisoned. After a moment, I managed to pull myself together enough to wipe my mouth and reach up to pull the flush.

  “Joan?” Mrs Watling’s voice called from the other side of the door. “Are you all right?” She must have seen my lightning dash from the kitchen.

  “I’m fine,” I said after a moment, my feeble voice betraying me. I straightened up gingerly and took a few deep breaths before unlatching the door.

  “You’re as white as a sheet,” Mrs Watling half-scolded. She almost carried me back to the kitchen and installed me in a chair. “If I give you a little drop of cooking sherry are you going to be able to keep it down?”

  I rubbed my sweating forehead. “I’ll try.”

  She poured it out for me, and I sipped it gingerly. It warmed me all the way down and I sighed with something like relief.

  “Now, just sit there for a moment—” Mrs Watling said just as a uniformed officer and two men in suits came into the kitchen. The two of us looked at them in alarm.

  “Sorry to disturb you ladies,” said the older man, quite a dapper gent in his black suit and close-cut beard. “I’m Detective Inspector Marks of Scotland Yard. This is Detective Sergeant Willis and Constable Crewe. May I ask which of you is Joan Hart?”

  I swallowed and sat up a little straighter. “That’s me, sir.”

  “I see.” Detective Inspector Marks gave me quite a kindly smile. “Now, don’t be alarmed, Miss Hart, but we just need to see you for a few moments. You’re not in any trouble.”

  I didn’t see how I could be so I wasn’t particularly alarmed. Mrs Watling looked very anxious, almost as if she thought they were going to arrest me there and then. It was as much to get that look off her face as it was for my own curiousity that I gathered my courage and asked a question. “Is this because I was one of the people to discover the body of her ladyship, sir?”

  Detective Inspector Marks looked a little surprised at my asking. The look he gave me was slightly more respectful than any he had given me before. “That’s exactly right, Miss Hart. Would you come this way?”

  I looked across at Mrs Watling, tacitly asking for her permission. She nodded, looking a little less worried than before.

  The police officers took me up the stairs, across the hallway, and into the smaller of the two drawing rooms. Even though they’d only been here a matter of hours, they’d already taken over the place. The main table had been cleared of the flowers that Verity arranged so well and papers and pens were scattered over its glossy surface, along with a tea-tray of dirty cups and saucers. There were also two ashtrays, full to brimming already.

  “Please sit down.” Inspector Marks indicated a vacant chair, and I did as I was told. I folded my hands in my lap in the approved fashion and waited.

  “Now, Miss Hart, we’ve talked to your fellow maid, Miss Verity Hunter, who I understand was the first person to discover the body of Lady Eveline. Can you tell me what happened this morning when she came to tell you? In your own words and taking your time.”

  I composed myself for a moment before answering. Then I went back over the sequence of events as best I could remember. The inspector listened intently and scribbled in his notebook. I was surprised when I saw it. It was just one of the cheap red ones that I bought myself, the cheapest possible notebook you could buy. I suppose the police have to keep their costs down, as much as anyone else does, but it seemed incongruous that all the words I spoke on so grave a subject would be entered into a thin little two-penny booklet. I suppose if I’d imagined it at all, I would have thought the inspector would write in something large, impressive and covered in expensive black leather.

  I think I spoke quite well. It was only when I got to the bit where Verity and I had first seen the body that my voice faltered, and I had to stop to swallow down the bubble of nausea that rose in my throat.

  Inspector Marks was watching me keenly. “Would you like a glass of water, Miss Hart?”

  I took a few deep breaths and felt better. “No, thank you, sir. I’m
quite all right, now.”

  “Very well.” The inspector put down his pen and cheap notebook and favoured me with another kindly smile. “Now, you’ve given us a very thorough account of yours and Miss Hunter’s movements this morning, so I’m grateful for that.” I bobbed my head in a kind of sitting down curtsey, not exactly sure whether I was being dismissed or not. The inspector hesitated for a moment, as if weighing something up. “I wonder, could you tell me how long you’ve worked for the family?”

  “Not very long. I was in service in Kilburn, in London, before I came here about three months ago.”

  “Perhaps you could let Constable Crewe here have the particulars of your previous position when you have a moment?” It was an order, not a request. I said nothing but nodded my head again.

  There was a longer silence while the inspector made another note in his notebook. I was on the verge of asking whether I could be dismissed when he looked up again. His next words took me by surprise.

  “You seem an intelligent young woman,” Inspector Marks said. I wondered if I was the only one to hear the unspoken sentence that followed his words. For your class. “Do you have any ideas at all as to whether Lady Eveline had any enemies?”

  It was as if Verity had suddenly leapt into my head and taken control of my tongue. I heard myself say “Well, she must have had one, mustn’t she, sir?”

  I heard someone, either the sergeant or the constable suppress a snort of amusement. The inspector’s eyes narrowed.

  Hurriedly, I went on. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be impertinent. It was just that the question took me a little by surprise.”

  I bit my lip, expecting a sharp word from the inspector, or worse. Somehow, Verity could get away with saying things like that, every time. It probably helped that she managed to say them with a twinkle in her eye. With me, it just came out sounding rude.

  “Well, you’re correct in that assumption,” the inspector said rather drily, after a moment. I sagged with relief, inwardly. “But is there anything else you can tell me that might be useful?” I was frantically thinking back over things when he added, “There’s been some reports about an argument Lady Eveline had with her son, Peter Drew, yesterday.”