Murder at Newstead Abbey

by Joan Smith

  “By the living jingo, she’s right!” Coffen cried. “I expect she still lives on Wild Street.”

  “She must be notified, certainly,” Luten said, “but I doubt Vulch would have told her if he was carrying on with Nessie. Still, it’s worth a try.”

  “I’ll write and ask Black to ankle along and have a word with her,” Coffen said. Black was Corinne’s extremely efficient butler, totally dedicated to pleasing his mistress.

  “Or p’raps you’d best do it, Corrie. I’m not much of a hand for writing. Black would wear himself to a bone for you.”

  She agreed and wrote up her request immediately, giving Black a full outline of the doings at Newstead, to go out in the next morning’s post.

  Eggars arrived after lunch to hear the details of Vulch’s murder, and to have the body removed for examination. Luten gave him the documents and letters and told him about the gold missing from the chest.

  Eggars pierced Luten with a gooseberry green eye and said, “How do you know there was ever gold in the chest, milord?”

  “I saw it. I was there one night.”

  “Invited? Were you an acquaintance of Vulch?”

  Luten looked down his aristocratic nose and leveled a haughty stare at his inquisitor. “Certainly not. I was not invited. In fact, Vulch wasn’t home at the time. I was endeavoring to help you with the investigation, as you were having so little success. You might, for instance, have enquired at the post office if Minnie Vulch had written to anyone.”

  Eggars quickly scanned the wisdom of coming to cuffs with Luten and more importantly to him, Lord Byron, and came down on the side of caution. “So it seems the gold was the reason for Vulch’s murder,” was all he said.

  “That is one explanation. It leaves unanswered the question of why Vulch claimed the body was his wife’s, when he knew perfectly well she was still alive. Why would he do it, except for money? What you must discover is the identity of the body that was on the island, and who killed the girl.”

  “But no one is missing! She’s not from around here. And it was so long ago.”

  “There is no statute of limitations on murder, Eggars. If you feel out of your depth, we can send to London for a Bow Street officer to take over the case.”

  “I’ll have a go at it first. Can you take me to see Vulch now?”

  “You’ll want to do something about Diablo as well,” Coffen said to Eggars. “Vulch’s mount. You can’t leave him abandoned in a filthy stall. His milcher wants seeing to as well.”

  “I’ll arrange something. Any farmer will look after the cow for the free milk. Diablo will be sold to pay for Vulch’s funeral,” was Eggars’ reply.

  He was turned over to the butler, who turned him over to a footman, who led him along corridors to where the body lay on a table, covered with a blanket.

  “I am sick to death of murder,” Prance said, and sighed. “Shall we begin decorating the hall to cheer ourselves up?” No one expressed interest in this. It seemed inappropriate to be preparing for a party when there was a corpse in the house.

  “Then I shall run into Nottingham and see how the choir robes are coming along. Are you interested, Corrie?” he said, turning to her.

  She did not particularly want to return to Nottingham, but she felt Mrs. Ballard deserved an outing, and Mrs. Ballard would certainly not go with Reggie alone.

  “What do you say, Mrs. Ballard?” she said. “Shall we go for a spin? You haven’t been to Nottingham.”

  Mrs. Ballard’s sparkling eyes belied her uncertain answer. “If you like, milady, I would be happy to accompany you.”

  Prance was happy too. Mrs. Ballard would certainly want to visit the shops, which would leave him time to pay a call on Miss Challoner without Corinne’s company.

  Luten and Byron remained behind to show Eggars where the body was discovered, and to discuss the case further with him. Coffen went back to the forest with them, and stayed to search again for clues, and to think about those he already had.

  * * *

  Chapter 21

  Prance’s carriage no sooner arrived in Nottingham than Mrs. Ballard remembered she required new stockings for the Christmas party. Mrs. Ballard was no squeaky wheel to demand oil or anything else, but her speech was recognized as a hint that she would like to tour the High Street and browse through the shops. This and her weekly whist game with her crones in London for a penny a point were her idea of high times. Her winnings, if any, were donated to charity to counteract the wickedness of gambling. Her losses were absorbed without complaint.

  “I shall want your opinion on the robes, Mrs. Ballard,” Prance lied. “Why don’t I just run along and have a word with Miss Challoner and meet you two at Mrs. Addams’s house in — say, an hour?”

  This was agreed upon and they parted, the ladies to buy the stockings (black, lisle) and poke through the fabrics, laces, ribbons and buttons at the drapery shop, finishing with a quick pick through the wares at the everything store on the corner, where Mrs. Ballard was seduced into buying a packet of hair pins. Meanwhile, Prance tried his luck with Miss Challoner, whom he found knee deep in linen, stitching away at one of the robes. She was delighted to have the tedium of a dull winter’s afternoon alleviated by an eligible male visitor, and made him so welcome he feared she had set her cap for him, and left earlier than he intended. With half an hour to kill, he looked around for a rare book for Byron, but he found nothing to match the Alexander Pope.

  The ladies were already with Mrs. Addams when he arrived at the appointed time. She had interrupted her work to serve them tea.

  “The robes are coming along splendidly, Reg,” Corinne said, showing him the fine stitching on the one Mrs. Addams had been working on.

  He examined it and expressed himself more than satisfied.

  “I make all Lady Richardson’s gowns,” she said, smiling proudly, “and she, you must know, is extremely fussy.” Prance and Corinne exchanged a knowing smile.

  “You do her proud, Mrs. Addams,” he said, “She is always smartly turned out.”

  “I dress her better than when she arrived, if I do say so myself. But from Jamaica, of course. They would know nothing about dressmaking there. Her ladyship’s gown was ill-fitting, tighter across the bodice than English ladies favor. Mind you she said she had gained weight since having it made, but still, she hadn’t grown taller, had she? And the gown was six inches above her ankles! ‘That’s the way we wear them in Jamaica because of the heat, Mrs. Addams,’ she told me. ‘Oh that will never do here, madam,’ says I. ‘English ladies don’t walk about with their ankles exposed.’ I made her up two days gowns and two evening gowns and a riding habit and I don’t know what all. In a great rush she was, for she didn’t dare to show her nose in public until she had something decent to wear. Then when her condition began to show — she was enceinte at the time — I had to make her up a few more gowns. She’s been very good for business. She sends all her friends to me.”

  “It almost sounds as if she was wearing someone else’s gowns when she arrived,” Prance said, shooting a glance at Corinne, who was listening with close attention and a questioning look in her eyes.

  “It was certainly a lady’s gown. Well made, and of good material. A little lighter than we would wear here, you know, because of the climate. A good enough gown, but they just didn’t know how to fit them in Jamaica.”

  “She was fortunate to find you, and so were we,” Prance said. They finished their tea and soon left, for they were bursting to discuss what they had heard.

  “Is it possible Lady Richardson is an impostor?” Corinne gasped.

  “I know just what you’re thinking, and the same thing occurred to me,” Prance said at once. “She murdered Lady Richardson and has taken her place. The body on the island was Lady Richardson, and she is someone else.”

  “She’s Nessie!” Mrs. Ballard squeaked, and covered her mouth in shock at what had come out of it.

  “Exactly!” Prance crowed. “Nessie is the only pe
rson who accompanied them from Jamaica, so there was no one to point out the exchange of identities.”

  “There was Sir William,” Corinne said. “He must be in on it too.”

  “Of course he is,” Prance said. “He’s in it up to his ears. He’s probably the one who killed Lady Richardson. I can’t see the person he calls his wife hauling the body about and digging that grave. Vulch found out somehow, and has been holding them to ransom. It explains everything — why Vulch let on the body was Minnie’s, and where his gold came from, and why they killed him.”

  “It all fits,” Corinne said. “But with Vulch dead, how can we prove it? He was the only one who knew. Well, except for people in Jamaica.”

  “Vulch might have told Minnie,” Prance said. “We must make sure no one tells them Black is going to see her.”

  Mrs. Ballard spoke without being spoken to again, which was something she seldom did. “If there’s anything to be learned from her, Black will ferret it out,” she said, meaning no compliment. She considered Black a nosy upstart.

  They discussed this new turn of events all the way back to Newstead. The more they discussed it, the more the details fell into place. Redley Hall had been in Lady Richardson’s family for hundreds of years, so of course they would know all about Newstead Abbey, and the abandoned folly on the island, where the body was buried.

  Lady Richardson had attempted to keep Corinne away from Mrs. Addams to prevent her learning that she had arrived in England in gowns that didn’t fit her.

  “It also explains why that social climber calling herself Lady Richardson doesn’t insist on a season in London,” Prance said. “She’s afraid she’ll run into someone who knew them in Jamaica,”

  They discussed the case all the way home, without finding one single item that didn’t jibe with their theory. They passed Eggars leaving in his jig as they turned off the main road to the abbey road. Shortly behind him was a wagon carrying Vulch’s body, covered in blankets. Twilight had already fallen in the short days of December. The other members of the party were in the salon, enjoying tea. In the normal way, Mrs. Ballard would have darted up to her room, but on this occasion she was so curious she sidled into the salon and sat quietly, listening.

  Byron looked up and smiled. When he realized he was staring at Corinne, he said hastily, “The robes must be progressing satisfactorily, Prance. You have the gleam of success in your eyes.”

  “The robes are fine, just fine, but that is not what puts the gleam in my eyes. It is something much more important.” He allowed his audience a few moments’ silence for imagination to soar, wondering what he could have discovered. Whatever they thought, he knew his announcement would eclipse it in wonder.

  “Don’t stand there like a bloated frog, Reg. Tell us,” Coffen urged.

  “We have discovered that Lady Richardson is not, in fact, Lady Richardson. We believe she is none other than Nessie Landers.”

  Byron gave a derisive snort. “And who is Sir William? Is he Jack Ketch?”

  “No, but he might provide fodder for the hangman before this is over. Wait till you hear this.”

  Prance loved having the floor. He made a good rant of it, reminding them that the Richardsons had arrived without servants, that they would know of the island, describing the gowns that didn’t fit the soi-disant Lady Richardson when she arrived in England, her efforts to keep Corinne away from Mrs. Addams, her pretext for not going to London, her first acceptance that the body was Nessie as it settled the matter, and when Vulch threatened to tell the truth, her suborning of his testimony at an undetermined price.

  “A lot of it makes sense, but how did Vulch find out?” Coffen asked. “And on top of that, why not just pay him to let on the body was Nessie’s?”

  “That was the quid pro quo. He wants to marry Tess, and for that Minnie has to be dead,” Prance said. “It would also give him the deed to Minnie’s cottage.”

  “There’s a dandy kooey bono but it don’t tell us how he found out it was Nessie in the grave,” Coffen persisted.

  “He was in London at the time,” Prance explained. “He might have seen the real Lady Richardson with Sir William. He worked at an hotel, possibly the one the Richardsons were staying at.”

  “It would explain their eagerness to get hold of my family archives as well,” Byron said. “If letters were exchanged, they might make some mention of the real Lady Richardson that would reveal the impersonation.”

  “Like Lady Richardson having that tooth out,” Coffen said. “Still, the whole story hangs on a dress that didn’t fit.”

  “But the theory, you must own, fits exceedingly well,” Prance said.

  Luten, who had been listening with interest, finally spoke. “It’s an interesting idea, but a theory is only a theory until it’s been tested and proven,” he said. “The law won’t listen to theories. How do we prove it?”

  “There must be a picture somewhere of the real Lady Richardson,” Coffen said. “I wonder now if that’s what she was after in the archives, looking for one of them little ivory miniatures or some such thing.”

  “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Prance crowed. “It must be something important for her to have actually broken into the abbey to look for it. Perhaps she found it. There were a few papers burned in the grate, you recall. I am assuming she or Sir William is the culprit?” He looked around for agreement and saw heads nodding.

  “Ah, the lady’s footprint!” Coffen said. “It explains that as well. Hers.”

  “There must be family portraits at Redley Hall,” Luten said. “Why don’t we call on the Richardsons tomorrow?”

  “If there was ever one of the real Lady Richardson, they would have burned it,” Coffen told him.

  “A family resemblance can often be traced, though. If the Richardsons are all dark complexioned, for instance, when the lady calling herself Lady Richardson is a blonde, that would — No, that doesn’t work. The body on the island had blond hair, like the impostor.”

  “We’ll go anyhow,” Coffen said. “I want to check out her feet. And tonight I mean to have a rifle through the boxes in the library to see if I can find anything about the Richardsons. For all we know, Sir William’s an impostor as well.”

  “Pray don’t complicate things any further,” Prance said. “It wasn’t Sir William whose clothes didn’t fit.”

  “We don’t know that,” Coffen said.

  The company ignored his idea. “I doubt they would have written that the daughter was having a tooth drawn,” Prance said, “but by all means do look.” He turned to Byron. “Did Eggars have anything interesting to say?”

  “He tramped us through the woods in the cold for an hour and confirmed what Coffen knew at a glance, that the body had been dragged or carried to the forest and chucked under the tree where it was found. He was going to Vulch’s place, where he will no doubt discover a bullet hole and blood smear on the sofa and an empty chest, if he remembers what Luten told him.”

  “And two ale glasses on the table,” Coffen added. “That looks like Sir William was the one who called on him. A lady don’t usually drink ale. Well, it stands to reason it took a man to drag Vulch to a wagon and haul him under the tree. He’d need a rig, or at least a mount. Likely a mount, in fact, so his groom wouldn’t see what he was up to. I’ll make an excuse to visit their stable and see if he left any clues. Blood, or what have you.”

  “The stable hands could tell you if he was out last night, if they haven’t been bribed to silence,” Byron mentioned.

  “I don’t like to tip them off by asking. I’ll think of something.”

  “Don’t bother,” Luten said. “My groom will do that while we visit tomorrow. The questions will come more naturally from another groom."

  Dinner was another feast. It deserved a better topic of conversation than murder, but no one could seem to think or speak of anything else. Even Prance forgot his choir and his robes and his fir boughs.

  Byron had a fire built in the library, and a
fter dinner the whole group went there to rummage through boxes looking in vain for letters from Jamaica, and finally concluding that if there had ever been any there, the thief had either got away with them or burned them in the grate before leaving.

  * * *

  Chapter 22

  They all agreed, as they discussed the visit to Redley Hall over breakfast the next morning, that Byron, as their host, must be of the party. Prance, the lover of art, was to request a visit to the gallery to compare Lady Richardson’s features to those of her forebears. It would be rude for Corinne, the only lady, not to participate, and Luten had no intention of sending her off with Byron while he stayed at home. As to Coffen, you might as well try to keep a dog from a roast as to try to keep him away from potential clues.

  “Then you shan’t be needing me,” Mrs. Ballard said with relief, and slipped quietly from the room.

  “That makes a manageable five in all,” Prance said. “It’s not as though we were landing a regiment in on them. Though it does mean two carriages, which makes it seem like a crowd.”

  “I’ll be riding,” Coffen said. “Gives me a chance to snoop about the stable.”

  * * * *

  As the carriage swept up the drive to Redley Hall, it was difficult to believe the occupants of such a house could be murderers. Its square stone bulk reeked of solid respectability. It boasted no French architectural flourishes, no porte cochère, no Italian columns or dome, no statuary or crest making unlikely boasts in Latin. It was a rectangular building three stories high with heavy quoins on the corners, a lead roof and five large chimneys, three of them puffing smoke into the crisp winter air.

  The graveled forecourt crunched under the wheels as the carriage drew up to the old oak door. The butler who answered the first rattle of the big brass stirrup knocker was equally unpretentious. He wore a dark suit and bowed respectfully as he ushered them into a long, paneled entranceway smelling of beeswax and turpentine. He took Byron’s card off to “see if madam was at home.”