Death at Bishop's Keep

by Robin Paige

  “Patsy is quite delicious just as she is,” Charles lied, as the carriage moved forward smartly. “I would not change her for the world. No, Marsden, you and your mother will have to indulge me. Patsy will make some fortunate man a loving, if not dutiful, wife, but I have not yet found the right woman. Perhaps—”

  He paused. On the graveled footpath beside the street, two rosy-cheeked young women with elaborately piled hair and ruffled silk parasols smiled flirtatiously at the occupants of the carriage. For Bradford’s benefit, he spoke heavily, a man weighted by disappointed hopes.

  “—Perhaps I never shall.”

  “Nonsense.” Marsden said, tipping his bowler at the two young women. “And don’t be so quick to reject Patsy. She’s young yet. With a husband’s firm hand guiding her development, she could become a charming wife.”

  Charles pursed his lips. A wife, charming or otherwise, was not in his scheme of things.

  7

  “You have read in the newspaper our murder I hope—you cannot think how much more interesting a murder becomes from being committed at one’s door.”

  —JANE CARLYLE to her cousin Jeannie Welch

  As the train from London pulled into the Colchester station, Kate eagerly rose from her seat in the first-class carriage she had shared with Eleanor Marsden and Garnet, Miss Marsden’s personal maid.

  “We’re here,” she cried excitedly, leaning from the open window to glimpse what she could of the platform. “At last!”

  Then she remembered herself and pulled back from the window, flushing. Miss Marsden was rising in a leisurely way, directing Garnet to gather her cloak, her exquisite dyed kid gloves, her parasol, her reticule, and the half-dozen bags and bandboxes she had brought with her from London, stuffed with (as Kate had been hearing for the last several hours) wedding finery. To the sophisticated Miss Marsden, Kate thought, her pleasure in the sights and sounds of her arrival must seem terribly inexperienced and gauche, rather like a schoolgirl on an adventure.

  Kate tossed her head. But she was inexperienced and this was an adventure for her. She could scarcely wait to see the massive walls of Bishop’s Keep rising like a mossy ruin out of the surrounding grove of ancient oaks, the sunset gilding its great stone turrets. If the truthful expression of pleasure in either her journey or her arrival was amusing to her elegant traveling companion, so be it. So she repeated with enthusiasm as she reached for her carpetbag, “How lovely to be here at last.”

  Eleanor Marsden inspected the. fluff of silvery blond bangs and the tilt of her plum-colored straw hat in the small mirror that Garnet held up for her. “You must be appallingly tired, my dear Miss Ardleigh. It is such a long, tedious journey all the way from New York.”

  It had been a long journey, Kate thought. But hardly tedious. To her surprise and pleasure, the steamship passage Mr. Kellerman had arranged at her aunt’s direction, as well as the railway tickets from Liverpool to London and from London to Colchester, had been first-class accommodations, an acknowledgment, no doubt, that she was an Ardleigh, albeit a distant one. Had she been a mere secretary-companion, she would have been sent third-class.

  But although Kate’s unfashionable clothing and flyaway hair set her apart from the extravagantly gowned and coiffed transatlantic voyagers, she did not feel the least uncomfortable. On the contrary, the excitement of the journey had charged her. Her imagination examined each sight, each exchange, each person, as possible subject matter for the sensational stories that Beryl Bardwell had promised to post (Kate’s secretarial schedule permitting) to Mr. Coxford. After all, Kate reminded herself, she had not accepted her new position because she needed the money (she was confident of supporting herself with her pen) but because she deeply desired adventure. If she were going to write sensational stories, she needed to live a sensational life. It was impossible to describe from the heart what she had not experienced! It had been the rarest and most wonderful chance that Aunt Sabrina had risen like a specter out of the mists to offer her this Excalibur of widened horizons. She would not squander the least moment of her journey. She would take note of it all.

  So she was especially gratified when Mrs. Snodgrass’s priceless diamond necklace was discovered to be missing and the gossip at the table implicated the ship’s steward, a man of (it was rumored) Egyptian origin, a swarthy fellow with slender, tapering fingers and an evil look. For the following two days, Kate alternately posted herself in the stuffy hallway outside Mrs. Snodgrass’s stateroom and loitered on deck near the office of the steward, pretending great interest in the starboard vista. But to her frustration, she was not afforded the opportunity to enter either room unobserved (whether she would have was quite another question) and had to content herself with polite inquiries as to Mrs. Snodgrass’s health and a casually phrased remark to the steward about camels, which met with a blank stare. She was downcast when Mrs. Snodgrass’s maid turned up the missing jewels in the laundry. Thus it was that the embryonic “Deadly Diamonds” (which was to have followed “Amber’s Amulet,” on which she was just getting a start) was rudely aborted.

  But everything else about her journey had been perfect, down to the perfect coincidence of discovering that her fellow traveler in the first-class carriage from London to Colchester was Miss Eleanor Marsden, of Marsden Manor, daughter of a baronet—and her aunt’s neighbor. Marsden Manor, it turned out, was only three miles from Bishop’s Keep. Life was indeed stranger than fiction!

  Kate was very glad to have met Miss Marsden, whom she liked immediately. Clearheaded though she was about many things, Kate was given to forming quick opinions on the basis of short acquaintance. It was a character trait that Aunt Maureen had often cautioned her to curb, although Kate stubbornly felt it a strength to be cultivated. A writer, she thought, should be a quick study of personality, able to see through the social facade straight to the heart. In the case of Miss Marsden, the heart did not seem far to seek. She wore it like a talisman on her sleeve and loved to talk about what was in it.

  “There they are,” Miss Marsden called over her shoulder to Kate as she tripped across the platform, plum kid boots peeping from under the deep flounce of her elegant plum-colored traveling suit. “Yoo-hoo,” she cried, waving. “Bradford, Charles! Here we are!”

  Kate watched with interest as a strikingly handsome, fair-haired young man ambled toward them. He was dressed in stylish gray flannels, flawlessly tailored, and wore a smart gray bowler. He was accompanied by a man whose clothes were markedly less formal.

  “If it isn’t our favorite spendthrift,” the fair-haired man said jauntily. “Did you leave anything in the Regency Street shops, Ellie?”

  Miss Marsden tapped him smartly on the arm. “Not a solitary ribbon or plume, dear brother. And since poor Garnet could not carry the half of my extravagances, I ordered most of my purchases sent down by post. Wait until you see the lavish waistcoat I have brought for you, in the same shade of peacock as the one I purchased for Mr. Fairley.”

  Mr. Ernest Fairley, Kate knew from Miss Marsden’s voluminous railway confidences, was Miss Marsden’s Intended. His grandfather, the genius of Fairley’s Finest Fancy Candies, had founded the family fortune on chocolate. If Miss Marsden’s report were to be trusted, the marriage, which would take place at Christmas, was considered the match of the year. Kate had been aghast to learn that Mr. Fairley, a widower, was nearly twenty-five years older than his bride-to-be. Still, Miss Marsden, who from the moment of their meeting had scarcely stopped talking about Mr. Fairley’s courtship, their impending vows, and the splendid Fairley family home in Kensington, did not seem unduly troubled at the thought of surrendering her carefree soul to a man who was her senior by a quarter of a century.

  Kate, for her part, could not imagine such a thing. Or rather, she could imagine it all too clearly, and the image made her shudder. How could any thinking woman yield up her independence to the whim and will of some man who would become her guardian both in the eyes of the law and society? How could she bear to be tr
eated as if she were a wayward child who required adult protection from the dangers of the world and from her own naive and ungovernable willfulness? Not for her, such a fate!

  The stylish man was peering toward the train hissing on the track, while the conductor shouted and slammed the coach doors, porters jangled baggage trucks, and passengers scurried to board. “Where is Aunt Penelope?”

  “She developed a frightful cold,” Miss Marsden said carelessly, “really quite severe, poor old thing. The doctor advised her to take to her bed. Rather than wait, I came on without her.”

  The young man frowned. “Papa will not be at all pleased, Ellie. You know his feelings on the subject of women traveling unescorted.”

  Miss Marsden gave him a dazzling smile. “But I was not alone, Bradford. My dear friend Miss Ardleigh was kind enough to accompany me, and of course I had Garnet. I am sure Papa could not object.” She drew Kate forward. “Miss Kathryn Ardleigh, may I present my dear brother, the Honorable Bradford Marsden, and his friend, Sir Charles Sheridan, who is staying the month with us. Gentlemen, Miss Ardleigh is the niece of Miss Sabrina Ardleigh and Mrs. Bernice Jaggers. She has come to live with her aunts at Bishop’s Keep.”

  Kate’s amusement at Miss Marsden’s adroitness in giving their accidental meeting the appearance of a planned jaunt was nearly lost in her astonishment. There were two aunts? But she could not question Miss Marsden without revealing her ignorance about the situation into which she was walking, as Uncle O’Malley would have said, as blind as a bat. In spite of her intuitive liking for her companion, her own railway confidences had been discreetly reserved. She was anxious to know whether Bishop’s Keep was indeed as romantic as she imagined, but she had not asked. Nor had she disclosed either her secretarial employment or the existence of Beryl Bardwell. And she had asked nothing about her aunt, leaving it to Miss Marsden to think what she wished.

  “Charmed, I am sure, Miss Ardleigh,” Bradford Marsden drawled, bending in a polished greeting over her hand. “How nice that you have come.” He cocked a wry eyebrow. “And how felicitous for Eleanor. Now she will have a friend directly at hand. No doubt you will be required to properly admire her nuptial finery and envy her choice of husbands. Most of her friends, regrettably, fail to serve these necessary purposes, for they live in London. You will certainly be useful.”

  “I am glad to share Miss Marsden’s joys,” Kate said quietly, retrieving her hand.

  Miss Marsden made a playful face. “Come now, Bradford, do behave.” She turned to the other gentleman, who stood slightly behind her brother. “Sir Charles Sheridan, my dear Kathryn, is a masterful photographer, famous for some picture or other that he took of the Queen at her Jubilee, and thereby earned his knighthood. You will have to persuade him to take your portrait, as he did the Queen’s, and Mrs. Langtry’s. But don’t let him talk to you of fossils,” she added with a playful gaiety. “Once given leave to begin, the man scarcely knows how to make a stop, and must be reined in with the firmest possible hand.”

  Kate nodded at Sir Charles with interest, half expecting him to wear some visible token of his grandness. But as a knight, he was a stunning disappointment, especially in comparison to the impeccably groomed, grinning Bradford Marsden. Sir Charles’s brown canvas jacket needed brushing. It was covered with lumpy pockets, stuffed, from what she could see, with odds and ends of scientific paraphernalia—magnifying lens, an ivory rule, a pair of calipers. His tweedy Norfolk breeches were tucked into scarred, heavy-soled leather boots, and a soft felt hat, a broad-brimmed, brown thing with a shapeless crown, was pushed back on his curly brown hair, cut overlong, so that he looked like a buccaneer. From the look of him, Kate deduced that his knighthood was not a distinction he valued highly.

  “Kathryn—” Miss Marsden took her arm. “May I call you Kathryn, my dear? And you really must call me Eleanor. I require it. It is so tedious to be formal.” Without waiting for a response, she went on. “Dear Kathryn has arrived a day sooner than expected, so I have offered to take her to Bishop’s Keep.”

  Mr. Marsden pursed his lips. “But my dear sister, I fear that five is too many, given your monstrous load of parcels.”

  Kate disengaged her arm. “I can wait here,” she said hastily. “I can send word to Bishop’s Keep to let them know I have arrived, and someone will be sent to fetch me. I shall not mind staying, truly.”

  She would not, either. Beryl Bardwell would spend the time writing down everything she had seen on the clanking, steam-belching journey from London to Colchester and as much of Eleanor’s chitchat as she could remember, as well as full descriptions of the elegant Bradford Marsden and Sir Charles Sheridan, he of the lumpy pockets. And she would give her thoughts to what adventures and great mysteries lay ahead at Bishop’s Keep, which she imagined as an enormous stone pile of arches and towers, shrouded by a mysterious haze and haunted by ghosts of dead Ardleighs. Now that she was almost there, she had to admit to some anxiety. The sense of being alone in a strange place, so distant from the life she had known, the feeling of utter dependence on the goodwill of her unknown aunt—her two unknown aunts!—made her feel apprehensive. Apprehension was not an emotion Kate was used to. She didn’t particularly like it.

  “Actually, I prefer to stay behind,” Sir Charles said. “I shall return to the scene of the murder and see if anything new has been found out—although,” he added, as much to himself as to them, “judging from Sergeant Battle’s muddled methods, I rather doubt it.”

  Kate swiveled to look at Sir Charles. Eleanor squealed and clapped her hands.

  “Murder!” she cried. “How delightfully shocking! Charles, you naughty man, what dreadful scrape have you gotten yourself into now? You must tell us all about it as we ride. There is nothing I love quite as much as a good murder, especially when one of our party is involved in it.” She possessed herself of Kate’s arm once again. “And it is absolute balderdash to think of anyone’s staying behind,” she added firmly. “We will hire a man with a cart to take Garnet and the boxes, whilst we enjoy a leisurely drive through the countryside. You should know, dear Kathryn, that the painter John Constable, who has memorialized our Dedham Vale in his landscapes, was Sir Charles’s estimable great-uncle. Come now, everyone.”

  Kate smiled. Clearly, problems were readily solved if one had the money to hire the solution. But even though she continued to smile as Eleanor led them toward the carriage, she was at the same time surveying Sir Charles with greater interest, wondering exactly what sort of murder he meant.

  The carriage, with Kate’s boxes roped at the rear, proceeded through the Essex countryside, resplendent in late-summer glories. Blackbirds sang in the hawthorn hedges, apples ripened in the orchards, and golden stubblefields were studded with standing sheaves of grain. But the sun was a flat silver disk, mist-shrouded, in a pearl-gray sky. As they rode, the air thickened into a damp, cool fog. Bradford Marsden seemed preoccupied, while Eleanor wheedled out of Sir Charles a full account of the dead body in the dig and Beryl Bardwell made careful mental note of every grisly detail that might enrich “Amber’s Amulet.”

  So far, her story was little more than character sketches of an Egyptian gentleman (greatly resembling the ship’s steward in appearance and demeanor) and a mysterious medium named Mrs. Amber Bartlett, who wore an amulet and conducted seances in darkened rooms. It did not presently involve a murder, if only because Kate had not yet thought it all out, but the story would undoubtedly be the better for one. She made a note to herself to look for the newspaper accounts of the Colchester tragedy, and at Sir Charles’s mention of the photographs he had taken that morning, she asked to see them.

  “But my dear Kathryn,” Eleanor protested in a shocked voice, “they are photographs of a dead man. And not merely dead, but shockingly murdered! One presumes that there was a great deal of blood.” She shuddered with an eager delicacy. “The mere thought of it makes one quite faint.” Then she smiled and patted Kate’s hand. “But I forget. You are an American and American
women are reputed to be amazingly venturesome. You would not be daunted by a bit of blood, perhaps not even by the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s.” She turned to Bradford. “Perhaps Miss Ardleigh would consent to your escorting us to Madame Tussaud’s, dear brother. I understand that Cecil Hambrough’s dreadful murderer has been newly installed, holding the very gun from which the fatal shot was fired.”

  Having already heard of Madame Tussaud’s famous waxworks and feeling that the jaunt would yield excellent story material, Kate instantly agreed to Eleanor’s proposal. “It is not that I am particularly adventuresome,” she added. “It is simply that I am fascinated by all facets of life—even death.” She smiled at Sir Charles. “Hence my interest in your photographs.”

  Bradford Marsden roused himself from his preoccupation. “Sheridan, old chap,” he said, “you are in luck. Someone actually wants to see those wretched snapshots of yours.” He turned morosely to Kate. “Take my advice and don’t encourage the fellow, Miss Ardleigh. He will not only insist on showing you his photographs, but his fingerprints as well.”

  “Fingerprints?” Kate asked, finding that her opinion of Sir Charles was in need of revision. “You know about fingerprints?”

  Sir Charles held out his hand, palm up. “Indeed,” he said. “The skin of each finger exhibits a unique set of ridges. Each time the finger touches a surface, it deposits a print, rather like a stamp.”

  “That much I know,” Kate said.

  Sir Charles frowned. “You know?”