In the end, Daphne asked, “What do you make of that, Lord Stewart?”
“You were extremely lucky to have Malcolm at your side, Daphne. Very lucky, indeed.”
Daphne grinned and said, “But I met another wonderful man in Hinderwell, Lord Stewart. His name is Peter Renshaw. He owns the cottages we stayed at and he helps at the hotel. Peter took me to St. Hilda’s well. Have you ever heard of St. Hilda, Lord Stewart?”
Charles shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, I won’t bore you with the whole story today. Maybe another time. But Peter knew about it and then we walked down to the beach below the church. It was so quiet and peaceful and Peter…well, he’s just the nicest man.”
Charles grinned and said, “See what happens when you escape work every now and then, young lady? You meet nice men. Does Malcolm have competition now?”
Daphne slapped Charles’ arm lightly and said, “Competition for what? Me? They are wasting their time if they are competing over me.”
“And yet the two things you told me about the entire week were Malcolm saving you and the nicest man on earth taking you to see an old well,” Charles said. “Seems to me you are going to have to decide which one gets your attention.”
“You’re awful, Lord Stewart. They are both nice and I like them equally,” she said, standing and walking to the window. “But they are also different. Peter is really quite…quite different than Malcolm, in a lot of ways.”
Charles allowed her to silently stare out before saying, “I have a prediction to make.”
“What’s that?” she asked, turning to face him.
“That there will be wedding bells in Danby within the next year.”
XXXI. The Reckoning
In the sitting room of Stichen Manor, Bingham meticulously polished Lord Stewart’s shoes while Charles smoked a cigar and read The Times from a few days earlier. Sunlight filled the room, but a cool breeze and gathering clouds portended rain later in the day.
“There’s too much crime in the world, Bingham,” Charles said solemnly. “It’s not even intelligent crime. People are committing simple, thoughtless crimes out of greed, or passion, or whatever sentiment overtakes them on a given day. It must be dreadfully boring being a constable these days. A school child could solve these.”
He folded the paper and noisily laid it on a table.
Without looking up, Bingham replied, “Good thing you live in Yorkshire, sir, where the interesting crimes occur.”
“Exactly, Bingham. Who would have guessed we would outshine London itself this summer.”
“And are you any closer to allowing Silsbury to see the light, yet?” Bingham asked.
Charles watched the smoke rise from the tip of his cigar as he held it in front of him.
“Yes, I am. I believe I could convict the killer today, Bingham,” Charles said. “But I want to find one final piece of the puzzle. Mary confirmed that it exists. I now need to find it and today could be the day. We are going to Whitby one last time, only this time we won’t be inside the church, we’ll be outside.”
“Do you know which one?” Bingham asked.
“Not yet.”
“And what are we searching for?”
“Two headstones,” Charles answered.
“So we should bring rain gear?”
“Bingham, I think it would be a sign from above if it was storming when we finally unraveled this affair.”
Indeed, the skies darkened as they drove east and approached Whitby. The sea looked murky and ominous under the gray clouds, with whitecaps as far out as they could see.
Charles had Bingham drive through town and park next to the Church of St. Mary’s, with its rolling grounds filled with gray headstones. Bingham pulled out overcoats for each of them from the back seat and they bundled up before heading out into the graveyard.
“We’re looking for two recent graves of the Leverings. It should be easy to pick them out among these ancient stones,” Charles said loudly above the ever-increasing wind.
However, fifteen minutes of trudging in opposite directions, completely around the church, failed to disclose the graves they were looking for. Rain began to pelt down and the temperature dropped quickly.
They met at the car.
“Let’s go back to Larpool Lane, a little ways up the hill,” Charles suggested. “I saw another cemetery when we were coming in. I promise you we are almost done, Bingham. It will be worth the effort.”
Bingham dutifully drove the soaked sleuths a little northwest of where they were to a much larger field of headstones along the lane. He parked on the most solid ground he could find, avoiding the mud holes that had already formed.
He and Charles got out and chose their respective routes to cover as much ground as possible, as efficiently as possible. With heads bent down against the elements, they proceeded forward.
Charles noticed what appeared to be a newer section of the cemetery in a corner to his right. He walked up the hill with the aid of a strong wind behind him. Thunder boomed from a nearby lighting strike, but his eyes were fixed on a promising target.
He strode with renewed energy and pace. The pair of rounded, nearly white headstones seemed to call him. Lightning lit up the way as he zigzagged through the maze of markers, and, finally, he was there.
Lord Stewart barely noticed the storm around him as he read Archibald Levering’s tombstone. The he looked at the three lines etched on the neighboring stone:
Dearest Mother
Margaret ‘Maisie’ Levering
D1928
“Thank you, Margaret,” Charles said with a tip of his cap. “Everything’s going to be alright now.”
The next day, Lord Charles Stewart sent telegrams to the Meaths, Alistair Cooper, Malcolm Leatherby, Elizabeth Parker, the Colonel’s solicitors, and Inspector Silsbury, inviting them all to Stichen Manor in three days’ time for an ‘important update’ on the dual murders. He fully expected at least one response asking for a rescheduling, but, instead, received confirmations from each of them.
Charles spent the intervening time fully relaxed and at ease for the first time since the Colonel’s murder.
On the agreed upon day, at noon, the visitors began to assemble in the library in chairs and couches lined along the walls in front of the bookshelves. The murmur of voices grew in intensity as new participants arrived and added to the chatter, with the exception of Elizabeth Parker, whose face clearly showed the signs of the stress she was under, and Silsbury, who was suspicious of Lord Stewart’s intentions from the time he received his telegram.
Charles joined the group and cheerfully went from person to person, conversing with each one briefly until completing the rounds and leaning on the large desk in the center of the room.
He cleared his throat and said, “Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. A lot has occurred since we last gathered in this manor for the reunion and I felt it was an appropriate time to recap. Before we disassemble, it is my goal to disclose beyond any doubt the true murderer of Colonel Humphries and Archibald Levering.”
Gasps from the women mingled with mutterings by the men. Charles held up his hand to silent them.
“Yes, in fact the murderer is in this room with us, but you need not be alarmed. No one is in danger but myself and I have taken precautions to that effect,” Charles said. “Rest assured that you all, minus one, will go home this afternoon with the case completely resolved.
“I will not prolong my presentation with a chronological recapitulation of events you are already familiar with,” Charles said, “In its place, I will present the evidence that led to my identification of the killer.
“Let’s begin with the night of the Colonel’s murder in this very room. The first clue I determined from a cursory inspection of the library when I arrived was the fact the Colonel was not killed in his chair. He was moved there. Rather, he was dragged there from the proximity of the fireplace, which meant the killer, or the killer’s acco
mplice, was somebody strong enough to perform that task. How the killer got into and out of the room will be discussed in due time.
“Secondly, much attention has been paid to the murder weapon. It was, of course, one of Stuart Meath’s knives. Everyone in the house at that time had easy access to the knife collection. More importantly, would the owner of the knife leave it in the Colonel’s body after using it to kill him? Was it left there to point a finger at Stuart or was it left there for the purpose of pointing the finger away from Stuart?”
All eyes moved to the couch holding the Meaths, but Stuart sat impassively the entire time. Helen clutched his hand.
“There’s almost no doubt another of Stuart’s knives was used to murder Mr. Levering,” Charles continued. “However, the only evidence in that case centered around the location of the body—a lonely stretch of beach next to a golf course. The body would have been found within another twenty four hours, but the process was sped up by a misplaced tee shot. Or so I thought at the time, until I considered the accuracy of every one of my playing partner’s shots except for that one. So, perhaps it was not so misplaced after all.
“Also, the most logical way to get that body to the beach was by boat. I focused my attention on the best amateur sailors I knew of,” Charles said, pausing there to take a drink of sherry and let his eyes scan each face in the room.
“That brings us back to Stichen Manor and one of the most intriguing aspects of this case. How did the murderer get in here and how did they leave? It seems that the Colonel had built a hidden doorway that very few people knew about. The servants knew. The cook knew. Daphne Bishop probably knew and, therefore, Malcolm knew.”
Charles stared at Leatherby, who was seated, not coincidentally, in a chair immediately next to the doorway.
Malcolm slammed the arms of the chair with both hands and shouted, “You can’t expect any jury to hang a man on the nonsense you have been spewing today. There’s not a bit of physical evidence tying me to any of it.”
“But there is, Malcolm. There is,” Charles replied calmly. “The sheet Colonel Humphries threw in the fireplace the moment before you killed him did not completely burn. But in your haste to flee after stabbing him and dragging him to the chair, you failed to notice. You assumed it was in ashes and it wasn’t. When you heard my knock you ran for the secret door you came in by via the pantry.”
“Lies. They are all lies,” Malcolm said, jumping to his feet and pushing on the wall beside him, opening the doorway. He ran two strides before landing in the arms of Bingham and Constable Stanhope of the Danby police, who brought him back into the library. Stanhope secured handcuffs around Malcolm’s wrists.
“Malcolm has a penchant for genealogy,” Charles told the others, once the initial shock of the attempted escape wore off. “He was known to visit the local churches in search of records—records of a marriage and birth that was little known except by two people. Colonel Humphries and Margaret. Malcolm knew about Margaret from the time of the war when he saw the Colonel reading her letters. When he got back to Yorkshire, he began his research. I happened to duplicate that research recently and realized he had come into possession of evidence proving his theory—that the Colonel and Margaret had been married and had a son.
“Colonel Humphries loved Margaret very much, but was not cut out to be a father. So, Margaret and the boy moved not far away, never again communicating directly with the Colonel that I know of. Still, he kept her letters to the day he died.
“Margaret remarried and the young boy took on the new father’s name. Archibald Levering never knew his real father. Margaret, or Maisie as everyone knew her by, refused to talk about him despite her eternal love. When she found out about the Colonel’s death, it literally broke her heart.
“Archibald, it seems, also had a secret. He and his young wife had a daughter they could not provide for. Malcolm, it seems, found this out as well in his research. He decided it would be profitable to court the daughter once she was of age and marry the legal heir to the Colonel’s small fortune, including this manor, once he proved her rightful inheritance to the solicitors after the marriage. My good friend Mary Hastings provided the information I needed concerning Daphne’s adoption by the Bishops.
“Daphne was ignorant of her entire history and is to this day. I will inform her as soon as Malcolm is taken into proper custody by the Inspector. Oddly enough, it was a recent boating incident in the company of Malcolm, an excellent sailor, that helped convince me of my notions about the Levering murder. Malcolm kidnapped him in the middle of the night, took him out into the ocean in a boat, stabbed him in the back and drowned him for good measure. When he got the body ashore, Malcolm untied him and left him on the beach, just waiting for an errant tee shot the next day when Malcolm knew he’d be playing golf with me. Thus, I was assured no harm would come to Daphne while in Malcolm’s presence. She was too valuable an asset to him to let her drown.
“In regards to the document in the fireplace, let me explain more fully. It is my belief that just prior to nine o’clock on the night of the Colonel’s murder, Malcolm entered this library through the secret door with a document he stole from the church records. He confronted the Colonel with the evidence of his marriage to Margaret and the birth of Archibald. An argument ensued by the fireplace. The Colonel took the paper, or was handed the paper, and threw it into the fireplace. In his anger, Malcolm stabbed him with one of Stuart’s knives, which he had taken earlier in the day. Malcolm quickly dragged the Colonel to the chair. He heard my knock and fled back into the pantry. I heard the door slam but did not know of its existence until much later.
“Inspector Silsbury can be credited with finding the partially charred document. I recognized it instantly as matching the ones I had seen in the church records, having already determined that a page was missing. I apologize, Inspector, for not making you aware of that fact, but I felt it would have hindered my pursuit of the killer.
“Mr. Levering’s death was unfortunate and happened before I could fairly warn him of the danger. Malcolm was anxious, at that point, to get to the time it was appropriate to propose to Daphne.
“And that brings us to today,” Charles said with a sigh. “With Malcolm’s admission of guilt by his actions here alone, George Parker should be a free man and Daphne Bishop should be declared the rightful heir to the Colonel’s estate. I hand it over to you, Inspector, and to you, Misters Lee and Bell.”
XXXII. Future Plans
Charles had purposely not invited Daphne to the gathering at Stichen Manor to relieve her of the shock of seeing a man she considered marrying being dragged away in handcuffs. But he was giddy with excitement when they sat together in the den and she heard his conclusions for herself. He was happy for the sudden fortune she was about to inherit. Daphne, on the other hand, was more immediately concerned with non-financial matters.
“Do you think my real mother would want to meet me and talk?” Daphne asked Charles.
“I’m quite certain she would,” he answered. “The man she loved has been taken from her and I think she needs the caring you are so good at providing. It will do no harm to meet her and attempt to build a relationship.”
“Yes. I want to meet her.”
Daphne looked around the room for a moment and said, “My goodness, Lord Stewart. What am I going to do with this enormous manor?”
“You’re going to live in it, Daphne. The servants all want to stay. They adore you, of course, but all those decisions are yours to make.”
“Oh, I would never let anyone go,” Daphne said. “And maybe there’s even space for Ida. It’s all too much to comprehend right now. And frightfully exciting.”
Charles grinned and said, “You’ll find the master bedroom quite adequate. Plenty of room for you and your husband.”
Daphne blushed. “You said there would be wedding bells within a year, Lord Stewart. That seems unlikely with Malcolm in jail.”
“But I remember another name being ment
ioned.”
She rose from her chair and turned away so Charles didn’t see the even deeper rosiness on her face.
“You mean Peter, don’t you. I must tell Peter what has happened.”
Daphne stared out at the rolling hills of the estate.
“I wonder….”
“Wonder what?” Charles asked.
“I wonder if he would give up the hotel and cottages for a life here, helping me run a market in a place like Danby.”
“I stand by my wedding bells prediction, my dear.”
Lord Charles Stewart had one more chore before leaving Stichen Manor and he accomplished that the following day. He began by making a lunch date with Mary Hastings to inform her of the arrest of Malcolm Leatherby. They met at their usual café and, this time, Mary was there first to greet Charles when he arrived.
“Much better weather than last time,” she said with a smile.
“Without a doubt,” Charles said, taking a seat. “How have you been?”
“I’m fine, thank you. But I’ve been anxious for news. You worried me the last time we talked,” she said.
Charles leaned back and let out a deep breath.
“I wanted to meet with you today to let you know that your final piece of the puzzle fit perfectly and all is well. The case is solved and, as you can see, I’m not at the gallows.”
Mary’s eyes widened and she said, “Charles! That’s marvelous. Tell me!”
“It was Malcolm Leatherby, of course, the man so intent on marrying Daphne Bishop for all the wrong reasons.”
“But how did you know?” Mary asked. “I want to hear how a real expert investigates a murder.”
With food and drink in front of them, Charles told her.
“It all began and ended with Margaret, with a lot in between,” he said. “The men in the battalion suspected there was a woman, but nobody knew for sure and it wasn’t all that important to most of them, with the exception of Malcolm. For whatever reason, he pursued it further and stumbled upon the records that showed they had a son and that the son had a daughter.
The Enemy in Our Midst: A Lord Charles Stewart Mystery Page 20