A Strange Manor of Death (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 3)

by R. A. Bentley

  'Save in your presence.'

  Vanda stood up. 'Do you really think I'd have allowed that?' she said crossly. 'I love him. I don't want him hanged! Besides, we had no gun! Where would we have got a gun? And wherever Jasper was, he wasn't in his flat, not while we were there.'

  'Unless he was in his bedroom.'

  'Well, he might have been there, I suppose, but he never came out!'

  Felix shook his head in disgust. 'How two intelligent, worldly people can be so foolish is beyond my comprehension. Now you're our chief suspects. How do you feel about that?'

  'But we've explained!' said Vanda.

  'You'll need to do more than that,' said Felix. 'If you want to be dropped from this investigation you'll need to prove it. Any witnesses?'

  'Well, no. How could there be?'

  'Quite! So you'd best clear off before I lock you up.'

  'Then we can go home?'

  'Yes, go! We know where to find you. No, wait. Did you hear a gunshot, while you were there?'

  They both shook their heads. 'No, nothing,' said Vanda.

  'Are you quite sure?'

  'Yes!'

  'You don't think they did it then?' said Rattigan, standing at the window.

  Felix bowed his head for a moment, squeezing his eyes with finger and thumb. 'I don't deny it's possible, Teddy, but consider what's required. One of them has to discover that Jasper is alive. They then have to lay hands on a gun, which just happens to be the same model as Lady FitzGreville's gun. They waylay and shoot him – no easy task – and transfer his dabs to the gun. Then if they didn't find him in the library, they'd have had to go back when everyone was finally in bed and move him there, perhaps in that wheelchair. And if they could plan all that, and it would certainly need to have been planned, are they really likely to confide their movements to a sixteen-year-old housemaid about whom they know nothing? It's too obvious an error.'

  'I agree about Miss Betts,' said Rattigan. 'But someone must have done all that, or something very similar.'

  'Which is why they have to remain suspects, silly beggars. However, I'm not going to be sidetracked by that. They didn't do it.'

  Chapter Twelve

  There was a firm tap at the door.

  'Yes, what is it, Evans?' said Felix 'Kindly tell me it's the murderer, come to present his compliments!'

  But it was Fudge who entered. 'You are wanted on the telephone, Inspector. A Doctor Benyson.'

  'Ah! Thank you, Mr Fudge. J'arrive!'

  'Howard. What news?'

  'Nothing very exciting, I'm afraid,' said Benyson. Do you want what I've got?'

  'Yes, fire away.'

  'All right. Putting it in a nutshell: his last meal, a light one, was too well digested to be of interest. I should say he had it four or five hours before he died. Externally, no recent cuts, contusions or other wounds. Nothing remarkable about the gunshot wound. The path of the bullet is consistent with the gun being held by the deceased, although it might not have been, of course. The bullet itself was lodged in the right anterior cranium, with considerable fracturing. It nearly passed right through. Death would certainly have been instantaneous. Internally, not a healthy man. All the usual afflictions of age, as you might expect, including atherosclerosis, heart somewhat enlarged, and a possible tumour on the right lung. There was also some scarring of the liver and cancer of the large intestine, the latter fairly advanced.'

  'That's interesting. Would he have known about the cancer?'

  'He'd have had symptoms, though he might not have known what they meant. People tend to present with it late. Embarrassment, you know.'

  'Would it have killed him?'

  'Without intervention, yes, and very likely with it. I'd say he had about a year or eighteen months.'

  'Might that have been a reason for suicide?'

  'Well, it's not a nice way to die. Is that your present thinking?'

  'It's by no means impossible, but we're not very happy with it. Howard, we wondered if you noticed his position in the chair. Might he have been shot elsewhere and moved there?'

  There was a short silence.

  'There's no reason why he shouldn't have been,' said Benyson carefully. 'But the body must soon have assumed the posture it was found in — the pooling of the blood, you know. The rigor mortis had largely worn off by the time I saw him but the pooling didn't strike me as unnatural in any way.'

  'That isn't what you had your doubts about then?'

  'No, I don't think so. Or was it? To be frank I still can't put my finger on it. It's frustrating.'

  'Howard, we've no evidence to support this, but might he have been drugged? We're wondering if he might have been slipped a Micky Fin before being shot, perhaps when he had his last meal.'

  'I don't think it was that I noticed,' said Benyson doubtfully. 'It'd be devilish hard to prove at this stage, you know; or at any stage, come to that. Can you get me samples?'

  'I've sent Yardley for some. I'll bring them over to you.'

  Putting down the telephone, Felix saw bustling past him an oddly familiar, silver-haired figure. It took him a moment to realise who it was. 'Mr Killigrew! You're the last person I expected to see here.'

  'Oh, it's you, Inspector,' panted Mr Killigrew. 'I must apologise for the state of me. There was no taxi available, being a Sunday, and I had to walk up from the station. It was, alas, rather further than I thought. This is the most dreadful news, quite dreadful. One hardly knows what to say.'

  Felix smiled sympathetically. 'We were about to telephone to you. How did you hear so quickly? Come into our makeshift office and all shall be explained. Sit down, do, and get your breath back. You remember Sergeant Rattigan, I expect?'

  'Yes indeed! Good afternoon, Sergeant,' said Killigrew, mopping his brow. 'We worked together on the Bolton case, did we not? Yes, I will sit down for a moment, if I may. As to hearing about it, I knew nothing until I spoke to your constable on the gate. I could scarcely credit my ears when he told me. I had promised to arrive by lunchtime today but I was delayed and missed my train; though I don't suppose I could have done anything had I been here. It's really most disturbing.'

  The two officers looked at each other.

  'Mr Killigrew,' said Felix, 'we are slightly confused. Do you mean to tell us it was you who read out Sir Jasper's will and oversaw the competition for the Manor?'

  'Why, yes,' frowned Mr Killigrew. 'Who else would it have been?'

  'I was under the impression you were on holiday.'

  'Oh I see. No, I postponed it. Or rather, I bundled my wife off to her sister in Brighton, as arranged, and stayed behind. I could have left it to my junior partner – he's perfectly capable – but, as you've no doubt discovered, it's a most interesting will and I wanted to deal with it personally.' He glanced at his watch. 'Dear me! It's nearly half past four and the competition ended at three. I must go to the great hall. There, one hopes, to meet the winner! I take it you've no objection, Inspector? From what I heard from your constable, it appears my client is indubitably deceased this time, and I have a legal and moral duty to carry out his wishes.'

  But there was no-one in the great hall.

  'Oh!' said Mr Killigrew, taken aback.

  'I'll fetch them,' said Rattigan.

  The first to arrive was the Colonel; followed, bemusedly, by the others.

  'Good afternoon, Killigrew!' boomed George. 'This is quite a surprise you've given us. We'd come to believe we were the butt of a practical joke, and you an imposter.'

  Mr Killigrew chuckled. 'So I understand. Well, I can assure you that I am quite real, as is the will. And if it was a practical joke, it has certainly rebounded on the unfortunate testator. Be that as it may, however, I'm obliged to continue.' He placed his attache case on the table and sat down. 'Now then! It is already well past three o'clock and the competition is therefore at an end. Has anyone found our token?'

  'Nearly all of us did,' said Elizabeth dryly.

  'They were hidden all over the place
,' explained Janet.

  Mr Killigrew looked surprised. 'Really? I was not informed of that. Perhaps it was intended to add another layer of difficulty to the undertaking. However, that is not a problem; the real token has a number written on the back, and for good measure I added my own signature to it. I also know where it was hidden of course, because I put it there.'

  'God's teeth!' cried Roger. 'This gets worse and worse. Where are the confounded things?'

  'Still next door, presumably,' said George.

  There was a gadarene rush for the drawing room, where they found Doris doing some tidying.

  'Gone!' cried Roger in agony. 'Doris, have you seen the little wooden coats of arms that were here?'

  'Yes, sir. They're over there on the mantelshelf. I wanted to polish the table.'

  'You haven't jumbled them up, have you?'

  'No, sir, I just picked them up as they were and put them down on the shelf. I've only just this minute moved them.'

  'Are you quite sure? This is important. Is the underneath one still the underneath one, and so on?'

  Doris looked frightened. 'Yes, sir, they're just exactly as they were. I never meddle with things more than I can help. I was just about to put them back again.'

  'It's all right, Doris; you weren't to know,' said Janet, rescuing them. 'Can anyone remember the order in which they were put down?'

  'I've still got mine,' said Egg. 'In my pocket.'

  'Then the bottom one must be ours,' said George, getting out his spectacles. He sighed and shook his head. 'Sorry Janet. Not for us, I'm afraid.'

  'The next one's ours,' said Roger, sliding it out. 'Damn! Nothing on it.' He continued to stare disconsolately at the unpainted back of the thing, as if willing something to appear there.

  'Nothing on mine either,' said Elizabeth disgustedly.

  'Nor mine,' added Emily, taking hers from her bag.

  'Eggy?' said Charlotte. And all eyes turned to him.

  'Well actually, yes,' said Egg diffidently. 'Mine's got the number twenty-three and Mr Killigrew's name on it.' He held it up, so that they could see.

  'Well done, Mr FitzGreville!' cried Mr Killigrew excitedly. 'That is, indeed, the winning token. Now if you can just tell me where you found it.'

  'Er, in a clock,' said Egg.

  'And which clock? Which room?'

  Egg looked about him in obvious discomfort. 'Can I talk to you privately about that, Mr Killigrew?'

  'Oh come now, Mr FitzGreville, don't be shy,' chuckled Mr Killigrew. 'Where was it?'

  Glancing at Felix, Egg sighed resignedly. 'It was in the library.'

  'Yes, it was!' cried Mr Killigrew. 'Now, that didn't hurt, did it? Come and see me before I leave and we'll set about making the necessary arrangements. And I'm very sorry, of course, that the rest of you have nothing to show for your efforts.'

  Felix, who had been standing quietly by, stepped in. 'Perhaps before you claim your inheritance you'll kindly come with me, sir,' he said.

  'Sit down, Mr FitzGreville,' said Felix, settling himself on the tabletop. 'I'm not arresting you at this stage, but your every utterance shall be recorded, so get it right. Pray explain yourself.'

  'I'd worked out the token's whereabouts from the quiz answers,' explained Egg wearily. 'The correct room anyway. We'd already come up with one location, or what we thought was a location, and Charlotte went to investigate. There was a token there as it turned out, behind a picture, but it was one of the false ones. Meanwhile it had occurred to me to convert the numbers in the answers to letters, using a telephone dial as a sort of Rosetta Stone, and that proved to be the correct approach. The clue, of course, was in the word "dial." Solving the resulting anagram led one to look under the shelter in the middle of the maze. There's a little store in there for gardeners' tools and on the wall was pinned an envelope with a note in it. It read: "A timely search of the library, perhaps?" I hurried up there and found Sir Jasper dead.'

  'At what time was this?'

  'Just before lunchtime, about ten to one. I fully intended telling someone – honestly I did – but I also wanted that token. I know what you're probably thinking, but winning the Manor had become rather an obsession with me, and notwithstanding the discovery of the body I forced myself to go on looking. It was pretty evident that Sir Jasper was dead so there was nothing I could have done for him in any case. There's only one clock in there, a grandfather one. I rooted about in the bottom of the case and there was the token. My intention was to go to Mr Killigrew, claim the Manor and tell him what had happened, but he hadn't come in yet. Just as I was trying to decide what to do, we heard Nettie screaming and I guessed what she'd found. I should think I delayed the finding of the body by all of ten minutes. I realise, Inspector, that I haven't exactly covered myself in glory, and I wholeheartedly apologise, but I don't see that it has harmed your investigation. I didn't mention it to you earlier because it struck me that I couldn't actually prove when I discovered the token. I hoped that events would make that unnecessary.'

  Felix cogitated for a while. 'No witnesses then?'

  Egg shook his head miserably. 'Not that I know of.'

  'So you can't prove when you found the token and you can't prove where you were between twelve and one-twenty or thereabouts last night?'

  'I . . .' began Egg, and hesitated. 'No,' he said. 'Sorry.'

  Felix sighed. 'All right, Mr FitzGreville. You may go for now. Don't leave the premises until I permit you to.'

  'If I had a pound for every time I've been wrong . . .' said Felix, returning to his chair. 'But can you imagine either of them committing murder? They strike me as clever but rather naive young people, nothing more than that.'

  'I'm not so sure about the girl being naive,' grumbled Rattigan. 'I'm finding it hard to keep up with this, to be honest. First the will is a joke and Killigrew an impostor, now both are genuine. Presumably he didn't know Jasper was still alive; no respectable solicitor is going to get involved in that sort of shenanigans. Anyway, he strikes me as being a bit naive himself. Look at the Bolton business, he never saw that coming, did he? But what was the old fool playing at? If he was really looking for a suitable heir, Bernard Austin might have been a better bet, or one of the FitzGreville brothers.'

  'All in all, I'm rather pleased it was those two,' smiled Felix. 'It'll probably benefit them more that any of the others. But remember, Teddy, Jasper wasn't expecting to be murdered. Had he lived, he wouldn't have had to honour the result of the quiz, so wouldn't have cared who won it. It was probably just a way of getting the measure of his relatives, with the added bonus of humiliating them. He lurks in his priest-hole, finds out what they really think of him, not to mention their plans for the Manor, and makes a decision based on that. It's very typical of him, to my mind. I can just imagine him popping up this afternoon and crowing over them, can't you?'

  'Unless it was suicide.'

  Felix sighed. 'Always that.'

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nanny Matthews proved to be a dumpy, bespectacled little woman in dark skirt and jumper. Her cheeks were laced with broken veins and her iron-grey hair was done up in a bun.

  'Miss Matthews, come in!' said Felix. 'You're just the lady I wanted to see. Do sit down. Do you smoke?'

  'I don't, sir, thank you,' said Nanny, reluctantly taking the chair. 'I've actually come about Miss Joan. You'll be wanting to see her I expect.'

  'Yes, I will do. Is that likely to be a problem do you think?'

  'Well, sir, I don't know. You'll have heard about her, I dare say, and how difficult she can be, and she's being difficult now. We didn't get off to a very good start, I'm afraid, with the fingerprints. She simply refuses to have them taken. I've no complaints about your Sergeant Yardley, he's been patience itself, but she says she won't get that mucky stuff on her fingers, and we can't make her see the need for it, although the Sergeant was at pains to explain. Now, of course, she's being generally awkward about everything.'

  'Oh, I shouldn't worry about the
prints, Miss Matthews,' smiled Felix. 'There's bound to be some item in her rooms we can get one off, or we can induce her to hold a clean glass on some pretext or other and take one off that. We've got yours, have we?'

  'Mine? Oh yes, sir. You won't find any shortage of those about the place. Although if Nettie has done her job, not as many as there might have been.'

  'Am I right in saying you're also the housekeeper here, in addition to being Miss FitzGreville's maid?'

  'Yes, in a manner of speaking, sir – unofficial and unpaid – though where my duties end and Mr Fudge's start I can't rightly say, and I don't suppose he can either. The master was a great one for his economies, sir, and that included the servants. But we muddle along.'

  'I understand from Sergeant Rattigan that you didn't like Sir Jasper very much?'

  'No, sir, I didn't. None of us did, and it's no good pretending otherwise. He wasn't a nice man, sir. He wasn't nice when he was younger and he didn't get any better when he got old. Well, you've seen that for yourself with this dreadful will business, making all his relatives look foolish and getting their hopes up like that. Yes, and us servants too. Now we don't know where we stand, and Cook had already booked a little break in Bognor on the strength of it. He's been a proper trial to us, one way and another.'

  'Is it too strong to say you hated him?'

  Nanny Matthews' expression became a little uneasy. 'Did I hate him? Oh I don't know about that, sir. Hate's a wicked word, isn't it? I shouldn't like to think I hated anyone, even him; though I'm not sorry he's gone and that's a fact. I was very fond of Her Ladyship, sir, Lady FitzGreville, who took me out of the orphanage and gave me a chance, and that's why I've stayed all these years. She was the complete opposite of him in every way and we all miss her.'

  'From the orphanage! So I take it you've been here since you were fourteen or fifteen?

  'I was fifteen, sir, and I'm forty now. Twenty-five years.'

  'That's a long time. Did you kill Sir Jasper, Miss Matthews?'