Murder At Rudhall Manor

by Anya Wylde

  She paused in the damp hallway undecided as to where to go. Normally she would be teaching the children in the nursery at this time, but now with all the free time she had, she felt a little lost.

  The library, she decided. It somehow felt like the right place to plan her next move. Accordingly, she headed down the hallway.

  A glass cabinet displaying an array of stuffed dead animals distracted her momentarily. She paused to inspect what looked like a beaver in a bonnet when someone bumped into her.

  "Pardon," Peter said. "I didn’t see you."

  "Clearly," Lucy snapped and then softened her tone, "I am sorry, it has been a—"

  "Difficult two days," Peter finished for her.

  She smiled wryly.

  He did not return the smile. Instead, he swooped down to play with the two pugs who had come bounding behind him. A faint blush tinged his cheeks. Before he could straighten, Lucy joined him.

  "You should name them," she said, giggling as one of the pugs caught hold of her sleeve between its teeth and tugged with all its might.

  Peter reluctantly smiled and nodded as he gently extracted the pug from the cloth. "I am afraid you have a rip in your sleeve."

  "One of many," Lucy started to say when a screech startled her to her feet.

  Peter, too, sprang up, his reed thin body tensing as he spotted the source of the screech.

  Lucy followed his terrified gaze …

  A vision of horror had manifested itself on top of the stairs. It appeared to be a creature whose soul was greatly agitated.

  An unhappy soul enrobed in a glowing white robe that swirled about its feet.

  It glared down upon them like a supreme demon staring at its supper of two biscuits and a baby teapot.

  It had hair— lots of hair, sprouting in great masses from its conical shaped head.

  Its eyes … oh, horror. The eyes were bright, red and moist looking. The dark shadows underneath these frightening orbs were deep and dark as a moonless night.

  "The ghost of Aunt Sedley," Peter gasped.

  "Your mother," Lucy corrected in disbelief. After a charged moment, she asked, "Did she have one too many last night?"

  "It looks like she somersaulted into a pool of brandy," Peter whispered back.

  "Undoubtedly," Lucy replied in shock.

  Lady Sedley took a step down towards them. "Get the animals out of this house," she screamed.

  Peter and Lucy shot a few feet into the air and sped backwards. A moment later Peter said in a tone used for children or very, very old people, "It is cold outside, Mother."

  "I don't care if it is freezing. Take them out of the house right this minute. I don’t want to ever see them again."

  "But it is freezing," Peter wheedled.

  "I don't care a farthing you hideous, puss filled mistake of my loins," Lady Sedley roared.

  Lucy's eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. She had never considered Lady Sedley to be unreasonable. In fact, a few times she had caught her feeding the pugs under the tea table.

  Peter wilted, his expression helpless.

  "Perhaps you better do as she says. The death of her husband has propelled her into an abyss of despair. Lady Sedley, it now seems, is unhinged," Lucy whispered watching Lady Sedley charge down the stairs looking wild eyed.

  "Unhinged? What like a door?"

  "Yes, and you are the knob," Lucy snapped. "Hurry," she urged impatiently.

  Peter grabbed the pups and hurtled towards the main door. Lucy, too, slipped into the library and shut the door.

  She closed her eyes and rested her back against the door.

  Her ears quivered, and she waited with baited breath until Lady Sedley's footsteps raced past.

  She breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes.

  Flames crackled in the fireplace.

  She cast a look around. A smiled tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  She was all alone in a large warm room filled with the scent of hundreds of books, ink and leather.

  This was perfect. She could now make her plan on how to trap the murderer in peace.

  She sat down in front of the dark rosewood writing table and pulled a crisp, clean sheet of paper towards herself. Dipping a quill in ink, she began to write ….

  Chapter 12

  Lord Robert Archibald Sedley, Lucy recalled, had been a belligerent fellow. A rotten creature who had been bottle headed, substantially cracked and had possessed a voice that seemed to emerge from deep within his intestines to break through his cruel lips in a bellowing, reverberating sound.

  A sound that had shaken the very air surrounding him and had held strength enough to send a weak willed creature shooting a few feet into the air in absolute terror.

  Along with his commanding voice he had also possessed a lusty temperament, a lineage that could be traced back a hundred years, and blood so blue that one was amazed to see his red cheeks.

  He also happened to have been four feet, eleven inches tall.

  Lucy chewed the back of her quill, her finger tapping his name on the sheet before her. The ink was still wet and a blob formed where Archi had been. She did not notice but continued to drum the sheet with her fingertips.

  Lord Sedley had, owing to his bottle head, squandered a good deal of the Sedley family wealth on what he termed as 'good investments'. They had turned out to be very bad investments.

  His pennies would have been better spent buying rotten eggs or mud.

  Perhaps it was his short stature, she mused, that had turned him into an evil little goblin.

  He had been like a greedy little squirrel hoarding his nuts, refusing to let slip a single one into anyone else's hand, even if the hand had belonged to a member of his family.

  She shook her head sadly. He wouldn't need those nuts anymore ….

  She threw the quill down on the table and started pacing the room. Her hand absently skimmed over the dusty books lining the shelves. A layer of thick grey dust settled on her fingertips.

  She sneezed.

  Lady Sedley was a terrible wife. She was like that bird Lucy had read about once in a book; the beautiful bird who snuck her eggs into another bird's nest and then abandoned her unborn chicks to their fate.

  Lady Sedley, with her mulligrubs, was also a swooner. An artistic swooner who swooned only in the presence of handsome men irrespective of their marital status. Her slim figure collapsed on demand in a dignified heap and draped itself on the nearest fainting couch or chair, but never ever the floor.

  She had been ten years younger than Lord Sedley when they had married. They said she had been beautiful—still was, Lucy supposed— in an ethereal, incompetent and bleating sort of way.

  Lucy returned to the desk and circled Lady Sedley's name.

  Lady Sedley could have done it. After all, she had plenty of reasons to off the old dried up shrimp. She had despised her tight-fisted, stiff rumped oleaginous husband, and she was having an affair with the valet. His death now allowed her to sell this ugly manor and retire to the more sociable Bath and live the rest of her life in comfort.

  Lucy's forehead creased as she recalled the cook telling her once that Ian had been thrown into debtor’s prison some years ago. Lord Sedley had refused to help his son, and since that day Lady Sedley had eyed her husband with simmering, ill-concealed hatred.

  Lucy slipped the list into a pocket of her skirt and went and stood in front of the fire. She held out her hands letting the warmth soak into her skin. She wished she could store this heat somewhere and use it when she needed it again.

  With a sigh, she once again dipped her fingers into her skirt pockets and extracted a tiny flask of brandy. After a sly look to the left and right to assure no one else was in the room with her, she took a swig of the contents.

  The effect was immediate.

  Warmth coursed through her limbs as the brandy slid down her throat.

  "The blasted Sedley family," she muttered to herself. "May maggots fill their brains and poison ivy adhere
to their behinds forever."

  Family … Her heart clenched in pain and she pushed away the sudden longing like she had done countless times before and rapidly blinked her eyes.

  This would not do. Her sudden gloomy mood, she convinced herself, was the library's fault. It was a depressing sort of room, and any mentally stable creature was bound to feel affected by its lonely weeping walls.

  With a last finger waggle towards the sparking flames, she spun on her heels and headed towards the door. She stopped long enough to grab her thin woollen coat and stepped into the white winter landscape.

  She breathed the crisp air scented with cow dung and horse manure in pleasure.

  Dark, fluffy clouds rolled forth and efficiently covered the sky. An icy wind fresh from the north followed and wriggled a naughty finger down the back of her neck.

  She pulled the coat closer around her neck.

  The cold wind snickered and blew a powerful gust in her direction making her lurch forward in alarm. It pushed her along until she had no choice but to go where the wind blew.

  Spotting her favourite wooden bench a few feet away, she hurried over to it and sat down.

  The wind changed direction and went to flirt with the Blackwell milkmaids instead.

  Lucy wriggled about and got comfortable on the bench. She adored this particular spot for two reasons. Firstly, it faced Peter's animal house which was an old orangery made up of grey stones, wood and partly coloured glass that twinkled enchantingly in the sunlight. And secondly, the sun, when it shone, warmed up the bench making it mighty comfortable to sit on.

  She pulled out the folded piece of paper from her pocket and resumed brooding over the list of names.

  Peter Sedley was second on her suspect list. He was the eldest, the heir and the one who would have gained the most from Lord Sedley's death.

  Somehow Lucy could not see the shy, gentle and funny smelling Peter lifting a snickersnee and stabbing Lord Sedley in the chest.

  But human nature, she knew, was unpredictable and changeable. One day one may adore the taste of lemons and the next day despise the very sight of them. She doubted kittens grew to dislike the taste of milk or dogs turned up their wet noses when presented with a juicy bone simply because their taste buds had suddenly become refined.

  An image of a sparkling white poodle narrowing its eyes at a plate of chicken in Robert Sauce flitted by in her mind’s eye.

  She frowned and forced her mind back on the matter at hand—the murder.

  Who else could have done it?

  Elizabeth and Ian. They both needed the money. Ian to fuel his gambling habit and Elizabeth for a season in London.

  She shook her head in annoyance. Even the servants were none too fond of the master. Lord Sedley had been rude, often accosting the maids and lashing out at the butler. And the valet was having an affair with Lady Sedley. It could have been a crime of passion ….

  Everyone, it seemed, had a reason to kill the vulgar old beast.

  Lucy sprang up with a hiss of frustration. Her head was starting to pound.

  She couldn't do this alone.

  She needed help, at least in the beginning. She needed someone who would tell her the basic facts of the murder without sneering or growling at her.

  A flash of red and black caught her eye. Squinting, she recognized the figure—Lord Adair.

  This was her chance to ask him some questions. If he truly intended to find out the truth, then he wouldn't hesitate in guiding her in the right direction.

  She steeled her fluttering stomach and before she could lose her nerve made her way towards him.

  Chapter 13

  She stood a few feet away from him watching his back.

  And, oh, what a back it was.

  A giant golden dragon was woven into the black fabric of his robe. The shimmering fire emanating from the dragon's mouth seemed to caress his broad shoulders.

  An icy gust of wind sent the velvet cloth rippling like a dark, disturbed pond. The robe, she noted, was too long for him. It pooled at his feet, stark against the snow covered ground.

  She wondered at her own courage. She was still amazed at the bold manner in which she had addressed him that day in the morning room. She felt a bit like a hero in a fairy tale who plunged into danger in spite of trembling like a leaf inside.

  And here she was once again skirting the edges of danger; daring to speak to Lord William Ellsworth Hartell Adair, the Marquis of Lockwood, beloved of the king, the regent and the mistresses. Feared by all of France and England, whose exploits—

  "It is ghastly."

  Lucy jumped in shock.

  He had turned towards her, his dark pupils flashing below sleepy lids.

  Her eyes unglazed and she hastily curtsied.

  "Do you agree?" he prompted.

  "Agree?" she asked befuddled.

  "This," he gestured towards his robe.

  Lucy eyed the red fur lovingly sewn onto the collar of the robe hanging like two long fox tails down his front. He looked, she thought dreamily, like a powerful wizard from some magical land. Even the air around him felt charged with suppressed energy.

  "Well?" he asked impatiently.

  Lucy detached her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "It looks … You look bang up, my lord."

  "It sheds," he said sourly shaking the furry tails.

  Lucy nodded sympathetically. "And it’s a robe again. I understand, my lord."

  "You do?"

  "I do. A robe with an opening down the centre. Awfully inconvenient when all sorts of feet want to creep in." Her eyes widened in shock as she replayed that sentence in her head.

  "Miss Trotter!"

  "I am sorry," Lucy gasped. "I thought you might be tired of wearing robes and wanting breeches once again. Blast it! I mean to say or rather I didn't mean to say breeches." Here she clutched her throat and hacked a few times in an attempt to strangle her throat and arrest the words in her tonsil, but it didn't work. "Surely," the words wheezed out of her, "it is better to talk of breeches than robes with openings for feet to slip in." She finished by slapping a horrified hand to her mouth.

  "Miss—"

  "I know, I know," she babbled in dismay, "I am sorry. So, so sorry. I apologise profusely, my lord. You see, I was trying to explain what I meant, but I happened to repeat the fact that I said robes with—"

  He placed a finger on her lips immediately silencing her.

  She gulped and pressed her lips together.

  "Miss Trotter," he said sternly, "you are supposed to be an educated young lady. Kindly behave like one."

  She hurriedly bobbed her head.

  "And your bonnet is frightful." He adjusted the offending thing so that it tilted at a more flattering angle. "If you have to wear it, wear it thus."

  "But I can no longer see from one eye," she protested. "The brim is covering it."

  "Suffer, my dear, for the sake of fashion," he ordered.

  Lucy reluctantly nodded again and pinned her eye on the frozen stream next to his foot.

  "It belongs to Miss Sedley's uncle," he remarked, once again gesturing towards the robe. "He must have been a giant," he went on, pulling up the sleeves that kept sliding forward to engulf his whole hand.

  She made an indistinct noise in her throat.

  His lips quirked in amusement. "I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining about a perfectly warm robe when you are rapidly turning into an ice sculpture." He stopped abruptly and turned back to stare out into the distance, the smile still lingering on his lips.

  Lucy pulled the coat tighter across her shoulders and followed Lord Adair's gaze.

  She stilled.

  Lord Adair slanted a look at her. His voice was wary when he asked, “What, pray tell, is that, Miss Trotter?"

  Lucy ever so slowly moved a few steps behind Lord Adair. "She is called Spooner, my lord."

  "I see, and what manner of creature is it?"

  "It is a bird,” she replied from the corner of her mouth.
>
  "What sort?"

  "It is, I believe, an Egyptian crane."

  "Why is it in England?"

  "Peter brought her over from Africa."

  "I like birds, Miss Trotter. In fact, I could be considered a bird lover, but that creature has a nasty glint in her eye."

  "I have never trusted Spooner, my lord. And I would advise you not to either."

  They stood shivering in the cold watching the bird from the corner of their eyes.

  "Someone should explain the process of migration to Spooner. Warmer climates may improve her temperament," Lucy said through cold lips.

  "Miss Trotter," Lord Adair said turning to face her, "what do you want?"

  Her eyes widened. "How do you know I want anything?"

  "You are standing here in inch deep snow, your inadequate boots soaking wet, your lips turning blue, glaring at an Egyptian bird instead of sitting indoors with a warm cup of tea."

  "Ah, yes," she said and with another nervous glance at Spooner quickly came to the point. "How did Lord Sedley die?"

  "He was stabbed three times with small knife in the middle of his chest," he replied promptly.

  "I would like to know all the facts please."

  "The murder occurred at around five in the evening and was discovered at six by the valet. You were last person to see him at around four thirty in the garden when you had an argument with him."

  "Did he fight the killer?"

  "He had a habit of taking a drug in the afternoon for gout which made him drowsy. Thereafter, he would take a short nap and wake up at six, get ready and come down for dinner. Whoever killed him waited until the medicine had its effect and he was in a deep sleep."

  "Hmm," Lucy said sticking her tongue between the gap in her front teeth. "The key to the safe was always on a chain around his neck. Someone killed him, took the key and the stole the jewels."

  Lord Adair remained silent.

  "Where was the key found?" she asked.

  His dark eyes blazed briefly. "It was still around Lord Sedley's neck when the valet found him."

  Lucy stamped her foot partly to warm them and partly in frustration. "Why would he or she murder Lord Sedley for the key, steal the jewels and then take the risk of hanging the key back around his neck?"