"You might have had to search all over London, if not the entire country, when you first tried to find Mr. Capelli. Now you just need to search your office. It hardly seems fair."
"Fifty pounds."
"Twenty-five."
"You Yanks are more careful with your money than I've been led to believe."
"You've been watching the wrong films. It's only an ugly rumor that our national pastime is conspicuous consumption."
"Very well." He rose from his chair and went over to a filing cabinet against the wall, one of those low, wide ones where the drawers roll out sideways. The frame was black and the doors mustard-colored. French's, not Grey Poupon. However, several minutes of rummaging through files left him empty-handed. He turned back to me.
"Apparently the folder has not yet been filed. My receptionist is somewhat, er, behind in her work."
Well, duh. With fingernails like hers, the woman could barely pick up a folder, much less file it.
"I'll put the information in the post," he said.
"I'll be going back home soon. I can't wait."
He shrugged and sat down again. "I'm sorry. Tomorrow perhaps." He picked up a pen and pulled his ruled pad into position. "Give me your address."
I did, but I hated to leave without knowing more. "You remembered Mr. Capelli's name. Can't you tell me what Mrs. Mason wanted to know about him?"
Ingersoll frowned and pulled at his chin. "As I recall, she asked about a woman." Long pause. "Can't remember the name. It's in the file. I'll find it."
"Can you remember Mr. Capelli's address so I can talk to him? He may not have heard about Mrs. Mason's death, and I need to tell him."
"Oh, yes, I remember that." He paused and looked at me for several minutes without speaking, and I realized he expected me to cross his palm with silver. I gave him a five-pound note and offered a credit card for the balance.
"He lives at Youngacres House. Not too far away. Anyone can direct you."
I thanked him and left, wondering if I'd given him twenty-five pounds for a mere address, or if Ingersoll would keep his word and send me more information when he found the file. I decided that whether I liked it or not, he had the upper hand.
As it was by then late afternoon, I returned to Mason Hall rather than attempt to visit Mr. Capelli immediately. Besides, I needed to think about what I'd learned. Under the circumstances, the man's advanced age didn't surprise me, nor did it mean he couldn't have quarreled with Noreen and drowned her in the lily pond. I next decided the woman Noreen asked Ingersoll about must be a friend, someone who told her about Capelli. I felt I had made some progress after all.
I left my coat in the closet under the stairs and went into my room to freshen up for dinner. Since I still had at least three-quarters of an hour before I needed to make my appearance in the dining room, I had sufficient time to do more sleuthing. Where would I do that? Why, Noreen's room, of course. Why hadn't I done more snooping in there before this? Surely, if she already had another prospective husband in mind, she'd have left a clue or two lying about.
I opened my bedroom door and peered into the hallway. Saw no one. I tiptoed past the bath and stopped in front of Noreen's room. Looked around again. Tested the door. The knob turned easily, and I darted inside and closed the door behind me. The room looked the same as when I'd seen it before, except her dressing table bench held a large cardboard box I didn't recall seeing there the night I found Tark. The box lid being open, I looked into it. I saw two letters, a pocket calendar, and quite a few loose papers. I reasoned that the police must have taken those things away during their investigation, along with all the papers in the office downstairs, and subsequently returned them.
Good of them to save me the trouble. I placed the box on the floor, seated myself on the bench and removed items one at a time, examined them, and put them on the dressing table. Most were advertisements cut from newspapers and magazines, items Noreen might have wished to purchase. Like a coat made of unborn lambskins (ugh) and a Jaguar (the car, not the animal). Plus travel folders describing cruises to exotic places and two programs from a racetrack. I opened one of the programs and found Noreen had circled the numbers of horses and indicated their finish position. If she'd wagered on them, she'd lost money on seven out of eight. As in the case of her bridge playing, there went some more of Edward's cash.
One letter came from an interior-decorating firm thanking her for her business, and the other from a dog psychiatrist soliciting it. In my opinion, if you even consider hiring a dog psychiatrist, God is telling you that you have way too much money. Except for his recent fear of the lily pond, which Noreen wouldn't even have known about, Mr. Tarkington seemed perfectly normal to me. He aimed to please, similar to the collie my brother and sister owned and, when they were young teens, I often thought was more obedient than they were. Given a command, the dog obeyed instantly, whereas my siblings, when asked by our parents to do something, might say, "Maybe," "Later," or "Why?"
Except for hairdresser's appointments and one day in February in which she apparently made her initial visit to Ingersoll's office, Noreen's calendar pages held no information. The name and address section contained less than a dozen entries, and each had initials and a telephone number. I saw a "D.I.," which I presumed stood for David Ingersoll, but without complete names to go by or sufficient time to think up plausible excuses, I balked at the idea of calling any of those other people. At least for now.
I sighed. Besides having no relatives, Noreen obviously behaved rather secretively and discarded everything that might reveal her life before meeting Chaz. If Roy Capelli meant anything to her, she didn't reveal it with incriminating evidence.
After replacing everything in the box, I searched the room, hoping the police had missed something. Still, the drawers contained nothing but clothes: pastel-colored silk pajamas and lacy teddies. I scrunched down and looked under her bed, delved into coat and jacket pockets in her wardrobe and even behind pictures on the walls. Still nothing.
Finally, I went through the connecting door into Edward's room. As masculine as Noreen's was feminine, it featured drab wallpaper, brown draperies, and heavy, carved furniture. The four-poster, king-sized bed, however, seemed newer than the rest, and I assumed Noreen had a hand in that. I felt like a voyeur, imagining them coupling under the sheets, and decided to leave before someone caught me at it.
I reached the door to the hallway and cracked it open. Voices. I held my breath. However, the people belonging to the voices didn't enter Edward's room, but the one next door. If I remembered correctly from the day I replaced linens, that was William and Beryl's sitting room.
They were male voices—William and Chaz—and they were engaged in a heated argument. All family members raised their voices when speaking to William anyway, but I could tell the subject matter created the high volume of this particular conversation.
"How dare you have done such a thing?" William shouted.
"What I do is my own affair," Chaz answered.
"Not when it involves the family. You've disgraced us, disgraced yourself."
"Hold on. Nobody's done anything to anybody."
I shrank back, wondering what indiscretion Chaz had committed now, and then I heard William speak Elizabeth's name, and it became clear. William had not been dozing in the library that morning. He heard Elizabeth say Chaz raped her. But how could he? Had we been so preoccupied we didn't notice him peer around the corner of his chair and face us so he could read our lips? No, I chose a simpler explanation. The foxy old man had turned on his hearing aids. Unfortunately, we'd gone into the hall when Elizabeth admitted it wasn't rape after all, so he didn't hear that.
I closed the hall door quietly and retreated back into the room. A few muffled words reached me: Chaz insisting grown-ups behaved as they pleased and something about nobody getting hurt. I did what William should have done that day (although perhaps the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, before he could do so), turned around and used the con
necting door to reenter Noreen's room and scamper toward the hallway.
Once more safely in the passage, I turned around and saw Aunt Alice. She had her back to me, bent forward, ear pressed to Beryl and William's sitting room door. So, I wasn't the only snoop in the house. It seemed that now five people knew about Elizabeth and Chaz.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Grim silence hung over the dinner table that night. Chaz didn't appear at all, and William sat stiffly, his lips barely opening sufficiently to put food inside. Alice's face seemed flushed, her eyes red, the flesh around them swollen, and Elizabeth touched almost nothing on her plate and excused herself before dessert. Jason behaved somewhat normally, trying to get a conversation going, but only Beryl responded to him, and he finally gave it up.
I felt a little guilty for not making the mealtime pleasant, but my brain refused to cooperate. What could I say? "Guess what, everyone, I think Noreen planned to marry another old man for his money"? Or how about this one: "By the way, Elizabeth told me Chaz raped her, and now William and Aunt Alice heard that and think it's true"?
Instead, my thoughts centered on what Alice must be feeling, and I wondered if she'd confronted Elizabeth with what she'd heard. Poor Elizabeth. She'd told me she didn't want anyone else to know about that evening with Chaz, especially her mother. I also worried she might think I'd been the one who revealed it. So, when I left the dining room, I went upstairs, planning to tell Elizabeth that William had been in the library and might have heard just part of the truth. I knocked on her door, but she didn't open it and said she wanted an early night.
While I stood still in the hall, wondering what to do next, other family members came upstairs as well and retreated into their own rooms. Several doors closed at the same time, like gangster movies with jail cell doors slamming shut simultaneously. I went downstairs again and chatted with cook in the kitchen while she did some washing up. I posed some discreet questions, but Annie either knew nothing or was too shrewd to gossip about her employers.
I took Mr. Tarkington outdoors, then stopped at Tim O'Brien's door and asked if he'd be available to take me somewhere the next morning. Although he announced he expected rain the next day, he agreed.
When Tark and I returned from a longer-than-usual walk, Annie had retired to her own quarters, and the entire family seemed to have vanished. Talk about your deserted mansion. I could swear my footsteps echoed when I climbed the stairs and went into my room. I set my travel alarm clock for an early rising, determined to leave the house and visit Roy Capelli before I had to encounter any unhappy relatives. Before long, the rain Tim predicted began to fall, pelting my windows, but its rhythmic, staccato beat didn't keep me from falling asleep.
* * *
Although clouds covered the sky, no rain fell the next morning, and true to his word, immediately after breakfast Tim brought the car around. "Mornin', Miss. Where to today?"
I looked at the name I'd written in my pocket calendar. "A place called Youngacres House. Do you know where it is?"
"Youngacres House? Certain you want to go there?"
"Of course. Why not?"
"Not for me to say, Miss." He turned away from me to face the road and put the car noisily into gear.
The car's momentum pushed me back in the seat, and I pondered what Tim meant. I assumed Mr. Capelli would be wealthy, but could this Youngacres House be so grand as to be out of my league? My imagination took off. Could it be a home the royals used and therefore off limits to outsiders? Perhaps a trysting place once used by Charles and Camilla?
I grinned at that then leaned forward over the seat to ask Tim. "Is there something I should know? Will I be turned away?"
"Oh, no, Miss. You can go there, right enough."
Tim's expression looking as if he considered our conversation finished, I settled back again, reasoning that Mr. Ingersoll had told me Roy Capelli lived at Youngacres, had probably been there himself, and knew I intended to go, so it must be all right.
The place was evidently not a secret hideaway used by the royal family, and I was in no danger of running into Queen Elizabeth. My thoughts wandered as they sometimes did to the entire monarchy concept. The idea of being ruled by a king or queen seemed so terribly old fashioned.
Still, I didn't begrudge the British their ties to a past both colorful and historical. Thanks to my father, I claimed part of that history in a small way, even though I was born in the US.
We drove even farther out into the country and finally came upon a large estate bordered by a high iron fence. Amidst acres of grass, behind tall trees, sprawled a four-story, stone mansion looking large enough to have its own postal code. Tim turned the car in between the iron gates where I saw a sign reading Youngacres and proceeded up the curving driveway to a covered portico. As we approached, I realized someone had misnamed Youngacres. The structure looked older than Mason Hall and in nowhere near as good condition.
Tim stopped the car, then stepped out, came around, and opened my door. "When shall I come to fetch you?" He spoke in a low voice, almost as if we were conspirators, although no one could hear us.
I took a guess on how long it might take to get some information from Capelli. "Three quarters of an hour?"
Tim looked at his watch. "Right-o." Then he climbed back into the driver's seat and took off, no doubt to a pub.
Two shallow steps led to oversized wooden double doors, scratched and gouged and, despite the protective overhang, badly weathered. At the right side a plastic sign read Ring for Entry with a button beneath, which I pressed firmly until I heard it ring somewhere inside.
A husky, bald man who could have doubled for a bouncer in a New York bar opened the door. "Yes?"
"I'd like to see Mr. Roy Capelli."
He stepped aside, and I entered a large dim entryway revealing a cluttered desk behind which another man, older and grey-haired but almost as husky, talked into a telephone. He glanced up at me, finished his conversation, and also said, "Yes?" leaving me to wonder if I'd missed a new law that said from now on people must speak one-word sentences.
"I'd like to see Mr. Roy Capelli," I repeated.
Without answering he picked up the telephone again, punched in a three-digit number, and said something I didn't understand. Except it seemed to be at least four words this time. Next he waved me to a low wooden bench, and I assumed I needed to wait. In a few minutes a tall, white-uniformed, fiftyish woman appeared and gestured for me to follow her.
We passed through an arch suspiciously like the metal detectors at airports and then walked down a long corridor punctuated by many closed doors with narrow barred windows in them. I wondered what on earth I'd gotten myself into. This was no mansion belonging to a British millionaire, but clearly an institution of some sort. A not-very-well-maintained institution requiring extensive security measures. What role did Mr. Capelli play in it, owner, manager, or some other employee?
I caught up to the woman in white when we reached another set of double doors. "Excuse me, but where am I? Where is Mr. Capelli? What does he do here?"
She stopped and turned to me, her expression saying she didn't suffer questioners gladly. "Do? Mr. Capelli is an inmate."
An inmate? My brain had trouble processing the information.
"He's in the day room now. Don't excite him."
She opened the door, and I followed her meekly into a large, high-ceilinged room. Its long windows barred and heavily draped, they let in almost no light. I let my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, and the nurse/guard—by then I'd figured out her probable occupation—pointed to a man in a wheelchair, turned, and left.
Capelli, like the three other men in the room, wore a bathrobe and sat in a wheelchair separated from the others as if all preferred contemplation to conversation. I walked toward Capelli, past worn sofas and chairs, scarred tables holding dog-eared books and well-used magazines. When I reached his side, he looked up from his magazine and took off dark-rimmed glasses as if to see me better. He didn't look s
eventy-nine. He looked ninety-nine going on death. His thin body hunched over, he had a narrow face, and his head was bald except for a small thatch of hair that resembled something you'd pull out of a shower drain. If he had ever been good-looking, time and a wayward lifestyle had had their nasty way with him.
"So?" he asked. That one-word sentence again.
I pulled up a chair and sat. "You don't know me, but David Ingersoll gave me your name and told me where to find you."
He thought for a minute, rubbing a gnarled finger over his chin. "Secret agent bloke. Come here spyin'."
At least he was lucid. I considered that a plus. I didn't want to have to deal with someone with a long-gone grip on reality.
"I hope you don't mind if I ask a question or two."
"Don't got nuthin' else to do."
I took that for a "yes." "It's about Noreen Mason."
"Never heard of 'er."
Of course not. I should have sensed the mistake the instant I walked in. Noreen would never have taken up with anyone who looked like that and lived there. Wherever "there" was. I still hadn't much of a clue.
"May I ask what you," I glanced at my surroundings, "what is this place?"
He grinned, showing a few remaining yellowed teeth. "Don't know where you are, eh? Never been to a place like this, eh? It's a quod, a prison. More like a warehouse now, isn't it?"
"Warehouse?"
"A place they put us sods when they don't need to keep us locked up no more." He paused. "Can't do harm no more. No more 'menace to society' moniker for this lot."
So he was a criminal and lived in a hospital for aging criminals. I'd often wondered about prison sentences ending in the words, "to life." Most people go through a decline near the end of their days on earth. Few people, not just jail inmates, play tennis one day and drop dead tidily the next.
"What else you want to know—what I got nicked fer?"
I glanced at my watch. I had time to kill before Tim would return. "Are you sure you never met anyone named Noreen Mason, or Noreen Vickers?"
Dead in the Water (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 1) Page 15