by Dean James
“I assure you, Trevor,” I said, frost in my voice, “that you need not worry about my welfare. I am more than capable of handling any situation which Giles—or anyone else, for that matter—might contrive.” I fixed him with a direct glare, and he wilted visibly. “What has Giles done to you that you’re so bitter about him? He may be a bit spoiled, from what I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean he’s harmful.”
Trevor sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I might as well tell you the truth, Simon.”
At last we were getting somewhere, I thought with satisfaction.
“I knew Giles before I came to the village,” Trevor said. “In fact, I was his tutor at university.”
“Before he was sent down?” I asked. Hadn’t Abigail Winterton said Giles had been expelled?
Trevor nodded. “And, unfortunately, I was the reason he was sent down from Cambridge.” He took a deep breath. “He became obsessed with me and wouldn’t leave me alone. It became most painfully embarrassing, I can assure you. No matter where I went, or with whom, there he was. I was hesitant about doing anything official, but he had become so obsessed that his work was suffering, and I was able to use a certain amount of influence to get him sent down.”
“And then you ended up living here in the same village?” That sounded like too much of a whopping coincidence, even for me.
Trevor nodded wearily. “I had inherited some money from a relative, and I was tired of tutoring wretches like Giles. I wanted to own my own bookshop, and I found the one here in this village for sale. I had no idea, at the time, that this was where Giles lived. By the time I found out, it was too late.”
“And has he continued to pester you with unwanted attentions?”
“No, thank goodness,” Trevor said, his eyes shifting away from mine for a moment. “He seems to have matured enough that he doesn’t indulge his adolescent passions to the same extent. He does come into the shop to talk to me occasionally, but most of the time he leaves me alone.”
“And this is what you were afraid of?” I asked him. “You were afraid that Abigail Winterton had found out and that she would broadcast it to the whole village?”
Trevor nodded unhappily. “Can’t you see, Simon, how difficult it would be if that were to become known? I’d be a laughingstock.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But if you were the victim, it really wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that,” Trevor said impatiently, “but it doesn’t matter. Giles is Sir Giles Blitherington, for God’s sake! Even as unconventional as he can be, he still commands respect around here because of his name and his family. Do you think I want to match my good name against his in a contest of rumors?”
“I can see why you’d rather not,” I conceded. “But if Giles no longer makes any attempts to bother you, I can’t see what relevance the past has. Who’s going to tell the story, and for what purpose?” Now that Abigail Winterton is dead, I added silently.
If Trevor were truly this worried about his so-called shameful secret, he might conceivably have a motive to murder Abigail Winterton. But did he really feel that shame deeply enough to kill? And with Giles a living, everyday reminder, how could he expect to keep the secret hidden forever?
But how would Abigail Winterton have found all this out? I couldn’t imagine Lady Prunella confiding something like this in her favorite adversary, and I didn’t think Giles would be indiscreet enough to tell her himself. If she truly had been reading everyone’s mail, she might have discovered the information that way. If someone had been indiscreet enough to write something down.
Despite what Trevor said, though, this could give Giles as much motive to kill Abigail Winterton. His good name locally wouldn’t be much proof against scandal in a situation like this. Giles—and his mother— would have as much, or more, to lose as Trevor did.
“You may be right,” Trevor said. “As long as Giles keeps quiet, everything will be all right” He shrugged. “I’ve settled in here, and I like the village and my life as a bookseller. I just don’t want anything to unsettle it.”
Like murder, I thought.
But murder changes everything; Trevor might soon find his secret exposed, one way or another. What would his cousin, the detective inspector, do in this case? But perhaps he already knew. I didn’t voice that thought aloud, however.
“Please promise me, Simon,” Trevor said earnestly, “that you won’t say anything to Giles about this? As long as he thinks I haven’t told anyone, he won’t get angry and do something to get back at me.”
Had I misread Giles completely? I wondered. I’d have plenty of opportunity to evaluate him for myself if he continued to work as my secretary. I didn’t relish working with a murderer, but at least I’d have the opportunity to get a better sense of his character.
“I don’t think I’ll be bringing the subject up with Giles anytime soon,” I assured Trevor dryly. “I must tell you, however, that I have engaged Giles as my secretary. I need help with some of my research and correspondence, and Giles seemed most eager to work with a published writer.”
Trevor went completely still at my news. “I hope you won’t regret this,” he said finally. “Perhaps Giles has matured enough that he won’t try to take advantage of you in some way. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“No, Trevor, I’ll remember what you’ve said and weigh it very carefully.” I grinned. “And I’ll assure you, yet again, that I’m more than capable of looking out for myself.”
Trevor stood abruptly. “I had better be going.” He picked up his flowers from where he’d laid them earlier. “If I don’t get these to my poor neighbor soon, they’ll wilt completely.”
“Quite so,” I said, standing, then leading him to the front door.
“Good afternoon, Simon,” Trevor said, standing on the doorstep.
“Thank you again for the book, Trevor,” I replied. “It’s a lovely addition to my collection.”
Trevor smiled, but his eyes remained distant. “You’re most welcome. I hope it brings you pleasure.” He turned and walked away. I had the sense of a door closing, and not the one whose latch was in my hand.
Well! I thought. That was certainly strange. I shut the door and leaned back against it. Giles a stalker? Trevor the object of an obsession? Whoever would have guessed? Maybe I had better call up Ruth Rendell and invite her over for tea and advice.
Shaking my head in amusement, I headed to my office to work.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I rang Jane Hardwick’s doorbell promptly at seven-fifteen as promised and waited for her to open the door. I felt invigorated after several hours’ work on my new novel. My doorbell had thankfully stopped ringing, allowing me to concentrate on getting my hard-boiled female sleuth, LuAnn Chippendale, up to her neck in trouble in her latest case. Now I was ready to take a break from LuAnn and do some investigating of my own.
The door swung open, and Jane Hardwick stepped out, locking the door behind her. She looked the very picture of the ultra-respectable English spinster in a sensible black dress accented with jet-and-silver earrings, broach, and necklace. The denizens of Snupperton Mumsley would never have guessed she’d been dead for over four hundred years.
After a calm “Good evening, Simon,” Jane led me behind her cottage to her detached garage. I wasn’t in the least surprised to find that her car matched her image perfectly: a black Volvo, every inch of it gleaming in the soft evening sun. I made myself comfortable in the passenger seat, though I felt a bit odd sitting on this side of the car without a steering wheel in front of me. Yet another of the adjustments necessary for life in England.
During the brief drive to the Stevenses’ estate, just a few miles outside the village and up a long, winding drive, Jane and I discussed plans to raid the post office later that night. Jane was hopeful that we could find something among Abigail Winterton’s effects that could point the way toward a solution in the case. I thought the police might well have beaten us to the punch, but Jane
demurred.
“Abigail had such a quirky way of doing things,” Jane explained, “that whatever records she might have kept very likely defied any attempts by the police to uncover them. I think it’s worth our doing a little snooping. I have an idea where Abigail might have kept evidence of her activities.”
More than that she refused to say, telling me, with that infuriatingly enigmatic smile, to be patient.
By then we had crested a slight rise that hid the Stevens domicile from view and I couldn’t restrain a gasp of amazement as the house came into view down below us.
“House” was a completely inadequate word to describe what I could see. “Is it a real castle?” I asked. I hadn’t heard that there was a surviving medieval castle in the immediate area of Snupperton Mumsley.
Jane laughed as we got out of the car. “No, Everard Stevens had it built He’d always fancied living in a castle, so he had one built for himself.”
“Looks to me like his architect must have been drunk and cross-eyed, at the very least!” I said, leaning back against Jane’s car, staring in wide-eyed amazement.
Castles can be majestic, awe-inspiring, defiant. This one seemed to be begging for sympathy. Maybe because whoever designed it had been three sheets to the wind while drafting the plans or maybe because the contractor who built it thought he was the Salvador Dali of the building trade. It looked suitably Gothic, at least—the kind of place where you’d expect to find guys like me hanging from the rafters. Disguised as bats, of course. But if I knew any bats (and I don’t, I assure you), I believe they’d be embarrassed to call this travesty home.
The proportions were off, for one thing. The towers were too thin, like strands of pasta pasted on a squat and bulging meatball. Then there were the various colors of stone employed in construction. The result was a crazy-quilt type of effect that made the whole edifice seem like a postmodernist interpretation of “medieval.” I shuddered.
Jane laughed again. “I thought you’d enjoy seeing this place, Simon. I’m pleased that I was the one to bring you here for the first time. The expression on your face is priceless.”
“Something tells me this won’t be the last surprise of the evening,” I muttered as I followed Jane over the bridge spanning the moat. Too bad we couldn’t drive right inside the walls of the castle, but whatever idiot had designed the place had made the main gate barely big enough for two normal-sized beings to squeeze through.
Jane preceded me across the yard and up the steps to the front door. She lifted the huge brass knocker, which seemed to be some strange heraldic device, and let it clang three times against the door.
A few moments later, Lurch opened the door. I blinked in surprise. Had we suddenly stepped into an Addams Family rerun? The butler was a dead ringer (and I use the term advisedly) for the actor who played the Addams’s family retainer.
Except for her voice. At least I thought it was “her” voice. It was pitched just high enough that I concluded its owner was likely female. I peered more closely as Jane introduced me. Yes, “Dobson” was a woman, no doubt a refugee from the Soviet women’s basketball team of a decade or so ago. She’d had more than her share of steroids and male hormones, to judge by the hair on her upper lip and the shaggy eyebrows, but Dobson was most definitely female. I think.
Dobson gestured for us to follow, leading us toward what was likely the drawing room. I glanced around at the entranceway of the castle. There was lots of marble, with exquisite statuary cheek by jowl with stuffed trophy animals of various kinds. There were expensive tapestries hanging on the walls and equally dear carpets on the floor, but the effect was more “I’ve got lots of money, get it” than “welcome to my comfortable home.” Surely the elegant Mrs. Stevens hadn’t furnished this place to her taste?
Lurch—I mean Dobson—opened a door, and Jane swept regally through, with me trailing dutifully in her wake, wondering all the while what further horrors awaited us. The drawing room continued the same mishmash of elegance and kitsch that I had observed already. There seemed to be no unifying theme at work in the decor here except poor taste. I shook my head at seeing a Georgia O’Keeffe stuck on the wall next to what surely was a Constable. Both artists I admired. But right next to each other?
Then my attention was caught by the person awaiting us. Dobson had quietly departed after announcing us to the room’s sole occupant. I wondered suddenly whether this was the British headquarters of the Society for the Propagation of Androgyny because I was yet again faced with an individual of indeterminate gender. It wore beautifully tailored clothes that were gender neutral, had a sleek cap of lustrous black hair, worn short and curling around the face, and features that were attractive but asexual.
“Good evening, Jane? How are you?” It spoke in a pleasantly modulated voice that gave me no clues. Turning to me, it said, “How do you do? I’m Hilary Thomas, Everard Stevens’s executive assistant.”
“Good evening, Hilary,” Jane said, casting a smiling glance at me, enjoying my puzzlement. “I’m delighted to present Dr. Simon Kirby-Jones, our latest addition to the village.”
“Welcome to Morland’s Folly, Dr. Kirby-Jones,” said Hilary Thomas. I smiled involuntarily at the name of the castle. Someone, at least, had an educated sense of humor. No matter that it probably had poor Jane Austen spinning in her grave.
“Thank you,” I said, extending my hand. “Er, um...”
“Please, call me Hilary,” it said, grasping my hand and shaking it firmly. “Everyone does. I see no need to stand on ceremony.”
“Very well,” I said. “Hilary it is. And I’m Simon.” I tried not to be too obvious as I scanned Hilary, looking for some of the more obvious indications of gender. No prominent breasts, no suggestive swelling in the crotch of those beautifully tailored pants, and the carefully placed ascot at the neck kept me from finding an Adam’s apple—or the lack thereof.
Hilary indicated a nearby sofa. “Please, won’t you be seated? Everard and Samantha will be down any moment. May I offer you something to drink?” Jane and I both accepted small gin and tonics and made ourselves comfortable.
Moments later, the doors of the drawing room opened, and Samantha Stevens swept in, followed by a man hobbling on crutches. Trailing in his wake was a devilishly ugly hulk of a man, dressed in a dark suit, who watched the man on crutches very carefully, as if he were ready to step forward at any moment to pick him up and carry him, if need be.
The man on crutches was, as I expected, Everard Stevens. His wife, coolly elegant in ice blue silk and diamonds, introduced us. “Everard, may I present Dr. Simon Kirby-Jones? He wrote that biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine which you admired so much.”
“Yes, I know,” Everard Stevens told his wife testily. “It was my leg I broke, not my brains, my dear.”
Samantha Stevens appeared not to hear the tone in her husband’s voice as she quietly greeted Jane, and the two of them chatted while our host claimed my complete attention. Everard Stevens shook my hand firmly, then hobbled backward and dropped onto a nearby chair. “Apologies for my hopping around, but I broke my leg skiing in Switzerland recently. Just now beginning to get around again.”
“No apologies necessary on my account,” I assured him as I settled back into my seat and observed him.
Everard Stevens was in his late sixties, definitely older than his wife, but by how much only her plastic surgeon knew for sure. Stevens had the craggy kind of face that makes some men even more attractive the older they get, and his eyes burned with a fierceness that bespoke a ruthless man of business. Even with the crutches, he was physically imposing, though he was dwarfed by his attendant. The attendant introduced briefly as Parker, remained quietly in the background, but I could feel the pent-up energy in him. He was ready to spring, I fancied, should anyone pose a threat to his employer. If I should ever have need of a bodyguard, I’d want a Parker on my side. He was big enough, and no doubt strong enough, to get rid of most obstacles in one’s way. Even if that meant murder; he
certainly looked sinister enough to me.
Like nosy postmistresses, perhaps? My mind turned irresistibly to the murdered Abigail Winterton. If she had got crossways of Everard Stevens, he’d only have had to sic Parker on her. With a quick jerk of his huge hands, he could have snapped her neck in two.
But I had put the cart well ahead of the horse once again. I hadn’t the least notion that Stevens had any reason to want Abigail Winterton dead. From what I had heard, it was the other way around.
Stevens and I chatted for a few minutes longer about my work, then we talked about my impressions of Snupperton Mumsley. That was still the topic when we went in to dinner. The dining room was a large chamber, echoing with our footsteps. At one end stood a fireplace big enough for roasting an ox or two. The huge table could easily accommodate thirty people. It seemed rather a waste to have it set for only the six of us, but we formed a cozy crew at one end of the table. Dobson, assisted by a most feminine looking maid, served our dinner and poured wine. The food, as I expected, was quite good, with no hint of garlic that I could detect. The china on which the food was served was so stunningly hideous that it was no doubt incredibly expensive. Bad taste so often is. I kept my eyes averted from the so-called art on nearby walls. Hunting pictures, with graphic illustrations of gore, are not to my taste. I detest the sight of blood, real or imaginary, especially when I’m trying to eat, though I consume only small amounts, of course.
At the table, I discovered that there was no real conversation to speak of; rather, there were orations from the head of the household. Everard Stevens held forth on any number of topics, pausing only occasionally for encouraging noises from his wife or his secretary or his bodyguard. I’m not quite sure what purpose Jane Hardwick and I were supposed to serve, because after his initial mentioning of my work, Stevens never again broached the subject, as I had expected he might. Eventually, eyes glazing in boredom, I seized the opportunity, when an uncharacteristic lull occurred, to dare a conversational gambit of my own.