British Manor Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “It’s got to be done,” said Gerald, taking the paper from her and studying it. “If we don’t stop the dry rot, it will wreck the whole place.”

  “Just thinking about the paperwork makes me weak,” said Poppy, sinking into a chair.

  “There is another way, you know,” said Gerald. “That Vickie girl has some good ideas, and she’s had some interest from Cadbury and Watney’s.”

  “I’d rather fall on my knees in front of that stuck-up English Heritage examiner than use the manor to sell chocolate bars and beer,” said Poppy with a sigh.

  “Come on, Mum,” said Flora, drifting into the room. “Maybe Watney’s will brew a special ale for us. Moreton Manor IPA—drink as if you’re to the manor born.”

  “Perish the thought,” groaned Poppy, shaking her head. Smiling wanly, she addressed Sue and Lucy. “Sorry to burden you with our problems. How was your day?”

  “Interesting,” said Lucy, unwrapping the figurine. “I found this darling little piece in an antique shop. What do you think about it?”

  “I think it looks a lot like one of ours,” said Poppy, narrowing her eyes.

  “It is!” exclaimed Flora, who had picked up the piece and was examining it closely. “See this little chip on the dog’s ear? I’d know it anywhere.”

  “We must reimburse you,” said Poppy. “Did you pay a lot for it?”

  “Let it be my gift,” said Lucy. “A thank you for your generous hospitality.”

  “Wherever did you find it?” asked Flora.

  “In a shop called The Jugged Hare.”

  “That place near Aunt Millicent’s house? In Hazelton?” asked Flora, exchanging a meaningful look with her mother.

  “In Riverdale, I think,” said Lucy, unwilling to admit she’d made the connection.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Flora posed the question rhetorically. “It proves what I’ve thought for some time . . . that things have been disappearing from the house. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

  The door opened and Harrison entered the kitchen, bearing her usual burden of a tray overloaded with crockery.

  Flora continued. “Tomorrow, I’m going to enlist Winifred to check the inventory of the manor’s contents, starting with the library.”

  Lucy watched in horror as Harrison seemed to lose her grip on the tray and various cups and saucers began sliding toward one end. She regained control at the last moment.

  “Can I help you with that?” offered Lucy.

  “No, thank you, madam,” replied Harrison, adding her usual sniff. She set the tray down on the island and turned to Gerald. “Her ladyship asked me to request a dry sherry, if you have one.”

  “I think we can manage that,” he replied, stepping over to the drinks tray and choosing a small stemmed glass.

  “She would prefer to have a bottle in her room,” said Harrison, busy filling the dishwasher. “She’s not feeling up to coming down for meals just yet.”

  “Of course,” said Gerald with an amused smile as he handed over a bottle of Tio Pepe.

  Harrison set the bottle on the empty tray and carried it out of the room with an air of great solemnity that was broken as soon as the door closed behind her and everyone erupted into giggles.

  “Shame on us all,” said Poppy.

  “If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry,” said Gerald, who was opening a bottle of wine. “Rose all right?” he asked, getting nods all round.

  After dinner, when Lucy and Sue were climbing the stairs to their rooms, Lucy voiced a revised opinion of Gerald. “You know, at first I couldn’t imagine what Poppy sees in Gerald. I even suspected he was carrying on with Vickie.”

  “If he isn’t, I think he’d like to,” said Sue. “He does seem sort of a stereotype—a Barbour-wearing, hard-drinking, tweedy snob.”

  “He is all that,” agreed Lucy, “but we got a glimpse of the man beneath the bluster tonight. I suspect he behaves exactly the way Poppy expects him to, the way she thinks all husbands behave, and as a good wife, she turns a blind eye to his failings.”

  “I think you’re right, but I still wouldn’t want to find myself alone in a secluded spot with him,” said Sue.

  “Better safe than sorry, as my mother used to say.”

  * * *

  Next morning, DI Hennessy and Sgt. Matthews were back at the manor for a second round of questioning. The police weren’t saying much, but word spread quickly that Robert was no longer a suspect. As Sarah had insisted, he had an unshakeable alibi. He’d been having dinner with the Bishop of Canterbury at the time of Cyril’s death, determined to be between six o’clock and midnight on April 27.

  DI Hennessy had nothing to say on the subject when he interviewed Lucy, however, and he wasn’t very interested in her suspicions about Lady Wickham and Harrison.

  “I overheard Flora saying a favorite figurine of hers was missing,” said Lucy. “A little ceramic figure of Saint Roch with a little dog. You can imagine how surprised I was when I found a figurine matching her description in an antique shop practically around the corner from Fairleigh, which happens to be the home of Lady Wickham. The shopkeeper said it came from a titled lady who had come on hard times and was selling off some of her things. Except it wasn’t Lady Wickham’s to sell, after—”

  “Actually, Mrs. Stone,” the inspector interrupted, “all I really need from you is a statement of your whereabouts on the evening of April twenty-seventh.”

  “Of course,” said Lucy, feeling rather put down. “That was the day we got here. We had dinner with the family and went to bed early. I was pretty wiped out with jet lag.”

  “You slept alone?” inquired the inspector.

  “Of course. My husband is in Maine,” responded Lucy. It was only after she’d spoken that she realized her virtue had left her without an alibi. “I certainly didn’t spend the evening killing Cyril,” she added. “I didn’t even know him or anything about the secret room.” She watched as the inspector wrote it all down in his notebook. “I gather you’ve figured out how the secret room works.” She hoped he wouldn’t be able to resist showing off a successful bit of investigation.

  “Trap door. Neatly hidden under the floor and a rug. No sign it was there unless you knew.”

  “And I suppose whoever knew about it is the killer,” said Lucy.

  “Not necessarily, but so far nobody is admitting to knowing about it.”

  Lucy thought of Desi and Flora’s youthful explorations of the manor. “Not even—” She stopped, thinking it better to not mention it.

  “Yes?” coaxed Hennessy. “You were about to say . . .”

  “Nothing, really,” said Lucy, “except that with all the research and restoration that’s gone on through the years, you’d think it would have been discovered.”

  “Exactly,” said the inspector, leaning forward as if he was going to share a confidence. “I suspect some of the people I’ve interviewed here at the manor haven’t been entirely forthcoming.”

  “I suppose that’s par for the course,” said Lucy, smiling.

  “Sadly, it is,” the inspector said, nodding. “The trick is figuring out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

  “Well, I’m going to be helping Flora and Winifred with the inventory of the manor’s contents and if anything interesting turns up, I’ll let you know.”

  “That does put my mind at ease,” said Hennessy, dismissing her with a wave.

  It wasn’t until she was outside, in the stable yard, that she realized he was being sarcastic. Never mind, she told herself. She hadn’t exactly been impressed with his investigation so far, and prospects for a sudden breakthrough seemed slim. Most crimes were never solved and it looked as if that was going to be the case for Cyril’s murder, too. Even if the police had someone in mind, it seemed doubtful they could make a case against the murderer. Time wasn’t on their side, and neither was the fact that the crime had taken place in a manor owned by one of England’s oldest aristocratic families. The
law was supposed to apply equally to all, but Lucy knew that was not always the case, not in England and not home in the US, either.

  She caught up with Sue in the library where the little figurine of St. Roch was back in its proper place, and asked about her interview with Sgt. Matthews. “Did you tell her about the figurine and our suspicions of Lady Wickham and Harrison?”

  “I did,” said Sue, “and she seemed quite interested.”

  “Really? Hennessy just gave me the brush off when I told him.”

  “Well, that’s the difference between men and women,” said Sue with a smile. “Women are more open-minded.”

  “I think you mean they’re more willing to think poorly of one another,” said Lucy.

  “That, too,” agreed Sue as Winifred arrived, accompanied by Flora and Willoughby.

  Winifred had come armed with copies of the manor’s inventory, which she admitted was incomplete but was a starting point.

  “You might find items that are not listed, so please jot them down. And if something is missing, we mustn’t conclude that it’s gone. It might just be in another room. Things do get moved, especially in the rooms that aren’t on the tour.” She paused. “I’m quite confident about the public rooms, but with over one hundred smaller rooms, it’s very difficult to keep track of things.”

  “I think you will find that the library is in good order,” said Willoughby, pursing his lips.

  “Everything present and accounted for.”

  “Absolutely,” agreed Winifred.

  Looking around the huge room, however, Lucy wasn’t convinced. Dotted here and there hung oil paintings and the walls were lined with shelves filled with hundreds of leather-bound volumes. A series of blue and white vases were arranged on top of the bookshelves, along with an occasional marble bust. The room also contained numerous couches and chairs, tables holding lamps and assorted bits of decorative china, as well as potted plants and vases of flowers. Even the floor was covered with numerous antique rugs laid over the wall-to-wall carpet. This room alone, she decided, must contain thousands of items and it seemed impossible that any one person could keep track of it all.

  In fact, she realized, spotting a jib door that she would never have noticed if it hadn’t been left ajar, the manor was full of back passages and hidden doors that made it quite easy for a person to move about without being discovered. She’d learned on her tour of the manor, that the grand master bedrooms once occupied by the earl and countess were connected by a discreet passage so the couple could meet privately without the entire household knowing whether they were spending the night together or not.

  “Where does that door lead?” she asked Willoughby, pointing to the jib door.

  “That’s the little library. Gerald likes to sit there with his cigars and agricultural journals.”

  Winifred suggested they work in pairs, so Lucy and Sue were assigned to the hallway outside the library. Willoughby and Flora were given the job of checking the contents of the rooms along the hallway, which included a billiard room, a boot room, and several guest bedrooms. Winifred herself was doing a quick survey of the library and then planned to go on to Gerald’s little hideaway.

  The plan was for one member of the team to assess the various items in the assigned space and for the other to check them off on the printed inventory. Sue and Lucy were working their way down the corridor, with Lucy describing and Sue checking, when they heard a dreadful crash in the library. They rushed in and found Winifred on the floor where she’d landed after tumbling from a library ladder.

  “Are you all right?” asked Lucy, bending over the fallen woman.

  She was on her back, and one leg was twisted beneath her in an impossible position.

  “My leg . . .” she began, then fell back with a groan.

  “Don’t try to move,” said Sue, reaching for the phone. “I’m calling for help.”

  “We’re here and you’re going to be all right,” said Lucy, taking Winifred’s hand and holding tight.

  Winifred was obviously in quite a bit of pain, her face was white and she was pressing her lips together. “I can’t believe I was so careless,” she whispered.

  “That’s how it is with accidents,” said Lucy. “One minute everything is fine and the next you’re flying through the air.”

  “The ladder just slid out from under me when I was reaching for the Thomas Aquinas.”

  Lucy glanced up at the ladder, which rolled on a track attached to the top of the bookshelf just below the row of vases. Sue, she noticed, was also eyeing the same spot with a curious expression on her face and the phone in her hand.

  “Help should be here any minute,” said Sue.

  True to her word, Quimby rushed into the room and quickly took in the situation. “I was a medic in Afghanistan,” he announced, taking over from Lucy. “I think I can make you a bit more comfortable until the ambulance gets here.” He was already checking Winifred’s pulse and examining her eyes. “Is there a blanket or any sort of cover around here?”

  Lucy grabbed a paisley lying on the back of a sofa and he used it to cover Winifred.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he said, looking into the stricken woman’s eyes and holding her hands. “I know you’re in pain, but you need to stay with me.”

  Winifred managed a little nod, but her eyes were closing.

  “Hey, there,” said Quimby in a sharp voice. “None of that. Rise and shine.”

  Her eyelids flew open.

  “Tell me your middle name,” he said.

  “Guinevere,” she whispered.

  “So your folks liked old time names?”

  “An aunt . . .” she said in a barely audible voice.

  “So you were named after an aunt. I hope she was rich,” said Quimby.

  “ ’Fraid not,” said Winifred, her eyes closing again.

  Fortunately, the ambulance crew arrived and quickly bundled her onto a stretcher and carried her off.

  “That looked like a nasty break,” said Quimby when they had gone. “She was going into shock.”

  “What happened?” asked Flora, who had noticed the commotion and come to see what was the matter.

  “Winifred took a tumble from the ladder,” explained Quimby. “She broke her leg.”

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Flora. “I have to tell Mummy!” She ran off just as Willoughby came in, looking rather put out.

  “At this rate, we’ll never get this inventory finished,” he said, grumbling. “My time would be better spent on the guidebook. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  “We’ve had an accident,” said Quimby. “Winifred fell off—”

  “I can’t imagine what she was doing up there,” said Willoughby, interrupting him. “She really had no business being there.”

  Lucy was surprised at Maurice’s reaction and wondered if he simply wasn’t interested in his colleague’s mishap or if he was defending his turf. The library, after all, was his responsibility.

  Quimby was studying the ladder’s operation. “The fault doesn’t seem to be with the ladder. It’s perfectly sound.”

  “Of course it is,” snapped Willoughby.

  “She said it slipped right out from under her,” said Lucy, joining him.

  “Well, it shouldn’t have. See here. It has a kind of braking mechanism. When a person stands on it, puts weight on it, it doesn’t slide. As I said,” insisted Willoughby, “everything in here is shipshape and present and accounted for . . . except for Flora, who was supposed to be helping me.”

  “Flora wasn’t with you?” asked Lucy.

  “Winifred probably reached too far and lost her balance,” said Willoughby, ignoring Lucy’s question and casting an eye at the ladder. “It’s easy enough to do.”

  “I think I’d better find her ladyship and let her know that it was an accident, nothing more,” said Quimby, taking his leave. “Flora can be a bit of an alarmist.”

  “That girl is little more than a nuisance,” said Wil
loughby. “Since the inventory taking appears to be indefinitely postponed, I think I will go down to the chapel and check some dates on the tablets there. I believe I’ve found a significant discrepancy.”

  He also left, leaving Lucy and Sue alone in the vast library.

  “Is it me or does Willoughby protest a bit too much?” asked Lucy. “If he was alone, which he admitted before realizing it was a mistake, he could have pushed the ladder out from under Winifred.”

  “You do have a suspicious mind. Why would he do that?” asked Sue, who was studying the vases with a puzzled expression. “I can’t help but wonder . . . those vases look a bit modern to me.”

  Lucy looked up at the white Chinese vases that were decorated with blue designs. “I have to admit, I’ve seen similar ones in the Christmas Tree Shop,” she said, naming a chain of popular discount gift shops back home.

  “Me, too,” said Sue, climbing the ladder to get a closer look.

  “Do be careful,” said Lucy, anxious for her friend.

  “Quimby said the ladder is perfectly sound,” insisted Sue, who was halfway up.

  Lucy was hovering nervously at the base of the ladder, though what she thought she could do to prevent Sue from falling wasn’t clear to her.

  Reaching the top, Sue reached for the nearest vase with both hands and Lucy held her breath. “As I thought!” exclaimed Sue, a note of triumph in her voice as she made a half turn, still holding the very large vase and pointing to a label on its base. “Made in China.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Willoughby, making them both jump.

  They hadn’t noticed him returning to the room.

  “This vase is not an antique,” said Sue, looking down at him from her lofty perch.

  “Of course it is,” said Willoughby, reaching for the inventory and flipping through it. “Right here it says eleven Tang dynasty vases.”

  “I’m no expert on dynasties, but I’m pretty sure the Tangs, whoever they were, didn’t use little sticky labels that say MADE IN CHINA,” declared Sue, handing the vase down to Lucy, who passed it to Willoughby.