A Witness to Murder
An unputdownable cozy murder mystery
Verity Bright
Books by Verity Bright
The Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Series
1. A Very English Murder
2. Death at the Dance
3. A Witness to Murder
Available in Audio
1. A Very English Murder (available in the UK and the US)
2. Death at the Dance (available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Hear More from Verity Bright
Books by Verity Bright
A Very English Murder
Death at the Dance
A Letter From Verity Bright
Acknowledgements
Mrs Pitkin’s Double-Layered Chocolate Fudge
*
To the greatest friends for cheering Eleanor and Clifford through every adventure. Thank you.
‘If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.’
Mark Twain
Prologue
‘Welcome to Farrington Manor for our bijou soirée this evening. First listed in the official records of the Domesday Book in 1086, the Farrington Estate has only been in the hands of two families since 1463, the Farringtons having inherited it in 1657.’
Lady Farrington, Countess of Winslow, descended the gilded staircase with well-practised poise, the train of her silk gown slinking down each of the red-carpeted steps, her diamond earrings sparkling as brightly as the chandeliers that illuminated the domed ceiling above.
‘Now, Clements will show you to the dining room where the fundraising evening is being held.’ Her clipped voice floated down to the group milling about in the grand entrance hall, each holding a champagne flute.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this way, please.’ A tall, slim-shouldered butler in an immaculate evening suit gestured for the small group to follow him. ‘If you would care to leave your glasses on the tray here.’
Once the guests had left the hall, Lady Farrington scowled. ‘Anna!’ Her lady’s maid appeared immediately. ‘Bring me a cocktail. A large one!’
The butler led the group along the corridor, his highly polished shoes making no sound on the thick Wilton carpet. The party straggled along, mouths gaping open as they stared at the floor-to-ceiling portraits of the Farringtons that lined both sides of the passageway. The butler sniffed but said nothing.
As the party was too small for the main dining room, the butler ushered them into a cosier, but no less magnificent affair. Crimson and gold drapes framed a series of arched windows that ran the length of the room with classical statues set in the alcoves in between. The butler held up a hand and announced, ‘May I present Mr Arnold Aris,’ he looked down at a card he had pulled from his waistcoat pocket, ‘Mr Ernest Carlton, Mr Vernon Peel, Mr Oswald Greaves, Mr Duncan Blewitt, Mr Stanley Morris and,’ he peered hard at the card, ‘Miss Dorothy Mann.’
‘Finally!’ Lord Farrington, Earl of Winslow, roared from the far end of the room where he’d been waiting alone with a cigar and brandy. ‘I was going to start without you.’ He strode over and briefly shook the first man’s hand. ‘Aris, you’ll kick off the speeches? Lord Fenwick-Langham and his wife cancelled at the last minute.’ The man nodded. Lord Farrington turned to the rest of the group. ‘Take your seats, gentlemen and ladies, and don’t dally on the munching, we’ve got a lot to get through.’ Lady Farrington stepped in from one of the arched doorways and caught his eye. ‘Oh yes, and it’s cars and carriages on the dot of eleven. Sit!’
The canapés, duck confit and array of alcohol-drenched desserts were served and mostly cleared in a matter of forty-five minutes. Lord Farrington dinged his glass with his knife. ‘Right, if anyone wants to stretch their legs or anything more pressing – the footman will show you where it is – we’ll take five minutes and then have the toasts and speeches.’
There was a general pushing back of chairs as Lord Farrington came over and clapped Aris on the back. ‘Right, you’re up next after the toasting. Just give them a mo afterwards to quaff more champagne and brandy. That’ll get them soused enough to be more generous when it comes to putting their hands in their pockets and getting their supporters to do the same.’
Aris nodded. ‘No problem.’
Lord Farrington leaned in, the smoke from his cigar curling up Aris’ nose. ‘And keep it short, Arnold, there’s a good chap.’
Lord Farrington returned to his place and tapped a wine glass with his dessertspoon. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you know we are here to start the season with our annual fundraiser for…’ He looked down at the table. Since that blasted Lord Shaftesbury had made fundraising fashionable you had to be seen to be supporting some cause or other. He had let Aris choose this year’s charity, but couldn’t remember now what the darned thing was called. He surreptitiously glanced at the card by his plate. ‘For the Anchorage Mission of Hope and Help which,’ he gave up pretending and read from the card, ‘receives and assists penitent young women who have gone astray, but are otherwise of good character,’ he frowned at the last part, ‘whether pregnant or not.’ He shook his head. Whatever next! ‘So, dig deep and remember all that I’ve done for you over the years.’ This received the requisite polite titter of amusement around the room. ‘Before we start in on the speeches, raise your glasses, please.’
The assembled company did as they were bid and then followed the toast with the bite-sized square of chocolate fudge placed next to each plate by the footman. Lord Farrington set his glass down and a waiter immediately refilled it. ‘Now, to kick off, I give you Arnold Aris, Independent Member of Parliament for Chipstone and District.’ As he spoke there was a commotion at the end of the table. He turned to find the said Member of Parliament collapsed over the table.
In the ensuing shocked silence, the butler discreetly checked Aris’ slumped form and then slid back round to Lord Farrington. ‘Mr Aris is dead, my lord.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Lady Farrington muttered to her husband. ‘You do pick them, don’t you!’
One
‘Botheration!’ Lady Eleanor Swift just had time to think that this was likely to hurt, before she flew over the handlebars and landed awkwardly in a thicket of hawthorn. ‘Ow!’
Whizzing down the hairpin bends at full tilt to the village of Little Buckford had seemed like a good idea when she’d mounted her bike at Henley Hall. But how was she to know that her wretched bootlace planned to spite her? And by deliberately coming undone and getting itself wrapped around the chain on the sharpest, steep
est corner in the whole of the Chilterns and Cotswolds?
Eleanor cursed loudly to the hedge sparrows and blackbirds peering down at her suspiciously as she crawled out of the hawthorn. She wrenched her tangled red curls from the bushes’ spiky clutches so that she could pull down her skirt that had somehow got caught over her saddle. Oh, double botheration! Inelegance personified. You’re supposed to be a lady, Ellie!
She righted her bicycle and shook her head at the front basket twisted into the wheel. At least her dog trailer was intact, save for a slight scraping down the left side. Luckily Gladstone, her recently inherited bulldog, had chosen to forgo the wind tickling his jowls this morning and continue snoring in his comfy bed by the warm kitchen range instead. No doubt, also artfully biding his time to steal a sausage when the staff were otherwise distracted.
No stranger to misadventure, and never one to turn back, Eleanor soon had everything fixed to her satisfaction. Giving it a quick once-over, she continued with her ride down into the valley, her scraped arm haphazardly bandaged with her emerald scarf.
The good people of Little Buckford held quite a different view of her handiwork. Respectful tutting and concerned clucking followed her into every shop and offers of ointments, repairs and lifts back to Henley Hall followed her out.
‘So thoughtful of you. But any damage to my bicycle, or myself, is much less serious than it looks,’ she insisted at each offer. She couldn’t help but marvel for the hundredth time at how these kind-hearted country folk had accepted her into their close-knit community after her recent inheritance of Henley Hall from her uncle. Even the flint walls of Little Buckford’s shops and cottages felt homely to her, which she found odd. She had only visited three or four times as a child and only moved to the Hall six months ago.
Perhaps it was simply the kindness of the villagers, or maybe it was the contrast of being in one place after travelling for years? In truth, it was most likely that the gaping hole she had carried in her heart throughout her adolescence and adult life was finally beginning to heal. She had started to know what it felt like to belong.
Tuning back in to the circle of attentive faces, she pointed to the next shop front along the picturesque flint and black-beamed high street. The swinging sign above the door promised ‘Penry’s Butchery, the finest cuts’. ‘I have only Mr Penry’s fine establishment to visit and I shall be home in the shake of a lamb’s tail.’
Used to her rather unorthodox behaviour, the farmers’ wives merely exchanged glances and bade her farewell. She waved back, leaned her bicycle along the inside of the stonework porch of the butcher’s shop and walked in, the shop’s bell dinging musically.
Inside, the hum of gossip wafted over to greet her.
‘I took my Johnny last week, he’s been that bad, but once I’d paid me seven shillings to see the doctor, I could only afford a week’s worth of medicine what he prescribed for him. Johnny’s supposed to take it for at least a month, the doctor said, but where am I going to get the money for it, I asked him?’
This brought a round of indignant support. ‘You should see your MP. Get him to do something.’
The lady who Eleanor assumed was Johnny’s mother shook her head. ‘Can’t, can I? Not till they replace him.’
‘Face down in his fancy pudding, I heard,’ a stout middle-aged woman said, shaking her head.
The other three, who could all have been sisters, took a collective sharp breath.
‘A terrible business.’
‘Death so often is, dear.’
Eleanor mentally clapped her hands over her ears. She’d had enough of being caught up in deaths in the short space of time since moving to the Hall. Her wonderful staff would no doubt inform her of who had passed away and the appropriate condolences for a lady in her position would be sent in due course. It obviously wasn’t anyone she knew, or Clifford, her butler, would have informed her at breakfast. Still, she thought sadly, someone will be in mourning.
‘Mr Penry, good morning to you,’ she called as she perused the three glass-fronted cabinets of precisely sliced meat cuts separated by thin lines of fresh green herbs.
Behind the counter, a large, ruddy man in a pristine blue and white striped apron turned and beamed a genuine welcome. The lilt of his voice was unmistakably from the other side of the Welsh border.
‘Lady Swift, what a pleasure, or should I say, Lady Van Gorder?’
The whole shop laughed at his reference to the character she had played opposite him in the annual amateur dramatics performance not long back. This had been her first concerted effort to be a part of the village life and it had gone better than she had hoped.
She smiled and struck a dramatic pose, careful not to knock the neat stack of carefully-sized wrapping papers on the counter.
Penry wiped his hands on his apron. ‘Now then, firstly my apologies that you’ve got to trouble yourself to come here for your order, although,’ he scratched his head, ‘a lady doing her own errands I’ll never get used to, if you don’t mind my remarking, m’lady. As I explained to your excellent cook, Mrs Trotman, though, my poor wife is still too laid up to make her usual deliveries and I can’t leave the shop unattended.’
Eleanor frowned with concern. ‘I hope she feels better soon. And really, it’s never a problem to pop down—’ She glanced round, her frown deepening. ‘Oh gracious, I seem to have jumped the queue!’ She turned to the nearest woman: ‘Please do continue.’
This brought on exuberant head shaking.
‘Not at all.’
‘Father Time’s not due at my door at all today, m’lady, there’s no rush.’
Penry spread his sausage-like fingers on the counter. ‘In that case, how can I be of service this delightful autumn morn? Mind, there’s more than a drop of rain hanging over us, waiting to please the ducks on the village pond.’
Eleanor smiled at the image. ‘Well, fortunately for our feathered friends, I don’t have duck on my list today. I do, however, have many other things which the combined skill of your good self and Cook will be transformed into dishes too delicious to sample just a little of, I fear.’
‘Too kind of you, m’lady, however any credit is due to Mrs Trotman working her magic in your kitchen.’
Whilst he was talking, Eleanor patted her pockets for the list entrusted to her by her housekeeper. ‘In that case, might I trouble you for these, ah… I appear to have dropped the, er, list through the tiny hole in my skirt pocket.’
Penry chuckled. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, but never mind. What say between us we conjure up something of a menu that won’t cause too much consternation and difficulty in the kitchen?’
Eleanor nodded with relief.
Penry counted out on his fingers. ‘Now then, it is Monday, and a full roast on Sunday… and probably game pie on Saturday, am I right?’
Eleanor’s face creased in confusion. ‘Frighteningly so. How on earth do you…?’
‘Ah, it is a professional tradesman’s business to know pertinent facts about his customers, m’lady.’
Still baffled, Eleanor listened to him rattle off a series of suggestions for the remainder of the week. She nodded dumbly as he concluded with something about a special pork loin to go with the forthcoming apple sauce.
‘Delightful, I’m sure. Thank you, Mr Penry. I didn’t realise you were branching out into homemade sauces.’
He leaned forward slightly. ‘We do forget sometimes that you’re new to the village, m’lady. The sauce will be from the apple harvest, as is tradition.’
‘Oh yes, yes, of course, silly me!’ More baffled than ever, she did her best to wait patiently as the butcher created a mountain of beautifully wrapped parcels, each labelled with a day of the week.
‘So kind, but might I trouble you for one more thing?’
The twittering further along the counter, which had turned back to the original gossiping, halted instantly as ears wagged once again.
‘Anything at all.’ Penry threw his arms wide. ‘Name your poison.
’
‘Actually, I’d like to buy a jolly long length of your parcel string, please. But not a word to Mr Clifford.’
Penry laughed hard enough for his sturdy shoulders to shake. ‘Celtic honour, m’lady, your secret will be safe with me.’ He slid his eyes towards the women and gave them a subtle shrug. Then he tilted his head slightly at Eleanor. ‘But my curiosity might eat me up and as you can see, I can barely afford to lose a pound.’
She laughed. ‘Let’s just call it an unladylike spot of bicycle bother.’
‘Ah, say no more, my lady. Understood. Take the rest of the roll, I have more.’
‘Gracious, thank you, but mightn’t you run out?’
To Eleanor’s ears, Penry’s lilt seemed to thicken as he dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand and a broad smile. ‘As we say in the valleys, everything you have in this world is just borrowed for a short time.’
His parting words were flowing lightly round Eleanor’s mind as she emerged from the shop only to find the promised rain had arrived. Taking advantage of the shop’s porch, she balanced the bags Penry had packed for her along the bicycle’s frame whilst she made room in her trailer. Through the half-open door, the gossip resumed.
A Witness to Murder: An unputdownable cozy murder mystery (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 3) Page 1