A Witness to Murder: An unputdownable cozy murder mystery (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 3)

by Verity Bright

  Eleanor pulled her glasses off. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know your name but…’

  ‘Oh, but I know yours alright! Lady Swift herself on the doorstep. Fancy that! I’ve been cheering for you and all you’re doing to help us women. What an honour to have you here.’ The woman peered round Eleanor. ‘And Mr Clifford too.’

  ‘Good afternoon, madam.’

  She turned back to Eleanor. ‘You’re taking a risk coming here, ain’t ya, after the papers said you were the one who did in poor Mr Carlton?’

  Eleanor dropped her voice. ‘That is precisely why we are here. I have been framed!’

  Clifford stepped forward. ‘Mrs Eltham, you may not be aware, but there is a plot to stop Lady Swift standing for election. And we believe there may be a connection with Mr Carlton’s most tragic demise.’

  Mrs Eltham gasped. ‘Why didn’t you say why you was here first off?’ Her eyes darted up and down the street. ‘Get inside quick, afore those newspaper fellas get back from scoffing pints down at the alehouse in the next road.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Eleanor hurried in. As Clifford joined them, she noticed the hallway was more tastefully decorated than she’d have expected for a man like Carlton. He’d seemed so guarded and calculating. She’d pictured his home as far more clinical and impersonal. Cream and mulberry wallpaper set off the rich plum of the two-seat button-backed loveseat below a painting of wild stallions prancing on some faraway plain.

  ‘Best to come through to the parlour.’ Mrs Eltham led them across the polished wooden boards into a room where the same theme ran throughout the surprising number of soft furnishings. A large mirror above the mantelpiece reflected the weak afternoon sun dancing through a fancy cut-glass light fitting.

  Eleanor sat whilst Clifford hesitantly took the offered place on the settee.

  Eleanor gave her warmest smile. ‘How long had you been Mr Carlton’s housekeeper, Mrs Eltham?’

  ‘Six, no, seven years. He was a good enough employer, but a right old fusspot about having everything just so, especially with his food. Mr Pernickety, I called him, and he was getting worse. I told him recently he needed to get someone else to do his meals – I’ve no time for all that mucking about, not in the hours I’m here.’

  Thinking that didn’t surprise her after their encounter at his office, Eleanor found a gap in Mrs Eltham’s monologue to jump in with another question: ‘You said the police came. Did Inspector Fawks take your statement?’

  The housekeeper nodded. ‘The arrogance of that man! I was sitting there, thinking he should be the one on the floor with the back of his head bashed in. He talked to me like I was a lump of the dirt I could see caked to the bottom of his boots.’ She sniffed. ‘Which I then had to get on me knees and clean up, mind.’

  Clifford made sympathetic ‘tsk’ noises before speaking. ‘You probably didn’t feel disposed to tell him much at all after that?’

  ‘Spot on, Mr Clifford, I didn’t. I clammed up and said just enough to do right by Mr Carlton. It’s none of the police’s business who he might have owed money to, or if he had a lady friend, or anything else that inspector wanted to poke his nose into. He thought I was dumb, so I played dumb.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Carlton would have appreciated your discretion,’ Clifford said.

  Eleanor tried to pick her words carefully. ‘I understood Mr Carlton was a bachelor? Forgive me, but I had imagined a more… masculine decor?’

  ‘’Tis only the rooms he “entertained” in that are done up so fancy. I’m no gossip, but let’s just say, he found the ladies were more relaxed when things were painted up nicely.’

  ‘Ah!’ Eleanor said.

  ‘But ’twasn’t my place to say anything. Mind, I almost left him a few times. Got so bad I worried the police would come round, thinking this was one of those houses.’ She tapped her nose.

  ‘The road to find true love can indeed be long and winding,’ Clifford said.

  Mrs Eltham snorted. ‘’Tweren’t love he was after though, was it? Otherwise he’d have had one lady friend at a time, not a different one depending on the day of the week.’ She spread her hands. ‘Well, some men are made that way, it seems. And women find them irresistible, though I can’t see why. No matter what class they come from.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking you do not live in?’ Clifford asked.

  ‘You are. That’s why I wasn’t here when it happened.’ She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and patted the corners of her lips. ‘I got here at five-and-ten past nine that evening to set his supper warming, turn his bed down, lay out the breakfast things, same as usual. If he weren’t entertaining, of course, which he’d said he wasn’t.’ She frowned. ‘A woman came round that evening, though.’

  Eleanor stopped looking around the room. ‘A woman, you say? Can you describe her?’

  Mrs Eltham shook her head. ‘I didn’t see her, just knows there was one here. Could smell the perfume.’

  Eleanor glanced at the door out into the hallway. ‘Where exactly did they find poor Mr Carlton? Are you able to tell us what you saw, if it won’t upset you too much?’

  ‘If it’ll help you find whoever did it, you best come see for yourself.’

  Eleanor nodded. Mrs Eltham slipped a trembling arm through hers: ‘It weren’t pretty, Lady Swift.’

  At the furthest end of the hallway, the housekeeper paused and gestured to a white wooden door: ‘He was in his office, although he called it his “study”. He weren’t ever studying anything, so it was always his office to me.’

  ‘May I?’ Eleanor asked with one hand on the door.

  ‘Go ahead. ’Tis all cleaned up now. Not that the police did a good enough job. What a picture, me on my knees, scrubbing away the last of my employer with a bucket and brush! Poor soul, lying in the middle of the floor as if he was on his way out when he was walloped.’

  Eleanor felt Mrs Eltham’s arm slide out of hers as she stepped through the doorway into a medium-sized room. It was closer to the plain white walls and inexpensive shelving of the office they had previously interviewed Carlton in. Near the fireplace, a simple wooden desk sat facing the door, a square-legged chair tucked underneath.

  Against one wall, a wooden cupboard that looked suspiciously like an old wardrobe leaned wearily. On the opposite wall a repurposed baize card table top hung, liberally pinned with a selection of maps. She scanned the sash window. ‘Might the rogue have come through there, do you suppose?’

  The housekeeper waved a hand. ‘He’d have had a heck of a job! It’s been latched and painted shut for all the years I’ve worked here. Must have come in the back door, I reckon. Or Mr Carlton let him in the front, but no one in the street saw anyone. Police were up and down, asking them when I could have told them in five minutes, as we was all talking about it over the fences.’

  ‘Did they take anything away with them?’

  ‘Only Mr Carlton himself. Truth is, they left more than they took, dratted fingerprint powder on everything and mud all over the floors.’

  ‘Do you happen to know if they found any fingerprints?’

  ‘Well, they took mine, so as to compare them with summat, so I reckon they did. That Fawks said he thought the killer would have worn gloves, though, seeing as the modern criminal knows about fingerprints and suchlike nowadays.’

  ‘Did you notice if anything was missing?’

  ‘No, the police asked me that, must have been a dozen times. They took Mr Carlton’s cricketing trophy, that’s the only thing missing now. They said how that was what the killer hit him with. On the back of the head.’ She held her handkerchief to her nose.

  As Eleanor hesitated, Mrs Eltham waved her hand – ‘Oh, go ahead, rootle in whatever you need to! Ain’t going to do Mr Carlton no harm now.’

  Eleanor stole a peek at Clifford, who gave her the slightest of nods in return.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Eltham, might I trouble you to show me the back door? Perhaps we can find something the police didn’t see.’ />
  As their footsteps moved away, Eleanor did a slow turn, taking in the sparsely furnished room. The trouble was, she had no real idea what she was looking for. The desk drawers revealed nothing more than the usual letter-writing paraphernalia and an empty hip flask. Equally, the cupboard contained a few stationery items and little else. She tapped the back, then squeezed her hand behind to feel for anything hidden.

  Nothing.

  There were maps hanging on the wall, various scales and sections of the area around Chipstone. No cryptic notes had been scrawled on the back, however, or black crosses showing the location of buried treasure. She shook her head.

  Come on, Ellie, you’re not in a penny dreadful!

  The trays on the mantelpiece held only an unpaid tailor’s bill, four weeks of newspapers marked IN ARREARS, and a series of invitations to dinners, all of which had already expired. An edge of paper caught her eye behind the coach clock. She pulled it out to reveal a newspaper article on the urgent need for more housing, carefully cut from The Times on 22 October.

  She frowned. Why had he cut out and kept that particular article? She thought back to Lady Farrington’s revelation that Aris was helping them secure a housing project on their land. What was the connection? She shrugged, folded the cutting and slipped it in her pocket before continuing her search. Carlton had certainly kept all his cards pressed tight to his chest that day in his office.

  Trying to get into the mind of the victim, she pulled out the chair and sat at the desk. There was no sign of a struggle in the room, so it seemed certain Carlton knew his killer. He had almost certainly invited him in and was then struck when he turned his back on his visitor.

  She held the sides of the chair and shuffled it back under the desk, then yelped as her finger caught on something sticking out. A blooming bubble of blood on her finger made her shake her head angrily.

  Ouch! Why on earth wouldn’t Carlton have fixed that? He’d have no fingers left!

  Dropping to her knees, she leaned the chair on its two back legs and let out a quiet whistle.

  Underneath the solid seat, she saw what had snagged her finger: two tiny brass hooks had been screwed into the side supports, one being bent at the end. The edge of a metal hinge was just visible. Eleanor swung each hook down and then gasped.

  ‘Tea would be lovely, Mrs Eltham, so kind!’ Clifford’s voice echoed along the corridor towards her.

  ‘Clifford!’ she hissed at the first sign of his meticulously shined shoe appearing in the doorway. ‘Look!’ She held up a white linen napkin and peeled the folds back.

  ‘Four squares of… chocolate fudge!’

  ‘From the dinner where Aris died, do you suppose?’

  ‘Indeed, it would seem we have found the missing dessert.’ Spotting the gash to her finger, Clifford handed her a clean handkerchief.

  ‘Thank you.’ Eleanor wound it round her cut finger, putting the fudge on the desk, her brow furrowed. ‘But it makes no sense. If Carlton killed Aris, why would he have kept the evidence? That would be the work of a madman who wanted to get caught!’

  ‘And Mr Carlton struck me as being exceptionally shrewd, my lady.’

  ‘He can’t have stolen it to eat. He has a few unpaid bills, but I don’t believe he was so short of money he was stealing food.’

  ‘Particularly as he hadn’t eaten it.’ Clifford pursed his lips. ‘Who else would be interested in the evidence, apart from the police—’

  ‘And the killer.’

  He arched one brow. ‘And, perhaps, someone who wanted to blackmail the killer?’

  ‘Clifford, you clever bean! He was keeping these hidden to blackmail Aris’ murderer.’ She squeezed her eyes closed. ‘Which almost certainly means Aris’ murderer also murdered Carlton.’

  Clifford quickly placed the handkerchief containing the fudge in his pocket as the clink of cups heralded Mrs Eltham’s return.

  ‘Sorry, there’s no biscuits or cake,’ she set the tray on the desk, ‘but Mr Carlton wouldn’t have anything sweet in the house. Said he didn’t know why folk eat sugary things, it was likely to be the death of them…’

  Twenty-Seven

  Eleanor gasped. ‘Ladies, it looks simply… amazing!’

  They all stared at the Rolls, festooned with colourful posters and looping garlands. She read the poster flanking the passenger door. ‘Lady Swift. One Promise. The Truth!’ She pulled them into a collective hug. ‘Golly, I’m so grateful!’

  Mrs Butters patted Eleanor’s arm. ‘Oh, ’tis our pleasure, my lady. The garlands though, they were Polly’s idea.’

  The young maid’s words tumbled over each other. ‘Seeing as I couldn’t do the posters ’cos I don’t spell too well.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I remember you told us about the town high up in the beautiful mountains, where all the houses looked like tiny castles and everyone came out to welcome you like a princess. And… and all the people and the donkeys and the carts were covered in strings of rainbow flowers…’ She tailed off, her face streaked with tears.

  Eleanor and the ladies were all choked and looked to Clifford for help.

  ‘I think, Polly, her ladyship would say you have made the exact strings of flowers she described to you. Well done!’

  That finished Eleanor off completely and she dived into the boot of the Rolls on the pretext of sorting through the campaigning materials. After a moment, Clifford’s legs popped into her peripheral view and a clean handkerchief.

  ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled.

  ‘To business, my lady. Shall we say five minutes?’

  ‘Better make it fifteen.’

  Even the outskirts of Chipstone seemed busy as Clifford eased the Rolls towards the high street. In the back seat, Mrs Trotman, Mrs Butters and Polly nudged each other and patted their hats, unaccustomed as they were to riding in the car. Gladstone had commandeered the right-side seat and delighted in poking his nose out of the window so the wind ruffled his jowls.

  ‘Looks like everyone is up and busy already,’ Eleanor mused.

  Clifford nodded. ‘That should guarantee an excellent audience.’

  He pulled up next to the main square alongside the Town Hall. He looked across at her. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Not a bit.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Right, so we’re all clear on what we’re doing? We’ll set up the campaign stand here. Ladies, you’ll distribute as many flyers to people as you can, please. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed!’ they chorused. Gladstone added an excited woof and licked Polly’s cheek.

  Clifford erected an ingenious pop-up table-cum-booth whilst the ladies busied themselves taking boxes of leaflets from the boot. They then strung more posters and garlands from each corner. As they finished, Mrs Butters handed Eleanor an emerald-green silk rosette.

  She took it and stared at the intricately embroidered lettering. ‘Lady Swift. Let the truth be told,’ she read aloud. ‘Gracious, Mrs Butters, I don’t know what to say!’

  ‘A pleasure, my lady. There’s one for each of us. Master Gladstone, too. Ours has only got your name, on account of running out of time. And there’s a box of green ribbons and pins for all the folk who come and say they’ll support you. I only hope there’s enough.’

  Eleanor looked across at the rest of her staff, all standing behind the booth, regaled in their rosettes. Mrs Trotman shook her head at Polly’s and re-pinned it the right way up.

  ‘But where did you find this beautiful green silk at such short notice? It is my absolute favourite colour!’

  Mrs Butters giggled. ‘Remember the dress you tore on your second day at the Hall? You said you’d been scrambling through a hedge to catch a certain young gentleman pilot in a field.’

  ‘Oh, yes… Lancelot.’

  The housekeeper winked. ‘Well, the fabric was too beautiful to put in the rag box. So, here we are.’

  Two hours later, as the Town Hall clock struck eleven, Clifford appeared at Eleanor’s side. ‘We have had a most positive response, wouldn’t you say, my lady?’
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  ‘I’m staggered. It’s been a tremendous surprise.’

  ‘If I might make the suggestion, however, that you and I need to slip away and catch up with our suspects.’

  ‘Clifford! You’ve found out more information?’

  ‘Indeed, two interesting morsels, in fact, but I was going to tell you over luncheon. Since the topic has arisen, I have discovered that the business practice of Mr Aris and Mr Peel did not separate on amicable terms. Succinctly, it would appear Mr Aris suddenly extracted himself from their partnership and took all the best clients with him. Mr Peel is precariously close to bankruptcy.’

  Eleanor gave a long, low whistle. ‘Gracious! Well, there’s a motive for killing Aris but we have nothing linking him to Carlton’s death. We definitely need another talk with him, though. And the other piece of information?’

  ‘You can thank Mrs Trotman for this snippet. It transpires that some months ago at Chipstone Market, Mr Carlton manned a stall promoting the Labour Party. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Mr Stanley Morris appeared and heated words were exchanged. There were several witnesses.’

  Eleanor frowned. ‘Probably about his wife’s affair. Is there a man in this town whose wife hasn’t fallen for Carlton’s supposed charms?’

  Clifford shook his head. ‘Possibly not. However, the exchange quickly turned to punches being thrown. The police were called and Mr Morris was ejected from the market on threat of being charged with disturbing the peace.’

  ‘Mmm, I believe as well as Mr Peel, we need to speak to Mr Morris.’

  ‘I agree wholeheartedly, my lady. Might I suggest the Reading Room as the starting point? Mr Morris is always there at this hour.’

  She nodded. ‘Come on, things are hotting up!’

  The normally silent Reading Room had more of a hubbub than Eleanor expected. A different woman to the one she’d met previously sat behind the small, wooden desk, animatedly discussing something in a magazine with two others. Four more women sat in a huddle around one end of the central bench-style table, clearly gossiping instead of reading. A gawky teenage boy in spectacles and short breeches ran his finger along the books in the small science section.