“Now, let’s forget about George for the time being and focus on what happened here last night.”
I clicked my heels together and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
He looked at me like I was missing part of my brain, so I put my hand down.
“Fellowes says that he heard a tapping at the window, which is impossible of course because we’re high above the level of the gardens. As I generally trust the man, let’s see what we can find outside.”
The salon was occupied by Uncle Maitland’s family. His wife Winifred and their children Francis and Eleanor were lucky enough to have had a free run at the breakfast table and were clearly enjoying the cakes I had ordered.
“Good morning, all.” Grandfather shot an absentminded glance in their direction, as we walked past them and out through the French windows.
We descended the steps down to the Italian gardens with their peaceful fountains and neatly laid-out flowerbeds. The air was warm and there were irises and violas flowering wherever I looked. It was the perfect day to investigate a murder, if one had to do such a thing.
In the distance, I could see my uncle bounding towards us on his morning walk. He waved and shouted, but was too far away for us to hear what he said. We went to take a look at the ground beneath the drinks room window. Grandfather stopped still and became rather mysterious for a moment.
“What do you think of that?” he asked, pointing at a small, smooth stone which matched the gravel path that circled the house.
“I think it’s a stone.”
“Oh, come along, Christopher, you can do better than that. What do you make of the fact that such a stone is some five yards away from the path where it normally resides, bearing in mind that a team of gardeners has worked tirelessly to ensure that not a leaf was out of place in preparation for last night’s celebration?” This was a very long sentence, but I managed to follow it.
I looked at the stone, then at the path and then at the window and felt quite proud of myself. “Someone took a stone from the path and threw it at the window to get Fellowes’s attention.”
“Bravo.” He did not inject much enthusiasm into this response and I had to wonder whether he regretted not choosing Big Francis or Eleanor to be his assistant after all.
“Maybe whoever threw it was working with the killer and knew that Fellowes would leave the champagne unattended.”
“Maybe.” He sounded even less convinced now, so I decided to stop offering any more theories of my own. “But if you’re right, and we’re looking for two culprits rather than one, it will make solving Belinda’s murder a great deal more complicated.”
“Can’t we dust the stone for fingerprints and find out who threw it.”
He crouched down to look at it more closely. “Well, we could, but I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, it was a white tie ball and most of our guests were wearing gloves. But, even more significantly, I believe I know who is responsible.”
He’d really impressed me this time and my voice rocketed towards the clouds. “Just by looking?”
He answered with a furrowed brow and a shake of the head. “No, Christopher. I may be an experienced detective, but I can’t see invisible fingerprints.”
“So how do you know who-?”
He didn’t wait for me to finish. “Think about what Fellowes told us. He went outside and there was no one there, yet he was gone for at least five minutes.” He sounded quite amazed by my ability to ignore important evidence. “I felt sure you’d notice that.”
“You mean he met someone down here and it wasn’t one of the gardeners?”
“Correct.”
“But it was one of our suspects.”
“That’s right.”
I did some working out in my head. That didn’t get me far, so I tried it out loud instead. “Uncle Maitland and my father can’t stand Fellowes. Marmalade and George were supposedly together on the terrace. Great-Aunt Clementine was asleep upstairs… which only leaves Cora.”
Standing back up again, he twirled one end of his moustache and regarded me appraisingly. “Well, your reasoning is pretty shoddy, but, you got to the right outcome. Unless of course-”
I was looking forward to discovering his theory, and perhaps getting a little more praise for, in my opinion, my most commendable detective work, when Maitland caught up with us. His face was puffed up from the no doubt arduous stroll he’d undertaken. He looked like a tomato that had been left in the sun for too long. I couldn’t imagine how he’d cope with the walk back upstairs.
“Father, I need to talk to you.” He looked deadbeat and sounded paranoid. I could only assume that he had been kept up half the night by Inspector Blunt. He was dressed, as always, in his tweed hunting jacket, though, to paraphrase my mother, Maitland was a terrible marksman and couldn’t hit a horse with a hammer from half a yard away.
“Can’t it wait, my boy? We’re really very busy.”
My uncle became rather miffed and eyed me angrily. “No, it cannot. You’ve got all the time in the world for this little moneygrubber, but none for your own son. Do you know what I suffered through with that obnoxious policeman last night?”
Grandfather had picked up the stone with his sleeve, so as not to get fingerprints on it, before slipping it into his pocket. “Well, yes. I can imagine.”
“This is a nightmare for me. Imagine how shocked people will be when they find out that Maitland Cranley, the son of Lord Edgington, is a suspect in the murder of his own sister!”
His father was unmoved. “Not nearly so shocked as when they find out that Lord Edgington is a suspect in the murder of his own daughter.”
Getting angrier by the word, Maitland paced up and down on a small patch of path but came no closer. “Oh yes, brush me off with your witty observations. That’s typical of you, Father. You’re too clever for your own good.” He stretched his arms out in an attempt to make himself more noticeable. “But here I am, your flesh and blood, asking you for help and you won’t lift a finger.”
Grandfather sighed and stepped out of the flowerbed. “I’m sorry, Maitland. You’re absolutely right. I don’t make enough time for you and I should.” He sounded quite sincere. “Tell me what the matter is and I will do whatever I can to help.”
The tubby hunter wasn’t expecting this and didn’t appear to know what to say next. “Oh… Well, I have to concede that is awfully good of you and I accept your apology.” He whistled a falling note as he tried to process this development.
“If it makes you feel any better, dear boy, I never imagined for one second that you would have killed Belinda. The two of you were in cahoots from the day you were born. If you were planning to kill anyone, it would surely have been me.”
The two men laughed then, and it appeared as though Maitland had forgotten what he’d come to say. “Thank you, Daddy. I really mean it.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to get off your chest?” Grandfather’s eyebrows climbed higher up his forehead.
“Well, there was one thing and I didn’t think much of it at first but it’s been niggling in my mind all morning and I realised I should probably say something. You see, the reason I wasn’t there just before the toast last night was because…” He paused and looked around, and I felt sure he was about to reveal some vital fact of the case. “…because I’d gone to use the commode. But, on my way back, I saw something rather puzzling.”
Grandfather did not display any of his usual impatience, but listened intently to what his son had to say. “Do go on.”
Maitland looked around once more. “Well, you see, as I was walking along the corridor, I spotted Fellowes leaving the petit salon, and-”
His sentence was interrupted by a resolute BANG! Well, it wasn’t quite a bang actually, it was more of a THWACK! Or perhaps
a TWANG! Yes, let’s stick with that.
TWANG! went the noise, and Maitland had just enough time to glance down at the crossbow bolt that had pierced his chest before he collapsed to the ground with a shriek.
Chapter Seventeen
It was Grandfather’s instinct to grab his son and pull him back towards the cover of the house. Whoever had shot my uncle must have been firing from one of the upstairs windows and wouldn’t be able to hit us from there. Maitland was too heavy for his ageing father to shift, though, so I had to help. Luckily, the ancient crossbows we have at Cranley aren’t the quickest weapons to reload and no more shots were fired.
I got the two men to safety, then ran back up the steps, shouting, “The armoury!” as Grandfather attended to Uncle Maitland. When I got to the top, my cousins Francis and Eleanor were both staring down, trying to work out what had happened to their father. Inside, my aunt Winifred evidently didn’t think anything of the rumpus and was tucking in to a currant bun with her feet up.
I ran through the petit salon to the corridor, just in time to see Cora Villiers nip into the smoking room. By the time I got to her, she was sitting reading a book beside the fireplace, with her grandmother Clementine snoring away nearby.
“What happened?” She asked with a look of pure innocence on her face. “I heard a scream. Who was it?”
There was no time to deal with her. I pressed on along the corridor and grabbed a silver candlestick, from the bureau in front of the armoury, before seizing the door handle. I’m fully conscious of the fact that tableware can’t really compete with an arsenal of swords, knives and guns but, unsure what else to do, I said a little prayer and opened the door.
The armoury was empty.
“Oh, thank goodness for that!” I said out loud. I felt like I might pass out from all that stress (and running). In fact my lungs were carrying out a full rebellion on the rest of my body.
Once I’d recovered my breath enough to stand and walk again, I searched the room for evidence. There were several wooden bolts strewn about the place and a space on the wall where the weapon had been taken from. I noticed that there was a matching crossbow pinned to the opposite wall which looked as though someone had tried to remove it. It was at a slight angle and it made me wonder whether our killer was short and had failed in his task before spotting the other crossbow. Where the murder weapon had ended up, of course, was anyone’s guess.
On the carpet underneath the empty bracket, I noticed traces of tobacco ash. I gave it a sniff and decided it was almost certainly from a cigar as it smelt just like the ones my father smoked. This could only mean that we were looking for a short, cigar-smoking murderer. I had just seen someone who fitted that description running from the scene of the crime and, as far as I was concerned, the case was closed.
The window was also closed, but I assumed the police would be along soon to dust for fingerprints. It’s a shame that fingerprints are so hard to spot. It would make detective work a darned sight easier if they stuck out like poppies in a meadow.
I went back out to the hall where a crowd had formed. The last lingering guests had come to discover what the commotion was about and I noticed that several of our suspects were close at hand. In fact, assuming he wasn’t hiding in one of the adjacent rooms, it was really only Marmalade we could now rule out for certain.
“They say Maitland’s been shot,” George informed the crowd, as I caught sight of my father at the end of the hall. “What did you find in there, Chrissy?” He was either a very good actor or he really didn’t know what had happened.
I studied him for a moment before answering. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” my mother replied, a note of panic in her voice.
“Well, no one.”
“And what about Maitland?” as she said this, her tears came. “Is he…?”
In my hurry to catch the killer, I hadn’t considered what state my uncle was in. I hadn’t even thought to telephone for a doctor, though I was sure one of his children would have seen to that by now. I peered back along the hall, just as my grandfather emerged from the petit salon. His grey morning coat was covered in rusty red stains and his face told us all we needed to know.
My mother ran to him, with great sobs already escaping her slender lips. She buried her head in her father’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her. Nobody said a word as we stood watching the tragic scene.
I had never witnessed my grandfather crying before; the sight made me want to lie down on the floor and never get up again. Lord Edgington was a legend, a great detective and a great man. To see that titan reduced to tears was almost paradoxical in my mind and it took my brother Albert putting his arm around my shoulder to steady my nerves.
Two murders. Two dead Cranleys in twenty-four hours and, just as my grandfather had predicted, there was no reason to assume the killer would stop there. His first attempt at murdering my family had failed, and now it looked as though he was keen to knock us off one by one instead.
Through an open window in the billiard room, we could hear the distant cry of my Aunt Winifred as the reality of her widowhood sank in. Right at that moment, Cora tiptoed out of the smoking room to witness the destruction for herself.
My anger burst out from within me. “She did this,” I screamed, marching towards her. “I saw her running away from the armoury just after the shot was fired.”
Looking unflustered by the accusation, she replied in her usual nonchalant tone. “What a ridiculous insinuation. The boy’s a fool.”
“So where were you coming from when I saw you?”
My father had arrived and stepped between the two of us to calm us both down. “There’s no need for raised voices,” he told me, as if this was the real danger we were facing. “Cora, answer Christopher’s question.”
All eyes fell on my second cousin. “I…” Peering back into the room where she’d taken shelter, she searched for a convincing answer. “I went to get my grandmother some tea.” She flicked her short fringe from her face with one darting hand. “Isn’t that right, Grandmother?”
Great-Aunt Clementine had presumably been woken by the argument, or perhaps just the mention of refreshments. She sat upright in the armchair she was cradled within and said, “Tea, oh yes, lovely,” before reaching for the heavy pot on the table beside her and immediately splashing the amber liquid all over the tray, her black lace gloves and a large part of her dress, so that I had to run over to help her. Rather impressively, she’d managed to miss the cup entirely, and I noticed that the tea was already cold.
My Grandfather arrived then and addressed us in a slow, careful manner. “As you have heard, my son is dead.” The words were hard for him to muster and he had to pause to process this fact before continuing. “The police have been called and Inspector Blunt is on his way.”
He scanned the faces of everyone there. It was hard to say whether he was searching for comfort in their flabbergasted expressions or looking for signs of guilt. “I have already lost two of my children. The last thing I want is for anyone else to get hurt. So, as soon as the police have interviewed you, I believe it would be best for you to return to your homes.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Cora was finally feeling the pressure of suspicion. “I swear, that I had nothing to do with these terrible crimes. You know me, I wouldn’t…”
She never finished that sentence as she could tell from the cold, silent response she received that we would not let her off so lightly. The Villiers and the Cranleys were not close, had not been close for several decades in fact and, given the chance to get rid of us, they would be at the front of the queue.
Possessing a far more charitable soul than the rest of us, my grandfather pulled away from his daughter to comfort Cora and lead her down the hall to wait for the police.
Chapter Eighteen
My uncle’s death had a curious effect on Cranley
Hall. It’s not that he was much more popular than my aunt. He was a dull, pernickety man with little of his father’s charm but… well, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, ‘To lose one Cranley may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like a concerted plan of elimination.’
Whereas, the night before, there was a buzz to the house, as curious guests stayed on scene to discover any lurid gossip, those who remained after Maitland’s demise were suddenly drained of energy.
My grandfather seemed to be regressing to his formerly distant self. Though he attended to the necessities when the police arrived, he had no vim about him and suddenly looked his age. They say that losing a child is the hardest thing for a parent to contend with and Lord Edgington had gone one step further.
My parents both looked shell shocked, so my brother took them back to their suite and I stayed behind to help Grandfather. When the police arrived, Inspector Blunt had lost some of his vitriol from the previous evening. He spoke to us in front of my uncle’s body, which was now covered over with a heavy blanket, as if to stop him from floating away.
“And there are witnesses to attest to your presence with the deceased before he was shot?”
My grandfather gave only the faintest monosyllabic answers. “Yes.”
This was something I could help with at last. “Grandfather and I have been together for most of the morning.”
The crumpled little man was almost hesitant. He must have decided that the suffering his former colleague was enduring trumped their longstanding rivalry.
“We’ll keep you informed if we discover anything.” He addressed his comment to the stony path and was yet to look either of us in the eye.
Shrugging his shoulders like he was terribly cold, Blunt wandered inside to interview the staff. My grandfather showed no sign of knowing what to do next. He remained rooted to the spot for several minutes before drifting back towards the house and up the steps. I was afraid to ask what his plan was, but felt myself magnetically pulled along behind him.
Murder at the Spring Ball: A 1920s Mystery Page 10