Murder at Standing Stone Manor

by Eric Brown

  He laughed, ‘What makes you assume—?’

  ‘Your car was parked in the drive all evening,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve no proof.’

  ‘On the morning the body of your father was discovered,’ she said, ‘I came over here with Donald. Nancy’s dog was playing with his ball, and I just happened to throw it for him … and it rolled under your car. I retrieved it from the dry gravel.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t realize what it meant at the time – in fact, it was only just now, when Nancy was playing with her dog and I saw the ball roll under your father’s car, that the memory of that morning came back to me. It had been snowing all night on Tuesday – the following morning it was white-over – and if you had indeed been at your uncle’s for up to six hours, when you returned after midnight, as you claimed, you would have parked over fallen snow.’ She smiled at him. ‘Your car was parked beside the house all the time.’

  ‘Quite the little detective,’ he said. ‘So you think I killed my father in rage over what he was doing to mother, then contacted Spencer to supply me with a foolproof alibi?’

  ‘Well, it all fits, doesn’t it? You had the motive – to avenge your mother – and the opportunity. You knew where your father kept his service revolver. All you needed was an alibi, and as you say, Spencer could provide you with that.’

  He shook his head. Despite the chill wind, he was sweating: perspiration stood out on his high forehead.

  ‘So are you going to go to the police with your little theory?’ he sneered.

  She stared at him. ‘Of course not,’ she said, ‘because I know – just as you know – that it didn’t happen like that.’

  He swallowed. ‘You know?’

  ‘None of it fits with the type of person you are, Randall. You’re impetuous, impulsive. You act in the heat of the moment, rashly, without thinking, without taking into consideration the consequences of your actions. This was demonstrated the other day when you threatened Roy Vickers with the shotgun. And the way you hector Nancy – you’re headstrong, heedless. On Sunday, you discovered what your father was doing, and you didn’t find out for certain that he was poisoning your mother until Monday, on hearing back from your uncle. It was then that you would have confronted your father with what you’d found, on impulse, in rage – if you’d been man enough to do so. But you didn’t do that.’

  She watched him. He stared at the ground, biting his bottom lip.

  She went on, ‘No, your father’s killing was premeditated, carried out by someone who knew just where he kept his revolver – in anger, yes, at what your father was doing, but thought through beforehand.’ She hesitated. ‘I was puzzled, though, why your uncle should agree to provide you with an alibi. But then it became obvious, after a little thought. Following your phone call, Spencer knew what your father was doing. He realized that his brother had taken the drugs from his dispensary, while supposedly helping Spencer out when he was incapacitated. And after stewing over the actions of his brother for a day, Spencer came over here on Tuesday evening and … Well, you probably know what happened far better than I do.’

  He was leaning against the standing stone, no longer looking nonchalant but almost defeated, staring at the ground between them.

  ‘Well?’ she pressed.

  At last, he said, ‘It was about nine o’clock or so. I was upstairs, in my room. I heard a car approaching along the drive and looked out, but I couldn’t make out who it was. I thought nothing of it at the time; my father often had friends over. About twenty minutes later, I heard a gunshot, and a few minutes later Spencer was hammering on my door. He looked ghastly. I don’t know whether he was affected by drugs he’d taken, but he was hardly coherent. He said he’d confronted my father about the missing codeine, about poisoning my mother. They were in the study. Spencer said he took the revolver from the bureau and threatened my father …’ Randall swallowed. ‘He ordered my father outside, marched him across to the standing stone, and while his brother was still babbling his denials, he raised the gun and – in his own words – “executed” him.’

  ‘What did you do when he told you this?’

  Randall shook his head. ‘I calmed him down, first of all. He was like a man possessed. I guessed that he knew the enormity of his crime, but at the same time he was righteous. He said that my father had deserved to die for everything he’d done.’ He grunted. ‘Everything. I think Spencer resented my father for far more than attempting to kill my mother. He was the loneliest man I’d ever known, and he resented my father for the ease with which he seduced women. When Spencer discovered that my father was slowly murdering my mother, whom he thought the world of … well, I think that was the final straw.’

  ‘How did your father know about the codeine? I mean, how did he know that it would have such a lethal effect on your mother?’

  ‘That was another thing that filled Spencer with guilt. You see, he blamed himself for planting the notion in my father’s head. At some point, he said that although my mother could take painkillers, at all costs she must avoid codeine and other opioids which would prove fatal to someone with such an advanced renal condition.’ He shook his head, recalling the night in question. ‘He actually told me this that night – it was another stick to beat himself with, along with the shame and the guilt of his brother raiding his dispensary for the drugs.’

  ‘You didn’t think of phoning the police at this point?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t. You see, perhaps a part of me did despise my father, did think that he should have been punished for what he’d planned to do to my mother. Also, I admit I felt sorry for my uncle. I told him to return home, and impressed on him that the best way to give himself an alibi would be to provide me with one.’

  She smiled. ‘Which is what I meant when I said that in some ways you were a very clever young man.’

  ‘I’ll take that, all things considered, as a compliment.’

  Maria sighed. ‘Your uncle’s recent overdose …’ She shook her head. ‘In the cold light of day, when he could look back on what he’d done, I would guess that the guilt proved just too much.’

  Randall pursed his lips, and she was surprised to see that he was on the verge of tears. ‘I should never have phoned him,’ he said. ‘I should have kept my suspicions to myself. If I’d only …’

  She reached out and touched his arm. ‘You had to find out for certain what your father was doing. You did the right thing. Can you imagine if you’d ignored your suspicions, and your father succeeded in killing Xandra? Imagine how you would have felt then.’

  He drew himself upright, took a deep breath and nodded. ‘What a bloody business,’ he said. ‘What a bloody awful, tragic mess.’

  She said, ‘The police need to know what happened, whether your uncle survives or not.’

  ‘But if he dies, then surely … surely, then, the secret can die with—’

  She interrupted. ‘Letting you neatly off the charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice?’ she said. ‘Randall, the police need to know everything – even the lie of your alibi. They need to know who killed your father so as to avoid the possibility of mistakenly convicting an innocent person.’ She hesitated. ‘You’re always so keen to accuse Nancy of acting like a child – now you need to act like a man and tell the police everything.’

  He thought about it for a few seconds, then pushed himself away from the standing stone. ‘Very well, yes,’ he said.

  ‘One more thing,’ she said before he moved off to the house. ‘Does Xandra know what your father was doing to her?’

  ‘I told her after I removed the tablets from the bathroom cabinet on Monday,’ he said. ‘That’s why she thinks that I shot my father. You see, she knows my alibi was a lie. On Wednesday afternoon, when the police had left, she saw me move the car into the garage, revealing the dry gravel. She saw this through her bedroom window and, like you, realized that I’d been at the manor all night.’

  ‘Did she confront you?’

  ‘S
he asked me if I was guilty, and I swore I didn’t shoot my father.’ He shook his head. ‘I rather think she didn’t believe me.’

  He stepped away from the standing stone.

  ‘About Nancy …’ she began.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Please don’t tell her about the professor being her father, all right? I think it might be best for her if I did that.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll keep mum,’ he said. ‘I’d better go and phone that Montgomery chap.’

  ‘Yes, you do that.’

  She turned and watched him walk towards the house through the falling snow.

  As Randall approached the French windows to his father’s study, Donald emerged and spoke briefly to the young man. Then he looked across the snow-covered lawn and waved to her.

  He hurried across, smiling. ‘There you are! You’ll never guess what …’

  She laughed. ‘Mmm. Now, let me try … I think,’ she went on, ‘that Xandra has confessed that she killed her husband – am I correct?’

  ‘Well, blow me down,’ Donald said, ‘how on earth did you know that?’

  She reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘Let’s go inside out of the cold, my darling. I have something to tell you.’

  She linked an arm through his and walked him back to the house.

  EPILOGUE

  Langham carried a pint of Fuller’s and a gin and tonic from the bar and crossed the room to where Maria was sitting before the blazing fire. Outside, twilight was descending, along with a new fall of snow. Through the mullioned windows, he could just make out the square tower of the church across the green.

  ‘Good health,’ he said.

  They were due to meet Nancy and Roy a little later, along with the Wellbournes; he was looking forward to a quiet pint or two and a long evening of pleasant conversation with their new friends.

  ‘You hardly slept last night, Donald,’ Maria said, ‘and all day you’ve been quiet.’

  He smiled at her. ‘I suppose I’ve been berating myself for not being able to see through Xandra’s lies.’

  ‘But you said she was convincing,’ Maria said, ‘and she had a motive and the opportunity, after all.’ She shook her head. ‘She was a brave woman, Donald – to willingly take the blame like that, in order to save her son. I always liked her.’

  A log collapsed in the hearth, sending a flurry of sparks shooting up the chimney. A few more customers entered the bar, discarding overcoats, hats and scarves, and commenting on the inordinate snowfall.

  Langham raised his drink. ‘And you were correct in your initial feelings that the professor was not a very nice character,’ he said, then laughed. ‘I was wrong there, too – I thought he was a decent enough cove, at the time. It’s only thinking back that I realize what an incredibly arrogant and self-centred chap he really was. Heck, I’ve just had a thought …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There he was, merrily poisoning his wife so he could run off with his lover and start a new life. Then he receives the blackmail letter – and he was so safe in his assumption that he wouldn’t be found out that he calls me in to look into the blackmail case. As far as he was concerned, the two were entirely separate. Oh, and I realized something as I lay awake last night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Deirdre …’ he said.

  Maria made the connection. ‘If Deirdre hadn’t decided to get her own back on her ex-husband and embark on a spurious affair with him,’ she said, ‘then it might never have entered the professor’s head to get rid of Xandra.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Langham shook his head. ‘As a consequence of what Deirdre did, Spencer killed his brother and then attempted to take his own life.’

  ‘I wonder …’ Maria began speculatively, swirling her drink. She looked across at him. ‘If the professor had succeeded in poisoning Xandra, I wonder what he’d planned then?’

  ‘You mean about reporting her death?’

  She nodded. ‘As Spencer was her doctor, he would be called on to examine her and issue a death certificate. As she was ill and her death wouldn’t have been unexpected, then perhaps he would have issued a certificate without being too scrupulous? No doubt the professor was banking on this.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he said.

  The previous day, Montgomery had phoned Langham with the latest news regarding Spencer Robertshaw. The doctor had recovered consciousness and, following police questioning, had admitted to shooting the professor ‘in the heat of the moment’. What the prosecution would make of this at his trial remained to be seen.

  Montgomery also reported that they’d arrested Randall Robertshaw on a charge of perverting the course of justice: the young man could look forward to a custodial sentence of a few months.

  That morning, Maria had been uncommonly quiet while unpacking boxes. When Langham questioned her, she said she’d been mulling over when to inform Nancy about the truth of her parentage.

  ‘It might be for the best if you break it to her sooner rather than later,’ he’d said. ‘Are you OK with that?’

  She’d broached the situation with Nancy when the girl came back to the cottage after taking Bill for a walk, and Langham had left them to it and retreated to his study.

  Now Maria said, ‘I’m surprised that she took it so well, though knowing what a tough cookie Nancy is, perhaps I shouldn’t be. She’s had a lot to endure over the past couple of years.’

  The girl had cried to begin with, then brightened and said, ‘Well, that’s a bolt from the blue! Who would have thought? The professor, my father! He wasn’t a very nice man, was he, all things considered?’ She had blotted her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘I knew my parents had been through a bad time at the start of their marriage. My father … George … he once told me as much. But they’d patched things up and stayed together. I wonder if George knew I wasn’t really his daughter?’

  ‘Apparently, he did, yes.’

  That had brought about more tears. ‘And yet he loved me as his own daughter,’ she said. ‘He was a wonderful person. You would have liked him, Maria. I’ll always think of him as my real father, you know.’

  ‘And so you should,’ Maria said.

  The door of the public bar opened, admitting a swirl of snow on the wind, along with the Wellbournes.

  Richard crossed to the fire and beamed down at them. ‘Drink up and I’ll get them in,’ he said, pulling off his overcoat and unwinding his scarf.

  ‘No, let me get these,’ Langham protested.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Harriet said. ‘We’ve had some good news.’

  Richard laughed. ‘You don’t know that, Harriet!’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ the little woman insisted. ‘I’m never wrong when it comes to … well, you know what!’

  Maria laughed and asked, ‘Good news?’

  ‘One of Harriet’s hunches,’ Richard said.

  ‘It’s more than just a hunch, you cynical old man!’ she chided. ‘Now, go and get those drinks, will you?’

  Obediently, Richard took their orders and retreated to the bar.

  Harriet settled herself into a seat beside the fire, and Langham asked, ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

  ‘Well,’ Harriet said, ‘Nancy hasn’t said anything, but I know.’ She tapped her short, greying hair. ‘Last night, it came to me suddenly – like a vision. I had a mental image of Nancy being very happy: she was smiling and there was something white falling all around her head and shoulders – and it wasn’t snow – and she was with a young man. And then the vision ended, leaving me feeling all cosy and warm!’

  Richard returned with the drinks and rolled his eyes at Langham.

  ‘So you think …?’ Maria began.

  Harriet smiled triumphantly and sipped her sherry. ‘I do!’

  Richard said, ‘She’s picked up on Nancy’s manner. The girl’s been smiley and coy all morning – like a cat with the cream. Even I can see that!’

  ‘But I knew last night, Richard,’ Harriet pointed
out. ‘At seven, I saw her walk across the meadow with Bill and go into Roy’s caravan. She was there an hour – and when she left the van and went back to your cottage, Maria, that’s when I had my vision.’

  Maria said, ‘Well, over dinner last night she did seem rather dreamy and happy with herself.’

  ‘You see,’ Richard said, ‘Maria picked up on it, too.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet pointed out, ‘but I know why the girl’s so happy.’ She almost hugged herself. ‘And I would be, too, in her position. But if you all doubt me,’ she went on, smiling, ‘then just wait until Nancy and Roy arrive – they have an announcement to make.’

  ‘An announcement?’ Langham echoed.

  ‘Just you wait and see,’ Harriet said.

  They didn’t have long to wait, as within minutes Roy and Nancy pushed through the door and entered the public bar with Bill on a short lead. Roy bought their drinks and they crossed to the fire. Nancy looked bright-eyed and elated, and Roy had shaved and changed into his best suit. Bill curled up beneath Nancy’s chair, his tail beating the carpet in contentment.

  Harriet leaned forward, wringing her hands. ‘Well, you can’t keep us in suspense any longer!’

  Nancy beamed around at the expectant faces, then laughed. ‘Well, the news is,’ she began, ‘that Uncle Spencer has been arrested for the murder of his brother, and Randall has been arrested, too – for telling lies to the police, apparently – and, oh, yes, Xandra has decided to sell the manor and move to the south of France, for her health. She promised to give me some money from the proceeds of the sale, and I plan to buy a cottage in the village.’ She lifted her gin and tonic to her lips, playfully hiding her smile.

  Harriet was beside herself. ‘And?’ she asked.

  Nancy frowned. ‘And?’ She shook her head. ‘No, I think that’s all the news I can think of – what about you, Roy?’

  The young man said, ‘Well, there is one other thing …’

  ‘Go on!’ Harriet said.

  Roy smiled. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘I asked Nancy to marry me, and she said yes.’

  ‘There!’ Harriet said, clapping her hands in joy and falling back into her chair.