by Issy Brooke
Mrs Carstairs and Mrs Winstanley made a series of comments about how shocked and appalled they were, while lasciviously speculating on the prevalence of “the wrong sort” that were “more and more frequently seen in the streets.” But then Mrs Winstanley piped up with the observation that people were mostly killed by people who knew them, as far as she understood, from an article she had read in a very proper sort of journal.
“In that case, it will be poor Hester Rush,” Mrs Carstairs said. “I do not, as a rule, concern myself with the sordid goings-on of the servants but one of my coachmen, poor Harry Bottle, got himself all tangled up with Mrs Rush from Tavy Castle, two years ago now. And then he died!”
“Surely you cannot blame Mrs Rush? Was she also involved with the victim ... oh!” Mrs Winstanley’s mouth dropped open.
“Yes, and after our Harry Bottle died, I made some enquiries. He is not the first of her dalliances to meet an unfortunate end.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“So it is true,” Adelia said, slowly. “I had heard as much from another source but they thought it was merely co-incidence. Wasn’t there a dairyman who died of consumption?”
“Quite possibly, quite possibly. Now, was it really consumption, or did she poison him?” Mrs Carstairs said.
“I think we had best leave this all to the police,” Adelia said, now regretting opening this particular can of worms. She could see that these rumours were going to quickly spiral out of control and even if she pleaded with both women to keep it all to themselves, she knew they would not.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mrs Carstairs said, patting her hand with over-familiarity. “I am sure they know best, of course. But it must all be such a dreadful shock to your family. How is poor dear Lady Buckshaw? We never see her here in town and we miss her so very much. When she first moved to the castle she was quite the social darling but there’s been hardly sight nor sound of her for nearly a year! Is she quite well?”
“She is very well, but as you say, the events of yesterday have knocked her sideways somewhat. All will be better once Lord Buckshaw has returned.”
“He is coming home, then?”
“Word has been sent.”
“Good.” Mrs Carstairs nodded.
Mrs Winstanley drained the last of her cup of tea. “She’ll never get with child if her husband spends all his time at sea. Well, she might, but...”
“Mrs Winstanley!”
“Pardon me. I speak as I find.”
“Well, you ought not to. Find some manners,” Mrs Carstairs chided. “She must be lonely out there.”
“She has company. There is Lady Agnes, the Countess, and Lady Katharine. Indeed, it’s quite a nest of women.”
“That has its disadvantages,” Mrs Carstairs intoned. “I am saying nothing against any of them, of course, but...”
“But what?”
She shook her head. “Lady Agnes, too, is welcome to visit at any time.” The invitation was noticeably not extended to Lady Katharine. Adelia realised she had yet to call in on Percy’s sister – Felicia’s own sister-in-law, in truth. She ought to be brought into the fold of the family.
And if she was not, Adelia wanted to know why not. Was it possible that the murderer lurked right there in the gatehouse?
Adelia took her chance to talk about Lady Agnes. “I wonder, ladies, if I might indulge in your good sense a little longer. Lady Agnes is a spinster devoted to the care of her mother, and that is all very laudable and so on. But what do you think to the idea of finding a nice, steady, mature sort of husband for her?”
“Does she want that?” Mrs Winstanley blurted out, almost laughing at the idea.
“She might. Plenty of folks marry for pure companionship in their twilight years and I don’t like to think of her wasting away alone in the future. She is witty and awfully clever.”
“That will make it a degree harder to find a husband.”
“No, I disagree,” Mrs Carstairs interrupted, with a light shining in her eyes. “An older lady like Lady Agnes only has her wit and her intelligence as her advantage; she certainly has no youth, beauty or even money on her side. And an older man might be tired of the shallowness of youth and instead appreciate a woman who knows how the world works. Indeed, you’ve just met one potential suitor.”
“Who? The silver-haired naval man who left as I came in?”
“Yes, Captain Everard. He is certainly hoping to meet a lady of some status and is not bothered about her means.”
“What manner of man is he?”
“Self-made but impeccably raised, from good naval stock going back generations. He has the ear of top men at the Admiralty and is welcomed everywhere. He is clever, generous and a God-fearing man to boot.”
“He sounds perfect,” Adelia said. “So I am suspicious – why is he unwed?”
“Twice widowed, alas. And now all the female hordes of Plymouth are pursuing him, even girls far too young for him,” Mrs Carstairs added with distaste.
“So I saw,” Adelia said, remembering the woman with her daughters who had left as she had arrived. “So do you think he will make a good match for Lady Agnes?”
Mrs Carstairs nodded. “If anyone will suit her, he will.”
But Mrs Winstanley injected a note of caution. “While we are talking of strange goings-on at Tavy Castle,” she said, “Are you absolutely sure that Lady Agnes herself did not have a hand in the man’s death? She can be rather bold in her manner.”
Mrs Carstairs shot her a warning glance that Adelia noticed but Mrs Winstanley blithely ignored it. “Oh yes,” Mrs Winstanley went on. “Lady Agnes has always been perfectly civil to me but one cannot help but wonder about her and The Countess. They are an odd pair, rather too secretive if you ask me. All this stuff and nonsense about curses and the past and the family, hinting at things that they have no business hinting at. I’ve heard them speak! They are up to something, and if it’s not murder it’s something else, you mark my words. Captain Everard is a jolly good man. Is Lady Agnes good enough for him, I wonder?”
More guests arrived. It was time for Mrs Winstanley to leave. And Adelia was glad of it, because she didn’t know what to say and she wasn’t sure who to believe, and she was full of speculation that she wanted to get ordered properly in her head before she told it all to Theodore later.
Seven
Theodore had sought out the inspector as soon as he got back to Tavy Castle after escorting Adelia and the maid to the railway station. He wanted to make amends and get back onto the man’s good side so that he could assist in the investigation. He was sure that once they had a jolly, heart-to-heart, manly kind of chat, the inspector would be sure to recognise Theodore’s superior knowledge and expertise in the matter.
As he walked briskly up the driveway, Oscar Brodie joined him. He must have been lurking in the hedges around the gatehouse, waiting for Theodore to come past. The notion unsettled Theodore slightly. Young men in the twenties ought not to be hiding in the undergrowth, unless they were dallying with young ladies, which again they ought not to be doing either but such behaviour was marginally more understandable.
“The police are here again!” Brodie said breathlessly.
“So I see.”
“But he slipped and fell, the steward, didn’t he, or so they said, so why are they back?”
“I suppose they need to make sure it was an accident. I am glad to see them, in truth, because there is more to this than meets the eye. Why do you think Knight was in the ice house in the first place?”
“I told you, I never go down there.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Brodie had a long, loping stride and he had drawn ahead by half a pace. He slowed, and answered more thoughtfully. “Mr Knight was a controlling sort of man,” he said in the end. “He had the keys to the ice house and he would go there to check on the stuff there. I know it was just rocks, just the old lapis and stuff, but I personally think he must have kept someth
ing of his own down there. Something private, you know? I wouldn’t have thought it was of much significance but you know how the servants can be. They own one thing and somehow it seems like the most important possession in the world.” Brodie laughed in a sneering sort of way.
Theodore ignored the young man’s arrogant ignorance and said, “That would explain why he was there. And depending on what this private thing was or is, that could potentially also explain why he was killed for it. It might not have been a thing of no significance.”
“But was he really killed?”
“I just don’t know.”
“Are you going to speak to the inspector?”
They had reached the main doors. Theodore could see a policeman wandering off around the side of the house and he started after him. “Yes, I am.”
“May I come with you?”
Theodore was finding the young man’s incessant talk a barrier to his own thoughts. He wanted to be clear-headed and he was wrapped up in thinking about the death. Rather snappily, he said, “No but thank you for the offer.”
It had been a request rather than an offer. Brodie stopped walking, and Theodore wondered if he had upset the lad. He seemed more than a youth of fifteen than a man in his early twenties. But it couldn’t be helped. The death of the house steward was more important than an unformed young man’s finer feelings. Theodore went off around the side of the house, and entered the castle from one of the back doors.
He found Inspector Wilbred in the kitchens, enjoying a tankard of small beer with the cook and the other servants.
That sight immediately put Theodore’s back up. But he bit his tongue. Perhaps Inspector Wilbred was simply doing the same sort of investigating that Adelia was so good at – talking to people on their own level, making connections, and winkling out information that way.
“Not a problem,” the inspector was saying as Theodore slipped in. “Tell Midgley that it was I what sent you to him, and remind him of what he owes me if he gives you any lip, and he’ll be sure to sort you out a discount on your meat.”
“A discount that won’t be passed on to Lady Buckshaw’s account, I am sure,” Theodore said and everyone jumped in alarm. The gathered servants melted away to their jobs immediately. Even the cook looked awkwardly towards the range and started to edge away.
“Lord Calaway, ah, good to see you, good to see you.”
“Is it? Never mind. So, how goes the investigation?”
“It’s all done, near enough, sir. All done. Chap’s lying in the mortuary with a big old lump on the back of his head, and we’re just having one last check around the grounds in case anything suspicious turns up.”
“Such as?”
“Well, we won’t know till we see it. That’s the nature of policing, see. True policing, I mean, not armchair-detectoring like you do. True policing is all long hours of tedious observation and hard graft, it is, topped off with years of experience and a little bit of cleverness and cunning.”
“Is it your cleverest policeman who is currently walking around the ice house, hitting the bushes with a stick?”
“As I said, checking for clues. But he won’t find any because there’s nothing to find. Fellow slipped, bashed his head, died. One thing I’ve learned in my many years on the job, sir, is that most crime isn’t.”
“Isn’t what?”
“Isn’t crime, sir, at least, not the way you read it in the magazines. In the stories, sir, you get a fiendish criminal, likely twirling his moustache, cackling to himself in shadowy corners, plotting a crime and carrying it out with much maniacal laughter and then running off into the night – until he’s caught by a trail of clues he’s left behind. In real life, sir, what happens is an ordinary citizen is going about their ordinary business and then does something what may or may not be a crime and they may or may not be caught.”
Theodore could not help himself. The man was spouting illogical nonsense that made Theodore want to throw a chair across the room in frustration. He took a deep breath, and remembered he was in the house of his daughter.
He let it all out in a long exhale and stalked out of the kitchen without saying another word. He headed straight for the railway station and took the very next train into Plymouth. Within the hour, he was hammering on the door of the offices of his old school friend Rhodes.
Rhodes was now the chief commissioner of police in this area, and Rhodes could drop Inspector Wilbred into the sea if Theodore asked him to.
“NO.”
Theodore leaned forward and jabbed his finger onto the wide desk that separated them. “But the man’s a complete incompetent,” he said with passion. “Remember old Jackson, the Latin master? Remember how we’d drop brandy into his tea? Send slinky Fitzgerald sliding up under the desk to do it while Jackson was blundering about at the board, writing up those interminable declensions? He’d drink his tea and fall asleep and then make us all promise not to tell anyone, as if it were his fault. He was an utter incompetent – why did he not wonder why he only fell asleep with us? Why did he not taste the brandy? He was a fool, and Inspector Wilbred is cut from the same cloth, I’m telling you.”
Rhodes laughed heartily at the memory. “Ah, Jackson – yes, I never learned a single word of Latin in all the years I spent there, but I did learn how hard it was to pick up a dead-drunk body and get him sitting back in his chair again. So that was useful when I came into this line of work, what!”
“I can imagine it was. Look, they’re saying Hartley Knight died from a blow to the head when he slipped but none of that makes sense.” Theodore jumped to his feet and began to act it out. “The stone steps go down, here, only four of them, and rather shallow. The man was found face down here – like this – ouf.” Theodore got to his knees and then gingerly sprawled himself on the rug in the large office. He pressed the side of his face into the carpet which smelled faintly of tea leaves and dust. “You see? How does a man end up fallen like this if he has slipped on the steps? You fall backwards, not face down. Natural instinct shoves all your body weight back.” He got up and brushed himself off. “I would very much like to see the body for myself.”
“You can see the files our medical officer wrote. He does query the blow himself, and there was something else in it. Poison, he was suggesting. But that makes no sense either,” Rhodes said, stroking his voluminous moustache thoughtfully. “Poisoning is what women do, but they do it in a man’s food or while he’s in his bed, sneaky, underhand, just like you’d expect. They don’t clobber a cove first, what!”
“Yet he does have a jilted, angry lover – Mrs Rush the housekeeper.”
“Indeed? But how could she have done it? Pushed him down the steps and then put a rag over his mouth?”
“That sounds exceedingly likely,” Theodore replied, not subscribing to Rhodes’s own particular view of the female sex. “He could have struggled, flipped over, got on his front to push himself up after being shoved down the steps, and then she could have been upon him with whatever you like – chloroform, anything. Hence my request to see the body. Mrs Rush is a hefty woman and if he were half-dazed from hitting his head, she’d win. If that woman sits on you when you’re not fully conscious – well, take it from me, you’re not getting up again easily. Don’t you see that it could have played out exactly like that?”
“It could but I really cannot make you into a policeman, Calaway; it doesn’t work like that. Can’t just stick a badge on you!”
“I am not asking to be a policeman. God, no. Shouldn’t dream of it. But when I was in York I was accepted as a kind of – I don’t know, independent detective? A specialist? The police do rely on the advice of professionals from outside the force. That’s not so unusual.”
“No, it’s not unusual, but the fact is, our own specialism ought to be the detecting.” Rhodes leaned back in his chair and it groaned as he shifted his bulk. He was as tall as he was wide, a massive man, running now to fat in his later years, but still not the sort of fellow you’d chal
lenge in a fight. “However. You are right about Wilbred. I keep assigning him the rural cases in the hope he’ll get lost on the moors and not come back. Like a bad smell, he just oozes back into the station time after time. But I live in hope. Might get him transferred to Cornwall. They’ve got demonic dogs there, I hear. Black Shuck and all that.”
“Sounds promising.”
Rhodes came to a sudden decision. He snapped forward in the chair and grabbed a pen. “Here’s what we’ll do. Best of both worlds, what? Let Wilbred run the course – close the case – set it aside as an accident. But you carry on investigating. Here, have a letter of authority in my name, should open a few doors for you. I am happy to put my name to yours but don’t you dare bring me into disrepute or it’ll be you lost on the moors, trying to evade Black Shuck.”
They were old friends and Theodore had no doubt that Rhodes meant every word that he said; and every threat. He took the letter with gratitude and not a little trepidation. “Thank you.”
“Good to see you again. Jolly good,” Rhodes said, getting up suddenly and moving to a decanted on the sideboard. “Too early for you?” he said, tapping a bottle.
“Ah – yes, far too early. But go ahead, be my guest.”
Rhodes poured himself a generous glass of neat whisky and paced over to the window which looked out across the town. “What about this Floating Ball, what? You’ll be going, I imagine.”
“I don’t think I have a choice. My dear wife is on the organising committee now. That’s your fault, I think. You introduced me to Carstairs.”
“Ha! Ha! He’s not the problem – it’s his wife! The delightful Mrs Archie Carstairs is an absolute dragon dressed up in taffeta! She terrifies me more than demonic dogs, I can tell you that. Stay out of her way or she’ll have you sewing bunting before you know what’s happened, what!”