02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (12 page)

‘Get on
with it, man,’ demanded the baron, rudely.

‘She
found Miss Josephine’s room empty and she said her bed had not been slept in.
She immediately got Mrs Hodges and they went through her wardrobe. Some of Miss
Josephine’s everyday clothes had gone, together with her jewellery box. I sent
young Robert to go and see Brimshaw in his quarters over the garage.  He’s the
chauffeur, sir,’ Crabtree explained to the inspector, ‘to see if Miss Josephine
had asked him to drive her somewhere.’

‘Robert?
Robert!’ bellowed the baron. ‘What’s he still doing here? I dismissed the
fellow and demanded that he leave by first light yesterday. So what’s he still
doing here, Crabtree?’

‘Never
mind about that now,’ said Deacon firmly, ‘we’ll come to that later. What had Brimshaw
to say?’

‘He
wasn’t there, sir, neither him nor the Rolls-Royce. No one’s had sight or sound
of either him or Miss Josephine since last night. They’ve both disappeared.’

'Well,
what do you make of that, Lane?’ Inspector Deacon asked his sergeant when they
at last had the study to themselves.

‘The
same as the baron, sir. That they’ve eloped. While the baron was in here
tearing his hair out and after I’d rung the station to put calls out to the
stations and air and sea ports, I took the liberty of going down to the
servants’ hall and having a word with a couple of the maids.’ He broke off as
he blushed slightly at Deacon’s raised eyebrows and knowing smile. ‘Purely
business, of course sir, although Mrs Gooden, she’s the cook, sir, did press
upon me a nice hot cup of tea. Nice and strong too, it was, just like my mother
makes. But anyway,’ he continued, seeing the look of exasperation on his inspector’s
face, ‘the maids, Doris and Pearl, they said how Brimshaw was an awfully good
looking young man and how jealous they were of Miss Josephine for running off
with him and that, given half the chance, they’d have done the same.’

‘I see,
so it’s possible that they’ve just eloped.’

‘
Just
,
sir?’ queried Lane. ‘I don’t think the baron sees it like that. I think he
thinks that it is the worst possible thing that can have happened to his
daughter.’

‘Well,
then the man lacks imagination,’ said Deacon, somewhat dismissively. ‘A peer of
the realm is found murdered in his house and his daughter is found to be
missing. It seems to me that there are two far more awful alternatives with
regard to her possible fate.’

‘You
think that she may have been murdered too?’ queried Lane, looking alarmed. ‘You
think this Brimshaw fellow bumped her off as well as Lord Sneddon? The
constables are busy searching the grounds so they’ll discover her body if it’s
been dumped in the woods or the garden. I’ll just go and get a couple of them
to do a quick search of all the rooms in the Hall, before we start the thorough
search, just to make sure that she’s not in the house.’

Deacon
went and seated himself on the leather sofa while he awaited his sergeant’s
return. Lane found him deep in thought when he came back into the room.

‘Right,
that’s all organised. You said there was another awful possibility regarding
Miss Josephine’s fate, sir,’ he reminded the inspector.

‘Yes, I
did, the gallows. Does it not strike you as strange, Lane, that Lord Sneddon
should be murdered on the very same night that Josephine Atherton and this chap
Brimshaw decide to elope?’

‘You
think then that the two things are connected, sir?’

‘I do.
It’s too much of a coincidence that they are not. I don’t want us to jump to
any conclusions just yet, but the obvious one is that Sneddon disturbed them as
they were making preparations to leave. I’m sure that they stole out of the
house at the dead of night when they could be quite certain that all the
household had retired to bed.

‘Brimshaw
had his room over the garage, that old converted stable block that we saw
earlier when we first arrived, but no doubt he came into the house to help
Josephine Atherton down the stairs with her suitcase. I hardly see her doing
that herself. Perhaps they went into the library for Josephine to write her
father a farewell note. That desk that Sneddon was found slumped over looks
like the sort often used by ladies as a writing desk. Perhaps Sneddon came in
to get himself a whisky, there was a half empty decanter of the stuff and a
glass on the table near the armchair by the fire if you remember, and he
discovered them. We both know the sort of man Sneddon was, we saw that for
ourselves at Ashgrove. It’s quite an advantage for us, I think, having already had
some dealings with the victim before he was murdered. Anyway, Sneddon could
have threatened to alert the baron. There could have been a scuffle and he was
killed. Either Josephine Atherton or Brimshaw could have struck the fatal blow.
I can certainly envisage Sneddon fighting with Brimshaw, particularly if he was
in drink and Josephine panicking, fearing that the house would be roused and
their plan uncovered, or perhaps that Brimshaw would be hurt.  Then, without
quite realising what she was doing, picking up the letter opener and stabbing
Sneddon in the back. I am sure that they would have regretted their actions
immediately, especially once they realised that Sneddon was dead and not just
incapacitated. And then fearing the consequences of their actions, they decided
to make a run for it.’

‘You
think that’s what happened, sir?’ asked the sergeant, looking appalled. ‘That
Josephine Atherton murdered Lord Sneddon?’

‘No,
not necessarily. All I’m saying is that it is possible and so shouldn’t be
ruled out. And that, instead of raging and cursing as he did earlier, the baron
should be praying that eloping with the chauffeur is the only thing Josephine
Atherton was guilty of last night.’

Both
men pondered on this theory for a while, before Deacon roused himself from his
musings.

‘Ring
the bell pull, Lane, will you. I’d like to have another word with that Crabtree
fellow. I’d like to find out who exactly is staying here at Dareswick this
weekend besides the family. I would ask the baron, but I have a feeling we
won’t get much sense out of him between him fuming about the elopement of his
daughter and trying to get up the courage to inform the Duke of Haywater of the
unfortunate demise of his only surviving son. Why he doesn’t leave it to us to
do, I can’t imagine.’

‘I
think he sees it as his responsibility, sir,’ replied the sergeant, ‘you know,
what with Lord Sneddon being a guest in his house, so to speak. Do you want me
to stay and take notes while you speak to the butler?’

‘Actually,
I’d rather you went back to the servants’ hall and chatted some more with the
servants. I have a feeling they’ll be more forthcoming with Crabtree out of the
way talking to me and not breathing down their necks. And you always seem to
have a particular way with the maids. I’d like you to have a word with this
Robert fellow too. Find out the story there. The baron almost had a fit when he
realised that he was still in the house. Find out what exactly this Robert chap
did to incur the baron’s wrath and get dismissed.’

‘Yes,
sir.’ The sergeant left and the inspector was left to contemplate how he might
be able to penetrate Crabtree’s natural reserve. The fact that no one would be
taking down the butler’s words verbatim would hopefully give a more informal
air to the proceedings and encourage the butler to speak more openly.

‘Is
your master alright?’ enquired Deacon, when the butler appeared.

‘He is
very distressed about Miss Josephine, sir, and of course also about Lord
Sneddon’s death.’

‘Yes,
of course. It must have been an awful shock for all the servants as well.’

‘Yes,
indeed, sir, it was. Young Doris is beside herself, she is. It was she who
found Lord Sneddon this morning. She walked straight past him and didn’t see
him until she had opened the curtains and begun to empty and sweep the grate.
Gave her an awful fright it did, seeing the corpse like that.’

‘I can
imagine,’ said the inspector, sympathetically.

‘She’s
talking about leaving Dareswick for good. She was talking about running home to
her parents’ house today. It was all Mrs Hodges could do to make her stop and
have a cup of tea.’

‘Well,
don’t let her go until she’s spoken to my sergeant,’ warned Deacon. ‘We’ll need
to talk to her, see if she saw anything. And if she does go I’d rather one of
my constables saw her home. For all we know there’s a murderer still in the
grounds, although I have to say the constables have seen no sign of him so far
and they have been combing the area for a fair few hours now. Talking of which,
we could find no sign of a forced entry. What time were the doors and windows
locked last night? Is there a possibility that a door or window could have been
left unlocked unintentionally so to speak?’

‘No,
sir. We follow a special routine here at Dareswick, his lordship’s most
particular. A lot of houses around here don’t lock their doors and windows
until ten o’clock, but his lordship insists that all doors and windows are
locked by half past seven sharp. Most insistent about it, he is. And Sidney,
he’s the first footman, he and I do it together to make sure the job is done
properly.’

‘So one
of you locks the window or door and the other one checks that it is secured
properly?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

’And
that’s what happened last night?’

‘Yes,
sir,’ confirmed the butler. Deacon looked at him keenly. He did not strike him
as a man who would lie to protect himself or a man who did not undertake a job
thoroughly.

‘In which
case,’ said the inspector slowly, ‘unless Lord Sneddon let in his murderer
himself, say by one of the French windows in the library, the murderer did not
come in from outside.’

‘He couldn’t
have let him in by the library, sir. The locks on the French windows have
seized up. Those windows haven’t been open for years. There’s some valuable
books on the bookshelves. We keep the curtains drawn when there’s strong
sunlight to keep the bindings from fading. And on no account are we to open the
windows. So…’

‘… the
murderer must have been someone from within the house, yes, it certainly looks
like it, doesn’t it?’

‘Is it
true?’ Hallam asked Cedric, entering the room clenching and unclenching his
hands in his agitation. They were in the garden room, a room rarely used except
in the heat of summer, and as such it had a disused feel about it,
notwithstanding that the grate had been hastily swept and a fire laid. The
warmth coming from the hearth, however, did not seem to have penetrated the
room for the other occupants huddled in their seats as if they felt the cold. However,
the garden room was located far enough away from both the library and the
study, to make those present feel somewhat protected from the awful events that
had occurred and were unfolding in the rest of the house.

‘About
Josephine? Yes, apparently so,’ sighed Cedric. ‘Crabtree and Mrs Hodges sought
me out not long after the servants had discovered Sneddon’s body. The two of
them were beside themselves, they didn’t know what to do. They were afraid to
tell your father because they knew he’d blow a gasket, especially when he found
out about your chauffeur’s disappearance.’

‘I just
can’t believe it. Josephine would never elope with
Brimshaw.’
Hallam gave
a look of disgust. ‘I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the chap, of course, but
there is nothing for her to see in him either. Rose, you’d agree with me,
wouldn’t you? Brimshaw is a nice enough chap but really nothing to write home
about, is he? He’s not the sort of man to make you girls go weak at the knees,
is he?’

Rose,
being put on the spot, fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. She herself had not
felt any particular attraction to the chauffeur, but then all her attention and
feelings had been focused on Cedric who she had known would be awaiting her at Dareswick.
At the time, it was true, if she remembered correctly, she had idly thought Brimshaw
rather a handsome young man in a pleasant sort of way, and his character had
been perfectly agreeable. But what of Josephine, stuck out at Dareswick in the
middle of nowhere, with very little company to speak of? She imagined her
entertaining the aged vicar and his wife and arranging village bazaars and
suchlike. In such circumstances, starved of eligible young men, might she not
be attracted to a good looking servant with a pleasant manner? There would have
been plenty of opportunity for a fledgling romance to grow. Brimshaw would have
driven Josephine about the place probably every day with Dareswick being so out
in the sticks. It would have been necessary to travel by car to go anywhere and
surely they would have passed the time of day. Josephine, Rose felt sure, would
have chatted to the chauffeur, she would not have just sat there in silence.  Also,
of course, Brimshaw had his own private quarters above the garage where they would
have been able to meet secretly, unobserved by the other servants.

There
was something else too, niggling at the back of her mind. Josephine had been
visibly agitated, or at the very least distracted. She had clearly had
something on her mind. Rose remembered vividly their walk in the gardens
following her arrival at Dareswick Hall. Josephine had said something about the
flowers which suggested that she would not be there to see if the gardener had
been right in his choice of home grown bulbs over imported ones. And she had
become very flustered when Rose had picked her up on it and asked if she would
be going away. She had vehemently denied that she would be; with hindsight,
perhaps she had protested too much. But Josephine loved Dareswick with all her
heart, she had said as much. Would she really give it all up to run away with
her father’s chauffeur? Once she had gone there would be no turning back. Rose
did not know the baron well but, from what little she had seen of him, he did
not strike her as the sort of man to forgive such an act of abandonment. He
would cut Josephine off completely, she felt sure. He would disown her and
insist that her name never be mentioned in the house, as if she had never been.
Rose shivered. Poor Josephine. Was Brimshaw really worth all that?

Out
loud she said slowly: ‘Brimshaw is quite handsome in a pleasant sort of way,
but I can’t quite believe Josephine would be so unwise as to lose her head over
him.’

‘Of
course she wouldn’t,’ agreed Hallam. ‘It’s preposterous to even think that she
would.’

‘Well,
in which case,’ said Cedric, sounding less convinced than the other two, ‘where
is she? Mrs Hodges says that Josephine has taken some of her clothes with her.
Just the simple practical ones that she’d get to wear if she was going off for
a life with someone like Brimshaw. She’s left all her evening gowns but taken
most of her jewellery. She could pawn that. And, if she only meant Brimshaw to
drive her somewhere, why hasn’t he come back yet?’

No one
answered but, as if one, their thoughts went to Lord Sneddon. Only Cedric had
seen his body, but their minds still conjured up the vision of a man seated in
a chair at the little writing desk, his upper body slouched over the table, his
once handsome face half buried in his arms, hidden by his hair which spread out
over his features like a fan. And protruding from his back, from a patch
crimson with blood, a delicate gold dagger which looked almost too beautiful
and slight to have done such an awful deed.

‘You
don’t think…’ Hallam began asking and then faltered, the idea too awful to put
into words.

‘I’m
sure her disappearance has absolutely nothing to do with Sneddon’s murder, old
chap,’ said Cedric, giving Hallam a reassuring pat on the back. ‘Don’t give it
another thought. We all know the kind of chap Sneddon was. I don’t like
speaking ill of the dead but there must have been loads of people who would
have liked to see him out of the way. Someone must have followed him down from
London and waited until everyone had retired to bed and then done him in. It
was just fortunate that he was still downstairs in the library and they didn’t
have to try all the bedrooms looking for him. I say,’ he broke off as a sudden
thought struck him, ‘it
was
awfully convenient for the murderer that
Sneddon was downstairs; you don’t think he had arranged to meet someone there,
in the library, do you? Pre-arranged it, I mean? Old Crabtree’s a stickler for
locking up the place at night, I know, but Sneddon could have let the murderer
in by the French windows and then Sneddon could have –.’

Cedric
had broken off at the sight of the door opening. All eyes turned towards it,
wondering no doubt whether it was the baron or the policemen and considering
that it might not be wise to be caught speculating as to who the murderer was
or why Josephine had disappeared. The reality was much worse, for the figure
that came into the room was that of Isabella, her face ashen. She still looked
very beautiful, Rose thought, but in a frail sort of way, as if she would blow
away if a gust of wind should happen to catch her. She’s in shock, Rose
thought, and who could blame her? She may have hated Sneddon, he may have been
blackmailing her into marrying him, but even so…

Both
men had jumped up at her entrance and were looking rather sheepish, hoping that
she had not overheard them discussing Sneddon’s failings. Rather ineffectually they
tried to express their condolences and escort Isabella to the sofa. But she
would have none of it, and stood firm in the entrance, brushing them away with
her hand as if they had been crumbs on the tablecloth. Rose herself had not
ventured forward, although she had got up from the sofa. Now she hovered to one
side of it feeling awkward. With Josephine gone, she felt that she should have
offered to sit with Isabella, but the girl always had such a cool, aloof air
about her that Rose had been discouraged from doing so. Besides, when she had
spoken earlier with Mrs Hodges, she had been advised that Isabella had said she
wanted to be left alone. From the look the housekeeper gave her when she said
it, Rose had got the distinct impression that when Isabella said something she
meant it, and woe betide anyone who went against her wishes, particularly a
servant, or a shop girl, she added to herself, as an afterthought.

‘Oh, do
sit down, Isabella, it’s been an awful shock for us all, but to you in
particular, of course,’ said Cedric, kindly. Would you like a glass of brandy?
I really do think you could do with a glass, you look as if you’re about to
faint any minute.’

‘I’ll
have a small glass.’ But she remained standing in the doorway and looked around
the room suspiciously. ‘I suppose you’re all glad he’s dead. None of you liked
him very much, did you, even you,’ she added looking at Rose. ‘I saw the way
you spoke to him at dinner each night, you could hardly bear to look at him,
and you were casting daggers at him all the time, Cedric.’ She laughed a shrill
little laugh. ‘Ha, a pun I believe, I must be on top form. But whatever did he
do at Ashgrove to have made you hate him so much? You used to be best friends
with him, didn’t you, Cedric? What very strange tastes men have in friends.’

‘Do sit
down, Issy, there’s a girl, you’re being hysterical,’ said her brother, looking
rather embarrassed.

‘Very
well I will, if you’re all going to treat me like a child. But first I want to
know if it’s true. Has Josephine really eloped with Brimshaw? I realise she’s
rather starved of suitable company down here, but I say, the chauffeur! You
would have thought she could have done better than that.’

‘You
needn’t look so pleased or be so beastly,’ Hallam said angrily. ‘It’s
preposterous to think she’d do such a thing. I’m sure there’s some innocent
explanation for why she’s not here.’

‘Are
you really sure?’ Isabella asked, coldly. ‘Honestly, you men do tend to put her
on a bit of a pedestal. Butter wouldn’t melt and all that. I know I said what I
did about Brimshaw, but really I wouldn’t blame her. It must be so very dull
being stuck here, no one to talk to most of the time but the servants. Daddy
away in town, staying at his club. She must have been very bored.’

‘Nonsense,
Josephine loves it here at Dareswick, you know she does,’ Hallam replied
crossly, but Rose thought she detected a slight hesitation, as if he suddenly
did not feel so sure.

‘
I’m
not so certain.’ Isabella made her way over to the vacated sofa and sat on
the edge of one side, her glass clutched in her hand. She gulped down its
contents in one go and made a face. ‘Arh, I’ve never liked the taste of brandy. 
But I suppose it’s medicinal.’ She put the empty glass down on an occasional
table and looked at them all slowly.

‘Josephine
came to see me in my room the night I arrived with Hugh. She was in a very strange
mood, quite unhappy in herself, not like her at all. And she was quite short
with me when I said she loved living here. She asked me how I knew how she
felt. And, you know, she was right. I had no idea how she felt, I’ve never
really had an idea about what goes on inside her mind. We’re just very
different, I suppose. But what I’m really saying is she clearly had something
on her mind. She was definitely upset about something because she started
crying and I think she said something about there being every need for her to
cry, if only I knew. That would fit in with her leaving Dareswick, wouldn’t it?
It would be a bit of a wrench for her to leave here, even if she was going off to
be with the man she loved. And Daddy would never allow her to come back, you
know he wouldn’t. He’d disown her for eloping with a servant. He’d feel as if she’d
made him into a laughing stock. The news would be all around his club. It would
cause a scandal, you know it would.’

Hallam
all of a sudden looked uncomfortable and paced the room for a while before
sinking into an armchair. He passed a hand through his hair clearly agitated.
Rose was reminded of how very young he was.

‘Now
that you mention it,’ he confessed, ‘I remember Josephine saying something
similar to me before you all came down this weekend. She wasn’t her usual self
at all now that I come to think of it. I think she may have been worried about
something, only I didn’t see it at the time.’

‘You
wouldn’t,’ Isabella said rather spitefully. Hallam ignored her and continued.

‘She
was very interested to hear about who you were bringing down with you,
Isabella. Do you think she had an inkling that it might be Sneddon? She went on
and on about it, wouldn’t leave me alone. I say,’ Hallam suddenly looked at
them all, alarmed. ‘I’ve suddenly remembered something she did say. She said
something along the lines of she hoped I would always think of her fondly no
matter what happened in the future. And that she never meant to hurt any of
us…’ his voice trailed off. ‘So it’s true. She has eloped with Brimshaw!’

‘Steady
on, old man,’ said Cedric. ‘Perhaps we’re all jumping too readily to
conclusions. It was the first time he had spoken for some time and both brother
and sister turned to look at him as if seeking reassurance. ‘We’ll know in good
time what Josephine’s done. She’s sure to write and tell you. She wouldn’t just
vanish off the face of the earth, she’s not that type of girl.’

Rose
had sat quietly during these various exchanges. She did not think it her place
to say anything or comment on Josephine’s behaviour. What appeared to her most
strange, however, was that everyone seemed far more concerned by Josephine’s
disappearance than by Sneddon’s murder. The police, she knew, were unlikely to take
that view.

As if
he could read her very thoughts, Cedric continued:

‘But I
think we’re all worrying about the wrong thing here. I know what I said just
now to you Hallam about not giving it another thought. But whether Josephine
has, or has not, run off with the chauffeur, to put it rather bluntly, is beside
the point. What is far more worrying is that she disappeared on the same night
that Sneddon was murdered.’