02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (16 page)

‘Please,
stop,’ said Rose quickly, before he could protest. ‘Surely there must be some
mistake? The inspector will want to see Isabella first, he’s bound to. She was
the deceased’s fiancée after all, he’ll have simply loads of questions to ask
her, I’m sure. He’ll want to interview her first.’

‘No,
miss, the inspector was very specific. He said that he wanted to interview you
next.’

‘Oh.’
What should she do, she didn’t know. What
could
she do? There was nothing
she could do without drawing more attention to herself and Isabella. She
glanced back helplessly into the garden room. Through the open doorway her eyes
rested on Isabella, sitting upright on the very edge of the sofa, her eyes cast
down to the floor and her hands clutched demurely in her lap as if she were
ushering up a prayer, as well she might under the circumstances, Rose thought.

Well, Isabella
was enduring this setback well. She had not raised her eyes to Rose and given
her an imploring look to remain silent about the blackmail. It appeared instead
that she was deliberately not catching Rose’s eye and Rose wondered if, in all
conscience, she could remain quiet.

Rose
took a deep breath. There was nothing for it; she must make the best of it. She
must give the impression that Isabella meant to tell the police about the
blackmail. Yet, as she looked back now to catch one last glimpse of the girl
who sat so resolutely on the sofa, the girl who refused to lift her head and
appeal to her with a look, Rose knew instinctively that Isabella had no
intention of volunteering the information to the police. If Rose herself did
not mention the blackmail business, then she knew, as surely as if Isabella had
told her so herself, that Isabella would not.

‘Oh,
what shall we do?’ asked Mrs Hodges, wringing her hands in her lap. The teacup
lay discarded on the table beside her. For once, when her eyes stole around the
room in search of the whisky bottle it was so she herself could take a sip. But
Crabtree had obviously already purloined it and hidden it in his own quarters.
Really, the man was too bad. At a time like this when a good, honest,
hardworking, law-abiding person like herself really did need to take a sip for
medicinal purposes. Instead she gave the butler a steely look.

‘Whatever
we do, we mustn’t be hasty, Mr Crabtree,’ she said firmly.

‘It’s
our duty to inform the police of what we know, Mrs Hodges,’ said the butler,
drawing himself up to his full height and pulling in his stomach as he did so.
Mrs Hodges would have laughed if things had not been so serious.

‘But if
we do tell the police they’ll have young Robert arrested for murder before we
know it, you know they will. Far easier and more convenient for them to arrest
a servant than one of the family or, God forbid, one of the guests. And there
will be pressure on them to make a quick arrest, you mark my words. What with Lord
Sneddon’s father being the Duke of Haywater and all. He’s probably got the
police in his pocket. And no one will want any scandal, will they? Who knows
what secrets will come tumbling out of the woodwork the longer they delay in
making an arrest. The papers will have a field day. They’ll be rife with
speculation.’

‘I
share your concerns, Mrs Hodges, but even so, we must inform the police of what
we know. It is our duty.’

‘Damn
duty, Mr Crabtree!’ cried the housekeeper, banging her fist down upon the
table, making the cup and saucer rattle. ‘Do you want to be responsible for
sending young Robert to the gallows? Do you want to see him swing?’ She turned
a contemptuous look upon the butler who gulped and looked pale. His eyes darted
around the room as if he himself this time were trying to locate the whisky
bottle. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, we’ll do nothing, absolutely nothing.
Those policemen are from Scotland Yard, aren’t they?’ Crabtree merely nodded.
‘Well then, they’ll be the best of the best, won’t they? They’ll only take the
most clever detectives in Scotland Yard, it stands to reason. Well, let them
find out about it for themselves.’

‘But,
Mrs Hodges –.’

‘No
“buts”, Mr Crabtree, that’s what we’ll do,’ said the housekeeper, nodding her
head with conviction.

‘But,
Mrs Hodges,’ and this time the butler held up his hand to stop her from
interrupting or trying to contradict him, ‘it’s not just Robert we have to
consider.’

‘Whatever
do you mean, Mr Crabtree?’

‘Robert
isn’t the only suspect who could have let himself out of the servants’ quarters
and gone downstairs and murdered Lord Sneddon?’

‘Surely
you’re not suggesting that Sidney did it? Really, Mr Crabtree, have you gone –.’

‘No, I
was thinking of a much more likely candidate,’

‘Ah!’
Daylight dawned on the housekeeper’s troubled brain. ‘You mean –.’

‘Exactly,
Mrs Hodges, I was referring to Lord Sneddon’s dubious so-called valet, Ricketts.’

‘Miss
Simpson.’ Both Inspector Deacon and Sergeant Lane had risen from their seats as
soon as the study door was opened and she was ushered in by the constable.
Somewhat inexplicably, she felt as she had done when summoned once to her
headmistress’s room; a feeling of apprehension at what lay ahead. How absurd
really, she thought, to feel like this, particularly as she suddenly realised
how very pleased she was to see them.

‘Inspector
Deacon, Sergeant Lane. Oh, I’m so frightfully glad it’s you who are
investigating this awful murder. Cedric just told me. We’re jolly pleased, I
can tell you. I can’t quite believe it’s happened again.  Another murder, I
mean. I can’t take it in. What are the odds of it happening to someone more
than once, I wonder.  You know, being involved in more than one murder?’

‘Quite
a lot if you happen to be a policeman,’ Deacon smiled.

I’m
behaving like a complete idiot, thought Rose. I’m talking a lot of old rot,
what must they think of me? They’ll realise straightaway that I’m nervous, that
I’ve something to hide. Why don’t I just keep quiet?

‘I’m
sorry,’ said Rose. ‘It’s because I’ve just been sitting there quietly in the
garden room listening to everyone speculating. I thought I was going to go mad.
I didn’t think it was my place to say anything about what’s happened, you know,
offer an opinion in front of Isabella and Hallam. They’re so frightfully confused,
you see. Well we all are rather. And we’re all terribly worried about
Josephine. Do you know where she is? Have you found her yet?’

‘We’re
still looking for Miss Atherton,’ said the inspector. He studied her closely. ‘How
are the others taking her sudden disappearance? Do they think it out of character
for her to just vanish like this?’

‘Well,
yes they do, although they’re trying hard to convince themselves that nothing
is amiss. Of course, I hardly knew Josephine. I only met her for the first time
on Friday, but she seemed the steady, dependable sort, the kind of person who
holds the family together. I can imagine everyone coming to her if they were in
trouble or worried about something. Oh dear, it makes her sound very boring,
but really she isn’t. She is very pleasant actually. I liked her as soon as we
were introduced. I can’t think why she would leave like she has, not in the
middle of entertaining guests and everything. It seems so very odd to leave in
the middle of the night unless…’

‘Yes,
Miss Simpson, unless what?’ Deacon prompted, visibly sitting forward in his
seat. The move unnerved Rose who dropped her gaze to her skirt where she
fidgeted with the fabric between her fingers.

‘I-I
don’t know, I can’t really think...’

‘Perhaps
you were thinking it was very odd unless she had just killed a man?’

‘Oh my
goodness, no! You can’t possibly think Josephine had anything to do with Lord
Sneddon’s death.’ How very stupid she was being. She had been concentrating so
much on shielding Isabella that she had been rather careless in what she had said
about Josephine.

‘You
have to admit, Miss Simpson, that it is rather a coincidence that Josephine
Atherton disappeared on the same night a murder took place in this house. She probably
even vanished around the very time Sneddon was being murdered.’ There was a
silence interrupted only by the irritating ticking of the clock on the
mantelpiece. The noise became almost unbearable and everyone was restive, she
noticed, even Lane, who fiddled with the pages in his notebook. But no one
spoke. Eventually Deacon decided to change tack.

‘Tell
me, Miss Simpson, Rose, do you think it likely that Miss Atherton has eloped
with the chauffeur?’

‘With Brimshaw?
If you want my honest opinion, Inspector, no I don’t,’ Rose said frankly, ‘And I’m
not just trying to preserve her reputation. Brimshaw is a nice enough chap, very
pleasant and rather good-looking in a way, but I can’t see Josephine losing her
head over him to such an extent that she would just up and leave. If nothing
else, she would consider it frightfully bad manners to leave like that. I am
assuming she didn’t leave a note?’ Rose looked up expectantly at Deacon who shook
his head.  ‘But I’m also convinced she had nothing to do with Lord Sneddon’s
death. I just can’t understand it. The baron has something of a temper. She’d
know that he would be bound to be livid. If she has eloped with the chauffeur the
baron will never let her set foot in Dareswick again. Why, I think he’d sooner disown
her than lay eyes on her if she’s eloped with a servant. But she simply can’t
have done that, it’s not something she would do. And besides, she loves
Dareswick too much. You should have heard her go on about the gardens. She had
obviously spent a lot of time talking with the gardener about what bulbs they
were going to plant and where they were going to get them from and …oh…’

‘What
is it?’ Deacon asked sharply. Even Sergeant Lane had looked up from his
notebook in anticipation, his pencil poised in his hand.

‘Oh,
it’s probably nothing and I can’t quite remember what she said exactly,’ Rose
said, wishing now she’d kept quiet.  But it was too late.  There was nothing
she could do but tell the truth.  ‘She seemed awfully nice, as I’ve said, but
rather distracted, as if she had something on her mind. And then she said
something about it being a pity that she wouldn’t be there to see the flowers.
I thought it was rather odd at the time. I remember I asked whether she was
going away and then she got rather flustered and told me to ignore her, that
she was just talking a lot of nonsense.’

‘So you
think she may have been planning to go away all along?  It still seems rather a
strange time to choose, doesn’t it, in the middle of having her family and
guests to stay. I understand that the baron often stays in town and sleeps at
his club. It would seem to make more sense for her to leave on one of those
occasions when he was absent from the house and her sister was in London and
her brother in Oxford.’

‘Yes,’
agreed Rose, ‘as I have already said, I can’t understand what would have made
her leave so suddenly.’ Other than murdering Lord Sneddon, she thought. She
looked up. Deacon obviously was of the same opinion but had thought better of
pursuing the subject with her again.

‘You
helped us a great deal with that business at Ashgrove,’ the inspector said,
smiling. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’m not sure the case would have been
solved. So I’d be interested to have your impressions of the other members of
the household. Let’s start with Hallam Atherton shall we. What are your
impressions of him?’

‘He’s jolly
nice, a very affable young man, the little I have seen of him. Cedric’s very
fond of him, regards him a bit like a younger brother, I think. If I were being
honest,’ Rose paused, reluctant to say anything that could be seen as
detrimental, ‘I’d probably say that he is a little immature, you know, a bit
young for his age. He’s still very much a boy really, although he’s trying very
hard to appear a man. I think he has probably been a bit spoilt and over
indulged by his older sisters, but it hasn’t gone to his head, he’s very
pleasant.’

‘Thank
you, most comprehensive. I understand from both him and Lord Belvedere that Lord
Sneddon’s arrival at Dareswick came as something of an unpleasant surprise to
everyone here?’

‘Yes.
We all knew Isabella would be bringing a guest with her, but no one was quite
sure who it was going to be; there was even some confusion as to whether it would
be a man or woman. It was something of a shock, I can tell you, to see Lord
Sneddon. I never thought to see him again, certainly not here.’

‘Quite
so. Now, tell me your impressions of the baron. I take it he alone was pleased
by the news of the engagement?’

‘Yes, I
think he was quite determined that at least one of his daughters should marry
well. I daresay things like that matter very much to people like him. And, as
you know, Lord Sneddon was due to come into a dukedom on the death of his
father. The poor man, to lose all your sons to violent deaths before their time.’
Rose paused for a few moments, as she thought of the old duke. He had had to
endure his two older sons being killed in the war, and now his youngest son had
been murdered. ‘I’ve seen very little of the baron really, certainly not much on
which to base an opinion as to his character. I’ve only really spoken to him at
dinner and then only to pass the time of day. He seemed loud and jovial then,
certainly when things were going his way. But he has quite a temper. I wouldn’t
be at all surprised to learn that his children are quite scared of him. He was
jolly angry when Hallam spoke out about Lord Sneddon being there. He looked as
if he was about to burst a blood vessel. I can’t say I blame him altogether,
though. Hallam really shouldn’t have said what he did in front of Lord Sneddon.
It was very embarrassing for all concerned.’

‘Do you
think, if provoked Hallam, might have been violent towards Lord Sneddon?’

‘If you
are asking me whether I think Hallam would kill him in cold blood, then my
answer to your question is definitely not,’ Rose said with feeling. ‘He’s a
sweet boy, Inspector. He was concerned about his sisters. He was worried
Josephine would be upset by Sneddon’s arrival and he couldn’t understand why
Isabella would want to marry the fellow. Hallam’s a romantic by nature. If he
was intent on fighting Lord Sneddon, then he would have challenged him to a
duel, not sneaked up behind him and plunged a knife into his back when he
wasn’t looking.’

‘You
sound rather like Lord Belvedere.’

‘Do I?’
Rose’s eyes sparkled and, quite unreasonably in Deacon’s opinion, he felt a
spark of jealousy.

‘So you
do not see Hallam Atherton as having a tendency towards violence?’

‘No.’
She might have said more if she could have been sure that by so doing she
wouldn’t betray the sudden feeling of uncertainty she now felt in the utterance
of that word. For a picture had floated unbidden before her eyes. Josephine’s
scar, not as it was now, half covered by Josephine’s hair, but as it must have
looked when just made, large and angry and ugly. She imagined the force that
must have been used to create such a wound. And she saw Hallam’s childish face,
screwed up and distorted in anger, a knife or some such sharp object gripped in
his hand. Her mind drifted inevitably to a picture of Sneddon slumped on the
desk, a small gold dagger protruding from his back. It didn’t mean anything,
she told herself. Hallam had only been a child when he attacked his sister and all
children, when very young, had a tendency to lash out when they could not get
their own way. It had just been unfortunate that he had injured Josephine as he
had. And he deeply regretted it, Josephine had said so herself. He was ashamed of
what he had done, hated to be reminded of it, which was one of the reasons
Josephine kept it covered by her hairstyle.