02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (17 page)

‘What
about the Honourable Miss Isabella Atherton?’ Deacon enquired. ‘What do you
make of her?’ It could have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that
he saw Rose stiffen slightly at mention of Isabella’s name, certainly she
turned her gaze to the floor as if she were trying to choose her words
carefully. He could see that Lane too was looking at her fixedly and, as if aware
of both gentlemen staring at her intently, colour began to spread across her cheeks
and she seemed flustered.

‘I’ve
hardly spoken to Isabella since I’ve been here. She’s rather aloof and seems to
keep herself very much to herself. She and Lord Sneddon arrived just before
dinner on Friday, and yesterday, when we made an excursion to the village she
gave her apologies. She went to bed early last night too. Both she and
Josephine went upstairs as soon as the coffee and liqueurs were served. I
retired myself, a few minutes after. So you see, I’ve hardly had a chance to
speak to her. Not that I think she is particularly interested in making my
acquaintance.’ Rose sighed. ‘I don’t think she really approves of my being
here, she thinks I am rather beneath them all.’

‘I
see.’ Deacon looked thoughtful. ‘So you can’t explain why she decided to bring
Lord Sneddon down with her this weekend in particular, other than for him to
ask her father for her hand in marriage?’

He got
up from his chair and walked over to the fireplace, picked up an ornament,
looked at it briefly and then put it back. It seemed an age to Rose before he
turned and gave her his full attention. The silence that had arisen from his
getting up and moving to the fireplace had caused her to look up from the
carpet. When he turned to look at her, she met his gaze and though she
reprimanded herself for it being a totally inopportune time to think such a
thing, being questioned about a murder as she was, she was reminded how
handsome he was; in a very different way from Cedric’s good looks, of course.

‘It
just strikes me, you see, Miss Simpson, as a very odd thing for her to have
done. She was aware that Lord Sneddon was likely to receive a very frosty
reception from her brother and sister. Indeed, it does not involve much of a
stretch of the imagination to believe that Hallam might have punched him. He
also led me to believe that there was a time not so long ago when Josephine had
hoped to marry Lord Sneddon herself. So her sister must have assumed that Josephine
would be distressed at Sneddon’s sudden appearance, especially on being
informed that he had switched his attentions and now intended to marry her
sister.’

‘I’m
not so sure that Josephine really was so very fond of him,’ Rose said,
stubbornly. ‘Certainly, when she spoke of him to me in the garden yesterday,
she gave the impression that she had been merely flattered by his attentions,
nothing more. I don’t think she was ever seriously in love with him. It was
just that everyone else thought she was or wanted her to be.’

‘Even
so, it seems a very tactless thing for Isabella Atherton to have done. Mean and
rather cruel, I’d say, but most of all, completely unnecessary.’

‘What
do you mean?’ asked Rose, curious despite everything.

‘Why
bring Sneddon here this weekend? Why not choose a weekend when she knew her
brother would be safely away in Oxford? She might have chosen a weekend when
her sister was also away. I understand she visits London not infrequently. Why
make it so very unpleasant for everyone when she didn’t need to?’

Rose
said nothing. It occurred to her that Isabella had had no choice in the matter.
Or perhaps, on second thoughts, she had chosen this weekend on purpose because
she didn’t want to make it easy for Sneddon. She might have felt that she had no
option but to submit to his blackmail demands, but Rose doubted that she would
have done it willingly. Making him feel uncomfortable was the one act of
defiance left open to her. She remembered suddenly how she had been struck by
Isabella’s seemingly odd behaviour when Sneddon had been doused in boiling hot
soup by the footman. She had been remarkably unmoved by the incident. No, worse
than that, she had even smiled a secret, half hidden smile that had confused
Rose at the time. Then she had been unaware of the blackmail business. Now she
realised that Isabella must have been half hoping that Sneddon had been badly
burned by the mishap. She shuddered involuntarily and shifted in her seat to
try and disguise the fact.

‘You
don’t think it strange?’ Deacon was looking at her closely.

‘No,’
said Rose, reluctantly. She took a deep breath. ‘You see she was being
blackmailed.’

‘Blackmailed!’
It was the sergeant who exclaimed the word and dropped his pencil onto the
floor. He scrabbled on the ground on his hands and knees after it.

‘Who
was blackmailing her, Miss Simpson?’ asked the inspector, quietly, pointedly
ignoring the mishap.

‘Lord
Sneddon, of course,’ Rose said, angry with herself for not being able to keep
quiet. ‘Who else?’

And
before Deacon could question her further she had recounted every single
excruciating detail of the episode she had unintentionally overheard between
Lord Sneddon and Isabella in the library, while she had sat hidden in the chair.
She felt herself squirming in her seat as she did so. What must they think of
her, these policemen? Anyone else, she thought, would have coughed or sneezed
or made some such noise to alert Sneddon and Isabella to their presence before
they had embarked too far on their discussion, why hadn’t she?

‘I’d
fallen asleep,’ said Rose, scrabbling around for an excuse. ‘Reading often
makes me feel drowsy and so I’m afraid I nodded off. And it took me a while to
wake up fully, and when I did, well it was too late to do anything without
making everyone feel awkward. So I thought the best thing for all concerned was
for me just to pretend I wasn’t there.’

‘Interesting,
this blackmail business I mean. It certainly gives us another avenue to explore.’

‘Isabella
was going to tell you all about it herself,’ Rose said, hurriedly. ‘She still
will, of course. Naturally we assumed that you’d interview her first, what with
her being Lord Sneddon’s fiancée.’

‘We had
assumed that Isabella Atherton would be upset at the death of the man she was
to marry and were allowing her as much time as possible to compose herself for
our interview,’ Deacon said, sounding somewhat annoyed. ‘Now I see we were
under something of a misapprehension. I imagine that the death of a man who was
about to force her to marry him will not have caused her too much grief.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that she may very well be relieved by the
situation, if not absolutely delighted.’

‘I
think that’s rather unfair,’ objected Rose. ‘She’s awfully upset, as we all
are.’

‘I find
it somewhat strange that a woman, who by your own admission has gone out of her
way to have as little to do with you as possible, should take it upon herself
to confide in you that she intends to tell us about the deceased’s blackmailing
activities. Particularly when as far as she was aware, you knew nothing about
the business.’

Rose
bit her lip and said nothing. How she wished that she had had the same
self-control ten minutes earlier.

‘I take
it from your silence that you were the one to broach the subject.’ Deacon did
not pause to wait for an answer. ‘You informed her what you had overheard and advised
her you considered it your duty to inform us. No doubt you suggested that it
would be better for her if she was seen to volunteer the information to us
first. Is that right?’

‘I am
certain that she was going to tell you all about it anyway.’

‘Even
though it gives her a splendid motive for wanting to have done away with the
victim?’ The inspector looked at her somewhat sceptically and sighed. ‘Well, one
thing’s for sure, we’ll never know now, will we?’

Rose could
tell he was thoroughly annoyed by her interference, but trying very hard not to
show it. She imagined he felt that she had let him down and she couldn’t blame
him. She had been instrumental in helping to solve the case at Ashgrove and he
had probably hoped that she might do the same here at Dareswick. Instead she
had held back information, indeed, she was still doing so even now. She felt
wretched. Any moment now the inspector would ask her who else knew about the
blackmail business and she would have to …’

‘You
can go now, Miss Simpson.’ Deacon’s voice broke into her musings. ‘But don’t go
far because I’ll want to speak to you again just as soon as I’ve spoken to
Isabella Atherton.’

‘Sir,
excuse me for interrupting you but I thought I would catch you between
interviews, so to speak. I’ve just caught sight of Miss Simpson leaving. But I
feel it my duty to speak to you on a matter of some delicacy.’

Deacon
looked up from where he was sitting and glared at the butler.

‘Can’t
this wait, Crabtree?’ he said, irritated. ‘I’ve just asked my sergeant to go
and get Isabella Atherton.’

‘It
won’t take a minute, sir,’ the butler assured him, although the way in which he
took a deep breath and puffed up his chest seemed to suggest otherwise.

It was
something akin to relief that Rose felt when she left the study. As she was
leaving she had caught Sergeant Lane’s eye and he had smiled at her
sympathetically. Deacon had pointedly ignored her, staring down at the sheets
of paper spread out on the desk. She had felt like a naughty child. Now, as she
walked slowly back to the garden room, or rather dawdled, as her mother would
have said, she was reluctant to meet Isabella’s eye, too aware that she had
made things worse for her notwithstanding her efforts to make things better.
She felt now that she should have kept quiet both in respect of warning
Isabella and in telling the police what she had overheard.  She could imagine
all too vividly the inspector and sergeant standing now, huddled together,
deciding that Isabella was their chief murder suspect.

As it
happened, not looking where she was going, she had bumped into one of the
housemaids, upsetting her bundle of crisp white sheets. Despite protestations
on the part of the maid, she had stopped to help gather up the bedclothes. The
task had taken longer than anticipated as some of the sheets needed to be
refolded, and so it was that she missed Isabella being collected and shown into
the study. Instead she had caught a glimpse only of the back of her head, from
where she sat on the hall floor by the staircase bundles of bed sheets in her
arms. Even so she had marvelled at how the girl had seemed so composed, knowing
as she did that the police would be aware that she had a very good motive for
having wished Sneddon dead.

‘Let me
get this straight,’ Deacon said, glaring at the butler who in turn was looking
rather sheepish. ‘Are you telling me you were drunk when you answered the bell
to Lord Sneddon?’

‘Oh,
no, no, not at all sir,’ said Crabtree hurriedly, looking clearly horrified. ‘A
man in my position can never allow himself to become drunk. That would never do
at all. What would the master say? I’d be out on my ear, I can tell you, to say
nothing of setting a bad example to the junior servants. They look up to me. Why,
some of them see me as a bit of a father figure, others as a teacher imparting
his wisdom –.’

‘Yes,
yes,’ said the inspector abruptly, ‘I get the picture man. You were not so much
in drink as to fall over and make a fool of yourself, but the stuff may have
loosened your tongue somewhat. So what time was this, that Lord Sneddon
summoned you to the library?’

‘About half
past eleven, sir. I thought everyone had retired to bed and that my services
would not be required again for the night, notwithstanding that it was rather
early.  Otherwise I would never have partaken of that glass of whisky, not if
I’d known I would be called upon again. Not the done thing at all to have the
smell of alcohol on one’s breath when one is attending to the needs of guests
or –.’

‘Alright,
alright,’ the inspector interrupted rudely. ‘Let’s put your drinking, or,’ he
added hurriedly seeing that the butler was about to protest, ‘not drinking
aside for the moment, shall we? You answered the bell. Lord Sneddon requested
another decanter of whisky, which you brought him. Now tell me again what
happened next.’

‘He
asked about the housemaid, Mabel, sir.’

‘The
maid he got into trouble and who then drowned herself in the lake?’

‘Yes,
sir.’ Deacon noticed that the colour appeared to have drained from the man’s
face and that he was trembling slightly with emotion.

‘A
tragic business, indeed,’ the inspector said more gently. ‘It must have been
very upsetting for you all.’

‘We
felt we’d let her down, you see, sir,’ Crabtree said, bowing his head slightly.
‘Mrs Hodges, she’s the housekeeper, she and I, well, we took it very badly. We
blamed ourselves, you see. We should have been there for the girl. She should
have felt that she could come to us. We’d have helped her, Mrs Hodges and me,
we’d have seen that she was all right. There was no need for her to drown
herself in the lake. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it, sir, it
does. The water, it must have been icy cold at that time of year. Oh, the poor
little mite.’

Deacon
looked beseechingly at Lane who hurried over and helped the butler into a
chair, ignoring his protests that he must remain standing.

‘I’m
sorry, sir, making such a show of myself. You won’t tell his lordship, will you?
He expects his servants to be beyond reproach. But every time I think of little
Mabel and how desperate she must have been to do what she did, well, I’m quite
overcome.’

‘So how
did you feel, Crabtree, when Lord Sneddon asked after Mabel?’ the inspector
asked gently, as soon as the butler had regained some composure.

‘Angry,
sir, and flabbergasted, to tell the truth.’

‘Why
flabbergasted?’ pressed Deacon, trying at the same time to hide his interest.

‘He
didn’t know what had happened to her. He didn’t know that she had killed
herself because of him. But it was the rage that loosened my tongue, sir. She
had meant so little to him that he had even forgotten her name. He thought it
was Mavis or Mary. All he could remember was that it began with an ‘M’.’

‘I can
imagine how you must have felt.’

‘Can you,
sir? I wanted him to know everything. I wanted him to experience some of the
pain that we had gone through. I wanted him to be sorry. I was frank, sir,
brutal and cruel now I look back on it. It wasn’t more than he deserved, I
don’t regret it. He was upset when I left him, sir, and I thought that was
right, that he should be. He even shed a tear or two, you know, sobbed a bit.
He wanted me to leave him alone so he could think and weep and no doubt drink
himself senseless. I hadn’t held anything back, sir, he could hear the disgust
in my voice and I felt it was a weight off my shoulders. Only, as I was walking
back to the servants’ quarters, I was afraid that he might complain to the
master, and then I’d be dismissed because his lordship wouldn’t have let
anything stand in the way of his daughter marrying a man destined to become a
duke, no matter how bad he was.’

‘So
what did you do?’ asked Deacon, suddenly becoming alarmed. ‘Tell me you didn’t
go back and kill the man.’ Looking across at his sergeant, the inspector saw
that Lane too was looking equally appalled at the possibility.

‘No,
sir, I didn’t kill him. Although I’m not sure I don’t condone the actions of
the person who did. It’s just…’ Crabtree looked up and stared the inspector
straight in the face. ‘It’s just that he was that upset. I didn’t expect it to
affect him so, truth be told. But, the more I think about it, the more I think
that his being so distraught had a bearing on his death. I’m probably being
silly but I can’t get the thought out of my mind.’

‘I
wonder,’ said the inspector and to the sergeant, who knew his actions well, he
looked thoughtful.

‘Rose,
there you are. Inspector Deacon kept you a long time, whatever did you have to
talk about?’ Cedric descended on Rose as soon as she entered the garden room.
She looked around anxiously and saw that the only other inhabitant was Hallam,
who was himself pacing the room in a restive manner. The room felt oppressive
and she wished that a fire had not been lit in the grate. The thought of having
to sit in this room for another hour or so until the police had finished their
initial investigations and searched their rooms was unbearable. As if reading
her thoughts, Cedric moved to the French windows and started to open them.

‘Cedric,
you mustn’t do that, we can’t go out. Inspector Deacon wants to speak to me
again in a moment after he’s finished interviewing Isabella.’

‘He can
go to the devil,’ Cedric said, crossly. ‘I can’t stay in this room a moment
longer. I feel like a caged animal. We need to get some fresh air and talk. The
police will be able to see us from the windows and they can send one of the
constables after us if they need to speak with us.’

With
some misgivings, for she did not want to do anything that might antagonise the
inspector further, Rose followed Cedric out into the formal gardens. As soon as
she stepped outside the windows she breathed in the fresh air. They had not
stopped to don hats and coats and the cold air made her feel suddenly
invigorated. If only she were here with Cedric under different circumstances
she would enjoy this walk.

‘I say,
Rose, I’m awfully sorry about all this.’ Cedric paused and took her hands in
his. ‘It’s an awfully bad show, I know. It never occurred to me that anything
like this might happen. Sneddon be damned! I know one shouldn’t speak ill of
the dead but really that man’s brought nothing but trouble. You’ve heard that
story about the maid, no doubt? What can I say? You’ll never want to see me
again after this weekend. I bring nothing but murder.’

‘You
could just as easily say the same about me,’ and Rose found herself laughing
despite everything. ‘Until you laid eyes on me your life hadn’t been littered
with murders and deaths, had it?’

‘No, of
course not. But even so I feel jolly bad about all this. Your mother will never
let you see me again. She’ll consider me a bad influence and I can’t say I
blame her. But I’m so jolly glad you’re here. It’s awfully good to see you
again. I really don’t know what I’d have done without you. Fall to pieces, I
expect, you’re the only thing that’s keeping me sane. I once considered Sneddon
a friend and now he’s been brutally murdered, it’s unbelievable.’

‘It
is,’ agreed Rose, ‘the whole thing’s jolly strange.’

‘Between
you and me, I’m awfully afraid that Hallam might have killed him.’

‘Whatever
makes you think that?’

‘Well,
the boy can be awfully hot headed at times. I’ve tried to keep an eye on him as
much as possible, you know, kept him occupied and tried to make sure that he
wasn’t by himself in the same room with Sneddon, that sort of thing. But I
wouldn’t put it past him to have challenged Sneddon to some sort of duel.
Still, I don’t think a gold letter opener really cuts it, do you? Not the sort
of weapon that I can imagine him using even as a last resort. I say, Rose, I
did something jolly silly the other night.’

‘What?
What did you do?’ Rose tightened her hold on Cedric’s hand making him wince. A
picture came before her of Cedric plunging the little gold dagger into
Sneddon’s back in a misguided attempt to prevent Hallam from doing likewise.
That he would do whatever it took to protect the boy, she had no doubt. And
Hallam was certainly a loose cannon. She had been witness to his enraged
outburst and seen the fury in his eyes every time he glanced at Sneddon. She
had known that Cedric was worried about the boy, was afraid what he might do.
But surely Cedric, darling Cedric, wouldn’t take it upon himself to do away
with Sneddon?

‘I put
the idea into the boy’s head that Isabella might be being coerced into marrying
Sneddon,’ Cedric admitted. ‘Hallam jumped at the idea; he thought it explained
everything. We agreed that we should have it out with her before we did
anything, but knowing Hallam he might have acted first.’

‘Cedric,’
Rose chose her words carefully. ‘Sneddon
was
blackmailing Isabella into
marrying him. I overheard them arguing about it.’

‘Oh,
yes, I know,’ said Cedric, rather matter-of-factly. ‘Those damned love letters
to her French tutor. Whatever can the girl have been thinking of?’