C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2)

Also by Kel Richards

C. S. Lewis and the Body in the Basement

C. S. Lewis and the Country House Murders
Copyright © 2014 Kel Richards

First published 2014 by Strand Publishing

ISBN 978-1-921202-28-5
eISBN 978-1-920000-00-0

Distributed in Australia by:

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Edited by Owen Salter

Cover design by Joy Lankshear

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

THE TIME: The spring of 1934; during the short spring break between Hilary and Trinity terms at Oxford.

THE PLACE: Plumwood Hall, a stately home on the outskirts of the small village of Plumwood.

‘Dear Jack,’ I wrote, ‘I think I’m about to be arrested and charged with murder.’

As I leaned back in my chair I looked at the sentence I had written. The words captured my rising sense of panic. No, panic is too strong a word. Perhaps the best word for how I felt at that moment, at that stage of the investigation, was: apprehensive. Or, as Mr Roget would have put it in one of his lighter moments: apprehensive, anxious, uneasy, worried, fearful, hesitant, nervous, disquieted, concerned, angst-ridden and twitchy.

As I picked up my pen to continue the letter, a gust of wind flapped the curtain and rattled the window pane. The wind was blowing in from the coast and carried a hint of salt spray—a suggestion of waves shattering on rocks above a green and grim-looking sea. The wind made me shiver, as if someone had just walked over my grave. I leaned over the small writing table and pulled the window closed.

It had not been windy like this three days ago when it all began—the day of the murder.

Although it was only March, three days ago spring had burst upon us full of vim and vigour, hustle and bustle and determined to do business. Under sunny skies it scattered butterflies and rosebuds like a tipsy millionaire scattering bank notes to the hoi polloi. The spring that arrived that day looked like a promissory note in firm handwriting guaranteeing a hot summer ahead.

It was because of the delightful weather that Lady Pamela suggested tea on the terrace.

The marble-topped table was set up on the lawn just beyond the flagstones of the terrace. As the lady of the house, the wife of my employer, Sir William Dyer, Lady Pamela presided at the teapot, saying to each of us in turn, ‘One lump or two? Lemon or cream?’

And responding in turn, seated around the table in cane chairs, were most of the members of the household. Next to me was Lady Pamela’s cousin Connie, and next to her was Uncle Teddy, muttering something quietly to himself behind his floppy brown moustache. Then on the other side of Lady Pamela came her sons, Will and Douglas, and Douglas’s friend Stephanie Basset, known as Stiffy. The only person missing, in fact, was Sir William himself. He had excused himself on the grounds of work to do. Looking up I could see him in his study on the first floor. He’d opened the study windows to let in the warmth, the sunshine and the birdsong of that early spring day.

In the middle of the table, on a cake plate, was one of Mrs Buckingham’s rich, moist dark fruit cakes.

The butler and one of the maids stood behind Lady Pamela’s chair, ensuring that everything was to madam’s satisfaction. With the tea poured Lady Pamela nodded and said, ‘That will be all, Keggs.’

‘Very good, madam,’ he replied, and his massive form turned slowly and gracefully around and glided back into the house, rather like a stately ocean liner steaming into port. The small kitchen maid trotted behind him like a tug boat bobbing along in the wake of the great steamship.

Douglas and Stiffy had their heads together, whispering and giggling, and young Will was staring greedily at the fruit cake, so I turned towards Uncle Teddy. Leaning across Connie, I said, ‘What are you working on at the moment, Uncle Teddy?’ (Everyone in the house being under instructions to address this dotty old duffer as ‘Uncle’.)

‘Eh? What? Working on? Oh, ah, yes, well . . . I’m trying to invent a way we could bake biscuits with chocolate inside them . . . how about that, eh? What do you think of that, Connie? Biscuits with chocolate inside them? Eh?’

Connie turned one of her famous icy stares on Uncle Teddy.

Constance Worth had only been staying at the house for a few weeks, but young Will had already nicknamed her the ‘Ice Queen’ and I’d overheard Douglas and Stiffy referring to her as the ‘Black Widow’. On the rare occasions I had dared to disagree with her, she had given me a look that would have sent uncomfortable shivers down the spine of any passing penguin. In fact, the penguin would probably have turned to the polar bear beside him and jabbed it in the ribs to alert it to the arrival of an unexpected cold snap.

‘The cake looks nice, Uncle Teddy,’ I offered, ignoring Connie’s arctic silence. ‘One of Mrs Buckingham’s masterpieces, I dare say.’

‘Eh? What? The cake? Oh, yes, the cake. Yes, yes, yes, yes—wonderful woman, Cook. A wonderful woman. We exchange recipes, you know.’ Uncle Teddy lowered his voice and leaned over Connie to whisper, ‘The science of food, you see . . . she understands . . . it’s really organic chemistry . . . it’s all chemistry, you see.’

‘Uncle Teddy,’ said Lady Pamela in her clipped voice, ‘are you talking nonsense again? Here, have a slice of fruit cake.’

Uncle Teddy accepted the offered plate and gave the cake the single-minded attention it richly deserved. Connie was served next, and I was served last of all.

My place in the household was slightly anomalous. I was there cataloguing the library of Plumwood Hall—a task I was close to completing. That made me not a family member or a guest exactly, but not a servant either. Not sure how I should be regarded, I had been, early in my stay, admitted to the family table as the scholar in their midst.

‘Are you close to finishing your work, Mr Morris?’ said Lady Pamela. Sir William had purchased Plumwood Hall from Lord Bosham, an impoverished nobleman, including the fittings and fixtures, the paintings and the contents of the library. And while this latter had belonged to generations of Lord Boshams, it had never been catalogued. That was the task I had begun many months earlier, and now the end was in sight.

‘Very close,’ I replied. ‘There are a handful of volumes that are difficult to identify or classify. I’ve been putting them off until most of the task is completed. It now is. So all I need do is solve a few puzzles and tidy up some lose ends.’

Lady Pamela sniffed by way of reply, making it clear she wasn’t really interested and had now made as much effort in the direction of polite conversation as she could be bothered with. I turned my attention to Mrs Buckingham’s dark fruit cake.

I had just taken my first bite when I noticed that Connie beside me was acting strangely. Her eyes were wide open as if in panic, and she seemed to be having difficulty breathing.

‘Mrs Worth?’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’

Her face was flushed a bright pink. She staggered to her feet, clutching the back of her chair and started to sway.

‘Here,’ I said, reaching out a hand. ‘You’d better sit back down again. You don’t look at all well.’

‘Connie? Connie?’ demanded Lady Pamela sharply. ‘Are you ill?’

Connie opened her mouth to reply, but what came out were not words. She suddenly leaned forward and vomited onto the grass. I leaped up to avoid the fountain, then reached out to steady her as she swayed back and forth on her chair. Suddenly she slumped forward, her head coming down hard on the marble table. Uncle Teddy stood up and backed away, his crumpled old face looking fearful and confused. Lady Pamela rushed forward.

‘Connie! Connie! What’s wrong with her?’ she demanded looking at me.

I leaned over her then replied, ‘She’s unconscious, but she’s still breathing. You’d better get a doctor—quickly.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Douglas—go and telephone for Dr Henderson. Tell him it’s an emergency.’

Henderson’s small black Austin came rattling up the driveway fifteen minutes later. But by then it was too late. By then Constance Worth was dead.

‘Dear Jack,’ I wrote, ‘I think I’m about to be arrested and charged with murder. Inspector Hyde seems to think I murdered a woman I barely know.’ I paused and looked up again, across the small writing table and out of my bedroom window, before continuing. ‘She is, or
was
I suppose, Constance Worth—known around the house as Connie. She was Lady Pamela’s cousin, and was fairly universally disliked—so why I’ve been chosen to play the role of First Murderer in this little melodrama I’m not entirely sure.

‘Inspector Hyde is the man we both met last year. Do you remember him? He has a face like a weasel, but not just any weasel—a weasel with a grudge against the world and a bad case of indigestion. Leaping to conclusions seems to be his favourite form of exercise. His policy appears to be: pick your chosen villain first and examine the evidence afterwards. He’s like those boys in mathematics classes who don’t want to understand the formula, they just want to know the answer.