Death at Bishop's Keep (29 page)

Bradford roused himself from his inward contemplations with some difficulty. “What d'you expect?” he asked gloomily. “Police are a grubby, incompetent lot. You have better things to do with your time than mucking about with them.”

“I suppose,” Charles said. Of course, there was still the vicar, who might be persuaded to tell what he knew. And Kathryn Ardleigh, who had some reason to associate Mrs. Farnsworth and Monsieur Armand and could perhaps be led to reveal it. Or he could return to Mrs. Farnsworth and see if he could rattle—

“No, by Jove!” he exclaimed out loud, striking one hand with the other fist, “I'm no Holmes, and this is no fiction, where all is made right in the end. This is one of those situations where the whole truth will never be known. I'm bloody well done with it.”

“Right,” Bradford said. He looked up, his face set, as if he also had come to a conclusion. “Sheridan, I need your advice about a matter of some consequence.”

Charles turned away from the window. “If I can,” he said.

“I spent yesterday afternoon with Perkins, the estate manager,” Bradford replied, dejected. He took off his hat and flung it on the seat. “The estate has fallen into a bit of a hole.” He paused. “A pit, actually. Hard to see how things are to be dug out. Rents are off disastrously—not just ours, of course. It's this agricultural depression. Foreign corn pouring in at a fraction of what we can produce it for, farmers bankrupt, farms uncultivated, tenants defaulting on their rents. And bad weather these last two years, harvests rotting in the fields.”

“It seems worse here in Essex than elsewhere,” Charles said as they passed an empty cottage, the thatch of its roof fallen in, the bare ribs of rafters exposed to the sky. In a neighboring field, two thin cows were making a rough living on nettles. “Some of the land looks quite derelict.”

Bradford spoke with heavy gloom. “There are over a dozen tenant cottages empty on the manor, barns falling in, fields uncultivated. Perkins says new farmers can't be gotten because the buildings and the roads are so decayed. We'd have to lay on at least thirty thousand pounds out of capital just to make the damned farms livable.”

Charles looked at him. Coming from a family whose commercial investments had removed it from dependence on the land, he knew about the dreadful agricultural situation chiefly from reading and looking about him. The evidences of the depression were certainly everywhere—farm workers flooding the city, families dispossessed, crime on the increase. It was a desperate situation.

But as far as Marsden Manor was concerned, the solution seemed to him quite logical and obvious. “You have access to the railroad,” he pointed out. “Could not the fields be converted from crops to pasture, and the enterprise from grain to dairy? The London market, I understand, is clamoring for milk and butter.”

“That's what Perkins suggests. But it's doubtful the pater would do something as radical as that, even if it would keep the rotten old ship afloat.” Bradford shook himself as if shaking off a burden that wasn't his. “Anyway,” he added, “having given the matter a great deal of thought, I have concluded that money can no longer be earned from the land. I have therefore made—out of my own funds, left to me by Grand-mama—an investment in quite a promising venture. Through it I expect to refloat the family fortunes.”

Bradford spoke with grim determination, as if by very force of will he could buoy up the family's prosperity. Behind the determination, though, Charles glimpsed something else. Anxiety, perhaps? The shuddering apprehension that the investment was not so promising as it seemed?

“If you have already made the investment,” Charles remarked, “you do not require my advice.” From their earlier conversation and from what he had heard the day of Tommy Milbank's visit, he thought he could guess what this venture was, and who its promoter might be. “Harry Landers, is it?”

Bradford turned. “You know of him?”

“I have heard of his British Motor Car Syndicate,” Charles replied evenly. “Landers is said to be successful in selling licenses on the motorcar patents he has acquired. Unfortunately,” he added, “manufacture is not likely for some time, given the restrictions on motor vehicles and the present state of their development. And, of course, manufacture is where the investors will make their money.”

Charles did not look at Bradford as he spoke. Decorum forbade his asking how much his friend had invested in Landers's scheme, but it was likely to be quite a sizable sum. Charles had heard rumors that a number of wealthy peers had been persuaded to invest heavily, one or two even mortgaging family estates to raise the necessary capital.

And no wonder. Landers—if a huckster—was eloquent in his promotion. Even more, he and others who advocated the new industry were fundamentally right about its glowing future. Staunchly as the Home Office might oppose it, and ridiculous as the idea might seem, someday everyone would have a motorized vehicle. But that day was well into the next century. If Bradford were counting on this venture to supply enough quick cash to keep the family fortunes from foundering, he was riding for a fall.

“Exactly what advice,” Charles asked cautiously, “are you seeking from me?”

Bradford leaned forward. “An opportunity has arisen to make another investment,” he said with a show of eagerness. “There is to be a motorcar exhibition at Tunbridge Wells early next year, which will certainly attract public attention and increase pressure on the government to relax the ridiculous laws. And I have received news just this morning—this
very
morning, Charles—that Landers has signed an agreement to develop several French patents. The stock will be floated under the name of the Paramount Horseless Carriage Company, for £750,000. It is a solid opportunity. Rock solid. Practically guaranteed.”

“Seven hundred fifty thousand pounds!” Charles whistled. “Landers thinks in round numbers.”

“Indeed,” Bradford said earnestly. “My acquaintances at the
Financial News
say that this is the inauguration of a very great industry, which will not only prove profitable in itself, but will augment the profits of innumerable other industries. It will make the entire nation rich, Charles! What Britain has lost in its fields will be regained on its roads!”

Charles looked at Bradford with some suspicion. His friend had obviously already committed himself to Landers's grand ventures and even grander rhetoric. What then could he—? He paused, suddenly realizing what was wanted.

“Marsden,” he said, “I believe it is my purse you are soliciting, rather than my advice.”

Bradford had the grace to color. “I believed,” he replied somewhat stiffly, “that you might be interested in a financial venture that promises an extraordinary return.”

Charles put on a regretful face. “Thank you, but no. I fear that my income is not sufficient for investment in speculative ventures.” Especially, he added to himself, those that he believed were fatally flawed. While Bradford's friends at the
Financial Times
might be bullish about Landers's enterprises, the more conservative men he knew at the magazine
Engineering
were already virulent on the subject, seeing Landers as a shameless, vulgar self-promoter, playing to the credulity of the investing public. He feared that his friend, to coin a phrase, was about to be taken for a ride. He did not intend to go along.

Then another thought, much more chilling, occurred to him. He had heard that Landers and his cohorts were not above using disgraceful tricks to get what they wanted. Had Bradford fallen so deeply into the man's clutches that he was required to redeem himself by soliciting others? He glanced at his friend. The question, delicate and indecorous as it was, hung on the tip of his tongue, but one look told him it would be fruitless to ask. As they turned off the road into the lane leading to Bishop's Keep, Bradford's face darkened, and his smile had vanished. He was clearly not in the mood for further confidences.

“When you least expect it, you hear the dreadful click which is driving the world mad ... Wherever you be, on land and sea, you hear that awful click of the amateur photographer, Click! Click! Click!”

—Musical comedy act of the 1890's

 

 

 

“M
y dear Kate,” Eleanor said, blotting her lips delicately with a damask napkin, “it was a lovely luncheon.”

Kate smiled. She was grateful that her guests could not see into the kitchen, where the upsets of the morning had created turmoil and confusion. It was a marvel that the luncheon dishes—asparagus soup, sole in lemon sauce, fricasseed chicken, and the love apples that Mrs. Pratt disdainfully called “tommytoes”—were indeed tasty, and that the serving had gone as smoothly as it had.

“Our compliments,” Bradford said, “to your cook.” He looked around at the blooming garden, appearing to have recovered somewhat from the dark humor from which he had suffered upon his arrival. “And such a splendid setting, too. I had not realized that the gardens of Bishop's Keep were so fine. Lovely roses, Miss Ardleigh.”

“I only regret,” Eleanor said with a slightly questioning look, “that your aunts are indisposed. Please let them know that we are sorry they could not be with us.”

Kate inclined her head. “I shall,” she said, refusing to give in to Eleanor's inquisitiveness and tell her why they were indisposed. “I shall convey your message.” She smiled around the table. “I understand that the British often play croquet after luncheon.”

“To be sure!” Eleanor cried, clapping her hands. “And isn't it lucky that there are four of us? We are evenly matched—the women against the men.”

“But that would hardly be fair,” Bradford objected. “You two would be soundly trounced.” He smiled at Kate. “Shall we, Miss Ardleigh, test the strength of the Anglo-American alliance?”

“Agreed,” Kate said, “if Sir Charles will promise to put away his camera for the duration of the game. I have no intention of allowing him to take my picture while someone is savaging my croquet ball.”

“Put away his camera?” Eleanor repeated blankly. “Why, he brought no camera with him.”

“Yes, he did,” Kate said. “It is in his pocket.” Sir Charles's eyes met hers. She was foolishly glad that she was wearing her best white lawn and a wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with silk flowers. “Show them, Sir Charles,” she said lightly, “how you have been toying with us.”

Sir Charles bowed his head. “You have caught me out, Miss Ardleigh.” He reached into the pocket of his loose tweed Norfolk jacket and brought out a small shiny metal box, a little larger than a double deck of playing cards.

“That
is a camera?” Eleanor asked disbelievingly. “But it is much too tiny!”

“It is something quite new,” Charles replied, putting it on the table. “An American invention, actually.”

Bradford leaned forward to examine the camera. “Ingenious, these Yankees.”

“It is a Kombi camera,” Charles said. “Patented two years ago. The first detective camera to take roll film instead of plates.”

Kate looked at the camera curiously, thinking that Beryl Bardwell might use such a device to provide the telling clue in her mystery. “Detective camera?” she asked.

“That is the name often given to miniature cameras,” Sir Charles said. He held it up to demonstrate. “It has a very basic shutter, worked by this lever. This model is rather primitive—the lens is marginally acceptable and it has no viewfinder, so that composition and focus are a matter of chance. But I expect the basic concept to influence the design of future cameras. The Americans seem to have taken the lead in this technology, as in many others,” he added regretfully.

“But one would require a magnifying glass to look at the photographs,” Bradford objected.

“The negatives are an inch-and-a-half-wide,” Charles replied. “Twenty-five to a roll. They can be developed as positives and viewed through the camera lens, giving them a three to one enlargement. Or, thanks to the new gaslight paper, the negatives can be printed in a larger size.”

“You have been taking surreptitious snapshots ever since you arrived?” Eleanor accused. She gave him a mock frown. “What a naughty man!”

Sir Charles made a small gesture of apology. “Only a few. Several of the three of you. One or two of a groom in the back courtyard, currying a horse. And the cook, doing business with an ill-clothed boy selling produce at the kitchen door.”

“Gypsies,” Eleanor said with a grimace. “One sees so many of them nowadays, lighting fires of sticks beside the road to boil a dirty tea can. And the children, so ragged. Sleeping under ricks and in ditches.” Her tone hardened so that it was, Kate thought, remarkably similar to Aunt Jaggers's. “It's disgraceful.”

Kate looked at her, thinking that it might not be possible to disagree without offending. But Sir Charles, unexpectedly, showed her that it was.

“Pitiful, rather than disgraceful, I should say.” He spoke with a sympathy that Kate found surprising. “I doubt they are gypsies, Eleanor. Mostly decent, hardworking folk who find that the times have turned against them—their cottages taken back by the landlords, employment vanished, workhouse full. Life has been hard of late, for some.”

Eleanor, to her credit, looked abashed. “Perhaps I do not see all I should.”

Sir Charles smiled, his look lightening, and Kate admired the easy, natural way he turned the subject. “I should have liked to see more of our young vendor,” he said. “But the lad took to his heels when I made an unwary move and showed my camera. Some still think it unlucky, you know, to have their pictures taken.”