Murder in the Afternoon (11 page)

There were tears in her eyes, and now I felt mean at having pushed her so hard. ‘You go back to the cottage. I’ll see you there when I’m done.’

I gave the lion one last pat, and walked through the gateway, leaving Mary Jane staring after me.

The central part of Applewick Hall could have been a sixteenth-century manor house. Wings on either side had been added later, built to accommodate a large family, or to impress. The lowness of the surrounding walls did not shut off the occupying family from their neighbours. That suggested good relations prevailed, and perhaps a sense of noblesse oblige on behalf of the colonel and his lady, and their predecessors.

One gardener busied himself in a bed of flowers. Another pushed a wheelbarrow past the side of the house. Somewhere out of sight, Raymond Turnbull would be chipping away at the new sundial. There would be groom, chauffeur, butler, housekeeper, and a mop of harassed maids.

It did not surprise me that after working here Mary Jane felt dissatisfied with her cottage. As I looked at the grandeur of this house, I understood a little of the passion for improvement and equality that drove Ethan Armstrong. What a grand opinion he held of himself to send word to the colonel – landowner, squire and baron of all he surveyed – to come and inspect a slate sundial.

I knocked on the heavy door, still toying with how to
approach this family. You can talk to him, Raymond had said.

The maid who answered the door was so surprised to have a lady visitor present her calling card and ask to see the colonel that she gave me the wrong answer.

‘Mrs Ledger is indisposed.’

‘I’m here to see Colonel Ledger, if you would be so good as to give him my card.’

She nodded dumbly, and thought for a moment before deciding to open the door wide enough for me to step inside, into a high hallway with an ornate ceiling halfway to heaven, massive rooms to either side, the hall continuing into infinity, and a staircase leading to the stars.

Before the crick in my neck became serious enough to require medical attention, the maid returned and led me into a drawing room.

‘The colonel will be with you shortly.’

This gave me a little time to gawp. A family portrait hung on the wall opposite the draped window. I assumed I was looking at Colonel and Mrs Ledger and their two sons aged nine or ten, along with a pair of well-fed hounds. Mrs Ledger, if the likeness were true, would not have been out of place in a Gainsborough portrait: an aristocratic beauty, with lively eyes and an amused mouth. Seated on a garden chair, she wore a blue summer dress, all folds and pleats, the sleeves ending just below her elbows in a flourish of lace. The colonel’s gun was propped against the tree, as if to show he had just returned from shooting. One boy stood on a rope swing, the other boy leaned against his father. I recognised the artist’s name as someone who exhibited at the Royal Academy a few years ago.

‘Do you like it?’ The voice startled me.

I turned to see the man himself, tall, spare, with black hair only a little streaked with grey.

‘It’s splendid, a photographic quality almost. When was it painted?’

‘About three years ago, when the boys were home from school.’

He indicated the pair of brocade sofas on either side of an ornate fireplace. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ He glanced at my card, ‘Mrs Shackleton.’

I chose the seat with my back to the window. We faced each other across the broad expanse of oak flooring, divided by a Persian rug.

‘Thank you for seeing me, Colonel.’

He looked at me steadily. ‘I’m curious. I receive few lady callers.’ A trace of a smile appeared on what was really quite a handsome face.

‘I’m here on behalf of Mrs Armstrong. Mr Ethan Armstrong has been missing since Saturday …’

The change in his manner was barely perceptible, a slight narrowing of the eyes, a movement, not quite a twitch, between nostril and lip. He waited.

‘Colonel, do you have any idea where Mr Armstrong may have gone, or why?’

‘Can’t help, I’m afraid. First I heard of his failure to put in an appearance was on Sunday morning outside church. Young Raymond Turnbull turned up, twisting his cap and telling me in his round the houses way that I could wave the blue slate sundial goodbye. But perhaps you can tell me something, Mrs Shackleton.’ He leaned back in his master-of-all-I-survey manner. ‘You say you are here on behalf of Mrs Armstrong.’

‘Yes.’

‘How is it that Mrs Armstrong has involved you? And
what makes you think I would be privy to the movements of one of my stonemasons? Mary Jane should go to the police, if she’s so concerned.’

‘She did go to the police. Sergeant Sharp seems to think that because Ethan Armstrong’s tools are gone, he has left the area to find work.’

‘That’s possible. Stonemasons believe they can set their own rules and their own hours, especially a man like Armstrong. Did his wife tell you that he’s an agitator of the first order?’

‘Yet you keep him on.’

‘He’s good at his job, but if he wants to find another, that’s up to him.’

‘Mrs Armstrong thinks that’s unlikely and …’

He put his head to one side, like a hawk about to pounce on a sparrow. ‘What is your connection with Mrs Armstrong?’

I was supposed to be the one asking questions. ‘Our families have a long-standing connection. I said I would help if I could.’ That sounded almost plausible and had the merit of several grains of truth. My superintendent father took such an interest in the Whitaker family that he adopted me from it. ‘Sometimes it’s easier for an outsider,’ I added, with the air of someone frequently called to mend bridges between husbands and wives.

‘Easier for an outsider to …?’

‘To ask awkward questions. Colonel, did you go to the quarry on Saturday? I know that Mr Armstrong asked if you would inspect the sundial.’

For the first time in our conversation, he hesitated, for just a little too long. He smiled. ‘Armstrong rightly held himself and his craft in high esteem. He did send word that I might wish to inspect the work in progress because
he had been forced to make a slight variation in my design for the sundial.’

‘Did you go there, Colonel?’

He allowed himself the smallest of chuckles. ‘I did not. I have, or had, every confidence in Armstrong’s workmanship. The sundial was to have been brought up here on Monday morning, early, and placed in the rose garden, ready to be unveiled on my wife’s birthday. My wife will have a considerably inferior birthday sundial, though aptly of our own sandstone.’ He rang a bell. ‘Let me show you something. It may help explain what could have happened.’

A butler appeared so quickly that he must have been listening at the door.

‘Fetch me the blueprint for the sundial, and Armstrong’s note.’

The butler nodded, and was gone.

‘Did you know Armstrong, Mrs Shackleton?’

‘No. My parents’ connection was with Mrs Armstrong’s family.’

‘He’s the kind of man who thinks horny-handed sons of the soil are the undiscovered geniuses of the world and that they should be – what was that line of Shelley’s? – legislators of the world also. It galled him that I gave him a blueprint for the sundial that was accurate to a thousandth of an inch. It disturbed his view of me as an unthinking exploiter of the land and its rightful inheritors.’

The butler returned carrying a thick card folder fastened with tape. He placed it on a low table and carried the table to the oriental rug. There he undid the tape, opened the folder, and spread the blueprint.

‘Look.’ The colonel nodded at the table. ‘Here it is; the
base a Doric column pedestal, the face of the dial simplicity itself. Armstrong wasn’t to know that I didn’t do the calculations personally. Some Persian chap worked out the sums centuries ago. All I had to do was find the correct pages in the appropriate books and re-draw the plan to scale. This set Mr Stonemason a challenge. He has to show how clever he is – and he is clever. He is working in blue slate, a material he has no experience of. He suspects I have chosen this so that he will fail and look a fool. He’s wrong of course, but that is what he thinks.’ The colonel pointed to the plan with the stem of his pipe. ‘Armstrong taps with his chisel, patiently, carefully, till he has all his straight edges and a smooth surface. Doing it all himself, not trusting the initial part of the work to a labourer or to his former apprentice. Precise movements, going gently so that the slate won’t notice it’s being transformed; won’t fight back and get the better of him. He has to coax it into shape. Because, like stone, slate has a life of its own. It can have some fissure you can’t see with the naked eye. It might crack while you’re carrying it to where you want it to be. Perhaps water seeped in thousands of years ago and left air pockets, so a man could chisel as carefully as he likes and he’ll hit one of these pockets. All his work will go for nothing as the stone fractures and shatters to pieces, and then …’

The colonel took a sheet of paper from an envelope and handed it to me.

The note was written in the meticulous copperplate hand that had become familiar to me as I sifted through the papers in Ethan Armstrong’s chest.

Sir,

There is a small flaw in the slate which will mar its appearance. I can disguise it entirely by carving a flower, and would carve three additional flowers so as to make this pattern a harmonious whole. Will you call to give your approval to this alteration of the plan?

Ethan Armstrong

The note was entirely matter-of-fact without a polite salutation or a respectful close. I returned it to the table.

‘So you see,’ the colonel said, ‘I was meant to know that for the sake of symmetry he would improve on my plan. I, who go to the mines and quarries once a year if that, and rely on reports from my managers, am being asked to attend and inspect this perfect work that I should have insisted be carved on my property, and not in the quarry. No, Mrs Shackleton, I did not go to the quarry. I sent word for him to get on with the job and have it here first thing Monday morning. What happened after that? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Either he festered on my reply and brought his hammer down on the whole operation, or he wasn’t as clever as he thought and his concealment of flaw by flower did not work. The slate defeated him.’

‘Who brought the note from Mr Armstrong, and who took the message back?’

‘I don’t know who brought it.’

He rang the bell. Once again, the butler appeared in an instant.

‘We’ve done with this.’

‘Very good, sir.’ The butler returned the blueprint and Ethan’s note to the folder, and tied the tape carefully.

‘And Rigby, who brought that note from Armstrong?’

‘One of the quarry labourers, sir. I couldn’t say more than that.’

The butler waited, as if he expected to show me out.

It was clear that my interview was at an end.

‘There is one other thing, if I may.’ I looked towards the butler, and back at the colonel.

‘Leave us, Rigby.’

‘Sir.’ The butler disappeared as quietly as he had come.

‘Harriet Armstrong went to the quarry on Saturday evening to take her father some food, and hoped to bring him home. She gives an account of seeing him lying in his hut. Dead. When a farm worker and then Mrs Armstrong went to see, he was not there. The sundial was smashed. Mr Armstrong has not been seen since. I thought it best to make a few preliminary enquiries before this becomes a murder investigation.’

His mouth opened in astonishment. ‘You suspect murder?’

‘Harriet strikes me as a sensible child. I’m inclined to believe her, though others don’t.’

‘Why wasn’t I told?’ He rang a bell.

The butler reappeared.

‘Ask Sergeant Sharp to call and see me. And send a message to the quarry foreman to get himself here in double-quick time.’

‘Yes, colonel.’ The butler nodded his way out.

I stood to leave. ‘Thank you for your time, Colonel.’

He jumped to his feet. ‘Wait! I’m going to fetch my wife. She’ll want to know about Harriet finding her father. She’s fond of Mary Jane. Do please sit down. Would you care for anything? A glass of sherry?’

‘No, thank you.’

He turned at the door. ‘I’ve seen you before somewhere, Mrs Shackleton.’

‘I was thinking that, too,’ I said. ‘But I can’t think where.’

I did not trust him but had no choice other than to wait. Ethan Armstrong must have been a thorn in the colonel’s side – a thorn to be rid of. The colonel needed time to think, having learned that Harriet saw her father’s body before there was time for the killer – Ledger’s minion? – to remove it. Ledger had gone for his wife not out of consideration for Mary Jane, but to keep me waiting. While he did what? Talked to the sergeant, and made sure the investigation was closed down before it began.

After six or seven minutes that seemed like hours, Mrs Ledger floated into the room wearing a navy and sky-blue morning dress with wide sleeves and a square neck. The sapphire at her throat matched the colour of her eyes. The severe style of her golden hair gave her the appearance of a carved Dresden doll. She smiled a pearly smile that nevertheless betrayed concern.