Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) (28 page)

‘Let me be clear of your meaning, Chief Inspector,’ Priscilla said steadily. ‘You seem to be accusing our family of murder now. Why? You have invented a wonderful story. Do you have proof that one of us committed murder? Or are we merely discussing possibilities?’

‘You’ll know the answer when we make an arrest,’ Rose told her shortly.

Priscilla smiled. It was a challenge to battle, thought Auguste, both fascinated and repelled; the smile of one who understood her opponent and was confident of victory. ‘So you have no proof,’ she said. ‘Suppose, for the sake of argument, this strange story about our conspiracy in the middle of the night were true? What would you propose to do? Arrest the whole family?’

Checkmate, Auguste thought to himself. The jelly that refused to jell. There was no way Egbert could arrest the whole family. He needed to single out one from the others, and he could not yet do so. He had obviously been hoping for the united front to crack, but it had not done so.

‘I thought not. Even had we such a strong motive as you outline, Chief Inspector, your case is laughable without proof. Now I regret I have to disappoint you: there
is
no such motive.’

‘And how’s that, Lady Tabor?’ Rose asked.

‘We have no such motive.’

‘What my wife is trying to tell you, Chief Inspector,’ George took up the colours, ‘is that my father was
not
married to this Rose girl. The marriage was invalid. This Tom Griffin came here in August believing he was illegitimate and he was. This marriage is a red herring of your own, Chief Inspector. It is true my father went through a form of marriage with the girl, and possibly believed it valid at the time, but it was not. The marriage was not known to his parents and when my grandfather discovered it two years later, he disabused my father of any notion that it was valid. When my father later married my mother, he therefore never burdened her with the pain of telling her about this boyish foolishness.

‘You will have noticed my late arrival at this meeting,’ he continued gruffly. ‘The reason is that, thanks to you, I had to explain all this unfortunate business to my mother, who was badgering me to know all the details. I gather she discovered about Rose Griffin through you, Chief Inspector, and I was able to relieve her mind greatly as to the validity of her marriage. It had been an enormous shock to her, though she might not have let you see that. She is a lady of the old school.’

‘I trust you are satisfied with the result of your meddling, Chief Inspector?’ Priscilla used her most glacial voice.

‘When did you first hear about Rose Griffin, sir?’ Rose was impervious to ice and fire.

‘My father told me about the entanglement when he was getting on in years, merely because there had been a son, and he feared there might be trouble if he ever approached the family. As indeed there has been,’ George added crossly.

‘Why did your father believe the marriage invalid?’

‘For two reasons. Both my father and the girl were
minors, and swore falsely that they had obtained the consent of their parents. They had not. The marriage was thus invalid, not only on that score, but also because the girl had given a false name. She was married under the name of Griffin, whereas her real name was Moffat. My grandfather had naturally investigated the matter thoroughly. The girl was provided with a home and a certain amount of money to live on.’

‘I trust you now see, Chief Inspector,’ said Priscilla simply, ‘that your work has brought you full circle. As none of us had any motive to murder the man, it is obvious he met his death, not by murder, but by suicide.’

‘It adds up.’ Rose poured himself some more coffee.

‘Like a butler’s accounts,’ protested Auguste crossly. ‘It is
too
accurate.’

‘Be blowed to that. Tabor marries the girl and plays at part-time shepherds and shepherdesses in Dent, but, in 1844, the family finds out and there’s all hell to pay. They convince him the marriage is invalid. By that time he’s met Miriam, and is only too eager to see the folly of his youthful ways. So he or the father sets the girl up in a cottage in Clapham, and breathes a deep sigh of relief.’ Egbert contemplated the coffee, provided by the hospitality of the Tabors. It moved him not at all. ‘One of them did it, of course, but which of them? Or are you backing Priscilla’s suicide theory?’

‘How could it be suicide in view of the post mortem report?’ A procession of Tabors marched before Auguste’s eyes, headed by Miriam, with Priscilla, George, Victoria, Alfred, Cyril and Laura solidly behind her. Somewhere at the end of the line a breathless Gertie struggled to keep up, but he quickly dismissed her. It couldn’t have been Gertie. On the other hand, it couldn’t have been any of the others either. Not people he
knew
and, he realised with a sinking heart,
liked
. Detection was easier from behind the green baize door.

‘Fancy a visit to see the registrar?’

‘We are to be married, Egbert?’ Auguste tried hard.

‘Very funny. Breakfast ain’t a time for jokes.’

‘Yes, I will come.’ Tatiana had an appointment with a petrol engine, and the prospect of a day on tenterhooks did not appeal.

What they learned from the Settle sub-district registrar, however, depressed him further. The gas had now been turned so high that the
pot-au-feu
must surely boil over. He, a mere
sous-chef
in this, could do nothing to prevent what must now happen.

‘Do you forgive me, darling?’ Victoria looked scared.

A pause. ‘No. Not when there’s murder involved.’

‘But it was suicide,’ she wailed. ‘Mother is right and the police are wrong. That horrible man came back that night claiming he was the legal heir, that he’d been misled. Father told him he wasn’t and proved it, so he shot himself. What other explanation could there be?’

Victoria looked defenceless and beautiful, but Alexander still remained unable to leap the gulf. ‘Perhaps,’ he said noncommittally.

‘You still want to marry me, don’t you?’

Thus forced, Alexander ran through the scenario that might lie ahead: an alliance with a family more likely than not to harbour a murderer. But did he believe
Victoria
guilty of murder? The idea was ludicrous, of course. Wasn’t it?

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Laura.’ Oliver appeared unexpectedly from the library, catching her arm as she returned from breakfasting. ‘I need to talk to you.’

With obvious reluctance, she allowed herself to be shepherded into the library and the door to be firmly closed behind them. ‘What is it?’ There was a note of defiance in her voice.

‘I would like you to marry me.’

She opened her mouth to speak, but he forestalled her. ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, and I know you can’t tell me. What is obvious is that it isn’t over yet, but that it’s coming to a head.’

Laura flinched, but her voice was steady enough. ‘What has that to do with you and me, Oliver?’

‘Old-fashioned though it may sound, you will need my protection in what is to come. I want to be able to give it to the best of my ability.’

‘Protection?’ she echoed lightly. ‘What an odd word.’

‘You know well why I use it.’

She steadied herself. ‘Oliver, I am grateful to you for your concern, but I cannot marry you, or even be affianced to you. Not now.’

At last Egbert re-emerged from the room in which he had been closeted with Cobbold. ‘Fancy a pint, Auguste?’

There was nothing Auguste fancied less, but obviously Egbert had more in mind than refreshment. The
sous-chef
was rising in status.

The Golden Lion’s private room was warm and welcoming after the police station, and the hot punch Auguste had chosen in preference to ale even more so.

‘It all points one way, Auguste. You know that.’

‘But the evidence . . .’

‘The motive, Auguste. That marriage was as valid as yours and Tatiana’s. The tale they spun us about the false names was true enough, but the marriage would only be invalid if both parties knew that a false name was being used. Charles Tabor did not: he thought Griffin was Rose’s real name, not knowing that she assumed it when she left home to join Wombwell’s Menagerie. We can prove that now from Wombwell’s books, which show that a Rose Griffin
worked there from June ’37 to September ’39. Rose Moffat ceased to be from the moment she saw those animals. And the change of law in 1822 meant that though Rose and Charles were minors, they could only be fined for having falsely declared that their parents’ consent had been given. No, the Dowager’s marriage was bigamous all right. Hard for her, discovering it after all this time, poor lady. But not,’ he added, draining the glass, ‘for our villains. They knew all the time.’

‘But one thumbprint, Egbert?’

‘Or a wife with gloves.’

‘Which?’

‘We’ll soon know.’

‘He is of the old school, Egbert. He would not allow his wife to take the risk of murder.’

‘Our Priscilla not only plans, she acts. She’s the Lady Macbeth of Yorkshire, Auguste. She’d decided the honour of the Tabors rested with her to defend.’

Don’t underestimate George
, Auguste heard the Dowager say again. But wasn’t that just what they were doing?

‘The landlord told me you were here.’ Tatiana swept in, flushed and pink from the fresh air. ‘I’ve just had an oatcake in the Thistlethwaite tearoom, but I seem to be hungry—’ She broke off, seeing their glum faces. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked sharply.

‘It is near, Tatiana,’ Auguste told her.

‘Ah. Can you—?’

‘No,’ he answered wretchedly.

‘When?’

‘Late this afternoon,’ Egbert said gruffly. ‘When I’ve spoken to the Chief Constable.’

‘I should like,’ Tatiana said to Auguste, after Egbert had left, ‘to know more about Rose and Tom. I think it would help . . . when it happens. Would you come with
me to Clapham? I could drive you,
ma mie
,’ she added hopefully. ‘Mr Williams has loaned me the Panhard.’

It was only as Auguste climbed into the Panhard that he realised to his amazement that he had not even demurred at the prospect.

The motorcar was left in the appreciative care of the landlord of the Clapham New Inn, and they followed Amos’ directions. Where else to feel close to Rose Griffin than in her cottage? It was not easy to find. They walked through the village and towards the Ingleborough Cave. The pathway leading to the cottage, off the main track, was overgrown through disuse, as Amos had warned them, but a large stick and determination finally succeeded, after several twists and turns and one or two blind alleys, in bringing them to a ruined stone cottage of fair size.

They stared at it in some disappointment. What had he expected? Auguste wondered. A home, hidden from decay for nearly sixty years?

Tatiana pushed through the half-rotten wooden door. ‘If the cottage belonged to the Tabors, perhaps they wished simply to forget about it, as they did Rose.’

A bird, alarmed, flew squawking out of a large hole in the roof. Inside was only damp, decay and a few pieces of broken furniture. Leaves had rotted in piles in the corners, woodland animal life had claimed the cottage for its own. Half-burnt, fungus-covered logs still lay on the hearth, a copper dolly-mop lay tarnished and cobwebbed in what passed for a kitchen.

This was the home where a girl had faced the ruins of her life, deserted by the man she had married for love, Auguste thought sadly. Or had she been so deserted? Did Charles visit her here? Charles had told her their marriage was invalid, but did she refuse to see him again? Or demand to regularise their marriage? No, not Rose. In any case, by that time Charles had
met Miriam. Rose lived on in a humble cottage, not even her own; all she could boast for herself and her legally born son. She had been deprived even of the knowledge that he
was
legally born. Forced to knit and work on clocks for a livelihood to support herself and her son. The son who had turned out to be an aggressive blackmailer.

‘She’s not here, is she?’ Tatiana said quietly.

‘No.’ He walked outside and breathed the fresh cool air with relief. The track wound on past the cottage even further into the wood, already covered with early falling leaves. Not quite knowing why, he turned that way, with Tatiana following, as he pushed aside branches and bracken. Several times there were cross paths, causing him to stop to consider which way to go.

‘Why are we coming along here?’ Tatiana asked curiously but uncomplainingly, as brambles caught at her skirts.

‘I wanted to see where it goes.’

‘Might Rose be at the end?’

‘Only her cow. It’s just a footpath to the pasture.’ Auguste felt cheated, as the path emerged on to the open fell. Then at the bottom he saw a track, suitable for horse traffic if not for Panhards. ‘If we turn left it should bring us to the village,’ Auguste declared, with the lofty relief of one who had known his way all along. The track in fact led on to the main Settle to Ingleton road, but a branch line brought them back to the head of the village and the church.

‘Come and look at Rose Griffin’s grave.’ He took Tatiana by the hand.

‘Poor Rose,’ said Auguste at last, as they stood before it. ‘No “beloved wife of”, no “dearly beloved mother of”. And she must have had such dreams when she married Charles Tabor in Dent Church.’

‘“Here lies the rose of the world”’ Tatiana translated
softly. ‘That does not seem to me the epitaph given by a man who did not love his true wife.’

‘A man driven by guilt.’

‘Perhaps. Yet I think, Auguste, that Rose is here, nevertheless.’

‘This is intolerable.’ There was no heart in Priscilla’s protest as she tried vainly to protect her Valhalla against Scotland Yard, the Yorkshire Constabulary and Auguste Didier. Awaiting them in the formal drawing room was the whole Tabor family.

‘I said just you and his Lordship, ma’am, when I telephoned,’ Egbert pointed out.

‘We are a family. All its members and those to be part of it must be present,’ she replied.

‘Very well, ma’am. If that’s how you wish it.’

The Dowager was present, Savage of course by her side, and even Gertie apparently counted as a member of the family today. She winked when she saw Auguste, then subsided as Priscilla’s eye fell on her.

The Last Stand of the Tabors, Auguste thought, looking at the set faces: Victoria and Alexander, Oliver and Laura – not sitting together, he noticed – Cyril and Gertie, Alfred (subdued to the point of conventionality), George and Priscilla.

They listened in silence as Egbert demolished the theory of the invalid marriage. Only Oliver showed any surprise, glancing worriedly at Laura. The Dowager sat, hands folded neatly in her lap, inured to shock.

‘The marriage between Rose Griffin and Charles Tabor
was
valid,’ he finished, addressing the family as a whole, ‘and I’m sure you all knew it to be so. You wouldn’t have let a matter like that go unchecked. You invited Tom Griffin to return that night – it had to be then for he probably told you it was the
only
night he’d
be in Settle – in order to get rid of him for good. We can prove the clothes were changed by you. For what other reason than that one or more of you had committed the murder?’

The 14th Baron Tabor rose to his feet. ‘
Touché
, Chief Inspector.’

‘No, George.’ Priscilla’s cry was heartrending and terrible.

‘My dear, I have no choice.’ George turned to her gently, taking her hands and holding them to him. It was the first sign of warmth that Auguste had seen between them.

‘No. I will not let you.’ Each word seemed pumped out.

‘You
will
.’

Everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Laura’s voice was the strongest: ‘No, George!’ Alfred was sobbing, youthful arrogance gone. Cyril, bleating, ‘I say . . .’ Gertie inexplicably crying, ‘No.’ In the end Priscilla’s deep voice prevailed.

‘There is one aspect you have not considered, Chief Inspector.’ She sounded the calmest of them all. Yet the tiger was at bay.

‘That is, ma’am?’

‘We
believed
the marriage to be invalid, whether it was or not.’

‘You were worried enough to tell Griffin to come back, fearing you hadn’t got rid of him for good in August. Or did he come back of his own accord, having heard the King was here, in the hope of blackmailing you further? At any rate, you were frightened enough to kill him.’

She did not give an inch. ‘You have no evidence that we knew the marriage to be valid. On the contrary, I can offer strong proof that the family firmly believed it invalid both at the time and since.’

‘And what proof might that be?’

‘This Rose Griffin died in 1847.’