Murder on a Summer's Day (4 page)

Bolton Hall has the eccentric appearance of having been created by someone who would have preferred to build a castle. Originally the fortified entrance to the Priory, designed to keep out marauding Scots, it was extended by the Bachelor Duke, William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire. He allotted the task of extending the building to his protégé, the head gardener.

I had parked on the road and approached the front of the building along the path, with a broad smooth stretch of lawn to my right. Perhaps it had been the choice of this same head gardener to plant trees so close to the front door that they would surely block the light.

Some other caller had shown scant regard for the grass. A three-seater Crossley Bugatti was parked half on the path, half on the perfect lawn.

The door was opened by a young maid who had been crying. She sniffled as I gave my name and told her that I was here in connection with Osbert’s death. She looked as if she may burst into tears again so I quickly asked ‘Whose motor is that?’ This was partly to divert her from distress, but also out of curiosity, for it occurred to me that a member of the Duke of Devonshire’s family may have driven here at speed.

‘It’s the doctor’s motor, madam. He is with poor Osbert now.’ Osbert’s name brought a fresh tear to her eye. Either he was closely related, or she had been in love with him.

‘I’m here to see the doctor. Has anyone else arrived?’

She stepped aside to let me in. ‘Mr Upton brought Osbert’s mother and Jenny, and then he left.’

‘Jenny must be Osbert’s wife?’

She winced. That answered my question. The maid was in love with Osbert. There are times when stating the obvious seems the only thing to do. ‘You’ve all had a terrible shock.’

She nodded. Slowly, she turned and looked in the direction of the two Mrs Hannons who were seated by the fireplace in the great hall. ‘They are over there, waiting to see Osbert. The doctor is not ready for them yet.’

‘Thank you. I shall wait with them.’

‘Very good, madam.’ As if suddenly aware that she had let out her secret to a stranger, she said, ‘We was all of us at school together. We was all of us pals.’ She hurried away.

As I had guessed, the hall was indeed dark, and also dingy. Small wonder the duke and duchess used this residence only during the shooting season. The place gave me the shudders.

The two bereaved women sat motionless on straight back chairs near the enormous empty grate. As I walked towards them, my footsteps echoed to the rafters.

On the opposite side of the hearth was another chair. I picked it up and brought it across, hoping they would not mind if I joined them.

I introduced myself to the women and expressed condolences. The older Mrs Hannon was thin, with work-worn hands. She glanced at me, puzzled.

I heard myself speaking too slowly, deliberately. ‘I was asked here to search for the Indian prince.’ The younger woman appeared not to have heard me. ‘I am so sorry that your husband, your son, has died.’

‘Did you see Osbert?’ the older woman asked. ‘Are they sure it’s him?’ She was still wearing her pinafore. A strand of grey hair had escaped from her pinned-up plaits and hung in a wave, touching her shoulder.

‘Yes.’

‘We have to wait. The doctor has to see him.’ An absurd glint of hope came into her eyes, as if the doctor might perform some miracle. ‘But he is drowned. Is that for certain?’

‘Yes.’

She reached out and touched the wrist of the heavily pregnant young woman beside her, who did not react. She stared ahead, without seeing.

This was no time to be questioning them, and yet I had to.

‘Have you been offered something? Tea? Brandy?’

The older woman nodded.

I could see no sign of refreshments so took the brandy flask that I carry in my satchel for emergencies and offered it to her.

She shook her head. ‘My poor lad went too early to work this morning. They kept him out half the night searching and then he was up at dawn. But I don’t understand. Do you think he saw that Indian in the water and went to help, or went to drag him out?’

‘I don’t know. The Indian has not been found.’

‘That river. That damn river. I hate it. Why did it want my boy?’

‘Did he seem very tired this morning?’

Jenny spoke at last. ‘He wanted to search with the others. They were ordered to carry on searching for the foreigner. Why couldn’t he have stayed in his own country?’

Good question. He came here because we went there. He came here because this is the heart of empire. ‘Did it upset Osbert that the Indian prince shot the white doe?’ Not wishing to hint at suicide, I added quickly, ‘Perhaps it preyed on his mind so as to distract him?’

The older Mrs Hannon shook her head. ‘Osbert thought all that stuff silly. Big rodents, that’s what he calls deer, brown, white or any shade between. Pests.’

At a tapping sound, the younger woman raised her head and looked towards a door that opened on the far side of the hall. A man in his late thirties, leaning on a cane, gazed across at us.

The younger Mrs Hannon started to breathe more heavily. Glancing at her, I saw that she must be very near her time. Her hand went to her belly, as though she had to block the ears of her unborn child.

As he limped towards us, walking stick marking time, I realised this must be the doctor, owner of the Bugatti. He was dressed like a country doctor, in good tweeds. His fine fair hair was touched with grey. He pushed it back from his eyes. ‘Mrs Hannon, and Mrs Hannon, you may come through and see Osbert now.’

In order to use the telephone and report to James, I had been led through dark corridors and rooms with closed curtains to a study where three walls were covered in book cases.

He spoke over a crackly line. ‘Is there a connection between the groom’s death and the prince’s disappearance, Kate?’

‘It’s too early to tell.’ A grandfather clock by the door chimed the half hour. Half past ten. ‘The search is continuing.’

After a long pause, James said, ‘Let me know the moment you have more news.’

‘Of course. And James…’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing. I’ll speak to you later this afternoon, news or no news.’

I disconnected. I had wanted to ask whether they had yet alerted the Indian family. But that was up to them, to the India Office and the Duke of Devonshire.

Compared to the politics of the situation, my task seemed straightforward: find the missing prince.

I had rashly told the housekeeper who led me to this room that I would find my way back.

Shutting the study door behind me, I entered the gloomy corridor and turned left. In the next room, maids were busy at work, one on a stepladder by the window, the other leaned on a polishing mop, a sob in her voice as she spoke. It was the maid who had opened the door. ‘Poor Osbert. I can’t believe it’s true.’

‘Well it is.’ The older woman teetered unsteadily on the ladder as she turned to deliver her advice. ‘So snap out of it. His lordship and her ladyship will be here tomorrow. Tears won’t polish a floor.’

After twists and turns in the corridor, I miraculously found my way back to the starting point, the great hall.

The doctor was sitting in the chair that had been occupied by Osbert’s mother. He stood as I approached, holding the back of the chair with one hand and extending the other to me, introducing himself as Lucian Simonson.

‘So you are Mrs Shackleton. Upton, the agent, told me you were called in by his lordship.’

‘By the India Office.’

‘Amounts to the same thing, I dare say.’

He glanced at my ring finger. ‘And am I right in believing you are Gerald Shackleton’s widow?’

‘Yes.’

It still gives me a shock to hear a stranger speak Gerald’s name. And that small, cruel word, widow, always seems as though an unspoken adjective waits to be attached: poor, rich, grieving, merry.

We sat down, side by side, turning our chairs one towards the other.‘Small world, Mrs Shackleton. I’ve heard a little about you. And your husband and I knew each other at Leeds Infirmary before the war; an excellent surgeon and a fine man.’

For a while, we reminisced, not about the war, where Dr Simonson had earned what he referred to as his gammy leg, but about the summer of 1913, which seemed like yesterday, but a yesterday in a different world.

I brought the conversation back to the here and now. ‘Has the constable been notified of Osbert Hannon’s death, doctor?’

‘Upton sent one of his men to find him, and left word with the constable’s wife to call headquarters at Skipton.’

‘Did you know Osbert?’

‘Only by sight. Healthy young chap. I never had cause to treat him.’

‘I’m glad of the opportunity to speak to you, Dr Simonson, because I wonder whether there is any connection between the prince’s disappearance and Osbert’s death. I know you cannot answer that question directly, but you may be able to venture an opinion as to how he died.’

It seemed to me too much of a coincidence that one of the last men to see the maharajah had been found dead.

Dr Simonson pulled one of those faces that indicate the difficulty of venturing an opinion. ‘The coroner will order a post mortem and we’ll know more after that. The family live on the other side of the river. His way to work brought him along the path to the Strid, where he would leap across, something he has been doing without mishap since he was a child.’ He took a silver cigarette case from his inside pocket, flicked it open and offered me a cigarette.

I accepted.

‘What preliminary conclusions have you come to regarding Osbert Hannon’s death, Dr Simonson?’

He lit our cigarettes. ‘Good question. You want to know whether he was dead when he entered the water.’

‘Yes.’

He sighed. ‘When I was called here, I knew that the search was underway for a missing prince. My examination seemed therefore to call for particular thoroughness. I was an army doctor, Mrs Shackleton, not a surgeon like your husband, but we were called upon to venture into areas beyond our particular expertise. I have taken a good look at young Osbert.’

‘Did he drown?’

‘You noticed the abrasion to the back of his head?’

‘Yes.’

‘It could have been done when he hit a rock. If he toppled backwards, it would be harder for him to save himself.’

‘Did his wife and mother see the abrasion?’

‘No.’

I was not sorry to hear that, yet part of me feels it is better to know everything, even the worst. ‘So was he alive when he fell, or when he jumped? Perhaps he saw someone struggling and tried to save them.’

‘He could not swim. If he did try to save someone then he was brave or foolhardy.’

I looked the doctor in the eyes, blue-grey, honest eyes that met mine. Yet he seemed to be evading a direct answer. Eventually, he said, ‘Determining whether a person drowned can be difficult. Sometimes it is a matter of excluding other possibilities. Water in the lungs is not necessarily an indication. We know that he left home at dawn. His wife was sleeping but his mother was awake and heard him go.’

I thought how upset the young wife must be that she had not seen her husband leave for the last time.

‘Do you think that because he searched so late and rose so early, he was simply tired and lost his footing?’

‘That is a possibility. It would not take him long to reach the Strid, where he may have slipped. That would give him several hours of submersion, long enough for water passively to enter the lungs.’

‘I see. That is what you meant when you said drowning can be difficult to determine.’

He thought for a moment, and then decided to say more. ‘I noticed no sign that he clutched at anything, no weeds or grit under his fingernails. That might indicate that he fell and was unable to help himself, overcome by the ferocity of the river. It could also mean that he twisted as he fell and hit his head on a rock. Most cases of this kind are accidental. Suicide seems unlikely in his case, a young fit man with everything to live for.’

‘Could the wound on his head have been inflicted by someone?’

‘That is not out of the question. I’m waiting for an ambulance to take the body to Skipton hospital.’ He tapped the ash from his cigarette into the fire grate. ‘He seems a well-liked young man, well loved even, if the reaction of the females hereabouts can be relied upon. Two of the maids in tears, a village lass knocking on the door to ask if it’s true.’

There was nothing more to be said on the subject, not yet at any rate. I thanked the doctor and rose to go.

He walked with me to the door, his stick tap-tapping.

‘Is there anything I can do for Osbert’s mother or wife do you think?’

‘That’s kind of you, Mrs Shackleton, but I don’t think so, not just yet. I will wait and see if they have any questions. After that I need to investigate something that’s spreading among the village children, a spate of vomiting and diarrhoea. You’d be well advised to keep your distance from the little blighters.’

As I left, I wondered whether Osbert, the recently married Romeo with a pregnant wife, had ended his romantic escapades. If he were still breaking hearts, then a father or a sweetheart may have wanted to teach Osbert a lesson. A push, a shove, a little harder than intended. But that seemed unlikely. And it brought me no nearer understanding why or how the prince had gone missing.