The Stately Home Murder (6 page)

“How do you know that?”—sharply.

“He was the same colour as poor old Mr. Wilkins in our street, that's why—”

“Mr. Wilkins?”

“Putty, that's what he looked like when they found him.”

“Indeed?”

“Three days' milk there was outside his house before they broke the door down,” said Mrs. Fisher reminiscently. “And he looked just like him.”

“I see.”

“In fact,” said Mrs. Fisher, seeing an advantage and taking it all in the same breath, “if it hadn't been for my Michael there's no knowing when you might have found the poor gentleman, is there?” She looked round her audience in a challenging manner. “It's not as if there was any milk bottles.”

Sloan nodded. It was a good point. There had been no milk bottles outside the armory door. Nothing that he knew of to lead to that particular suit of armor. There was indeed no knowing …

Where was Michael now?

Michael Fisher, it presently transpired, was somewhere else being sick.

“I don't know what he'll be like in the coach going home, I'm sure,” said Mrs. Fisher with satisfaction. “I shouldn't wonder if we don't have to stop.”

Maureen was despatched to retrieve Michael.

Finding the dead face had had its effect on the boy. His complexion was chalky white still, and there was a thin line of perspiration along the edge of his hair line. He looked Sloan up and down warily.

“I didn't touch him, mister. I just lifted that front piece thing, that's all.”

“Why?” asked Sloan mildly.

“I wanted to see inside.”

“But why that particular one? There are eight there.”

“Tell the inspector,” intruded Mrs. Fisher unnecessarily.

“I dunno why that one.”

“Had you touched any of the others?”

Michael licked his lips. “I sort of touched them all.”

“Sort of?”

“I'm learning to box at school.”

“I see.”

“I tried to get under their guards.”

“Not too difficult surely?”

“More difficult than you'd think.” Michael Fisher's spirit was coming back. “Those arms got in the way.”

“But you got round them in the end?”

“That's right.”

“And this particular one—the one with the man inside …”

“It sounded different when I hit it,” admitted Michael. “Less hollow.”

“That's why you looked?”

“Yes.”

“No other reason?”

Michael shook his head.

It was the first time in Sloan's police career that he had ever been conducted anywhere by a butler.

“Mr. Purvis said I was to take you straight to his Lordship,” said Dillow, “as soon as his Lordship got back from the village.”

“Thank you,” murmured Sloan politely.

There was no denying that the butler was a man of considerable presence. As tall as the two policemen and graver. Sloan, who had subconsciously expected him to be old, saw that he was no more than middle-aged.

“If you would be so good as to follow me, gentlemen.”

Sloan and Crosby obediently fell in behind Dillow of the stately mien and set off on the long journey from the kitchen to what the butler referred to as the private apartments.

“You would have known Mr. Meredith, of course,” began Sloan as they rounded their first corridor.

“Certainly, sir. A very quiet gentleman. Always very pleasant, he was. And no trouble.”

“Really?” responded Sloan as noncommittally as he could. Mr. Osborne Meredith might not have been any trouble to a butler. He was going to be a great deal of trouble to a police inspector.

This police inspector.

“He usually went home to luncheon,” said the butler. “Ah, through this way, I think, sir, if you don't mind.”

He changed direction abruptly at the distant sound of voices. Sloan had almost forgotten the house was still full of people who had paid to see some—but by no means all—of the sights of Ornum House.

“Sometimes,” went on the butler, “he would take tea with the family, but more often than not he would be … ah … absorbed in his work and I would take him a pot to himself in the library.”

“I shall want to see the library presently.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And the … er … muniments room.”

“Certainly, sir.” Dillow had at last reached the door he wanted. He moved forward ahead of them, coughed discreetly, and announced:

“Two members of the county constabulary to see you, milord.”

As a way of introducing a country police inspector and his constable, Sloan couldn't have improved on it.

There were two people in the room: a middle-aged man with a long drooping mustache and a pretty woman with fair hair and wide-open eyes of china blue. There was gray now among the fair hair and a rather vague look. The two had obviously just finished afternoon tea and the scene reminded Sloan of a picture he had once seen called Conversation Piece. The only difference as he remembered it was that in the picture the tea had not been drunk. Here, the meal was over, a fact appreciated by Dillow, who immediately began to clear away.

“Bad business,” said the Earl of Ornum.

“Yes, sir—milord,” Sloan amended hastily. In the nature of things, interviews with the titled did not often come his way.

“Poor, poor Mr. Meredith,” said the Countess. “Such a nice man.”

Not being altogether certain of how to address a Countess, Sloan turned back to the Earl. “You've seen his sister I understand, milord?”

“No. Tried to. Not at home.”

“Oh?”

“House shut up.” The Earl pulled gently at one side of his drooping mustache. “She must be away. Accounts for one thing though, doesn't it?”

“What's that, sir—milord?”

“No hue and cry for the man. General alarm not raised. Just chance that that boy—you've got his name, haven't you?”

“Michael Fisher, Paradise Row, Luston,” said Constable Crosby, reading aloud from his notebook.

“Just chance that he opened the visor. Otherwise”—the Earl gave another tug at his mustache—“otherwise we might never have found him, what?”

“Possibly not, milord,” said Sloan. In fact the late Mr. Meredith might very well have begun to smell very soon, but in a medieval castle there was no knowing to what an unusual noisome aroma might have been attributed.

Drains, suspected Sloan.

“Of course,” went on his Lordship, “that suit might have acted like one of those Egyptian things …”

“Mummy cases?”

“That's it. He might have … er … dried up.”

“He might,” agreed Sloan cautiously. He would ask the pathologist about that. A mummified corpse was certainly one that stood the least risk of being found.

“Should never have thought of looking there for him anyway. Not in a hundred years.”

“Quite so,” said Sloan. “Now when did you last see Mr. Meredith yourself, milord?”

“Just been talking to m'wife about that. Friday, I thought,” he said, adding, “Millicent thinks it was Thursday.”

The Countess of Ornum had a high, bell-like voice. “Days are so alike, aren't they, Inspector?”

Sloan said nothing. They might very well be for the aristocracy. They weren't for police inspectors.

“I thought it was Thursday, but it may have been Friday.” The Countess looked appealingly round the room as if one or other of the numerous pieces of furniture could tell her.

“I see … er …” Sooner or later the nettle of how to address this vague doll-like woman would have to be grasped. He added firmly, “Milady.”

He doubted if she even heard him.

“It isn't,” she said, fluttering her eyes at him, “as if anything happened on either day.”

“No, milady?”

She smiled. “Then I might have remembered.”

It was rather like interviewing cotton wool or blotting paper.

“It would be very helpful, milady,” said Sloan formally, “if you could remember.”

“I know.” She gave him a sweet smile. “I will try. Such a nice man.”

“Indeed?” said Sloan, unmoved. It was no great help to him that the deceased had been a nice man.

“Everyone liked him,” said the Countess vaguely.

Someone patently hadn't, but Sloan did not say so. Instead he turned back to the Earl. It was easier.

“The pathologist will be here presently, milord, and the police photographers and so forth, after which we will be removing Mr. Meredith to the police mortuary at Berebury.”

“Quite so, Inspector.” Another tug at the mustache. “Purvis will give you all the help you need. Unless it's a bearer party you want. Then there's Hackle and Dillow and m'nephew.”

“Your nephew?”

“Miles. M'brother's boy. Staying with us. Hefty chap.”

“And where would I find him?” Sloan would want to interview everybody in time—but especially the hefty.

His Lordship withdrew a watch and chain from his vest pocket. “Silly mid on.”

Sloan could hear Crosby snorting by his side. “Where?” he said hastily.

“The cricket field. Playing for Ornum against Petering.”

“I see, sir.”

“Blood match, you know. Meredith would never have dreamt of missing it ordinarily.”

“Keen on the game, was he, milord?”

“Very. That's how he got the job here in the first place.”

“Really?”

“Team needed a bowler. M'father took on Meredith.”

“As librarian?”

The Earl looked at Sloan. “As a bowler, Inspector. By the time he got past being a bowler no one else knew where to find anything in the library.”

“I see, sir.” Sloan himself had started as a constable and worked his way up, but things were obviously done differently here. He cleared his throat. “And Lord Cremond, milord? I shall have to have a word with him in due course.”

“Henry? He's at the match, too. Scoring.”

“Scoring?” That didn't sound right for the son and heir.

“Cut his hand on Friday,” said the Earl, “so he couldn't play.”

“It was Thursday, I think,” said the Countess.

Detective Constable Crosby, who had made a note, crossed it out and then—audibly—reinstated it.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” intervened Sloan quickly. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, no.” The Earl stroked his mustache. “Caught it on some metal somewhere, he said.”

“I see, sir. Thank you …”

“I blame myself about Meredith,” said the Earl unexpectedly. He had a deep, unaccented staccato voice. “This is what comes of having the house open. I knew no good would come of it in the long run but, you know, Inspector, there's a limit to the amount of retrenchment …”

“Quite so, milord.”

“Though what my father would have said about having people in the house for money …”

Sloan prepared to go. “For the record then, Mr. Osborne Meredith was your librarian and archivist, milord?”

“That's right.”

The Countess waved a hand vaguely. “He was writing a history of the family, wasn't he, Harry? Such a pity he won't be able to finish it now.”

“Yes,” said the Earl of Ornum rather shortly.

“My brother's called Harry, too,” said Detective Constable Crosby chattily.

Inspector Sloan shot him a ferocious look.

“Mr. Meredith had just made such an interesting discovery,” said the Countess of Ornum, undeflected. “He told us all about it last week.”

“What was that, milady?” asked Sloan.

The pretty, vague face turned towards him. “He'd just found some papers that he said proved that Harry isn't Earl of Ornum after all.”

5

“What was that you said, Sloan?”

Inspector Sloan said louder and more clearly into the telephone, “
Burke's Peerage
, sir, please.”

Superintendent Leeyes, still at Berebury Policy Station, grunted. “That's what I thought you said. And is that all you want?”

“For the time being, sir, thank you. I'm expecting Dyson for the photographs any minute now and Dr. Dabbe is on his way over from Kinnisport.”

Leeyes grunted again. “And all you want is a
Peerage?
”

“That's right, sir. No …” Sloan paused. “There is something else, please, now you ask.”

“And what may that be?”

“A dictionary.”

“A dictionary?”

“Yes, sir. Unless you can tell me what muniments are.”

He couldn't.

The two policemen had made their way with difficulty to where the telephone stood. Without the aid of the butler, Dillow, the way had seemed long and tortuous.

And, at one point, doubtful.

That had been when they had turned left and not right by the largest Chinese vase Sloan had ever seen.

“Can't think why they didn't pop the body into that, sir,” said Crosby gloomily. “Saved us a lot of trouble, that would.”

“There'll have been a reason,” murmured Sloan.

That was one thing experience had taught him. There was a reason behind most human actions. Not necessarily sound, of course, but a reason all the same.

“This chap with the cut hand,” said Crosby, “we'll have to have a word with him, sir.”

“We shall have to have a great many words with a great many people before we're out of here,” said Sloan prophetically. “This way, I think …”

He was wrong. By the time they had taken two more turnings they were lost.

They were in part of the house where the chairs were not roped off with thick red cord, where no drugget lay over the carpet. And on the various pieces of furniture that lined the corridors were small, easily removable ornamental items.

“Do you mind telling me what you are doing here?” It was a thin voice, which seemed to materialize out of the air behind them.