02 - Flight of Fancy (12 page)

“The foundations?”

Captain O’Harris looked sick to
his stomach after hearing Clara’s revelations.

“We have to dig them up.”

He and Clara were stood before
the garage staring at the wide doors set into the Southern side.

“It will be a lot of work.”
O’Harris answered reluctantly.

“Your uncle could be lying down
there.”

O’Harris scratched at his ear.

“I suppose if they just
dismantled this section it would be feasible. I can arrange it for sure.”
O’Harris sighed, “Clara, I’m really worried you are building a case for my aunt
to be a murderer.”

“I am not.” Clara reached out
for his sleeve, “Now, there will be no work done today so why don’t we discuss
that list of servants?”

As she spoke the first drops of
a heavy spring rain shower fell on them. O’Harris glanced at Buzzard, who he
had been cleaning as Clara arrived.

“Very well. Go into the drawing
room, I need to get the old girl under cover.”

With that they went their
separate ways.

Clara was almost overwhelmed
with elation. She was close to certain that when the concrete under O’Harris’
garage was picked away it would reveal the corpse of unfortunate Goddard. Better
still, she felt she was finally inching towards the way he died. Arsine gas had
such potential, but if it was the cause it also could only have been used by a
limited number of individuals – those who had a passing knowledge of chemistry.
Even so, she had to keep an open mind. Nothing was true until it was proved and
there still could be other possibilities. It just felt as though she was
unerringly drawing towards the murderer.

O’Harris appeared in the
doorway rubbing his hands on a cloth.

“I’ve asked the housekeeper to
call a builder and arrange the demolishing of the garage.” O’Harris was sullen,
“I hope you are right about this Clara.”

“Do you doubt my conclusions?”

He threw the cloth aside.

“Not as such, I mean they are
logical. But to think of him lying there in a place I walk past every morning…
It is simply horrible.”

“I appreciate that, would you
rather we dropped the case now?”

For a moment O’Harris almost
said yes. He was tired of the anxiety Clara’s digging had brought, not to
mention the old memories that had resurfaced. Yet he needed a solution, it
would unhinge him if he did not know the truth.

“I’ll dig up a dozen garages,
even this very house if you think it will help.”

“Just one garage will do.”
Clara smiled, “May we discuss servants now? Oh, by the way…”

Clara took the new threatening
note she had received from her handbag and showed it to the captain. He studied
it carefully.

“Dirty-fingered fellow.”

“You think it is a man?”

O’Harris glanced up, uncertain
what he had thought.

“I don’t know, suppose it just
seemed to spring to mind.”

“Whatever the case, someone is
still trying to scare me off. Male or female, they shall not succeed.”

“Have you shown the police?”

“Whatever for?”

O’Harris almost laughed at the
genuinely perplexed look Clara gave him.

“They might be interested,
don’t you think?”

“They showed absolutely no
interest in my stalker from the case involving Mrs Greengage.”

O’Harris’ amusement turned
serious.

“How often has this sort of
thing happened?”

“Oh the stalker was nothing,
actually he was only trying to pluck up the courage to return to his mother who
thought he was dead. He wanted me to intercede. This is quite different.” Clara
gave him a stern look, “I am not intimidated by it.”

“That is plain enough.”

“Good, then you shan’t now
start lecturing me about being careful and watching what I am about?”

O’Harris bit his tongue, he had
been about to say just that. In fact he was going to go as far as to offer his
services as Clara’s escort and guardian, but her intuitiveness pulled him up
short.

“I would never dream of it.”

He distracted them both by
mixing up a gin and lemon cocktail and escorting Clara to a chair near the
large windows where they could watch the rain tumbling down outside.

“So, back to servants?” He
asked, “You have the list I made?”

“Yes, not as many as I expected
though.”

“My uncle and aunt decided to
reduce the number of servants in the house around 1900. You have learned enough
about old Flo to understand how conscious she was of social change and the
needs of others. She thought it very bad for the house to have so many
extraneous servants, so she made some cuts.”

“Any resentment from it? After
all, she was putting people out of work.”

“Aunt Flo had more sense than
that. She had two girls leave and never replaced them, and she retired some of
the older staff off with a pension. I think someone left to tend to their sick
mother and she found employment elsewhere for a few others. It was really quite
remarkable.”

Clara glanced at the list of
servants O’Harris had written out for her on their previous meeting when the
dead mouse had been first course on the menu.

“So, by 1908 there was a
butler, a cook, a housekeeper and a maid working as indoor staff.”

“And a woman came in
occasionally to clean. She was a widow and needed the extra money. I think she
moved to Scotland eventually to be with a sister. I know she is not in Brighton
anymore.”

Clara added a note to the list
with the words ‘extra cleaning help’, to refresh her memory later.

“Now your uncle and aunt kept
more outside staff.”

“Always took more outside staff
to run the place than indoor.”

“So there were five gardeners
and one head gardener, Mr Riggs?”

“Yes.”

“And a gamekeeper?”

“He had his own cottage on the
estate. He was in his seventies and didn’t really do a lot except wander the
forest down the end of the grounds once in a while. Uncle Goddard gave up shooting
pheasants years before. He only kept him on as a favour.”

“There was a stableman and a
stableboy.”

“They only kept two horses and
a pony. The stableboy doubled up as a garage attendant and kept the cars
clean.”

“And a chauffeur?”

“Former coach driver. Goddard
sent him off to train up on car engines and he was more mechanic than
chauffeur. He kept all the cars in pristine order.”

“That leaves a land manager.”

“He supervised any work on the
grounds beyond the skills of the gardeners. He is gone too. I think he died in
1910. He was another old retainer and had really worked beyond when he should.”

“Out of these people, then,
only three remain here today. The cook, the housekeeper and Mr Riggs. What
became of the rest?”

O’Harris flopped back in his
chair and swirled the alcohol in his glass.

“Let’s see. Can’t remember the
maid, the one that came after Millie I mean. I don’t believe she was local,
anyway I had hardly anything to do with her and she left after a year or so to
get married.”

“Did she know Millie?”

“I couldn’t say, but she came
here after… well, just after.”

Clara nodded.

“What about the butler?”

“Mr Barnstaple was conscripted
in 1917, was accidentally gassed by his own side six months later and invalided
back to Britain early 1918. I saw him in the hospital once when I was on leave.
He went down with influenza and died of pneumonia later that year.”

Clara grimaced as she ticked
the name off the list with the notation, ‘deceased’.

“What of the gardeners?”

“Three of the younger ones
joined up with the first swell of patriotism in 1914, the fourth joined in 1915
after taking insults from the local lads. The under-gardener was conscripted
and that left Mr Riggs who I believe was spared service because he was awaiting
an operation on a hernia. By the time he was fighting fit, so to speak, the war
was over and the five other gardeners were dead.”

“All of them?”

O’Harris lifted up his hand and
started tallying off the gardeners one finger at a time.

“Gas, shrapnel, machine-gun,
blood poisoning and the under-gardener drowned when the ship bringing him home
sank.”

“That is rather morbid.” Clara
said, sickened by the news.

“It gets worse. The stableman
went over with our horses. He took Goddard’s Hunter called Stanley. Stanley was
taken into the cavalry and was lost at the Somme. The stableman was so
distraught when he heard Stanley was gone he deserted and when they caught him
they shot him. Stanley, as it turns out, hadn’t died as they all thought. He
turned up six days later. Crossed No Man’s Land by himself and wandered back to
his stables. He came home in 1918 and is out in the paddock as we speak.”

Clara was too stunned to know
what to say.

“As for the stableboy, he was
another early joiner and I think he fell at Ypres. The chauffeur went into the
engineering corps because of his talent with engines and was eventually posted
to keep those new tanks running. He actually survived, but he fell in love with
a French girl and never came home.”

“That is a very dismal
catalogue of misfortune.” Clara stared at the list and the notations beside
each name, “I hardly know what to say.”

“That is war, Clara.” O’Harris
shrugged, “Care for another drink?”

Clara wouldn’t normally but the
stories of the lost family servants had upset her and she handed over her glass
absent-mindedly.

“That leaves only three
suspects for writing those notes.” She said when O’Harris returned with her
cocktail.

“What will you do?”

“I need to talk with them, one
at a time and see if I can root out who is behind this.”

“I’m certain I can arrange
that. Do you want it done now?”

Clara was staring at her list.

“Yes,” She said numbly, “No
time like the present.”

Clara had hoped to talk to the
cook first, after all she was the one who would feel the full burden of the
dead mouse on the serving platter, but she had failed to account for the
natural hierarchy that develops among domestic servants. The housekeeper was
top of the chain within the household and so she insisted on seeing Clara
first. Even O’Harris could not refuse. He gave a wistful shrug and took a chair
in the corner of the room where he was almost out of sight.

“Hello Mrs?”

“Abergavanney.” The housekeeper
declared.

“Mrs Abergavanney, are you
aware why we are meeting?”

“It’s about that matter with
the mouse.” The housekeeper screwed her lips up as though she had tasted
something bitter, “It is a disgraceful matter and I have had words with cook.”

“I am sure, but I would like to
find the perpetrator of this practical joke.”

“Well don’t look at me!” Mrs
Abergavanney almost spat out the words, “I have been here 29 years and never
have I caused so much as a moment’s discomfort to the occupants. I would not go
around planting dead mice in the dinner!”

“I never thought you would.”
Clara promised, feeling a wave of sympathy for the cook, “I just wondered if
you might know who did?”

The pout seemed to become even
harder on Mrs Abergavanney’s lips.

“I was upstairs at the time. I
was having my own lunch in my room. A bowl of plain soup with a crust of bread
and a cup of tea. It is quite permitted, ask Captain O’Harris. Mrs O’Harris
felt it a mark of respect for my loyalty and time at the house to give me an
hour for lunch which I was allowed to take in my room away from the rest of the
household.”

The speech came out so fast
Clara hardly had time to take it all in.

“I would never imply you would
do something improper.”

“Nor should you! I know my
place, indeed I do!”

“So you knew nothing about the
mouse?”

“Not until that half-wit Maud
came bumbling up the stairs yelling it out all about the house. In my day girls
knew a bit of decorum, but these days they bawl everything as though they are
in the fish market.” Mrs Abergavanney was almost trembling with outrage at the
scene Maud had made, “I came straight down of course and took one look at the
dead thing and asked cook how it had got there and she of course said she did
not know. Well, I was quite put out seeing as I run a clean house, Miss
Fitzgerald, and no mouse has dared walk through these doors since before you
were born.”

Clara quite believed it.

“Thank you Mrs Abergavanney.”

The next to appear was the
cook. O’Harris introduced her as Mrs Crimps, who had been with the family at
least since 1890.

“1891” Mrs Crimps promptly
replied, “Though I weren’t cook then, I worked under Mrs Duncan. Those were the
days when a cook had more than a maid to help her in the kitchen.”

Clara was unclear whether that
was an observation or a rebuff of the captain.

“I’m terribly sorry about the
mouse.” Mrs Crimps face fell, “Nothing like that has ever happened before. I
don’t know how it got there.”

“You didn’t see anyone tamper
with the platter?” Clara asked pointedly.

“No… oh but you are thinking I
did it? I admit I was the one made up the platter but I would never risk my
position with such a foolish stunt. I’ve been here too long for games like
that, besides, at my age the thought of being out of work is worse than
anything else.”

Clara had to admit it seemed an
unlikely thing for the cook to do, but nothing could be ruled out.

“Let’s piece this together a
bit better. When did you make the platter?”

“About half an hour before I
served it. I wasn’t aware we were to have company you see, before then I mean.”

“I presume you left it
somewhere?”

“In the pantry, where it was
cool, but not too cool. Chilled pate is very poor, it needs to be warm
slightly, just enough to bring out the flavour.”