02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (13 page)

There
was a few moment’s silence, which was broken by an indignant Isabella.

‘Surely
you’re not suggesting that my sister had a hand in Hugh’s death?  Oh, that’s
absolutely ridiculous. She can’t possibly have done. You know that, Cedric, how
beastly of you to even suggest it.’  For the first time since her arrival in
the garden room, Isabella appeared close to tears.

‘There,
there, Isabella,’ said Cedric, soothingly, going to sit on the arm of the sofa
beside her where he patted her arm reassuringly. ‘Of course I don’t think that
Josephine murdered Hugh, none of us who know her would ever think that. But we
must be prepared for the fact that the police are bound to think it is a little
too much of a coincidence. We will just have to assure them that Josephine had
absolutely no motive for wishing Sneddon dead.’

Cedric
raised his head and caught Rose’s eye. She gave him a weak smile and then
immediately dropped her gaze to study the carpet. She could not share in
Cedric’s optimism, which she thought anyway was a little forced and mostly for
the benefit of Isabella and Hallam. It seemed to her that everyone was
conveniently forgetting that last year Josephine had been very much in love
with Sneddon and that, even if she had now found solace in Brimshaw, she may
not have been prepared to accept that Hugh marry her sister. She would surely
have felt, and quite rightly in Rose’s opinion, betrayed by both Hugh and
Isabella. Who knew what feelings of resentment and possibly even hatred she had
kept bottled up inside? At the very least it would have been a considerable
shock to discover that her sister was to marry a man she had once had feelings
for. If only it was just that.

For
Rose could not help but remember how distraught Josephine had been to find out
that Lord Sneddon was blackmailing Isabella into marrying him. Rose remembered
too Josephine’s determination that she should be the one to rescue Isabella and
put things right. Rose shivered, remembering the sense of foreboding that had
engulfed her in the garden. As soon as the words had sprung unbidden from her
lips, she had regretted telling Josephine about Sneddon’s antics, had known all
along that nothing good could come of it.  Josephine no doubt thought that
Sneddon had some affection for her still, that she could appeal to his better
nature. But Rose knew that Lord Sneddon had not been a man to be trifled with
or one to listen to reason. She was sure that, had Josephine approached him
before his fit of remorse, he would sooner have laughed in her face rather than
relinquish the letters. And how would Josephine have taken that? Rose thought
it unlikely that she would readily admit defeat where the future happiness of
her younger sister was concerned. No, Rose felt sure that it was far more
likely that Josephine would have seen it as her responsibility, her duty even,
to free her sister from an awful fate by whatever means she deemed necessary.
The question was, did that include murder?

‘Right,’
said Deacon, ‘I’ll ask you about the other guests in a minute but before I do I
want you to tell me about this Robert fellow. Who exactly is he?’

‘The second
footman, sir, or at least he was until his lordship dismissed him.’

‘And
when was that?’

‘Friday
night, sir, at dinner.’

‘Indeed,
it seems a strange time to decide to dismiss a servant, in the middle of
entertaining guests when you are no doubt rather short-staffed. What had this Robert
done to merit such treatment?’

‘He
spilt some boiling hot soup over Lord Sneddon, sir.’

‘Did he
indeed?’ Had they not been investigating the man’s murder and had Lane been
present, the inspector was sure his sergeant would have been smirking in the
corner at such news. As it was, the inspector was more interested in the butler’s
obvious discomfort in being forced to disclose such information. ‘Most
unfortunate, I give you, but it seems rather harsh of his lordship to dismiss
the man for an accident,’ he said, watching Crabtree closely. ‘Or perhaps it was
not an accident? Do you think he did it deliberately?’

‘I
don’t know, sir. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him that.’

‘I
intend to. Or at least my sergeant will, he’s down with the servants as we
speak. I expect he’s talking to young Robert right now.’

The
butler visibly paled, but said nothing. Deacon decided not to push him,
confident that Lane would get to the bottom of whatever Crabtree was trying to
hide.

‘Why is
Robert still here if the baron dismissed him? His lordship doesn’t strike me as
a man who likes to be defied.’

‘No, he
isn’t,’ Crabtree agreed. ‘Confiding in you, sir, and not meaning to speak out
of turn, his lordship on occasion does have rather a temper and is apt to say
things that he doesn’t really mean. Robert supports his mother and little brothers,
sir. He needs to keep his position here otherwise they’ll be destitute,
particularly if he has no references. I knew his lordship was particularly
upset because of who it was he spilt soup over. You know, sir, the heir to a
dukedom and the man who’d just asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage. I
knew that the whole thing would probably blow over in a day or so and that his
lordship would then look on things more leniently. Particularly as Lord Sneddon
didn’t make much fuss about it.’

‘Didn’t
he?’ The inspector raised an eyebrow. ‘That doesn’t sound like the Lord Sneddon
I’ve met.  Just the sort of man to make a song and dance about something like
that I’d have thought.’

‘Yes,
but you see he had an inkling that it was…..’ The butler faltered and then reddened.

‘It
would be much better to tell me it all, you know, Crabtree. It’s bound to come
out in the end, it always does.’

‘I’m
sorry, sir, but I don’t think it’s my place to do so. If you don’t mind, I’d
like to get back to my duties now. I need to check on young Doris and the other
servants. They’ve all taken it very badly, as you can imagine, a murder in the
house. I’ll send Mr Hallam in. He can tell you all you need to know about his
lordship’s guests.’

And
before the inspector had a chance to utter a word of protest, Crabtree was
gone.

‘I've
told you, sergeant, I wanted to kill him, believe me I did, but I didn’t do it.
Someone got to him first.’ The young footman stared the sergeant straight in
the eye as if challenging him to question the sincerity of his words.

Lane in
turn looked at him steadily. That Robert meant what he said about wanting to
kill Sneddon he had little doubt but, according to Mrs Gooden, the young man
had been a nervous wreck after the incident with the soup. The sergeant wondered
then whether the footman had sufficient courage to kill a man in cold blood.
Perhaps if Sneddon had provoked him verbally he might have done it. He could
certainly picture the man going to see Sneddon in the library after the rest of
the house had retired to bed. Likewise he could imagine Sneddon laughing at
him, calling him a fool, perhaps saying something derogatory about little Mabel
or questioning the young man’s abilities as a suitor. Yes, he could easily see
Lord Sneddon doing that. It would have caused him amusement to rile a servant
and he would have had no reservations about turning his back on him. The weapon
would have been to hand. According to Crabtree and the maids the gold letter
opener was always kept on the writing table; Josephine Atherton used it to open
her correspondence. So, almost without thinking, Robert could have picked it up
and plunged it into Sneddon’s back. It would have been the work of mere
moments.

‘Robert,
go and finish polishing the silver.’ The entrance of the newcomer had been
unobserved by both Robert and Lane who jumped up from their seats at the
servants’ table. There was a sternness in Crabtree’s voice that indicated that
it was a command and that his instructions were to be immediately adhered to.
With an apologetic look at the sergeant, Robert disappeared and the butler
turned a face red with indignation on the sergeant.

‘I
don’t know what the boy’s been telling you but he didn’t kill Lord Sneddon.’

‘Well,
he certainly denied doing so,’ began Lane. He felt at a distinct disadvantage
being in the servants’ hall. This was Crabtree’s domain where he ruled supreme.
The sergeant’s presence was unwelcome here. Even the young maids who had
giggled when they first saw him, impressed by his good looks and easy charm,
had turned their backs on him at the butler’s entrance. Only old Mrs Gooden had
stubbornly ignored Crabtree’s outburst and poured Lane another cup of tea.

‘Well
he couldn’t have done it even if he had wanted to,’ said the butler. ‘Besides
myself, all the servants’ bedrooms are in the attic. The male and female
servants’ corridors are separated by a door which is kept locked at all times
and to which only Mrs Hodges has a key. As a consequence of what happened to
poor Mabel while Lord Sneddon was visiting, Mrs Hodges also took the precaution
of locking the door to the attic at the top of the stairs on the women’s side.
Likewise I did the same on the men’s side to prevent Robert doing anything
stupid at night or Ricketts pilfering the silver or anything else of value. So
you see, sergeant, Robert, together with the rest of the staff, was effectively
locked in.’

‘I see.
And who is this Ricketts fellow, the one that you don’t trust? I’m somewhat surprised
you keep someone in your employ who you consider untrustworthy.’

‘He is
not an employee of Dareswick. He came with Lord Sneddon as his valet.’

‘
Came
as his valet rather than
is
, or rather
was
, his valet?’

‘I do
not think that he knows the first thing about what the role of being a valet
entails.’

‘I see,
most intriguing, I’m sure the inspector will want to have a word with him in
due course.’ With one last look around, Lane left the servants to their duties.
The thing that struck him most, as he made his way through the green baize
door, was how afraid they all were.

‘So it
looks as if they’re ruled out,’ said Deacon, once Lane had returned to the
study and filled him in on his various conversations with the servants.

‘Yes,
they were locked in for the night, so unless that old stick Crabtree or the
housekeeper did it, they’re in the clear. And I don’t mind telling you, sir,
I’m relieved. That boy Robert’s a loose cannon to be sure, highly strung. Just
the sort of lad, in fact, to do something stupid like bump off Sneddon and then
think about the consequences later. He’s definitely one to act in haste and
repent at leisure, that boy.’

‘Can’t
say I’d blame him on this occasion,’ said the inspector, getting up from the
table to stretch his legs. ‘He was the poor girl’s young man, you say.’

‘Not as
such, no, sir,’ the sergeant said, sadly. ‘They hadn’t got as far as courting
or walking out together, or whatever you want to call it. In fact I’m not sure
Mabel knew how Robert felt about her, he was awfully shy around her, Mrs Hodges,
the housekeeper, told me when he wasn’t there. Trying to pluck up the courage
to ask her out on her next day off, I think he was. And then of course it was
too late. What is a crying shame though, sir, is that he would probably have been
quite happy to take both her and the baby on, you know, made an honest woman of
her and brought up the baby as his own. But she wasn’t to know that, was she? All
the servants feel that they let her down somehow but they weren’t to know, were
they? She never let on, see.’

‘A
tragic story indeed, Sergeant’, agreed Deacon. ‘And it certainly gives us a
motive as to why the servants may have wanted him dead even if they couldn’t
have done the deed themselves.’

‘That’s
not all, sir. It was a great shock to them Sneddon turning up when he did. None
of the servants had any inkling that he would be Miss Isabella’s mysterious
guest. Mrs Hodges said she thought even the baron and the children didn’t know
who Isabella was bringing with her. Didn’t know even if it was going to be one
of her girlfriends or a gentleman. Josephine Atherton insisted that two
bedrooms be got ready just to be on the safe side, one in the women’s corridor
and one in the men’s.’

‘I see,
so it was likely to have been just as much of a shock for the Athertons as it
was for their servants,’ the inspector said thoughtfully, pausing to look at
the picture above the fireplace, an oil painting of a pheasant.

‘You
could say that,’ agreed Lane. ‘Apparently Mr Hallam was right livid when he
discovered who his sister’s guest was, made rather a scene about it he did.  His
father demanded that he behave himself. There was also talk in the servants’
hall that Miss Josephine had had rather a soft spot for Sneddon. There had been
some speculation as to whether there would be a wedding.’

‘In
which case the servants weren’t the only ones to have had ill feelings towards
Sneddon. I’m beginning to wonder whether anyone liked him.  Rather insensitive
of Isabella Atherton to have brought him to the house, I’d have said. Shows a certain
disregard for the feelings of her sister and her father’s servants. Still, she
at least must have seen something in the man to get engaged to him.’

‘Either
that or she just wanted to be a duchess,’ said Lane, cynically. ‘If I remember
rightly, Lord Sneddon was the Duke of Haywater’s only surviving son, wasn’t
he?’

‘He was
indeed. The duke’s two older sons both died in the war and now his youngest one
has been murdered. It just goes to show, Lane, you can have all the riches and
titles in the world but still it all boils down to luck, which the poor duke
appears to have had very little of.’

‘Do you
think that could have been a motive for his murder, sir? Should we be looking
to see who’s next in line to the dukedom?’

‘Possibly,
and yes, of course we should look into that. But I have a feeling the murderer’s
closer to home than that. You heard what old Crabtree said. The French windows
in the library are stuck, so it’s unlikely Sneddon let his murderer in. Also, it
looks as if Sneddon’s decision to come to Dareswick this weekend was rather
last minute, although of course we’ll have to check with Isabella Atherton, so
it’s unlikely that anyone else knew he’d be here.’

‘Oh,
sir, there’s something else that I almost forgot to mention.’

‘And what
is that, Lane?’ enquired Deacon, looking interested.

However,
as it happened, the inspector had to wait a while for an answer. For just at
that minute there was a loud knock on the door and an eager young constable
entered hardly waiting to be admitted.

‘Well,
what is it, Constable?’ Deacon said rather offhand, resenting the disturbance.

‘Sir,
Walsh and I were just making a thorough search of the deceased’s room like you
told us to, before you joined us, like –.’

‘Yes?’
Deacon said, irritably.

‘Well,
we’ve found something, sir, me and Walsh. He said as how you’d better come and
see for yourself, how you wouldn’t want us to move anything without showing you
first.’

‘Right,
Constable, lead the way….’