A Question of Inheritance (16 page)

‘What did he want?’ Hugo said.

‘He wanted, no, demanded to see his lordship,’ Mrs Partridge said indignantly. ‘He wouldn’t believe it when I said he wasn’t here, and I thought for a moment he was going to turn quite nasty. I told him straight out, it was outrageous coming up on Christmas Day demanding to see his lordship and did his lordship know him?

‘He said, “Oh, his lordship will know me right enough.” He sounded angry, that sort of cold anger that makes one nervous. But I stood my ground and I told him he’d have to write a letter asking for his lordship for an appointment like any normal gentleman would. The sauce of it, coming marching in like that. I asked how he’d got in. Well, of course, the doors and everything are all open here, so I knew he hadn’t needed to break in. But that’s no excuse, as I told him.’

‘And that was what the police were interested in?’ Freya said.

Pam said, ‘That and the phone call Mr Seynton made when he came back in from his walk.’

‘Phone call?’ Hugo said.

Mrs Partridge said, ‘That’s right, he came in here and said he needed to make a phone call, could he use the telephone. Very abrupt he was. I told where him where the telephone is, although I’m sure he knew. And off he went.’

Hugo said to Pam, ‘Did you get any idea who he was telephoning?’

Pam shook her head. ‘That’s what the police wanted to know. No, I wasn’t really listening. I’d just gone to Grace Hall because Mrs Partridge said I could ring up my mum to say I’d be back a bit later than expected, as there was so much to do here. Of course, my mum isn’t on the telephone but I knew Irene at the exchange would be coming off duty and she’d drop in and give Mum a message.’

Leo said, ‘Only you couldn’t make the call because Mr Seynton was using the telephone?’

‘I didn’t want him to see me, so I waited for a few minutes. It wasn’t a long call, but just when he put the receiver down, I could hear they were all back from Veryan House. I heard Lady Sonia’s voice and I thought she might not like me using the phone. And then I saw that Mr Dauntsey had come into Grace Hall and so I made myself scarce. I didn’t call Mum until later, but I just managed to catch Irene so it was all right.’

‘It seems have been an eventful afternoon here while we were all taking tea at Veryan House,’ Leo said.

‘Did you hear what Mr Seynton said, Pam?’ Hugo asked.

‘I wasn’t paying much attention, just hoping he didn’t notice me and that he’d get off the line so I could make my call.’

Freya said to Mrs Partridge, ‘I suppose the town is abuzz with the news?’

Mrs Partridge said, ‘You may be sure it is. Two bodies in the space of a few months? That’s excitement, that is.’

Freya said, ‘Three, Mrs P. You forget about Jason Filbert.’

Mrs Partridge said, ‘Forgetting about Jason Filbert is the best thing to do, the dreadful old reprobate. Well, his death was as near as natural as can be for somebody as wicked as that. I dare say Old Nick came in person to carry him off, begging your pardon, Mr Leo.’

Scene 7

Georgia spied the brown-paper parcel on the kitchen table and said, ‘What’s that?’

Freya said, ‘It’s a book that Dinah brought for Leo.’

Georgia said, ‘I saw her going off down the drive. Is that why she came? Or was she being nosy?’

‘Georgia!’ Hugo said automatically.

‘Okay, don’t bite me. I didn’t think she’d be a rubbernecker.’

Freya said, ‘A what?’

‘Polly says that’s what they called in America, people who want to have a look when there’s been an accident or something’s happened. I think everybody in Selchester would be a rubbernecker if they got the chance. You could charge them half a crown to come up and look at the hothouse. Put some extra money into Gus’s pockets.’

Hugo couldn’t help laughing. ‘Georgia, you are a wretch.’ But he was relieved that she didn’t seem to be too upset. Of course, she had had her own brush with death and, like all children who’d lived through the war, knew something of the imminence of the Grim Reaper.

Freya said, ‘Where are Babs and Polly now? I thought you were playing skittles.’

Georgia said, ‘We were. But it’s no fun. They do something called bowling in America which is like skittles. They’re awfully good at it. They smash the whole set of skittles in about two goes and when I roll the ball and I hit just one. Anyhow, they’ve gone off to tell the bees.’

Hugo said, ‘Tell the bees?’

Georgia said, in her most patient voice, ‘It sounds odd, doesn’t it? But they say you’re supposed to tell the bees what happened in the house, so that’s what they’ve done. And Polly said it had to be her or Babs to do it, seeing as how, it’s their home now.’ She pulled a face. ‘So I thought I’d come to the kitchen and see if there’s anything to eat.

Freya said, ‘You didn’t feel inclined to go along to the bees?’

Georgia gave her a dark look. ‘You know jolly well I didn’t. Those bees don’t like me. I got stung three times last time I went anywhere near them. I think Polly and Babs are brave to go. In fact, I call it foolhardy. And they’re not planning to put on all those veils and things either. Polly says that when you go to tell them something they all sit quietly and listen. I think that’s a lot of hooey, they’ll probably come in any moment stung all over.’

Hugo said, ‘How’s Polly taking it?’

Georgia shrugged. ‘She feels nervous about being in the Castle anyway, always wondering if there’s a ghost around the next corner or thinking something is going to happen to her father. But as he’s perfectly all right, I don’t think there’s any point making a fuss about it.’

Georgia took the biscuit tin down from the shelf and helped herself to one. ‘I bet that whoever did it didn’t intend to kill Oliver. After all, the person who’d been fiddling around with electricity and would be likely to go in there and get electrocuted was his lordship.’

‘You didn’t say that to Polly?’ Freya said.

‘No, but—’ She rammed another biscuit into her mouth as Leo and Gus came into the kitchen.

Hugo looked a question and Leo nodded. ‘All done. I think we could both do with a cup of coffee if there’s any in that pot, Freya.’

Gus asked Georgia, ‘Do you know where Polly and Babs are?

She told him, and he smiled. ‘
Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda
.’

Georgia regarded him suspiciously. ‘That’s Latin.’

Leo obligingly translated. ‘First find a settled home for your bees. Vergil, Georgia.’

‘I like all that farming stuff in Vergil, though he gets it all wrong about bees. It’s much more fun than those bits of the
Aeneid
we have to do with old
pius Aeneas
.’

Hugo thought how bizarre it was that they were sitting round the kitchen table talking about Latin poetry.

Gus said, ‘Hugo, the Superintendent wants you to ring Sir Bernard. I don’t know why.’

Hugo wasn’t going to tell him. He got up from the table. ‘Does he? I suppose I’d better do so.’

Scene 8

Hugo left the kitchen and went out to Grace Hall. He lifted up the receiver and asked to be put through to Thorn Hall. He knew why Sir Bernard needed to be told. Standing orders were that anything untoward which happened in Selchester, especially if it had any connection to the Castle, had to be reported to Sir Bernard. Hugo couldn’t see that the death of Oliver would have anything to do with the Service, but orders were orders. He got through to the Duty Officer, told him what had happened and said that the police wanted Sir Bernard to be notified.

Roger Bailey was the Duty Officer, a man who had taken a dislike to Hugo for reasons which escaped him. He said, ‘Sooner you than me, Hugo You haven’t been here long enough to know that when Sir Bernard’s off he’s off.’

Hugo said, ‘Has he gone away for Christmas?’

‘He has. Not far, well, nobody could with the weather the way it is. He’s in the next county. I have his number, and if you feel like braving it, you can telephone.’

Hugo took the number down, got the exchange to connect him again and finally an irascible Sir Bernard came on the line. ‘Hugo? Why are you ringing me? You’re not the Duty Officer. Is something up?’

Hugo explained. ‘Superintendent MacLeod said you had to be informed. So I’m informing you.’

There was a silence, and then Sir Bernard, sounding slightly less irritable, said, ‘Quite right. I shan’t be back at the Hall the till the end of next week. We need to be kept informed. You liaised with the police very capably over Selchester’s death. You can do the same now. Tell the Superintendent so, on my authority. Goodbye.’

‘And a merry Christmas to you too,’ Hugo said to himself as he put the receiver down. How would the Superintendent feel about him tagging along? They hadn’t worked too amicably together over Selchester’s death, and he wasn’t sure that the Superintendent would welcome his intrusion into the present case.

He went to find him. The police had taken over the late Lord Selchester’s study, which Hugo supposed made a kind of sense. A constable at the door announced Hugo and the Superintendent looked up from the desk.

‘Ah, Mr Hawksworth. Do you have something to tell me?’

Hugo passed on Sir Bernard’s message.

As he’d expected, the Superintendent didn’t look pleased, but he said in a resigned voice, ‘Always the way with the Hall. Well, I’ll tell you where we’ve got with our investigations, which is not very far. It being Boxing Day doesn’t help. I’d like to have the Yard take over on this, but with the weather conditions there’s no way they can.’

Good. MacLeod had his faults, but he would be easier to deal with than someone from Scotland Yard.

‘We put a call through to London, and they’ve said we’re in charge of the case. I’ve put in hand inquiries at the London end, because it seems that nobody here knows much about this Mr Seynton at all. Merely that he was here to advise Lord Selchester about paintings and the person who recommended him to his lordship was Lady Sonia. She says she knows practically nothing about him, except that a lot of her friends use him for business to do with pictures, and he works for the auctioneers. She knows nothing of any family, and,’ he added, ‘clearly is not in the slightest bit interested.’ He became more human, ‘You’d think since she was here as a guest that she’d show a little more feeling.’

Hugo said, ‘You can’t always judge people’s feelings from what they say. And after all, Oliver wasn’t invited for Christmas. He was due to leave on Christmas Eve.’

The Superintendent grunted. ‘I wish he had.’

Hugo said, treading carefully, ‘I suppose you are quite sure that Oliver Seynton was the intended victim?’

That earned him a sharp look from the Superintendent. ‘Do you have any reason to think it should be anyone else?’

‘There have been two or three incidents which in the light of what’s happened here might indicate that somebody wanted to kill Lord Selchester.’

That earned him a hard look from the Superintendent ‘Go on.’

The Superintendent listened in silence and then asked Hugo to write down an account of everything he remembered from the time the fuses went until the body was discovered.

‘We’ve questioned everyone, of course, and I’m putting together a fairly accurate picture of where people were, and when, but in a place this size over the Christmas season it’s not going to be a great deal of help. And it’s just as likely to have been an outside job, to be honest. Particularly in the light of what you just told me.’

Hugo was surprised. ‘An outside job? It doesn’t seem likely. Who would know that there’d been a problem with the electricity in the hothouse and that Lord Selchester was dealing with it?’

The Superintendent said, ‘Most of Selchester, after he’d been into Hodges’s for fuse wire. The fuse box is there in the passageway and any number of people know about it. The back door into the kitchen wing at the Castle is rarely locked and everyone knows that’s the case. But at the moment, we’re particularly interested in the man who turned up demanding to see his lordship on Christmas Day. It sounds like it might be the man staying at Nightingale Cottage.

‘The mystery tenant, Mr Sampson.’

‘Yes. He’s still there; I was a bit worried that he might have done a flit but he hasn’t. I sent a constable along to check and we’re keeping an eye on him. I’ll get him in for questioning when I’m back in the town. But he’s not the only one. In view of what’s taken place at the Castle, I don’t like what I hear about these other attempts on his lordship’s life. It’s not likely that some local person in Selchester was also on the liner. So any strangers about the place warrant further investigation.’

Hugo retreated to the library to write a precis of events for the Superintendent. Leo was in another alcove writing letters and Freya had taken Last Hurrah out for some exercise. Georgia was helping Mrs Partridge in the kitchen. Although, as Hugo remarked to Leo, ‘I’m not sure what she means by helping. I think it mostly consists of licking the bowl from the chocolate cake that Mrs Partridge is making.’

Scene 9

When Hugo had finished his report, he decided to walk down into the town and give it to the Superintendent, who’d driven off in the police car a little while ago.

Since he’d moved to Selchester, Hugo had grown used to walking in the darkness of the countryside. His life up to then had been essentially urban, spent in either in London or in the various capitals and mean streets of occupied and then post-war Europe. He’d come to like the intense stillness of the countryside, the inky velvet darkness of the night, the stars and the sounds that carried so far and so clearly on still nights like this.

The moon was only just waning and so in the bright, if eerie, moonlight, he had no difficulty finding his way down to the Castle gates. He turned right to go over the bridge and into the town. It was very quiet in Selchester, with most people still indoors and enjoying the last few hours of the Boxing Day holiday.

It wasn’t quiet inside the police station, which was a positive hive of activity. Murder wasn’t a usual crime in this town. He told the Sergeant on duty at the desk that he had something to leave for the Superintendent and then looked around as a tall man in a belted mackintosh, shaking his shoulders as though to slough off his surroundings, came out of the Superintendent’s office. He glared at the Sergeant, glanced at Hugo and then strode out of the door.