Dead Man Riding (24 page)

The road dipped down to a stone bridge over a stream. On the other side of the bridge was a drive entrance with a pair of white-painted wrought-iron gates closed across it and ‘Beck Hall' carved on a slab of green slate, all very neat and orderly. I unlatched the gate and walked down the drive between tall dark hedges of rhododendron. After a bend in the drive the hedge on my right fell away and I was looking down on the side of the house and the stable yard. It was a substantial stable yard, almost as impressive as the Old Man's. Following the curve of the drive I came to a broad semicircle of gravel, a flight of steps and a front door flanked by red brick pillars curved like sticks of barley sugar. From the top of the steps there was a view down over the patch of woodland where Major Mawbray had been standing the morning we rode out with the Old Man and beyond it the mares' field.

I took a deep breath and tugged the black-laquered knob labelled ‘Bell' beside the right-hand barley sugar pillar. The door was opened almost immediately by a woman in her thirties, hair scraped back, and wearing a dark dress. She looked an achingly neat and respectable housekeeper, nothing like Dulcie. I asked if Major Mawbray were in.

‘I'm sorry, miss, he's gone down to the town. Was he expecting you?'

I said no and don't worry I'd call some other time, angry with myself for feeling relieved. She asked if she should tell him who'd called. The response to that should have been to leave my card – but what student carries calling cards? I apologised again and heard the door close behind me as I walked down the steps.

*   *   *

After screwing up my courage to meet Major Mawbray, it would have been too much of an admission of defeat to walk straight back home. I went slowly back to the road junction and decided to stroll a little way towards the town on the chance of meeting Alan and Meredith coming back from the inquest. After a mile or so, with the temperature rising all the time and my best shoes pinching, I knew that was a bad idea and anyway they might have passed while I was at Beck Hall and be home already. So I turned back again but hadn't gone far up the road when I heard the sound of hooves behind me. Although they were coming from the town I knew from the light and sharp sound of the hooves that it couldn't be Bobbin and the wagonette. It was a smart little Stanhope gig with a bay going at a brisk hackney trot and the driver very correct and upright in black suit and bowler hat, holding a long driving whip. I stood aside to let it go past. The driver touched his whip to his hat brim, politely acknowledging me for giving way, and for the third time in a few days our eyes met. The gig's momentum took it past, then it came to a halt some way ahead of me and he turned round in his seat. I walked towards him, trying not to hurry, wishing my heart weren't thumping so much. He looked anything but pleased to see me.

‘I've seen you before, haven't I?'

Not the most polite of starts, with him leaning down like squire to peasant, and yet I guessed he was a man who usually valued politeness. Sounding as cool and distant as I could with my face glowing from the sun, I introduced myself and explained that I was staying with his late neighbour, Mr Beston. He winced, but there was no telling if it was at the name or a twinge of pain in his stomach.

‘Perhaps you'd care to accompany me some of the way back,' he said, very correct and formal.

‘Thank you.'

He held out a yellow-gloved hand to help me as I put my foot on the step and swung into the seat beside him. We set off again at a trot, which in a two-wheeled vehicle on a rutted road doesn't make for conversation and he didn't try, just stared straight ahead. When we reached the point where the road turned off for Studholme Hall he brought the gig to a smart halt. This was where I should have thanked him and gone on my way. I was just nerving myself to say I wanted to talk to him when he got in first.

‘Perhaps you'd care to come and have tea with me?' he said in that same weary voice that had sentenced the poachers. I stared. ‘Won't you come into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly.

‘Thank you. That's very kind.'

I smiled as well as I could manage and settled myself back in the seat. At a walk now, because the track was narrow, we turned right along the road then through the gateway and down the drive to his house. I noticed that the gates had been opened ready for him. There was more evidence of an efficiently run household when we turned into the stable yard and found a groom waiting to take the reins as soon as we came to a stop, touching his cap to the Major in a gesture like a salute. The groom was a strong-looking man, middle-aged with close-cropped hair, very much the ex-soldier. The Major and I walked round to the front of the house, our feet crunching on new yellow gravel.

‘Was your groom with you in the army?' I asked.

He jumped, as if his thoughts had been a long way away and I suppose my question was impertinent, but I'd decided you didn't have to mind your manners too much in the spider's parlour.

‘Oh yes. Sinclair's been with us a long time.'

No doubt he was strong, loyal, good with horses, used to taking orders and not asking questions. Useful, I thought, but didn't say it. The housekeeper must have heard us coming as well because she opened the front door as soon as we set foot in the porch. She looked surprised to see me again so soon, but said nothing.

‘Tea in the front parlour please, Mrs Bell. I expect Miss Bray would like the chance to wash her hands.'

Mrs Bell showed me up a wide dark wood staircase, with rainbow colours spilling over it from stained-glass panels in the window on the landing. New, strident stained glass. The bathroom was the size of most people's sitting rooms, with mahogany fittings, modern plumbing and more stained glass in the window. I used the lavatory, washed my hands and smoothed down my hair with them (I'd lost my comb somewhere as usual) and inspected my sunburned nose in the mirror. Downstairs, the housekeeper was waiting to show me into the parlour.

‘Major Mawbray will be with you in a minute. Do you take milk?'

She poured Earl Grey and left me to entertain myself with piles of sporting magazines or oil paintings of plain men with handsome horses. Neither appealed, so I wandered over to the grand piano. It was closed and looked as if nobody had opened it in a long time, with a fringed paisley shawl draped over it and family photographs in silver frames on top. There were several different portrait studies of the same person, a fair-haired woman with a soulful look, big dark eyes and a penchant for lacy shawls and collars. In one of the pictures a boy of about five years old was standing beside her in pale satin jacket and knickerbockers, glowering at the camera. He had his mother's fair hair and dark eyes, but there was nothing soulful about him. Major Mawbray came in and saw me looking at the picture.

‘My wife Lilia. She died seven years ago.'

‘And that's your son with her?'

He gave a nod. He didn't want to talk about him. He poured hot water into his teacup, took a small blue bottle out of his pocket, palmed a couple of pills and gulped them down.

‘So you're a friend of Beston's nephew?'

‘Yes. You probably saw us out riding on your land.'

There was no point in beating about the bush. I knew he hadn't invited me there for the pleasure of my conversation. In fact, it was hard to imagine him finding pleasure in anything. He was looking at me as he'd looked at the poachers in the dock and there was a tension about him, as if he didn't know what to do with me now he'd got me there. It would have been convenient to think it came from guilt, but I guessed there was another reason. Major Mawbray, protected first by military tradition then the life of a country squire, wouldn't have had any personal contact with what newspapers and magazines called The New Woman. He'd have read about her though and would know her habits, like appearing in public unchaperoned, wearing bloomers and having unconventional relationships with men. In his limited knowledge of me, I fitted the bill all too well. That question about being a friend of Beston's nephew possibly implied that I was Alan's lover but I could hardly say, ‘No, that's my best friend'. I contemplated taking one of his cigars from the humidor on the table and sitting down to smoke it legs crossed, just to complete the picture for him, but I'd tried a cigar once and it had made me cough. Instead I settled demurely on an uncomfortable chair with a shiny and overstuffed seat. None of the parlour furniture seemed built for relaxing. He stayed on his feet.

‘Old Beston never had any respect for anybody's property.'

Did that include Dulcie? I almost asked him. At least he wasn't pretending to be polite. It made things easier.

‘Do you think Mr Beston killed your son?'

He looked at me steadily with eyes like wet pebbles. ‘He admitted firing in the dark at where Arthur was. What am I expected to think?'

‘But the police have never found your son's body.'

He shook his head and turned away to pour more hot water. While he was pouring he said almost casually, ‘I've just got back from the inquest.'

That surprised me. I knew magistrates had no obligation to attend inquests.

‘What happened?'

‘They took evidence of identity and the doctor's evidence then adjourned until this time next week, pending further inquiries. The coroner released the body for burial.'

‘Much as we expected,' I said.

‘I gather you discovered his body, Miss Bray.'

‘Did that come out at the inquest?'

‘No.'

So the police had been talking. A magistrate would naturally hear the gossip. At least I knew now why he'd brought me there, so his next question didn't come as a surprise.

‘How did he die?'

‘On his horse, the stallion.'

‘A fall?'

‘No, but it looks as if the horse might have rolled on him and there was a bump on his head as if he'd hit it hard on something.'

He nodded. I suppose some of that might have come out in the doctor's evidence.

‘I heard something about him having tied himself on.'

Significant. It meant that either the police had no suspicion that anybody else was involved, or Major Mawbray was pretending they hadn't. It was an uneasy game I was playing, telling him just enough to see how he reacted without giving too much away.

‘Yes.'

‘Why would he do that?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Do you think he killed himself – remorse for what he did to Arthur?'

I turned the question back on him. ‘Do you think so?'

‘I don't think he was capable of it.'

‘Remorse or killing himself?'

He didn't answer, apart from inviting me to help myself to more tea. I was thirsty so I did, taking a look round while I drank. The parlour obviously doubled as a library with serveral shelves of books that didn't look as if they'd been read for years, if ever, mostly campaign histories and manuals of estate management. But there was one section of poetry books, conventional enough in range – Keats, Tennyson, Browning, and Byron of course. The books were in a shelf by the window so I had to screw my eyes up against the sun, trying to see if the Byron might be out of alignment with the rest, as if somebody had been reading it recently. As far as I could see it wasn't. He saw where I was looking.

‘Sun bothering you?' He made a move to pull the blind down.

‘Are you fond of poetry?'

He blinked at this sudden dip into drawing-room conversation. ‘Not much time for it. My wife liked it though.'

‘Byron?'

‘Mostly Browning, as far as I remember.'

That was as close as I wanted to get to
Mazeppa
. After the literary diversion there was more silence and I was on the point of saying I must be going when he spoke again.

‘I suppose the nephew's the heir, takes on the horses and the lease and so on?'

From the hard edge to his voice and the way he'd turned away from me again this was an important question to him. It was certainly beyond the bounds of polite curiosity and I might have told him it was none of his business, except I'd got precious little for my trouble so far and was seized with an urge to experiment.

‘His great nephew Alan gets the horses and quite a lot of money. The rest of his estate goes to Dulcie Berryman in trust for her child by him.'

‘What?' An undisciplined yelp from a thoroughly disciplined man. ‘What did you say?'

I repeated it. He looked at me for what seemed like minutes then sat down heavily on a couch.

‘Can I get you anything?' I was alarmed at what I'd done. He'd looked ill before, but now he seemed to be struggling to sit upright. Luckily there was a knock on the door and the housekeeper looked in, probably to see if we needed more tea.

‘Are you feeling bad, sir? Would you like me to fetch you your other medicine?'

He nodded, tight lipped. She was back soon with a spoon and medicine bottle on a tray. It gave him a chance to recover and me the excuse to go. I thanked him for the tea and the lift.

‘Sinclair will drive you back if you like.'

But I preferred to walk, back up the drive to the crossroads, turn right for Studholme Hall. Why had the news about Dulcie done that to him? Simple jealousy? Men could be appallingly jealous in sexual matters. Midge, Imogen and I had discussed it sometimes in a mostly literary way, Othello and so on, and now we had the more immediate example of Kit, but I hadn't expected such an attack of it in the Major's case. Odd, too, how some women seemed to have a kind of gift for causing it. It was a relief to be out of the parlour and back in the sun. I strode along wondering what I'd got for my efforts and decided it didn't amount to much. I knew that the Major had a strong and efficient groom, but I could have guessed that. I knew the Major didn't writhe with guilt at the mention of poetry by Byron, but might have expected that too.