Deadly Inheritance (36 page)

‘Pigeons, Colonel, at that time of night?’ said Ursula.

He gave a hopeless shrug. ‘That is what my mother appears to believe. Mr Jackman, you have convinced me that my brother might well have been shot by someone unknown. I would be grateful if you would attempt to discover from those villagers who were here at yesterday’s celebrations, what time they left and if they saw anyone approach the belvedere. It cannot be seen from where the marquee was placed but someone might have noticed a person coming up from the river towards it, for instance. I think it unlikely anyone would have been bold enough to come round the house.’

‘Certainly, sir. When would you like me to report to you?’

Charles thought for a moment then suggested around six o’clock that evening.

Mr Jackman handed over the shotgun he had used for his demonstration, picked up the two chairs and walked swiftly away, just as two men appeared.

The Colonel straightened his shoulders. ‘Ah, the coroner and the Chief Constable. Miss Grandison, would you …?’

‘Of course.’

‘I will come and find you after they have conducted their examination.’

‘Will you …?’

‘Tell them the result of Mr Jackman’s little experiment? I will indeed, Miss Grandison.’ He seemed hurt that she would think anything else.

* * *

Ursula went back into the house feeling shattered. What was being suggested seemed impossible. And yet … 

No sooner had she returned inside than Belle found her.

‘Oh, Ursula, isn’t it awful?’ Her pretty face was crumpled with distress. ‘And did you really find him? Come to my room and tell me what happened; no! That nosy maid of mine will interrupt us. Let’s go to yours instead.’

So once again they sought privacy in Ursula’s bedroom. Belle didn’t seem to want to talk until they were safely there. Passing the door of the nursery, Ursula thought that she heard Harry crying.

Belle sat on the bed and pulled Ursula down beside her. Then she wiped away tears from eyes already red with crying. ‘Now, tell me everything.’

‘How much do you know?’

‘Didier woke me with the news. She said that there had been a terrible accident and that the Earl had been shot.’ She looked up at Ursula. ‘I can’t believe it! Richard dead! She couldn’t tell me anything else, except that he had been found by the Dowager Countess and you.’ She sounded incredulous. ‘Helen is with Harry,’ she continued, ‘and I can’t find William.’ Suddenly she dissolved in a flood of tears.

Ursula put her arm around the girl and held her tightly. ‘I’m afraid it is all true.’ She swallowed hard. ‘There’s … there’s a sort of investigation going on.’

‘What do you mean?’ Belle’s eyes were huge, distraught.

Ursula took a deep breath and tried to put her thoughts into order. ‘We, that is the Dowager Countess and I, found the Earl’s body lying on the stone bench in the belvedere. A shotgun was on the ground beside him. The Dowager is certain there was an accident, that he was shooting pigeons and the gun misfired.’ To her own ears it sounded a ridiculously improbable event. ‘Have you spoken with Helen?’

Belle shook her head. She had lost all her colour and sat working her hands together in a distressed way.

‘Helen will need your support now,’ Ursula suggested. ‘It’s good that she will have you at her side.’ Surely Belle would be able to summon sisterly compassion, allow Helen to pour out her sorrow? Ursula could not see her doing so to her mother-in-law or, most especially, to herself. But she must need someone to confide her feelings in.

Belle did not look at all sympathetic. ‘She’s a widow now, isn’t she?’

Ursula nodded.

‘She’ll want to marry William,’ Belle suddenly wailed. ‘I know she will.’ Huge sobs followed.

For a moment Ursula was stunned. Then she realised how distressed the girl was and gathered her tightly into her arms again. ‘Shhh, shhh, you don’t know that.’

Belle pulled back with a pout. ‘She warned me off William when we first arrived. Told me straight he was not for me. I knew what she meant by that. She’s always been selfish.’ Despite the fact Helen had spent the last seven years in England, there was a history of sisterly resentment in Belle’s voice. ‘And now I won’t get to make my debut!’ she wailed. ‘We will all have to go into mourning for months and months. I am getting measured for two black outfits this afternoon to be made by tomorrow. You are to have one as well. By the time the mourning is over, the Season will be too.’

‘It’s only a matter of dances,’ Ursula tried to comfort her.

‘Balls!’ Belle protested. ‘And being presented. Hardly anyone in New York is presented to royalty.’

‘Maybe a private presentation to their Majesties can be arranged.’ Ursula had no idea whether this was possible, yet, somehow, she had to get Belle thinking positively. ‘Perhaps you and Helen can go to Paris or Italy and do some sightseeing instead.’ What on earth, she wondered, was the form for English aristocrats dealing with recent widowhood? Whatever the rituals the Dowager would consider appropriate, Ursula was certain Helen would follow her own desires.

Would they really include marrying William Warburton? Did he have anything to offer beyond good looks and a neat figure? Surely Helen would need more?

‘She won’t want to do anything for me, Ursula. Helen only ever wants to do what she wants. And I’m sure that means marrying William!’

‘Darling Belle, I am sure Helen hasn’t any such thought in mind. She will have far, far too much to cope with over the coming months even to think of marriage. And can you see the Dowager Countess countenancing Harry’s mama doing any such thing?’

Belle seemed struck by this. She took the handkerchief Ursula offered and wiped her eyes. ‘You mean, I can get together with William while Helen gets on with … well, whatever she has to get on with?’

Somehow Ursula managed not to sigh. ‘He obviously finds you very attractive,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You can make him laugh and men love that.’

‘Oh, you are right, Ursula! And I do make him laugh. And he loves horseback riding with me. Helen won’t have time for that.’

It took a little more time but Belle was at last more cheerful and Ursula sent her off to find William Warburton.

With her hand on the doorknob, Belle turned back for a moment. ‘You do not know, Ursula, how determined my sister can be. I do not think there is anything she would not do to gain her way. But she is not going to get William.’

* * *

Ursula walked slowly through the rose garden. Looking towards the belvedere, she saw the coroner and the Chief Constable talking with Colonel Stanhope. As she watched, the three men started towards the Dowager’s apartment. Ursula retreated.

She went to the library and found a couple of sheets of paper and a pencil. The sun slanted in through the windows, motes dancing in its rays. The atmosphere was calm and peaceful and Ursula longed to stay there but the Colonel would almost certainly bring the two officials in for further discussion.

She went to the hall and asked Albert, the footman on duty, if there was a quiet room where she would not be disturbed.

She was shown into the smoking room. Square, permeated with the aroma of cigars, the walls badly discoloured and hung with hunting scenes, it was furnished with more leather chairs. The harshly masculine atmosphere made Ursula feel uncomfortable.

Shivering and telling herself that it was lack of sleep that made her feel so cold, she sat in a chair that caught the sun. Her head throbbed with tension. So many unacceptable details fought around her mind and she wanted to deny them all.

There were the various facts and suppositions that had been thrown at her by Thomas Jackman. There was the suspicion that the Colonel was so willing to accept the detective’s vision of events because he could not bear to believe that his brother may have shot himself. There was the unpleasant feeling she had experienced in Helen’s boudoir that morning. And there was Belle’s distress.

Ursula put aside the problem of Belle and Mr Warburton for the moment and tried to consider the trustworthiness of Thomas Jackman. Why, she wondered, had he left the police force? Surely the Colonel must have been given a solid reference for him by whatever senior Scotland Yard official had produced the recommendation. Apart from that, she had to admit that there was a quiet confidence about the man that suggested he was not someone who would lay claim to a competence he did not have.

Ursula turned her reluctant mind to consider the possibility that the Earl really had committed suicide. Quite apart from the shock and the shame, it was no wonder the Colonel did not want to accept that his brother had been in such a desperate state that he found death a more attractive option than life. Why would the Earl not have turned to him for help? He would read suicide as a bitter rejection of himself. But why should the Earl kill himself? He seemed to have everything: a magnificent, if decrepit, home, a beautiful wife and a gorgeous son. How could he want to leave all that?

Ursula began to make brief notes, supporting her paper on some hunting magazines.

As she worked, the quiet of the room and warmth of the sun began to calm her. Her pencil moved increasingly slowly. Gradually it stopped. Almost without her realising it, Ursula’s eyes closed.

She had no idea how long she dozed or what woke her but when she opened her eyes she saw that, sitting opposite, was the Colonel.

He smiled at her. She felt a curious lethargy and wished they could go on sitting quietly together like this, ignoring the world outside.

He raised the piece of paper he held. ‘I hope I did not disturb you. Albert told me where you were hiding and I found you sleeping so peacefully. This paper was on the ground by your chair. Forgive me, I have been reading your notes.’

She would not have chosen to show him what she had written but perhaps it was for the best.

‘“Possibilities”,’ he read. ‘“One: the Earl did commit suicide despite Mr Jackman’s expertise. Questions: Why would he? Is there a farewell note? Two: He suffered an accident with his gun. How likely is this? Does the Dowager really believe it? Three,” your pencil has dug into the paper here as though you had to force yourself to contemplate this possibility. ‘‘Three: Someone else shot him. Again, why? And who?”’ He looked up at her. ‘A stark but efficient summing up of the situation. You have saved me from making a similar list of points. But I do not understand what you have added at the end.’ He frowned. ‘Here is William Warburton’s name with two arrows, one pointing towards Belle’s name and the other to Helen’s. Then below that you have written: ‘‘Polly’’.’ He gave her a keen look. ‘Would you be prepared to share your thoughts with me?’

Ursula pulled herself upright and forced her mind to concentrate.

‘I’m not sure I can,’ she said slowly.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You do not trust me?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing to do with trust.’

‘Ah, a matter of keeping confidences?’

She felt a small jolt of pleasure at his quick understanding but said nothing.

‘Let me see.’ Another frown as he studied the paper again. ‘Miss Seldon has formed an attachment to Mr Warburton. Is that it?’

Again Ursula said nothing.

‘But surely you aren’t suggesting that Helen has also formed an attachment?’

He sounded as though that was impossible. For the first time Ursula realised that Helen’s widowhood might encourage the Colonel to think he could comfort her. Marriage was forbidden between such close relatives but Helen would not let that stop her forming a liaison, if that was what she wanted. She dismissed the thought.

‘Belle, poor girl, is desperately in love with Mr Warburton and has formed the idea that now her sister is a widow, she will want to marry him.’

‘Has she – or you – seen or heard anything to suggest that that would be the case?’ His voice was perfectly even.

‘No, nothing,’ Ursula said firmly. After all, she told herself, she might have misread that morning’s atmosphere. ‘At least, not as far as I am concerned. And Belle couldn’t tell me why she believes it.’ She paused for a moment. ‘She is a girl who seems to follow instinct rather than rational thought.’

The Colonel went back to studying Ursula’s notes. ‘And you have added Polly’s name because?’

Glad to have moved on from the subject of Helen, Ursula said, ‘Two violent deaths within such a short space of time must surely give rise to speculation that they could in some way be connected.’

‘Hmmm.’

Ursula waited.

Then, ‘Let us consider each of your points in turn. First, I have no reason not to trust Jackman but no proof that he is so experienced in these matters that he can be considered a true expert.’

‘Why is he no longer serving at Scotland Yard?’

‘A good question. I understand it was a matter of a personality clash between him and his superior officer. Jackman preferred to resign rather than be demoted. Which could mean he failed in some way. However, he was recommended to me by someone whose judgement I respect.’ He returned his attention to the paper. ‘You are quite right to ask if Richard left a note.’ He felt in his pocket. ‘I found this poking out from beneath one of his feet.’

Ursula took the piece of paper with a slight shiver. Even in the depths of his shock, the Colonel had been in control of himself enough to notice this scrap – it was no more than that:
Charles, forgive me. I have no other option.

‘Is it your brother’s handwriting?’

‘I have had few letters from him; he has never been a good correspondent, but, yes, it looks like his. However, he might well have started a note to me and been distracted. Maybe he changed his mind and threw it into a waste paper basket – from where it was rescued by someone else.’

‘That would mean they had access to his study.’ Ursula shivered again. The unlikely possibility that the Earl had been shot by another hand than his own was gradually beginning to look as though it should be seriously considered.

‘And why should,’ the Colonel continued, ‘Richard put it underneath his foot? Surely if he wanted to leave a note apologising for his action, he would have said more and left it in his bedroom or study?’