Deadly Inheritance (41 page)

While the Colonel and Ursula had been with Helen, Thomas Jackman had been sent to talk to Mrs Parsons about the movements of the staff at the fête.

Now a servant was despatched to the stables to issue instructions for the trap to be harnessed. Another one was ordered to tell Mr Jackman to meet Miss Grandison there. ‘You can drive a trap?’ the Colonel queried as an afterthought.

Ursula grinned. ‘Fine time to ask! But, yes, your confidence is not misplaced.’

He gave her a heart-warming smile. ‘My confidence in you, Miss Grandison, is never misplaced.’

* * *

Clad in a jacket against the cooling air, and abandoning the stick she had become so used to depending on, Ursula went out to the stables.

Thomas Jackman was already there, standing very still, and looking at the harnessed trap and horse with an expression of misgiving. It was his eyes that made her distrust him, Ursula decided. They seemed to assess everything he looked at – to find everything wanting. Anyone that cynical did not deserve her consideration.

‘Ready?’ she said briskly.

He nodded, took a firm grip on the side of the vehicle and hauled himself up.

Ursula thought he might have helped her first. She accepted the aid of the groom.

‘Beauty’s thrown a shoe so it’s Barnaby you’ve got there, Miss Grandison. He’s steady as they come, long as you keep him straight.’

She looked at the sturdy chestnut horse, at the way he rolled his eyes, and then at the groom with a tinge of distrust. ‘What are you saying, Jem?’

His gaze slipped from hers. ‘Nothing, miss, just that if you don’t keep him straight, he can do a bit of a dance, like.’

‘Bit of a dance,’ repeated Ursula thoughtfully. ‘Well, I’d better keep him straight, then.’ She picked up the reins, flicked them at Barnaby’s back and said, ‘Gee up, there.’

‘Know what you’re doing and where we’re going, do you?’ asked Thomas Jackman.

She looked ahead, avoiding the penetrating eyes, nodded serenely and kept Barnaby trotting happily down the drive. The sun was low in the sky. Ursula decided that the interview with Mr Gray should be a short one; she wanted to be back at Mountstanton well before dark.

‘Did you have a productive meeting with Mrs Parsons, Mr Jackman?’

‘What a woman for talking round a subject without ever getting to the heart of it. I learned a great deal about the way Mountstanton is run without getting to know anything of use to my investigation. Tell me what we’re supposed to be doing when we meet this Gray fellow.’

Ursula fought with renewed irritation. Both the task she was faced with and the man who was with her were equally distasteful. Then she took a deep breath and decided it was no good wishing the Colonel was accompanying her instead of this so-called investigator. She had been given a job to do and it had to be carried through as successfully as possible.

‘We’re going to see Adam Gray, the Mountstanton agent, the man the Colonel believes wrote that note to Polly.’

‘Right. And how much do you know about him?’

Keeping Barnaby going straight ahead on the stony and rutted road required constant attention and Ursula related all she had learned from her talk with the agent as succinctly as possible. It seemed like weeks rather than a couple of days had passed since she had ridden over to see him.

‘Believed he was this nursemaid’s father, did he? And you thought their relationship somewhat different?’

‘Well, as I said, at the inquest it looked possible he might have been, how shall I put it, involved with Polly? Mrs Parsons claimed she had seen the two of them in what she called “a compromising position”.’

‘But the Colonel and his brother did not think it worth questioning him?’

Ursula sighed. ‘They probably would have done … eventually.’

‘Only you took it on yourself to tackle him. Why?’

Looking back, Ursula was surprised at the determined way she had approached the agent. ‘It was because I was so unhappy with the inquest verdict. From all I had learned about Polly, suicide seemed the last thing she would do.’

‘Not got much of a future ahead of her, though, had she? With child; due to lose her position as soon as it was known; unlikely to get any sort of a reference for a new one; abandoned by the man who had got her into trouble. Exactly what, Miss Grandison, did she have to live for?’

Ursula flinched at this, then corrected Barnaby’s tendency to move off the centre of the road.

‘Put like that,’ she said slowly, ‘I have to say she had very little, if anything. But the Colonel also believes the coroner arrived at the wrong verdict. And …’

‘Yes?’ said Mr Jackman impatiently as she paused, remembering what had occurred to her as soon as she’d taken in the contents of that piece of paper. ‘And what?’

‘Once she’d read the letter, she must have thought she had a weapon she could use in a fight for justice, and a livelihood of some sort for herself and the unborn child.’

Mr Jackman clutched the side of the trap as they bounced over a particularly stony section of roadway. ‘Mercy, Miss Grandison; this conveyance is unsafe. I doubt you can get us there safely, let alone back.’

She laughed. ‘The Colonel has confidence in me, so should you.’

Jackman did not look particularly reassured. After a moment’s nervous twitching he said, ‘So, what do we want from this agent fellow?’

Ursula recalled exactly what the Colonel’s instructions had been. ‘First, confirmation he wrote the letter; second, how he found out who Polly’s father was; and third, whether he has any suspicions as to who seduced her.’ She did not mention the possibility that the agent had killed the Earl. She would see how the interview went first.

‘You say Gray believes it is the nursemaid’s seducer who killed her?’

‘He thinks it was because his advice to Polly was to tell the man that, unless he did the decent thing, she would let others know who the father of her child was.’

Jackman made another grab at the sides of the trap as, once again, they bumped alarmingly over some ruts. ‘Have a heart, miss, that ditch looks very close and a mite messy.’

Ursula tried to find a less rutted part of the road and for a while they travelled without conversation. As the trap at last began to move more smoothly she said, ‘Do you think Mr Gray could be right about Polly having been killed by her seducer?’

‘Could be.’

Suddenly Ursula could visualise what might have happened: ‘They meet in the wood; she accuses him of behaving wretchedly towards her. He laughs, maybe says she asked for it. Polly tells him she’s a member of the Mountstanton family. He laughs some more and says she only means she’s one of their bastards. She gets angry and threatens that she will appeal to them if he abandons her. His reputation will be ruined, he will lose his job, be refused a reference. He panics; perhaps he grabs and shakes her, pushes her over.’

‘She strikes her head on a stone,’ suggested Thomas Jackman, surprising Ursula by entering into her enactment. ‘Maybe she’s knocked out; maybe she’s killed. Whatever, he knows he has to make sure she cannot bear witness against him. He’s a callous sort of a chap; he picks her up, and throws her down the slope, then reckons that’s sorted his little problem.’

For the first time since meeting Mr Jackman, Ursula felt they could work together.

‘Tell you one thing,’ he continued. ‘If that’s anywhere near close to what actually happened, it’s no horny handed son of toil who was involved with your nursemaid, no, nor a lowly servant at the big house.’

Ursula immediately lost her sense of partnership. ‘Why not?’

‘Because they would have seen more profit out of standing by her. Upper-class nobs, like the Stanhopes, wouldn’t want their name dragged in the dust by the likes of her; they’d pay up, send her and the kiddie somewhere far away with just enough to live on. Her and the kiddie and the man. See my point?’

‘The man who hired you is one of those nobs,’ said Ursula coldly. ‘Why do you despise him so?’

‘Who said I despised him? Not his fault he belongs to the class what keeps their boot on the neck of the lower classes.’

‘Ah, you are a follower of Mr Marx.’

‘I’m no Communist. I believe every man for himself. The capitalist system has advantages. It’s the class system I despise, where what a man is born into instead of his achievements dictates how society views him.’

‘Does that mean you are all for a revolution?’

To her surprise, he laughed. ‘I’m no revolutionary. I just want justice for the lower classes. Now, Miss Grandison, let’s get back to the matter in hand. Do I understand this Gray fellow has a hot temper?’

She nodded, flicking her whip at a wayward Barnaby.

‘Good. The way we’ll work it is you will be all aristocratic, look down your nose, stress it’s his duty to respond to your questions. I’ll hover humbly at the back but produce the Colonel’s letter of authority if necessary.’

Ursula was surprised. She had assumed that Thomas Jackman would lead the questioning. And that he would almost certainly rile Adam Gray, perhaps to the point where he would refuse to answer any of their questions. Instead, it was going to be she who initiated the interrogation – she could not think of it as an interview. Would the agent consider her to be wearing a cloak of Mountstanton superiority?

‘Have you any ideas how I should start, Mr Jackman?’

He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re a straightforward woman. Be straightforward.’

Then they had arrived at the agent’s home and Adam Gray appeared at the front door.

He stalked towards the trap, his heavy-featured face frowning. When Ursula said there were some questions she had been instructed to ask him, he was surly and it was as though he had to force himself to help her down from the trap.

‘Will you be stopping long, Miss Grandison? Should I unharness the horse?’

Her unease about the coming confrontation increased. Gone was the pleasant man she had met the other day; instead here was the aggressive man who had invaded the inquest.

‘I hope we shall only need a few words with you, Mr Gray. Shall we go inside?’

The glower deepened. ‘We have only recently finished eating. Clearing away won’t be done until my wife is settled. My sister and housekeeper are upstairs with her now.’

He led the way into an untidy living room; the remains of a meal on the table. The agent indicated a wooden armchair to Ursula then, for the first time, he seemed to notice Thomas Jackman.

‘And who might you be?’

‘Mr Gray, may I introduce Mr Jackman? He comes with the authority of Colonel Charles Stanhope.’ There should have been an Honourable inserted in there somewhere but Ursula, ignored the pesky little title. The one he had earned in the army in her eyes was far more important.

‘Authority? What for?’

For an instant Ursula waited for the investigator to answer then realised that she was expected to field the question. She produced the letter the Colonel had handed over to her and said as haughtily as she could manage, ‘When did you write this to Polly?’

His eyes blank, Adam Gray took the piece of paper, laid it on the table, smoothed its creases and looked at it with eyes that surely were not registering any of the words. ‘Why are you so sure I penned this, Miss Grandison?’

‘They are your initials.’ A momentary inspiration came. ‘The writing has also been recognised as yours.’ After all, if they had gone to the Earl’s office, surely there would have been notes there from the agent and they could have compared the handwriting with the letter. ‘And who else would be writing to Polly?’ She flung the words at him with careless authority.

He flicked at the paper and seemed too paralysed to speak.

‘Who told you Polly was a Mountstanton?’ she asked in the most arrogant voice she could produce. ‘The Colonel has to know,’ she added when no response was forthcoming. Behind her she could sense Thomas Jackman waiting, assessing the situation.

Adam Gray seemed to be dealing with an inner struggle. Several times he appeared about to speak, his face getting redder and redder, veins bulging in his neck and forehead.

‘The possibility of Polly being a Mountstanton has never arisen before, even though she was working in the house,’ Ursula said, not softening her voice. ‘Either it is something dreamed up for some nefarious reason or someone knows something. You know which it is. You have to tell us.’

That did it. Adam Gray bellowed with pent up rage: ‘You’re all the same; puffed up aristocrats who think you can lord it over us; that we have been sent here merely to do your bidding. Polly was worth more than the lot of you put together. She had Mountstanton blood in her but because her mother was what you call lower class, she was abandoned. No respectability for her, unlike … unlike … ’

‘Those in the big house?’ Ursula finished for him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, his whole face contorted.

‘Mr Gray,’ Ursula tried to sound stern, authoritative. ‘Please. You have to tell us.’

‘I have to tell you nothing,’ he shouted. ‘Nothing, do you hear?’

Ursula felt the whole situation was hopeless. The Colonel should have come; he would have known how to handle this bull of a man.

‘I’ve been looking at this photograph,’ said Thomas Jackman pleasantly, his quiet voice breaking into the heated atmosphere. ‘You seem to have been something of a footballer. Do I have it right?’

He was over by the far wall, studying a photograph hanging there. Ursula could only see an array of men in striped shirts and knee-length shorts. They were in two lines; those at the back standing and the front ones sitting, arms crossed; the central man had a foot on a ball.

Adam Gray seemed nonplussed. He stared at the investigator as though he had suddenly arrived from outer space. Then he gave himself a little shake and appeared to shrink. He ran a hand through his thick hair.

‘Only I was a keen player at one time. Even had a try out for one of the London clubs. Then I injured a knee and that was that.’ Thomas Jackman’s tone was easy, friendly.

The agent moved towards him as though sleepwalking. ‘It was when I was working up north,’ Jackman continued, jabbing a finger at the photograph. ‘Bunch of lads and I made up a team. We were good, though I say it myself. Course, we didn’t have time to make a real go of it but we won the local cup one time. Bet you played defence, shoulders like that.’