Fatal Inheritance (15 page)

‘Oh, believe me, I looked,’ I exclaimed. ‘When I went to give back the ones I borrowed, I stayed in Professor Wessely’s office for a long time and re-read all the earlier ones. There’s no mention of such a thing at all. In fact, to be honest, Sainton actually says that Krieger did not much like women. But I wouldn’t pay much attention to that. A man can dislike or despise women and have a mistress all the same. Anyway, soon after the bit we read, where they were friends, they quarrelled. Sainton would have accepted that Krieger didn’t wish to play again with the Queen’s Band, but Krieger went overboard being offensive about it. So they stopped seeing each other, and then in 1850 Krieger died. Sainton just mentions it in passing, and says it was a tragedy for the musical scene of London, and totally unexpected. I remember reading in Dr Bernstein’s book that Lydia’s father died when she was four, so it hangs together perfectly with her having been adopted in 1848 when she would have been two and her sister just a baby.’

‘And then, when Mrs Krieger finally died, she wanted to go away and be buried with her dead child,’ said Rose. ‘She must have left specific instructions to avoid being buried here instead. If she’d said nothing, she certainly would have been.’

‘Yes. It was funny how lightly that man spoke of exhumation, wasn’t it? He doesn’t realise that it makes us ordinary mortals shudder.’

‘I don’t think that was the problem,’ said Rose moodily. ‘I think Mrs Krieger wanted to get away from her husband. Nobody liked him. He must have been quite horrid. Why should she lie next to him for eternity instead of being in a peaceful, quiet little corner of countryside with the child that she loved? And this way she could leave the empty spaces for the two adopted children, who had barely known Krieger and needn’t feel the same way about him.’

I smiled. ‘I have to say in his favour that it’s nice he let her adopt them,’ I said. ‘He probably didn’t want them at all. So you have to give him some credit, as Monsieur Sainton did.’

We left the cemetery and took a cab for the long ride back to town. I sat still, letting the conversations I had just been having run through my mind. There had been a little question in my head as Rose and I were walking away from the tombstone together, but it had disappeared underneath all the information from the epitaph carver. Now it came back to me.

‘Rose,’ I said, ‘I wonder why Sebastian was alone at home on the evening of December 31st, when everyone in the entire country was going to a party?’
Who knew he was going to be alone at home?
whispered a little voice somewhere inside me. But no – I repressed it. I was simply supposed to be finding out exactly what Sebastian had been doing all through that final day.
Yes
, came back the stubborn little voice,
and whom he was doing it with? And who might have wished that Sebastian would die?

‘He wasn’t supposed to be alone at home,’ she said. ‘He was supposed to go to a party – Lord Warburton’s grand Centennial Ball. I know it, because he and Claire and I had all three been invited to another party for the new century, but Sebastian couldn’t come with us, because Mrs Cavendish wanted him to go to Lord Warburton’s ball with her. Only he didn’t go there, either, because he wasn’t home. He hadn’t been home since he had left for Zürich; he hadn’t slept at home the night before, so she simply didn’t know where he was. On the 31st, she expected that he would arrive or at least send a message, but he didn’t, so she left by herself, thinking that he could always join them if he did get home later on.’

‘She wasn’t worried about his unexpected disappearance?’

‘Not when he didn’t arrive on the 30th as he should have. She simply thought that he had had an opportunity to stay in Zürich for another day. That wouldn’t have been unusual. He was twenty-four, after all. You’d think he might have sent a telegram, but he wasn’t always a particularly thoughtful person, you know. He liked to be free, and she respected that and never made him give an account of himself. On the 31st she probably felt annoyed as well as worried, as she was expecting him to accompany her to Lord Warburton’s ball, and it would have been unthinkable for her not to be there, since they are engaged to be married and she was to act as hostess. Till the last minute, she thought he would turn up, but he never did.’

‘So she went to the ball by herself?’

‘Yes, she really had no choice, and once she was there she had to stay nearly all night. There were fireworks and dancing and a midnight supper. The guests didn’t leave the party till dawn, and then she came home exhausted to a perfectly silent house and saw Sebastian’s coat and hat on the hall stand, so she assumed that he had arrived too late for the ball and had simply gone straight to bed. I know all this because the police went through it with her and then they explained everything to Claire. Mrs Cavendish went directly to bed herself, and the next morning she rose fairly early and went out. Sebastian kept irregular hours and often slept late, so she did not disturb him. It was the charwoman who found him when she came in to do the daily cleaning.’

‘I wonder why Mrs Cavendish employs a charwoman,’ I said. ‘I would have thought she would have servants.’

‘The Cavendishes didn’t have enough money for live-in servants,’ said Rose. ‘I told you about that; Mr Cavendish left too many debts when he died. Mrs Cavendish was able to pay Sebastian’s school fees, and she gave him a small allowance. He was already starting to make a living from his concerts, and they got by. They had no servants at all except for this charwoman who came in by the day, to clean the house and prepare the afternoon and the evening meal.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Mrs Cavendish puts a good face upon it. She looks for all the world like an elegant lady with a personal maid to take care of her hair and her dresses.’

‘She is very elegant, that’s true. She must have a sewing girl in from time to time. I don’t imagine she actually does her own sewing.’

‘Or her washing,’ I added.

‘That probably gets sent out as well,’ said Rose. ‘It all costs less than having servants living in the house. And when she marries Lord Warburton, she’ll be very wealthy and have all the service she wants. I suppose the prospect of beginning a new and much easier life cannot but help her a little at this awful time. Lord Warburton is a widower himself; from the little I’ve seen of them together, they seem very well suited. Of a similar temperament, somehow. Very traditional, very upright, very proper.’

‘I hope all will be well for them,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose that the charwoman will no longer be employed by Mrs Cavendish once the marriage takes place.’

‘Surely not. They’ll have plenty of servants then. But I’m sure the poor woman will find another place of work. Only too many people need charwomen nowadays, don’t they? And probably Mrs Cavendish will give her a recommendation.’

‘I would like to talk to that charwoman,’ I said. ‘I really would. I wonder if you could find out, or ask Claire to find out who she is.’

‘I suppose that wouldn’t be difficult,’ said Rose. ‘But what on earth do you expect to learn from her?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it occurs to me that it’s quite incredible what servants can know about the secrets hidden within families, and I suppose that the same must apply to charwomen.’

‘Charwomen, gravediggers and who knows who else,’ she said. ‘You’re right, of course. I’ll find out about her for you.’

I stood waiting patiently outside the imposing building where Mrs Cavendish had her flat, occasionally glancing at my watch. Rose had obtained from Claire the information that the charwoman, Mrs Munn, generally arrived at the Cavendish home at eleven in the morning and left at nine o’clock, after dinner had been served and cleared away. The woman had spent ten hours of every day but Sunday, for years, probably, in Sebastian’s home. There could be little, I thought, that she did not know about the family.

Rose, who had seen Mrs Munn briefly once or twice at the house while visiting, had described her to me as a small, thin woman in black. This description perfectly fit the woman who stepped out of the front door at some minutes before nine o’clock, carrying a handbag and an umbrella.

‘Mrs Munn?’ I said in a quiet and reassuring voice, stepping out of the shadows. In spite of these precautions, she jumped, and threw me a look of suspicion and deep annoyance.

‘Certainly not!’ she snapped. ‘My name is Mrs Davenport-Brown, and I would be very grateful if you would take yourself away from these premises at once, and cease importuning the residents!’ She stalked away in a huff, her nose in the air, and, watching her, I berated myself for having failed, in the dusk, to notice her haughty bearing and the refined cut of her coat.

Five minutes later another small, thin woman in black emerged, this one carrying a generous holdall. I took a closer look before speaking again.

‘Mrs Munn?’

Startled, she looked at me with an expression not dissimilar to Mrs Davenport-Brown’s. I was, however, fingering one of those notes that are, sadly, so useful and necessary to working people as to quite modify their behaviour on occasion, and I now slipped this into her hand.

‘I should very much like to speak with you for a short time,’ I said gently. ‘I do not mean to disturb you, but perhaps you could spare me a few moments?’

‘I need to get home,’ she said, looking me up and down. But perhaps home was not such a very alluring prospect for her, for her reluctance to accompany me appeared quite ready to be overcome.

‘We could perhaps sit down somewhere for half an hour,’ I proposed, and her face brightened.

‘And get a bite to eat, maybe?’ she said hopefully.

‘Of course, if you wish! Have you not dined yet? You don’t eat dinner at your work?’

‘You’ve no idea how difficult the times are, madam,’ she said, peering at me closely in the gloaming, as though to gauge whether I was of a class that could possibly comprehend her problems. ‘What with my husband sick at home, it’s been years now he can’t walk, after his accident falling off the building at work.’ She fingered her bag almost unconsciously while speaking.

‘You bring your food home to him?’ I guessed, observing her gesture.

‘And it isn’t a great deal, either,’ she said defensively. ‘Mrs Cavendish don’t eat like a queen, she don’t. A cutlet and some beans and pudding, that will be her dinner. It’s next to nothing since the young man died. I don’t know how we’ll manage. There used to be leftovers, there did. Before.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ I said. ‘I should like to take you to dinner. I know a perfect place, truly I do. It’s very near here; just behind King’s Cross. A ten-minute walk. Would you come there with me?’

‘I’d like to, madam, only my husband won’t know where I am.’

As we drew under a gaslight, I saw that the poor woman looked altogether torn and distressed by my proposal. She was indeed very thin, and the prospect of a good meal must have been an attractive one indeed. I had a glimpse of a life lived on the very boundary of misery. If an extra penny ever came the way of this poor woman, she was probably obliged to spend it on having her shoes repaired or other details required in order to look at least decent enough to enter the handsome building on Russell Square.

‘It should be all right if I don’t take too long,’ she said. ‘It happens that I stay extra some evenings, when Mrs Cavendish needs it. It brings in a few more pennies, so even if supper is late on those days, sometimes it runs to a sausage. He don’t mind waiting if it’s for a good reason.’

We walked together to Jenny’s Corner, a little restaurant that I would never have discovered, let alone dined at, had it not been for extraordinary circumstances linked to another mystery, of many years ago now. Jenny had been warm and comforting in those difficult days, and now, distinctly older and distinctly rounder, she was still warm and comforting, and her little restaurant still served the weekly round of customer favourites that had kept her making a modest but tidy profit year after year. Arthur and I went there at least once each year as a matter of friendship and of memory, and even though we were perhaps a slightly strange sight in the busy little place crowded with working bachelors, we were always made welcome in a corner and treated with a warm-hearted and spontaneous kindness that was worth more than any ceremonious courtesy in the world.

I was eager to take Mrs Munn there; it seemed to me of all possible places in London the one I knew most suited to making her feel at home and drawing her out. As we walked, talking of nothing more than the wintry chill and the difficulties of sore feet and aching backs, I saw that she was agitated by a certain anxiety, as well she might be, having no idea where we were going. However, as we drew within sight of the bustling little restaurant, from whose slightly open door emerged a cloud of steam, smoke and conversation, she heaved a pleased sigh. We entered, and a sallow girl in a checked dress and apron came to show us to a table.

‘Please, bring us two of the daily specials,’ I told her, ‘and do tell Jenny that Mrs Weatherburn is here. I should love to greet her when she has a moment.’

Jenny arrived moments later, carrying a plate in each hand, piping hot and laden with a generous quantity of beef, gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans. Having set them down in front of us, she enveloped me in a quick hug – a tradition of many years’ standing – and asked after Arthur and the twins. Then she turned to examine my guest, summed her up in a moment, and extended a plump, red hand in friendship.

‘Glad to meet you, love,’ she said, grasping Mrs Munn’s bony one. ‘Any friend of Mrs Weatherburn’s is a friend of mine. Please do enjoy your suppers. There’ll be pudding when you want it, and a cup o’ tea if you need it.’ And she bustled back to her kitchen.

Mrs Munn looked at the food with an expression of ineffable sadness. I thought of the poor remains she had packed away in her bag, which were to constitute her husband’s meagre dinner. It seemed unfair, but I could not think of any way to mend it right now; one could hardly put mashed potatoes and gravy into a holdall. But here was Mrs Munn, who worked hard all day, sitting in front of a succulent and well-deserved meal looking sad, and it seemed to me that the most urgent thing right now was that she should enjoy it as much as she could. So I picked up my silverware and encouragingly scooped up a generous forkful, and was sincerely delighted to see her follow suit.

I did not attempt to enter into any explanations until the meal was finished, and Mrs Munn must have been a bit overwhelmed by it all, for she did not ask a single question. But over steaming teacups, while I was searching for the right words to begin, she spoke suddenly.

‘There must be a reason, madam, for you doing all this,’ she said. ‘But I can’t guess what it might be, not even now that I’ve eaten a square meal and my head is straight. You want something of me, madam, I’m certain, but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to give it to you, for I can’t imagine what such as I might be able to do or say could be useful to someone like you. At any rate, though, as long as you don’t tell me, it’s certain I won’t know.’ She smiled for the first time that evening, and I suddenly perceived a little glimpse of a past Mrs Munn, probably gay and laughing and hopeful that life would hold many pleasant surprises in store.

London is filled with women such as Mrs Munn; women who work so hard they are practically enslaved, who eat so little they nearly faint, and who have the sole care of helpless dependents. Surely something is very wrong with our society, which allows such a thing to be so common that no one even takes any notice.

‘All I want,’ I told her, ‘is to know a little bit about Sebastian Cavendish. You see, his friends are very upset about the way he died. They have asked me to see if I can try to understand why he did it.’

‘There, I’m not surprised,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone and asked me a question that I’ve no idea about. I can’t tell you why he did it, madam. It’s a terrible sad thing, and he died in a terrible way, too. Very sick, horrible sick all night he was. To think of anyone wanting to do that to themselves.’

‘You were the one who found the body? That must have been a terrible experience for you.’

‘I knew something was wrong the moment I came in the house that morning,’ she said. ‘It was so weirdly quiet. I saw right away that Mrs Cavendish was out, her things being gone from the coat rack, but Master Sebastian was still in, yet everything was silent. It seems to me now that it was too silent, and I knew something was wrong as I came in the door. But perhaps I didn’t know it quite so clearly. I did think he might simply be sleeping, as a lot of people had come home from their parties in the wee hours that night. I didn’t do anything at first, but, around midday, I wondered if I should be preparing something for him to eat or not, and I just knocked on the door and opened it a crack, to check. Oh, madam, there was a terrible smell of sickness! I just made out that he was lying on his bed, but dressed in his clothes, and that something was horribly wrong! I couldn’t bear it – I didn’t take one step inside the room. I ran out of the flat screaming and calling for help, and the neighbours came out and they helped me; one lady gave me some smelling salts and a gentleman went in to see what it was, and then he ran for the police. I couldn’t bear to take another look, not at anything, madam; not even when they carried out the body. Then I had to clean up the room, though. It was a bad way to die; a bad, horrible business. Poor Master Sebastian. Whatever made him do such a thing!’

‘Had you known him for many years?’

‘Going on for ten years now,’ she said. ‘He was a big lad already when I first came, but such a nice one. A bit wild, perhaps, about getting his own way and such, but with a good heart. Always a smile and a nice word for me, he had, and when Christmas time came and Mrs Cavendish would give me an envelope, he’d always add something from his own pocket, and a bunch of flowers, every single Christmas for ten years although I told him it was too much for a poor old woman like me, flowers in December. Every year a bunch of flowers. They were the only flowers anyone’s ever given me since the day I was married. They did look nice in a jug on the table at home. Brightened up the room, they did.’

‘You must have known Sebastian well after all those years. Do you really not have any idea at all why he wanted to die? Any reason at all?’

‘No, madam. I have asked myself. But really, it can’t have been anything that I could know about. He must have kept it very close, whatever it was.’

‘Or,’ I said, ‘it happened because of something he found out in the last few days before he died. Some secret about the family, perhaps.’

‘I wouldn’t know about anything like that.’

‘Really not? You never overheard any talk with his mother about anything particular having to do with the family? I do have a reason for asking. I really think that Sebastian did discover something about his family before he died.’

‘I don’t remember any such discussion, madam; not any kind of talk between them about anything you might call secret, or intimate. They didn’t have that kind of relation together. I’d say that if they had any secrets at all, they’d most likely have kept them from one another. They weren’t close like some mothers are with their sons. Mrs Cavendish is a very private person.’

‘Quite. Well, did you ever happen to hear any talk about Mrs Cavendish’s father? There wouldn’t have been anything secret about him, I suppose.’

‘Him, the old violinist? Yes, I heard him mentioned. Guests spoke of him pretty often. When Master Sebastian was still at school, he’d often get out his violin to play for guests. I’d be serving dinner and clearing up, so I heard him many a time. What a noise he could make on that violin of his! Sometimes the upstairs neighbours even banged on the ceiling, if they thought it was going on too long.’

‘And what did you hear about Sebastian’s grandfather?’

‘Not much. Now that I think of it, Mrs Cavendish and Master Sebastian didn’t seem to like to talk of him much. Guests would ask sometimes if Mrs Cavendish had any memories of her dad, or souvenirs or pictures, and she’d say that he’d died when she was a baby and she knew nothing of him at all. She’d get a bit short sometimes when he was spoken of, though she was always polite, of course, but I don’t think she much liked to talk about him.’

‘Did you ever hear anything about Mrs Cavendish having been an adopted child? That the old violinist was not really her father at all?’

She looked at me in surprise.

‘No, I never heard a breath about such an idea as that. Is it true?’

‘Apparently it is, and it seems that both Mrs Cavendish and Sebastian knew about it. Can you not remember ever hearing anything of the sort at all?’

She thought for a while.

‘Not that. But there was a feeling that the memory of the old man wasn’t much appreciated. I recall as Mrs Cavendish used to not like when visitors would say that Master Sebastian played like his grandfather. “His way of playing comes from inside himself,” she’d say. I don’t think she actually even liked him playing music very much at all. She hoped he wouldn’t become a musician. You asked about discussions; there were some when he left school and had to choose a profession. Then he said there was no question he’d go anywhere but to that music school, and she was very much against it and tried to persuade him to study law like his father.’