Murder at Newstead Abbey (19 page)

Byron, who did not enjoy shooting, went shooting with Luten after breakfast. Coffen rode off in the direction of the Green Man, while Prance and Corinne drove into Nottingham once again to learn the pianist’s address from Mrs. Addams. They went to speak to Miss Challoner, who surprised them by being young and pretty enough for Prance to flirt with, and to offer twice the payment he had intended. He espied a similarity to Lady Caroline Lamb in her short, Titian curls and dancing eyes. It would be amusing if Byron should fall in love with her, since he utterly refused to flirt with Corinne. Miss Challoner was the daughter of a deceased army officer who lived with her mama in a set of rooms of which the pianoforte was the main furnishing. It stood like an elephant in a stable, dwarfing the parlor. She impressed Prance favorably in appearance, speech and musical performance. She eagerly accepted the job.

“It happens I’ve been practicing for a choral concert my church is giving for Christmas,” she explained. “I should be happy to play for you at Newstead Abbey. Shall I be wearing one of the lovely white robes you’re having made up, Sir Reginald?”

“They’re for the choir. I’m sure you will choose something unexceptionable,” he cooed. “More than an afternoon frock, less than a ball gown. You know the sort of thing. That charming gown you’re wearing tells me you have superlative taste.”

“Why thank you, sir. Will you make arrangement for me to get there, or should I hire a rig? An officer’s half-pay pension doesn’t allow us the luxury of a carriage. “

“I’ll come and collect you myself,” he said at once. Then as he considered the logistics of that critical evening, he added, “Or at least send my carriage, as I shall have my hands full making sure the choir is properly arrayed and in voice. It might be best if you come early. Plan on taking dinner with us. You won’t want to be out on the road so late after the party either. Would you be allowed to remain overnight, with Lady deCoventry and her female companion there to play propriety?”

Miss Challoner agreed promptly.

“There’s to be a dancing party after the concert. Do bring your dancing slippers, and save me a set,” he said, smiling.

Corinne couldn’t decide which of them was more delighted with the arrangement. Other than a lack of dowry, Miss Challoner seemed perfectly eligible, so Corinne contented herself with merely teasing Reg about having found a new flirt as they went to the carriage. “Grace’s pretty nose will be quite out of joint,” she said.

“How did you find out?” he demanded.

“Love and a cough cannot be hidden, Reg.”

“Love? Rubbish, it’s research. Poor Grace! The face of an angel, the voice of a thrush, and alas, the conversational skills of a door knob.” To himself he added, “and all the tact and grasping instincts of a money lender.”

“You’ve been having private conversations with her, have you?” Corinne asked with a teasing eye.

So she didn’t know the whole, thank goodness. “Only trying to — as research for my novel, you know. I have given up on Grace. One can do without beauty, but one cannot long remain enchanted with a poor conversationalist and dropped aitches. Did Miss Challoner remind you of anyone in particular?”

“I didn’t notice any resemblance to the Countess Chamaude,” she said, as this lady was Prance’s usual criterion of beauty.

“No one can touch
her,”
he said with a sad shake of his head. “But I meant Lady Caroline Lamb.”

“Oh, yes. Some resemblance around the eyes. Let us hope Byron doesn’t notice it or he’ll turn her from the door.”

“He loved Caro once. It was her behavior that put him off. I doubt Miss Challoner will behave badly. It will be fun to watch them. Shall we just visit a few shops before we leave?”

The visits were confined to old book shops, where he searched diligently for a rare manuscript to rival Luten’s, but found none. By the time he was finished, it was twelve-thirty.

“We may as well have a bite before we leave,” he said. “They won’t be worried about us at the abbey, will they?”

“I shouldn’t think so. After all, no one has been taking shots at
us.”

“Pity we hadn’t thought to ask Miss Challoner to join us.

* * * *

Coffen also had a successful morning. He found Tess on duty at the Green Man and had her to himself as the tavern was empty except for a traveler who was taking breakfast. After the usual pleasantries, he said, “Has Vulch been in pestering you lately?”

She rolled her eyes to denote extreme aggravation, but a smile hovered about her lips. “Funny you should ask. He was in late yesterday afternoon. I was having my dinner in the kitchen and didn’t care to see him, though he asked for me. He left me a present. Here, I’ll show you. Mind you, I plan to give it back.”

She disappeared and returned with a fancy shawl, deep rose with a silver thread woven through it, and a heavy fringe.

“That’s a handsome bit of cloth! Dandy,” he praised. She wrapped it around her shoulders to show it off. It did look dramatic against her dark coloring.

“Stolen goods, I shouldn’t wonder,” she said, stroking it covetously. “Where would the likes of Vulch get hold of money to buy it with? Though Henchard tells me he paid up his month’s bill yesterday, so he may have been doing some dirty work for somebody.”

“You knew his wife, I think, Minnie?” he asked.

“Everybody knew Minnie. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. Did you ever happen to notice her teeth?”

“How could you miss them? She had teeth as big as piano keys.”

“All there, were they?”

“There didn’t seem to be none missing. Not in front anyhow.”

He conjured with these tidbits as he rode home. The corpse’s teeth did look bigger than most teeth, but then with no face there, the teeth stood out in a ghoulish way. You couldn’t tell to look at a person if she had a molar out at the back, so the corpse might or might not be Minnie. But the paying of the bill and the purchase of the shawl suggested that Vulch had come into sudden money. Not that he was poor, with that chest full of gold, but until the present, he hadn’t been spending much. Maybe the gold in the chest was Minnie’s money, left by the uncle, and he was loath to spend it, or more likely he was afraid of questions arising as to where he got it. But when a man gets a sudden windfall, it’s hard not to splurge a little, and one way he could have got more money was by identifying that corpse.

He hurried back to Newstead to join Luten and Byron for some shooting and had the pleasure of bagging a pair of rabbits.

When Prance and Corinne returned, the others, who were waiting impatiently to go after the Christmas boughs, had to hear about Prance’s Miss Challoner. His report was quite eclipsed by Coffen’s tale of Tess’s shawl and the bill paid at the inn.

After it had been thoroughly discussed, Coffen said, “We’d best start cutting them boughs if we hope to be finished before dark. It’s near dark already.” He turned to Corinne and asked, “What kept you? It don’t take hours to hire a piano player.” Luten listened with interest for her answer.

“Prance discovered an interesting old book stores and spent an hour browsing.”

“Did he find what he was after?” Luten asked.

“No, he had no luck,” she said, with a smile that told him Prance had been looking for a manuscript to outdo the Alexander Pope. “It’s very chilly outside. Could we delay the cutting of the boughs until tomorrow?”

“I was hoping you’d say that, it’s so cozy by the fire,” Coffen said at once. Luten didn’t object and Byron, eager to be the perfect host, agreed.

“Did anything interesting happen here?” she asked Luten.

“Eggars was here, poking about the library and finally announced that we had had an intruder right enough. Apparently the corpse has been accepted as Minnie Vulch’s and Vulch has been given permission to bury her. He plans to do it tomorrow. Seems in a bit of a rush, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know about that,” Coffen said. “She’s been dead for years. High time she was tucked up in a proper coffin.”

Vicar Ruttle dropped in and behaved in a much more civil manner than on his first visit. Mrs. Ballard, who had joined them for tea, hoped for some churchy talk and was disappointed. She was shocked that he looked so little like a vicar. His garishly striped waistcoat and nip-waisted blue jacket with buttons as big as saucers would have looked more at home on a race track tout than a vicar. His ruddy complexion spoke of a life in the saddle, and his red nose suggested a love of the bottle. And to condemn him entirely, she was quite sure she caught a whiff of Paris oil from his slicked-down hair.

There was no mention of that former visit when Byron and his friends had behaved so badly. They spoke of hunting, politics and of course of the coming party, and finally of the body found on the island.

“It’s a relief to know at last who the girl was who met such a nasty end,” he said. “Good to know what became of Minnie Vulch, too. You can’t help wondering when a girl just disappears. We feared the worst, that she’d gone on the streets to make her livelihood. Poor soul.”

“Would that be worse than being murdered?” Prance asked.

"Worse for her immortal soul, Sir Reginald,” Ruttle replied, and won, at last, a smile from Mrs. Ballard.

The vicar was invited to join them for dinner, but refused. “I’m not dressed for fancy dining, but I thank you for the offer. I’ll just be toddling along. I look forward to seeing you all at the party.”

They passed a quiet evening, keeping a wary eye on the window lest a rock come hurtling through to disturb their peace. From time to time Prance poked his head into the salon and invited them to the grand hall, where he was running his choir through their paces for the concert. Should the choir stand in a semi-circle behind the pianoforte, or under the charming gothic window, which would be heavily trimmed with evergreen boughs? As he would show to better advantage himself if framed by the window, he opted for that location.

Perhaps he’d ask Mrs. Addams to make him up a robe as well. He loved to get into costume. Of course he’d remove it for the dancing later. On the other hand, his dark green jacket would stand out beautifully against the white robes. Weston had excelled himself in its construction. He dropped a few hints in Byron’s ear, hoping in vain to whet his appetite with details of Miss Challoner’s charm, beauty and straitened circumstances.

“An officer’s penniless daughter is no good to me, Prance. I require an heiress to haul me out of dun territory.”

“But so charming! Very ladylike.”

Coffen spent his evening mulling over his “clues”. He came out of his reverie only when the tea tray appeared, and soon after they all retired.

The ground was white with hoarfrost in the morning. The lowering clouds painted the landscape in somber hues, inking the evergreens in the distance to a serrated silhouette against the pewter sky. Snow might very well be upon them by afternoon. They decided to cut the boughs before this happened. Byron had a wagon taken to the forest and a couple of footmen ready with saws for the job.

“Perhaps you’d rather stay inside, since it’s cold out,” Luten said to Corinne.

“Not at all! I love gathering the Christmas boughs,” she said firmly. She knew Luten was only interested in her comfort and convenience, but she did hate being treated like a child, or an invalid. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without that ritual.”

The whole group excepting Mrs. Ballard went, making a sort of winter picnic of it. Cook, under Prance’s guiding hand, set up a steaming kettle of mulled wine over an open fire. The pungent steam from the kettle hung enticingly on the air, carrying an echo of cinnamon and nutmeg. The others went into the bush, selecting the biggest, fullest boughs, which the footmen sawed off and carried to the waiting wagon. When the wagon was heaped with boughs and the mulled wine gone, they were ready to head back to the Abbey.

“Where’s Coffen wandered off to?” Corinne said, looking around.

“Searching for
clues,
no doubt,” said Prance.

“Let us hope he don’t find another corpse,” Byron added, and went to the edge of the forest to call him.

A hollow-sounding voice called back from within. “You’d better come here and have a look, Byron. The others as well. They’ll all want to see this. Except p’raps Corinne. Keep her away if you can.”

“Good God, what is it?” Byron asked, and went pelting into the woods.

He saw Coffen standing stiff as a pointer, staring down at the base of a tree. He didn’t see the large booted feet protruding from under the bottom boughs for a moment. And when he did, his chest tightened in alarm. “Is he — “

“Dead as a doornail,” Coffen said.

“Who —”

“Vulch. He’s stiff as ice, but whether he’s frozen or rigor mortified I couldn’t say. I took a peek under the branches. You can see the trail in the grass where he was hauled in. It’s not the marks we made cutting the boughs. It’s beyond that area, away from the house. I fancy he was killed somewhere else and brought here. I’ll look for clues in a minute.”

“Oh lord,” Byron groaned. “Is there no end to it! Another corpse — and on my property.”

When the others saw Byron rush into the woods, they sensed that something untoward had happened, and rushed forward. Corinne ignored the suggestion that she remain behind.

“Not another corpse!” she cried, when she saw Byron’s worried expression.

“It’s Vulch,” Coffen said. “We’d best haul him out and see how he was murdered.”

No one questioned that it was murder. A man didn’t crawl under a prickly fir tree in winter to take a nap on the frozen ground, and suddenly expire. Coffen took hold of one boot, Byron the other, and they carefully dragged the body out. His face and clothing were sprinkled with bits of dead tree. The round dark hole in the center of his forehead was edged in congealed, perhaps frozen, blood. He had been shot in the head, like his wife, if the body to be buried that day
was
his wife. His eyes were partially open, as if he were staring up through the fir boughs at the sullen sky. His face held no sign of its usual smile, or pain or shock or anything but peace. None of them had liked Vulch, but still the violent death of a young man, carrying a whiff of their own mortality, was an awful thing to behold. No one spoke for a moment, but just stared in mute horror at the spectacle.