The Murder at Sissingham Hall (22 page)

Bobs uttered an incredulous laugh.

‘Good heavens, Charles,’ he said. ‘You don’t mean to say you didn’t know?’

SEVENTEEN

I sat down, my head reeling. What an imbecile I had been! How could I have been so blind? A hundred and one scenes from the past few days raced through my mind: a mysterious conversation at dinner; Rosamund’s radiant look as she and Bobs returned from a walk together; a photograph in the newspaper—the meaning of them all suddenly became perfectly clear to me. Had everybody known about it except me? Of course, Sylvia must have known. It was inevitable—after all, Bobs was her brother and Rosamund her friend. Sir Neville, it appeared, had known and accepted it. The others probably suspected it if they did not know for certain. The remembrance of my own monstrous error of only a few minutes ago now flooded upon me and I felt the blood rush hot across my face. It already seemed as though I had ruined everything with Sylvia but would Rosamund tell Bobs what had happened too? Would they laugh about it together and joke about how poor old Charles had made an idiot of himself once again? I thought I understood, now, the cryptic remarks Sylvia had made on the first night of our stay here. I had been offended at the time but now it looked as though she had been right—I had been hopelessly, stupidly, absurdly naïve. What a mistake it had been to come to Sissingham! I had come here and knowingly laid myself open to Rosamund’s influence, having convinced myself that I was too old and experienced in the ways of the world to fall for that kind of thing again. How wrong I had been!

Bobs was looking at me with an unsuspecting smile. I made an effort to speak.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I must confess the news comes as a complete surprise to me.’

‘You astound me,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, old thing. I know you were engaged to her once, but of course that was a long time ago, and Rosamund was so fearfully keen to see you again when I told her that you had returned to England that I thought I’d better bring you along. Of course, the weekend didn’t exactly turn out as planned, did it? Poor old stick-in-the-mud Neville. One can’t help feeling sorry for him—dull and unwanted in life and soon-to-be-forgotten in death.’

I did not like the tone of his voice in talking about the dead man and frowned. He laughed.

‘Poor old Charles!’ he said affectionately. ‘You always were one to back the losing team. Very well, I shan’t wound your sensibilities any more. I shall merely say that he was highly respected and will be briefly missed.’

‘Do you intend to marry Rosamund?’ I found myself asking.

‘I suppose so,’ he said carelessly. ‘Goodness knows, she spent long enough trying to convince Neville to give her a divorce. It would look rather bad on my part to drop the old girl now.’

‘Was Sir Neville unwilling to grant her a divorce, then?’

‘Oh, he agreed to it all right but kept putting it off for one reason or another. He seemed to think that the chaps at his club would look rather blackly on him if he detached himself from his wife. For my part, I don’t know why he didn’t bite the bullet and get it over with as quickly as possible, once he realized that she was determined to have her own way. There are plenty of people who don’t give two hoots about that sort of thing. Never stand between a woman and what she wants, Charles, if you want any sort of a quiet life. I say, she is rather marvellous, though, don’t you think? Can’t you see her lording it over everybody when I inherit the title? She will be in her element, playing the
grande dame
and greeting the great and the good at Bucklands. That’s far more her “thing” than sitting buried here in the middle of nowhere, with nobody but an elderly husband and a sulky child to talk to.’

I winced. This was too uncomfortably true. I realized now that even as a wealthy man I could never have provided Rosamund with the things she really wanted. Glory, prestige, the admiration of others, would never be mine. Bobs, on the other hand, would be the ideal husband: rich and good-looking, he liked nothing better than to be seen out and about, disporting himself in all the fashionable places and appearing in the society pages. And of course, following the death of his elder brother, he was now in line to inherit a viscountcy, together with a grand country seat and a house in Grosvenor Square. I had to admit that he was a far more attractive prospect than I—a nobody with a disgraced father and a murder trial behind him, almost more at home in the harsh heat of South Africa than in his native land.

‘Anyway,’ went on Bobs, ‘you can see why things are a little awkward at present—I mean, what happens? The Young Pretender comes down for a weekend and the Old King very conveniently departs this earth under mysterious and suspicious circumstances. Elderly ladies and other persons of a more moral disposition than I might look rather askance on the whole thing, don’t you think? I should myself, in fact, if it were someone else. And the Governor is likely to be a bore, too. I don’t suppose he’d have been any too pleased at the scandal of my marrying a divorcée but that would be as nothing to a murder charge hanging over the head of his only remaining son. If I were he I should probably disinherit me outright, in favour of Sylvia.’

His tone was jocular but there was a furrow on his forehead which suggested he was more serious than he cared to admit.

‘But why should the police fasten on you as a likely suspect?’ I asked.

‘Motive, my dear chap, motive,’ he said simply. ‘I wanted to marry Rosamund and Neville stood in the way—that’s how they’ll see it.’

‘But you said that Sir Neville had agreed to a divorce.’

‘In principle, yes, but as I said, he kept putting it off. In fact, he had been putting it off for so long that I shouldn’t have been surprised if he had changed his mind at last. They’ll say I became impatient and decided to act.’

‘But you have an alibi,’ I pointed out.

‘So they say,’ he said. ‘But it rests on the word of one of the servants. Perhaps I paid the fellow a handsome sum to invent a story and save my own skin. Or perhaps I knew something to his disadvantage and was threatening to reveal the secret if he refused to help me.’

There was a strange gleam in his eye as he said it and in his demeanour altogether there was something I did not quite understand. Why was he so eager to include himself amongst the list of suspects in the murder of Sir Neville?

‘I think you are worrying needlessly,’ I said, ‘but your course of action is quite clear to me. Rosamund needs you at present and it would be a low sort of trick to scoot off back to town now, leaving her to face all this alone.’

He laughed mirthlessly.

‘A low sort of trick? I know for a certain fact that she would do exactly the same thing to me if the boot were on the other leg. She would never be silly enough to hang about and allow herself to get involved in a scandal if she could save her own skin.’

I could hardly believe my ears.

‘How dare you insult Rosamund like that?’ I demanded angrily.

‘Because I know the woman well—almost as well as I know myself. We are as like as two peas, Charles. Why do you think we rub along so well together? We understand each other, she and I.’

I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable at the turn the conversation had taken.

‘I don’t think you understand her as well as you think you do,’ I said stiffly. ‘Remember, I was once engaged to her and the picture you paint is one I don’t recognize at all.’

Bobs shrugged.

‘Have it your own way,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re right about my staying at Sissingham for now, though.’ He stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Rosamund is a frail little creature who can’t look after herself, Charles,’ he said. ‘She’s tough, that one. She needs to be, too.’

He then went out and I was left alone with my thoughts, which were anything but happy ones. I was horrified, angry, confused and embarrassed, all at the same time. Oh, how I wished I could go back in time and undo what I had done that morning! Or, better, that I had never come to Sissingham at all. It had led to nothing but misfortune and misery for myself and others. I was furious with Bobs: not only had he stolen the woman I had once—nay, still loved and made me look a fool in the process, he had spoken of her in a cavalier fashion that offended me and did a gross injustice to her. And yet this was the man she had chosen! Could she ever be happy with him? I felt I had been duped and betrayed by my childhood friend, who was only now beginning to show his true colours.

Of course, I had always known that Bobs occasionally took a morally dubious view of things but I had always put it down to natural high spirits, never thinking for a moment that he would ever do anything seriously wrong. I felt that I hardly knew the man. Was this what Sylvia had meant when she warned me that after having been away for eight years I might find that people had changed beyond recognition? Perhaps she had been wiser than I knew. I felt a stab of sorrow at the thought that Rosamund had trusted Bobs enough to place herself in his power. He had promised to marry her once she had freed herself from Sir Neville, but could she rely upon him to keep his promise? She had taken an enormous risk—one that involved the public shame of lengthy divorce proceedings with no guarantee of a husband at the end of it. It all seemed terribly uncertain to me. How, for example, did Bobs stand to gain from marrying a divorced woman? He was his own master but there was no denying that his family would be against the match given his future destiny as a peer of the realm. And there would be public disapproval, no doubt: the newspapers, for example, would surely have many things to say on the matter.

I am ashamed to say that at that moment, a thought began to form at the back of my mind—a thought which I quashed immediately but not before an insidious voice in my head had painted an all-too-clear picture of the much more lenient view the public would take of the heir to a viscountcy’s marrying a widow rather than a divorcée. I put the idea firmly out of my mind. My oldest friend had disappointed me greatly, but I would not think
that
of him.

I drew myself up straight. My way forward was clear: I must fix things with Rosamund and try to restore our friendship to what it had been before my earlier blunder so that, when the time came—and I doubted not that it would—she should know that she could turn to me for help and succour. The best thing to do, I reflected, would be to write her a note. Having resolved upon a course of action, I immediately felt better. I should apologize for my clumsiness and take my leave to save embarrassment on both sides, whilst making it clear to her that I should be always at her disposal if she needed me. Then I should depart quietly from the house with as little fuss as possible, ready to return if needed. I took up a pen and paper and spent some time deep in thought, then wrote as follows:

My dearest Rosamund,

I write in the hope that you will forgive me for what I have done, although you could hardly be blamed for thinking it unforgiveable. Believe me, I should never, even in my wildest moments, have dreamt of acting as I did, had I not in my heart of hearts been convinced that my place was by your side. Now that I have had time to reflect, I can clearly see my mistake—it was very wrong of me to assume that the only thing standing in the way of our reunion was your husband. I failed completely to consider your own feelings and for that I beg your pardon.

And now, it seems that the only thing for me to do is to free you from my unwelcome presence, although of course this cannot wholly make amends for what I have done. When I am gone and you look back on the events of the past few days, I hope that you will think of me kindly as a friend—albeit a misguided one in so many ways.

Your devoted servant always,

Charles

I read it through and then signed it. It was short but to the point. I had never found it easy to express my thoughts on paper and rather than get tangled up in long, wordy phrases that might read badly and thus hinder my cause, I judged it wisest to be as brief as possible.

I had just sealed the envelope when the bell rang for lunch, so I decided to wait until after that meal before delivering the note and taking my departure. To my relief, Rosamund did not appear at the table, having sent word that she had a headache and intended to rest in her room for an hour or two. Angela Marchmont arrived a little late, as she had just come from Mrs. MacMurray’s side. There had been no change in Gwen’s condition, she said: she was still unconscious and being looked after by her maid and Dr. Carter. Mrs. Marchmont said little during the meal: her face wore a strangely dark expression, mingled with a hint of sadness. Bobs, meanwhile, was in fine spirits, which I felt was rather inappropriate given the presence of a dying woman in the house. As it was such a fine sunny day he wanted to get out of the house, he said, and suggested that he take Sylvia, Joan and Simon Gale out in his car for a tour of the countryside.

‘The ’bus wants an airing,’ he said, ‘and I’m tired of sticking around the house all day. And I’ve never properly made it up to you, Gale, for running you into that ditch on our arrival. You must let me show you how a real motor goes—my word, it throws that old pile of rusty metal of Neville’s into the shade.’

Gale looked somewhat alarmed, as well he might.

‘I’m not sure that—’ he began.

‘Oh do let’s, Simon,’ said Joan. ‘It’s a beautiful day and it will do us all good to get out of the house. I’d like to forget my woes for a few hours and I’m sure you would too.’