Murder Lies Waiting

by Alanna Knight

  Leaning across, Mr Clovis said he had met Chief Inspector Jeremy Faro on a visit to Rothesay long ago. He smiled. ‘What kind of books do you write?’

  He had accepted my fictional identity as an authoress and although Peter Clovis had been an Edinburgh policeman, he had returned to Bute before I arrived back from America, and two years later, believing that Danny McQuinn was dead, I married Jack Macmerry. So although Peter was aware that I was Jack’s wife he had no means of knowing about my career as a lady investigator and I suspected that his wife’s notorious occupation was not one Jack cared to boast about to his colleagues.

  I was thinking of something suitable about just doing research when danger was averted by the arrival of the next course while one of the Clovis’s friends from Arran came over to offer congratulations.

  I sat back. Sadie could have been here in safety. It was unlikely that the short-sighted James might have recognised Sarah in the thirty-six-year-old woman, and Gerald had had every chance of doing so, seeing her regularly in Harry’s company at the hotel.

  I might well sigh with relief that there were pleasanter topics for discussion and presumably Rothesay’s twenty-year-old murder had been forgotten or had no particular interest for the Clovis family. Perhaps Sadie was getting unnecessarily concerned and I had been in danger of allowing that to influence me. Two hours later, the remains of an excellent four-course meal transported to the kitchen with more bottles of wine passed round, glasses were raised for toasts and speeches applauded.

  At last the evening was over and having thanked my hosts, I found Peter at my side. Gerald had already left to return to the hotel, he said, and insisted on seeing me safely back. On the way, he introduced a few casual-seeming references to my companion. They did not fool me. Peter Clovis was very taken at his first meeting with Miss Brook and I saw looming on the horizon another possible hazard, as well as an opportunity I had not expected to gather useful information.

  I said she was very good as my secretary too. He was suitably impressed and I dropped into the conversation that murders always intrigued me, to which he said jokingly that they were his bread and butter, after all. We had a good laugh at that and I said as we had been at Vantry, and being on the spot as it were, here in Rothesay, I was particularly interested and would very much like to read an account of the Sarah Vantry trial. Would the police files still be available?

  He frowned. ‘As an authoress, I could get you access to a complete verbatim account if you like. Couldn’t let you take it out, of course, such files are confidential reports, but if you’d like to come into the station you could read it there.’

  And that was exactly what I wanted.

  He asked if I had enjoyed seeing Vantry and I said I thought the house was splendid, especially since it had also become a tourist attraction.

  He smiled. ‘Edgar Worth is very proud of his heritage and not ashamed to bring in a little extra money from our one sensational murder case. He knows a good thing and Vantry must be expensive to run. They have far fewer servants than the usual landowners.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘An odd sort of chap, in many ways, can’t make him out personally, especially as he doesn’t seem to want to fit in with the community, the way Lady Vantry did before her accident, and they’ve lived here since then, when they moved in to take care of her.’

  He paused, frowning. ‘Although he and his sister Beatrice – Miss Worth – are devoted to Lady Vantry, which must take up a lot of their time, it surprises me that neither of them ask anything more of life than looking after an aged relative. There is always a lot going on here in Rothesay, something for everyone, whatever their age, young and old,’ he added enthusiastically, ‘but the Worths hardly ever leave the castle, as they still like to call it. Strange, it seems to me, for a youngish, active couple – Edgar is over forty but Beatrice is quite a bit younger – living like that, very independent, without living-in servants. They make do with a daily maid, which must be difficult in that size of house. There’s a gardener, of course, Angus Betts’ – he shook his head – ‘a right odd cove: served the Vantrys all his life, like his father before him, frequents the local pub but never has a word to say for himself.’

  I laughed. ‘We met him. Probably exhausts all his supply of words as the tour guide. He was certainly voluble enough conducting us round.’

  Peter looked surprised. ‘Maybe Vantry is his only interest, then. I’ve only ever him with the Worths when they come in to do their shopping – pony and trap once a week into the town and that’s about it. Keep themselves to themselves, all right.’

  There was a pause and I said delicately: ‘I presume they will inherit Vantry when the old lady goes, and she looks quite frail. We saw her on the terrace, walking with a stick.’

  He smiled. ‘I gather that is her only exercise these days. Hard on someone who was a great horsewoman in her day as well as being so active in the community. Oh, they look after her exceedingly well, certainly aren’t in any great hurry to lose her. They will want to keep her alive and well as long as they can. You see, there is a clause in the Vantry deed of inheritance established by an ancient trust, that entitles her ladyship to receive a substantial annual income.’

  He paused and smiled. ‘And that obviously also helps to keep the place going, but when she dies that money goes with her and with no direct heir the house will go back to the trust to dispose of it as they wish. Hard lines for Edgar and his sister. Remote branches are not considered, so they will be thrown out, penniless.’

  It sounded a heartless arrangement as he went on: ‘No repayment for their wasted years of devotion to her ladyship. If you study ancient laws, some of them dating back to the Middle Ages and never updated, they are very complicated.’ He smiled. ‘If you are a fan of Mr Dickens, he knew all about the unfairness involved in tontines, and how they could ruin a family and cause generations of embitterment.’

  We had reached the hotel, and saying goodnight to Peter, I was going over what he had told me and, reading between the lines, I realised that life at Vantry was not exactly a bed of roses for the Worths.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sadie was waiting for me in my room. She seemed troubled. Was she concerned about my late arrival back from the Clovis party?

  ‘How did it go? Were the Vantrys there? Harry said they would be invited. Did you talk to them?’

  ‘Not much more than an introduction—’ I was saying more but stopped.

  Sadie wasn’t listening. She was shaking her head, looking scared, sitting on the edge of my bed. What was it, a quarrel with Harry, I wondered?

  ‘What’s wrong, Sadie?’

  She shivered and took my hand. ‘I’m scared, Rose. Something awful happened. You remember I thought old Uncle Godwin might have recognised me? Well, I was right about that. When I was a maid here before the accident, he was the owner of the hotel and he kept making up to me with lewd suggestions and roving hands. As I told you, once I hit him with a saucepan.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I was rather pleased to see that his face does still bear the scar.’

  Sighing, she got up and walked over to the window. ‘I decided not to wait up for you and as I was going up I met him, he seemed to be waiting for me at the top of the stairs, blocking my way. He grinned and said: “The little scared girl, is it? I thought it was you and you still look scared after all these years.” I pretended to be indignant, said I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he grabbed my arm and said, “I’ve a long memory for faces and I’m amazed that you have the nerve to come back here after what you got away with. What will your fine lady say if I tell her the truth about her fine companion, that she was a murderess who escaped the gallows on a very thin not-proven verdict?”’

  She sighed miserably. ‘I knew it was no use denying it, Rose. I was in a panic, I said I had a different life now, and he said: “Very well, if you want to keep it, I’ll do a deal with you.” I didn’t know what he wanted but he said: “You can keep your virtue, Miss Vantry, that no longer in
terests me. However, your fine lady authoress looks as if she has plenty of money. I could do with a bit of that myself, if I am to keep our secret.” I asked him what he meant by that and he grinned. “Oh, word might get around. Not only your fine lady will dismiss you, but Mr Edgar Worth will be very interested to know why you’ve come back when you got off with murder last time you were here.”’

  Sadie sat down again. ‘He wanted twenty pounds. Twenty pounds, Rose.’ She groaned. ‘What on earth am I to do now?’

  I would have given her that to get rid of him, but I knew better. ‘Twenty pounds, Sadie. That’s just for starters.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that blackmailers don’t stop at first asking.’

  Wringing her hands, in tears now, she said: ‘What can I do, then?’

  This was the most frequent problem I encountered as an investigator and I always told my clients that the usual procedure, as advised by the police when threatened by a blackmailer, was to inform them – but most victims were so terrified of the truth being made public that they came to me instead. And Sadie almost certainly also fell into this category, so I said:

  ‘Do nothing. Think about it, Sadie. Time is on your side. As for Edgar spreading the word, well, that hardly matters since we will be gone in a couple of days. He could always try sending you threatening letters to Solomon’s Tower, which will go straight into the fire, harmless squibs seeing that I know all about what happened. So what else are you worried about?’

  She was biting her lip, shaking her head miserably. I looked at her and asked the question foremost in my mind.

  ‘Has he told Harry?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. But that is part of the deal. He knows that we are …’ she hesitated a moment, ‘well, friends. He’s been watching us.’

  We were both silent. Then I said: ‘Perhaps you should tell him yourself.’ I felt, but did not add: depending on how far you have travelled in this affair. If it is merely a passing holiday romance holiday then the consequences as far as you are concerned do not matter. You go back leaving a disillusioned Harry Godwin. He’s very young and inexperienced, he’ll get over first love, we all do! Meanwhile you marry your devoted Captain Robbie and live happy ever after.

  I waited for her reactions about telling him, hoping that this was her chance to confide in me. Her silence indicated that she was not ready to do so and I felt rather saddened that with such an overwhelming personal crisis she either did not trust me with the truth about her relationship with Harry Godwin, or decided that I would be shocked and that would make us both uncomfortable and perhaps even destroy my readiness to help prove her innocence.

  She stood up and said: ‘I’m going to bed. Thanks for your advice, I’ll give it consideration.’ Saying goodnight, I told her to cheer up, try not to worry and sleep well, but I was aware of her disappointment, her feeling that I had let her down somehow, having always suspected that Sadie’s plan was irrational and, indeed, beyond belief and had plenty of flaws. They were already becoming evident: her urgency to prove her innocence in order to marry one man while she was fast falling in love with another. It just didn’t make sense. Uncle Godwin recognising her and demanding his silence for a price was merely one more flaw and I knew that what was happening now was just the beginning – as her relationship with Harry evolved, the situation could certainly get worse.

  Perhaps I should have insisted that we left then, but I recognised that was not for me. True, I had been reluctant at first, but having now set foot in the labyrinth, I was determined to see it through.

  In less than a week. It seemed impossible.

  When we met at breakfast she looked tired but was smiling gallantly. Harry was beside her, his fond looks suggesting that Sadie Brook’s identity as the notorious Sarah Vantry and Uncle Godwin’s threat had not yet been revealed to him.

  Gerald was hovering in the reception area, that enigmatic look revealing nothing of his thoughts.

  Sadie followed my glance in his direction, and as if aware of what was in my mind, she smiled wryly. ‘Doesn’t have much to say for himself, does he? The world’s most silent man.’ And with a shrug: ‘According to Harry, he can talk a lot on things that interest him.’

  Our porridge arrived and no further mention was made of Sadie’s encounter with Uncle Godwin as we ate together. It was as if the revelations of last night and her terrible anxiety had never happened as she asked brightly: ‘Well, where do we go today?’

  When I told her that I was going to the police station as Peter had promised me a look at the trial papers, she demanded angrily: ‘And what am I supposed to do meanwhile?’

  ‘I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours.’

  She leant across the table, her face contorted. ‘The trial papers. Is that really your only reason for going there? Nothing to do with what I told you?’ she hissed and it was only then that I realised she believed I intended reporting the blackmailing threat.

  ‘Of course not, Sadie. That is something you must decide for yourself. Looking at the trial papers is a great opportunity to fully acquaint myself with all the details—’

  She stared at me angrily and said coldly: ‘You surely haven’t told him who I am?’

  ‘Calm down, Sadie. He knows nothing about you, only my interest as an authoress – thanks to you inflicting this new role on me. He accepts that but has no idea that I am an investigator, and he left Edinburgh before I married Jack Macmerry.’

  Quite unrepentant, she said: ‘I’m glad of that.’ But she didn’t look convinced. ‘After your promise about the blackmail, I mean.’ She shrugged and said resignedly: ‘Anyway, seeing papers of the trial won’t do much to help. I could tell you every detail, word for word. And it may be too late now, anyway.’

  It was useless to argue and my attempts fell on deaf ears trying to make her understand that police reports often contain additional information that is not available for newspaper reports, information that might in fact hold vital clues for this investigation and a situation that got more ridiculous every day. And hardly an hour passed that I did not blame myself for getting involved when there were so many more important issues that I should be dealing with than a twenty-year-old not-proven murder. There was so much going on in the world beyond this tiny island.

  1906 had been a momentous year, nationally and personally. In April, the earthquake in San Francisco had reached worldwide headlines. Visiting the city during Danny McQuinn’s work with Pinkerton’s Detective Agency, I had been delighted with its handsome buildings and warm-hearted residents. We had made friends there and its destruction touched a personal sense of grief.

  But of great importance to me this year, nearer home, was the Women’s Suffrage Movement plan for a protest procession in London in 1907. There was considerable organisation needed and as chairman of the Movement’s Edinburgh branch, I should have taken the chance to remain at home this week alone instead of embarking on this fool’s errand with Sadie, and used the valuable bonus time to get in touch with the various people involved, to arrange meetings with fellow members and together make lists of sympathisers for our cause to approach, who might be prepared to assist with donations towards our London visit to take part in this most important march.

  Full of very disagreeable thoughts, I left Sadie and shortly afterwards presented myself at the police station where Sergeant Clovis had told them to expect the authoress Mrs Rose Macmerry. They were obviously impressed and the file of Vantry versus the Crown was set out ready on a table.

  The witness statements were of particular interest. Nothing from Sarah Vantry’s former employer and new tormentor Uncle Godwin, who had clearly found the sixteen-year-old kitchen maid memorable enough to be worthy of his amorous attentions and had a scar to prove it. In the circumstances, I didn’t expect to find him mentioned anywhere in her defence, but I carefully read and reread the evidence of Edgar Worth, who had witnessed the attack.

  The lawyer defending Sadie took the stan
d, asked the young Edgar if he actually saw the attack and the exact place where he was standing at that precise moment. So saying, he produced a map of the house, to which Edgar pointed to the foot of the stairs.

  The lawyer was triumphant: ‘Then I am afraid your statement is invalid. As anyone can tell you who has been to Vantry, it would be impossible for any person of average height, unless they were a giant twelve foot tall’ (this drew a laugh) ‘standing at the foot of the stairs, to look up and see whether in the struggle of the two young people one, in this case the unfortunate victim Oswald Vantry, fell or was deliberately pushed down and tumbled from the head of the stairs to his death on the marble floor below.’

  Reading on through the lawyer’s testimony, there were other witnesses called, servants who knew allegedly of the fights and arguments between the two cousins and confirmed the bad feeling that had existed between them. One said it was common knowledge that they were always hitting each other, she had seen them in the garden arguing, and fighting. Another had actually seen Oswald strike Sadie, and although they had been alerted to the noise of a violent dispute on the landing that night, this was a regular daily occurrence that servants kept well out of. What went on ‘upstairs’, as they called it, concerning the family, was ignored by them as none of their business, unless they wished to interfere and be dismissed by Lady Vantry.

  At the time of the fatal attack, none of the servants had been near enough, although they heard the two youngsters shouting on the stairs, their voices quite audible from the kitchens. The only ones who were on the scene and claimed to have actually seen what was taking place, heard us quarrelling and me shouting I hated him and wished he was dead were Lady Vantry and Edgar Worth, visiting at the time.

  Curiously enough it was the servant witnesses who made the most impression and saved Sarah from being hanged. Most of the jury were working-class folk, not the upper crust of Bute society, and well aware of what went on amongst those they had been reared to regard as their betters. They were clearly sympathetic: this was a young lass and reading between the lines they all knew from personal experience that she had a troubled existence at Vantry. Many of them had worked in big houses like Vantry and knew perfectly well how poor relations were treated – as little more than unpaid servants by the aristocracy or the wealthy members of society.