The Sedleigh Hall Murder

by Roy Lewis

  In fact it took him longer. The road was more winding than he had expected, and he lost twenty minutes or more behind a herd of cows that were being moved along to a nearby farm. But it was not the time that caused him discomfort. His depression, the driving itself, and the constant reading he had been doing the last few evenings combined to place a tension upon him, physically, that could end in only one way. He knew the attack would come, sooner or later; fortunately, he had reached the Al before the signals started.

  He hesitated briefly about going on to Warkworth, but then decided to do so. It was five o’clock, and he would get some tea in the Northumberland Arms before seeking out Sarah Boden. He did not want to drive up here again tomorrow.

  But as he took the road from Felton across towards Warkworth he felt the pain begin. The road twisted and turned, giving him glimpses of the sea while across to his left, beyond the cricket ground, the ruined ramparts of Warkworth Castle reared grandly. He paid them little attention; he concentrated on the road as the feeling of sickness arose in his throat and the tiny needle points of pain began to prick at the back of his eyes, sharp scratchings that grew in intensity and regularity, until he squinted, narrowing his eyes against the pain. He drove down the hill past the castle and swung into Castle Street. He found a parking place down near the church, in the tiny square. He locked his car and with lowered head hurried into the Northumberland Arms. There was an agonized wait of five minutes before the desk clerk was able to give him a room, and then, in the confines of the hotel bedroom he ripped open his briefcase and took out his phial of pilocarpine, applied the fluid to his eyes and waited, lying on the bed, for the shuddering to stop.

  He had known the attack would be a bad one. He had known he would not be able to face the drive home afterwards. It was better to wait here, rest, have dinner later and forget office files, Arthur Egan, the Morcomb case and everything else. In the morning he would go to see Sarah Boden, and then go home to change. He should get to the office by ten-thirty.

  Now, just relax, rest in the darkened room, and let the drug take effect on his screaming nerve-ends.

  Relax, but not entirely, for something fluttered in his mind, unimportant, but demanding his attention, nevertheless. Something about the car parked next to his in the square. Unimportant, especially when matched against the pain in his eyes.

  * * *

  When you were approaching eighty you were entitled to be bloody-minded. You had earned the right and there was no one to gainsay that right. You had worked out your life, and now you had only yourself to please. You had your own house, paid for with your own money earned from generous employers, and you had your own routines. If other people didn’t like those routines they could lump it.

  And if other people didn’t like you not answering the door until you were prepared to do so, they could lump that too.

  He knew she was in there, of course. Perversely, when he had started knocking she had made sure that he saw her, moving in the sitting-room, prepared to answer the door only when she wanted to. He was patient, she would say that for him, nevertheless. It was twenty minutes since he had first knocked; he had gone away, then come back again, and now he was still there, knocking. A few more minutes; perhaps five minutes, and then she would answer the door. Perhaps.

  It was beginning to get dark. The knocking had stopped. She peered out of the sitting-room window and he was there, just across the street. It was beginning to rain.

  When you were eighty, you could get lonely too. She felt sorry for herself, suddenly.

  She opened the front door, and stood just inside, in the passageway, where the light fingers of rain could not reach her. He came across after a few moments. He stood in her doorway, smiling at her.

  ‘Hello, Sarah. You do remember me, don’t you?’

  Chapter Four

  It rained heavily during the night but by morning the sun was bright again and Ward took an early breakfast, paid his bill and then walked up Castle Street, through the grounds of the castle itself and down the hillside on which it stood. Leaves glistened in the sunlight, still wet from the overnight rain, and the river was at full tide, the small weir virtually submerged, as Ward strolled along the path to talk to the old boatman who made a living hiring rowboats and ferrying across to the far bank those tourists who wished to seek out the Hermit’s Cave. He claimed to have been at work there for fifty-eight years, but he still rose early — more for the peace of the river, Ward suspected, than the possibility of hirings.

  The walk in the morning sunshine did him a great deal of good. He felt refreshed and his mind was clear. The depression of yesterday was gone. It had probably been induced as much by tiredness as anything else, and the conversation with Anne Morcomb, well, he must be getting fanciful in his old age if he read into it anything other than the obvious — a brief acquaintance, an unhappy time for her, pressures of the kind that for him had resulted in another attack. But this morning things were in perspective, and a blackbird was in full song. Ward turned and followed the stream in its run towards the coast. A few minutes later he had reached the lower end of Warkworth; he paused a while on the ancient bridge watching the house martins under its arches, and then he walked back up the slope of Castle Street.

  Enquiries in the shop near the church led to the information that she lived in the first house above the one for sale on the right. Armed with these directions, Ward found the house easily enough. The house beyond Sarah Boden’s seemed to be empty also — Ward suspected some of these granite-fronted houses would be used as second homes by the more affluent on Tyneside.

  The door boasted a heavy brass knocker. Ward used it, and listened to the reverberations die away in the house. Surprisingly, the noise had a strangely echoing quality as though the house was empty, but he guessed its structure, or sparse furnishing, would have caused the effect. He tried again and stepped back, almost colliding with a woman walking down the hill with a shopping-bag on her arm. Then again.

  There was no answer.

  Eric Ward checked his watch. It was just after ninefifteen. An hour or so home to change; he’d be pushed to get to the office before midday the way things were going. He knocked again, but once more there was no reply. He wondered if she was lying in bed refusing to answer the door. Old people could get like that sometimes; stubborn, peculiar.

  He hesitated. There was no sense in waiting any longer, and yet he did not want another journey out to Warkworth from the office. He turned, and walked down the street to the narrow arched alleyway that led to the river bank. These houses had gardens at the rear, overlooking the river. He walked down the alley, then turned to walk along the path that ran through the trees, abutting on the stone wall that enclosed the gardens of the houses in Castle Street.

  There were two back gardens tangled with vegetation — one the house for sale, the other, Sarah Boden’s. There was no problem in obtaining entry to the garden itself; the wooden door was ajar and when he walked up the pathway through weeds and long grass he saw that the milkman had left a bottle of milk on the back doorstep.

  Ward knocked on the back door. The frosted glass prevented his seeing inside but he guessed the kitchen lay beyond. There was no answer. He moved to the window; it was tightly shut apart from its upper section, which was wide open, and gave him a view of the kitchen, in spite of its griminess. He could make out an old gas cooker, linoleum on the floor, a table . . . and something else.

  It looked like a piece of flowered cloth, lying on the floor.

  Had he been a mere solicitor he might have had second thoughts, but years in the police force had trained him otherwise. He went back to the frosted glass door and shattered it with his elbow. He punched out the glass, cutting his hand in the process, then gingerly inserted his hand and opened the door.

  She was lying on her back in her flowered dress. There was a cut on her forehead and her eyes were wide open, staring. The hissing noise came from the open gas tap on the cooker. Ward reached down and lightly
took her wrist. There was no pulse. He went back out into the fresh morning air. He would have to phone for an ambulance, but he knew that he was already too late.

  It did not take as long as he had anticipated. He placed calls to the ambulance service and to the police, then rang his office to explain he would not be in today. Then he waited. They all arrived within a few minutes of each other; ambulance, squad car, uniformed local policeman. They questioned him, looked sour when he told them he knew nothing regarding the circumstances of death, and sourer when they saw the broken door. Then the doctor arrived to pronounce Sarah Boden dead. Ward was asked to accompany the squad car in his own vehicle to Morpeth; there he was questioned and made a statement.

  It was over.

  But finished in more ways than one. Eric Ward doubted whether Jackie Parton would now discover very much more, if anything, about the remote Arthur Egan, and with the death of Sarah Boden it was unlikely that he himself would find out anything that might help in the administration of the estate.

  No relatives; the last fantasies of a dying man, creating a family where none existed.

  He was back at his office early next morning, to make up for lost time.

  * * *

  At eleven o’clock Joseph Francis rang through to ask Eric to join him for coffee. It was an unusual summons, for the senior partner confined business meetings to the afternoon and social meetings to the early evenings. During the mornings he worked at his own files, the habit of a lifetime in the law.

  But there the coffee was, in two delicate china cups, and Joseph Francis waved Eric to the leather armchair. It was unlikely that the occasion was destined to be a social one, however, for Joseph’s face was serious, and his mouth pursed. He stared at Eric Ward with a hint of belligerence.

  ‘What do you really think of my son Paul?’ he asked abruptly.

  Ward made no reply immediately. He stared at the older man, frowning. ‘In what respect do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t be so damned coy. You know what I mean.’

  The testiness in Francis’s tone annoyed Ward. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Socially? I can answer that easily enough. But professionally? I’ don’t think that’s the kind of question a senior partner should ask an articled clerk.’

  ‘You’re not exactly the usual kind of articled clerk,’ Francis snapped. ‘I wouldn’t go around asking a twenty year old such a question. I’m asking you because I want your professional opinion of him.’ He paused, then added grudgingly, ‘And because I — value your opinion, as well.’

  This, Ward thought, could very well be where he and Francis, Shaw and Elder parted company, but if Joseph really wanted his opinion, he could have it, for not to give it now would somehow damage his own independence and pride. ‘All right, sir, I’ll tell you. I think he’s competent, but not sufficiently prepared to undertake the hard grind. I suspect he has flair, but he exercises it on matters that are of interest to him only. I’ve seen him in litigation and he can be sharp, and quick. In the office, he’s not like that. I think he needs a challenge; I think he needs incentive. He’s easily bored, and when that happens he doesn’t work well.’

  ‘You don’t think much of Paul, then?’ Joseph Francis sneered.

  Aware that the old man would be feeling the criticism personally, Ward replied, ‘You asked for my opinion. I believe I stressed what Paul’s better points might be also, professionally speaking.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Joseph Francis raised a hand and touched his hair, as though checking that its silvery neatness was as precise as ever. When he spoke again, his tone was back to its normal, slightly bored modulation. ‘Well, you may well be right, of course. Er . . . how long have you got to complete your articles?’

  ‘Just over eight months.’

  ‘And then what?’

  As Joseph Francis reached out an elegant hand to pick up his coffee cup Ward hesitated. ‘I’m not sure, sir. An assistant solicitor post somewhere, I suppose.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘I think that’s for you and the other partners to say.’

  Francis sipped his coffee, made a slight grimace at its apparent bitterness, then looked carefully at Ward. ‘Eight months, hey? All right, I’ll tell you what, Eric. No promises, but there may be a place for you here. As an assistant — but with prospects. Maybe, two years, and the chance to buy in as a junior partner. No promises — and it depends on your exams, of course, and on your performance. You see, there may be a position . . .’

  ‘I’d be grateful for the opportunity.’

  Joseph Francis looked at him with cold eyes. ‘It’s partly because of Paul. He hasn’t made up his mind yet, but you’re right in your assessment. I’ve already spoken to him; I’ll finance him if he’d like to go to the bar, where he could utilize his forensic talents more adequately.’ His tone was dry. ‘So if he goes, there could well be a place for you. The devil we know and all that. Just one trouble, on the other hand . . .’

  Ward held his glance. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Balance. A sense of balance is necessary to a solicitor. And a low profile. Very necessary.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at,’ Ward lied.

  ‘Time is money,’ Francis said flatly. ‘Some of the drudgery that suits Paul so ill brings us in our largest profits. We need to concentrate on such matters. Estate administration — unless of the largest kind — is not very profitable. One should not allow unproductive work to push aside bread-and-butter files. It’s time you finished that damned Egan business: you’re spending too much time on it.’

  ‘You also said something about a low profile.’

  Joseph Francis sipped his coffee. ‘Clients must respect their solicitor. They must have confidence in him, hold his judgement in high regard. Scandal of any kind drives away clients, prospective and actual. Conduct in any way . . . outré has the same effect. Now then — what exactly went on yesterday?’

  Ward took a deep breath. ‘I went to interview a woman. When I arrived I found she was dead. I broke into the house, then called the necessary services. I made a statement to the police, then went home.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I think she must have gone to the kitchen to make some tea or something, turned on the gas, then slipped on the linoleum and knocked herself out. She was there all night; it might have been the cold; there was no heat in the kitchen, and the window was open; it could have been pneumonia. She was pretty old.’

  Joseph Francis was only slightly mollified. ‘An accident,’ he murmured, then sipped again at his coffee. ‘All right, Eric, but remember what I said. Housebreaking is for burglars; dead people are for undertakers. You’re neither.’

  ‘Necessity—’

  ‘—is the mother of convention, Eric!’ Joseph Francis interrupted swiftly. ‘Remember that. You need a job with us; in our own way, we need you. But convention demands that solicitors behave like solicitors — discreet, controlled, genteel if you like. In America things may be different, but over here we have a set of values that have been proved over a hundred years.’ He leaned back, a frown gathering on his patrician features, nettled somewhat that his little speech had bordered on the excited. ‘Let’s say no more about it, Eric. Just remember what I’ve told you.’

  Ward rose to his feet, and began to walk to the door.

  Francis stopped him. ‘Before you go, I should tell you that counsel’s opinion on Lord Morcomb’s case is expected tomorrow. I’ll let you have it once I’ve finished with it. That case could be . . . very helpful to you, Eric, if we do a good job on it. And otherwise, just one more thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I want the Egan administration dispensed with. This week.’

  * * *

  Back in his own room Eric did not know whether to feel elated or depressed. The knowledge that Paul Francis could well be leaving the firm, with a consequent assistant post being available, and even a partnership, was exciting: it meant that if he pulled his weight during the nex
t eight months and completed the papers that remained to him of the Law Society examinations, he could be obtaining a secure future for himself in a leading law firm in Newcastle. Yet at the same time, in spite of the prospect opening up ahead of him, he felt edgy and ill at ease, with the sense of something unfinished remaining. Anne Morcomb had told him to complete the Egan enquiry, but would it ever end? And for that matter, was it not already ended, with the accidental death of Sarah Boden?

  This week, Joseph Francis had warned; it had to be finished this week. As far as Eric Ward was concerned, it would be as well if it finished right now. The file was on his desk; he closed it, placing it in the filing cabinet. A few days more and if there were no replies to the advertisements he’d go ahead with the payment of debts and other outgoings and then get the estate declared bona vacantia.

  He was done with Arthur Egan. He had his own career to look to.

  The following morning he received a visitor who showed him that the file was far from closed.

  * * *

  The secretary showed him in and withdrew but her leaving did little to empty the room because Detective Chief Superintendent Arkwright had the presence and the bulk to make any room look small. He was six feet two in his stockinged feet and had long ago put behind him the youthful awkwardness of a raw Yorkshire recruit. Once away from the uniformed branch he had begun to put on weight, and good living had thickened his waist, deepened his chest as he combined regular exercise with heavy meals. For a period he had been a weightlifting champion in police circles and he had used the same commitment to the pursuit of his ambition. It was now more or less achieved: further promotion was possible, but not likely, and he was generally satisfied with his job. Traces of his Yorkshire background remained in his speech, and his ruddy complexion, craggy nose and mouth were those that would have fitted a hill farmer in the dales. He occasionally pretended a simplicity that he had lost over the years, but Eric Ward knew him to be a confident and resourceful jack.