Murder at Mondial Castle

by Issy Brooke

  Taylor’s thin lip curled in distaste. “I was here,” he said curtly. “I was in my lord’s rooms all day, and when I heard there had been a disturbance I was in the dressing room, brushing my lord’s tweeds, ready for his trip to Scotland.”

  “You did not leave the house for any reason?”

  “What reason?”

  “This is what I am asking you,” Theodore pressed. Why could people not simply answer the question directly? Perhaps this was something better left to Adelia.

  “I had no reason to leave the rooms until I heard the crisis occur. I know my duties and my place,” he added, as if he were suggesting that Theodore did not know his own place.

  “I see. Of course. I understand,” Theodore replied. “One last thing, if I may. Lord Mondial’s clothes? I should like to examine them.”

  Taylor stared at him, utter incomprehension on his face. He did not reply.

  Theodore tried again. “I wish to look at the shirt, jacket and waistcoat that he was wearing. His cravat, too.”

  “They have been destroyed. They were utterly beyond repair.” Taylor’s incredulity overrode his place as a servant. He said, “What could you possibly want with my lord’s clothing?”

  “I am interested in the marks left by the firing of the pistol.”

  Taylor was still shaking his head. “No, sir. No, my lord. It is impossible.” He began to close the door.

  Theodore retreated to the corridor and stood for a moment in silent contemplation. When he turned to walk away, he came face to face with Lord Mondial, dusty and red-faced from his ride into town.

  Eight

  Adelia was pleased to find her husband waiting for her in their rooms when she returned from talking with Dido. It was just before luncheon was due to be served, and she needed to change out of her day dress into a more elaborate and colourful get-up suitable for meeting people. She also needed to freshen up after a grief-filled morning of tears and confusion. She felt worn out, hollowed from within like an empty vessel. She mourned the loss of Miss Lamb, of course. But her grief was layered. She also mourned for her daughter’s sadness, and wondered how many of Dido’s tears were for Philippa and how many were Dido’s own secret troubles given free outlet under the mask of mourning her friend.

  “Oh, our poor daughter,” she said, flopping into a wide easy chair by the windows. She picked up a sheet of paper and fanned herself with it. “She is utterly devastated and Lord Mondial is of no use whatsoever. That man! I fear I may have made a mistake in arranging this match. He needs a good shaking. It reminds me of the wedding itself – I should have taken what happened then as a warning sign.”

  “What do you mean? It was a glorious day,” Theodore said.

  She was sceptical as to whether he could distinguish between all seven of the weddings that his daughters had had. She said, “Not the wedding day itself. But do you remember how they had planned a three-week tour of Italy to commence a few days later, but then his mother was taken ill?”

  “She was not seriously ill. They still went.”

  “They still went and then she died so actually, I would say that she was seriously ill. But I remember speaking to Dido beforehand and she said that because it was arranged, he must carry on. He was so much a man of his word. And he’s playing the same trick now. I can’t work out if he’s callous or simply so, so concerned with sticking to what he’s said he will do. It’s some point of pride with him. I wonder what has made him so rigid.” She stopped and looked more closely at the paper in her hand. “What is this? Are you an artist now?”

  “Ah, no! You will be very impressed,” he said, dragging up a chair to sit alongside her. “These are the movements of Sir Henry Locksley during yesterday’s terrible situation.”

  “Impressed? I am alarmed. To know this, you must have spoken to him and I thought that we had agreed to leave the more delicate matters of actually speaking to people to me.”

  “Of course, but don’t worry. It all happened quite naturally and I don’t think I’ve upset anyone. Look...” He picked up a pencil and used it to indicate Sir Henry’s path through the grounds, and who he claimed to have seen.

  “Tobias Taylor?” Adelia repeated. “He came down from the house with everyone else when the alarm was raised. I was in front of him. He was holding a clothes brush.”

  “Oh, but that corroborates his story,” Theodore said, his face falling.

  “It does not. A brush is the easiest thing to let drop when something calls your attention; why would he bring it with him unless he meant for it be seen? It makes him look more suspicious. And I don’t like that valet; he fancies himself to be one for the ladies. But more to the point – what do you mean, his story? Who else have you spoken to?”

  “Well, I did as we agreed and went to Mondial’s rooms in order to investigate his clothing,” he said.

  She pressed her lips together and nodded slightly. She wanted to be angry at him but he was correct. They had agreed for him to do that. So she had to be silent and let him continue.

  “Taylor was most unhelpful. He seemed to think that it was not my place to be asking him anything. The man might be a valet to a Marquis but he has entirely the wrong sort of attitude.”

  “Yes, dear, he’s a complete cad, but what did he say?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “He told me that the clothing had been destroyed as it was beyond repair. No doubt that is true. It would have been soaked with blood; indeed I saw that with my own eyes. Damn it! I wish I had thought to look more closely at the powder marks around the place where the bullet had entered his arm.”

  Adelia, in spite of her annoyance, smiled. It was heartening to see her husband passionate about something.

  Theodore drew an idle doodle on the paper as he continued. “He also utterly denied Locksley’s assertion that he had been out of the house at any point. He claimed to have been in Mondial’s rooms all day, brushing his tweeds.”

  “Hence carrying the clothes brush,” Adelia said. “I do not like the sound of this man. Everything I hear makes me suspect him.”

  “Yet Mondial holds him in the highest regard. Should we warn him, do we think? He needs to know if he has a duplicitous servant.” Theodore said. Then he stopped and jabbed the pencil hard into the paper. The lead snapped. “The man is of singular appearance. Tall, thin, like he’d snap in a wind. Even at a distance, he is remarkable. I don’t understand why he could be a ladies’ man. What is the appeal of a man like a stick?”

  “It is the way that he looks at a young woman and speaks with them as if they are the most amazing person he has ever met,” Adelia said. “I have watched him at work.”

  Theodore shook his head, the concept quite alien to him. He continued. “And he has been in Mondial’s employment, I understand, for many years. Mondial would have recognised him, had he been the assailant. Even masked and disguised, surely the master would know the servant – such a personal servant, one who has been so close for so long.”

  “I agree,” said Adelia, impressed all over again by her husband’s perspicacity, at least in certain matters. “Taylor may be lying but it could be for any number of reasons. Sir Henry, likewise, could lie for innocent reasons – well, innocent of murder, at any rate. Oh, I don’t like to think of Sir Henry being involved!” She knew she was letting her feelings influence matters. She liked Sir Henry, so he couldn’t be a murderer. She didn’t like Taylor, so he could be any kind of villain she cared to consider.

  “Someone must be involved.”

  “Not necessarily. It could yet be the work of a passing robber, as Lord Mondial suspects.” She said it with reluctance. They would never solve that kind of murder.

  “If that is really the case, then I suppose that he must turn it over to the local police,” Theodore said. “But he is stubborn and private. And I think it must be someone in this household.”

  “Why?”

  He tapped the broken pencil on the paper with each point that he made. “Two pistol
s. Private land. Not a typical robbery. The house untouched. No precedent. The odd movements of Mondial, Taylor, Miss Lamb, Locksley, even our Dido. Oh – and I encountered Mondial as I was leaving his rooms. He had just got back from a visit to town. He rode!”

  “With his arm as it is?”

  “Yes, with his arm all strapped up. He is made of stern stuff. Do you know, he told me that he has arranged for Miss Lamb’s body to return to the town in which her grandfather resides, and of course he intends to continue on here as normal, as if nothing has happened.”

  Adelia nodded sadly. It had been the cause of much grief this morning. “Just as with the honeymoon trip around Italy, he actually still intends on going ahead with the garden party, as the invitations have almost all been sent out. We had barely finished the additional list! There was no need to continue. We could send out cancellations – we could do so today. Yet he said no. He said he had told people and they might have already made arrangements to attend.”

  “Good heavens. The man is heartless. Callous, as you say. This is supposed to be a house of mourning.”

  “It is not a house of mourning, though. Not officially. No one is covering the mirrors here. She was not a relative of the family and he claims it was merely a robbery that happened outside the house – and therefore nothing can attach to him or his name. There is no expectation that he will behave as if he is in mourning.”

  Theodore frowned. “He is logical and I admire that. But you know more about matters of etiquette than I do. What will the set say?”

  Adelia sniffed. The London set were fickle and flighty. “The fashionable people will be simply delighted to come here for the party. It will be the most well-attended event in the county for years, because this is a scene of gossip now. And while everyone will agree that it is in poor taste to hold the party, no one will dare to be left out. They will all come while swearing that they ought not to be here.”

  “Then the blame rests on Mondial for going ahead with it.”

  “And he says he will be blamed for cancelling it. He is a man of his word. He and our dear Dido have had strong words about it, this morning, and she is very upset. Yet even her distress seems not to move him,” Adelia explained. “He had decided a party was to be held, and he will not be swayed. In fact...”

  “What?”

  “I do not wish to be the cause of gossip so you must keep this to yourself, but Dido seemed to hint that he was concerned that if he cancelled the party on account of ‘a mere house-guest to whom he had no connection’ then people would read some scandal into that, and assume that there was more of a connection. In his strange way, he believes that less scandal will attach to him this way. It is nonsense, of course. Yet I cannot help wondering if there is no smoke without fire. For, after all, why was he alone with Miss Lamb?”

  “Why indeed,” said Theodore. “What did Dido tell you about her own movements yesterday?”

  “This is complicated,” Adelia said. “Let me copy you, and draw a map of it all.” He sharpened the pencil for her and passed it over. She drew a small square. “To begin; we were here, and Lord Mondial came to the room where we were planning the garden party and asked Dido to walk with him. This much I know to be absolutely true.”

  Theodore nodded.

  “They left together.” The pencil scraped across the paper. “Now, in Dido’s account, she left the house with her husband by the rear doors and stepped onto the patio. She told him she thought that it was too hot to walk, and asked that he converse with her there in the shade on the patio. But he insisted that they proceed through the gardens. He told her that she was pale and wan, not pale and interesting.”

  “And she agreed?”

  “She is not accustomed to disagree with her husband even though any decent lady would wish to remain pale and not step out into the sun at all. But she obeyed.”

  “Obeyed! Yet she is your daughter,” Theodore said with a smile.

  “And yours; yet she is her own person too, and she wants only to please and to do her duty as a wife and make him happy. Don’t start – yes, it is a duty I might sometimes fail at.” She allowed a small smile to cross her face before returning to the serious matter at hand. “So Dido went with him onto the lawns, reluctantly, and a window in the upper floor was flung open and the children’s nurse called out.”

  “A window in the nursey?”

  “No, they are barred and the nursery itself is on the very top floor. This was from the schoolroom, and the nurse called out that one of the boys was ill, and what was she to do about it?”

  “I can’t imagine that pleased Mondial,” Theodore said.

  “Oh, of course, he was utterly livid. He was angry that they were being interrupted, and furious that the servant had actually shouted across the lawn. She went red when he turned around; Dido says that the nurse hadn’t stopped to think. She’d seen Dido, and knew that Dido would want to be informed. She called out before she could stop herself. She has offered her resignation but Lord Mondial has already sacked her without any character.”

  “The cad. This is his home to run as he sees fit, but surely as the child was ill – oh, my grandchild! Tell me, what is wrong, and which one is it?” He was almost getting to his feet.

  “Sit down. It was a passing stomach ailment and affected both boys in but a mild way. They have been dosed with chamomile tea and mulled eggs and remain in bed. It is a blessing, as all the alarums of the day have passed them by.”

  “Marrow toast. They must have marrow toast,” Theodore said urgently.

  Adelia smiled at her husband. He adored his grandchildren even if he seemed unable to remember their names or tell them apart. He was quite happy to get down on his hands and knees on the rug by the fire and let them crawl all over him. Adelia looked forward to the time that the boys were older and could hold better conversations with their grandfather. Dido had been the first of their daughters to have children although she didn’t doubt the rest would be far behind – except Mary, perhaps. As for Theodore’s son and heir, Bamfylde, there were probably dozens of his children, unacknowledged, scattered about the country.

  Theodore was deep in thought. He jerked himself out of his reverie and said, “So, what happened next?”

  “Dido returned to the house of course. She didn’t know, at that time, how serious or not the illness was. All she knew was that the nurse had called her, and even the wrath of her husband could not prevent her from going to her boys. She is, above all, a devoted mother.”

  “And Mondial followed?”

  “No.” He is not a devoted father, she thought. “He stormed off, so she said, raging and muttering. She assumed that he wanted to walk off his anger and she let him go; she had no interest in anything but getting to her children by that point. She didn’t see why he could not speak to her later about whatever the matter was. But as you have seen, he is a man of stubborn character and fixed ideas. If he decides something is to happen then that must happen when he decrees it.”

  “So he went to the yew tree walk?” Theodore said.

  “Yes, and there he must have encountered Miss Lamb, who was also walking.”

  “And there she was shot. What does Dido think about the whole affair? Does she believe that a robber could have wandered into the grounds? If I were a highwayman, I would not prey upon people in their own gardens. For anyone walking in the gardens here is not carrying money or jewellery. A good robber would either come to the house to raid it, or he would prey upon people who are travelling or enjoying time in town.”

  “I agree with your logic. And not to mention that these attacks surely happen at night, not during the day. Do you think there is a chance that Miss Lamb and Lord Mondial were deliberately attacked? That it could have been planned in some way?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Theodore. “And that leads to another thought. If planned, then there is someone out there who wants to do harm to Mondial. He must be upon his guard.” He shook his head. “Yet he wants to ignore the wh
ole thing and carry on as usual.”

  “The garden party will be the event of the month, now,” Adelia said.

  “No, I mean there is more. I met him, as I told you, on his return from town. He has sent word to Doctor Hardy, Miss Lamb’s grandfather.” Theodore curled his lip. “By post. Can you imagine? You criticise me for my lack of tact, my dear, but even I can see this is news that ought to be broken in person. But here we are and it is done. He has made arrangements with the funeral directors. Even now she is probably on her final journey.”

  “I am sorry,” Adelia said, seeing that he was frowning.

  “I am, too. I will not get the chance to examine the body.”

  “No, I meant ... never mind.”

  “Furthermore,” he blundered on in his oblivion, “Mondial has changed his mind about engaging a detective. He was never very keen and claims he agreed to my suggestion in the heat of the moment while pain addled his mind. No detective will be coming from London or anywhere at all.”

  “Oh! So you are to investigate?”

  “No,” he told her. “He has actually asked us to leave.”

  “But the party ... and Dido ...”

  “Yes. I reminded him of these things, and reminded him also that if he believes a robber is on the loose in the local area, the police will override his wishes.”

  “I imagine he did not take that lightly.” Adelia wondered how forceful Theodore had been in his conversation.

  “He did not. He claims that he thinks the robber has fled; he does not believe the murder was intentional, and now he has gone before he can be found and hanged for it. That makes sense. He feels there is no point in keeping the matter open. He also reminded me he knows all the local judiciary and his connections can overrule any petty policeman.”