Murder at Mondial Castle

by Issy Brooke

  Still carrying the letters, she left the room a few moments later, and finally found her daughter in her private day room alongside her own bedroom.

  DIDO LOOKED A LITTLE better than she had done previously. She seemed resigned to Lord Mondial’s insistence that everything now return to normal. “In truth,” she confessed to her mother, who had parked herself on a comfortable couch, “Perhaps John is right to press on with the party. There is so much to do and though I resent it, and want only to lie on my bed and weep, that won’t solve a thing, will it? I am a woman of the British Empire and the British elite; we won’t get anywhere if we succumb to the vapours every five minutes.”

  “There is a world of difference between succumbing to the vapours and allowing oneself to mourn the loss of a dear friend.”

  Dido nodded. “That is true. Though we had not been as close as we might have been lately, Philippa and I. I think since the birth of the boys, the second one particularly, it is as if my social circle has changed. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Indeed, John thinks it ought to have not changed at all. He doesn’t see why I have to – why I want to be so involved in the children’s lives. But you were involved in ours, weren’t you?”

  “Of course I was. But remember, I was not raised in a castle like this. I was born to work, however genteel that work might have been. Listen to your husband as much as you can, because you need him to guide you in how to move with his sort of people. Had it not been for your father helping me navigate this sort of world, I should have got myself into far more scrapes than I did. John knows how to behave in this circle of people.”

  “I do listen to him. He does help me though he grows impatient with me from time to time. I try not to disappoint him but sometimes ... oh mama, I love him, I do, but what if he does not love me?”

  “He does!” Adelia moved to one side and let Dido sink down alongside her. Adelia held onto her daughter’s hand and rubbed her thumb rhythmically over her skin. “He adores you but it is in his own way, according to how he has been taught to show love, that’s all. He would do anything to protect you.” She remembered what Theodore had told her about Lord Mondial’s insistence that he was acting only to prevent gossip and shame attaching to his wife. “He loves you, I promise it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Dido, I have been meaning to ask you. On the day of the terrible events, your husband came to the room and asked you to walk with him in the garden. What did he want to speak to you about?”

  “Some matter to do with a tutor for the boys, he told me later.”

  “Was that all? Why was he so insistent?”

  “That’s his way. You know him. He is like that about everything. Everything has to happen immediately, for him.”

  “Hmm.”

  Dido hung her head.

  There was something else. Adelia wasn’t sure what maternal intuition really was, but she could tell that something was wrong. She spoke to Dido as if she were a foolish young girl again, saying firmly, “And another thing. What is happening between you and Sir Henry? Out with it.”

  “Nothing.” The change in conversation shocked Dido upright again. “How can you ask such a thing? He was to be wed to Philippa!”

  “I have just discovered Sir Henry in your own room on the other side of the castle, where you have left your writing case. He was looking through it and claimed to be hunting for something that he had mislaid, although he would not tell me what that was. And when I asked him about you, Dido, he went very red and panicked. There is something happening between you. I wish to know what that something is.”

  “Oh, mama! There is nothing between us. I can promise you that. I will swear on a Bible if I must.”

  “No, do not take such things lightly.”

  “I do not. You know I wouldn’t joke about that sort of thing. I am trying to impress on you how serious I am. There is nothing untoward between us, not a thing.”

  “Nothing untoward, maybe. I only ask what is there between you both, untoward or not?”

  “He is a friend to me.”

  “I know you are acquainted but has this friendship deepened?”

  “Yes, mama, it has, but in a totally respectable way, I promise you. He is so easy to talk to and he has been an ear to my woes. He is dependable and solid and I trust him utterly.”

  “Have you met with him in private?”

  “Mama! Do you think I learned nothing at your knee? Of course not. Our intimate conversations have always been in public places, surrounded by other people. At dances and the like, it is possible to talk with another person in utmost secrecy while being visible the whole time, such is the din. You know that. But we have never been alone. No shame and no scandal can possibly ever attach to either of us.”

  “Then what was he looking for? Have you given him some token? Or – this is more likely, and much worse – has he given you anything? Even the smallest gift, if done secretly, can carry far more meaning than it ought to.”

  “No, no, nothing at all.”

  Adelia squeezed Dido’s hand.

  She wanted to believe her daughter, she really did.

  But Adelia had been young herself, once.

  And she remembered how easy it was to slip into an indiscretion.

  And how hard it was to dig oneself out again.

  Twelve

  Mondial dogged Theodore like a pampered pug would follow its owner. Every time that Theodore stepped out of his own rooms at the castle, Mondial would be there, lurking casually – “Oh, I was just rearranging my fossil collection,” he’d say, standing in an unconvincing manner next to a display case. Or “Oh, how marvellous to see you. I was also about to go for a walk in the grounds. I will accompany you.”

  Then Mondial would relentlessly ask Theodore questions about what he was calling “the unfortunate situation that happened outside” as if he was determined, at every opportunity, to divorce himself from any link with the murder.

  “I should like to talk with your valet, Taylor, again,” Theodore told him as they perambulated around the orangery late that afternoon.

  “Why? He was in my room all day – until he heard the shots, of course.”

  “So he says, but there is no alibi to confirm that.”

  “Where else would he have been? Skulking around the ornamental ponds? He is an indoor man in all respects.”

  “He was seen coming from the stables a little while after the shots were fired.”

  “Who said such a preposterous thing?” Mondial thundered. He stopped and faced Theodore head-on. “Who? I shall have them sacked and horse-whipped for slander. Or whipped first, and then sacked. I think that’s the legal order of things.”

  “I cannot reveal my sources.”

  “You bloody well can. This is my house, damn it. Your sources are my damned servants. Let me tell you that whoever has suggested such a thing is either deeply mistaken, or is a trouble-maker of the highest order.”

  “Yet surely you must see that an alibi for Taylor would be incredibly useful?”

  “Absolutely ridiculous, Calaway. Twaddle. Total nonsense. He is my valet and he was in my room. My word, Calaway, is my bond. And my word should be enough for you!”

  “It is, it is. I believe you. It is only a matter of following the protocols in an investigation.”

  “What protocols? You don’t know what you’re doing, do you, man? You’ve read a few issues of the Illustrated Police News and now you’re a detective. Protocols! What rot.” Mondial snorted angrily and stamped off across the orangery.

  But when the Marquis got to the door which was open to the outside in spite of the late summer drizzle to allow air circulate around the tropical trees, he stopped and turned around again.

  “Very well,” he said to Theodore. “Let us continue on your charade. The servants will vouch for Taylor, every last one of them.”

  Theodore found himself in an uncomfortable situation as he was forced to stand next to Mondial while various members of staff
were paraded in front of them and interrogated. They all kept their eyes on the floor and answered in short, clear sentences. Theodore tried to interrupt but Mondial overruled him. “I’ll ask my own staff the questions,” he said, and proceeded to ask the most leading questions possible.

  “How many times did you see Taylor in my rooms on the day of the unfortunate event that occurred outside a few days ago?” the Marquis said.

  “Er – a few times, sir?”

  “Good. Dismissed. Next! At what time did you see Taylor in or near my rooms that day?”

  “Er – in the morning, sir?”

  “And later? You saw him in the afternoon, didn’t you?”

  “Sir?”

  “Good. You did. Dismissed.”

  It was an utter shambles and Theodore could hardly wait for it to be over.

  He escaped from the room before Mondial could button-hole him about the supposed witnesses, and loped up the stairs to seek sanctuary in his own rooms. He was pleased to find Adelia was there, relaxing before she had to begin dressing for dinner later than evening.

  And he was even more pleased, although with a little trepidation, when she informed him that his own dear mother had sent word that she would be arriving the following morning.

  THERE WERE YET TEN days before the garden party. Almost everyone who had been invited had accepted, and every day, Lord Mondial recollected someone else that he felt he ought to invite. He was happy to have the Dowager Countess arrive early, and when he discovered that Adelia’s own best friend was staying in town, he insisted that Harriet be accommodated in the castle too. “She is the wife of a Bishop,” he had said. “She cannot possibly stay in a common coaching inn.”

  Lord Mondial had never met Harriet, so Adelia could forgive him his lack of insight. Harriet Hobson could have made herself comfortable in a Salvation Army dosshouse with half a bottle of gin and some cheap oysters bought on the street as long as she had people to talk with.

  Nevertheless, Harriet gladly accepted the invitation to the castle and she arrived in the morning just before Theodore was leaving to meet his mother. He greeted Harriet stiffly and fled from the rooms, as Adelia expected that he would. Adelia only had time to introduce her friend to Dido briefly. Then Adelia was called away to pay the proper attentions to Grace, Lady Calaway. It could often be somewhat awkward when two titled ladies sharing the same designation were inhabiting the same space. Other women, less refined than the Dowager Countess, could use it to make their daughter-in-law feel unsettled or uncertain. But Grace, the Countess of Calaway, was happy to be as informal or formal as the situation demanded and did not take offence at any stumbling over mix-ups of address. In private she delighted in being called merely Grace and if she liked someone, she was positively offended if they insisted on the full formality of her rank.

  “I’m just a silly widow, easily overlooked and forgettable,” she’d say coquettishly, and the less confident would freeze in terror, because she was an ancient woman of an ancient family and someone less like a silly widow was hard to find. Once met, she was never forgotten. And you overlooked her at your peril.

  Dido took Harriet up to her designated room, just a small single room quite close to Adelia and Theodore’s suite, while Adelia bounced down the stairs to greet Grace who was currently embracing and scolding her son at the same time. When the older lady spotted Adelia approaching, she let go of her son and roughly shoved him to one side.

  “Adelia, my most dear woman! Come here! You look younger every time I see you. What is your secret?”

  “I merely follow your lead, my lady. You look fresh and lovely. The journey must have been pleasant?”

  Grace took both of Adelia’s hands and held them, shaking them a little and caressing the backs. “You are a flatterer and I love you for it. Now, you must tell me of every little thing that has been occurring here, for I have had it piecemeal and hardly know what to believe. But before all of that, food and drink. I have been travelling since seven o’clock this morning and I am too old for these roads. The journey was, in fact, a trial from start to finish. Ah! Here is the man of the house! Lord Mondial, look at you, quite the wounded hero. And where is your good lady wife? I saw her bound away. Now, here she comes! Yes, this is a true vision of pure angelic maternal duty. What a goddess she is! Hera, by all accounts. Come here, dear granddaughter! The sight of you brings light to my otherwise dull and grey life.”

  Dido came down the stairs as fast as her own personal sense of decorum would allow her to. Lord Mondial was happy to accompany them all to the smaller of the many dining rooms that seemed to litter the castle and they all partook of a meal which might have been a late breakfast or an early lunch, but no one really minded. The conversation could not turn to the murder, that was to say, Lord Mondial’s “unfortunate situation outside”, but afterwards, Dido took Grace to her luxurious suite where her two maids had already prepared everything for their mistress. Grace freshened up and in spite of her age, just one hour later requested Adelia and Dido’s company on a stroll around the gardens. The rain had cleared and the air was particularly fresh and pleasant.

  “Tell me everything, and spare no detail,” Grace demanded. They progressed slowly along the gravel paths, stopping from time to time to admire the roses that grew in such profusion. “You must be utterly devastated, my poor dear child.”

  Dido adored her grandmother as much as Adelia adored her as a mother-in-law. She took Grace’s arm and said, “I was and I am.” Adelia dropped back a little to let Dido unburden herself. The young dark head bent to the older one with its neat cream velvet hat, and Adelia felt that strange warm smugness one got when regarding people whom one truly loved.

  Then she counselled herself to be wary of such pride. Had not Philippa Lamb’s death shown her the folly of taking happiness for granted? She paused by a neatly-clipped box tree – one of those that Theodore had been so taken with when they had arrived – and spent a moment in silent prayer. She was not a regular church-goer but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the presence of something much greater than herself. Harriet, who had to attend church more times in a week than Theodore did in a year, claimed to have actual conversations with God. Adelia certainly couldn’t claim that kind of closeness with the divine, but she was more comfortable believing than not believing. And most of the people around her, in spite of their various states of secularism and fashionable declarations of atheism, cleaved still to the Church of England’s annual traditions. Every week the papers printed diatribes from learned clergy bemoaning the death of God and falling church attendances, and every day people still crossed themselves and swore on the Bible and prayed in their hour of need, regardless.

  Adelia was brought out of her reverie by a cry from Grace. She opened her eyes and leaped forward in alarm, her heart hammering with a suddenness that scared her. Murderers, she thought, robbers and pistols!

  But Grace was not being held at gunpoint. To Adelia’s utter relief, the older lady was poking into a pile of raked leaves with her stick. Dido was tutting in disapproval. “The gardeners are usually better than this,” she said.

  “We are off the main path and are they not busy enough at this time of year?” Grace said. “Still, I wonder why they are burning clothing out here like this.”

  “Clothing?”

  “Yes, look here. And it is strange that the leaves have been piled on top after the fire that has burned the clothes.” Grace stirred the leaves ferociously and a dark piece of fabric snagged itself around the end of her stick. She pulled it out and they saw that it was the remnants of a jacket. “Wool hardly burns,” she said. “It must have taken some time to even get this far with it. How silly.”

  Adelia came up alongside Grace and Dido. “This is a clue,” she said firmly.

  “Do you think it is linked to the murder? Oh! How delicious,” Grace said. “I mean, justice for Philippa is everyone’s priority, of course.” She did not even manage to modulate her tone to one of serious sympat
hy.

  “Of course,” said Adelia as Dido sniffed discreetly. “And yes, I do believe it might be linked. It seems rather odd, don’t you think? I suggest we leave everything exactly as it is for the moment.”

  “Has Mondial really refused to have the police involved?” Grace asked.

  “He has. But Theodore is looking into things instead.”

  “Theo? My Theo?” Grace cackled. “Well. Well, well, well.”

  “Don’t you think it is a good idea? He has powerful skills of observation and logic.”

  “A good idea? Well. It is an idea, certainly. No one can say if it is a good one unless he is successful. Ha! You had best fetch this gentleman-detective son of mine, and let us see what conclusions he can draw from this.”

  “I shall. Will you both wait here and prevent anyone from disturbing it?”

  “Certainly.”

  Adelia could barely contain her excitement as she rushed over the lawns and into the castle to find Theodore.

  A clue! She was sure it was a clue!

  Thirteen

  Theodore had managed to evade Mondial at last. When Adelia went out with his mother and granddaughter, making a perfect picture of familial harmony, Theodore slipped the other way and made it look as if he were heading back up to his suite of rooms. Mondial noticed but was too engaged at that moment speaking a final few words to Dido as the trio left.

  Once up the stairs, Theodore went briskly along the landing and through a subtle, small door, placed behind the angle of a long-case clock and startled a few servants who were lingering on the narrow stone stairs beyond. He nodded as if he were behaving perfectly normally and they managed to politely turn their heads away as if he’d encountered them on the main stairs.

  He thought, I am in their domain so roles are here reversed – perhaps I should stand to attention and face the wall, and let them waft past me on their essential business, whatever it is that they do. The idea amused him and he made a mental note to share it with Adelia. It would undoubtedly make her smile.