Murder at Keyhaven Castle

by Clara McKenna

  Brown never understood the lure of Keyhaven Castle with its dank, empty rooms and gray stone walls. Give him low timbered ceilings, a fire, and a lively pub any day. But it wasn’t unknown that Keyhaven Castle, since the days of his youth, had been a magnet to the idle youth, the site of much misadventure too often ending in injury. Twice during his seventeen years as a policeman, he’d been called to the castle to find a dead body. Never had it been for a murder.

  “But, I thought he simply fell?” Mr. Theo Swenson, the middle-aged gentleman questioning Brown’s conclusion, squatted against the wall comforting a young woman Brown was unfamiliar with. But despite Mr. Swenson’s full beard, the family resemblance between the two was pronounced.

  Brown would’ve considered the young woman with dark auburn curls softening her brow reasonably pretty. But the lip rouge smeared on her lips and the hair sticking to her tear-streaked cheeks ruined the effect. A few feet to the side of the Swensons was Sir Owen, a bloody handkerchief held to his cheek. Brown would find out what that was all about soon enough.

  “I’d have thought so too, at first,” he admitted.

  One glance at the awkward angle of the body at the bottom of the slippery, worn stairs and anyone would conclude the man had broken his neck in a fall—an accident. But on close inspection, the case wasn’t everything it seemed.

  Just like that of the jockey in Southampton.

  The circular, cavernous room, devoid of any decoration, carpeting, or wall coverings, reminding Brown of a spacious jail cell, was lit by a paltry light that eked through the air slits cut symmetrically every few feet around the entirety of the room. But someone had left the door open at the top of the stairwell. And the sun streaming down from the roof had lent Brown the necessary illumination he needed to inspect the body, the stairs, and the people clustered throughout the musty room more closely. And what he saw pointed to murder.

  Brown, still crouched beside the body, his knees against the stone growing stiff and painful, pointed to the strange semicircular impressions around the murdered man’s neck. “See these markings?”

  But wait, what was that? With his knees protesting, Brown leaned in closer. In a wrinkled fold of the man’s neck, and near the bruised markings, was the darkest of specks. Considering coal still blackened the floors of several of the castle’s storage rooms, it could be a flake of coal dust the man picked up in his wanderings. But it was nowhere else, not his boots, his trousers or jacket, his face, or elsewhere on his otherwise scrubbed clean neck. So how did it get there? Brown lifted the man’s right hand. The dirt and tiny pebbles one would expect to find lodged in the dead man’s palm if he’d tried to break his fall were absent. But there was a faint smudge of black on his palm and under one of his fingernails. More coal? Brown wished he had his hand lens. He’d be sure to have Dr. Lipscombe make a note of it.

  “Of course, I’ll have to confirm my suspicions with the medical examiner,” Brown continued, “but I believe this man was strangled before he fell.”

  “But we heard him,” Miss Kendrick said.

  Brown glanced up. “What?”

  Poor lady. These were the first words she’d uttered since he arrived. Brown had never seen her so despondent, and that was saying something. Puffy, red eyelids marred her comely face. Clutching a handkerchief, she leaned into Lord Lyndhurst, his arm tightly around her shoulders. Brown suspected it was the viscount’s firm hold alone that kept the lady from her dead father’s side. And rightfully so. Miss Kendrick had encountered more than her share of murdered bodies, this being the most personal yet. But what did she mean “we heard him”?

  “Heard whom, Miss Kendrick?” Brown asked gently.

  “Daddy.” Her voice was unnervingly flat like she was speaking from another room. “Lyndy and I both heard him cry out when he fell.”

  How could that be? A strangled man doesn’t cry out.

  “Are you certain?”

  All heads nodded in agreement.

  “We all heard it,” the petite woman hovering by Miss Kendrick’s elbow said. She barely reached Brown’s chin, and he was not known for his height. “He called out when he fell.”

  Brown pinched the bridge of his nose. Could it be that when someone was attempting to strangle him, Mr. Kendrick won the struggle to free himself, only to lose his balance and break his neck falling down the stairwell? Even so, and Brown wasn’t admitting that was the case, it didn’t make the man’s death any less villainous.

  “And you are . . . ?” Brown asked.

  “Mrs. Mitchell. Ivy Mitchell. Mr. Kendrick was my brother-in-law.”

  Constable Waterman, who had inconspicuously guarded the door to prevent anyone from leaving, licked the tip of his pencil before writing her name in his notebook.

  “Hello? Where are y’all?” A man’s cheerful voice echoed as his silhouette formed in the outside doorway. Waterman jumped, swiveling around at the sound.

  Who the devil was that? Brown thought he’d accounted for everyone. Most likely a chance sightseer who’d picked a most unfortunate time to visit the castle.

  “Stay where you are, sir,” Brown called, shooing his constable to intercept the new arrival. But before Waterman could respond, Mr. Jedidiah Kendrick, the dead man’s younger brother, stepped over the threshold.

  “Sammy and Gertie said they heard a ghost,” he laughed. “What an imagination that boy has.”

  His chuckle died in his throat when he noted Waterman’s unmistakable domed helmet. He attempted to retreat, but Waterman grabbed his arm.

  “Whatever my brother says, I know nothing about it.”

  It was an odd response. But one Brown had encountered time and again. If Brown were a waging man, he’d bet Mr. Jedidiah Kendrick was no stranger to the police.

  Then the younger Kendrick spotted Brown kneeling beside his dead brother’s body. He shook off Waterman’s firm grip, and in three long strides was upon Brown before Waterman could waylay him again.

  “Keep your distance, sir,” Waterman warned.

  “Lord in heaven! What happened?”

  “I’m so sorry, Jed,” Mrs. Mitchell said, putting her hand on his arm. “Elijah fell down the stairs.”

  Brown pushed up off his knees and brushed his trouser legs. The first time Brown had met Mr. Jedidiah Kendrick, the brothers were having a punch-up on the floor. He hadn’t expected him to be a member of the excursion party. Brown scrutinized the younger Kendrick’s face. Was that an upturn in the corner of the man’s mouth?

  He is one to watch, that one.

  “Right! My sincere condolences, Mr. Kendrick.” Out of the corner of his eye, Brown noticed Miss Kendrick wince at Brown’s use of the address so frequently used for her father. “But I’m afraid I’m investigating your brother’s death as suspicious.”

  The brother didn’t blink. Did that mean he knew something? Or that he didn’t care? Or both?

  “I’d prefer to conduct more thorough interviews elsewhere,” Brown continued, as he ushered everyone, with Constable Waterman’s help, to the other side of the room, where the curly-headed young woman had already positioned herself. Out of sight of the dead man. “So, for the present, I’ll only ask where everyone was when Mr. Kendrick cried out.”

  “I didn’t hear any cry,” Mr. Jedidiah Kendrick said.

  That surprised Brown. Everyone else had been adamant they heard the older Kendrick cry out. “May I ask then where you’ve been since you arrived at the castle?”

  “I was out on the trail we came down.” The younger Mr. Kendrick pulled a cigar out of his pocket. He bit the end and spit it out the nearest gun slit.

  Brown had found a cigar near the dead man’s body. He hadn’t thought twice about it; the castle grounds were littered with crushed cigar stubs. Even discovering it warm didn’t alarm him, knowing Mr. Elijah Kendrick frequently smoked them. But now, with the brother clenching one in his teeth, Brown may need to reconsider its significance.

  “Why?” the brother asked.

  Brown
ignored the question and faced the young couple. Lord Lyndhurst still protectively wrapped his arm around Miss Kendrick’s shoulder. Miss Kendrick’s unblinking gaze wandered to the stairwell wall, which her father lay hidden behind. Wasn’t their wedding two days away? Brown could guess the turmoil the father’s death would create. But there’d be worse consequences if he didn’t catch the man’s killer.

  “Where were you when you heard the shout, my lord?”

  “Miss Kendrick and I were, uhmm . . .”

  Brown squinted at the viscount. Why the hesitation? It wasn’t like the self-assured noble Brown had come to know.

  “Exploring the castle.” Miss Kendrick finished the young man’s sentence, her tone reflecting her blank, faraway look.

  Never once entertaining the thought she was culpable, Brown nevertheless regarded her with interest. She was bareheaded, and strands of hair fell down the back of her neck. The hem of her skirt was blackened as if dragged in coal soot. Could she have introduced the coal fleck to her father when she found him? Perhaps.

  When Brown prepared to ask, Lord Lyndhurst glared at him, daring Brown to inquire further.

  “I was in the coal storeroom opposite when Elijah called out,” Mr. Swenson volunteered. “Miss Kendrick, Lord Lyndhurst, the servants, and the children were in the courtyard when I arrived.”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Mitchell added. “I could see them all from my vantage point.”

  “And where were you, Mrs. Mitchell?” Brown inquired.

  She pointed up toward the roof, her gaze following her finger as if she could see through the timbered ceiling. “Up there. I’d been admiring the amazing view.”

  Brown studied Mrs. Mitchell’s face—round, pleasantly plump with a few telltale wrinkles and a gentle upturn of the eyebrows. A kind face. Yet not that of a woman steps away from the dead body of a man she admired. Mrs. Mitchell would shed no tears for her brother-in-law. But was she capable of killing him?

  Brown dismissed the thought as soon as it arose. She was far too small to get her hands around the dead man’s neck long enough to leave marks; Mr. Kendrick would’ve tossed her aside like a child’s doll.

  “Could you see the victim from your vantage point?” Brown asked.

  She cocked her head to one side, thinking. “No. But I’d heard him talking earlier, or grumbling more like it, when I was on the roof above him.” Again, she pointed up. “I was surprised how easy it was to hear him. I would’ve thought the stone walls would dampen the sound.”

  Her aunt’s answer aroused Miss Kendrick. She shifted her focus, albeit slowly, from the stairwell wall to her aunt, a glint of her old spark in her eyes. Brown was glad of it.

  “Who was he talking to?” Miss Kendrick asked. “What was he saying?”

  “I got the impression he was talking to himself. I didn’t catch any distinct words. As Elijah is—was prone to grumbling over just about anything, I thought nothing of it and continued up to the roof and across the bastion wall.”

  “That leaves this young lady,” Brown said, motioning toward the woman seated on the floor huddled against the stone wall beside Mr. Swenson.

  “My daughter, Penelope, Inspector,” Mr. Swenson supplied.

  “That leaves Miss Swenson, and you, Sir Owen.” Brown regarded the young gentleman standing off to the side as if hoping Brown might forget he was there. Or was he perhaps planning to escape the tower when everyone’s head was turned?

  Although Brown suspected the young man didn’t remember him, he and Sir Owen had crossed paths before. Brown had just made inspector when a “misunderstanding” involving the daughter of a local commoner and Sir Owen occurred. The pair had borrowed two of the young lady’s father’s New Forest ponies and run off together. Fearing for his daughter’s reputation, not to mention the safety of his ponies, the father called in the police. Sir Owen and his lady friend were halfway across Hampshire before a constable caught up with them. It was Brown who’d had to escort the lad back to Morrington Hall and his fuming parents who were guests of the earl’s. Being his first encounter with the estate, he never met the earl and his family when he’d given Sir Owen back into the care of his then governess.

  “Where were you, sir, and what caused you to injure your face?”

  Sir Owen squirmed under the scrutiny, pulling at his collar with one hand while diligently holding the handkerchief in the other, as a roomful of people waited in anticipation for his answer. Dried blood stained the back of his hand and fingers.

  “I was, we were . . . Miss Swenson and I, that is”—he nervously laughed when he motioned toward the woman against the wall—“were exploring the rooftops.”

  “You saw Mrs. Mitchell then?” Brown asked.

  “I did, yes.”

  “I saw them as well, Inspector,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “But right before Elijah cried out, you, Sir Owen, were at the top of the stairwell, alone.”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mrs. Mitchell,” Sir Owen said with a hint of the indignation Brown expected from a man of Sir Owen’s stature. “Miss Swenson and I were together the entire time.”

  “Unchaperoned then, sir?” Brown pushed.

  Sir Owen’s cheeks reddened, fittingly abased.

  “Is this true, Miss Swenson?” Brown said, turning toward the young woman on the floor against the wall. “Were you and Sir Owen together at the time of Mr. Kendrick’s scream?”

  The young wretch shook her head in denial but said nothing.

  “What?” Sir Owen started, pivoting to stare at the young woman in alarm. “Miss Swenson, what are you doing? We were together. Of course we were.”

  Miss Swenson shook her head vehemently this time.

  “But—”

  “Are you calling my daughter a liar, sir?” Mr. Swenson demanded.

  “No. I don’t know. Yes?” The gentleman laughed nervously.

  “Were you or weren’t you up on the roof?” Brown asked.

  Sir Owen straightened to his full weight. “I was. I don’t deny it. And neither do I deny I was at the top of the stairs, as Mrs. Mitchell said. I left Miss Swenson’s side for a moment. Like the others, when I heard a man shout, I wondered what the bloody hell happened.”

  So he had lied. Miss Swenson wasn’t with him at the top of the stairs. Tall and athletic, Sir Owen could’ve overpowered the dead man. But what motive did he have? And could he have done it without Miss Swenson witnessing the struggle?

  “How did you get that cut, sir?” Brown asked, motioning to the bloodstained handkerchief Sir Owen pressed to his cheek.

  The gentleman hesitated, glancing at Miss Swenson again before answering. “I walked into one of those wrought iron hooks.”

  Brown knew the hooks he meant. Keyhaven Castle was dotted with them. Paired at eye level on the walls, they once held rifles and the various long tools needed to load the cannons, up off the damp floors. The hooks were wrought iron and sharply pointed. They could indeed inflict such a deep scratch if an unsuspecting man of Sir Owen’s height encountered one in the dark.

  “May I see it?”

  “I say,” Sir Owen said, taking a step back when Brown approached. “Haven’t the ladies endured enough ugliness for one day?”

  “I agree, Inspector,” Lord Lyndhurst said. “Sir Owen explained his injury. He explained what he was doing at the top of the stairs. That should suffice.”

  “I’m afraid I disagree with you, my lord,” Brown said. “Your future bride’s father has been murdered. You of all people should understand what it requires to bring his murderer to justice.”

  “Yes, I do. . . .” Lord Lyndhurst shifted his weight, like a man restraining himself. “And I’ve held the highest respect for you, but . . . tread carefully, man. This is my cousin you are accusing.”

  “Accusing? Are you accusing me of murdering Miss Kendrick’s father?” Sir Owen choked out the words. Hints of fear and trepidation mingled with the disbelief in his voice.

  But instead of answering, Brown turned his
back on the others and rounded the corner. He slid down to one knee beside the dead man again and examined his hands once more. This time Brown studied the rings on the dead man’s fingers. He wore four. On his left hand was a simple band of gold engraved with vines, presumably his wedding band, and a silver signet ring with the letter K carved into it. On his right, he wore a rectangular yellow and white gold ring set with aquamarine stones and diamonds and a pinky ring with a massive square-cut emerald, either of which could inflict a gash to a man’s face during a struggle. But was there blood on any of them? Brown couldn’t tell. Not in this light. Another task he’d have to leave to Dr. Lipscombe.

  Brown pushed up from the floor and rejoined the others. Not wanting to take any chances, he waved Constable Waterman to his side.

  “Sir Owen Rountree, I am arresting you in connection with the suspicious death of Mr. Elijah Kendrick.”

  “What?” Lord Lyndhurst, dropping his arm from Miss Kendrick’s shoulders, stepped to his cousin’s side. “This is preposterous.”

  Sir Owen, stunned into silence, stared over his shoulder in an attempt to witness the constable secure him in handcuffs.

  “Sir Owen?” Miss Kendrick asked. But whether she questioned why the gentleman did it or why Brown thought he had, Brown couldn’t tell. Either way, she didn’t sound convinced.

  “I didn’t do this, Miss Kendrick, Inspector. I swear to you I would never do anything like this. Besides, I told you. I was with Miss Swenson the entire time. Tell them, Penny.”

  Penny? The use of Miss Swenson’s Christian name implied a familiarity between the two that made her silence damning.

  “Take him away, Constable,” Brown said.

  CHAPTER 15

  Her father was dead.

  Stella had wanted him to go away. Had been counting the days when he’d go back to Kentucky. She never imagined this.