The Black Cat Murders: A Cotswolds Country House Murder (Heathcliff Lennox Book 2)

by Karen Menuhin

  Alone, I crossed the expanse of the hall, an echoing chamber equipped with suits of armour, a monumental fireplace and long refectory tables set against high white walls hung with dark portraits of ancestral soldiers. There were a few dimpled women looking coy, and some paintings of dogs and horses in between, which were my favourite sort of pictures, although I noticed a few were missing, their pale outlines etched in cobwebs and dust.

  Sounds of a kerfuffle reached me and I diverted towards it out of curiosity.

  ‘You cannot prevent me, damn it.’ A voice rose in anger from just beyond the front door. ‘I am the law,’ the man declared, for all the good it did him.

  The voice was familiar to me and entirely unwelcome. It was Chief Inspector Swift. He and I had crossed paths last Christmas at my uncle’s home, Melrose Court, where Swift had been intent on having me hanged for murder. Had I not unmasked the culprit, Swift would even now be testing the strength of the knotted noose. I cannot say our relationship had warmed as a result.

  The high words were caused by Dawkins, the idiot footman.

  ‘Don’t matter. I don’t have no orders. Can’t lets you in without orders. Mister Benson nor nobody didn’t give me no orders.’

  ‘Swift.’ I greeted him unenthusiastically as I stepped outside into sunshine streaming across the broad stones of the portico.

  ‘Lennox, I might have known you’d be here. This is ridiculous!’ he snapped, as though I were somehow responsible. Tall and lean with high cheekbones, dark swept-back hair and a permanent frown between sharp eyes, Swift looked more hawkish every time I saw him. He tugged the belt of his trench coat tighter and glowered at me.

  ‘And a good day to you, too, Inspector,’ I replied.

  ‘I am here on behalf of Scotland Yard to investigate Sir Crispin’s death, and I will not take no for an answer.’

  The footman was trying to shut the door.

  ‘Dawkins,’ I snapped at him.

  ‘Mister Benson didn’t give no orders. The Brigadier ’as said no police. So’s unless someone tells me he’s allowed in, he’s not allowed in.’

  I stepped forward. ‘Let him in, Dawkins,’ I told him.

  ‘But the Brigadier –’

  ‘I’ll deal with the Brigadier,’ I replied.

  ‘But, I –’ Dawkins started again.

  ‘Major Lennox, to you.’ I may have raised my voice.

  ‘Yes, Major Lennox, sir,’ he grumbled. ‘Just doing my job, I am. No thanks for it, just a telling off, an do this, do that …’ He sloped off, grousing as he went.

  I nodded at Swift to follow, turned briskly and walked back across the hall. He had to move quickly to catch me, but by the time I’d swung into the corridor leading to the east wing he was close on my heels.

  Swift demanded, ‘Are you here because of Sir Crispin’s death?’

  ‘No, I’m here for the wedding,’ I replied as we stepped through the French windows and into the formal gardens behind the house.

  He stopped suddenly. ‘You’re not the groom, are you? I thought she was marrying a yank.’

  ‘Good God, no!’ I said, stopping in my tracks to face him, horrified at the thought. ‘Lady Caroline’s marrying a Texan.’

  He nodded, looking dubious. ‘So – where are we going? I thought you said something about seeing the Brigadier.’

  ‘No. Best not disturb the old man, not unless we have to – touch temperamental. We’re going to the theatre: scene of the accident, actually,’ I informed him.

  ‘So you are here about the death,’ he accused me.

  He was annoyingly persistent. ‘Why is Scotland Yard taking an interest?’ I eyed him.

  He stared back, saying nothing.

  Typical of Swift, I thought: tight-lipped as usual. I turned and walked off toward the theatre, crunching gravel as I went. He came after me at a trot.

  ‘Major Lennox,’ he called, but I carried on until I reached the ornate wrought-iron gates set into the high walls surrounding the formal gardens.

  The theatre had started life as an observatory, then been further aggrandised by the addition of a long, stone-pillared arcade leading into the domed auditorium. During one of the family’s more fashionable periods, the building had been converted into a playhouse complete with stage, small orchestral pit, seating and two boxes.

  ‘Humph,’ Swift uttered as he followed me in.

  We both stopped at the entrance to the auditorium proper, looking down at the rows of gilded chairs newly upholstered in rich red velvet. More gilding gleamed from the boxes set each side of the stage, their bow-shaped fronts depicting frolicking cherubs playing violins and lutes. Heavy red and gold curtains framed the stage, which was bordered by small lamps fastened in a row to the edge of the platform. The whole was illuminated by an electrical chandelier hung high above the auditorium.

  ‘Is this for the sole use of the family?’ Swift asked, looking around.

  ‘Their friends, too,’ I replied. I understood the hint of resentment in his voice. It wasn’t only the enormous extravagance, it was the withholding of a small but beautiful jewel from public view. But then, that was what wealth often meant: the hoarding of treasure; and I might not condone it, but without the wealth the theatre wouldn’t have existed anyway. ‘And they used to invite all the villagers until it fell into disrepair during the war. The old man hasn’t had the funds to keep it up since,’ I added.

  ‘But he has now?’ Swift queried. ‘Or is he in hock until the nuptials? I heard there was money in it.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I replied sharply, although I suspected he was right.

  ‘You be some of the opery singers, then?’ A stocky man wearing a leather apron and overalls came from the back of the stage, brushing sawdust from his hands.

  ‘Certainly not,’ I told him as we walked down the red carpet covering the centre aisle. ‘We’re looking into the accident. This is Chief Inspector Swift and I’m helping him with his enquiries.’

  ‘Well, part of that statement is true,’ Swift remarked dryly.

  The man looked from one to the other of us, sawdust drifting from his thick brown hair and beard. He wore round glasses and rather reminded me of a bespectacled bear. ‘I been fixing the trap-door on His Lordship’s orders. He don’t want no more accidents, so I fixed it good an’ proper.’ He nodded for emphasis, shedding more sawdust.

  ‘Good chap,’ I said. ‘I assume you are one of the estate carpenters?’

  ‘I be the only one.’ He may have been smiling beneath the beard and moustache but it was hard to tell. ’T’were me as mended it afore, you know.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t make much of a job of it, did you,’ Swift retorted.

  ‘He’s from Scotland Yard,’ I explained by way of excuse. I lead the way down the stage-floor staircase, half hidden behind the curtain. ‘I’m Major Lennox, I didn’t catch your name, old chap.’

  ‘Clegg,’ he replied, glancing nervously at Swift.

  My heart sank as we walked into the area below the stage. Clegg had built a large wooden tower beneath the trap-door to secure it. In fact it was so secure that if we ever had another war it would make a very effective bomb shelter. I heard Swift curse beneath his breath as he too realised there was no evidence left to examine.

  A long ladder was fixed to the ceiling beam leading up to the trap-door. Beside it was a workbench awash with tools, wood shavings and off-cuts of timber. There were oil lamps hanging from hooks skewered into the joists above giving sufficient illumination, although I drew out my flashlight anyway. It was battery-operated, and I was very keen to make use of it, it being one of the most modern pieces of technology I owned. I ran the beam across the rafters and boards that made up the underside of the stage floor, judging it to be about twelve foot from floor to ceiling.

  ‘Why is the under-stage so deep?’ I asked, looking up.

  ‘It were the mechanicals.’ Clegg’s eyes followed the dot of light made by my torch, then turned to me. ‘A telescope what looked
at the stars. They were down here, and when all the mechanicals was given to some place in the city, it were left like this.’

  ‘By “the city” I take it you mean Oxford?’ Swift queried.

  ‘Ay, Oxford,’ Clegg frowned. ‘Den of iniquity that place is – Oxford.’

  ‘Um, yes,’ I said, not too sure why he’d think it was iniquitous. ‘So you replaced all the woodwork in here, Clegg?’ I returned to the questions in mind.

  ‘That I did, sir.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Got two big lads in from t’village to help with sawing and hewing.’

  ‘And how do you explain the trap-door collapsing?’ I asked.

  His whiskered face fell, mortified. ‘It don’t make no sense, sir. I replaced that plank with a good solid piece of pitch pine. You don’t get worm in pitch pine, there be too much resin. Saddest thing I ever saw – that gent fallin’ and the lady tumblin’ after him. I knew straight off the plank had broke.’ He took off his glasses and wiped his sleeve across his eyes.

  ‘You were here? On the night?’ Swift asked, as surprised as I was.

  ‘Oh, I were, sirs.’ Clegg’s face brightened. ‘I sneaked in the back when they was singing that night, I did. Brought a three-legged stool with me and sat all the way through. It were heaven.’ He had become quite soppy. ‘An’ that lady what sings, she be the most beautiful lady I ever did see – like that lass on the golden harp.’

  I looked at him more closely – I’d heard that certain wood resins can create delusions; but other than his predilection for opera he seemed quite sane. ‘I think you mean at the harp, Clegg,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Oh no, sir –’

  Swift broke in. ’What was it like before you did all this?’ He indicated the wooden tower. ‘Was it only one plank holding the trap-door shut?’

  ‘Ay, it were,’ Clegg’s enthusiasm drained and was replaced by a furrow of worry.

  ‘What held the plank in place?’ I asked.

  ‘Big iron brackets, and hinges, too; they all still be there.’ Clegg pointed up.

  ‘Yes, I see,’ I encouraged him, shining the torchlight onto them. ‘Blacksmith made, by the look of them.’

  ‘Ay, that’s right, sir, and a latch to secure the door. Brackets was holding the plank in place below the trap. It were the wood as gave way, not the ironwork. It broke in two, but I can’t understand it. No reason to happen – and I can’t be finding it, not nowhere.’ He shook his head sadly, shedding more sawdust to form a haze around his head.

  ‘You’ve hidden it, haven’t you!’ Swift was quick to accuse. ‘This so called “accident” was caused by your poor workmanship and you won’t admit it.’ I noticed the dark rings under the Inspector’s eyes; he looked to be under strain. I’d heard about his recent promotion to Scotland Yard – perhaps his ambition was pushing him beyond his capabilities.

  Clegg’s eyes widened, dismay in his voice. ‘No, sirs, I swear I didn’t. Last I saw of it, it were under that gent what died. I came down here, I did, just as the ambulance-men were carrying the lady out on a stretcher. Poor dear lady, she was all rumpled and crying. But the gent, he were dead. Puce he was. I saw the broken bits of plank lying under him. I couldn’t get close enough to have a proper look because the doctor and police was arguing and shouting right next to him. I come back early next morning to find it. Like I told you, it weren’t here. I reckoned them police of yourn as taken it.’ He turned toward Swift.

  ‘No, I called in at the local station this morning. They have a few items from the deceased, but not the broken plank.’ His eyes remained fixed on Clegg. ‘I was expecting to find it here.’

  ‘If it’s not at the station, it will be around somewhere,’ I said, waving my torch into the dark distance. The trampled dirt floor was littered with sawdust and smelled earthy. The outer structure of the stage was supported by arched stone walls. I walked over to the farthest of them and discovered old boxes of mouldering costumes, some gaudy stage furnishings, a coiled rope and whatnots, but no broken pieces of plank. Swift unhooked a lamp and started searching, too. We both stopped at a green-painted arched door in the stonework.

  ‘Where does that go?’ I asked.

  ‘Outside, back o’ the theatre,’ Clegg said.

  I tried the handle but it was locked. ‘Where’s the key?’

  ‘In my apron here.’ He pulled it out and held it up: a large old black iron key.

  ‘Is there another?’ I asked.

  ‘Ay, outside on a hook.’

  The door looked sound and in good order; I could see it had been opened recently. ‘I assume you bring your timber and tools through here?’

  ‘I do,’ Clegg answered. ‘There’s a path leads out to my workshop.’

  We turned from the door and explored more of the area but found nothing of interest and came back to the workbench empty-handed.

  ‘Have you searched the auditorium?’ I asked Clegg.

  ‘You’re wasting time here, Lennox,’ Swift broke in. ‘The man’s hidden it.’

  ‘I haven’t done nowt o’ the sort,’ Clegg protested. ‘I’ve told you more times than is needed, I fossicked everywhere. You ain’t listening.’

  ‘Where’s the wood store?’ I asked him. ‘The scrap wood for lighting fires, not carpentry.’

  ‘You think it might be there?’ Clegg asked.

  Swift looked at me narrowly, then nodded. ‘Reasonable thought,’ he muttered.

  Clegg led the way upstairs and back outside through the theatre itself. He turned away from the high stone wall surrounding the gardens and down a muddy path through a small copse of trees and shrubs. Birds were singing as we went, there were bluebells and yellow primroses beneath the budding boughs – the world smelt fragrant and fresh, just as spring ought to. There were quite a lot of pigeons around, too, I noted.

  The woodshed wasn’t strictly a shed, it was a roof on stilts, and gave shelter to a huge pile of broken and scrap wood in various stages of decomposition. There was much evidence of rats amongst other creatures – it was a shame Fogg had refused to accompany me, he’d have liked it here.

  ‘There be sommat like,’ Clegg shouted out, heading toward a half hidden plank of wood. ‘Ee, I’m impressed, I am. That be some clever thinking. Bet you’re glad you’ve got Major Lennox helping you, Inspector. You be in need of all the help you can get.’ He pulled the piece from under a heap of rotten wood and laid it on the green grass in the sunshine.

  The wood had snapped in the middle and the reason was patently obvious: it was riddled with woodworm and had virtually no structural strength at all.

  ‘But this ain’t right.’ Clegg stared down at the dark, damp-looking piece. ‘This is the old plank, the one I replaced. It’s not the new un.’

  Swift turned to accuse him. ‘You’ve been lying to us.’

  ‘No, I ain’t, you got to stop making that up. It were the first job I did – replacing it, dangerous rotten, it were. I put the new plank in and this un got left down below. I never gave it a thought till now.’

  ‘Maybe someone cleaned up and tossed it here. One of your lads, perhaps?’ I suggested.

  ‘No, they wasn’t tidy lads at all, wouldn’t have thought to clear away after the’selves.’

  ‘But there must have been a lot of other people working in the theatre?’ I suggested. ‘The chairs and curtains are new.’

  ‘Ay, the place has been all a-bother since we started. Getting in my way, painting the walls and fussing with rolls of cloth and doings. And half the house coming round, servants and gentry alike, making comments, ordering folk about. Like a blooming circus some days, it were,’ he grumbled.

  ‘So you’re saying anyone could have moved this plank?’ Swift said.

  ‘Ay, but why would they?’ Clegg replied. ‘It’s a worm-eaten bit of old wood. An’ it weren’t bust like this, neither. Look. This be elm, not pitch pine, you can see it clear.’

  Swift and I duly looked, but it was so rotted that I can’t say we were any the wiser.
r />   ‘Be a good chap and look for the other half, would you, Clegg,’ I told him.

  He went off, still shaking his head.

  I turned to Swift. ‘Someone exchanged the planks.’

  ‘Possibly.’ He eyed me narrowly.

  ‘They could have used the ladder and climbed up to switch them over. It would only take a minute.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the trap-door have dropped open when the new plank was removed?’ he suggested.

  ‘No, the latch would have held it shut. It looked strong enough to hold up if there wasn’t any weight on it,’ I said slowly, trying to think through the sequence.

  ‘So why bother putting the rotten plank there at all? As you said, the latch would have given way under the weight. Sir Crispin would have fallen without the effort of exchanging the planks?’

  ‘Agreed, but if no plank had been found, it would have instantly raised suspicion. Whoever did it wanted it to look like an accident.’

  Swift regarded me, then nodded slowly. ’And that person would have to know their opera – assuming Sir Crispin was the intended victim.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, my mind turning over. ‘They’d have to know the exact moment he was supposed to be on the trap-door. And it explains the cat. They probably trod on the cat while moving about in the dark. Which is why it shot out when it did,’ I added.

  ‘Um, I heard about that,’ Swift agreed.

  ‘Cyril Fletcher said there was mischief here. I think he was right.’

  ‘Who’s Cyril Fletcher?’ Swift asked.

  ‘The doctor who attended the victims. Old family friend.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly mischief,’ Swift stated.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked, brows raised.

  ‘I came here because the post-mortem results revealed that Sir Crispin suffered from haemophilia. Any such trauma would have killed him.’

  ‘Ah, that rather does add a different complexion to it,’ I mused.

  ‘Exactly. It wasn’t mischief, it was murder,’ Swift said.

  Chapter 4

  Clegg returned with the other half of the plank. It didn’t tell us any more than we already knew.