The Last Mrs. Summers

by Rhys Bowen

  “Well, lovey,” she said, “I dare say that Elsie Trelawney’s old dad is not happy with the mooring fees, but that don’t make someone decide to kill, does it? No, if you make up your mind to kill somebody it needs to be a pretty important reason. Something that means life or death to you personally and I can’t think of anyone around here who could have so much hatred for Mr. Summers that they had to kill him.” She paused. “Unless, of course, he was having his way with one of the maids. He was a good-looking chap, wasn’t he? And I’ve heard how these lords of the manor behave—forcing themselves on young girls who would lose their jobs if they fought back. How did you say he was killed?”

  “I didn’t. He was stabbed.”

  “Well, there you are then.” She gave me a knowing nod. “Stabbed in self-defense. That’s what I’d be looking for.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now, could you possibly change a half crown for some pennies? I have to make a couple of telephone calls and I don’t want to run out.”

  “Of course I can, my lovey,” she said and obliged. I came out and went to the telephone box. I put in what I hoped would be enough pennies. “Broxham two five one,” I said when the operator came on the line. “Just a minute. I’ll connect you to trunk calls,” she said. I waited, then a voice said “Broxham two five one. Major Warburton-Stoke’s residence.” I pushed the button and heard the pennies drop before I said, “This is Lady Georgiana O’Mara. May I please speak to Major Warburton-Stoke?”

  “I’m sorry, my lady,” the smooth male voice said. “This is Hextable, the butler. But the master and mistress are off at their lodge in Scotland. They’ve gone shooting with friends.”

  “Oh dear,” I said. “Do you happen to have the telephone number where I can reach them?”

  “I’m afraid you can’t reach them. There is no telephone at the lodge. It is purportedly very remote.”

  “When do you expect them home?”

  “Not before next week at the earliest. The master said if the shooting was good they might stay on for a while.”

  “This is awful,” I said. “Miss Belinda is in trouble. She has been wrongly accused of a crime and she begged me to telephone her father. Is there no way we can contact them?”

  “We could send a telegram, I suppose. The post office would have to deliver it, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea,” I said. “Could you send it?”

  “It would be more suitable coming from you, my lady,” he said in that expressionless and even voice that so many butlers have.

  “Very well.” I tried to stay calm. “What is the address?”

  “Let me double-check for you.” There was a pause, then he said, “It is Glenbrae Lodge, Perthshire.”

  I didn’t think that sounded like the sort of address that could easily be found on a map and I doubted that a telegram would reach it within days, but I replied, “Thank you. I will send the telegram immediately.”

  “I do hope it’s nothing serious concerning Miss Belinda. She always was a high-spirited young girl, wasn’t she?”

  “It’s very serious, I’m afraid,” I said. “She has been accused of murder.”

  Then I hung up. There was nothing more to say.

  I went back into the post office and composed a telegram. “Belinda in trouble. Accused of murder. Truro, Cornwall.” I was going to add “Return home immediately” but I decided those words were obvious and would cost more. So I handed the telegram to the postmistress and watched her face as she read the words. “Miss Belinda?” she asked. “Well, I never did.”

  “And neither did she,” I replied, my nerves now close to snapping point. “She’s innocent and we have to find a way to prove it.”

  Having done what I could with Belinda’s family I made a second telephone call to my own house. Mrs. Holbrook answered and I explained that I was staying at a house called Trewoma in Cornwall and that I was in a spot of bother. If Mr. Darcy telephoned or returned home would she ask him to come immediately? I gave her the address, directions and telephone number.

  “Of course I will, my lady. Is there anything I can do? Has someone been taken ill?”

  “No, it’s worse than that, Mrs. Holbrook,” I said. “There has been a murder and the police think that Miss Belinda is guilty.”

  “How terrible for you. Why don’t you come home right away and let us take care of you?” she said.

  “I can’t leave Belinda. She needs my help,” I said.

  “Of course. But don’t you worry. The moment Mr. O’Mara telephones, I’ll send him straight to you.”

  I felt a little better as I put down the telephone. Just hearing a friendly voice was somehow reassuring. Darcy would telephone, I thought, and come racing to my side. Unless . . . unless he was currently on a steamer heading for Argentina or in the wilds of Siberia. Or in danger somewhere himself, my mind added, unbidden. One never knew.

  “Drat the man,” I said, fighting back tears that threatened to come.

  Chapter 26

  OCTOBER 19

  HEADING BACK TO TREWOMA BUT NOT SURE THAT I WANT TO STAY . . .

  I seem to be getting nowhere. There is nobody I can turn to for help and yet Belinda is counting on me. Should I even go back to Trewoma? What if I am in danger now?

  I drove back slowly, trying to think calmly and rationally. I had been involved in strange crimes before. I had managed to find clues, trace suspects, figure things out. And now it seemed it was all up to me. I suspected the police were sure they had found the right person in Belinda and were not going to look any further. Think, Georgie, I commanded myself. The most promising direction seemed to be the servants. Someone in that house had a grudge against Tony. Perhaps he had tried to force himself on one of the maids. Perhaps her brother or father had come to take revenge. Or a relative had lost his fishing rights and with them the family income. I would go back to Trewoma and try to talk to them. Somewhere, someone knew something critical.

  The moment I said that a figure flashed into my mind. Old Harry appearing behind us on the beach in an agitated state and mumbling something about what he saw and how he never said anything. I should try to find him and get out of him what he knew. Now with a clear plan of action ahead I drove up to Trewoma and parked Brutus well away from the house. I didn’t want the police to find out it was Belinda’s motor and to seize it as evidence. I glanced up at the windows, wanting to see if anyone was watching me, but saw nobody. So I started to wander the grounds, looking for the old man. After a frustrating half hour I decided he was the sort who knew how to make himself invisible when he wanted. I came out from the woods, onto the open lawns leading to the cliff tops. This was where Jonquil fell, I thought, and found myself drawn to take a look. I knew her death and Tony’s could not be connected but I had also learned that when things seem to be coincidental, there is often a hidden connection. I stood at the cliff edge and looked down. It was not an enormously high cliff, but there were vicious-looking rocks below. At high tide they would have been covered but at this moment they lay exposed with tide pools in the crevasses. If Jonquil had fallen from this spot, death was almost certain.

  I don’t know how I sensed someone coming up behind me. I’m sure footsteps would have made no sound on the springy turf, but I turned around.

  “This is where she fell,” said a voice right behind me.

  I jumped and almost lost my footing when a hand reached out to grab me. Rose was standing there. “Steady on,” she said. “We don’t want a second accident, do we?”

  “Golly, you startled me,” I said. “I didn’t hear you coming.”

  “That’s because of the noise of the waves,” she said. “I spotted you crossing the lawn and I guessed where you must be going. I thought I’d better keep an eye on you, just in case.”

  She moved away from the cliff-edge and I followed. “You don’t suspect . . .” I
began hesitantly. “I remember you said that you thought that Tony must have pushed her.”

  “That’s what I believed,” she said. “But since he’s been killed, I’ve been thinking and wondering. Perhaps it wasn’t him at all.”

  “Then who?”

  “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. Who wanted them both out of the way? And of course the next question is am I next?”

  I stared at her. Had she now come to believe that Belinda was not guilty after all? And did she have a suspicion about who the real murderer might be?

  “Why should anyone want to kill you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t think that I’ve upset anyone. But living in a place like this sort of plays on the mind. I don’t think I want to go on living here alone. I’ll sell it and buy a nice house in town somewhere. Maybe in Bath, next to my mum. Maybe in London. Maybe in Paris. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that I’m a rich widow.”

  I glanced at her and she gave a nervous little grin.

  “My mum will be arriving any moment,” she said. “I should get back to the house to make sure Mrs. M. has made up a nice room for her. Of course she will have. Silly me. She does everything perfectly, doesn’t she?”

  Then she walked off ahead of me across the lawn, leaving me standing and wondering. The disturbing thought that had been nagging at the back of my mind was how she knew the exact spot where Jonquil fell to her death. Did someone tell her? Show her? Because when it happened she had been living in London. Unless . . . unless she had it all planned. She read that Tony had married Jonquil. Her two idols now living in the perfect house. What if she had come down here, taken her chances and pushed Jonquil over the cliff? Then arranged, after a suitable time, to meet Tony in London, to get him drunk, lure him into bed with her and claim she was pregnant. Then she’d say she’d had a miscarriage and at the right moment, get rid of Tony.

  It was preposterous. Almost beyond belief. But I had seen when we played cards that she was much shrewder than she claimed. Belinda had mentioned that she had been a sneaky child. As she said, she was now a rich widow. The only thing against this was Tony lying naked on Belinda’s bed. The inspector did not believe he had been killed elsewhere. Had Rose been spying on him, seen him going naked to Belinda’s room and stabbed him? Had she only pretended to go to the kitchen? But the mug of cocoa I was given to hold had still been hot. And the kitchen was at the other end of the house. And the other ridiculous question: what man walks naked down a long corridor, knowing that female guests as well as servants might encounter him?

  Instead of going straight to the house I continued to walk through the grounds. I came around to the kitchen garden, with the last of the apples on the apple trees and neat rows of cabbages planted out in the beds. Like everything else in the house it appeared to be well-run and I wondered if Mrs. Mannering’s rule applied out here as well. Or was it Tony who supervised? A gardener was at work—a young, fit-looking lad, who was shoveling leaves onto a bonfire. He broke off when he saw me coming and tipped his cap.

  “Morning, miss,” he said.

  “Plenty of leaves at this time of year to keep you busy, aren’t there?” I said, giving him a smile.

  “There certainly are, miss. No sooner have I swept them up, then more of the buggers come falling.”

  I nodded to him and he went off with a wheelbarrow to get the next load of leaves. Because everything was damp, the fire was not blazing but smoking. I stood savoring the sweet smoke that I always find so evocative. I was about to walk on when I saw something poking out from among the leaves. Something white and soft. I grabbed a stick and attempted to drag it out. It was smoking, or rather steaming, but I could see that it was the corner of what looked like nubbly fabric—a towel, maybe, or even a toweling robe. It was soaking wet and too heavy to lift, with the great mound of leaves and branches on top of it. I wasn’t sure what to do next and then noticed the young gardener was coming back. I hurriedly covered it with leaves again.

  “How often do you light this fire?” I asked.

  “It weren’t much use trying to light it after the last rain,” he said. “So I haven’t touched it for a few days now.” He emptied the wheelbarrow. “See, even now it don’t want to burn, do it? I reckon I might have to resort to tipping some petrol onto it to get a nice blaze.”

  A nice blaze, I thought. Consuming all evidence. Had he noticed there were things other than leaves in the pile? Or was it possible . . .

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Trevor, ma’am,” he said.

  “Have you worked here long?”

  “Two years now.”

  “Your family lives nearby, I suppose?”

  He nodded. “They do, miss. My dad’s a fisherman but the catch hasn’t been too good these days. So it’s up to me and Elsie to help support our mum and the little ones.”

  “Elsie? She’s a maid here?”

  He nodded again. “That’s right. Mr. Summers took us both on a couple of years ago. He got rid of the old staff and said he wanted to modernize the place with new young people. Had lots of grand ideas, he had, more’s the pity.” He threw on another shovelful of leaves. “That Mannering woman is a bit of a pain, if you’ll pardon my saying so, but otherwise we’re treated well here. And the pay’s good.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. All I knew was that what I’d seen now seemed to confirm that Tony Summers had been wearing a robe, or had a towel wrapped around him, and that someone must have thrown it out of the window where it was later retrieved and hidden in the bonfire. But why? Was it because Tony had not really been stabbed on that bed but killed elsewhere and brought to Belinda’s room? But the inspector had said he was sure Tony had not been killed elsewhere. So why throw the robe out of the window and hide it on a bonfire if it didn’t have telltale bloodstains on it?

  I was deep in thought when I came back into the house to hear voices coming from the hallway upstairs.

  “No, I’m sure it will be lovely,” said a woman’s voice I couldn’t recognize.

  “Are you sure, Mummy? We have much nicer rooms. I don’t know why Mrs. Mannering chose that room for you.”

  “I thought your mother would like to be close to you, Mrs. Summers. I had suggested the blue room but on consideration I thought she would feel more at home in a smaller room, since she is not used to houses of this size.”

  “Please don’t get upset, Rose. I shall be quite happy here. Honestly. I’ll just unpack, shall I?”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “I have laid tea in the salon,” Mrs. Mannering said in her calm, cold voice. “Please take your mother downstairs, Mrs. Summers. I will have Elsie unpack your mother’s things.”

  Rose came to the head of the stairs, followed by a round and pleasant-looking woman. I noticed that Rose had changed into a smart black dress which actually made her look quite stylish and slim. She saw me in the foyer. “Oh, Georgie. My mother has arrived. Isn’t that nice? Mum, this is Lady Georgiana I told you about.”

  “Pleased to meet you, your ladyship,” Rose’s mother said, coming down the stairs to greet me. “I’m sorry we meet at such a sad time. My poor Rosie. She was so happy, married to that lovely man and now he’s struck down in his prime. And I was so shocked to learn that it was Miss Belinda who did this awful thing. Miss Belinda of all people. Such a kind and friendly little girl when I looked after her. I used to let her help me with the baking and she loved it. I’m only glad old Lady Knott is not around to see this. It would be the death of her. Ever so proud of her family and her granddaughter, old Lady Knott was—” She broke off, flushing with embarrassment.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Barnes,” I said. “But I really don’t believe that Miss Belinda killed him, however bad it looks now. We will get to the bottom of it and find out who is responsible, I promise.”

  “Come on
, Mum. Let’s have some tea, shall we?” Rose stepped between us and shepherded her mother away and down the hall. I waited until they had disappeared and then I sprinted up the stairs. The door was open to a room close to the end of the upstairs corridor. I peeked inside and saw the young maid, Elsie. I went in, closing the door behind me. The maid dropped the jumper she had just folded and regarded me warily. “Can I help you, my lady?” she asked.

  “Do you enjoy working here, Elsie?” I asked.

  She looked confused. “I don’t know if anyone enjoys scrubbing and cleaning, but it’s a good job and I’m paid fairly.”

  “And treated well?”

  She glanced up, then said, “Well, Mrs. Mannering can be a bit of an old cow sometimes but apart from that I’ve no complaints.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Summers both treat you well?”

  “She’s really nice. Grateful for everything. But Mr. Summers . . .” She paused.

  “Wasn’t so nice?” I suggested.

  “Oh, he was friendly enough but a bit of a slob, if you get my meaning. I mean, left his clothes all over the place and his bathroom . . . well, it was always a mess.”

  “Elsie, are you Mrs. Summers’s lady’s maid?” I asked.

  “I’m the upstairs maid, your ladyship. I take care of Mrs. Summers but she don’t really want to be fussed over like some of the ladies. I also do the upstairs cleaning.”

  “When Mr. Summers was killed, were you already in bed?” I asked. “Or did you wait up to undress Mrs. Summers.”

  “No, my lady. She said she didn’t need no help and I could go to bed.”

  “So you didn’t find out that Mr. Summers had died until the police came and the servants were woken up again?”

  “That’s right.” She nodded.

  “Did the police check Mr. Summers’s bedroom and bathroom, do you know?”

  She looked puzzled now. “I couldn’t really tell you. They told us to wait in the servants’ hall until we were questioned.”