Murder at the Manor Hotel

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Oh, that’s me. See you later.’ Dittany took the knife and hurried to the platform. Mitch, already in position with his remaining props, went to meet her. As he led her to her place, they exchanged a quick word and a smile.

  Eric was glowering in a corner. Melissa glanced from him to Penelope, half expecting to catch some sign of jealousy or anger there as well, but there was none. She had closed the lid of her box and was sitting calmly, hands folded in her lap and a serene expression on her face, as if she were posing for a photograph.

  Iris read Melissa’s thoughts. ‘Seen it all before, no doubt,’ she whispered as they went in search of an inconspicuous corner to watch the proceedings. ‘She’ll reel him in if things get out of hand.’

  ‘I expect you’re right. Dittany’s not in the same league, is she? I wouldn’t like her to get hurt, though – she seems such a sweet kid.’

  ‘Ready, Mitch?’ called Chloe from her seat in the middle of the room. ‘Haven’t you learned your lines yet?’ she went on a shade testily, on catching sight of the script in Mitch’s hand. ‘Oh no!’ She slapped her forehead and turned her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve done another rewrite.’

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ said Mitch with one of his most disarming grins. ‘I thought a bit of rap might be fun. How does this sound?’

  With hunched shoulders and rotating hips, frenziedly thrashing the air with one arm and using the rolled-up script as an imaginary microphone, he pranced round the stage, chanting in a husky, rhythmic monotone:

  Now listen, man, there was these two broads

  And they both had hots for the guy next door.

  Well he loved one and not the other

  And that led to big trouble, brother.

  These broads, they worked for a classy dame.

  Miz Ann Bull, that was her name …

  At this point his voice wobbled and he folded up, unable to continue for laughing. Everyone, even Penelope, joined in the mirth; from the back of the stage Dittany clapped her hands in delight.

  ‘Whadya think, Chlo?’ asked Mitch when he could speak again. ‘Course, I’d need a backing, and some of the lines don’t scan too well …’

  ‘Whatever do you know about scansion, Mitch darling?’ drawled Penelope, while Chloe struggled to recover her powers of speech. ‘I’m surprised you’ve even heard of it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really into this poetry lark,’ Mitch assured her, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘Poetry!’ exclaimed Penelope. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  ‘This stuff?’ Mitch guffawed. ‘No, course not. This is just for laughs. I mean the real thing. You ever read John Donne, Pen? Beeyootiful stuff he wrote – real sexy too, some of it.’ He rubbed his hands together and winked.

  Penelope’s eyebrows lifted and her mouth became a cherry-pink ‘O’ of surprise. ‘Where in the world did you hear about John Donne?’

  ‘Oh, Dittany’s been educating me, haven’t you, doll?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Dittany confirmed eagerly. ‘He’s been to the library several times to borrow anthologies.’

  ‘You amaze me.’ The words were spoken lightly, with a faintly patronising smile, but it seemed to Melissa, who had been following the exchanges with close attention, that Penelope was more disconcerted than she cared to admit by the revelations. Mitch and Dittany had exchanged a glance that hinted at a growing intimacy.

  ‘Could we please get back to the rehearsal?’ demanded Chloe impatiently. ‘Mitch, you aren’t seriously …’

  ‘No, sorry Chlo, just did it for laughs. I’ll be good from now on – and I have learned me lines, honest!’ As if to prove the point, he tossed his script away.

  The air of mock contrition, the irrepressible good humour, the dynamism and the sheer charm of the man, transformed Chloe’s frown of severity into an amiable smile.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But please, no more tinkering with the script. You’ll upset our author.’ She nodded in Melissa’s direction.

  ‘Oh, feel free,’ said Melissa, who had laughed as loudly as anyone.

  ‘Right. Are you ready this time?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Mitch proceeded to deliver his opening lines with a flourish and from then on Scene One continued with only minor interruptions from the producer.

  While the stage was being set for Scene Two, Chloe said, ‘Could someone pop along to the bar and remind Will that we’ll be needing him soon?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ volunteered Melissa. ‘I want to have a chat with Janice.’

  Four

  The bar, low-ceilinged and wooden-beamed with inglenooks on either side of a glowing log fire, was almost empty – probably, Melissa thought, because most of the guests were in the dining-room, although a handful were sitting at low tables, drinking, smoking and chatting. A lad in a bottle-green waistcoat, sporting three gold rings in one ear and a haircut like an inverted boot-brush, was clearing used glasses from the tables, emptying ashtrays and exchanging pleasantries with the customers. Will Foley was not among them.

  It was a room which might have been found in any one of a hundred country inns and hotels, with its velvet curtains, flower-patterned carpet and tub chairs of green leather trimmed with metal studs. The whitewashed walls were hung with a variety of iron and wooden artefacts; some, such as horseshoes, were easily recognisable, others suggested arcane but presumably rustic uses. These were interspersed with reproductions of early nineteenth-century advertisements for cattle-markets and horse-fairs. A local farmer was selling a grey mare and another a quantity of hay; there was even a chilling announcement of the public hanging of one Walter Heartfield for sheep-stealing.

  Melissa strolled across to the oak counter which occupied the far end of the room. Will was not there either, but perched on a stool, with a glass in one hand and an expensive-looking cigar in the other, was Vic Bellamy, looking entirely at his ease as he lounged against a massive oak pillar. He had evidently been joking with the barmaid, for the two of them were laughing uproariously. The woman was middle-aged, with unnaturally black hair, pendulous cheeks and a generous bosom to which the hotel manager appeared to be paying close attention as it rose and fell while she loaded wine-glasses into a rack above her head. Melissa had entered quietly and it was several seconds before the two noticed her.

  ‘Can I get you something?’ asked the woman at length, while Vic gave a friendly nod and took a pull on his cigar.

  ‘Actually, I was looking for Will Foley – I thought I might find him here.’

  ‘He went out about ten minutes ago,’ she said.

  ‘I must have missed him then.’ Melissa climbed on to a stool. ‘I’ll have a half of lager, please.’

  ‘How’s the show going, then?’ asked Vic.

  It was the first time he had addressed her directly. On her previous visit, she had been merely one of the group who left with Mitch’s party and she was surprised that he was able to place her.

  ‘Very well, I think,’ she replied. ‘Everyone seems to be having a great time.’

  Vic gave a wheezy chuckle. ‘They would, with Mitch around!’ He emptied his glass and pushed it across the counter, which bore the patina of generations of elbows. ‘Ta, Janice. See you later.’ He slid from his stool and ambled out, ducking his head to avoid the low lintel over the door.

  ‘I wouldn’t say Will’s been having a great time,’ said Janice as she served Melissa with her lager. She rang up the money and handed over change. ‘Seems to have quite a complex over this acting lark. Can’t think why he let himself be talked into it.’

  ‘Hasn’t he said?’

  ‘A favour for his old mate, Mitch, he says. Some mate, I told him, pushing him into something that gets to him like that.’

  ‘Maybe he’s shy of meeting people and Mitch thinks acting might be a way to overcome it,’ suggested Melissa, reflecting as she spoke that it didn’t sound a very convincing explanation, not at all in line with her own impressions of the man.

  ‘Scared of
Battling Bess, more like,’ volunteered the lad in the green waistcoat, arriving at that moment with a trayful of glasses. He dumped it on the counter, ducked under the flap and began unloading the contents noisily into a sink.

  ‘Careful, Kevin,’ admonished Janice. ‘We don’t want any breakages.’

  ‘Who’s Battling Bess?’ asked Melissa.

  ‘The Heyshill Manor ghost,’ replied Janice with some pride. ‘One of them, that is.’

  ‘Really? Do tell me about them.’

  ‘Well …’ Janice broke off to exchange a few words with a small group of Americans who announced that they were off in search of dinner. ‘It’s quite a story,’ she said as the door closed behind them.

  ‘I’d love to hear it, if you can spare the time.’ Melissa glanced round the now unoccupied room. ‘Why don’t you have a drink with me, while things are quiet?’

  A broad smile compressed Janice’s double chin. ‘I don’t mind if I do. I’ll have a port, thanks.’

  ‘Kevin?’

  ‘He’s not allowed to drink on duty,’ said Janice, before the lad could answer. She poured herself a generous port, rang up the money that Melissa handed over and took an appreciative sip. ‘Mm, that’s nice.’ Kevin rinsed glasses under a tap, his face sullen.

  ‘About the ghosts,’ said Melissa. ‘Do they ever appear?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say they appear exactly … you don’t ever see anything, or at least, I don’t know anyone who has.’ The barmaid’s tone was almost wistful. ‘It’s more of a creepy feeling you get when they’re around. Of course, you hear them occasionally, when you’re down in the cellar. Real spooky it is, down there – it’s part of the crypt of the old priory, you know.’

  ‘You mean the ghosts speak?’

  ‘Not speak exactly … sort of murmurings … as if you were listening to a radio through a thick wall.’ Janice, making short work of the port, was warming to her subject. ‘And there are other noises.’

  ‘What sort of noises?’

  ‘Oh …’ Janice picked up one of the glasses that Kevin had just dried and held it up to the light. She handed it back to him. ‘There’s a smear on that one – give it another rub. The noises now – it’s a bit hard to describe them, really. Sort of scuffling and slithering. And sometimes,’ she lowered her voice and glanced round, as if fearful of being overheard by the spirits of the departed, ‘you get this cold feeling, and smell a musty sort of smell – as if a grave had been opened up.’

  ‘Isn’t it always cold in a cellar?’ Melissa had the impression that Janice was drawing rather freely on her imagination.

  ‘Yes, it is, but this is different.’

  ‘Have you heard these noises yourself?’

  ‘Of course. Heard something earlier this evening, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Janice!’ Kevin looked up in alarm. ‘You never said.’

  ‘Didn’t want to scare you.’ She patted his shoulder and winked at Melissa. ‘Hates going down there after dark, don’t you, Kev?’

  Kevin fiddled nervously with his battery of earrings. ‘You’re not kidding. The girls won’t go at all, not even in the daytime, not if they can help it. Real scared, they are.’

  ‘But whose ghosts are they, and why do they call one of them Battling Bess?’ asked Melissa.

  ‘It seems that in olden times, poor widows who couldn’t pay their taxes would hide in the monasteries with their children,’ Janice explained. ‘The monks used to look after them and give them food. Then old Henry the Eighth had the monasteries burned down. The story goes that a group of women turned up here for shelter, found the place ruined and deserted, and went into the crypt to hide. The sheriff’s men tracked them down and tried to arrest them, but their leader, who was called Bess, persuaded them to make a fight of it. She got them to barricade themselves in and throw stones at the men to drive them off. They succeeded at first, but the men came back later, closed the entrance to the crypt with rocks and went away.’

  Melissa stared at her in horror. ‘You mean, they left them in there to starve to death? What a fiendish thing to do.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ said Janice, with something like relish. She emptied her glass and held it out for Kevin to wash. ‘Real rotten times, they were.’

  ‘Ain’t much better nowadays for some people,’ observed Kevin sourly. He glanced round as the door opened. ‘Here comes a customer.’

  Chris Bright entered, spotted Melissa and came across to her. ‘Where’s Will?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought he must be with you – he’d already left when I got here.’

  ‘He hasn’t shown up. Chloe’s fuming.’

  ‘Maybe he went for a turn outside,’ suggested Janice. ‘He told me he enjoys a stroll round the gardens.’

  ‘He wouldn’t see much in the dark, and anyway it’s pissing with rain.’ Muttering to himself, Chris went out. A couple entered; the woman went to a chair by the fire while the man came to the counter to order a gin and tonic and a pint of bitter.

  ‘Lousy weather,’ remarked Janice as she took down a tankard, held it under the tap and pulled the handle. There was a spluttering noise and a gush of froth. Her smile became a frown. ‘Damn, this bitter’s fobbing. Go down and put on another cask, Kevin.’

  Kevin blanched. ‘What, down the cellar?’ he faltered. It was no act; the lad was genuinely scared.

  ‘Where else, thickhead? And get a move on.’

  Behind her back, Kevin scowled. Reluctantly, he reached up towards a heavy nail driven into the wall at the side of the counter. His expression changed from nervous apprehension to surprise. ‘The key’s not there.’ He sounded almost pleased, as if its absence would relieve him of an unpleasant task.

  ‘What d’you mean, not there?’ Janice paused in the act of transferring ice cubes into a tumbler and went to look for herself. ‘Funny,’ she muttered. ‘I could have sworn … maybe Vic took it.’ She made an impatient gesture with her tongs. ‘Well don’t stand there gawping, go and see if he’s down there. You can ask him to change the cask if you’re too chicken to do it yourself.’

  With a shrug, Kevin vanished. Moments later, he was back, his eyes starting from his head and his face as pale as if Battling Bess was at his heels. ‘Someone come, quickly!’ he gasped. ‘There’s been an accident.’

  Melissa was nearest; she raced after him to where, at the far end of the passage, a heavy oak door marked ‘Private’ stood ajar. Kevin flattened himself against the opposite wall as if he was trying to disappear through it. With a shaking hand, he pointed. ‘Down there,’ he whispered. ‘Mind you don’t go head first like he must have.’

  Melissa, her heart thumping, dragged the door fully open. A gust of chill air and a smell of beer rose to meet her. At her feet, a flight of worn stone steps plunged steeply downwards. Never at ease with heights, she experienced a surge of vertigo.

  Under the cold fluorescent light, the vaults of whitewashed brick threw sharp black shadows that marched away into the distance like multiple reflections in a mirror. A tangle of pipes led down through the ceiling to a row of casks, flanked by tall cylinders standing shoulder to shoulder like faceless, armoured figures. At the foot of the steps lay Will Foley, face downwards in a pool of blood.

  ‘Get an ambulance!’ shouted Melissa. As fast as she dared, clinging grimly to the metal handrail, she descended the worn steps.

  ‘What’s going on?’ It was a man’s voice and it sounded impatient, almost angry. Vic Bellamy was at the head of the steps. ‘What the hell was he doing down here?’

  To her surprise, Melissa found herself suddenly disliking the man. As if explanations were important at a time like this. ‘Never mind that now – we must get him to hospital,’ she retorted, not caring if she sounded rude. ‘And get some clean towels. I’ll try and stop the bleeding.’

  Over his shoulder, Vic shouted after Kevin, already on his way to call the ambulance, and then started down the steps. ‘Is he badly hurt?’ he asked.

  Melissa did not answer;
she was desperately trying to clear Will’s mouth and nostrils with a paper tissue, alarmed at the quantity of blood he had already lost.

  ‘I’d like to know what the hell he thought he was playing at, nosing around down here,’ Vic muttered.

  ‘You can ask him when he comes round.’

  If he was aware of the sarcasm in her voice, he took no notice. It was plain what was uppermost in his mind. ‘He must have pinched the key when Janice wasn’t looking.’ He seemed to be thinking aloud.

  ‘For God’s sake, where are those towels?’ Melissa almost screamed in fear and frustration.

  There was the sound of running feet, and Kevin, still pale and scared-looking, reappeared with a pile of paper towels, which he passed down with averted eyes. ‘Will these do? I pinched ’em from the gents. The ambulance is on the way,’ he said shakily.

  ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing?’ said Vic as he handed her a wad of towels.

  Ignoring the question, she applied pressure in an effort to staunch the blood still welling from a two-inch gash on Will’s forehead, keeping the fingers of her free hand on the pulse in his throat. It was weak and fluttery, but it was there. She bent her ear towards his half-open mouth. ‘I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not,’ she muttered anxiously. ‘He needs professional help quickly – how much longer’s the ambulance going to be?’

  ‘Should be here any minute – the station’s not far.’

  The seconds ticked away. Will showed no sign of returning consciousness. Melissa threw aside one saturated makeshift dressing and grabbed another. She was in agony from cramp and her hands were sticky with blood; the smoke from Vic’s cigar crawled into her nostrils, mingled with the sickly smell of beer. She strained her ears, listening for the sound of a siren, but all she could hear was the whirr of an electric pump and the intermittent sound of muffled voices. She recalled Janice’s highly coloured claims to have heard the Heyshill Manor ghosts, no doubt invented to tease the likes of the impressionable Kevin. She looked at her watch; the face was obscured with blood. Where the hell was the ambulance?