Lessons for Suspicious Minds

by Charlie Cochrane

  “I’ll ask him. No, better still”—Mrs. Stewart had a steely glint in her eye—“I’ll go and ask Beatrice. Now.” And before anybody of the male persuasion could dissuade her, their newly apprenticed investigatress was out of the room.

  “It’ll be interesting to see if Beatrice plays ball.” Mr. Stewart contemplated his glass, then placed it on the table. “You may have noticed that your mother is adept at getting her own way, but she won’t be able to strong-arm her hostess. Not socially done.”

  “Mama won’t let that stop her. Beatrice knows more than she’s letting on,” Jonty said belligerently.

  “She’s no fool. And neither is Derek.” Mr. Stewart raised his eyebrows.

  “I know that. In which case, why should they have kept the dowager in the dark? Persistent women have a way of rooting things out. My goodness, my grandmother must have been even more prescient than I gave her credit for, putting Mama’s spiritual development in those capable hands. Can you imagine anyone trying to keep secrets from either Mama or Grandmamma? Well, can you?” No response seemed to be forthcoming.

  “You managed to, when you were at school,” Mr. Stewart said eventually.

  Orlando watched as they faced each other out: the father pale, his son flushed. If he had a burden to carry from younger days, then Jonty had an equal one. Although how could you compute the equivalence of seeing one’s father cut his throat against being abused by older boys, with the connivance of their house master? It was never usually referred to—Mr. Stewart must be feeling under considerable strain to have broken the unwritten rule.

  “I’m sorry. Uncalled for.” Mr. Stewart spread his hands in a gesture of apology.

  “No, Papa. You were right to remind me of my folly back then in trying to keep my cards so close to my chest. I’m not sure if I was saving you pain or me. And,” Jonty added, a steely edge to his voice that Orlando hadn’t heard there in a while, “you were right to remind me of the need to protect the innocent.”

  “Do you feel that is what this case is about?” Orlando asked, hoping they wouldn’t be opening old wounds.

  “Perhaps.” Jonty got up and shut the door that his mother had left ajar. “I don’t like the fact that Derek didn’t mention that poor little boy when we were discussing the Ambrosians’ visits here. I don’t call causing death—even an accidental one—a form of entertainment.”

  “He didn’t fall over himself to help me contact Rodgers, either. Although he did make one odd remark. About corked wine.”

  “I beg your pardon, Papa?”

  “Let me clarify.” Mr. Stewart rubbed his hand over his handsomely domed head. “If I can. He was talking about Rodgers having turned a bit odd, but he said that more than one of the Ambrosians had gone the same way. He changed the subject, so I couldn’t follow the remark up, and I suspect it’s too late now to put him on the spot. He might have meant Robbins.”

  “We’ve learned the hard way not to let people have time to get their story straight.” Jonty cuffed his father’s arm.

  “The strange thing is that he seemed to be telling the truth as he understood it, rather than a prepared story. He’s convinced that Reggie Tuffnell’s death was suicide.”

  “Really?” Jonty studied his father before carrying on. Orlando shivered, in realisation that there was a whole part of Jonty’s life he’d never have access to, even though he’d been told of it. He might be the man’s soul mate but other people had a right to part of him, no matter how much Orlando would have wanted him all to himself.

  “Orlando?”

  Somebody appeared to be addressing him. “I’m sorry? I was deep in thought.”

  “Thinking about his dinner, probably.” Jonty produced an unexpected—and heartening—smile. Always valiant in the face of adversity, and, dear God, didn’t Orlando love him for it? “Or about that ‘no right angles in nature’ thing. I was asking whether you think there’s any point in carrying on investigating these deaths.”

  “Yes.” He surprised himself with the determination in his voice. “If it becomes apparent that we can’t solve them, then the case alters. But I don’t think we’re there yet. Especially when people are making life difficult.”

  “Good man.” Mr. Stewart nodded his benediction. “It’s a puzzle which needs to be solved or else forgotten. Like your grandfath . . .” He stopped.

  Orlando hadn’t realised that a man could blush so much that his entire bald pate would turn red, but Jonty’s father had managed it.

  “Papa . . .” Jonty said, not unkindly and with a concerned glance at Orlando, who just smiled. Why heap any more awkwardness on the situation?

  “I shan’t be having any more of that sherry.” Mr. Stewart shook his head. “It seems to make me unusually tactless.”

  “We should return to Tuffnell.” Jonty, at last, brought them back to the matter in hand with a loud clap. “No chance that Rodgers might have killed him, in a fit of religious sensitivity?”

  “Sensitivity? He sounded like the sort who’d root up any tares as soon as they poked their heads above ground. He didn’t strike me as an avenging angel type. Just the hang ’em and flog ’em type. And unless he’s grown muscles since his time at Oxford,” Mr. Stewart added, “he’d have needed help to commit the deed. I’ve seen pictures—he was a right weedy specimen.”

  Jonty sighed. “If Tuffnell was murdered, and I have to admit my belief in that is wearing thin, the murderer had to get in and out of the room, and it seems to be by the door. In which case we point to a member of the household, above or below stairs.”

  “I’m not sure what Mrs. Stewart would say if we pinned the deed on Derek or Beatrice. Or on the redoubtable Hammond.” Orlando was pleased to be back on the investigational tack.

  “She’d say the same as I would,” Mr. Stewart replied. “That the cause of justice and the truth has to be served.”

  Jonty rose, moved towards the window, and appeared to look out at the grounds. “They say things happen in threes. We’ve sent two of your friends into the hands of the law. Nobody will want to be associated with you if we have a third arrested.”

  “We didn’t make any complaints, did we?” Mr. Stewart smiled.

  “No, but my conscience would if you became social pariahs.” Jonty kept his gaze focussed outside the room.

  “Jonty, wouldn’t your parents always rather have truth rather than popularity?” Orlando cast about for some unanswerable logic to apply to the situation. “And isn’t the fact that—”

  “Gray-Robbins!” A booming female voice said from the other side of the door, preceding an equally booming female figure flinging it open.

  Jonty turned, beaming. “Have you been bird-watching, Mama, and discovered a new species?”

  “Only the lesser spotted idiot child.” Mrs. Stewart settled herself in her seat again. “Did you know he was a mass of pimples at fourteen, Orlando?”

  “No. You must tell me more—”

  “That can wait until the matter in hand is dealt with,” Jonty cut in. “Is this entire visit to consist of ‘let’s be rude to Jonty’ time?”

  “Behave, the pair of you.” Mrs. Stewart flexed her wrist, as though to ready it for administering a whack to the seat of someone’s pants. “The man whose sweetheart drowned had the family name of Gray-Robbins. He apparently hated it, saying—just as you did, child—that it made him sound like something out of a bird book. He dropped the Gray.”

  “Hold on, hold on.” Mr. Stewart held up his hand. “Is this chap connected to our Gray? Another set of brothers maybe?” His eyes glinted.

  “Not brother, dear. Son.” Mrs. Stewart looked gleeful at the array of stunned male faces surrounding her. “Archdeacon Gray is Gray-Robbins’s only child.”

  “So he must have dropped the Robbins part of the name?” Jonty asked.

  “Spot on. Either as an act of rebellion against his father or because he inherited a stack of money from his maternal grandparents. Those are the two stories in circulation, accordi
ng to Beatrice.” Mrs. Stewart spread her hands as though weighing their respective merits. “Take the one you prefer.”

  “So Derek must have been meaning to say ‘Archdeacon Gray’s father’ and just stopped himself.” Orlando had reopened his notebook, and was scribbling furiously. “Why bother to hide the name?”

  “Because it must have a connection to the case, in the same way that the bells incident must have, and that’s why they tried to keep that under wraps too.” Jonty bounced on his heels. “Orestes avenging Agamemnon?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Stewart said.

  “A son taking vengeance on behalf of his father, Helena.” Mr. Stewart took his wife’s hand. “A lead, a palpable lead, old girl. Well done.”

  “And we know the very place to follow it to. I’ll root out Derek and see whether we can contact Gray by phone or whether it’ll have to be a telegram.” Jonty grinned. “You’d better polish your halo, Orlando. With any luck, we’ll be making a clerical call tomorrow.”

  The phone call was made, the meeting with Gray arranged, people changed into their dinner clothes, and Jonty got rid of the smudges on his face. Hayes confirmed that all the staff who’d been at Fyfield at the time of Tuffnell’s death were still there, apart from one arthritic old lady who used to come in and help with the washing and had now been pensioned off. Dinner was eaten, all discussion of the case deliberately avoided on all sides—helped by the dowager being out on a visit to friends—and port declined. One never knew if an extra glass might affect the finer points of one’s prowess; sex was something to be tackled with all the senses sharp.

  A decent interval was allowed between Jonty going up to his room and his attempting the surreptitious scuttle along the corridor. He took off his jacket and shoes but remained fairly decently dressed, in case of discovery.

  He opened his door gingerly, looked both ways, then edged into the hallway, noiselessly closing the door behind him. So far, so good. Not far to get to Orlando’s door, and that would have been left slightly ajar, as it tended to squeak when the handle was turned. Jonty’s much-perfected soundless shuffle along the carpet began.

  “May I help you, sir?” A respectful male voice—not Hammond’s or Hayes’s—made Jonty jump at least six inches off the ground. He spun round, to see that one of the footmen had evidently just come around the turn in the corridor, glass in hand. He must have been attending to some other member of the household.

  “No, thank you. We’re . . . I’m . . .”

  “We’re conducting an investigative experiment.” Orlando’s voice—wonderfully authoritative and calming—sounded from the doorway. “About how easy it is to move about the house at night without being found out.”

  “Not that easy, sir.” The footman had a horribly smug expression, one that Jonty felt like thumping off his face.

  Orlando stepped in to save the day again. “If you have a moment, we’d value an independent pair of ears and eyes.”

  That knocked the wind out of the footman’s sails. “I’m not sure Mr. Hammond would be happy about that, sir.”

  That pervading reluctance again.

  “Well, um . . .”

  “Denton, sir.”

  “Well, Denton, what Mr. Hammond doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Jonty wondered whether five bob was the correct douceur to buy enough of Hammond’s ignorance, and whether Orlando had two half-crowns to hand.

  Denton didn’t look convinced, even in the dim light. “Maybe I should go and fetch Hayes. He’s the one who’s been helping you up to now.”

  “No!” Orlando’s response was too quick, and too loud for the time of night. He lowered his voice again. “No, we don’t want to rouse him—or anyone else in the household. We just need someone of good sense to see how loud it sounds when people creep along the corridor.”

  Denton thought for a moment before answering. “If I might be so bold . . .”

  “Of course you may.” Jonty got into his part. If romance was going to be off the menu, then investigating might as well be put back on.

  “I’d suggest that you shouldn’t do it so early on. People aren’t always settled for the night. Maybe try again in the wee small hours?”

  “Alas, Dr. Coppersmith needs all the beauty sleep he can get.” Jonty grinned. “So we must sacrifice verisimilitude for practicality. He also has a dodgy Achilles tendon, so I’m forced to be the one taking the role of the miscreant. Shall I carry on, Dr. C?”

  “Please do.” Orlando inclined his head. “Once young Denton stations himself farther along the corridor, I shall go to the floor below, as planned. And no sliding down the banisters,” he added as he passed his lover.

  “I grew out of that years ago,” Jonty replied, lying. “And do keep quiet. It’s supposed to be the middle of the night.”

  “I know that.” Orlando set off down the stairs while Denton placed himself thirty yards along the corridor. The situation couldn’t be made any more ridiculous, so Jonty did some stretching exercises to limber up, then hissed over the railing. “I really should start where Denton is, outside the room where Gray stayed, but it might raise his suspicions. I’ll just count to ten, then off I’ll go.”

  “This isn’t a race. It’s a study in feasibility.” In spite of his words, Orlando dropped his hand like the starter at the Derby. “Go.”

  Jonty looked from side to side, pantomime fashion, then tiptoed to the top of the stairs. He’d not got down a dozen of them before Orlando stopped him.

  “You sound like a herd of elephants.”

  “I don’t. And you exaggerate—there’s only a little noise.”

  “And I only slightly exaggerate. Those stairs creak like anything, as does the floorboard halfway across the landing. Go and ask Denton.”

  Denton was asked. Denton agreed.

  “You come here and listen,” Orlando whispered from the top of the staircase.

  Jonty felt disgruntled—denied Orlando’s bed and accused of being elephantine—but he complied. He didn’t let Orlando get down half a dozen stairs before he admitted the truth of the matter. “You’re right. I don’t suppose anybody would have been around to hear Gr . . . anyone at the Lord-knows-what o’clock, but he—or she—might not have risked it. It does sound like elephants. How does the sound carry usually, Denton? I mean, do the sounds of nocturnal ramblings penetrate to the servants’ quarters?” The answer would be useful not just in terms of the case.

  “Not really, sir. Solid as anything, these old houses, except for the odd squeaky door and these particularly bothersome stair treads, but even the sound of that wouldn’t reach us below stairs or right up in the attic bedrooms. Hence the need for an efficient bell system.”

  That fact gave Jonty some comfort, as he remembered the awful noise Orlando’s door made.

  “I don’t think there’s a lot else to be gained from further experiment. Thank you, Denton.”

  “My pleasure, sir.” The footman performed a sort of bow, turned, and made his way to the servants’ stairway.

  “So what have we learned?” Orlando kept his eye on the footman’s retreating back. “Are the stairs too noisy for anyone to attempt them?”

  “On the face of it, yes. But then the murder itself would have been a potentially noisy business, Orlando. It’s suggestive, and I don’t like what it suggests.”

  “Which is?” Orlando asked, before mouthing, He’s gone.

  Is he? Good, Jonty mouthed back. “It suggests that everyone of note—except the dowager, and maybe young Hayes unless he’s an exceptional actor—was in on it. Can one have a murder by committee?”

  Orlando shivered, even though the night wasn’t that cold. “Exacting vengeance for the past or future inheritance? I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I. What I do like, though, is your bed. I like that very much, especially the use of it.” Jonty kept his voice low. “And now that Denton’s gone, what would be gratifying is . . .”

  A door farther down the corridor swung open, Mrs. S
tewart’s head emerging around it. “If you lads are going to indulge in midnight feasts or other relics of schooldays would you please go and do so at the bottom of the lawn or somewhere else where decent Christian women won’t be kept from their sleep?”

  “Sorry, Mama. It was in the course of investigating.”

  “I daresay it was, but go to bed.”

  Orlando mouthed, Not tonight, Jonathan, and slipped back into his room.

  Archdeacon Gray didn’t look as Orlando had expected, but as he had never visited anyone who lived within a cathedral close, and his experience of the higher members of the clergy was limited, he accepted he was likely to be mistaken. Still, who could have anticipated a clergyman quite so young, handsome, and athletic looking? And why, if the rest of the party at Fyfield had been peers at Oxford, was one of the next generation included?

  “Thank you for seeing us.” Jonty, hat in hand, seemed unusually tongue-tied. Surely he wasn’t afraid that his sins were being exposed by Gray’s steely-blue gaze? Or was he still suffering the effects of a frustrating night, and why did Denton have to be pottering about just at the wrong time?

  “It’s my pleasure. Dr. Coppersmith is an old boy of my college, and I’m delighted to assist any Gabriel man, especially such a notable one.”

  The mystery deepened. No Gabriel man would have been an Ambrosian.

  “You were at Gabriel? I’m afraid I don’t remember you, although I was hardly the most gregarious individual during my undergraduate years.” Orlando and Jonty took the comfortable, cosy seats they’d been offered in Gray’s comfortable, cosy study, the furnishings of which had seen slightly better days.

  “I was gone the year before you came up. A shame. I’d have enjoyed picking your brains. Were you sleuthing then?”

  “No. Alas.” How Orlando wished he had discovered the joys of investigation back then. Maybe he’d have been less introverted and lonely, more popular among those who’d have seen him as a help rather than a hindrance.

  He caught a glimpse of Jonty’s broad smile, which reminded him that detecting would have been no fun without a certain person at his side.