Gladstone sat up and started whining, with sandy drool dripping from his jowls.
‘Yuk again, Gladstone!’ Eleanor wrinkled her nose and then tuned into the fact that Clifford was on his knees in the dirt! Oh, for a box Brownie camera to snap his preposterously inelegant pose! Eleanor giggled and then stopped short at Clifford’s sideways glance.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
Clifford finally managed to move two huge flints from the compacted earth and reached into the dirt, which had been loosened up. He handed her an old boot.
Eleanor couldn’t help laughing out loud. ‘Oh, Gladstone, you and your shoes!’
Clifford stood up and brushed the dirt off his overcoat. ‘It seems that I have burdened Mrs Butters with unnecessary laundry. I was hoping that Master Gladstone might have found something of interest.’
It was Eleanor’s turn to squat and squint at the spot where Clifford had extracted the shoe. Something glinted at her.
‘Your long-range vision may be superlative, Clifford, but you may need a trip to the optometrist for your short-range vision.’
She leaned forward and picked up a tiny, cut stone. Standing upright, she wiped the dust off it. ‘Looks like a garnet. They don’t mine garnets here, do they?’
‘Ah, excellent. No, my lady, I—’
‘Hang on!’
Eleanor dropped to her knees and then lay full-length on the dirt floor, despite Clifford’s muttered comments about ‘Mrs Butters’ and ‘more extra laundry’. She reached between the wooden runners with both hands and with a few pulls and grunts had her prize.
As she stood up, the state of her stockings and coat made Clifford wince. Ignoring him, she nodded to the metal box in her hands. ‘I’d call that something of interest, wouldn’t you?’
Placing it on the table, she brushed the dirt off it. She tried the lid.
‘Locked!’
Without a word he stepped forward and took a rectangular metal object from his pocket. Extracting a slim, blade-like tool from the body, he slid it into the lock and after a few moments, stood back. She looked at him enquiringly.
‘It’s a Schweizer Offiziersmesser, my lady.’
Eleanor could speak German among a smattering of other languages. ‘A Swiss Army Knife?’
‘Yes, my lady, Mr Elsener, the founder of Victorinox, the makers of this ingenious little tool, and your uncle were mutual admirers. Your uncle asked Mr Elsener to make him a one-off Swiss Army Knife for his unique… requirements.’
‘Well, we’ll discuss what my uncle’s “unique requirements” were at a later date. For the moment, let’s see what we have here.’ She opened the lid and tutted. ‘Well, well, look at this.’
Inside were several bundles of money done up with rubber bands, two small red notebooks… and a Browning pistol.
Thirty
‘Oh goodness, my lady, did you sleep badly?’ Mrs Butters picked up the fallen pillows and placed them on the chair. She fussed about Eleanor, rescuing the eiderdown from a tangled heap at the bottom of the bed as her mistress frowned at the mirror.
‘Can you claim to have slept badly if you haven’t slept at all?’ Eleanor grumbled. She tried to smile, but it came out more as a grimace. ‘Ignore me being testy, Mrs Butters. I have lain awake all night, going back and forth over these wretched clues. I fear I will go mad if we don’t have a breakthrough soon.’
‘Mr Clifford is one for patient thinking. I can see how that would frustrate a lady like yourself.’ Mrs Butters gave Eleanor a wink.
Eleanor laughed, her bad mood broken. ‘You are very perceptive, Mrs Butters. Clifford has a fabulously analytical mind, but it drives me to absolute distraction! But you know, you always bring me a basket full of feel-good each morning.’
The housekeeper beamed and half-curtseyed. ‘’Tis my pleasure, my lady. No one wants a wet blanket in the face afore they’ve even eaten their breakfast. There’s plenty of time later in the day for folk to pull clouds over the sunshine, after all.’
Eleanor chuckled and imitated Clifford’s half-bow.
They both giggled and Eleanor went downstairs refreshed.
Clifford greeted her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Coffee in the morning room, my lady? I imagined you might wish to continue our discussion of yesterday before I leave?’
‘Absolutely, but where are you going? We’ve got work to do, surely?’
‘Quite so, my lady. Your coffee is ready.’ He tilted his head towards the door, which she took to mean he wanted the other staff unaware of the details of his trip out.
With the door closed, Clifford spoke more freely. ‘My lady, I have an uncomfortable feeling that someone may be aware of our discovery at the quarry.’
Eleanor sat bolt upright. ‘But we left it where we found it. How can that be?’
‘Last night I had the distinct impression we were being watched. I didn’t mention it at the time as I couldn’t be sure.’
Eleanor digested the information. ‘So why mention it now?’
‘This morning Silas reported that he found an intruder in the grounds. Unfortunately, the man made his getaway before Silas could detain him or get a good look at his face.’
‘Silas, the gamekeeper?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘So, he probably disturbed a poacher?’
‘Possibly, but it is well known in the area that there are no game birds on the estate.’
‘Of course, you mentioned that. So Silas isn’t really a gamekeeper, is he? He’s more of a security guard?’
‘Yes, my lady. Silas is our first line of defence, as it were, here at the Hall.’
Something was nagging at Eleanor’s memory. ‘Then, Clifford, where was he when an intruder broke into the garage and interfered with the Rolls?’
‘Unfortunately he had other business to attend to that day.’
‘Then maybe our murderer knew he was absent.’
‘Exactly my thoughts. Which is why’ – Clifford cleared his throat – ‘I would ask you not to leave the Hall until I return. Silas will patrol the grounds.’
Eleanor fumed to herself. The cheek! Men! She fixed Clifford with her best steely stare. ‘Sweet. Very sweet. But while you and my uncle were dressing up as cowboys, scaling fences and picking locks with your boys’ toys, I was navigating my way around the world. And look, here I am, a grown, capable and independent woman.’
Clifford stepped back. ‘I wonder if Mr Atkins might not have imagined himself capable? Mr Cornell too, perhaps he would have thought himself grown and independent? But the murderer has proven them both to be erroneous in their confidence.’
Eleanor felt a shiver run through her. She changed tack. ‘Tell me, what is it that is taking you off out this morning?’
‘With permission, I plan to talk to some contacts who, I hope, may be able to shine a light on our recent discoveries.’
Eleanor stood. ‘I’ll come with you. It’s about time I met one of your mysterious contacts.’
Clifford shook his head. ‘I’m sorry but this particular gentleman is of the nervous variety. Were I to turn up with a companion, he would most likely make a run for it.’
She wasn’t very happy with his response, but again, what choice did she have?
‘Okay, you have my permission. When will you return?’
‘In good time to serve luncheon.’ He turned to leave the room and paused. ‘Your uncle would turn in his grave if I allowed the niece he cherished so much to come to harm.’
And with that he was gone.
Dash it! Why did Clifford have to keep mentioning how much her uncle cared for her? Where had he been when she’d needed him? And why hadn’t he made himself a part of her life?
‘Clearly too busy playing cowboys and Indians with Clifford,’ she said aloud. ‘I’ll solve this case myself and without leaving the Hall.’
Ten minutes later, with Gladstone sprawled across the drawing-room sofa with her, she was ready, with an old notebook she’d found in her
bedroom to hand. Eleanor frowned and chewed her pencil, trying to work out where to start. Eventually she decided to show Clifford that she too could be methodical by listing her and her chief suspects’ movements around the time of the first murder. One of the detectives in a penny dreadful novel she’d once read under the bedclothes at her boarding school had done a similar thing and solved the murder there and then. She set to work, writing down all the details in two columns:
She tapped her notepad in frustration. This was horribly slow and laborious. Forcing herself to continue, she turned her focus to Jack Cornell.
She sucked the end of the pencil vigorously, but it didn’t help, it just made her feel slightly sick. No matter how long she stared at the two lists no stroke of inspiration or logical thought process revealed the killer. She began to wonder just how realistic those penny dreadful crime novels were.
She tickled Gladstone’s ears and stared at Atkins’ and Cornell’s names on the page. ‘Perhaps Cornell saw the murder at the quarry and that’s why he was killed, Gladstone? He could have been a witness!’ She shivered as she realised that on that basis she could be the next victim. Maybe Clifford wasn’t overdoing his scaremongering this morning. She wrote ‘Dead’ next to Atkins’ and Jack Cornell’s names, but she was imagining writing it next to her own.
Eleanor shook her head. ‘This is hopelessly tiresome, Gladstone. I hate to admit it but without Clifford to bounce ideas off, I’m not making much progress. I’m just going round in circles coming up with random theories. I need to thrash scenarios out loud with…’ She cupped Gladstone’s face. ‘… someone who is more interested in solving this than in liver biscuit treats.’
At the ‘T’ word, Gladstone jumped off the Chesterfield.
‘To the kitchen with you, greedy chap.’ Eleanor giggled. ‘I have the perfect person to go and discuss the case with. Clifford is wrong, this is no time for caution.’
At the kitchen door she paused, holding Gladstone’s collar. ‘Good morning, Mrs Trotman. Thank you for breakfast.’
‘Good morning, my lady. My pleasure, as always.’ The cook smiled.
‘Has Gladstone disgraced himself in the sausage stealing stakes recently?’
‘No, my lady.’ Mrs Trotman laughed. ‘He hasn’t managed to snuffle any in the last few days so he’s not grounded from the kitchen at the moment.’
‘Permission then to release the beast?’
‘Of course.’
Leaving the cook to deal with the greedy bulldog, Eleanor ran upstairs to change.
Thirty-One
The chill of the morning air soon blew the woolliness from Eleanor’s thoughts as she pedalled along the lanes. The stiffness in her shoulder from the crash was also all but gone. She rode up the hills with only minimal puffing and reddening. Even weaving round the worst sections of road, she covered the distance in just under an hour, which made her feel she was almost back to her old self.
‘Ah, that’s more like it!’ she told the world in general as she leaned her bicycle against the metal railings and looked up at Chipstone’s town hall. ‘Now for some answers.’
‘Lady Swift, what an absolute pleasure.’ Mayor Kingsley put down the file he’d been waving in the clerk’s face and took her hand. Eleanor smiled. ‘My apologies for arriving unannounced, but I need your help.’
‘A damsel in distress,’ he exclaimed. ‘You have come to exactly the right place. Perkins, tea, now! This way, my dear.’ Closing the door to his office behind them, he turned to her. ‘The air in our little rural paradise seems to suit you, you have quite a glow, if I might be so bold.’
‘Such a beautiful county, Mayor Kingsley, and spring is such a lovely season.’
‘Absolutely, my dear.’ He gestured to a chair and slid into the one next to her. ‘I’m always here for my loyal constituents, so how can I help?’
As always, after her initial rush of adrenalin, she had no real plan. The only thing that seemed obvious to her was that sitting around waiting for Clifford’s dubious ‘contacts’ to come up with the answers they needed was not an option. She’d always looked after herself and, besides, she didn’t consider Clifford charging off on his own and telling her to hide away meekly in the Hall as acting as part of the team. It was time to get answers and the mayor had been the only person, besides Clifford, who seemed to take her seriously.
A knock at the door interrupted Eleanor’s reply. Instead of the rabbit of a woman who had served them previously, Perkins the clerk wheeled the trolley next to them. He stood awkwardly, waiting.
‘Pour the tea, man,’ Kingsley growled.
As Perkins closed the door behind him, Eleanor adopted her usual blunt approach.
‘Mayor Kingsley, I believe there is a degree of corruption undermining the police and civil service here in Chipstone.’
‘Corruption!’ The mayor shot out of his chair with surprising speed for one of his bulk. ‘Good gracious, my dear, whatever do you believe you’ve uncovered?’
Eleanor smiled to herself. This was more like it! Subtlety was all very well, but sometimes you just needed straightforward shock tactics to galvanise people. Something was rotten in the state of Chipstone, and she intended to find out what.
‘Well, for starters, someone, somewhere is deliberately perverting the course of justice. Despite your assurances that you would monitor the police’s progress in the case of the murder I witnessed, the whole thing has been hushed up.’
Kingsley stared at her. ‘Are you referring to the murder at the quarry? Because, my dear, I admonished the police for not taking your report seriously and insisted they re-investigate. I confess, however, that I have been so busy with other matters, I haven’t chased them up. I do apologise, but it is the burden of being overworked, an unavoidable evil in this role, I fear. But a cover-up, you say? What has brought you to that conclusion?’
‘The fact that all traces of my initial report and subsequent trip out to the quarry with that buffoon Wilby have been removed from the police logbook.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Gracious me, Lady Swift, that is a most serious allegation. I shall have it investigated immediately. And this time I will make it a priority to follow it up personally, you can be assured.’
‘There’s more. I believe the man murdered at the quarry was none other than Mr Atkins.’
Mayor Kingsley started. ‘Atkins?’ He frowned and then smiled. ‘You are getting muddled, my dear. He was murdered at his home, I believe. A terrible business. I didn’t really know the man, except in his work where he displayed a fine ethic and a strong dedication to duty. He will be hard to replace.’
Eleanor changed tack. ‘Do you know this Cornell character, who the newspapers reported took his own life after apparently killing Mr Atkins?’
Kingsley frowned. ‘It’s not a name I’m familiar with. I think he was on the town’s payroll but, honestly, my dear lady’ – he shrugged and held his hands out – ‘there are so many council workers.’
Eleanor changed tack again. ‘Were you informed that Cornell’s suicide note cited Mr Atkins as blackmailing him?’
Kingsley rubbed his chin. ‘I believe I do remember the police report or the papers mentioning that.’
‘Do you think Mr Atkins was capable of blackmail?’
Kingsley paced the floor. ‘From my dealings with him, I would not have thought it likely, but you never really know people, do you?’ He turned to Eleanor. ‘Forgive me, my dear, but why do you ask?’
‘Because I am sure that Mr Atkins was not blackmailing Mr Cornell.’
Kingsley eased back into his chair and took a sip of his tea. ‘Really? That is most disturbing. How can you be so sure?’
Eleanor hesitated. The truth was, she still didn’t have any firm evidence that the suicide note was fake. The gun oil being in Atkins’ right, rather than left, hand suggested he had been murdered, but Jack Cornell’s convenient confession that he was the guilty party seemed too pat, too orchestrated. And there was the riddle o
f why Cornell would have made Atkins’ death look like an accident, only to confess to killing him in a suicide note. But actual solid, stand-up-in-court proof? How could she explain this tangled web of half fact, half wild theory to the mayor?
She cursed her impetuousness. Maybe Clifford had been right, maybe she should have waited back at the Hall for him to come up with some real proof? She swallowed hard. ‘Well, my late uncle knew Mr Atkins and… er, according to Clifford, my uncle had the highest opinion of Mr Atkins. Clifford insists that it is out of the question that Mr Atkins would stoop to blackmail. And there’s also a few… things that don’t well… quite add up,’ she ended lamely.
However, the mayor wasn’t listening. ‘I am sorry, my dear, but Mr Clifford? Your… butler?’ Kingsley smiled thinly. ‘I am not sure if the word of a mere butler can be relied on to vouch for a gentleman’s character.’ He hesitated, before saying, ‘Lady Swift, may I be frank with you?’
Eleanor sighed. She couldn’t blame him for not taking her seriously. ‘Of course.’
Kingsley leaned on his desk. ‘My dear lady, I applaud your dedication to the pursuit of justice, but I fear you may be in significant danger.’
Eleanor groaned. ‘Thank you for your concern but I’ve already been warned off. Clifford was full of advice this morning.’
‘Precisely my point.’ Kingsley nodded slowly.
At Eleanor’s confused frown he put his face in his hands, sucked in a deep breath and then looked her in the eye. ‘My apologies to bring up such an unpleasant topic as your uncle’s sad passing but, dear lady, there is no delicate way to say it.’ He coughed. ‘There is a possibility that his death was not due to natural causes.’
‘What?’ Eleanor was flabbergasted.
Kingsley sighed and put his hands on the table in front of him. ‘It was not proven but Mr Clifford was under scrutiny for a considerable time. It was only the unfortunate lack of evidence which led to the investigation being closed down.’
A Very English Murder Page 19
