by Jack Treby
The young man disappeared under the archway. From there he could pass the garages and enter the servants quarters from the back of the main house. But what on earth had he been doing out here in the first place?
I glanced around carefully before stepping out into the yard. The square was empty now. There was no reason for anybody else to be about, but it was as well to be careful.
I hurried across the yard towards the cottage. It was a small two storey building in red brick, dull and functional, with a black door set back behind a small wooden porch. It had been built to house the head coachman, although I doubted whether Lady Fanny kept any coaches now. Perhaps the building had been given over to one of the chauffeurs. There were still horses in the stables, however, so perhaps a head groom remained on the payroll.
A set of net curtains lined the window at the front of the cottage. They were rather tatty looking, but provided a comfortable screen for anybody on the inside. There was certainly no point trying to peer in through the glass. I tried the door instead and to my surprise found it was not locked. Cautiously, I entered the cottage.
A short hallway fed into one large room to the left of the front door. The place was little more than a hovel. A few chairs and a rudimentary table provided the bulk of the furniture.
My attention was immediately drawn to a long white sheet draped across the living room floor. I stepped forward to take a closer look at it. A body was lying underneath.
Chapter Fourteen
I recognised the black brogues sticking out from beneath the shroud. It is surprising how somebody’s shoes stick in your mind. I had seen them before, when I had dragged the corpse into the dining room some hours earlier. But I had not expected to see them here. I flipped back the other end of the sheet, just to be sure. The pallid face of Anthony Sinclair stared back, oddly reassuring after the many surprises I had endured over the last few hours. Two murders in one day was more than enough to be getting on with. How he had come to be lying here in the cottage I had not the faintest idea. Well, no, in fairness, it was obvious how he had come to be lying here. The body had been carried from the house, presumably by Samuel Jenkins himself. The question was, why?
When I’d first seen Sinclair’s valet crossing the stable yard my initial thought had been that the master himself was still alive but injured, and was intending to come back to the mansion later on to expose me in the grandest and most theatrical way imaginable. That possibility had thankfully proved unhinged. But if his valet had discovered the body, why would he keep it to himself and drag Sinclair over here on his own? Assuming, of course, that he was acting alone.
It was possible that some of the other servants were involved. Perhaps they were all involved. It might be some kind of grand conspiracy. My head was suddenly filled with cartoon images of sinister Russians trying to infiltrate the catering staff...
I shook myself. I was losing my grip on reality. In all probability, Jenkins had discovered the body on his own, by accident. The valet might then have informed somebody, or he may have moved the body on his own, for reasons as yet unknown. From a practical point of view, I wondered, would he have been capable of shifting Sinclair without help? I knew from experience what a great lump the man was, and Jenkins was not exactly muscular. In fact, he was a rather slender fellow, perhaps five feet eight or nine in height. But if there was a pressing reason, I suspected even he would be able to drag his master a few hundred yards. There weren’t any scuff marks outside the dining room doors, however, which meant that the body had been carried rather than dragged. Could Jenkins have lifted the man across his shoulder, like a fireman?
I pulled the sheet back over Sinclair’s face. The bruise on his forehead seemed, bizarrely, to be on the mend. Perhaps the valet had cleaned it up, as a last gesture of respect towards his master. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a servant in a situation like that. Maybe they act like dogs, refusing to leave their masters’ side. I could just imagine Hargreaves standing sadly over my grave, digging his heels in and refusing to go home.
I pulled out my pocket watch. It was just gone half past seven. High time I headed back to the house.
Nobody saw me as I slipped quietly between the griffins and through the front door. I had taken the scenic route around the front of the building, using various trees for cover so that I was not easily visible from the dining room, in case some of the guests had arrived early for breakfast. I stowed my hat and coat in the vestibule (I say “my” hat and coat, but in truth I had just grabbed the first ones I could find from a hook) then closed up the outer doors and made my way through to the main hall.
A murmur of puzzled conversation wafted through from the dining room. As I had feared, some of the guests were already at breakfast and by the sounds of it they were not terribly happy being up and about at this time in the morning. A quarter to eight may not sound like the crack of dawn – and indeed it wasn’t – but on a Sunday morning, after a late night of drinking and dancing in the ballroom (not to mention the odd bit of debauchery) it might as well have been the middle of the night. As someone who had actually been woken in the middle of the night, I knew just how they felt.
The chatter from the dining room was not the only sound I could hear. There were footsteps clomping across the first floor landing, heading for the main stairs. Some of the guests were obviously slower off the mark than others. I ducked quickly into the hallway between the library and the morning room. No need for anyone to know I had been outside all this time. The footsteps thumped down the stairs with such an inelegant clatter that I knew at once who they belonged to. My suspicions were confirmed as I reappeared in the main hall and made my way forward, for all the world as if I had been coming out of the library.
Lettie Young was heading towards me. She let out an extravagant yawn and raised a hand in greeting. ‘Morning, Sir Hilary!’ she exclaimed, far too loudly for this time of day. Her yawn was infectious. I was suddenly feeling very tired. I rubbed my eyes and did my best to stifle a yawn of my own. My cheeks were a little flushed too, coming in from the cold.
‘Gawd, you’re looking rough,’ Lettie said.
‘And you’re looking delightful, Miss Young,’ I parried sarcastically.
She laughed. ‘If you say so. How’s your head?’
‘Not too bad, all things considered. Just a bit groggy.’
Lettie patted me on the shoulder sympathetically. ‘Nice cup of tea’ll sort you out.’
I nodded. Oddly enough, the outside air had already acted to clear my head. My hangover had all-but disappeared, though I was still feeling a little tired. But it was as well to maintain the illusion.
‘So what’s the Colonel doing, getting us all up at this hour?’ Lettie asked, as we moved through the lounge towards the dining hall. Daylight was flooding in from the glass roof above us and Lettie had to shield her eyes. ‘Last time I was up this early on a Sunday the Kaiser was still on the throne.’ She laughed. The woman clearly had as much of an aversion to early mornings as I did. I wondered briefly what time she had got to bed. Quite late, I would imagine. Lettie was not the kind of girl to leave a party early. ‘It’s not another one of Sir Vincent’s games, is it?’ she asked.
Croquet at seven forty-five in the morning. That might have sounded worryingly plausible, but for the murders. But no, it was not a game. As the rest of the guests were about to discover.
‘I think perhaps it’s best you hear it from him.’
The remainder of the party were already gathered around the dining room table. Breakfast had been laid out. There was toast and eggs, huge pots of tea. Servants were scurrying around but the guests were all helping themselves. I swallowed hard, seeing them all together. Mr and Mrs Smith, the Professor, Doctor Lefranc, Harry. The Colonel himself was sitting at the head of the table, having presumably finished his talk with Lady Fanny Leon. Which one of these people, I wondered as I sat myself down, had murdered Dorothy Kilbride? And which of them, if any, had helped Samuel Jenkins to move
the body of Anthony Sinclair? Did anyone here even know about that first murder?
A few of the guests had made a start on the food. Harry had a plate full of scrambled eggs and was chomping away merrily. He probably needed to refuel after his extended antics in Miss Jones’ boudoir. Mrs Smith was nibbling rather delicately on a slice of toast.
Lettie Young plopped herself gracelessly to my left and immediately started filling her plate. She was a girl who liked her food, though you wouldn’t have known it from her figure. All that singing and dancing probably helped to keep her fit, though I was sure her torso was just as constricted as mine underneath that dress of hers.
A low mumble of chatter filled the room, vaguely resentful. The servants fussed, replenishing the food, but allowing us to serve ourselves, as was the custom.
I poured some tea from the pot. In the absence of anything stronger, it would have to do. I was still feeling damnably tired. Sometimes, a few hour’s sleep is worse than no sleep at all. I added three spoonfuls of sugar. Perhaps that might help to wake me up a bit.
My man Hargreaves was hovering in the doorway. I had not seen him arrive. ‘That’s everyone, Colonel,’ he said.
‘About bloody time,’ John Smith grumbled, in his bluff Yorkshire brogue. His plate was already empty. He had bolted down his entire breakfast before I had even arrived. ‘So what’s the meaning of getting us all up at this ungodly hour? On a Sunday? We didn’t get to bed ‘till gone three and the wife and I were looking forward to a nice lie in.’ The expression on Mrs Smith’s face was equally sour, though the precise appeal of a lie-in with Mr Smith eluded me. The two of them seemed such an improbable couple. Mind you, the same could just as easily have been said about me and Elizabeth.
The Colonel rose to his feet, arching his back and placing his hands on the table to steady himself. The man had been up for twenty four hours straight, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at him. He had a reputation as a workaholic and it had been well earned. He adjusted his monocle. ‘I can only apologise to you all. There must be a few sore heads this morning, what?’ How he maintained his good humour in these circumstances was a mystery to me. The man positively thrived on adversity. Mind you, this was probably not the worst crisis in his long career.
Lettie Young was glancing across the table and had noticed a few empty chairs. ‘Hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘Felicity ain’t down yet. Nor Dottie.’ I wondered briefly how well Lettie had known the deceased. “Dottie” indeed!
Harry Latimer was finishing off his plate of eggs. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Americans can be so uncouth, sometimes. ‘Sinclair isn’t here either,’ he observed.
The Colonel nodded. ‘Miss Jones is with Lady Fanny Leon,’ he explained. ‘They’ll be along shortly. As to the others.... I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news.’
‘We’re listening,’ Mr Smith said, bluntly. An unspoken “get on with it” lingered in the air.
‘There’s no easy way of saying this. I apologise to the ladies in advance. But to put it bluntly, chaps, ladies...there is a murderer among us.’
A moment of silence fell across the table, followed by several sharp intakes of breath. Mrs Smith almost choked on her toast.
‘What the bloody hell are you talking about?’ John Smith demanded.
‘Last night, my secretary Dorothy...Miss Dorothy Kilbride was brutally murdered.’ The Colonel paused to let the shocking news sink in. A brief silence descended upon the table. Even Lettie Young had put down her fork and stopped eating. ‘By person or persons unknown,’ he added. ‘Unfortunately, that’s not the end of it. A few hours before that, unbeknown to any of us at the time, there was another incident. Mr Anthony Sinclair, the journalist from the Daily Mail, was also brutally killed; bludgeoned to death with an iron poker at around midnight last night.’ The Colonel paused again momentarily, allowing everybody time to digest the news.
I was having difficulty breathing. My throat was feeling suddenly and understandably constricted.
‘And I think,’ the Colonel added, with just a hint of menace, ‘that the person who did it may well be one of us sitting here this morning.’
Chapter Fifteen
A hush had descended on the dining room of Bletchley Park. The full import of the Colonel’s words would take some time to sink in. Jaws were hanging slack in every corner of the room. Eyes were wide open in astonishment. And pins could be heard dropping throughout the land. For some, the news of the murders was a sudden smack in the face, coming out of nowhere. For others, it was a confirmation of what they had already suspected; a grim affirmation of news hitherto only whispered furtively in private. For me, it was the terrifying realisation that Sir Vincent Kelly had known about the murder of Anthony Sinclair from the very beginning. That, and the sudden frightening possibility that he might suspect my involvement in the man’s death. Why else would he have withheld the information for so long?
I sucked in a huge gulp of air, wondering if it might be possible to brazen things out. The Colonel had not accused me of anything; the accusation had been aimed at the table as a whole. ‘One of us,’ he had said, so it was possible he didn’t yet know who was responsible for Sinclair’s death. However, the fact that he had been aware of it all along and said nothing....
There was no time to reflect on any of this properly. The hush that had enveloped the room for what seemed like several hours lasted in fact for only the briefest of moments.
It was John Smith whose voice shattered the silence. ‘If this is another one of your bloody silly games, Sir Vincent.’
An outraged Mary Smith nodded vehemently in support of her husband. ‘It would be in very bad taste.’
The Colonel did not take offence. ‘I assure you, Smith,’ he responded politely, ‘Mrs Smith. This is not a joke. Two people have been killed in this house. Two guests we were dancing and laughing with just a few hours ago have been brutally murdered.’
Off the top of my head, I couldn’t remember anyone laughing at anything Anthony Sinclair had said, but that was probably beside the point.
‘It is true,’ Doctor Lefranc confirmed, leaning forward in his chair. ‘I have examined both of the bodies. There can be no doubt it was murder.’ He spoke with the calm authority of a medical man.
Mrs Smith let out a cry, bringing a hand up to her mouth. The talk of bodies over the breakfast table was disconcerting for everybody. Her husband put a rough, comforting arm around her shoulder.
‘Bleedin’ hell,’ Lettie Young exclaimed. She placed her tea cup back down on the table. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘There’s no need for coarse language,’ Mrs Smith admonished half-heartedly.
Harry at least seemed to be taking the news in his stride. Mind you, I’d already told him about one of the murders. ‘Have the police been called?’ he asked. The thought of the men in blue crawling all over the house would doubtless be as alarming to him as it was to me. He had almost as much to hide as I did.
‘Not yet,’ the Colonel admitted. ‘I’m afraid this’ll have to be an internal matter. I have a small team coming up from London. They’ve just set off and should be here by half past ten at the latest. In the meantime, I’ve asked my valet to organise a complete search of the house. Servants quarters, bedrooms, everywhere. My man Townsend is a former policeman, so he knows the form.’
‘You're going to search our rooms?’ said Mr Smith, somewhat alarmed. ‘What, now?’
The Colonel nodded.
‘You don’t have anything to hide do you?’ asked Harry, with a smirk. He, of course, had been given advanced notice of the search. Actually, I was the one who had given it to him.
‘Course I bloody don’t. I just weren’t expecting...’
‘Has to be done, Smith,’ the Colonel said. ‘Townsend will be very circumspect. You have my word.’
‘Aye. Well.’ Mr Smith raised no further objections.
Harry was eager to learn more about the first death. ‘So let’s get this st
raight. You’re telling me Anthony Sinclair was battered to death?
‘That’s right. With an iron poker across the back of the head.’
‘Jesus. I didn’t exactly like the man, but....Jesus.’
The room fell silent. Mrs Smith had gone very pale.
I did my best to disguise my own reactions. It seemed the Colonel hadn’t just found the body, he knew exactly how the man had died. ‘You didn’t mention anything about Sinclair to me,’ I said, ‘when we spoke earlier on.’ The Colonel had been sat slap bang in the middle of the crime scene. Lord, did he notice me glancing down at the blood stain on the floor?
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that, Butler. But I hope you understand the necessity. Sinclair’s death needed to be kept quiet until I’d had a chance to speak about it to Miss Jones.’
Professor Singh leaned forward before I could formulate a response. ‘Perhaps, Colonel,’ he said, in his maddeningly over-elaborate English, ‘you might take us through the events of the last few hours. It may help to facilitate a greater understanding of such surprising occurrences.’
‘Surprising!’ John Smith snorted. ‘Bloody appalling, I’d say.’
The Colonel inclined his head. ‘Capital idea, Singh.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But where to start? Well, it was Townsend – my valet – who first alerted me to the death of Mr Sinclair, although in point of fact it was Sinclair’s man Jenkins who stumbled across the body.’
Jenkins! It had been Jenkins who discovered the corpse. One fact at last that I had managed to deduce correctly.
‘Apparently, he hadn’t seen his master for some hours. On duty in the ballroom and so forth. But he wanted to make sure the chap got to bed safely. Might have had too much to drink and fallen asleep somewhere awkward. Happens to the best of us, eh, Butler?’
