The Truth-Seeker's Wife

by Ann Granger

  ‘No, sir!’ they all chorused.

  Warton, the butler, who had been sitting dejectedly, his withered lips moving silently, suddenly cried out: ‘The end of all things is nigh!’ He began a rambling string of quotations, mostly from the Book of Revelations.

  ‘Not now, Mr Warton!’ commanded the cook in a stronger voice than I’d heard before.

  ‘The end of all things!’ wailed Warton. ‘The four horsemen approach! The scarlet beast! The mother of harlots!’

  ‘We don’t want to know about that now, Mr Warton! It isn’t respectable with poor Sir Henry barely cold!’ The cook fairly shouted the words into his ear.

  The skivvy, Susan, began to giggle again in her vacant way; and the maids all burst into tears.

  It proved too much for the valet, Lynn, who crumpled in a faint on to the stone-flagged floor.

  We left the rest of the staff to see to his needs, and Warton to resume his prophecy. The other three of us returned to the main part of the house. I told Beresford I should like to talk to him alone. I would talk to Harcourt afterwards. Harcourt said he’d go back to the kitchen to make sure Lynn was all right and Warton had calmed down. I turned to Beresford.

  ‘It’s such a fine day,’ I said, ‘that perhaps we might talk outside. I am curious to walk round the exterior of the building.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Beresford said courteously. But his manner was less relaxed than it had been during our drive here. The sight of the murder room had unnerved him, too.

  We began our circuit of the house. I kept an eye on the exterior as we walked, noting any sheltered areas where an entry might be made undetected. As is the way of old gardens, many shrubs had grown to vigorous bushes above head height. The trees, planted perhaps during the Restoration period, were mighty giants. I was still far from convinced that entry had not been made at some point during the night of the murder. That a window catch had not been forced proved nothing. All that was needed was a friend within the house to open and close the window as the intruder required. But who? Warton the butler could be discounted, I thought. Lynn, the valet, also. What possible reason could they have? Could anyone have?

  ‘Tell me about the last time you saw Sir Henry,’ I invited my companion.

  ‘Certainly!’ he said briskly, and I knew I was in for another well-rehearsed speech, such as he’d delivered earlier as we walked between the trees.

  ‘It was my uncle’s habit to dine at six thirty. That may seem early to you, but he was old-fashioned in his ways. To serve dinner late would not suit the staff, either. My wife and I drove over in the trap at around four that afternoon. That was at my uncle’s suggestion. Your wife and Mrs Parry were to arrive later to dine. But he wished to discuss a little estate business beforehand, with Harcourt present. As I was— as I am his heir, he was anxious I should be up to date in everything.’

  Beresford paused and turned to me. ‘I never wished this inheritance,’ he said with a note of passion in his voice I had not heard before from him. ‘As I warned you, and now you’ve seen for yourself, the house is a museum piece. The installation of the gas lighting only came about, in my opinion, in order to keep up with other gentlemen’s residences in the area. Like a lot of very thrifty people, my uncle did not want to have the reputation of a pinchpenny. Agnes and I could never live here. Even less so, now that this has happened.’

  ‘Did you let your uncle know how you felt about that? Did he expect that you would move into the house at some future date, when you inherited?’

  ‘That was his wish, of course,’ Beresford said shortly.

  ‘And you had let him know, perhaps, how you and your wife felt about it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I told him, made it absolutely clear. But he wasn’t Old Indestructible’s son for nothing. He meant to have his way, even when he would no longer be alive to enforce it!’ Beresford broke off in some embarrassment. ‘That is not a seemly way to speak since he is so recently deceased. Also, considering the way he died. But it is how it was.’

  ‘And this was discussed at the meeting you had before the arrival of your dinner guests?’

  ‘What?’ Beresford sounded startled. ‘Oh, no, not at all. Only general estate business.’

  ‘Because Robert Harcourt was present?’

  ‘Because it didn’t arise!’ Beresford said firmly.

  Was that true? I wondered. I was not to be put in my place so easily. ‘Is Harcourt aware you don’t want to live in the house yourself?’

  ‘He’s aware of it. It will make no difference to him. I should like him to remain as estate manager. It is only the house that will be surplus to my requirements, shall I say? Letting it to a tenant will take care of that.’

  ‘If you can find a tenant,’ I said mildly, ‘since you stress how inconvenient the house is.’

  ‘If the rent is low enough, someone will be found, I dare say.’ Beresford was uncomfortable at my continued questions about the house. His normal controlled manner had almost completely disappeared.

  That was a signal to me that, somehow, I was asking the right questions, not the wrong ones.

  ‘And this caused some dispute during the meeting before the dinner party?’

  ‘No! I have already told you, Ross, the future of the house was not discussed then.’

  ‘Then the meeting about estate business was amicable?’

  He stared at me. ‘Yes, why should it not be?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ I said pleasantly. But I had rattled him badly. There had been an argument, as Lizzie had shrewdly guessed, though I was not to be told its subject. Well, well, I could wait.

  We had reached the back of the house and the stable yard. Tizard was there, standing over a sweating stable boy who was washing down the exterior of the berlin. Lounging against the wall of the carriage house to watch, hands in pockets, was a fellow with dark curly hair and an air about him that I recognised from his equivalent on the streets of London. This is someone who respects no man, and probably no woman, experience told me. He is not a habitual criminal, like a thief or a cracksman, but he is the sort who is always in trouble, nevertheless. He is what is generally called in London a ‘bully-boy’.

  ‘Who is that fellow?’ I asked Beresford. ‘He looks like a groom but hasn’t the manner of one. Nor is he doing any work.’

  Beresford appeared relieved to have the subject changed. ‘Oh, that is Davy Evans,’ he said. ‘He lends a hand sometimes. He doesn’t work here regularly, or anywhere else on a regular basis. But he takes jobs where he can find them.’

  ‘Is he the fellow who drove the dogcart that fetched the ladies’ baggage from the railway station? My wife mentioned him.’

  ‘That’s Davy,’ agreed Beresford. ‘Have you finished questioning me for the moment, Ross? I need to go back to my own home and take care of matters there.’

  ‘I won’t detain you any longer, Mr Beresford,’ I told him. I was wondering how I was going to get back to the Acorn, and if I would have to eat my words and travel there in the damp berlin.

  Beresford looked relieved. ‘I suggest Tizard drives you back to the inn when you are ready. I will leave the trap here, as I understand you don’t like the berlin, and the dogcart is an uncomfortable affair. I will borrow a saddle-horse from the stables. Tizard!’

  Tom Tizard crossed the ancient cobbles of the yard in his limping gait and waited for his orders. He ignored me.

  ‘Saddle up a horse for me, would you? Perhaps, later, when the inspector is ready to leave, you will drive him to the Acorn in my trap,’ Beresford ordered.

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ said Tizard. ‘Davy!’ he called across the yard. ‘Saddle up the bay mare for Mr Beresford.’

  Davy Evans detached himself from the wall, raised a hand to signify acquiescence and went into the tack room, whence he emerged, carrying a saddle and bridle.

  I wondered, when all this was over, whether Beresford would be content to allow Davy Evans to loiter about the place at will, as now. I left Beresford in the stable
yard and retraced my steps to the front of the house; here I found Harcourt waiting for me on the front steps, his hands clasped behind his back and a meditative frown on his face.

  ‘How are things in the kitchen?’ I asked him.

  ‘Warton has stopped ranting about the end of the world, so that is something. Lynn has come to his senses.’ Harcourt paused. ‘Or some semblance of them, at any rate. He wishes to know whether it will be in order for him to leave? He will need to seek a new place and cannot do it from here.’

  ‘While the murder of his previous employer remains unsolved, I do not see how he can do it anywhere,’ I pointed out. ‘It is hardly a recommendation.’

  A smile touched Harcourt’s features. ‘That’s true. He has a mother living in Winchester and would like to go there. He feels he will recover in her house from the shock of his experience, finding Sir Henry’s body.’

  ‘Lynn can go wherever he likes,’ I told him. ‘But not until I have finished here. I cannot start losing witnesses when I have hardly begun my inquiries.’

  ‘I’ll tell him he has to stay for the time being,’ Harcourt said.

  The thud of a horse’s hooves interrupted us. Beresford appeared from the direction of the stable yard riding the bay mare. A suede leather bag hung from his saddle, the contents making awkward angles in the suede. I guessed the bag contained the pistol in its box. He raised an arm in farewell salute but did not halt for a final word. Well, I would be seeing him again.

  Harcourt and I watched him reach the far end of the drive and disappear from our sight.

  Harcourt said suddenly, ‘That lawyer fellow from London, Pelham, will be coming down from London, I understand.’

  ‘So Mr Beresford told me. But you will have seen Pelham yourself recently. I believe he came only a matter of weeks ago, when Sir Henry signed a new will.’

  ‘I saw him, certainly,’ Harcourt agreed. ‘I had no direct dealings with him.’

  There was some movement in the hallway of the house behind us. I glanced back and saw that Warton, apparently recovered from his disorder in the kitchen, had entered the hall and stood looking towards us with deep mistrust on his wrinkled features. Perhaps he thinks I am not to be trusted with the teaspoons, I thought wryly. I certainly didn’t think the old chap might want to talk to me, especially after the scene in the kitchen.

  By common unspoken consent, Harcourt and I moved away from the main entrance and began to walk slowly down the drive with its great elms standing like troops at attention on either side.

  When a case is over, there is always a review of how it was handled. Were there missed opportunities? Misunderstandings? Overlooked clues? Readers of newspapers (and of popular fiction) do so like to read about clues. They always think they might have done better than the professional police officer. Did I miss something on that first visit to the Hall? Perhaps I did. Would it have made any difference in the long term? That’s much more difficult to know and missed moments trouble the sleep of the detective years afterwards. But one cannot brood about these things. Deal with the situation at the time: that is all any of us can do.

  I glanced at Harcourt walking beside me with a slight scowl on his face. He must be a worried man with all this on his plate, besides running the estate. The scene in the kitchen must also have been embarrassing to him, although he was not responsible for the indoor staff. I must not waste time in conjectures. I should get on with the business that had brought me.

  ‘How much,’ I asked him, ‘do you – and other members of the staff – know about the will?’

  ‘We are none of us in Mr Pelham’s confidence now,’ retorted Harcourt brusquely, ‘as we were none of us in Sir Henry’s, except, in my case, in matters concerning the estate.’

  ‘But you know – knew beforehand – that Mr Beresford is the main beneficiary?’

  ‘He inherits, that’s generally known,’ agreed Harcourt. ‘Sir Henry told the ladies, Mrs Parry and your wife, at the dinner party, that Beresford would be his heir. There was no secret about it.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I invited him, ‘about that last day, the day of the dinner party, since you mention the event. You were a guest that evening.’

  ‘I was invited,’ Harcourt’s voice corrected me. ‘It avoided an odd number at table. I was as much invited, you might say, as the chairs around the table were.’

  I was astonished at the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘and please understand that what you say need not reach the ears of Mr Beresford. Tell me, did you have a good working relationship with Sir Henry?’

  ‘I tried to be conscientious in my duties,’ returned Harcourt in a stony voice. ‘I believe Sir Henry was satisfied.’

  ‘How did it come about that you became his estate manager?’

  We had reached the end of the avenue and turned to walk back towards the house. ‘He intended it, from my youth,’ said Harcourt. ‘He paid for my education for that purpose.’

  Whatever answer I might have expected, it had not been that. ‘He paid for your schooling? Was he a friend of your parents?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘No, he was my father.’ Harcourt spoke quite calmly.

  I was left speechless for the moment. He turned and looked at me with a gleam in his dark eyes. ‘Didn’t expect that, did you, Inspector Ross?’ he asked, but not unpleasantly.

  ‘No, I did not,’ I confessed, wondering if this could be true and, if so, what role, if any, it played in the murder. ‘Is this— is it generally known?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Harcourt briskly. ‘They all know it. Though, of course, no one talks of it. However, in the course of your inquiries someone may see fit to tell you, so you need not be worried about mentioning it to my cousin (on the wrong side of the blanket) Beresford.’

  He walked on a few paces, then stopped and turned back. ‘He may even tell you himself, eventually, if he thinks it wise.’

  It was an extraordinary claim. I wondered that Beresford hadn’t told me something of it already, during our walk through the trees earlier. But he’d stated firmly that his uncle and aunt had had no children. Well, now it seemed that there had been no children born in wedlock. Was this connected with Beresford’s casual remark that, before he married his wife, Henry Meager had wanted to ‘marry someone else’? I had been right to suspect that in telling me so much of his family history, Beresford had carefully concealed the most interesting fact. Always supposing, of course, that Harcourt spoke the truth.

  I glanced at the man; but he wasn’t looking at me. Having delivered his startling statement, he stared straight ahead. I did fancy, however, that a faint smile was on his lips. He had ‘put the cat among the pigeons’, as the old saying went, and it gave him satisfaction to know that he’d done so. He must know I would inquire into the evidence of this, sooner or later. Had he told me in order to confuse me? Delay me? Send me haring off down the wrong track? He wouldn’t be the first to lay a false trail for the hard-pressed detective to untangle.

  Chapter Nine

  The business is not finished. If this detective from London, and his clever wife, are putting their noses into everything, so be it. I have taken account of that. It will make no difference to my plans.

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Fortunately the bookshelf in the little study downstairs, which had been converted into Mrs Parry’s bedroom, contained a few novels. Among them was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë.

  ‘I have not read it, though I have heard of it,’ said Mrs Parry, eyeing the volume with distrust. ‘I have heard that it is in questionable taste.’

  ‘I think there is no reason why you should hesitate to read it, Aunt Parry,’ I told her. ‘I have read it.’

  ‘Is it sentimental?’ asked Mrs Parry. ‘I cannot abide sentimental novels. I was brought up by a clergyman father to avoid such works of fiction. He believed them injurious to moral fibre.’

  It was the first time I had heard Aunt Parry speak in this way, although I knew sh
e was a parson’s daughter.

  ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is in no way a sentimental novel,’ I assured her. ‘And the author was also a clergyman’s daughter.’

  ‘Well, my ankle must be rested for another day or two, so I must read something, I suppose,’ she conceded. ‘I shall sit in the garden in that little arbour, and attempt it.’

  Since she could not leave the house and grounds on account of the damaged ankle, Mrs Parry had taken over the little arbour which I had marked out for my own private retreat. Well, she might choose to sit there; but I didn’t have to sit there with her.

  ‘I thought I might take a walk up on the heath,’ I told her. I had no wish to return to the village and the suspicious glances of the people there. Their earlier welcome would have evaporated in the light of events.

  ‘As you wish, Elizabeth,’ she said sulkily. ‘But take care to avoid an accident such as I had. It would not do for both of us to be incapacitated.’

  Walking out of the gate a little later, equipped for my walk with balmorals and the trusty stick, I encountered Jacob Dennis, for his part armed once more with a metal bucket and a spade.

  ‘Is it for bait you dig down there on the foreshore, Mr Dennis?’ I asked him.

  ‘Aye, ma’am,’ he agreed, squinting up at me. His hunchback stance appeared to be natural to him, but I didn’t know whether he had been born with this slight deformity of the spine or whether a lifetime crouched over a spade, digging either on the shore or in the garden, had left him so.

  ‘Where do you fish?’

  ‘Davy and I take the boat out. ’Tis Davy’s boat,’ he added.

  ‘Davy Evans?’

  ‘Aye, ma’am. ’Tis a sailing boat and Davy handles her well. We can go out and find plenty of fish.’

  So that was the source of the fresh fish that appeared regularly at our dinner table here. But a sailing boat cost money and I was surprised Davy owned one. He appeared to have no regular income. Odd jobs provided by Sir Henry and others would not have paid for the boat. Clearly Davy had some other source of earnings.