by Evelyn James
Clara held the photograph at an angle, where the light from the overhead bulb would not glare on it, and drew it closer to her nose. The camera had caught the man at the window well-enough, considering the conditions. Oliver was a good photographer and had judged the powder for the flash correctly to illuminate the figure by the window, even if it meant causing the rest of the room to be dramatically over-lit. Even so, the figure was vague because he was behind glass and the bars of the window seemed to cut his body into sections. There had been a real risk the flash would reflect off the window glass and obliterate the man altogether, so the cameras had been set back. All told, the photograph really only hinted at the person in the dark.
Maybe he was Harvey Howton, or maybe he was someone else playing a cruel trick. Either way, the photograph did not convince Clara that the man was dead.
“Fine proof of an intruder,” Clara said as she handed back the picture. “You did well to capture that image at night.”
Oliver grinned at her, amused by her compliment.
“You still won’t admit this is Harvey Howton back from the dead,” he smiled.
“I can’t tell who it is from this,” Clara replied. “He has hidden himself against the far side of the window, concealing half of his face. I don’t suppose he caught wind of you coming?”
“That depends,” Oliver said darkly, “if you believe him a live man playing a hoax, or a dead man under some sort of spell.”
“I don’t go in for spells,” Clara almost rolled her eyes, but restrained herself in time. “All that stuff Lady Howton said about Harvey going to exotic places and having a spell cast on him is prime material for a pantomime, but not for real life.”
“I must admit that was a little too far-fetched for me as well,” Oliver ducked his head as he conceded his own doubts. “However, there are many old legends of things like vampires, or living ghosts.”
“All of which, over the course of time, have been scientifically examined and found to be wholly natural in their causes. I recall a story from Ireland where a woman slipped into a coma and was thought dead. She was buried in the family vault and in the night grave robbers attempted to steal the rings off her fingers. In the process she was stirred from her strange slumber and sat up, giving the robbers sufficient fright to put them off their work for good. She then walked home in her burial shroud, convincing any who spotted her that her corpse was walking, and arrived at her front door and rang the bell. Only to scare the butler nearly half-to-death.” Clara smiled at the tale. “She lived many years after her ‘resurrection’ and when she died for the second time, at a happy old age, she did not rise from her grave again.”
“Are you suggesting that is the case with Harvey?” Oliver asked slyly. “Is the poor fellow wandering around in a state of delusion?”
“If Harvey was accidentally buried, he would have had to find a way out of his sealed mausoleum,” Clara shook her head. “It looks to me to be untouched. Of course, opening it would answer a lot of questions.”
“I doubt the family would agree to that!” Oliver laughed at the idea.
“No, probably not at the moment,” Clara agreed. “But it will likely come to it, eventually.”
Clara glanced about her, looking up and down the corridor.
“This place is enormous,” she remarked. “I would like a tour. There has to be a dozen places a person could hide undetected.”
“Or a dead man, assuming the late Harvey is not returning to his tomb every morning,” Oliver refused to let go of his supernatural notions.
With a twinkle in her eye Clara replied;
“Let’s start with the unused cellars, then.”
They found a footman who was prepared to guide them around the servants’ quarters. He picked up a torch from the kitchen on the way and took them down, at Clara’s request, to the cellars. She was disappointed to find them far less expansive than she had imagined for a large, rambling house. They were also all in use, mainly for storing Lord Howton’s decadent collection of wines, but two rooms had been set aside as workshops. The footman explained that the gamekeepers used the space to repair traps and guns, and also to store items such as temporary fencing. There was no room for someone to hide down there.
They next explored the servants’ world, passing through kitchens, pantries, bedrooms, parlours and all manner of small, tucked away places that each had a name and a purpose. Here was the preserving room. Here the dairy. Here the boot cupboard. There was no space unused, nowhere for a man to hide. But it did strike Clara that, within such a warren of a place, the potential for a person to move around unseen was highly feasible, as long as they knew the routines of the staff and family. She also noticed how many anonymous servants seemed to dart about. How simple would it be to put on a uniform and ‘disappear’ among them?
Possibilities were brimming over in Clara’s mind, but finding the one that was correct would take a lot more detective work.
Their guide politely departed from them at the door that led from the servants’ world to that of the family. He was only permitted to go through that door when summoned by Lord Howton and he was not going to risk his position by slipping through with mere guests. His departure left Clara and Oliver without a guide for their tour of the main house. Clara was frustrated, she did not want to miss anything, which was entirely possible in the sprawling house without help. Together with Oliver she walked through the dividing door and stepped into the great hall of the property.
“I’m quite confused by all those twists and turns we just took,” Oliver remarked, scratching at his head. “Jolly glad I am not a servant. I would be lost for days in there.”
Clara was looking around the hall, noting a great stag’s head glaring down with glassy eyes and stuffed pheasants in display cases. Over the door, which led to the outer hall, a shield and two crossed swords hung proudly.
“What must it be like to grow up in a place like this?” Clara mused to herself, wondering at all the history oozing from the very walls.
“Bloody awful,” a small voice spoke from behind her.
Clara spun and for a second could not place where the sound had come from and then she spied someone sitting on the great staircase. The wooden bannisters almost completely obscured the person from view. Clara had to walk to the foot of the stairs to see that the speaker was Diana.
“Is it really so bad?” she asked her.
“Oh, probably not,” Diana shrugged her shoulders loosely. “But, there is all this stuff about that belongs to great great auntie what-not or great grandfather so-and-so. You mustn’t touch it because it is somehow sacred for being left behind by a dead person. This house collects relics, that’s the best I can describe it. Sometimes it feels claustrophobic to be surrounded by the belongings of dead people.”
“I can imagine,” Clara nodded sympathetically. “The weight of history bearing down on you all the time.”
“Exactly,” Diana groaned. “You know, if you asked my father he could tell you precisely who shot each of these poor beasts and when. Aren’t they ghastly? I hate dead things. I much prefer to look at them when they are alive.”
Clara glanced around the hall again and could see Diana’s point. From every wall the dead eyes of something turned on you, it wasn’t hard to feel that their gazes were accusatory. Clara decided to move away from such a morbid subject.
“I don’t suppose you could give us a tour of the house Diana?”
Diana tilted her head.
“Why do you want to look around the house?” she asked.
“Just to get a feel for the place and to maybe give me a clue as to what is happening here,” Clara answered.
Diana considered this for a moment.
“All right,” she said, rising and indicating that Clara should follow her upstairs.
The tour of the house took nearly two hours; there were a lot of rooms and some roused Clara’s curiosity enough that she stopped to look inside. One was the Shell Room, apparently
a creation of Elizabeth Howton in the late eighteenth century. Diana wrinkled her nose just at the sight of it. The walls had been decorated with thousands of shells and glass cabinets about the room contained miniature houses and picturesque scenes also made completely from shell. There was something obsessive about it all that drew Clara in.
The second floor housed the family bedrooms, they all had names too – the Blue Room, the King’s Room, the Rose Room – Diana waved a hand dismissively at the Print Room which was her private space. The room, as its name suggested, had old prints stuck to the walls. A project by another eighteenth century resident.
“I want to paint it all white,” Diana pouted. “Father says I cannot, that the pictures are historic. I think they are bloody awful.”
There were a lot of things Diana considered ‘bloody awful’; the great chandeliers over the staircase, the paintings on the walls (many incredibly valuable), the faded furniture from another century. Just everything, really. Diana’s hatred for her home seemed as much due to the restraints placed upon her while she resided in it by her father, as much as a dislike for old things.
“This was Harvey’s room,” she stopped abruptly by a door. She had happily swung open every other door she had come across, but outside this one she hesitated. “Harvey was all right, really.”
Diana scuffed her foot on the worn rug beneath their feet.
“Shame he went and died,” with a sigh she opened the door and revealed a room staged for the return of a living person, not a dead one.
Considering the way the rest of the house was presented as a museum to deceased ancestors, it did not surprise Clara that this room remained just as if Harvey had recently left it. The bedroom contained all his old things, placed ready for use. A scent of soap and a male perfume lingered in the air. A clean shirt still awaited Harvey as it hung on the front of his wardrobe. It was as if at any moment Harvey was expected to waltz back in.
Clara found the room more disturbing that the others that had been left to the memory of late relatives. She retreated back to the corridor and they carried on with the tour, going through the nursery and upper servants’ rooms on the third floor, before a brief glance in the attic space. They eventually returned to the great hall and to the eyes of the stags and pheasants.
“You would think in a house as big as this you could at least have a room of your own,” Diana sniffed, her eyes wandering to the glassy eyes above her. “No such luck.”
Clara was about to say something when there was a sharp series of knocks on the front door.
“At least I shall get out of this place when I marry,” Diana was muttering as the butler went to answer it. “I can’t think why Genevieve absolutely refuses to take a husband. Seems a fine idea to me.”
Clara had one eye on the front door out of curiosity. The butler had opened it to reveal a small woman in a fur coat and hat. She was probably no older than Diana. She had an oval face and a look of grim determination on her features.
“May I help, madam?” the butler asked, though there was a hint of disapproval in his tone towards the inferior creature who had appeared on the doorstep. She looked like a shopkeeper’s daughter, not the sort you would expect to call on the Howtons.
“I want to see my husband,” the woman demanded loudly, aiming her words as much at Clara and Diana (who she had spotted through the door to the great hall) as to the butler.
“Your husband?” the butler asked in bemusement.
“Yes,” the woman said in that same loud tone. “My husband. Harvey Howton. I want to see him at once.”
The words spilled out and clearly affected even the stoic nature of the butler. Behind Clara, Diana gave a stifled gasp.
“I never knew…” she mumbled. “He never said.”
Mrs Harvey Howton strode into the outer hall, casting her eyes over it with a proprietorial gaze. The butler was still mute from her declaration, trying to think of what to do or say. Mrs Howton turned her fierce eyes on him.
“Well?” she demanded. “Where is he?”
Chapter Seven
The butler, Mr Crawley, had a momentary shudder of uncertainty. The shock of this strange woman on the doorstep of Howton Hall demanding to see the late Harvey Howton had rather upset his usual calm sense of protocol. But the lapse was only brief, for he was, after all, a professional, and had been butlering for longer than the new arrival had been alive.
“If madam would follow me to the guard room, I shall summon his Lordship.”
Clara was not about to miss this new development, not while she was on a case. The great hallmark of a private detective is the ability to shove one’s nose where it is not wanted. It was apparent that Harvey had not mentioned a wife to any of his family. Diana had gasped when the woman had declared herself and was clearly stunned. The woman’s arrival was unexpected, that was for certain. If Harvey had confided his new marital status with anyone, it might have been his mother. Clara had a feeling it was not the sort of thing he would tell his brother.
Clara hurried after the retreating butler and Mrs Howton. Oliver decided not to join them, but Diana only paused for a second before following Clara with a clattering of heels.
The butler deposited the visitor in the guard room, so named because at one time it would have housed a porter and perhaps a guardsman, in the days when the family were caught up in the English Civil War. Now it was barely used and housed the Howtons’ large collection of historic armaments. Most had been wielded at some point by a Howton; everything from old swords to flintlock pistols. The newest cabinet housed the Webley service revolvers that Richard and Harvey had been issued in the last war. They sat side-by-side, seeming to suggest a unity between nephew and uncle that had never existed in reality.
Mr Crawley had picked the guard room because it was not one of the personal family rooms, like the drawing room or library. It was the space ordinary guests were deposited when visiting, or rather those guests who were not deemed wealthy or worthy enough to be taken into the main rooms. Mr Crawley clearly felt this was the safest place for the disturbing stranger, at least until his lordship was summoned.
Mrs Howton twirled on the spot and admired the room, whistling through her teeth.
“Damn! Are you ready, or what, for the next war?” she chuckled.
“Madam, the family dearly hopes there will never be another war. These arms are largely antiques. Please feel free to look at them while I fetch his lordship.”
Mr Crawley hurried out of the guard room, briefly casting a look at Clara and Diana that suggested he disapproved of their presence. Mrs Howton, however, was ignoring them. Instead she walked about the room and peered into cabinets. She came to the one containing the Webley revolvers and gave a small sigh.
“My Harvey, the hero,” she purred to herself.
Diana could take the suspense no longer.
“Who are you?” she demanded, striding toward Mrs Howton.
Mrs Howton pulled herself up straight. She was still a head shorter than Diana, but she did have presence, a confidence to her that Diana could only hope to muster. Diana was currently being driven on by the wings of indignation, Clara reckoned these would shortly depart before the other girl’s cockiness.
“I am Harvey’s wife,” the girl declared. She fluffed the fur collar of her coat up around her neck, as if this was proof. “Who are you?”
“Uncle Harvey’s niece, Diana,” Diana responded. “He never mentioned a wife to any of us.”
The snide tone she gave this statement was bound to rankle the other girl. Clara discreetly moved forward in the hopes of preventing a disastrous argument. Closer, she could see that Mrs Howton had a hard face, one used to difficult times, but she was pretty. Maybe not so much without the make-up which she had slapped on, but she no doubt made up for any lack of aristocratic beauty with a vivacious and striking personality. She had the look of someone full of energy and capable of whirling any man she wanted up into her world.
Clara, who s
aw no reason a lord’s son should not marry a working-class girl in this day and age, decided it was time to intercede before Diana caused the situation to boil over.
“Clara Fitzgerald,” she introduced herself to Mrs Howton. “I didn’t catch your first name?”
Mrs Howton turned her feisty gaze on Clara. She was a woman who took no prisoners and she had very little time for others of her sex.
“Elizabeth. But everyone calls me Betty,” she said proudly. “Posh name, ain’t it? Harvey says so. Name of a queen too.”
Diana closed her eyes as if she was about to explode. Clara kept talking.
“I am only a visitor to the family myself. I arrived a little earlier today. Have you come down from London?”
Betty tilted her head.
“How did you guess? I’ve been working on my accent.”
“Not enough,” Diana hissed through her teeth.
Clara pretended not to hear her.
“I thought it the most likely place to come through, as the trains are so convenient, and you are carrying a suitcase, so clearly you have come from some distance away.”
Betty glanced at the battered suitcase she was holding in her right hand. She was clutching it like it contained the crown jewels.
