by Evelyn James
Clara relented a fraction.
“Harvey was shot outside the room above us,” Clara pointed upwards. “The person who did so appears to have climbed up this drainpipe to enter the room and shoot Harvey. They left the same way.”
The brothers followed her arm as she pointed up to the window. Jimmy chewed on his lip.
“That window has been a nuisance for years. Mr Jenkins, the handyman for the estate, is always trying to fix it. He moans about it a lot. Needs a whole new frame, but his lordship won’t pay for that,” Jimmy hesitated. “Everyone knows that window can be opened from the outside.”
“Everyone?” Clara asked.
“All the servants and family members,” Jimmy clarified, then he shuffled his feet anxiously. “Master Harvey used to sneak in and out of that window when he was younger. Sometimes, he would have his lady friends enter the hall that way too, so his mother and brother would not see them.”
“Why did Harvey fake his death?” Clara returned to her original question.
Both brothers failed to answer her. She groaned.
“He must have told you something to gain your help?”
“Master Harvey said he wanted to play a trick on the family,” Charlie explained slowly. “He said he was going to pretend to drown, to scare them all. Said they deserved a fright after the way they treated him.”
“That was a cruel trick,” Clara said.
Charlie shrugged.
“He asked us to help him and we couldn’t refuse. I didn’t quite understand the joke,” Charlie pulled a miserable face. “We honestly didn’t know he was going to pretend to be a demon. Had we, we would have talked him out of it.”
Clara doubted that, she didn’t think either Jimmy or Charlie would have had the courage to stand up to their former commanding officer, but if it made them feel better to imagine they would have stopped him had they known the truth, she was not going to disabuse them of the idea.
“He never was in trouble in the water, I presume?”
“No, he just went for his normal swim,” Jimmy agreed. “Then we had to run to the house and ask for Crawley and pretend to tell him Master Harvey had drowned. Crawley knew about the joke too.”
“And you carried Harvey into the hall?”
“Right up to his room,” Jimmy said, his brother nodding his head in agreement. “We laid him on his bed. Before we left the room, he thanked us and gave us a wink. That was the last time we saw him.”
“We weren’t involved in the rest of the plot,” Charlie added. “Not in the demon part. We knew nothing about that.”
Clara believed them. She doubted Harvey would have involved the brothers further than he needed to. They were loyal to him, but did not have the guile to be active in the grimmer details of his plot. There was too great a chance they would let something slip by accident. They knew the barest details, of that she was certain.
“I can’t really believe he is dead,” Jimmy mumbled, his words choked with emotion. “I can’t believe someone killed him!”
Clara had no answer for him. She thanked them for their help, promised she would say nothing to the police, and went back indoors. She had talked to nearly everyone involved in the case, at least within the family, except for Lady Howton and Angelica. She was now convinced the murderer was an outsider, but it would not hurt to hear what those two ladies knew of the events of the previous night. They might have heard or seen something important.
She did not have to go far to find Angelica, because she was stood in the drawing room, gazing sadly at the terrace door. He thin, tragic figure was silhouetted against the light coming through the windows. She was as still as a statue, her light breathing the only sign that she was alive at all. Clara walked quietly into the room and hesitated. What did you say to a person who had lost their son, only to recover him and lose him again? It was confusing enough to Clara, let alone to the woman who had birthed and loved Harvey with all her heart.
“Do you believe in heaven, Miss Fitzgerald?” Angelica was the first to speak, her voice sounding frail and distant as it broke the silence.
“I don’t know,” Clara admitted. “I don’t really think about it.”
“Hmm,” Angelica sighed softly, the murmur barely audible. “Harvey was like that. He had these strange ideas and a fascination with the Occult, but he could not quite get his head around traditional religion. I fear for his soul.”
Angelica started to weep. Her shoulders hunched and tears fell down her cheeks. For a brief moment the emotion brought colour to her face and she seemed less like a ghoul herself. Clara walked to her and slipped an arm around her shoulders, hoping the woman would not find the gesture improper. Angelica seemed a woman who had endured a lot, and for who there was little comfort or joy in life. She shrugged Clara off. Her small body shivered. Finally, the emotion failed, and, exhausted by it all, she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and let Clara guide her to one of the sofas in the room. She sat down and took a shaky breath.
“He has done me wrong,” she said aloud. “That boy of mine. He has treated me so cruelly.”
Clara could not deny that. Harvey had played a wicked trick on his mother.
“I do not understand why he did it,” Angelica continued. “What did he hope to gain? I would have given anything to speak with him once more, to ask him why he hurt me so.”
“I assume he was coming to your room last night,” Clara said.
Angelica pressed her handkerchief to her lips.
“Perhaps he was. Did he intend to scare me? I would have welcomed him with open arms, dead or alive. I hope he knew that.”
“Did you hear anything last night?” Clara asked. “Anything at all?”
“I have tried to think back and remember,” Angelica said, her reddened eyes meeting Clara’s. “Sometimes, I think I heard his footsteps coming along the corridor, but I am not sure, it might have been a dream. I might be telling myself I heard him.”
Angelica shook her head.
“I try to remember if I heard a shot, but I can’t…” she clenched her lips together. “Who did this to him? Who did this to me? Was I not tormented enough without taking my son from me again?”
Fresh tears rolled down Angelica’s face.
“When I heard he had drowned, my heart broke into pieces. He had survived the war, been brought back to me, only to drown? I had prayed night and day for his safe deliverance from the battlefields of France and Belgium. How could he die on English soil?” Angelica gasped. “I thought my heart could break no more, but then I was given hope, the hope that his shade was returned to speak with me again. I should not have clung to that idea, but it sustained me. And now I learn he was alive all along and for a second I was filled with joy at the thought and then I was crushed because someone has killed him. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Clara admitted apologetically.
“My heart is broken once again and this time it shall not be repaired, and yet,” Angelica cringed bitterly to herself, “and yet, there is this part of me that sings and reminds me that he faked his death once, why not again?”
“Don’t torment yourself with such false hope,” Clara told her gently, but Angelica was not listening.
Her grief had started to take on the form of madness. She was clutching at hopes that were not rational. Her mind was too stricken by sorrow to think straight and there was a real risk she would not come back from the brink of madness, not this time.
“Angelica, please, as hard as it is, you must accept that Harvey is gone,” Clara talked to her, a little desperately now.
She had seen something change in Angelica’s eyes. It was as if her vision had glazed over and her mind had shut down a corner of itself, the corner that dealt with reality. Now a strangeness was come over her and with it a sort of peace. The peace which detachment from the real world can bring.
“Mrs Howton?” Clara tried to grab her attention again. “Angelica?”
The woman did not
answer. She instead sat and gazed at the empty fireplace, her lips parted a fraction and a slight smile graced them. Slowly a hum came to her lips and she sang a lullaby to herself, oblivious to Clara’s presence.
“Angelica!” Clara demanded, but the absent gaze remained. The woman was gone.
Clara found herself afraid. She had never seen a person’s mind crack before her very eyes before. Angelica had been normal, but grief-stricken, one moment, then completely lost the next. She had vanished into some deep inner self, where nothing could hurt or disturb her. In that place she was safe.
Clara bit at her lip, she reached out and touched the woman’s hand, but there was no reaction. Angelica Howton had disappeared into an abyss and it would take more than a kind touch to restore her. Harvey Howton had destroyed his mother, whether that was his intention or not who could say? But she was destroyed nonetheless.
Clara rose from her chair and walked out of the drawing room. She spotted Mr Crawley counting the silver knives and forks in the dining room – he had a low opinion of policemen – and went to him.
“I think a doctor ought to be called for Angelica Howton,” she instructed the butler.
He glanced up in surprise, but Clara did not want to explain.
“She is in the drawing room,” she told him, before heading for the front door, determined to get out of the house and away from the festering atmosphere of death that infected the hall.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Clara walked away from Howton Hall and down the long drive. She had an idea in mind of where she ought to go next. In the midst of all the confusion, she doubted anyone had remembered poor Betty staying at the nearby inn. The woman needed to know that her husband had not been dead, but now he was. Exactly how that was to be explained Clara tried to devise in her head as she walked.
The day was clagging in. There was a hint of rain in the sky. Clara momentarily wondered if the inspector might find something on the gun to point to a suspect. A fingerprint would be useful, especially if it could be used to rule out family members. It might not lead to the actual killer, however, as only criminals had their fingerprints taken and on file. Clara didn’t think this was the work of a hardened criminal. Maybe there would be something else on the gun, just a small fragment that would provide a clue?
Or was that clutching at straws? The trouble was, Clara felt there was so little evidence, there was a real risk the killer might evade capture or, worse, someone innocent might be accidentally implicated in the crime.
The inn was set back from the road, it was a quaint old place made of wooden timbers and thatch. The sort people take pictures of for postcards. It was still early in the day and, while the front door was open, there were not a great many customers present. Clara passed by a man and a woman sitting on an outside bench and clearly on a walking holiday – their sturdy footwear and rucksacks told her that. She smiled at them as she passed into the inn.
The building was as rustic on the inside as it was on the outside. The ceiling was low and there were beams running across it. They had been ornamented with horseshoes, horse brasses and drinking tankards. There was a hearty fire roaring in a large hearth on the left side of the room, taking off the morning chill which slipped in through the open door. Behind the bar stood a cheery woman wiping dry some freshly cleaned glasses.
“How may I help you, my dear?” asked the woman, the landlady of the property.
She was a voluptuous lady in all ways, with glistening red hair and a broad smile. She was the sort of person who is cheerful on the darkest of days.
“I was hoping to speak to one of your guests? Mrs Betty Howton?” Clara said.
“Oh, yes. Mrs Howton has been quite the talk of my little establishment,” the landlady winked mischievously. “Who knew that Master Harvey had found himself a wife? Well, clearly no one! Quite the mystery. I dare say the family is as surprised as the rest of us! Sweet little thing though. Poor girl, not knowing her husband had drowned.”
“Quite,” Clara said, realising that the latest news from the hall had yet to filter this far. It would soon enough, but for the moment she was not going to be the one to reveal what had happened. “I thought I better see how she is. It has been a difficult time for her.”
The landlady nodded sympathetically.
“Can’t think she got much of a welcome at the hall when she arrived. At least Harvey’s mother should have known better, having been in the same boat once,” the landlady dropped her tone conspiratorially. “Mind you, she is the sort who quick enough forgets all her own faults when it comes to dealing with others. She had fine ideas for that boy of hers, or so I am told.”
“What sort of ideas?” Clara asked, briefly distracted from her mission.
“She wanted him to marry this American heiress. The girl visited here once with her father and mother. They came into the inn and kept remarking how positively darling it was and so very English. The regulars started to get annoyed,” the landlady pursed her lips. “The talk I heard was that this young lady was the heir to a considerable fortune, her daddy being involved in oil. She was worth more than the entire Howton estate. If Harvey married her, it would be quite the snub to his brother. He could buy Howton Hall and still have a fortune left over. I can imagine Angelica liking the idea of her son being worth more than England’s wealthiest lord.”
“You knew Angelica?” Clara asked, wondering how the landlady had such insight into the woman.
“Before his former lordship died, they would come here quite often on a Sunday. Partial to a pint was his lordship,” the landlady explained, a smile returning to her face. “He was a right sort, as comfortable among his workers as he was among the aristocracy. He liked being among the ordinary folk, he used to tell me it made him feel grounded. I was but a girl then and my mother was the landlady here. He seemed a nice gentleman. I can see why he married a stationmaster’s daughter.”
“And what about Angelica?” Clara asked.
The landlady twitched her nose.
“Funny sort, that one. But then, must have been hard being trapped between worlds. She was not an aristocrat, but she no longer fitted in with the ordinary folk either. She looked to have everything and yet there was a deep unhappiness to her. It came out as arrogance, but I saw through her,” the landlady paused for a moment, a wet glass twisting between her hands and the drying cloth. “I always had a feeling the rumours were true, that she married his lordship purely for his wealth and then regretted it. She didn’t seem very fond of him.”
“That’s a shame,” Clara said. “I had liked to imagine there was a fondness between them.”
“Maybe she got what she deserved, after all,” the landlady pondered. “She married for all the wrong reasons and ended up miserable. I always had the impression she was ambitious, not just for herself, but for her son. She never would have condoned him marrying a London maid.”
“That would explain all the secrecy surrounding the arrangement,” Clara agreed. “Such a shame.”
“It is, but who am I to mull over the mistakes of my betters?” the landlady gave a chuckle, indicating she did not take much heed of her own statement. “I put Mrs Howton in my best room, it was only right. She came here looking like the world had fallen down about her ears. I could see she had been weeping. Poor thing. The young break their hearts so easily.”
Clara could only agree. Betty had been through a terrible time, and what she was about to hear was not going to make things any better.
“She is in room one, just at the head of the stairs,” the landlady nodded to a staircase that ran up the far wall, close to the blazing fire. “I took her up some breakfast earlier, but I doubt she touched it. She looked so pale and ill. I’m glad she has someone to visit her.”
Clara didn’t think Betty would be so glad once she learned the reason for Clara’s visit, but she did not elaborate on that to the landlady. She thanked her for the interesting information, then proceeded up the stairs.
Room one took up most of the rear of the building, and was really a small suite with a bed and sitting area. It was reserved for better quality guests. Clara knocked on the door and waited impatiently for a response. Betty took a while to answer and, when she did, Clara found herself looking at a pale imitation of the girl she had met earlier.
“Miss Fitzgerald,” Betty said in a dull tone. “This is unexpected.”
“I needed to see you,” Clara said, wondering how she could tell this wretched creature that her husband had been murdered. The man she already thought dead. “May I come in?”
Betty pulled back the door without a word and Clara entered the room. It seemed Betty had just crawled out of bed. The sheets were rumpled and Betty was dressed in a shift and with bare feet. She gave a shiver as the chill of the day found her and grabbed up a cardigan to drape about her shoulders. There was a fireplace in the room, but it was not lit. Clara set to work lighting the kindling and bringing the fire alive. The room slowly drew warmth from the burning logs and became cosy. Betty watched her without saying a word.
“Sit by the fire and get some warmth into you,” Clara instructed.
Betty obeyed silently. Her face was ashen, as if she was sick with some dreadful disease. Clara sat in a chair opposite her.
“This has been a dreadful week for you,” she said softly. “I wish I could make it better, somehow.”
Betty shook her head.
“You can’t make it better,” she mumbled. “My husband is dead. My poor Harvey.”
Betty’s lower lip trembled, but she did not cry. She drew a deep breath and composed herself.
“I have some further upsetting news for you,” Clara said, not knowing how best to break this latest horror to her and thinking it was better to get it over with. “A terrible thing happened at the hall last night. Harvey was shot.”
Betty blinked, for a second a flush of colour came to her cheeks, then she shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, I explained that badly. You see, Harvey was not dead, he was pretending. I don’t know why. Last night he entered Howton Hall and was shot in one of the upstairs corridors. I’m afraid that now he is no longer pretending,” Clara waited for the reaction, it did not take long.
