Fear for Frances

by Veronica Heley

  ‘I am sure we all owe much to Miss Chard,’ said Mrs Broome insincerely, ‘But, Gavin dear, aren’t you letting your own imagination run away with you? It was proved that the woman drank, but why should she put something horrid in your food?’

  ‘She was bribed to do so, I suppose. Later still, this same yellow substance made the other agency nurse too ill to assist in an important operation on my arm, and still later it was given to Miss Chard in an effort to keep her out of the way while yet another attempt was made on my life. Which means that the yellow substance passed from the hands of the discredited and dismissed Nurse Moon into the hands of someone who remained here, at the Court.’

  ‘Do you mean,’ said Hugo, who seemed short of breath, ‘To accuse me of trying to poison you? I assure you that I ...’

  ‘No, that is not your style. It was very much in your interest that I should not survive, but you are too careful a man to commit a murder, or to bribe others to murder on your behalf, especially by means that can be traced, like the yellow powder. I did toy with the idea of your having bribed the nurse to suffocate me, but on the whole I don’t think you were responsible for that. It would be too much to believe that she had been bribed by two people in this house, at one and the same time. No, I think you did little beyond hint this and that to Miss Chard, and to send the telegram to the wrong man when a surgeon was needed. I don’t think you actively participated in any of the attempts to murder me, nor do I think you were responsible for forging the Will leaving everything to Maud.’

  ‘Forging?’

  ‘What was that?’ Everyone was talking at once, except for Maud and Mrs Broome. Maud’s eyes were dilated, and both her hands were pressed to her bosom. Mrs Broome cried out and then stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth. She looked terrified.

  ‘Well, Uncle?’ said Lord Broome. ‘I believe you suspected what was going on even before I heard about the second Will that I was supposed to have made. Would you like to give us your opinion on the matter?’

  Mr Manning stood up, and went to stand with his back to the fire.

  ‘I first began to suspect that the second Will was a forgery when I had time to consider how unlike Gavin it was to forget to leave his brother anything. Gavin had no idea that Richard had been killed when he made this second Will, so why had he not left him any money? That he should have cut Isabella out of his Will was understandable, and it was even understandable that he should have wished to remember his penniless cousins Maud and Agnes in his Will, even though he had not done so before. But to leave everything to Maud, without mentioning Agnes, or Richard, or his faithful servant Benson seemed incredible. Yet the Will undeniably fulfilled all legal criteria; the signatures of the witnesses were apparently those of some of Gavin’s brother officers, as they would be if the Will had been made when he was out at the Cape.

  ‘My attention became focused on the date of the Will. Gavin was wounded at Majuba on January 29th, and has been unable to write with his left hand ever since. His present signature, written with his right hand, is not much like his previous efforts. So how did it come that this second Will was dated in February of this year, and bore Gavin’s usual signature?’

  ‘I feel ill!’ moaned Mrs Broome.

  ‘The Will dropped out of the Bible which was on a table at the side of Gavin’s sick-bed. Later on I made an opportunity of inspecting the books which Gavin keeps at his bedside more closely. In each of these Gavin has inscribed his signature — his old signature — and in two of these books I found notes from brother officers ... a scrawled invitation to dine, and a note confirming an appointment. One of Gavin’s old signatures, and both the signatures from fellow officers seemed to me to be indented on the page. I inspected these signatures under a magnifying glass, and found that they had been gone over with a pointed instrument, but there was no corresponding indentation on the pages underneath. I concluded that someone had traced Gavin’s signature on to another piece of paper, and that this was probably how the second Will had come to bear the appropriate signatures. As soon as Gavin was well enough to see me, I brought up the subject of his second Will, and he categorically denied ever having made it.’

  Mrs Broome rose from her seat and looked around her as if wondering whether she could leave the room without being prevented from doing so.

  ‘Sit down, Aunt,’ said his lordship. ‘Little did you know it at the time, but by taking the desk set from this room into the State Bedroom — you had remembered that Richard had neither pen nor paper in his room, hadn’t you? — you did me a very good turn. You saved my life, in fact. You dropped a stopper from an inkwell, it rolled half under my bed, and Agnes found it — which brought Miss Chard to my room. I dread to think what might have happened to me if Miss Chard had not entered my room that day.’

  ‘No ... proof,’ panted Mrs Broome. ‘The Will ... destroyed!’

  ‘I’m sure it is. I feel for you, Aunt. You went to all that trouble to ensure your daughter’s future and then Miss Chard nursed me so well that I didn’t die, after all. You knew that the moment I heard about the Will, I would denounce it, so you took the easy way out. Before the Will could be disputed, you removed it from the bureau in which Hugo had improvidently placed it, and destroyed it.’

  Mrs Broome’s face crumpled. ‘Oh dear, oh dear! What will become of me?’

  ‘Nothing very bad, Aunt. If nobody here has any objection, I propose to allow the matter of the forged Will to rest. There is no proof now that the Will ever existed, and, as Mr Cotton knows, I propose to sign an entirely different Will tomorrow morning. When the Court has a new mistress, I believe my aunt will wish to retire to the Dower House. She is already in receipt of a small pension from the estate, and I will see that it is maintained for life. For her sake — for everyone’s sake — I propose that no word of this goes beyond these four walls. Do you all agree?’

  Everyone present agreed, but none of them looked at Mrs Broome as she wept in her chair. ‘I didn’t mean to harm anyone,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have done anything actually to harm you, Gavin; believe me.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you,’ he said.

  ‘Then, if it wasn’t Hugo, and it wasn’t Louisa,’ said Mrs Armstrong, ‘Who was it who was trying to kill you? Inside the house, I mean. There were the two men outside — Jervis and Lee — but who was it inside?’

  ‘Shall we put it another way?’ said his lordship. ‘Who had access to Dr Kimpton’s bag? Theo, will you explain.’

  ‘A powerful emetic, yellow in colour, is missing from my uncle’s bag. It is a preparation of ipecacuanha, chamomile and mustard. My uncle has a set of bottles in his bag of different sizes, and this one is missing. He is not well enough to be with us tonight, but when I asked him about the bottle, he said he believed he missed it after one of his visits to Mrs Broome in her apartments.’

  ‘Are you accusing me?’ said Isabella, reddening. ‘It is true that I looked in Dr Kimpton’s bag one day. He’d left it open on the table in Aunt’s sitting-room, and I wondered if he had anything for a wart on my little finger.’

  ‘Do you have a guilty conscience, too, Isabella?’ said his lordship. ‘You stood to gain by my death, but I don’t think it was you who masterminded the attacks on my life. You don’t possess the strength to bend men like Jervis and Lee to your will.’

  ‘He means me,’ said Maud. She was smiling, but still pale. ‘He thinks I was poisoning him for the sake of the money I was going to get under his Will. Of course, he is wrong. The new Will did not turn up until long after his return, and some considerable time after he had started to reject food. I defy him to produce a motive.’

  ‘That is easy. You never cared for Richard, and if you grieved at his death it was because you had lost your chance of becoming Lady Broome. My return affected you little one way or the other, but once Hugo had entered the picture you had a very good motive for getting rid of me. Perhaps for the first time in your life you found you could love a man; as a bonus you learned you were to b
e my heir. You wanted me dead so that Hugo could succeed and marry you. It was you who stole Dr Kimpton’s emetic, first to use on me, then on the agency nurse and lastly on Miss Chard. It was you who stole the money Richard had left in the bureau in the gun-room; you needed money to pay your accomplices. It was you who bribed the nurse and, although it was not you who killed her, it was you who directed that she should be silenced. A drunken woman could not be relied upon to hold her tongue for ever, could she? It was you who stole the housekeeper’s and Richard’s keys to ensure that you could obtain access to my rooms or to the bureau at any time. It was you who wrote the letter denouncing Benson, so as to get him out of the way while the fourth and last attempt was made on my life.’

  ‘Are you trying to say that I went around the house in a monk’s gown, frightening the life out of the servants? What nonsense!’

  ‘No, that was Lee. You remember the keys which Lilien was going to hand back to Richard on the day she was drowned? They were not found on her body, and we assumed they were lost in the river. I think now that Lee snatched them from Lilien when he grappled with her on the river bank. Or maybe she dropped them in the scuffle, and he picked them up later. Lee — or possibly one of his contacts within the Court — found the robe, and saw how useful it could be. He had keys, he had the robe, and he had accomplices within the Court, so he entered my rooms as and when he wished. It was only through the vigilance of Benson and Miss Chard that I was saved from death at his hands.’

  ‘You think ... you really think that I would consort with a man who had killed my fiancé?’

  ‘I don’t think you knew that he had. I think that it was the realisation that you had allied yourself with Richard’s murderer which caused you to change colour just now, and to feel faint. How Lee must have laughed when you went to him with suggestions as to how he might carry his vendetta against the House of Broome to its conclusion! You played into his hands, didn’t you?’

  ‘What nonsense! I defy you to prove a single word of what you have said.’

  ‘I don’t have to. The police will do it for me. They are returning tomorrow to search the Court, and they will bring enough men with them this time to do the job properly. They will take samples of your handwriting ...’ Maud started. ‘... to compare with the note which denounced Benson. I believe that if a search were to be made of your room at the moment, the police would find two bunches of keys, a bottle of emetic, some of the money stolen from the bureau, and perhaps also my aunt’s bracelet.’

  Mr Manning frowned. ‘Gavin, I do not wish to teach you your business, but if what you say is true — and unpalatable though it is, I do not deny that your theory seems to explain everything — then surely you are giving Maud an opportunity to get rid of everything which might incriminate her, before the police arrive?’

  Maud threw back her head and laughed.

  ‘Very true, Uncle,’ said Lord Broome. ‘That is precisely what I am doing. If Maud will admit that the game is up, if she will agree to sign a statement admitting her guilt and give it to Mr Cotton, then I in turn will make her a modest allowance provided that she leaves the Court tomorrow morning and never returns or attempts to communicate with us again. If she will do this, the matter need never be made public. Lee and Jervis will stand trial for their attempts on my life, and the matter of the emetic and of the letter denouncing Benson will remain as unsolved mysteries on the police file. Maud’s intentions were murderous, but she has not in fact succeeded in anything she attempted to do, and it will be punishment enough for her to lose not only Hugo, but her chance of becoming Lady Broome. I have never cared for her, but I have some affection for my aunt, and even more for Agnes. I would not wish either of them to undergo the humiliation of seeing Maud stand trial.’

  Maud sprang to her feet, her hands clenched. She smiled and smiled, and, cat-like, controlled her movements to lean against the mantelpiece. Her uncle moved away from her, as if unable to bear her proximity. Her smile widened. Incredibly, she yawned.

  ‘My dear Gavin, it is plain that your powers of reasoning have been affected by your illness. I agree that I wished you dead, but then so did most of us, if the truth were only told. I agree that I wrote that note denouncing Benson; the man was obviously guilty, to my mind. If I was mistaken, then I apologise. As for what you call my “alliance” with men such as Jervis and Lee — that is all in your sick mind. You are a very sick man, cousin, are you not? If a drunken woman stole Dr Kimpton’s emetic and dosed your food with it, what is that to me? And if someone killed her afterwards, I daresay they had a good reason for doing so — she must have been easy prey for a casual thief. No, your mind has become so clouded by illness that you have entirely overlooked the one real criminal in our midst. Did she not come here with false references? Did she not have a motive to cause confusion in the house? Did she not procure the dismissal of one — if not both — of the agency nurses provided by the doctors? And insinuate herself into the sick-room? Has she not so worked on you that you are prepared to throw yourself and your money at her feet? Who stands to gain from this but Miss Chard?’

  ‘You lie!’ cried Frances, rising to her feet. ‘My lord — you know my mind in this matter. I have not given you any cause to think that I would marry you. I am leaving as soon as I am permitted to do so. I would have left today but that the police — and then you — required my presence ...’

  ‘You would have left today. Yes. To go to your lover! Oh, didn’t you know, Gavin? I see you turn pale at the very thought that she might have a secret lover.’ She looked at the clock on the mantel. It was a few minutes past the hour of nine. ‘Spilkins! I believe you will find that a gentleman has just arrived from the station. You may ask him to join us, if you will.’

  ‘What gentleman?’ asked the General.

  ‘You have talked a great deal about proof,’ said Maud to his lordship. ‘I will give you all the proof you need.’

  The double doors leading to the dining-room opened, and a man in evening dress sauntered through.

  ‘Walter!’ gasped Frances. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  Frances’ one-time suitor bowed. He was a well set-up young man of the same physical type as Lord Broome, but younger. Frances shuddered. Once she had considered Walter handsome, but now she read viciousness in his features. The months since she had last seen him were marked on his face in dark shadows round his eyes, a nervous twitch of a muscle in his cheek, and extra weight.

  ‘Good evening, all,’ said Mr Walter Donne, fingering his moustache. ‘No need to keep up the play-acting, Frances, my dear. We’ve been rumbled. Miss Broome here knows what we’ve been up to. The game is up. U for useless, and P for played out. So get your hat and coat on, and we’ll be making tracks for the great Metropolis, as planned.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Frances. ‘What game? What plan? I swear to you,’ and she knelt at Lord Broome’s side and clung to his hand, ‘that I have not seen this man, or corresponded with him, since he betrayed me. It is true that I am leaving, but that is for your sake, not mine. I could not bear it if you were hurt through me.’

  ‘I believe you.’ Lord Broome was calm, but his voice was a whisper. His skin looked waxen. She pressed her cheek to his maimed hand and then stood, her body shielding him from the rest of the company. ‘Can you not see what you are doing to him? He is tired. After what he has been through this evening, to attack him through me is cruel. Can you not leave him alone?’

  ‘It is you who are harming him, not us,’ said Maud. ‘You have said so yourself. You have admitted that you planned to leave. What you didn’t say was that you didn’t plan to go alone — or without something to recompense you for all your trouble.’

  ‘My wages,’ said Frances. ‘That is all. Mr Hugo promised me some money once, but that was only if I should agree to kill Lord Broome, and I did not agree. There is nothing you can hold against me.’

  Walter moved forward and tried to take Frances’ hand. She struck it away, but h
e did not falter. ‘Come, my dear — what’s the use? I’ve already admitted to Miss Broome that I got the fifteen guineas you sent me a week ago, and very useful it was; although, of course, nothing like the sum we expected to get for the bracelet.’

  ‘The bracelet?’ Mrs Broome struggled up from her chair. ‘Do you mean that it was you who stole my bracelet, you wicked girl?’

  ‘I have not set eyes on your bracelet from the moment you lost it,’ said Frances scornfully. And as for the money missing from the gun-room, I deny that I even knew there was any there until the news of its loss was all over the Court. Search my room. Search my baggage. You will find nothing, except three gold sovereigns in a stocking in the bottom left-hand corner of my work-basket. Those are my savings.’

  ‘Then you must have the bracelet on you,’ said Maud. ‘I suggest that we go upstairs now, you and I, and prove the matter one way or the other.’

  ‘Agreed!’ cried Frances, and was half-way to the door with Maud at her heels before his lordship could haul himself to his feet. Theo leaped to his patient’s side to catch the words Lord Broome was trying to say, but by the time he had lifted his head, Frances and Maud had disappeared.

  ‘Stop them,’ Lord Broome was saying. ‘Frances ... danger ... don’t trust Maud!’

  But by the time Theo had burst through two sets of doors into the Gallery, both women had disappeared.

  Frances was too angry to be cautious. The Gallery was dark; the lamp which stood on the centre chest had blown out. She thought nothing of it. A gale was lashing at the windows.

  As she stooped to pick up her train prior to mounting the stairs, a cloak descended over her head and shoulders and strong arms lifted her from her feet. She was thrown to the ground with such force that all the breath was knocked out of her. Her hands and feet were tied. She was hoisted over a broad pair of shoulders and jounced down, instead of up, the stairs. Through the cloister they went, and into one of the ground-floor store-rooms. There were several of these on the ground floor of the Court, all giving on to the cloisters. When the muffling cloak was taken from round Frances’ head and she was able to breathe freely, the first thing she saw was the wide streak of light which poured from the uncurtained oriel window of the music-room across the grass of the courtyard. She could see this through the open door of the store-room, which she was facing, held in the bear-like hug of a giant of a man.