The Villa of Death: A Mystery Featuring Daphne du Maurier (Daphne du Maurier Mysteries)

by Challis, Joanna

  Wrath frothing around her mouth, Rosalie glanced at the dead man. “You killed him and I swear you’ll pay for it.”

  Twisting on her heel, she sauntered away.

  “Make sure she is all right,” Ellen said to me. “It’s a big shock.”

  Following the staggering Rosalie down the hall, I soon left her in the care of her cousins. All their faces resonated their shock and absolute disbelief. The two aunts, Teddy’s sisters, had taken the vapors and were sitting in chairs pinched from some room in the house. Leaning over one of the aunts, Major Browning was checking her pulse.

  “The doctor’s here,” my father announced.

  The crowd separated to let the doctor and Harry through, and I hastened to meet them. “Harry, it’s bad,” I warned.

  Ellen’s long-term estate manager turned very pale. “Ellen. How is she?”

  “In shock. I don’t think there’s anything the doctor can do…”

  My voice trailed off and it carried no hope. Perhaps if the doctor had been on hand when Teddy had the heart attack? It was difficult to know and I was no medical expert.

  There was something very reassuring about my father’s presence and I know it comforted Ellen, too. She’d always looked up to my father throughout the years and often said he reminded her of her own father before he became ill.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor murmured.

  I gathered Ellen into my arms while my father talked to the doctor. I tried to strain my ears over Ellen’s sobbing. The doctor said he’d visited Teddy once or twice and that he suffered from angina. He asked if anyone knew where Teddy kept his medication and if he’d taken it today.

  “He keeps it in his room by his bed,” Ellen wept. “I usually make sure he takes it but we’ve been sleeping in separate rooms leading up to the wedding.”

  “It’s his heart then?” my father persisted.

  “Yes, Sir Gerald, from what I can see. The coroner will make a full report. Shall I do the duties?”

  “If you will.” Reaching inside his coat, my father slipped out a card. “Here’s my details if there’s anything I can do. I’ll be staying here at the house.”

  “Very good, sir.” Shaking his head, the elderly doctor packed up his little black bag and departed.

  Persuading Ellen to sit down, I called for a glass of water. “Do take the sedative the doctor gave you,” I said, gently pressing the pill into her hand. “It will help you sleep.”

  “Sleep,” she echoed, her face white. “After today, I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”

  I met my father’s gaze across the room. He’d also taken a seat. “I do advise, Ellen m’dear, you go to your room with Daphne. I’ll stand guard, don’t you worry.”

  “No, I can’t leave him,” Ellen wailed. “I just can’t. Please,” she begged him, “please keep the others away.”

  Nodding, my father went to lock the door while unraveling his tie. “Easily done.”

  * * *

  The strangest night passed dismally slow. Despite her protestations, the sedative did send Ellen to sleep. My father and I dozed off and on, my father having the good sense to cover the body with a blanket.

  I felt ill with a corpse so near. A strong, reasonably healthy man and now he was dead. I had difficulty equating the fact in my mind. True, he was several years older than Ellen, sixteen to be precise, however, he conducted himself like a young man. He had a quick step and he rode well. I’d seen him bound up the stairs and swing Charlotte around a few times. If the man had a bad heart condition, he’d have struggled with such activities, and Teddy Grimshaw seemed a man always in control.

  My father had shared none of my qualms that night. Lighting his cigar, he had said to the corpse, “Well, old fellow, I’ll still have a cigar with you, though it’s not what I had in mind.”

  I wondered how the other guests fared. I wondered if Major Browning thought the death suspicious. He, like the others, would have heard Rosalie Grimshaw’s outburst. Murder, she’d cried.

  Murder? It looked like a straightforward heart attack to me. Sometimes it happened when one was in high spirits. It wasn’t fair, but it happened. I remembered reading in the paper about a young woman coming home to England to be reunited with her family only to perish the night prior. That was also heart failure and the woman only in her thirties.

  Ellen still lay sleeping, though fitful and restless and I did not envy her waking up today. Snoring in an armchair by the body, my father remained a neglectful guard. Creeping over to him, I pulled his overcoat.

  “W-what…?” he spluttered, his memory sharpened.

  “I’m just going to organize some tea. Can you watch Ellen while I’m gone?”

  I did not look at the body. I refused to look at the body. Once outside, I was glad to see the house hadn’t stirred yet. It was quiet and undisturbed; the only sound the ticking grandfather clock on the hall’s mantelpiece.

  I entered the kitchen as the cook stoked the fire.

  “Ah, hello there, Miss Daphne.”

  I smiled at the large middle-aged woman. Everything about Nelly Ireson was large—her plump hands, her big smile, her booming voice. “I’ve missed you, Nelly. You haven’t changed at all.”

  “And ye’ve grown up so pretty! Very pretty!” Bustling back to the fire, she shook her head. “Sad. It’s sad. So nice to see her happy again, after all that. Did she sleep?”

  “Yes, a little, with the sedative. I do hope they move the body today.”

  “Oh, don’t ye worry ye little head with it. Dr. Peterson may be old and a little bit deaf but he’s not slow about his business. Ye best stay with her every minute, Miss Daphne. She’s been through hell and I think this one’s near done her in. Good thing that sweet girl is here.”

  “You mean Charlotte? You believe she’d take her life if Charlotte weren’t here?”

  Nelly’s brown eyes narrowed. “That little girl were the savin’ of her, even if she were disowned for it.”

  “Nelly,” I murmured, looking behind me. “You must be careful what you say, for Ellen’s sake. Not many know the full story.”

  “Oh, there’ll be knowin’ now, if ye know what I mean. Death brings it all out. Ye’ll have to help her, Miss Daphne. Don’t ye leave Ellen on her own. I worry about her. I always have, since she were a wee babe.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving. I have no commitments so I can stay as long as I want … or as long as Ellen needs me.”

  Nelly nodded, pleased. “Ye’re a good girl. Not like these other mad young women I see chasin’ after every male in a flashy motorcar. Phew! Did ye see the likes of some of them here, thinkin’ themselves all that.”

  I smiled, adding that Major Browning could be relegated to this category.

  “Don’t know him,” Nelly reflected, “but I’ve read about his fiancée, Lady Lara. Beautiful, ain’t she? Like a china doll. All that golden hair and a—”

  “Yes.” I cut her off short. “The tea, Nelly?”

  “And do try and tempt her to eat.” Nelly went on organizing the tray, even pausing to add a fresh flower from the garden. “Strawberry jam on toast. It’s her favorite.”

  “I will try, Nelly.”

  I couldn’t wait to leave. If I heard one more word about Lady Lara Fane, I’d spit in the pond.

  “Daphne,” whispered a voice as I entered the hallway.

  A voice I knew too well. Grinding my teeth, I tensed. “If you say one word to me, Major Browning, I’ll throw this tray at you.”

  “That’s not very ladylike.”

  I ignored his appeasing grin.

  “I came as early as I could.”

  He’d slipped into walking side by side with me down the hall. Looking straight ahead, I seethed beneath my skin. “What are you doing here?”

  Whistling, he fell back a step. “Vicious.”

  Squaring my shoulders, I kept my pace and repeated the question, adding, “You’ve got no reason to be here, Major Browning. This does not concern
you; you yourself said you hardly know the family. You were only invited because Ellen thought—”

  “Ah, she did not know I and Lady Lara’s fiancée were one and the same, did she? Very economizing for her, I daresay, but I am only a cover fiancée”

  I paused. “A cover fiancée?”

  We were nearing the front hall.

  “Who let you in, by the way?”

  He smiled, producing a knife from his pocket. “A window, in the tearoom. I noticed it had a faulty latch yesterday.”

  “And you make a business of smuggling yourself into great houses, do you? I should call the police.”

  “I am the police, remember?”

  I couldn’t win with him and the fact irked me. No, the fact incensed me. Yes, that word fit better.

  “You won’t get rid of me so easily,” he called after me. “I’ve business in the area.” He plopped a card on the tea tray. “It’s for Ellen. See that she gets it.”

  He turned and exited through the front door.

  Ellen had risen when I appeared with her breakfast. My father had encouraged her to sit by the newly stoked fire. It was a chilly morning and seeing the stiff body under the blanket sent an extra chill up my spine. Could the man really have been murdered? Or had he just died of natural causes?

  “I’m living a nightmare,” Ellen said to me, struggling to sip a little of her tea. “I don’t know how I can go on now. Nothing will seem right. How can I even sit here and eat breakfast? How can I possibly recover? We’d planned our whole lives together. Oh … oh…”

  Choking on her tears, she pulled away to the window. “No, leave me be.” She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

  I glanced at my father.

  He eyed the toast on the tray but I shook my head. “Ellen,” I said softly. “The police will be here soon. Come upstairs with me and change.”

  “Yes,” she cried, tears spilling down her wedding dress. “Cut it off me; I don’t want to ever see it again!”

  Thankfully, I navigated the way to her bedroom without anybody seeing us. A moment longer and we’d certainly have run into one of the guests leaving their rooms.

  Ellen started unbuttoning her gown before I opened the door to the master chamber. In medieval times, this room had been the lord’s solar. Stumbling after her, I was amazed at the changes. Shut up for years, I truly felt as if I’d stepped into another time, another era.

  “We were to spend our wedding night here,” Ellen moaned, sitting on the enormous four-poster in the center of the room.

  The room was the epitome of a fifteenth-century wealthy lord’s chamber. Medieval weapons stared down at us from the stone walls where four hunting tapestries graced the far wall, each representing a seasoned chase. The tapestries were French, as was the floral and fleur-de-lis design on the bed’s coverlet and on the royal blue drapes hanging from the two large windows bearing an easterly view of the gardens down to the river.

  Due to the tragedy, nobody had lit the fire so the room had a deathly cold feeling about it. I shivered, assisting Ellen out of her wedding dress and into something plain and comfortable. She couldn’t bear to wear anything from her wedding trousseau and I thought it a shame all those fine clothes might end up in the fire. I talked her out of doing so for the moment and considered it a fortunate thing the fire wasn’t lit.

  “What is the use? What shall I do now?”

  I sat down beside her on the bed. I knew I had to get her out of this room, if nothing else. Putting my arms around her, I listened to her heart-wrenching wails.

  “I feel like my life is over … we had such plans.” Smiling through her tears, she recounted the tragedy of the past. “All those years wasted, I thought we had our whole lives together. Do you know Charlotte asked me last night if we were still going on the big ship and if we were, was there a doctor on board who could help her papa? It’ll break her heart when she finds out … when she finds out … oh, Daphne! And to think we could have prevented it.”

  “Prevented it?”

  Blowing her nose, she let me read the card Major Browning had left for her. After his name printed neatly, the messy handwriting said:

  Mrs. Grimshaw,

  I know your husband has many enemies and has suffered a great deal of stress lately. I’d like to talk to you in private.

  MB.

  Of course, I’d already read it. However, I feigned surprise. “Enemies? But he died of a heart attack, didn’t he? Do you think stress did it?”

  “I don’t know.” Ellen wept into her hands. “He seemed so happy and relaxed lately, apart from some minor business worries. He never discussed his business with me, you see. He said he wanted to keep our life separate. Who is this Major Browning? I thought you said he was in the army?”

  “Yes, but he also works for Scotland Yard.”

  “Oh … perhaps he knows something about Teddy and wants to talk to me. I don’t know whether I want to talk to him after what he did to you.”

  “You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to,” I murmured. “Or, if you prefer, I’ll find out what he wants to talk to you about.”

  “Yes, do,” Ellen decided. “I have too many concerns on my shoulders at the moment. Oh, my dear Daphne, how am I ever going to be able to face the day?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I don’t envy her,” I said to my parents as we stood there watching them take away the body. Ellen stood apart from everyone else, alone, stoic, almost like a dead person herself.

  “It’s like the Kate Trevalyan affair,” Angela whispered to me.

  “It’s nothing like it,” I shot back, my gaze narrowing when I saw Major Browning’s face among the crowd of spectators. Was he lurking around in the hope of an audience with Ellen? If so, he must have something important to say.

  I burned to know what. He had a knack of knowing things, which irritated me. He took pleasure in proving me wrong. “He should be paying court to his fiancée, not hanging around here,” I seethed and Angela too sent him a glare.

  He lifted a quizzical brow in response.

  “Ha! He even feigns innocence; truly, I cannot abide him.”

  “Have Ellen whip him off the estate,” my father murmured from behind.

  I snuck a look at him. Yes, Sir Gerald du Maurier did not approve of Major Browning’s treatment of his daughter. He, too, refused to look the man in the eye, preferring to fix his gaze on the black wagon bearing away the remains of Teddy Grimshaw.

  “Daphne, Angela, Sir Gerald,” Ellen raised her tearstained face to us, “please come to the nursery. Your mother, too. I’m in need of a mother figure today.”

  Downcast, we followed her back into the house. I deliberately gazed at the ground upon passing the major. Why had I promised Ellen I’d talk to him? No doubt he’d return to wherever he was staying, thereby forcing me to seek him out. Or I could just wait until he returned. My curiosity burned. What did he know? Did he suspect some kind of foul play?

  On our way to the nursery, we passed the door adjacent the breakfast room. Voices drifted out: hushed whispers, rapid statements, heated accusations. Ellen’s name was mentioned and Ellen paused in her step, holding her stomach.

  “… and she makes such a pretense! Did you see her just now, dressed in widow’s weaves waving off my father’s dead body?”

  “Don’t listen,” my father advised Ellen, shepherding her up the stairs.

  “My poor darling.” My mother took Ellen into her arms.

  Nanny Brickley hovered in the background. She had been sitting in the corner with Clarissa and rose to her feet when we entered the room. Megan, who’d been working on a puzzle on the floor with Charlotte also rose and offered her condolences.

  “I don’t wish any of you to leave,” Ellen cried.

  “We will stay as long as you need us,” Clarissa declared. “Charles has canceled all his engagements and offers his services. His uncle is a vicar in Devon.”

  Megan frowned.

  “What?”
Clarissa raised her brows. “It’s a necessary business, the funeral.”

  “The funeral,” Ellen echoed, her face turning white.

  “What’s a funeral?” Charlotte asked, tugging her hand.

  “It’s a … it’s a place where people go to say good-bye,” Ellen answered through sobs.

  My mother reached for her handkerchief and my father put an arm about her. We had had our share of funerals in the family.

  “Why is everyone giving me the evil eye?” Persisting in her innocence, Clarissa sailed across the room like a paragon of virtue. “These things simply must be addressed.”

  “Yes, you are right.” Ellen blinked through her tears. “Can you ask Charles to arrange it for me?”

  “Certainly.” Clarissa bowed her head and I raised my eyes to the ceiling. Of the most inopportune moments, Clarissa Fenwick was a master.

  Fortunately, she sailed out of the room in search of her husband.

  “You are going to need your strength, my dear,” my mother pressed Ellen whilst we kept Charlotte occupied. “It would be best to go down for lunch. Seeing you will halt their tongues.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” Ellen started but she soon saw the wisdom of my mother’s advice.

  “It’s staring the enemy in the face,” my father added and since he was a man of theater and great intelligence, Ellen acquiesced. “You shall all be with me, I hope. I can’t do it on my own. Not with the Fairchilds and Pringles. How they hate me!”

  “Two enemy camps,” my father observed.

  “Gerald.” My mother shook her head. “This can’t be helpful…”

  “Nonsense, my dear. You did not see the look in that girl’s eye but I did and I can tell you it was positively savage.”

  “The poor girl has lost her father…”

  “And her millions,” I put in.

  “It’s true,” Megan confirmed. “That’s why she hates Ellen. She never wanted her father to marry.”

  Being the older and wiser one, my mother changed the subject. “The best thing you can do is focus on your little girl.”