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

by Challis, Joanna

  “Not at all,” Jeanne and I answered in unison.

  Ellen nodded. “I couldn’t bear to be all alone. Please make Thornleigh your home. Do whatever you wish. Horses, cars, day trips … Charlotte and I might come with you on one of those day trips. Harry will drive you around. I wouldn’t know what to do without Harry.”

  I had seen Harry earlier that morning working in the garden. “He does everything, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s not the type to sit back and give orders. He’s teaching young Samuel how to prune hedges.”

  “‘Prune hedges,’” I echoed. “I’ve never tried that. Sounds like fun. Why don’t we work in the garden today, Charlotte?”

  “Oh, yes! Can we?”

  Charlotte was all enthused. She ran off to inform Nanny Brickley of our plan.

  Seeing that it was good for her daughter to have her attention diverted from the death of her father, Ellen agreed and so after breakfast, we set out with aprons and gloves.

  Not expecting all these female helpers, Harry quickly found something easy for us to work on, sending us in different directions.

  “It’s a full-time job caring for such gardens,” he said to me, directing me to a garden by the wall to weed. “Here’s your shears. Start here.”

  Watching him snip away, I thought he was quite handsome with his light brown hair, crisp overalls, and clean-shaven face. Not a servant and not exactly one of us, he lived in his own world.

  “Oh, Harry.” Ellen later brushed the dirt off her gloves as I asked her about the groundskeeper. “No, he’s never married. I hear he’s a heartthrob to the ladies in town. They’re all competing to trap him.”

  “I remember he was the same in London. You wrote me once saying how he made you laugh when he and his girlfriend serenaded you into the night when you were feeling down.”

  “Oh, yes.” Ellen smiled. “I’d forgotten that. Harry has always been there.”

  “Faithful and loyal like a puppy dog. And Charlotte likes him, too.”

  Sitting on the bench by the garden, Ellen drew off her gloves. “I need to rest for a while. Sometimes, when I look at Harry and Charlotte together, it breaks my heart. She never got to know her father in those early years. We’ve been cheated.” She began to sob.

  “Those letters.” I put my arm around her. “How could they all go missing? You’d think one would have reached him.”

  “Not when there’s a female in the house receiving the mail,” Ellen said bitterly. “I’d like to box Rosalie’s ears for it. She succeeded in breaking us up then,” she choked, “and now, Charlotte won’t know her father. He entered her life—larger and bigger than life—how will she recover?”

  “She’s young,” I observed. “I think sometimes they recover better than we do. You must keep your spirits up for Charlotte’s sake.”

  “I know.” Ellen sighed. “But it’s so hard. I don’t know what the future holds anymore. I can’t make plans. I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep, either. I lie awake all night, thinking, thinking. Is there any way out?”

  “Any way out?” I suddenly observed her face. “No, Ellen, you mustn’t think along those lines. You have a daughter and a house to care for. Both need attention.”

  Glum, she looked at me. “You’re right. But the future is so uncertain … I don’t know whether I’ll be able to keep Thornleigh.”

  “Because of the costs?”

  She nodded. “I’ve always just scraped by to keep it. Teddy’s money was going to see it restored to perfection. But I can’t continue what we set out to do now…”

  “Why not? Wouldn’t Teddy, if he was here, say the same to you? You can’t stop halfway through a project.”

  “But the money…”

  “The money is yours, Ellen. They can’t take it from you.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to worry about it. Teddy’s affairs are so complex. What does the major think? He’s coming here this afternoon, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I murmured. “I’m going to tell him about the death threats, Ellen. I think it’s important.”

  Frowning, she searched her memory. “Teddy burned most of them. But there might be one upstairs somewhere. I’ll have a look.”

  “Yes, do,” I urged, “and you should have given them to the police.”

  “Teddy said it was a waste of time. There’s little the police can do.”

  “Maybe then, but now I think you ought to tell them.”

  She nodded.

  “I shall ask Major Browning to have the inspector call upon us. He was going to come back anyway, wasn’t he?”

  “Y-yes. I think so. After the will is read tomorrow in London.”

  She shivered. The warmth had left the day. Putting on a false smile as Charlotte, Nanny Brickley, and Jeanne approached, I wondered if Ellen’s shiver had to do with the journey tomorrow. The journey she should have been on was a cruise in the warm Mediterranean and later, America, instead of a chilly train ride to London.

  I wasn’t surprised, then, when she burst into tears and fled the gardens.

  “Poor Mummy.” Charlotte began to cry too. “I still think we should go to America and meet Grandmama, but Mummy won’t go.”

  “Mummy has a lot on her mind, dearest,” Nanny Brickley reminded with her drawling accent.

  Charlotte blinked at me. “It’s got to do with Daddy, doesn’t it? Daddy died and left Mummy all confused. That’s why she’s sad.”

  “Yes,” I soothed, appreciating the child’s remarkable grasp of affairs. “Don’t worry. In time you’ll make new plans and I’m certain you’ll get to meet your grandmama.”

  “She’s very old,” Charlotte wrinkled her nose, “and lives in a wheelchair in a great big house. Daddy said she wheels around with her cane and hits the servants.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t hit the servants.” I smiled, conjuring up the vision of such a tyrannical matriarch. “Isn’t that so, Nanny?”

  Ellen addressed Alicia Brickley as “Nanny” so I had followed suit. Behind the coolly aloof face a spark of anger glittered. She was the poor cousin of the family, chosen by Teddy Grimshaw to care for his newly found daughter. I wondered if she expected an inheritance from him? It was highly possible, I thought. “Dear Nanny, do sit down. You’ve been running after Charlotte all morning. I’m sure your feet ache.”

  “Well, actually, they do.” She smiled back, accepting a seat beside me.

  “I can’t imagine how different it must be in America,” I began. “I suppose we seem so odd in comparison.”

  “Different,” she agreed.

  “Forgive me if I seem rude but you aren’t close to your cousins, are you?”

  “Ha!” She spat. “My mother was a Grimshaw but she married beneath her. The family didn’t accept us until my father begged them to do so on his deathbed. He’d run out of money, you see.”

  “So they took you up under compulsion?”

  “Something like that. We survived. We offer the others our services.”

  “Your mother didn’t come across for the wedding?”

  “No. She serves Grandmama now.”

  Studying her face in the pale light, I pitied her plight. “Have you ever thought of marriage?”

  “Me? I’d need a dowry for that, wouldn’t I? Uncle Teddy always joked he’d give me one if a worthy young man came along.”

  I was surprised she’d confided as much in me. Death brought out all secrets, I thought. There was no need to hide under petty propriety.

  “Do you really think,” she said under her lashes, “Uncle Teddy was murdered?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But who’d do such a thing!?”

  “I don’t know … perhaps one of your cousins had a motive?”

  She paused then, thinking hard. “You mean Rosalie. Or Jack? Both are high spenders. Both want the money.”

  “And they are lovers, too.”

  Now she stared at me, amazed.

  “I saw them in the woods,” I wen
t on, returning her confidence with one of my own. “Do you think they’ll marry?”

  “They are first cousins,” she returned, noncommittal. “And they are both unpredictable. I don’t know what they’ll do.”

  “I like your cousin Dean,” I said, and when she softened at his name I added: “He says he may stay in England.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “He seems like a nice person.”

  “He is.”

  “Will he marry money like the others, do you think?”

  Her frosty expression returned. She shrugged and I knew I’d hit upon a sore point. The money mattered to her. She didn’t want to stay a nanny forever. She wanted her independence and her freedom to marry whom she wished.

  Unlike Rosalie and Jack, I believed Alicia had genuine fondness for her cousin Dean without any romantic aspirations.

  Unfortunately, Jeanne and Charlotte came back from their walk so I could not press her further. I had made my mind up not to like her, but after today I understood her better. All of our lives shaped who we were as people and I felt sorry for her being the poor cousin to a family like the Grimshaws. She desired escape, and money meant escape for her and her mother. They could only hope to access such money through death: the death of Teddy Grimshaw. Was it reason enough for murder?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “That’s a preposterous idea.”

  “It’s been done before, Major.”

  “For a certainty it has. But not by the Nanny Brickleys of this world. Entirely too dependent.”

  “Dependency can breed desperation,” I reminded him. “She intimated she’d receive some kind of inheritance from her uncle.”

  “They all will,” he replied under his breath.

  “And they all have a motive.” Sitting down in the swivel chair, I tucked my legs up under me. I thought back to just prior to the wedding. Everyone was busy, running from here to there. Anyone could have slipped the poison to Teddy Grimshaw. “The timing depends on a person’s cunning, isn’t that what Dr. Peterson said?”

  Major Browning looked up from the desk where he was working and raised a caustic brow.

  “She’s talking about the poison.” Jeanne tried to help him out.

  Clearly frustrated by our endless deliberations, the major rustled several papers and continued scratching down his notes. Since I had been given the meager job of sorting papers in date form, I had no inclination as to his report. The complexity of Teddy Grimshaw’s business operations was evident in the buildup of paperwork.

  When he found something important, his jawline flickered and I, pausing in my job, made a study of his face. It was a strong and lean face with good bone structure, a heavy brow, inquisitive eyes, and a straight nose. His well-shaped mouth, now holding the nib of his pen, tended to purse on the odd occasion.

  “What are you smiling at?” The acerbic brow shot up again as he glanced my way.

  “You,” I shot back, “and your idiosyncrasies.”

  “My idiosyncrasies?” Putting down his pen, he entwined his hands together while waiting for an explanation.

  I decided to give none. Diverting his attention, I asked if Ellen had shown him the death-threat letters.

  “She kept two,” he answered, indicating a file, and I immediately deserted my comfortable chair to have a look at them.

  “It’s the sort of thing one reads about in the newspaper,” I murmured, touching the black ink cutout letters, both placed in this form:

  Pay £10,000 or you, your woman, and child die.

  At the bottom of each letter was a typed strip of paper detailing where and when to pay the money. “‘To be dropped by the grave of Ernest Gildersberg’ … Gildersberg … the name of the company competing with Salinghurst? How did this Ernest Gildersberg die?”

  “Of a heart attack,” the major replied. “Significant, isn’t it? Both great men die of a heart attack within a few months of each other. Ernest Gildersberg, they say, died after selling his flagging company to Teddy Grimshaw. Grimshaw paid a pittance for the company, planning to overhaul it. With his death, the company is worth nothing.”

  “Unless the plans to resurrect it go ahead?” I frowned. “Surely the share prices would go up then and Salinghurst would have its old competitor.”

  “Exactly.” The major beamed. “You have a fine grasp of it, Daphne.”

  I blushed. “I didn’t just play with dolls as a child, you know. I paid attention to my father and his interests. He’s always willing to explain things to us girls, isn’t he, Jeanne?”

  “Huh?” Glancing up from her book, Jeanne yawned. “I’m starving! Can we order tea now? I’ll go and see Nelly.”

  She slipped out of the room before either of us could answer.

  “The erstwhile chaperone,” joked the major.

  His jovial mood did nothing to appease mine. “How is Lady Lara? When will you see her next?”

  “Tonight.” He grinned.

  “For dinner?”

  “Yes, for dinner.”

  My heart sank. I had hoped he’d stay here for dinner. Facing another night alone with Ellen and Jeanne seemed depressing.

  “But I shall travel with you to London tomorrow.”

  I was immediately suspicious. “You want to be there for the will reading, don’t you? You just have to be first to know everything.”

  Instead of answering me, he pushed back his chair and examined me as if I were a naughty schoolgirl.

  “Well?’ I prompted.

  “You are not in possession of the full facts.”

  “I am in possession of certain facts,” I retorted, crossing my arms. “Are you aware that Jack and Rosalie are lovers? I saw them in the woods on the day of her father’s funeral.”

  This caught the major’s attention. His jaw dropped open. “What?”

  “Yes, so you see, I have my uses. I am willing to share information, but you are not. And please don’t say it’s your job.”

  “It is my job. But because you have proven trustworthy and because you are close to Ellen, I will say this: never leave her alone. I do not offer my escort tomorrow out of idle curiosity.”

  “No? Then why?”

  “Because she is in danger.”

  “‘Danger,’” I echoed, sitting down again as Jeanne entered the room bearing a huge smile and a tea tray. “Is Harry still driving us?”

  “No. I am. We’ll leave at seven sharp to make the train.”

  * * *

  I rose early and went up to Ellen’s room. Meeting her maid on the landing, she confirmed the mistress was “up and gettin’ ready.”

  Still dark and dreary outside, I shivered in my woollen coat. Choosing comfort over fashion, I had put on a plain dress, stockings, and sensible shoes. The only concession I made was over my hair, having set it in curlers the night before. Fixing the curls around my face, I added a small turquoise-studded comb and a little rouge to my cheeks. My face had the horrendous habit of appearing white and drawn on occasion, especially in the morning.

  Ellen had also decided to dress sensibly, though her clothes were infinitely finer than mine. A black dress and a black fur coat completed her ensemble. With her hair, she’d simply dressed it in a French bun at the nape of her neck. She wore no jewelery, except her gold wedding band and diamond engagement ring.

  “I am terribly nervous,” she confessed to me as we climbed into the major’s motorcar. “I shall feel so much better when we are able to return to Thornleigh.”

  The major loaded our bags into the car. I didn’t know how long we’d be staying in town, possibly a night or two. Alicia promised to take care of Charlotte and Jeanne in our absence.

  A mist drifted over the grounds of Thornleigh and the neighboring countryside. Beautiful and silent, it curled at the base of the trees, at the mouth of the river, and around the stout village houses alongside the road.

  Tightening my scarf, I let the cool air assail my cheeks. The train station resembled a graveyard. Spotting one or
two lonely travelers, I patted my dripping nose with a handkerchief. It seemed a crime to travel so early and I thought longingly of my warm bed.

  Silence reigned throughout the journey. Ellen continued to stare out the window, her trembling fingers clutching her handbag.

  Major Browning read the paper. I read a book.

  On reaching London, we took a taxi to Hanover Square.

  A line of newspapermen and photographers awaited us. Grasping my hand, Ellen took a deep breath and exited the car.

  Following close behind, the major helped us through the onslaught. “Say nothing.”

  “It’s difficult,” Ellen breathed to me when a reporter lashed out at her with: “Mrs. Grimshaw! Mrs. Grimshaw! Did you poison your husband?”

  “I can’t bear it,” Ellen whispered once safely inside the building. “All these allegations and presumptions. They are wrong … totally wrong.”

  After locating a chair, Major Browning insisted she rest for a moment. “You stay with her,” he said to me, charging off to find what level of the building we were to go.

  Standing beside Ellen I had the best vantage point so I saw her first. Rosalie burst through the door, her mother directly behind her, and a moustached man I didn’t recognize.

  Sallying past Ellen, the ex-Mrs. Grimshaw hissed some vulgar term.

  Ellen’s face turned white. She was going to let it pass but I didn’t. “You pathetic, ill-bred, pernicious woman,” I retorted, standing as tall as I could muster. It helped my cause that at that moment Major Browning returned to our side of the wall. His sardonic face questioned the ex-Mrs. Grimshaw, poised for battle.

  “Come on, Mother.” Rosalie tugged her mother’s sleeve.

  Reluctantly, the older woman withdrew.

  “What a snake,” I hissed at her ensuing spluttered curse.

  “Daphne, Daphne, don’t defend me,” Ellen pleaded. “It’s my fight, not yours.”

  “But I’m your friend. What are friends for if not to defend one another?”

  She smiled. “It’s sweet of you to say so. Isn’t it, Major?”

  The major gave me a stern frown. From it, I knew he didn’t approve of my waging war against my friend’s enemies. Did he expect me to remain neutral then?