“If your mother had lived, would she have accepted Teddy Grimshaw?”
“Who knows,” she rolled her eyes, “but she would have appreciated his millions. Her father was a duke; she knew how important money is to families like us.”
Since she wanted to talk, I couldn’t help myself. “Ellen, what happened the night your mother died? I know you wrote me of it, that night, how horrid it was, and how scared you were…”
“Scared?” She seemed surprised. “I think I was shocked more than anything. Mother was always fastidious with her medicines. The doctor prescribed her laudanum to help her sleep. She always insisted on mixing it herself.”
“Who found her?”
“Edith, her maid.”
“And you called for the doctor?”
“Yes … but he was late in coming. In those days doctors were scarce. He looked Mother over, inspected the bottle, and concluded she had taken a fatal dosage.”
“What was her mood like the previous day?”
“The same. Grumpy. She yelled at Charlotte for making too much noise. Ordered poor Edith around; nothing unusual.”
“Why didn’t you insist on an investigation?”
Meeting my candid gaze, she lifted her shoulders. “Frankly, I was relieved she died. I may sound heartless but she was an unlovable woman. The only one she ever cared for was Xavier and when he died, the world stopped for her. Maybe she decided to end her life that night and join him. I don’t know. She left no note.”
I nodded, and suggested we better have breakfast before we missed out. “You are aware,” I said on the way in, “that some people still think your mother was murdered. That it was an odd death?”
Her eyes arrested mine. “Who have you been talking to?”
I didn’t want to betray Mary Haines so I made up a story of overhearing maids talk.
“Servants,” Ellen dismissed, “they’re always fanciful. When Teddy died, they were the first to scream murder! Murder. I don’t think he was murdered now. It’s curious. I have a strong feeling about it.”
I waited for her to explain, but since Alicia and Charlotte were in the breakfast room, the conversation changed.
I buttered my toast and ate it with a smile; however, the gnarly face of Mary Haines rose up to haunt me. It’s death. Death at Thornleigh.
And things come in threes …
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“There’s a shipbuilder’s family in Polruan. I read about them in the evening post.”
“Great. I’ll make a trip there. I might visit Angela, too … she’s at our house in Fowey. That is, if I have time. I might get sidetracked.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Tommy’s voice was full of tender humor.
Receiving a phone call from the major had seen me climb down from my self-appointed office in the library in record time. Opting to take the call in the study instead of the main hall, I arrived, naturally, a little breathless.
“How many pages have you written this week?”
I gulped down a swallow. “Not many, but I did finish a chapter and a few character sketches.” I have been too busy playing the role of inspector. “How’s London? Work? Are you able to come to the ball?”
He breathed a long sigh. “London is moyenne; work even more moyenne, and yes, I can make it to the ball. The Pendarrons are in town, by the way. I’ve seen them at several places.”
“So you’ve been busy working and going to parties?” I summed up, missing him beyond words and wishing I was there. “What else is new?”
“In fact, I do have a piece of news you will find interesting. Jack and Rosalie have run away together. Or so it’s assumed.”
“Run away?” I echoed, dumbfounded. “I thought she’d palmed him off?”
“I don’t know about that but young Grimshaw is in the hot seat. He’s been selling information to Salinghurst through Rutland. It appears he’s been working for the other side for some time.”
I was shocked. “Against his own cousin and against his own shares?”
“He’s not interested in the shares. He wants the easy way: no work. I spoke to Fairchild. He’s kept Grimshaw on a tight leash but not tight enough, it seems.”
“What will Dean do?”
“Oh, he’s already paid him out. They had a huge row. Jack left town with a black eye.”
“And Rosalie went with him? Why?”
* * *
I couldn’t wait to let Ellen know. This time of day she was usually in the morning room so I hurried up there, skidding to an abrupt halt when I heard raised voices.
“… what else do you expect me to say?”
Ellen’s voice.
“I had … maybe I was stupid.”
Harry. Harry?
“My husband is not dead a year. I can’t even think of remarrying yet.”
“Did you ever love me, Ellen? I have to know … did you ever?”
“Love you? Harry, you know I love you. But not in the way you now say you’d like. I love you like a brother. You’ve been a brother to me in every way and I am so grateful—”
“Grateful? I don’t want your gratitude.”
Thumping footsteps ensued and I slid into the nearest room before Harry sauntered past, a grim look on his face.
When I went to Ellen, she was seated at her desk, holding her face in her hands. “Oh, Daphne … it’s you. Thank goodness, it’s you. You will never guess what just happened—”
I approached her. “I heard a little. Harry fell in love with you. Is that so extraordinary? You’ve done everything together for years.”
“I know,” she cried. “He was there at Charlotte’s birth … he was there when my parents died … he was there when I found Teddy again. He’s always helped me but have I returned the favor? I never once thought our friendship would be marred this way … I thought, I thought he thought of me, too, like a sister. He has no family. He often joked we were a family and now I think of it, he meant not in the brotherly way. He’s been waiting all these years. Why didn’t he speak up when Teddy came back into my life?”
I sat down. Having witnessed the anguish in Harry’s voice and seeing the forlorn look on his face gave me some kind of idea. “Because he knew you were still holding a candle for Teddy all these years. If he had spoken to you then, you would have ignored him. He obviously put such feelings aside but when Teddy died and he sees you now alone and vulnerable, naturally he thought…”
“He’d just step into Teddy’s empty shoes,” Ellen finished miserably.
I saw the conflict in her face. She worried over losing Harry. “What will he do?”
“I shall try and talk to him later. He loves Thornleigh. I can’t imagine he’d give the place up because we had a row.”
“Speaking of rows, I have some news for you.”
Her mouth gaped open when I told her of the major’s news. “I’m not surprised. Jack’s a chameleon. Good on Dean. He’s well rid of him.”
“He’s fled in disgrace … and he’s taken Rosalie with him.”
“Willingly or unwillingly?”
“Nobody knows but they are both missing. Unless she is elsewhere? But everyone in London thinks she’s with Jack.”
“Where can they be going? France? The only money they have is—” She broke off, suddenly afraid. “They wouldn’t come here, would they?”
“And beg charity?”
“Not charity, but a threat. Don’t you see? Since that woman’s death, the notes have stopped. She must have been sending them and she sent the chocolates and she tried to shoot me and her daughter means to follow suit.”
“But how can they possibly harm you? You are protected here.”
“Oh.” She turned very pale. “Are they able to track them? I’d feel so much better knowing they went to a different country. I can’t explain it. It’s an ill-feeling I have, a premonition.”
I laid my hand on her shoulder. If I were in her shoes, I’d probably feel the same. When one’s security
is threatened, desperation and fear trouble the mind. There’s no antidote for it. I didn’t want to say that, of course; all I could do was suggest she rehire the man the major recommended.
“Yes, I’ll do that. You were right. It was silly of me to let him go. I don’t know what I was thinking…”
I was thinking back, too, to the various notes I’d seen, and to the poisoned chocolates. With Cynthia Grimshaw dead, we’d never learn the truth unless Rosalie knew of it. But even if she knew what her mother had been doing, she’d not confess to it.
Unless there was some way of trapping the truth out of her. Returning to the library, I opened a new page of my notebook and wrote the name Rosalie. The R had a nice slant to it. I liked names beginning with R.
So I wrote R and a question.
R. What is your secret?
* * *
“Miss du Maurier? May I have a word?”
“Yes, Inspector. Nice to see you. And Sergeant Heath? Good to see you, too.”
The young sergeant grinned while shaking my hand. “It’s always a pleasure to visit Thornleigh with such charming guests in residence.”
Inspector James frowned at this comment, looking over his sergeant as if he’d committed a cardinal sin.
“Miss du Maurier, shall we take a walk? Heath, why don’t you go and inform the staff to keep watch. Start with the cook.”
The sergeant’s grin widened. “Excellent, sir. Will do so, sir.”
“He’s a good lad,” the inspector said, watching him go. “He’s been pressing me to return here so when I received Lady Ellen’s call late yesterday afternoon, I thought a day out of the office.”
Strolling through the lovely gardens, I remarked on the fine day.
“Fine, yes. But what lies beneath, Miss Daphne?” He paused, and glanced up at the huge mansion, taking in every detail with his shrewd eyes. “How is your shoulder? Healing well?”
“I hardly feel it anymore. The slight wince here and there.”
Taking out his leaf pad, he flicked through it. “Reviewing one’s notes is quite revealing, don’t you agree?”
I watched him with great interest. “What are you looking for?”
“An inconsistency. Maybe small, maybe great. Something is wrong with this whole case. Or I should say cases. For I have two dead bodies. Are they linked? Ah,” he paused, squinting in the morning glare to read his scribble, “here it is. Lady Ellen. She failed to mention the other death threats until later. Why do you think she’d do this when her daughter is at risk?”
“Because her fiancé Teddy Grimshaw asked it of her. After he died, that’s when she came forward about them.”
“But there’s something in the silence. It’s telling me something. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Can you help me out, Miss Daphne?”
“Me?” A half laugh escaped my lips. “I’m no inspector!”
“But you are perceptive and you are a friend of Lady Ellen. You are here. You have seen and heard things. You, I think, have the key to this riddle.”
“Me?” I echoed again.
His frank gaze scrutinized me. “Who do you think did these murders?”
I was taken aback by his brutality. “I-I, er, don’t know.”
“You have an idea then? What is it?”
“They are not linked. There are two killers out there.”
“What makes you think so?”
“A simple deduction of character and motivation, sir.”
“It seems a woman killed Cynthia and the same woman could have killed her husband on her wedding day: your friend, Ellen Hamilton.”
“No.” I put my hand up to stop him. “No, it’s not possible.”
“But everything is possible, Miss du Maurier, particularly when an estate as grand as this one is at the center of it.”
Thornleigh. I glanced over the house, feeling a strong connection to it. “I don’t think it’s fair, Inspector, to blame a house for these deaths. Ellen didn’t do it; I’d bet my life on it.”
“What do you think happened then?”
“I think Teddy Grimshaw has taken his secret to his grave. I think he had a secret. And that secret explains why he didn’t involve the police in the death threats. He didn’t want an investigation which might lead back to him and his business dealings.”
“You are talking of unscrupulous business dealings?”
“It’s only a guess. And I guessed it because after finding Ellen and Charlotte, it doesn’t stand to reason that he’d willingly jeopardize them unless he stood to lose everything.”
“So you think he killed himself?”
“Yes. Yes, I think I do.”
“Have you told his widow this theory of yours?”
“Certainly not. It would only upset her.”
“Then let me say my theory now. The moment Ellen discovered Teddy Grimshaw was in town, she made a plan to catch him. Do you know that year she approached two estate sellers? Oh yes, it’s true. She didn’t have the money to keep Thornleigh and as a matter of estate law, she couldn’t sell off one acre or sell one painting. It was either keep it whole or sell it whole.”
I stared at him, not believing a word. Ellen would have told me if things were so bad. Surely. “If it’s true, you’re only accusing her of marrying him for money.”
“Money supplies motivation to marry as it does to kill. It is simple. She married him for his money and then she killed him on the day of his wedding. She knew of his heart condition. She slipped the hemlock into his wine and he died of a heart attack that very night, leaving her a very rich widow.”
“You’re missing a vital clue, Inspector. Such may have been that way if a certain emotion wasn’t involved.”
“What emotion?”
I paused. “Love. Ellen has always loved Teddy which is why she never married. Admittedly, when she read the notice of his being in London, she naturally looked him up. He needed to know he had another daughter, a daughter he knew nothing about because Ellen’s letters never reached him.”
“It is clear then. She married him for revenge. Steal his money and kill him.”
“Then why make plans? Why buy three tickets on a cruise ship for America if she planned to kill him?”
“Such plans are merely a deterrent, an alibi. She planned it cleverly. Fill the house with wedding guests. Nobody suspecting the bride…”
“Ellen wasn’t alone once during those twenty-four hours.” As I said the fact, I recalled her ashen face when she admitted to omitting that she was at the park when Cynthia Grimshaw was killed.
Leafing through his notepad again, he had to concede the fact.
“You have to agree that somebody is trying to kill Ellen. I was wearing her coat. That same somebody tried to poison her. For a killer, she’s very vulnerable.”
“Perhaps somebody knows she is guilty and is blackmailing her?”
I smiled. We were at loggerheads, I on one side of the fence and he on the other. “Or maybe somebody wants the police to think she is guilty in order to miss the real killer?”
“Humph.” On seeing his sergeant approaching, he offered his hand. “You have an interesting mind, Miss Daphne.”
“Thank you, Inspector.” I accepted his handshake. “I enjoyed our repartee, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“There’s post for you, miss. On the tray in the hall.”
“Thank you, Olivia. Is Nelly in?”
“Yes, miss. But she’s due to leave in half an hour.”
“I’d better catch her then.”
Slipping the letters in my skirt pocket, I hastened down to the kitchen where a scrumptious evening meal baked away. “Oh Nelly, it smells wonderful.”
“It’s new-season lamb,” she said proudly, removing her apron.
“But it’s how you’ve cooked it.”
“Slow,” she affirmed, “and I do a nice mix of rosemary from the garden, mint, and basil for sweetness. I also rub a little honey and salt on the meat and add garlic to th
e sauce.”
“But no hemlock?” I joked, savoring the delicious aromas.
“Humph! Poisons don’t come from my kitchen, I’ll hav’ ye know. That’s what I keep tellin’ that nice young sergeant. He was here today. Came to see me special-like.”
“Oh?” I leaned across the bench, interested. “What did he ask you?”
“About that day again. He said something was botherin’ him. It were the same thing that you asked me about, that missing glass? I thought about what you said the last time and it’s a bit of a blur since it were a crazy day, the craziest of my time, but I remember the maid Olivia nearly tippin’ over a tray. I’ve said to her again and again to be careful, ’specially with the crystal glasses.”
“Crystal glasses.” I tapped my lip, deep in thought. “So there was one empty glass returned from Mr. Grimshaw’s room?”
“Yes,” Nelly confirmed. “Olivia owned up to it. She didn’t tell me at first for she thought she’d get in trouble. Ridiculous child! The man weren’t even dead yet, and I’d be takin’ a spoon to her if she didn’t clear the dishes from the rooms.”
I pieced all this information together, leaving Nelly to her work. Going back to the crime scene, Teddy’s room, I envisaged the elements of that day. Teddy dressed in his wedding attire, jacket-less, pouring himself a glass before the ceremony. Since no poison had been found in any of the decanters at the time, the hemlock must have been dropped in the glass between when he poured it and when he drank it.
Since everybody denied going to Mr. Grimshaw’s room that afternoon, other than Olivia the maid who came later to clear any dishes, how did the poison get into Teddy Grimshaw’s glass?
Someone had gone there.
Someone had gone there and lied about it.
The question remained:
Who?
* * *
I carried my letters to my room.
The larger package postmarked London contained all my correspondence with Ellen, neatly stacked and tied with red ribbons. Putting that one aside, I eagerly opened the other.
The Villa of Death: A Mystery Featuring Daphne du Maurier (Daphne du Maurier Mysteries) Page 20
