by Celina Grace
The house seemed very big and very empty. I could hear faint sounds as I crept down the stairs past the family’s bedroom floor; the murmur of voices on the wireless, the creak of a floorboard, the slam of a wardrobe door. I held my breath and hurried faster down to the hallway and tiptoed over the black and white tiles to the kitchen stairs at the back. The grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the hallway tick-tocked dolefully as I went past, and its minute hand jerked ever onwards. I was beginning to feel nervous; not so much about whether I could be in danger or not, but whether I really was calling the inspector far too late. He was probably fast asleep. Oh well, I would try and get through to him, and if not, would leave a message for him to call me on the morrow.
I could hear raucous, rather drunken laughter and song when the telephone was finally answered at the inn. I had some difficulty making the landlady understand who it was I needed to talk to but after a lengthy pause, so lengthy as to make me wonder whether I should just give up and put the receiver down, Inspector Marks’ voice could be heard on the other end of the line.
“Joan,” he exclaimed, I hoped in pleasure rather than annoyance. “It’s late. Is everything all right?”
“Quite all right, sir, I mean…Tom.” I was glad he couldn’t see the colour of my face. It still seemed dreadfully forward to be able to call him by his first name. “It was just…I wanted to talk to you about Arabella Ashford.”
There was a moment of his silence that was audible even over the hubbub of the bar behind him. He cursed and then apologised. “Sorry, Joan. It’s just – I wish we could have this conversation somewhere quieter.”
It was my turn to apologise. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What was it that you wanted to tell me?”
I took a deep breath. “Sir – Tom – I don’t believe Arabella could have done it. I know she’s got the best motive and so forth, but from what I recall, and I’m fairly sure my memory is correct, she was never left alone on the night her mother died. Somebody was always with her.”
Silence (against a background refrain of drunken laughter and the musical tinkle of a broken glass) from Inspector Marks. I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me to say more or if he was merely taken aback at my conclusions. I pressed on. “So I don’t see how she could have struck the killing blow. To have done that, moved the body and got back into her room without anyone seeing her. I just don’t see how she could have done it.”
There was another pause and then the inspector spoke. He sounded apologetic, as if he didn’t really want to have to say what he was going to say. “Joan, she confessed.”
For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him. “What?”
“Arabella confessed. She confessed to the murder of her mother.”
Aghast, I took the receiver from my face and stared at the mouthpiece, as if it were playing tricks on me. Faintly, I could hear Inspector Marks asking “Joan? Joan, are you there?” but for a moment, it was all I could do to listen.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Arabella has confessed. That was the sentence that went around and around my head, both through the night and all the next morning. I’d lain awake for long hours, looking up at the dim outline of the ceiling light through the darkness, thinking of how wrong I’d been. I’d been so sure that it hadn’t been her. After a fitful sleep of a few hours, I’d dragged myself from my bed and threw some water at my face. I felt bone-tired. My feet dragged wearily down the stairs as I followed Ethel to the kitchen. Arabella has confessed. I’d been wrong then, so wrong.
As the morning’s work got underway, I found myself beginning to sink into those all too familiar feelings of humiliation and shame. Who was I, to think of myself as a great detective? What did I actually think I was doing? It was only due to Inspector Marks’ great kindness and forbearance that he hadn’t torn a strip off me for having the temerity to try and tell him his job. He’d arrested Arabella because of the compelling evidence against her and here was I, trying to tell him that he was wrong. It would serve me right if he never spoke to me again.
Luckily, it was bread-making day that day, and I took my frustrations out on the dough, lifting and pounding it as if it had done me an injury. Ethel looked quite alarmed at the vicious pummelling I gave the poor, inanimate lump. I wiped sweat from my brow and carried on. It was making me feel a tiny bit better.
As I slid the shaped loaves into the oven, I tried to forget the rest of the conversation I’d had with the inspector last night. But it was impossible. Arabella had confessed to the murder of her adoptive mother.
“Of course, she said she didn’t actually mean to kill her.” Inspector Marks hadn’t sounded reproachful; quite cheerful, if anything. “She told me she just wanted to make her a little ill for a while, to give Arabella time to persuade Mrs Ashford to change her mind about the will. But she was frightened that she might get into trouble for that – of course – so she decided that if everyone else came down with mushroom poisoning, or what looked like mushroom poisoning, it would be much safer for her.”
I’d been so flabbergasted, I’d barely been able to speak. “But…” I began. Then I took a deep breath. “What about the… What about the head injury?”
Now Inspector Marks had sounded more serious. “Arabella swears blindly that she didn’t hit her mother.”
“But—” I said again.
“Joan, we have to examine the possibility that Mrs Ashford really did have a fall. The evidence for the head injury was inconclusive.”
“But, the drag mark—”
The inspector’s voice softened. “Joan, you did well to spot that but it is a very small piece of evidence. It could be purely circumstantial. It’s not enough to convict a person.”
I was feeling so topsy turvy I barely recalled the only other question I had to ask him. After a moment of mental flailing, it came back to me. “But…Mrs Bartleby—”
Now Inspector Marks’ voice hardened. “She’s still being questioned about that. I’m not happy with her answers. She says she didn’t do it, but—” He had paused and then said, more softly, “Joan, get some sleep. There’s nothing more you can do tonight and you can leave it with me.”
Recalling myself to the present, I felt my cheeks burn again at that remark. Was he warning me off? Had I truly overstepped the mark? I realised I was standing stock-still in the middle of the kitchen, staring blankly in to the distance and ignoring Ethel, who was asking me about the dinner plans for the day. “What’s that?”
“Sorry, Joan. I was just wondering what we have to do for dinner. Only, it’s my afternoon off, and I didn’t know if you needed extra help—”
I shook myself mentally and tried to focus. “Oh, Ethel, don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Let me take a look at the menu and we’ll see.”
I fetched my book and opened it to the right page, running a finger down the writing there. “Hmm. Chicken and potato pie. Well, that should be simple enough. There should be a chicken in the ice-box, could you fetch it for me?”
As Ethel rummaged around in the chilly depths of the ice-box, I couldn’t stop myself thinking once more about last night. Again, I felt that flash of something – that fine needle of clarity, obscured by the thinnest layer of doubt in my mind. What had Merisham Lodge taught me that I couldn’t remember?
Ethel returned with the bird, trussed up in brown paper and string. I unwrapped it, checking whether it was still good to eat.
“It’s a bit small,” said Ethel, dubiously.
“Perhaps,” I said. “But there’s only three to dine and us lot. We’ll have to manage. I’ll bulk it out with potatoes.”
“You really need two of them,” said Ethel.
Inspiration shot up like a firework, in a shower of sparks. I shrieked, making Ethel jump. I turned to her and grabbed her up in a hug, making her jump even mo
re. “Two of them! Ethel, you wonderful creature!” I squeezed her tight and then let her go.
Released from my arms, Ethel backed away slowly, as if in the presence of someone quite mad. “Mrs – Joan?”
I started laughing, partly from relief, partly from the look on her face. “Oh, Ethel, I’m sorry. Don’t you mind me.”
“Have I done something wrong?”
“No. No, please don’t worry. Look, you go and get changed and enjoy your afternoon out. Don’t worry about a thing.”
As Ethel left the room in a hurry, still casting me nervous glances over her shoulder, I sat down at the table and stared at the chicken’s goose-pimpled skin. Of course. How could I have been so stupid, so blind? That’s what Merisham Lodge had taught me. I’d known it all the time but somehow, the penny had never quite dropped. Of course. Perhaps I was cleverer than I thought.
Moving as if my life depended on it, I wrapped up the chicken again, stowed it back in the ice-box and stood, poised for action. Think, Joan. After a moment, I realised I needed Verity. Yes, I most definitely needed her. She had skills that I didn’t, even if I now knew I was on the right track. It explained everything but I needed proof. I needed evidence before I could go back to Inspector Marks. Where was Verity?
I stood for a second, almost vibrating with energy, unsure of where to go first. Then, recalling I had just touched raw chicken, I quickly washed my hands, dried them, patted my hair back into place and set off for the stairs. I knew what I had to do but I couldn’t do it without Verity. I needed her and I needed her now, Dorothy or no Dorothy.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As luck would have it, I found her easily. She was cleaning Dorothy’s jewellery, sitting quietly at the dressing table in Dorothy’s room with her head bent down over the sparkling jewels. I observed her for a moment without her seeing me and felt a surge of affection. Dearest V. No matter what happened in our lives, I knew that I would always have her there, in spirit if not in person. It was at that moment that I realised that neither of us were orphans. Not anymore. We had each other.
She looked up then and saw me and smiled. “Hullo, Joanie. Got a few minutes to yourself for a change?”
“Not really.” I came into the room, ruminations on our friendship forgotten. I remembered what it was I wanted her to do. “Actually, I need your help.”
Verity looked alert. “Oh?”
I sat down on the bed and clasped my hands together. “I need you to search a room.”
Verity’s finely marked eyebrows shot up. “Oh?” she said again, with added emphasis.
“Mrs Bartleby’s room.”
A fine silver chain slithered from Verity’s fingers. “Now, Joan, what are you up to? What’s going on?”
I fixed her with my gaze. “I think I know who the killer is.”
Verity flinched. “Shush, Joan! Keep your voice down.”
She was right. “Sorry.” I leant forward and whispered. “I know what happened. The murders, I mean.”
Verity leant forward too, so that we were almost nose to nose. “Well, gosh, Joan. Are you going to tell me?”
“Of course. But while I do, I need you to search Mrs Bartleby’s room.”
Verity gave me a look. “You do know the police have done that already?”
I grinned at her. “But they aren’t housemaids and they don’t know all the hiding places.”
Verity laughed out loud. “True! Well, if you think it’ll help…”
“It will help. I know what happened—” I was forced into honesty. “Well, most of it. I think. But I need proof. Inspector Marks has already had a confession out of Arabella.”
That stopped Verity in her tracks as she walked to the door. “Blimey. Really?”
“Yes.” I hastened, conscious of time ticking away. “Come on. Let’s do it quickly. You can borrow my spare pair of gloves.”
Verity closed Dorothy’s bedroom door behind her and we hurried to Mrs Bartleby’s room. Once more, I was struck with the advantage, strange as it might seem, that we had by being servants. No one would question why we were in a certain place, providing we looked as though we were working. Verity had been a housemaid for years before she became a lady’s maid. What she didn’t know about secret hiding places wasn’t worth knowing.
Once we were in the room, I grabbed up a stack of linen from the wardrobe, just to add credence to my being there. Of course, any servant would have asked why the cook was doing the housekeeping, but I didn’t think it would occur to any of the gentry.
Verity began to search the room while I stood guard at the door. It was a very feminine room, rather overblown in decoration, with heavy emphasis on floral patterns. Nothing like as stylish as Dorothy’s room was back in London.
As I watched Verity get on her hands and knees to feel about under the bed, I began to feel something very like a niggle of anxiety. Quite apart from being here in this room, I was beginning to be aware of a rising uneasiness. If I was right in my theory (and I thought I was), then why had Arabella confessed? Why now, after Constance Bartleby was already dead? That part didn’t make sense at all.
Verity was almost nose to nose with the floorboards now. I knew that the police would have thought of searching under and even within the mattress, but then the police didn’t know that most bedrooms had an easily lifted piece of floorboard. That was what Verity was looking for now – I knew it without asking her.
“Help me get this rug up, Joan,” she asked, beginning to roll the heavy Persian rug back from the floor. I bent to assist her.
Once we moved it, Verity resumed her close search and gave a cry of triumph. “There we are, Joan! What did I tell you?” Actually, she hadn’t told me anything but it didn’t matter. I got her meaning. She got up and retrieved a nail file from a pot on the dressing table, knelt down again and inserted the file. Slowly, she levered up the piece of floorboard until it came free entirely.
Breathless with anticipation, I joined her in kneeling on the floor and peered into the space under the floorboards. It was empty.
“Oh,” I said, disappointment evident in my tone.
Verity gave me a wink. “Don’t worry, Joan. This is only the first hiding place. Even if the police had found this – which I don’t believe they did– they wouldn’t have known where to look for the actual hiding place.” While she was speaking, she leant down and groped with her arm in the dusty space beneath the floorboard. “Should be – just about – ah!” A second later, she withdrew her arm with a small wooden box clasped in her gloved hand.
I clasped my own hands together in excitement, heedless of the fact that my one spare pair of white gloves were now the colour of dust. “Verity, you are a miracle worker.”
“It might be nothing,” Verity warned. “But, well, let’s just say I’ve been asked to hide some, erm, interesting things in this kind of hidey hole.”
I nearly asked, “For Dorothy?” but decided against it. Besides, in Dorothy’s case, I could imagine the kind of things that were hidden, poor woman. Bottles and hip flasks, probably.
I let Verity open the box because she was the only one wearing gloves. It was a small, nondescript box and, when the lid was opened, it seemed to contain only one object, a folded piece of paper. Disappointment struck me anew. The paper wasn’t even thick enough to be a folded letter. Verity lifted it carefully and opened it up.
As she read it, a gleam of light glinting from something else in the box caught my eye. I peered closer. I had just realised that it was a gold ring when Verity gasped.
“What is it?” I asked, heart leaping up into my throat.
She said nothing but held the unfolded paper in front of my eyes so I could see for myself. I saw what was written on it and realised that I had been quite wrong – about almost everything. I gulped.
Verity’s wide eyes met mine. “This changes everything,” she said quietly.
“Yes. It does.”
There was much we had to do but for a moment, all we could do was sit there by the dark little hole in the floorboards, staring at the wavering sheet of paper in Verity’s faintly shaking fingers.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Thank you all for joining me here this evening,” Inspector Marks said. He stood by the fireplace, the flickering flames and glowing coals behind him casting a reddish glow on the back of his black suit trousers. He seemed genial, relaxed, and I wondered how much of an act this was, designed to put us all at ease before springing his trap.
The drawing room seemed very full; no wonder, as there were so many people gathered there. Dorothy and Michael sat together on one of the sofas. Raymond sat opposite them in the brown leather armchair. Mrs. Weston, Ethel and I stood in a row over by the wall, our hands folded respectfully in front of us. Andrew stood to attention over by the door, with Doctor Goodfried beside him. Verity stood behind the sofa on which Dorothy and Michael sat. She kept catching my eye and managing to convey what she was thinking without uttering a word or even moving a muscle on her face. She was wearing black tonight. It felt appropriate.
Inspector Marks looked at each of us in turn, in silence, and then began speaking again. “There is one more person who’ll be joining us. I’ll wait until they arrive before I begin.”
A ripple of interest flowed about the room. Who could he mean? Even as Dorothy bent to murmur in Michael’s ear, I could hear the sound of a car engine outside and the crunch of tyres on the gravel driveway.
A few minutes later, there was a polite knock on the door. It opened when Inspector Marks bade whoever it was to come in. Constable Palmer came in first and following him was somebody nobody had expected to see – Arabella Ashford.
