The Stately Home Murder

by Catherine Aird

  “I know.”

  “They were there.”

  “Damn.”

  “Sloan, I trust those boys. They’re good lads for all that I shout at them.”

  “Quite, but that doesn’t help, does it?” It might hinder, but Sloan didn’t say so.

  “They must find out some other way,” insisted Harpe.

  “How?” said Sloan automatically.

  In a case like this it was not enough just to prove—or have events prove for you—that someone was guiltless. Oh, it might be all right in a court of law … what was it called in England? The accusatorial system: Has this person been proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt to have committed whatever it was you were accusing him of?

  Or her?

  But as far as he, Sloan, was concerned, give him the other approach—the Continental one—any day of the week.

  The inquisitorial outlook.

  Who committed the crime? Just as with Inspector Harpe’s traffic division crews, so it was here at Ornum now. Events had proved that William Murton was not likely to have been guilty of the murder of Osborne Meredith, but those same events had not revealed the true sequence of events.

  Yet.

  “How,” he repeated. “Someone must have told the garage where to go. Someone must have been telling them each time or they couldn’t have been getting there so quickly.”

  “I know,” mourned Harpe. “I’ve done my best. I’ve been reading up all those incidents …”

  Incidents was a good word.

  Even in his present hurry Sloan could appreciate it. It covered everything from a flying bomb to an allegation of conduct unbecoming to a police officer and a … with an effort he brought his mind back to what Happy Harry was saying.

  Before he mixed his metaphors.

  “And one thing struck me,” went on Harpe, “as common to them all. Until now.”

  “Oh?” Only long training kept Sloan’s ear to the telephone. He wanted so badly to throw it down and bring his mind back to Ornum.

  “Each time the breakdown van got on to one of those accident jobs so mysteriously …”

  “Yes?”

  “It was out of working hours. Take last night, for instance, at Tappett’s Corner …”

  “But not today surely,” said Sloan. “Today’s Monday. Isn’t it?”

  He wouldn’t have been unbearably surprised to learn that they had run over into Tuesday—Sunday seemed so long ago.

  “That’s right. Today spoils it.”

  “It’ll have to wait,” said Sloan pointedly. He would ring off in a minute and pretend afterwards that he’d lost the connection.

  “I’ll have to tell the Old Man,” said Harpe unhappily.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You don’t think it’ll stop him screaming for help over your business?”

  “He’s probably doing it already,” said Sloan.

  Charles Purvis took him along to the long gallery as soon as he put the telephone down.

  “I’d clean forgotten about them,” admitted the steward. “I never gave them another thought.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They call themselves the Young Masters Art Society and they’re doing a European picture tour taking in as many …”

  “Old Masters?”

  “That’s right. As many Old Masters as they can. They’ve already done one trip doing the public collections, galleries, and so forth.”

  “It’s not the same,” said Sloan promptly. If he had learned anything from his twenty-four hours in Ornum House it was that.

  “No,” agreed Charles Purvis. “That’s what they say.”

  They went back up the stairs, Constable Crosby two paces behind them.

  “I was just taking them round the long gallery,” went on Purvis, “telling them what little I did know about the pictures—it’s not very much actually because that’s not my line. I’d told them about Mr. Meredith, though, and explained that they’d have to make do with me when we got round to the Holbein.”

  “Halfway down on the right-hand wall in a bad light?”

  “That’s right. It doesn’t do to put your best picture in full sunlight.” Charles Purvis might not know as much about the paintings as Osborne Meredith, but he had been trained in how to care for them. “You keep it away from daylight as much as you can. Certain sorts of artificial lights are better …”

  Inspector Sloan halted suddenly on the staircase.

  Constable Crosby didn’t and all but cannoned into him from behind and below.

  “Miss Cleepe.” cried Sloan, bringing his hand down on the banister in a great smack. “She told us this morning …”

  “Miss Cleepe?” Purvis merely looked bewildered. “Miss Cleepe didn’t tell us anything.”

  “A walloping great clue,” declared Sloan solemnly, “and we none of us spotted it. Did we?”

  “No, sir,” said Constable Crosby.

  “No, Inspector,” said Purvis wonderingly. “Miss Cleepe? Are you sure you mean Miss Cleepe?”

  “Miss Cleepe. Crosby, it’s in your book what she said.”

  Crosby obediently turned back the pages in his notebook, licking his thumb as he did so. “Would it be the bit about the Holbein, sir?”

  “Of course it’s about the Holbein,” snapped Sloan testily. “Can’t you see, Crosby, that all of this is about the Holbein? It always has been. Right from the very beginning, only we didn’t know.”

  “No, sir”—staidly. Crosby ran his finger down the page. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “They were talking about the long gallery being rather dark,” said Sloan, “and then Miss Cleepe said something about—”

  “I’ve got it, sir. Here. It was after that bit about the ghost. Miss Cleepe said, ‘It’s such a long, narrow room, and the bulb in its own little light is broken. Dillow’s getting another for me.’”

  “The light over the picture was broken,” breathed Purvis. “Of course.”

  “I should have spotted that,” said Sloan. “It was a break with normality and so it was significant.”

  “There is this special light over the picture,” agreed Purvis. “It’s meant to show it up without injuring it. It doesn’t get a lot of light otherwise.”

  Constable Crosby made a credible attempt at imitating the refined tones of Mrs. Mompson by raising his voice to an affected squeak and reading from his notebook, “‘It’s practically in the half dark in the Long Gallery where it is. Halfway from each window and not very good windows at that.’”

  Sloan said, “Are you feeling all right, Crosby?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Charles Purvis said slowly, “Someone put a broken light bulb in so people shouldn’t get a good view of the picture.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Most people wouldn’t know the difference between the one that’s hanging there and the real thing. I wouldn’t for one—you’d have to be a real expert.”

  “We aren’t concerned about most people,” said Sloan, “are we? We’re concerned with one person.”

  “Osborne Meredith.”

  “Precisely.”

  “The real expert,” agreed Purvis. “The only person who would know.”

  “Other than The Young Masters,” said Sloan softly.

  “You mean they come into this, too?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Charles Purvis grasped the balustrade of the staircase. “This is all getting very complicated, Inspector.”

  “On the contrary,” said Sloan. “It’s getting simpler and simpler all the time. I now know what Mr. Hamilton should be looking for in the muniments room. Crosby …”

  “Sir?”

  “Assemble everyone in the private apartments, please, while I see The Young Masters and the archivist.”

  Though it was teatime there was nothing of the drawing-room tea party about the gathering in the private apartments now. True, people were drinking tea, bu
t they were drinking it thirstily because they needed it. They were not eating at all because they were not hungry.

  The only person, in fact, to touch the food, noted Sloan, had been Cousin Gertrude. With her, the shock over William Murton’s death had taken a different form. She had forgotten to take off the gardening apron in which she had been doing the flowers. A pair of scissors poked out of the apron pocket and a piece of twine drooled down the front.

  William Murton’s death had driven the Countess to even greater heights of absentmindedness. She was pouring tea as if her life depended on it, but the hand that held the teapot shook so much that as much tea went in the saucer as in the cup. Dillow made one or two deft attempts to field the wavering stream, but in the end he went away for more hot water and clean saucers.

  Mr. Adrian Cossington was very much taking a back seat, but Laura Cremond had been badly affected by the news. She was sitting—unusually docile—beside Miles on a small chiffonier. Her face had a pinched, frightened look and she never took her eyes off Inspector Sloan’s face.

  He and Crosby were seated near the door. If he leaned a fraction to his right, Sloan could see through the window and down to the main door of the house. There were two figures in blue standing where once footmen in powder had waited—only these two figures were policeman and their different duty was to let no one pass. There were other figures, too, at all the other exits from Ornum House, but only Sloan and Crosby knew this.

  Mr. Ames had gone across to the church, otherwise everyone was in the house.

  Lady Eleanor looked as if she had been crying and Lord Henry as if his hand was hurting him. Dillow came back with more hot water for the Countess.

  “I knew someone was going to die what with the Judge walking and everything,” said Cousin Gertrude gruffly. “Didn’t think it would be William though.”

  “But why did it have to be William?” asked Lady Eleanor, a husky catch in her voice. “I know he was difficult and odd, but he wouldn’t have really harmed anyone …”

  Inspector Sloan shuffled his notes. “I think, your Ladyship, that he came up to the house on Friday evening.”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “Nobody saw him.”

  “Well, then, how do you know …”

  “I don’t know,” said Sloan, “but I think. I think he came up quietly round about the time you were all dressing for dinner.”

  “Nobody much about then,” grunted the Earl.

  “Exactly. It’s the one time when you could all be expected to be in your rooms.” He paused significantly. “A fact, incidentally, also appreciated by Osborne Meredith’s murderer.”

  There was total silence in the room. The Countess stopped pouring tea and the silver teapot hovered, precariously suspended over a cup. Dillow was going to be lucky to escape scalding.

  “But why did he come up like that in the first place?” Lord Henry wanted to know. “He was always welcome, you know. He wasn’t as bad a chap as you might think from talking to him. Didn’t do himself justice.”

  “He might,” said Sloan cautiously, “have been in the habit—the bad habit—of coming up here without any of you knowing.”

  The Earl cleared his throat. “Very true, Inspector. I think he did. Suspected it myself before now.”

  “Harry!” That was the Countess. “You never told me.”

  “No need, my dear. As Eleanor says, he was quite harmless.”

  “But what did he do here?”

  “Nothing, probably. Just have a look round.”

  “And where did he go?”

  The Earl gave his mustache a tug. “I expect the inspector has guessed.”

  Sloan nodded. “I think so, my lord. I think William Murton was in the habit—the bad habit—of slipping up into the room behind the peephole.”

  “To see what he could see,” said Lord Henry slowly.

  Sloan turned. “Yes, my lord. Somebody watched me from there this morning, but when I got up to the room they’d gone.”

  “Not William surely?”

  “No,” said Sloan. “That was somebody else watching me.” Now he knew who that had been, too. There had been two people in the vicinity to choose from.

  “William saw something on Friday,” concluded Lady Eleanor shakily.

  “Something nasty,” put in Cousin Gertrude, winding twine round her finger.

  “Something very nasty,” agreed Sloan. “I think he saw someone carrying the body of Osborne Meredith across the great hall to the armory staircase.”

  “How very clever,” observed the Countess inconsequentially.

  Her husband turned. “Clever, m’dear?”

  “To choose the only time when we would none of us be about.” She smiled sweetly. “That means it must be someone who knows us really well, doesn’t it?”

  Perhaps, thought Sloan, one could redefine an aristocrat as a man or woman to whom a fact held no terror.

  “I think,” murmured the Earl, “we are already agreed on that.”

  “It stands to reason anyway,” said Cousin Gertrude, that firmly entrenched spinster, who, having long ago abandoned feeling, was left only with logic.

  Over on the chiffonier Laura Cremond stirred. “I don’t know how you can all just sit here without knowing.”

  “Difficult, what?” agreed Miles.

  “Perhaps,” said Lord Henry acutely, “the inspector wants a little suspense.”

  What, in fact, Sloan was waiting for was a message from the county archivist, Mr. Robert Hamilton.

  He got it quite soon.

  P.C. Bloggs knocked on the door and handed him a note.

  It was all he needed now.

  18

  Whether Sloan wanted any extra suspense or not he got it with the arrival at the door of the private apartments a moment or two later of Charles Purvis and a large genial man who introduced himself as Fortescue.

  “Cromwell T. Fortescue of the Young Masters Art Society,” he said, “visiting your house by courtesy of Earl Ornum to see your beautiful pictures.”

  The Countess seized another cup and began to pour wildly.

  Charles Purvis followed him in and, noticed Sloan, maneuvered himself into a position exactly opposite Lady Eleanor. It was obvious that he had long ago learned the lesson of the lovelorn, that you can sit opposite someone without seeming to stare whereas if you sit beside them you have to keep turning your head.

  Which is noticeable.

  The Earl grunted, “You’ve told him about Meredith, have you, Purvis?”

  “Indeed, he has, milord,” responded Mr. Fortescue before Purvis could speak. “I am deeply sorry. The whole of our society would wish to be associated with these sentiments, I know.”

  “A message has arrived from Miss Meredith, too,” said Charles Purvis. “She’s seen an early edition of an evening paper and she’s coming back straightaway.”

  “Poor dear,” said the Countess. “Charles, will you meet her at the station and see that she doesn’t need anything? She might like to come up here for the night.”

  Sloan doubted it, but did not say so. In Miss Meredith’s position he’d have opted for his own little house, where you could at least count the rooms.

  “We’ll have to see about the vault, too,” said the Earl.

  Death might be the great leveller, noted Sloan silently, but William Murton was wholly family now.

  Cromwell T. Fortescue wasn’t used to being overlooked. He said loudly and clearly, “We’re sorry to have arrived at a time like this, my lord …”

  The Earl inclined his head.

  “And also to be the bearers of such sad news, but Cyrus Phillimore is quite sure of his facts.”

  “More bad news?” said Laura Cremond faintly. “I don’t believe it. There can’t be any more.”

  “It may not be news, of course,” said Fortescue more tentatively, “but I hardly think the Earl here would subscribe to a deception.”

  “Certainly not,” said Adrian Cossington, the solic
itor, upon the instant, “and should you be inferring this …”

  “What,” asked the Earl of Ornum mildly, “is Mr. Fortescue trying to tell us?”

  “Among your paintings, Earl,” said Mr. Fortescue, “you have a painting said to be by Hans Holbein the Younger.”

  “We have.”

  “It’s one of the lesser-known ones because it’s been here since he painted it. One owner, you might say.”

  “That is so. My ancestor, the Judge, had it painted in 1532, the year before … before the family tragedy. Holbein was in London then … just beginning to make his name.”

  “Cyrus Phillimore agrees with all that,” said Fortescue. “The only thing he doesn’t agree with is that Holbein painted this particular picture. He says it’s a fake.” Dillow pressed a cup and saucer into his hand and the courtly Mr. Fortescue bowed in the direction of the Countess. “I guess it’s not the sort of news that any of you wanted to hear …”

  The Countess hadn’t yet remembered to put the teapot back on the tray, but it didn’t stop her talking.

  “Tell me, Mr. Fortescue, how long hasn’t it been a Holbein?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you that, Countess. Only that Cyrus Phillimore says …”

  Lord Henry said quietly, “Not very long, Mother.” He turned slightly. “That right, Inspector?”

  “Yes, my lord. Not very long.”

  “Friday?” suggested Lord Henry.

  “Very possibly, my lord.”

  “Friday afternoon perhaps …”

  “Perhaps, my lord.”

  “Ossy’s discovery!” cried Lady Eleanor. “That must have been what Ossy discovered! That the Holbein was a fake.”

  “We think so, your Ladyship.”

  The Countess of Ornum lowered the teapot onto the large silver tray with a clatter. “You mean the picture was actually changed over on Friday afternoon?”

  “Yes, your Ladyship.”

  “And that little Mr. Meredith knew about the change?”

  “We think he spotted it by accident.”

  Cromwell T. Fortescue began, “Cyrus Phillimore says it’s a very good fake …”

  Nobody took any notice of him.

  “And having spotted it,” said Lord Henry, “he dashed to the telephone to ring up his pal the vicar to ask him to pop along and confirm his worst suspicions.”