Murder on the Cliffs

by Joanna Challis

  At half past two, a note arrived.

  Dear Miss du Maurier,

  I apologize for neglecting to pick you up at ten this

  morning. An unexpected visitor is to blame.

  Perhaps we may postpone our excursion for another day?

  David Hartley

  “He’s a very nice hand, that Davie boy.”

  Ewe couldn’t resist reading the note a dozen times, flicking it thoughtfully across her lips. “An unexpected visitor . . . to do with the murder?”

  “It’s not a murder now,” I reminded. “We’re to believe it was an accident.”

  “Oh, defendin’ the Hartleys already, are ye? Caution, my dear. Caution. Caution never killed anyone.”

  “Accidents do happen. You can’t out- rule the fact.”

  “Humph!” Ewe huffed, and I asked her what she knew of Rebecca Shaw.

  “Becky Shaw,” Ewe mused. “Married Michael Shaw. A fine man, good worker. She were a nurse up at the house before Jenny Pollock came along.”

  “She warned me to be careful, and that the Hartleys were big trouble.”

  Ewe clicked her tongue. “Same thing I said. But you can’t help yeself.”

  “Nor can you,” I retorted. “We both want to know what really happened to her. It’s natural. Well, now that this morning’s mystery is solved, I’m off. I’ll go to the abbey anyway, with or without David Hartley. See you later.”

  I departed with a mischievous grimace; Ewe’s stern demeanor monitored my escape into the woods. I knew I should heed her advice. She knew this village and the Hartleys better than I and uttered warnings for my benefit. Both of us understood the dangers of becoming too involved and too close to this momentous scandal.

  I paused to think about telephoning my father, but the abbey beckoned and the lost scrolls of Charlemagne won my affections.

  I found it difficult to concentrate, working around Sister Agatha and Sister Sonya in their frustrated attempts to put the papers in order. Upon watching them, I offered a few suggestions, which were overheard by Abbess Dorcas Quinlain.

  “Are you volunteering to help, Miss du Maurier? If so, I am sure Sister Agatha and Sister Sonya would appreciate it.”

  Sister Agatha, so unlike her refined cousin Perony Osborn, wiped her hand across her forehead. “Oh, yes, please! Can’t make any sense of half of ’em!”

  Sister Sonya responded affirmatively to the abbess, nodding, relieved to have me as their guide.

  I queried the abbess about her refusal to employ a proper researcher.

  “Oh, Lord David said he’d do it. He enjoys the work, like you do.”

  “He was supposed to give me a private tour today,” I murmured, “but something unexpected came up. A visitor.”

  “Then you’ve not heard?”

  To my surprise, the abbess shepherded me into her office and closed the door.

  “Heard what?”

  “The cause of Victoria’s death. It’s poison. Could change the verdict.”

  I noted her emphasis on “could.”

  “How do you know?”

  She sighed. “Lord David told me himself. He telephoned to say you were coming and to assist you in his absence.”

  I wanted to know the depth of their relationship. “You are a friend of his?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘friend,’ exactly. We do share a love for the abbey, the preservation of its culture and history, and Lord David has been very generous . . . far more generous than his father ever was.”

  “You didn’t like his father?”

  “Like? What curious terms you use, child. That man was a beast.”

  “But poison? Poison?” My inquisitive question echoed through the silence of the room. “What kind of poison, do you know?”

  The abbess shrugged. “Something common called ricin.”

  Perhaps Victoria occasionally dabbled in some form of drugs? Perhaps she took sleeping powders, too? How did one differentiate between drugs and powders?

  “Surely this will change everything— imagine how the mother will feel. Poison! Even if it was an accident.”

  “Unlikely,” I heard myself muttering under my breath while the abbess looked at me in stony silence. “Do you believe Sir Edward will continue his investigation?”

  “He’ll have to. One must follow the expected protocol.”

  I thought I better telephone my father before he heard.

  I went down to the post office to make the call.

  “Hello, Papa? It’s Daphne.”

  “My darling girl. How’s the weather down there?” I glanced outside. “Bleak, as usual.”

  “Found any ‘Bleak Houses’ down there, sweetheart?”

  I hesitated.

  “Daphne?”

  Families and close friends have a natural aptitude for wheedling out information. “Yes.”

  Within minutes, he knew what I knew. I did leave out one or two little things, nothing of any importance and mostly in relation to David Hartley and his affiliation with Rothmarten Abbey.

  “I’m not certain I want you down there, honey. It mightn’t be safe— a murderer on the loose and when your mother finds out—”

  “She rarely reads the papers, Papa.”

  “True, but women have a way of knowing all about the scandals. So who was this girl? You said she was about to marry the great lord of the county?”

  “She was a local girl from a low- class family. Used to be a maid up at the house— that’s how she met David Hartley.”

  “Ooohh, I see.”

  I heard the warning in my father’s voice.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” I sighed. “And I promise I’ll take care.” I told him about the abbey work. “This is just perfect. If I help them catalog, I can truly explore what I came here to find.”

  “For what purpose?”

  I couldn’t help suppressing a slight mischievous laugh. “Find some lost scroll and write a sensational piece for the papers.”

  My father laughed. “Nothing like a healthy competitive spirit, my girl. What ever you find and write, though”—his voice dropped to a cautionary tone—“show it to the abbess first.”

  “Of course I would! I’m hoping, too, that the papers will pay handsomely and the money can go as a contribution for abbey restorations.”

  “You’d need to write a book for that, darling.”

  “Perhaps I will someday,” I smiled. “There is ample inspiration here.”

  As I said good- bye, an unpleasant sensation trickled up my spine.

  I spun around.

  The door to the post office slammed, bells ringing to announce an abrupt departure.

  I darted outside and glanced down the lane, left and right, but I couldn’t see anyone.

  However, I knew someone had been watching me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A scrappy note awaited me at Ewe’s cottage.

  Daphne Dearest!

  Imagine! Poison! Ooh, it’s getting very interesting ,

  isn’t it? I must peddle the news about.

  Oh, and, can you be a dear and wash the dishes?

  See you soon.

  E

  Wash the dishes? I hadn’t performed such a menial task in years. Raising my eyebrows, I pulled up my sleeves and imagined how it might be done. I thought of the brief moments I’d seen the servants in the kitchen at our houses. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult?

  Water on the boil, I stacked the dirty assortment into the sink and located the plug. Rummaging through Ewe’s messy, disorganized cupboards below, I found “washing powder” of a kind, shrugged, and sprinkled it in the water. It foamed and bubbled and seemed the right thing to use. Adding a scrubbing utensil and scourer to the mix, I successfully, and I must admit, rather cheerfully, finished the job as I analyzed this latest development.

  Poison! Now the verdict had to change to murder or suicide.

  Although it did not seem that Victoria had reason to take her own life, what did one tru
ly know of another’s private pressures, struggles, and secrets?

  “Lo!” Ewe’s stormy entrance was full of her usual penchant for drama. “It’s poison! Murder!”

  Removing her hat, scarf, and gloves, she raised her eyes to the ceiling. “This is certain to topple her ladyship from her throne, mark my words. We all know one of them at the house killed the girl. Sly of them, mixing poison in her food—”

  “Was it in her food?”

  “They found doses of ricin in her. Comes from the castor bean, you know. Clever of them to use it. And how else do you think it got there if she didn’t eat it?”

  “It could be accidental poisoning,” I pointed out. “It has happened before . . . remember that young mother in Devon? I forget what the plant was, just a common one, and she had it by her bed in her room and during the night, couldn’t breathe, and the next morning she was found dead.”

  “But wait.” Halting her breath, Ewe placed a hand over her heart. “You haven’t heard the worst.”

  She paused, as was her annoying custom, and blinked. “Bet the abbess said nothin’ though she would’ve known.”

  My patience had run out. “Known what, Ewe?”

  “Victoria was three months pregnant.”

  “A baby!”

  “Oh yes, a baby,” Ewe said, nodding. “Want to keep it all hush-hush. More fools them. Worse, how it’s now come out. I suppose they’d have the weddin’ and then the baby comes along early. Ay, it’s all about hushin’ up a scandal, if ye ask me.”

  I gaped at Ewe, thunderstruck.

  “Now there’s a good reason for murder. Lord Davie thinkin’ the child’s his and he finds out it isn’t and kills her.”

  I slowly digested her summary. “Wouldn’t it be easier to call off the wedding if he found out the child isn’t his? Why kill her?”

  “Not if she threatened blackmail.”

  “Blackmail? What elaborate scheme are you conjuring up now?”

  “No elaborate scheme,” Ewe whispered. “But I can tell you, my dear girl, that those Hartleys have long been immersed in nefarious affairs.”

  “What kind of affairs?”

  Suddenly coy, she briefly closed her eyes. “I don’t like to say. But since you’re practically family, I’ll mention a few. Smuggling, for one.”

  A long pause ensued.

  “Extortion. Fraud. Hmm, and that old Lord Hartley was a very bad fellow. And Lady Muck, humph! She’s the devil’s apprentice.”

  “Devil’s apprentice,” I mused to myself afterward. Would Lady Hartley, robbed of her position of power and prestige, have murdered her pregnant daughter- in- law and made the crime look like suicide?

  I shuddered, thinking of Victoria, scrambling for life. It had been a full tide that evening and the tide has been known to catch even the most stalwart sailors unaware.

  As I mulled over the facts of the case, the next invitation to Hartley House arrived in the childish hand of Lianne Hartley.

  Dafne

  I hope thats how you spell your name?

  I and my brother want to invite you to high tea at our house.

  Please come at 3.

  Lianne Hartley

  “There you have it,” Ewe remarked before I left the cottage. “You don’t see the Bastion’s puttin’ up any visitors, do ye? Havin’ high teas, and the like? Does that mean they’re guilty?”

  I pulled on my gloves. “Or numbed by the . . .” The what? I couldn’t even find a word to describe it. The horror? The tragedy? The . . . murder?

  Plain and simple, and yet, as far as I’d heard, the verdict had not been changed and nobody had been charged with the supposed crime.

  Ewe followed me to the door, down the garden path, to the cottage gate, and further down the lane. “Well, be careful, then. Folk go missin’ up there and that Mrs. T, Trehearn, none of us like her or trust her. Used to be one of us. Now she thinks herself too good to associate down here.”

  “I will be careful,” I promised, and kissed her cheek and set off on my merry way. “Lianne Hartley needs a friend and since I am involved in this affair whether I wished it or not, I shall go.”

  The walk to Padthaway filled me with a nervous apprehension.

  The house ached to yield its secrets. It yearned for a friend, someone who understood it.

  I liked to think I understood such ancient houses. I liked to think I knew a great deal about life, about people and their emotions, but really I was an innocent. I sensed this time in Windemere Lane would teach me a vast thing or two.

  I smiled, enjoying the glorious Cornish coastline. I’d opted to take the walk through the woods down to the sea to breathe its fresh salty air and ripened sense of danger. The ocean had always been a changeling; no one could ever read it, not even the greatest fisherman or sailing captain. Changeable and unreadable, the sea was like Victoria Bastion, a simple country girl who’d transcended into a complex victim.

  Victim. Perhaps I was wrong to call her that, for she had lived large and hard, climbing from class to class, embracing new friends and exploring new boundaries.

  I turned up the road to Padthaway and wondered what kind of reception awaited me.

  The great house dawned and I stepped up to its austere, imposing silence and boldly rang the bell.

  “Ah, Miss du Maurier,” Mrs. Trehearn greeted. “Her ladyship will see you now. Leave your coat here, if you please.”

  Summoned to Lady Hartley on arrival. Did the summoning entail some unpleasantness? What ever the case, I dreaded the moment I would be left alone in Lady Hartley’s presence.

  “Her ladyship’s rooms are in the west wing,” Mrs. Trehearn informed.

  I followed her along the eerily quiet and sunny paneled corridor leading toward the sea.

  “This is the oldest part of the house,” Mrs. Trehearn said. “The eastern wing suffered a fire during the civil war, but the fire never reached the west. It remains largely untouched, as it was in 1558.”

  “What of the tower?” I asked, pausing to admire the view from one of the graceful arched windows.

  “The tower is a ruin.” Mrs. Trehearn made the sign of the cross over her breast. “A cursed ruin. This way now.”

  We climbed up a wide stairway leading to two magnificent bronze doors. At least two times my height, they reached up to the cathedral groin vaulted ceilings above, decorated by an impressive fresco of biblical design, the doors sporting a huge pair of lion-head golden handles to finish the picture.

  Mrs. Trehearn’s long bony fingers sprawled across the handle of the door. “They are Moorish—”

  “Thank you, Mrs. T. I’ll take over from here.” Lord David stood in the darkened corridor opposite, casually observing us. There was something about his approach that suggested he’d been waiting for our arrival.

  I could have wept with relief.

  A startled Mrs. Trehearn frowned. “My lord! But her ladyship said—”

  “I am master here” was the cool response.

  Mrs. Trehearn nodded deftly and left.

  “I apologize for the intrusion, Miss du Maurier,” Lord David smiled, “but I wish to speak with you.”

  Wish to speak with me? My heart thundered inside my chest. He had a magnetism about him that I found irresistibly charming. He knew he possessed it, too, I ascertained by the look in his eyes and the way he spoke, so cultured and refined, even in grief. I found myself studying the sleepless shadows around his eyes.

  An elusive smile tempered his lips. “Will you allow me to give you a quick tour of the house, Daphne?”

  “I’d be delighted,” I replied, and accepted his arm.

  Drawing me away from the Moorish doors, he guided me slowly down the southern passageway. His proximity, his very alive proximity, and the fact that he might very well be a murderer, tripled my senses and warning bells endlessly tolled inside my head.

  “I wanted to show you the library,” he began, his voice low and resonant in the silence.

  I managed a nod.r />
  “We can talk alone there.”

  Talk alone? What about? Respecting his need for privacy, I endeavored to keep my curiosity at bay. I thought of Mrs. Trehearn, rushing away to report to Lady Hartley.

  Entering a large room boasting splendid paintings, Lord David grimaced. “You recognize the Gainsborough?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, unable to resist being besotted with the painting. “Who is she?”

  “The Beneficent Bride, we call her. My father won her at a gaming table in Monte Carlo. She came from a wealthy Italian count . . . she must have been an ancestress.”

  “She’s magnificent,” I breathed. “See how the light holds her in the garden swing? It’s a beautiful picture, my lord.” I swallowed, intensely uncomfortable in his company.

  “Please call me David.” Stepping away from me, he gestured we head to the next room.

  I held in a breath, and nodded.

  “These chambers traditionally belong to the master of the house—”

  “So this is your wing, my lord?”

  “I hope, one day. The other parts are closed off, awaiting restoration. The library is the last room my father restored.”

  I understood why he was proud of his library. Like entering a secret garden, the modest double doors opened to reveal a circular room of dynamic wonder. Tall ceilings, three levels of books, a wrought- iron spiraled staircase leading to the upper rows, reading nooks by stain- glassed windows of Camelot style, medieval furnishings, and one huge stuffed tiger.

  I recoiled in horror. “Is that real?”

  “Another of my father’s gambling wins.” Indicating we should sit at the grand walnut desk stacked with books and papers, he faced me directly. “You’ll be wondering why I wanted to see you before my mother. I don’t know what she’s planning, but she’s up to something concerning you.”

  “Me?”

  “My mother instructed Lianne to invite you today. She is never interested in people without a reason, and you are from a notable family. Will you heed my advice and be on guard?”

  “Er, yes I will, my lord.”

  “It’s David,” he smiled, “and I’m glad you accepted our invitation. Lianne needs a friend.”