Murder on the Cliffs

by Joanna Challis

  I headed toward that lamp, alongside the major, toward a man of my father’s age relaxing upon the armchair, his combed black hair splintered with gray, his facial structure of fantastic proportion, Roman almost, purple eyes dark, intense, changeable, eyes I’d seen before . . .

  “Let me do this,” the major hissed under his breath.

  No formal greeting or introduction ensued. Commandeering the seat opposite the man, the major casually crossed his legs and ordered a drink. Opting for the end of the settee facing the two of them, I struggled to manage my nerves. Here was the man, the unknown tormentor Victoria feared. Searching his face, I had my answer. “You’re her real father, aren’t you?”

  The halting whisper left my lips before I could stop it.

  I dared not look at Major Browning.

  Robbed of his anonymity before he chose to publicize it, Victoria’s father smiled, an elusive smile of wary caution. “How’d ye know?”

  “The eyes . . . I found her on the beach.”

  “I thought Miss Hartley found her.”

  “We found her together,” I explained, undaunted, ignoring any silent reprimand from the major. Despite his theory, I felt this was the way to proceed. Natural, open, unmilitary.

  “And you’re the girl from the papers— Miss du Maurier, isn’t it? Allow me to introduce myself. Elias Wynne.”

  His accent sounded faintly Welsh but I wasn’t sure.

  “I follow everything Lord David does,” Elias said as he winked at me, “ever since me daughter become engaged to the man.”

  I thought of Victoria’s unrelenting search for her true father, her need to find him. Once she succeeded, how did she feel?

  Elias chuckled, reinforcing the instinct of distrust creeping up my arm. A vulnerable Victoria, at last finding her father, wanting desperately to recapture the love and affection she’d missed throughout her life, now understanding why she always seemed merely tolerated at home. She must have opened her heart to the man sitting before me, and invited him to share her new life. Her new life with Lord David, as Lady Victoria Hartley, mistress of Padthaway.

  Oh yes, it all became so clear to me. Elias’s selfish gratification upon discovering he had a beautiful daughter, a gratification that transformed to opportunistic gloating when she announced her wedding plans, and his shock at her death, came into warped view.

  “You’re trying to blackmail Lord David now, aren’t you, Elias? Just as you did your daughter.”

  Swilling his glass of whiskey, the major ordered another round of drinks.

  “I fancied gettin’ to know me daughter a bit. What’s wrong with that? Besides, she wanted me round for safety reasons. Were plan-nin’ to meet me here after her weddin’. Proves she were murdered.”

  I bristled at the horrific vision of this creature showing up at Padthaway, plundering through the house, demanding to see her ladyship and Lord David. Had Victoria seen Elias this way, as he truly was? I had to find out. “Mr. Wynne, did your daughter invite you to her wedding?”

  Now the truth emerged. He couldn’t hide the fact.

  “No, she didn’t, did she? She didn’t want you in her life. And when the blackmail attempt failed upon your daughter’s death, you decided to blackmail Lord David. Were you successful?”

  “Were I successful?” he barked, laughing. “I’d say more than successful, for he paid a pretty penny for me to keep me mouth shut. For I know.”

  “What do you know, Elias?” The major refilled the man’s beer.

  “I know she were murdered, pure and simple. I seen it with me own eyes.”

  “Liar. You’re too drunk to ever find your way to Padthaway.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ve got a letter. A letter from me Vicky. In it, she wrote it might be awhile till she can next see her dad and give him a bit of money. I didn’t like that note so I, Elias the drunk, if ye please, gets on a train and goes down to Cornwall to see me girl, see me girl get wed, was me plan.”

  “When did you arrive?”

  “On the night of her murder. For on me way to this grand place . . . it were late, I stopped by the pub first, got directions, then went along the sea to the place. Didn’t expect to see me girl out there on the cliffs, did I?”

  The major and I exchanged an incredulous glance. “You saw her? On the night? Did she see you?”

  “Nope, she did not, for she had company.”

  I didn’t like the way he said “company.” “Do you mean a man?”

  “I mean,” his eyes narrowed, “her murderers.”

  “Murderers?” the major and I echoed, astonished.

  “That’s what I said and what I saw, me, Elias, with me own two eyes . . . two of ’em, yep, two. One, me future son- in- law.”

  “And the other person you saw was a girl, wasn’t it, Elias? Did you see them kill her?”

  The major asked the questions now, for I felt too ill to do so. I kept seeing David’s face. No, I could not believe it.

  “They must of, for she were dead on the beach the next day, weren’t she?”

  “If Victoria was in trouble, why didn’t you go to help her? What happened, Elias?”

  Elias now grew quiet, his reddened face betraying his embarrassment. “I tried to get to me Vicky. I tried. But I’d drunk too much beer and threw up. I must have passed out for I remember nothin’ till the morning.”

  “Did you see Victoria dead?”

  He nodded, his face grim. “I saw her shoes. And then I looked over . . .”

  “And saw the dead body,” the major finished. “Why did you scally away then, Elias? Why didn’t you report it? I think I know why. You thought you’d turn Victoria’s death to your advantage. You thought you’d blackmail Lord David instead and make more than a pretty penny. You gave yourself away before, Elias, when you mentioned he’d been paying you. Paying you to stay quiet! A chief witness in your own daughter’s murder.”

  Elias didn’t like the denunciation. “What were I to do, then? She was dead so why not make a buck out of it?”

  “Elias, you’re going nowhere until you make a full statement, here and now. I hope at some stage of your life you regret your actions for they lack all common decency.”

  “The shoes are important,” I said on the road back to Cornwall the next morning.

  “Lord David is the next target,” the major replied, “and I leave him to you, Miss Daphne du Maurier. If he trusts you, he’ll confess to you.”

  I doubted his theory, as much as I doubted my own ability to face the family now, after hearing Elias’s story.

  I went, though; I had no choice as Lianne had called for me.

  “Where’d you go?”

  Fresh from her bath, Lianne tugged the robe of her dressing gown.

  “You were gone all day. Ewe says you went to London.”

  “Yes, I went to get a typewriter.”

  “I can’t believe you went to London without me!”

  Sighing, I shook my head, and sat down on the bed. “I fear you’re going to be very angry with me. I went with the major. He asked me to go . . . to see if we could discover any more about the man Victoria went to meet in her diary.”

  “So you didn’t go to get a typewriter. You went off to find out who this person is. Well, did you succeed?”

  I nodded.

  “Who is it?”

  “Victoria’s father.”

  “Her father . . .”

  The word sounded foreign on her lips. “Funny. I never thought Victoria had a father.”

  “He wasn’t a nice one. He was blackmailing her. I have to speak with your brother.”

  “What do you need to speak to me about?” Lord David entered Lianne’s bedchamber, carrying her ribbon in his hand. “I found this on the terrace.”

  “Oh, thank you! It’s my favorite ribbon. Daphne’s been busy, Davie. She went to London. Met Victoria’s father.”

  “Did she?”

  Lord David’s eyes turned suddenly dangerous.

&nbs
p; “Y-yes,” I stammered. “Elias is a nasty person. Wouldn’t surprise me if he murdered Victoria.”

  I hoped to allay the growing suspicion in his face, but it didn’t work.

  “There’s a painting I want to show you, Daphne. Lianne, you stay here for the moment.”

  “All right.” She smiled her merry smile, whistling, quite oblivious to my fear.

  We reached the top of the stairs. Searching for any sight of Annie, Betsy, or even Mrs. Trehearn, I attempted to appear calm.

  “This way,” Lord David gestured down.

  “Where are we going?” I said in a small voice.

  He did not reply, and I prayed for Annie or Betsy to turn a corner and find me, to save me from this madman.

  I soon found myself staring up at the Beneficent Bride.

  “The lost bride,” he murmured. “You have developed a very singular interest in what happened to my lost bride, haven’t you, Daphne?”

  I felt numb. The voice didn’t sound like Lord David’s. It sounded like a stranger’s.

  “Why did you not come to me with the diary?”

  “You said your mother did it,” I breathed, afraid to look into his eyes. “Has she confessed?”

  “Confessed?” He laughed.

  “Yes, for she went with Sir Edward willingly. I thought . . .”

  “She has no need of confession, for I killed Victoria. Why else do you suppose she went to jail? To protect me.”

  I stopped to peruse his face. “You believed she was meeting a man in London, didn’t you? A lover? You also thought she and Soames planned to plant a bastard on you. Is that why you chose to get rid of her by poison?”

  A flicker of amusement crossed his face. “I am innately curious how you deduced all of this. What did Elias really say?”

  “He was blackmailing you because he saw you and Lianne with Victoria on the cliffs that night. Which one of you did it? What happened? Lianne hid the shoes, didn’t she? Victoria’s shoes.”

  Heaving a deep sigh, one verging on regret, he stared up at the painting. “I will finish the story I began in front of this painting. For you, Daphne, for you. I am a man and I will not allow my mother to suffer for a crime I committed.”

  “You followed Victoria to London a few times, didn’t you? You watched her go into the club, thinking she met a lover there, the father of her child.”

  “Yes.” Silently, he touched the face of the bride in the painting with his finger. “She was beautiful, like a doll. But I couldn’t trust her. She had not told me about Soames, and I found out. Her necklace fell off one day— the clasp opened. She swore Soames and she had never been lovers but I didn’t believe her.”

  “She was a virgin when she came to you. She said so herself in her diary.”

  “Was she,” he whispered, a haunting pallor creeping into his face. “I couldn’t tell; we’d drunk too much that first time.”

  “She was innocent,” I maintained. “But she should have trusted you. She tried to handle everything herself— Soames, Connan, her father— but she only served to feed your doubts.”

  He nodded, a faint smile appearing on his lips. “You do care for me, don’t you, Daphne? You justify things for me.”

  “I can’t justify murder, David. That’s why you’ve written your confession, haven’t you? To release your mother?”

  He nodded again. “When I saw her sacrifice herself for me so willingly, I knew the truth would come out. Besides, I am tired of people bleeding me. Elias is only one. Death or jail for me is a release, a haven.”

  “What happened? You bought the poison or did Mrs. Trehearn mix it for you?”

  “A friend of mine gave me the poison.”

  “Bruce Cameron?”

  “We were at the club, drinking. I started talking and by the end of the night, the poison ended up in my pocket. I took it home. I saw the perfume bottle on her dresser and simply slipped it inside. That was after the argument when she taunted me about the baby. We made up before dinner though, and I went to her room to get the bottle, but it had disappeared . . .”

  “You were too late. She’d sprayed herself with the poison, its lethal inhalation worsening through dinner.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she fled to her room, not knowing the reason for her sickness, maybe thinking it had to do with the baby and emotional distress, and decided to go for a walk. She felt heated, maybe. She collected her shoes and walked out to the cliffs. Why did you follow her? You knew she was going to die, didn’t you?”

  “I was hoping to save her, but she ran so crazily. When I caught up to her she just stood there, her black hair blowing in the wind, and laughed at me. ‘You poor fool, David,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see I want to be alone?’ She ordered me to go and stood on the edge of the cliff, peering over. ‘Why do I feel so ill?’ she kept saying, and I asked her if she’d used the perfume spray. She looked at me then, a queer kind of look. I saw the notion of poison occurring in her eyes and it surprised her so much she stumbled and fell. Fell straight down to the sea, and to this day I don’t know if she meant to do it or whether it was an accident.”

  “She died thinking it was your mother who had poisoned her. Not you.”

  “That’s why I won’t allow my mother to suffer for the crime. If I were truly callous, I’d leave her to her fate. Better she returns, though, and better I hang since I cannot escape my destiny.”

  “What destiny is that?”

  “Madness. Just like my father. Go now, Daphne. Go now before I hurt you. Break the news to my mother . . . if you would.”

  “I will,” I promised, and hastened out of the house.

  CHAPTER THIRTY- SEVEN

  “The house of death,” Ewe chorused, long silent after the dramatic turn of events.

  “I hear Lady Hartley has reinstalled herself supreme back at Padthaway,” Miss Perony said. “I heard she fired Soames and Mrs. Trehearn.”

  “Wants a fresh start. Changes servants like linen,” Ewe muttered.

  “She will mourn the loss of her son,” Miss Perony whispered. “I still can’t believe Lord David could do that. Every time I saw him, he always appeared so charming and circumspect. Will he really hang for murder, Major?”

  “It depends on the jury.”

  “I heard you delivered the news to Mrs. Bastion,” Miss Perony went on.

  I thought of the beads, the beads I’d dropped into Mrs. Bastion’s lap. She thanked me when the major and I left, the major elaborate in his praise of my help during the case.

  I did not return to the abbey. Upon hearing the news of Lord David’s arrest, I had been summoned home, and coming home with this tale contented me more than discovering ancient scrolls.

  The mood at Padthaway was of a house in mourning.

  Lady Hartley, Jenny, Betsy, Annie, and Lianne commiserated in the courtyard. I imagined they had all stood outside to watch Lord David being taken away, never to return.

  Lady Hartley was furious with me. She blamed me for the loss of her son.

  “You . You did it all. When we did nothing but befriend you, you turned out to be a viper in the bosom.”

  In her grief, Lady Hartley had turned on everyone, hence Soames and Mrs. Trehearn’s prompt dismissal.

  I walked past Mrs. Trehearn’s study on my way out, eager to catch a glimpse of the room where the strange woman had spent most of her days. To my disappointment, the room shone new and clean, but for the house keeping journal left on the table. I knew I shouldn’t have taken it, but curiosity overcame me.

  “What have ye there?” Ewe spotted me when I returned to the cottage, book under my arm. “Get a lashin’ from her ladyship?”

  “Yes,” I smiled, “and I’ve borrowed Mrs. Trehearn’s housekeeping journal. I’m going to my room to read it.”

  Mrs. Trehearn’s house keeping journal I discovered to be a meticulous notation of house hold affairs, extending back twenty years, amazingly detailed. Records on everything from the price of eggs to new line
n.

  Flicking through the early dates, I stumbled upon one circled entry:

  October 21 £300 Dr. Castlemaine, Penzance

  This was a peculiar entry, for that was a great deal of money back then for a doctor’s visit. Was the appointment for Mrs. Trehearn or for some other staff member? It must be for some house hold affair or it wouldn’t have been featured in this book.

  The circle emphasized its importance. Other amounts weren’t circled, only this one.

  Penzance and Dr. Castlemaine . . . another country drive in order, Major Browning?

  He thought I was mad.

  “I might be,” I sighed, “but I have two days left and what else am I to do? I can’t rest now that I’ve got a taste for mystery.”

  He lifted an a mused brow at the delivery of my logic. “I’ve learned to trust your instincts. I’ll take you then. Are you ready now?”

  Seeing me enter the car with the book on my lap, the major gave me a surreptitious glance. “So, what have you pinched there, Sherlock?”

  “It’s Mrs. Trehearn’s house keeping journal.” Opening the book in my lap, I perused the entries. “Two pounds for sugar . . . six for meat . . .”

  “Fascinating reading.”

  “It’s this one—‘October 21 £300 Dr. Castlemaine, Penzance.’ Twenty- odd years ago.”

  “I fail to see the significance.”

  So intent in my further examination of the journal, I failed to hear him.

  “Where do you think to find this Dr. Castlemaine?”

  “I don’t know.” Listening to the putting engine, a sound I found oddly soothing, I prepared for the long journey. Pity I hadn’t thought to bring coffee and biscuits. Alerted to hunger, my stomach rumbled in protest and mortified, I twisted my head away.

  “Ah, hunger breeds irritability, and we can’t have Sherlock’s mind working bald. I suggest we make a stop at a charming seaside village.”

  A break sounded wonderful.

  “If that suits you and your schedule, Sherlock.”

  I no longer bothered to roll my eyes at the Sherlock quips. He seemed determined to use it, it amused him, and one must amuse one’s driver. I did, however, send him a sweet smile. “It suits me perfectly, Thomas.”