‘Who’s Alister?’ Maltravers asked as Tess raised one fine eyebrow at him quizzically.
‘Alister York, my father’s secretary,’ Dunford explained, turning to face him as though grateful for the opportunity to cover Susan’s rudeness. ‘First-rate batsman. Played in the Minor Counties league a few years ago and…’
Only Peter seemed unaware of Susan’s hostility as she suddenly turned round and interrupted.
‘Simon, you do realise this is Tess Davy the actress, don’t you?’ The words were an introduction, the entire tone a curt reprimand. Maltravers reflected that it was certainly not the way in which a member of the English aristocracy was accustomed to being spoken to in his own home—or anywhere else for that matter. The remarkable thing was that, far from being offended, Dunford was instantly apologetic.
‘No, I…I’m dreadfully sorry, Miss Davy. I should have recognised you at once. How unforgivable.’
Tess had the immediate impression that Dunford was not apologising to her. For a moment he was not even speaking to her, but looked straight at Susan as though seeking some sort of forgiveness.
‘I saw you as Judith Paris on television last year,’ Dunford added, turning his attention from Susan, giving the suggestion of being relieved that she had at least acknowledged his presence. ‘You were marvellous. You made me read all the Herries Chronicles again.’
‘Thank you,’ Tess said, then glanced at Susan, waiting to see what she would say next. She said nothing but lowered her face towards the glass in her hands and Tess was standing close enough to see that she was biting her lip.
‘Are you…er…appearing in anything at the moment?’
Maltravers appreciated Dunford’s innate good manners as their host, doing what he could to alleviate an incomprehensibly brittle atmosphere.
‘I’ve just finished in Major Barbara at the Bristol Old Vic,’ Tess told him. ‘When I get back to London I start rehearsals for School for Scandal.’
‘Really?’ said Dunford. ‘Did you know that Sheridan was a regular visitor to Edenbridge? As a politician rather than a playwright though—the family were active Whigs in those days. We fell out with him over his opposition to the Combination Acts which outlawed trade unions. We have some very interesting letters of his from around that time. Perhaps you’d like to see them—in fact would you like to see round the house? I’d be very happy to show you.’
Dunford was playing it very well, Maltravers felt, keeping up polite conversation in the teeth of Susan’s silent aggression which was enveloping them all. The least he could do was respond to the invitation.
‘That would be very enjoyable, but surely you have to attend to your other guests?’
‘They’ll be leaving soon. Please stay. It will be my pleasure.’ Dunford’s obvious sincerity—even suggestion of eagerness—made it difficult to refuse him.
‘Well, Gus and Tess might enjoy it, but we’ve been round the house dozens of times.’ Susan’s tone implied further unwarranted criticism of Dunford, as though a private tour escorted by the heir to Edenbridge was faintly boring. ‘You two can stay if you want, but Peter and I are going home.’
She looked at Dunford almost defiantly and Peter glanced at her sharply, bewildered at her behaviour and conscious of her bad manners.
‘It’s not all that late,’ he said. ‘Surely we could stay for…’
‘Peter, I want to go home!’
There was an embarrassed silence as Susan immediately appeared aware that something had come too near the surface.
As they all looked at her uncomfortably she pressed her lips together as though on the brink of bursting into tears.
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was only just under control, then she walked hurriedly away, pushing her abdomen between the other guests like a galleon driven by a gusting wind. There was an awkward pause.
‘You’d better go after her, Peter,’ Tess said quietly. ‘I think she must be tired.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Peter frowned in annoyance as he watched his wife make her way towards the doors. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with her. This baby seems to have given her more trouble than Tim and Emma. I apologise for her.’
‘There’s no need for that, Peter,’ Dunford demurred.
‘Yes there is. She was bloody rude and she knows it. Anyway I’ll take her home. I gave you a key for the side door, didn’t I? Let yourselves in and I’ll see you tomorrow…Goodnight, Simon.’
‘See you at the match,’ Dunford called after him as Peter walked away, then he turned and smiled at Tess and Maltravers. ‘That’s not like Susan at all. Pre-natal tension I expect. I’m sure she’ll be all right. Look, just let me speak to a couple of people then I’ll be with you.’
‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble,’ Maltravers said.
‘Not in the least. I like showing people my home. I won’t be long. Do help yourselves to more wine.’
Tess looked sceptical as Dunford crossed the room and approached the council chairman and his wife who were standing by the fireplace.
‘Pre-natal tension,’ she repeated disbelievingly. ‘Of which there was not the slightest sign until he appeared. What do you think?’
‘I can’t start to guess, but it was bloody obvious whatever it was all about,’ said Maltravers. ‘The strange thing is that I thought they were good friends.’
‘That’s what Peter told me on the way here,’ said Tess.
‘They’ve known Simon more or less ever since they moved into Capley. Apparently he doesn’t make a big thing about being a belted Earl, or whatever he is, and has a number of friends in Bellringer Street. Peter talked about him in exactly the same way he talks about you.’
‘And what did Susan say?’
‘It didn’t strike me at the time, but in fact she said nothing at all, which seems significant in the light of what’s happened. It was as though she almost hated him.’
‘It certainly seemed strong enough for that,’ Maltravers acknowledged. ‘But my impression of him was of a perfectly nice guy. How did he strike you?’
‘He’s very attractive and…’ Tess paused, considering. ‘And gallant, I think is the word…no, not quite that…courteous in a way you don’t meet very often. There’s something…Put it this way, I think I would like him the more I got to know him.’
‘Well, we’ll find out more about him shortly. Come on, let’s get another drink.’
Nobody approached them as they waited for Dunford to return. They were unknown in Capley and the English sense of impropriety about talking to strangers meant they received nothing more than polite, uncertain smiles from those who passed near them, although occasional glances lingered on Tess as though trying to place her. They amused themselves by examining the contents of the gallery which included souvenirs of distinguished visitors to Edenbridge House over the previous century, an intriguing collection of leading members of the Liberal party mixed at random with the founding fathers of jazz. It must have been the only place in the world where signed photographs of Gladstone and Lloyd George appeared on the same table as Bix Beiderbecke and Jelly Roll Morton. As the last remaining guests trickled out of the gallery, Dunford joined them again.
‘I assume you’ve looked round here, so I’ll show you the rest.’ They followed as he led them out of the far end of the gallery and along a high, panelled corridor.
‘You know, I’m appallingly ignorant about your family,’ Maltravers confessed. ‘How far does the title go back?’
‘To just after the Restoration,’ Dunford replied. ‘Samuel Hawkhurst was involved in the sale of Dunkirk back to the French after Charles II returned to the throne and is credited with negotiating a good deal. The King granted him the Earldom and the Edenbridge lands go with it. That was in 1663 and the house was completed about ten years later. We like to claim that Wren may have been involved in the design but frankly that’s a bit hazy. We’ve certainly got an Inigo Jones fireplace though. Come on, we’ll start in here.’
&nb
sp; For more than an hour, Maltravers and Tess were given a private and very personal view of a house drenched in art, exquisite furniture and unique artefacts of three hundred years in still noble rooms rich with seductive magnificence. On an oyster-shell walnut table stood a gift glittering crystal from George III; nearby were a pair of silver embossed duelling pistols, one of which had nearly ended the intemperate young life of a future Prime Minister. There were incredibly detailed miniatures by Henry Bone; a Goya portrait that would have been the prized centrepiece of an art gallery hung indifferently in a corridor; a jasperware vase fashioned by Wedgwood himself; sumptuous, mellow tapestries that covered entire walls; Chippendale bearing Sèvres; exquisite Florentine statuettes accompanying rare Chinese porcelain. From ornate ceilings, down lush curtains to polished oak floorboards and priceless carpets, taste and history held conference in colours faded pale by time that could be measured in generations. And as he escorted them round, knowledgeable about everything he showed them, Dunford’s affection for it all became increasingly apparent.
‘Do you ever tire of all this?’ Tess gestured helplessly round the ivory and old gold perfection of the morning room.
‘Never,’ Dunford replied simply. ‘We may have to share it with the tourists now, but this happens to be my home. Come here.’
He took her hand and led her to the edge of a long, sage green curtain which he took in his hand and softly rubbed it against her cheek.
‘That’s 200-year-old velvet,’ he said. ‘Would you tire of something as beautiful as that?’
Tess smiled and shook her head. ‘It feels like moleskin. But who are you going to ask to share it with you one day? Peter mentioned to me that you aren’t married yet.’
Dunford let go of the curtain and turned away unnecessarily to arrange it back into place.
‘We’ll have to see,’ he replied. ‘As you say, there’s no Lady Dunford yet. Perhaps you’re available, Miss Davy?’ He looked back at Tess, part-quizzical, part-amused.
‘Oh, that’s awfully tempting, but I’m afraid not.’ For a moment they both looked at each other and then laughed. Standing on the other side of the room examining a pair of enamelled French watches, Maltravers glanced at them both with interest. Dunford’s joking mild flirtation did not concern him, but he was intrigued by something he had caught in his voice when he had said there was no Lady Dunford. There had been the slightest undertones, so subtle that Maltravers had not been able to identify them with certainty. Melancholy? Regret? Apprehension? The moment vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, but left traces of curiosity in his mind.
‘Anyway, that’s about everything,’ Dunford said. ‘The only part you haven’t seen are the family residential quarters in the West wing, but frankly they’re rather modern and boring.’
‘What about Tom Bostock?’ Maltravers asked, gently replacing one of the watches on its stand. ‘We only learned about him this afternoon, but I’d hate to miss him before he’s buried.’
‘The family bastard? I’d forgotten him. I’ll take you out through the cellars where we keep him.’
‘Do you agree with your mother?’ Maltravers asked as Dunford led them out of the morning room and down some back stairs into a narrow, stone-flagged corridor. ‘I understand it’s her wish that he should be buried after all this time.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Dunford. ‘I don’t think we’ve behaved all that well towards old Tom, however big a villain he was. He did nothing more than cause the family some temporary embarrassment—and after all he couldn’t help being the bastard son of the third Earl. Wishing him eternal damnation then cashing in on his remains seems excessive. If he did disgrace the family name, I think he’s paid his debt now.’
‘Do you know much about him?’ asked Tess.
‘Not a great deal. Highwaymen were fairly commonplace around that time of course and there was nothing special about him. We’ve got an exhibition down here, based on what we’ve been able to find out, which includes a broadsheet about his execution complete with a contemporary illustration. Several people have said he looked rather like me. Anyway, you can see for yourselves.’
He opened a door at the end of the passage and they entered the wide, low cellar at the far end of which stood a plain wooden coffin resting on trestles behind a red rope looped between metal poles. Dunford turned on the lights.
‘When you consider all there is to see in Edenbridge House, it’s ridiculous that this is so popular,’ he commented as they crossed the room. ‘However, in a few weeks…hell’s teeth! Where is he?’ He froze like a statue as they reached the rope.
‘Perhaps he pops out for a drink on Friday nights,’ Maltravers suggested as all three of them gazed into the completely empty coffin.
3
The sketch of the execution of Tom Bostock was sickening. Around the focal point of the gibbet and its victim surged a sea of Hogarthian features, feverish with brutal frenzy, jeering at the sight of the highwayman’s grotesquely distorted face as life was agonisingly throttled out of him. Maltravers examined the observations of the unknown artist with grim interest. A plump young child, held up by its father to see better, pointing in fascinated and innocent delight at the dangling puppet of a dying man; a cleric looking as pitiless as a torturer; a pickpocket removing the watch from the embroidered waistcoat round the brandy-glass belly of a fat, engrossed and self-righteous nobleman; a mother suckling her baby; a boy cruelly and ignorantly mocking a human being’s violent death throes by holding his neckerchief above his head and sticking his tongue out crookedly; helpless in the crowd, just one woman—Bostock’s mistress perhaps—bowed in weeping despair, her hands clasped over her eyes. Maltravers sourly approved the small detail in the bottom corner where a cat and a dog sat at a small table drinking sherry; they were not the animals in Capley Market Square that day.
‘And when the House of Commons debated bringing back capital punishment, one MP said he was prepared to be the hangman,’ he remarked drily. ‘I imagine if he had his way, he’d go the whole hog and show it on peak-time television. And he’d get a bloody audience.’
He turned in distaste from the picture, part of the Tom Bostock exhibition which covered two walls of the cellar, and walked back to examine the unoccupied coffin again.
‘It must be a joke,’ said Tess. ‘Who on earth would want to steal a skeleton?’
‘Impoverished medical student perhaps?’ suggested Maltravers, peering closely into the empty box to see if anything was available for a little amateur detection. ‘Apart from that slender possibility, it’s a very uncommon case of common larceny.’
They were alone with the mystery, Dunford having asked them to wait while he went to find Alister York, whose secretarial duties to Lord Pembury included security matters at Edenbridge House.
‘What’s equally incomprehensible is how somebody got away with it,’ Maltravers continued. ‘I can imagine some of the things we’ve seen this evening vanishing into pockets and handbags, but someone walking out of Edenbridge House with a full-size skeleton under their arm would presumably have been asked to explain themselves.’
There was a sound of approaching footsteps along the stone-flagged corridor outside and Dunford reappeared through the door followed by Alister York. The secretary was a formidably large man with thick, wiry black hair and extraordinarily deep violet eyes set in a face tanned and creased like weathered leather. He was naturally stern, professionally correct and now looked concerned. Somewhat academically he crossed the cellar and looked into the coffin for himself.
‘When did you last see him, Alister?’ Dunford asked.
‘Not for some days.’ The voice was as dark as the man, bass notes on a bassoon. ‘I don’t come down here that often. However there was no guide on duty in here today.’
‘Why not?’ Dunford snapped.
‘Three of the guides were off ill and four extra coachloads of tourists arrived unexpectedly,’ York explained. ‘I had to make emergency arrangements and took…wh
at’s his name?…Humphreys out of here to show some of them round the house.’
‘So people were wandering around here unsupervised?’ said Dunford.
‘From about two o’clock, yes.’ York was meeting Dunford’s clear annoyance with a catalogue of circumstances beyond his control. Maltravers gained the distinct feeling that the secretary did not like being reprimanded, the sort of man who would carefully cover all his actions so that if anything later went wrong he would have all his answers ready—and if necessary be able to blame someone else.
‘I was just wondering how whoever it was got away with it.’
Maltravers did not like the glare York shot at him as he spoke, as though he was interrupting some conversation which did not concern him. He bounced back the look with a slightly contemptuous expression, underlining the fact that he was Dunford’s guest and York was his employee before continuing. ‘I can’t understand how nobody noticed them.’
The secretary hesitated before replying, as though resisting the inclination to tell Maltravers to mind his own damned business, then apparently deciding that his presence in the cellar had some connection with Dunford.
‘Visitors arrive with all sorts of containers,’ he said, like an adult impatiently explaining something to a dull-witted child. ‘Full-sized rucksacks are not uncommon—as you would know if you had anything to do with the house. I trust that answers your question.’
‘Perfectly…thank you.’ Maltravers said with over-emphasised politeness, reflecting that Alister York was a man remarkably easy to dislike on short acquaintance.
‘Do you wish me to call the police, Lord Dunford?’ York asked.
‘Pardon? No, not yet.’ Dunford shook his head as he thought. ‘The publicity will do us no good at all. It’s almost certainly some ridiculous joke. Make inquiries among the house staff and the guides but tell them they are not to say anything. And check with the coach operators who were here today to see if it’s turned up in one of their seats…Have you a key for this room?’
Skeleton Key Page 3
