A Corpse in Shining Armour

by Caro Peacock

  ‘I’m Stephen Brinkburn,’ he said. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  At least he didn’t say Lord Brinkburn, though I supposed he would be entitled to, but there was arrogance in the way he spoke, as if I had no choice in the matter.

  ‘What about?’

  He’s surely have been told by now about his mother’s death. Though he’d lost both parents within five days, still I didn’t feel it was my place to offer condolences. We hadn’t even been introduced, though he’d been in my thoughts most of the time.

  ‘May we go inside?’ he said.

  He was possibly aware of Colley’s son-in-law gawping at him open-mouthed from the end of the yard.

  ‘Very well.’

  I led the way upstairs, relieved to note that he left the bottom door open and unlatched behind him. It wasn’t so much the propriety of being alone in the house with him that bothered me as the fact that he was a man of uncertain temper who looked strained to breaking point.

  When I invited him to sit down he took off his hat and plumped himself in Mrs Martley’s chair at the kitchen table, apparently unconscious of his surroundings. I took a chair opposite.

  ‘I thought you might still be down at the hall,’ he said.

  It sounded like a declaration of hostilities, letting me know that he had been following my movements. I supposed Lomax must have told him. Well, two could play at that game.

  ‘We just missed each other,’ I said. ‘I saw you galloping along the road from the hall yesterday morning.’

  He frowned. I looked back at him with a tilt of the head, inviting him to state his business.

  ‘It seems that you managed to gain my mother’s confidence very quickly.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  No answer. I had the impression that he’d decided in advance what he was going to say and wanted no diversions.

  ‘I understand you take money for your services, Miss Lane.’

  Either he intended an insult, or didn’t care one way or another.

  ‘I’m an investigator. I charge a fee as a doctor or lawyer does.’

  ‘I want you to work for me.’

  ‘I’m choosy about my clients.’

  He blinked, at least recognising an insult when it came in his direction, but kept doggedly to his purpose.

  ‘I want you to give me a statement in writing, that I can show to a lawyer, about how my brother managed to exert unfair influence on my mother.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘How could I, even if I wanted to? I only met Lady Brinkburn for the first time two weeks ago. If there was influence, it must have been going on well before that.’

  ‘I’m talking about three days ago, very early on Thursday morning.’

  My first thought was the figure on the lawn, but that had been early on Saturday morning. On the Thursday morning, I’d been on my way back from London.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ I said.

  ‘Did my mother talk about it to you? Did she tell you he’d got her to sign a paper?’

  ‘No. She said nothing about him.’

  He looked disbelieving.

  ‘As soon as he knew our father was dead, he went hurrying down to the hall and made her sign. He must have bullied or threatened her in some way, and I’m determined to prove it.’

  ‘Was that what you and your mother quarrelled about on the day before she died?’ I said.

  He looked furious. I calculated my chances of getting out of the room and downstairs if he turned violent. Then his attention was taken by something on the table.

  ‘What’s that doing here?’

  The journal. I’d put it straight down on the kitchen table when I came in, too tired to find a better place for it. There was no doubt from his expression that he’d recognised it.

  ‘Did you take it or did she give it to you?’ he said.

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘It’s family property,’ he said. ‘My property.’

  Since that was undeniable, I expected him to pick it up. He just sat there staring down at it, thinking hard. When he spoke at last, his voice was surprisingly calm.

  ‘It’s no use as evidence, you know, neither one way nor the other.’

  I realised then that he knew nothing about the new entry his mother had made just before she died. That was evidence, and very damaging to his case. He was right that the old entry helped neither brother, supporting the fact that something had happened on the night in question but not mentioning an unknown lover.

  ‘You’ve read it then?’ I said.

  ‘Of course I’ve read it. I suppose Miles has too.’

  I held my breath, waiting for him to open it and see the new entry. He shrugged.

  ‘I suppose Miles paid you to steal it. I might have known he’d get here first. Well, much good may it do him.’ He stood and picked up his hat from the table.

  ‘I’ll wish you good evening then, Miss Lane. I’m disappointed in you. I’d been told you were a woman of some intelligence, but you’re missing something as clear as noonday. You’ll find out soon enough, and so will everybody else.’

  Then he marched away downstairs, heavy-footed as if he were still wearing armour, leaving his mother’s journal unopened on the table. I took it upstairs with me and kept it within touching distance through the night, on a chair by my bed.

  In the morning, I decided to call on Celia. I owed her a visit, but that wasn’t the reason. I wanted to know about the paper that Miles Brinkburn had allegedly forced his mother to sign, and Celia was the perfect source of society gossip–even better than Amos when it came balls and salons. I dressed carefully, waited until the socially acceptable hour of eleven o’clock, then walked the short distance to Grosvenor Square where Celia and Philip had their town house. As I arrived at the front door, two beautifully dressed young women were getting into their carriage, giggling and chattering. Celia’s harvesting of the latest news obviously began at the crack of dawn by Mayfair standards. I gave my name to the footman and was shown upstairs almost at once. Celia was reclining on an Egyptian-style couch, in a light and airy sitting room decorated in dusky pink and ivory. She wore a housecoat of pink and silver brocade and matching slippers with turned-up toes, her hair tied with a pink ribbon, and was clearly in blooming health. She sat up to throw her arms round me.

  ‘Elizabeth, darling!’ (One of these days I’d manage to implant my real name in her butterfly mind, but it wasn’t going to be today.) ‘You’ve positively saved my life. I am literally dying of boredom and as solitary as what-was-her-name after whoever it was abandoned her on Naxos or somewhere.’

  It was hardly kind to the girls who’d just left, but perhaps five minutes’ solitude was a long time by her standards.

  ‘Now, sit down here beside me and tell me everything you’ve been doing. I’ve heard you were the belle of the fair ladies’ ball, or would have been if you hadn’t got there so terribly late. What were you doing? Emilia says that dragonfly of yours is the most delicious thing she’s seen all season and she wants to know where you got it, or is that a secret? Be an angel and ring that bell for me, would you? The doctor says I positively must not bend or stretch and I’m fainting for a cup of chocolate.’

  Chocolate was duly ordered and arrived in a silver pot with two cups of delicate porcelain, large as soup bowls. While this was going on, Celia kept up a scatter-fire of questions.

  ‘Is your aunt better? Did you see old Lady D at the ball with her protégé? That’s what she calls him, at any rate. A quarter of her age, and her grandson was his fag at Eton. Have you ever known anything so entirely shameless? Tell me about the costumes. Is it true that the Laverick girl came covered head to foot in real roses then had to exit en courant when the petals started falling? Probably too good to be true, these things usually are, don’t you think?’

  Once we’d finished the chocolate and the maid had taken the cups, she got down to serious business.

  ‘My dear, you’ve heard the latest about
Miles?’

  Her voice was low, her look commiserating.

  ‘I thought you might be able to tell me,’ I said.

  ‘Then you haven’t heard? I’m afraid things are serious between him and La Rosa. You know the father’s dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it turns out Lady Brinkburn’s just died too. Some people are saying she killed herself out of grief when she heard her husband had died, only that doesn’t seem very likely since they’d been living apart for ages, but then women do sometimes do strange things at her age, don’t they? Anyway, the point is that just before she died she signed this paper saying Miles is her only legitimate son. And you know what that means.’

  She paused for breath. So that was the paper Stephen Brinkburn had been talking about. No wonder he was so angry. He’d have been even angrier if he’d known that the claim was supported by what his mother had written in the journal.

  Celia must have mistaken my look for disappointment.

  ‘So of course, that changes everything, my dear. Miles came rushing back to town and showed the paper to Rosa. She’d already compromised herself by that business at the jousting–you surely must have heard about that–and it turns out that she’d preferred Miles all along, only her aunt persuaded her she shouldn’t take the younger son when she could have the one that mattered. So the engagement with Stephen is off and it’s only a matter of time before she and Miles let it be known that theirs is on instead, though I suppose they may wait until all the business of the title goes through the law courts and Philip says that may take years, which would be hard on her since complexions don’t last forever, but there it is.’

  Her hand came out and rested lightly on my wrist.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear. If things had gone the other way, he really would have done very well for you, and I know he was interested. Still, other fish…I shall plan a campaign for you. It will be something to pass the time in my dreary cell while I’m held prisoner like this.’

  She leaned back against her silk cushions, almost consoled for my imagined loss. I knew it was useless to try to protest and that she was already riffling through Debrett’s in her mind for possible younger sons. I thanked her, kissed her on the cheek and left, promising to come back as soon as I could.

  On the walk home, I thought over what Celia had told me and ran through a timetable of events in my head. Late on Wednesday night Miles learned that his father was dead. Early next morning, by Stephen’s account, he’d rushed down to the estate and got his mother to sign the statement. I assumed, as seemed likely, that it was this knowledge that had put Stephen into such a fury when I saw him galloping away from the hall on Saturday morning. The news would have spread round London in a short time. Stephen was in danger of losing title, fortune and fiancée. It would hardly have been surprising if he’d been the figure on the lawn at first light on Saturday, staring up at his mother’s window and wondering how to persuade her to change her mind. But she hadn’t changed her mind, and by first light on Sunday morning she was dead.

  Considered that way, Stephen had a strong motive for killing his mother. But there was another way of looking at it. Which brother had most to gain? Not Stephen. With his mother dead, there could be no change of mind. That statement Miles had secured was her last word on the subject. Had that occurred to Miles? His mother was impulsive and stories could be changed back again. He had an equally strong motive to make sure that it really was her last word. Was that what Stephen had meant when he taunted me with missing something as clear as noonday?

  As I walked along Adam’s Mews I met various vagabond boys, known to me by sight, who hung around the stables and picked up the occasional coin by running errands and holding horses. Tabby would have been a familiar figure to them, but when I asked if they’d seen her recently, the usual answer was ‘not for a long time’. That probably meant not since she’d gone away with me, ten days ago. I promised all of them a reward if they could bring me information that helped me find her, and watched their eyes light up, but couldn’t feel hopeful. If Tabby had been alive and well, she’d have found her own way home by now.

  Mr Grindley the coach repairer was outside his workshop smoking a pipe as I passed by, and he greeted me with a smile.

  ‘What you been up to, Miss Lane?’

  ‘Up to?’

  ‘Policeman been round inquiring for you.’

  ‘Policeman?’ My heart somersaulted. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Not half an hour since. Said he’d be back.’ He gestured with his pipe. ‘Here he comes now.’

  And strolling through the gates to the yard, top hat and brass buttons gleaming, came Constable Bevan, with a smile on his face like a man who expected people to be pleased to see him. I wasn’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lane. I gather you’ve lost your maid,’ said Bevan, raising his hat to me.

  No point in gratifying his vanity by asking him how he knew. He must have seen me talking to one of the street boys and got the information from him. It was hardly a secret, after all.

  ‘Are you going to help me find her?’ I said.

  He shook his head. I noticed that there was a smear of soot down one side of his nose. He seemed unaware of it.

  ‘Absconding servants aren’t a police matter. Unless they’ve taken some of their employer’s property with them, that is.’

  ‘She hasn’t.’

  He nodded, still smiling, as if that confirmed something he’d already discovered.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry she’s not come back,’ he said. ‘There are a couple of things I’d have liked to ask her.’

  ‘To ask Tabby? What?’

  I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice. He glanced at Mr Grindley, standing within earshot, and looked pointedly down the yard. Unwillingly, I walked a yard or two and he followed.

  ‘Anything you wanted to ask Tabby, you’d better ask me,’ I said. ‘Or if you know anything, please tell me.’

  He looked down at the hen coop beside us as if thinking of sitting on it, then remembered his manners.

  ‘So you’ll answer for her, will you?’

  ‘If I can, yes. But what is this about?’

  He squinted down his nose.

  ‘Have I got soot on my face?’

  ‘Yes, you have.’

  I felt meanly pleased to have a chance to unsettle him, even in this small way. He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his uniform tailcoat and dabbed at the smear, not seeming much concerned.

  ‘Dirty place, Paddington.’

  He looked at me over the handkerchief.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’ve just come back from Maidenhead?’ I said.

  ‘Oh no. Can’t go running around like that on the public’s money. They don’t even like paying us back for omnibus tickets.’ He tucked the handkerchief away. ‘Just as well some people are more public spirited.’

  ‘Please tell me what all this has got to do with Tabby.’

  He pretended to be surprised by the sharpness in my voice.

  ‘I’m about to tell you. You remember we had the pleasure of meeting when I was on my little fishing trip?’

  ‘When you wanted me to believe you weren’t on duty. Yes.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t on duty, in a manner of speaking. But a man naturally gravitates towards his own trade. A barber, for instance: put him down in a strange town and, a pound to a penny, before the hour’s out, he’ll be talking to another barber. You must have noticed it yourself, observant lady like you are.’

  ‘So what you’re telling me is that you just happened to get into conversation with a local policeman?’

  ‘Coroner’s officer, in this case. An older trade, as it happens, but much the same line of country when it comes to unexplained deaths, as in the case of the late Simon Handy.’

  ‘And I suppose this coroner’s officer, whom you just happened to meet, came rushing up to Paddington by railway train first thing this morning, fo
r the pleasure of your conversation. Suppose you tell me what this has to do with me and my maid?’

  He sighed, as if my impatience offended him.

  ‘He’s a conscientious man. Some people, a death on a Sunday morning, it would be a case of let it wait till Monday. Of course, he might have been taking into account that it was a member of the aristocracy.’

  ‘Lady Brinkburn?’

  ‘Lady Brinkburn. He went out to the hall, spoke to the servants–“Who’d been the last one to see her alive?” and so on. One of them he spoke to was her ladyship’s maid. Clever girl, by his account. She pointed out that the lady’s laudanum bottle wasn’t her usual pattern. She even had it safely locked up there in the bedroom. He wondered who’d told her to do that. She remembered the name from when the lady had come visiting. Good description too.’

  He paused and looked at me.

  ‘Yes, I advised her to,’ I said. ‘It seemed a reasonable precaution. I knew somebody would have to make official inquiries.’

  In fact, I hadn’t been thinking so far ahead. It had been an instinctive reaction after the discovery about the bottle. He nodded.

  ‘Very proper and public spirited. Bit of a coincidence though, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Coincidence?’

  ‘Simon Handy’s found dead in London. You’re there. His late employer’s found dead in Buckinghamshire. You’re there again. Has it struck you that you might be a kind of natural magnet for coincidences?’

  I’d been doing some quick thinking, not liking the way things were heading. On one hand, my client was entitled to confidentiality. On the other, I couldn’t have envisaged these complications when I took on the case. I compromised.

  ‘It’s not coincidence. I’ve been involved in professional inquiries concerning the family. That’s all I’m prepared to tell you.’