Death at Thorburn Hall

by Julianna Deering

  Pike and Kuznetsov looked equally dismayed at the prospect, but before either could reply, dinner was announced.

  Dinner was splendid: tomato soup, fillet of salmon, and potatoes dauphinoise, followed by crème brûlée and then Scottish woodcock as the savoury. It was clear that Lady Rainsby loved having guests and was an accomplished hostess, putting everyone at ease and having them chatting like old friends by the time the main course was served. Afterwards, when the others retired to the drawing room, Lord Rainsby invited Drew into his private study.

  “Sit down, will you, my boy.” There was a glint of humor in Rainsby’s faded blue eyes as Drew briefly hesitated and then sat in the well-worn Morris chair in front of the equally battered desk. “The ladies of the house insist on redecorating the whole place at what they call ‘decent intervals,’ and I reckon it’s little enough to buy me a deal of peace and quiet. But I won’t have them in here.”

  “Quite right,” Drew said. “A man must put his foot down somewhere.”

  “Precisely. At least in his own study.”

  “I am blessed to have a wife who likes all the Farthering relics, myself included.”

  Rainsby chuckled. “Fortunately, our place in Cornwall hasn’t been tampered with. Apart from plumbing and electricity, needless to say, though our cook there won’t hear of using a gas cooker. She likes ‘a real fire, thank you very much.’”

  “One thing I’ve learned,” Drew said confidentially, “is that one never, ever unsettles one’s cook.”

  “Very true,” his lordship said with a bit of a laugh. “Oh, and Louisa has decided we must all go riding Thursday morning. We’ll have the first round of the Open tomorrow, of course, and get to see if our Mr. Cotton can hold the lead. But the day after we’ll have a ride in our meadow and then take in round two. If it’s fine enough, of course. Can’t say I’m not always eager to show off my mare Atalanta.”

  “Splendid.”

  Rainsby leaned back in his leather chair and began filling his pipe with rather pungent tobacco. “There are cigarettes in the box. Help yourself.”

  Drew moved the black lacquer container to one side and picked up the photograph it had been in front of. The girl in the picture gazed with a dreamy half smile into the distance, her eyes large and dark, her dark hair pulled back with a velvet bow as pale as her creamy skin.

  “This must be your daughter.”

  “Yes,” Rainsby said, brightening. “That’s our Joanie.”

  “You say she never misses the final round. Does she play?”

  “Yes. She always enjoyed the Open but never was very interested in playing herself until a year or so ago. Then she insisted upon having lessons and now she’s rather good. For a girl, of course.” Rainsby put a match to his pipe and puffed it into life. “You play, I believe.”

  “If you care to call it that,” Drew said with a wry grin, “but I do enjoy it.”

  “Fair enough. Perhaps we could play when Joan gets home. What do you say? You and Dennison and Joan and I could make up a four, eh?”

  “I’d like that very much, sir, if we have an opportunity. I suppose we’ll have to wait until after the tournament, but—”

  “You needn’t hurry away after it’s over.” Rainsby glanced toward the closed door of his study and then leaned forward in his leather chair. “There isn’t anything you need to get to, is there?”

  Drew knew the look. His lordship had something troubling him. “I suppose not, sir. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you know why Lady Rainsby invited you here?”

  Drew lifted one eyebrow. “I take it it was not merely to renew our cousinly acquaintance.”

  “Not entirely. No.”

  “Then . . . ?”

  Rainsby tapped his pipe against the ashtray and puffed on it a moment more. “She invited you,” he said finally, “because I asked her to.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “It’s rather a delicate matter, you understand. I thought someone with your experience in helping out in this sort of situation might be able to have a look at what we have up here.”

  Of course, even so charming an invitation as Lady Rainsby’s would come at a price. “You’ve been taking those old newspaper accounts far too seriously.”

  “Nonsense,” Rainsby blustered. “You’re the very man, I should think. If I wanted the police or some private investigation, I would have engaged them already. This requires tact and subtlety.”

  “So your wife suggested me.”

  “Don’t be daft, man. She knows nothing about any of this. She is one of the reasons I cannot and will not have some oaf from the local police bungling about, asking indelicate questions and stirring up gossip among the staff.”

  “I see.” Drew should have known he wouldn’t be allowed to simply enjoy the Open without interruption. “Then it’s a domestic matter.”

  Rainsby took another three puffs on his pipe and blew out the smoke in one choking cloud. “Yes,” he admitted at last, drawing out the word reluctantly, “and no.”

  “Look here, sir. Why don’t you just tell me the thing straight out, and then we can see if there’s anything I can do about it. What do you say?”

  Rainsby looked faintly relieved. “That’s the best way, isn’t it? Of course it is. Very well, here it is. Reginald MacArthur and I were in the war together. Afterward he was a bit at loose ends. He’d come from money, don’t you see, but he’d lost most of his helping where he could in the war effort. Capital of him, though a bit of a problem afterward.”

  “No doubt,” Drew murmured, remembering the huge amounts his own father had poured into the war effort, though he had managed to stay solvent long enough to recover.

  “Mac had been a cartographer during the war,” Rainsby said, “so he decided he’d give that a go afterward. Maps for schools and city councils and that sort of thing, right? Good, steady work, even if it is somewhat dull.”

  “Seems a logical step.”

  “Needless to say,” Rainsby continued, drawing audibly on his pipe, “he hadn’t the wherewithal to start a business of any sort.”

  Drew nodded. “And that’s where you came in.”

  “Precisely. I put up the capital, and we went into it as partners. It’s made each of us a tidy sum these past fifteen years, and he’s given me no reason to regret my decision to come in with him.”

  “Until now,” Drew ventured.

  “Until now.” Rainsby winced ever so slightly. “In the past year or so the firm has had a difficult time of it. Not surprising, not really, given the state of the world’s economies.”

  “Perhaps rather than a detective, you ought to engage an auditor.”

  “I have done,” Rainsby said, “and he found not even the slightest irregularity. Dash it all, man, I’d seen Mac in the war. Stout fellow. Give his all for king and country. I’ve been in business with him, mostly a silent partner, I’ll grant you, but he discussed matters with me. I knew what was going on.”

  “And now he’s not as forthcoming, is that it?”

  Again, Rainsby winced. “I—I don’t know if I can even call it that. There’s just something different about him. Something furtive. It unsettles me.”

  Drew smiled. “That’s hardly a crime.”

  “But it might be the sign of one,” Rainsby snapped.

  “True. Very true.”

  “I, uh . . .” Rainsby gave his grizzled mustache a sheepish tug. “I just thought you might be able to tell me whether or not I ought to be concerned. I hate to stir up something that’s not even there, eh?”

  “Perfectly understandable. Tell me more about him. Wife? Children? Unconscionable number of greyhounds?”

  Rainsby snorted. “No dogs of any variety to my knowledge. No children. Wife left him a year or more ago.”

  “Did she now? Do you happen to know why?”

  “He never said, naturally.” Rainsby’s mouth turned down. “Another woman, no doubt, though I wouldn’t have thought it of him before the divorce,
but that’s precisely what I mean. There’s something not quite right about it, though I know hundreds of people get divorced these days. Why it should be different just because it’s Mac, I can’t say. I just wouldn’t have thought it of him.”

  Drew gave a mental shrug. No harm in chatting with this MacArthur fellow. Might even give Nick some investigating to do when he wasn’t mooning over Miss Holland. Either way, Rainsby had been kind enough to invite them all up to see the Open. A little snooping on his behalf wouldn’t be asking too much, would it? He stood up.

  “I’ll see what I can find out. Discreetly, of course.”

  Rainsby fairly leapt out of his chair and seized Drew’s hand in one of his own, using the other to clasp his shoulder. “Excellent. Quite, quite excellent. Now, mum’s the word, eh? Nothing to the ladies, are we agreed?”

  “My Madeline excepted, sir,” Drew said. “But you needn’t worry about her. She’s been in on all the cases I’ve looked into. I couldn’t have managed without her.”

  Rainsby frowned. “Well, if you’re certain it’ll be all right. I never will understand these modern girls. Glad I got one of the last of the reliable ones in Lady Rainsby, don’t you know.”

  “Madeline’s a brick,” Drew said with a wink. “You’ll see.”

  “I’ll leave that to you, then.” Rainsby ushered him to the door. “You’ll get to know Mac a little better when we’re out riding, I expect.”

  “I’ll see to it I do.”

  Muirfield was a longtime venue of the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Designed by Old Tom Morris himself, it overlooked the Firth of Forth, though it was hard to distinguish land from sea from sky on that gray and blustery first day of the Open. But that didn’t seem to keep the spectators at home.

  Everyone from Thorburn Hall agreed to Drew’s suggestion that they follow last year’s champion Henry Cotton, at least to begin with. But after a few holes, the group began to scatter. Lady Rainsby, Mrs. Pike, and Count Kuznetsov went to take shelter in the clubhouse where it wasn’t quite so windy. Lord Rainsby saw that the local MP happened to be in attendance and went to talk to him about an upcoming election, and Mr. Pike went along with him. MacArthur muttered something about an old friend and disappeared. Nick and Carrie drifted to the back of the crowd, chattering away, clearly more interested in each other than the game.

  “It looks as though we’re on our own again, Mrs. Farthering,” Drew observed. “Do you want to keep following Cotton, or shall we find us a nice spot by one of the greens and watch them all play through?”

  “Stumbled across any murders yet, Detective Farthering?”

  Madeline’s eyes widened at the sound of the grumbling voice, and Drew fought a grin as he turned around. “Chief Inspector Birdsong.”

  Birdsong shook Drew’s hand and touched the brim of his hat as he nodded to Madeline. “And I thought I was on holiday.”

  “On holiday?” Drew asked with exaggerated alarm. “Are we to understand that Hampshire is left unprotected?”

  “Even I am allowed a day off now and again,” Birdsong said with a sanctimonious sniff.

  Madeline looked over the crowd. “Is Mrs. Birdsong with you? We never did get to meet her.”

  “Mrs. Birdsong and I have an agreement, ma’am. She has my blessing to invite her mother and sisters to visit during the week of the Open. And, while they’re nattering away at home all hours, a couple of lads from the department and I come to the tournament.”

  “That seems an equitable arrangement,” Drew said.

  “It’s served us well these past ten or fifteen years,” Birdsong told him. “You’ll find, young Farthering, these little accommodations make for a long and happy marriage.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  The chief inspector lowered his voice confidentially. “Makes it much easier to spend the week with her people at Christmastime if I haven’t already had enough of them by June.”

  They were silent as Cotton putted. The ball made a lazy curve toward the hole, looked as if it would stop just on the lip of the cup, then dropped in. The crowd broke into applause.

  “The man’s a marvel,” Drew said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he wins it again this year.”

  Birdsong narrowed his eyes. “So you’re here just for the tournament?”

  “Guests of Lord Rainsby out at Thorburn Hall.”

  “Nothing suspicious going on?”

  Drew shook his head.

  “Your old nanny or the chap who used to trim your lawn or the vicar from the next village but one doesn’t need your help?”

  Again Drew shook his head. “Just the tournament. Like you, we are on holiday.”

  Birdsong lifted both heavy eyebrows speculatively. “See you keep it that way.” With a tip of his battered hat, he turned and wove his way into the crowd.

  Madeline giggled. “Too bad he doesn’t know Nick’s here, too. He would have been sure we’re up to something.”

  “Nick’s got enough to think about just now,” Drew said, scanning the crowd, “wherever he’s got to.”

  They finally met up with Nick and Carrie sheltering under a tree near the tee on fifteen. When the girls hurried off to the clubhouse to freshen up, Drew and Nick stood watching the game.

  “How are you coming along?” Drew asked once the most recent foursome had teed off.

  Nick exhaled heavily, looking as perplexed as he was delighted. “It’s awfully good to have her back.”

  “But?”

  “Well, I don’t like the idea of her going home again.”

  “I know that already. What are you going to do about it?”

  Nick frowned. “I can’t just blunder into a proposal, you know. ‘Welcome back to Britain, Miss Holland, would you marry me? Today?’”

  Drew chuckled. “You might phrase it just a bit more subtly than that.”

  “I just don’t know if I have any right to say anything.”

  “No right? The girl’s absolutely potty about you. No right, man? Then who does have the right?”

  Nick kicked at the spotty turf under the shade of the tree. “Dunno. That Kip Moran fellow.”

  Drew scoffed. “You’re not on about him again, are you? I thought you figured out two years ago that she doesn’t care for him in the least.”

  “But she—”

  He broke off, silent while another group of golfers hit their tee shots. One of them ended up hooking his ball into the hazard, eliciting a sympathetic groan from the spectators.

  “She’s been back in the States two years now,” he continued, low-voiced, once play had stopped. “I don’t expect she sat home all that while.”

  “She was looking after her father, you know, and then in mourning after his death. Do you think she was out every night?”

  Nick gave a grudging shrug. “Maybe not every night. But there had to be some nights.”

  “Maybe. But even if she let one fellow or another escort her to a party or two, that doesn’t mean she was contemplating marriage. Come on, old man, you know the girl. Do you think she’s the type to string you along when she doesn’t mean it?”

  “No,” Nick admitted. “I’m not saying she was seeing anyone else, just that she deserves someone like Moran. He’s more her type.”

  “You mean the type with money.”

  Again Nick shrugged. “It’s not the money. Not just the money.”

  “Then what?”

  Nick watched the approach of another foursome, saying nothing.

  “What?” Drew urged.

  “I can ignore it most of the time,” Nick said finally. “But now Carrie’s here and I have the chance to propose, I can’t help realizing how it would be for her if she married me. I’ll always be the working-class bloke who isn’t quite fit to appear at society functions. No, don’t tell me it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to you, and don’t think I haven’t appreciated that every day of my life, and I truly don’t believe it matters to Carrie, but it matters to other people. Lady Rai
nsby is a charming woman, and I don’t believe she even realizes herself she’s doing it, but it’s quite clear she isn’t at all comfortable with my rubbing elbows with you and the rest of her guests. The butler’s son? Shocking.”

  “Nick—”

  Someone in the crowd shushed them as play resumed.

  “Nick,” Drew said once the latest group moved onto the fairway, “not everyone thinks that way.”

  “If this was a hundred years ago, I would certainly be bad ton. Not received.”

  Drew looked at him for a long moment. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. “And are you going to let silly, outmoded class distinctions keep you from marrying the girl you love? The girl who loves you?”

  Nick lifted his chin, defiant. “I might.”

  Drew snickered. “What a great nitwit you are. Now come on. We’d better go find our ladies fair and then see if we can’t catch up to Cotton’s group. I still think our best money’s on him for a second consecutive title.”

  “I still think . . .” Nick’s eyes widened in horror. “What am I going to do?”

  “Try to look as if you’ve got good sense at any rate,” Drew said, realizing he had caught sight of Carrie and Madeline coming through the crowd. “Unless you think looking like some large-mouthed fish of very low intellect will entice Miss Holland to accept your proposal.”

  Nick snapped his mouth shut, glaring at him.

  “There you are,” Madeline said, taking Drew’s arm. “We thought you might have moved on.”

  “Waiting for you, darling.” Drew smiled at both girls. “So what shall it be? Would you two like to follow Mr. Cotton a while? Or shall we find somewhere to make camp?”

  Carrie slipped her arm through Nick’s. “I’d like to walk a bit if that’s all right.”

  “Then we’ll walk,” he said. “I believe that’s one of your countrymen coming just now. Picard. Shall we watch him?”

  They watched Picard and the rest of his foursome tee off, then followed them down the fairway along with the crowd.

  “Oh, look,” Carrie said, looking across to the trees on the other side of one of the hazards. “It’s Mr. MacArthur. Who is that girl?”