by Tessa Dale
“You think Ellie and Daphne Leighton are one and the same person,” Dan Jones voiced his fears. “She disguised herself all those years ago, and then hid herself away in Coventry.”
“Where she made a reasonable, but comparatively modest living as a madam,” their DCI said. “I think love is messing up your brain, Dan. Ellie is going to be the second or third richest woman in England, but she knows nothing about all this.”
They drove through the fast growing suburbs of the town, suburbs that had grown out, until they engulfed Castleburgh House and its twelve foot tall boundary wall. The new houses had been built on land sold at a huge profit by Simeon Arthurson, whose company still held the freeholds, collecting hundreds of pounds more each quarter. It was a vastly rich and impersonal business, DCI Clever thought, well worth committing murders for.
“Why have you decided to search the house now, Guv?” DC Stanton asked.
“For the missing length of rope, of course,” the DCI told them. “Didn’t either of you pick up on what Neil McFarland told us at the Kerr crime scene?”
“Actually, Stan did, Guv,” Dan Jones said, giving the detective constable his due credit. “He’s not anywhere near as daft as he looks.”
“Thanks for that, Sarge.” said Stanton. “If the cut rope length is there, we can match the strands, and we have our murder weapon in the Kerr case. Do you want me to go straight round the back, Guv?”
“No Stan, that can wait until a little later,” Richard Clever replied. “Drive right up to the front door. We must do this by the book, and serve our warrant to Lady Arthurson. I imagine it will come as a blow to her. I wonder how she will react when she finds out that her husband is to be charged with multiple murders.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t turn up at the station with a gaggle of solicitors, even though Arthurson refused our offer to let him make a call.”
“She couldn’t come,” Clever said, as they pulled up in front of the great house’s beautifully colonnaded front entrance. “Here we are chaps. Stick close, and keep quiet.”
Richard Clever climbed out of the rear of the car, and put his compulsively polished glasses on. He climbed the front steps, and tugged on the hanging door bell handle. After a moment the huge door swung open. A splendidly liveried young man filled the gap, barring their way. He sniffed and then scowled, as he looked the big policeman up and down.
“Yes… sir?” he said, unsure as to whether he should send the men round to the tradesman’s entrance, or not. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“A word with her ladyship, if you please.” the DCI accompanied his request with a flash of his identification. The man seemed undecided as to how he should react. Finally, he gave a second, slightly louder, sniff and retreated, leaving all three officers standing on the Italian marble doorstep. After a couple of minutes, Lady Arthurson appeared. She was dressed elegantly, and was wearing a wide brimmed hat, with a beautiful lace veil covering the top half of her face.
“What do you want? I have an important engagement, with my husband’s legal representatives.”
“Are you Lady Arthurson?”
“Of course I am,” she replied. “Who else would you think I were?”
“Daphne Leighton, I am arresting you for the murder of Charles Vancleur, an unknown woman in August 1914, and Peter Kerr. I must caution you that anything you say will be taken down, and may be used in evidence at a later date. DC Stanton… search the stables first, please. Will we need handcuffs, My Lady, or will you come quietly?”
Chapter Twenty Nine
Richard Clever smiled like a Cheshire Cat, as Neil McFarland moved his rook into play. He noticed the feline look and groaned inwardly at the DCIs reaction to his gambit.
“I should have got you drunk first,” the forensic scientist complained. “Now tell me how you knew.”
“It was the one thing that I could not see, and it was there, in plain sight all the time,” Richard Clever replied. “There were two housekeepers - the attractive London one, and the frumpy Castleburgh version. I realised quite early on that Daphne Leighton had adopted a disguise, but it failed to register what an apparently pointless act it was.
“Charles Vancleur had never been told who she was, and he hated going to London. When he did, he stopped in a hotel, in case his wife was entertaining her young lover. They never met, except when thrown together a couple of times at society functions. On those occasions she kept in the background and avoided all contact with the Earl. He was not an observant man, and I think she could have turned up dressed in a suit of armour and he’d not have noticed. To him, she was nothing but another faceless servant.
“It was when I was going through the latest pictures and drawings that it began to make sense. Daphne disguised herself for an altogether different reason. It was so nobody else would recognise her, after the trial. From her viewpoint, it was vital that she tie Simeon Arthurson to her. What better way than to marry him?”
“I begin to understand now,” McFarland said. “After the trial was over, she metamorphosed back into the attractive woman she was, and married her partner in crime.”
“Correct. No one knew her around here, except as a frumpy old housekeeper. She altered her looks a little … a new name, a new hair style, and the liberal use of fashionable veils,” The DCI moved his Queen’s Bishop into play. “Check.”
“Damn. You’ll have me bang to rights in another three moves. I give in. You were saying?”
“Oh, yes. Daphne changed her name, and she and Simeon pretended that they had met at some dance or other. They went through the usual courtship ritual for a few months, and then were discreetly married. Daphne Leighton had, thanks to forged papers supplied by Archie Morant, became Sylvia Lowe, a spinster from Surrey. Then she married, became Lady Sylvia Arthurson, and settled down to a life of luxury with her husband.
“Years went by, without so much as the inkling of a suspicion, then Peter Kerr turned up in Castleburgh, asking awkward questions. From Ginnie Thrower he heard about the sacking of Vancleur’s staff, and the replacement of them with a single servant. Kerr had an idea that the mysterious housekeeper was the key, but had no idea where she was. After twenty three years, the trail had gone cold. So, he made a telephone call to the great house to enlist Simeon’s help. He had a notion that they might have a record of where Daphne Leighton had moved to.
“Daphne took the call, promised to find out what she could, and arranged for them to meet on Solomon‘s Tor. That’s why he went out onto the fells later that day. He was waiting on the cliff top for Lady Arthurson, and that was why he let her get so close. He thought she was there to help him in his search.”
“What a calculating bitch.”
“Yes, I have to agree. She told me that when she saw his features, she almost fainted. It was like Peter Fornell had come back from the grave all those years later. He was relaxed, and completely off guard. She took her chance, and pushed him off the cliff. Then she went calmly home to wait for Simeon to return. She explained what had occurred.
“He asked around, and found out that Peter Kerr was still very much alive, and in Castleburgh hospital. They must have been waiting for us to knock at their door, but it didn’t happen. Instead of the police, they received an unexpected, and rather odd visitor. It was poor Peter Kerr, swathed in bandages. He was still concussed, and considerably confused. He had an idea that he’d been assaulted, but didn’t recall the attack. His only clear memory was his intention to ask their help. He told them who he was looking for, and they agreed to help him.
“Simeon Arthurson jumped at the chance to clear up Daphne’s mistake. With Kerr out of the way, he believed their secret would be safe once more. He took Peter Kerr to an old barn, explaining that Daphne Leighton, the ex housekeeper lived close by.
“The rest, I’m sure, you can guess, Neil. He and Daphne murdered him, and faked a suicide. They realised we would investigate, of course, but failed to take account of our new forensic abilities.
Once we knew that a murder had been committed, they were back on the defensive. Simeon realised he was going to be charged, if not with murder, then most certainly with complicity in Fornell’s death. He decided to embark on a desperate course of action. He would make a spurious confession.
“I picked it to pieces, as he wanted me to. He wanted me to reach the conclusion that he and Daphne were the killers. Daphne was officially dead, and she intended keeping a low profile until the trial. He would withdraw his confession before the trial, and throw the burden of proof onto us. After twenty odd years, a jury might go either way. There was a reasonable chance that Simeon would get off, but if not… he said it himself… he was willing to go to the scaffold for the woman he loved.”
“Will they hang?”
“If it had just been the Vancleur murder, they might have been given life, but the Peter Kerr murder was as cold blooded as any I’ve ever come across. I think they will both go to the gallows.”
“There are still some unanswered questions, I think,” McFarland said.
“There are at the moment. Small details only. I will be interviewing Daphne again tomorrow. She wants to turn King’s Evidence and cut a deal. Her testimony would ensure Simeon receives the death sentence. She will tell me everything I need to close the case, providing I deal.”
“Then she will escape death,” the pathologist said, angrily.
“Daphne Leighton wants to betray her husband to save her own neck, but she has miscalculated, Clever told him. “The law says a wife cannot testify against her husband. In pressing marriage on Simeon, she forged her own fate. The prosecutor, I am assured, will refuse her request and try her along with her husband. He believes the evidence is enough to convict, in one case, at least.”
“What about the unknown person who died in Daphne’s car?” McFarland asked. “Will you ever find out who she was?”
“We’ll try,” Richard Clever replied, “but Simeon didn’t know the victim. She was some poor wretch who to the came to the house, looking for a handout, or a hot meal. He smothered her, and he and Daphne arranged the ‘accident’. The car was driven into the tree deliberately, soaked in petrol, and set alight.”
“A good pathologist would have known,” McFarland told him. “The lack of discolouration in the lungs, and teeth indentations on the upper lip would have pointed to the victim being dead prior to the conflagration.”
“Yes, I know. Still, we have a decent one now. I hear, strictly between you and I, that your department is to receive an extra three thousand, five hundred a year on its budget. That should help to pay for a second pathologist.”
“I’ve already put out feelers,” Neil said. “An old university pal is interested. Harriet Powell is a whiz with blood and poisons.”
“A woman? The new Chief Constable will be delighted with the news. He hasn’t stopped talking about being a new broom since he got the job.”
“Harriet Powell will help make our forensic department into the best outside Scotland Yard.”
“That’s good news for us all in CID,” Richard Clever replied. “How about another game, Neil?”
“How about I pour us a nice double malt whisky?”
“You know what, my friend,” Richard Clever replied. “I think that is a wonderful idea.”
“What next for you?” McFarland asked. The DCI shrugged and set about rearranging the chess pieces.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “I’ve had an interesting time, finding vanished buses, and tracking down murderers, but Castleburgh is usually a very quiet town. I might move on.”
The telephone rang. The pathologist put down the bottle he was opening, and answered it.
“Yes… yes he is. What? Right, I’ll tell him, Sergeant.”
“Was that for me?” the DCI asked.
“They need both of us over at the Town Hall,” Neil McFarland explained. “It seems the mayor has been found dead, inside a locked room.”
“A murder in a locked room mystery,” Richard Clever said, enthusiastically. “What a splendidly hackneyed idea. Shall we?”
~The End~
Thank you for reading this book. Before you go, may we recommend other crime fiction, published by Tight Circle, and available exclusively from Amazon on your Kindle, Fire, Tablet, PC or Laptop?
The Trask Trilogy
The Black Jigsaw by Tessa Dale
The Red Maze by Tessa Dale
The Chinese Puzzle by Tessa Dale
And Angels May Fall by Steven Teasdale
The Soul Eater’s Tale by Steven Teasdale
Crime In Time by Tessa Dale
Violent Lives by Steven Teasdale
Towards Hell by Tessa Dale is a taut, fast paced novel which explores the infamous Jack the Ripper case, and offers a plausible solution to the most infamous murders of the Victorian Age.
All titles published by Tight Circle are works of fiction and all the characters are completely fictional, unless a historical figure is mentioned, or portrayed.
