Murder on Bonfire Night
Page 30
‘Well, there’s no use crying over spilt milk,’ said Inspector Newcombe. ‘What is done is done. Now, Lady Belvedere, you never did tell us how you knew Miss Warren was our anonymous letter-writer.’
‘Oh, that proved to be quite simple in the end, Inspector,’ said Rose, rallying a little. ‘When I first made the acquaintance of Miss Warren, I couldn’t understand why she had been so concerned about Daphne reading a couple of books about poisons, so worried in fact that she meant to warn Major Spittlehouse. The fact was, of course, that she was already convinced that the Spittlehouses were responsible for her brother’s disappearance. Initially she thought the major was to blame, but then I think she became suspicious of Daphne. Of course, I knew none of this at the time, but I did think it very odd that she intended to approach a man she did not know to warn him that his sister might be considering murdering him.’ She sighed. ‘Daphne had mentioned Bunny to me. He was a young man of whom she was particularly fond. She said they had had an argument and that he had gone away without saying goodbye. I didn’t think very much of it at the time until Mrs Masters mentioned that her husband had been mumbling in his sleep something about murder and murderers. But I might never have made the connection with Miss Warren had Chalky White not come to dinner and you and I talked about nicknames, darling,’ she said, glancing over at her husband. ‘Bunny Warren. It came to me in a flash, as you might say, when I was leaving Bichester. Miss Warren might well have some connection with Bunny, who had disappeared in mysterious circumstances. I also knew that both the letter-writer and Miss Warren had intended to meet with the major on the night Masters was killed. It was possible, therefore, that they were one and the same person.
‘So they were anonymous letters rather than blackmail letters?’ said Cedric.
‘Oh, yes. Miss Warren only ever wanted to find out the truth regarding what had happened to her brother. She thought the letters would frighten the major in to confessing when she confronted him.’
‘Which she never did because of the problems with that damned bus,’ grunted Inspector Newcombe. ‘Unreliable things those buses, give me a car any day.’
‘Oh, you never guess what, m’lady!’ cried Edna, flying into her mistress’ bedroom one morning a month or so later. ‘Major Spittlehouse and Miss Warren are walking out!’
‘Good for them,’ said Rose, sitting up in bed. ‘Though I suppose when you say walking out, what you really mean is that they’ve been spotted having tea together in the tearooms?’
‘Ever so strange is what I call it,’ said the lady’s maid, arranging the breakfast tray, ‘what with his sister having killed her brother. It don’t seem right.’
‘Well, it seems to me that they have a great deal in common. They have both been far too focused on their siblings to think of themselves and their own lives. It would be wonderful for them to have some happiness.’
Rose took a bite from her slice of toast, very thankful that Edna knew nothing about Miss Warren being the author of the major’s anonymous letters. The maid would certainly have had something to say about that! She wondered how to change the subject but Edna had already wandered on to another topic, that of a certain Archie Mayhew.
‘Awfully cut up he is about Miss Spittlehouse,’ the lady’s maid was saying.
Privately Rose thought Archie should consider himself jolly lucky that Inspector Newcombe had decided not to press charges in relation to the removal of Masters’ body. She had it on the good authority of the policeman himself that he and Mr Whittaker had taken Archie aside and given that young man a very stern talking to. Mr Mayhew was apparently now working very hard indeed in the offices of Messrs Gribble, Hebborn & Whittaker in an attempt to put the past behind him and restore his reputation. Indeed, word had it that he had the makings of a very fine solicitor indeed.
‘Of course,’ Edna was saying, ‘with his looks and his charm he’ll find a new sweetheart soon enough. There will be girls queuing.’
Rose smiled and said: ‘Have you heard from Biddy? Is she enjoying running a guest house by the sea with Mrs Masters?’
‘Oh, she is that, m’lady. She’s enjoying the sea air something rotten. The major, he was ever so generous to Mrs Masters, he was. Gave her quite a sum to set up her guest house, he did. Ever so nice it is too, so Biddy says, real grand. They only get the best clientele. And Mrs Masters treats her more like a daughter than an employee; Biddy’s often tempted to call her ‘mother’.’
‘Well, I am very glad to hear that they are getting on all right.’ Rose looked quizzically at her maid. ‘Edna, why are you giggling?’
‘I was just thinking, m’lady. If it’s as grand as Biddy says it is, this guest house, Major Spittlehouse and Miss Warren could stay there on their honeymoon after they get married.’
‘Edna …’
But the lady’s maid had sailed out of the bedroom humming a wedding march and Rose was left chuckling and thinking that some good had come out of the tragic events after all.
Still laughing, she picked up a letter that she had received only that morning from the honorary secretary of the village’s amateur dramatics society inquiring in to the possibility of staging a Shakespeare play in one of the many follies that were located in the grounds of Sedgwick Court. Really, it would be a very worthy event, the writer assured her, for all the proceeds were to go to a most deserving charity.
How splendid, thought Rose, as she scribbled a note to say that she was in favour of such a proposal. It did not occur to her for a moment that she was being at all rash, or that she might later regret her enthusiasm for the venture.
Table of Contents
CopyrightCopyright 2016 Margaret Addison
To KateChapter One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen‘Linus!’
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty