by Issy Brooke
THE SHADOWS WERE LENGTHENING and Adelia was growing hungry. The three of them were still sitting together in the downstairs room. A fire had been lit and it was comfortable. Moving anywhere else was awkward due to having to drag Edith around in her bath chair. So they stayed where they were. Adelia wondered what to do about Theodore but it was not a conversation she wished to have in front of her daughter. That, she felt, would have been a step too far in the new mother-daughter relationship.
Adelia rang for some light snacks to be brought in, just to keep them all going before dinner that evening. When the servant came back with a trolley, she was accompanied by Mr Montgomery. The tall man of science looked awkward and nervous as he requested “an audience” as formally as if he were begging a favour from Queen Victoria herself.
“Please, come in and sit down. Have a fish paste sandwich,” Adelia said.
He looked at the trolley of food with some distaste. “No, thank you. I keep to regular meal times.” He did sit down, however, pulling up a plain wooden chair to sit almost alongside Harriet in her armchair. Opposite the pair of them, on the other side of a small round table, sat Adelia. Edith had been wheeled a little closer to the window though the sinking sun meant the glass was getting cold and she pulled the blankets over her knees as she picked at some scones on a plate that she balanced on a small folding table by her chair.
No one said anything. Mr Montgomery composed himself and eventually started the conversation. “I know Mr Froude has been to speak to you today,” he said.
Adelia nodded.
“Look, I know this is going to make me sound like an utter scoundrel and you have absolutely no reason to believe me at all, but I genuinely think that Mr Froude is the killer and he intends to frame me for the murder.”
Adelia put her half-eaten cake down on a small plate and gave Mr Montgomery her full attention. “Why don’t you tell me everything, Mr Montgomery?”
“Well, er, of course I shall ...”
“Everything,” she repeated. “I ought to warn you that I have been in London, you know.”
“Yes, I am aware of that.” He gestured towards Edith. “Poor Lady Ivery suffered the most dreadful calamity but I am glad to see she is recovering.”
“Do you know why we went to London, sir? No? Then I shall tell you. We went to look into your past, particularly your previous business dealings with Bablock Halifax. It is a matter of some concern to me that you told one tale to the inspector and another tale to me. This intrigued me. So we went to London and engaged a private agent to get to the bottom of things. And he did, Mr Montgomery. He did.”
Mr Montgomery was pale. “He found out about ... my indiscretion?”
“I think it was far more than a mere indiscretion, Mr Montgomery. You are not a man to be trusted at all, are you?”
He lapsed into a shamed silence, and bowed his head.
That impressed Adelia. He wasn’t coming out with excuses or explanations. She was compelled to ask, “Why did you do it, Mr Montgomery?”
“You mean the falsification of the finds that I claimed were prehistoric? I was stupid. I was ambitious. I was bored of being an academic. I wanted to prove that I could be a man of business. I wanted something different. And I wanted – God forgive me, this will sound ludicrous – but I wanted Bablock Halifax to like me. I look back now and I barely recognise the man that I was! Why would I seek that man’s approval? He was an odious toad of a man.”
“No,” said Adelia. “He was a liar, too, but he was charming and pleasant and when one spoke with him, one felt as if one really mattered. He listened. He made one feel ... seen. And that’s important. I imagine that he had much the same effect on you, Mr Montgomery. He made you feel like you were someone.”
Understanding seemed to dawn on him. “Yes,” he said with wonder. “How strange, but yes. That was it. Gosh – you must think me the weakest man alive,” he added with bitterness.
“Weak, but not the weakest,” Harriet said. “I’ve heard of a few that are worse.”
“Yes, thank you, Harriet,” Adelia said, with a shake of her head for Mr Montgomery’s benefit. She turned back to him. “Sir, one thing puzzles us. Knowing what we know about the relationship between yourself and Bablock Halifax, we can see a clear motive there. He was blackmailing you, wasn’t he?”
He nodded.
Adelia breathed out and let it sink in for a moment. It explained exactly why Montgomery had persuaded Froude to let Halifax into the business.
“So, you had a reason to kill Mr Halifax,” she went on. “A very clear and understandable reason indeed. But here you are, and you are claiming that Mr Froude killed him. Why would he do such a thing?”
Mr Montgomery knitted his brows. “In truth, I have no clear answer for you, and I question it myself. It is why I have not suggested that he is the murderer before this, you know. I can see no reason for him to have done it. He did not like him being in the business but he could have – and I am sure that he would have – expelled him, sooner or later. There was no reason for Froude to kill him.”
“Could Halifax have been blackmailing him too? Could Halifax have some knowledge of a deep, dark secret that he held over Froude? If he can do it to you, he can do it to anyone.”
“I have asked myself that many times,” Montgomery said. “Yet I am at a loss. I do not think that was the case.” He unclasped his hands and showed his palms like a street magician. “All I can tell you is that I did not do it, and I am beginning to think that Froude sees me as a likely distraction now that Mr Pegsworth has been shown to be innocent – well, innocent of murder, at least. I suspect that the only reason Pegsworth has been allowed to stay around is so that Froude has had someone to blame. Now that is proven to be not possible and therefore Froude must look elsewhere for his scapegoat. Hence, he looks to me.”
Adelia groaned. “Does everyone know what my brother has done?”
“Yes. The maid involved could hardly keep it to herself. I am sorry, Lady Calaway. Word will always spread.”
“If this kind of gossip spreads so quickly and easily, why can we not discover what dark secret Mr Froude is harbouring? It would suggest that there is no dark secret,” she mused.
Mr Montgomery sighed in a shuddering way. “I agree. I have heard of nothing. I wish I knew more. I can only tell you that I am dreadfully afraid for my very life.”
“Your life?”
“Not that I think he will make a move to kill me. No, I think he will point the police in my direction and see me hang for a murder that he has committed.”
“Such a thing would be a tragedy and a travesty,” Adelia said. “If it is the case.”
Silence fell. There appeared to be nothing more to be said. Eventually Mr Montgomery got to his feet and took his leave.
When he had gone, Edith spoke at last. “Mama, he was scared, and he is not the sort of man to be scared – nor the sort to easily pretend.”
“I agree,” said Harriet. “But could be right? He might be telling the truth, but only the truth as he sees it. He could still be utterly wrong.”
“I don’t know,” Adelia said glumly. “Oh, how I wish I could talk to Theodore about this.”
“You should go over to Ivery Manor and do just that,” Edith said.
Adelia ate another cake, just to prevent her from having to reply in agreement with her daughter’s good sense.
Twenty-two
It was now late in the afternoon. Adelia’s hangover was finally beginning to clear. She had sat for a long while in deep thought while Edith asked for some of her notebooks to be brought to her. Edith remained by the window, the curtains now closed, flicking through her journals and making notes from time to time. Harriet read a book.
A letter was brought in. Adelia sat up straight, hoping that it might be a note from Theodore. She was disappointed to see it passed over to Edith, who tore it open and read it, smiling.
“Gregory?” Adelia said.
“Oh, no. Claire Edgb
aston, actually.”
“The young woman from the birthday party? The one whom you made cry?”
“That was her sister, Angelina, and I didn’t make her cry. She made herself cry by thinking about men and marriage. Anyway, that’s by the by. She’s caught the eye of a curate, apparently, and he’s not as penniless as he might have been. Bit older than her but he hardly limps at all according to Claire. She’s in Brighton at the moment.”
“Angelina?”
“No, Claire! And Lady Passmore is in Hastings. Oh, Angelina has been a dear, too. She has sent cakes to Gregory and she found some journals that she thought I might like. There was a fascinating article about adding machines.”
“I am very surprised to learn that she’s writing to you.”
“She’s on a little tour of friends and family and I was interested in how she was getting around. She’s been sending me her impressions of various places.”
“Are you planning a trip yourself?”
Edith laughed and pointed at her elevated leg. “Goodness me, no. I am far too busy.”
She pointedly bent her head to her letter and Adelia lapsed back into silence and thought.
Her mind kept returning to Mr Froude. She had not wanted to think about him at all, but he kept swimming into her thoughts and at last she was forced to examine her interactions with him more closely.
But not those interactions of the far past. Those were definitely dead and gone.
Instead she reconsidered how he had come back into her life.
She examined every conversation that she had had with him.
She remembered how he had first arrived at Thringley House, happy to be invited to escape the fleas at the inn in town.
Fleas? Really? As Theodore had said to her that night, he was shocked to hear there were vermin in such a good place. But he had taken Mr Froude at his word and extended the invitation to all of them.
But Mr Froude hadn’t known that until he’d seen Mr Montgomery and Mr Halifax at dinner. Adelia closed her eyes as she recalled the expression of surprise and anger that had shown on his face. Hadn’t he blurted out, “What are they doing here?” He hadn’t expected them to be there.
He hadn’t wanted either of the other men to be there.
In one sense, then, it contradicted the idea that Mr Froude might have been planning to kill Mr Halifax.
In another sense, it led one to think that the murder had been a spur of the moment thing, a flash of impulse borne of drink and frustration.
Frustration with what?
She grimaced. Not money, not business, not reputation.
It was all because of love.
She felt sick.
It was all because of the candle that Froude still carried for her. The love that he had balled up in his heart and held for years and years.
But it wasn’t true love in spite of his carefully chosen words earlier. No. She knew him and he had not changed since his youth. He had wanted to possess her when he had asked for her hand in marriage; he had been rejected and he had hated it. She was willing to bet that no one else had ever turned him down. She was the one who had got away and he could not live with the knowledge. Of course, he told himself he loved her; he lied to himself because that’s what people did to avoid facing the very worst parts of their souls.
Love and revenge and spite and hurt and anger were all wrapped up in Mr Froude’s blackened heart.
He used people for his own ends. He used her brother, too; they could come up with a dozen reasons why Alf had been part of the fossil business, but the plain fact was, he was useful, and would be discarded when he was of no further help. He would have been thrown out a week ago had the murder not occurred.
So what had triggered that? Why had Froude killed Halifax that night? Was it merely a drink-fuelled argument? If overindulgence and tension could lead to Adelia and Theodore quarrelling so drastically, then what would it trigger in a man of dark passions like Froude?
And what had Froude hoped to achieve by getting invited to stay at Thringley House anyway? Had he hoped to make small advances upon her? Was his design to make her fall back in love with him? Then what did he hope to do – did he hope to whisk her away, or simply abandon her to her fall?
Whatever his aim was, it was thwarted immediately by the presence of the others. What was it that he had said to Theodore? She racked her brains. Froude had told Theodore that he had to watch out for Bablock Halifax’s approaches. She shook her head at the very idea. Halifax had been overtly flirtatious, making his charismatic overtures in plain sight of everyone else, playing a game that everyone in society understood to be fun but innocent.
However innocent it might have been, perhaps that must have been the final catalyst for Mr Froude. He had watched them all at that night’s dinner, growing increasingly furious at the turn events had taken. Every time Halifax had bent his head and said something that made Adelia laugh would have been a knife to Froude’s soul.
Perhaps Froude had gone into Halifax’s room to speak to him and warn him off. Perhaps he had intended to kill him, removing both a useless business partner and a potential love rival in one fell swoop.
“Mama?” Edith said. “Are you all right? I have been watching you for ten minutes and every emotion under the sun has paraded across your face.”
Adelia opened her eyes slowly. “I am dreadfully afraid that I might be the cause of all this trouble.”
“No, don’t say that. Papa had too much to drink as well.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean the murder.”
“You didn’t kill Bablock Halifax!”
“No, but I think I now know who did. We must discover the truth immediately, for every hour brings more danger to us and to Mr Montgomery.”
“Inspector Prendergast is in London at the moment,” Edith said.
“How do you know that?” Adelia asked.
“We were talking about trains and coaches, and timetables and hotels,” she replied. “He left last night but he will be back on Friday, he hopes.” She glanced at a notebook beside her. “That will depend on the connection and whether the engineering works are completed. He might find it quicker to come back via Swindon rather than Basingstoke, but I wager he won’t think of that.”
“So we have two days to discover evidence against the killer,” Adelia said grimly, not really following the railway talk. “Without alerting him to our suspicions.”
“But who is the murderer, mama? You said that Mr Montgomery was in danger, and I know it cannot be from poor Uncle Alf.”
Harriet looked up from her book. “Mr Samuel Froude? Do you suspect him at last?”
“Yes, I do. Very much so.”
“Mama,” said Edith, as firmly as if she were instructing a child, “if that is the case, then you need to speak to papa. We all need to go to Ivery Manor. And we need to go now.”
THE POLICEMAN TRIED to stop them. He stood defiantly in the centre of the double doors, his hands behind his back, his chest puffed out. “It is late, my ladies; it will do no one any good to be traipsing about at night.”
“It is barely six o’clock and my daughter does not live here. She was not here when the unfortunate event occurred, so cannot be considered a suspect. Now she wishes to go home, and as you can see, she can hardly be expected to go alone. She cannot walk and it would not be right to put her in a carriage and send her off in such a state without assistance.”
Harriet said, “And I was not here when the man was killed, either, so I’m not a suspect and I am free to go. I am married to a bishop, you know.”
“And you can’t tell my mother what to do,” said Edith from her wheeled chair. “Bonham, push me forwards. Together we can ram this man out of the way.”
“Bonham, don’t do that,” Adelia said to the manservant behind Edith. “Yet,” she added, staring fiercely at the constable.
“We are going to Ivery Manor for dinner and we will be back later tonight,” Harriet said, losing patience and
simply striding past the constable, who wavered, unsure of what to do. That moment of indecision was all they needed to surge past him and out into the night. Bonham, assisted by Harriet, awkwardly manoeuvred the chair down the steps onto the gravel and it was another wrestling match to get Edith up into the waiting coach. Then there was but a short journey through the unlit roads to Ivery Manor. Dinner was usually served around seven o’clock there, Edith told them, but she had high confidence in her kitchen staff that three extra mouths could be fed. “They are used to many visitors, after all,” she said, and for once, Adelia could not detect a note of bitterness in her voice.
Ivery Manor shone like a beacon, glowing with a profusion of lamps strung out along the curving driveway and adorning the wide marble portico. The dining room was to the right of the entrance as they approached, with four full-height windows in an elegant Italian style, and it was evidently occupied as the light from within showed through the curtains and drapes. Servants had come to the door almost as soon as the horses stopped, and it didn’t take long for Edith to be carried into the entrance hall and placed back in her chair. Harriet and Adelia stood alongside her, patiently waiting and letting Edith issue the orders to the kitchen about dinner. It was agreed to put the meal back half an hour. Adelia watched Edith play her part as mistress, feeling a certain amount of pride in her capable daughter. Yes, she was young and foolish, impetuous and often immature. But she had the capacity to learn and change.
That thought brought her back to Mr Froude, who had clearly done none of those things.
But her descent into introspection was stopped as Theodore and Gregory appeared from the smaller anteroom alongside the dining room. Neither were dressed for a formal dinner, which suggested there were no other guests and they certainly hadn’t been expecting the arrival of three women. They had already had a pre-meal drink or two. Gregory surged forward with delight, trying to awkwardly embrace his wife by kneeling down alongside her.
