A Dreadful Murder

by Minette Walters

  A Dreadful Murder at

  Frankfield Park

  The body of a lady was discovered yesterday on premises owned by Mr & Mrs Wilkinson of Frankfield House. Mystery surrounds the death but our reporter has learnt that the victim was Mrs Caroline Luard of Ightham. Her husband Major-General Charles Luard is a leading citizen of Kent. Scotland Yard has been called in to conduct the inquiry.

  It is believed that Mrs Luard was shot during a robbery. Her purse and rings were stolen and the police are searching the county for armed vagrants.

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday, 25 August 1908 –

  Sevenoaks, morning

  Henry Warde met the two Scotland Yard detectives, Superintendent Albert Taylor and Constable Harold Philpott, off the train. The constable was dressed in the uniform of the London police but the Superintendent wore a brown overcoat over a dark suit.

  Superintendent Taylor was a tall, good-looking, middle-aged man, who had an easy way of inspiring confidence in the people he met. He removed his soft felt hat and shook the Chief Constable’s hand. ‘Good day, sir.’

  Warde had spoken to him on the telephone earlier that morning but he still felt the need to explain why he’d asked for Scotland Yard’s help. ‘I can’t be seen to take sides,’ he said, leading the two men towards his car. ‘I knew the dead woman well. Her husband’s a close friend.’

  Taylor nodded. ‘You told me you didn’t think the Major-General was involved. Have your men found anything to change that view?’

  ‘No,’ said Warde. ‘His own account of what he did during the time she was killed has been backed up by four witnesses who saw him.’ He drew to a halt beside his Daimler and took two pieces of paper from his pocket. ‘This is Charles’s account . . . and this is what the witnesses have told us.’

  The Superintendent scanned the first page before handing it to Constable Philpott. He then read the second page.

  3.20 p.m. Thomas Durrand of Hall Farm saw Major-General Luard pass the farm entrance.

  3.30 p.m. Peter Filey, labourer, saw Major-General Luard near Godden Green Golf Course.

  3.35 p.m. The Club steward saw Major-General Luard walking up the grounds.

  4.05 p.m. Reverend A. B. Cotton passed Major-General Luard in his car. He stopped and put Luard’s golf clubs in his vehicle.

  4.20 p.m. Reverend Cotton gave the Major-General and his dog a lift home.

  ‘How far is it from where Luard left his wife at the wicket gate to this first sighting at Hall Farm?’ Taylor asked, placing his finger on the first line. ‘There’s a gap of fifty minutes . . . assuming he’s telling the truth about parting from her at half past two.’

  ‘A fair distance. I’d say fifty minutes is about right for a man of Charles’s age. He’s almost seventy.’

  ‘And there’s no question the couple left the house just after two?’

  ‘The maid confirmed it.’

  ‘Could the Major-General have reached Hall Farm by 3.20 if he’d followed his wife to the summer house first?’

  Warde shook his head. ‘Not on foot . . . on a bicycle, possibly.’

  ‘With a dog racing along beside him,’ Taylor murmured thoughtfully. ‘That’s the bit that interests me. In some ways, Sergeant is his best alibi.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s no saying how an animal will behave. Sergeant might have tried to protect his mistress . . . become excited by the blood . . . started howling . . . refused to leave the body. Any or all of those would have caused problems. If the Major-General’s guilty, he took a big risk on the dog.’

  ‘And on anyone seeing him,’ Warde pointed out. ‘It was pure chance that Thomas Durrand happened to be at his farm entrance. Dog or not, it was a damn strange way to kill a wife if he wanted to get away with it. What sort of murderer admits to being the last person to see his victim alive and the first to find her dead?’

  ‘An idiot or a genius,’ Taylor said. ‘The simpler the story, the harder it is to disprove.’

  * * *

  Warde drove the two detectives to the mortuary, a small brick building next to the hospital in Sevenoaks. They found Dr Mansfield at work on the post-mortem. The three men joined him and stared gravely at Caroline Luard’s corpse.

  For the sake of decency, John Mansfield had covered her body with a white sheet. He folded the cloth back to the neck to reveal Caroline’s head. ‘I’ve shaved the hair around the wounds,’ he said. ‘You can clearly see the bruise where she was struck with something heavy . . . and the bullet holes behind her right ear and in her cheek. I’m going to have to make a mess of her if you want me to dig them out.’

  ‘It has to be done,’ Taylor said with regret. ‘We need to know what sort of weapon was used.’

  Warde looked doubtful. ‘Can you tell that from a fired bullet?’ he asked.

  ‘Not personally, but I know someone who can.’ Taylor took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. ‘Edwin Churchill. We’ve used him several times. He has a gunsmith business in The Strand . . . knows more about the science of shooting than any man I know. He calls it “ballistics”.’

  ‘How do we get hold of him?’

  ‘By telegram.’ The Superintendent scribbled a couple of lines and tore off the page. ‘How close is the nearest post office?’ he asked the doctor.

  ‘Two hundred yards up the road.’

  Taylor handed the note to his constable. ‘Sign it from me and wait for an answer. If Churchill can come this afternoon, telegraph back to say we’ll meet him at the station. When we’re finished here, we’ll pick you up from the post office.’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  Taylor waited until the door closed then moved to the top of the table. He stooped to look at the darkened bruise on Caroline’s scalp. ‘How long does it take for something like this to develop, Doctor?’

  ‘Long enough for the broken veins to leak blood and fluid into the skin.’

  ‘But only if the victim’s alive?’

  ‘Indeed. The heart has to keep pumping to make a bruise as obvious as this one.’

  ‘So what’s your best guess on the time lag between the bang on the head and the first shot?’

  Dr Mansfield shrugged. ‘A few minutes. To be honest, I’m more interested in why she was sick on the floor of the veranda. It’s possible she vomited from the shock of being struck . . . but I think it more likely she was knocked out and was sick when she started to come round.’

  The doctor explained what he thought had been the sequence of events. Since Caroline had been hit from behind, she would have fallen forwards. If she was shocked but still awake, she would have thrust out her hands to break her fall. If she was knocked right out, she’d have collapsed in one movement.

  ‘It makes more sense that she went down in one movement,’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t have found the vomit where we did if she fell to her hands and knees first.’

  ‘No,’ said Taylor, picturing the scene in his mind. ‘It would have been underneath her. Her body would have covered it when she was shot.’

  ‘That’s my guess.’

  ‘And if she had been knocked out for several minutes, it would explain why the bruise had time to develop.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Mansfield paused. ‘The pity is she didn’t remain unconscious. She might still be alive if she hadn’t come round.’

  The Superintendent from Scotland Yard was a lot sharper than Kent’s Chief Constable. It took him only a matter of seconds to follow the logic of what the doctor was saying. ‘You think that’s why she’s dead? She opened her eyes and saw her killer?’

  Mansfield nodded. ‘She’d have been able to describe him . . . might even have known him by name.’

  * * *

  Henry Warde picked holes in the doctor’s ideas while he and Taylor sat in the Daimler, waiting for Constable Philpott to finish in the post office. There was no evidence that Caroline ever opened her eyes again, he argued. It was just as likely she was clubbed down and shot immediately.

 
; Taylor listened to him while watching the people of Sevenoaks pass by. They seemed to have more time to pause and greet their friends than their fellows on the crowded streets of London. Signs of wealth were everywhere – in the buildings, in the number of cars on the road and in the clothes on display.

  ‘You’re reading too much into the doctor’s words,’ the Superintendent murmured when Warde fell silent. ‘He didn’t say she recognised her husband when she opened her eyes.’

  The Chief Constable sighed. ‘Maybe not, but that’s what people will think. Charles is a crack shot, and everyone knows it. He founded the Rifle Club to teach every working man how to handle a gun in the event of war. He could have killed Caroline from a hundred yards away.’

  ‘In which case, she wouldn’t have the bang on her head,’ Taylor reminded him. ‘Any Tom, Dick or Harry can shoot straight when he’s right up close.’

  ‘It won’t stop the gossip. As one of my inspectors said last night, a dead wife usually means a guilty husband.’

  ‘Does the Major-General have money worries? It’s when the debts start to pile up that wives become a burden.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Warde. ‘He’s a proud man. He’d never admit to his friends that he couldn’t pay his bills. But I can’t see it. Caroline ran charities for the poor, and she used her own and Charles’s money to support them.’

  ‘What about another woman?’ Taylor asked, watching a pretty girl swing her long skirts from side to side as she flirted with a lad. ‘That’s always a good reason to get rid of a wife.’

  Warde followed his gaze. ‘I’d be surprised,’ was all he said.

  Chapter Four

  Constable Philpott rejoined them with news that the gun expert would be catching the five o’clock train. Chief Constable Warde suggested they visit Charles Luard next but London’s Superintendent Taylor shook his head. He needed to get a ‘feel’ for where the crime took place before he spoke to the victim’s husband. He also wanted to see the wicket gate into Frankfield Park and follow the route the Major-General said he had taken to Godden Green Golf Club.

  The boss from Scotland Yard ruled out walking the footpath to the summer house. On orders from his bosses in London, Taylor had sent for bloodhounds to sniff out the escape route that Mrs Luard’s killer might have taken. But he had few hopes the dogs would succeed. With only the scents from the veranda to go by, the chances were high that the animals would simply retrace Caroline’s tracks back to the road.

  Chief Constable Warde headed his Daimler in the direction of Ightham, turning off onto Church Road before they reached the village. He paused briefly beside the wicket gate then drove to Godden Green, passing Hall Farm on the way.

  ‘It’s a long walk for a seventy-year-old,’ Taylor said. ‘Was he really planning to make the return trip with a golf bag on his shoulder?’

  ‘He’d have had no choice if the vicar hadn’t given him a lift.’ Warde stopped the Daimler at the side of the golf course. ‘He still had to walk across these grounds to the Clubhouse . . . and that’s no mean distance either.’

  ‘He must be a fitter man than I am.’

  ‘You’ll have to add another couple of miles if he followed Caroline to the summer house. He’d have been running most of the way.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Taylor agreed.

  ‘You’ll doubt it even more when you meet him,’ Warde said. ‘I’ve never seen a man so broken by his wife’s death.’

  The Superintendent eyed him for a moment. ‘Perhaps it was the way she was killed that upset him,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he hadn’t expected it to be so brutal.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘He may have hired someone to do it for him while he created an excuse, an alibi, for himself.’

  ‘Is that a serious suggestion?’

  Taylor shrugged. ‘He was the only one other than Mrs Luard who knew where she’d be yesterday afternoon.’

  * * *

  The three policemen reached the summer house by driving to Frankfield House and walking down the long lawn to the woodland at the bottom of the garden. Warde pointed out where the gardeners, James Wickham and Walter Harding, had been working when Charles had burst from the trees calling for help.

  If the truth be told, Taylor was a little offended by the size of the summer house, La Casa. It was large enough to house four or five families in the poorer parts of London. He viewed it as a rich man’s plaything.

  Two Kent policemen stood on guard in front of it. They were there to prevent the curious gawping at where murder had been done. They saluted smartly as the Chief Constable and the Scotland Yard detectives approached.

  ‘Any trouble?’ Warde asked.

  ‘We’ve turned a few visitors away, sir. It’s the blood they want to see.’

  ‘Just morbid folk,’ said Warde with a grunt of disgust. ‘Did you take their names?’

  ‘I’ve made a list. They were mostly youngsters from Ightham. I’ll have words with their parents later.’

  ‘Have the dogs arrived?’ Taylor asked.

  ‘About an hour ago, sir. They headed off in that direction.’ The man pointed towards the path leading to Church Road. ‘I told their handler it was the way Mrs Luard must have come, and he said it was probably her scent they were following.’

  Taylor nodded. ‘It was always going to be a long shot. At least we’re free to go where we like now.’ He pointed to the gate in the veranda fence. ‘Is that where Mrs Luard entered?’

  ‘Must have been,’ Warde said. ‘It’s the only way in.’ He led the detectives across the grass. ‘You can see where she was lying. She hadn’t even reached the door before she was hit.’

  Taylor examined the ground in front of the steps. ‘The earth’s quite soft. Did you look for footprints?’

  ‘Yes, but there were too many to pick out the culprit’s. We found some of Caroline’s smaller ones in places . . . but Charles, Wickham and Harding walked or ran over this patch several times. Some of my men crossed it too.’

  ‘What about the paths?’

  ‘Same problem. They’ve taken a lot of traffic. The doctor and I came from Church Road, and Inspector Hamble brought his team from Ightham.’

  Taylor walked a good twenty yards in the direction Caroline had come from. If she’d been running away from a pursuer, her prints would have been far apart and her heels would have dug into the ground. He found one or two indentations in the grass that were small enough to be made by a woman, but nothing to indicate a frightened run.

  He returned to Warde. ‘How did you remove the body?’

  ‘By stretcher to Ightham Knoll. I called for an ambulance from there to take it to Sevenoaks.’

  ‘Ightham Knoll being Mrs Luard’s home?’

  ‘Yes. It seemed better than causing a stir amongst the staff in Frankfield House. We were able to take her straight upstairs to her bedroom.’

  ‘Did the Major-General spend any time with her alone?’

  ‘No. He and I sat in the drawing-room until the transport arrived. I urged him to write that account you’ve read. He made his goodbyes to her when she left.’

  Inwardly, Taylor was cursing the Chief Constable for waiting twelve hours to call him. Scotland Yard had modern views about how to conduct a murder inquiry, and they did not include trampling the ground around a murder scene or taking the victim back to her own house.

  Taylor, now a Scotland Yard Superintendent, had been a fresh-faced constable in 1888 when Jack the Ripper had prowled the streets of Whitechapel. And if that monster had taught the police anything, it was to be careful with the evidence. How much easier his job would be now, he thought, if Warde had had the sense to summon him before the body had been removed.

  Instead, he had to rely on the other man’s memory, and try to picture the scene for himself. ‘How was she lying?’

  ‘On her front. Her head was where the bloodstains are.’

  ‘And which way was she facing?’

  ‘Feet towards the
gate . . . head towards the summer house door.’

  Taylor mounted the steps and examined the stains on the wooden floor. ‘There’s not much blood. She must have died from the first shot. I wonder why the killer gambled on a second one.’

  ‘How was it a gamble?’

  ‘Noise,’ said Taylor, glancing across the glade towards Frankfield House. ‘He should have been afraid of being heard.’ He stepped around the bloodstains to peer through one of the windows into the summer house. ‘When do you think the rings were taken from Mrs Luard’s fingers?’

  ‘After she was dead?’

  Taylor tested the door to see if it was locked. ‘We’re talking about a killer who’d just unleashed a couple of loud gunshots . . . had no idea if anyone had heard them . . . and chose to squat calmly in his victim’s blood to wrestle a glove off her hand. Does that seem likely to you?’

  ‘Not when you put it like that.’

  ‘I’m guessing he ran like the devil in case his escape route was cut off.’ Taylor took a last look at where Caroline had fallen. ‘I think the doctor’s right. She was knocked unconscious and the rings were taken before she was shot.’

  Warde began to look more cheerful. ‘If theft was the motive, we can rule out Charles.’

  Taylor gave a regretful shake of his head. ‘Not if it was part of his murder plan.’ He stepped off the veranda. ‘But why make her death so noisy? She was at her killer’s mercy. He could have strangled her or beaten her to death.’

  * * *

  As Henry Warde drove towards Ightham, Taylor found himself more and more persuaded by Dr Mansfield’s version of events. If the aim had been to murder the woman, why not grab her from behind and run a knife across her throat? As long as she died quietly, her killer had all the time in the world to take whatever he wanted.

  And why two shots? Taylor thought of how bodies twitched and moved after they were dead, and wondered if panic had played a part. He could easily imagine the sudden flap of a hand spooking an already frightened man into shooting again. If so, the murder was the work of a novice rather than a hired killer or a retired soldier.