The Skeleton in the Closet

by M C Beaton

  Maggie told him of her brainwave. “Let’s go now,” she urged.

  Soon they had locked up and were in the car heading towards Gloucestershire.

  “Isn’t there any air-conditioning in this thing?” asked Fell.

  “Too old, too cheap and too British,” said Maggie. “What happened to your driving lessons, Fell? I thought you had booked up for a crash course.”

  “I put the lessons off for a bit,” said Fell. “With all this business about the robbery, I didn’t feel I could cope with driving lessons.”

  “I could teach you,” said Maggie.

  “No,” said Fell hurriedly. “I paid for the lessons in advance, so I may as well take them.”

  He had been dreaming all night of disengaging himself from Maggie so that he could tell Melissa he was free.

  Maggie sensed his withdrawal from her. She cursed herself for having been so clumsy as to attack Melissa. Then she remembered that reporter, Peter South. She would phone him and ask him if he was free on Friday. Then she would tell Fell she had a date. If Fell realized she wasn’t holding on to him, they would be at ease with each other again, and surely she could find some way of exposing Melissa.

  They had to stop several times to ask for directions to Fell-worth Manor, which seemed to be buried somewhere along a network of country lanes. At last they reached the gates of the manor house. Fell got out and swung them open, and Maggie drove through. When he got back in the car, he found his heart was beating hard.

  Maggie drove slowly up the long drive under a long arch of wilting trees. Everything drooped in the heat. And then the house came into view.

  “It’s the right house,” said Maggie. “The one in your photo.” It was a Victorian mansion built of an ugly combination of red brick and yellowish Bath stone. It had mullioned windows reflecting the Victorian love affair with things medieval. But it was very large and imposing for all that, and as Maggie parked and Fell got out of the car, he could feel his knees trembling. “Well, here goes, Maggie,” he said, and squaring his shoulders, he walked up to the door.

  ∨ The Skeleton in the Closet ∧

  Five

  FELL waited patiently, with Maggie behind him. The whole countryside was wrapped in a hot, sleepy hush. A vision of his parents’ modest home rose before his eyes. They could not possibly have any connection with such a place as this.

  The door was opened by a middle-aged woman in a blue uniform with a white collar and cuffs.

  “Are you the owner?” asked Fell.

  “No, I am Mrs. Wakeham’s nurse.”

  “May I see her?”

  “Does she know you? Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. My name is Fellworth Dolphin. I think Mrs. Wakeham might have known my parents.”

  “Wait here.”

  She shut the door, and he could hear the heels of her sensible black lace-up shoes clacking off into the distance.

  Fell was wearing his best suit. He wished he could remove his jacket. He could feel stains of sweat spreading under his armpits. He suddenly wished Melissa were with him, not Maggie, Melissa with her sophistication and elegance. He glanced at Maggie. Her hair had gone limp in the heat and her face was shiny.

  The door opened again. “Mrs. Wakeham will see you for a few moments,” said the nurse. “Follow me.”

  They followed her through a house which seemed to contain too much furniture, too many oil paintings, too many objets d’art. It was cooler than outside, but the rooms through which she led them had a musty smell, as if no one had lived in them for a long while.

  They followed the nurse out into the garden at the back. An elderly lady sat at a table under a cedar tree.

  “Mr. Dolphin,” announced the nurse, “and…?”

  “Miss Partlett, Maggie Partlett, Fell’s fiancée.”

  Oh, I must stop this charade, thought Fell miserably. I don’t want to be engaged to this girl with the shiny face and limp hair.

  “Sit down,” commanded Mrs. Wakeham. She had a surprisingly deep voice.

  They both sat on wrought-iron chairs facing her.

  “I regret to say I have never heard of you,” said Mrs. Wakeham. “That will be all, Martha.”

  “Shall I bring some tea or lemonade?” asked the nurse.

  “No, they will not be staying long.”

  The nurse went back into the house. Fell studied Mrs. Wakeham, and Mrs. Wakeham studied Fell. She had a heavy, patrician-nosed face under the shade of a straw hat. Her eyes were of a washed-out blue. She had a dowager’s hump and despite the heat of the day was wearing a woollen cardigan over a tailored blouse and skirt.

  “I believe you have some mistaken belief that I knew your parents,” she said.

  “It’s because of my name,” said Fell, who was beginning to feel ridiculous under that pale gaze. “I’ve always wondered why I was called Fellworth. I saw the name of the house and that made me wonder.”

  “But your parents may have seen the name of the house in a book or when they were passing by the gates,” said Mrs. Wakeham. “Did you not think of that?”

  “I am sorry for wasting your time.” Fell just wanted to get away. “You see, I had this crazy idea I might have been adopted. So…if you will excuse us…” He half-rose to his feet.

  “Sit down,” said Mrs. Wakeham, “and take your jacket off. Old women like me do not feel the heat. I am curious. Why should you believe you were adopted?”

  “Because I cannot remember any parental love. Because my parents left me an awful lot of money.”

  “So you did not come here to try to get money out of me?”

  Fell stared at her, first in shock and then in dawning anger. “Of course not!”

  She studied him closely. “But you had a good education?”

  “I attended Buss Comprehensive, but could not go to university because I had to support my parents. Until my mother’s recent death, I worked as a waiter at the Palace Hotel.”

  She leaned back in her chair and murmured, “But they were paid well for your education.”

  Maggie let out a little gasp.

  “The money,” said Fell slowly. “That money I found. That was from you. Why?”

  There was a long silence. A small plane droned overhead. A bird in the heavy branches above them gave a dusty cheep.

  “I thought you had come here for money,” said Mrs. Wake-ham. “I may as well tell you. There is no reason why I should not tell you. First we will have tea.”

  She rang a little bell on the table and when the nurse appeared, said, “We will have tea after all, Martha.” After the nurse had gone, Mrs. Wakeham raised a wrinkled hand. “We will wait for tea before I tell you anything.” She turned her gaze on Maggie. “And so you are engaged to Mr. Dolphin?”

  “Yes. I am Fell’s fiancée. We met while we were both working at the hotel.”

  “You have fine eyes and a kind face. I am pleased. Tell me about yourself.”

  Maggie began to talk about what it had been like being a waitress. She told several funny stories about the customers and Mrs. Wakeham gave a dry laugh. Fell was amazed that Maggie should be so at ease, so unintimidated.

  Tea was served. The nurse retreated again. Mrs. Wakeham took a sip of tea and said, “Now, where shall I begin? At the beginning, I suppose. My son Paul was very wild, but at the time, we did not know much about his wildness. He was studying in the City for his stockbroker exams. He came down here at weekends. He got a local girl pregnant.”

  “My mother?” asked Fell through dry lips.

  She nodded. “She was called Greta Feeney and she was the local barmaid. Paul refused point-blank to marry her. She had respectable parents and Greta did not want an abortion, but she agreed to having the baby adopted if we arranged everything. My husband often took the train from Buss. Dolphin had once told him he regretted that he and his wife could not have children. My husband, Colonel Wakeham, approached him and said he would give him a large sum of money to adopt the baby. Dolphin agreed but
said he would only do it for a lump sum in cash. Adoption is difficult and we all wanted to keep the matter quiet. So it was decided just to hand the baby over after it was born. Mrs. Dolphin agreed to fake pregnancy. She came here in the supposed last days of her pregnancy. The baby, you, was subsequently handed over, and that was that. Dolphin agreed to never come near us or approach us again.”

  “My mother?” asked Fell.

  “Greta? I regret to say she died of cancer.”

  “And my father?”

  “How odd to hear you call him that. Paul was persuaded by my husband to join the army. My husband was a retired colonel and thought the British army a cure-all for wayward youth. Paul was posted to Cyprus. He was killed in a drunken brawl.” She rang the bell again and when the nurse appeared, said, “Martha, on top of the bookshelves in the morning room, you will find a photo album. Bring it, please.”

  Fell could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. Orphaned in one stroke on a hot day! And yet gradually, as they waited, he began slowly to relax. All the guilt he had felt over not loving what he had believed to be his parents was ebbing away. And that money had not come from the train robbery! There was no need to bother much any more about who had committed the robbery.

  Martha came back and placed a large leather-bound photo album on the table. Again, Mrs. Wakeham waited until the nurse had left. Then she opened the album. She withdrew a photograph and handed it to Fell. Fell looked down at the photograph of a laughing young man. He had a square handsome face, brown hair and bright blue eyes. “I don’t look at all like him,” he said.

  “No, you look like your mother.”

  “Do you have a photograph of her?”

  “I’m afraid not. You must now forget about it. Her parents are dead as well. Greta married a decent man, a local farmer. He knew nothing about you, and I do not want him to know anything. I am glad the Dolphins left you money. It seems to me you have had a hard life. But I assure you, they cheated you. That money was for your upbringing and to give you a good education.” She rested her head on her hand. “Now I must ask you to leave. I am tired.”

  Fell and Maggie stood up. “May we call again?” asked Fell.

  “No, it brings back painful memories. I am old. I wish to be left in peace.” She rang the bell.

  “But I am your grandson!” protested Fell.

  “I know. I know. But I do not want to be troubled any more by bad memories. I want to remember only good things about my son. Ah, Martha, please show them out.”

  Maggie and Fell followed Martha back through a chain of rooms and back out through the front door. They got into the car and Maggie drove off.

  “It seems as if no one wants me,” said Fell.

  “You’ve got me,” said Maggie. “As a friend, I mean.”

  Fell experienced a sudden rush of affection for her. Solid, dependable Maggie. “Well, it looks as if we don’t need to worry about the robbery any more,” he said. “So they hid the money, not wanting the tax man to get it. They lived on as little of it as they could. They were misers. And I can’t declare it without exposing where I got it from.”

  Maggie wanted to ask – where do we go from here? She had a sinking feeling that it was only the investigation about the robbery that was keeping them together. She remembered the reporter, Peter South. She would go out to a phone box and call him and see if he could meet her the following evening. Perhaps if Fell knew someone else was interested in her, he might look at her with new eyes.

  Fell was thinking guiltily that he should really do something good for Maggie because shortly he was going to have to tell her that he did not want to pose as her fiancé any more. He said, “Let’s go to Oxford.”

  “All right. Why?”

  “I’m going to get you those contact lenses you wanted. There’s one of those express opticians in Oxford in the West-gate. And maybe you can pick out a new dress.”

  And Maggie, not knowing the reason for this sudden generosity, said, “Oh, that’s so good of you, Fell.”

  ♦

  It was a quiet day at the Buss Courier. Peter South lounged back in his office chair, looking at the photo of Maggie and Fell, which had appeared in that day’s Courier under the bold headline ‘Signalman’s Son Turns Detective to Clear Father’s Name’. He wondered if Maggie had seen it.

  Just then the editor loomed over him. “That French restaurant is very grateful for the good write-up. They’ve written to say they’re offering you a complimentary meal for two. If you can’t use the invitation – ”

  “I can. Thanks,” said Peter. The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up as Tommy Whittaker walked away. “This is Maggie, Maggie Partlettt. You may not remember me…”

  “Course I do,” said Peter. “Lot of traffic. Where are you calling from?”

  “Oxford. A phone box. I wondered if you would like to meet me tomorrow night?”

  “Sure. Tell you what. I’ll take you to that French restaurant. Hey, are you still there?”

  “Yes, yes, that would be fine. I’ll meet you there. What time?”

  “Eight. Have you seen…?”

  But Maggie had rung off.

  ♦

  The rest of that day, Maggie floated on air. She had her new contact lenses, which she planned to wear for the first time for her date with Peter, and she had also had her hair restyled. As they drove back towards Buss, her bubble of happiness suddenly burst. For a few hours she had forgotten about Melissa. Fell and Melissa would be in the restaurant as well and her evening would be spoilt by watching the rapture in his face.

  She parked outside the house. She and Fell got out. Mrs. Moule hobbled to her garden hedge. “If it isn’t the famous detectives,” she said.

  Fell and Maggie stopped still. “What are you talking about?” croaked Fell.

  “It’s in the paper, the Buss Courier,” said Mrs. Moule. “And with a picture, too.”

  “What about?” asked Maggie.

  “All about you trying to clear your father’s name.”

  “Oh, that,” said Fell bleakly. All his worries about the robbery came rushing back. “Come along, Maggie,” he said. “We’d better go and get a copy.”

  They walked along to the local newsagent’s. They bought a copy of the paper and then stood out on the hot and dusty street and gazed down at the headline. “It was that money,” mourned Fell. “Now everyone will think my father really had something to do with it; else why should I talk about clearing his name?”

  “We may as well go on with our investigations,” said Maggie hopefully – hopeful that any further investigation would keep them together. But Fell shrugged wearily. “I’m tired of the whole thing. You know, Maggie, when you told me about Fellworth Manor, I had this dream I was going to find a family at last. But all I turned out to be was a bastard no one really wanted, not even my mother.”

  I want you, I need you, I love you. How Maggie would have given anything to be able to say those words, but she knew that Fell in the grip of his obsession would feel trapped and suffocated.

  Maggie wondered for the first time whether Fell might not be a virgin. No one could obsess more than a celibate. And surely if he had had physical relationships with women, he would not have fallen so heavily for an older woman.

  Back home, they opened all the windows and the kitchen door to let in some air. But the evening was close and hot. The house had a half-finished air. The kitchen was all gleaming and new-looking, but the rest had a temporary air.

  “We need some pictures for the walls,” said Maggie, looking around the living room. “Those white walls look too naked. And maybe some plants.”

  “Maybe,” said Fell indifferently.

  Maggie studied his bent head thoughtfully and then said, “If you’re not too tired, we could take a walk down by the river. There might be some air there.”

  They shut the doors and windows and walked back out into the close heat of evening. “Do you feel like eating?” asked Maggie. “I’m quite hung
ry.”

  Fell trudged on, wrapped in his thoughts.

  “There’s a Chinese restaurant in the High Street,” Maggie continued. “We could get a take-out.”

  “Okay,” said Fell listlessly.

  People drifted past them in summer clothes, as listless as Fell in the heat, moving like people underwater.

  “Oh, look!” said Maggie suddenly. She pointed to the Chinese restaurant, which had a banner outside proclaiming, “Air-Conditioned.”

  “We’ll eat inside,” said Maggie. “Fell?”

  Fell was standing on the pavement, looking at his feet. She tugged at his arm and then led him inside like a child.

  The restaurant was crowded, but a couple was just leaving as they arrived.

  As the chill of the air-conditioning surrounded Fell, he suddenly realized he was ravenously hungry.

  They ordered the Chef’s Special and a bottle of white wine and ate steadily through multiple dishes, at first in silence, and then Fell began to talk again about the robbery. “I suppose we should go on and find out something. It gave me a shock to see that headline. I didn’t know they were going to publish anything. That reporter was far from honest with us.”

  Now was the time to tell Fell that she had a date with ‘that reporter’, but Maggie was too relieved to see him interested and animated once more.

  “You spoke about two maintenance workers,” she said instead.

  “I, what?” Fell pulled his mind out of a dream of marriage to Melissa.

  “Two maintenance workers, on the railway,” prompted Maggie.

  “Oh, them. Fred Flint and Johnny Tremp. I suppose we could start with Tremp. There was a J. Tremp in the phone book.” Fell sighed. “Now that we know about the money, I thought we could forget about the whole thing, but that damned reporter has stirred everything up.”

  “There’s one thing I just thought of,” said Maggie. “Rudfern said they had kept a close eye on suspects long after the robbery to see if any of them had been spending unusually large sums of money. Surely they would have checked your father’s bank account and noticed the lack of withdrawals and wondered what he was living on.”