Ralph left me off in front of the castle. The media that had been camped outside the gates were not in evidence, perhaps scared off by Angus’s shotgun. The officer in the one remaining police vehicle had waved us through.
I hadn’t been back to the conservatory since I’d shown Detective Sergeant Mardling and Constable Willoughby where I’d found Flavia Beckwith’s body. I remembered feeling that there was something I should notice, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I decided another visit to the scene of the first death might jog my memory.
By now, the layout of the castle had become familiar. I made my way to the stone-floored corridor that led past the auxiliary larder where Nigel and Angus had taken Flavia’s body, and walked toward the end of the hall and the heavy drapes that sealed off the entrance to the greenhouse. I pulled aside the curtain and let myself into the glass-enclosed space. Sunlight flooded the room. It felt like stepping into a jungle. The air was warm and moist; the palm trees and other exotic plants gave off an earthy aroma that was at once appealing and slightly sour.
I looked to my right and studied the door to the enclosed garden. The heavy glass panes effectively sealed off the weather outside. I closed my eyes to bring back the first time I’d been there. I remembered that I’d moved the plant, which was on a wheeled stand, to use as a wedge to hold the door open before I’d entered the garden, but had neglected to position the wheels to prevent it from rolling away.
That was it!
That was what I’d been struggling to remember when I showed the officers where I’d found Flavia. The wet tracks on the floor from the wheels of the rolling stand had given me the idea to use it as a wedge to hold open the door. Clearly, I was not the first person to use the plant for that purpose.
Flavia had lived in the castle a long time. She must have known that the door to the garden needed to be propped open. Yet when I first entered the greenhouse, the plant on the stand was at least twelve feet away from the door. It couldn’t have rolled that far even if Flavia had neglected to position the wheels properly. It would have rolled only a short distance. Which meant someone had to have put the plant stand back in its usual place when Flavia was outside.
I wandered over to the grouping of metal furniture underneath the glass cupola that crowned the roof of the conservatory. I shrugged off my overcoat and sat on the garden bench, occupied by my thoughts.
“There you are,” said a voice from the door. “I’m so glad it’s you. I’m afraid I owe you an apology.”
It was the countess. Nigel stood behind her, holding a large silver tray.
I stood. “I can’t imagine what you’d need to apologize to me for.”
“For having neglected you since your arrival.”
“I’d say that you have had other things on your mind. I haven’t felt neglected at all.”
Lady Norrance settled herself on one of the metal chairs. “Please sit,” she said, waving me back on the bench. “I must also apologize to your handsome companion, Inspector Sutherland. It’s been extremely comforting having him here during such a frightful time. The children and I are most appreciative.”
“How are your children doing?”
“Just as I am. We’re muddling through.”
Nigel set the tray on the table with the pineapple base. It held plates of scones, tea sandwiches with the crusts removed, and cookies, in addition to sugar and cream. “I’ll be back shortly,” he told her.
When he left the room, I said, “I’ve just come from visiting people in the village, people whom I’ve gotten to know since arriving in Chipping Minster.”
“Aren’t you the clever one to make friends so quickly.”
“I came back this afternoon, hoping to find some time with you,” I said.
She beamed. “Then we’re thinking alike.”
Nigel returned with a china pot of piping hot tea and cups. “Anything else, my lady?” he asked.
“Thank you, no. That will be all for now.” She poured tea from the silver pot into a delicate china cup, handed it to me, poured herself a cup of tea, leaned back against the cushions of the chair, and took a deep breath. “I do love my conservatory. You Americans call it a greenhouse. It’s so soothing to see all this greenery when it’s cold and bare in the gardens, don’t you think?”
“It’s a lovely space,” I said.
Lady Norrance picked up a plate of cookies and held it out. “Would you like one? These are Clover’s newest experiment in biscuits. I’m delighted to say she has picked up quite a few pointers from working with Chef Bergère. I’m thinking seriously of allowing her to be the head cook again.”
I took a cookie. Even though I had abandoned my lunch, I wasn’t very hungry. There was too much on my mind.
“Help yourself to tea sandwiches and a scone. Afternoon tea is one of our nicest traditions. It always helps to put one’s day in perspective. I feel terrible that you and the inspector had to experience these dreadful events on your first visit to Castorbrook. What was intended to be a festive celebration to usher in the New Year turned into a terrible tragedy.”
“I’m afraid that we can’t always control events,” I said.
“Yes, you are absolutely right, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Please call me Jessica.”
“Of course, Jessica, and I am Marielle. My position as Countess of Norrance calls for so much formality, I sometimes forget to tell people my name. With the staff, of course, it’s ‘my lady this,’ ‘my lady that.’” She laughed. “I am delighted to have this opportunity to chat with you, Jessica. I’m well aware of your fame as a writer of crime novels. Pity you had to encounter a real crime this time around.”
“It’s happened before, unfortunately,” I said. “Lady Norrance—”
“Marielle.”
“Marielle, I realize the strain that you’ve been under, losing your husband as well as your lady’s maid of so many years, but there’s something I feel I must raise with you.”
She sipped her tea. “My goodness!” She lowered the cup and plucked a cucumber sandwich from the tray. “I hope it isn’t something ghastly. We’ve already suffered enough bad news, and it’s only the second day into the new year. I presume it’s about James.”
“Actually, it’s about Flavia Beckwith.”
“Flavia? What could you have discovered about Flavia? She was such a drab soul, a stereotypical childless old maid. I suppose she may have been attractive in her youth, but recently she had become so morose. I was seriously considering giving her her walking papers. One doesn’t like to have negative people around all the time.”
“I assume that you haven’t been informed that the coroner’s report on Mrs. Beckwith’s death has been released.”
“Has it? You’re quite right. I have no knowledge of it. What did it say? Heart attack? Stroke?”
“Yes, she died of a heart attack, hastened by exposure to the elements.”
“Foolish woman, allowing herself to get locked in the garden in the frightful weather we’ve been having.” She looked up at the arched glass ceiling and the sun streaming through it. “Sunshine always makes things seem better, doesn’t it?”
“Marielle,” I said, “Mrs. Beckwith may have been unmarried, but she was not childless.”
She’d raised her cup halfway to her lips, but my blunt comment stopped it in midflight. She looked at the half-eaten cucumber sandwich in her fingers, and dropped it on her plate.
“Wasn’t she?” She took another sip of tea. “What a scandal. Had I known, I doubt I would have let her be a governess to my children. Whatever happened to the child?”
“Colin Stanhope is her son.”
She stared at me over the rim of her teacup and said, “Colin? My, my, are you sure that you don’t write lurid romance novels, Jessica, rather than crime books?”
“I’m quite sure,” I said.
“Colin’s last name, you know, is Stanhope, not Beckwith.”
“He was raised by Flavia’s sister, Emm
ie Stanhope, since the day he came into the world.”
“You’ve been here—what?—three or four days? How did you come by this information so quickly?”
“I had access to the coroner’s report on Mrs. Beckwith.”
“How? Oh, of course. How indiscreet of Chief Inspector Sutherland.”
I ignored her comment and continued. “The coroner referred to a scar that would have been acquired during a cesarean section. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only scar she bore. She’d tried to take her own life when she learned that she was pregnant and the father wouldn’t marry her.”
There was dead silence in the steamy conservatory. I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket, feeling around for the cell phone.
Marielle broke the awkward hush. “I knew there was something unbalanced about her. Go on. I’m eager to hear what else you’ve discovered in the short time you’ve been here as our guest. Remember that, Jessica. You came to Castorbrook as our guest, and guests have certain obligations to their hosts and hostesses.”
“I’m mindful of that, Marielle, but when a murder—or possibly two—takes place, social niceties take a backseat to finding the truth.” When she didn’t respond, I said, “It was your husband, the Earl of Norrance, who fathered Flavia Beckwith’s child. When did you learn of it?”
She tossed her teacup on the tray. It broke in half; the tea left in the cup dripped onto the sandwich platter. “Your inquisitiveness knows no bounds, does it, Mrs. Fletcher?” That she had reverted to my title and name wasn’t lost on me. “Mrs. Powter has kept me informed about your need to snoop where you have no business being.”
“Mrs. Powter is protective of you and your family. She interrupted my visit to Flavia’s living quarters following her death.”
“More than once.”
“True. The first time was after you had gone there searching for something and left her room in a mess. What were you looking for?”
She didn’t reply.
“You have no obligation to answer my questions, but I’ll ask again anyway. When did you learn that your husband had fathered Flavia’s child?”
During our confrontation, Marielle had been leaning toward me, a furious expression on her face. Now, she sat back, and what passed for a satisfied smile crossed her lips. “I’ll consider this conversation my contribution to your literary efforts, Mrs. Fletcher, giving you an exclusive glimpse into the turmoil into which some families are thrown, even aristocratic ones like ours. Flavia revealed her tryst with James when I tried to dismiss her from the staff. She told me that I couldn’t sack her because the earl, her former lover and father of her beloved son, would never allow it. She spilled everything, all the nasty secrets she’d been harboring for years. She seemed to delight in doing so, watching me vacillate between rage and misery, hatred for her and disgust with my darling husband.”
“And she did so in front of Elmore Jackcliff, adding to your humiliation. Was that when you pushed her into the painting?”
“She was lucky I didn’t have a gun in my hand; I would have shot her on the spot. Elmore hustled her out of the studio before she could do any more damage.”
“You must have been very angry at Flavia after she told you about her affair with your husband.”
“Wouldn’t you be, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Angry enough to lock her in the garden in freezing temperatures?”
A mocking laugh came from her. “I can account for every minute of my time that day. Did I send her to look for a sprig of holly for my hair? Guilty! I wanted to punish her for all the years she had deceived me, for all the years she’d pretended to be my friend. Some friend! She put a cuckoo’s egg in my nest, bringing her nephew to play with my children. Getting my husband to give him a job, send him for special training. And then she said she’d convinced James to acknowledge him, that her son was entitled to a portion of the estate, a piece of Castorbrook. Castorbrook! My home. The one I gave up everything to secure. No interloper was going to stake a claim on my children’s inheritance. No ambitious by-blow was going to challenge Kip’s birthright. I’d never allow it. Never! So yes, I was angry with her. And yes, I had her locked in the garden.”
“Had her locked in the garden?”
“You don’t think I’d get my hands dirty moving plants around, do you?”
She’d become increasingly heated as she related the betrayals of those she thought she knew and loved. Then she stopped, her eyes focused on a picture I couldn’t see. She sighed. “How were we to know that she had a weak heart?”
“We? You and Angus?”
She shrugged.
“You’re saying Flavia’s death was unplanned?”
“How fortuitous that Mother Nature stepped in and spared us the unpleasantness, although I would dearly have loved to kill her. It was an accident. That’s what the inquest will say. We could have prevented it, of course, but that will remain our little secret, won’t it?”
“Are you going to say your husband’s death was an accident as well?”
“Ah, James. So many years. So many secrets. What a feckless fool he was, weak-kneed and without conviction, used by everyone, chasing his ridiculous dreams of breeding champion racehorses, gambling money we didn’t have on races, and owing his soul to the bookies at the track. I don’t know why I put up with it for as many years as I did. I certainly didn’t need his money, if he had any after his foolish ventures. I wanted him to sell to the hotel people, and he was fighting me. I didn’t think he had the capacity to surprise me anymore. But I was wrong.” She waved her hand in a gesture to reinforce the disgust in her voice. “Good riddance to him!”
“I can understand why you were furious with him,” I said. “Furious enough to kill him?”
“Are you accusing me of poisoning James? He was so apologetic, so bereft at having disappointed me, eager to make amends, to put this sordid episode behind us. He said he never loved her and that she’d been blackmailing him all these years. But she was gone now, and he was sending the fellow off to Wales. He wouldn’t be here as a reminder of James’s indiscretion. Wouldn’t I please forgive him?”
“But you didn’t. I saw you stirring the caviar. Caviar doesn’t need to be mixed. In fact, your chef warned Clover to be especially careful not to break the eggs and spoil the taste and texture.”
“Ah. You’re such a knowledgeable woman. I would have enjoyed getting to know you better. But we’ll never be friends now.”
“So you did poison your husband.”
“You were there. How could I possibly have done that? It was a New Year’s Eve ball. I was in a formal gown, no pockets, no purse. Where on my person could I hide poison? In my shoes? Down my décolletage?” She plucked the front of her dress away from her chest and looked down. “I don’t see a place here.”
“As it happens, I’ve recently been reading a book about the Renaissance when a great many poisonings of political figures took place.”
“Is this relevant?”
“Sometimes the poison was concealed in a ring. You were wearing an interesting domed ring the night of the ball. I noticed that it was missing when you took off your gloves in the drawing room while waiting for the police to arrive. I wondered where you had put it since, as you say, you had no pockets and no purse.”
“And what did you conclude?”
“I concluded that your friend and lover Elmore Jackcliff took it from your hand when he threw himself at your lap in a paroxysm of supposed grief.”
“I have to say I am impressed. You are very observant, Mrs. Fletcher. Yes, I killed James. It’s too bad that no one will believe you if you try to communicate all this fascinating information to the authorities. It’s your word against mine. Flavia died of a heart attack? Oh, what a terrible thing, I’ll say. Angus will have to replace that awful door next spring. What did Mrs. Fletcher say? Well, you know about those writers. They have such extravagant imaginations.” She tilted her head and smiled at me. “You wouldn’t like to take a little walk
in the garden yourself, would you? Re-create the scene of the crime, as it were?”
I resisted the urge to pat the pocket where I’d put my cell phone. “How will you explain the poisoning of Lord Norrance?”
“I don’t have to explain the poisoning. I’m the innocent widow. James had a lot of, well, I don’t want to say enemies, but he owed money to quite a few men of questionable morals. I will point your friend Detective Sergeant Mardling in that direction, and see what the little man can come up with.”
“And what do you plan to say when your ring is found to contain traces of cyanide?”
Marielle looked at me wide-eyed. “My ring? What are you talking about?”
“You may have gotten rid of the ring, but I’ll tell the authorities that they can find the poison that killed the earl in the box of mole killer in your garden shed.”
“Is it there? Really? Angus usually takes care of those sorts of things.” She waved her hand.
The gardener pushed opened the heavy glass door and stepped into the greenhouse. I’d been facing away from the enclosed garden and hadn’t known he was outside. He was carrying a large plastic bag.
“Angus was just cleaning out the potting shed in the garden, getting rid of all those nasty insecticides and other poisonous chemicals,” Marielle said, smiling at the man she’d brought with her from her father’s house when she’d married the earl.
Death of a Blue Blood Page 22
