Death Is the Cure
Page 13
‘Oh, it’s you, ma’am.’ Mrs Liddiard’s door was opened by her daughter who, this morning, wore an anxious frown on her pleasantly plain face. ‘Won’t you come in? Mother is anxious to see you. It seems she has something on her mind.’
She led Charlotte to the room at the back but paused at the door. ‘Mother is not well, today, ma’am,’ she confided. ‘We had the doctor to her and he believes she’s had a stroke. She was bright enough when I put her to bed, most interested in her conversation with you she was, and sleeping like a baby when I settled her at ten o’clock.’ A frown creased her brow. ‘No, she was struck sometime just after midnight, we believe. I heard her call out and found her in distress.’
Charlotte was upset at the news and tried to suggest she should leave but the woman reached out a hand to stop her.
‘If you don’t mind, madam,’ she ventured. ‘Mother was that glad to talk to you that I reckon she might brighten up a bit if she sees you again. You won’t mind her speech being slurred, I’m sure – her right side is slipped down, you see.’
It took several minutes before Charlotte was placed in a chair beside the invalid’s bed and had shaken her head when offered a cup of tea. ‘Oh well, ma’am, you’ll call me if Mother needs me; I’m just in the kitchen nearby.’
Recognition gleamed in Mrs Liddiard’s eyes as Charlotte bent over to greet her and she made some preliminary attempts at speech, growling when her visitor tried to make her rest.
‘Saw her …’ she gasped and looked her thanks as Charlotte took up a muslin cloth and wiped the spittle from her chin. ‘Saw her ma … yes’day.’
Charlotte understood at once what she meant and she sat bolt upright in surprise.
‘Molly’s mother?’ she gasped. ‘You are telling me that you saw Molly Wesley’s mother yesterday in Bath?’
‘Plain ’s dayligh’ … into your house.’ The words were punctuated by gasps and more pauses for the drool to be wiped away.
Again Charlotte felt she understood. ‘My house? You mean Waterloo House?’
There was an attempt at a nod accompanied by a faint groan and Charlotte pressed the question. ‘You saw Molly Wesley’s mother at Waterloo House, yesterday? Is that what you are telling me?’
Mrs Liddiard sighed with evident relief and flapped her left hand in agreement as Charlotte bit her lip in furious thought. At last a light dawned.
‘I think I see,’ she faltered. ‘Every day you take the same route round town in your Bath chair, do you not?’ There was a mumble of assent, and she continued, ‘And Mr – Mr Tibbins told me that at a quarter past three precisely every weekday afternoon your Bath chair passes the front door of Waterloo House.’ She saw that Mrs Liddiard was looking frail but relieved to be understood. I had better not tire her out, Charlotte decided, but I must try to find out more about this; it is too fantastical to be possible.
‘You are quite certain of this, Mrs Liddiard?’ Charlotte wiped the invalid’s mouth and spoke with a gentle urgency. ‘After all these years you are convinced that the lady you knew as Mrs Wellesley actually went into Waterloo House yesterday at three in the afternoon?’
The answer was a nod of the weary head, but then a fierce effort forced out a few difficult words. ‘Yesh, her. Baby’s ma. Certain.…’
Charlotte barely took in the sense of what the invalid was saying, momentous as it was, for she suddenly recalled that fragment of a dream, or idea, that had so teased her. At exactly quarter past three yesterday Mrs Liddiard had passed by Waterloo House in her Bath chair. And at about quarter past three yesterday Jonas Tibbins had met his untimely death in the yard of Waterloo House.
‘Mrs Liddiard,’ she urged, ‘did you see anyone else? Someone running, perhaps? Maybe wearing bloodstained garments?’
CHAPTER 7
Murder and motherhood, thought Charlotte as she made her way back up the hill towards Waterloo House, biting her lip against the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm her. All I had in mind when I agreed to accompany Elaine to Bath was avoiding the battling governesses at home while my new house was made ready. I certainly had no expectation of becoming embroiled with detective agents and counts and dead bodies and small ladies who might, unlikely as it seems, turn out perhaps to be my grandmother. And how strange, she mused, that my own researches should coincide so exactly with such a dreadful event.
Charlotte was accustomed to examining her motives and possible choices with the clear, calm eye of reason, knowing that a wrong direction, a false step, could bring disaster down upon her head, but in this instance she felt that the danger inherent in her previous life was not a factor here in Bath. Indeed, she brushed a hand across her eyes in an attempt to marshal her thoughts; there was the ever-present fear that someone or something from her life in Australia, or that brief sojourn in India last year, might bring down her carefully constructed house of cards, but it seemed of less moment, she considered, than her present predicament.
A man had been murdered almost before her eyes. No, she had begun to correct herself but paused. That isn’t an exaggeration, it’s the truth. She had been present when the police inspector, Mr Nicholson, had again visited Waterloo House. Pressed to take tea he had become expansive, directing his conversation more towards Charlotte than towards her hostess.
‘Indeed, Mrs Montgomery, Mrs Richmond,’ – he had nodded, with what Charlotte devoutly hoped was merely an avuncular smile, in her direction – ‘I fancy I am correct in my conclusions and so, I am gratified to say, does my superior. It is my considered belief that the poor American gentleman’s untimely death was the unfortunate result of an attempted robbery.’ He nodded again, with that very particular smile aimed at Charlotte and she was sure that for two pins he would have patted her upon her chestnut poplin-covered knee had they been alone in the room. What? Another of ’em? Was no young widow safe from gentlemen’s attentions in this historic city? She stifled a sigh and tried to concentrate upon the inspector’s remarks. ‘Yes,’ he said, sagely, ‘the villainous perpetrator was most fortuitously interrupted firstly by the arrival in the mews of the elderly Count de Kersac, and almost immediately following that, by your own appearance on the scene, dear lady.’
There was more of the same as the genial policeman repeated his conclusions several times but while Charlotte had bowed her head in apparent meek acceptance of this edict, a rebellious small voice in her head said: there was no time for anyone to run away. M. de Kersac says he saw nobody and I’m certain he was telling the truth; I saw nobody either. I don’t believe anyone could possibly have escaped from the mews without M. de Kersac or me seeing them. And there was no one, I would swear to that.
She sat up straight, all trace of incipient hysteria vanished. I looked in vain into the stable so if nobody came out of the mews or could have escaped over those very high walls covered in broken glass, she mused, they must have run into Waterloo House through the basement. The indignant face of Mrs Montgomery’s cook swam before her mind’s eye, swearing, ‘On my Bible oath, Inspector!’ that there had certainly not been any intruder in her kitchen at the time the inspector was talking about or indeed at any other. ‘I keep a respectable kitchen, I’ll have you know,’ she had stormed, breathing hard, her broad face assuming an alarming tinge of crimson.
As far as Charlotte could make out that meant there was only one escape route left for the murderer and that was by way of the gravelled path along the side of Waterloo House leading to the paved area beneath the front door. There was a narrow set of steps up to the street from the lower level, by which an assailant might have escaped, but this theory too received a check. According to the statements the inspector had gathered, the only persons who had been observed to use the side path were those persons who had every right to do so and Mrs Liddiard had managed to convey the intelligence that she had seen no suspicious person running away. In other words, the only persons observed to use that path, upon that occasion, were guests at Waterloo House.
She shook her head a
nd set the conundrum aside. It is not my problem, she told herself. Inspector Nicholson is an able and efficient officer of the law and I have every confidence in his discovering the murderer. The words rang hollow in her head even as she articulated them. Inspector Nicholson, competent and hardworking as he might well be, had already come to his decision. The villain was either a cut-purse who had been interrupted in his dastardly work, or else it was a gypsy bent also upon theft. In either case it would almost certainly prove impossible to bring the culprit to justice; even in a city as famously genteel as Bath there was an underworld into which a man could disappear, while gypsies were famously clever at vanishing overnight.
Relinquishing her theories into the murder, Charlotte allowed herself to consider the lady glimpsed so tantalizingly by Mrs Liddiard whose judgement, she felt on reflection, was trustworthy. A small, fair-haired lady who had entered the front door of Waterloo House yesterday afternoon. Charlotte had already made discreet enquiries among the maids and the footmen and ascertained that there had been no visitor answering that description on the previous afternoon, so she ran her eye down a mental list of ladies currently residing within doors.
The two governesses? Thankfully Charlotte was able to dismiss them at once from her speculations; to be forced to claim either as a parent would be intolerable, she felt. Dora Benson was blessed with an abundance of very light brown hair, but she had not arrived at Waterloo House until much later in the day and besides, she was still somewhere under forty, about the same age, indeed, as Molly Glover would have been now. Melicent Dunwoody was older, to be sure, but by no means old enough to be Charlotte’s grandmother and the nurse would not have mistaken Melicent’s pasty face and lankly dark and drooping locks for the woman she had described. Anyway, she shrugged, although Miss Dunwoody could qualify as a small woman that description could certainly not apply to Dora Benson. No indeed. Charlotte pictured the other woman; Dora is at least as tall as I am and probably taller, and she is splendidly built, rather on the lines of Boadicea. For a moment she slipped back into her earlier wishful thinking. It really is a pity that dear, sanctimonious Dora has so perfect an alibi for the murder, she sighed. I can so readily imagine her stabbing someone with a sharp pen nib in a fit of righteous anger, perhaps over a misplaced apostrophe, or because of a profusion of ink blots scattered across an ill-written essay, while a breach of schoolroom decorum would almost certainly precipitate a public flogging.
Who else then? Lady Buckwell was small, certainly, but her hair was so improbably golden that surely Mrs Liddiard, even in her incapacitated condition, would have remarked upon it. Then again her age was difficult to determine. Charlotte grinned as she recalled the face the lady presented to the world, immaculately lacquered and quite impossible to tell if she were fifty or as much as seventy-five years old.
Dismissing the cook and the maids – Mrs Liddiard had described the so-called Mrs Wellesley as a lady, even if she were suspected of being no better than she should be – Charlotte pursed her lips. Who was left? Mrs Attwell, the vicar’s mother might, like Lady Buckwell, be almost any age between fifty and seventy odd; she could certainly be described as small in stature if not in girth. Charlotte knitted her brows. I suppose Mrs Liddiard could have forgotten to mention that Mrs Attwell is as fat as a suet dumpling. It seemed unlikely; Mrs Liddiard had been urgent in her attempt to enlighten Charlotte and in spite of her infirmity it had been plain to see that she still retained her intense interest in the topic. Mrs Liddiard, Charlotte recalled, had said something during the course of their first conversation about the mysterious Mrs Wellesley having sandy hair. Well, what hair Mrs Attwell allows to be seen is more rusty than sandy but that is not conclusive evidence. I am not so naïve as to suppose a lady’s hair need always remain the same colour. Charlotte bit her lip at the memory of one of Will’s parishioners. ‘I swear to God, Molly my love, I truly thought the woman had a ginger tom cat perched on her head as she walked down the aisle,’ he had crowed once, when later describing the startling effect of the lady’s hair dye.
That left … she broke off her deliberations in surprise. The only lady who had been in and about Waterloo House on the previous afternoon, and who seemed exactly to fit Mrs Liddiard’s description, was Mrs Montgomery herself. Charlotte reviewed what she had been told. A little lady: Mrs Montgomery was slightly built and very small, shorter even than Melicent Dunwoody who drooped around somewhere beneath Charlotte’s shoulder. A light-haired lady: Mrs Montgomery’s hair might be a little faded nowadays but she could definitely be described as ‘light’ in colour, with those fiddly curls and rings of ash-pale hair, the gold fading into silver, on her forehead, with fussy little puffed curls that sprouted at the sides of her head in far too girlish a manner for a woman who must certainly be somewhere approaching sixty, if not more. Mrs Liddiard had made no mention of the colour of Mrs Wellesley’s eyes but those protuberant pale-blue eyes that took account of every transgression by her guests would fit Mrs Montgomery comfortably into the picture.
I must observe Mrs Montgomery much more closely, she told herself, as she made her way back slowly to meet Elaine after her electrical session. But I don’t like Mrs Montgomery very much, the thought insinuated itself into her consciousness and was dismissed with a guilty shake of her head. That’s nonsense, Char, she snapped. What did you expect?
The truth refused to go away, Mrs Montgomery was far from the grandmother of her dreams. It was pointless to fall prey to regret; she had observed from the sidelines too many families whose members tore at each other’s throats to hope for a fairy godmother of a grandmother to wave her wand and make all well. It may be true, she reflected. Perhaps Ma’s mother did come back for her and perhaps she was sent distracted by the news that met her, of a woman dead, a child fostered and lost. If it turns out to be Mrs Montgomery perhaps her fussy manner and constant nagging about her wretched heirlooms stems from that time and masks a broken heart? There’s certainly nothing nowadays that could be described as ‘taking’ or even ‘hoity toity’. But I don’t like Mrs Attwell either, she sighed. Or her bad-tempered son.
‘What is the matter, Char?’ Elaine turned her head to look at the tall girl walking along beside the Bath chair on their way back to Waterloo House. ‘You are frowning so ferociously that I’m almost afraid to address a remark to you!’
Contrite, Charlotte reached out and clasped the slim, pale hand held out to her. ‘Oh, goodness, Elaine. I’m so sorry. I was lost in thought.’
‘So I observed,’ came the reply, with a slight note of relief. ‘I hope you’re not worrying about your experience of yesterday, Char? It must have shaken you far more than you will admit, tripping over that poor American gentleman.’
‘Perhaps.’ Charlotte took refuge in a half truth. ‘I confess I had rather come to like him and it’s very sad, but I promise you I am quite recovered. It was unpleasant and upsetting but I am going on very well. But what of you, Elaine? I was surprised that you were not dispatched off to the hot bath again today.’
‘Mr Radnor considers that as my electrical treatment today was more intense I might be spared the rigours of the bath.’ Elaine darted a mischievous grin at her friend. ‘Besides, had I gone to the baths I might have tired myself out and Jackson would never have granted permission for tonight’s dissipation, our outing to attend the concert at the Assembly Rooms. And that would never do.’
‘Heavens, I had completely forgotten about that excitement.’ Charlotte opened her eyes wide. ‘How does Mrs Montgomery propose to convey her household to the Assembly Rooms, I wonder? It’s not very far, so I doubt if she has it in mind to hire a fleet of carriages. Shall you retain this Bath chair, Elaine?’
‘I have already made sure of it,’ Mrs Knightley smiled up at the chair-man. ‘I expect you are right, Char, the distance is quite short and the weather is glorious today. There is less of that enervating heat so a walk in the early evening will be most pleasurable for those of you who possess workable legs!’
A state occasion such as this, Charlotte realized suddenly, would provide her with an excellent opportunity to stare at her fellow residents without being suspected of undue curiosity. She caught herself up with a gasp. Of course, Mr Tibbins had told her something very similar when he hinted that a party could put what he called his ‘quarry’ off their guard. This is not merely a party then, she told herself, but a chance to find out whatever I can about the people here and to calculate whether any of them was responsible for murder.
After an early dinner the guests at Waterloo House assembled in the drawing room so that Mrs Montgomery could marshal them towards the Assembly Rooms. Charlotte was amused to see that even the serenely complacent Dora Benson was casting surreptitious glances at herself in the great circular mirror with its ornate gilt frame. You may admire yourself as much as you please, dear Dora, Charlotte addressed the governess silently, but when all is said and done I’m afraid you will still resemble a well-bred horse. At least, she conceded, Dora was a well-dressed horse, in a plain but perfectly acceptable gown of dull purple-grey silk over a crinoline that was neither unsuitably wide nor niggardly skimpy. Unlike Melicent Dunwoody who, draped in rusty black with nothing at all in the way of a hoop, however small, drooped around the room – like the skeleton at the feast – as Lady Meg, Charlotte’s beloved godmother, would have commented, her judgement accompanied by a disdainful sniff.