by KJ Charles
“I’d like to work my way through the whole thing. Is there a floor plan?”
“I’m sure I can find one. Er,” Tim said. “You’ll probably need to talk to Phineas and Desmond first. There’s something of a pope and antipope situation.”
“A what?”
“Nominally Pen’s a guest here, though we all know he’s the earl, but Phineas and Desmond are pretending or telling themselves it’s still Desmond. So your right to roam around and ask questions is, shall we say, arguable.”
“He means you’re likely to be on the receiving end of a lot of shouting and bullying, and they’ll tell you to leave or not talk to anyone or something equally unpleasant,” Greta said.
“Shame,” Mark said. “I don’t like seeing people tire themselves out for no purpose. Shall we get that out of the way, then?”
Greta’s lips curved. “That sounds like a good idea. Pen and Tim, would you pin them down in the Large Drawing Room? We’ll be with you in a moment.”
The two went out. Greta followed them to the door and closed it behind them, then turned to Mark. “Do I understand you two have kissed and made up?”
Mark had been trying hard not to spend the meal watching Pen—not that Tim would have noticed with his eyes continually on Greta—but of course she’d noticed something. “Looks that way.”
“Good,” Greta said. “Pen’s had a much worse time here than you think, whatever you’re thinking. He hasn’t had to put up with this wear the right clothes, cut your hair rubbish since we were children and he’s not used to it, and if you hurt him again I will slice off your balls with a rusty razor. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”
“Glad we’ve cleared that up,” Mark said. “Anything else?”
Greta grinned at him, a sudden flash of humour that brought out the resemblance to her twin painfully strongly. “You don’t get intimidated easily, do you?”
“Most people are more talk than trousers. I’m here for Pen, and I’ll be here for Pen as long as he wants me around. All right?”
“All right,” Greta said. “As long as he’s happy.”
“Talking of which, I see you’re getting on with cousin Tim,” Mark observed.
Greta pulled a threatening face, but the light in her eyes was familiar. “And?”
Mark shrugged. “Playing Happy Families?”
“It’s better than Old Maid,” Greta tossed back. “Or Beggar My Neighbour, and talking of that, we should go and have that conversation with Desmond and Phineas.”
She led the way through a sequence of rooms, but to be honest, Mark could probably have found Phineas and Desmond Taillefer by the shouting. They were in a large drawing room which, he realised, must be the Large Drawing Room, Desmond seated, Phineas, Pen, and Tim standing. The atmosphere was smoke-wreathed, and the state of the ashtrays suggested that Phineas was on his fourth cigar of the day. It wasn’t yet ten. Mark wasn’t a smoker, but he was fairly sure you weren’t meant to go through fine hand-rolled Cubans as though they were gaspers.
Phineas didn’t look well. He had the kind of pouches under his eyes that suggested sleeplessness, maybe a bad conscience, and Mark thought there was a tinny note to his bluster, even if he was still at full throat.
“It is an insult to my father’s house and my father’s hospitality!” he was saying. “To make these accusations against a noble family, against our staff—to demand some interfering toy policeman may poke and sniff around private chambers—”
“Nice to meet you too,” Mark said. “Mark Braglewicz, private enquiry agent. I’ll be looking around on Mr. Starling’s behalf, or should I say Lord Moreton.”
Desmond’s stick thumped the floorboards. “I am Lord Moreton! I!”
“Not with Pen alive,” Greta said coldly.
“Which is the point,” Mark said. “Before you set out to prevent investigation of these very serious allegations, Mr. Desmond, I suggest you consider how this conversation might look in court. Mind if I take notes?” He flipped his notebook out and moved to a side table to write.
“I don’t understand the problem, Phineas,” Tim said. “If you don’t believe anyone attacked Pen, then there will be nothing to find and no harm done in looking. If someone did, then it is necessary to discover who.”
“The harm done in looking is the insult to our family name,” Phineas said. “I don’t expect you to understand that.”
“I am every bit as much a member of this family as you, and I can’t imagine a greater insult to our family name than letting a guest be attacked in our home,” Tim said. “Let alone if it’s his home. Mark is welcome to look through my possessions. I’ve got nothing to conceal.”
“I don’t need to search possessions for now,” Mark put in as Phineas swelled with rage. “And I’d be glad for anyone to watch me work. I’m not here to trouble your privacy, gentlemen.”
“And lady,” Desmond said. “I suppose you’ll be prying into her chamber, will you?”
“He’s welcome to,” Greta said swiftly. “Since I don’t have anything to hide either.”
“It is not about concealment. It is about the respect due to our name!”
“ ‘Respect—due—to—Taillefer—name,’ ” Mark said, scribbling. “ ‘Not—concealing—anything.’ Got that.”
“Stop writing down what I say!” Phineas shouted.
“ ‘Asked—conversation—not—be—recorded.’ If you prefer, Mr. Phineas; I’ve a good memory. Where will we start?”
Desmond slammed his stick on the floor. “Proceed, then. Look around, degrading this family with every step you take.” He turned on Pen, dismissing Mark. “We invited you here, Repentance, in order that you should learn something of this family’s history and the honour and respect due to our name. It seems you have learned nothing.”
“Well said, sir,” Phineas agreed. “Take your workman around. Insult this family, our ancestors and the loyal staff of this house with your womanish fancies. And when you are forced to admit this was nothing but hysteria”—his eyes were glittering hard on Pen—“we shall expect your apology.”
“Marvellous.” Pen looked pale but his jaw was set. “Let’s go.”
—
It was a pretty exhausting day. Mark didn’t in truth have a huge amount of faith he’d find anything. No question that any man could have got in on New Year’s Day; he’d asked Henry the footman, and got a full account of the country custom. The door stood wide, and something like a hundred men might come in over the course of a couple of hours, all needing to be served drinks and many having gone through this process at a dozen houses previously. It had been raucous and busy, and with no acknowledged lady of the house there had been no formal greeting or introduction, let alone counting in and out.
The would-be killer could have walked in on New Year’s Day, no trouble. Walking out again, once Pen had raised the alarm, sounded like more of a challenge, and Mark found himself wondering if the man had swum out. Crowmarsh’s windows didn’t need to be locked or bolted, what with the moat, and the slope of the walls would surely let an agile man brace himself to pull a window shut behind him before jumping in.
“It would be horribly cold,” Pen remarked dubiously, looking out next to him as Mark pulled a casement back and forth to test it. “Freezing in the moat and then once you got out, you’d be soaked through. I wouldn’t much want to do it.”
“You don’t go around throttling people either.”
Mark went on to have a general look about the house. He mostly wanted to make a fuss, get the place bustling and gossiping, keeping an eye on Pen, wondering what was going on. There was little chance that any intruder was still here, but he looked for evidence of his presence, even if it was more to reassure Pen he was believed than because he thought he’d find anything.
His main interest was unused, unlocked rooms that could have been illicitly inhabited, so Greta swept up a housemaid and brought her along. “This is Pomona,” she said as introduction.
Pomona bobbed. “Jane to the gentry, missus. Mr. Ponsonby insists.”
“He can insist all he likes,” Pen said. “Which do you prefer? Pomona’s a lovely name, and it suits you, but if you’d rather be Jane…”
She bobbed again. “Pomona, if you please, sir.”
“See?” Greta said. “Jane indeed. Right, Pomona, you’re our scout. Lead the way.”
Pomona stifled a giggle. The butler might be a prick, but Pen and Greta evidently had the rest of the staff charmed. “Well, miss, if you’re looking for empty rooms, there’s a fair few. A whole row on the top floor north.”
“I don’t think I’ve been there,” Pen said.
“Nobody goes except me, and only on Wednesdays for sweeping. I don’t know as we’ve ever used ’em in my time here, sir.”
“You sweep on Wednesdays. New Year’s Day was a Thursday, so nobody would have been up here since then?” Mark asked.
“No, sir, that’s right.”
She brought them to the top floor of the north side of the building. Mark wasn’t surprised these rooms weren’t used; they had a chilly, dark aspect. Each was equipped with a bed and some basic furnishings, clean but cold. He checked the wardrobes as they went, to Pomona’s astonishment, but found nothing except piles of neatly folded blankets.
“Someone could have concealed himself in one of these rooms,” he commented. “There’s nothing else on this corridor and two sets of stairs going different directions at each end. As a place to avoid notice, it couldn’t be better.”
“As a place to stay it wouldn’t be awfully comfortable,” Pen said. “Nobody’s used the fireplaces.”
“You could do without a fire,” Mark said. “Where’s the nearest water closet?”
Pomona looked discomfited. Gentry probably weren’t meant to shit, or nobody was meant to admit they did. “There’s none on this corridor, sir, it’s all chamber pots still. The rooms in the first floor east—”
“Too far.” Mark delved under the bed and lifted the tight-fitted lid of the china commode. The interior was bone dry and clean.
“You’re thorough, I’ll give you that,” Greta said.
“Might as well check while we’re here.” He headed to the next room, the others trailing behind. Tim had the blank expression of a polite man not pointing out an absurdity. Mark didn’t care if he was making himself ridiculous; if all this achieved was to get the staff talking and prove to Pen how seriously Mark took his story, it would do.
The second chamber pot was as spotless as the first. In the third room along he hoicked the next one out, lifted the lid, frowned, and sniffed.
“That’s not clean,” he said.
Pomona pushed forward, evidently feeling this was her department. “No, it’s not. It’s been wiped but not washed. Who’s been using that? I’m the only one comes up here.”
“Do you check the pots weekly?” Mark asked.
“No, sir, along of nobody uses the rooms. If someone was caught short, they ought to leave the pot outside the door after. What did he do, dump it out the window or something? Dirty thing.”
“At night, probably,” Mark said. “I think you could stay up here with a pot and a supply of food and drink, and not be noticed. It would take nerve but it could be done.”
“So,” Greta said. “We know someone could have got in on New Year’s Day. We know someone was in this unused room, and made secret use of the chamber pot. We know Pen almost had his head smashed in. We’ve only got his word for it that someone tried to kill him, but given the rest of it, surely to God we can ask the police to look for a would-be murderer now?”
Pomona’s eyes widened. Pen gave her a weak smile. “It’s all right. Um—”
“It’s not all right,” Greta said. “Pom, can you ask around, see if any of the staff have seen anyone who shouldn’t be here? Even if it’s meant to be a secret?”
“Not if it’s going to put her in danger to ask,” Pen said swiftly.
“I don’t see it should,” Mark said. “If this bloke’s got any sense he’s long gone, plus we’ve all seen the pot, for what it’s worth.”
“Course I’ll ask,” Pomona said. “But honestly, I think someone would have said something if there was anyone wandering about. Mr. and Miss Starling are the first new people we’ve seen in forever. If I may say so, I hope we’ll be having proper housefuls soon.” She bobbed Pen a curtsey with a beaming smile. “We’re all looking forward. Is there anything else?”
“Not for now,” Tim said, and waited until she’d gone to add, “I see word’s got round the servants, then.”
“Hardly surprising if you lot have been yelling about it for a week,” Mark said. “That, and these two are like as two peas to the rest of the family.”
“Oi,” Greta said.
“Only prettier. All right, let’s think a second. How far is it to the nearest railway station?”
“About seven miles to Didcot,” Tim said. “Country miles, of course.”
“And the fields are too muddy to walk over but if you went along the roads soaking wet you’d be bound to be seen, not to mention catching your death.”
“Soaking wet?” Greta asked.
“Mark thinks the attacker might have swum out,” Pen said.
“Gosh,” Tim said. “No, surely not, he’d have frozen stiff in the night in wet clothes.”
“Unless he’d planned to do it,” Mark said. “We know he thinks ahead. If he’d managed to kill Pen and not wake the house, he wouldn’t have wanted to stick around, would he? You do the job in the middle of the night, slip out of one of the windows and pull it shut behind you, swim over—how hard would that be?” He had no idea about swimming.
“Easy if you can swim at all,” Tim said. “Just a few strokes.”
“And then he’d need dry clothes, and boots too,” Mark said. “Is there anywhere he could have left a set?”
“There are plenty of outbuildings behind the house. Sheds. A couple of follies in the gardens. But wouldn’t he then have to carry his wet clothes and whatnot?”
“I’d lob them in the moat, myself, or a ditch anyway,” Mark said. “Get rid of them, have a new set of clothes waiting and maybe even some means of getting away. A boneshaker? I want a word with someone who works in the grounds.”
Chapter 12
The discovery of the chamber pot changed the mood of the search. Pen’s irrepressible spirits were bubbling up again, perhaps because he felt vindicated, though Mark was experiencing the same sensation. It was absurd under the current circumstances—he ought to feel threatened and watchful—but Pen’s proximity was coursing through his veins like champagne, effervescent and intoxicating. Plus, this felt like a small victory. The Fogman had kept out of sight and behind the scenes to the point where Mark had started believing the name was a truth and that he was indeed a phantasm of the fog, wisping away when grasped. Now they had solid evidence of someone where he should not have been, someone trying to hide his presence in the room. There was no proof of malice, no trail of evidence, but it was as much as anyone had yet found.
So he talked to a groundskeeper, and then they went back to explore the great old beautiful house in two pairs. Pen and Mark together, trying to keep their minds on the job and not to laugh too much; Greta and Tim behind them, equally happy with that arrangement.
“That’s going well,” Mark muttered to Pen at one point, as Tim and Greta stopped with their heads together to look at some bit of carving.
“She likes him. I like him. He’s thoughtful and he’s quiet—Greta can’t bear men who expect women to listen to them all the time—and he obviously thinks she’s wonderful. Don’t you like him?”
Mark blinked. “Why’d you say that?”
“I don’t know. You’re a little bit distant.”
“I suppose. He seems like a good bloke, nothing against him, but he’s still a Taillefer. I’m reserving judgement.”
“Oh.” Pen looked rather downcast by that. “Right. You surely d
on’t think—”
“I’m not bending over to trust anyone with that surname, that’s all,” Mark said. “Except you, I mean.”
“My name’s still Starling.”
“Much better name,” Mark agreed. “Look, I know Greta likes him and I don’t reckon she’s easily won over—”
“She hardly trusts anyone,” Pen said, proudly.
“Don’t blame her. Pen, are you sure it wasn’t Tim who attacked you?”
Pen’s eyes widened. Mark held his hand up. “I’m not suggesting it was; I’m hoping there’s a way to be sure it wasn’t. Desmond’s too old, Phineas stinks of tobacco, but what about Tim?”
“I don’t think he would do it, that’s all,” Pen said. “I like him. And his wrists weren’t bruised, if that means anything. And mostly, he’s not next in line.”
“Phineas doesn’t have children, does he?”
“No, but he’d probably remarry if he became earl, and he’s got another forty years in him.”
“Unless someone bumped him off too.” Mark tried to picture Tim murdering a string of relatives to clear his way. It seemed unlikely.
Pen’s expression suggested he’d had the same thought. He shook his head. “That’s the stuff of sensation novels. Anyway—Tim’s Tim. I don’t believe he’d hurt anyone.”
“He’s got the family temper when he’s pushed. I saw that.”
“But sneaking up on someone to smother them with a pillow isn’t temper,” Pen said. “Look, I can’t say for sure it wasn’t Tim, but that’s because I can’t say anything for sure, except that the attacker was reasonably strong and didn’t smell of tobacco. And Tim was with Greta when the stone fell on me. Or—”
“Or what?”
“They’d just come in, actually,” Pen said. “And they’d both gone to change because it was muddy, so he was on his own. But he had changed. I can’t think he had time.”
“Do you know exactly when he came in, how long before the stone fell?” Pen’s expression answered that. Mark sighed. “Look, I hear you. And I’m not accusing him; I wanted to cross him off the list, that’s all.” And very much couldn’t, still. “He’s probably all right, but I’ve been wrong too often on this business, so for now I’m keeping an open mind. Come on, let’s keep looking.”
