Murder at Mallowan Manor

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘So what do you know about John Thurloe?’ asked Fran, casually.

  ‘Who?’ Dorian frowned.

  ‘Never heard of him?’ asked Libby.

  ‘No.’ Dorian turned to her, still frowning. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A spy,’ said Libby nonchalantly and turned to go towards Ben. Fran and Guy were the only ones to see Dorian’s face pale.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ muttered Fran, as Dorian took Lana’s arm and moved her away.

  Coolidge materialised among them and announced that dinner was served. To Libby’s gratification, she and Fran were placed either side of Dame Amanda, who sat at the top of the table. Ben and Guy sat beside them, with Clemency on Ben’s right and Lana on Guy’s left, while John English sat on the other side of Clemency and Gerry on Lana’s left. She seemed to be at pains to ignore him. Dorian took the bottom of the table.

  ‘So you used to know my mother when she was young?’ Clemency, obviously making an effort, leant across Guy to speak to Libby.

  ‘Yes. I was a child, and she was a friend of my parents.’ Libby smiled up at Coolidge who served her soup.

  ‘I met them through the amateur drama group,’ said Dame Amanda. ‘They really encouraged me.’

  ‘Amateurs?’ Dorian looked down his beaky nose.

  ‘Very good amateurs,’ said Dame Amanda sharply. ‘Your Aunt Patricia was a member and introduced me.’

  ‘But Aunt Patricia had stables,’ said Clemency. ‘You said that was where I got my love of horses from.’

  ‘Hardly likely,’ said Dorian with a sniff.

  ‘Clemency had free access to Pat’s stables as a child, as I did,’ said Dame Amanda. ‘So did Libby.’

  They all looked at Libby, who nodded.

  ‘Yes, I knew Pat, and her partner Jenny.’

  Clemency and Lana both gasped. ‘Aunt Pat – and Jenny?’

  Dame Amanda let out a peal of laughter.

  ‘Oh, good God, children! Partner in those days meant exactly what it says in the dictionary. And in that case – business partner.’

  Clemency subsided back in her chair, but Lana lifted her chin and her glass. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ she said darkly, and took a healthy sip of wine.

  Dame Amanda shook her head and bent her head to her soup.

  ‘Fran and Libby have been telling us about the hauntings.’ Guy broke the silence and looked round at the company. ‘Any ideas who it is?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Rubbish if you ask me.’

  ‘Stupid stuff.’

  The words came all at once.

  ‘I think Guy meant did anyone have any idea who the ghost was supposed to be,’ said Fran calmly.

  There was silence round the table as the family all looked surreptitiously at Dame Amanda. The only one who didn’t was John English.

  Eventually, Gerry shrugged. ‘Some pregnant maid, someone in the village said.’

  ‘Did they? Coolidge didn’t hear that,’ said Dame Amanda.

  ‘Have you been checking up?’ Dorian snapped at his mother.

  ‘Checking up? What do you mean?’ Dame Amanda registered surprise. ‘On whom should I be checking up? I am merely trying to find out who is trying to thwart my plans to sell this house. As you know.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to wait much longer,’ said Libby.

  Again, everyone except John English turned to stare at her.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ barked Lana.

  ‘That I expect we’ll know by the morning,’ Libby said cheerfully and leant back in her chair. ‘That was lovely soup.’

  Dame Amanda sent her a doubtful look, but said nothing. Neither did any of the others round the table, but the tension in the air was twanging like an out of tune fiddle. Fran was frowning, and Guy and Ben simply looked mystified.

  Somehow, they got through an excellent dinner. When Coolidge brought in the coffee, Dame Amanda stood up.

  ‘I’m not collecting the ladies, simply my four guests.’ She smiled at her son and daughter. ‘You can amuse yourselves in the library for a while, can’t you?’

  Dorian opened his mouth and shut it again, looking mutinous. Clemency nodded in a tired fashion and pushed back her own chair.

  ‘Come on, John. Let’s go and get the best seats.’

  John English obediently stood up, bowed to the other ladies, and followed Clemency from the room, while Dame Amanda led her party back to the drawing room, where they found a fresh pot of coffee and a replenished drinks trolley.

  ‘Help yourselves,’ said their hostess, resuming her high-backed chair, ‘and now tell me what you meant and what you’ve found out.’

  Libby related the professor’s findings while Ben and Guy poured drinks and Fran stared at the fireplace.

  ‘And why,’ asked Dame Amanda, when Libby came to a stop, ‘did you say we should know by morning?’

  ‘Because I think Fran is going to discover what’s wrong about the fireplace,’ said Libby, looking at her friend.

  Fran turned round, her face pale. ‘Someone died here,’ she said.

  Libby restrained herself from saying that as the house was well over four hundred years old that was hardly surprising.

  ‘I should think so,’ said Ben easily, leading Fran to the Knole sofa. ‘I was talking to your solicitor before dinner.’

  Everyone looked at him.

  ‘He was very cagey about it, but apparently it looks as if you bought this house from the MOD, Dame Amanda. It’s all done very carefully and through devious channels, but that’s obviously why it disappears from the records after 1940.’

  ‘Bletchley didn’t disappear,’ said Dame Amanda, now looking as pale as Fran.

  ‘No, which is why he intimated, rather vaguely, that this house had been something different.’

  Fran put her head on her knees, and Guy went down on his knees beside her. Libby felt as if everyone in the room was holding their breath. ‘What is it, love?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Pain.’ Fran’s voice was muffled. After a moment, she sat up. ‘Ben, there is something wrong over there, isn’t there?’

  Ben was staring at the alcove which held the drinks trolley.

  ‘Yes …’ He moved to the other side of the fireplace, then turned to Dame Amanda. ‘Have you never noticed the difference in these two alcoves?’

  ‘Well, yes – one’s deeper than the other, but it’s so slight –’

  ‘That no one would notice.’ Libby stood up, her hand on Fran’s shoulder. ‘Was that what you noticed, Fran?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Fran’s voice was stronger. ‘But it’s the feeling. You know.’ She looked up at Libby, who nodded.

  Ben moved the drinks trolley out of the way and began knocking on the panelling. After a moment, he went to the other side of the fireplace and knocked there, too. Even those farthest from the fireplace could hear the difference.

  ‘This is oak.’ Ben looked round at them. ‘Over there it’s thin pine.’

  Dame Amanda stood up and, patting Fran’s shoulder on the way, walked to the door.

  ‘Coolidge!’ she called down the corridor. By the time she’d returned to her chair, the butler had appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Coolidge, be so kind as to fetch the tool kit and Mr English.’ Coolidge, without comment, disappeared again.

  ‘Tool kit?’ asked Libby nervously. ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to sleep tonight without finding out what’s behind that false wall, or whatever it is,’ their hostess replied with some asperity.

  ‘I’m not sure we can do it with an ordinary tool kit,’ said Ben. The panelling will have to be levered off.’

  ‘Surely you can saw a hole in it?’ Dame Amanda was at her most imperious.

  ‘I can, madam.’ Coolidge arrived and approached the wall with a hand-held electric saw. ‘Luckily, this is fully charged.’

  ‘I’m real
ly not sure that is a good idea.’ John English’s voice took them all by surprise. He cleared his throat and looked at the ceiling.

  ‘Why not?’ Dame Amanda barked.

  ‘It may be distressing.’

  Dame Amanda signalled to Coolidge to wait and fixed John English with a basilisk stare.

  ‘Right, man. What is it you know about this house that I don’t? And that you should have told me when I bought it?’

  Libby was aware of those who had been sent to the library materialising in the corridor behind Coolidge. This was obviously going to be a showdown.

  ‘I signed the Official Secrets Act.’ John English looked nervously towards his hostess, who took a hissing breath inwards.

  ‘I don’t care what you signed,’ she said. ‘If you won’t tell me, we shall open this wall. Actually we’ll open this wall up anyway. Go ahead, Coolidge.’

  ‘Be careful, old man,’ came the slightly slurred voice of Gerry. ‘Don’t want to destroy any archeol – arch – artefacts.’

  All faces turned towards him.

  ‘That’s done it,’ said Dorian grimly, and pushed his cousin into the room, where, once again, he was steadied by Guy and Ben.

  Dame Amanda was as white as the marble fireplace. ‘So. Now we’re coming to it, are we. Which one of you is going to tell me?’

  ‘He is.’ Gerry pointed to John English. ‘But he doesn’t know the half of it.’

  ‘I think,’ said Libby, going to the solicitor and leading him gently to a chair, ‘you had better explain.’

  The man sighed and looked across at Dame Amanda. ‘When you bought this house, you asked me to act as your solicitor. I made the usual approach to the vendor, and within twenty-four hours, I was visited by the security services.’ He looked round at the company, suddenly seeming much more human. ‘It was unnerving. They did a very thorough investigation.’

  Fran was now looking much more like herself. ‘And what were they protecting? A military site?’

  ‘Yes. But –’ he hesitated. ‘This is what was – and is – so sensitive. It was an interrogation centre.’

  ‘You mean German prisoners? Well, we know about those,’ said Libby.

  ‘Not quite.’ John English looked increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Have you ever heard of the London Cage?’

  Everyone looked bewildered.

  ‘No, I didn’t think so. I hadn’t either.’ John English took a deep breath. ‘It was said that the torture and punishments there were far worse than even those of the Gestapo.’

  ‘Impossible!’ said Dame Amanda.

  ‘I’m afraid not. The evidence has now come out, although it’s been suppressed as far as possible. It wasn’t the only centre of its type, though. This was another. Close to the Channel coast and isolated, it was ideal.’

  ‘And you were told not to tell me?’

  ‘I was. And if you ever wanted to sell, to go straight back to the security services. Although it will be a different body, now, I suspect.’

  Dame Amanda looked at her son and her nephew. ‘And this was why you didn’t want me to sell? You knew this?’

  Gerry and Dorian exchanged glances. ‘Not exactly,’ said Dorian.

  ‘What would I care about tortured Germans,’ mumbled Gerry.

  Dame Amanda looked at him with distaste. ‘Then what?’

  ‘I don’t know how they found out, Dame Amanda,’ said John English, glaring at the two men, ‘but apparently, one of the reasons this house was used in the Second World War was its prospective importance to the Crown.’

  ‘John Thurloe.’ Libby, Ben, Fran, and Guy spoke together.

  John English looked them, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘I might have known you’d find out. But it’s never been proven, you know.’

  ‘That’s why the prof’s colleague was asked to look into it,’ said Libby. ‘I told you.’

  ‘What?’ Clemency suddenly cried out. ‘I haven’t understood a word of this and I don’t know what’s going on.’

  Dame Amanda held out her hand to her daughter. ‘Come here, child, and sit by me. Dorian is now going to explain how he knew there might be treasure belonging to Charles the First hidden here.’

  ‘I did some digging.’ Dorian would meet nobody’s eyes. ‘And I came across some – anomalies.’

  ‘You dabble in antiques.’ Libby’s voice was accusing. ‘You got cross when your wife said you were an historian.’

  Lana was bright pink and looked as though she would pop like a cork.

  ‘Amateur historian,’ said Dorian.

  ‘And what has this to do with World War Two?’ asked Guy. ‘Or had the house been Crown property?’

  John English looked shifty.

  ‘It had, then,’ said Dame Amanda flatly. ‘Well they can bloody well have it back.’

  ‘No!’ said Dorian.

  ‘Do you really believe there’s treasure here?’ Dame Amanda looked her son up and down. ‘Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.’

  ‘It’s not just treasure,’ Dorian whispered. ‘It’s the crown.’

  There was a charged silence.

  ‘The crown?’ Libby echoed after a moment.

  ‘But it was all melted down,’ said Ben.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Clemency cried. ‘Melted crowns …’

  ‘All the Crown Jewels were melted down after the assassination of Charles the First,’ said Ben.

  John English sighed. ‘Dorian is, I gather, in receipt of the rumour that one piece was saved and hidden – possibly here. One reason that the interrogation centre was set up here was also to conduct a systematic search of the building and the cellars.’

  ‘The cellars? We haven’t got cellars!’ Dame Amanda was now looking horrified.

  ‘Yes, you bloody have,’ Gerry muttered.

  Dame Amanda turned on him. ‘And is that what you’ve been looking for all these nights?’

  Gerry smiled beatifically. ‘’Course.’

  Dame Amanda stood up. ‘That’s enough for tonight, I think,’ she said. Clemency stood beside her and took her arm. ‘Libby, Fran, although it hasn’t worked quite as I’d hoped, we got there in the end. Thank you. John, inform whoever it is you need to inform that this house is going to be sold, and that as from this week, it will be empty. We can hire a security firm.’

  ‘No!’ Dorian stood up, and even Gerry struggled to his feet.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Dame Amanda was cold. ‘You will all leave tomorrow. You included, Gerry.’

  ‘But,’ said Libby, after the family had left the room, ‘we haven’t got to the bottom of it, really, have we?’

  ‘We haven’t?’ Ben frowned.

  ‘Dorian found out just what we did,’ said Fran, ‘and presumably he told Gerry. I don’t know how much they knew about the interrogation centre, because I can’t see John English telling either of them. But we don’t know who started the rumours – unless it was John English’s mysterious security services. And,’ her eyes travelled to the fireplace, ‘there’s still something wrong there.’

  They fell silent. Then Libby stood up and went to the alcove.

  ‘So Gerry has been up and about looking for this, do we think? Making the ghost noises?’

  ‘I wonder if that’s what he intended or if he was simply looking for the cellar?’ said Fran.

  ‘In which case,’ said Guy, ‘he’ll probably make a last attempt tonight.’

  ‘Of course,’ said three voices in unison.

  ‘He’s being chucked out tomorrow with the others,’ said Libby. ‘You think he’ll come down and start cutting holes in the wall? But he’d wake everyone up.’

  ‘It’s his last chance,’ said Ben.

  ‘I wonder where Dorian got his information about the melted-down crown?’ said Fran. ‘Andrew didn’t ferret that out, yet if what John English said is true, the government – certainly the wartime government – believed it.’

  ‘The funny thing is,’ said Libby, ‘that didn’t come out,
yet the information about the interrogation centre did.’

  ‘Not much,’ said Ben. ‘None of us had even heard of the famous one – what was it?’

  ‘The Cage,’ said Guy. ‘Makes you wonder what else went on in the war that we still don’t know about.’

  ‘Well, are we going to sit up all night and see if Gerry tries to break into the cellar now he knows where it is?’ asked Fran.

  ‘That is not part of our remit,’ said Ben, standing up. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  Libby tidied the glasses on to the trolley and followed her swain out of the door. Fran and Guy followed suit, and they made their way up the back staircase. When they reached the second floor, Libby put her ear to the door of Gerry’s room.

  ‘Can’t hear anything.’

  ‘They’re thick doors,’ said Ben. ‘And I would imagine he’s passed out at the moment.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Guy. ‘If he does anything it’ll be later on – if he wakes up of course.’

  Libby sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. Let’s go to bed.’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Ben, and propelled her into their room.

  Libby did not have a very restful night, and found herself wide awake at five in the morning, her mind full of the previous evening’s events and revelations. Ben was still fathoms deep to judge by the whiffling snores escaping him, so she slipped carefully out of bed and managed to locate her coat hanging on the door, which she opened, before sliding out into the corridor and shrugging on the coat. She was unsurprised to see Fran’s door open at almost the same time.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ she whispered.

  Fran shook her head. ‘I kept listening for noises. And thinking.’

  ‘Me too. Shall we go downstairs? Do you think Dame Amanda would mind?’

  ‘Library,’ said Fran. ‘I don’t feel like going into the drawing room again.’

  ‘Should we check in case someone’s gone in there?’

  ‘You can, if you like.’ Fran turned towards the main staircase. ‘I’m just hoping there’s still a breath of life in the library fire.’

  There wasn’t. But the room was still warm, and the two friends took two of the armchairs by the fireplace.

  ‘So, what have you been thinking?’ asked Libby.

  ‘That there were a couple of anomalies in what people said last night.’