by T E Kinsey
It was Inspector Foister and Sergeant Tarpley.
I could see we were in for a long night.
In fact, though, it took little more than an hour for the inspector to take our statements. His expression flitted, seemingly at random, between anger, irritation, astonishment, disapproval, and admiration at such a pace it was as though he were performing some newfangled facial calisthenics.
‘I dare say I ought to be thanking you, my lord,’ he said as he was leaving. ‘You’ve wrapped up a most unpleasant case. But I do wish you’d call the professional force if you ever find yourself in similar difficulties.’
‘There was no time, Inspector,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘And it’s Lady Hardcastle who you should be thanking. It was she who puzzled it all out. Without her, this Burkinshaw creature would be on trial for three murders instead of two, and we’d be short one more dear friend.’
‘Then I dare say I should be thanking you, too, my lady,’ said the inspector. ‘Your friend Inspector Sunderland speaks very highly of you. I’m not sure I’d be quite so indulgent of you as he seems to be, but you’ve saved a life this night, and I can’t begrudge you credit for that.’
Lady Hardcastle inclined her head in acknowledgement.
‘As for you, miss,’ he said as he turned to me. ‘You might want to consider a life in the circus with a knife-throwing talent like that.’
‘As a matter of fact—’ I began, but Lady Hardcastle cut me off.
‘A story for another time, Inspector,’ she said.
He frowned, but clearly knew better than to pursue it. With a polite goodbye to Lord Riddlethorpe, he and the sergeant led their prisoner out into the night.
Mrs Ruddle had ‘thrown together’ what she called a ‘cold collation’, but which by anyone else’s standards would have been a sumptuous feast, lovingly prepared by an expert cook.
It was served in the dining room, and Lord Riddlethorpe invited me to join them at table.
‘I don’t care what you do to make your living,’ he said. ‘Tonight, you saved more than one life with your knife trick, and I’d be honoured if you would dine with us.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ I said. ‘You’re most gracious.’
‘I’ll never get you to call me Fishy, will I?’ he said with a laugh.
‘May I be frank, my lord?’ I asked.
‘You’ve earned it tenfold,’ he said with a smile.
‘I can’t honestly fathom why you’d wish even your closest friends to call you “Fishy”, let alone a visiting lady’s maid.’
He laughed again. ‘It’s astonishing what a chap learns to put up with over the years,’ he said. ‘Come and sit with us. I think you and your mistress might have to explain to us all exactly how you came to suspect Muriel. Rebecca, I should say. I thought she was quite the best housekeeper we’d ever had at Codrington. How wrong I was.’
Lady Hardcastle waited until the clattering and chattering that accompanied everyone helping themselves to dinner had subsided before she began to speak.
‘You know, Fishy,’ she said, ‘for the longest time I was convinced all this had something to do with your racing team. When poor Dawkins died and we discovered that the motor car had been tampered with, it seemed so obvious.’
‘What on earth did you think was happening?’ asked Mr Waterford. ‘Why did you say nothing?’
‘Because, Monty, dear, you were a suspect.’
‘Me?’ he said. His astonishment and outrage were muted by the need to avoid aggravating the pounding in his head.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If it had anything to do with commercial intrigue, you and Viktor were the obvious suspects. And then Viktor copped it . . .’
‘I still can’t quite work out why she killed Viktor,’ said Harry, who had been highly miffed at missing out on all the excitement, and was keener than ever to be involved now. ‘Or Dawkins for the matter of that. Or poisoned the poor dog. Or why she had a go at me – I presume it was she who ran me over in the Rolls.’
‘It was Rebecca Burkinshaw driving the Rolls, Harry, yes,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t you she was aiming for; it was Jake.’
‘As soon as I learned who she was,’ said Lady Lavinia, ‘I began to think it might have been me she was after.’
‘I’m still lost, old thing,’ said Harry.
‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘It began about a year ago. Actually, no, let’s go back to the very, very beginning.’
‘Dinosaurs and whatnot?’ said Harry.
‘Shut up, dear,’ said Lady Lavinia. ‘Let her speak.’
‘This other document,’ said Lady Hardcastle, holding up one of the sheets of foolscap that Evan had taken from Kovacs’s room, ‘is an old letter from your father, Fishy. He tells Viktor all about your new racing venture, and asks him if he might be persuaded to offer you some advice and guidance. He reminds him of how they met when he accompanied Mr Burkinshaw on a trip to Vienna. He flatters him about his engineering expertise.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘I remember Viktor suddenly getting in touch out of the blue. He wanted to hire me to work for his racing team. I told him I was flattered, but I wanted to make a go of it on my own. He seemed to accept it. But then his team started floundering a bit, and he got a little more persistent. Once I decided to launch the team with Monty, he offered to buy us out before we’d even started.’
‘So he was here as a last throw of the dice?’ suggested Mr Waterford. ‘One last attempt to get you to join him?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘Though why he was fixated on me, I’ll never fathom. Plenty of other chaps out there who know far more than I do.’
‘But he’d already established a rapport with you. Of sorts,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘He must have found it very difficult, as a foreigner, to make any headway with English motor racing folk.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe.
‘But we’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We know from the letter that he knew the Burkinshaws before the tragedy. He knew the girls. Perhaps he had a youthful infatuation with Mrs Burkinshaw. If we assume that her daughters inherited her looks, she must have been quite the head-turner. Whatever it was, he stayed in touch with the family, and stepped in to help where he could. Rebecca was none too impressed with his efforts, but I doubt she would be impressed by anything very much. He kept a watchful, avuncular eye on Rebecca when the family fell on hard times. There was little he could do from Vienna, but he kept up to date, at least. When he found out that you were looking for a new housekeeper, Fishy, it was the answer to all his problems. He could have a spy in your household, and his friend’s daughter could have a better job. That was about a year ago, I think you said, Fishy? Isn’t that when you engaged Mrs McLelland?’
‘About that,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘Answered an advertisement when our old housekeeper retired. She’d been working as a governess, but she had excellent references. Spinney spoke to her and recommended her to me. When I met her, I couldn’t fault her. She seemed so competent and organized. It didn’t hurt that she was younger than most housekeepers, and a damn sight more attractive. Just the sort of woman to shake the place up and bring us into the twentieth century.’
‘But she had other motives for being here. Although, I suppose, shaking things up was part of the plan. Working here in your household, she knew that sooner or later she’d get an opportunity to take her revenge.’
‘But if she wanted revenge on the girls,’ persisted Harry. ‘Why did she kill Dawkins?’
‘She didn’t intend to at all,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We all started from entirely the wrong place. We all thought the motor car had been sabotaged as a way of getting at Dawkins, or at least Fishy. We assumed that the killer knew about the race order and had deliberately targeted Dawkins’s motor car. It wasn’t until Armstrong brought me the original slip of paper that I saw our error.’
It read:
Ladies’ Race:
1. Lady Hardcastle
2. Mrs Beddows
3. Lady Lavinia
4. Miss Titmus Miss Armstrong
Gentlemen’s Race:
1. Lord Riddlethorpe
2. Mr Featherstonhaugh
3. Mr Dawkins
4. Herr Kovacs
Mr Waterford shall act as Starter and Race Director. Miss Titmus shall be the Official Race Photographer.
‘Do you see?’ she said. ‘I wrote the list in the order we made the draw: ladies first. Anyone who saw the list would reasonably have assumed that we intended to race in precisely that order. Indeed, that actually was our intention. And that means they would have assumed that Jake was going to be in Number 3 for the first race. It was only once we got to the starting line that we had to toss a coin to see which race would be held first.’
‘So Jake was the target all along,’ said Harry.
‘Just so, dear,’ she said. ‘We left the race card in the great hall, and Burkinshaw must have seen it there. It was a simple matter for her to let herself into the coach house by the back door and clip the brake cable. She had access to all the household keys, and who among the servants would dare to question the formidable housekeeper if they happened upon her as she wandered about by night?’
‘Even if she were covered in dust and muck?’ asked Harry. ‘Messy beasts, motor cars.’
‘Never underestimate the power that senior servants hold, sir,’ I said. ‘Butlers and housekeepers are like ships’ captains. Never disobeyed, never questioned. She could dance a pas de deux through the servants’ hall with a bewigged badger and they would bow their heads and get out of her way. A bit of dust and grime would attract no attention.’
Harry frowned, but said nothing.
‘I think she intended to kill all three women, but had no real plan beyond Roz’s sunset execution. But she was clever, an improviser. When she caught sight of the race card she immediately saw an opportunity to kill the first of her sister’s tormenters. She might not have succeeded, actually. If Jake had been driving it’s possible that she wouldn’t have been travelling fast enough to kill herself, but poor Dawkins was much quicker, and so the poor chap met his end on a fast bend.’
‘Well, that explains Dawkins,’ Harry said. ‘What about Viktor? He had nothing to do with Katy’s death.’
‘No, Viktor was killed to protect Burkinshaw’s secret. I don’t suppose you remember that night after the race when we ladies went off to the library, do you? You joined us after quite a while, claiming you’d been looking for us everywhere.’
‘I remember it well enough.’
‘You finally learned where we were when Helen came into the drawing room looking for an old school photograph. Jake and the girls, all lithe-limbed and fresh-faced. Athletes flushed with victory.’
‘I remember some gawky girls in cricket togs,’ said Harry.
‘Your lack of a poetic soul notwithstanding,’ she said, ‘we are talking about the same photograph. Viktor saw something in it that none of us could see. Well, none of us except Armstrong. It was she who insisted that the whole thing might have something to do with the photograph. But Viktor most definitely recognized the girl standing between Roz and Helen. He had known the Burkinshaw girls when they were young. He knew the story of Katy’s suicide, and he knew exactly who her sister was. He thought he’d sent Rebecca here to spy for him, but he had no idea that she might have plans of her own until he realized that Jake, Helen, and Roz were Katy’s school friends.’
She passed Harry the photograph, and he examined it closely.
‘As soon as he saw the photograph, Viktor knew there was something up,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I suspect he confronted Rebecca and told her not to ruin his plans. All he wanted was a way to buy Fishy’s racing expertise – he had no idea what else he might have unleashed. We might never know exactly what passed between them, but she knew she had to silence him, or she would be undone before her plan was complete.’
She reached once more under her chair and produced the folded sheet of Codrington Hall notepaper.
‘I’m afraid I’ve been thoroughly naughty,’ she said. ‘I searched her room before the inspector got here. We can give him this later, but I thought you should all see it first.’
She showed them the note we had originally found in Herr Kovacs’s room, the one inviting him to his fateful meeting. The one signed ‘R B’.
‘I’m embarrassed to have to confess that we thought it might have been from you, Roz, dear,’ she said. ‘We knew of no other “R B”s at the time. We couldn’t say anything to anyone, because no sooner had we found the note than someone pinched it. Burkinshaw, as it turns out. It was shoved down inside the pocket of one of her dresses – she must have forgotten to destroy it.’
The note was passed round the table.
‘She invited him to the coach house – she knew by now that she could do whatever she wished in the coach house by dead of night, and no one would be any the wiser. He went down expecting to be able to take control of the situation, to get his own plans back on track. But she caved his skull in with a wrench instead.’
‘That’s Dawkins and Viktor, then,’ said Miss Titmus. ‘But what about poor Electra? Surely she can’t have worked anything out. The Dalmatians are clever girls, but . . .’
‘It was the sandwich,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘It was piccalilli – your favourite. It was meant for you. She put rat poison in the ham and piccalilli sandwich before it was brought out for lunch. It was a slight gamble, but since you’re one of the only living people who actually likes piccalilli, it was a gamble worth taking.’
‘Oh,’ she said. She put down the slice of pie she had been about to eat. ‘Oh,’ she said again.
‘I’m afraid this whole thing was about you three,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Rebecca Burkinshaw blamed you for her sister’s suicide and wanted her revenge.’
Mrs Beddows looked up from her plate for the first time since Lady Hardcastle had begun speaking. ‘She was right, though,’ she croaked. ‘It was my fault. I was a beast to Katy Burkinshaw. An absolute beast. I’ve been a beast ever since.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.’ She stood abruptly and left the room.
‘Go after her, Monty,’ said Lady Lavinia. ‘Don’t let her be on her own. Make her take the sedative Dr Edling left for her. She needs to sleep. She’ll feel better in the morning.’
Mr Waterford stood, too. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and he left by the same door.
‘What a bally awful mess,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘I’m grateful to you for explaining it all, Emily. I just wish it had never got this far. Perhaps we should retire. What do you say? Put this horror behind us, and start afresh in the morning. I’ll get Spinney to make us a round of nightcaps, and we’ll call it a day.’
Betty was still awake when I finally crawled up to bed.
‘I thought you’d never get here,’ she blurted as I opened the door. ‘You’ve got to tell me everything. Did the old trout say anything? Oh, I shouldn’t speak ill of her behind her back. Especially not after everything she’s been through. But she is a dreadful old trout. What happened? Did Lady Hardcastle explain everything? Do you know what really went on? Is that brandy? Might I have some?’
‘I think you might need it,’ I laughed.
I poured her a small measure in one of the tumblers I’d brought with me, and she sipped at it gratefully.
‘Mmm, that’s better,’ she said. ‘His lordship has better brandy than the trout. But don’t you be distracting me with gifts from the master’s cellars. Tell all.’
And so I did. As clearly and succinctly as I could, I recounted the events of dinner, including Lady Hardcastle’s explanations and finishing with Mrs Beddows’s tearful departure.
‘Oh,’ said Betty. ‘I fe
el awful now. Should I go back to her, do you think?’
‘I think you’ll both be better off if you don’t,’ I said. ‘This might have softened her a little, but that bit in the Bible about leopards and their spots isn’t just there to add a bit of exotic decoration. Deep down, she’s a spiky sort, and she needs a spiky maid to stand up to her. You and Miss Titmus couldn’t be more suited as employer and servant if you’d been handmade for her by Edna Fitzwilliam’s Bespoke Servant Manufacturers of Bolton.’
‘You do talk tosh, Flo,’ she said.
‘I do. It’s part of my charm. Now get to sleep, or we’ll be no use to anyone tomorrow.’
After we had woken and dressed our respective charges, Betty and I persuaded Mr Spinney to let us serve at breakfast. With the housekeeper arrested and the staff in uproar, he was keen to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible, and tried, at first, to object to having two visiting lady’s maids serving in the dining room.
‘I had no issue with it when you needed to be part of your mistress’s investigation,’ he said. ‘Indeed, it was my own idea, as I recall. But in the end, it’s not right, not right at all. Lady’s maids don’t serve at table. You must see how we’re fixed now. With that woman gone, it’s left to me to take charge of the maids. With the mood they’re all in, it’s going to be hard enough to get them to do a hand’s turn today as it is, without you two doing their work for them. I can’t countenance it.’
‘Might I make a suggestion, Mr Spinney?’ I said.
‘I’m all ears, Miss Armstrong. All ears.’
‘Why don’t you ask Mrs Ruddle to take charge of the maids until you can engage a new housekeeper? Patty is more than capable of running the kitchen, as long as her mentor is nearby to lend a hand.’
‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘That would certainly seem to be a possible solution, provided everyone agrees . . .’
‘Strong leadership, Mr Spinney, that’s all it takes. You tell them how wonderful they are, what a magnificent opportunity it is, how much his lordship needs them at this difficult time – all that old guff. They’ll fall into line quickly enough.’
