A Death at the Church

by Caroline Dunford

  I lent my elbows on the table and massaged my temples with my fingers. ‘I am so confused. You said yourself that I am too well-known to be of any use.’

  ‘You are marrying a man who lives in the Fens and as such will not be part of the London set. We might have to change your appearance for the next mission or so, but that’s easy enough. Your mother, who might have made herself a particular nuisance, has retreated into the world of the church to enjoy her reign as a Bishop’s wife. I have no doubt she will cause a great deal of trouble there, but it will not reach the ears of the general populace. You will cut and dye your hair for a while. I will continue your training and by the time you re-emerge from the Fens into the real world, you will be a very different person in both looks and demeanour.’

  ‘You have it all worked out, don’t you?’ I said, still rubbing at my increasingly sore head.

  ‘I have a plan,’ said Fitzroy. ‘It does require two things. Your compliance and our ability to decode Richard’s book.’

  ‘Did you know about the book? I mean before I found it?’

  ‘I knew he must have stored certain pertinent information somewhere, but not where or how exactly.’

  ‘What is it that is so important? Will it reveal his killer?’

  ‘To be honest, Alice, the department couldn’t care less who killed him. That’s for the regular police. I only want to uncover it for you.’

  I wiped my hands down my face and looked up at him. ‘Are you at odds with your – our – department?’

  Fitzroy shrugged. ‘You could say I’m a bit out on a limb, but as long as we get what is needed everything will be fine. I’ve gone further off track before and come back in alright.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But something’s changed. Is it the telegram?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t tell you about that yet. Where’s your husband to be?’

  ‘I would guess in the blue salon awaiting his scones. Both Richenda and Lucinda are unable to greet us. One out on a horse, the other laid up with morning sickness or some such thing. I don’t know how pregnant she is?’

  ‘Good point,’ said Fitzroy. ‘You’d better be the one to ask. Unless you think Bertram would like to do it?’

  I refolded the will and tied it up. Thank goodness Richard hadn’t used a seal. I handed it back to Fitzroy who closed the safe and swung the picture back into place.

  ‘How many pages of numbers were in the book?’ I asked. ‘Where they all in the same hand?’

  Fitzroy whipped round so sharply it was almost a pirouette. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘That the son carried on from where the father left off. Do you think that before their relationship went sour, Stapleford senior might have been training Richard to succeed him? We both agree he was a remarkably cunning man, but not exactly clever. If this code is as –’

  ‘What would that mean?’ interrupted the spy.

  ‘Richard obviously knew the key by heart, yes?’

  ‘I would imagine so,’ said Fitzroy.

  ‘If his father did too, why would anyone keep a copy of the key?’

  ‘You are giving me grey hairs, Alice. Is there a point here apart from our imminent downfall?’

  ‘We were almost certain Mrs Wilson had kept an incriminating diary on the family – one of the reasons she was kept on, despite her drinking. What if she recorded the key in there?’

  ‘Would she have reason to know it?’

  ‘As you know, it’s almost certain she was Richard’s father’s lover.’

  ‘The illegitimate girl in the asylum again.’

  ‘Yes, Bertram and I hunted for the diary, but we never found it.’

  ‘But you had neither unfettered access to the house nor someone of my calibre to aid you. Let’s find Bertram and the scones and get on with this. We’ll cover more ground with three.’

  * * *

  22 One cannot help feeling that the authorities, by which I mean the police, have a singular lack of imagination when it comes to covering up murders by powerful people.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We found Bertram wrapping himself around a scone. ‘You’ve eaten five!’ I said.

  Bertram did a bit of choking and then said, ‘How did you know?’

  ‘The gaps in the pattern on the stand,’ I said, sitting down and pouring out tea.

  ‘No sandwiches,’ said Fitzroy sadly. I passed him a cup of tea. ‘Explain to Bertram what we are looking for,’ I said, pouring my own tea. Fitzroy looked pointedly at the scones. I passed him a plate with three on it. He held it out for another. I added it. ‘Now, tell him.’

  ‘Mrs Wilson’s diary probably contains a key to a secret cipher that, if we decode it, will make my department very happy and then they won’t disavow me for helping Euphemia out,’ said the spy succinctly and bit into a scone. He then slurped some tea before he had even finished chewing.

  ‘What?’ said Bertram.

  ‘You remember we looked for it when we were helping...’ I broke off. I wasn’t sure how Bertram would take hearing the name of the female journalist he’d fallen in love with and who had been subsequently murdered by one of Richard’s cronies.’

  Bertram set down his plate. A sign he was taking the matter very seriously. ‘I remember. We never found it.’

  ‘Fitzroy reckons it’s worth us looking for it again. Especially now there’s no one around to stop us.’

  ‘Although either, or even both, women could appear at any moment,’ said the spy.

  ‘We’d better eat up then,’ said Bertram and crammed the majority of yet another scone into his mouth. Fitzroy finished his tea while chewing. Being the only one with any manners, by the time the others were ready to start the search I had barely finished my tea and had not even touched a scone. When neither of them was looking I put one in each of my skirt pockets for later. I rather suspected if either woman came upon us, uninvited and ransacking the house, we would be thrown out on our ears and without supper.

  ‘I wonder where the children are?’ said Bertram in a mildly worried voice.

  ‘For the children of one family to be kidnapped twice within one year would be a sign of significant negligence,’ said Fitzroy. ‘Where shall we start?’

  ‘The room Mrs Wilson used to occupy would be one space, but I would imagine it was thoroughly cleared out for subsequent occupants.’

  ‘It is also a somewhat obvious if she wished to hide the material from the Staplefords.’

  ‘She loved a drink,’ said Bertram. ‘What about somewhere in the wine cellar? Inside an empty bottle or some such thing.’

  ‘Possible,’ said Fitzroy. ‘She could have changed her hiding place, but each time she did so she would have risked discovery. Plus, the fact that by the end she was a dipsomaniac, by your account, seems to make it unlikely she would have got up the willpower to do so.’

  ‘So, where it is hidden is somewhere people would either not touch or where anyone, family or servants, was unlikely to go,’ I said.

  Fitzroy nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The gardener kept a poison cupboard, for rats and other vermin.’

  ‘Mrs Deighton knew her the longest,’ I said. ‘Perhaps talking to her might yield a clue.’

  ‘Capital,’ said Bertram, ‘you do that and Fitzy here and I will go treasure hunting.’

  ‘Fitzy,’ said the spy, in a low growling voice.

  ‘Won’t do,’ I said. ‘Mrs Wilson had been on staff a long time before I arrived. Bertram, you can talk of time far before I came on the scene. Besides, she doubtless has more cake in the kitchen.’

  Bertram’s face lit up. ‘She might even do me one of her enormous sandwiches like she used to when I was a child. That would take us right back to the old days.’ He stood up. ‘Things I have to eat for my country.’

  The spy watched him go with narrowed eyes. ‘Alice, I cannot help but feel Bertram’s new hobby of bestowing nicknames may well shorten his natural existence considerably.’I looked at him in mock
surprise, raising my eyebrows and widening my eyes. ‘Surely, you are thicker-skinned that that?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said the spy, ‘I wish you were a man.’ ‘So you could challenge me to a duel?’ ‘No. So I could punch you in the face.’ I touched his shoulder lightly as I got up. ‘We’ll find the book between us. Things will work out.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  While Bertram ate his way heroically through the house’s supplies Fitzroy and I made a thorough search of the housekeeper’s room. This was made considerably easier as the room had largely been cleared. The cast iron bed stood stripped in the middle of the room and an unopened trunk stood on it. The washstand bore the ewer and bowl. A rug lay on the floor. And a set of drawers that might once have been in the upper part of the house, but which was now worn and scruffy, proved to be empty.

  ‘Looks like the last housekeeper has left. Unless they have given her another room,’ said Fitzroy as he searched the tallboy for secret compartments.

  I pushed the bed to one side so we could roll up the rug and check the floor and skirting boards. ‘I doubt that,’ I said. ‘There is a small parlour next door that the housekeeper uses. I cannot think of where else they could put the two rooms near to each other and near to the kitchen and pantry.’

  Fitzroy grunted an assent. We both got down on our knees and checked the floor thoroughly. Nothing.

  The spy got up and dusted down his knees. ‘These trousers will never be the same,’ he said.

  ‘Do we get a clothing allowance?’ I said.

  Fitzroy raised one eyebrow slightly and hooded his eyes. ‘My dear, the department could never afford clothes of the quality I wear.’

  I didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Where shall we go now?’

  ‘As Bertram has not come trotting back with helpful information – I’m assuming he would be able to tear himself away momentarily from the tea cakes if he found out anything?’

  ‘You have a large appetite yourself,’ I said. ‘I eat when I’m hungry, not simply whenever I see food.’ ‘Of course he would,’ I said. ‘He’s not an idiot.’ ‘Shall we test your hypothesis and see if his cellar suggestion has merit?’ I nodded.

  ‘To save time, might you show me which cellar is the wine one rather than leaving me to guess?’

  I turned quickly so he could not see me blush and led him down and through the servants’ passages I doubted Bertram even knew existed.

  The cellar was a large vaulted affair with slotted shelves for containing bottles on three sides. The house had been built by Richard’s father and had no real age. However, the design of the wine cellar conjured up images of the centuries-old cellars that one might find underneath a castle. I had lit a lantern from the servants’ passageway and found another by the door. I lit this one and passed it to Fitzroy even though he had not asked for his own light. He seemed quite comfortable in the dark.

  The room had been left undusted – either to increase the aged resemblance or because no one came down here to check. I had nearly stepped through the doorway before I felt my nose begin to itch and my throat begin to burn. I swung my lantern in a high arc to get sight of the room. The bottles were arranged with their necks pointed outwards. One of the previous butlers had tied a tag on each end.

  Fitzroy edged past me gently and went over to read one at random. ‘This is an excellent idea. Avoids the possibility of disturbing the sediment.’ He glanced over at me standing in the doorway. ‘One does not have to remove the bottle to see what it is.’

  ‘Unless one says vintage stolen diary by the house of Wilson, this is unlikely to be the place.’

  ‘Very good, Alice. That’s almost funny. But I note that these racks do not go to the edge of the walls. Have a look down the sides, will you? You’re not scared of spiders, I take it?’

  I did not bother responding.23 One side of the rack stood two feet away from solid wall. I supposed I could slip down there sideways if I had to – and Mrs Wilson had been remarkably thin when I had known her. I checked the other side and found a wider passage. ‘This goes somewhere,’ I called.

  ‘How enlightening,’ said Fitzroy, who remained busy among the bottles.

  I walked down this second passage, my skirt scattering dust kittens as I went. Clearly no one had been this way for a while. At the end the row of bottles widened out to my right into another smaller vaulted chamber. In the middle of it stood an odd thing. Consisting of a large wooden drum it had a lid that would be screwed down via a central pole. Closer inspection showed me that there were several spigots, four in all. ‘I’ve found some kind of press,’ I shouted.

  Fitzroy didn’t answer, but I heard his footsteps. Moments later he joined me. With the combined light of the two lanterns I could clearly see a carving of grapes on the side of the drum. ‘A wine press,’ I said. ‘To what purpose?’

  Fitzroy raised both eyebrows at me.

  ‘I know what it is for,’ I said. ‘But as far as I know, the Staplefords never attempted to make wine. This is hardly the climate for it.’

  ‘An impulse purchase, and talking point when one’s showing off the cellar? Something to say to young ladies? Do you want to come down to the cellar and see my wine press? You said Richard’s father was a bit of a cad.’

  ‘Still seems an odd thing to do,’ I said.

  Fitzroy set down his lantern. He climbed up onto an jutting out stone I had not noticed and began to unwind the lid. ‘Perhaps we will find something interesting inside.’

  ‘The remains of a previous enemy of the family?’ I said.

  ‘Fortunately, I believe Richenda to be too large to fit in here, but you could fit someone of medium height and build in it, certainly. I doubt anyone would find them – even a police search would likely miss this addition to the main cellar. Come over here and bring your light. It’s a deep vat.’

  I cannot say I was thrilled with this idea. I already had numerous unpleasant ideas rushing through my imagination. I decided not to voice any of them in case Fitzroy continued to evaluate my fear aloud. It took quite some effort to unwind the central pole to raise the lid. Fitzroy stopped to remove his jacket. He folded it carefully and then realising there was nowhere to put it, dropped it on the floor with a sigh. Some time later, during which he had uttered many grunts and a number of foul swear words, the lid was high enough for us to see inside.

  The spy took a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his forehead and then attempted to get some of the grime off his hands. ‘Your turn, Alice,’ he said. ‘You lean in and have a look. I’ll hold onto your ankles.’

  I must have registered alarm on my face, because he gave a crack of laughter. ‘It’s only as deep as the outside. Bring that light over.’

  We held our lights up and peered in. The inside of the wooden drum was unstained. The press had never been used. In the bottom there were a number of squashed spiders lying with their legs akimbo among a thick layer of dust.

  ‘Damn,’ said Fitzroy. ‘I got excited when I found it to be so tightly screwed down, but then I wonder if a woman could have tightened it so hard?’

  ‘Wood shrinks and expands,’ I said. ‘This cellar is on the damp side. It could be that a natural expansion of the woodmade the screwing mechanism harder to dislodge.’

  Fitzroy nodded. ‘I was thinking the same. Pity though.’

  He stepped back and regarded the press. Then he went forward again. He repeated this exercise several times. Finally, he said, ‘I was wrong. It isn’t as deep as it looks. I doubt it... but to be on the ... can you find me a small broom, Alice? And quickly. Our time must surely be running out.’

  I darted back into the passage and found that the small sweeping brooms and pans were still stored in at frequent niches. I lifted one and brought it back. I offered it to Fitzroy.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you know how to sweep better than me. You’ve been a professional and all that.’

  I refrained from arguing. He had, after all, not asked me to help unscrew the lid. I leant in and swept up t
he spiders and dust. It took several passes and was made slower by my increasingly frequent need to hold my head aside and sneeze. Fitzroy failed to notice my distress. He picked up his jacket and gave it a good shaking to free it of dust. The atmosphere was so thick with it I could feel my eyes beginning to brim. Finally, I finished. My eyesight was bleary, and I kept coughing.

  ‘Go back into the passage,’ said Fitzroy taking the broom from me. ‘You’ve done enough.’

  I gladly left the room and made my way a short distance along the servants’ passage, so that I was still in sight of the cellar doorway, but back in an area that had been recently swept. I brushed my eyes with the back of my hands, but they continued to flow with itchy tears. At least I had stopped sneezing, although my breath did not sound quite right, and I felt an odd pressure in my chest. I heard Fitzroy’s steps approaching.24 At the same moment I felt a tickling at the back of my neck. As I had rested against the wall it sadly could not be my fiancé playfully sneaking up on me.

  ‘Gods, Alice, you look awful. I’d lend you my handkerchief, but it’s covered in dust.’

  ‘I will be fine in a moment. Do you think you could take the spider off the back of my neck please, before it decides to go down inside my collar?’

  ‘Turn around,’ said the spy in an amused voice. ‘Heavens, it’s a whopper.’

  ‘It would be,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ said Fitzroy. ‘Hold this. I may need two hands to retrieve this fellow.’

  He put a small book into my hands. ‘You found it!’

  ‘Hmm, yes, the press had a false bottom. That was inside along with some dried flowers and what looked like it might have been a pair of baby shoes once. Don’t move. Got it! Do you want to see him, or shall I put him back in the cellar?’

  ‘I can hardly see a thing,’ I said. ‘My eyes are streaming. Just take it away please.’