by Clare Jayne
“... Which is why you must accept that I know such men’s intentions far better than you. We will swap rooms, then you will be in no danger from him.”
For a moment she was tempted. It would indeed be pleasant to be able to forget all about Lord Strand and it would be an unpleasant surprise for him, should he go to her door to find someone else in the room, but it would be insupportable to be saved by Mr McDonald. He would be more insufferable than ever. Besides, she could manage Lord Strand perfectly well alone. She was almost positive that the man had not even meant what he had said. “Certainly not.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
She had no answer for this since she could hardly tell him she would rather face a lecherous old man than be in Mr McDonald’s debt in any way. “It would be improper.”
He looked taken aback by this but, being the man he was, he could hardly object. “Then your sister-in-law must share your room while you are here.”
“No. We would then have to tell Henry everything and he would certainly die fighting Lord Strand in a duel.”
“I can think of no other solution.”
But she could and it was beautiful in its obviousness. “Then it is lucky that my wits are quicker than yours,” she said smugly. “There is a key in my door and I will lock myself in.”
“Oh.” He looked satisfyingly mortified at having not thought of this himself. “Very well.”
* * *
“Only there was not,” Miss Chiverton said, her delicate face once more pale and haunted.
Ishbel frowned, confused. “Not what?”
“A key. When I went up to my room that night, the key was gone and I could not ask for Mr McDonald’s help, having insulted him, so I shoved a heavy chair in front of the door and did not sleep at all. At least, I must have slept an hour or two, since I was woken by the commotion of everyone discovering the murder, but it was an extremely long night. I kept thinking I heard noises nearby and I honestly did not know what I could do if he pushed his way into the room. Even if I had screamed, the other guests would have seen him in my room alone and my good reputation would have been destroyed.”
“It must have been hideous,” Ishbel agreed. “What a disgusting man.”
“I can think of almost no one who deserved being killed more.”
The almost gave Ishbel pause, but she did not pursue the subject as she was reasonably confident that Miss Chiverton was not actually contemplating murdering someone herself.
Chapter Nine
IN ANOTHER part of the house, Ewan was having far less success with his own attempted interview.
“It is not a matter I wish to discuss,” Mr Henry Chiverton said, “and nor does my wife.”
She shot him a nervous look. “That is right.”
“Can I just ask then if there was anything you saw that would lead you to suspect any of the guests of the crime?”
“Beyond the greetings exchanged when we arrived, we did not ever get a chance to speak to Lord Strand. We were closer at dinner to Lady Strand.”
Ewan thought of the fact that she had chosen to remain alone in the house where her husband had been murdered. “And how did she behave that evening?”
Mr Chiverton frowned. “She behaved like a lady hosting a dinner party. How else?”
“Perhaps she did not seem happy,” Mrs Anne Chiverton said, looking more at her husband than Ewan as she answered. “Do you not remember saying, sir, that she seemed out of sorts, as if she were ill?”
“Did I?” Mr Chiverton seemed confused. “I do not recollect. I am sure it was nothing. She is a lady – she can certainly know nothing of the matter.”
Ewan began to see why Eddie Chiverton and Miss Chiverton had so little patience with their brother. He seemed to be one of those gentleman – of whom there were a great many – who knew little but insisted he knew more than everyone else. He tried again. “And did you see any arguments that evening or signs of resentment towards Lord or Lady Strand?
“Nothing,” Mr Chiverton said without pause.
“My husband is quite correct,” Mrs Chiverton said, “but Mr Gell did want to speak to Lord Strand that evening. His manner was quite insistent but Lord Strand refused.”
“Did Lord Strand give a reason?” Ewan asked.
“No. Perhaps it was nothing.” Mrs Chiverton glanced at her husband again and fiddled with the embroidery in her hand. “Lord Strand was not rude but... dismissive. He said something like, ‘Not now, Gell’.”
“That is most helpful. Thank you, Mrs Chiverton.”
“Then you have what you wanted,” Mr Chiverton said with a tight smile. “Perhaps we could finally do as I asked and speak on some other subject.”
“Yes, of course,” Ewan agreed. “My apologies if my questions seemed distasteful.” He sought to think of a topic the man would like, to keep him occupied while Ishbel spoke to Miss Chiverton, but he knew little of Mr Chiverton’s tastes, only that his brother and sister both seemed to find him pompous and overbearing. “I hope this recent experience has not ruined the season for you both. Have you attended any enjoyable outings lately?”
“A great many,” Mr Chiverton said. “Our family is invited to all the most refined events. You are looking forward to Lady Minnigan’s ball on Friday, are you not, Mrs Chiverton?”
His wife obediently nodded. “Very much so.”
“Now that my mother and father have returned to Edinburgh from our country estate, they will likely be in attendance with us. My mother is an excellent chaperone for my wife.”
Most husband’s did not feel that their wives needed any kind of chaperone but Ishbel had told him that Miss Chiverton found her older brother and father to be controlling and stern. He felt a little sorry for Mrs Anne Chiverton for being married to such a man. She seemed willing enough to behave as he wished but such a life seemed restrictive in the extreme.
There was a sound outside and the drawing room door opened to admit Miss Chiverton and Ishbel. Ewan brightened at the sight of his wife and she smiled at him with a look in her dark eyes to suggest that she had information to share.
They took their leave of the group, Miss Chiverton holding onto Ishbel’s gloved hands for long enough as they said goodbye to suggest that she wished she could go from here too. He thought, not for the first time, that society was not kind to women: unless widowed, they were always under the control of men, being passed from father to husband. Some gentlemen allowed ladies some freedom of thought and movement, but many did not.
He was glad to get out of the house, even facing the frosty temperature outside with pleasure. He took Ishbel’s hand and helped her into the carriage before jumping up and taking the seat opposite her.
“We were right about Miss Chiverton holding something back about the night of the murder,” Ishbel said without preamble, as he tapped the roof of the carriage and it began to move, and she told him all that Miss Chiverton had shared about Lord Strand’s behaviour.
“I am not surprised that she was reluctant to speak of it. His actions were unpardonable.” He looked out of the window without seeing anything of the view. “I wonder if Lady Strand often had to endure infidelities by him.” He repeated what Mrs Anne Chiverton had said.
Ishbel nodded. “The son appeared indifferent to his father’s murder and now we learn that the mother might have had good reason to want him gone. I think you have found us our second murder suspect.”
Chapter Ten
GEORGE WILLIAMSON, the King’s Messenger, agreed to see them the next day to discuss the death of the former Lord Strand. His house was not as grand as one might have expected but, if he only used it occasionally when he had work to do in the city, that was not surprising. He was in the parlour with his wife and three vivacious children who had various wooden toys spread out on the rug in the centre of the room. Sitting on the rug amongst them, he had to evict a tiny curly-haired child from his lap in order to stand up and greet his guests. He was a middle-aged gentleman who took his leav
e of his wife and children in an affectionate manner, leading Ishbel and Ewan into a study to talk.
“How may I help you?” he asked politely, his tone more gentle than Ishbel would have expected from someone who took on such an authoritative role for the king.
They sat down and Ewan said, “We have been involved in finding murderers in the past.”
“I have heard that.”
Ishbel wondered what exactly he had been told but thought it might be better if she did not know since few members of upper-class society approved of their work.
“Two friends of ours were in the house of the former Lord Strand when he was killed. We would like to help catch the guilty person and we understand the new Lord Strand has involved you in the matter.”
“The king wishes this unpleasant crime solved. I would like to work independently on it but I would certainly have no objection to speaking with you about anything we discover between us.”
Ishbel smiled. She had expected the man who had the trust of a monarch to have a degree of arrogance and was pleasantly surprised that he was the opposite of what she had imagined. “That is good of you. Our assumption, based on what we have been told, is that Lord Strand was poisoned. Have you been able to have his body studied, to confirm that?”
Mr Williamson raised an eyebrow at having a woman speak of such matters but, unlike most gentlemen, he made no unfavourable comment about her knowledge of post mortem dissections. “I have. There is evidence that he was given a drink that contained hemlock.”
“That would have taken some time to kill him,” Ishbel said. “I am surprised he was not able to seek help.”
“Perhaps he was prevented from doing so,” Mr Williamson suggested.
“We understand that he was found dead in a downstairs study. Do you know if that was where he was killed or whether the body was moved?” There would have been signs on his corpse, such as the blood settling in his arms or legs, if he had died elsewhere and been taken to a different place.
Mr Williamson did not query how she knew this. Perhaps the new Lord Strand had already told him of their interest in the crime and he had learned something of their backgrounds. He must be competent in his work to have achieved such a high position. “It is likely that he died where he was found. Nothing in his corpse suggested he was moved and he vomited as he died, which mess was found in the study.”
“I suppose it was not possible to tell more clearly when he died?”
“No. He was last seen alive by his valet around midnight and his body was found, again by a servant, at around eight in the morning. The maid would normally have begun lighting the fires in the main rooms earlier but there had been a lot of work left from the dinner party the previous night, so she had been delayed.”
“That is useful to know,” she said. They would have struggled to find out the details themselves, with the new Lord Strand refusing their help.
“May we ask if you have any suspects?” Ewan asked.
Mr Williamson paused, reluctant for the first time to answer a question. “None that I have any confidence in mentioning.”
“We have found out a little.” Ewan gave an account to the other man of what they had learned so far and Mr Williamson listened silently, unmoving in his concentration.
“You think Lady Strand might have killed her husband?” he asked when he had heard everything.
“Lady Strand is a strong suspect at this point,” Ishbel said. “So is her son, since he gave little sign of holding his father in any affection and he has inherited a considerable estate. There are also questions raised about the relationship Lady Tabor, Mr Gell and Mr McIntoll had with the former Lord Strand.”
“You have found out a lot in a short time.” He sounded impressed and Ishbel could not help but be pleased at his reaction. She knew he had a number of different roles in his work for the King but she had never before met another person who looked into crimes, other than the town guards whose purpose was more to apprehend than to investigate.
“I suspect that we still have a great deal more to discover,” Ewan said and Mr Williamson agreed, while Ishbel could not help but feel that there must be a complex reason behind the fact that those they had spoken to so far – his own son and Miss Chiverton – seemed grateful that Lord Strand was dead.
Chapter Eleven
ONCE THEY were home Ishbel immediately added the information Mr Williamson had given them to what she had written so far about the case.
“I wonder if there is anyone who can be cleared of the crime now that we know the hours between which Lord Strand must have died,” Ewan said, sitting opposite her in the library. The room was larger than the library in her cousin’s house but Ishbel felt just as much at home here, surrounded by the smell and sight of books.
She paused in her writing, wiping her quill on the inside of the jar of sepia ink so it would not drip onto the paper. “I suppose married couples would usually be together sleeping at such hours, although we cannot really ask them to confirm this without being accused of extreme impertinence.”
“They would probably have taken lady’s maids and valets with them to Lord Strand’s house and they might be able to say who was getting ready to sleep, or already asleep, by midnight.”
“Miss Chiverton said that the dinner party went on late, with the dancing later, so there might well have still been people awake and moving about at midnight. Perhaps Rabbie would be willing to assist us again by speaking to some of the servants?”
“I will ask him,” Ewan said. “Did Miss Chiverton say anything to you about hearing guests leaving their rooms in the night?”
“No. She mentioned hearing noises but, being afraid of Lord Strand’s intentions, that might have been partly her imagination.”
“She must have been terrified.” He folded his arms. “How could a gentleman behave in such a way?”
“Men, in our society, hold almost all the power,” she said, remembering the supposed gentleman who had once tried to kiss her against her will. “Some of them abuse that power. Lord Strand seems like a good example of someone who thought he could get away with any behaviour he wished to engage in.”
“Do you think a woman might have done this?” The last murder they had looked into had been committed by a woman who had also thought she would never face any consequences for what she had done. “Poison would take no strength.”
“It would certainly have been possible for the crime to be committed by a woman,” Ishbel agreed. “There was no struggle involved. Perhaps Lady Strand had had enough of his adulteries.”
“Or Lady Tabor saw him seeking out a new companion in Miss Chiverton.”
“We are still only guessing at this time that Lady Tabor was having an illicit liaison with him.”
“We certainly need to speak to more of the guests,” Ewan said. “We have a number of unanswered questions.”
“Yes. Mr Williamson might be able to find out from the servants if any of the guests were seen out of their rooms after midnight. He seemed willing to share his knowledge of the crime with us, other than his own suspects, and withholding that might have simply been that he did not wish to speculate without sufficient information.”
“You liked him,” Ewan observed with a smile.
She returned it. “I did. It made a welcome change to meet another man who made no objection to a lady looking into crimes and he seemed intelligent.”
“He should. I doubt the king would entrust important matters like this to a fool. Mr Williamson represents the king to the people involved in this crime and I imagine the king will expect him to find answers in the shortest possible time.”
It was important for the king to have the support of the wealthiest people in the country, those who also had power, and that meant getting justice for them. The deaths of other less influential people were often overlooked, as they had quickly discovered in their work, and the lack of justice in this bothered her.
“Then I suppose we too will be assisti
ng our king by looking for the murderer,” she said lightly.
In a similar tone, he responded, “I doubt it will make our suspects like us any the better. Shall we make a start in visiting them?”
Chapter Twelve
NEITHER LADY Tabor nor Mr Gell were at home to Ewan and Ishbel when they called at their houses, which was a poor start. Whether they actually were out or simply did not wish to speak to them, he did not know. Rabbie had cheerfully agreed to speak to their servants, his manner suggesting that he had missed such adventures, so perhaps his efforts would yield results where theirs had failed.
Mr McIntoll, who was next on their list of suspects, proved more forthcoming or, at least, he was actually willing to speak to them. He was the gentleman Miss Chiverton had been seated next to at the dinner party, Ewan recalled, and McDonald and Miss Chiverton had disagreed over whether Mr McIntoll’s relationship with Lord Strand had been cordial or not.
They were shown into the drawing room of his house and he came downstairs to join them almost at once. They bowed, curtsied and exchanged introductions, and then he waved them towards chairs. He looked to be around fifty years old, about the same age as Lord Strand would have been, with greying hair and a heavy old-fashioned beard.
“We have solved several crimes in the past and we wish to find Lord Strand’s murderer,” Ishbel explained.
“Indeed. I have heard mention of your work together.” Most people would have said this with a look of distaste or even annoyance, but he looked quite interested in the subject.
“Since you were at Lord Strand’s home when he was killed, we hoped you might be able to give us some information about what happened that night,” Ewan said.
“What would you like to know?” Mr McIntoll asked in an obliging manner that took her by surprise.
“How did you become acquainted with Lord Strand?”
“Oh, we were young men of one score three years when we first met. Lord Strand had not even inherited his title at that time and he did not marry until some ten years later.”
