by Issy Brooke
The Killer on the Bell Tower
The Discreet Investigations of Lord and Lady Calaway: A Novella
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE KILLER ON THE BELL TOWER
First edition. March 23, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Issy Brooke.
Written by Issy Brooke.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Author’s note
One
“It is a scandal, that is what it is,” said Grayson Smith in a braying voice as he surveyed the crowd of mourners gathered in the sunshine on the lawns outside Pever House. His grey moustache bristled as he chewed on a slightly stale biscuit. “I said, I said, it’s a scandal!”
Adelia smiled thinly and briefly, giving the merest hint that she had heard him. She really didn’t want to be talking to the tedious man but she was somewhat stuck. Her own husband, the Earl of Calaway, had drifted off to talk to a rather booming officer-type. As she did not know anyone else who was milling around, she was condemned to stay and listen to Mr Smith’s litany of complaints. At the top of his list was the fact that the mourners for the funeral of Sir Phileas Hinge were being served hospitality after the funeral outside in the open air and on the lawns of Pever House.
“It feels like a garden party, not a funeral repass,” Mr Smith said, sneeringly, looking past Adelia to catch the eye of a passing servant. “I say! You there! Yes, you! Is there no champagne?”
Adelia could not help but grimace. Unfortunately her expression of disapproval was caught by the arrival of a slim, red-haired woman. Fortunately, however, this woman appeared to agree with her. “Grayson!” she snapped at the man. “Champagne? Really? Do you not think that such a thing would be more unseemly still?”
He let his outstretched hand drop. “No, no, it merely proves my point, actually. When one is part of a gathering on a lawn in the sunshine, one naturally expects decent refreshments. If we were huddled in a nice, dark hall, we would demand only weak tea. The surroundings dictate our responses. Therefore, the situation is at fault: certainly not I.”
The woman rolled her eyes in a way that only a wife could get away with, and turned to Adelia. She nodded. “As my distracted husband is not going to introduce me...”
“Oh! Oh! I do apologise,” Mr Smith said, inserting himself between them. “Lady Calaway, may I introduce my wife, Selina Smith? Selina, this is the Countess of Calaway.”
Adelia offered her hand and Mrs Smith pressed it lightly. She was considerably younger than her faded husband. “How do you do.”
“How do you do,” Adelia responded. “I must say, your husband has piqued my interest...”
Mrs Smith spluttered a laugh before swallowing it hastily and composing herself. “Oh, goodness, do not let the reverend see me laughing after a funeral! But do go on; it is just that it’s unusual for Grayson to pique anyone’s interest,” she added, sourly.
Adelia felt awkward immediately. She ploughed on, hoping she wasn’t going to be causing a marital argument. “The poor late man, Sir Phileas Hinge, did not live here at Pever House, did he?”
“You see! You see!” Mr Smith said, waving his hand and letting half of his biscuit tumble to the grass. “She understands.”
“No, I really don’t,” Adelia said.
Mrs Smith said, with a weary sigh, “Pever House used to belong to the Hinge family, twenty years ago. It was the Hinge family who built it. But the family’s fortunes were badly hit by a succession of trade deals going wrong.”
“Not just bad trade deals,” Mr Smith said, speaking over his wife. He didn’t notice her frown. “One bad egg after another successively frittered away, gambled away, or simply mislaid – somehow – all the family’s money until old Phileas himself ended up inheriting this ridiculous pile of fanciful decoration that ate up cash and spat out nothing but worry in return. The place had to go.”
“So it was Sir Phileas’s childhood home,” Adelia said. “And who owns it now?”
“Frankhaus, the old naval duffer,” Mr Smith spat out. He narrowed his eyes. “What relation are you to the deceased?”
“Grayson!” Mrs Smith said in alarm. “One does not interrogate other guests! I do apologise, Lady Calaway. Grayson, go and talk to someone else.”
“But I...”
“No,” she said, and this time she spoke over him. He flared his nostrils, and disappeared. For all his bluster and rudeness, it was obvious who was really in charge in this marriage. As soon as he had moved away, Mrs Smith became all warmth and friendliness. She smiled at Adelia and said, “Please do call me Selina.”
“Delighted.” Adelia, being substantially older, not to mention higher in rank, decided not to offer the same courtesy in return. At least, not yet. Some things she had learned over the long years, and one was that one must not be too hasty in one’s overtures of friendship. Otherwise, obligations could be accidentally made without really meaning to.
She did decide to offer the explanation that Mr Smith had demanded of her. “Your husband is quite right to ask me what my business is here. I am afraid I did not know Sir Phileas at all. My husband has been invited here by Reverend Shale, and as we are staying at his house, the reverend suggested we use this gathering as a way to meet people.” There was another reason. One wouldn’t simply turn up, post-funeral, to partake of the refreshments for a dead man one didn’t know. Adelia kept the secondary reason to herself, and tried to brazen out the social impropriety.
“Oh. I see,” said Mrs Smith, not really seeing it at all. She glanced around the assorted guests, prompted by the mention of the reverend’s name to seek him out. She had gone somewhat stiff, and Adelia understood why.
She’d only been in the reverend’s house for six hours and she was already very tired of him. He was a pompous man of late middle age who was unmarried and desperate to remedy that. He pursued women with an unhealthy zeal and a rather unfortunate set of ideas about how women ought to behave which might have been all very well fifty years ago – but were simply no longer relevant as the long nineteenth century drew to a close. She wondered how he behaved towards the beautiful Mrs Smith. From her reaction, probably not very well.
Mrs Smith turned back to Adelia. “I see,” she said again, distractedly.
“So why is this gathering being held here, of all places?” Adelia asked. “I understand now that this was Sir Phileas’s childhood home but where did he live at the time of his death?”
“He lived in a decent town house in Peverham.” She waved vaguely towards the small town which lay not very far away. Pever House and the church were on the edge of the settlement amongst the rolling Chiltern Hills of southern England. “This place, Pever House, belongs to Vice Admiral Frankhaus now, and it was he who insisted the tea and cakes should be served here. He said there was more space, and quite overruled everyone else. However my Grayson thinks there’s another motive. He says it’s being held here out of spite, to rub Sir Phileas’s nose in it. Nonsense, of course. As if one can upset a dead man! But as Sir Phileas no longer had the house, my Grayson imagines that’s something that ought to bother – ought to have bothered – Sir Phileas.”
“But you think differently.”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs Smith said. “Sir Phileas couldn’t give a fig for this place, you know. People see what they want to see, and they want to see him as a man
who had lost his land. But he was far more upset that he had lost all his influence.”
“Did you know Sir Phileas well? I am sorry for your loss.”
She nodded and went a little pale. “Yes,” she said, quietly-spoken all of a sudden. “He shall be greatly missed. Truly a tragic accident.”
“Indeed,” said Adelia. “And might I ask if he had a wife?” She had noted the lack of a principal female mourner.
Was that the hint of an inappropriate smile on Mrs Smith’s lips? “She ran off years ago with a coal salesman from Ormskirk.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“Yes, it was quite the local scandal. Kept us all going through the long dark dull days of winter. Nothing very interesting happens here in Peverham.” Mrs Smith tossed her head and looked past Adelia, clearly now intending to move away and talk to someone else. “Nothing, that is, until Sir Phileas fell off that tower. Ha!”
THEODORE CAUGHT SIGHT of Adelia but she appeared to be deep in conversation with another woman, a rather attractive young lady in close-fitting black mourning attire. He had hoped to be able to escape the interminable clutches of Reverend Shale, but it was not to be.
“Might I ask who my wife is talking to?” Theodore asked. After all, he was supposed to be getting to know the locals. That was the whole point of this excruciating exercise.
Reverend Shale craned his neck, appearing to grow taller by three inches. He was a stretched-out, thin, knobbly sort of fellow. He had been at school with Theodore and they’d gone up to the same university though thankfully attended different colleges. Back then, he’d been “Bertie” and Theodore was struggling to address him in a more respectful manner as befitted his adult status. The young Bertie Shale had been a nincompoop at school and now that he was an ordained minister, he was simply a nincompoop in a dog collar.
But he’d begged for help, and Theodore could hardly refuse.
The reverend said, “That’s Mrs Selina Smith. She’s something of a local force, I must say. Full of energy and vim, brings a bit of light to the place. Hmm. Yes.”
There was admiration in the reverend’s voice and that surprised Theodore. He had expected the old bachelor to have been dismissive of her. He did tend to look down on women who were too beautiful, too talkative, or simply too visible. He’d made a succession of marriage proposals to a line of women throughout his life, and been rejected every single time. Theodore wanted to feel sorry for the reverend, but instead he felt relief for the women who’d had the sense to slip through his clutches and escape.
“Red hair, though,” Theodore said. “That’s a sign, isn’t it?”
“Mm? Mm. Hadn’t noticed. Her husband’s a damp squib. Funny old do, really, that marriage, but the Smiths are the oldest family in the area.”
“But I thought Pever House belonged to the Vice Admiral?”
“Frankhaus? Oh, it does, now. Before that, it was Sir Phileas’s. Ancestral seat of the Hinges, in fact.”
“Ancestral?” said Theodore, quirking a smile. “Hardly. It’s two hundred years old at most.”
“Quite, quite. The Hinges made their money in trade in the late eighteenth century. As for Vice Admiral Frankhaus, no one knows his family really. But the Smiths have been here for generations. Don’t ask Grayson Smith about it, though. Word of warning for you, old chap! Once you get him talking about his history, he won’t shut up. He’s a tiresome bore about it. Feels overlooked because his surname is so dreadfully dull. If I see him coming down my garden path clutching his ledgers and his scrolls, I hide in the sacristy.”
Theodore would have happily hidden in a sacristy to escape the reverend never mind Mr Smith, although he wasn’t entirely sure what one was. He had evaded all attempts to get him to serve as a choirboy in his youth, not even tempted when the others told him they sometimes got to sneak a bit of the communion wine. He smiled politely at Shale.
“So are these three families the local worthies?” he asked. “The Hinges, the Frankhauses and the Smiths?”
“Oh, yes, very much so. Frankhaus is the Johnny-Come-Lately, of course, and he’s a bully if you ask me. Maybe that’s the military background. Insists on being part of every committee going, and if a week goes by without a committee meeting for this or for that, he’ll set up a new one just so he can chair it. The Smiths are the old guard, like I said; been here for donkeys’ years. And as for the Hinges, well ... they’ve always been pursued by a whiff of scandal. Failed trade. Other things.”
“Scandal? Is that why you think his death is suspicious?”
“Hush, hush, keep your voice down!” Shale urged in a panic. “Don’t let anyone hear you say it!”
“So the police have completely ruled out any possibility of foul play?” Theodore asked in a much lower voice.
Shale backed away, drawing Theodore to a solitary corner of the patio at the edge of the lawns. He said, “Absolutely. As far as they are concerned, Sir Phileas fell from the bell tower of my church by accident and was killed as soon as he hit the ground.” Shale shuddered. “I found him, you know. The Lord was testing me that day.” He closed his eyes and his lips moved silently for a moment.
“Describe every detail to me,” Theodore said.
Shale blanched. He was already pale and he went greyer still. Theodore realised, too late, that insisting a traumatised man replay every moment of a terrible event might not be very pleasant. He was glad Adelia was not there; she would have kicked his ankles by now. He was about to apologise but Shale drew in a deep breath and found courage from somewhere.
The reverend said, “I spent the morning in Peverham. Do you remember John Farthingale? He wrote to me the other week and ... sorry, sorry. Not relevant, is it?” He coughed. “Well. Quite. I had been in town all morning and I walked back along the lane to the church. It was coming up to midday and I was hoping for a nice piece of cold game pie. Mm. My cook is ... sorry, sorry. So I came around the front of the church and I would have gone straight past and into the vicarage but I noticed the door was open. The main door. I wondered who had gone inside, and whether they needed me.” The reverend went pink. “I have to confess I walked past and decided to, ah, leave them to pray in peace. Mm. Often best, you know.”
Theodore nodded. What Shale meant was that he didn’t want to get caught up in speaking to someone. He wanted to get home to his pie.
Shale went on. “But because my attention had been caught by the door, my head was still turned as I went past the base of the tower and I noticed ... mm, a foot.”
Theodore had, unusually, trained as a doctor. He had practised the medical art until his older brother had died, propelling him unwillingly into the earldom. Though Theodore had resented the elevation, his abandoned patients breathed a sigh of relief. His bedside manner was so bad that it could cause fatal hysterics in people, and his tactful manner had clearly not improved as he said to Shale, “How was the body positioned? And was he dead when you saw him, or was he still struggling on? Did he make any noises?”
“I have heard the death rattle,” Shale said, frowning. “Believe me when I remind you I am no stranger to the long hours beside the bed of a dying person. But this was ... well, he was definitely dead. Instantly. He had fallen at least one hundred feet! Our church tower is not the tallest in England but no one could survive a fall from it. His neck was ... his head was ... no, he was most certainly not breathing.”
“Was he known to frequent the bell tower?”
Reverend Shale laughed with a hollow sound. “He never came to church. Ever.”
“So what was he doing at the top of the tower?”
“That is what I want to know,” Shale replied. “Or, more importantly, how did he come to be at the bottom of it?”
Two
Later that evening, Adelia took an evening stroll around the small town of Peverham, resting on the arm of her husband. The vicarage and the church lay just to the outside of the market town, around a quarter of a mile down a narrow lane that had hedges so high on ei
ther side that it was like walking along a tunnel. They passed the gates of Pever House. The house itself stood on a low hill. They both paused for a moment and peered through the wrought ironwork.
“I was talking to a chap at the repass,” Theodore said to her, still staring up at the house. “Well, he was talking. I couldn’t get away. He called it an ‘atrocious carbuncle of a modern house.’ Can’t see it myself. I quite like the long open aspect and the windows. Better than a cramped old castle, don’t you think?”
“It’s not so terribly modern, either,” Adelia said. “What was the man’s name? Don’t forget we’re supposed to be rooting out suspects.”
Theodore snorted. “Suspects? Do we really think this is a case of murder? Honestly, dear heart, I think old Bertie Shale’s gone soft in the head in his old age. So this chap was pushed off the bell tower, was he?” He shook his head. “If you were going to kill someone, how would you do it?”
Adelia was used to these kinds of questions from Theodore and she was simply glad that this time, they weren’t in polite company. She said, “I rather think I’d shoot someone. Close range, so there can be no doubt I was hitting the right person. And I would want to ensure they were dead. Poisoning can be a little hit and miss. I know that’s how we women are supposed to do it, but I’ve never thought it would be accurate enough. Or fast enough.” Then she stopped. “Listen to me! Goodness, Theodore, you are a bad influence on me. A year ago, I would never have imagined saying such things.”
He grinned at her. “When we married, thirty years ago, they all told me that it was you who were the bad influence.”
She lightly smacked his upper arm. “They did not.” Yes, he had been the high-born member of the peerage and she was merely a well-educated upper-middle-class woman from a respectable family with their roots in trade, but he had also been a grief-stricken widower, sinking into drink and dissolution and scandal. She liked to consider that she was the good catch.
