by Issy Brooke
Theodore turned his attention back to the house on the hill. “Grayson Smith.”
“What? Where?”
“No, you asked me who I was speaking to. Before you distracted me with your feminine wiles,” he added, grinning. “It was Grayson Smith who referred to this place as an atrocious carbuncle. He didn’t have anything nice to say about anyone, as it happens.”
“I met him too.” They resumed their stroll along the lane. “Apparently the Smiths are the oldest family here. I spoke to his wife. She seemed nice. They are not terribly well-matched.”
“I know you are the best match-maker in England, but you cannot do anything for a couple already married,” he told her.
“I know. Such a shame. I promise that I shan’t meddle. But listen, my dear,” Adelia went on. “Let us suppose that someone did kill Sir Phileas. Didn’t you say that it was unusual for him to be at the church?”
“Not merely unusual – utterly unheard of, according to Shale.”
“Exactly. So something is going on here. Perhaps it was not intentional. As you point out, it’s a complicated way to plan to kill someone, and there are easier ways to achieve one’s murderous ends. Of course, the killer might have deliberately done it this way simply to ensure it does look like an accident.”
“Oh!” said Theodore.
“And if that was not the case, perhaps something else was happening to give him cause to be up there and then he was pushed – I can imagine an argument occurring, for example.”
“But in the bell tower?”
Adelia clicked her tongue in exasperation. “Where else? The bell tower is the very centre of all the area’s current drama, is it not?”
Theodore blinked at her, a blank expression on his face.
She sighed. “What exactly did you talk about with people at the funeral repass?”
“Before I was caught in Mr Smith’s noose, I was buttonholed by Vice Admiral Frankhaus for a long time. He has a scheme to breed otters, apparently.”
“You talked about otter-breeding?”
“Oh!” he said again. “And the bell, yes.”
“And the bell,” she repeated wearily.
Before Mr Smith had started to complain about Pever House to her, he had ranted for a long ten minutes about the bell tower of Peverham Church.
THEODORE HAD TO CONCEDE that his wife’s explanation made sense. She laid it all out to him as they wandered around the edge of drowsy marketplace in Peverham. Only a few shops were still open, selling groceries to those who worked long hours in service or trade. There were no market stalls set up, and the few people they saw were walking briskly, head down, bundles under their arms as they hurried home for a few hours of relaxation with their families.
“I feel it must be significant that the dreadful event happened on the bell tower,” she told him as they perambulated slowly. “Sir Phileas might not have been a regular church-goer, but perhaps he did have a reason to be there. Ever since Reverend Shale started the campaign to raise funds for a new bell in the church, there has been a frenzy of excitement locally.”
“About a bell? I simply don’t understand it. All Shale needs to do is start a subscription and gather up the funds and there you go: buy a bell.”
“It’s not about the bell,” she said.
“You just said it was about the bell!”
“It is about who is seen to contribute the most to the bell,” she said to him.
Theodore steered her to a bench and wiped it with his pocket-handkerchief before she sat down. He perched alongside her. “Who is the richest family around here?”
“I suspect it is Vice Admiral Frankhaus up in Pever House.”
“Not the Smiths?”
“The Smiths are the oldest. It doesn’t mean they are the richest. And as for the Hinges ...” she tailed off.
“What is it?”
“There’s something that Mrs Smith said to me. She said that Sir Phileas Hinge didn’t mind the loss of Pever House but he did mind his loss of his local influence.”
That sparked a recollection in Theodore’s mind. He said, “And Bertie warned me that Mr Smith is obsessed with his family history! They think they are the most influential family in the area. But they are constantly overlooked.”
Adelia nodded. “Yes. No title, no well-known name. They might have a trail of deeds and papers going back to the Normans but no one really knows them, so no one cares. That seems to really rankle Mr Smith.”
“So,” Theodore said slowly, encouraged by Adelia’s nods as he spoke, “we have three families vying for the upper hand in this town. Well, surely that means the bell can be funded between them! Shale is lucky to have three good patrons here.”
She shook her head. “No, you’ve missed the most important point,” she said. “Each of them wants to be the sole contributor so that they have their family’s name and crest engraved on the bell, a mark of superiority etched at the centre of the church for all time.”
“Three parties battling for a name on a bell?”
“Two,” she said, darkly. “For one of them is now dead.”
And finally, Theodore understood why his old schoolmate Bertie Shale believed Sir Phileas’s death to have been murder.
Three
The reverend was lying in wait for them when they returned. Dusk was falling and the air was sweet and pleasant. He invited them to join him for a drink in a sitting room on the ground floor of the vicarage. It faced west and the pink sky made an appealing view from the open windows. They settled themselves comfortably around the place. Adelia was still wearing her walking dress but the reverend assured her that there was no need to change her clothing again. She was relieved. She’d started the day in her travelling wear to get to Peverham, changed into mourning clothes for the repass although of course she had not attended the funeral. Then she had worn a more formal gown for the private dinner at the vicarage, and changed again for her evening stroll into Peverham. There were only so many times one wanted to ask one’s maid to fight the hooks and eyes and ribbons of a fresh dress, and she felt sure her own maid, who had accompanied her, would have flatly refused.
While Theodore fussed with a cigar, trimming it and tapping it, she asked Reverend Shale about the subscriptions for the bell. He confirmed what they had begun to suspect.
“Indeed,” he said, in some desperation, “I wish I had never mooted the idea in the first place. I had intended to do just as you said, and ask for general contributions to the fund from the whole congregation. But first, Mr Smith waded in and declared that the Smiths would pay for the entire thing. Then the Vice Admiral butted in – oh, it was a tense meeting of the parish council, I can tell you! Frankhaus said that it simply wouldn’t do, and that as the incumbent of Pever House, he ought to pay for the bell and he would be happy to double what Mr Smith was offering. And Mr Smith hadn’t even named an amount!”
“And Sir Phileas?”
“He stayed quiet. He wasn’t like Frankhaus, all noise and bombast. No, that wasn’t his way at all. He waited around and spoke to me at the end of the meeting. He informed me that he intended to pay for the bell and tried to press some money on me there and then. I refused. He came here the very next morning with a strong box, trying to force more money on me. I simply didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to upset anyone. I told him we’d decide at the next committee meeting.”
Adelia said, “If Sir Phileas was not a church-goer, why was he on the parish council?”
Reverend Shale laughed but there was no humour in it at all. “Oh, none of them are God-fearing souls, not a single one of them. Come to my Sunday service and you’ll double my congregation, my lady. They are all in it, every one of them, for their own ends. Mm.”
“How perfectly distasteful,” Adelia said. She wasn’t the most devout Christian on the globe but she didn’t pretend to be more or less than she was.
Theodore had been listening closely. He said, “Once again we return to the triangle of enmity be
tween Mr Smith, Sir Phileas and Vice Admiral Frankhaus. Is it fair to say, Bertie, that both Smith and Frankhaus had good cause to want to kill Sir Phileas?”
The reverend twitched at Theodore’s use of his childhood name. Adelia noticed, but Theodore did not. He said, “I hardly think the matter of a bell is a ‘good cause’ but yes, I can think of no other reason.”
“It is not about the bell but about the position in the local society that the bell represents,” Adelia informed them both. Reverend Shale nodded in agreement.
“Are there any other suspects?” Theodore asked.
“None come to mind.”
“Would Mr Smith have worked independently or can we consider Mrs Smith to be potentially involved?” Adelia asked. She watched Reverend Shale carefully. Theodore had told her that the vicar had been unusually complimentary about the married woman.
Did he go a little pink? It was hard to tell, in the low twilight, with wine and brandy making everyone’s cheeks redden.
“Mrs Smith is a paragon of virtue, as far as I am concerned,” he said, and she knew immediately from the way that he said it that he harboured a most unclerical passion for the lady. She hoped it was mere admiration from afar but she decided she’d make some careful enquiries about the potential relationship between the two.
It also made her think about the others. “I understand Sir Phileas’s wife has run away.”
Reverend Shale nodded frantically, relieved to be talking of someone else. “Oh yes, it caused quite the stir!”
“And she’s not returned for her estranged husband’s funeral?”
“Not yet. Although word might not have reached her. She’s rather dropped out of society, of course. That said, these sorts of people have a habit of appearing when probate begins its wearisome process.”
“Is she named in the will? Are there any interesting and potentially incriminating surprises in it?”
Reverend Shale shook his head. “She’s been utterly expunged from it, but she might not realise that. And no, the will is perfectly straightforward and the executors are a respectable firm in town. Everything appears to be above board.”
“So no clues there, then,” Adelia said thoughtfully. “And the Rear Admiral?”
“The Vice Admiral. Do not demote him. He would be livid.”
“Very well. Our naval man. Is he married?”
“Oh, yes,” Shale said. “But his poor dear wife Lily does not mix in society.”
“Is she ill?”
“No. Not exactly.” Reverend Shale gazed out of the window at the darkening sky. “She is Frankhaus’s complete opposite in all ways. Where he is loud, she is quiet. Where he is confident, she is meek. She knows her place, and presents a fine example of womanhood that many modern ladies would do well to follow, hmm, mm. She does, alas, seem to take it a little too far.”
Adelia bit back her retort. Women simply could not win against the impossible standards of a man like Shale. Be meek, but too meek. Quiet, but too quiet. She wondered what complaints he would make about Adelia once they had left his house.
Part of her wanted to be utterly scandalous but she had to remember that this man was an old friend of Theodore’s, and they were there on professional business, as investigators of growing reputation amongst those who wanted matters attended to rather more privately than the police would do.
“I think I might pay a call on Mrs Frankhaus,” she said. “Would you possibly be able to arrange an introduction? It is all very well asking us here to make enquiries but I am somewhat hampered by my lack of connections in this part of the country.”
“I shall do so tomorrow.”
She nodded. “I shall also pay a call on Mrs Smith,” she said, experimentally. “She was very pleasant company earlier.” He definitely turned a little pinker again. She hid her smile. He started to protest that her energies ought to be concentrated on a few obvious suspects, of which Mrs Smith could not possibly be one, but he seemed then to realise he was making himself look a fool, and he stopped.
A silence fell as they finished the last of the bottle of wine.
Shale got up to find another bottle, but Adelia excused herself and withdrew, and was joined not long afterwards by Theodore. She lay in the dark, thinking about the lengths – or depths – people would go to, just to be considered the most influential family in an area. She was going to speak to Theodore about it, but he began to snore.
She lay awake for a long time, and she wasn’t entirely sure what was bothering her about the whole affair.
But something was definitely out of kilter.
THEODORE HEADED OUT to examine the bell tower the next morning. He waved Adelia off as she set out with Shale to pay a call on Mrs Frankhaus at Pever House, and as soon as they were out of sight, he turned his attention to the church and the place where the body had been found.
The base of the tower was a patchwork of broken stone slabs that were part of a path that ran right around the whole of the church. The church itself had been built in the thirteenth century, and had a stumpy square tower topped off with crenellations. The graveyard was neatly kept with clipped grass and well-tended plots. He could see no traces of a body having hit the slabs. The stone was, in fact, recently scrubbed clean.
He passed through the porch and into the south aisle of the church. The nave was cool and quiet. It smelled of damp and faint incense. He headed left and found the door to the base of the tower was firmly locked. He had expected that. Reverend Shale had told him that since the death, the sexton had found the old key and made sure the belfry was locked at all times. Theodore had asked for the key that morning, and slipped it into his pocket.
The stone steps were murder on his knees, he thought, and could not help smiling at his inadvertent joke. Murder, ha ha. It wasn’t a very appropriate one, and he wouldn’t share it with Adelia. She was broad-minded but tended to get strangely uppity at some of his more childish remarks especially if he made them at dinner parties. The climb spiralled up and it seemed to take far too long to reach the top of the tower. He climbed up past the wooden beams that supported the bells. He could see, as he went, that the largest central bell was cracked. Now he was standing on a narrow walkway that clung to the walls with the bells in the centre of the tower and he glanced down, the view to the tiles below making his head spin for a moment.
He found a small door and stepped outside gingerly.
To his relief, the wall around the thin strip of balcony was high and rose nearly to his chest. Even though it was crenelated, with peaks and dips, for a grown man to fall accidentally from here was surely impossible, he thought. He made a complete circuit and found no spots of weakness or larger gaps.
For Sir Phileas to have tumbled from this tower, he would have had to have jumped, or been shoved with some force.
Theodore tried to imagine what would have happened if he had been taken ill. Could a stroke or contraction of the heart cause a person to fall from the tower? But he shook his head, answering his own question. He had seen enough such medical tragedies to know that the victim would slump to the ground, sliding down in a faint, and could not have leapt over a high wall.
That would have taken direction and effort.
Theodore retraced his steps to the bottom of the tower and decided to head over to see Mr Smith. As Adelia was visiting Mrs Frankhaus, he decided he’d do his bit, and see what sort of alibi Mr and Mrs Smith had for the morning of the death. He remembered that Adelia had said she’d call on Mrs Smith later and he thought he might be able to meet his wife there.
Four
Reverend Shale insisted on driving Adelia in a small, light gig. She liked the feeling of the warm air on her face and hoped she might simply bask in the peace of the ride, but he had other ideas. He let the horse amble at a maddeningly slow pace, and made a series of bland observations about plants and the weather. She answered tersely but politely, wondering why he was so keen to talk about nothing, when she realised that perhaps he was working up to
speaking of a more important matter. She had found that often people needed some kind of preparatory conversation, like a singer warming their voice before the main opera.
“So, ah, I am so very glad that you are here,” he said, breaking off halfway through a sentence about buttercups.
“Thank you. We shall our very best to uncover the truth if there really has been foul play behind Sir Phileas’s death.”
“Ah. Oh. Yes, there’s that, of course. But I was wondering. Um. Wondering, you see. About other matters. This is somewhat delicate. You are a woman of the world. But no gossip. So. Mm.”
She steeled herself for any one of a number of potentially unpleasant revelations, and smiled warmly at him. “I am pleased to say I never gossip,” she said. “If you wish to confide in me, please rest assured I shall keep it as close as a confessional.” Did vicars speak to one another about personal matters, she wondered, or was there a kind of competitiveness even amongst the clergy?
“You have done so very well in marrying each of your seven daughters to seven wonderful husbands,” he said.
Ah, she thought. I am to match-make. But for whom?
It turned out to be for himself.
She tried not to sit with an expression of open amazement on her face as he explained that he had been on his own for too long. “Though my position brings many blessings, for which I am grateful, still it has not yet brought my path to cross with a woman of suitable background and disposition whom I might make into my wife.”
First of all, she thought, you can’t make anyone into anything. Secondly, you’ve already proposed to at least half a dozen women that I know of, and all have rejected you. One even left the country immediately and started an orphanage in Africa. But she tried to speak kindly to him. “I am honoured that you consider my abilities might be of use to you,” she said.
“You’re the only possible woman to do this,” he said, deflating her instantly. “Everyone else is too young and beautiful and would get the wrong idea if I started speaking of marriage to them.”
