[Lord and Lady Calaway 03] - A Murderous Inheritance

by Issy Brooke

  “We can organise an invitation, all the same. Would your mother like to go? You could be her escort.”

  “She would hate it.”

  “All the same, I am going to speak to her. It is only polite.” Theodore began to head past Brodie towards the gatehouse.

  Brodie burst out, “No, you must not disturb her tonight! The police have upset her so very much. Please, sir, I beg you; ask her tomorrow, if you must.” There was genuine concern in the young man’s eyes, and a true flash of emotion. Theodore relented. Brodie might have been telling the truth, at least in this one particular matter.

  Anyway, Adelia would be more likely to persuade Lady Katharine to go to the ball than Theodore.

  “Very well. I shall leave you both in peace.” He spun around and walked swiftly back to the house.

  Oscar Brodie was as guilty as sin, but Theodore needed to fill in all the gaps – Inspector Wilbred would pick holes in anything that was less than watertight, and Theodore had no intention of suffering humiliation at the hands of a man like him.

  Nineteen

  A policeman arrived somewhat unexpectedly as they were all sitting down to dinner. He stood in the doorway, clutching his helmet, looking supremely awkward. “Inspector Wilbred has insisted that I remain here while there is any hint of danger to the occupants of this household, sir,” he said, addressing Percy.

  Lady Agnes nodded furiously in agreement and Adelia felt a wave of relief wash over herself. She had been afraid that Inspector Wilbred would simply walk away from the whole affair. She had spoken hastily with Theodore just before going in to dinner and had been astonished that Wilbred had not been taking things seriously. She was concerned that Percy was in very real danger, and she was infuriated that no one else seemed to be reacting in the right way.

  Theodore had said, somewhat ruefully, that he shared her exasperation. She wondered if Percy actually enjoyed the frisson of excitement. While he was travelling, he encountered mortal danger every single day; now he had it all around him in his own home. Perhaps he liked it.

  So it was a relief to her when the policeman made his announcement although he then remained stubbornly by the door as they ate. Eventually Percy burst out with a cry. “Are you going to dog my steps all night, man?”

  “Yes, sir. Those are my orders,” the policeman replied.

  “Even when I retire to my chamber and visit my wife in the night?”

  Adelia nearly swallowed her tongue in shock and The Countess, whose hearing was definitely not dimmed this particular day, hissed.

  The policeman went as red as a beetroot but remained at his post. “I will be in the corridor at all times, sir. And I am informed that Lady Buckshaw is unwell.”

  “You were informed, were you? Who by? What did they say? Were you one of those who were here earlier?”

  “No, sir. I am only just come onto shift. I was advised that Lady Buckshaw was unable to be interviewed today as she is in a state of shock but that she must be spoken to at the earliest opportunity.”

  “You are not here for me!” Percy said angrily. “I see it now. You are not here to protect me. No, you are here to monitor my wife, and you will send word to your idiot inspector the moment you feel she can be questioned, won’t you?”

  “Why would he do that?” Lady Agnes said in alarm.

  Percy pointed his finger over the table at the policeman. “I have heard the mutterings. I endured that inspector’s clumsy attempt at interrogation. They are not looking for anyone outside of the house who might be responsible, and they don’t think the murderer is a servant either, do they?”

  Adelia said, “Percy, no! We are all overwrought. Let the man do his job.” But of course, Inspector Wilbred had seen Felicia’s reaction. He had heard her screaming that she had wanted to kill Percy.

  Wilbred knew that Felicia was unhinged.

  And now he was going to find the evidence that she did it.

  “His job? But his job is to spy on my own wife and try to frame her for murder, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Percy yelled, getting to his feet.

  “Sir, I am here to ensure the protection of the household.”

  Percy rested his fists on the table, glaring at the policeman, his shoulders hunched and his lined face taut and unhappy. “This is such a mess,” he whispered.

  “Please, sit down,” Lady Agnes begged.

  He blinked, and stood up straight. “I am going to bed.” He left the table, throwing down his napkin in a crumpled heap. As he passed the still-red policeman, he said, “Now what will you choose to do? Will you come with me, or stay here to protect the majority?”

  “I have my orders, sir,” the policeman said, and followed Percy out of the room.

  FELICIA REMAINED IN an incoherent stupor but at midday the following day, a doctor arrived. Adelia had written in a passionate fury to Mrs Carstairs, begging her for the highest recommendation possible, and the sainted Mrs Carstairs had utilised every influence at her disposal to have Doctor Netherfield arrive almost instantly with an overnight bag in one hand, a medical case in the other, and a reassuringly calm manner all over.

  “You must get on most cordially with him and if you don’t, then you must avoid him at all times and allow him to do his job without interference,” Adelia warned Theodore as they watched the doctor alight from the carriage. They were inside, looking out from an upstairs window.

  Theodore looked hurt. “He is a doctor! Of course I am going to get on well with him. Indeed, I am looking forward to learning of the latest thinking in the treatment of brain disorders.”

  “Come with me. I haven’t actually told Percy what I’ve done, yet. Let’s go and greet the doctor and you can take him to see Felicia while I deal with Percy,” she said, and ignored Theodore’s tut of disapproval. She was calculating that Percy would not embarrass the doctor by throwing him out as soon as he arrived.

  In the event, Percy gave up with a minimal amount of protest. He had not left Felicia’s bedside since the dinner the previous evening, and had clearly begun to understand that her current attack was on a level not seen before. He didn’t exactly welcome the new doctor in with open arms, but he didn’t prevent him from entering alongside Theodore.

  Doctor Netherfield was in his late fifties, and hale and hearty. He was a great fan of the benefits of drinking vegetable-water and talking long walks in beautiful countryside. Adelia agreed at least with the walking part of things though she didn’t fancy guzzling down some pale green cabbage-infused liquid. He was also gravely concerned by Felicia’s soporific state, and after listening to Theodore’s recount of her symptoms, set about making some immediate changes.

  “Move her from this room. I dislike the aspect,” he commanded, prowling around the bedroom and peering into closets and cupboards. “There is something unhealthy in the air and I want the windows to open. She needs fresh air. Who has put all this cloth here? Oh – she did it herself? Curious. You are her mother?”

  Adelia nodded.

  “Good. She will sleep in your bed from now on. Is it large? You can have a truckle-bed in the room for yourself if you prefer. She must be comfortable above all, and I know that mothers will suffer any discomfort for their offspring. Good, good.”

  Adelia saw she didn’t have a choice so she simply nodded again.

  “Her diet must have a bland base to it, but include some small – very small, mind you! – morsels of tasty things at regular intervals. A mere bite of a delicacy designed only to stimulate her appetite. Otherwise, the basis for her diet will be gruel made with fresh milk, the very freshest. Have you a phonograph or graphophone? She must be exposed to beautiful music, beautiful views, and only the very best in conversation. Even if she is asleep, or appears to be, let all your words in her presence be edifying ones. Her spirit is misaligned and it has grave, very grave, consequences for the balance of her mind – as you can see.”

  Adelia could not fault what he was saying. Theodore was nodding too, with a serious expression on his fac
e. She wondered what he thought of the whole “spirit is misaligned” suggestion; it sounded a little strange to her own ears, but then, she wasn’t a trained doctor, so she didn’t say anything against it. Nor did Theodore.

  The servants sprang into action and soon Felicia had been transferred into Adelia and Theodore’s room. Theodore was turfed out into a small adjoining chamber. He was happier about it than Percy, but to his credit, Percy did not openly object to the doctor’s changes either.

  It seemed that everyone had come to the conclusion that everything now must be done to help Felicia, and no one was going to complain about it.

  The police continued their round-the-clock protection, too. They came and went as their shifts changed, hovering between Percy and Felicia, watching everything and saying nothing. They began to fade into the background like the everyday servants did. Adelia had grown up screening people out from her awareness, and it wasn’t hard to do the same to the policemen as they slotted into the household routine.

  Later that day, she encountered Percy as he sat morosely in the garden room, half-hidden by an overgrown fern. She jumped as he coughed, and excused herself, but he begged her to stay if she wanted.

  “They won’t let me go up there.”

  “They?”

  “That doctor and your husband. They are doing an experiment, apparently.”

  “What sort of experiment?” she asked as her heart thudded, picturing wires and electricity and straps and screaming.

  “Some sort of mesmerism, which is bunkum as far as I am concerned.”

  “They call it hypnotism now and I believe it has some medical uses.”

  “It’s a sideshow, a stage trick, that’s all. But it can’t harm her, at least,” Percy said.

  “That’s true. We must trust them, if we can.”

  “Huh. This is all utter madness. Do you know what I want to do?” Percy muttered, and he continued before she could respond. “I want to sell this place. Sell it, the whole damn lot, sell it to the first bidder. I don’t care what I get for it. I’ll walk away. I’ll take her with me, of course. It will just be me and Felicia, just like when we first met and she was carefree and beautiful and I was happy and I felt like I knew who I was. I’ve lost myself, you know, and no matter how far I travel, no matter where I go, I just can’t seem to find myself.” He laughed hollowly. “I spoke with Parker about it, you know. He was more than a valet to me. He was a friend. And he said, wisely, that I wouldn’t ever find myself in a far foreign field. I would find myself here, back home. So here I am. And what have I found? Death. Death and madness. God help us all,” he finished, brokenly.

  “May God guide us and lead us,” she said, surprising herself at her sudden turn for the religious. But it seemed appropriate, and anyway, what else was there to say? After a moment of reflection, she said, “You could do it, you know. Why not sell and move on? The world is different these days. Why not?”

  “Why not, indeed? Only my grandmother would surely die of horror and shame, and my aunt Agnes would curse me, and all my servants would be out of a position. Some of them have worked here for generations. And finally, what about my sister Lady Katharine? Oh, they all talk about a curse, but the curse is being the Earl of Buckshaw.”

  “Your grandmother would simply move into more appropriate accommodation that would fit the needs of an aging lady. Lady Agnes ... has her life ahead of her.” Adelia kept the budding romance with Captain Everard to herself. If Percy hadn’t worked it out by now, it was none of his business. “She is determined and self-reliant, and she has chances she might take. Your servants will find other places if you can give them a good character and with the help of people like Mrs Carstairs, they will soon get work. Whoever bought Tavy Castle would be sure to keep many of them on.”

  “And my sister?”

  “You could give her the gatehouse. Sell the castle, and let her live on the gatehouse with Oscar.”

  “Ah, Oscar. And what of him?”

  “He needs to find a path in life but he seems unwilling to accept advice, and certainly he lacks any ambition or motivation. He is a grown man, and we all treat him like a child, which means he behaves like a child. You don’t have to feel responsible for planning out his whole life. In truth, I think he ought to be thrown onto his own devices and then he will surely learn to stand up and act for himself. Don’t you think?”

  “I am not sure what I think about him.”

  Adelia idly stroked one of the fern’s long fronds. “Oscar’s alibi for the murder of Hartley Knight is false, you know. Has Theodore told you that?”

  Percy wasn’t moving, but he seemed to go even stiller. She realised it was because he’d drawn in a breath, and was holding it. “I did not know. What are you saying?”

  “I think you know what I’m saying.”

  “Oscar cannot be a killer.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why would he?”

  “It’s all tied up with the lapis lazuli in the ice house. The fake stuff.”

  “The – what?”

  “The lapis lazuli in the ice house is not real.”

  “It’s blue rocks. It’s real, but there’s no market for it,” he said, frowning.

  She thought that his astonishment seemed genuine. “Theodore has tested it. It was never worth much, even in the first place.”

  He shook his head. “No, his tests must be wrong. Our family’s fortune was made on it.”

  “And lost on it, too, when everything collapsed. Yet it wasn’t worth the speculation back then and certainly isn’t worth much now. I mean, it’s all out there in an insecure building – of course it’s not a pile of priceless minerals! Why would you even think so? Why did you ever think so?”

  “Because that’s where it’s always been and that’s how it has always been and ...” Percy tailed off. “I don’t question things like that. Is he sure?” he asked again. “Sorry – sorry. Yes, of course he’s sure. Oh, for heaven’s sake. What now?”

  “I don’t think it changes much,” she said. “Except that someone must have thought that it was worth killing over, and perhaps Oscar did.”

  “But nothing has been taken – oh! Do you mean that Oscar killed Hartley for the lapis lazuli, and then he, too, discovered it was fake?”

  “Possibly,” she said. “It seems likely to me but it does not explain why he’d go on to kill Parker – or mistakenly kill Parker. It’s even less clear why he would actually have wanted to kill you. He idolises you.” But she fixed him with a stern look, challenging him to disagree or reveal something that she had missed.

  Because she was still convinced that she had missed something.

  “He does, although I rather think your husband has supplanted me in Oscar’s affections.” He laughed but it quickly faded.

  “I don’t want to think about the consequences of any of that,” she said quietly.

  “My life is one long stream of consequences,” he said.

  “So is everyone’s. Listen. You’re not trapped here. You have choices. You have far more possibilities than many people. You have money, youth, intelligence and influence. You are not happy here. Good heavens, man, are you deliberately making yourself miserable? That’s almost a sin, don’t you think, when countless others desperately want to change their situations and can’t, and you can change your situation, but do nothing?”

  “Madam, I...”

  She glared at him.

  He stopped speaking. He half-closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Whether he was trying to master his anger, or restrain himself from an outburst of tears, she could not tell.

  She had said everything that she needed to say. She quietly left him alone.

  Twenty

  The ball, the ball, the infernal Floating Ball – it was all anyone talked about in the last few days of that horrible, hectic, tense week. Adelia told Theodore it was because it was better than talking about the ever-present threat of murder, the ongoing illness of Felicia, and the hovering policeme
n that were still dogging Percy’s every step.

  She also pointed out to him that the servants were not talking about the ball. He hadn’t really thought about them, but panic was simmering away underneath everyone’s tense, white face. They didn’t care about the choice of dress or the decisions to be made about fans and hats. The servants, in spite of the constant police presence and reassurances from Percy and the others, were worried – and quite rightly so. Inspector Wilbred was downplaying events as much as he could, which kept the press from the door of the castle, generally. A few reporters had been chased away by the liveried men and the policeman on duty, and there had been some crowds of onlookers gathered at the gates on the day immediately after Parker’s body had been taken away. The rain, however, along with the slight distance that the castle stood from the town, kept most people away.

  Poor people and servants died all the time, of course. The death of first the house steward and then the valet only sent small local ripples through society – no one really cared, outside of the castle walls. If the victims had been young, beautiful women, it would have been a very different story, of course. If they had been wealthy victims, it would have been a tremendous story.

  So the only people who were really concerned were the servants, and they were concerned for their own lives.

  The person who should have been concerned, Theodore and Adelia agreed, was the intended victim, Percy. Yet he seemed to want to bury his head in the sand and ignore the danger that he was in.

  Theodore had spent many long hours shut up with Doctor Netherfield. He liked the man, though some of his ideas had not quite convinced Theodore of their veracity. Doctor Netherfield had travelled extensively and spent many years training at various institutions in Europe; that was likely where he had picked up some of his more esoteric ideas about the role of the imagination in the workings of the mind, for example. He also seemed to think that women were no more susceptible to madness than men, and lay instead the blame at the door of society’s expectations. To Theodore, that was nonsense, because it was clear through simple observation that there were more women being treated for disorders such as hysteria than men. Statistics, Theodore would argue, must trump any modern notions of New Women and the like.