Murder at the Manse (The Falconer Files Book 5) Page 13

  ‘So who discovered the bodies?’

  Carmichael may still be in the dark as to Jefferson Grammaticus’ future travel plans, but he could at least get that information straight in his head.

  ‘It was the wife – oh, I suppose she’s now a widow – of that chap that fell down the stairs who went into the billiards room. That was the body of one of my business partners, Jerome Freeman. This is a three-way venture between myself and Jocelyn and Jerome Freeman; they’re twins, you know, and we’ve been friends since our university days.

  ‘My housekeeper, Beatrix Ironmonger, found Chef. We were running a bit behind schedule, and I suppose she must have come down from her rest, noticed that things were a bit behind, and gone to the kitchen to hurry things along. Mr Newberry just tumbled down the staircase, frightening the living daylights out of my poor receptionist. Thank God there are tiles on the floor down here, for I doubt I’d ever get the urine stains out of a wool carpet without a great deal of trouble and expense.’

  Carmichael’s face was still a deathly pale from his unpleasant misadventure in the kitchen, and this fresh mention of bodily fluids turned his stomach anew. ‘Excuse me. Got work to do,’ he chirped in a somewhat desperate manner, and hurried off in search of his first actual corpse of the evening, determining to visit the gents before he actually had to gaze on a dead body. He didn’t want another conversation on the big white telephone; not in public, anyway.

  V

  The drawing room in which the guests were confined was decorated in a somewhat unsuitable fashion, given the circumstances. The walls were a country house red, too reminiscent of blood to be comfortable, and a glass-topped display table between two of the sofas contained a collection of mourning jewellery, yet another reminder that they were in the midst of death, and violent death at that. There was at least one murderer on the loose, and no one knew when, where, or even if, he would strike again. There would be a lot of chairs wedged under the handles of locked doors tonight on the guest floor, and not much restful sleep being enjoyed.

  But even with paramedics and police scuttering around the ground floor, and the play-acting that had turned to reality, some of the guests were getting restive at their unexpected incarceration. Granted, Teddy Newberry still wept, Aylsa Arkwright sitting with an arm round her, and trying to offer comfort by a steady stream of platitudes that murmured on the air like the hum of insects.

  Other members of the party were in recovery from the initial shock, and beginning to realise that this was the end of their posh weekend – over before it had really begun – and wondering about the possibilities of a refund. Selfishness was several leagues ahead of fellow feeling for their host.

  ‘Well, I hope we all get our money back.’ Enoch Arkwright could not contain his anxiety at the fate of his hard-earned money disappearing like that, without full benefit to himself.

  ‘You heartless old git!’ Aylsa’s quiet flow of comfort momentarily stalled, as she reacted to this display of lack of feeling on the part of her husband. ‘How you can, with a grieving widow in our midst … Where’s your respect for the dead?’

  ‘Sorry, m’dear,’ he muttered, looking a little embarrassed, but bristling at the criticism.

  From inside the right-hand cupboard of a large and elaborate sideboard floated the voice of Percy Boyd-Carpenter. ‘As the writer, I am well aware of who should have played the part of the victim, but I’m still a bit puzzled as to who exactly is dead, or whatever – with the exception of your dear, departed husband, my dear.’ Her head emerged to nod in Teddy Newberry’s direction, and the rest of her followed, litre bottles of spring water in each hand.

  ‘Will someone come and give me a hand with these bottles, and put out some glasses? There are decanters too, but I rather think we should all keep as clear a head as possible. The police are going to want to interview us, and it doesn’t really matter whether that happens tonight or tomorrow morning. We shall all need our wits about us if we are to help them find whoever is responsible for these outrages. Do you know, Lloyd, I quite fancy myself as an amateur sleuth, unravelling the fiendish plots that even the best brains of the police could not fathom.’

  ‘Shouldn’t do that, m’dear. Might get yourself biffed on the head for your pains, what?’ advised Lloyd, taking a rather more realistic view of the situation. ‘This isn’t one of your stories, Percy, and it won’t necessarily have a neat and tidy ending, with everyone living happily ever after. This is real life, and you’d better keep your nose out of it, if you know what’s good for you.’

  ‘Spoilsport!’ retorted his wife, with a toss of her elderly head. ‘Now do something useful, and help me get these drinks distributed, or we’ll all die of thirst, and then the inspector really will have a sensational case on his hands. Anyway, who’s dead? I never really got that straight in my mind before we were hustled in here and told to wait.’

  As the elderly couple poured glasses of water and handed them around, Fiona Baddeley furnished her with the details she required. ‘Apparently they found that footman who was to have played the corpse, actually dead in the billiards room, – oh, my dear, I nearly forgot. It was you, wasn’t it, who found him? Teddy’s dear husband, Fruity, took a most catastrophic fall down the stairs, and it seems that Chef has been poisoned.’

  At the word catastrophic, Sue Veede pricked up her ears, thought for a second or two, then added her two-penn’orth. Not having paid attention to the sense of what was being discussed around her, she had caught only one syllable, and now seized on this with sudden enlightenment.

  ‘There was a cat, wasn’t there? When poor old Fruity tumbled down the staircase, I mean. Just before that terrible thudding noise that must have been him falling, there was a loud yowl, like you get when you tread on a cat’s paw, or trip over it. I remember it distinctly, because I’ve been admiring that spotty grey cat that seems to live here – very pretty little animal. I wouldn’t mind one of those, myself. Maybe he did tread on it, or trip over it, or something. That would explain why he fell, wouldn’t it?

  ‘And maybe the chef ate something that had gone really off, and become toxic. Or maybe he was even trying to do away with himself. I’ve heard him in there, you know. I’m sure we all have, and he certainly seemed to be hysterical to me.’

  ‘And what unlikely accident is your fluffy little mind lining up for the unfortunate footman? Crossed in love? Tripped and fell on a knife on the way to open a new bottle of whisky?’ asked her husband, sarcastically.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Lew. You’re always so horrid if I have an opinion.’

  ‘I’m only being realistic. There’s no use relying on false hope.’

  ‘No, I’ve noticed that over the years, even if you didn’t realise it.’ With this cutting remark, fully understood by its recipient, a gloomy silence descended again, and Aylsa’s low voice resumed its maternal hum.

  VI

  The clock in the entrance hall showed twelve minutes past one before Falconer and Carmichael had taken care of what they could for the evening. ‘I’m not going to keep us or the staff and guests up all night,’ Falconer explained. ‘I’m going to leave a few uniforms here for the duration, just to see that’s there no monkey business during the night, and I’ve asked for the main gates to be locked as soon as we have vacated the property.

  ‘The first should ensure that no one leaves the grounds in our absence, and the second should keep any press out tomorrow. I’ll do my best to ensure that nothing is leaked tonight, to give us a freer rein tomorrow, but better safe than sorry.

  ‘I want this place sealed up tight as a drum. I have no idea what happened tonight, but it looks like a right nest of spaghetti to me, and I want us to be the ones that have first pick at it in the morning. We’ll do interviews as soon as we get out here, and compare notes at lunchtime. There should be plenty to keep us here until at least then, and probably a good deal more. Make sure your get as good a night’s sleep as you can, and we’ll meet here at eight-thirty.’


  On the drive home, only three words were uttered in Falconer’s car.

  ‘McCloud?’

  ‘No cowboys!’

  Chapter Ten

  Sunday 20th June – morning

  I

  When the two detectives arrived at the Manse the following morning, Falconer noticed what had failed to attract his attention the night before. At the bottom of the flight of stone steps to the entrance doors stood two stone lions, life-sized and magnificent, and all along the front of the house were old lichen-covered and weather-beaten marble urns and troughs, overflowing with the bright colours of summer annuals. The effect was enchanting, and for a moment he felt a stab of envy. This wasn’t ‘banjo country’ this was definitely ‘string quartet’ territory. But he had things to do, and people to interview, and this sort of thinking wouldn’t get him any further forward.

  Inside the hotel, a hue and cry was in the process of setting its sails to the wind. ( Author’s note: I do like a picturesque mixed metaphor now and again, don’t you?) In the shock and confusion of the night before, no one had noticed the absence of the remaining Freeman twin. The staff had assumed that he would be with management and the police; Jefferson, that he would be with the staff in the library, and it was only when he had not made an appearance at breakfast that Beatrix Ironmonger had been sent to rouse him from his supposed slumbers.

  Getting no reply to her knocks and discreet calls, she fetched Grammaticus, who used his pass key to enter, only to find the room empty, the bed un-slept in. A quick check of the other twin’s bedroom – one never knew – confirmed that neither of them had made it to their rooms the previous evening, Jerome because he had been lying dead in the billiards room, Jocelyn, for no known reason whatsoever.

  A few brief enquiries revealed that he had said nothing to any of the other members of staff, and Jefferson summoned Henry Buckle the gardener to check the outbuildings specifically, and then do a rough visual search of the grounds before the police were informed. A head count of the guests would reveal whether he could possibly have made an assignation the night before, and had spent the night otherwise engaged, but it was a slim chance, and could only involve a few snatched hours in an out-of-bounds attic bedroom, due to the presence of husbands. How the mind threw out explanations and solutions when one didn’t want to think the worst!

  There being no call for spirituous liquors at this time of the morning, Steve Grieve was dispatched to the unused floor of the hotel, so that it could be stated, quite honestly, that every possible place of concealment had been searched.

  By eight-twenty-five, there had still been no sign of the second missing footman, when a call sounded from the kitchen. ‘I’ve got ’im ’ere with me, Mr Grammaticus. ’E were in the summerhouse, with a couple of empty wine bottles, clutching a picture of ’im with some woman or other.’

  In the kitchen, a completely dishevelled figure had been propped on a kitchen chair, which was lodged against the side of the large pine table, so that it did not topple over on to the floor. ‘Freeman, what the hell do you think you’re playing at? Last night was our opening night, and you just ran out on me – on all of us – without a word of warning. What the hell did you think you were doing?’ This last was asked as Jefferson took charge of the photograph that Henry the gardener held out to him.

  ‘But this is his late sister-in-law, not his ex-wife.’ Jefferson stared hard at the pathetic figure, whose head now drooped drunkenly towards the table top. ‘What’s going on, Jocelyn? Why did you go? And why were you looking at a picture of your brother’s late wife?’

  ‘Not,’ was the only reply.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Jocelyn. You were caught red-handed.’

  ‘Not,’ came the reply again.

  With a sigh of exasperation, Jefferson shook him by the shoulders, and asked, ‘What do you mean by ‘not’? What are you trying to tell us? Jocelyn! Jocelyn! Try to wake up and talk to us. This is vitally important.’

  With what appeared a good deal of effort, the figure lifted its head a little and murmured, ‘Not Jocelyn.’

  ‘And what the hell is that supposed to mean? If you don’t already know it, Jerome was murdered last night, and I need you to tell me anything you can remember, about anything unusual you saw or heard before …’

  ‘Not Jocelyn,’ was intoned again, but this time in a raised voice. ‘Not Jocelyn,’ it continued, rising in volume. ‘I’m Jerome, and I’d know if I’d been murdered. What the hell are you playing at? It was only a game.’

  ‘Jerome? But you were supposed to be the body in the billiards room. One of the guests found you, dead from a knife wound in the neck. You were carted off in an ambulance, with your death certificate all signed and sealed …’

  ‘I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. I’m Jerome, if somebody’d only please listen to me. I felt a bender coming on, and Joss said he’d cover for me. We knew it’d be all right, because we’re too alike to be caught out, even by you, without us both mooning at you.

  ‘Joss, well he knew I sometimes got like this, and he said he could cover my serving duties and play both parts. Of course, he wasn’t happy about it, but I’d already poured a quarter of a bottle of whisky straight down my throat, before he even got wind of how I was feeling. I can’t go on without my wife,’ he declared in a voice full of tears and self-pity, nodding towards the photograph that now sat, face up, on the table.

  ‘I had to half-carry him back from the summerhouse. He couldn’t stand up by himself. I don’t think he’s fit for anything, at the moment, Mr Grammaticus, except a good long sleep, get all that booze out of his system,’ was Henry Buckle’s opinion, at this juncture, and Jefferson could not help but agree with him.

  Lifting the receiver of the internal telephone, he rang the housekeeper’s room, and was fortunate enough to catch her before she came down to supervise the guests’ breakfast, if that occasion were attended at all in person, by any of those staying here. Somehow, after last night, he doubted it.

  ‘Can you come down to the kitchen and give me a hand? First, I need to tell you that it was not Jerome who was killed last night, but Jocelyn.’ An audible gasp came down the phone line.

  ‘How on earth did that happen?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter for the moment, Mrs Ironmonger. Our first priority is to get Jerome up to his room. It would seem that he has been absent all night, and is rather tired and out of sorts this morning. If you can keep an eye out for anyone leaving their room, Henry can take one arm while I take the other, and then perhaps you could find something that might take the sting out of his condition. I’m sure you understand what I mean. One of your prairie oysters usually does the trick.’

  ‘One prairie oyster, coming right up. I’ll be on guard momentarily.’

  II

  Falconer and Carmichael had rather let the search and discovery of the missing footman carry on around them, as they formed the strategy for who would interview whom that morning, only really showing an interest when it was announced that a body had been misidentified the night before, and that the death certificate had been issued to a man who had been drunk to the wide in the summerhouse when Dr Christmas had been appending his signature to the bottom of it..

  ‘Well, I’ll be darned!’ exclaimed Carmichael in his best American cowboy.

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Falconer, not noticing the phraseology. ‘I’ve never known that happen in such a straightforward case of identification before. This is a first for me, and I just hope they don’t have reams of forms relating to it. I think I might have a quick word with Dr Christmas; see if we can’t get this sorted without the usual half a mile of red tape that everything else seems to be tied up in.’

  ‘Well, be careful, sir. You know what a stickler old ‘Jelly’ Chivers is, if he even finds a box un-ticked on a form.’

  ‘I know, Carmichael. I’m a condemned man, but at least I’ve got a chance to get my humble pie in the oven before he even knows I need to bake it. Anyway, ther
e didn’t seem to be any question that it was the wrong man last night, and that can’t be laid at my door. In fact, the more I examine it, the more I realise that this can’t in any way be brought back to me. I was only acting on information received, as was Dr Christmas. Carmichael, you had me going there for a minute. I must learn to be less gullible. Did you do that on purpose?’

  ‘Only a bit, sir. I knew I was wrong as soon as I spoke, but I wanted to see how worked up you’d get before you twigged.’

  ‘Blast you, Carmichael! I used to think you had hidden shallows, but of late, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Is that a compliment, sir?’

  ‘By crikey, it is! Now, if you can take statements from the staff, I’ll start with our squire, and move on to the guests. Anyone left after lunch we’ll divide up between us, if that’s agreeable?’

  ‘Durned right, sir.’ This time Falconer did notice!

  III

  As the inspector and Jefferson Grammaticus disappeared into the hotel’s office, Carmichael went in search of Steve Grieve who, not being in the bar, he finally bearded in the cellars, where he was sorting out bottles with which to restock after the run on certain drinks over the weekend.

  ‘Bit spooky down here, don’t you think?’ was the sergeant’s unexpected opening gambit.

  ‘Nah! There’s nothing to be feared from the dead. My grandma always told me to keep an eye on the living, and to let the dead rest in peace.’

  ‘Good advice, but did she have anything to say about the restless spirits of the murdered?’

  ‘You’re an odd sort of chap for a detective, aren’t you? What’s this all about? I don’t believe in any of that paranormal stuff.’

  ‘Nor do I, really. I was just making conversation. This is a pretty grand place to find work, though, isn’t it?’