Murder at the Manse (The Falconer Files Book 5) Read online

  ‘Does either of you know anything about a couple of little dogs?’ he asked them, his brow creasing in disapproval.

  ‘Why?’ asked Carmichael, his manner a cross between defensive and apologetic.

  ‘Why? A) because I don’t allow dogs in my hotel, and b) because someone left the cellar door open, and they got in through the front door and shot straight down there. I don’t know what they’re doing as yet, but they’re making a hell of a noise, whatever it is they’re up to.’

  All three of them cocked an ear, and could hear the tinkling sound of breaking and falling glass, coming from somewhere below.

  ‘I’m afraid they may be mine, sir,’ admitted Carmichael with a shame-faced look. ‘We let them go for a run in the grounds while we took a look at things in here. I think they may have come inside in search of us. I do apologise. I’ll go and fetch them.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ volunteered Falconer unexpectedly. ‘Well, you never know what you might find, tucked away down there out of sight,’ he explained as they went through the cellar door, and down the ancient wooden steps.

  The noise grew steadily louder the further they descended, and a short distance from the foot of the stairs they could see two little doggy behinds wagging in excitement as they burrowed down through a heap of empty bottles that had just been dumped there, after being emptied.

  ‘What on earth are they after?’ the inspector asked, noting that both little tails were wiggling around with canine glee.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’m going to find out,’ answered their owner, grabbing the smallest body, and hauling it out of the cavity it had created. ‘Here, hold this little devil. The other one’s deeper in, and I’ll have to move a few more bottles to get a grip on him.’

  It took him a minute or two to create enough space to grab the other dog, which had made his way to the bottom of the heap by now, and was making muffled barks of excitement at whatever it had found.

  ‘Here’s another one for you, sir. I don’t know what they were after, but I think I can see something under this lot. Just give me a minute.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can do that. It’s like trying to juggle eels. Oh, you little buggers!’ Falconer exclaimed, as they wriggled out of his grasp and landed four-square on the floor.

  ‘Is everything all right up there?’ asked a distorted voice from deep within the pile of discarded empties.’

  ‘No worries, Sergeant. They’re both present and correct, and using my trousers as a teething ring. But don’t let that bother you. I’m made of trousers, I am!’

  ‘I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll pay for any damage,’ the voice sounded once more, then Carmichael began to unwind himself from the interstices of the dump, and rose to his feet clutching a small plastic bag, and holding it up for inspection.

  ‘Don’t worry about the trousers, Carmichael. I think the dogs have had a find there. Let me take a sniff of that. Yes, just as I thought. You’ve got a couple of potential illegal substances sniffers there! You should enquire about them joining the drugs squad. Now, I wonder who this little lot belongs to?’

  ‘I caught that barman down here, when I interviewed him the other day, sir. He was possibly looking for somewhere to stash his, er, stash. I’ve been careful with it, so we might get some prints off it.’

  ‘Here, I’ve got an evidence bag in my pocket. I’ll slip it in that, and we’ll get it tested,’ said Falconer, pleased with this second little hoard that they had uncovered, so that even if the rest of their time here was in vain, at least they had a couple of minor offences to justify their efforts. ‘Come on, I fancy a crack at that Ironmonger woman’s other room, while they’re all bailed up in the staff sitting room. She reminds of me of someone I used to know, and I’d like to get it over with as soon as possible.’

  ‘OK, sir,’ agreed Carmichael, not noticing the hook of potential information that had been dangled in front of him, in his pleasure that the bad behaviour of his pets had produced something that they could use.

  ‘I wonder if you could just disentangle them from my trouser legs, so that we can get on. They seem to be attempting to make puppies again, and I don’t think I could cope with a litter of bottle-green corduroy doggies. The sooner you get them to that vet, the happier I’ll be.’

  ‘Sorry, sir!’

  III

  Beatrix Ironmonger’s second floor bedroom was in complete contrast to her temporary lodgings on the first floor, and appeared stuffed to the gills with ornaments and little knickknacks. Falconer was sweeping the room with a collector’s eye, and deciding that there was nothing here that he fancied, when Carmichael gave a shout of disgust, and covered his mouth with his hand.

  ‘What is it, Sergeant? The overcrowding?’

  ‘The floor, sir. Look at the floor. Look at what she keeps on the floor, and tell me that’s normal.’

  ‘They’re just little rugs, aren’t … Oh, I see what you mean. How very distasteful.’ A closer glance had revealed the presence on each ‘little rug’ of a feline head, and the rest of the thing, like a cat that has lost a fight with a steamroller. ‘At least it shows she must have loved them, if she was prepared to go to the expense of preserving them like that. Just pick your way through them, and try not to think about it. We’ll start with the bed, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, my God, sir! Have you seen what’s on the bedspread?’ exclaimed Carmichael, covering his eyes this time.

  ‘It’s all right, sergeant. It’s nothing more sinister than a nightie case in the shape of a cat. You can look now.’

  When they had progressed to the wardrobe and chest of drawers, Falconer thought he heard the rustle of material out on the landing, and he put a finger to his lips to silence Carmichael, who was holding up a salmon-pink girdle with an expression of puzzlement. He’d never seen anything like it before.

  Slipping off his shoes on the under-cat carpet, Falconer made his way silently to the slightly ajar door, and peered round it cautiously, in the hope of surprising an eavesdropper, but the only living thing visible was Perfect Cadence, sitting at the top of the stairs, washing herself in that position that cats adopt that suggests they are playing the cello.

  ‘It’s only the cat,’ he called to Carmichael in disgust, but received no answer. ‘Did you hear me?’ he enquired, shutting the door firmly behind him, this time.

  ‘Look at this, sir.’ Carmichael was perched on the stool from the dressing table, and appeared to have been searching the top of the wardrobe. ‘It was right at the back, almost out of sight. I could barely reach it and I don’t think you could have. She probably poked it up here with a stick or something similar.’

  ‘What have you got there?’

  In the sergeant’s hand was clutched a glass jar, which he handed down to the inspector, as he dismounted from his perch.

  ‘This looks very interesting, and if I’m not mistaken,’ Falconer said, twisting the top vigorously, ‘this contains dried fungi. And why was it pushed to the back of a wardrobe, I wonder? Perhaps because it was used to poison Chef,’ he declared, answering his own question.

  ‘Do you really think so, sir?’

  ‘I do. What other reason could there be for keeping a jar of dried fungus right at the back of the top of your wardrobe, if you didn’t want to hide it from prying eyes? We’ll get this off to the lab as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we’ve only got one more room to check out, then I think, for the sake of thoroughness, we ought to have a look in the other wing, and just take a peek in Mr Grammaticus’ den on the first floor. Somewhere in this place there’s a little black book, and I’ve a fair idea what’s in it.’

  ‘What?’ Carmichael hadn’t a clue, and didn’t mind admitting it.

  ‘Never you mind. We’ll sort that out a bit later, but if we do come across it, I think our genial host is in trouble with a capital ‘T’.

  ‘You mean he’s the murderer?’

  ‘Oh, much worse than that. He’s the three ‘J’s: judge, jury, and jai
ler.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘You will, and I think our Jefferson is going to have some fast talking to do when I confront him with what he’s been up to, here. But first, I’m going to put a quick call in for Green and Starr, and get them to come out here in the van. I’ve a feeling, with what we’ve discovered this morning, there may be three people who are going on a little trip to Market Darley: one, for that stash we found in the cellar, one for the nest of petty pilfering we found under that floorboard, and that jingly-jangly, creepy housekeeper, for one murder, at least.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about her, sir.’

  ‘Mind out; you’ll get a headache, Carmichael. Anyway, out with it, and let it see the light of day.

  ‘When we came here after Mr Grammaticus was injured, she definitely said something about the door being ajar, and yet she said she had been up in her room, and only came down because that cat of hers was hungry.’

  ‘Correct!’

  ‘So how could she have known the door was ajar, when she didn’t actually see the accident happen?’

  There was a short interlude of silence as Falconer took this in. ‘By George, you’re dead on the button, Carmichael. She’d only know that if she either actually saw it, or if she was the one who set the trap. She made a slip of the tongue, too, when she said Grammaticus went down like a ton of bricks, then tried to cover it up.’

  ‘That’s what I mean, sir. Nobody could’ve surmised that there was a trap. I mean, it could have been someone standing behind the door waiting to whack him.’

  They were still standing in the housekeeper’s second floor bedroom during this conversation, and Falconer came to a sudden decision. ‘I think we ought to have a word with that woman before we search any more rooms. That’s the second incident we can tie her to now. Come on, let’s get down to the staff sitting room, and pull her out for a little chat. Well done, Sergeant! You’ve really been on form on this case.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It must be the heat. Hang on a minute! What’s that in the grate? I didn’t think to put my head in there earlier.’

  What was in the grate was a pile of ashes, and what could be identified, without the application of too much imagination, were the remains of the outside covers of a notebook. ‘That,’ said Falconer, a faint chagrin in his voice, ‘is the remains of Mr Grammaticus’ little black book. We’ve got nothing to confront him with, now, but I’m certainly going to have a stern word with him before we leave here today. I can’t have things like that happening on my patch, and he’ll not get away with it twice, if I have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Get away with what?’

  ‘Hang on in there, Carmichael, and you’ll find out.’

  And with that answer, the sergeant had to be content, for now.

  IV

  But they were to have no joy with Beatrix Ironmonger, who was not only absent from the staff sitting room, but had, apparently, never got there.

  ‘I can’t find her. I don’t know where she’s gone,’ explained Grammaticus apologetically. We’ve searched inside the hotel, and I’ve just sent Henry Buckle – the gardener – to see if she’s outside in the grounds, or possibly in one of the garden buildings. Sometimes she goes out for a sit in the summerhouse, and, although I made it plain it was off-limits when we had guests, we don’t have any at the moment, so she probably didn’t think it was a problem.’

  ‘Well, let us know if he finds her. Meanwhile, we’ll go back up to the second floor. We’ve still got to make sure that neither of the weapons is tucked away up there, it being the ideal hiding place, if it’s not used, and houses a lot of lumber. Come on, Sergeant. We’ve got work to do.’

  Two flights of stairs later – one elegant and shallow, one steep and uncarpeted – they arrived back on the top landing. Carmichael’s first action was to check on his furry ‘babies’, who both proved to be happily asleep in a patch of sunlight on an old rug, and he left them there, dreaming their doggy dreams, paws bicycling in the air, the door slightly open so that he could hear when they woke up.

  ‘Let’s start with the two rooms opposite, then work our way through the wing. The rooms seem to be much smaller up here; typical of servants’ quarters, and we’ll take one each until we’ve finished them. Remember, we’re looking for a knife with a fairly short blade, and something that could make two small puncture wounds; just enough to startle someone and make them lose their balance.’

  ‘I’ll call you if I find anything,’ said Carmichael. ‘If we don’t close the doors right over, we’ll be able to hear each other, without waking the dead.’

  ‘Good idea! Good luck! And don’t, for heaven’s sake, wake the dogs.’

  Falconer pushed open the door of the room next to the one Carmichael had entered, pushed it half-closed, and looked around him. By George, there was a fine collection of old tat and dust up here. The windows hadn’t been cleaned in decades, possibly a century by the look of them, and what little light filtered through from outside formed shafts which looked like the beams of dozens of tiny torches, searching for something long-lost. In the shafts, motes of dust floated their lazy passage across the room, and cobwebs drooped from the ceiling, themselves ancient and dust decorated.

  Dragging his mind away from the state of the room, Falconer focused his attention on the job in hand. As there seemed to be a lot of boxes and tea chests in this particular room, he began to scrabble around in the contents of the most conveniently placed, and found himself up to his elbows in old tennis racquets, their strings slack or broken, their presses still attached.

  Delving a little deeper, he identified an old croquet set, its hoops determined to trap one of his wrists, but there was still yet another layer to excavate, and he dug further down, using his hands as his eyes, as he felt several tennis balls.

  Bent over as he was, with his back to the door, he was aware of nothing other than his search, until he heard a material-like rustle and a muted jingle from the doorway, and then everything seemed to go into slow motion.

  His intention of whirling round was more like the action of someone drowning in treacle, and seemed to take hours. His mouth fell open, and his eyes widened as he perceived what, at first, he thought was the figure of Nanny Vogel, standing in the doorway, then he shook his head – another task that seemed to take for ever – and recognised the housekeeper.

  In her hand she held something that glinted in the slender beams of weak sunlight, and which, even with the reduced visibility produced by the filthy windows, he could identify as a short-bladed knife. As she brandished it, her chatelaine belt moved gently to and fro, and Falconer remembered the bayonet that had hung from it in his dream. There had also been an axe.

  There were aeons of time to work this one out, given the current elasticity that time had assumed, and he realised that his dream had given him a clue he neither reacted to, nor even recognised. His subconscious must have noticed what he could not identify as a small silver fruit knife, and enlarged it, in the hope that he would unravel the clue.

  The shears also represented something, dangling from that sinister chain, and his eyes alighted on an attachment that he identified as a necessaire. In that, there would undoubtedly be a small pair of scissors: the perfect implement with which to inflict two small wounds on the unfortunate Fruity Newberry’s unsuspecting behind. Everything that had happened was the doing of this ghastly woman, and he had been too blind to see it.

  His ears suddenly became aware of a long drawn-out, ‘Nooooo!’ which seemed to be coming from his own mouth, but sounds from outside this trap of time in which he was caught, managed to break the spell, and several things seemed to happen almost simultaneously.

  As time slipped back to its normal tempo, he heard a scratching at floor level, then saw two furry heads that bounced into view, each one grabbing a wrist of the woman with the knife. The shock of tiny sharp teeth digging into bare flesh, caused the housekeeper to drop her weapon, and as time now seemed to have undergone
a process of acceleration, and was now running at double speed, it was the work of only a millisecond to grab the weapon from the floor.

  As he arose, Beatrix Ironmonger wore a dog on each arm. Every time she managed to disengage one, it jumped anew, and her hands were now bloody from the small puncture wounds that had been inflicted on her.

  Luckily for him, the two little dogs had woken up and gone exploring, and when they saw that forbidding figure standing there, they sensed that she was going to hurt Uncle Tasty-Trousers. And they weren’t having any of that! They saw him as one of their family now, and nobody was going to lay a finger on him if they could do anything about it.

  ‘Get them off me! For God’s sake, get the little fiends off me!’ she cried, shaking her arms to try to dislodge the needle-sharp teeth.

  At that moment, Carmichael, having heard the inspector’s shout, came careering into the room, took the situation in at a glance, and grabbed the woman from behind, wrapping his long arms round her body to restrain her, and calling for the dogs to lie down.

  As they dropped obediently to the floor, the housekeeper aimed a kick at one of them, but Carmichael, expecting some sort of retaliation, jerked her back and out of range. The dogs, now wary of the figure in the long clothes, rushed towards Falconer and scrambled up his legs with no more trouble than if he had been a piece of furniture, and he ended up with one crooked in each arm, two little faces turned up trustingly to look him in the face.

  It was the work of a moment to place them safely on the seat of a mouldering armchair at the back of the room, and slip the lightweight handcuffs, which he always carried in his jacket pocket for just such emergencies, round the bloodied wrists of their now limp and compliant prisoner.

  Falconer’s next action was to take hold of the necessaire that dangled from her waist, and take a brief look inside. Yes, there was a very small pair of scissors nestling in there, with all the other little items it contained. Taking the scissors out, he opened them, and their span seemed a perfect match for the gap between the two puncture wounds that Dr Christmas had found on Fruity Newberry’s nether regions. He’d got the woman bang to rights this time, and Chivers could go boil his head, if he had one word of criticism for the way he’d handled this case. Of course, Carmichael had helped too, but that fact wasn’t at the forefront of his mind in this, his moment of triumph.