Blood From a Stone (29 page)

‘That, I'd say, would be very unlikely,' agreed Ashley dryly.

After a good forty minutes, in which time they had thoroughly explored the entire cave, including both entrances to the stream and a good way along the course of the water, they had to give it up as a bad job. The body could, as Ashley said, be hidden under the rubble from the roof, but Jack could tell that Ashley's faith that there had ever been a body at all was waning fast. Not only that, but the light of his torch was growing weaker by the minute.

‘I think we should give it up for the time being,' said Jack, much to everyone's relief. ‘I'll come back later.'

‘It's nearly lunchtime,' said Isabelle, squinting at her watch in the dim light.

‘Oh hell,' said Jack. ‘Are we going to be late?'

‘We will be if we don't get a move on. It's only cold stuff, thank goodness, not a formal meal, but we need a wash and brush up. We must look like absolute sweeps with all this ash and mud.'

‘Fair enough,' said Ashley. ‘I've got to meet Rackham at the station and I've got Mr Bloomenfield, the jeweller, arriving this afternoon. I think, if you don't mind, we'd better keep what we were doing in here private for the time being.'

‘Give us some credit, old thing,' muttered Jack. ‘The last thing either of us is going to do is to rush up to Mr Leigh and Co. and tell them we were playing hunt the corpse. However,' he added thoughtfully, as they climbed over the earth and rocks to the entrance, ‘we'd better give the gardeners some sort of story.'

Sam, the gardener, was loading up the wheelbarrow with earth as they climbed through the hole.

‘Sam,' said Jack, as they scrambled clear. ‘It is Sam, isn't it?' The gardener nodded. ‘We've been looking for my diamond bracelet.' Sam's eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Well, not
my
diamond bracelet, of course,' said Jack with a diffident laugh. ‘It's actually Miss Celia's, but that's the trouble. I was looking at it when we got the alarm about the fire and I just shoved it in my pocket without thinking. I know I had it in the cave last night, but I think I must have dropped it in the comings and goings.'

‘That's a real shame, sir,' said Sam sympathetically.

Jack rubbed the side of his nose in an embarrassed sort of way. ‘You're telling me. Miss Celia doesn't know it's lost yet. I was hoping to find it before she rumbled the fact it had gone, if you see what I mean.' Jack gave a man-to-man laugh. ‘It might be awkward, you understand?'

‘I do,' said Sam with fellow feeling.

‘The thing is, if anyone else finds it, Miss Celia will know I lost it, and I'll be in the dog-house, good and proper.' Sam grinned broadly. ‘So,' said Jack, taking out his wallet and handing Sam a ten-shilling note, ‘if anyone else from the house comes poking round the cave, let me know who it is, will you? If I catch them before they spill the beans to Miss Celia, I might be able to get away with it, after all. I'll be back later on, but I'd be obliged if you could just keep tabs on things for me.'

‘That's very generous of you,' said Sam, pocketing the note. ‘Don't you worry, sir. Ladies get very attached to things, I know.'

‘Don't mention it to anyone from the house, will you?' asked Jack, lowering his voice anxiously. ‘I don't want anyone to know it's missing.'

‘Right you are, sir,' promised Sam.

‘You really are the most accomplished liar, Jack,' said Isabelle in amused disapproval, once they were out of earshot. ‘Did you really think it was worth ten bob to satisfy the gardeners' curiosity with all that rigmarole?'

‘I thought it was worth ten bob to know if anyone else tries to get into the cave,' said Jack. ‘And to stop Sam and his pals talking about what we were doing. We don't want to put the wind up anyone unnecessarily, do we?'

‘I thought it was pretty smooth,' said Ashley in approval.

‘Are you going to ask Mr Leigh and Mrs Hawker about what I heard them say in the gallery?' asked Isabelle as they emerged into the temple.

Ashley shook his head. ‘No, I'm not. That'd achieve nothing, apart from warning them to look out.'

Isabelle breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I'm glad about that. If Mr Leigh knew I'd overheard them, it'd be very awkward.'

‘Don't worry, Mrs Stanton. We'll just let sleeping dogs lie for the time being. If we'd found this blessed corpse, that'd be a very different kettle of fish but, as it is, it's hard to see what I can do.'

‘I'm going to find that body,' said Jack. ‘I damn well know it was there.'

‘I only hope you do,' said Ashley. ‘In the meantime, I want to know what Inspector Rackham's got to tell us.'

Isabelle, after a thorough wash and change of clothes, came out of her room. There was, she knew, a cold lunch in the dining room and she really should be there, but ...

She hesitated at the head of the stairs, then continued along the corridor to the portrait gallery. The events of yesterday had been so fantastic, they had a dream-like quality to them, and they had started with Frank Leigh and Mary Hawker in the gallery.

She hadn't been mistaken about what Mrs Hawker said.
This is murder we're talking about. I don't blame you for what you've done but this is murder.
That much she was certain of. Was there anything else? Some forgotten phrase perhaps? Maybe if she stood in the gallery once more, it would come back to her.

She walked into the oak-panelled room, with its wide, dark, creaky floorboards. She shut her eyes and remembered Mary Hawker's sharp, frightened voice.
You must get rid of Major Haldean, Frank. He's dangerous.

A sound made her snap her eyes open. She froze as the door in the middle of the gallery opened, then sighed with relief as Jack opened the door and shut it carefully behind him. ‘Thank goodness it's you. You nearly gave me a heart attack.'

‘I thought I'd see where the staircase in the middle of the gallery led to,' Jack said quietly. ‘The first room on the floor below is Mrs Leigh's. If she was looking out, she'd have a good view of Mrs Hawker, say, coming up that staircase. It'd be easy enough for her to follow, to see why Mrs Hawker was wandering round the house.'

‘Especially if she had her suspicions of an affair between her and her husband,' agreed Isabelle, softly. ‘I wish I knew what it was all about, Jack. I
like
Mr Leigh.'

‘After last night, so do I.' He ran his hand though his hair. ‘Besides that, I'd have said he was a good sort and, of course, he's Celia's father.'

‘She thinks the world of him,' said Isabelle. ‘She gets exasperated with him sometimes but she really does care for him an awful lot.'

Jack nodded towards the portrait of the cavalier holding his doffed hat with its sweeping feathers. ‘He's obviously an ancestor of Mr Leigh's, isn't he?'

‘That's what I thought. It's amazing how the same faces crop up in a family. Do you remember that bit in
Northanger Abbey,
where Jane Austen says that once a face is painted, it's painted for all generations to come?'

‘Vaguely,' said Jack. ‘As I remember, she's making fun of the idea, but there's a lot to be said for it, all the same.'

He walked up the gallery, pausing to smile at the seventeenth-century incarnation of Celia Leigh. ‘Here's a family face. The teeth are different, though.'

‘Not really,' said Isabelle. ‘Celia had to wear a brace at school. She hated it, poor girl. Still, it did the trick, otherwise she'd have ended up with rabbit teeth.'

Jack stopped. ‘That rings a bell. Who've I heard of recently who had rabbit teeth ...?' He frowned in an effort of remembrance, then clicked his fingers. ‘Mrs Welbeck!'

‘Who?'

‘Mrs Paxton's housekeeper. Hello!' He stopped by the portrait of the Georgian clergyman that had puzzled Isabelle yesterday. ‘Who the dickens is this?'

‘That's Ebenezer Leigh,' said Isabelle. ‘I wondered about him. He looks familiar, somehow, but it's hard to tell with that full wig.'

‘Hold on,' said Jack. He pulled a chair over to the portrait, climbed up and held his hands over the painted wig. ‘Does that ring a bell?'

Isabelle took a step backwards and gave a little gasp. ‘Jack! It's Mr Wood! Aloysius Wood! Hold on, let me take your place so you can see.'

Jack got down. Isabelle climbed on the chair and held her hands over the wig.

Jack gave a low whistle. ‘You're right! Crikey, that's him all right. You
said
he fitted in. Blimey, Isabelle, it's not surprising, is it?'

Isabelle got down from the chair. ‘He must be a member of the family, Jack. He just has to be. I suppose,' she added, pausing delicately, ‘he could be – er –
unacknowledged.
'

‘He most certainly is,' said Jack with a grin, ‘but not, I'll be bound, in that sense, so there's no need to blush.'

‘Why are you so sure? From what I've heard, Mr Leigh's father had quite a reputation.'

‘Yes, but why does that mean that Wood has to conceal his identity? It's not as if old Matthew Leigh was known as a pillar of virtue. Far from it. If Wood's just a stray member of the family, why not say so? Every family has odd cousins that nobody shouts about too loudly.'

‘A good many families do, at any rate,' amended Isabelle. ‘That's true enough.' She stepped back and looked at the portrait thoughtfully. ‘D'you know, I've always wondered about Mr Wood. I think it's his Christian name, apart from anything else.
Aloysius
seems so unlikely, somehow.'

‘Yep,' said Jack, nodding. ‘Some poor beggar might be called
Aloysius
but I'd say it's either a family name you're saddled with or the sort of moniker you give yourself if you've got a wayward sense of humour.'

‘But who is he, Jack?' asked Isabelle, as he put the chair back and dusted off the seat. ‘My first thought was that he's Terence Napier, but he can't be. We know that.'

Jack braced his hands on the back of the chair. ‘Yes ...'

He stood quietly for a few moments, his eyes narrowed. ‘Isabelle,' he said slowly, ‘I've got the beginnings of an idea. Why did we think it was the Vicar who was out to get you?'

‘Because of the things you found in the train,' said Isabelle. ‘You know. There were the cards with his sign drawn on them and the books with his name written inside and so on.'

‘There was also the case, a handkerchief, a hairbrush and a hand-mirror. They were old and expensive. Anyone can write a name in a book or scribble a drawing on a card but those things were
real,
Belle. Someone – someone whose initials were
A.P.
– had kept those things.'

‘A.P.,' said Isabelle slowly. ‘Alexander Paxton. I said as much before.'

‘Yes,' said Jack thoughtfully. ‘Alexander Paxton.' He stood for a few more moments, then drew a deep breath. ‘I've got a rotten feeling this is going to be very awkward.'

‘Is there any chance you could let me know what you're thinking?' asked Isabelle.

Jack looked up, saw Isabelle's expectant face, and grinned. ‘Only when I've thought it through properly. Come on. Let's go and get something to eat, shall we?'

The first person they saw as they entered the dining room was Aloysius Wood, enthusiastically tucking into salmon mayonnaise. Frank Leigh was chatting to Mary Hawker over the fruit salad and Celia, sausage roll in hand, was talking, in a worried sort of way, to Leonard Duggleby.

Wood turned as Jack and Isabelle came into the room, his round face creasing in a broad smile.

‘Haldean!' he said warmly. ‘I can't tell you how grateful I am for last night, old man.'

Celia shuddered. ‘I'm so sorry I suggested the séance, Jack. I've said as much to Dad and to Mr Wood, but I want to say sorry to you, as well.'

‘Never mind, Celia,' said Mary Hawker, with rather assumed heartiness. ‘All's well that ends well, eh? Have a cheese straw.'

Celia absently took a cheese straw, her hand shaking slightly. She was, Jack noted warily, in the grip of a fairly strong emotion. ‘I've heard séances can be dangerous but I've never believed it. I was so
scared!
' She looked at him beseechingly. ‘Please say you'll forgive me.'

‘Of course,' said Jack, with a reassuring gesture of his beef muffin. ‘You weren't to know what would happen.'

‘What gave you the idea, Celia?' asked Isabelle.

‘I'm afraid I might be partly responsible,' said Mary Hawker.

‘No, you weren't,' countered Celia. ‘It was me. I've heard of people holding séances in Egyptian pyramids and finding wisdom and insight. I'd been so fascinated by the cave –' she shuddered once more – ‘that when Len said he wished he could find out more about the people who'd built the altar, I wanted to give it a go.'

Frank Leigh gave her wrist a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don't distress yourself, my dear. It's all over now. That cave is a dashed dangerous place to fool around in, though. It always was. I've a good mind to close it off altogether.'

‘You mustn't do that, sir!' protested Leonard Duggleby earnestly. ‘It's a very important archaeological site. I doubt if there's another like it in England.'

‘I'd just as soon as forget about it,' said Wood with feeling, reaching for another helping of mayonnaise. ‘I've never been so terrified in all my life.'

‘What actually happened?' asked Jack.

Wood began to speak, then stopped. ‘It's no use,' he said helplessly. ‘I know what I thought I saw but it must have been a dream.' He gingerly put a hand to his temple. ‘I woke up with the dickens of a sore head, I do know that, but you must have some bumps and bruises of your own.'

‘Duggleby, your Victorian vicar had a rum experience with a fire in the cave, didn't he?' asked Jack.